"A wise rule. And... who can I spare? Barik? A fine guard, except it's Disfavored who most need to be kept out. Lantry will learn something about it if he waits, but likewise I want his knowledge at the others. A bored Verse is an unpredictable one. Eb I best not let out of my sight for the time being. And I doubt you're an option."

"Then you'd better be sure to lock the doors behind you."

"Hah. ...Close the portal, maybe? Worth checking."

"If you can then reopen it at your leisure. It seems unlikely that whatever unique confluence of circumstance and person enabled your claim will reoccur soon."

"Unlikely," he agrees, "I'll get Lantry."

A minute or two later, they're in the hall itself, their voices echoing off the cavernous ceiling.

"Now, this is unmapped sea, so of course I can't be certain. There is a thread of energy running up the center, thin and directly ending at the portal; based on the lean, it probably ends at the other portal as well. There is also a substantial pool of energy sitting just below the floor here, and more channels, much wider, spiraling through the walls of the Spire. It clearly isn't relying on the portal."

"First try... widening it," Kohl says, and then sits cross-legged next to the portal. Can he sense this? Manipulate it?

It takes a minute, and he gets the sense he should have stayed standing. But yes, he can. He feels a thin wavering 'spinal cord' flowing between the solid, spiraling cylindrical 'spine', and he can grip it and let it strengthen itself, pulling up from below him.

The lights in the hall flare, the rune of crystals luminescing in several colors before returning to its steady blue-white.

"It looks about... three times the volume, Fatebinder," Lantry confirms, "And it came from below, not above."

"Enough surety to try closing and reopening?"

"I am reluctant to make any claims that are remotely confident... But I can't think of anything that would make me more confident it would work, other than trying it and succeeding."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"Weeeelll, it may be that the portal does permanently close. I'd be shocked if the bond Kohl formed with it was affected, and with sufficient study I think we could probably learn to reopen it as long as that is intact, buuutt it might be the work of years and we do have this civil war busily affecting things. I think it's probably fine, but the worst could always ensue, as it often does."

"But the scenario you describe sounds eminently recoverable, in a way that the utter destruction of the Spire as a herald of the collapse of a key linchpin of the defense that prevents the world itself from sliding back into the primordial chaos beyond the edges of existence there to dissolve along with the inhabitants in the cacophonous agony of every possible existence at once would not be."

"...I have never heard of that theory of the purpose or creation of the Spires. I'd think Kyros would claim it in propaganda, rather than merely saving us from ordinary mortal chaos."

"But yes, that would be worse."

"No matter how bad things get, they can always be worse." She smiles sweetly.

"Alas, true. I'll try closing it."

He stands next to it, closing his eyes and reaching for the thread he widened. In a minute or two, he found it, and pinched it off from the bottom.

He opened his eyes, and saw that the portal was dark, but the runic array still lit.

"Success?"

"...looks like it. Hanging from above, swaying like a thin rope in a breeze."

"Excellent."

"I had every faith in you."

"Appreciated," he says, slightly tartly. "That's sorted, then. I'll send a short reply to Rhogalus, and then we can be off to Lethian's Crossing."

"A chance to see the world. How exciting."

"This corner of it, at least."

He sends Rhogalus a sketch of the sculpture and a terse statement whose most informative piece is 'I seem to have bonded with the Spire', and a promise that he'll attend the Court within three span, most likely two, after he follows up a lead in Lethian's Crossing.

Then he gathers his increasingly-large retinue and they set out north and west, across the mountains and then along the Oldwalls. On foot; travelers will see ox-drawn carts and, in the field, plows, but not riders; the roads here aren't good enough for chariots, and no one has yet invented the saddle.