THE LEDGER Transcribed entire, this eleventh day, exactly as it stands in his own hand. Rules One through Ten omitted here as already known to whoever reads this wall and lives near enough to need them.
RULE ELEVEN. Established this day, upon a full accounting of losses to date.
A cell that has taken a life will not take a second one for eleven Turns following. This has now held four times running, without exception, and four is enough to call a pattern rather than a coincidence dressed as one.
Based on the pattern of loss recorded here, the cell is not cleared before the eleventh Turn. It is not owed anything after it, either. Use whatever stands in such a cell only once the eleventh Turn has come and gone — not the tenth, on the hope of an early mercy, and not later than the eleventh by choice, once it has arrived. A debt allowed to run past its due date does not stay simple. It compounds.
This is not a guess. Four deaths, four cells, four counts of eleven, each one clean. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not been counting.
Mark it, and hold to it. Four cells have held it without exception. Do not be the fifth that breaks it.
— G.W. DAY 11