"Can you argue with her?"

"I'll give her that instruction. I'll tell her to take care ofyou . Go along with it."

"I'll do my best," Tofi said, and joined the scheme to get the most of them back. "If the Ila's men ask, I'll lie and say she's my wife."

That was the measure of Tofi's courage, his loyalty to a stranger... that he would lie to the Ila's men and rescue Hati. It was what happened to men on campaign together; and Tofi was no longer a boy, no longer a youngest son, struggling with a man's burden. The ex-slaves obeyed him... respected him, that had happened day by day.

Now Marak discovered the courage that was in Tofi, as great as any man's he had ever ridden with; and he went to Norit, too, riding alongside her.

"Tell Luz," he said, "if anything goes wrong, go to Tofi and tell him to get you to the tower. You'll need Hati, too. I can promise you, you'll get nowhere without her. Hati's of the tribes. You don't know enough about the desert on your own to live the day out. Your advice is dangerous to the inexperienced."

Norit looked at him, frightened, as all her waking hours were a chaos of fear and Luz's presence. For a moment it was Norit, wholly Norit who gazed at him. Then the fear dimmed, and it was Luz. "Do what you came to do," Luz said sharply, and that was all she would say, leaving him angry and worried both.

He delayed talking to Hati. He knew it would be an argument.

Haste, the voices said.Don't stop. Don't rest .

The sky remained the same dirty yellow toward the night, until the sun went down in a red sky the like of which none of them had seen; and that night the stars were hidden by cloud. Now and again in the far distance a trail of fire came through, and once a great boom resounded across the pans.

Day came with a different shade, gray murk above their heads, streaked with dirty yellow high, high aloft.

They had ceased to point at wonders. Tofi looked up gape-mouthed at this one, and so did Hati. The au'it began to write, and seemed to lose heart, and folded her book under this leaden sky.

Norit had nothing to say.

"We should keep moving," Tofi said. "The mirage has failed us. But I know we're not that far."

The yellow dust of the western pans was on the move. Sometimes, being newly fallen, dust ran along the ground, a light film of it, streaks across the red sand of the Lakht.

But by midmorning a dark haze was on the northern horizon, and by noon a low black pall obscured the face of the Qarain's red rock.

"Fire," Hati said. "Smoke."

It was the city itself they were seeing. They saw nothing like the tall graceful towers. The city lacked its towers and was surrounded by a field of dull gray and red-brown their eyes had taken for sand.

Tents stood on the outskirts of the holy city... many, many tents spread all about it.

But there was no city. All the fine dwellings, all the wealth, all the power of Oburan had come to this.

The holy city was a hill of ruins.

Chapter Fourteen.

The extent of the calamity of the heavens has yet to be known, but Oburan has opened its gates to the desperate: everyone who comes to the Ilias Mercy may come in.

-The Book of Oburan They did not rest. the beasts remembered wateror smelled it in the air, and even after so long a trek they stretched out in that smooth halfrun the self-saving creatures rarely sustained, flagging occasionally but still moving at a walk, until they caught their breaths. Then one of the riding beasts would take it in his head to run, and off they would go again toward that distant ruin, maintaining the pace so long as their wind lasted, pack beasts jogging along behind.

The leaden sky had turned red with sunset before they reached the outskirts. The color dyed all the canvas in sight as they reached the first of the tents that ringed the city-dyed their party, too, with its ill-omened stain.

In a certain area were Ogar tents, round and center-poled; and others were tents from the west, longer than wide. There were tents from the deep Lakht, square, with rope webbing; and tents from northwest, a simple cone-shape, made of hides.

"This is not all Oburan," Marak said. Hope rose in him, seeing that motley gathering. "Those are from the lowlands."

"Those are Keran," Hati said, rising on one knee in the saddle, pointing to a group aside, on the outskirts.Her people were here, and they rarely came in from the deep desert.

"Kopa," Tofi said excitedly, naming a tribe from the south. "Drus. Patha. And Lett!"

When the stars had started falling, then from all about the inhabited lands, people in terror of what was happening must have come here, using the summer tents, the shelters they used in festival, in harvest, in birthing. They must all have crowded to the holy city for answers, thousands of them, an army of the desperate, the shattered, with possessions, with domestic herds, with beshti, whatever they could pick up and bring.

The outermost tents were entirely catch-as-catch-could, tents of varying size and style, and they had suffered from the recent storm: sand was piled up, in many cases well up on the tent walls.

But, proof of authority somewhere at the heart of this confusion, some rule had laid out a broad road on which those tents did not encroach, and work, not nature, kept it clear of sand. Some power had said, camp here, and not there. Some of the encamped tribes had feuds, and none were completely at peace with Oburan, but here they camped together.

Might Kais Tain have come? His father had signed the Ila's paper, her armistice. Might he have gathered up the district and come here, seeking escape from the star-fall and the storms? Dared he hope that, though the west had suffered, his father had come in?

Might his mother's tribe? Haga tents, though the Haga visited the Lakht, were like the rest of the west, long, light canvas, the common fiber, neutral brown, green-striped with dyes. He scanned everything in view and could not find them; but tents ringed the city on all sides, thousands of them, more than he could see at a glance: they spilled out past the walls, past the Mercy of the Ila. Of the reed-rimmed pool itself, the tents were so many and so close that he could see no trace but a small interruption in the sunset-dyed canvas.

They entered and rode past disheveled groups who paid them little attention, children who stared, adults who failed to look at all. They were only a handful more arrivals. Of what interest could they be?

And the beasts were bent on water. They resisted the rein; they had nothing else in their heads but their thirst and the relief from their packs.

Marak, the voices said. Fire ran like water across his vision.Marak ! the voices cried, while his eyes searched desperately in the fading light, through the distraction of the visions.Marak, Marak, Marak !

One thing the visions wanted. One thing he was supposed to do. If anyone could find his mother and his sister in this ma.s.s of people, the Ila could find them; if anyone could save a life or d.a.m.n one, it was the Ila. He had to go there first and take the risk.

And if shot through the heart now, the beshti would continue to seek water, where, at the end of this single street, up past all this chaos of tents, it poured out at the Ila's Mercy, under the gla.s.s-crowned walls of the city.

Those walls came into view, cracked and ruined, above the tents. The gates stood lastingly ajar on a heap of rubble, and the Ila's Mercy spilled out a flood that wet the cracked pavings and seeped into the thirsty sand. People came and went here with jars, with waterskins, and crowded close not only about the drinking basin but about those troughs below it that were meant for beasts.

No one stood against the beshti when they arrived, squalling and threatening. Men and women scattered from hazard as Osan forced his way to the trough, as Hati's mount did, and Tofi's. Men scrambled for safety, scooping up a precious last jarful of water, taking a half-full water bag, as the ex-slaves' beshti, and Norit's, and the au'it's, shoved and pushed their way in, heads down, gulping up water as if it would never exist again. Then the whole string of pack animals arrived and pushed their way in, nipping and yanking at the rope that prevented their maneuvering: two tangled, and bit, and squalled, a fight that itself made the two room at the trough, the two ex-slaves risking life and limb to get the pack line free.

Marak slid down. Osan sucked up water in a steady stream and never lifted his head or noticed as Marak squeezed between the tall bodies and helped Norit down, bringing her back of the line of rumps.

Hati had helped their au'it... their au'it, their au'it: that was how they had come to think of her. She joined him. Tofi came close to him, looking about him in the overthrow of everything they knew of the city.

Sunset had gone to twilight as they rode. Now a few tents nearest the water, at heart of the camp, shone with inner light-white tents, glowing from inside.

Therewas wealth and power still in Oburan. Authority still existed, even if chaos ruled the outskirts.

Above those tents rose the cracked and broken wall, and beyond that, beyond the gates that sat ajar, was the ruin of all the hill, wall thrown on wall, bricks and stone blocks broken and cast down like a midden heap.

People climbed on that ruin even at this hour, carrying lamps, frail, small lights, that bobbed and moved all the way to the crest of the hill.

The inhabitants of the holy city, perhaps, searched the rubble for their dead, or perhaps the dest.i.tute of all the villages in the world sought what they could salvage.

"The Ila must be here," Tofi said anxiously. "Omi, we need to find the Ila's captains. I daren't leave our tents here."

Tofi had the right of it. Tents and beasts were life itself now. Water flowed free, but food and shelter might be another matter. "They're our escape," Marak said. "Claim the Ila's hire. Say that to whoever asks. We're leaving as soon as we can. And watch out for Hati." Her people might be here, but they had given her up, and she had as yet made no move to go to them. "Keep an eye on Norit, too."

Tofi looked about him, pointed, where armed men stood in the dusk by the largest of the tents. "The Ila's men."

"Stay close," Marak said, and took the au'it by the arm. "Hati, help Tofi."

He moved quickly, walked as far as the guards, who immediately came to attention. The au'it, their au'it, in her red robes, holding the book clasped against her chest, simply walked on into the tent, then beckoned.

The guards made no further move. Marak walked into the lamplit interior, where a second set of guards admitted the au'it, but barred his way.

Then he knew to his dismay that Hati had followed him, and that Norit had. There was nothing he could do. The presence of the Ila's guards was no place to dispute who had followed orders and who should be kept out of the Ila's grasp.

"I'm Marak Trin," he said in a voice unreliable with dryness and exhaustion. "I'm on the Ila's commission, with her au'it." He almost asked the man to report their presence, but before he could, their au'it held the curtain aside with one hand, holding her book with the other, and nodded, a gesture for them to follow, the guards doing nothing at all to prevent her.

So they walked through, into a small s.p.a.ce between curtains. An officer stood there by a camp table and a chair under a lantern, and that worried, wearied officer was one of the Ila's captains.

"Marak Trin," Captain Memnanan said, as if he had met the dead. "Marak Trin Tain."

"I have a message from the far side of the Lakht," Marak said. "Obidhen's dead. His son had a chance to stay safe, the other side of the Lakht, but he came back... his father's duty, he said. He needs help: two freedmen and too many beshti to keep contained out there at the well. These two," Marak added, meaning Hati and Norit, his last attempt at cleverness, "these two can help with that. The Ila willneed those animals. And the master."

Memnanan heard all that with a weary, dazed look, and then went to the curtain and pa.s.sed curt, coherent orders to the soldiers to get slaves and a.s.sist at the well.

He let the curtain fall then, and looked at the several of them, dusty and dirty as they were, in this immaculate place, Hati and Norit making no attempt to leave.

"I am the Ila's au'it," the au'it said in a soft, little-used voice, "withher book."

She might have saidI am the G.o.d's right hand . It was that kind of utterance.

"Go through," Memnanan said, and lifted his arm to forbid Marak. "Have you any answer worth delivering," Memnanan asked him, all other things aside, "considering what you see outside?"

"I have theonly answer worth delivering," Marak said, and succeeded at least in surprising the man.

Came a rumble in the earth, then, a shudder, and the walls even of this tent billowed and moved. Cries of panic resounded outside the canvas walls, far and away across the camp.

He saw pools of fire burning in the dark, walls of fire racing across the land.

Be patient, he told his voices, and threatened them in desperation.Be still -or fail.

Memnanan moved as soon as the earth was still, and swept that curtain back. Servants moved it farther, sent it traveling on gold rings that sang as they went. A desk was beyond, and servants, with a black curtain at their backs. They parted it.

Behind that curtain a red one.

Slaves hastened the third curtain back, gathering its folds in their arms, carrying aside several small chairs and a lamp from what had been a small room.

The Ila maintained her state beyond, on her gold chair, on a wide dais of far fewer steps. She was robed and gloved and capped in red. An au'it-not their au'it-sat cross-legged at her feet.

They stood at the edge of a priceless carpet, the three of them, with boots scuffed and coated with dust, in the dusty gauze robes of Luz's tower.

Here was what remained of power. Above them was white canvas, extravagantly lighted with bronze lamps. About them were all the trappings of wealth and control of the lives of men, even in the desolation of the city.

But above that canopy was thunder in the heavens, and under their feet was the shiver of a newly restless earth.

The Ila lifted her hand, motioned, and from a shadowed curtain an au'it came, holding her book, and scurried to sit at the Ila's feet-their au'it, dusty and soiled as she was.

"Marak Trin," the Ila said.

He walked forward, three paces, four, until the guards at the Ila's far left and right reacted, until the Ila herself, in the same moment, turned to him the back of her uplifted hand.Stop . So he stopped. Hati and Norit stopped somewhere farther back.

The Ila looked at him, a.s.sessing what she saw, or realizing what she saw: Marak had no idea, in the quarrel between Luz and the Ila, how much either knew of the other. For everyone else's sake, he waited, asking himself where to find the right words, the few words that might catch her attention, and her belief.

"What have you found?" the Ila asked.

Where to begin? Most desperately-where to begin.

"There's a tower off the edge of the Lakht," he said, "ruled by a woman named Luz. She says she's your cousin." He saw the Ila's breath come in, deeply, and go out. That was the only sign of emotion she gave. "More," he said, risking everything, "she speaks through us. I think she sees through us. She guided us a new way through the storms. The mad stayed there at the tower... with Luz... but they're no longer mad. There's water. There's sweet water, and tents, and all the madmen that ever wandered away from the villages are camped around the place, as sane as..." As the rest of us? he almost said to that white, implacable face, and stopped himself in time. "She chose us three, and took us into the tower. Its doors open with no one touching them. Lights burn without fire. She talked to us. She gave us a message for you. She sent us because it's not too late."

Rocks. .h.i.tting spheres, and pools of fire. Luz was aware at this very moment, aware of all three of them, he was sure of it. Luz was looking out through Norit's eyes, and dared he make the Ila aware of that fact? What would she do to Norit if she knew?

"Nanoceles," Norit said from the back of the chamber, taking every guard by surprise, and she strode forward. Men started to move, but the Ila lifted her hand and stopped the drawing of weapons, stopped their rush to prevent Norit, who took her place at his side.

"You understand that word," Norit said in that cold, clear, terrible voice. "You know what you've done, you know what your predecessors did to the world of theondat . In revenge they've begun to reshape this world, but with us, your cousins, they have peace. And I came here to offer you a choice that they allow me to offer you."

"Luz takes her," Marak said, with a distracted glance at Norit. Her face was white and still, terrified.

"She can't stop it. She's a woman from Tarsa; she's never been outside her village. She isn't doing this."

"This is a dangerous woman," the Ila said considerately, the hand half-lifted. "This is an extremely dangerous woman."

"I'm your hope of salvation," Norit said sharply. "You'velost . Your enemies have found you. We bargained with them for your lives. We've worked here thirty years to savesomething of what you built, first, because we couldn't come closer to you inside your guards and your protection, and second, because we didn't think youwould hear us, and third, because we wouldn't lose the rest, trying to save you . When we knew we had Marak Trin among the mad, wetried to take the Lakht and gain your attention, but he couldn't reach his father, and his father couldn't reachyou ."

"With Tain's army?" The Ila laughed as a man might laugh at a very grim joke, on his father, on his entire house and all their effort, and it stung. "From the beginning, that wasn't likely."

"But you reachedhim ," Norit said, while Marak remained paralyzed by this step-by-step disclosure of the facts of his life, a simple process of logic and history. "Knowing what we had made him, but notthat we had made him, you chose him for your messenger. Entirely reasonable. There was no one better, no one more likely. And having sent a messenger, I a.s.sume you intended something more than to wish us well."

Luzdared to challenge the Ila, to question her. The guards, the whole chamber poised and braced for retaliation.

"Because," the Ila said, as if it were no consequence, and with a turn of her wrist, as if she deflected a blow. "Because we wished to send him, cousin. Because through him you challenged us. Because he is less mad than the rest, and because I saw if any of that herd would come back across the Lakht, he was the likeliest. And if there were madmen appearing across the land, it was as clear a sign of something arrived as was likely to come. Yes, I sent him. I sent him to find an answer to the madness, and to explain it, and he has, beyond any doubt."

"But they're no longer mad, those I keep. They are safe. Theywill be safe in what will come. You know the nature of their voices. You know the source of their visions. I don't need to explain. More than that, you feared, Ila Jao, youfeared we were theondat . We arenot ."

"Butin their service."

"Not in their service, only having made peace with them. You know what they fear and why they fear it and why they will reshape the world."

The Ila stared, stone-faced. "I can guess."