This time the ragged chorus answered him instead of Toreth, all in the affirmative. He tried to think of what they should do next—except that there was nothing they could do, because they must all be as disoriented as he was. “All right,” he said. “Don’t move. Not until there’s light and we can see—” because all of the lanterns were gone, smashed, he supposed, and without the moon it was as dark as a cave. “Don’t crawl around; there’s no telling what’s fallen over and what’s broken, and if you slash yourself open on a broken jar, nobody’s going to be able to come to help you.”

The keening from the Nursery eased, then stopped, as the boys got their dragonets quieted. Outside the Nursery, dragons were still complaining; he could only hope that darkness and tala would keep them calmer than they might have been were they not drugged.

“Well,” said Toreth’s voice, sounding far more philosophical than he was feeling, “I suppose you’re right. The sand is soft enough.”

The others agreed. “I’m going back to sleep,” said Huras, his voice sounding muffled in the distance. “It’s not as if I haven’t slept in the pit before this.”

He heard nothing more than whines and murmurs then, as the rest of them soothed their dragonets. He stroke Avatre’s snout, and wondered—though it was hard describe a thought so fearful as his as mere “wondering”—just what had happened. Had it been some evil spirit that had attacked them? Was it the anger of a god? How could the ground move like that? Had it only been the Jouster’s Compound, or had the whole city been rattled like this? If so—he’d heard the stones groaning, how could any building stand under something like that? The soldiery here on Third Ring were probably all right; they lived most of the time in tents anyway. But what about the temples? What about the manors and palaces?

What about all the mud-brick buildings on Fourth and Fifth rings? The mud-brick farmhouses on Sixth and beyond? He began feeling sick; mud brick was only stacked with more mud between in lieu of mortar. It surely couldn’t have held. And at night, in the dark—if he’d had trouble getting out of a single room, how hard would it be to get out of a house?

Avatre whimpered and shook, and he held her, talking soothingly until she stopped shaking, then stopped whimpering, then, impossibly, fell asleep again. And he felt the heat of the sand soaking into him, so at least whatever had happened hadn’t broken the magic on the sand pit. Her head was in his lap, but she was big enough now that he could lean over sideways and rest against her chest and just shut his gritty eyes for a moment and let the heat soothe his bruises.