“With no guide?”

“I know the stars,” he said. “I can find my way.” He was aware of Hati and Norit, standing near him, but they said nothing. He left Tofi, having informed him what he was taking, and went out to find Osan among the idle beasts.

He led him back toward the place where the saddles were stacked, supported on their untouched baggage.

Hati walked from that place, as he was arriving. She carried her saddle in one arm and hauled Norit’s in the other hand. Norit walked behind.

“Where do you intend to go?” he asked.

“To Oburan,” Hati said. “Norit, too. Where are you going?”

He stood wordless for a moment. Then he shrugged, with a tightness in his throat. “I suppose to Oburan.”

Hati went to find her beast and Norit’s. That was that.

He found his saddle, and set out three of the pack saddles, and chose a bundled tent he knew was their own, and waterskins, still filled with Pori’s water.

Tofi came and brought the slaves.

“One tent,” Marak said to him. It was Tofi’s property he proposed to take, but he saw no reason for Tofi to deny him the use of what lay for the most part unused, unnecessary in paradise.

“You’re going to Oburan, you say.”

“Yes,” Marak said. “Hati and Norit, too, and the au’it will go. One tent. Five, six beasts.”

Tofi frowned and looked at the horizon and at him as if he prepared to bargain. “I’m a fool,” Tofi said with a sigh. “But my father told the Ila he would come back. He won’t give me peace otherwise. He’s a cursed stubborn old man. So are my brothers.”

Tofi spoke of them as if they were still alive, and gazed into an empty horizon, but perhaps saw something in it. There was more than one kind of madness.

“The people in the tower say the world is ending,” Marak said. “And we have to warn everyone else.”

“We’ve heard that,” Tofi said.

“I see it,” Marak said. “Hati, and Norit, and I, we all three see it.”

Tofi shrugged. “I don’t. But I’m not mad.”

“Then stay here. This place will be safe. They say so, at least.” This with a glance toward the tower. “They’ll let you stay. You don’t have to be one of us.”

“Maybe not,” Tofi said, “but I’m not one of this batch, either. I’m scared. I don’t say I’m not. But there’s nothing here for me until I finish this trek. I keep hearing the old man… like your voices. He says, ‘Get up, get up, get up, boy. You’re not done here.’ He’s ashamed of me. If there’s anyone going back to finish the contract, and I don’t, I know him: he’ll give me no peace.”

Rock hit shining sphere, again, and again, and again.

Marak blinked, feeling an inward chill. “You may die. The people in the tower say there’s some calamity already on its way, whatever it is. We may not make it to the city, let alone back again.”