But whence came the laws, and who made the food, and how long would it come so easily, if destruction came?

At the pleasure of Luz and Ian, how long would they eat as well and have everything their hearts desired?

He waked with a hard-beating heart and a remote, guilty regret for not urging more of the mad to come with them. Paradise was not enough for him. Not enough for Norit and Hati, not enough for Tofi, either, as it seemed. Least of all for the au’it, whose whole devotion was to the Ila.

But what was enough? What would be enough to give him peace of these dreams, these voices, this driving necessity to do, and escape, and move?

In the late afternoon they packed up in a very little time and rode on through the night at that same ground-devouring pace. By noon they camped.

Marak, Marak, Marak, the voices said, as if discontent at his stopping. The voices he heard during the day all sounded like Luz, until while they were setting up the tent he put his hands over his ears, trying not to hear; and squeezed his eyes until they flashed with red, trying not to see.

We have to sleep, he raged at Luz. He wished her to understand, to have some comprehension she was driving him beyond endurance, but Luz gave no sign of hearing him.

Water will fall from heaven, Luz told him, as he tossed and turned, attempting to sleep.

Hati waked and put an arm about him, and after that he tried not to move, but the voices kept up.

“Do you hear voices?” he asked Hati.

“Yes,” Hati whispered back. “I hear promises. And threats. I think it’s Luz. What kind of place has just two people, and it so huge? It never made sense.”

Norit, meanwhile, slept. Marak hugged Hati against him and tried to sleep, but he rose early, while the sun was still hot, and roused Tofi and the slaves out to get under way.

The beasts grumbled. Tofi grumbled not having had all their sleep. Haste, haste, haste, the voices said. Luz tormented them with threats, with visions, with promises: Norit suffered, too, and her eyes looked weary and worried.

They came to that rising of the land that led up to the Lakht, and to the path on the slope where they had lost the one beast.

“That’s where the besha fell,” Tofi said, pointing. “That’s our trail.”

They looked up, but nothing remained up on the shale where it had fallen, not a bone, not a scrap of cloth or a remnant of the saddle. Of vermin there was no other sign. They ate, and they dispersed… might have fought among themselves. The survivors would be sated. The crumbling rock gave no hint of past violence, only a single trail of bright reflection on the slope where broken shale marked the fatal slide.