Marak looked at Hati, and lastly at Tofi, who stood with a tent stake in his hand. Stark fear was on his face.

“Should we sink the deep-irons?” Tofi asked.

“Do that,” Marak said. He himself had no idea what next would follow. The stars fell. The earth itself had turned unreliable. Whether deep-irons could pin them to the earth and keep a shelter over their heads he had no idea.

The earth shook again while they were setting the stakes, and the now-freedmen dropped their hammers and looked as if they would run for their lives, if they had any idea at all where to run.

“What will this bring?” Marak asked Norit, who had never stirred from where she sat. “What does this mean?”

“The end of the world.” Tears overwhelmed Norit, who began to sob quietly, covering her face with her hands. “Luz doesn’t think so. But I do.”

It was a whisper of Norit’s old self, free, for the moment. That in itself lent him encouragement.

“The end of the world it may be, but we’ll die well fed and well watered. Get under the tent, Norit. Go.”

Norit obeyed him quietly. It was her task, when she would do it, to unpack their noon meal, such as it was: dried fruit and grain-cake, and tea, if they chose to heat water.

He wielded a hammer, and Hati helped him. “Get to work!” Tofi chided his helpers. “You’re free men. Act like it!”

The earth gave a shudder, and the beasts bawled alarm as the poles swayed and strained the ropes of the tent. They pulled to steady them, and sat down hard on the sand. It was that violent a motion.

The shaking was brief, and left no apparent damage. If the earth would crack, there was no sign of it.

Marak, having fallen hard on his backside, gave a laugh. “Well, the earth tries, but it can’t shake us off.”

“If the earth cracks, what will we do?” Hati asked, with real fear in her voice. “Perhaps we will die.”

“Maybe we won’t,” he said, sitting there, toe to toe with her. “I don’t intend to. You’re on your own if you do.”

Hati gave a shaken laugh of her own, threw her head, and got up, dusting herself off. “I’m not that easy to kill.”

They went under the shade of the tent, Tofi and the slaves as well. They broke grain-cakes and ate well, and drank. Twice more while they slept the earth shivered, and both times they waked.

“Perhaps at least the shaking is done,” Marak ventured to say, as dark fell with them still camped. They had been reluctant to pull up the deep-irons and venture out.

Just then another shudder ran through the earth, so that neither earth nor heavens seemed stable tonight.

“Speak of misfortune,” Marak muttered.