Two days later they rode again within view of the Qarain by sunrise, and the day after that found one of those caravan traces that led toward the holy city.

The au’it had learned to accommodate the beast’s rocking gait and now used her journeys as well as her rests to record her observations.

And this, too, she wrote.

All the things they had seen and done the au’it had recorded. All these things she would present to the Ila, the unprecedented fall of rain and mud, the fall of stars alike.

And what would her book say?

That the stars fell? That their hope of safety lay in the tower, in the white tents?

The one even the Ila could surely see for herself, and of the other, Marak thought, they had no proof, even for themselves.

Chapter Thirteen

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We have seen the stars fall in their thousands. The book contains no event like this.

—The Book of Oburan

The ragged upthrust of the qarain, that division from the Anlakht, was a wall on their right hand as they went. They were on the edge of desolation.

And by the next day they joined a recently used caravan trace and followed it in an abrupt turn toward the north, toward the Qarain.

Marak thought he had crossed this place before. He thought he recognized the vast, stone-littered pan and the rocks beside it.

Tofi recognized it, too. “Besh Karat,” he said excitedly, pointing a thin arm to the left of the trail, where a ridge of rounded rocks stood, looking like its name, a burdened, sulking beast. “We’re at Besh Karat, at the bitter spring. And these last tracks are only a day ahead of us. Another caravan.”

A little after that Norit suddenly reined back her beast, which squalled a protest and fought the rein. “Stop,” she said. “Stop here.”

Marak shifted his foot back and took in the rein. Osan stopped, putting his ears up and laying them down. They were just passing among the rocks, an easy hiding place for vermin, and they were short of the bitter spring. It was not ordinarily a point to rest, and the beasts knew it, and complained.

“A little farther,” Marak said, which was only common sense. “Not in the rocks.”

“No. Here. Now.” Norit tried to get her reluctant beast to kneel: it would not, and came close to veering off the trail in besha obstinacy, but stopped as she began to dismount all the same.

“Damn,” Marak said, and slid down and went to rescue Norit. Tofi and Hati dismounted, and Hati assisted the au’it to dismount. They were at a stop. The freedmen got down.

“For what do we wait now?” he asked Norit, apprehensive and impatient both.

She answered him with one of those cold, clear stares that said Luz, more than Norit, was hearing him.