“I’ve never seen the like,” Hati swore, shivering. “In the deepest desert I’ve never seen such a storm.”

“Tomorrow the sand-fall will be less,” Norit said.

There was no question in Marak’s mind that Norit knew exactly what would happen. Norit crept close to him and then Luz shoved away. Alone, Norit bowed her head and wiped her eyes in silent tears. There was no solution he could give. He offered his hand, and she jerked away. It tore his heart to watch her.

Hati shook her head as if she could read his thoughts, and rubbed his shoulders, making him realize his muscles were set like stone. She had clever fingers and knew where to press. He stretched out finally and slept, and for a few hours the dreams left him in peace.

On the next day the storm abated somewhat; but the taste in the air was that of sulfur. The wind stank, and it burned the eyes. They ate beneath the canvas, and carefully shielded their food from the foul stuff that blew in from the sky, under a yellow murk in which the noon sun was a spot in the haze.

“The grass and the grain will wither,” Norit said. “All the west is ruins. But that’s not the worst.”

Kais Tain was in the west. All his father’s household was in the west. Marak wanted to strike her senseless. He had done all he had done, he had survived all he had survived, and Norit told them calmly that nothing lived in the west.

Marak, the voices said in the midst of it all, clamoring for his action. Marak.

Norit said, aloud, “We should go now.”

“When did she become god?” Tofi cried. Their voices had become raw and unpleasant from the dust, and Tofi’s voice broke on the shout.

“Obey her,” Marak said wearily. “Where else will you go?”

“To hell,” Tofi said bleakly. “We’re all going to hell.”

But Tofi roused up the freedmen, who moved about loading their baggage and getting the beasts up.

As they were packing up, a small thing that lived in buried rocks came out and hissed and dived back again. One of the men threw a rock at the burrow in the Besh Karat.

“It will die on its own,” Norit said.

The bitter spring was covered by deep sand. It would not flow again until the vermin dug it up. The beshti themselves, water-short, still showed no disposition to seek it out.

What Norit prophesied haunted Marak as they rode away from that place.

Should even the ill-tempered creature in its house of stone perish?

Should winds like that cover the wells? From that small comprehension he truly began to grasp the height and depth of the devastation, east to west, from the highest to the lowest.