The leaden sky had turned red with sunset before they reached the outskirts. The color dyed all the canvas in sight as they reached the first of the tents that ringed the city—dyed their party, too, with its ill-omened stain.

In a certain area were Ogar tents, round and center-poled; and others were tents from the west, longer than wide. There were tents from the deep Lakht, square, with rope webbing; and tents from northwest, a simple cone-shape, made of hides.

“This is not all Oburan,” Marak said. Hope rose in him, seeing that motley gathering. “Those are from the lowlands.”

“Those are Keran,” Hati said, rising on one knee in the saddle, pointing to a group aside, on the outskirts. Her people were here, and they rarely came in from the deep desert.

“Kopa,” Tofi said excitedly, naming a tribe from the south. “Drus. Patha. And Lett!”

When the stars had started falling, then from all about the inhabited lands, people in terror of what was happening must have come here, using the summer tents, the shelters they used in festival, in harvest, in birthing. They must all have crowded to the holy city for answers, thousands of them, an army of the desperate, the shattered, with possessions, with domestic herds, with beshti, whatever they could pick up and bring.

The outermost tents were entirely catch-as-catch-could, tents of varying size and style, and they had suffered from the recent storm: sand was piled up, in many cases well up on the tent walls.

But, proof of authority somewhere at the heart of this confusion, some rule had laid out a broad road on which those tents did not encroach, and work, not nature, kept it clear of sand. Some power had said, camp here, and not there. Some of the encamped tribes had feuds, and none were completely at peace with Oburan, but here they camped together.

Might Kais Tain have come? His father had signed the Ila’s paper, her armistice. Might he have gathered up the district and come here, seeking escape from the star-fall and the storms? Dared he hope that, though the west had suffered, his father had come in?

Might his mother’s tribe? Haga tents, though the Haga visited the Lakht, were like the rest of the west, long, light canvas, the common fiber, neutral brown, green-striped with dyes. He scanned everything in view and could not find them; but tents ringed the city on all sides, thousands of them, more than he could see at a glance: they spilled out past the walls, past the Mercy of the Ila. Of the reed-rimmed pool itself, the tents were so many and so close that he could see no trace but a small interruption in the sunset-dyed canvas.

They entered and rode past disheveled groups who paid them little attention, children who stared, adults who failed to look at all. They were only a handful more arrivals. Of what interest could they be?