“Come with me,” Memnanan said, and led him through the last three curtains, where the Ila sat as she had sat last night, with the au’it by her. Another au’it—who might be theirs—sat nearby, on a carpet at the side of the chamber. Lamps still burned here, hung on golden chains, but with the leaden light seeping through the canvas the lamps seemed less bright than last night.

“Well,” the Ila said. “Well.” She held out her red-gloved hand and beckoned him. “Come,” she said. ”Show me your arm this morning.“

Marak came close enough and pushed up his sleeve, no more surprised than she to find it only pink flesh.

“So,” the Ila said.

“I heal well,” he said, letting fall his loose sleeve. ”I always have.“

“So again,” the Ila said. “And do you understand the makers, as this Luz calls them? The nanoceles?”

“No. I don’t, at all.”

“Falling stars,” the Ila scoffed. He was accustomed to shame, regarding the visions. But these were no visions. He had seen the pits where they fell, and he would not be dissuaded.

“There are,” he said.

“So this Luz has appointed herself our savior. Our god. And wants me to go to her.”

“She wants everyone.”

“Oh, doubtless she does! You’re still mad,” the Ila said. “Have you looked about this tent? Do you see the size of this encampment? And you’ll lead us all to the edge of the Lakht?”

It was a question, a very terrible question. And the aui’it wrote it in their books.

“If we have to do it, we have to do it,” Marak said quietly. “These encamped are the villages. They have their harvest tents, and beshti enough to get here. There are the tribes, who know how to get anywhere they choose to go. All I have to do is tell them ‘beyond Pori’, and they’ll know.”

“And will this Luz stop the fall of stars?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think she can.” That sort of honesty was his besetting fault. It had gotten him his father’s chastisement a hundred times before he could learn prudence. But he plunged ahead. “I don’t know what she can and can’t do. Or what you can. She’s a stranger. I came to ask you, can you stop this?”

Perhaps no one had ever asked the Ila to do something impossible for her. She frowned at him, frowned long and hard.

“Such faith.”

“I don’t have faith,” he said. “I don’t trust strangers.”

“Or me.”

“At least you’re not a stranger.”

“So she wants me to come there. For what?”

It was the foremost question, and he could not answer that.