“Suppose I said to lead all these people to the tower, Marak Trin. What would you do? How would you manage it?”

He drew a deep breath, a fleeting chance to think of first things, and second. “Do you want me to answer in specific?”

“Do.”

“First, put in charge of each unit those who led them here. If a unit has beasts, they keep them. If they have tents, they keep them. If they have waterskins, they keep them. It’s only fair. They have foresight. It makes them the likelier to live. Have the order of march and camp understood. Set the tribes to the fore: they would move quickest. Whoever moves slowest, falls behind, and who falls behind… there’s nothing anyone can do. They’ll die.”

“It’s that simple.”

“Nothing can be simpler. The Lakht is the Lakht. It’s never different, no matter who asks.”

The Ila lowered her joined hands to her lap. “Captain.”

“Ila,” Memnanan said from back near the curtains.

“Assist him in this undertaking.”

Marak blinked, thinking, Surely not, not that easily, not that quickly.

Not me, not over all this.

But silence followed. He understood dismissal, with that, and began to back away.

“Marak!”

He stopped. “Ila,” he said, as Memnanan did.

“When will this people set out?”

When did not rest in his hands. When rested in the star-fall and the calamity in the earth.

Marak, Marak, the voices clamored, suddenly riotous with urgency. Norit knew what was agreed. He was sure she knew. And then he was sure that Hati did.

“Tonight,” he said, and took his life in his hands, for what had to be said. “I would advise, Ila, that you yourself use a common tent, one that two men can raise and pack, for your own safety. That you carry more food and water than weapons.”

An implacable face met that judgment. “You would leave each segment of the caravan to its own decisions.”

He had not asked himself why he chose as he did. It had seemed evident. Now he did ask. “The line of march will stretch too long. The leaders can’t be everywhere along the line. The fastest have to go first. I will, however, give them advice, such as I have. Shelter, water, food, and then weapons. Beshti won’t take the Ila’s orders: they limit their loads.”

The aui’it stopped writing. Everything stopped.

The Ila lifted a hand and made a gesture toward the second au’it, a command to rise, a second command less apparent.

The au’it went to the curtain behind the Ila’s seat, and drew it back, and there sat, pile after pile, books, books of the aui’it’s recording, hundreds, thousands of books, leather covers, canvas covers, stained books, ornate ones tattered with age and use.