He tipped up her face and kissed her, and Norit kissed him back, her fingers woven with his, reluctant to let go.

“Priests have already gone down,” he said gently. “With the last of the books. We’ll ride, with the captain and his men. Can you get up, or shall I help you?”

“I want to go,” was her answer: Norit’s answer, as if she had half heard everything until now, or as if she wished to say that going back to the tower was her choice, apart from Luz’s wish.

“Come,” he said, and helped her gently to her feet. He and Hati together picked out a fine gentle beast and helped her up to the saddle before they themselves mounted up.

Then Memnanan rode his besha to its feet, and the rest of the company got up, a good twenty men besides, good, agile riders, armed beneath their robes, and carrying heavy quirts, Marak noted, not solely for the beshti.

“I’ve ordered the books to a ridge beside the road,” Memnanan said, swinging in close to Marak as they walked their beasts past the fountain and through the confusion there. “And I’ve sent messages calling the lords of the villages and the tribes there to hear us. If I were doing it, I’d have the Ila down the hill to speak to them, but she says rely on the priests to persuade the people. She sends her messages through the priests. I have less confidence.”

“In the priests?” Marak said. “I have none at all.” The visions momentarily haunted him with sights of fire and destruction to come… then failed entirely, and even the imagination of the next handful of moments eluded him, leaving him bereft of any resource. From instant to instant he believed what he saw… and then saw only disaster in attempting to get all this mass of people on the road in any orderly fashion, without fatalities even in the process itself. He imagined no one would take the books. No one would care. He and Memnanan had deliberately let rumor loose, foretelling the movement of a caravan, and fear became a bitter dose at the fountain, where rumor spread.

Now a tide of worried people shouted questions at them: “Where are the caravans going?” and: “What will the Ila do?”

Marak had no idea on the latter and wanted no pause for questions, not yet, not here, disorderly as the road through the camp proved to be. “Wait,” he shouted at the importunate. “Your leaders are going down to hear. Stay here! Pack your belongings!”