“The Keran are the kinsmen of my wife, the Haga are the kinsmen of my mother,” Marak shouted, as loudly as he had in him, “and to them I entrust the guidance of the caravan. The Ila will go with me, in my band. Then the rest of the tribes, in their honor, as they determine precedence, then the villages, as they determine precedence. Those of the city, you with no tents, no knowledge of the desert, each tent of the villages will take one or two of you, and those who have to walk, will walk following the beshri, with riders to guard you and to set the pace. Each lord of a tribe will govern his tribe, each lord of a village will govern his village.” Fire, the visions said to him, overwhelming all sense of what he had to say. Random words welled up in him, not his own, warning of this disaster and that, and he smothered them, fighting for his sanity and his own sense. “More,—more! each strong and reputable and god-fearing man will carry, besides his day’s water, the wisdom of the aui’it, on his person, one book! These strong men will bring the wisdom of the aui’it to the new land and they will have their names and the names of their houses written down forever! One book, one book with a man or a band or a tribe will assure the carriers of it a welcome in the paradise the Ila will rule! If a man of the tribes and of the villages wishes to carry that burden for himself, let him come forward now to the priests and present himself to the aui’it, who will entrust him with that honor! Spread that word! Paradise for the bearers of the books!”

The priests had by no means realized what sacrilege he intended. Perhaps they imagined they alone would carry those books, pulling their carts through the deep desert. Perhaps at very least they expected more order about it, a making of orderly lists: but the mood and tenor of the crowd was not in favor of long lines and meticulous recording of names.

“No!” the chief priest shouted at him, and a murmur went out from the ridge, all the way back, over the grumbling complaint of beshti and a lone, frightened voice shouting above the rest, “What did he say, what did he say?”