But none of them, not even those experienced at reckoning the number of a group by looking at them, knew how long the marching line would be. All methods of measuring failed against the scale of the undertaking, to move everyone in the world to shelter. Marak found himself in Memnanan’s debt, and in debt to the messenger, who had surely had no idea, either, the size of the task when he left.

Morning, too, brought a stiff head wind that kicked up the dust in their faces and made the pitching of tents at noon a far more difficult operation.

Rumor filtered up the line during the rest, one group talking to another next in sequence. A old man had fallen off and broken his leg. A woman of the villages had given birth, and men had carried her on a litter while she did so.

Life in the column went on, no matter its difficulty.

But the messenger had not come back by then, either, and no rumor reported the messenger on his way.

Chapter Eighteen

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If a good well turns to bitter water, the village dies: there is no remedy.

—The Priest, in his Book.

The wind that had made pitching the tents so difficult at least blew the clouds away. Tofi laughed when they waked after noon rest and saw a bright blue sky. “I thought we might never see the sun again,” he said. His voice attempted levity, but it was relief everyone must feel.

Norit seemed calmer, and had done with crying. She seemed to have forgotten having named Lelie, and they failed to mention the messenger. Norit rode with them, and measured the fringed edge of her aifad, over and over and over, lost in her own thoughts, or in Luz’s: there was no telling. The voices were quiet.

But that night as they rode, the stars fell again in all their terrible glory. No few were the fiery sort, that stitched their way in silver and gold across the night before they plunged below the horizon.

Memnanan rode with them a time. The messenger had not yet returned.

“I regret asking the favor,” Marak said. “Something may have happened.”

“It may,” Memnanan said. “But it may not. I’m not yet worried. It may simply take that long.”

“I hope for his safety,” Marak said. Norit was near them, but he had never yet told her about the search.

“Has the fall been this thick before?” Memnanan asked, with a look aloft. This was a man who had spent days before this in the heart of the city, where lights blotted out the sky.

“It’s become ordinary these days,” Hati said. “I suppose it will be ordinary for a long time.”

“No,” Norit said suddenly. “It’s not ordinary. That’s why we have to hurry. The hammer of heaven will fall.”

“The hammer of heaven,” Memnanan said.