By midmorning two of the younger priests worked their way up the line, afoot, breathless, to ask the Ila questions, it seemed. They were from among a small set of priests taken in by Kasha village, among the first behind the tribes, so they said, they had not paid attention to the small traffic along the line, and after a brief sojourn near the Ila, but never directly with her.

“Have you seen a young man of the Ila’s guard?” Marak asked them afterward.

“Yes, omi,” they said. “But only going. Not coming.”

What had they asked the Ila, or what had they to report? Marak wondered, but dared not ask.

They offered Norit their courtesies, wished the God’s blessing on her, and by implication, he supposed, they asked for enlightenment. “Have you seen other visions?” the seniormost asked.

“The hammer will fall,” she said. “We have to hurry.” After that she waved them away, disinterested in their prayers, having no more cheerful prophecy to give them, and no counsel.

“Omi,” the priests said to Marak, and the same to Hati, seeing that they were a group. They paid their parting respects to him and Hati as much for being associated with Norit, as for leading this company, so he suspected; but he felt better for their gesture. They rejoined their companions by the simple expedient of going outside the line and sitting still for as long as they had walked double the pace, and were gone.

The au’it recorded their visit, afterward, but that was all the information they had from it: Norit had posed them no questions, the Ila offered no answers, and being distrustful of priests, he had made no detailed inquiry, either.

The sun grew fever-warm. The air seemed to give less sustenance than usual. At noon he lay beneath the tent, numbed his mind, and sweated: he rested with his arm pillowed on his head, secure in Hati’s presence beside him, and the au’it and Norit sleeping at his back.

For two more days it was like this, with the stars falling at night and the sun burning by day. Once more the priests came. He asked them the questions he had reserved, what they had seen, whether the people were keeping the line together: they were, the priests said. But the Ila’s messenger did not come back, and the priests had no news.

“I fear I’ve brought that man to grief,” Marak said to Memnanan when they discussed the matter. “I don’t know where or how an experienced man fell into difficulty, but I’m very sorry for it.”