{Marak, the voices said. Marak. Get up. Walk.}

He made a careful, practiced effort against that swinging feeling. He gained his balance. Above all things else he wished no restraint, no impediment to the one chance he might have at the Ila, and he had no need, for a moment, to pretend helplessness for his guards’ sake. The structures of fire blinded him, and the world swung violently, always toward the east.

They led him by either arm, the captain and the guard, out that low fountain-court door and into the hallway.

More guards stood on duty here, men in the gilt-trimmed uniform of the elite of the Ila’s men. Now it was certain where he was going. Now his palms sweated and his heart beat hard. Be silent! he chided his voices, attempting to govern them, as he rarely could.

He succeeded. He faced stairs, and he climbed doggedly, at his guards’ orders. He knew how he wished to die.

Chapter Three

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The Ila descended to the Lakht and established the center of the earth. Outside was the wasteland. Until that time there were no villages anywhere and there was no cultivated field.

The Ila established the Holy City and from it went out appointed authorities to establish other centers throughout the land, to widen the habitable lands, to drive back the vermin, and to enrich the earth with gardens.

—The Book of Oburan, ch. 1, v. 1.

He hoped for single audience. In his wildest hopes he wished to come very near the Ila, and to have her guards far away.

But to his disappointment he was not alone. A group gathered in an upper hall outside a set of massive doors, a motley group of old and young, men and women, all dressed in the ordinary white and brown of the holy city. All the company had a haggard look. Some bore recent wounds. Were they the local harvest of the streets, Marak wondered?

But among them, along the edge, he saw the wife from Tarsa, the potter, the barber, and the rest that had come with him. Then he knew that he was not alone in this audience, only better dressed.

They must be all mad, the scourings of the Ila’s search, not only from the villages of the west, but from all the land. There were that many more of them, filling the hallway as far as the corner.

The metal doors sighed heavily and opened, no hand touching them.

Beyond them was a narrow, pillared hall. At the end of the hall was a dais and a high seat, and on that seat was a figure robed in red.

The Ila. The source of all authority… deathless, immortal, so some said. A god on earth, priests maintained, and the Ila did not refuse their worship.