The vision came again, repeatedly, blinding him. He rubbed his eyes, coming among the Haga, among the most familiar of tribes.

He found Menditak, and Menditak went veiled in the aifad, withdrawn, in mourning or in anger: it was impossible to read. Dust was on Menditak’s shoulders. That, too, was mourning, for Kaptai, for four good men—he had no clear idea who those men might be, whether uncles of his, or close to Menditak. There was a debt here, and he had come riding in unveiled, mad, distracted by visions.

“Omi,” he said to Menditak, raking his sanity into one coherent heap. “I had to come back. I risked the caravan to keep chasing him. But I haven’t given up, either. I’ve carried my report to the Ila and to the Keran, forward: but you, omi, you are my father. I haven’t any other.”

“Tain Trin Tain will die,” Menditak said, from behind the veil. “Word is out, against him.”

“The Rhonan joined us,” Marak said, that us that meant the tribe. “Certain of the villages have helped me, against him. He’s lost. He won’t be welcome where we’re going. We’ll come to water at Pori, and we’ll go on over the rim, and if he stays on the Lakht, he’ll die. If he comes in reach of us, he’ll die. He has no choice, omi. He won’t get anything from me.”

“He’ll die,” Menditak said again, and asked carefully what Aigyan had said, and about the Rhonan, and their lord, and all the while Menditak’s son was nearby, listening to everything, as the au’it wrote, and for the same purpose.

“I don’t know about your paradise,” Menditak said. “That water thief Aigyan moved in when we did, and insists he’s leading. It’s no time for a fight. The whore in camp bathes in water while honest mothers run short of drink. But we wait, Marak an Haga. We wait. Tell that to the Ila. There will be this paradise of yours.”

“Before that, there’s Pori,” Marak said, and the voices in his head put up an argument that made his temples ache. “You’ll live, and Tain won’t.” He could not muster courtesies, could not track the convolutions of tribal custom. He simply rode ahead, suddenly, his hands doing one thing, his mind distracted in visions and a whispering in his head that would not be still.

He rode through the ranks. Norit met him, on her way back.

“It’s coming,” Norit said to him. “It’s coming. There’s no stopping it.”

It was the sort of thing Norit raved about. “Where’s the baby?” he asked harshly, trying to call her and him alike back to common sense. “Where’s Lelie?”

He only confused her. Norit rode back through the line, shouting that the hammer of heaven was coming, terrifying the Ila’s servants.