Rock hit sphere, over and over. He was blind for the moment, but he jerked the rein from Norit’s hand and the besha, misused, squalled and backed and jerked its head, dragging painfully at his grip, compressing his fingers.

But he held. He kicked Osan and started forward, and the besha, glad, perhaps, to have a direction compatible with the herd, walked, Norit willing it or not, and Lelie still in her possession.

“We’ll die!” Norit cried. “We have to go east, we have to go over the rim!”

“Shut up!” Hati said. “If you let that baby fall, I’ll hit you!”

Marak paid no attention to the argument, or to Norit. He led, blind with visions that argued Norit’s opinion, and knew when they passed the track that had turned north of Pori the last time they had made this trek. They passed it by.

“We’ll die,” Norit muttered. “No safety there. No safety. No safety.”

“There’ll be water,” Marak said, weary of listening to her, distracted by the vision of the star-fall. “There’ll be water, and we’ll be there by morning. We’ll be straight on to the rim with no more than a camp. It’s the best we can do.”

“No safety,” Norit said.

He was not talking to a sane woman. He feared if he let go of the rein, Norit would be off through the column, creating a panic, and as it was, the Ila’s servants looked at them askance, and the slaves looked fearful.

In time Memnanan came to ask what the disturbance was, and went to report Norit’s vision. The au’it stored up things to write at sunrise.

“It will be the worst,” Norit muttered under her breath, and hugged Lelie to her while dying stars streaked the heavens in their hundreds. “The earth will crack and pour out blood. Smoke will go up and blot out the sun. It’s coming, and nothing can stop it. Fool, Marak. Go east.”

“No,” he said.

“What does she expect from us?” Hati asked. “Why won’t she just give up and let us go at our own pace?”

“Who knows if the ondat even exist?” Marak said in despair and exhaustion, and regretted saying it, knowing that Luz was listening. He amended it. “Probably they do exist.”

“Someone’s throwing stars at us,” Hati said, a bitter try at a joke. “If it isn’t these ondat, it must be their cousins. Maybe their uncles.”

“That’s clearer than we’ve gotten from Luz.”

Norit held her daughter close now, and sang to her, not a madwoman’s song, but the clear, quiet tones of a lullaby.