It was no wonder. He had watched it happen. He blamed Luz, and hoped Norit had strength enough to carry her down the cliffs. The child—Lelie—was a hazard on the descent, when a suddenly ill-placed weight, like too much weight, could cause a besha to miss its footing, and where one besha falling could wreak havoc on those below. But Norit had taken Lelie back. And he summoned up faith that Norit would make it—hope that she would make it. She was a better rider than Patya: she had become so, on their ride. He appointed the man to go beside Elagan, and keep her steady, and he appointed another to go beside Memnanan’s mother and his two frail aunts.

He trusted them. He trusted their own party to get down intact: the tribes knew what they were doing, if the Ila’s men did not.

But what disasters would happen after, what would happen if the hammerfall overtook them on the descent, what would happen if the weather turned, what would happen when inexperienced villagers attempted to ride down the cliffs under adverse conditions—during earthquake, or in storm… those were questions with one plain answer, and he blotted it out, as far as he could, while anger at the Ila’s obstinacy churned in him—about her decisions, he could do nothing.

He thought he should station someone to check the villagers’ loads before they started down. He should have someone to advise certain villagers, inexpert riders, to walk, and certain others to adjust their packs and lower the height of them before attempting the descent.

He might find some tribesman that brave, to linger back behind the tribes, to stand among the damned and save those he could. It galled him to have to ask that of the tribesmen who knew better and had managed better all their lives, and one part of him said he should not; but he imagined the calamity among the helpless and the weak, the unjust, undeserved calamity of villagers who had never learned the Lakht and had no reason to know, and the ondat, serene in the heavens, hurling stars at men and women as innocent as the old slaves in the garden. There were gods-on-earth, and gods in the skies, so far as men of his ability could ever deal with them, and reason gave way to blind luck and justice had no place in the reckoning: like the wind, death just was, and he knew he was going to fail to save some—and more than some.

His orders from Luz were running out. He had gotten them this far. He considered the Ila’s arrogant canvas, and began to ask himself what he himself was worth, more than the rest, and why should he tell another man to stand back at the beginning of the descent and advise villagers on the way to get down?