Conversation was no comfort, except to know the tormenting vision was the same for all of them. They saw the vision over and over and over, with the sun shining at their backs as clearly and as brightly in a clear sky as if there were never a threat.

And by late afternoon the edge of the world developed a crack, and by evening that crack became a cliff edge, bright red with sunset where they were, and shadowed beyond, until the distant sand caught the light again.

It was the edge of the Lakht. It was the way they had to go down, and they were not yet where Marak hoped to reach, not near their former descent: that was southward, toward all the hazards of Pori.

“The climb down is at a notch,” he said, riding up to Aigyan before Memnanan or any of the rest could question him. Only Hati came with him, and now he quickened the pace ahead of the Keran, and took the lead himself, with Hati, and then with Norit and Tofi and Patya, and last of all the au’it, all of them that had come this road before.

The light was leaving. The smallest stones cast strange, long shadows on sand turned red as fire. They were running out of daylight and farther from a downward path than he had hoped they would be.

But they rode up on a depression along the cliff edge, and there was their path, just as the sun was shining its last, there where the sand had slipped away down the edge of the plateau, and rocks thrust up like giant sentinels.

“There it is!” Hati exclaimed: trust the an’i Keran to recognize a landmark she had once passed. This was the place. East, the voices still urged them, and now east was possible. Marak turned Osan about and looked back to the long line of tribesmen that followed them, and to the red among white that was the Ila’s household, and Memnanan, and the dark of the Haga.

All the tribes would follow without question. All the villages had to, for good or for ill. The descent showed treacherously steep, a winding stair of sand and rock where they had lost a besha on the last descent: bad enough the last time, and now they had the old and the sick to get down.

Marak, his voices called out, demanding, urging him down that trail. His heart hammered in the disturbance the makers created. But he and his house all waited until Aigyan had reached them.

“Will you go first?” Aigyan asked, offering him the honor of the leader of all of them, and he shook his head, knowing that was not his place.