But there, with tribes yet to come, with terror rushing at him in visions, he gripped sanity with both hands and followed his own just-made law, despite the others below him riding down the switchbacks. He slid down afoot, to lead Osan down, and Hati and the au’it dismounted, and so they walked the difficult, shadowed track, a trail only lit by the last glow in the sky.

Behind them the tribe was necessarily slowed in its descent. More, they dismounted and began to do the same, pride cast aside and prudence taking charge at this hazardous edge of night.

After all his worry and agony about the weak and the unskilled, it was that simple. If the tribes began to follow that one prudent example, the villagers would not be more daring or faster, and in the morning the sun would show those still to come the writing on the rock—surely the sun would come up, as surely as the fall of the hammer-stone had to make some change in the world.

Surely that would go on. And the line would come down as long as anyone could.

But it was as if his vision had cleared, as if all the self-made wall against Luz had broken down, and he heard the voices clearly, and he felt himself obeying the pull of the madness he had resisted—all the world seemed in motion again, and Luz was at last content. He walked, and walked with deliberation, thinking not what he could do, but sure now that he set the pace, and that he must not spread panic or make a misstep of his own.

At a turn of the trail he felt the earth shake and go on shaking. Small rocks slid past and quivered underfoot.

Then Osan threw up his head and struggled for footing as part of the trail slid and larger stones came loose. Marak did not attempt to walk for the first moments of that shaking, then decided he had its measure and led on, slowly, very slowly, not letting Osan have his way.

Hati was at his back. The au’it’s besha could go no farther, and no faster, and the same with all those behind. Marak kept walking.

The shaking stopped.

Then a false dawn broke. A falling star shot past so close in the sky that the land leapt out in daylight clarity, and shadows traveled from dawn to zenith to set as if a sun had raced across the heavens.

Is that it? he wondered at first sight. Is that the hammer? Inured as they were to wonders, they could not help but watch as it crossed beyond the nighted plain, illumining the cluster of tents far out from the cliffs. Some of the tribesmen called out in alarm.