It might be his imagination, but the voices seemed perilously fainter, perhaps failing him—or appeased at last by what he had done, or perhaps just preoccupied.

He felt the ground. He had gone down on one knee and dragged the Ila with him, locked in his arms. He heard Norit in that moment as if she were right beside him. He was aware of Hati, and Patya and Tofi being near her.

Hati knew what had happened: she knew about the fight, about his father. Norit did. Memnanan told them. Memnanan, for some reason, was dripping wet; and when he wondered he knew what Hati saw, looking out, knew that that crack was lightning, that, outside their struggle, water poured down in sheets and blew in veils. They welcomed Memnanan into the tent. They besieged him with questions that made no sense.

Marak, his voices said, but he made no sense of what followed.

The water kept coming on the roof, and made pools and puddles. He heard it. The Ila did.

Luz knew. Luz told them.

The fever built in him/ threatening to sweep everything away. Hati was running, alone, through the cold wet, and then Patya and Tofi had overtaken her, and they sprinted, soaked as they were, through a murky grayness and a grayed red of puddles. Norit came after, holding Lelie, all of them drenched.

Marak, his voices said, and he was aware of the Ila’s limbs, fever-hot, and the war they fought, each holding the other up.

“Why take up my father?” he asked, and, for his pride’s sake: “How long?”

The Ila laughed, not a pleasant laugh, near his ear. “During your search, my men found him. I’ve always taken alternatives. Always alternatives. He was in and out of my tent, from time to time. He followed, outside the column, in a Haga’s robes. I’m tired. Lie down with me. See which of us wins.”

It was easier to sink down, both on their knees, then on the carpet, twined together. After a time he saw them lying there like the dead, two bloody figures locked in embrace. He saw, and knew he looked from outside himself, and that it was a vision of sorts, Luz’s vision, what Luz saw of him, but he had no idea how she saw.

Then Norit came and touched his forehead ever so gently. His wives and his sister Patya and his brother-in-law Tofi all came to that bloody place, and sat down near him and waited, and waited. They expected—they feared, perhaps, for him to lose consciousness in fever, or to die. The Ila’s servants moved about them. The aui’it were there, perhaps their own au’it as well.