Chapter Twenty-Six

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Another year is gone, as much as that means.

—Marak’s Book

The air was cold and clear, breath of man and beast frosting on the wind… it was noon, though anyone who remembered the sky as it had been would never know it. Snow had fallen in the morning, and lay all about… more boded in the west, out of which all weather came, but Marak Trin had seen the stars scream down from the heavens. That was hazard. He had seen the deep snows. That was hardship. This little spit of snow failed to daunt him.

More, he was on his way home, and going home, in a logic that defied the tower’s careful teaching, all distances were shorter.

Once a month at least he saddled up Osan and rode out as far as the cliffs of the Lakht.

Once a month he surveyed the lakes and the pools below the rim, gathered samples… and came back again, surrendered himself and Osan to Ian’s examination. Luz wanted to be sure he had picked up nothing new and unplanned in his blood.

He had that examination ahead of him, a small price for his freedom. And he was as interested as Ian and Luz in the quality and persistence of the makers. That his so ably survived reassured the ondat in their sky perch—the ondat, who were coming to understand the Ila’s methods themselves, and who therefore might feel less threatened by the wide expanse of… all Luz said existed out there among the stars.

His own travels were to the rim and back. That was enough.

Sometimes Hati came with him. Sometimes Norit joined them both. They had seen the whole world change, and skies darken, and the snows pile up.

Then they had seen them melt.

The tribes had spread a few tents outside now, weary of the confinement, and there were a few structures outside, these days, outposts from which trained observers watched the changes in the world. But it was the tents that the tribes longed to see. Aigyan and Menditak talked about establishing outlying camps, and seeing what living could be made out there, given adequate supplies, but Luz said it was too early, that they had yet to release the living things they had engineered… that was their word for it: engineered. Everything would fit together. The tribes would have their livelihood. There would be a place in the world for them.

There was no sign of vermin. Nothing grew, but a handful of small things that had greatly interested Luz… he had brought those back years ago.

But of larger life, nothing moved.