The city rested neither by day nor by night… only changed its traffic. As folk did in the downland villages, people in Oburan did their major business by day; but the city being also of the Lakht, there were still plenty of curious onlookers abroad even in the depth of the night. They wondered at him, perhaps, not having had the rumor from the day people what he was. But they seemed to wonder more at the au’it, red-robed, the visible presence of the Ila, where they crossed the occasional circle of bug-besieged, oil-wasteful lamplight. Omi, they said. Lord. Lady. They bowed, or covered their faces, fearing her more than weapons.

When they reached the gates, gates that stood open by night in these times of peace, they had only to walk outside, there by the Mercy of the Ila, where Obidhen had arranged his beasts and their burdens. The pack beasts all sat saddled. Their burdens, which seemed all apportioned, sat ready to be bound to the saddles just before they set themselves under way. The riding beasts, too, were saddled, awaiting their riders. Obidhen had been a busy man.

“We are ready,” Obidhen reported, bowing.

“The au’it will ride with us,” Marak said. “I doubt she knows how. I doubt many of the others do.”

“We have been advised,” Obidhen said. It was still a question of how much Obidhen had been advised, but Marak thought likely Obidhen had by now heard the nature of his party.

The sergeant commanding the Ila’s men, too, gave the necessary commands to the caravan master, and went off to secure their own riding beasts from somewhere near, while Obidhen began to appoint his party of madmen to their beasts.

That was the orderly beginning of the matter. Then Obidhen’s slaves, strong men, each, roused each of the forty-some riding beasts up, beginning with the au’it, and hoisted their passengers up, like children.

“Sit still!” Marak shouted out. “Let them settle!”

It was appalling confusion. The beasts, in the uncertainty of so many new riders, lost patience and moved away from nudging knees and elbows, adding to the bawling confusion. Two and three of the novice riders toppled hard onto the sand. Marak seized stray reins, and so did the freedmen and the sons and Obidhen himself, while onlookers gathered from the city gate to add to the confusion. The soldiers, riding up with shouts and derision, had to gather in reins to hold other bawling beasts.

Meanwhile no few riders let their beasts escape their inexpert reining, and those animals set to circling, ignoring tugs on their reins by the simple trick of laying their heads around. It was no surprise that several novices had their feet bitten, which brought howls and panic anew, and catcalls from the gate despite the presence of the au’it and the soldiers.