More, the tribeswoman, Hati, having let down her veil, did not put it back. She had acquired authority despite the lack of bracelets on her arms and rings on her fingers. And her whole being expanded. Her eyes flashed. Her walk became a stride.

That woman was his lieutenant, Marak decided. If he was omi, in the mind of Obidhen and his sons, and if this was the company he led, he had now seen the one he would rely on to back him in an emergency. She had the wits and the courage. The two ex-soldiers that he might have chosen were both duller men, good fighters, perhaps, but if they had no clear objective to gain and no one to provide the idea, or to shout orders moment by moment, they sat inert. They watched the women, however, with predatory eyes… and then bent wary glances in his direction, and in the master’s, clearly sizing up their will to prevent them. It was clear where their source of initiative rested. He would not trust them with food, water, or women.

Most damning regarding any reliance on them in extremity, when the voices came, they twitched violently and stared at the east, the worst afflicted of all the party, following that lead when many of the others sat, still resolute and possessed of their dignity.

Hati was indeed the one. He had watched her move, watched her gestures expand and her strides become confident. He saw, in those expanded movements, the natural grace and shape of the woman. Today he saw her face, and it was a darkly beautiful face, which his eyes dwelt on and followed with thoughts. He was not dead. If he had doubted his manhood had survived the desert, he did not now.

Chapter Six

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Or if any tree shall be deformed of its nature, the fruit of that tree shall not be eaten. It must be rooted up and given to a priest.

—The Book of the Priests

The mad shall be searched out. Everyone that bears the affliction shall be saved alive and shall not be hidden, but given to the Ila’s messengers. No man shall conceal madness in his wife, or his son, or his daughter, or his father. Every one must be delivered up. Also if any beast should have the madness, it shall be kept from harm and delivered alive to the Ila’s messengers, or if dead, its flesh shall not be eaten: it shall be saved intact and delivered to the Ila’s messengers.

—The Book of the Ila’s Au’it

After this camp they left the pans, and if it was flat and featureless before, the Lakht began to take on a red sameness, the very heart of the midland plateau, endless low ridges of dunes that stood as obstacles to their progress, red, powdery sand that was almost dust. They walked the ridges, a maze that led them generally east.