Marak blinked the blowing dust into tears, resisted the impulse to wipe, that would abrade his eyes. The slack of the gust showed him the shape again.

Hati pointed. She saw the same. Norit stood close to him, held to him, pressed against his side, and all the while this vision came walking down the slope, and became clearer and clearer to their eyes.

“He is no tribe I know,” Hati said.

In an an’i Keran, that was remarkable enough. The Keran were masters of the Lakht, and there were means to tell one tribe from the other: to know those differences was life and death.

The stranger came ahead with confidence, and that also was remarkable, and ominous.

“We might be bandits,” Marak said. “We have no prosperous look. And we are no tribe.” The man was trusting… or there were more of them beyond that hall.

But as the man came, the voices clamored. East, east, east, became here. Now. This place. This man. Marak’s heart beat like a smith’s hammer.

Marak dropped his veil, a villager’s friendliness, despite the choking dust; he lifted a hand in token of peace, and the vision, or the man, whatever it might be, likewise lifted his right hand and walked into their camp.

The mad were all on their feet, and drew back from this visitor, not far back, but far enough.

“Togin, Kosul, Kofan, Ontori, Edan.” The visitor named their names for them, as if he had always known them. “Marak, Hati, Norit.” The incantation went on, inexplicable, accurate, and complete, as the veiled man faced them one by one.

“Tofi,” the man said, among the last. He even named the slaves. “Bosginde, and Mogar. Not least, the au’it.”

It was the only name that remained secret among them, as the au’it had never confessed one. She had waked, and reached for her kit, and her book, and, shocked out of her rest in a gale of sand by this vision, spat onto her ink-cake and began to write.

“Who are you?” Marak asked. Their visitor showed his power and his knowledge of them, but gave them nothing of his own nature. This was not necessarily the indication of a friend. “Where do you come from?”

“Ian is my name.” The visitor reached up and took down his veil. “As for where I come from, from the wind and the air is where I come from, and from the empty place behind the wind.”