“What we owe the gods does not change,” he said. “If we remember the offerings, then the rain will fall at the proper time and the sun will shine at the proper time.”

There is no arguing with a man who cannot see the world as it is around him. It was human sorcerers who had woven the spell that had exiled them, and human sorcery that had poisoned the lands beyond. She remained silent, and he mumbled complaints under his breath, tallying up his list.

But her brooding could not last. A market in her life in exile was any patch of ground where folk spread a blanket on which to display a handful of precious nuts or bruised tubers or reed mats or a wooden staff with a carved spear point. This plaza was only the entryway; the market took up the entire district, and even if it was by no means fully tenanted, it was truly overwhelming, more people than she had ever seen together at one time in her entire life.

Beyond stone-and-brick arcades lay streets and alleys where all different categories of merchandise were sold. There were grinding stones, bricks, tiles, wood hewn and shaped, shells, bones, and feathers. There was copper and tin, and bronze tools and weapons, and all manner of ornaments molded from gold and silver. There were spines from the sap cactus for needles for punches, and for sacrifice. There were mantles and tunics woven from its thread as well as tough cord and rope, and also its sweet sap for a syrup and a fermented sap strong enough to kick you. There were arrowheads of wood and others of stone or bronze, even a few brought from human lands, forged of iron.

There was too much. And she barely glimpsed the streets where foodstuffs were sold: cactus fruit and delicate squash flowers just starting to wilt, birds plucked and hung while others fluttered in cages, rabbits, dogs, bees, eggs, and so many fish of such variegated types that she was amazed so many existed.

And all this seen and gawked at before they brought her to the central square of the market house where this mass of commerce was overseen by a bundle of judges, each in their own cubicle. In fact, the market came under the jurisdiction of a local authority, but her presence was acknowledged and feted with a series of speeches and poems deemed appropriate to the occasion. The sacrifices, all those delicious quail, would come later.

Yet she wished she could set foot on the earth and just walk through the market, taking her time, taking in smells and sounds. She wept a little, to see such riches, although the judges assured her with the greatest embarrassment that if only the gods favored them, then in a few years the terrible poverty of today’s fledgling market would be replaced by a decent selection as in the days before, and folk would have cacao beans and folded cloth with which to trade properly.