Which hit several days later.

The sandstorm raged for an eternity. When they dug themselves out, two wagons and a pair of dray beasts had vanished beneath the shrieking winds and blowing sands, and four drovers trapped in shelter without water had died of thirst.

Outside her wagon, the master said, “We sell the demon in the next town. The old bitch spoke true: Demon eyes bring bad luck. So, take your turn now if you still want.”

THE NEXT FIVE days were the worst she had endured even after everything that had come before.

IN THE TOWN, the master took the precaution of bribing a priest to certify her as human even though everyone in the caravan knew she was the demon who had called down the storm and poisoned the spring. Then he sold her in a private auction.

Before he handed her over to her new master, he slapped her, and said, “Now I hope you will suffer as you made us suffer.”

HER NEW MASTER examined her with the ugly lust she had come to recognize in male faces, but he did not touch her even after the merchant collected his coin and departed. He made her hide her hair and face under a draped cloth, and led her out of the private room in the merchant’s hostel into a courtyard where two other persons fell into step beside him as they crossed under the hostel gate and out into the town.

“For Girish?” asked one.

“For Girish. Better a slave than a wife.”

“Yes, Brother. Girish cannot be allowed a wife.”

She was surprised, because they spoke the same kind of demon speech Mima had taught her. It was the speech all the merchants and guards knew, but in the towns, people usually used other words if they weren’t speaking to the merchants.

She walked three paces behind them through the confusing babble of what she now knew was called a street. This one stank as usual but besides that twisted and turned and changed direction, yet since she kept her face shrouded and her gaze fixed on his feet, she saw nothing except the red-clay earth on which they walked, the well-made leather sandals he wore, and the occasional piles of steaming manure from dray beasts which they must avoid. The person he conversed with had soft, dark feet encased in good leather sandals. The third person, with big hairy callused bare feet, remained silent.

Once the master paused to talk to another man, making elaborate greetings in babble words but afterward slipping into the speech she could understand.

“A good harvest, eh, Master Firah? We drink plenty of wine next year from your grapes.”

“If we have any wine to drink! What think you about the meeting with the Qin commander? I like not the new regulations, and the high tax. What think you, Master Mei?”

“I think we obey, or the Qin kill us. For me, an easy choice. For you, a different choice?”