Bando hadn't noticed the curtain rustling behind her and was startled when the girl's mother exploded from behind the tapestry and jerked the child back into the house, shouting all the while. In an instant, he was alone again. There was no activity in the village except for the rustling of other curtains.

Bando turned around and returned to his shop, which once more rang with the sound of his stone tools.

Two new bodies had been placed at the ends of the other seven when Juan stepped into Bando's shop late in the afternoon. He had completed 7 more gold bracelets and a silver medallion. Juan walked over to the newly completed pieces and donned one of the bracelets.

"How many more have died?" asked Bando, still working.

"Two," answered Juan removing the bracelet.

"Will more die soon?"

"Yes Bando they all might die," Juan said, trying on another bracelet. "We might die too."

Bando stopped working and looked up at Juan. "Teszin still believes in me."

"She is right my friend," Juan said, trying to be as consoling as possible. "I'm going to leave tomorrow, Bando. It's not too late for you to come with me. It's probably safer than staying here."

"Go where?"

"Zurich, to meet the others I told you about."

Bando walked to the open door and looked at the nine bodies. "No, I'm staying. I want to fix this."

"What's the point, Bando? There's nothing you can do for them now."

Bando pointed out at the corpses. "These are my people," he said on the verge of tears.

Juan stepped in front of Bando and placed his hands on both sides of his black face. "Come with me tomorrow, Bando. Let's leave this place together, like we came," Juan pleaded. "Bando please, there is so much for me to show you, so much you don't know about yourself."

Bando looked into his eyes but was not moved. He reached up and gently pulled Juan's hands away. "No, my place is here. I'm staying."

"Fine," Juan said angrily, turning toward the door. "I'll see you again anyway. I'll pick up the pieces tomorrow morning."

Juan walked around the bodies outside Bando's shop and noticed that the latest one had a bracelet almost identical to the one he had tried on in Bando's shop. In the distance, he heard a child crying.

By sunset, there were five new bodies laid next to the others. The wailing, which had been sporadic before, now came from all parts of the village. Cries rang out from every quarter only to be answered in like kind. Juan listened and tried to discern their exact location. 'I hope it's not too late,' he thought. 'I've traveled too far too often not to get it now.' And it would finally be enough to compete with the others. Most important it was here now, and tomorrow he would finally join their ranks. For two hundred and fifty years since he took the first Ascension, he had tried to be like the others, as wise, as refined, as cultured, but he could never be as rich. This disparity didn't come up very often, but when it did, it burned like bile in his throat. The others like Mara, Clovis, and Hazard would often brag among themselves at gatherings about a new tower they were building or a large parcel of land that they had just bought or about how many serfs they claimed. And when the conversation turned his way, they would ask Samas, "how goes it your way, young one?"