Hammerfall

Memnanan said not a thing to that. He walked, and led him back through the veils, where he found another subordinate, in the chamber with his desk. “Bring the an’i Keran,” Memnanan said, “and the village woman, the prophet.”

But Hati came on her own, through the other curtain, expecting him and Memnanan, trailing an embarrassed guard. Madness had its advantage, in that regard, that no one had struck her; Hati reached him unhindered, seized his arm, wound his fingers into hers as Memnanan dismissed the confounded guard. In a moment more, Norit followed her, guard-led, with that calm, still face that told him Luz was entirely in the ascendant. Memnanan dismissed that man, too.

“We’re going outside the camp,” Marak said to Hati and Norit, “to talk with the leaders. We’ll be moving this evening, with the Ila, with the tribes.”

They did not question what he said. The three of them walked out of the tent with Memnanan, under a sky slate-colored and menacing. The water-gatherers at the Mercy of the Ila moved about their business. A handful of wretched people carried bundles out of the gates of the city, bent beneath their load. It was all useless, that gathering of resources.

Memnanan sent men for beshti and for wheeled carts to carry the precious books to the edge of the camp. “The priests moved them here,” he said. “They can bring the books down. We’ll rest here until they’re ready. The god knows there’ll be no rest tonight.”

There was a little shaking as they waited. They sat on mats, under an awning, as wealthy folk passed time, while filling of the Ila’s household waterskins and the watering of the Ila’s herds took precedence at the Mercy of the Ila.

Servants brought them food and drink during a second tremor. The poles of all the tents shook, and the canvas shook. Behind his eyes, Marak saw a lake of fire spreading outward and flowing over desert rock. He saw the falling stars. But he ate and drank, and took his ease, the last that any of them might see in their lives. Memnanan went aside now and again to pass particular orders to his men, then came back to join them.

A rider came up, perched like a boy, bareback. Welcome sight, Tofi came riding up, clearly not expecting to see them disposed as they were, like a handful of wealthy enjoying the afternoon breezes, with the Ila’s Mercy pouring out its abundance of water nearby and the searchers still busy in the rubble of the city beyond the ruined wall.

A flash of recognition preceded an immediate solemnity and formality in Memnanan’s presence, and Tofi dropped from his saddle to stand the ground, light and quick as he was, wide-eyed and anxious.

“Men said to come, omi.”

“That they did,” Memnanan said.

“This camp will move tonight.” Marak rose from his seat under the awning and came out into the wan, clouded sun. “You’re to go among the first in a caravan of all these camps. You’re to go in among the tribes. You can spread the word to the other caravan masters in the camp: if it gets out to the tribes, no harm done. There’ll be no hire given but the lives of all of us, and you know the truth as well as I do: tell it to them. Rumors can fly, for all I care. Gather up all your tents, every beast, every man.”

“Where shall we go, omi? Back?”

“Back, as fast as we can. You’ll carry those persons the Ila bids you carry: the au’it, the Ila herself, her servants and her men. Have you kept the freedmen?”

“I paid them wages,” Tofi said, “and I don’t know how they found it. There’s not a tavern working, but they’re drunk.”

“Hire them or not, but get skilled help, first, before the rest of the masters get wind of it. Where are you camped?”

“To the southwest edge,” Tofi said. “On the flat. There’s no other out there. Some have let their beasts go forage. I haven’t. I waited.”

“Good. We’ll use our tent, the same we have used. It was a good size. Give the best one to the Ila and the au’it. Her men will camp with us, with their households, I take it, in tents they will provide.” Memnanan, standing close by, failed to contradict him, so he supposed the instruction stood. The Ila would move from this white grandeur into ordinary brown tents two men could have up and down again in haste, and her men would have the tents the Ila’s men used in the desert. “Go see to it.”

Tofi bowed, and bowed again. “Omi,” he said. “Captain,” he said to Memnanan, and ran to scramble up to the saddle of the waiting besha, making him extend a leg.

In an instant more Tofi was off down the street, vigorously plying the quirt.

Chapter Sixteen

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The book of an au’it may not be opened except by an au’it and it may not be read to the people except an au’it read it. If a village wishes to know what is in an au’it’s book, let them ask the au’it.

—The Book of Priests

The priests came to the ila’s tent with their besha-drawn carts, and the chief priest, a haughty old man, strode angrily past Memnanan, went into the Ila’s tent and came out again with his hauteur aimed solely at the junior priests and with a very chastened demeanor toward Memnanan.

“We are,” the chief priest said, every word labored, “to take the library in our charge. Where shall we dispose it?”

“Men of mine will guide you down,” Memnanan told him, and with a nod of his head toward Marak: “He has the Ila’s authority in this matter.”

The priest looked at Marak in dismay, and turned to the junior priests to give orders. Au’it came out, bearing books; and so priests went in, and servants, so that it became a hand-to-hand stream, loading the leather-bound books into their arms, one to the next past the veils and curtains of the interior, and servants passed books on to priests and soldiers outside, and they laid them carefully onto carts which would have fared very well on the pavings of the city. Now, with the increasing loads, they bogged in the wet sand around the Ila’s Mercy, and required the beshti to labor to move them. “Not so many in a load,” Memnanan said, and added under his breath, “fools.”

“To the outside,” officers shouted as they filled each cart. Memnanan sent an officer down with precise instructions, while Marak and his companions sat on mats in the shade of the awning and rested, truly rested in the bawling confusion. Norit slept longest, curled up in a knot. Hati waked and sat sharpening a knife. Neither of them had use in what proceeded. Marak himself let his head down and catnapped in what should have been the heat of the day, but was in fact cool and pleasant.

Important men and women arrived at the tent, and Marak lifted his head, overhearing that rumors were suddenly rife in the camp, regarding caravans leaving. “Caravans may indeed leave,” Memnanan told them. “And if I were you I’d see to my herds, and have the beasts watered before the Mercy grows crowded.”

Priests’ white robes were now brown-edged with soil from the spring, dusty and stained by the moldering dye of the books; but on they worked, better men than they looked, in Marak’s estimation.

The au’it labored with them so far as loading the last carts, and two of them in their red robes went with the carts, down the sole straight road that led from the Mercy through the camp, and if rumor was not now ru

Servants hung about in the doorway of the Ila’s tent with worried looks on their faces. They had sent all their treasure out, at the Ila’s order, under a sky leaden and disheartening. The guards themselves looked desperate, expecting further calamity, and looked about them as the ground shook, as if they now realized that cataclysm had reached the heart of their lives.

Traffic around the fountain increased to a point of panic, slaves of the caravans restoring their supplies, servants of households taking up water in jars, jostling with common folk and villagers: if one house was watering, then all would. Beshti moved in and out, with their handlers, snarling and grumbling.