But there was no city. All the fine dwellings, all the wealth, all the power of Oburan had come to this. The holy city was a hill of ruins.
Chapter Fourteen
« ^ »
The extent of the calamity of the heavens has yet to be known, but Oburan has opened its gates to the desperate: everyone who comes to the Ila’s Mercy may come in.
—The Book of Oburan
They did not rest. the beasts remembered water or smelled it in the air, and even after so long a trek they stretched out in that smooth half-run the self-saving creatures rarely sustained, flagging occasionally but still moving at a walk, until they caught their breaths. Then one of the riding beasts would take it in his head to run, and off they would go again toward that distant ruin, maintaining the pace so long as their wind lasted, pack beasts jogging along behind.
The leaden sky had turned red with sunset before they reached the outskirts. The color dyed all the canvas in sight as they reached the first of the tents that ringed the city—dyed their party, too, with its ill-omened stain.
In a certain area were Ogar tents, round and center-poled; and others were tents from the west, longer than wide. There were tents from the deep Lakht, square, with rope webbing; and tents from northwest, a simple cone-shape, made of hides.
“This is not all Oburan,” Marak said. Hope rose in him, seeing that motley gathering. “Those are from the lowlands.”
“Those are Keran,” Hati said, rising on one knee in the saddle, pointing to a group aside, on the outskirts. Herpeople were here, and they rarely came in from the deep desert.
“Kopa,” Tofi said excitedly, naming a tribe from the south. “Drus. Patha. And Lett!”
When the stars had started falling, then from all about the inhabited lands, people in terror of what was happening must have come here, using the summer tents, the shelters they used in festival, in harvest, in birthing. They must all have crowded to the holy city for answers, thousands of them, an army of the desperate, the shattered, with possessions, with domestic herds, with beshti, whatever they could pick up and bring.
The outermost tents were entirely catch-as-catch-could, tents of varying size and style, and they had suffered from the recent storm: sand was piled up, in many cases well up on the tent walls.
But, proof of authority somewhere at the heart of this confusion, some rule had laid out a broad road on which those tents did not encroach, and work, not nature, kept it clear of sand. Some power had said, camp here, and not there. Some of the encamped tribes had feuds, and none were completely at peace with Oburan, but here they camped together.
Might Kais Tain have come? His father had signed the Ila’s paper, her armistice. Might he have gathered up the district and come here, seeking escape from the star-fall and the storms? Dared he hope that, though the west had suffered, his father had come in?
Might his mother’s tribe? Haga tents, though the Haga visited the Lakht, were like the rest of the west, long, light canvas, the common fiber, neutral brown, green-striped with dyes. He scanned everything in view and could not find them; but tents ringed the city on all sides, thousands of them, more than he could see at a glance: they spilled out past the walls, past the Mercy of the Ila. Of the reed-rimmed pool itself, the tents were so many and so close that he could see no trace but a small interruption in the sunset-dyed canvas.
They entered and rode past disheveled groups who paid them little attention, children who stared, adults who failed to look at all. They were only a handful more arrivals. Of what interest could they be?
And the beasts were bent on water. They resisted the rein; they had nothing else in their heads but their thirst and the relief from their packs.
Marak, the voices said. Fire ran like water across his vision. Marak! the voices cried, while his eyes searched desperately in the fading light, through the distraction of the visions. Marak, Marak, Marak!
One thing the visions wanted. One thing he was supposed to do. If anyone could find his mother and his sister in this mass of people, the Ila could find them; if anyone could save a life or damn one, it was the Ila. He had to go there first and take the risk.
And if shot through the heart now, the beshti would continue to seek water, where, at the end of this single street, up past all this chaos of tents, it poured out at the Ila’s Mercy, under the glass-crowned walls of the city.
Those walls came into view, cracked and ruined, above the tents. The gates stood lastingly ajar on a heap of rubble, and the Ila’s Mercy spilled out a flood that wet the cracked pavings and seeped into the thirsty sand. People came and went here with jars, with waterskins, and crowded close not only about the drinking basin but about those troughs below it that were meant for beasts.
No one stood against the beshti when they arrived, squalling and threatening. Men and women scattered from hazard as Osan forced his way to the trough, as Hati’s mount did, and Tofi’s. Men scrambled for safety, scooping up a precious last jarful of water, taking a half-full water bag, as the ex-slaves’ beshti, and Norit’s, and the au’it’s, shoved and pushed their way in, heads down, gulping up water as if it would never exist again. Then the whole string of pack animals arrived and pushed their way in, nipping and yanking at the rope that prevented their maneuvering: two tangled, and bit, and squalled, a fight that itself made the two room at the trough, the two ex-slaves risking life and limb to get the pack line free.
Marak slid down. Osan sucked up water in a steady stream and never lifted his head or noticed as Marak squeezed between the tall bodies and helped Norit down, bringing her back of the line of rumps.
Hati had helped their au’it… their au’it, their au’it: that was how they had come to think of her. She joined him. Tofi came close to him, looking about him in the overthrow of everything they knew of the city.
Sunset had gone to twilight as they rode. Now a few tents nearest the water, at heart of the camp, shone with inner light—white tents, glowing from inside.
There waswealth and power still in Oburan. Authority still existed, even if chaos ruled the outskirts.
Above those tents rose the cracked and broken wall, and beyond that, beyond the gates that sat ajar, was the ruin of all the hill, wall thrown on wall, bricks and stone blocks broken and cast down like a midden heap.
People climbed on that ruin even at this hour, carrying lamps, frail, small lights, that bobbed and moved all the way to the crest of the hill.
The inhabitants of the holy city, perhaps, searched the rubble for their dead, or perhaps the destitute of all the villages in the world sought what they could salvage.
“The Ila must be here,” Tofi said anxiously. “Omi, we need to find the Ila’s captains. I daren’t leave our tents here.”
Tofi had the right of it. Tents and beasts were life itself now. Water flowed free, but food and shelter might be another matter. “They’re our escape,” Marak said. “Claim the Ila’s hire. Say that to whoever asks. We’re leaving as soon as we can. And watch out for Hati.” Her people might be here, but they had given her up, and she had as yet made no move to go to them. “Keep an eye on Norit, too.”
Tofi looked about him, pointed, where armed men stood in the dusk by the largest of the tents. “The Ila’s men.”
“Stay close,” Marak said, and took the au’it by the arm. “Hati, help Tofi.”
He moved quickly, walked as far as the guards, who immediately came to attention. The au’it, their au’it, in her red robes, holding the book clasped against her chest, simply walked on into the tent, then beckoned.
The guards made no further move. Marak walked into the lamplit interior, where a second set of guards admitted the au’it, but barred his way.
Then he knew to his dismay that Hati had followed him, and that Norit had. There was nothing he could do. The presence of the Ila’s guards was no place to dispute who had followed orders and who should be kept out of the Ila’s grasp.