across the uneven plain. The Arami net, seen from the side, was a large irregular black disk that floated a few feet off the ground. A loud crack like thunder pealed in the night, and the earth beneath the city cracked open in a shower of dust. The net crumpled and fell in on itself, and its contents spilled haphazardly. Much of it fell into the new ravine that had been created by the quake.
'Lovely, isn't it?' said Je Wen. 'Everything returns eventually to its source.'
'Lovely' wasn't the first word that sprang to Ironfoot's mind, but it was certainly impressive. He watched Preyia drift like a cloud across the sky, and was glad to see it go.
The carts reached the end of the tall grain stalks, jostling along through aftershocks of the quake that lessened over time and distance. They came to an uneven, rocky plain peppered with tiny thornbushes and joined a rutted track that cut across it toward a tiny valley. In places the track vanished only to reappear a few yards on, and in other places the ruts zigzagged haphazardly, as if the ground beneath them had been torn apart and inexpertly replaced. In the distance they heard the cries of wolves, which spooked the goats, but they never saw them.
The track descended into the valley, where tents and cooking fires were arranged in a circle with a large bonfire in the center. More goats were penned nearby. Children came out of the tents and ran toward the carts as they approached. They were dressed in a chaotic assortment of Unseelie clothing, wilted finery and rough-hewn commoners' tunics. They shouted out in a strange, staccato language that Ironfoot didn't recognize. When they saw Ironfoot, Timha, Sela, and Silverdun, however, the children stopped and looked to Je Wen.
Je Wen spoke to the children in the same rapid tongue, and they con tinned onto the carts, taking the bags of loot and the larger items. The children remained wary of the newcomers, however, and gave them a wide berth.
A very tall, very slender woman came out of one of the tents and looked at the carts. She was dressed in a gentleman's silk blouse and a housemaid's dress. A necklace of wooden beads was around her neck. All of the Arami stopped what they were doing and watched as she approached. Clearly, she was someone to be reckoned with. She stopped in front of Je Wen's cart and looked at Silverdun, then Sela, then Ironfoot, and finally Timha without speaking. The entire camp had gone silent. Up close, Ironfoot saw that she was in early middle age, perhaps forty, with a few streaks of gray in her long, wavy black hair.
Finally she scratched her head and said in unaccented Common, 'I was wondering when you four were going to show up.'
The woman's name was Lin Vo, and she was the clan's leader. She ushered them into her tent, which was no different from any of the others. A bit smaller than most, in fact. The interior of her tent was decorated simply, in the same random assortment of styles as her clothing. Nothing matched, and some of the furniture seemed ludicrously unsuited to a nomadic lifestyle. There was an expensive oil lamp atop an antique side table. The bed was a wide mahogany four-poster complete with a gauze hanging atop it; the frame had been broken, but had been efficiently nailed back together. The sheets were silk, but stained with wine.
'Can I get you tea?' said Lin Vo, once they'd all been seated on comfortable cushions that were strewn on the mat-covered ground.
'Tea would be lovely, thank you,' said Sela. Sela had a strange knack for understanding what it was that people wanted to hear, so Ironfoot went along with her and accepted as well.
Lin Vo went outside to her cooking fire and came back inside with a battered kettle filled with hot water. She measured some tea into an earthenware teapot and emptied the kettle into it. Then she placed the pot and five chipped porcelain cups on a silver tray and set it down in the midst of her guests. She did all of this without speaking.
'You pour,' she said to Sela. She watched carefully as Sela lifted the kettle.
'Might I ask-?' began Silverdun, but Lin Vo cut him off with a harsh look.
'Don't talk while someone's pouring tea,' she said.
Once the tea was poured, Lin Vo took a cup and raised it to them. 'The Arami welcome you,' she said.
'Now,' she said, cutting off Silverdun, who was about to speak again. 'We can skip the formal introductions and back and forth. I know who all of you are, and I know why you're here, and how you ended up here.'
'You have the Gift of Premonition,' said Silverdun.
Lin Vo scoffed. 'You people and your Gifts. You always have to have everything in nice neat rows. Twelve Gifts, twelve months in a year, twelve constellations looking down over you. Have you ever seen a Chthonic cynosure? Big dodecahedron. They'll go on for hours about all the lines and facets and vertices on it and what they mean.'
'What do you want from us?' asked Timha. He'd been silent since they'd arrived at the Arami camp, and was clearly scared out of his wits.
