Zanja squatted down beside Karis, who sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. The toads cried. “Water here! Come make babies! Beware the toad‑eater!” The clouds, which had seemed so still, revealed themselves to be in motion–or else the earth itself was moving. The grass rustled, growing so quickly that Zanja thought she could see it. At times like these, she almost understood the land as Karis did. How impatient I must seem to her,Zanja thought.

Karis said, “Such big people! So loud, and crowded! They are exhausting.”

“They keep each other warm, I guess.”

The sky spit rudely at them. Zanja unrolled their rain capes, which smelled of dung smoke now. She wrapped one around Karis. Looking into her lover’s face, she saw an unfamiliar strain. She said, surprised and concerned, “What is it?”

Karis dug a hand into wet sand. She said, “When there are no words for what I know, how am I to explain myself?”

“I’ll teach you words from other languages. Or I’ll make words up for you.”

“Must there be words? I just want my toolbox, so I can whack away at something for a while.”

After a silence, Zanja said, “You’re tired of people. I’ll leave you alone.”

Karis’s hand, wet and gritty, took hold of hers. Zanja subsided, leaning against Karis’s shoulder, and watched a white bird stalk into the grass with a hapless toad dangling from her beak. Zanja told Karis her mother’s long name, her own short name, and the name of her cousin who owned such a quantity of fine goats. Karis listened in silence.

“The Juras people will all gather together in a few weeks, and you’ll be able to meet your entire clan then, if not before.”

Karis nodded. “That would be worth doing, I guess. But they are not my people, not like the Ashawala’i were to you. You already understand the Juras better than I ever will, and you’ll spend our entire time here explaining them to me.”

“That’s true,” said Zanja. “Is that too bitter a truth for you?”

“It’s not bitter to know that my mother Kasanra named me,” Karis said. “I assumed she just dropped me in the street like a dog drops her litter.” She took a harsh breath, and turned her face away. “But do I want to know that bearing a child broke her heart?” Her wrecked voice sounded worse than usual. “If every truth is bitter, then we’re better off with lies, aren’t we?”

“Without the truth, we’d never solve a single problem.”

“Without the truth, we’d have no problems. Or at least, we wouldn’t know we had them.”

“What darkness there is in your heart today.”

Karis uttered a weak laugh. “I’m just talking like a smoke addict. A single breath of that stuff and all pain went away. How easy it was!”

Zanja had never feared that Karis would return to using smoke, and now she simply nodded without comment. Their love had been conceived in the midst of pain, and so they had always allowed room for each other’s sorrow. But Zanja could not guess what made Karis so wretched now. While Zanja had napped, Karis had probably wandered the Juras camp, killing fleas, giving immunity to the healthy and making certain none of the sick would get the illness in their lungs. She had done the same in every town they had passed through, and in her wake some people died, the rest recovered, and the illness disappeared. It was a normal sequence of events by now.

“Something new has happened,” Zanja said at last. “Something the ravens know, perhaps.”

“Yes. I can’t explain it.”

Zanja could feel Karis’s bulk, her muscle, and even some bone now that she had gotten thin with travel. But Zanja could feel her sturdiness also, and a physical warmth that kept the chill and damp at bay. “You’ll tell me when you can,” she said.

Karis let go of her hand, and wiped a palm across the sand to smooth it. Then, she began to shape the wet sand into a map, complete with geographical features. Even though Karis had never seen those places, the map would be accurate; where she went, the land was never strange to her. “There’s ten more infected camps,” she said, and marked them with her fingertip. “Seven to the east of us and three to the west. When do the Juras gather together, do you know?”

“After the spring rains have fallen, when the grass is deeply rooted enough that the goats can be allowed to graze, there’s a white flower that blooms at around the time the goats drop their kids, and that’s the time that the Juras people gather to sing to the stars and to make marriages.” Zanja gasped for breath.

“That was an unspeakable statement,” Karis observed.

“It’s how they talk. They have big lungs.”

“Well, the goats will start dropping kids in about twenty days.”

Zanja studied the map. “How far apart are the camps?”

“About a day’s journey. The herds need a lot of room.” Karis frowned. “If the infected people go to the gathering, bringing their fleas with them–”

“You and J’han need two or three days in each camp. I’ll have to run ahead, and persuade those people to stay where they are.”

Karis gave her a look of despair. Confused, Zanja said, “For years before I met you, I was a solitary traveler, so I am fairly skilled at it.”

“I never forget that,” said Karis hoarsely.

“Well, it’s too bad we couldn’t bring a raven, but still, you’ll always know where I am–” Zanja let her voice trail away. “What do you mean by that?”

Karis was trembling. “What’s wrong with me?”

Zanja felt a sudden horror. She put her hand to Karis’s forehead, and it was like putting her hand into a crackling fire. “Dear gods. You can protect everyone–”

“I’m sick?” Karis sounded blank. “Why am I sick?”

Zanja tried to speak calmly. “Little‑Biting‑Dust wanted revenge, I guess. Someone must have told him that you can’t heal yourself.”

“War makes me sick. Norina said so.”

“War only makes you sick at heart,” said Zanja. “Get up. I’m taking you to J’han.”

Chapter Six

Zanja knelt on the floor of pounded sand, near the edge of the crowded, stinking hut where after a feverish night the sick had lapsed into exhausted silence. An old man had died during the night, and as soon as the sun rose, J’han had gone out with the weary volunteers to expose his body to the sky, which was the Juras way of disposing of the dead. J’han would have preferred to burn the bodies, but the closest firewood lay four days journey to the north. Lomito, the translator, had assured Zanja that Juras tradition would keep people away from the body while the scavengers did their work. Now, the volunteers began to come back in: all old people whose names were getting short. They lay down on their pallets with groans of exhaustion; like Zanja they had been awake all night. They muttered among themselves about the danger that the old man’s ghost might haunt them because they had been too tired to sing him properly into death, but soon they fell silent.

All night, while Karis lay restless and muttering with fever, Zanja had sponged her with cool water. Now Karis lay quiescent, pallid, stark. The distinct marks of Little‑Biting‑Dust’s dark magic had become visible in her flesh, mysterious bruises that J’han said were battlegrounds. Feeling how cool Karis was now, Zanja covered her with a blanket.

Karis opened her eyes. “Are you still here?” she said accusingly.

“Karis–”

“You have to go!”

“I can’t bring myself to leave you.”

Karis looked at her: a strange look, resolved, not particularly tender. “A solitary traveler,” she mumbled.

“That life is over.”

“No. It is your gift.” Her broken voice cracked. Her bruised eyelids closed.

Zanja sat back on her heels. In four or five days’ time, J’han would be able to say with some confidence whether Karis would survive. But by then Zanja should be far away, with no raven messenger to tell the news. If Karis lived, she wouldn’t forgive Zanja for remaining with her while a whole people was devastated by this awful plague. And if Karis died, Zanja’s presence or absence would make no difference in the outcome. But she could not make herself stand up and go.