The circle focused on the waiting dimness at the center.

“She never disappoints,” a young male confided to Jebrassy as he and Tiadba pushed back and huddled shoulder-to-shoulder with the others. Jebrassy wondered if the breed was referring to Tiadba, and was prepared to take offense—but it soon became apparent he referred to Grayne herself, the old female. They all squatted, then fell back and sat against the wall, and soon Jebrassy felt a cold, ancient oppression—he did not like this place. Whatever his enthusiasm for joining a march, all the mystery and concealment struck him as contrived.

“Strange place,” he whispered to Tiadba. She acted as if she hadn’t heard. “There could be chairs, a table.”

“We never leave signs,” Tiadba said, and the young male beside him nodded agreement.

“If the wardens never come here—why worry?”

“It’s the form,” the male said, giving him an irritated nudge. “It’s the way the march is always done.”

“It wouldn’t be my way,” Jebrassy muttered.

“What would youdo?” the male asked, his face clouding. He leaned forward to catch a glimpse of Tiadba’s reaction, but she was studiously ignoring the whole exchange—and that irritated Jebrassy even more.

“I’d go out there by myself, or with a group of people I know and trust. Well-trained.”

“And who would lead?”

“I would.”

The male chortled. “Where would you get your equipment?” he asked.

“He doesn’t know anything about the equipment,” Tiadba said.

“Then why bring him? We’re almost ready. This is supposed to be an experienced group.”

“Because Grayne requested it.” Only a partial truth.

The male thought this over, then, with a shrug, asked, “What’s his name?”

“Jebrassy.”

“The fighter?” The young male bumped Jebrassy’s arm again, this time with his elbow. “I’ve seen you. My name’s Denbord.” He pointed to two other males. “That’s Perf and Macht. We’re friends. We wanted to fight—but the march is more important.”

The others, not yet introduced, touched their noses and glanced at one another in accord—fighters were to be pitied, however amusing fights might be.

“Quiet,” Tiadba said. “She’s coming.”

The circle had left a gap near the tunnel entrance. The air was sharp and close. Jebrassy began to sweat. A small female entered, nearly a foot shorter than Tiadba, elderly and stooped: it wasthe sama he had met in the market. She moved slowly and carefully, using a staff, and two younger females in gray long-shirts and slippers followed, carrying baskets. Fruit was passed—tropps, not yet ripe but full of

juice, and dried chafe for chewing. The group refreshed itself while the old female squatted in the middle of the chamber, the dark eyes in her worn, plain face searching the circle until they came to Tiadba—her lips softening their hard line—and then to Jebrassy. She gave him a firm nod. One of the younger females brought up a short stool, on which Grayne sat with a sigh and completed the inspection.

Is this a trick? She can’t be a march leader. She’s soold— why hasn’t the Bleak Warden come for her?Jebrassy felt his face tighten into a frown, and forced himself to relax—he did not want to reveal any more than he had to.

“Twenty have been chosen,” Grayne began. “Four from this group, sixteen…elsewhere. The Kalpa is forever—but we are new. We are youthand newness. We are not pets, not toys—we are hope, kept bottled until needed. And now the cap is pulled—we areneeded. No one else in the Kalpa has the will to cross the Chaos.”

“No one else,” the group intoned.

“We send our marchers through the gates, across the border of the real, into mystery—to find our lost cousins and to free ourselves. What’s outthere, beyond the Kalpa?” Grayne asked softly. “Does anybody really know?”

Jebrassy shook his head, his eyes held by her black, intense glare.

“Do you?” she asked him directly.

“No.”

“And so we all give up to mystery, to the unknown, to save ourselves from suffocation. Are you with us?”

“Yes,” Jebrassy said.

Grayne studied him, then got up from the bench, reached into the pocket of her robe, and produced a small bag. The old sama walked around the chamber, handing out little square tabs to everyone—except Jebrassy.

“We’ll meet one more time before the march. Everyone will go now—except the fighter. And Tiadba.”

Tiadba helped Grayne along the pipe to the surface. Jebrassy followed. The three of them stood there for a moment, while Grayne’s breathing slowed. “Everything you know is wrong, young fighter,” she said. The others in the group had already spread out over the rutted fallow field and then down the path through the low groves, slinking past the solitary and unmoving warden, its vanes glowing a faint and pulsing blue in the darkness.

The pedes had curled into glinting, twitching bundles in the near dark, to conserve heat.

“I know I’m ignorant,” Jebrassy said, keeping his voice low. “But I’m not stupid.”

Grayne reached out and took Jebrassy’s jaw in her strong, knobby fingers. She twisted his face toward her, eyes darting. “Tiadba tells me your visitor knows nothing of the Tiers, or the Kalpa. Where do you think he comes from?”

Jebrassy did not pull away. “Tiadba probably knows more about him than I do.”

“Never mind,” Grayne said, and shivered in the cooling air. “Let’s walk.”

The sama’s niche was humble enough—she dwelt in the lowest tier of the third isle’s main bloc, within a kind of support column, surrounded by ancient, silent machinery—great hulks of smooth hardness, lumbering, dark, and unrevealing of the tasks they had once performed. The niche’s furnishings were equally humble—a few dun-colored blankets and cushions, a small box where she kept her food—and a larger box, equipped with a finger lock. She offered them water and they sat quietly as she touched the box, opened it, and removed—

A book. A real book, bound in green, with letters on its spine and its front cover. It was the first real book—loose and whole—they had ever seen. Tiadba let out her breath as if someone had knocked her in the stomach. Jebrassy kept his expression under tight control, unsure once again what either of these two females were up to—perhaps no good. Perhaps they were part of a trap laid by the Tall Ones to entice foolish young breeds…

His mind raced through confusion after confusion, and then he looked at Tiadba—and realized that she was as entranced as he.

Grayne clutched the book to her bosom and stepped slowly toward them. “I love these dangerous, impossible things above all else in the Tiers,” she said, holding it out in both hands and opening it for their inspection. “Isn’t it lovely?”

Jebrassy longed to hold it, but did not dare reach out. The cover had been worked with flowers of types unlike any he had ever seen in the produce fields, placed around a design that attracted his eyes immediately—a cross circled by interlaced, apparently whirling bands. Tiadba glanced at him. He nodded. This design was familiar—though they had never seen it before.

“Is it from the shelves in the upper Tiers?” Tiadba asked.

“Those books aren’t real,” Jebrassy said. “I’ve tried to pull them out. They’re just decoration.”

Grayne circled two fingers over the book and pursed her lips, blowing out her cheeks with a snorking whuff. “Miles and miles of temptation and futility. A curiosity, I think, that we instinctively love books, yet can’t have them, can’t read them, can’t do more than look at their spines, cemented into those awful, wonderful shelves.” She solemnly laid the book on a small table between them. “Touch it. It’s very old, very sturdy—it’s been waiting to be of use for many thousands of lives. You can’t harm it.”