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hides provided a further barrier to the damp ground—Shaiara had never imagined in all her life that there could be so much water in the world.
    She sat cross-legged upon the ground, a flat piece of stone upon her knees, skinning and gutting a fur-mouse for the pot. Half-a-dozen more lay in a nearby basket awaiting her attention, and several ikulas lolled nearby, waiting to be thrown scraps. Marap had found a tree whose nuts looked very much like the ones for which the Nalzindar had once traded. Boiled, they made a bitter black brew, but combined with shotor -urine, they could render a scraped hide as soft as cloth, and the Nalzindar had used this liquid to cure those skins which they did not wish simply to peg out to dry in the sun. Marap said that adding salt to the liquid would makethe hides even softer, but Shaiara was not yet ready to risk a journey to the salt-flats. Let the evil that Bisochim brewed within his heart distill itself yet further before any Nalzindar risked the open desert again. Perhaps the rest of the Isvaieni would waken from their poisonous dream.
    Had Rausi but known these wonders lay here, and woven them into the Song of Rausi , Shaiara’s heart would have lain lighter in her breast at the beginning of their journey, and perhaps those of her people who had chosen to lay their bones upon the sand would have drawn strength from the knowledge and been able to follow the path to journey’s end. She shook her head, banishing such foolishness. Had Rausi known of these things and made them a part of his tale, they would have become known to all who lived between Sand and Star, for the Song of Rausi was a thing not known to the Nalzindar alone. Many would have quickly come to partake of Abi’Abadshar’s bounty, and it would not have been a place of safety and secret at the time of the Nalzindar’s great need.
    As so often these days, Shaiara’s mind turned to the future. Were they to live out all their days here? How might they know that it was safe to venture back into the Isvai once more? Would that day even come?
    Today is in your hand, and tomorrow is upon your lips. That is all , she said to herself sternly. It was a thing her mother and father had both said to her—often—when she had asked after the future with a young child’s impatience. No one could truly know what the future might bring, and to think upon it took the mind from the task of survival.
    She worked carefully at her task—leader of her people she might be, but none among the Nalzindar expected to spend their days in idleness; it was as unthinkable as leaving the Isvai itself. Yet so many new things had happened in so short a time—and Shaiara knew that all her people looked to her to know best how to make sense of them—that she welcomed a chore that set hands to work and left mind free to rove. At day’s end, the people would gatheraround—the hunters returning from their pursuit of game and their careful numbering of the herds and the flocks; the explorers from their travels deep within the secret hidden vastness of Abi’Abadshar—and all would share their knowledge together. Then they would eat, and sleep, and rise when the light came again to begin a new day. But if there were questions, then Shaiara must have answers—if not at once, then soon.
    As Shaiara turned over in her mind what the new day—what many new days—would bring, here in a world where food fell into the hand and water was only a short walk away, she heard the muffled sound of running footsteps. She glanced up from her task to see Ciniran running across the grass, her bare feet green-stained.
    The bag upon Ciniran’s hip jounced and clattered with the sound of the bells that the foolish Isvaieni of other tribes hung upon the bridles of their shotors , and in her hands she carried an object of a familiar shape—round like a clay jug, but of a strange material, pale and glistening like water.
    The ikulas all rose to their feet at her