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the help of a thousand Tugars and their Vasi masters. Still, most had reacted with relative calmness, using torches woven from sagebrush leaves to light their way. Even the little girl Nimm and her foster mother Ura had been brave about it.
    Including those who were not warriors, thousands gathered around hastily built fires fueled by piles of camel dung; yet Aya could see only a fraction of them all, so consuming was the darkness. Gutta stood next to him, along with Mudu the Vasi master and Dammawansha the High Monk. It was time for a speech, though Aya was uncertain what to say.
    “Tugars, citizens of Anna, and noble ones,” he shouted loudly enough for all to hear. “I know naught the origin or intent of this sorcery. Many of us witnessed its approach from the direction of Avici, so I’m sure it has entered your mind that Invictus is to blame. But I’m not so certain. Do you not smell the sweet essence of Death Energy in the air? The Torgon no longer walks among us, or at least we so believe. But I wonder if the apparition in the sky is not a sign of hope rather than despair. What say you, High Monk?”
    If Dammawansha was surprised to be addressed, he did not show it. A chill breeze ruffled the monk’s robes as he spoke. “I am not overly fond of visions—especially those that come from noble ones. The monks and nuns of Dibbu-Loka are trained to believe in what we see, not what we imagine. Yet many of you know that Asēkha-Rati left Anna on a dangerous quest purely to pursue the untenable threads of my conjurations.” The monk’s bald head glistened in the firelight. “To make a long story short, as my new friend Mudu is fond of saying, I believe that The Torgon still lives, and that it was he who gave birth to this darkness.”
    “Ema! Ema!” the Tugars chanted hopefully.
    Aya turned to the High Monk. “Why do you believe this?”
    Dammawansha spoke in a voice that only Aya and a few others could hear. “I have had another vision, even stronger than the first. I tell you that The Torgon will return to Anna—and with him will be a wife . . . who is with son.”

5
    IN JIVITA, THE dark cloud did not arrive until the first hints of dawn had already brightened the eastern horizon. Vikkama and the other Asēkhas who had remained in the White City were dismayed more by the resultant chaos than by the darkness. Many of the citizens, and at least some of the white horsemen, panicked and became dangerous. Hundreds ran screaming through the streets, proclaiming that the One God had come to wreak vengeance on the unbelievers who walked among them. Vikkama was forced to head-butt an obese citizen who tried to stab her with a dagger, causing the harmless fool to tumble backward and disappear into the black air, as if swallowed whole. Somehow, Burly found his way to their side, his tiny staff providing as much light as a dozen torches.
    “We must build a fire . . . an enormous fire!” the enchanter said to Vikkama. “I can show you where there is plenty of wood, well-seasoned. You must haul it to the fields north of the palace. If we build a fire, they will come.”
    Vikkama had learned that it was not wise to ignore Burly’s suggestions. The Gillygaloo seemed to know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and he exploited them with good intentions.
    Within a bell of the mysterious cloud’s arrival, the Asēkhas had constructed a bonfire behind the queen’s palace that was twenty paces broad and two stories tall. Even then, it could be seen for only about a quarter mile, so the warriors added even more fuel to the fire, tossing in anything that burned, including small trees ripped from the ground and ornate furniture that in past times would have been considered obscenely valuable.
    The horses arrived first—by the hundreds and then thousands. Vikkama sensed little distress in their demeanor. In their clever minds it was just a particularly long and dark night, their other senses making up for their lack of