After what seemed a daytenth but had to be an interval measured in heartbeats, the shaking ceased. Just in time, too; Peggol vez Menk’s donkey, panicked by the tremor, was about to buck the Eye and Ear into a thornbush. Radnal caught the beast’s reins, calmed it.

“Thank you, freeman vez Krobir,” Peggol said. “That was bad.”

“You didn’t make it any better by letting go of the reins,” Radnal told him. “If you were in a motor, wouldn’t you hang on to the tiller?”

“I hope so,” Peggol said. “But if I were in a motor, it wouldn’t try to run away by itself.”

Moblay Sopsirk’s son looked west, toward the Barrier Mountains. “That was worse than the one yesterday. I feared I’d see the Western Ocean pouring in with a wave as high as the Lion God’s mane.”

“As I’ve said before, that’s not something you’re likely to have to worry about,” Radnal said. “A quake would have to be very strong and at exactly the wrong place to disturb the mountains.”

“So it would.” Moblay did not sound comforted.

Radnal dismissed his concern with the mild scorn you feel for someone who overreacts to a danger you’re used to. Over in the Double Continent, they had vast and deadly windstorms. Radnal was sure one of those would frighten him out of his wits. But the Stekians probably took them in stride, as he lost no sleep over earthquakes.

The sun sank toward the spikes of the Barrier Mountains. As if bloodied by their pricking, its rays grew redder as Bottomlands shadows lengthened. More red sparkled from the glass and metal and plastic of the helos between the lodge and the stables. Noticing them made Radnal return to the here-and-now. He wondered how the militiamen and Eyes and Ears had done in their search for clues.