Nerve endings bonded randomly and uselessly, and the wings moved only with the spasms of a long drawn-out death. Isaac’s nose wrinkled at the stench. The wings were rotting slowly on the Remade’s back.

“Does it hurt?” Derkhan was asking.

“Not so very much any more, miss,” the Remade answered. “Anyway, I’m lucky to have this.” He indicated the tent and the bars. “Keeps me eating. That’s why I’d be obliged more’n I can say if you’d refrain from telling the boss that you clocked me.”

Did most who came here really accept this disgusting charade? wondered Isaac. Were people so gullible as to believe that something as grotesque as this could ever fly?

“We’ll say nothing,” said Derkhan. Isaac nodded curtly in agreement. He was full of pity and anger and disgust. He wanted to leave.

Behind them, the curtain swished and a group of young women entered, laughing and whispering lewd jokes. The Remade looked over Derkhan’s shoulder.

“Ah!” he said loudly. “Visitors from this strange city! Come, sit, hear stories of the harsh desert! Stay a while with a traveller from far, far away!”

He moved away from Derkhan and Isaac, gazing at them pleadingly as he did so. Delighted screams and astonishment burst from the new spectators.

“Fly for us!” yelled one.

“Alas,” heard Isaac and Derkhan as they left the tent, “the weather in your city is too inclement for my kind. I have caught chill and temporarily cannot fly. But tarry and I will tell you of the views from the cloudless Cymek skies . . .”

The cloth closed behind them. The speech was obscured.

Isaac watched as Derkhan scribbled in her notepad.

“What are you going to turn in?” he asked.

“ ‘Remade Forced by Magister’s Torture into Living as Zoo Exhibit.’ I won’t say which one,” she answered without looking up from her writing. Isaac nodded.

“Come on,” he murmured. “I’ll get that candyfloss.”

“I’m fucking depressed now,” said Isaac heavily. He bit at the sickly-sweet bundle he carried. Wisps of sugar fibres stuck to his stubble.

“Yes, but are you depressed because of what’d been done to that man, or because you didn’t get to meet a garuda?” asked Derkhan.

They had left the freakshow. They munched earnestly as they walked past the garish body of the fair. Isaac pondered. He was a little taken aback.

“Well, I suppose . . . probably because I didn’t meet a garuda . . . But,” he added defensively, “I wouldn’t be half so depressed if it’d just been a scam, someone in a costume, something like that. It’s the . . . fucking indignity of it that really sticks in the craw . . .”

Derkhan nodded thoughtfully.

“We could look around, you know,” she said. “There’s bound to be a garuda or two here somewhere. Some of the city-bred must be here.” She looked up, uselessly. With all the coloured lights, she could hardly even see the stars.

“Not now,” said Isaac. “I’m not in the mood. I’ve lost my momentum.” There was a long, companionable silence before he spoke again.