It was fitted out with a horseshoe of ascending benches, what people call bleachers today or stadium seating. We took places at the very back and top, and found the seats were comfortably padded and that people were now filling the place, though many left spaces beside them so as to signal a need for privacy or distance.

Soon all were sitting with their heads bowed and eyes closed, just as in the relief carvings on the exterior, and some were crying, quite visibly crying, but much more quietly than the Wilderness people did in their Chambers of Suffering.

So it is the same thing, I thought. Exactly the same thing. It was more subdued but it was the same thing.

At one point as we sat there waiting, trying to covertly study those around us and opposite us, the picture wall became illuminated and we saw for the first time the face of Amel. A deep-throated bell sounded somewhere, perhaps in the city outside, or within this building, I couldn’t tell.

What a shock. I am not sure what I had expected to see but the face that appeared on the picture wall was that of a male, pale skinned as an albino, with substantial red hair and deep blue-green eyes, and very agreeable features. The man we saw as Amel in fact resembled you, Lestat, so closely that he might have been your cousin or even your brother. He had the same alert intense expression, the same easy smile when he spoke. And the same rather busy unkempt hair, and even the same square shape to his face and a similar symmetry to it. Of course, his pale skin in a uniformly dark-skinned world gave him an unearthly look, and something of an unearthly shimmer. We had glimpsed only a few albinos on our path to Atalantaya, a few others with red or golden hair, a few with pale eyes. And to see the rosy flush in his cheeks, and the expressive lines made visible by the lightness of his skin, all this was startling. But it was also a little repellent. That he spoke passionately and normally as a human being made him compelling.

He greeted his audience as I would see him do often in the next few weeks and began to talk in a seemingly natural and spontaneous way.

“Good evening, my fellow Atalantayans. This is Amel coming to you from the Creative Tower to remind everyone that the first Festival of Meats will be in three weeks, and when the gates open to the Wilderness people visiting for the first time, many will need shelter among you, or a helping hand in finding the public shelters. Please do extend your arms to your brothers and sisters from the Wilderness lands, and help us to enjoy a healthy and happy festival.