For I was watching for the sunrise, and as I stood at the outskirt of the crowd, pushing towards the heat, I saw a little way in front of me the neck and shoulders of my sister, wedged in between some others.

She was close enough to touch, almost, a girl almost ripe, older than I. I could only see part of her head, but I knew that it was she, because around her I always felt a sad mix of feelings, so I wriggled forward until I stood behind her. Her yellow hair ran down her back. My mind was full of it, full of the barbarian luxury of it. Yet even so the biter’s melody broke in, and I looked up to see him dancing and reeling. He was a powerful man. He could make pictures out of music. In his singing I could see the barbarian city on the mountain as it was when men still lived there, the paint still fresh on the buildings. His voice was full of holes. Yet even so, I saw that barbarian city so clearly, and a crowd of people standing in the square. I saw the colors of their clothes and the lines of their faces. In a central square of yellow stone, of high, flat buildings, lines of open windows, hanging balconies, a group of huntsmen dismounted. They were dressed in leather and rich clothes, red and brilliant green. A huge horse stood without a rider, and beside it, chained by one wrist to the empty stirrup, naked and dusty, his great dog’s head bent low, knelt the barbarian god. He had careful, yellow, dog’s eyes. Nearby, a pale boy, wounded in the chase perhaps, lay dead or dying on the stones, surrounded by slaves and sad old men. The sun burned, and the god waited, sweating in the dirty shade around the horse’s legs, until they brought a wooden cage and chained his hands and feet, and prodded him inside with long thin poles; he lay in one corner and licked along his arm.

This is a story from the Song of Angkhdt. As we listened, standing near the fire with our mouths open, people said they saw the statue move, and some claimed that the lines of symbols on its swollen penis seemed to glow. I know nothing about that. But as stupid as it sounds, my lords, I did hear a voice out of its stone head, for the music had stopped suddenly, and the vision had disappeared. It was a curious, airless kind of voice, and either the language was unknown to me or else I was too far away to understand. But I understood the biter. He was speaking too. “Listen to God’s laws,” he said. “Love freedom. Love freedom more than death. Be kind to one another,” things like that, laws and hateful rules.

That biter was a crazy man. So much loneliness, so much gnawing on his biter’s heart had made him mad. He was searching for a god to make him king, to force us to follow after him, yet how could he have thought that we would stand still and listen to that kind of song? In fact, he must have quickly realized his mistake, for all around, people were moving and touching themselves, the magic broken. In front of me, the girl had turned away and put her fingers to her head.