In the Keyhole, the rocks closed over their heads in a kind of tunnel. In the last moment before entering, Thanakar looked back towards the army. It had spread and scattered, and tents were going up. But a clump of officers still stood, arguing and staring after them through telescopes, and Thanakar could see bands of antinomials on horseback passing back and forth, and he could see the man with the shaved head and sunglasses standing in front of the rest, a trumpet in his hands.

“Do we have a plan?” he asked.

Aspe leaned backward to pluck the cigarette from the commissar’s lips and puff on it himself. “Long ago,” he said, “my brothers and sisters found a path far beyond what you call civilization. Because of what I am, I can beat these slaves,” he gestured vaguely up ahead, “wherever I meet them, whatever the odds. My way has gone far past strategies and plans. But because I have barbarians in my army, I have to pretend.” He shrugged, expelling smoke from his nostrils. “My brothers and sisters will camp up ahead tonight, if they want. They may hold it for the others in the morning. It is too late for them tonight. They rode all day and need their rest.”

“And us?”

“Look how beautiful it is.” They were in the Keyhole, in a long tunnel of sculptured sandstone, a hundred feet high. It was quieter here inside, and the river ran deep and placid below the road. The colonel pointed back to where a corner of the sun still shone through an arch of rock, making it glow as if translucent. “Look,” he repeated. “Danger gives each moment power, as if it were the only one there ever was. Don’t waste it worrying. It will soon disappear. How can I describe it? It is . . .”

“Transience,” suggested Thanakar.

“Yes. Perhaps.” Aspe sighed. “Often I can’t talk to my own family. I need to talk, sometimes. When I was young I tried to break away from them. But I could never break away.”

“A biter,” said Thanakar.

“Yes. A biter. It wasn’t always so. I was an artist once.” He stripped off his gauntlets and showed them his hands, one flesh, one a claw of steel. “When I lost that, it was as if all the music stayed caught inside, and it could only escape through talking, doing, making, words. I had lost the way to free myself.”

The elephant trudged on in silence for a while. Bullets started to flick around them.

The commissar hadn’t spoken in a long time. He cleared his throat nervously. “I’m very worried about Abu,” he said.

“Wherever he is, it’s bound to be safer than where we are,” replied the doctor.

“I’m very worried. He is so vulnerable.”

“Not half so vulnerable as we are,” said the doctor, looking around for the source of the bullets.

“It’s not good to run off like that. A man has responsibilities. It’s not good.”