The soldier spoke again. He said, “We only have tonight to listen. My prince is camped under the hill.

Cosro Starbridge. Tomorrow he will burn the town. He’s sworn an oath to level every stone. The parson has already blessed the gallows. He’s going to kill you all. And me, too.” His voice was dreamy, and I was surprised by how much he seemed to understand. Not the bird, not the water, not the stars. That was part of a language only we could hear, the images summoned out of forms and choices meaningless to a stranger. Yet he was responding to the music’s other part, the melody, the song of the artist, as sad as she could make it at so young an age. She was afraid of death. Death sang in every note. Like me, she was afraid.

“Why?” I asked.

He smiled as if he were smarter than I. A dog was slinking past the porch, his head down. “He knows,”

said the soldier, pointing. “Ask him.”

This meant nothing to me. Then, I knew nothing of barbarian heresy, or adventism, or the prophecies that foretold their god’s rebirth in the first days of spring. I would have had no patience for it. This soldier was an adventist, I know now. He was a rebel against his own kind. Here in this dark city there are armies of them, waiting for their king, their savior. The jails are full of them. They swing from every public scaffold.

In those days they had a prophecy that god would be born out of my people. Without understanding freedom, they worshipped it.

I knew nothing of all this. I made no distinction between barbarian creeds. But I was interested in the soldier. He was listening to the music, which was changing, and I wondered whether he could sense its change. His eyes were full of tears. “I am so happy to be here,” he repeated. “Here at the end of all things.”

His food still lay untasted in his lap. And in a little while he spoke again: “So happy just to listen. I have heard so much about your music. In midwinter, when I was young, in the ninth phase, the bishop would have whipped a man for whistling in the streets. Already then they were afraid. Already they had begun to lose control. Now they are a hundred times more desperate. They want to kill you all.”

“Tell me,” I said.

He smiled. He brought his hand up to his mouth. “This is the last night,” he said, pointing towards Paradise, just rising. “It won’t be visible again, not in my lifetime. But look, you can see the mountain where I used to live, that black spot. Look.” He sniffed. “It has been warm here. Tonight it will snow.

And tomorrow morning, that will be the end. I think the sun will never rise again. And look.” He motioned to the stone table not far away, the statue lying on its back. “The idols are broken. Tomorrow we shall see. False priests and false governors. At the hour of seven-times-ten they shall be overthrown.”