A man stood on the platform and raised his hands. As a request for silence, it was unnecessary, yet even so it seemed to signal the beginning of something. He climbed back down the ladder into the mud, and after a while another man stood up and stepped into the center of the stage. In the glare of the bonfire, he seemed unnaturally tall and thin, and he carried a silver trumpet in his hands. He stood polishing it and smiling, and Thanakar could see the gleam of his teeth. Then he put it to his lips and blew a silver note. It lingered, and when it died away, he blew another, piercingly high. It seemed impossible for a man to have lungs that big, or else it was as if he had found a way of releasing the sound into the air without having to press it with his breath, as if in the metal of the warehouses and the great, gray bridge he had found a resonance, for the sound echoed all around them. Another note, low and deep. Thanakar was reminded of the Banaree fireworks above the fairgrounds, sending single, unmixed colors up to wash the sky.

Another note, pure and high, aching and limitless. At the end, the slightest modulation, just a tightening of the tone.

After that, he was silent for at least a minute while he inspected the bell of the instrument and smiled into the crowd. Then he played again, quiet and tentative, wisps of notes and melodies that went off nowhere.

But out of each he collected something that he seemed to like, as if he were gathering threads into his hand, combing them out, rejecting some, twisting the rest together. For out of single notes and phrases the music acquired bulk, direction, tension. It stretched on and on.

Finally the trumpeter paused, his cheeks distended and sweaty. Bending back, he raised his trumpet to the sky and blew out a dirty spray of notes, full of double tones and squeaks. Then he was finished.

Turning his back on the silent audience, he returned to his place and sat down, pulling his cloak around him, hiding his face in his hands.

“I’ve heard him before,” remarked the prince. “That last part is his signature. The song of himself. I remember it.”

“Clearly a neurotic type. Pass the wine.”

Abu gave the doctor a curious look, but said nothing. Thanakar didn’t care. He wanted to feel the liquor’s kick. He wanted to feel as if a hole had been drilled in the top of his head and the liquor dribbled in, soaking some parts and not others. He wanted to feel it.

Musicians played, women and men. When they were finished, they wandered around the stage or climbed back down the ladder out of sight. After a long time, the platform was empty, save for two seated figures, one on either side, and the huge, pacing, golden cat. One rose to his feet and stalked to the center of the stage. He raised his arms, and his cloak slid away from his shoulders. He was naked underneath. He raised his hands in a lazy gesture, to scratch behind his neck, to pull the hair back from his face.