There was brittle crackling, and a rare violin became kindling.

A sob broke from the prisoner's lips.

What to Karlov was a fiddle to him was a soul.

He saw the madman fling the wreckage to the floor and grind his heels into the fragments.

Gregor shut his eyes, but he could not shut his ears; and he sensed in that cold, demoniacal fury of the crunching heel the rising of maddened peoples..