Kai is the guttural voice the Altai use to carry hero epics — Maadai-Kara, Altai Buuchai, Kogutei — through a night that ends at dawn. The singer holds a topshur: a fretless two-string lute cut from one block of pine or cedar, its pear body and carved peghead gone dark with smoke.

This system is that instrument seen by firelight inside an aiyl. Brown laid on brown, separated by tone rather than by rule; one pale horsehair line; one dull textile red. Light comes from low, and falls off fast.