Book excerpt: Jefferji Tamisen has lived a sheltered existence. Raised by a Rajput nobleman, he has devoted himself to the sacred dance of Sri Krsna, and is equally skilled at communicating both the Bridegroom and the divine Consort to his audience. But Jefferji's English heritage has finally caught him up, and he is forced to leave his childhood home. Both escape and duty send him into the wild high places of the great Pamir plateau, where not only danger and bloodshed await, but also a refugee Circassian warlord who pulls Jefferji into another, far stranger dance. Its transcendent power will carry Jefferji closer to a fiercer god than he could have dreamed possible--if he manages to survive its passion.