“They were bandits. They would have killed us and stolen everything we had if we had not killed them. Does your own God, your father, not destroy those who sin? Now move aside, Joshua. Let this be finished.”

“I am not my father, and neither are you. You will not kill this man.”

Ahmad lowered the lance and shook his head balefully. “He will only die anyway, Joshua.” I could sense the guards fidgeting, not knowing what to do.

“Give me your water skin,” Joshua said.

Ahmad threw the water skin down to Joshua, then turned his camel and rode back to where the guards waited for him. Joshua took the water to the wounded bandit and held his head as he drank. An arrow protruded from the bandit’s stomach and his black tunic was shiny with blood. Joshua put his hand gently over the bandit’s eyes, as if he were telling him to go to sleep, then he yanked out the arrow and tossed it aside. The bandit didn’t even flinch. Joshua put his hand over the wound.

From the time that Ahmad had ordered them to hold fire, none of the guards had moved. They watched. After a few minutes the bandit sat up and Joshua stepped away from him and smiled. In that instant an arrow sprouted from the bandit’s forehead and he fell back, dead.

“No!” Joshua wheeled around to face Ahmad’s side of the caravan. The guard who had shot still held the bow, as if he might have to let fly another arrow to finish the job. Howling with rage, Joshua made a gesture as if he were striking the air with his open hand and the guard was lifted back off his camel and slammed into the ground. “No more!” Joshua screamed. When the guard sat up in the dirt his eyes were like silver moons in their sockets. He was blind.

Later, when neither of us had spoken for two days, and Joshua and I were relegated to riding far behind the caravan because the guards were afraid of us, I took a drink from my water skin, then handed it to Joshua. He took a drink and handed it back.

“Thank you,” Josh said. He smiled and I knew he’d be all right.

“Hey Joshua, do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Remind me not to piss you off, okay?”

The city of Kabul was built on five rugged hillsides, with the streets laid out in terraces and the buildings built partly into the hills. There was no evidence of Roman or Greek influence in the architecture, but instead the larger buildings had tile roofs that turned up at the corners, a style that Joshua and I would see all over Asia before our journey was finished. The people were mostly rugged, wiry people who looked like Arabs without the glow in their skin that came from a diet rich in olive oil. Instead their faces seemed leaner, drawn by the cold, dry wind of the high desert. In the market there were merchants and traders from China, and more men who looked like Ahmad and his bowmen guards, a race whom the Chinese referred to simply as barbarians.

“The Chinese are so afraid of my people that they have built a wall, as high as any palace, as wide as the widest boulevard in Rome, and stretching as far as the eye can see ten times over,” Ahmad said.

“Uh-huh,” I said, thinking, you lying bag-o’-guts.

Joshua hadn’t spoken to Ahmad since the bandit attack, but he smirked at Ahmad’s story of the great wall.

“Just so,” said Ahmad. “We will stay at an inn tonight. Tomorrow I will take you to Balthasar. If we leave early we can be there by noon, then you’ll be the magician’s problem, not mine. Meet me in front at dawn.”

That night the innkeeper and his wife served us a dinner of spiced lamb and rice, with some sort of beer made from rice, which washed two months of desert grit from our throats and put a pleasant haze over our minds. To save money, we paid for pallets under the wide curving eaves of the inn, and although it was some comfort to have a roof over my head for the first time in months, I found that I missed looking at the stars as I fell asleep. I lay awake, half drunk, for a long time. Joshua slept the sleep of the innocent.

The next day Ahmad met us in front of the inn with two of his African guards and two extra camels in tow. “Come on, now. This may be the end of your journey, but it is merely a detour for me,” Ahmad said. He threw us each a crust of bread and a hunk of cheese, which I took to mean we were to eat our breakfast on the way.

We rode out of Kabul and into the hills until we entered a labyrinth of canyons, which meandered through rugged mountains that looked as if they might have been shaped by God out of clay, then left to bake in the sun until the clay had turned to a deep golden color that reflected light in a spray that ate up shadows and destroyed shade. By noon I had no sense whatsoever of what direction we were traveling, nor could I have sworn that we weren’t retracing our path through the same canyons over and over, but Ahmad’s black guards seemed to know their way. Eventually they led us around a bend to a sheer canyon wall, two hundred feet tall, that stood out from the other canyon walls in that there were windows and balconies carved into it. It was a palace hewn out of solid rock. At the base stood an ironclad door that looked as if it would take twenty men to move.

“Balthasar’s house,” Ahmad said, prodding his camel to kneel down so he might dismount.

Joshua nudged me with his riding stick. “Hey, is this what you expected?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what I expected. Maybe something a little—I don’t know—smaller.”

“Could you find your way back out of these canyons if you had to?” Joshua asked.

“Nope. You?”

“Not a chance.”

Ahmad waddled over to the great door and pulled a cord that hung down from a hole in the wall. Somewhere inside we heard the ringing of some great bell. (Only later would we learn that it was the sound of a gong.) A smaller door within the door opened and a girl stuck her head out. “What?” She had the round face and high cheekbones of an Oriental, and there were great blue wings painted on her face above her eyes.

“It’s Ahmad. Ahmad Mahadd Ubaidullaganji. I’ve brought Balthasar the boy he has been waiting for.” Ahmad gestured in our direction.

The girl looked skeptical. “Scrawny. You sure that’s the one?”

“That’s the one. Tell Balthasar he owes me.”

“Who’s that with him?”

“That’s his stupid friend. No extra charge for him.”

“You bring the monkey’s paws?” the girl asked.

“Yes, and the other herbs and minerals Balthasar asked for.”

“Okay, wait here.” She closed the door, was gone only a second, then returned. “Send just the two of them in, alone. Balthasar must examine them, then he will deal with you.”

“There’s no need to be mysterious, woman, I’ve been in Balthasar’s house a hundred times. Now quit dilly-dallying and open the door.”

“Silence!” the girl shouted. “The great Balthasar will not be mocked. Send in the boys, alone.” Then she slammed the little door and we could hear her cackling echo out the windows above.

Ahmad shook his head in disgust and waved us over to the door. “Just go. I don’t know what he’s up to, but just go.”

Joshua and I dismounted, took our packs off the camels, and edged over to the huge door. Joshua looked at me as if wondering what to do, then reached for the cord to ring the bell, but as he did, the door creaked open just wide enough for one of us to enter if we turned sideways. It was pitch black inside except for a narrow stripe of light, which told us nothing. Joshua again looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“I’m just the stupid no-extra-charge friend,” I said, bowing. “After you.”

Joshua moved though the door and I followed. When we were inside only a few feet, the huge door slammed with a sound like thunder and we stood there in complete darkness. I’m sure I could feel things scurrying around my feet in the dark.