"You too," he told the others, meaning all of them. And they went, one by one, their eyes dark and devoid. "And don't let them come back," Zaq shouted after the General. "You hear me?"

He stamped across his room and stopped pointedly in front of the mirror. "Tell the Library I'm going to kill the next person to come in here." To make his point, Zaq hurled the long blade at the glass but it just bounced off the wall, its handle shattering when it hit the floor.

For five days Zaq refused to leave his room and his audience drifted away until all that remained was a small core of the old and aimless, those who lived almost exclusively through the butterfly life of one much younger and infinitely more fragile.

That was the deal. The Chuang Tzu lived in absolute, terrifying splendour for the length of his natural life and, in so doing, absolved all others of the need to consume quite so conspicuously.

As each emperor burnt out within one natural life (this also being part of the deal), those watching got to see eight, maybe more Chuang Tzu be selected, raised to the Dragon Throne, grow old and die. Of course, this applied only to those who retained their corporeal bodies. The cold eternals had mostly seen maybe twenty or more emperors come and go before even this became too little to make remaining alive attractive.

On the afternoon that two hundred and fifty army cadets, many from the Ahermoumou Military School, invaded the Moroccan King's forty-second birthday party at Sikharat and machine-gunned ninety-two of his guests, accidentally killing the leader of their attempted coup in the process, a fight between two Marrakchi boys broke out behind La Koutoubia. An event so utterly insignificant that it took a foreign hippie to notice it.

Four generals, five colonels and a major faced a firing squad following the two-and-a-half-hour battle at the summer palace, which was only ended by the coolness of the King, who stared down the rebels following the death of their leader.

And as rumours of the confrontation brought the souks to a sullen halt and men spilled onto the alleys in groups to discuss what little they knew, Hassan, Idries and two boys whose names Malika did not know chased Moz through the gathering crowds, cornering him in the gardens behind the mosque.

The first punch split Moz's eye, the next snapped back his head and spun the garden around him. Blue sky, palm trees and a distant sixteenth-century tower all watching him fall.

Getting up again fast was hard with only one arm, but Moz managed it. And as he wiped blood and dust from his face, he stared round at the boys who'd pursued him from Place Abdel Moumen around the back of the mosque and into the dusty gardens.

"Fatah."

"Teazak."

"Ibn haram."

"Hmar."

The insults were meaningless. Merely words overhead -- "foreskin," "arse," "bastard" and "jackass" -- ready warmed from their use by others.

"Hit him again." Idries was cheering for Hassan. Self-preservation made this the rat-faced boy's default position in everything. The other two Moz didn't recognize, although he noticed they watched Hassan impatiently, waiting for the killer blow. Their conversation was with each other, low-voiced and private.

Only Sidi ould Kasim's daughter watched in silence.

It was a year since she and Moz had last said a word to each other. Malika still hadn't forgiven Moz for the fact his ma had refused to marry her father. He watched her though, each night, through a crack between the tiles in his bedroom floor. A thin girl with reddish hair and bony shoulders, whose buttocks were as scrawny as any goat.

"Are you still fighting," said Hassan, his question contemptuous, "or have you given up?"

Moz punched him. The only blow he'd actually managed to land. "I don't give up," he said, watching Hassan put a hand to his face and find blood. "Don't you know anything?"

It was the first of three fights with Hassan, and the one Moz would remember best; not for its violence or fierceness or even how it ended, but for the noise that suddenly crashed through the open window of a yellow van parked, quite illegally, in the shade of a half-dead palm behind them.

The boy whose nose had just been broken was all of eleven and a whole head higher than most of his age, making him taller by far than Moz. "I'm bleeding," said Hassan, examining his fingers.

"Here." Idries pulled a blade from his pocket. "You can borrow this." He held his knife out to Hassan, who shook his head angrily while the nameless boys said nothing, just watched and waited to see how Hassan would react.

And then, suddenly, as if sound-tracking their expectation came music like no other.

Won't get fooled again...

Crashing chords and a language Moz barely understood.

Only he would get fooled, Moz knew that. He wasn't clever enough to stay out of trouble or fast enough to run away. Hassan and he fought over a packet of tissues. A small, locally produced packet wrapped in cellophane and printed with the name "Kleenex," because this was a make the nasrani knew and recognizing what they bought made foreigners happy.

Moz had been warned not to work Idries's patch, but everyone who knew him agreed he was bad at listening. And Moz was better at selling the tissues than Idries, because the nasrani only had to look at his empty sleeve and torn jellaba to begin reaching for coins. Idries was good at looking sad but he couldn't compete with that, no one could.

Hassan didn't actually sell the tissues. He just took a cut from Idries and half a dozen other boys, none of them as good at selling as Moz.

Moz grinned.

"I'm going to kill you," Hassan said quietly.

"He is," agreed Idries.

The older boys remained silent.

And behind them all stood Malika, as if not quite part of what was happening. She was still scuffing one bare heel in the red dirt when Moz struck again. Only this time he kicked, as hard as he could, one toe breaking as he caught Hassan between the legs.

No one said anything as Hassan crashed to the ground, writhing around in the dust like a beetle with half its legs torn off, although even the two older boys looked vaguely impressed.

Stepping forward, Moz stamped on Hassan's stomach.

"Hey," someone shouted from the door of the van. "That's enough."

The nasrani wore a thick coat, this was the first thing Moz noticed about him. In the height of summer, the man wore a goatskin waistcoat with a fur collar. Moz was so surprised by this that he forgot to keep an eye on Hassan. Not that it mattered, the older boy was still in the dirt, clutching his stomach. The second thing Moz noticed only when the foreigner came over to help Hassan to his feet. The coat stank.

"You have a name?" he asked Moz.

Moz nodded. Of course he did. "I'm Hamid."

"Call me Dave," said the man. "And I mean it. You really shouldn't fight." The nasrani spoke English, which meant Moz was the only one able to understand him. The boy waited politely to find out why he shouldn't fight but the blond foreigner merely smiled. As if the statement was enough.

"What did he say?" Hassan demanded.

"That we shouldn't fight."

The older boy snorted, his battle with Moz temporarily forgotten. Dusting himself down, Hassan came to stand beside the smaller boy. "Ask him if he's got cigarettes," Hassan ordered.

The man pulled a crumpled packet of Gauloise from his jeans and handed them over as if this was nothing. Moz passed them to Hassan, who flipped one from the packet and stuck it in his mouth.

"Use this." Dave Giles tossed Hassan a plastic lighter and waved it away when the boy tried to give it back. "Keep the thing," he said. "I've got another."