"Ah, it's you," the man called Hoof said dully to Jakli, and his gaze drifted toward the door. "I didn't see you," he muttered. His confusion seeemed to fade, replaced by something that Shan thought might be disappointment.

Shan felt moisture on his hand where he had tried to push the man away. "You're bleeding," he gasped, suddenly afraid he might have injured the man.

The expression on the man's face as he looked at his wounded right shoulder was not alarm, but disgust. "Robbed, and stuck in the bargain," he groused in a high voice. "Nothing but bad joss here." He had a huge nose and pale skin, with spots on his cheeks that might have been freckles. His small features came to life as he sat and studied Shan. "No one wants you here," he said with an odd hint of hope in his voice.

"You should clean that cut," Shan said, exploring his pockets for something to help the man.

"You'll have to go before-" The man's warning was cut off by the appearance of a figure in the doorway, a tall man wearing a embroidered skullcap and a brilliant green shirt from which the sleeves had been torn. He held a glass, which he was wiping with a scrap of cloth.

"Damn you, Osman!" Hoof squealed. "Some dog's whore stole my pouch." As if having an afterthought he raised a hand, which was red with his blood. "And stabbed me. A man isn't safe!"

The man he had called Osman grunted, and his eyes lit as he saw Jakli. He raised his head with a broad smile, then noticed Shan. The smile disappeared. He threw the rag at Hoof and stepped back into the shadows.

"Sons of pigs!" Hoof cursed and threw the rag back at the door.

Shan tore a strip from his undershirt and tied it around the man's wound. As he did so the man's expression softened. "You'll need to leave. I could help you," the man said in a new, confiding tone. "I am called Hoof. I'm a good Tadjik. I know the desert. I have Chinese friends. I'll take you to town. You'll be safe in a town."

"He's safe where he is," Jakli said, stepping forward so that she towered over Hoof, who was still sprawled in the sand.

"Sure he is, sure he is, if he's with you." Hoof scuttled backward on all fours, crablike, out of Jakli's shadow, then leapt up and darted back into the building.

Shan looked after him. "His name is Hoof?" he asked Jakli.

She sighed, watching the doorway with worry in her eyes. "It's a way of some of the old herding clans. A baby is named after the first thing the mother sees on the morning after the birth." She motioned him toward her, as if to lead him away from the building.

But Shan followed Hoof inside.

At first it seemed he was entering a cavern. He stepped into an unlit corridor five paces long, with deeper shadows that hinted of alcoves on either side. In the dim light he studied the sand floor of the corridor as he moved down it, trying to understand what had just happened to the Tadjik. A stone wall faced him at the end of the hallway. A ghost wall. The hands that had constructed the structure had been guided by a geomancer, one of the shamans who were more important than any architect or carpenter in building even the simplest stable in the traditional kingdoms of northern Asia. Practicing his art of feng shui, a geomancer had long ago directed the placement of a wall facing the door, because evil spirits only flew in straight lines. The main entrance itself, Shan realized, opened to the south because those same spirits lived in the north.

The scent of lamp oil and and cinnamon hung in the air. He heard laughter and a loud voice telling a ribald joke in Mandarin.

At the wall he turned to the left, into a short corridor that ended in a small arched doorway. Shan stood in the arch and stared through a miasma of tobacco smoke into what appeared to be the public room of an inn. The chamber was illuminated by a dozen large candles and four kerosene lanterns, two of which were suspended from the wooden beams over a large table by loops of what looked like telephone cable. The table, which stood ten feet away, had been raised by piles of flat stones under its legs, so that it stood at the waist of the man who had briefly appeared in the doorway, the tall man called Osman. He was leaning on the makeshift bar beside a basket of dried figs, a stack of flat nan bread and a collection of bottles containing liquids, most in various shades of brown. Drinking glasses, many of them cracked and dirty, were stacked precariously at the edge of the table. Behind Osman a large shaggy grey dog lay on the floor, asleep.

A dozen men were scattered around the room, seated at several large wooden crates that functioned as makeshift tables. The wounded Hoof shared a bottle with another man at the table furthest from the door, holding his arm, scowling at Osman as he muttered something that made his companion laugh. A small, exquisitely carved table stood in the center of the room, unoccupied. On it stood an ornate chess set and beside it was a large, filthy, overstuffed chair that had the appearance of a pincushion from all the straw that had been jammed into the holes in its upholstery.

The clamor of voices abruptly ceased as he stepped into the room.

Shan was the only Han.

With the eyes of half the men fixed on him, Shan moved uncertainly to an upended box beside the bar. As he sat and reached for one of the figs, his observers turned away. The volume of conversation rose again. Two men rose to refill their glasses, giving the stuffed chair a wide berth. Shan saw that the sleeve of the bright red shirt worn by one of the men appeared empty, and he looked closer. The man was missing an arm below the elbow.

Through the smoke Shan studied a mural painted on the wall behind Osman. It contained figures with long faces and beards, the faces of Europeans or perhaps Persians. They were riding donkeys with heavy packs toward a man who awaited them under a grape arbor. One of the figures had its eyes scratched out, a familiar sight in the lands of the Muslims, whose holy law forbade images of humans. A nail had been driven into the plaster above the mural to support a small framed black and white photograph of a horse. In a niche beside a curtain that hung at the opposite end of the bar was a stone Buddha, badly cracked, into whose pursed lips a cigarette butt had been jammed. A hand-lettered sign hung on the wall above it, proclaiming This Bar is Nei Lou. On the wall past the curtain was suspended a white flag with a crescent moon and a single star.

"Do you have tea?" Shan asked.

"What you see is what you can have." The man called Osman held up a leather drinking bladder. "Kumiss," he said, then pointed with it toward the bottles. "Bai jin. Mao-tai. Beer. Vodka." He had a gravelly, impatient voice. "Two yuan."

"Two yuan?" Shan asked in disbelief. Two yuan would buy a meal for an entire family in many parts of China.

"Our special rate for eastern visitors."

"I'll just have water."

"Three yuan."

Shan felt someone at his shoulder. "Two teas, Osman," Jakli said.

The bartender frowned. "He's with you?"

"With me. A friend of Auntie Lau."

"He's here on your word?"

Jakli said nothing. She stared at him for a moment, then stepped to the wall and pulled the cigarette butt from the Buddha's mouth, throwing it to the floor. "Two teas."

Osman considered her silently, then leaned down and pulled a large black thermos from the floor. He filled two of his glasses with steaming black tea.

"Nikki?" Shan heard her ask in a quick, anxious tone as he surveyed the room. "I don't see his men."