"This is not such a bad place," Shan offered.

Marco shrugged. "Sure. Our own little world. The shepherds came, sometimes. My father traded furs for the things my mother wanted. We made a good life. Then a fever came. I was fourteen. There were no doctors for people like us. I awoke after my fever broke, in my bed alone. My father was dead, lying on a pile of fresh earth. I thought he had buried the family treasure. I uncovered it. He did bury our treasure. He had died burying my mother." Marco turned and disappeared into the tower.

Shan looked about to see Lokesh holding the tapestry that hung at the far corner of the room, looking down a dark hallway. Lokesh entered the hallway and Shan followed, leaving Batu and Malik staring at their reflections in the samovar.

The hall had three doorways framed in hewn logs. The first led to a large room with a small iron stove and a plank table surrounded by mismatched chairs, some made of sturdy tree limbs, others of fine carved wood with soiled, though once elegant, silk seat cushions. A dried shank of meat hung from the ceiling, as did small strings of onions.

Lokesh stood at the second doorway, studying the next room's contents with intense curiosity. Over his shoulder Shan saw that the walls of the room were covered with photographs torn out of magazines, images of horses and birds and Western actors and actresses, most with captions in English. From two heavy log beams overhead hung several pelts of fur. On one wall above a shelf jammed with books was a poster of a Hong Kong rock star. Near the door there was a sleeping pallet on a rough wooden frame. A row of military caps hung on pegs over the bed. Chinese, but also foreign army caps. Shan studied them. Indian. And Pakistani, and another he did not recognize. Below the caps was a single photograph of a girl on a horse, laughing. Jakli. On the upended log that served as a bedside table stood a cassette player, a tape box on top. Advanced conversational English, it said. Lokesh picked up a heavy walking stick leaning in the corner by the door and extended it for Shan to see. Carved along the length of the stick in English letters was the name Niccolo.

"It's not Russian," Shan said. "Niccolo. Not Russian, not Kazakh."

"Italian," came a bass voice from behind him. "Marco Polo visited strange lands, but before him his father Niccolo went down the Silk Road. He went to foreign lands first, before Marco. Niccolo Polo Myagov," Marco said with pride.

"And so history repeats itself," Shan ventured as he turned in the doorway. It wasn't just her marriage that Jakli was anticipating, and it wasn't just the marriage that Lau had wanted to protect her for by keeping her in probation. Nikki was making one last caravan, Osman had said. Shan had not at first understood what Jakli had written when the karaburan was bearing down on them, because she had written in English. I'll be with you in the beautiful country. She had meant Mei Guo, because it was translated as beautiful country in Chinese. America.

Marco's eyes widened as he studied Shan a moment, then the Eluosi shrugged. Marco picked up one of the two other wooden sticks that stood in the corner by the walking stick, and examined it absently. It was tapered and smooth, with a knob at the narrow end. For hitting baseballs, Shan suddenly realized. "He wasn't sure at first. Even then he had to convince Jakli. She said she didn't think America had horses, that all Americans had two cars and wouldn't want horses. But Deacon told her that people have horses for pleasure. Said he has a ranch. Said he would buy horses for them. So now they're getting out, thank god."

Getting out. For a while Shan had been getting out, or at least could pretend he was getting out. The truck to Nepal was gone. He had lost track of the days. Maybe today was the day that someone on the border would be waiting for him, waiting for an hour or two, perhaps the whole day, before deciding that Shan had been prevented from being liberated. Somehow his own failure to reach the outside seemed to make it all the more important that Nikki and Jakli succeeded.

Marco sighed and surveyed his son's room in silence, then motioned for his visitors to follow him. "Time to earn your keep."

He led them outside to Sophie, who was standing beside Lokesh, her big moist eyes only two feet from the Tibetan's own, staring intently at the old man. Marco pulled a small metal hook from a nearby stump and handed it to Shan. "Boots," he said to Shan, then extended a brush to Lokesh. "Bags." The Tibetan seemed to awaken at the words, and accepted the brush with a small grin.

Marco showed Shan how to use the hook to clean the camels' feet of any stones or twigs that had lodged in their hooves, then demonstrated on Sophie how Lokesh should brush the thick hair on their humps. Then Marco produced a handful of sugar cubes from his pocket and handed them to the boys, who eagerly offered the treats to the camels.

As Malik moved away to offer the last cube to his own horse, Shan followed. "I saw what was in his grave," he said to the youth's back. The boy only nodded as he stroked his horse's mane.

"Was it Khitai's compass?" Shan asked.

"No," Malik said in a whisper, as if frightened to speak of the thing. "His zheli parents, they said they found it near his body, lying against a rock. Khitai must have knocked it away from the killer." Malik turned to face Shan. "In the old days if a warrior died in battle, you buried him with the trophies he had taken from his enemies." The boy shrugged and turned back to his horse.

They ate a vegetable stew prepared by Lokesh on the little iron stove. Afterward Shan wandered out toward the pasture, watching as the evening stars rose, listening to the serene sound of the waterfall, immersing himself in the peacefulness of the place. He saw a glimmer of light and discovered Marco with a lantern at the end of the cabin, talking in low tones to Sophie as he stroked her back. Shan sat on a log and watched, not thinking the Eluosi had seen him until a few minutes later, when Marco's hand swung out and gestured for him. "You can scratch her ears," he said. "She likes that, after a long day."

The two men worked on the animal in silence for several minutes.

"She's a handsome creature," Shan offered.

Marco nodded approvingly. "And smart as any two Chinese." A moment later he looked up, his mouth open, as though to apologize, but did not.

"Your son," Shan said. "He has his own camels?"

"He prefers horses. Grew up riding with the Red Stone clan. He rides a strong black mountain horse. His mother's stock had Cossack blood."

"Is she traveling too then?" Shan asked.

Marco grew silent. "Not here," he said in a tone that made it clear Shan had gone too far. Marco's parents had died at the cabin, Shan recalled, but there were three graves.

"I have a boy," Shan volunteered quietly. "He would be eighteen."

"Would be?"

"I don't know," Shan began. "I haven't seen him for eight years." Marco looked at him and seemed to recognize that Shan too had pieces of his life too painful to probe.

"Eighteen. Not a boy, then," Marco said. "A man. Not much younger than my Nikki. Did he have a horse when he was young?"

"No. No horses."

"A camel, perhaps?" Sophie stood with her eyes closed, but her ears moved as if she were following their conversation.

"No."

"Ah," Marco acknowledged with a sympathetic tone. "Not everyone gets to ride in this life." He produced a wooden comb, which he began to run through the hairs of Sophie's neck. He handed it to Shan after a minute and showed him how to use it, putting his huge hand over Shan's to pull it through the hair.