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and found herself in a long, dark alleyway, a blank wall rising up in front of her like a cliff. Looking up she saw the familiar tear-shaped windows, with the chicken coop structure just visible on the right. The high wall had to be the rear of the mosque near the motorcycle.
    Behind her she could hear the pounding of the swordsman’s bare feet on the path and his labored breathing, but she didn’t even try to look back. Instead she tried to run faster, eyes moving to the left and right. There was no door at the end of the dark, narrow passage, no ladders or opening to the side, no way out. It was a dead end. There was nowhere else to run, no other option except to turn and make a futile stand that could only end in savage pain and final oblivion.
    The one faint hope was a window in the wall of the mosque, but as she continued to run forward she saw that it was much too high to reach. Besides, it was covered with an ornately carved and decorated wooden screen. It was no use, she was as good as dead. She looked on the ground in front of her, desperately hoping to find something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing except hard bare ground and the ever-present layer of dust.
    She hesitated, half turning to meet her fate, then turned back to the mosque, seeing a movement and a flash of color on the periphery of her vision. There was a crash and the wooden screen that blocked the high window shattered outward and a figure in a pink T-shirt appeared.
    Baqir, the Care Bear bandit.
    The boy yelled something incomprehensible in Arabic and leaned out of the window, extending both arms down the pale wall of the mosque. Beyond him Finn could see several of his young companions, anchoring him from behind. In a last frantic burst she reached the foot of the wall and jumped, clutching for the boy’s outstretched hands. She felt him grip her wrists and drag her upward. From behind her came a rush of air and the clattering smash of steel on stone as the swordsman hacked upward with his blade, missing the stroke, the machete biting into the wall instead of her flesh.
    Baqir and his gang hauled Finn through the broken window and into the cool semidarkness of the mosque. They were on a raised gallery edged with more wooden screens like the one that had covered the window. Below was an empty prayer space covered with beautifully woven carpets facing a tall altarlike structure. Above there was nothing but the yawning emptiness of the dome, the arching barrel of the vault decorated in fantastic, complex mosaics of tile in blues, greens, and gold, like the sun shining down on the fields and streams of paradise.
    Baqir and his friends pulled her toward a narrow flight of steps, then hurried her across the carpet-covered floor to an arched doorway on the other side of the high, open space. They headed out into the smoky haze. Ahead, two young boys were playing marbles on a gravestone. Baqir barked an order. The marble players looked up, replied quickly, then ran off. One of Baqir’s shorter lieutenants tugged at Finn’s sleeve and gestured with a word. They moved quickly down a broad pathway and through an old wrought-iron gate that led out into a surprisingly green garden of flowers growing in front of a small but obviously prosperous mausoleum, its walls freshly whitewashed, its windows covered with ornate wooden grilles.
    Led by her crowing, chattering escort Finn raced down a narrow alley then burst out into a wider area bounded by more gravestones and awning-covered areas of shade like the one she’d crashed through a few moments before. It was another version of the animal market. The stench was almost overpowering. In one corner a rough table was stacked with what Finn knew had to be freshly butchered camel legs, lumps of yellow bone protruding from severed flesh and blood-clotted fur. Buckets were lined up, filled with goat, donkey, and sheep entrails. Old jars, tins, and drums stuffed with overflowing slabs of cow liver and