Amesh was no fool, and he knew the rules of the djinn.

And he was desperate.

Was Amesh going to try to have spielo take his place? the idea was not as far-fetched as it sounded. It would be easy to get spielo, who knew nothing about the Laws of the Djinn, to make wishes, maybe even three. If so, Darbar would still end up with a thrall, and he might let Amesh off the hook.

But I did not believe Amesh could escape so easily. Already, he was almost Darbar's thrall. He had made three wishes.

According to the rules, as soon as Darbar fulfilled the last wish, it would be all over for Amesh. The carpet had never said another person could become a thrall in your place. Still, I feared spielo might end up a thrall as well, that Darbar would harvest two tonight. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it.

Amesh patted spielo on the back. "Don't worry, my friend.

When we reach the shar temple, you'll be happy. All those who hurt us will be there. And my djinn will be there, waiting to punish them."

"How are we going to get through the gate?" spielo asked.

Amesh brought out a wad of lira. "the men who work security are as poor as the rest of us. They'll be happy to take our money and let us through. Just as long as we're not carrying a bomb. I have a limousine outside. It's beautiful! it has food and drink in it. We'll travel in style!"

"Why not fly there on the magic carpet?" spielo asked.

Amesh got angry. "Why do you keep bringing up the carpet?"

"You're the one who told me about it. Why won't you show it to me?"

Amesh went to snap at him again but paused. A weird look came over him, a look I had seen before on the island when Darbar had spoken in his head. He closed his eyes; he could have been falling into a trance. Spielo reached out and shook him.

"Amesh?" he said.

Amesh opened his eyes. "You'll see the carpet tonight." spielo was excited. "Can you take me for a ride?" he asked.

Amesh glanced in our direction. He could not see me, I knew, but maybe he sensed me.

"Is Darbar looking through Amesh's eyes right now?" I hissed at Lova.

"Yes," she said.

"Does Darbar sense you here?" I asked "Yes," Lova said.

When Amesh spoke next, even though Darbar was talking to spielo, I felt like what he said was for my benefit.

"I'll take you places you never dreamed of," he said. They left the room. Lova and I hopped back on the carpet and flew above the parking lot. I had to stay low to hear them.

But I felt safe in the black sky, with our black clothes and the black bottom on the carpet. I was also pretty sure I was below any citywide radar.

A long white limousine waited for the boys. Amesh had not been exaggerating when he said he had hired guards. Two armed men jumped out to welcome them. Then Amesh bent over, in pain, and started yelling at the men. Lova translated. She said that Amesh wanted them to break into the hospital pharmacy. But they shook their heads and said that would alert the police. Amesh pulled a wad of lira out of his pocket. He gave it to the bigger guard.

"Bribe whoever you have to. But get me medicine that stops pain." spielo was no dummy. "Your hand's hurting you. There's something wrong with it."

"My hand's fine! I just need the medicine!" Amesh yelled. Spielo spoke to the guards in whispers I could not hear.

One of them went inside. The spasm in Amesh's hand kept up.

He was was in terrible pain. But oddly enough he kept looking up at the sky. I knew Darbar was telling him I was near. Spielo watched him. "What are you looking at?" he asked. in terrible pain. But oddly enough he kept looking up at the sky. I knew Darbar was telling him I was near. Spielo watched him. "What are you looking at?" he asked.

"She's up there," Amesh said.

"Who?"

"Sara. She's spying on us." spielo looked around. "I don't see her. Where is she?"

Amesh pointed to the sky, but in the wrong direction.

"up there!" spielo sucked in a breath. "Does she have the carpet?"

Amesh got annoyed. "She stole it from me. I'm going to get it back." the big guard returned in a few minutes with a bag full of medicines. Amesh studied them while spielo tried to talk him into letting a doctor look at his hand. Amesh refused.

"Doctors can't help me," he said.

"Can your djinn?" spielo asked quietly, so the guards could not hear.

Amesh paused before answering. "Sara promised me she would. But she lied. American girls are like that-you can't trust them."

"Yesterday you told me that she was the greatest girl in the world." I had no idea when he had told spielo this, but it warmed my heart to hear it. Maybe I was grasping at straws, but I knew deep inside this was not the real Amesh I was seeing. The pain in his body and the agony of the djinn in his mind had turned him into someone he would ordinarily have hated.

His last words, before they left, confirmed my belief.

"Yesterday was a long time ago," Amesh said.

Chapter Twenty.

tHeir LOnG WHite LimOusine rode through the dark streets of Istanbul-and out into the desert, where it was even darker- toward the hydroelectric plant. I commanded the carpet to follow the limo no matter where it went. But I kept my alt.i.tude low, barely above the building tops. There was no way I wanted to face another jet. To make myself more comfortable, I told Lova to shrink in size so I had room to stretch out on the carpet and stare up at the stars. A half moon rose in the east, but its soft white light worried me. I was pretty hard to see, up here in the night sky, but I was not invisible.

With the moon up, I instructed the carpet to let the limo have a half-mile lead. I was no longer eager to hear what Amesh had to say, and I had another reason for backing off. Spielo was obviously fascinated with all the limo's gadgets, including the skylight. He had opened the roof, and I worried that he might spot us. It was cute, his fascination with magic carpets, but his curiosity could cause problems.

After listening to Amesh and spielo talk in the hospital room, I realized that Amesh had lied to his grandfather when it came to the shar temple. Amesh had told his Papi he had seen it once, when it was clear he was obsessed with the place. But why obsess over it unless it had something he wanted? then it struck me. The answer.

Was the shar temple a djinn temple?

Boy, it was obvious! I should have realized it earlier! it explained so much. For one thing, it explained the mystery of why Amesh had changed into a wild man on the island when he heard we were surrounded by djinn temples. He already had an obsession with them long before we met.

He was not alone. Whatever Amesh knew about the shar temple-mr. Toval, mrs. Steward, and my father knew ten times more. They were the bosses in charge of the job site. They could go in to the temple whenever they wanted. I was confident that I had not been allowed in to see it because they didn't want it seen. The whole idea of asking the archaeologist's permission had been a charade.

Had they found the cave by chance? Or had they chosen this location for the hydroelectric plant because it gave them an excuse to dig up the area with modern equipment? it was doubtful mr. Toval and mrs. Steward had ordered the four boys to attack Amesh. The act was brutal; by its very nature it would call attention to the temple. But the two bosses had probably arranged for the four young men to guard the cave. And the security mea sure had gotten out of hand.

Way out of hand. No pun intended. Mr. Demir had talked about how the four guys had shown up in court with lawyers they should not have been able to afford. That meant there was money behind them, which was another way of saying that mr. Toval and mrs. Steward were protecting the guys-and the temple. It was a fact that the bosses had lied. It was also a fact that my father knew they were lying. It made my heart ache to admit my father was involved, but it was the only explanation that made sense. My father was honorable. Yet when push came to shove, he'd kept his mouth shut to protect his superiors. The guilt . . . It must have torn him apart. Mr. Demir had praised my father for his selfless acts. How he visited Amesh every day at the hospital. How he had arranged for the best doctors for Amesh. But all the while my father had been acting out of guilt.

that was why my dad was worried I was seeing Amesh. He feared I was going to learn the truth. It probably terrified him that I would see him as a criminal.

Yet there were bigger issues-even than Amesh's injury- when it came to the shar temple. Once again, it dealt with the possibility that mr. Toval, mrs. Steward, and my father were deliberately searching for such sites. Since I was a kid, my dad had read books on archaeology. He had a whole library of them at his house.

Was his interest in the djinn in his blood? it was possible. We shared the same blood.

Yet there were gaps in my reasoning. Who had hired the guys who had almost killed me that afternoon? my dad would never have done anything to harm me, which meant he couldn't know about the carpet.

Looking back, it might have been a mistake not to tell him about it. With all his research in this part of the world, he might even know of its exis tence. I couldn't wait to see his face when I showed it to him. The pictures on the carpet caught my eyes. Now that I had been to the island, discovered my destiny as a Kala, and fought with the djinn, I felt as if I saw the images with a fresh vision. I certainly saw things I had not noticed before.

Once more, I a.s.sumed the carpet's story began in the upper right-hand corner. There was the equivalent of the Garden of eden scene, filled with two types of beings-humans and angels which I now suspected were djinn. I had only seen two djinn with my eyes and one had been a monster. Yet I think the carpet portrayed them the way they saw themselves.

As the story flowed around the star field, there was the fuzzy red image of the dragon. It could have been any kind of monster, actually. Its red light poured down on the soft green of the garden and stripped it bare and transformed the garden into desert. The dragon reminded me of the red star I had seen above the island. It had been fuzzy because of the nebula that surrounded it.

A third type of creature entered the picture, one that interested me more than before. They were taller than humans and djinn, and darker than both, with brownish-gray skin, and strangely shaped faces. The bottom half of the carpet showed these creatures fighting the djinn and the humans. I a.s.sumed that this was the third race Lova had mentioned at the hotel.

As the story swept up the other side of the carpet, the dragon reappeared, but the djinn and the third race disappeared.

And as the dragon receded, all that was left were humans. Only now they wore robes instead of skins, and they were not as tall or as beautiful as their ancestors.

I ordered Lova to resume her normal size. I had questions.

"Tell me more about the beings the djinn warred with long ago."

Lova's red eyes glowed. "Why do they matter to you?"

"Because I don't believe I was attacked by a djinn today. Nor do I think that woman who wanted the carpet was possessed by a djinn. You're clever, Lova-you would have known if she was. It surprised you that the woman had a pashupa. That means it can't be a djinn weapon. It must be part of the a.r.s.enal of weapons of the race that defeated you before."

"You're guessing."

"You were scared when you returned with the carpet. I saw it in your face. What scared you, Lova?"

Lova slapped the carpet with her palm. "You could not have been struck with a pashupa! it would have killed you!" I had never seen her show such emotion.

"But I was was. .h.i.t with one and I'm still here. Does that scare you?" hit with one and I'm still here. Does that scare you?"

Lova looked away, at the desert. "No human scares me."

"What was the name of the creatures that defeated the djinn?"

Lova hesitated. "the Anulakai. But we do not speak of them." I pointed to the angels on the carpet. "Are these djinn?"

"Yes."

I pointed to the third race. "I a.s.sume these are Anulakai?" she hesitated. "Yes."

"You act like the djinn were the only ones who fought the Anulakai," I said. "It's clear from the carpet that humans fought them as well."

"Humans were created by the Anulakai. They were their slaves. They only rose up to fight them when . . ." Lova stopped.

"When they got tired of being slaves?" I asked.

Lova shrugged. "By then it was too late. The war was lost."

"Do the djinn resent humans because they didn't help earlier?"

"What is there to resent? Humans are inferior. We did not expect their help and we were not disappointed when we did not get it."

Lova was an elitist. One minute she was complaining humans had not risen up in time to help her people; the next minute she was saying it wouldn't have mattered.

"Where did the Anulakai come from?" I asked.

"Out of the darkness."

Swell, I thought. That could mean just about anything. thought. That could mean just about anything.

"Did they come from mars?" I asked.

"No."

"Another solar system?"

"No. They came out of the darkness."

"Are they here now on earth?" I demanded, frustrated.

Lova hesitated. "the djinn do not believe they totally left."

"Are they going to return here? in force?"

"Who can say? they might be already on their way."

"Why do you say they made us?" I asked.

"They genetically enhanced your race. Not to help you, but to make you better slaves. You mean nothing to them." that threw Darwin and creationism out the window at the same time-not an easy thing to do. I sensed Lova was giving me only part of the story.

"At most, there are only a few Anulakai here now," I said.

"How do you know?"

"Well, I've never run into one. That means we must have beat them the last time."

Lova was annoyed. "You did not defeat them. They withdrew."