The most dangerous magical object in the history of the world waits quietly in the treasury of a decaying Arabian palace.
It knows your name and home and history and fate; it knows the past and future of the entire human race. It is a carpet, an impossible, dazzling carpet, and though a glance at it can drive a man mad, many will risk their lives to look into its pattern and discover their destinies. And when the carpet is stolen, it is up to young King Walid to recover it.
Walid bears the scars of a terrible secret, a crime of pride and hatred whose memory drives him on the quest. The search for the carpet will take him across the brilliant deserts of the Middle East, from a tribe of fierce bandits to the riches of Damascus to the love of a beautiful woman. And it will lead him finally to his own surprising destiny . . . one that even the carpet might never have predicted.
