"And then? What then?" Asked the Great Khan, perched on his great ivory throne amid the hall of seventy-seven pillars. Upon the alabaster floor, Marco Polo sat on a thin cushion made of Chinese silk. "Did you see a clock that could talk in seven tongues? Did you meet a blind man that woke up every morning to find he had painted in his sleep what the angels' dreamt? Did you walk through a city in the desert made of ice and mirrors and all it ever reflected upon was its own destruction? What then? Tell me, Marco!"

"Polo," he replied with a smirk. "And then, Great Khan? My time, as they say, was up. My visa had expired and I had to go."