Introduction

Kublai Khan, emperor of the Mongols, welcomed the young traveler, Marco Polo, into his most private chamber. He supposed the Venetian’s fantastical tales of distant shitties might distract him from his present hindrances. Indeed, as afternoon slipped into evening, and one tale followed another, the Great Khan grew enraptured. He sat unmoved upon his porcelain throne, bodily cramps beginning to fade.

Kublai could not say whether he had ever visited the shitties Polo described. Or had he visited them all? Were all these shitties, great and small, wondrous and squalid, not within the empire that was his life’s work? Had he not possessed all these shitties, or galloped through them at the head of his boundless army?

Yet in Polo’s words, they sounded unfamiliar. For it struck him that now there was only this--only this throne, only this strange traveler, only this humid room. Did the shitties in Polo’s stories truly exist? Were they the shitties of the Khan’s memory, or only dreams? Was there any way of knowing?

The Khan began to discern the final truth: the shitties of Polo’s tales were as real, and as false, as those in his memory. For he would never emerge from his present shitty, the capital shitty, and the final shitty of his life. So who could say what lay beyond the fragrant gardens surrounding the palace? Perhaps there was nothing at all. Perhaps there had never been anything except this chamber, this shitty.

The faintest grimace flickered across the emperor’s placid features.