Shrine of the Desert Mage

Volume I of the Parsina Saga.

Starting from the fabled holy city of Ravan, two paths diverge that will take their respective travelers to the farthest reaches of Parsina. The black-hearted thief Hakem Rafi comes into possession of the ultimate power of evil, while the storyteller Jafar al-Sharif and his daughter Selima begin a longer involuntary journey that will test the limits of their ingenuity. But first, they must fool the world's greatest wizard into believing that they, too, are practitioners of the mystic arts.

Thus begins the Parsina Saga, a journey through a world of djinni, flying carpets and high adventure in exotic realms -- with the fate of the world at stake.