Distant laughter. The smell of perfume... women's perfume. Damn! I've died and gone to Paradise. Casca opened his eyes. Bright lights. Beautifully carved walls. Well, damn. The Muslims had it right after all. Somehow he had died and gone to Paradise, and here he was in the Muslim Paradise, because this was obviously a very, very fancy heavenly whorehouse. Then – reality kicked him in the butt. Wherever he was, and he had no idea where nor how he had got here, it sure as hell wasn't Paradise. He was stripped buck naked and tied to a marble column in what he recognized now as the anteroom in somebody's very fancy palace, an anteroom apparently very close to the seraglio. Standing around him were half a dozen armed eunuch guards, a snaky eyed son of a bitch in very rich robes of Chin (obviously somebody of very big importance), Bu Ali, and Mamud. "...tried to get into the seraglio," Snake Eyes was saying.
