Teenage protagonist Aimee Thurman tells the story of how her modern African American family is hurled to the "end of the earth"-Timbuktu, in the fourteenth century. It's a time and place teeming with devious djinn and other wilderness spirits, griots and sorcerers, devout Muslim marabouts and fierce Tuareg generals. Above it all reigns Mansa Kankan Musa, emperor of Africa's legendary Golden Empire. Will he allow them to return to the twenty-first century with their heads still attached?