Last May, when our known world was one way, we began planning these stories. By last month, when we were finishing work on this issue, the world was another way.
For years, Silk Road travelers made the grueling trek past towering mountain ranges and ancient cities now lost to time. Centuries later, one writer attempts to retrace the journey.
His image is so commonplace that you could believe it must always have existed — yet for six centuries after his death, he was never once depicted in human form.
