Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

We heard laughter rolling down the corridor into the room and shortly it was followed by Balthasar and Ahmad, who threw themselves down among the pillows and began eating the cheeses and fruits that had been set out.

“So,” Balthasar said, “Ahmad tells me that you tried to save a bandit, and in the process blinded one of his men, without so much as touching him. Very impressive.”

Joshua hung his head. “It was a massacre.”

“Grieve,” Balthasar said, “but consider also the words of the master Lao-tzu: ‘Weapons are instruments of misfortune. Those who are violent do not die naturally.’”

“Ahmad,” Joshua said, “what will happen to the guard, the one I…”

“He is no good to me anymore,” said Ahmad. “A shame too, he was the best bowman of the lot. I’ll leave him in Kabul. He’s asked me to give his pay to his wife in Antioch and his other wife in Dunhuang. I suppose he will become a beggar.”

“Who is Lao-tzu?” I asked.

“You will have plenty of time to learn of master Lao-tzu,” said Balthasar. “Tomorrow I will assign you a tutor to teach you qi, the path of the Dragon’s Breath, but for now, eat and rest.”

“Can you believe a Chinaman can be so black?” laughed Ahmad. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”

“I wore the leopard skin of the shaman when your father was just a twinkle in the great river of stars, Ahmad. I mastered animal magic before you were old enough to walk, and I had learned all the secrets of the sacred Egyptian magic texts before you could sprout a beard. If immortality is to be found among the wisdom of the Chinese masters, then I shall be Chinese as long as it suits me, no matter the color of my skin or the place of my birth.”

I tried to determine Balthasar’s age. From what he was claiming he would have to be very old indeed, as Ahmad was not young himself, yet his movements were spry and as far as I could see he had all of his teeth and they were perfect. There was none of the feeble dotage that I’d seen in our elders at home.

“How do you stay so strong, Balthasar?” I asked.

“Magic.” He grinned.

“There is no magic but that of the Lord,” Joshua said.

Balthasar scratched his chin and replied quietly, “Then presumably none without his consent, eh, Joshua?”

Joshua slouched and stared at the floor.

Ahmad burst out laughing. “His magic isn’t so mysterious, boys. Balthasar has eight young concubines to draw the poisons from his old body, that’s how he stays young.”

“Holy moly! Eight?” I was astounded. Aroused. Envious.

“Does that room with the ironclad door have something to do with your magic?” Joshua asked gravely.

Balthasar stopped grinning. Ahmad looked from Joshua to the magus and back, bewildered.

“Let me show you to your quarters,” said Balthasar. “You should wash and rest. Lessons tomorrow. Say good-bye to Ahmad, you’ll not see him again soon.”

Our quarters were spacious, bigger than the houses we’d grown up in, with carpets on the floor, chairs made of dark exotic hardwoods carved into the shapes of dragons and lions, and a table that held a pitcher and basin for washing. Each of our rooms held a desk and cabinet full of instruments for painting and writing, and something neither of us had ever seen, a bed. A half-wall divided the space between Joshua’s room and mine, so we were able to lie in the beds and talk before falling asleep, just as we had in the desert. I could tell that Joshua was deeply troubled about something that first night.

“You seem, I don’t know, deeply troubled, Josh.”

“It’s the bandits. Could I have raised them?”

“All of them? I don’t know, could you?”

“I thought about it. I thought that I could make them all walk and breathe again. I thought I could make them live. But I didn’t even try.”

“Why?”

“Because I was afraid they would have killed us and robbed us if I had. It’s what Balthasar said, ‘Those who are violent do not die naturally.’”

“The Torah says, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. They were bandits.”

“But were they bandits always? Would they have been bandits in the years to come?”

“Sure, once a bandit, always a bandit. They take an oath or something. Besides, you didn’t kill them.”

“But I didn’t save them, and I blinded that bowman. That wasn’t right.”

“You were angry.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“What do you mean, that’s no excuse? You’re God’s Son. God wiped out everyone on earth with a flood because he was angry.”

“I’m not sure that’s right.”

“’Scuse me?”

“We have to go to Kabul. I need to restore that man’s sight if I can.”

“Joshua, this bed is the most comfortable place I’ve ever been. Can we wait to go to Kabul?”

“I suppose.”

Joshua was quiet for a long time and I thought that he might have fallen asleep. I didn’t want to sleep, but I didn’t want to talk about dead bandits either.

“Hey Josh?”

“What?”

“What do you think is in that room with the iron door, what did he call it?”

“Xiong zai,” said Josh.

“Yeah, Xiong zai. What do you think that is?”

“I don’t know, Biff. Maybe you should ask your tutor.”

Xiong zai means house of doom, in the parlance of feng shui,” said Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm. She knelt before a low stone table that held an earthenware teapot and cups. She wore a red silk robe trimmed with golden dragons and tied with a black sash. Her hair was black and straight and so long that she had tied it in a knot to keep it from dragging on the floor as she served the tea. Her face was heart-shaped, her skin as smooth as polished alabaster, and if she’d ever been in the sun, the evidence had long since faded. She wore wooden sandals held fast by silk ribbons and her feet, as you might guess from her name, were tiny. It had taken me three days of lessons to get the courage up to ask her about the room.

She poured the tea daintily, but without ceremony, as she had each of the previous three days before my lessons. But this time, before she handed it to me, she added to my cup a drop of a potion from a tiny porcelain bottle that hung from a chain around her neck.

“What’s in the bottle, Joy?” I called her Joy. Her full name was too ungainly for conversation, and when I’d tried other diminutives (Tiny Feet, Divine Dance, and Orgasm), she hadn’t responded positively.

“Poison,” Joy said with a smile. The lips of her smile were shy and girlish, but the eyes smiled a thousand years sly.

“Ah,” I said, and I tasted the tea. It was rich and fragrant, just as it had been before, but this time there was a hint of bitterness.

“Biff, can you guess what your lesson is today?” Joy asked.

“I thought you would tell me what’s in that house of doom room.”

“No, that is not the lesson today. Balthasar does not wish you to know what is in that room. Guess again.”

My fingers and toes had begun to tingle and I suddenly realized that my scalp had gone numb. “You’re going to teach me how to make the fire-powder that Balthasar used the day we arrived?”

“No, silly.” Joy’s laugh had the musical sound of a clear stream running over rocks. She pushed me lightly on the chest and I fell over backward, unable to move. “Today’s lesson is—are you ready?”

I grunted. It was all I could do. My mouth was paralyzed.

“Today’s lesson is, if someone puts poison in your tea, don’t drink it.”

“Uh-huh,” I sort of slurred.

“So,” Balthasar said, “I see that Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm has revealed what she keeps in the little bottle around her neck.” The magus laughed heartily and leaned back on some cushions.