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

“Is he dead?” asked Joshua.

The girls laid my paralyzed body on some pillows next to Joshua, then propped me up so I could look at Balthasar. Beautiful Gate of Heavenly Moisture Number Six, who I had only just met and didn’t have a nickname for yet, put some drops on my eyes to keep them moist, as I seemed to have lost the ability to blink.

“No,” said Balthasar, “he’s not dead. He’s just relaxed.”

Joshua poked me in the ribs and, of course, I didn’t respond. “Really relaxed,” he said.

Beautiful Gate of Heavenly Moisture Number Six handed Joshua the little vial of eye drops and excused herself. She and the other girls left the room. “Can he see and hear us?” Joshua asked.

“Oh yes, he’s completely alert.”

“Hey Biff, I’m learning about Chi,” Joshua shouted into my ear. “It flows all around us. You can’t see it, or hear it, or smell it, but it’s there.”

“You don’t need to shout,” said Balthasar. Which is what I would have said, if I could have said anything.

Joshua put some drops in my eyes. “Sorry.” Then to Balthasar, “This poison, where did it come from?”

“I studied under a sage in China who had been the emperor’s royal poisoner. He taught me this, and many other of the magics of the five elements.”

“Why would an emperor need a poisoner?”

“A question that only a peasant would ask.”

“An answer that only an ass would give,” said Joshua.

Balthasar laughed. “So be it, child of the star. A question asked in earnest deserves an earnest answer. An emperor has many enemies to dispatch, but more important, he has many enemies who would dispatch him. The sage spent most of his time concocting antidotes.”

“So there’s an antidote to this poison,” Joshua said, poking me in the ribs again.

“In good time. In good time. Have some more wine, Joshua. I wish to discuss with you the three jewels of the Tao. The three jewels of the Tao are compassion, moderation, and humility…”

An hour later, four Chinese girls came and picked me up, wiped the floor where I had drooled, and carried me to our quarters. As they passed the great ironclad door I could hear scraping and a voice in my head that said, “Hey kid, open the door,” but the girls made no notice of it. Back in my room, the girls bathed me and poured some rich broth into me, then put me to bed and closed my eyes.

I could hear Joshua enter the room and shuffle around preparing for bed. “Balthasar says he will have Joy give you the antidote to the poison soon, but first you have a lesson to learn. He says that this is the Chinese way of teaching. Strange, don’t you think?”

Had I been able to make a sound, I would have agreed, yes, indeed it was strange.

So you know:

Balthasar’s concubines were eight in number and their names were:

Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm,

Beautiful Gate of Heavenly Moisture Number Six,

Temptress of the Golden Light of the Harvest Moon,

Delicate Personage of Two Fu Dogs Wrestling Under a Blanket,

Feminine Keeper of the Three Tunnels of Excessive Friendliness,

Silken Pillows of the Heavenly Softness of Clouds,

Pea Pods in Duck Sauce with Crispy Noodle,

and Sue.

And I found myself wondering, as a man does, about origins and motivations and such—as each of the concubines was more beautiful than the last, regardless of what order you put them in, which was weird—so after several weeks passed, and I could no longer stand the curiosity scratching at my brain like a cat in a basket, I waited until one of the rare occasions when I was alone with Balthasar, and I asked.

“Why Sue?”

“Short for Susanna,” Balthasar said.

So there you go.

Their full names were somewhat ungainly, and to try to pronounce them in Chinese produced a sound akin to throwing a bag of silverware down a flight of steps (ting, tong, yang, wing, etc.) so Joshua and I called the girls as follows:

Joy,

Number Six,

Two Fu Dogs,

Moon,

Tunnels,

Pillows,

Pea Pods,

and, of course,

Sue,

which we couldn’t figure out how to shorten.

Except for a group of men who brought supplies from Kabul every two weeks, and while there would do any heavy moving, the eight young women did everything around the fortress. Despite the remoteness and the obvious wealth that the fortress housed, there were no guards. I found that curious.

Over the next week Joy tutored me in the characters that I would need to know to read the Book of the Divine Elixirs or the Nine Tripods of the Yellow Emperor, and the Book of Liquid Pearl in Nine Cycles and of the Nine Elixirs of the Divine Immortals. The plan was that once I became conversant in these two ancient texts, I would be able to assist Balthasar in his quest for immortality. That, by the way, was the reason that we were there, the reason that Balthasar had followed the star to Bethlehem at Joshua’s birth, and the reason that he had put Ahmad on notice to look for a Jew seeking the African magus. Balthasar sought immortality, and he believed that Joshua held the key to it. Of course we didn’t know that at the time.

My concentration while studying the symbols was particularly acute, helped by the fact that I could not move a muscle. Each morning Two Fu Dogs and Pillows (both named for their voluptuousness, which evidently came with considerable strength) would pull me from bed, squeeze me over the latrine, bathe me, pour some broth into me, then take me to the library and prop me in a chair while Joy lectured on Chinese characters, which she painted with a wet brush on large sheets of slate set on easels. Sometimes the other girls would stay and pose my body into various positions that amused them, and as much as I should have been annoyed by the humiliation, the truth be told, watching Pillows and Two Fu Dogs jiggle in paroxysms of girlish laughter was fast becoming the high point of my paralyzed day.

At midday, Joy would take a break while two or more of the other girls squoze me over the latrine, poured more broth into me, and then teased me mercilessly until Joy returned, clapped her hands, and sent them away well scolded. (Joy was the bull-ox concubine of them all, despite her tiny feet.)

Sometimes during these breaks, Joshua would leave his own lessons and come to the library to visit.

“Why have you painted him blue?” asked Joshua.

“He looks good blue,” said Pea Pods. Two Fu Dogs and Tunnels stood by with paintbrushes admiring their work.

“Well, he’s not going to be happy with this when he gets the antidote, I can tell you that.” Then to me Joshua said, “You know, you do sort of look good blue. Biff, I’ve appealed to Joy on your behalf, but she says she doesn’t think you’ve learned your lesson yet. You have learned your lesson though, haven’t you? Stop breathing for a second if the answer is yes.”

I did.

“I thought so.” Joshua bent and whispered in my ear. “It’s about that room behind the iron door. That’s the lesson they want you to learn. I got the feeling that if I asked about it I’d be propped up there next to you.” He stood up. “I have to go now. The three jewels to learn, don’t you know. I’m on compassion. It’s not as hard as it sounds.”

Two days later Joy came to my room in the morning with some tea. She pulled the tiny bottle from inside her dragon robe and held it close in front of my eyes. “You see the two small corks, a white one on one side of the vessel and a black one on the other? The black one is the poison I gave you. The white one is the antidote. I think you’ve learned your lesson.”

I drooled in response, while sincerely hoping she hadn’t mixed up the corks.

She tipped the little bottle over a teacup, then poured some tea down my throat, with half of it going down the front of my shirt as well. “That will take a while to work. You may experience some discomfort as the poison wears off.” Joy dropped the little bottle down into its nest of Chinese cleavage, then kissed me on the forehead and left. If I could, I would have snickered at the blue paint she had on her lips as she walked away. Ha!