Lamb (13 page)

I heard a wailing behind me and before I could turn Joshua rode by me at full gallop, passing the bowmen and the lancers at our side of the caravan, bound for the mass of dead and dying bandits. He slung himself off his camel’s back and was running around the bodies like a madman, waving his arms and screaming until I could hear the rasp as his throat went raw.

“Stop this! Stop this!”

One bandit moved, trying to get to his feet, and our bowmen drew back to cut him down. Joshua threw his body on top of the bandit and pushed him back to the ground. I heard Ahmad give the command to hold.

A cloud of dust floated out of the canyon on the gentle desert breeze. A camel with a broken leg bellowed and an arrow in the eye put the animal to rest. Ahmad snatched a lance out of one of the guard’s hands and rode to where Joshua was shielding the wounded bandit.

“Move, Joshua,” Ahmad said, holding the lance at ready. “This must be finished.”

Joshua looked around him. All of the bandits and all of their animals were dead. Blood ran in rivulets in the dust. Already flies were collecting to feast. Joshua walked through the field of dead bandits until his chest was pressed against the bronze point of Ahmad’s lance. Tears streamed down Joshua’s face. “This was wrong!” he screeched.

“They were bandits. They would have killed us and stolen every
thing we had if we had not killed them. Does your own God, your father, not destroy those who sin? Now move aside, Joshua. Let this be finished.”

“I am not my father, and neither are you. You will not kill this man.”

Ahmad lowered the lance and shook his head balefully. “He will only die anyway, Joshua.” I could sense the guards fidgeting, not knowing what to do.

“Give me your water skin,” Joshua said.

Ahmad threw the water skin down to Joshua, then turned his camel and rode back to where the guards waited for him. Joshua took the water to the wounded bandit and held his head as he drank. An arrow protruded from the bandit’s stomach and his black tunic was shiny with blood. Joshua put his hand gently over the bandit’s eyes, as if he were telling him to go to sleep, then he yanked out the arrow and tossed it aside. The bandit didn’t even flinch. Joshua put his hand over the wound.

From the time that Ahmad had ordered them to hold fire, none of the guards had moved. They watched. After a few minutes the bandit sat up and Joshua stepped away from him and smiled. In that instant an arrow sprouted from the bandit’s forehead and he fell back, dead.

“No!” Joshua wheeled around to face Ahmad’s side of the caravan. The guard who had shot still held the bow, as if he might have to let fly another arrow to finish the job. Howling with rage, Joshua made a gesture as if he were striking the air with his open hand and the guard was lifted back off his camel and slammed into the ground. “No more!” Joshua screamed. When the guard sat up in the dirt his eyes were like silver moons in their sockets. He was blind.

Later, when neither of us had spoken for two days, and Joshua and I were relegated to riding far behind the caravan because the guards were afraid of us, I took a drink from my water skin, then handed it to Joshua. He took a drink and handed it back.

“Thank you,” Josh said. He smiled and I knew he’d be all right.

“Hey Joshua, do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Remind me not to piss you off, okay?”

The city of Kabul was built on five rugged hillsides, with the streets laid out in terraces and the buildings built partly into the hills. There was no evidence of Roman or Greek influence in the architecture, but instead the larger buildings had tile roofs that turned up at the corners, a style that Joshua and I would see all over Asia before our journey was finished. The people were mostly rugged, wiry people who looked like Arabs without the glow in their skin that came from a diet rich in olive oil. Instead their faces seemed leaner, drawn by the cold, dry wind of the high desert. In the market there were merchants and traders from China, and more men who looked like Ahmad and his bowmen guards, a race whom the Chinese referred to simply as barbarians.

“The Chinese are so afraid of my people that they have built a wall, as high as any palace, as wide as the widest boulevard in Rome, and stretching as far as the eye can see ten times over,” Ahmad said.

“Uh-huh,” I said, thinking,
you lying bag-o’-guts
.

Joshua hadn’t spoken to Ahmad since the bandit attack, but he smirked at Ahmad’s story of the great wall.

“Just so,” said Ahmad. “We will stay at an inn tonight. Tomorrow I will take you to Balthasar. If we leave early we can be there by noon, then you’ll be the magician’s problem, not mine. Meet me in front at dawn.”

That night the innkeeper and his wife served us a dinner of spiced lamb and rice, with some sort of beer made from rice, which washed two months of desert grit from our throats and put a pleasant haze over our minds. To save money, we paid for pallets under the wide curving eaves of the inn, and although it was some comfort to have a roof over my head for the first time in months, I found that I missed looking at the stars as I fell asleep. I lay awake, half drunk, for a long time. Joshua slept the sleep of the innocent.

The next day Ahmad met us in front of the inn with two of his African guards and two extra camels in tow. “Come on, now. This may be the end of your journey, but it is merely a detour for me,” Ahmad said. He threw us each a crust of bread and a hunk of cheese, which I took to mean we were to eat our breakfast on the way.

We rode out of Kabul and into the hills until we entered a labyrinth of canyons, which meandered through rugged mountains that looked as if
they might have been shaped by God out of clay, then left to bake in the sun until the clay had turned to a deep golden color that reflected light in a spray that ate up shadows and destroyed shade. By noon I had no sense whatsoever of what direction we were traveling, nor could I have sworn that we weren’t retracing our path through the same canyons over and over, but Ahmad’s black guards seemed to know their way. Eventually they led us around a bend to a sheer canyon wall, two hundred feet tall, that stood out from the other canyon walls in that there were windows and balconies carved into it. It was a palace hewn out of solid rock. At the base stood an ironclad door that looked as if it would take twenty men to move.

“Balthasar’s house,” Ahmad said, prodding his camel to kneel down so he might dismount.

Joshua nudged me with his riding stick. “Hey, is this what you expected?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what I expected. Maybe something a little—I don’t know—smaller.”

“Could you find your way back out of these canyons if you had to?” Joshua asked.

“Nope. You?”

“Not a chance.”

Ahmad waddled over to the great door and pulled a cord that hung down from a hole in the wall. Somewhere inside we heard the ringing of some great bell. (Only later would we learn that it was the sound of a gong.) A smaller door within the door opened and a girl stuck her head out. “What?” She had the round face and high cheekbones of an Oriental, and there were great blue wings painted on her face above her eyes.

“It’s Ahmad. Ahmad Mahadd Ubaidullaganji. I’ve brought Balthasar the boy he has been waiting for.” Ahmad gestured in our direction.

The girl looked skeptical. “Scrawny. You sure that’s the one?”

“That’s the one. Tell Balthasar he owes me.”

“Who’s that with him?”

“That’s his stupid friend. No extra charge for him.”

“You bring the monkey’s paws?” the girl asked.

“Yes, and the other herbs and minerals Balthasar asked for.”

“Okay, wait here.” She closed the door, was gone only a second, then
returned. “Send just the two of them in, alone. Balthasar must examine them, then he will deal with you.”

“There’s no need to be mysterious, woman, I’ve been in Balthasar’s house a hundred times. Now quit dilly-dallying and open the door.”

“Silence!” the girl shouted. “The great Balthasar will not be mocked. Send in the boys, alone.” Then she slammed the little door and we could hear her cackling echo out the windows above.

Ahmad shook his head in disgust and waved us over to the door. “Just go. I don’t know what he’s up to, but just go.”

Joshua and I dismounted, took our packs off the camels, and edged over to the huge door. Joshua looked at me as if wondering what to do, then reached for the cord to ring the bell, but as he did, the door creaked open just wide enough for one of us to enter if we turned sideways. It was pitch black inside except for a narrow stripe of light, which told us nothing. Joshua again looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“I’m just the stupid no-extra-charge friend,” I said, bowing. “After you.”

Joshua moved though the door and I followed. When we were inside only a few feet, the huge door slammed with a sound like thunder and we stood there in complete darkness. I’m sure I could feel things scurrying around my feet in the dark.

There was a bright flash and a great column of red smoke rose in front of us, illuminated by a light coming from the ceiling somewhere. It smelled of brimstone and stung my nose. Joshua coughed and we both backed against the door as a figure stepped out of the smoke. He—it—stood as tall as any two men, although he was thin. He wore a long purple robe, embroidered with strange symbols in gold and silver, hooded, so we saw no face, only glowing red eyes set back in a field of black. He held a bright lamp out as if to examine us by the light.

“Satan,” I said under my breath to Joshua, pressing my back against the great iron door so hard that I could feel rust flakes imbedding in my skin through my tunic.

“It’s not Satan,” Joshua said.

“Who would disturb the sanctity of my fortress?” boomed the figure. I nearly wet myself at hearing his voice.

“I’m Joshua of Nazareth,” Joshua said, trying to be casual, but his
voice broke on
Nazareth
. “And this is Biff, also of Nazareth. We’re looking for Balthasar. He came to Bethlehem, where I was born, many years ago looking for me. I have to ask him some questions.”

“Balthasar is no more of this world.” The dark figure reached into his robe and pulled out a glowing dagger, which he held high, then plunged into his own chest. There was an explosion, a flash, and an anguished roar, as if someone had killed a lion. Joshua and I turned and frantically scratched at the iron door, looking for a latch. We were both making an incoherent terrorized sound that I can only describe as the verbal version of running, sort of an extended rhythmic howl that paused only when the last of each lungful of air squeaked out of us.

Then I heard the laughing and Joshua grabbed my arm. The laughing got louder. Joshua swung me around to face death in purple. As I turned the dark figure threw back his hood and I saw the grinning black face and shaved head of a man—a very tall man, but a man nonetheless. He threw open the robe and I could see that it was, indeed, a man. A man who had been standing on the shoulders of two young Asian women who had been hiding beneath the very long robe.

“Just fuckin’ with you,” he said. Then he giggled.

He leapt off of the women’s shoulders and took a deep breath before doubling over and hugging himself with laughter. Tears streamed out of his big chestnut eyes.

“You should have seen the look on your faces. Girls, did you see that?” The women, who wore simple linen robes, didn’t seem as amused as the man. They looked embarrassed and a little impatient, as if they’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything but this.

“Balthasar?” Joshua asked.

“Yeah,” said Balthasar, who stood up now and was only a little taller than I was. “Sorry, I don’t get many visitors. So you’re Joshua?”

“Yes,” Joshua said, an edge in his voice.

“I didn’t recognize you without the swaddling clothes. And this is your servant?”

“My friend, Biff.”

“Same thing. Bring your friend. Come in. The girls will attend to Ahmad for the time being.” He stalked off down a corridor into the mountain, his long purple robe trailing behind him like the tail of a dragon.

We stood there by the door, not moving, until we realized that once Balthasar turned a corner with his lamp we’d be in darkness again, so we took off after him.

As we ran down the corridor, I thought of how far we had traveled, and what we had left behind, and I felt as if I was going to be sick to my stomach any second. “Wise man?” I said to Joshua.

“My mother has never lied to me,” said Josh.

“That you know of,” I said.

The first thing that we noticed about Balthasar’s fortress was that there were no right angles, no angles period, only curves. As we followed the magus through corridors, and from level to level, we never saw so much as a squared-off stair step, instead there were spiral ramps leading from level to level, and although the fortress spread all over the cliff face, no room was more than one doorway away from a window. Once we were above the ground level, there was always light from the windows and the creepy feeling we’d had when we entered quickly passed away. The stone of the walls was more yellow in color than the limestone of Jerusalem, yet it had the same smooth appearance. Overall it gave the impression that you were walking through the polished entrails of some huge living creature.

“Did you build this place, Balthasar?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” he said, without turning around. “This place was always here, I simply had to remove the stone that occupied it.”

“Oh,” I said, having gained no knowledge whatsoever.

We passed no doors, but myriad open archways and round portals which opened into chambers of various shapes and sizes. As we passed one egg-shaped doorway obscured by a curtain of beads Balthasar mumbled, “The girls stay in there.”

“Girls?” I said.

“Girls?” Joshua said.

“Yes, girls, you ninnies,” Balthasar said. “Humans much like yourselves, except smarter and better smelling.”

Well, I knew that. I mean, we’d seen the two of them, hadn’t we? I knew what girls were.

He pressed on until we came to the only other door I had seen since we entered, this one another huge, ironclad monster held closed with three iron bolts as big around as my arm and a heavy brass lock engraved with strange characters. The magus stopped and tilted an ear to the door. His heavy gold earring clinked against one of the bolts. He
turned to us and whispered, and for the first time I could clearly see that the magus was very old, despite the strength of his laugh and the spring in his step. “You may go anywhere you wish while you stay here, but you must never open this door.
Xiong zai.
”

“
Xiong zai,
” I repeated to Joshua in case he’d missed it.

“
Xiong zai.
” He nodded with total lack of understanding.

Mankind, I suppose, is designed to run on—to be motivated by—temptation. If progress is a virtue then this is our greatest gift. (For what is curiosity if not intellectual temptation? And what progress is there without curiosity?) On the other hand, can you call such a profound weakness a gift, or is it a design flaw? Is temptation itself at fault for man’s woes, or is it simply the lack of judgment in response to temptation? In other words, who is to blame? Mankind, or a bad designer? Because I can’t help but think that if God had never told Adam and Eve to avoid the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that the human race would still be running around naked, dancing in wonderment and blissfully naming stuff between snacks, naps, and shags. By the same token, if Balthasar had passed that great ironclad door that first day without a word of warning, I might have never given it a second glance, and once again, much trouble could have been avoided. Am I to blame for what happened, or is it the author of temptation, God Hisownself?

Balthasar led us into a grand chamber with silks festooned from the ceiling and the floor covered with fine carpets and pillows. Wine, fruit, cheese, and bread were laid out on several low tables.

“Rest and refresh,” said Balthasar. “I’ll be back after I finish my business with Ahmad.” Then he hurried off, leaving us alone.

“So,” I said, “find out what you need to from this guy, then we can get on the road and on to the next wise man.”

“I’m not sure it’s going to be that quick. In fact, we may be here quite some time. Maybe years.”

“Years? Joshua, we’re in the middle of nowhere, we can’t spend years here.”

“Biff, we grew up in the middle of nowhere. What’s the difference?”

“Girls,” I said.

“What about them?” Joshua asked.

“Don’t start.”

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.

“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.”