Lamb The Gospel According to Biff Christs Childho - By Christopher Moore Page 0,56

his tent, which was larger than both the houses Joshua and I had grown up in. We sat on rich carpets and Kanuni served us stuffed dates and wine from a pitcher shaped like a dragon.

"So, what does the Son of God want with my friend Balthasar?" Ahmad asked. Before we could answer he snorted and laughed until his shoulders shook and he almost spilled his wine. He had a round face with high cheekbones and narrow black eyes that crinkled at the corners from too much laughter and desert wind. "I'm sorry, my friends, but I've never been in the presence of the son of a god before. Which god is your father, by the way?"

"Well, the God," I said.

"Yep," said Joshua. "That's the one."

"And what is your God's name?"

"Dad," said Josh.

"We're not supposed to say his name."

"Dad!" said Ahmad. "I love it." He started giggling again. "I knew you were Hebrews and weren't allowed to say your God's name, I just wanted to see if you would. Dad. That's rich."

"I don't mean to be rude," I said, "and we are certainly enjoying the refreshments, but it's getting late and you said you would take us to see Balthasar."

"And indeed I will. We leave in the morning."

"Leave for where?" Josh asked.

"Kabul, the city where Balthasar lives now."

I had never heard of Kabul, and I sensed that was not a good thing. "And how far is Kabul?"

"We should be there in less than two months by camel," Ahmad said.

If I knew then what I know now, I might have stood and exclaimed, "Tarnation, man, that's over six inches and thirty thousand Friendly Flyer Miles!" But since I didn't know that then, what I said was "Shit."

"I will take you to Kabul," said Ahmad, "but what can you do to help pay your way?"

"I know carpentry," Joshua said. "My stepfather taught me how to fix a camel saddle."

"And you?" He looked at me. "What can you do?"

I thought about my experience as a stonecutter, and immediately rejected it. And my training as a village idiot, which I thought I could always fall back on, wasn't going to help either. I did have my newfound skill as a sex educator, but somehow I didn't think there'd be call for that on a two-month trip with fourteen men and one homely woman. So what could I do, what skill had I to gentle the road to Kabul?

"If someone in the caravan croaks I'm a great mourner," I said. "Want to hear a dirge?"

Ahmad laughed until he shook, then called for Kanuni to bring him his satchel. Once he had it in hand, he dug inside and pulled out the dried newts he'd bought from the old hag. "Here, you'll be needing these," he said.

Camels bite. A camel will, for no reason, spit on you, stomp you, kick you, bellow, burp, and fart at you. They are stubborn at their best, and cranky beyond all belief at their worst. If you provoke them, they will bite. If you insert a dehydrated amphibian elbow-deep in a camel's bum, he considers himself provoked, doubly so if the procedure was performed while he was sleeping. Camels are wise to stealth. They bite.

"I can heal that," Joshua said, looking at the huge tooth marks on my forehead. We were following Ahmad's caravan along the Silk Road, which was neither a road nor made of silk. It was, in fact, a narrow path through the rocky inhospitable highland desert of what is now Syria into the low, inhospitable desert of what is now Iraq.

"He said sixty days by camel. Doesn't that mean that we should be riding, not walking?"

"You're missing your camel pals, aren't you?" Josh grinned, that snotty, Son-o'-God grin of his. Maybe it was just a regular grin.

"I'm just tired. I was up half the night sneaking up on these guys."

"I know," said Joshua. "I had to get up at dawn to fix one of the saddles before we left. Ahmad's tools leave something to be desired."

"You go ahead and be the martyr, Josh, just forget about what I was doing all night. I'm just saying that we should get to ride instead of walking."

"We will," Josh said. "Just not now."

The men in the caravan were all riding, although several of them, as well as Kanuni, were on horses. The camels were loaded down with great packs of iron tools, powdered dyes, and sandalwood bound for the Orient. At the first highland oasis we crossed, Ahmad traded