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