Lamb The Gospel According to Biff Christs Childho - By Christopher Moore Page 0,85

wise man, not a charlatan like me. He will help you become the man you need to be to do what you must do, Joshua. And Biff, well, you might not turn out terrible. It's cold where you are going. Buy furs along the way, and trade the camels for the woolly ones with two humps."

"He's delirious," I said.

Joy said, "No, there really are woolly camels with two humps."

"Oh, sorry."

"Joshua," Balthasar called. "If nothing else, remember the three jewels." Then the old man closed his eyes and stopped breathing.

"He dead?" I asked.

Joshua put his ear to the old man's heart. "He's dead."

"What was that about three jewels?"

"The three jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility. Balthasar said compassion leads to courage, moderation leads to generosity, and humility leads to leadership."

"Sounds wonky," I said.

"Compassion," Joshua whispered, nodding toward Joy, who was silently crying over Balthasar.

I put my arm around her shoulders and she turned and sobbed into my chest. "What will I do now? Balthasar is dead. All of my friends are dead. And you two are leaving."

"Come with us," Joshua said.

"Uh, sure, come with us."

But Joy did not come with us. We stayed in Balthasar's fortress for another six months, waiting for winter to pass before we went into the high mountains to the east. I cleaned the blood from the girls' quarters while Joy helped Joshua to translate some of Balthasar's ancient texts. The three of us shared our meals, and occasionally Joy and I would have a tumble for old times' sake, but it felt as if the life had gone out of the place. When it came time for us to leave, Joy told us of her decision.

"I can't go with you to find Gaspar. Women are not allowed in the monastery, and I have no desire to live in the backwater village nearby. Balthasar has left me much gold, and everything in the library, but it does me no good out here in the mountains. I will not stay in this tomb with only the ghosts of my friends for company. Soon Ahmad will come, as he does every spring, and I will have him help me take the treasure and the scrolls to Kabul, where I will buy a large house and hire servants and I will have them bring me young boys to corrupt."

"I wish I had a plan," I said.

"Me too," said Josh.

The three of us celebrated Joshua's eighteenth birthday with the traditional Chinese food, then the next morning Joshua and I packed up the camels and prepared to head east.

"Are you sure you'll be all right until Ahmad comes?" Joshua asked Joy.

"Don't worry about me, you go learn to be a Messiah." She kissed him hard on the lips. He squirmed to get loose from her and he was still blushing as he climbed onto his camel.

"And you," she said to me, "you will come to see me in Kabul on your way back to Israel or I will put such a curse on you as you'll never be free of it." She took the little ying-yang vial full of poison and antidote from around her neck and put it around mine. It might have seemed a strange gift to anyone else, but I was the sorceress's apprentice and it seemed perfect to me. She tucked the black glass knife into my sash. "No matter how long it takes, come back and see me. I promise I won't paint you blue again."

I promised her and we kissed and I climbed on my camel and Joshua and I rode off. I tried not to look back, once again, to another woman who had stolen my heart.

We rode a half a furlong apart, each of us considering the past and future of our lives, who we had been and who we were going to be, and it was a couple of hours before I caught up with Joshua and broke the silence.

I thought of how Joy had taught me to read and speak Chinese, to mix potions and poisons, to cheat at gambling, to perform slight of hand, and where and how to properly touch a woman. All of it without expecting anything in return. "Are all women stronger and better than me?"

"Yes," he said.

It was another day before we spoke again.

Part III

Compassion

Torah! Torah! Torah!

WAR CRY OF THE KAMIKAZE RABBIS
Chapter 16
Chapter 16

We were twelve days into our journey, following Balthasar's meticulously drawn map, when we came to the wall.

"So," I said, "what do