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!
“Some discomfort,” she had said. For the better part of ten days I’d had no sensation in my body at all, then suddenly things started to work again. Imagine rolling out of your warm bed in the morning into—oh, I don’t know—a lake of burning oil.
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, Joshua, I’m about to crawl out of my skin here.” We were in our quarters, about an hour after I’d taken the antidote. Balthasar had sent Joshua to find me and bring me to the library, supposedly to see how I was doing.
Josh put his hand on my forehead, but instead of the usual calm that accompanied that gesture, it felt as if he’d lain a hot branding iron across my skin. I knocked his hand aside. “Thanks, but it’s not helping.”
“Maybe a bath,” Joshua suggested.
“Tried it. Jeez, this is driving me mad!” I hopped around in a circle because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Maybe Balthasar has something that can help,” Joshua said.
“Lead on,” I said. “I can’t just sit here.”
We headed off down the corridor, going down several levels on the way to the library. As we descended one of the spiral ramps I grabbed Joshua’s arm.
“Josh, look at this ramp, you notice anything?”
He considered the surface and leaned out to look at the sides of the tread. “No. Should I?”
“How about the walls and ceilings, the floors, you notice anything?”
Joshua looked around. “They’re all solid rock?”
“Yes, but what else? Look hard. Think of the houses we built in Sepphoris. Now do you notice anything?”
“No tool marks?”
“Exactly,” I said. “I spent a lot of time over the last two weeks staring at walls and ceilings with nothing much else to look at. There’s not the slightest evidence of a chisel, a pick, a hammer, anything. It’s as if these chambers had been carved by the wind over a thousand years, but you know that’s not the case.”
“So what’s your point?” Joshua said.
“My point is that there’s more going on with Balthasar and his girls than he lets on.”
“We should ask them.”
“No, we shouldn’t, Josh. Don’t you get it? We need to find out what’s going on without them knowing that we know.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why? Because the last time I asked a question I was poisoned, that’s why. And I believe that if Balthasar didn’t think you had something that he wants, I’d have never seen the antidote.”
“But I don’t have anything,” said Joshua, honestly.
“You might have something you don’t know you have, but you can’t just go asking what it is. We need to be devious. Tricky. Sneaky.”
“But I’m not good at any of those things.”
I put my arm around my friend’s shoulders. “Not always so great being the Messiah, huh?”
Chapter 13
“I could kick that punk’s punk ass,” the angel said, jumping on the bed, shaking a fist at the television screen.
“Raziel,” I said, “you are an angel of the Lord, he is a professional wrestler, I think it’s understood that you could kick his punk ass.” This has gone on for a couple of days now. The angel has found a new passion. The front desk has called a dozen times and sent a bellman up twice to tell the angel to quiet down. “Besides, it’s just pretend.”
Raziel looked at me as if I had slapped him. “Don’t start with that again, these are not actors.” The angel back flipped on the bed. “Ooo, ooo, you see that? Ho popped him with a chair. Thaz right, you go girl. She nasty.”
It’s like that now. Talk shows featuring the screaming ignorant, soap operas, and wrestling. And the angel guards the remote control like it’s the Ark of the Covenant.
“This,” I told him, “is why the angels were never given free will. This right here. Because you would spend your time watching this.”
“Really?” Raziel said, and he muted the TV for what seemed like the first time in days. “Then tell me, Levi who is called Biff, if by watching this I am abusing the little freedom I’ve been given while carrying out this task, then what would you say of your people?”
“By my people you mean human beings?” I was stalling. I didn’t remember the angel ever making a valid point before and I wasn’t prepared for it. “Hey, don’t blame me, I’ve been dead for two thousand years. I wouldn’t have let this sort of thing happen.”