Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

looks like things have been tough on him,” I said, amazed that the guard, who had been one of the most vital (and frightening) men I’d ever seen, had been reduced to such a pathetic creature in so short a time. Then again, I was discounting the theatrics of it all.
    “A great injustice has been done here,” said Josh. He moved to the guard and gently put his hand on the blind man’s shoulder. “Brother, I am here to relieve your suffering.”
    “Pity on the blind,” said the guard, waving around a wooden bowl.
    “Calm now,” said Joshua, placing his hand over the blind man’s eyes. “When I remove my hand you will see again.”
    I could see the strain in Joshua’s face as he concentrated on healing the guard. Tears trickled down his cheeks and dripped on the flagstones. I thought of how effortless his healings had been in Antioch, and realized that the strain was not coming from the healing, but from the guilt he carried for having blinded the man in the first place. When he removed his hand and stepped away, both he and the guard shivered.
    Joy stepped away from us and covered her face as if to ward off bad air.
    The guard stared into space just as he had while he had been begging, but his eyes were no longer white.
    “Can you see?” Joshua said.
    “I can see, but everything is wrong. People’s skin appears blue.”
    “No, he is blue. Remember, my friend Biff.”
    “Were you always blue?”
    “No, only recently.”
    Then the guard seemed to see Joshua for the first time and his expression of wonderment was replaced by hatred. He leapt at Joshua, drawing a dagger from his rags as he moved. He would have split my friend’s rib cage in a single swift blow if Joy hadn’t swept his feet out from under him at the last second. Even so, he was up in an instant, going for a second attack. I managed to get my hand up in time to poke him in the eyes, just as Joy kicked him in the back of the neck, driving him to the ground in agony.
    “My eyes!” he cried.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    Joy kicked the knife out of the guard’s reach. I put an arm around Joshua’s chest and pushed him back. “You need to put some distance between you and him before he can see again.”
    “But I only meant to help him,” said Joshua. “Blinding him was a mistake.”
    “Josh, he doesn’t care. All he knows is that you are the enemy. All he knows is that he wants to destroy you.”
    “I don’t know what I’m doing. Even when I try to do the right thing it goes wrong.”
    “We need to go,” said Joy. She took one of Joshua’s arms while I took the other and we led him away before the guard could gather his senses for another attack.
    Joy had a list of supplies that Balthasar wanted her to bring back to the fortress, so we spent some time tracking down large baskets of a mineral called cinnabar, from which we would extract quicksilver, as well as some spices and pigments. Joshua followed us through the market in a daze until we passed a merchant who was selling the black beans from which was made the dark drink we’d had in Antioch.
    “Buy me some,” Joshua said. “Joy, buy me some of those.”
    She did, and Joshua cradled the bag of beans like an infant all the way back to the fortress. We rode most of the way in silence, but when the sun had gone down and we were almost to the hidden road that led up to the plateau, Joy galloped up beside me.
    “How did he do it?” she asked.
    “What?”
    “I saw him heal that man’s eyes. How did he do it? I know many kinds of magic, but I saw no spells cast, no potions mixed.”
    “It’s very powerful magic all right.” I checked over my shoulder to see if Joshua was paying attention. He was hugging his coffee beans and mumbling to himself as he had for the whole trip. Praying, I presume.
    “Tell me how it’s done,” Joy said. “I asked Joshua, but he’s just chanting and looking stunned.”
    “Well, I could tell you how it’s done, but you have to tell me what’s going on behind the ironclad door.”
    “I can’t tell you that, but perhaps we can trade other things.” She pulled the tail of her turban away from her face and smiled. She was stunningly beautiful in the moonlight, even in men’s clothes. “I know over a thousand ways to bring pleasure to a man, and that’s only what I know personally. The other girls have as many tricks that they’d be willing to show you too.”
    “Yeah, but how is that useful to me? What do I need to know about pleasing