“Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.”

Ibrahm’s head pounded with every awkward tramp of Moses’ hooves. Moses was his donkey, renowned—among the donkey boys that is—as ‘the best little donkey in Cairo’. Moses was however, weird as donkeys go; he ‘trundled’. Horsemen laughed until their ribs split when Little Ibrahm ‘trundled’ by on the back of Moses, whose hooves ever seemed out of synch. The lead hooves kicked out spastically one at a time at the same time as the rear hoof on the opposite side slid up, as if he were doing some strange Christian dance. But Moses ‘trundled’ along quite quickly in his strange way, every lurching beat of his hooves pounding Ibrahm’s head behind where the drink had settled in.

‘Why have I asked for this—what defect makes me want to please my master so? As I trundle up out of Egypt in service to my master instead of in defiance of him, upon the very back of a beast named after The Deliverer of our people, what call do I answer? What is my defect?’

‘I’m Jewish is what my defect is—got me sold, and now got me trundling up this road to hell to impress Master so he will adopt me! I am a fool of a Jew!’

‘Ah but goddamned Ibis of the Sword calls me the best little Jew in Cairo.’

‘Of course fool boy—because you are the last little Jew in Cairo! Those nasty Muslim adults have eaten everyone smaller than you—and not spared a single Jew no matter his age!’

Ibrahm was 14 years of age, but was late in growing and had disguised himself as too young for butt raping [how slave-boys forever feared the age of 11, when they were declared ripe like fruit for the perverse harvest] for these past years while he diligently learned various languages, so that he could be purchased as a scribe instead of inseminated by some nasty master. It had worked. He had been purchased by a kind, gentle and intelligent doctor out of Persia, a world-travelled Arab scholar in the good graces of the Sultan. The past two years of lying about his age as he dreaded the betrayal of the first chin hair, or the first aroma of armpit stench, had worn on him. Now, just as he had achieved apprenticeship—and it seemed the promise of conversion and adoption by the wifeless and childless doctor—that damned black Christian dog of a hand-kissing murderer, ‘Uncle Ibis’ had volunteered ‘the best little Jew in Cairo’ to head out after the Commandant and the horseman with Abd al-Latif’s urgent message.

“Can you believe that big black Master-swaying baboon Moses! I should spit in his food if he weren’t so murderous. I think he is jealous of Master’s affection for me, and my superior intellect! Sending us after the horsemen up the Harvester’s Sickle Road! Why this is madness. But Moses, you are the best donkey there is—weird though you are—and if anyone can make a little Jew hero for Islam out of me, it is you.”

The road was deserted, as it should be in the wake of the Commandant’s horsemen. Those killers butchered the poor by the dozen at the mere sign of any desecration of human remains. The road was dusty from the recent passage of the mailed Warriors of God, who were forever hunting people-eaters and corpse-munchers and vile tomb and grave desecrators. So, to keep his mind off of the pounding in his head from the stolen wine that the snot-nosed Greek donkey boy Niko had shared with him while they spied on Ibis molesting the horseman’s wife’s wet nurse the night before in the stables, he continued to speak with Moses in their native tongue, for Moses was as surely a Jew as he.

“What do you think happened to Master al-Latif up on the roof of the Commandant’s duty house that so panicked him? Why he could not even ask for help. Ibis—his pants barely up over his unfinished donkey business—just started giving orders to you and me, like he was Master? What do you think of that old Moses?”

Since Moses—though a thoughtful Hebrew donkey—had trouble with his verbal expression, Ibrahm was in the habit of divining his thoughts and repeating them back to himself. When he did this he placed his head down by Moses’ throat, leaning far forward, and changing his voice to a deep ‘hurggling’ bray, so that any passersby might be impressed that Moses did indeed talk.

“Say wise donkey handler—best of your kind in Cairo—I think Master al-Latif needs you to stay ever by his side and watch out for him, delicate as he is. Besides, with you by his side when he gets his big ideas and walks around with his finger in the air saying, ‘Aha, by Sina it is so’, you shall be there to say, ‘Good Master of Mine, Learned Scion of Islam, Ibis, being the best big Ethiopian slayer in all of Cairo, should take care of that nasty bit of business, while good little Ibrahm arranges the dates on your plate according to the rosette patterns you so—”

Moses stumbled and brayed. He righted himself then stumbled again, brayed in utmost agony, batted his heavy lashed eyelids at the sky, and toppled over in a kicking fit. Ibrahm leaped to his left and landed on the side of the hard-packed dirt track. As his head smacked the ground his eyes saw in the dusty foreground three-pronged iron spikes, scattered about like thorns sprung from hell, one of which his head had nearly been impaled on. These nasty-animal maiming things were now sticking from Moses’ side as he rolled on them braying in extreme agony, two such iron spikes protruding from his hooves.

Then, of a sudden, five scrawny ruffians came leaping up out of the brush-choked declivity on the low side of the road, he having luckily fallen on the high side of the road with his back to the slow rise of the table land above Cairo. Oh Cairo, which he so dreaded leaving, and now despaired of ever seeing again.

The ragged ruffians had their faces obscured by over heavy turbans—double turbans no doubt collected from hapless travelers. They seemed not to notice him as they fell on poor Moses with their long knives, slicing, chopping, and even skinning the poor boy alive as he yet kicked and brayed most pathetically in the dusty road that was turning into a rusty mud thanks to his blood.

Then he heard the slurping chortle behind him! Ibrahm rolled over and looked over his shoulder even as the ruffians that were now behind him gave Moses the death cut and their leader howled, “Dinner boys!”

What Ibrahm saw before him shook him with shivers as if he were instantly afflicted with fever. An elder, whether man or woman could not be determined as the billowy rags obscured all but the mottled hands and half-charred face, was creeping upon him. The face of the cadaverous being grinned its half grin even as it slithered toward him using its arms like crocodile legs and dragging its withered lower parts like a tail. As the creature’s mouth opened with a hungry raspy gulping sound to bite his little face, the ‘shing’ of a knife on bone sounded behind him and the ruffian leader barked a short laugh and hissed to his compatriots, “And Drag has sniffed out dessert already. Or is that an appetizer boys?”

The sound of their harsh laughter put wings to his heels and he was running along the ground pushing his face through the dust before his hands had even pushed him to his feet.

‘God, please let me by the fastest little Jew in Cairo—and the swiftest quarry along this murdering road!’