"I don't see the Low Moo," Remo whispered. They were on the roof parapet of the Royal Palace. The entire expanse of the island lay before them.
Chiun's face lifted to the freshening sea breeze, like a cat catching a scent.
"She is the least of our concerns this night," he said quietly. His hazel eyes, like polished agates, searched the village huts scattered like so many haphazard dice around the palace.
"You haven't seen her when she's angry."
"I will go below to guard the door to the High Moo's quarters," Chiun remarked after the last Moovian had slipped into his home.
"Check," Remo said. "I've got Uk-Uk's hut in my sights."
"If he leaves, or anyone else acts suspicious, take them alive. "
"No problem."
"I go now. Remember-have nothing to do with the Low Moo this night."
"Yeah. Sure," Remo said vaguely.
Chiun paused. Then he slipped down the stone staircase. Remo was a willful pupil, he ruminated. But in the end, he could handle himself. It was not for Remo's safety that Chiun feared his tryst with the Low Moo. Remo had always had bad luck with women. He did not need a further shock to his opinion of the other sex.
Hours passed and Remo was growing bored. The clouds parted long past midnight, bathing the island in silver illumination. The moonlight was strong, but not strong enough to pick out colors. The breeze-worried jungle was a gray-and-white expanse. Out beyond the eastern shore, the Pacific danced with diamond-hard lights. The Jonah Ark bobbed like a grotesque cork.
Dolla-Dree, Low Moo of Moo, sauntered into the village far into the night. Remo watched as she stepped in and out of patches of moonlight. Her face was radiant with expectation. Her hips moved like the palms and Remo felt a momentary pang at the thought of Chiun's admonition to avoid her.
But business came first. Maybe he could explain it to the Low Moo before the night was over.
Then the Low Moo padded up to Remo's quarters and slipped in through the window.
Remo hesitated. He considered dropping to the ground to talk with her. But a stealthy shadow flitting from hut to hut drew his attention. He followed it with his eyes.
The shadow disappeared into a mangrove thicket. Probably a Moovian with an assignation, Remo decided. It was not Uk-Uk.
Then other figures crept out into the open. They went in different directions, apparently oblivious of one another. Some gathered together in the darkness and slipped off in groups. They were not always of opposite sexes. Oh, well, Remo thought. Anything that people did in civilization, they probably did on Moo.
The metalsmith, Uk-Uk, came out after most of the skulking had quieted down. Remo went over the parapet, hung by his fingers, and dropped to the dirt with no more sound than the clap of a baby's hands.
He trailed the metalsmith at a safe distance. The old man loped along toward the great cluster of mines cut into the sheer western wall of the Moovian plateau.
Along the way, Remo's acute hearing picked up voices. "The High Moo must die tonight," a male voice whispered. "I will tear his eyes out with my bare hands," a lilting young girl's voice promised vehemently.
Fixing the metalsmith's location in his mind, Remo slipped off the path. He eased in the direction of the voices. He dropped to one knee and parted the high turtle grass.
Three Moovians squatted under a banyan tree. They were discussing, in quiet, forceful tones, a variety of ways to kill the High Moo. Remo, concerned that the metalsmith would get away, memorized their faces and glided away unseen.
Other voices rose from the jungle as Remo crept along the path. "The tyranny must end. We are as worthy as he is."
"The Low Moo is less royal than I am. Let her work in the mines."
"Why should we toil to fill the High Moo's coffers when all he fills is our stomachs?"
"Most of the stored rice goes to the insects anyway. We do not need to grow so much."
Remo counted twenty-seven plotters in groups of twos and threes. Worried, he pressed on. The ground dropped off sharply. Remo had to climb down.
Uk-Uk, the metalsmith, ducked into an active mine just as Remo caught up with him.
Remo drifted up to the entrance and put an ear to the solid bulwark of earth that framed its black maw. Vibrations of muttering voices carried through the dirt.
"No, not tonight." It was Uk-Uk's raspy voice. "Others plot tonight. Let them have their chance. If we have to kill them too, we will. But after the High Moo and his she-whelp are food for the sharks, only Uk-Uk will know the place where the coins are stored."
"What about the Master of Sinanchu and his slave?" someone asked.
"Let them return to their world. Moo is not for those with white skins."
"But the Master of Sinanchu has yellow skin."
"I have seen how he consorts with the white one. The Master of Sinanchu is like a banana. Yellow on the outside, but the meat within is white and soft."
The metalsmith's words were greeted with murmurs of assent.
"Let us retire to our homes and await future events," Uk-Uk said when quiet returned.
At that, Remo retreated. He had heard enough. It was time to tell Chiun the bad news. Let him figure out how to break it to the High Moo.
The Master of Sinanju stood resolute. He stirred not. He blinked not. He was an unmoving rock standing between the High Moo and those who would topple him from his throne.
The corridor leading to the High Moo's quarters was darker than the stomach of an octopus. Darker even than the dreamless slumber of Ru-Taki-Nuhu, who dwells far from the life-giving rays of the sun. But Chiun saw it as clearly as if illuminated by pure moonlight. A spider scuttled into a crack and Chiun saw it plainly. And the spider, even with many eyes, saw him not.
Chiun had deployed the Red Feather Guard at every entrance. No one could enter the palace unchallenged. And if any did, he would face the Master of Sinanju.
Sinanju had lost few emperors in its long and glorious history. This Master of Sinanju was determined that the High Moo would not be one of them.
It lacked but an hour until dawn when angry, stealthy footsteps padded through the palace halls. Chiun's immobility melted. He stepped forward to confront the approaching figure.
The padding was familiar.
The silhouette coming down the hall, Chiun saw at last, was the swivel-hipped Low Moo. Her face was a tight mask.
"I would speak with my father," she said in an icy voice that pleased Chiun. It meant Remo had not met with her this night.
"He sleeps," Chiun said blandly, joining his hands within the open sleeves of his emerald-and-gold kimono.
"Then I will wake him. Or would you deny me the right to see my own father?"
Chiun stood unmoving. His thin lips parted and he bowed silently.
"I serve the House of Moo, of which you are an honored part." Chiun stepped aside silently.
The Low Moo pushed open the bamboo-and-rattan door. "Father, I would speak with you," she called loudly. The door spanked shut behind her.
Chiun stood listening, his face intent, as the sounds of a low, intense argument began.
"He did not come to me," the Low Moo complained in a cat-spitting hiss. "And he is not in his room."
"I would have told you this," said the High Moo, "but you were nowhere to be found."
"I walked the beaches. I breathed prayers to the god of the waves who brings whites to our land. I thanked him abjectly, for you promised you would make this thing happen for me."
"You must be patient. The Master of Sinanchu has not yet given his blessing."
A bare foot spanked the stone floor. "I will not. I want him now. My hunger for him is great."
"He is not mine to give to you." The High Moo's voice was resigned.
"Then I will take him," the Low Moo hurled back.
"I warn you, do nothing to antagonize the Master of Sinanchu. Only he stands between our throne and these treasonous plotters."
"I will have him! I will feel the
fire of his white kuna in my belly!"
"You are my daughter. You will obey me!"
"I am the Low Moo. I will not be denied the privileges that Low Moos of past time enjoyed."
The High Moo's answer was a strangled inarticulate rage. The Low Moo spat back a pungent curse. The exchange escalated and the Master of Sinanju heard a meaty slap, and there was the sound of a body falling.
There was silence in the room for a long time after. When the Low Moo emerged from the room, her cheeks blazing with shame. One darkening eye had already begun to swell.
Chiun looked for tears, but there were none.
"My father slumbers," she said, closing the door after her. Her feet slapped the stone flooring angrily as she disappeared around a turn in the corridor.
The Master of Sinanju resumed his resolute stance before the High Moo's chambers. He was once more the impenetrable rock of safety for his emperor.
Remo Williams slipped up to the palace like a drifting shadow. He might have been a trick of the light caused by the moon ghosting in and out of low-flying cloud scud. He decided to climb in through his bedroom window in order to avoid the Red Feather Guards at every entrance.
"Remo, you have come." The voice was sullen. But it lifted toward the last.
"Dolla-Dree?" Remo asked. A shadowy figure sprawled on his sleeping mat.
"I have spoken to my father. He no longer stands against our union. I have waited long for you to come to me."
"Yeah? Gave us his blessing, did he?"
"Come," she said, rising on her hands. She lay there like a great tawny cat. Remo picked out the dark spots of her nipples. She wore only the lower portion of her costume. Her eyes were wide and unwinking, like black jewels. Her pupils were so distended that the smoky iris was all but invisible.
Remo joined her on the sleeping mat.
"I wanted to talk to Chiun first," he said uncertainly.
"It lacks but an hour until the sun's bright eye returns. Let us do what we will while he cannot see us."
She leaned into him, her smooth arms wrapping around his neck. She nipped at his right earlobe. Then playfully bit into the left. Remo felt his desire for her stir within him. It was more curiosity than need. Sinanju had burned out raw lust a long time ago. But the Low Moo was an attractive creature. The word popped into Remo's mind unbidden. She seemed in the half-light less a woman than a woman-child, and perhaps not quite that. There was something feral in her eyes. They were sullen and sexy at once. They made Remo feel a new emotion. Something subliminal. An anticipation, and a kind of tingling anxiousness too.
Remo sought her lips, but, teasing, she avoided them and sank perfect white teeth into his shoulder.
"Cut it out," Remo said lightly. The teeth tightened. Remo frowned.
"I need you, Remo. I need your strength," she said through her tightening teeth.
"How about you need me a little less hard?" Remo asked gently but firmly, pushing her head away. He took her face in his hands.
"I get ahead of myself," she said. "Why do you not lie back?"
"You want to get on top?"
"I want you. All of you."
Remo let himself be pushed down. There was something in the air, something that was sexual but somehow outside of sex. He didn't know what it was. But he felt a little thrill course along his spine and the short hairs of his forearms lifted as if from static electricity.
Whatever the Low Moo had in mind, it was going to be very different, Remo decided. He closed his eyes as she mounted him. Let her surprise him.
The Master of Sinanju smelled blood.
His wrinkled face lifted suddenly. He sniffed in all directions. The scent emanated from the High Moo's quarters.
Chiun went through the door like a charging ram.
The High Moo lay on his bed, the golden plume of kingship drooping from his crown so that it brushed his broad nose.
A bone knife slanted up from the middle of his breastbone. He was not breathing.
Chiun fell upon the man. He didn't touch the knife. It had probably severed veins or arteries, and its blade might have sealed off the severed ends. To withdraw it would risk the free flow of royal blood.
Instead, the Master of Sinanju placed a fist over the High Moo's heart. It beat sluggishly. His mouth was open like a fish's.
Chiun pounded the fist with the flat of his other hand. Once. Again. Again. And again. The High Moo's bulk quaked and trembled. A whitish foam spilled from his lips and the coughing began. His eyes fluttered open stupidly. "Move not," Chiun admonished. "I will tend to you."
Chiun examined the knife. It seemed to have gone in deeply. But when he touched the hilt, it wobbled. The blade had snapped going in. He lifted it free.
The blade had gone in at an angle. There was less damage than had been apparent. Chiun left the tip in.
"Sit up," Chiun said.
The High Moo pushed himself so that his torso and head were supported by the wall behind his sleeping mat. "Who did this?" demanded Chiun.
"I know not," mumbled the High Moo. His eyes were glassy and blank. He seemed to be in shock, although the blood loss was insignificant.
The Master of Sinanju flew to the open window. He stuck his head out. A Red Feather Guard stopped pacing the open courtyard.
"You! Guard!" Chiun called. "Where have you been?"
"Here," the guard replied hastily.
Chiun motioned him close, and when he was within reach, the Master of Sinanju smashed the bone spear from his hand, and taking him by the throat, forced him to his knees. "Your emperor lies wounded by base assassins. I will ask you again. Who entered this window?"
"But, no one." Chiun squeezed harder. The guard's eyes bulged like frightened grapes.
"I swear by the moon," he said.
Chiun's visage drew tighter. But the fear in the guard's voice told him that he spoke the truth as he knew it. No one had entered by the window. And only one person had entered by the door.
"See that no further harm comes to the High Moo," Chiun warned, "or it will be on your head." He released the guard and swept out of the room like a harried specter.
The Low Moo was not in her quarters. She was not in the eating room. Chiun began to ascend the stairs to the second floor, when he heard voices. Remo's. And one other.
He padded back to the first floor. The voices came from Remo's room.
Chiun burst in.
"Chiun!" Remo said in surprise. He lay on his back, the Low Moo atop him. She was pulling at her skirts, loosening them.
"Don't you believe in knocking first?" Remo asked sheepishly.
"I have learned who desires the High Moo's death," Chiun said.
"So have I," Remo said.
"Then why do I find you like this?"
Remo pushed the Low Moo away and sat up. "I was on my way to see you," he said. "Honest. But I happened to bump into her. One thing just led to another."
The Low Moo rearranged her skirts. She stared up at the Master of Sinanju, her eyes as big as a tomcat's. "You consort with the enemy of him whom you are sworn to preserve," Chiun said coldly.
"What are you talking about?"
"You know who is trying to kill the High Moo?"
"Sure, I do," Remo said, getting to his feet. "Everybody."
"You are blind, Remo. The traitor lies at your feet."
"Her?" Remo said, aghast. "No way, Chiun. You got it all wrong. I was out in the jungle. There must be two dozen different plots being hatched. If you ask me, it's practically open season on the High Moo. I think he's been working everyone too hard. They're fed up."
"Spoken like a peasant," the Low Moo said sulkily. Remo put his hands on his hips.
"Hey, what happened to wanting me?"
"I do want you," she hissed. "And I will have you!" The Low Moo sprang to her feet. A bone knife flashed up from under her skirts. She came at Remo, the knife held low for a disemboweling slash.
"Hey!" Remo yelled, his eyes wide. Reflexively his hand caugh
t her knife wrist. He twisted. The Low Moo squealed in pain. Remo kicked her ankles out from under her. She went down in a pile.
Chiun retrieved the viciously curved bone knife from the floor.
"Yes. It is the same design as the other."
"What's going on here?" Remo demanded hotly.
"She did not want you the way you think," Chiun said, examining the knife.
"Yeah? What other way is there?"
"She wanted to poon you."
"And she would have if you hadn't interrupted."
"She wanted to eat you," Chiun said. "Poon means 'to eat.' "
"No, ai means 'to eat,' " Remo said.
"Ai means 'to dine.' Poon means 'to consume.'"
Remo blinked. He looked into Chiun's unwavering eyes. His eyes flashed down to the Low Moo. She averted her gaze. Her pink tongue licked at her lips. She rubbed her bare belly as if from a stomachache.
"You mean . . ." Remo began to say. Chiun nodded flintily.
Remo looked at the Low Moo again.
"It's not true, is it?" he asked quietly. "This wasn't what you meant by desiring my organ. To eat?"
"I deserved you. Other Low Moos enjoyed the Flesh Feast in the days of the whites who came to this island. Why should I not be like them? I earned my throne."
"Earned?" said Chiun sharply. Remo looked blank.
"Do you think that I was born Low Moo?" She laughed cruelly. "When Old Moo sank, the royal family escaped to the high plateau where the mountain palace stood. This palace. The peasants all drowned, but the royal family alone survived."
"You are all descendants of the House of Moo?" Chiun asked. "Every islander?"
The Low Moo nodded. "Ever since then it has been a struggle between those who sat upon the Shark Throne and those who did not. The strong ruled. The weak worked. My father slew the last High Moo only two years ago."
"In the Fifth Year of the Third Cycle," Chiun said, plucking the coin Remo had found from his sleeve. "The same year that the High Moo ascended the throne."
"There were four assassinations that year," the Low Moo went on. "Since then, my father has ruled through his might. There has been stability. Only the octopus worshipers vexed his kingdom. But now they are gone, and the troubles are worse."
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