Master's Challenge td-55

by Warren Murphy

  "In the caves. In the hills. On the grass plains. The Tellem keep no home. We are like the spider-small, almost invisible, who can weave her nets anywhere. Yet she finds the prey she seeks because her net accepts all, watches everything, discards no being because of its appearance."

  Remo looked at him for a long moment. There was no need to ask the dwarf's name. He reached into his pocket and produced the piece of carved jade.

  The dwarf matched it with his own. "Kiree," he said.

  "Remo."

  "We will go to the cliffs."

  "Kiree" Remo took the dwarf's arm.

  "You do not wish to fight?"

  "No. I don't like to fight men who aren't my enemies."

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  "Ah," Kiree said. "I thought you did not possess the face of one who kills for pleasure."

  "Then-"

  "The choice is not ours, my friend. We fight not out of hatred for each other, but out of respect for the Master's Trial. For our ancestors."

  Remo gritted his teeth. The longer he was involved with the Master's Trial, the more he hated it. "There never seems to be any way out," he said so quietly that he could have been talking to himself.

  "Do not be confused. See, the kanaga, the dancers, are performing the dance of death. It is a happy dance, for the spirit of the dead is about to be reborn." He squeezed Remo's shoulder. "We, too, when our time comes, will leave this world to return, stronger, wiser, better."

  He took Remo away from the crowd to the base of a cliff unobstructed by houses. It was a slab of rock so sheer that an egg could have rolled down the height of it without cracking. From a leather pouch tied around his waist, Kiree poured some yellowish powder into his palms and spat, rubbing his hands together.

  Remo knew better than to question the man's fighting ability. Pint-sized or not, if Chiun considered him in the same league with Ancion, Kiree had to know what he was doing. But he didn't expect the little man to climb straight up the cliff.

  Remo watched in amazement. As far as he knew, no one outside of Sinanju could scale walls without tools.

  "Do you need assistance?" Kiree called, his face anxious.

  "No, thanks," Remo said. He began the methodical climb, using his toes and the suction of his palms to carry the momentum of his movement upward. It was an elementary move, learned during the first year of his training with Chiun, and Remo executed it perfectly. And yet Kiree was

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  so much faster than he was that Remo felt as if he were ^

  crawling.

  The African moved on all fours, his limbs bent. He even resembled the spiders he so admired, swift, agile, modest. Remo remembered the way he'd disparaged the talents of his prospective opponents in the Master's Trial. He would never underestimate anyone again, ever.

  When Remo reached the high plateau, Kiree was picking large handfuis of dried grass.

  "What's that?"

  "My weapon," Kiree said.

  "Grass?"

  The dwarf rubbed the blades together until they were powder in his hands. The movements he made were so fast that even Remo couldn't see them. Kiree spat into his palms and, with a series of intricate movements, worked his fingers until the mixture was a rubbery pulp. Then he poured some of the material from the pouch around his waist into the mass and worked it in.

  "This is resin from the fruit pulp of the bala tree," he said. "To make it last."

  "What are you going to do with that stuff?"

  Kiree smiled. "Watch."

  Throwing his arms wide, the mixture spun into a rope in the air. While it was still suspended, he tossed out another. And another, weaving them skillfully into a configuration of knots and spaces. When he was finished, he held a finely woven net as translucent as gossamer.

  "I can't believe what 1 just saw," Remo said.

  "It is but a crude imitation. The spider needs no materials other than what she carries in her tiny body."

  "The spider," Remo said. "If I'd listened, I would have known. Some of the people around here believe you're an insect."

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  "I am a Tellem. Our lives are secret, so people will think of us what they may. Shall we begin?"

  Remo hesitated. "I want to learn this skill of yours, Kiree."

  "But you have already. I have shown you. The teachings of Sinanju have given you hands fast enough to weave the nets."

  "But we don't have to-" His feet swept out from under him. In a fraction of a second, the net had engulfed him and carried him soaring into the air.

  "Defend yourself, heir of Sinanju," the African said solemnly.

  Remo was whirling over the cliff edge, unbalanced and frightened. The dwarf's easy manner, his friendly smile, had led Remo to believe that somehow the battle between them would not take place. But Kiree, like Ancion, obeyed the rules of the Master's Trial. And if Remo did not, he knew, he would die.

  Slashing through the fine ropes with the cutting edges of his hands, he somersaulted through the, opening to land, sliding, on the face of the cliff. His hands burned and bled from the ropes. As he tried to regain his balance on the glass-sheer cliff, Kiree's net shot out, closed, and knocked him to his belly.

  Remo rolled fifteen feet or more down the rock. Below, far away, the villagers stopped their dance and pointed. From somewhere, the name of "Kiree" was shouted in fear and reverence.

  The net, bigger this time, came out of the sky like a cloud. Remo scrambled out of its way and grasped one of the knots. He felt himself being lifted.

  The dwarf had the strength of an army, Remo thought. He let go of the net just as it reached the edge of the plateau. An army ... If there were more than one of Kiree, Remo would automatically have chosen an inside

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  line attack. It depended on leverage and speed, and was designed to take out several opponents at once.

  But why not? he thought, preparing the attack. Kiree's nets went out once more, and missed. Remo was in motion, a motion so upredictable that even Kiree's net couid not follow it.

  Confused, the African waited, shifting his balance, trying to follow Remo with his eyes, his hands reaching out to establish the strange pattern the white man was using. By the time Remo reached him, the nets were in disarray. Kiree moved swiftly, but Remo struck. Kiree flew backward, landing hard on his spine. Remo was right behind him. But even as he was descending for the mortal attack, Remo saw the dwarf spit into his hands and pull apart a thin rope, translucent as a fishing line. It was aimed precisely at Remo's neck.

  He broke his descent with an awkward motion and landed in a painful position on his leg. The dwarf was coming, the line in his hands stretched taut.

  Reflexively, Remo's elbow jutted out and caught Kiree in the base of the abdomen. With a grunt, the dwarf shot upward, doubled over. Remo sprang to his feet, and on the African's descent, Remo jumped to full extension, slashing both arms in a scissor movement.

  He heard the crack of the bones in Kiree's neck. The dwarf was dead before he reached the ground. As Remo stood panting, his leg and hands feeling as if they were broken into a hundred pieces, Kiree's body thudded onto the rocky plateau.

  It was over. Remo clasped his own hands together tightly. "Why?" he called out in anguish, looking at the small body at his feet. "I didn't want to kill him. He didn't deserve to die."

  It echoed through the empty hills. He was afraid to move.

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  Maybe he should never have learned the teachings of Sinanju, he thought. He wasn't worthy of it. A true Master would have found a way to stop the fight. But then, neither Ancion nor Kiree had permitted the fight to stop.

  Nothing made sense. Nothing. He had spent a lifetime fighting fools and mindless killers and human vermin, and within a week he had discovered two men who could match him in every respect. And he had killed them both.

  Who was the mindless killer now?

  I'm supposed to kill bad guys, he thought. Not Kiree, who accepted me as his friend. Not Ancion, so fair that he allowe
d me to live when he could easily have finished me in a stroke.

  "Father, this test is too difficult for me," he whispered. But Chiun's voice did not come. Whatever he had to learn from the Master's Trial, he had to learn alone.

  He carried Kiree's body to a far cliff and buried it beneath a small bala -tree. He chose the spot because there was a spider in one of the branches, spinning a net as fine as gossamer. He spoke to the spider,

  "May your spirit return quickly, my friend," he said.

  The spider threw out a strand of silk and added^it to her net.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tired. So tired.

  The Dutchman staggered between the two wooden posts that signaled the division between Chinese Manchuria and North Korea along the rutted road where he walked. It was dawn again, and from the dawn when he left the Russian girl in the forest to the present one, he had known nothing. The beast inside him had run wild, feasting its desires at its every whim, not sleeping, not eating. The long path he had walked was strewn with death and calamity.

  Perhaps his own death was coming soon. He hoped for it, longed for it. With death would come the peace he had never known. He trudged ahead, exhausted and burning from the spent incandescence of his power. The power was a volatile thing. With each exertion, it seared his brain and body like a firebomb. Without rest, the power would surely destroy what little sanity still remained somewhere inside him. Like a burning star, the Dutchman would consume himself in his own flames.

  But without death. The beast would see that he lived, tortured and agonized, until he was an old man.

  Ill

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  By mid-afternoon, he could smell the sea. The voices of fishermen drifted toward him, their snatches of conversation complaining about the weather and the catch. The Dutchman followed the voices.

  On a gravel path walked three men passing a bottle among them. One of them stumbled, hanging on to the others for support. "Look, a white," he said in provincial Korean.

  "Probably a spy. There was another not long ago. I saw him on the beach."

  "In the shape you're in, you'd see mermaids. With three tits." The men snorted and doubled over with laughter.

  "Can you direct me to the village of Sinanju?" the Dutchman asked them in perfect Korean. The men looked surprised.

  "I think it's over that way," the most coherent of them said, pointing vaguely inland.

  "Thank you." The Dutchman did not turn away, but stared instead into the man's eyes: He was growing comfortable with the beast within him. It wanted to play. "That's a nasty burn on your arm."

  "Hm? What?" The fisherman glanced down at his arm. "There's nothing wrong with-" He sucked in his breath. Before his eyes, the man's forearm bubbled into red, seeping blisters. "What's happened?"

  The others came around to examine the arm. It was swelling to twice its size. The hair on it frizzled and disappeared. The outer skin dried, then blackened.

  The man screamed. The others drew back, watching the Dutchman with alarm.

  "Take out your eyes," he commanded the man holding the bottle.

  With a shudder, the man squatted on the ground and broke the bottle on a rock.

  "Yi Sun!" the third man said. But the eyes of the man

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  with the broken bottleneck in his hands never left the Dutchman. Viciously he struck his own face with the jagged glass, digging deep into his eye sockets until streams of clear liquid poured out of them and two pulpy masses hung down his cheeks.

  The third man emitted a wail that was half-whisper, half-sob, and skittered backward.

  "You!" the Dutchman called.

  The man covered his face and ran. Within ten paces he dropped, the ground red with scattered blood and intestines for a hundred feet in all directions. His belly had exploded.

  The Dutchman threw his head back and laughed. The power, coursing through him, filled him with ecstasy. Then, as quickly as the sensation had come, it vanished, leaving him groggy and weak.

  He vomited. There was blood in the thin liquid that came out of him. Not long . . . not long now. His body was skeletal, his vision blurry.

  Find Chiun. And then, his promise fulfilled, he could seek death in peace. If he accomplished his mission, Nuihc's spirit would allow him some comfort at the end. He had promised him rest.

  Chiun was nearby. The caves. There was a force coming from one of them, a power, a music. He had reached his quarry.

  "Thank you, Nuihc," he whispered, stumbling forward blindly.

  Rest. After a lifetime of torment, he would find rest at last.

  The tiny porcelain cup in H'si T'ang's hands dropped to the floor.

  "Master?" Chiun asked, moving to the old man's side. "Are you not well?"

  "He is here." He gestured with a trembling hand to-

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  ward the opening of the cave. "The Other ... the Other has come."

  Chiun sprang to his feet and waited in the shadows of the cave entrance.

  "But something is wrong. His aura is broken, almost disappeared. . . . Now, my son. Now."

  Chiun prepared to strike. There was a thud outside, then silence.

  "Gone," H'si T'ang said, confused. "The presence is gone."

  Chiun peered out. Lying in front of the entranceway was the emaciated form of a man with blond hair, his face in the dirt. He was barely breathing.

  "It is a wounded man," Chiun said. He lifted the body gently over his shoulder and carried him inside. "Whoever he is, he will not harm us now." He lowered the man onto the grass mat.

  And gasped.

  "What is it, my son?"

  "I know this man," Chiun said. "He is the protegee of Nuihc."

  "Ah, Nuihc. I might have known." The old man trembled. The story of Nuihc was well known to him. The pupil who had used his knowledge to betray his village to the Chinese army. Who had offered to exploit the teachings of Sinanju to further his own personal power. The gifted student whom Chiun was forced to expel from the village and leave the Master of Sinanju with no heir for the legacy that had been passed down for a thousand years.

  "He is called the Dutchman," Chiun said. "Remo and I encountered him when he was still a youth. Even though he was not yet fully developed in his training, he showed formidable powers."

  He grasped the unconscious man's face and turned it toward his own. The Dutchman's mouth was still smeared

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  with dried blood. "A boy of great promise, perverted by Nuihc into a monster. 1 thought he had died. I hoped, for his sake, that he had." He put his hands around the thin neck. "He is near death now. I will finish him quickly."

  "Hold." H'si T'ang's voice was low and angry. "Has your experience in the outside world made you discard all the laws of your village?"

  "But you yourself called him the Other."

  "That does not matter. The most ancient law of Sinanju forbids a Master from killing a member of the village. Or have you conveniently forgotten your crime?"

  Chiun swallowed. "He is not of the village. He is white."

  "Was Nuihc?"

  Chiun hung his head.

  "I heard of your action in the battle against Nuihc. It shamed me. It shamed the gods. Now, this man is Nuihc's heir. The gods have sent him to you as your atonement."

  "Teacher, I had no choice in the death of Nuihc. Without my intervention, he would have killed my son, who was too young to defend himself against him."

  H'si T'ang was silent. "Your son," he said at last. "Your son Remo must fight this man. Not you."

  "But Remo is so far. He will not return for many weeks. And this man is a danger to us."

  'He is your penance. The ancient laws are strict. This man has come to replace Nuihc. If you kill him, you will never find peace. In this world or the next."

  "But the Dutchman will try to destroy us, Master. I know him."

  "Then so be it," the old man said.

  Chiun sat staring at his teacher for some time as the Dutchman lay unconscious
beside them. He had done what was necessary, but perhaps H'si T'ang was right. For the circle of fate to be complete, he had to be punished. He

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  would have to face the Dutchman, alive, without killing him.

  If only Remo knew what he really was! The Dutchman had been aware since childhood of his own extraordinary nature, but Remo still thought of himself as an ex-policeman. Until Remo understood that he was Shiva, a being not of this world, there would be no contest between them. The Dutchman, full grown now, developed to the pinnacle of his capabilities, would swat Remo, like a fly, into the Void.

  Reluctantly, Chiun took a damp cloth and attended to the Dutchman.

  Chapter Twelve

  He called her Mildred and she called him Harry. He told her he would take care of all her calls. She told him some she would rather do herself. He said every moment she wasted doing menial chores, grass died on this earth. Maybe by the millions of blades.

  Mildred Pensoitte thought that was very perceptive, but she still felt more effective doing some things herself. She felt she never wanted to lose her sense of humanity by delegating everything to others. She should never forget, she said, that she was just part of the whole earth. She didn't want to be like those ruining the world. If dear, dear Harry could understand this, her power came from understanding her place on the earth, in the earth and of it. And the minute she lost that sense and realization, they were all lost.

  Harold W. Smith nodded and said somberly that he understood. Then he bribed the switchboard operator to let him listen in on all Dr. Pensoitte's calls. He listed in on a call from Leeds, England, her mother mentioning that she had seen Mildred's former husband the other day. A lovely man.

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  "Anything else, Mother?" asked Dr. Pensoitte.

  "We saw you on the telly."

  "Which speech? The one for the new world order or the one on how we are poisoning ourselves?"

  "One of them, dear. You were wearing that full blouse again. Do you really think that they do that much for you?"

  It all might have been funny, Smith thought, if he hadn't seen a chambermaid with her throat opened to the air. That would be just the first death of many if these people were allowed to grow. Because to save the world from man, they would have to kill men, many of them, and keep killing until everyone left agreed with their vision.