Master's Challenge td-55

by Warren Murphy

  Griffith's face grew gentle. He stepped close to Remo. "You have fought well, son of.rny son." He touched Remo's hand. The knife wounds disappeared.

  Remo examined himself in amazement as the boy went to Jilda and caressed her face. The bruises and cuts healed instantly. He unwrapped the bandage around her hand. Beneath it the flesh and bones and skin were once again perfect.

  "And now I speak my last words to you all, for I shall not appear again," Griffith said feverishly. "Go back to your lands in peace. Keep in your hearts the balance of the universe. Live your lives in honor and wisdom."

  Then the boy sank to the floor, unconscious.

  Jilda cradled him in her arms. "You will not fear this gift you have, little one," she said. "The Lady of the Lake will see to that."

  Chapter Thirty

  Since the start of the Master's Trial, spring in Sinanju had changed almost imperceptibly into summer. Crickets and tree frogs called endlessly through the warm night, and the air was fragrant with the scent of ripening plum blossoms.

  Remo lay with Jilda on a bank of cool moss. In the distance was music. Chiun was playing his belled instrument near the graves of H'si T'ang and Emrys. The melody was the same one he had played for Remo's Ritual of Parting so long ago, before the Dutchman came. Now its notes rang again, serene and beautiful, in another ritual of parting.

  Remo kissed the smooth skin at the nape of Jilda's neck, still flushed with passion. Making love, even with Jilda, had never been so good as this last time, beneath the open night sky. There had been an urgency about her caresses, a hunger that she had needed him to satisfy. "You make me very happy," he said, lifting her chin. Her eyes were filled with tears. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing," she said quickly, drawing her hand over her

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  face. "I am happy, too. I never thought I would find you. I mean, someone like you," she added.

  "No. Not someone like me or someone like you. You, the original, and me. That's the only combination that works."

  Jilda looked up at the stars. Gullikona, the Golden Lady of the sky, was burning in all her glory. "Sometimes I feel as if the love we have was meant to be," she said softly. "Like the princess and the warrior of the legend."

  "They don't even come close," Remo said. He looked out to sea. "Jilda, the submarine from the States is due in tomorrow."

  "No!" She held him fiercely. "We will not speak of tomorrow."

  "Why not?"

  "I will not cross the sea in an iron fish," she said. "I have built my own boat. It is hidden near the shore."

  Remo laughed. "Ever the stubborn barbarian," he said. "Look, the sub's perfectly safe, and it'll save us weeks of travel. Just trust me, okay? We'll set Griffith up with some relatives, and then-"

  "I will remain with Griffith." She held his glance for a moment, then turned away. "He is an exceptional boy. His upbringing cannot be entrusted to people who do not understand him."

  "Spoken like a true mother."

  "It was my promise to H'si T'ang. He was a wise man. We would all do well to listen to what he has said."

  "Meaning what?"

  Jilda bit her lip. "It will only be necessary to spend a few years with Griffith. After he is grown, 1 will return to Lakluun. Where I belong."

  "Hey," Remo said gently. "Is that what's bothering you?" He stroked her hair. "You don't have to change your life for me. I love you, funnyface, remember?" He

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  tweaked her nose. Her green eyes changed to blue and then gray and back to green again, like the shifting hues of an ocean. "God, I'll never get used to those," he said.

  "Remo ..."

  "Shhh. Listen to me. If you've got to stay in Wales, I'll stay with you. We'll raise Griffith together. No problem. I've always wanted a kid, anyway."

  His thoughts ran to their life together in the green hills of Emrys's valley. The three of them in the Forest Primeval. Me Tarzan, you Jilda. His face flushed, and his hands grew cold. He liked the feeling. He liked it very much. "I'll build you a nice little house," he said eagerly. "With a picket fence around it. No fair spearing any animals on the fence. And we'll plant some flowers around the front, just like in the movies."

  "Oh, Remo-"

  "And when Griffith's good and sick of us telling him how to run his life, we'll take off in one of your crazy canoes and row ourselves to Viking Land, and swim in ice water and swill mead with the boys-''

  "Stop!" She didn't bother to check her tears now.

  "I don't understand," Remo said quietly. "I'm asking you to marry me." He stared at her in bewilderment. "Don't you ... I mean, I thought you wanted ..."

  "Above all things, I wish to spend my life with you. But the sacrifice ... the sacrifice will be too great."

  "There wouldn't have to be any sacrifice, I'm telling you."

  "Not for me, Remo. For you."

  "For me? You've got to be kidding. I've spent my whole life in orphanages and army barracks and motel rooms. A cottage in Wales'11 seem like a castle as far as I'm concerned."

  "It is not the place," she said. "What you would be

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  giving up is something inside you, something so rare that the sages among your people have waited for millennia to see it." She took Remo's hand in hers. "You listened to the words of H'si T'ang. You have a great destiny before you. You cannot abandon that for something as selfish, as small as-"

  "Small?" Remo shouted, rising to his feet. "Smalll Is that all you think of us?" He picked up a rock and threw it so hard that it whistled. "Damn it, I don't want a 'great destiny.' 1 want to be happy, and for the first time in my life, I am. 1 want this. I want ..." His voice cracked. "You."

  It was a long time before Jilda spoke. "That is why I must leave you," she said quietly.

  The song of the tree frogs, combined with Chiun's distant melody, seemed to fill the world.

  "Whatl" he whispered.

  She didn't answer. She gathered her things and dressed quickly, pretending not to see Remo standing beneath the plum tree. Her vision blurred. "Good-bye," she said.

  He raced to stop her. "Tell me you don't love me."

  "Remo-"

  He shook her. "You can't believe in that prophecy crap any more than I do. I'll let you go if you want to go, but not because of any bullshit legend. Just tell me you don't want me, and I'll leave you alone. That's all I'll accept. Otherwise, you're stuck with me. For better or worse."

  "Remo, I can't. It's not fair of you."

  "Tell me! Do you love me or not?"

  The moon shifted. Her face, more beautiful than Remo had ever seen it, was bathed in pearlescent light.

  "Good," Remo said. "For a minute, I thought-"

  "I don't love you." She pulled away from him abruptly. Remo exhaled as if someone had kicked him in the belly.

  She backed away into the shadows. "I don't love you.

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  Now go to your own world, your own life, for everyone's sake. Go, be what you were meant to be."

  She turned and ran. Remo watched her, too stunned to move. A sudden gust of wind blew a shower of blossoms from the plurn tree to the ground. In a moment she was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Smith had finished scanning the Du Lac College computer tapes, and he finally went home for dinner. He had been gone for two weeks.

  Irma was cooking.

  "Hello, dear," she said, without turning from the stove.

  "Hello, Irma," he said and gave her a peck on the cheek. She did not ask where he had been or what he had been doing. He was home, safely, and that was all that counted.

  Dinner was burned pot roast and potatoes, cooked rock-hard in the center.

  Dessert was rice pudding. Smith had never liked rice pudding, but he had been trained to finish what was put in front of him, and so Irma never knew. Thirty years ago, his mother had told Irma that he didn't like rice pudding.

  Irma kept serving it. She was sure it was his mother's rice
pudding that Harold Smith didn't like.

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  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Remo never left his cabin on the long submarine ride back to the United States. It was not until Chiun, still wearing the white robes of mourning, told him that it was time to leave that Remo even moved from his bunk.

  It was dark outside when the two of them walked down the dock toward a waiting automobile.

  "I'll walk," Remo said.

  Chiun nodded, dismissing the car.

  "You don't have to come with me."

  "You have been alone long enough," the old man said. His white robes billowed in the summer breeze. Remo felt a pang of conscience.

  "I'm sorry about H'si Tang," he said.

  "My father lived a full life, and his spirit continues through the boy. I cannot ask for more."

  The moon was bright, and the sky was ablaze with stars. Remo kept his head down. He never wanted to look at stars again.

  After a long silence, Chiun spoke softly. "I have been giving thought to many things," he said. "To legends and

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  traditions and the continuity of life. It is good that the Master's Trial has been abolished."

  Remo spat.

  "Was it so distasteful to you? Did you learn nothing from it?"

  "Oh, I learned, all right," Remo said bitterly. "I learned a whole lot. "

  "Such as?"

  "Such as I should have stuck to bashing heads for Smitty. That's about all I'm good for."

  "I see," Chiun said. "Then you found nothing of value in Ancion's sense of fairness? Or Kiree's humility? Or Emrys's courage?"

  Remo looked over to him. "Yeah, I guess so. They were good. Better than me, I think, in a lot of ways."

  "And the Dutchman?"

  Remo hung his head. "He was a lot better."

  "Was he?"

  Remo knew what he meant. "Little Father, is there such a thing as ... well, opposite personalities in people? I mean, different parts of the same person, only in two different bodies?"

  "The principle of yin and yang holds true for all things."

  "But . . ."

  "He is part of you," Chiun said.

  Remo made a noise. "That stuff doesn't make any sense to me."

  "If the force of the universe were so simple as to be understandable to all, life would be a very uninteresting experience."

  "It's been too interesting for my taste. Anyway, he's gone now. I can live with him as long as he stays away from me."

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  Chiun shrugged. "Perhaps he will, perhaps not. If he ever returns, it will be different because now you know who you are. And Jilda?"

  "What about her?" He worked to keep his voice natural.

  "Have you learned from her as well?"

  "What's anybody learn from women? They come and they go. They're all the same in the dark."

  "That is unworthy of you," Chiun snapped. "Jilda was the equal of any man in the Master's Trial."

  "She was all right," Remo said dismissively. "She had weird eyes."

  "She possessed great courage. Greater than you know."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Remo said angrily. "That she doesn't lead a guy on? Well, that's true. Jilda and her trusty ax, hacking her way to independence. She can write a book. The One-Minute Way to Dump on Men. The women's libbers would love her."

  "She carries your child."

  Remo stopped dead. "She told you that?"

  "She did not have to. 1 have seen pregnant women before."

  "Well, I've seen her, too," Remo said skeptically. "And at closer quarters than you."

  "It was her manner, not her body. Ever since you arrived in Sinanju with her, I have observed her. It is true. I thought you would leave with her."

  Remo stepped back, his face pale. "I would have. I wanted . . . I've got to get back to her." He turned back toward the dock.

  "No, my son," Chiun said. "It is not what she wishes. When she came back to the cave to fetch Griffith, I confronted her with my knowledge. She made me promise never to tell you."

  Remo was trembling. "Why?"

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  "Because she understands more than you what you must do. What you will become."

  "Well, I don't give a rat's ass-" He tried to pull away from Chiun, but the old man gripped his arm tightly.

  "Think, Remo! For once, will you think? Jilda is of an ancient people. They would never accept you as one of them, and so you would live apart, as outcasts. She would bend her ways to yours, because she is a woman, and that is their nature. But she would miss her home, and her people, and the old ways in which she was reared.In time, she would grow to resent you. Perhaps even hate you."

  "Nope," Remo said. "Not that one. She wouldn't care. Besides, I'd make up for it. For God's sake, I'd do anything for her."

  "It would not be enough. And you, my son, who are so eager to throw off your responsibilities to Sinanju. Without you, there will be no Master of Sinanju after me. Except ..."

  Suddenly Remo understood. "The Dutchman," he said.

  "And while the Dutchman wields his power, unchecked, your abilities will have diminished beyond help through lack of use. Why do you think I have you work for Emperor Smith? You are still growing in the ways of Sinanju. You must work for many more years before you may take my place as reigning Master. But after even one year of idleness-or what you think of now, in your dreams, as happiness-all 1 have taught you will be gone. You cannot rest, any more than the Dutchman."

  Remo could still hear the distant waves lapping on the shore. "Did you talk Jilda into leaving me?"

  "I said nothing. She is not stupid. Nor am I willing to force you to accept the destiny of Shiva as your own. But you must know the truth. That is why I have broken my

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  promise to Jilda. If you go to her now, at least you will go with some understanding of the consequences." He released Remo's arm and walked away.

  Remo stood very still. The sea called to him. Green and blue and gray, the colors of Jiida's eyes. Soon there would be a child, Remo's child, with the same strange, unworldiy gaze. A beautiful child, born of a love and passion that would never be duplicated.

  A child for the Dutchman to find and kill . . .

  Remo covered his face with his hands, it would happen, he knew. The Dutchman would never be sane. In his search for death, he would surely come for Remo, because he understood now that their lives were permanently enmeshed. And Remo would have weakened. Even if he practiced the exercises of Sinanju every day, he would not have Chiun to guide him.

  It would be so easy, with Jilda and the baby, to forget the Dutchman altogether. A peaceful life, quiet, comfortable. But one day the Dutchman would come_back for him. And Jilda. And the child. The beast inside him would see that Remo had no heirs.

  He whispered, "Jilda, I can't do it."

  But she had known that all along, he realized.

  He turned, cold inside, from the sound of the waves and walked back to Chiun. The old man was waiting for "him.

  "I wonder if I'll ever see the baby," he said.

  "Do you think you could bring yourself to part with them then?"

  Remo thought. "No. No, I guess not." They walked a long way. "Never, then."

  "Jilda is a fine woman. She will raise a good son."

  "Or daughter," Remo said. "I've always wanted a daughter.''

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  "A son," Chiun said simply.

  "What makes you so sure what it'll be?" A thought occurred to him that made him feel as if his heart had just shot into his throat. "Not another one of your crazy legends."

  "Some traditions must be continued," Chiun said, walking ahead.

  "Oh, no. No kid of mine is going to go through this. I won't let it happen."

  Chiun turned and smiled. "Then you do believe, after all."

  Remo scowled. "You old conniver," he said, strolling beside him.

  Jilda. Oh, Jilda, how I'll miss you.

  It w
as a clear night, a night of beginnings and endings. Somewhere on a starlit sea a child was growing. And here, a world away, Remo was alone. Again. It broke his heart.

  "I wish ..."

  "Yes?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Go ahead. Sometimes it helps to talk."

  Remo swallowed. "I wish things didn't have to turn out the way they do."

  Chiun put his arm around him. "I know, my son," he said gently. "I know."

  Remo felt in his pocket. His carved jade stone from the Master's Trial was still there. He clutched it tightly. It was all he had to remind him.

  His eyes filled. "Go on without me," he said. The old man walked ahead. When Remo was alone, he turned his face to the trunk of a tall tree and wept,,For himself, for Jilda, for the child he would never see. The Golden Lady would never be his until the day he died. All he had left of her was a cold jade stone.

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  A breeze cooled his face, carrying with it the faraway scent of the sea. He looked up. Not all. He had something else, after all. For among the thousands of stars gleaming in the summer sky, one shone above all the others. GuIlikona, with its golden fire, burned only for him.

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