The Master of Sinanju looked upward.
A great crystal chandelier was coming closer. The cracked and cobwebbed ceiling loomed larger and larger.
His eyes warned him that the ceiling was coming down to crush him, but his inner senses told another story.
The floor was moving upward, carrying him with it.
Either way, the promised result would be the same. A crushing, ignominious death.
Chiun waited, face calm. The Master of Sinanju, Dispenser of Awesome Death, prepared to face death itself.
At the last possible moment, the ceiling split along its longitudinal axis and flew upward in two sections, taking the fixed chandelier with it.
The floor lifted the Master of Sinanju level with the second story of Horrible House, and he stepped off the settling platform.
He found himself in a place of death.
There was a coffin at one end of a funeral parlor. Around it, silently weeping mourners huddled, dabbing eyes with black handkerchiefs. All were turned away from him in their noble grief.
The Master of Sinanju cleared his throat out of respect for the dead. "I am looking for the Mouse of the house," he said solemnly, "and have no wish to disturb your grief."
At the sound of his voice, all heads turned-to show exposed bone and flaming eyes. Toothsome jaws dropped. Ghoulish laughter echoed off the crepe-hung walls.
And the coffin lid creaked slowly upward, impelled by a rotted purple hand.
"You are all dead," Chiun hissed.
The laughter returned, booming.
"And therefore you mock life," he snapped. "I will dispense with you all, shades of the living."
Sweeping in, the Master of Sinanju struck out with his deadly nails. They flashed and slashed through necks, impaled glaring eyeballs, and sliced at solar plexuses. All to no avail. The shades of the dead were insubstantial. They could not be harmed.
Eyes wide, the Master of Sinanju hurried from the room of the dead, slamming the heavy ironwood door behind him.
The next room was absolutely dark. Only the mocking laughter from beyond the door disturbed its vibrations.
But within a moment, a green witch was sporting along the black-painted ceiling.
She was a crone of rags and lank hair, her hat a black cone. She rode her ratty broom in furious circles that disturbed none of the quiet vibrations of the room.
The Master of Sinanju watched as, like a trapped bat, she swooped and climbed. This was beyond understanding. But even a creature of other realms could make a mistake.
The bottom of one long swoop brought her to within striking range. Chiun uncoiled like a striking viper.
His feet took him up, where he paused for a heartbeat. Then, with the witch about to veer away he unsnapped his coiled limbs and struck out in all directions at once.
The witch passed through him without harm to either of them and he dropped to his feet, discouraged.
"Look at him," the Director chortled. "He looks like he doesn't know whether to shit or go blind!"
"Director, the other one is successfully negotiating the Tom Thumb Pavilion."
"He won't make it. He can't."
"Take a look for yourself." The Director turned in his seat. His dead left eye, behind its patch, tried to focus by reflex. He cursed.
And when his one good eye had focused on the overhead screen, he cursed again and kept on cursing.
For there, moving like a figure in some nervous silent film, was the fruity man in black. Puppets exploded around him, or breathed thin lances of flaming oil, yet he managed to avoid every one of them.
"Where's the damned bear?" he growled.
"Cowering," Maus reported.
"Get him out there! Have him gun down that son of a bitch before he can get out the exit door!"
"Yes, Director."
"In my day, people did a day's work for a day's pay."
The Director returned to his screen. The tiny Asian man was looking around in the dark room, his figure as seen through the night-vision camera a greenish dappling of pixels.
"Agile little bugger, isn't he?" he muttered, reaching for a switch. He reset the control computer for Fatal Cycle, adding, "I've had enough fun with that little chink."
The entire floor dropped away under the Master of Sinanju's black-dyed sandals.
There was nothing for him to grasp and no time to think, so he did what his trained body told him to. He relaxed.
Limbs loose, he landed lightly twenty feet below in a chamber of rude stone. High in the ceiling the floor trap clapped shut, and in the sudden darkness yellow-orange cat's eyes blinked on at points high atop the walls.
These illuminated the grilled drains at ankle level, which began to gush cold water, quickly covering the floor in converging currents.
The Master of Sinanju watched the waterline creep upward. He was not concerned. It was only water. If it filled the entire chamber, he would simply float to the ceiling, where the trapdoor would surrender to his awesome skill.
And so he waited.
"Look at him! It's like he hasn't got a nerve in his entire scrawny body!" the Director complained.
"Perhaps he's paralyzed by fear, sir."
"Well, I'm going to unparalyze him. Here come the snakes."
They were water moccasins, and they eeled out of the lifting grates and twitched into the water angrily, wedge-shaped heads attempting to orient themselves to the unfamiliar environment.
When their eyes fell upon the Master of Sinanju's floating skirts and exposed legs, they arrowed toward them.
The water was now approaching the Master of Sinanju's tiny waist.
He could float if he so wished. He did not wish this, however. His hazel eyes watched the V-shaped wakes of the approaching banded brown vipers with mild interest.
And he began to stamp his feet in place, his hands still concealed in his kimono sleeves. He would not need his hands to discourage mere serpents.
The Director watched, aghast.
"The little runt is doing some kind of jig!"
Captain Maus came over.
"No, Director. Look at the blood in the water. He's killing the snakes with his feet."
"By stepping on them? Just like that?"
"So it appears."
"Who does he think he is, Saint Patrick?"
"Unknown, sir."
"Well, let him try kicking bull gators around then!"
The alligators crawled and splashed from the grates like khaki logs with stumpy legs. They yawned as they came, disclosing unkempt toothy ripsaw mouths.
By this time, the Master of Sinanju was afloat. His skirts hung low in the water, presenting, he knew, an attractive enticement to the reptiles.
So he dived down into the water to meet them on their own terms. One lacked a left eye. He came first.
There were three. They kicked and slashed about with their muscular tails.
A corded tail came around, and the Master of Sinanju blocked it with a pipe-stem wrist. The reptile, his sluggish brain reacting to the pain of its encounter, curled up in a ball and floated inert, one eye closed and the other a black pit.
The other two circled, legs flippering.
One passed close enough for the Master of Sinanju to seize its tail and arrest its progress. The grinning head snapped around angrily. Chiun tugged. The jaws snapped, and kept snapping. With the second gator in a mood to bite anything it encountered, the Master of Sinanju gave it a gentle nudge in the direction of its third saurian brother.
Soon the two gators were chomping one another to shreds, and the water was turning a rusty red.
When the bodies had floated to the surface, the Master of Sinanju mounted them and stood resolute while the upward-creeping water brought him inexorably closer to the trapdoor and freedom.
"He killed my gators!" the Director raged, pounding the console with one gnarled fist. Plastic buttons cracked and popped up from their settings.