"She might have stopped by," Chiun admitted. "That's what I was afraid of. Was she showing next door again? You've got to stop scaring everyone off, Chiun."
As he spoke, Remo peeked over the fence. He didn't see any severed arms or legs.
The Master of Sinanju finally opened his eyes. "I?" Chiun asked, his voice straining with insulted innocence. "I? What makes you think I would scare, nay that I could scare anyone? Me? Scare? I am but a humble, sweet and kindly old man. Scare? How could I scare? My heart is filled to overflowing with goodness. I do not scare anyone. People like me. I, Remo, am a people person."
"I don't exactly see them flocking to you in droves," Remo commented. There weren't any bodies in the small yard. Maybe Chiun had stuffed them in a closet inside.
"They used to," Chiun sniffed. "Then I met you, and the droves started flocking in the other direction." Remo decided that there probably weren't any bodies. If people had been looking at the next-door unit, there would have been some cars parked out front. The pool at the bottom of the hill was already covered for winter. No one had been fishing out any runaway cars when he drove by.
"Okay," he said, turning back to his teacher. "If she wasn't showing the house, what was she doing up here?"
"Not everyone is like you, Remo Williams," the Master of Sinanju said. "Some people are givers, not takers. They are more than happy to do favors for the Master."
"Are you kidding? She ducks and covers every time she sees you. How'd you get her to do favors for you?"
"Because, unlike you, Remo, I take an interest in my community. Had you attended last week's rental board meeting as I did, you would know that the board unanimously voted that I was a wonderful human being and that, because I am old and frail and have a son who would rather run off all afternoon without even bothering to tell me where he is going, I have special needs that require special attention."
Remo knew Chiun had started to attend the informal Tuesday-night board meetings in the rec hall a month ago. Remo figured there was an angle. For weeks Remo had been worrying about intimidation and hospital bills. Now he realized Chiun had been pulling a slow con job on the board members.
"I get it. You went and whined for elderly privileges and managed to get poor Becky gofering for you."
"Poor nothing," Chiun sniffed. "She is rewarded handsomely as an employee of this complex. My rent money pays her salary. Therefore she works for me."
"I'm paying our rent," Remo pointed out.
"And I am paying every day of my life for putting up with you."
"Let's call it square," Remo conceded. "So what was she doing here? Light dusting? Typing? Stacking bodies?"
"She was delivering my mail," the Master of Sinanju said. There was a strange lilt in his voice.
Remo frowned. "I already got today's mail."
"Not the garbage mail," Chiun said, waving a weathered hand. "This was my own personal mail." Remo understood. For years the Master of Sinanju had kept a post-office box for special correspondence. Remo mostly didn't pay attention to that stuff, but he got the impression that Chiun had moved into the cyber age, hiring someone to collect and forward mail for him from a special Internet address. That mail was printed and sent along with all other personal correspondence to Chiun's P.O. box.
"You got them to make her do the post-office run for you?" Remo asked, impressed. "Wow. You must've really laid the snow job on thick with the board." He crossed his arms. "So what did you get? I'm guessing not another hardware-store flier."
A smile toyed just beneath the surface of the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled lips. When he nodded, the tufts of hair above his ears did a soft dance of weighty appreciation. When he finally opened his mouth, he spoke only three words.
"It is time," the Reigning Master of Sinanju announced.
His reverent tone caught Remo off guard.
In their many years together there were only a few times in training-very few in Remo's memory-that the Master of Sinanju had shown true pride in the way his pupil performed a given task. Words of praise, or even something as simple as a smile or a nod, were rare indeed. They came only when the Master of Sinanju was so overwhelmed by pride that he dropped his cynical guard and lost himself to the moment.
Those three simple words, delivered on the patio of their small town house, were spoken with just such pride. And with a touch of quiet reverence thrown in for good measure.
Remo slowly uncrossed his arms. "Time for what?"
In reply Chiun reached deep inside a billowing kimono sleeve. The old man pulled out a single white envelope, which he held aloft like some great and treasured prize.
Remo took the offered envelope.
The paper was heavy. The envelope wasn't a cheapie. On the back was a wax seal. A shield topped by what looked like a knight's helmet was flanked by a lion and a unicorn. A banner at the bottom read Dieu Et Mon Droit.
The seal had not been broken.
There were no mailing or return addresses on the envelope. If it had come to Chiun's post-office box, it had to have been sent inside something else.
Remo looked up, puzzled. "Open it," Chiun encouraged.
Still confused, Remo did as he was told. Inside he found a single sheet of folded parchment. The paper felt old to the touch. In the center were written four simple words: "We are expecting you."
Nothing more.
It was a woman's handwriting. The script was crisp and sure. The woman who had written the words was obviously confident and unused to making mistakes. She had used an old ink-dipped quill, not a disposable instrument. Remo knew the difference. He had seen the same sort of strokes used by Chiun when recording the Sinanju histories.
"Okay," Remo said, looking up. "I give. What's this supposed to mean?"
"It means, O dim one, that it is time. That is the last. It will be the first." Chiun rose in a single fluid motion that barely disturbed the hems of his flowing robes. "Call Emperor Smith," he instructed. "Inform him the time is at hand and that we are leaving." He swept for the sliding glass patio doors that led into the kitchen.
"Whoa, Chiun. Where are we leaving to? What time is this supposed to be? What the ding-dang is going on?"
"Must everything be spelled out for you?" Chiun said impatiently. "The Time of Succession is finally here."
Remo felt an anxious thread in his belly.
"Okay, that sounds bad. Chiun, I've had to put up with the Sinanju Rite of Attainment, the Night of the Salt, the Dream of Death and about a hundred other rites of passage over the years. None of them were any fun. Are you telling me you're dumping another one on me? 'Cause if you are, I'm telling you right now, I can't take it."
"You can and you will," Chiun insisted sternly. "Those other passages were times of difficulty. This is merely a formality. It is your time of reckoning. By the end of our journey, your long apprenticeship will be at an end and the House of Sinanju will have a new Reigning Master."
The words hit Remo like a fist to the chest. He stood there for a long moment, unsure of what to say.
He could feel the eyes of Chiun's ancestors burning through him.
"You sure about that, Little Father?" he asked finally.
He winced at the old man's withering look. "Okay, you're sure," Remo muttered.
"As sure as I am that you will bring honor to the House and will not embarrass me in front of all the Masters who have come before," the old man announced to the small stone courtyard. He pitched his voice very low, leaning in to his pupil. "If you embarrass me in front of my family, you will rue the day, Remo Williams," he threatened.
Turning on his heel, he marched into the house. "Not much pressure, right, guys?" Remo asked the air.
His words were lost on a chill late-afternoon breeze that was like the breath of a thousand lost souls.