"Oh. You had some trouble," Chiun said. "I was sure that everything was going wonderfully for you. You look so good."
"Knock it off, Chiun. This hasn't been an easy night."
"And they will get no easier. A fish out of water might not like the first few minutes, but he can be sure that the next minutes will be even worse."
"Please," said Remo. His body, which had withstood the burn of heat and flame, was now paying the price the tension had demanded. Remo felt weak. He could feel his tissues dehydrated and drying. All the fluids he had pushed to the surface of his body to guard against being badly burned were now dissipating throughout his body, and his skin felt parched. His mouth needed water. He could feel a lightness in his head and for a moment, he felt himself swaying to the right. He almost fell, but held himself up by catching onto a dresser with his right hand.
Chiun was at his side. "Fool," he hissed. "Foolish, foolish child."
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Remo tried to say something flip, but no words parted his dry lips. He felt himself being steered, almost lifted, because he had no sense of moving his muscles as he was pushed into the bathroom and Chiun was at his side. He left Remo leaning against the sink, turned on the tub water, then helped Remo out of his charred clothing and lifted him, like a baby, into the tub.
"Stay here," he snarled and ran into the room.
"I wasn't going anywhere," Remo mumbled.
Chiun was back in a few seconds with a small stone vial. He took out the curved stone stopper and upended the bottle over the bath water. A thick blue liquid dripped from the bottle into the bath. Chiun stirred it around with his hand, and as Remo felt the liquid touching his body, he felt his skin tingle with a delicate throbbing, almost as if Chiun had introduced the faint electric current of a flashlight batteiy to the water.
"Not bad," Remo said.
"Fool, fool, fool, fool," said Chiun.
"Not now," Remo said. "I've got a headache."
"You will have more than a headache if this continues," Chiun said and, just as Remo feared, Chiun did not leave the bathroom, but stood over the tub looking down at Remo.
"Don't you know you have obligations?" Chiun said. "You just can't stop killing people because you don't want to kill them anymore. An assassin has responsibilities."
"Let somebody else have them," Remo said. He felt a tiredness coming over him, a wave of sleepi-
ness.
"What would happen if everybody decided he 105
didn't want to do his job anymore?" Chiun demanded.
"In this country, not much," Remo said softly.
"No?" Chiun said. "Who would roast chestnuts in the streets? Who would fail to teach American children to read or to write to or have good manners if your teachers all walked out of their classrooms tomorrow? If you leave, who will do Emperor Smith's assassinations? Are you going to leave it all to amateurs? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Yes," said Remo.
"That is what's wrong with America today," Chiun said. "No one takes pride in his work. Excuses for assassins wander around blowing up people everywhere, and we all get a bad name. Have you no sense of responsibility at all?"
"Yes, I have," Remo said. "I feel responsible for getting the guys who are behind these fires."
"At least, that is a beginning," Chiun said.
"Because I owe it to Ruby. She was our friend."
Chiun sighed, surrendering momentarily in the face of an intellect that would not respond.
"Doing good is still good," Chiun said, "even if it is done for the wrong reasons."
Remo nodded, although he did not understand what Chiun meant. He was too tired, and then he slipped down into the tub so that the water covered his body up to the neck, and he closed his eyes to sleep. Before he dozed off, the last thing he remembered was a damp face cloth being placed gently on his face, and he sensed the tingle of his skin as it responded to the lotion in the cloth. He thought fleetingly how easy it would be for Chiun just to press his hand down over the washcloth and slide Remo's head under the water and hold him
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there until he breathed no more, but he put that thought out of his mind as sleep came over him.
Chiun looked at his sleeping student and said softly, "Sleep, my son, because there is much yet to be learned." And then, to watch Remo, to make sure he was well, Chiun sat down carefully on the tiled bathroom floor, folded his arms, and waited.
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CHAPTER NINE
Remo did not know how long he slept. When he opened his eyes, Chiun was sitting on the floor of the bathroom.
"You been sitting there?" Remo asked.
"No," said Chiun. "I came in to see if I had dropped something in here."
Remo nodded. Suddenly he realized that the pain was gone from his skin. He lifted his right hand from the water and raised it in front of his face. The redness was gone; where his skin had been scored with thin lines, seemingly ready to crack, the flesh had reabsorbed moisture and filled out again.
"Good stuff you put in the bath," Remo said. "What was it anyway?"
"The eyes of toads," Chiun said. "Ground goat horn. Dried calves' gall bladders." Remo covered his eyes as Chiun went on. "Droppings of waterfowl. Pickled tongue of newt. Salamander organs."
"Stop it, I'm going to heave," Remo said.
"You asked," Chiun said.
"If you were kind, you wouldn't have told me'," Remo said. As he started to rise from the tub, Chiun rose and turned his back and Remo was
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amused at the aged Oriental's modesty. He wrapped a towel around himself. "Was it really all those things?" he asked.
"Get burned again and I'll make you drink it," Chiun sniffed.
He walked out of the bathroom, and when Remo had put of fresh clothes, he came out into the living room. He knew that Chiun was going to try to talk him into rejoining CURE, but he was willing to put up with that, just to be with Chiun again. He had not realized how much he could miss the old scolder.
"I guess you're going to try to talk me into going back to work for Smitty," Remo said.
Chiun was standing at the window, looking out over the St. Louis night sky. Behind him, in the distance, Remo could see the arches crossing the Mississippi River. Chiun waved his hand.
"Do what you want," he said.
'Then why are you here?" Remo asked. Again, for the briefest moment, came the fear that Chiun was here on Smith's orders to eliminate Remo. But that was foolish. Would Chiun have nursed Remo back to health just to kill him? Foolish? Perhaps but Remo knew it might be like Chiun to do that, probably to fulfill some ancient legend of Sinanju that was old before the Wall of China. One never knew.
"Why, Chiun?" Remo asked again.
"I want to know about these fires," Chiun said.
"Somebody's setting fires around the country. They killed Ruby. I want to even the score."
"I know that," Chiun said in disgust. "But tell me about these fires. Who is setting them?"
"A man named Solly and a young kid. I met the
HO
kid tonight. Chiun, I've never seen anything like that."
Chiun turned. His hazel eyes seemed to burn into Remo's. He said, 'Tell me what happened."
"I found a place they were going to burn up," Remo said. "I went there and I caught the kid in the act. I was trying to get to him . . . Chiun, he started to glow . . . like electricity was passing through him. He was like a human flame thrower. He was across the room, tut he just pointed his hands and fires were starting up all around me. Everywhere I turned there was a fire. I couldn't get through to him. When I finally got out, he was gone. I missed him."
"You are fortunate," Chiun said.
Remo sat on the sofa. It was a good hotel, but the sofa slipcover was made of the spun iron that all hotel sofas were made of, impervious to everything but dirt.