"I remember," Remo said quietly. "The people of Moo thought Ru-Taki-Nuhu held up the sky with his tentacles."
Chiun held a fist over the side. A finger coiled out and down. "Ru-Taki-Nuhu, known to Sinanju as Sa Mangsang, sleeps below us."
"Good for him. Not that I believe in him, that is."
"These squid are his offspring and acolytes. They guard his resting place, dreaming of the hour their lord will awaken to consume them, as he will consume all earthly life."
"Why don't we just be on our way?" Remo said suddenly.
"Because you are going to awaken Sa Mangsang."
"And have him drink up the ocean? No, thanks."
"You must awaken Sa Mangsang so that he sees you. Then you must make a certain sign with your fingers. Like this." Chiun made an arcane gesture by separating his two middle fingers.
"I don't think my fingers bend that way."
"You will make this sign, and once Sa Mangsang has seen it, he will know you for Sinanju. Then and only then you must return him to slumber."
"With what? I don't exactly carry sleeping pills on me."
"You would do well to remember that the Greeks had another name for Sa Mangsang."
"What's that?"
"Hydra."
Remo made a thoughtful face in the murk. "Hydra. Hydra. I've heard of the Hydra."
Chiun pressed his hands together firmly. "Enough! It is time for you to awaken Sa Mangsang from his ancient sleep."
Remo folded his arms. "No way I'm jumping into a sea full of unhappy squid," he said defiantly.
Chiun's eyes narrowed in the darkness. "I will not insist that you jump, if you are afraid to," he said, voice as thin as his unreadable eyes.
Remo looked at his master's stern eyes, "You don't exactly say that like you mean it."
"I mean it exactly. I will not insist that you jump into these evil waters."
"Good," said Remo. "Because I'm not jumping." And taking the rowboat's creaking oarlocks in both hands, Remo held on.
Chiun took hold of his gunwales and began rocking on his seat. The boat began rocking in sympathy. Remo tried rocking in counterbalance. Chiun redoubled his rocking. Having established the rhythm first, he had the advantage. Remo tried to find the rhythm in the hope of setting up a counter-rhythm. But during the precious seconds in which he was searching, he only aided Chiun in destabilizing the tiny craft. The boat took on water on the port side, then in the bow.
Quickly it began swamping.
"If you don't stop," Remo warned, "we're both going in."
And they did. The boat tipped precariously one way, and letting go of the oarlocks, Remo threw his weight to the other side desperately.
With the end result that the rowboat capsized completely.
Remo plunged into the cold water, automatically charging his lungs with oxygen. Though caught by surprise, his body did the natural thing and took in as much air as possible.
Orienting himself, Remo looked up. The sea above was choked with feeding, darting squid. When he saw the Master of Sinanju's feet dangling in the water, his skirts floating high like the mantle of a jellyfish, the upturned boat beside him, Remo started up to help.
Abruptly the boat righted itself, and the skirt collapsed like an umbrella. The feet of the Master of Sinanju vanished completely.
Remo broke the surface at the boat's stern. He looked up.
In front of him the face of Chiun hovered. Above his head the flat part of an oar hovered, too.
The other end of the oar was firm in the Master of Sinanju's bony fists as he sat in the rowboat's stern. "You letting me back aboard?" Remo asked.
"After you have troubled Sa Mangsang's sleep as a warning to him that he should remain steadfast in slumber so long as the House of Sinanju exists in the world."
"What if I don't come back?"
"It will not matter, because Sa Mangsang will then drink up the entire ocean and with it this fragile craft and its very sad occupant. So do not fail."
"I don't believe in Sa Mangsang."
"You will soon change your mind, as did I when my Master brought me to this place, as did the Master before him and all Masters before him going back through the mighty ages."
Remo hesitated. But the scattered squid were returning to the vicinity of the rowboat, and so Remo took in a deeper breath, held it and willed his body to sink feetfirst.
THE LIGHT OF THE MOON and stars barely penetrated deeper down in the water. But Remo, with his Sinanju training, could adjust to the lack of ambient light. Compensating for the increasing pressure, Remo worked his way down gradually. He might need his full strength for the swim back to the surface-even if he encountered nothing.
The seafloor was relatively shallow here. A depth of hardly more than an eighth of a mile, not so deep that he couldn't prevent nitrogen narcosis-the bends-upon ascent.
Letting his eyes grow accustomed to his surroundings, Remo at first saw only diatoms floating past. Then the seafloor began to resolve itself.
It was jagged, geometric and encrusted with staghorn coral and other marine life. There were volcanic cones. Thermal vents belched an unnatural subterranean heat.
Then Remo saw the pyramid.
It was not a true pyramid, like the Great Pyramid of Giza. It didn't rise up from the ocean floor to a point. It wasn't four sided, but three sided. The angles weren't true. It was strange. Remo, who hadn't done well in geometry in school, nevertheless realized the angles were incorrect.
Whoever had built the pyramid hadn't used solid geometry correctly. The base of the pyramid was off kilter, and the sides weren't aligned or true.
Yet the pyramid reared up to a flat summit that waved with fanlike hands. Kelp. They seemed to beckon with feathery fingers.
Remo swam to the pyramid, searching its sides. It wasn't made from blocks, he soon discovered. He wiped sea scum from different places, trying to find the joints where giant blocks would have fit together. There were none that he could find. It might have been carved from a solid chunk of matter.
The material under the scum was smooth and hard. Underwater and in this low light, it was difficult to figure out what the material was. If not blocks of stone, then what?
Turning, Remo zoomed up to the flat base to rest. It was big enough to park a sedan on. And as he kicked away the scummy residue and the waving kelp, he uncovered a long rectangular slot in the cap.
Getting down on hands and knees, Remo tried to peer into the slot but could see nothing. He stood up and walked back a few paces, pondering his next move.
And it was while Remo stood waiting in the nearabsolute darkness of the Pacific Ocean that a sinuous length of rubbery matter quested up, out, to curl toward his chest from behind.
Remo felt the cold suction power of a hundred pads attach themselves to his skin, and before he could respond, the thing withdrew, dragging him into the great pyramid with it.
His last thought was a plaintive, Chiun, what did you get me into?
REMO CAUGHT the sides of the slot with both hands. The tentacle-it felt like a slime-coated rubber hosesqueezed reflexively. Remo heard his own rib-cage cartilage crackle. An eruption of bubbles was forced from his mouth. The tentacles squeezed anew.
Suspended with his palms flat on the cold material on either side of the slot, his elbows bent, Remo forced his lungs to retain their energizing air.
The tentacle around his chest began to grope for better purchase. Through his T-shirt Remo could feel the cold suckers grow warm, as if blood and vitality were flowing through the being in the pyramid after a long hibernation.
As he struggled to keep from being dragged into the slot, some of the suckers let go. Remo strained upward, but relief was momentary. The suckers were simply seeking better adhesion.