The warrior who had brought Remo held out his, hand and slapped the palm with two fingers. Uncertain of what he wanted, Remo gave him the piece of jade. It seemed to satisfy the warrior. He presented it to the man on the throne.
"You are the heir to the Master of Sinanju?" the one in bat fur asked. "A white man?"
"Nobody's perfect," Remo said. "Are you Ancion?"
"Ancion," the crowd murmured.
"Is that the only word they know?"
The eyes of the man on the throne flashed. "The name of the Inca is sacred. It is not to be spoken by outsiders."
Remo looked around. "Which Inca?"
"There is but one Inca. He who rules the Inca peoples, descended from a hundred generations of kings. Our ways are not like yours, where even a mongrel white American is designated to take the place of the Master of Sinanju." He stared at Remo contemptuously. "Do not dare to use my name again."
Remo fought down the urge to jog up the stairs and punch Ancion in the nose. "Whatever makes you happy,"
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he said. "Say, whoozis, it's about this fight we're supposed to have."
"The Master's Trial is not a 'fight.' "
"Well, it's not exactly a tea party. Look, You may not know this, but I'm supposed to kill you."
Ancion smiled coldly. "If you can, white man."
"Okay, okay. Maybe you'll kill me. The point is, this makes about as much sense as a circle jerk at the North Pole. Let's talk it over, okay?"
"If you are afraid to fight me, then acknowledge your defeat."
"Fine," Remo said. "You're the winner. Congrats. See you in church." He ambled away.
"Stop," Ancion shouted.
"What now? I told you you won."
"In the Master's Trial, only the victor lives. If you will not fight, you will be executed."
Remo said, "Hey, what's with you, anyway? I'm offering you an easy way out. We've both got better things to do than beat each other up like a couple of Tenth Avenue hoods. I just want to talk."
"The talking was done twelve centuries ago. Make your choice. The arena or the gallows?"
The man's English was definitely accented, but the accent wasn't Spanish. "How come you sound just like the Kennedys?" Remo asked.
"I was educated at Harvard. What is your choice, white man?"
"Harvard? Did they teach you there that it's okay to murder strangers?"
"I went to your country to study the ways of so-called civilized men. What I found was that civilization breeds war above all other things."
"And what do you think the Master's Trial breeds, hamsters?"
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"What we do today is not war, but a sacred tradition to avert war among the great remaining societies of the world. Without the Master's Trial, our peoples would fight one another openly. We would become known to the outside world. We would be absorbed into the huge, useless nations of the planet, wallowing in mediocrity. Without our traditions, we would lose our past. Do you not understand?"
"We don't have to fight each other in the first place," Remo said. "We can just mind our own business."
"That is not the nature of our peoples."
"How do you know? This dumb contest's been going on for a thousand years. Maybe ten thousand. Maybe we ought to try and get along."
"This is a useless argument," Ancion said. "We are not here to abolish the Master's Trial."
"Why not?"
"What is your choice, coward?"
Remo sighed. "I'll fight you," he said at last. "What a pain in the ass you are."
As the Inca rose, the people in the room prostrated themselves on the floor. Ancion glided regally down the long staircase to a covered palanquin held by four stocky men on their knees. At a signal, they rose and carried Ancion outside.
Remo followed him into a stone amphitheater on the grounds behind the palace. Ancion's subjects, numbering nearly a thousand now, gathered around to watch.
"What happens if I win?" Remo asked, indicating the crowd.
"They will only kill you if you use magic."
"You learned a lot of terrific things at Harvard."
"They will watch for sorcery," Ancion said. An aide handed him what looked like a large ball made of leather strips.
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"I hate to break it to you, but there's no such thing as sorcery," Remo said.
The Inca didn't iook at him. "Now I see you are ignorant as well as arrogant."
"Knock it off, Ancion."
"Ancion," the crowd chanted.
"Will you guys cut that out?" Remo yelled. "So I'm ignorant because 1 don't believe in magic, huh? Well, this isn't the Middle Ages, you know. Which is what I've been trying to tell you since I got here."
"There is sorcery," Ancion said. "If you do not recognize it, then it will defeat you."
"Oh, I see. Is that what you're going to do, put the old whammy on me?"
"I have no magic," Ancion said quietly. "H'si T'ang has. The Other has."
Remo started. "The Other?"
"The one of legend, whom only magic can conquer."
"What's his name?"
"He has no name. He is the Other. But you will not meet him, because I will kill you first."
He grasped the end of a leather string protruding from the ball in his hands and snapped his arm outward. The ball unraveled with a crack into a long whip ending in a baseball-sized sphere that glittered with green light. It sang as Ancion twirled it above his head.
"My weapon is a bola of cut emeralds in mortar. What is yours?"
Remo watched the flying stone twirl in expert figure-eights in the sky. He knew by its speed that it could slice him in two in a fraction of a second. Ancion's face was set in deadly earnest. There was no way to talk him out of the Master's Trial now.
"What is your weapon?" the Inca repeated.
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Remo readied himself, relaxing his muscles, focusing his energy, preparing his mind. "Sinanju," he said.
The crowd hushed. Ancion's bola whistled as it swung low, the first attack. Remo leaped over it. The Inca turned effortlessly, keeping the sparkling green ball taut at a distance of ten feet between himself and Remo. Then, the whip advancing like a snake, the second attack came. Small fluttering circles that sent Remo flying backward. When Remo was almost at the edge of the spectators, Ancion pulled the bola back into a huge, shrieking ellipse that cut through the air at different levels on each lightning-fast rotation.
The ball came at Remo's knees, then his neck, then his stomach. There was no way to get close to Ancion, unless he timed his attack with the rhythm of the bola. He waited, he counted. He felt the beating of the sailing ball, and prepared himself to advance when it was farthest from him. Then he moved quickly, straight ahead.
In the split second before he went down, Remo saw the hint of a smile on Ancion's face. For in that moment, just as Remo's feet twitched to advance forward, the Inca changed the rhythm of the flying weighted whip in his hand. With a jerk he shortened the length of leather cord. Before Remo could react to the movement, he felt the cut gems slit three deep grooves in his back.
"Are you still so sure you will kill me, American?" He pulled the bola back.
Remo got to his feet, feeling the throb in the flesh of his back. "Why-why didn't you kill me? You had the chance."
"The Master's Trial is a contest of skill, not a massacre. I will not harm a man on the ground." He swung the weapon forward.
Remo dodged it, but barely. It came at him again. He rolled, scattering the crowd. Again he was on the ground,
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and again Ancion stepped back, waiting. His aristocratic features were impassive.
Who is this man? Remo thought. Ancion had sworn to kill him, and yet he had spared his life twice in five minutes. This wasn't the kind of fighting Remo was used to. It was clean. It was fair. And it was good. Weapon or no weapon, Ancion knew how to handle himself.