"Can you direct me to the village of Sinanju?" the Dutchman asked them in perfect Korean. The men looked surprised.
"I think it's over that way," the most coherent of them said, pointing vaguely inland.
"Thank you." The Dutchman did not turn away, but stared instead into the man's eyes: He was growing comfortable with the beast within him. It wanted to play. "That's a nasty burn on your arm."
"Hm? What?" The fisherman glanced down at his arm. "There's nothing wrong with-" He sucked in his breath. Before his eyes, the man's forearm bubbled into red, seeping blisters. "What's happened?"
The others came around to examine the arm. It was swelling to twice its size. The hair on it frizzled and disappeared. The outer skin dried, then blackened.
The man screamed. The others drew back, watching the Dutchman with alarm.
"Take out your eyes," he commanded the man holding the bottle.
With a shudder, the man squatted on the ground and broke the bottle on a rock.
"Yi Sun!" the third man said. But the eyes of the man
113
with the broken bottleneck in his hands never left the Dutchman. Viciously he struck his own face with the jagged glass, digging deep into his eye sockets until streams of clear liquid poured out of them and two pulpy masses hung down his cheeks.
The third man emitted a wail that was half-whisper, half-sob, and skittered backward.
"You!" the Dutchman called.
The man covered his face and ran. Within ten paces he dropped, the ground red with scattered blood and intestines for a hundred feet in all directions. His belly had exploded.
The Dutchman threw his head back and laughed. The power, coursing through him, filled him with ecstasy. Then, as quickly as the sensation had come, it vanished, leaving him groggy and weak.
He vomited. There was blood in the thin liquid that came out of him. Not long . . . not long now. His body was skeletal, his vision blurry.
Find Chiun. And then, his promise fulfilled, he could seek death in peace. If he accomplished his mission, Nuihc's spirit would allow him some comfort at the end. He had promised him rest.
Chiun was nearby. The caves. There was a force coming from one of them, a power, a music. He had reached his quarry.
"Thank you, Nuihc," he whispered, stumbling forward blindly.
Rest. After a lifetime of torment, he would find rest at last.
The tiny porcelain cup in H'si T'ang's hands dropped to the floor.
"Master?" Chiun asked, moving to the old man's side. "Are you not well?"
"He is here." He gestured with a trembling hand to-
114
ward the opening of the cave. "The Other ... the Other has come."
Chiun sprang to his feet and waited in the shadows of the cave entrance.
"But something is wrong. His aura is broken, almost disappeared. . . . Now, my son. Now."
Chiun prepared to strike. There was a thud outside, then silence.
"Gone," H'si T'ang said, confused. "The presence is gone."
Chiun peered out. Lying in front of the entranceway was the emaciated form of a man with blond hair, his face in the dirt. He was barely breathing.
"It is a wounded man," Chiun said. He lifted the body gently over his shoulder and carried him inside. "Whoever he is, he will not harm us now." He lowered the man onto the grass mat.
And gasped.
"What is it, my son?"
"I know this man," Chiun said. "He is the protegee of Nuihc."
"Ah, Nuihc. I might have known." The old man trembled. The story of Nuihc was well known to him. The pupil who had used his knowledge to betray his village to the Chinese army. Who had offered to exploit the teachings of Sinanju to further his own personal power. The gifted student whom Chiun was forced to expel from the village and leave the Master of Sinanju with no heir for the legacy that had been passed down for a thousand years.
"He is called the Dutchman," Chiun said. "Remo and I encountered him when he was still a youth. Even though he was not yet fully developed in his training, he showed formidable powers."
He grasped the unconscious man's face and turned it toward his own. The Dutchman's mouth was still smeared
115
with dried blood. "A boy of great promise, perverted by Nuihc into a monster. 1 thought he had died. I hoped, for his sake, that he had." He put his hands around the thin neck. "He is near death now. I will finish him quickly."
"Hold." H'si T'ang's voice was low and angry. "Has your experience in the outside world made you discard all the laws of your village?"
"But you yourself called him the Other."
"That does not matter. The most ancient law of Sinanju forbids a Master from killing a member of the village. Or have you conveniently forgotten your crime?"
Chiun swallowed. "He is not of the village. He is white."
"Was Nuihc?"
Chiun hung his head.
"I heard of your action in the battle against Nuihc. It shamed me. It shamed the gods. Now, this man is Nuihc's heir. The gods have sent him to you as your atonement."
"Teacher, I had no choice in the death of Nuihc. Without my intervention, he would have killed my son, who was too young to defend himself against him."
H'si T'ang was silent. "Your son," he said at last. "Your son Remo must fight this man. Not you."
"But Remo is so far. He will not return for many weeks. And this man is a danger to us."
'He is your penance. The ancient laws are strict. This man has come to replace Nuihc. If you kill him, you will never find peace. In this world or the next."
"But the Dutchman will try to destroy us, Master. I know him."
"Then so be it," the old man said.
Chiun sat staring at his teacher for some time as the Dutchman lay unconscious beside them. He had done what was necessary, but perhaps H'si T'ang was right. For the circle of fate to be complete, he had to be punished. He
116
would have to face the Dutchman, alive, without killing him.
If only Remo knew what he really was! The Dutchman had been aware since childhood of his own extraordinary nature, but Remo still thought of himself as an ex-policeman. Until Remo understood that he was Shiva, a being not of this world, there would be no contest between them. The Dutchman, full grown now, developed to the pinnacle of his capabilities, would swat Remo, like a fly, into the Void.
Reluctantly, Chiun took a damp cloth and attended to the Dutchman.
Chapter Twelve
He called her Mildred and she called him Harry. He told her he would take care of all her calls. She told him some she would rather do herself. He said every moment she wasted doing menial chores, grass died on this earth. Maybe by the millions of blades.
Mildred Pensoitte thought that was very perceptive, but she still felt more effective doing some things herself. She felt she never wanted to lose her sense of humanity by delegating everything to others. She should never forget, she said, that she was just part of the whole earth. She didn't want to be like those ruining the world. If dear, dear Harry could understand this, her power came from understanding her place on the earth, in the earth and of it. And the minute she lost that sense and realization, they were all lost.
Harold W. Smith nodded and said somberly that he understood. Then he bribed the switchboard operator to let him listen in on all Dr. Pensoitte's calls. He listed in on a call from Leeds, England, her mother mentioning that she had seen Mildred's former husband the other day. A lovely man.
117
118
"Anything else, Mother?" asked Dr. Pensoitte.
"We saw you on the telly."
"Which speech? The one for the new world order or the one on how we are poisoning ourselves?"
"One of them, dear. You were wearing that full blouse again. Do you really think that they do that much for you?"
It all might have been funny, Smith thought, if he hadn't seen a chambermaid with her throat opened to the air. That would be just the first death of many if these people were allowed to grow. Because to save the world from man, they would have to kill men, many of them, and keep killing until everyone left agreed with their vision.