And then Lu wept, for even in the depth of his degradation, when he had betrayed all the teachings of his life, the gods of Sinanju had seen fit to bring love to him.
"I must leave this place," he told the girl. "Will you help me?"
"I will go with you," she answered.
"But Kali?"
"Kali has brought only death and sadness to us. She is our god, but I will leave Her. We will go to your homeland, where men like you may walk in peace."
Lu took the young woman in his arms and embraced her. She opened herself to him, and there, in the silence of Lu's sickroom, he gave her his true seed. Not the wretched parts of his strength that Kali took, but the inviolate essence of his own clean soul.
They left that night, in the darkness, and journeyed for moon upon moon toward Sinanju. Sometimes the fever of Kali would come upon Lu and he would cry out to his wife to tie him with weighted ropes until the terrible feeling passed and until the scent had left his nostrils.
She obeyed, glad that Lu trusted her. The seed in her belly had swollen and she was soon to deliver a child to him.
"Your son," she said when she presented Lu with their child. Lu had never been happier in his life. He wanted to cry out the news, but he was still a stranger who knew no one in this new land to which they had journeyed. He walked for miles, reveling in his good fortune at finding a woman who loved him enough to take him away from the evil goddess, a woman who had given him a son.
The countryside he walked through grew more familiar with each step. Sinanju? he wondered. But it did not look like the place of his birth. It was lush, while Sananju was cold and harsh. It was not anything like Sinanju. It was ...
He screamed when he reached the crest of the hill he was climbing. For below, in a shallow mountain valley, was the village of Bathasgata.
"Kali has brought me back," Lu whispered. His hopes shattered. There was no escape from Kali.
He went back to the crude camp where his wife had delivered their son to tell her the horrible news. When he saw her, he began to tremble like a palsied man. There was a blue dot on her forehead. "Not her," Lu screamed.
"Lu ... Lu . . ." His good wife tried to raise herself to find the ropes to tie him down, but she was weak from birthing and moved clumsily. She implored him to be strong, but his strength was as nothing compared with the power of Kali. He tried to cut off his own arm to prevent what he knew would happen, but Kali would not allow it. Slowly he pulled the yellow cloth from his kimono and wound it around the neck of his beloved, and then inexorably tightened it and squeezed the life from her body.
When it was done and Lu lay close to death beside the body of the beautiful woman who had loved him, he knew what he must do. He took a ring from the finger of the woman he had loved and killed, then buried her by the light of the moon. After saying a prayer to the old gods of Sinanju, he took his infant son in his arms and walked into the village. At the first house, he delivered the baby to the occupants. "Raise him as your own," he said, "for I will not live to see the sun rise."
Then he went alone to stand before the statue of Kali. The statue was smiling.
"You have destroyed me," Lu said.
And in the quiet of the still night, the statue answered him from a place deep within his own mind: "You tried to betray me. It was a just punishment."
"I am prepared to die." He touched his wife's ring and felt it give him strength.
"You will die when I command it," Kali said.
"No," Lu said, and for a moment the old power returned to him, and he said, "I am the Master of Sinanju. You will die when I command it. And I command it now."
With those words, he put his arms around the statue and uprooted it from the ground. Kali burned him with Her stone flesh, and Her many arms reached out to gouge his eyes, but Lu would not stop. He carried the statue down the mountain to the sea and with each step he was mutilated by the terrible force of the goddess. And with each step did he remember the love that had given him life, the love he had killed with his own hands, and he walked onward.
When he reached the cliffs overlooking the sea, the goddess spoke to him again.
"You cannot destroy me, fool. I will come back."
"It will be too late. I will be dead with you," Lu said.
"I will not come back for you, but for your son. Your descendant. One who follows your line will be mine, and I will exact my revenge on him, though it take many thousands of moons. He will be my instrument of revenge and my wrath will be mighty through him."
With the last of his strength, Lu cast the statue over the cliff. It sank into the blue water without a ripple. Then, as dawn sent out its first rays of light, the Master Lu wrote his story with his own blood on reeds that grew along the cliff's edge. With his final breath he wound the reeds through the ring which had belonged to his wife, and there he died.
"The Brothers Grimmsville," Remo said. "A fairy tale."
"We have the reeds," Chiun said.
"How? If Lu died in this mythical spot in Ceylon, how'd you get them back to Korea?"
"Fate works in strange ways," the old Oriental said. "Lu's body was found by a merchant who spoke many tongues. He delivered the reeds to Sinanju."
"I bet it was great for the merchant," Remo said. "Knowing your village, I suppose they slit his throat."
"He was not killed. He lived a long life of wealth and luxury with many wives and concubines."
"But he was never allowed to leave town, right?" Remo said.
Chiun shrugged. "Who would want to leave Sinanju?"
Far below, a horn sounded in the street and Remo parted the curtains and looked out. "It's Smitty. I recognize the Rent-a-Wreck. I thought he left an hour ago."
"He wishes for me to travel with him," Chiun said. "Where are you going?"
"I told you. I must journey to Sinanju."
"I'll wait here until you get back," Remo promised. Chiun smiled sadly. "Would that were true, my son. When you leave, leave a mark for me so that I may follow."
"Why should I leave? I can go nuts in Denver just as well as anywhere else."
"You will leave," Chiun said. "Just do not forget the story of Lu."
The old man gathered his kimono about him and glided toward the door. "Promise? You will not forget, Remo?"
"I don't know what any of this is about," Remo said. "I'm not Lu's descendant. I'm from New Jersey."
"You are the next Master of Sinanju. An unbroken line of thousands of years connects you with Lu the Disgraced."
"You're wasting your time on this trip," Remo said.
"Remember Lu. And try not to do anything stupid while I am gone," Chiun said.
Chapter Thirteen
If Ban Sar Din had learned one thing during his reign as head of an Indian religion, it was never to trust anybody who believed in an Indian religion.
So he had his doubts about A. H. Baynes, but the problem was that he could not figure out why. Because going against the tradition of centuries of his family and telling the truth-Ban Sar Din had to admit that Kali had no more loyal follower than the airline executive.
Baynes had taken to sleeping inside the ashram each night now, huddled on the floor at the foot of the statue, just "so no crazies come in and try to harm Our Lady." And all his waking hours, too, were spent in the ashram, and when Ban Sar Din asked him, if he didn't have an airline to run, Baynes had just smiled and said:
"It's running itself. We're the safe airline. No deaths. We don't even have to advertise anymore. The people are waiting in line for tickets on just Folks."
But was that all Baynes wanted? Ban Sar Din wondered. So the American had struck a deal with Ban Sar Din and now there were no more killings aboard just Folks. But Baynes could have had more. He could have had a cut of the proceeds. He could have used the killers as instruments of revenge on people who had offended him.