"I don't think they like me any more than last time I was here," Remo whispered in English.
"They are overwhelmed by my unexpected return. Do not worry, Remo. I have told them all about you."
"No wonder they hate me," Remo grunted.
"They have changed. You will see."
Remo started to get into the palanquin, but the old man called Pullyang suddenly got in his way and gave a signal.
The palanquin was lifted aloft and swiftly borne inland.
"What about me?" asked Remo, in Korean.
"You may carry the lacquer trunks of the Master," Pullyang said disdainfully, and hurried off after Chiun.
"Thanks a lot," said Remo. He looked back out over the waters of the bay. The United States lay thousands of miles beyond the horizon. Remo wondered when he would see it again, and how he would feel when that day came.
Chiun was home. But where was Remo? Where was home to Remo Williams, who never had a home, never had a family, and was about to lose the only family he had ever enjoyed?
Finally, because Remo didn't want to leave Chiun's belongings behind, he dutifully carried them into the village, one by one.
"I want to see him," Remo growled in Korean.
It was the next morning. Remo had been forced to sleep on the hard cold ground, near a pig pen. They had taken Chiun to the treasure house of Sinanju-a magnificent jewel of rare woods and stones, which had been built by Egyptian architects as a tribute to Sinanju during the reign of Tutankhamen-and he had slept there.
Remo had asked where he could sleep. The assembled villagers shrugged, almost in unison. It looked like a herd reflex.
"No room," said Pullyang, the caretaker. He looked around to the other villagers.
"No room," the others had repeated. And they shrugged again.
Remo said, "Oh yeah? Chiun isn't going to like your version of down-home hospitality. I'm going to tell him."
"No. He sleeps now," said the old man. "He does not look well and we know how to care for him." And so Remo had found a dry patch of ground in the lee of some rocks, where the biting winds were not so fierce.
"Some homecoming," he had said, before dropping off.
Now, with the sun up, he wanted to see Chiun, and they wouldn't let him.
"He sleeps still," said Pullyang of the placid face.
"Bulldookey, Chiun snores like a goose with a deviated beak. He's quiet, so he's awake, and I want to see him."
The old man shrugged again, but before he could say another word, Chiun's voice emerged from the treasure house. It was weak, but it carried.
Remo barged in. He stopped dead. "Chiun!" Remo said, aghast.
Chiun was sitting in the middle of the spacious central room, whose walls were covered by the tapestries of forgotten civilizations, but hung three deep like layers of wallpaper. Tapers flamed about him, one to each compass point. Behind him, resting on ivory brackets, was a magnificent sword-the Sword of Sinanju. And all around him was the treasure of Sinanju jars of precious stones, rare statues, and gold ingots in profusion. They were piled at random, as if in an overcrowded antique shop. But Remo didn't register their magnificence. He saw, only Chiun.
Chiun sat in a lotus position, on a teak throne which stood barely three inches off the floor. On his head was the spiky gold crown which Masters of Sinanju had worn since the Middle Ages. At his feet were an open scroll and goose quill resting beside an inkstone. But Remo barely noticed those things. What he noticed was Chiun's kimono.
It was black.
"You look fearful, Remo," said Chiun in a placid voice. "What is it?"
"You are wearing the Robes of Death."
"Should I not?" asked Chiun. "Am I not in my final days?" He looked like a wrinkled yellow raisin wrapped in velvet.
"You shouldn't surrender this easily," Remo said.
"Does the oak cling to its darkening leaves when the autumn comes? Do not be sad, Remo. We are home."
"Right. Your people made me sleep on the ground. I spent half the night fighting off snakes."
Chiun looked shocked. But he said, "It was their gift to you."
"Gift? How is sleeping on a rock a gift?"
"They saw the paleness of your skin and hoped the sun would darken it as you slept."
"At night?" Remo demanded.
Chiun pushed the half-finished scroll to one side. "Sit at my feet, Remo. It tires me to have to look up at you."
Remo sat, hugging his knees in his folded arms. "I don't belong here, Little Father. You know that."
"You have adopted new dress," Chiun noted, pointing a curving fingernail at Remo's turtleneck jersey. "Just to cover my throat," Remo said, fingering the turtleneck.
"The bruise. It pains you?"
"It's going away."
"No, it is not going away, it is becoming more blue. Am I correct?"
"Never mind me. Why don't you lie down."
"No, I must hurry to finish my scrolls. I must write the history of Master Chiun, last of the pure line of Sinanju, who will be known as Chiun, the Squanderer of Sinanju."
"Please don't lay that guilt trip on me, Little Father. I can't help not being Korean."
"But you are Sinanju. I have made you Sinanju. I have made you Sinanju with my hands and my heart and my will. Admit this."
"Yes," said Remo truthfully. "I am Sinanju. But not Korean."
"I have provided the foundation. The paint will come later."
Chiun's face suddenly narrowed, his wrinkles growing deeper.
"A penny for your thoughts," Remo joked.
"I am thinking of your throat. The traditional investment garments do not cover the throat."
"Investment? Like in stocks and bonds?"
"No, unthinking one. Not as in stocks and bonds. As in becoming the next Master of Sinanju. I have set the ceremony for noon tomorrow. There will be a feast. The villagers will take you into their hearts and you will take a wife."
"We've been through that. I'm not sure I'm ready."
"Ready?" squeaked Chiun. "Does a plum pick itself? It is not for you to say who is ready. One does not become a Master of Sinanju because you are ready, but only when the Master before you has reached his end days."
"Can't we just postpone this a few weeks?" pleaded Remo. "I need time to think."
"You are cruel, Remo. I am failing in spirit and you are being petulant like a child who does not wish to go to school."
Remo said nothing.
"You have always been cruel to me. But lately you have been even crueler than befits an ungrateful white. You do not care that I am dying."
"You know that isn't so."
Chiun held up an admonishing finger. His wispy hair trembled.
"You do not care that I am dying. You told me so yourself."
"When?" demanded Remo.
"In that house. During the fire. Before I, ignoring your base cruelty, rescued your uncaring white pelt."
"I don't remember saying anything like that. And I would never say that to you."
"I will quote your own words. As I lay on the floor, my feeble lungs filling with smoke, I beseeched you for help. 'I am dying. I am an old man, and the breath is leaving my poor body,' I said piteously. You turned your uncaring face from me and said, 'Then die quietly.' Unquote."
"I never said that!" Remo protested.
"Do you accuse the Master of Sinanju of telling an untruth?" Chiun asked evenly.
"I know I did not say that," Remo said sullenly.
"But I heard the words. The voice was not yours, but the words, stinging as a viper's fangs, emerged from your very mouth."
"I don't know . . ."
"If I say it is so, will you believe me?" asked Chiun.
"If you say so, Little Father."
"I will accept that as a white's sloppy way of saying yes," said Chiun. He gathered the rich black folds of his robe together before he spoke again.
"Do you remember the legends of the Masters of Sinanju, my ancestors?"