"It is not understood that you will kill anyone. Perhaps they will kill you."
"Come on. A bunch of half-naked aborigines who've been living in the past for a thousand years? I don't have to prove anything by slaughtering them."
"The Master's Trial is a necessary rite of passage for all Masters of Sinanju. No emperor would hire an assassin who has not completed his training," Chiun said.
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"I'm already working."
"Only for the United States," Chiun sniffed. "There are other governments."
"I'm satisfied with one."
Chiun got up and walked out. "Lout," Remo heard him mutter at the entrance to the cave.
Remo and H'si T'ang sat in silence. The old man poured more tea with exquisite grace. Finally he said, "Do you know the legends of Shiva the Destroyer, my son?"
Remo sighed. "I've heard them. And heard them. And heard them."
"But you do not believe that you are his reincarnation."
"I'm Remo Williams. I used to be a cop in Newark, New Jersey. All I know is, if I was a god who wanted to come to earth, Newark isn't the place I'd pick. I think Chiun's imagination went overboard on that one."
H'si T'ang nodded. "And the Master's Trial is an unnecessary annoyance for you.''
"I just don't see why I have to murder a bunch of total strangers."
"I see. You feel that the other participants pose no challenge to you?"
"Well, I don't want to seem conceited, but-"
With a motion so swift that Remo never saw it coming, the old man pinned him to the floor by his neck, pressing on nerves that made it impossible for Remo to move his arms and legs. Remo stared up, terrified, at the sightless eyes. Then, as quickly as he had attacked, H'si T'ang released Remo and helped him up.
"Forgive me, but I felt it necessary to demonstrate my point. You see, I too, looked with disdain upon the ancient peoples until I met with them during my Master's Trial."
Remo rubbed the place on his neck where the old man's hands had gripped it. "So? You won."
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"Not without great difficulty. Not one of your opponents would have missed my attack."
Remo looked at the floor.
"These are not primitive humans. They are highly advanced in their ways, and are to be respected. You will see that for yourself if you go. But if you continue to refuse, the warriors of these lands will be greatly insulted, and will make war on us. They will destroy the village as a point of honor."
"You mean they'll kill me if I don't fight them?"
"Perhaps not you, but all the innocent people of Sinanju who have relied for so many centuries on the Master to protect them. They themselves have never learned how to fight." The old man took his hand. "Chiun is still too young and proud to beg, even for his people. But I am not. Remo-"
"Don't," Remo said. "I'll go. I didn't understand."
"The Ritual of Parting will be tomorrow," H'si T'ang said.
By the light of dawn, the two Masters led Remo from the cave to a small wooden boat bobbing near the shore. Chiun was dressed in a red silk kimono with a small black hat that looked like a series of boxes stacked on his head. For the procession, he carried a strange-looking musical instrument with sixteen bronze bells, which he struck with a wooden mallet. The music it made was supposed to be the essence of peace and beauty, but Remo thought it sounded like loose change clinking in a pocket. H'si T'ang dressed in black. On his head he wore the high, spiky crown of gold that the Masters of Sinanju had worn since the Middle Ages.
Chiun gave Remo a polished jade inscribed with three Korean characters. "Your opponents all have similar stones,
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except for Ancion," he said. "They will find you through it."
Remo read the characters. "The Brotherhood," he read. "I thought these guys were supposed to be my enemies."
"Perhaps you will learn something of enmity and friendship on this journey," Chiun said as Remo got into the boat.
"There's just one thing before I go. In the scroll you sent me, it said something-"
"The Other," H'si T'ang said. He sniffed the ocean air. "He is coming. Beware."
Chiun looked at H'si T'ang. "Who is he, my teacher?"
"I cannot see. But someone close, very close. His spirit is near. We are deceived. The Other is of two beings. Yin and yang . . ." His words drifted off, and H'si T'ang shook his head rapidly. "The vision is gone."
"The Other," Remo mused. "A fifth opponent?"
"I do not know who he is, only that he comes."
"For me?" Remo asked.
"He is coming for us all." With a quick swat of his right hand, the old man's long fingernails sliced through the rope that bound the boat to shore, and Remo drifted out to sea. The last thing he heard was the music of Chiun's ancient instrument, and this time it sounded sad and forlorn.
Chapter Four
Two weeks had gone by and he couldn't reach Remo.
For the first time in all his years running the organization, Harold W. Smith felt his sparse breakfast come up in his throat. A nightmare. But worse.
With a nightmare, Smith would have awakened next to his wife of more than thirty years, Irma, and then gone back to sleep.
With a nightmare, he would sleep it off, then come to the office in the morning, say good morning to his secretary, who believed that he was Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of Folcroft Sanitarium, and then he would quietly close the soundproof, rayproof doors of his office overlooking Long Island Sound in Rye, New York, and get about his real business.
He would boot up that special bank of four computers from which he watched the inner workings of the world through a vast network that did not know exactly who it was working for.
Then if he saw special trouble, he would dial his special numbers and reach Remo and send him in. That was
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