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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Buddha and other religious subjects. Here and there, sections of wall lay
exposed, where gold or inlaid panels had been ripped free by looters.
Through twisting passages they walked, the lama's feet making slipper sounds
on the stone floor. Zhang Zingzong walked with the heavy tread of a condemned
man, his head hung low. No sound attended the Master of Sinanju's footsteps.
He had left off his Mongolian attire, and wore instead a tiger-striped kimono.
The play of candlelight on its shifting silken stripes was like the muscles of
a great cat rippling under a true tigerskin.
They came at last to a great double door of hammered bronze panels depicting a
looping dragon battling a fiery phoenix.
Outside the door stood a wiry man in a black chauffeur's uniform. He stood
proud as a caliph's eunuch, his arms folded, his head slightly bowed, so his
black cap shadowed his features.
As they approached, he lifted his face, exposing a domino mask of polished
onyx. His eyes showed through the almond slits like black opals that had been
sanded of their luster. They looked dead.
The black-masked chauffeur turned and threw open the doors with a
double-handed flourish. He watched stonily as they passed by, then fell in
behind them.
The room was a great vaulted chamber. At the far end, a throne of ivory and
rosewood stood on a low stone dais. And on this throne sat a man.
Old he was. His eyes were sunk into their sockets as if retreating from all
sound, all light. They were black and filmy, but their bright intelligence
showed through the film like dim diamonds.
The old man stood up with a feline grace, causing the silken folds of his
filigreed mandarin gown to fall and shift. The golden hem of his gown touched
the floor, making him resemble a pillar of green-gold flame with a human head
on top. On his head rested a black mandarin's skull cap decorated with a tiny
coral button.
The Master of Sinanju stepped forward, his face impassive.
The black-masked chauffeur leapt to the dais protectively. The tall Asian
motioned toward him with long fingers tipped with intricate nail-protectors of
blue jade.
"Sagwa!" he hissed.
The one addressed as Sagwa subsided. Chin lifting proudly, he folded his arms
and took his place at his master's side.
Without a word, Chin got down on his hands and knees in the prescribed full
bow of Asia. His forehead touched the cold stone floor twice. His face was as
cold as the stone, and harder.
He stood up and his lips parted, but barely moved as low words came out.
"To behold you with these old eyes," he intoned, "is to hear thunder from a
clear sky. I had believed you ashes, Wu Ming Shi."
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"Paper cannot wrap up a fire. It served my purposes to have Asia believe this
for a time," said the mandarin Wu Ming Shi. His wrinkled vellum countenance
barely moved with his words. It was like the preserved mask of a mummy
actuated by mechanical assistance. "The Communist Revolution crushed my hopes
to assume the ancient Dragon Throne as China's next emperor. I knew that they
would fail, so I slept until a time when revolt troubled the air. Now."
"Your wisdom is boundless. Even I, your former servant, thought you no longer
among the living."
"You honor me, you who are in your way as great as I am in mine."
Chiun inclined his head toward the unmoving chauffeur.
"I see you have a new servant," he remarked.
"A former pupil of your late nephew. He was to have been the first of a new
line of night tigers, I had hoped."
"He knows Sinanju?" Chiun asked in surprise.
"Some. He is no Master. His true expertise is in the White Crane school of
kung fu."
"Ah, I have heard of it. It approaches the perfection of our art."
The chauffeur's proud chin lifted slightly. It fell at Chiun's next words.
"The way a candle approaches the glory of the sun," Chiun finished. "Still, to
one unfamiliar with it, it is formidable enough. Why is he masked?"
"In the time I slept, he allowed himself to become famous through playacting
in films. This was a mistake. I had his death arranged so the world would
think him no more. Now that I am free to move among men once more, I find the
mask a regrettable necessity. It also reminds him of his errors, for he came
into prominence dressed in these servant's clothes and wearing such a mask. It
is a conceit that pleases me to have him play the part of a mere chauffeur in
actuality."
Wu Ming Shi's vellum lips twitched slightly wider. The teeth showed as brown
as old corn.
"I have brought the one known as Zhang Zingzong with me," Chiun said. "What is
it you wish of him?"
"I have promised him to the butchers in Beijing, in return for certain
concessions." Wu Ming Shi directed his stained smile toward the trembling
Chinese. "They want his head very badly."
"I have certain obligations to this man," Chiun said quietly.
"Obligations which you may see fit to put aside, for I have something to offer
you in return for this man."
"This is unlikely, for as you know, my word is sacred to me."
The return nod was imperceptible.
"I have in my possession a man known to you by the curious name of Remo," Wu
Ming Shi went on. "Might not his life hold more value to you than your word?"
Chiun's eyes squeezed into walnut slits. His voice was controlled when he next
spoke.
"No man's life is more important to a Master of Sinanju than his word," he
said tightly. "The one you speak of is a former servant of mine. No more."
"He has journeyed a long way to seek you. He has suffered through storm and
the deception of the female heart." The blue nail protectors gestured to Fang
Yu, who stood with her head meekly bowed.
"Through unavoidable circumstances, I left him owing money," Chiun said
casually, adding, "the matter that has brought me to Asia was pressing. No
doubt he seeks his severance fee."
"Then you will not object to my doing with him what I will?" Wu Ming Shi
suggested in a dry voice.
"I have some sentimental attachment to him. For he served me well-for a
big-footed white man."
"Fang Yu," the mandarin Wu Shi Ming hissed, "bring the foreign devil here."
Fang Yu bowed and padded away. The mandarin Wu Ming Shi directed his strange
gaze toward the Master of Sinanju. His nail protectors clicked as he
gestured.
"While we wait," he intoned, "there is much catching up we must do. In
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Beijing, it is whispered that you now work for the American government. Can
this be so, Master Chiun?"
"Their gold is as yellow as that of any emperor, and exceedingly bountiful."
Wu Ming Shi nodded. "The Communists would rather pay in lead than gold-even to
those who work for them. And they buzz among themselves that the people do not
appreciate them."
"The North Koreans are not so bad," Chiun said. "But they have no work for
Sinanju, being reliant upon their armies and their Communist lies."
"They ride a tiger that will eat them if they dare dismount. It is true in
Pyongyang as well as Beijing."
"Once the Chinese people devour their leaders, what then?"
The blue-jade nail protectors flashed. "In Beijing," Wu Ming Shi said, "I have
allies even among the high bureaucrats. I have been meeting with them. Through
them, I hear of a new Golden Horde led by a modern khan. It is said their
numbers have swollen to seven thousand."
"Beijing looks through the world from the bottom of a well," said Chiun. "And
your information is old. Ten thousand is their present number."
"Abiding beside vermilion stains one red," Wu Ming Shi said flatly, eyeing his
chauffeur. "Near ink one is sometimes stained black. I am told, Master of
Sinanju, that Mongols are gathering for war outside this very city. Are these
yours?"
"I know them not," Chiun said stiffly. "My Mongols are camped twenty li from
this place."
"In Beijing, they fear your horsemen seek to retake China."
"I am going only to Inner Mongolia, and not to conquer." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
