Last Rites td-100 Read online

  Remo began circling, looking for an opening. Hitting below the belt was out. Punching was out. Not that any punch less than a death blow would fell the big behemoth. Couldn't do him. Couldn't kick at the vulnerable ankles and bring him down like a big tree. The power of a Sinanju Master lay in his ability to deal swift and sudden death. But in this arena, Remo's best moves were forbidden.

  Chiun's remote voice resumed speaking.

  "Long nights the Master of Sinanju slept under the stars, fretting over this new foe that seemed invincible to all of his wiles and skills."

  Remo ducked between the sumo's legs suddenly, catching the man unaware. Coming up on the other side, he tried something simple. He grabbed the fat ankles and pushed hard. The sumo stood his ground. Bent over, Remo redoubled his effort. Little by little the sumo's feet began to slide along the moist clay. He refused to budge. He simply held his stance.

  The sumo's feet scraped an inch of clay. Then two. Three.

  Remo got him to the edge of the clay when abruptly the sumo reached between his dimpled knees and grabbed for Remo's wrists. Remo evaded a hand as big as a TV screen by fading back.

  And Sosumi calmly lumbered back from the edge of the ring.

  "This could take all night," Remo grumbled.

  From the shadows Chiun intoned, "You are Sinanju. He is only sumo. It is too bad you did not beg me to tell you how the sumo came to be."

  "Aren't you telling me now?"

  "If I had told you before, the bout would not be even, and you would not now be frantic with worry that you are going to disgrace me against this fat tub of entrails."

  "Hey, I resent that," Sosumi said in a hurt voice.

  "If the diaper fits," Remo said.

  The sumo wriggled his fingers again, mocking Remo's impotence.

  Remo called over to Chiun. "I'm open to broad hints."

  And the Master of Sinanju resumed his tale where he had left off. "Master Yowin thought long and he thought hard. And in time he realized if to strike fat was to be foiled, he must therefore strike not-fat."

  "There isn't any such place on this blimp's body," Remo complained.

  "Tell it to my momma," Sosumi said.

  Remo called out, "How about another broad hint?"

  "It is up to you not to disgrace me or the House," Chiun said.

  "Can I stick him in the eyes?"

  "You stick me in the eyes, runt," Sosumi growled, "and I'll wrench your head off, plant my mouth on your exposed windpipe and inflate your dead body like a puffer fish."

  "You cannot strike him in the eyes," Chiun called out. "But you are getting warm."

  "Warm?" Remo wondered, searching the sumo's broad, fleshy face.

  A knowing grin coming over his face, Remo began weaving his hands in the air with casual menace. Sosumi blinked. "You better not be thinking what I think you're thinking," he growled.

  "Come on, let's go. I don't have all night," Remo said.

  "Sticking me in the eyes is against the rules."

  Remo continued weaving.

  "This time I'm going to nail your big fat butt to the ground," Remo warned. "No outside-the-ring stuff this time."

  Perspiration began forming on the sumo's high, furrowed forehead. It drooled down. His topknot, coated with linseed oil, began to droop.

  Lifting one fist, Remo popped two fingers. And drove them forward at high speed.

  Sosumi saw the forked fingers coming at him like pink arrows and did the only thing possible. He clapped both hands over his eyes protectively.

  And so never saw the flat heel of a hand that bopped him on the cartilage tip of his broad nose.

  The resulting howl would have done justice to a wounded elephant.

  And the sound Sosumi a.k.a. Beef Blast-san made as he fell into the clay was like a big wet smack of a whale's kiss.

  "So much for Baby Huey," said Remo as the big sumo lay there quivering. He turned to the Master of Sinanju, who offered him a forty-five-degree bow. Remo returned it equally.

  "Is that how Master Yowin did it?" Remo asked.

  "No," said Chiun as they walked from the courtyard. "Yowin used his killing nails to gouge out their eyes. For what good is a wall of protective flesh if it is stamping about in circles and bumping into one another howling that it is blind while the Master of Sinanju steals up on the waking shogun in time to slice open his unprotected throat?"

  And Remo laughed.

  Chapter 14

  Remo found that by pretending to sleep all the way from Tokyo to Honolulu, the geisha-style flight attendants of the JAL flight kept their hands to themselves.

  It was hard not to sleep. He felt like he had circumnavigated the planet at a dead run.

  When the plane landed in Honolulu, they bowed him out of the cabin, and when Remo neglected to bow back, ambulances had to be summoned when it was discovered that the flight attendants had all repaired to the gallery and tried to sever their wrist arteries with knives.

  Since all the cutlery available to them were butterknives, there were no deaths and only minor stitches were needed.

  Remo and Chiun were entirely oblivious to this. Hawaiian girls had accosted them in the terminal, cooing "Aloha" and decorating their necks with sweet-smelling leis of pink carnations mixed with white-and-yellow ginger flowers.

  When Remo said "Thanks" in a deliberately uninterested voice, they tried to anoint his face with kisses. When he evaded their lips, they removed their own leis and showed him their bountiful breasts.

  That caught Remo's attention. The fact that these weren't technically stewardesses probably softened his attitude somewhat.

  That and the fact he couldn't immediately recall if he had ever slept with a Hawaiian girl or not.

  "How long are we staying in Hawaii?" he asked Chiun.

  The Master of Sinanju passed among the grass skirts and bare breasts, and although he seemed to keep his hands to himself, the Hawaiian girls began grabbing at and covering their grass-covered bottoms as if spanked by unseen paddles.

  "Hussies," he hissed. "Begone! And bother us no more."

  "Hey!" Remo complained, watching six gorgeous pairs of breasts bounce out of his life. "What happened to me siring a son?"

  "You have no intention of impregnating those flaunting ones," Chiun sniffed, moving on.

  Reluctantly Remo followed. "How do you know?" he asked.

  "You would only have held back your sperm."

  "Maybe. But I seem to recall you were the one who taught me how."

  They walked out of the terminal into the heavily moist and jasmine-scented air of Honolulu.

  "So you didn't answer my question. How long are we going to be in Honolulu?"

  "Ten, possibly twenty minutes."

  Remo frowned. "That's not very long."

  "It is long enough," said Chiun, gesturing for a cab. He was ignored. When Remo inserted two fingers into his mouth and whistled, a cab pulled up with alacrity.

  "Long enough for what?" Remo asked dubiously, holding open the door for Chiun.

  "Long enough to acquire a vessel worthy of conveying us to our destination."

  Remo got in. The cab got going. "Which is what?"

  "Which is a boat."

  "I meant the destination, not the vessel. And where are we going that can be reached by boat?"

  "When you have conveyed us there, you will know."

  "Do you mean 'convey' as in 'get there by cab,' or 'convey' as in 'boat?'"

  "You ask too many questions," said the Master of Sinanju, lapsing into silence.

  Near the waterfront the Master of Sinanju left Remo to contemplate the blue Pacific, but as he waited, his attention was drawn to a bus-stop billboard advertising one of the summer's films.

  It showed a green-faced man with roots and leaves growing from his mottled skin. The film was titled The Return of Muck Man. It wasn't the swampy face that caught Remo's eye, but his deep, soulful mud brown eyes.

  Something about them held Remo spellbound. The eyes seem
ed to be looking at him. When Remo moved to the right, the eyes seemed to follow him. The same thing happened when he drifted left.

  Chiun returned minutes later, saying, "I have found a worthy vessel."

  Remo seemed not to hear.

  "What are you looking at?" Chiun asked.

  Without shifting his gaze, Remo said, "That face on that billboard seems to be looking right at me."

  "Perhaps it is your long-lost father."

  "Not funny, Chiun."

  "He does have your complexion."

  "Something about those eyes strikes me funny." And Remo started to approach the billboard.

  Chiun clapped his hands abruptly. "Enough. Come." Remo snapped out of his pensive mood. Chiun led him to the end of a wharf, and Remo found himself gazing out over the sparkling blue Pacific.

  "So where is it?" he asked.

  "You are looking out when you should be looking down."

  Remo looked down and saw the rowboat. Its oars were tucked in at the gunwales. It could seat two people comfortably and a third in a dire emergency. "Who's rowing?"

  "He who boards last, of course," said the Master of Sinanju, stepping off the wharf. He floated to his seat in the stern with the ease of a feather landing.

  "Figures," said Remo, climbing a ladder to take his position at the oars. "Where to?" he said sourly. "Row south. And take care that you do not bump any larger craft."

  Remo took up the oars. "Bump? If we hit anything bigger than a Coke bottle, we're going under."

  "Save your breath for rowing," Chiun admonished, rearranging the splendid folds of his kimono skirts. As they beat out of Mamala Bay, the sun began to dip in the sky once more, and Remo realized he had lost track of the days since they had left the U.S.A.

  "How long does this go on?" he asked an unperturbed Chiun.

  "Until we reach our destination, of course."

  "No, I mean how long does this marathon go on?"

  "It is not a marathon. That is something else. These are your athloi."

  "How long do they go on?"

  "Until you reach your destination."

  After Remo had rowed many hours, with the Master of Sinanju frequently looking up the night sky, Chiun lifted his hand sternly.

  "Cease rowing!"

  "A pleasure," said Remo, stowing the oars.

  "We are here."

  Remo looked around. The Pacific in all directions was as black as ink. The sky was a litter of bright stars around the misty arm of the Milky Way.

  "How do you know this is the right place?"

  "What star is that?" Chiun asked, indicating an especially bright bluish white one directly overhead. "Vega."

  Chiun made a disgusted face. "Pah. And that?" he asked, pointing to another.

  "Altair."

  "Again you are wrong."

  Remo craned his head, trying to fix the positions of the stars. There were the two brightest in the early-July sky, and they straddled the Milky Way.

  "That's Altair and that's Vega," he insisted.

  "Only to a white," retorted Chiun unhappily. "They are known to my people as Kyon-u the Herder and Chik-nyo the Weaver. They were lovers, who having neglected their duties, were exiled to opposite sides of the Silvery River, by Kyon-u's father, the king. It is said that the seventh day of the seventh moon always begins with a light sprinkling of rain, signifying the beginning of another year of bitter separation for Kyon-u and Chik-nyo."

  Remo looked down. "So what do we-or should I say I-do now?"

  "We wait."

  "In the middle of the freaking ocean?"

  "Unless you would rather row in stately circles."

  "On the other hand," Remo said quickly, "waiting can be very restful."

  Chiun smoothed his silken lap. "If you wish to sleep, you may."

  "I'm tired but I'm not that tired." Chiun looked up.

  "You are certain?"

  "I've been sleeping too much as it is. And I'm sick of these dreams I've been having."

  "Dreams cannot harm you," Chin said thinly.

  "I said I'm not tired. I just need to rest."

  The Master of Sinanju said nothing. His unwinking eyes came to rest on Remo's own. He stared. Remo stared back. After a while Remo looked away. When he looked back at the Master of Sinanju, the Master of Sinanju was still regarding him like a stern old owl. "What are you staring at?" Remo asked peevishly.

  "You."

  "Cut it out, will you?"

  "I have nothing but darkness surrounding me," Chiun intoned. "I will stare where I will."

  "It's making me uneasy."

  "Then do not look back," said Chiun, looking hard and unflinchingly at his pupil.

  Remo averted his eyes again. Every time his gaze wandered back to the Master of Sinanju sitting at the stern, Chiun's hazel eyes were fixed and unblinking upon him.

  After a while Remo closed his eyes.

  He never felt himself drop off. He just did. There was no transition from wakefulness to slumber. But he dreamed.

  A SPLASHING BROUGHT HIM out of sleep. Remo sat up on his hard wooden seat of the rowboat. "Where am I?" he asked.

  "Beneath the Silvery River."

  "No, I meant what's making this splashing? Sharks?"

  Chiun shook his aged head coldly. "These are the children of Sa Mangsang."

  Remo looked over the side. Luminous shapes glided in the water, just beneath the surface. They resembled circling torpedoes with flexible tails. A few wallowed on the surface, slashing it with birdlike beaks. Several disconnected circular eyes stared skyward.

  "What are those things?"

  "Squid."

  Remo looked more closely. He recognized them now. The flexible tails of the circling squid were their bundled and trailing tentacles. They were an eerie sight. "What's got them so riled up?" he asked Chiun.

  "They are feeding."

  "Any danger they'll bite the boat?"

  "Yes."

  "I hate squid."

  "Squid cannot harm you. Not squid so small."

  "Small! They're easily five feet long."

  "They are small for squid. In the deeper parts of the Pacific, some grow large enough to pull down whales to their doom and eat them."

  Remo said nothing. On every side, for nearly a quarter mile around, the long phosphorescent shapes sped, wallowed and slashed. Occasionally a whipping tentacle would lift and slap the water.

  Remo felt a preternatural chill run through him.

  Chiun spoke up. "Do you remember my telling you of Sa Mangsang?"

  "What Master was he?"

  "Sa Mangsang was no Master of Sinanju. He was-and is-the dragon of the abyss. In Korean, 'Sa Mangsang' means 'Dream Thing.' In Japanese, he is known as Tako-Ika, Octopus Squid. To the Vikings, he was Kraken. To the Arabs, Khadhulu. To the Moovians, he was Ru-Taki-Nuhu, the enemy of life."

  "Wait a minute. Are we talking about the lost continent of Moo here?"

  "We are."

  Remo's strong features grew grim. Years ago he and Chiun had discovered an island outpost of an ancient continent that had sunk during a Pacific upheaval, leaving only its highest hill, which poked above the sea like an island. The continent was called Moo. It was an ancient client state of Sinanju five thousand years ago. One of its beliefs was in Ru-Taki-Nuhu, the Heaven Propper, a giant octopus that had fallen from the sky to sleep beneath the waves, awaiting the end of the world, during which it would drink up the oceans. Remo and Chiun had briefly lived with the survivors of Moo until even the island was swallowed by the Pacific.

  "I remember," Remo said quietly. "The people of Moo thought Ru-Taki-Nuhu held up the sky with his tentacles."

  Chiun held a fist over the side. A finger coiled out and down. "Ru-Taki-Nuhu, known to Sinanju as Sa Mangsang, sleeps below us."

  "Good for him. Not that I believe in him, that is."

  "These squid are his offspring and acolytes. They guard his resting place, dreaming of the hour their lord will awaken to consume them, as he will
consume all earthly life."

  "Why don't we just be on our way?" Remo said suddenly.

  "Because you are going to awaken Sa Mangsang."

  "And have him drink up the ocean? No, thanks."

  "You must awaken Sa Mangsang so that he sees you. Then you must make a certain sign with your fingers. Like this." Chiun made an arcane gesture by separating his two middle fingers.

  "I don't think my fingers bend that way."

  "You will make this sign, and once Sa Mangsang has seen it, he will know you for Sinanju. Then and only then you must return him to slumber."

  "With what? I don't exactly carry sleeping pills on me."

  "You would do well to remember that the Greeks had another name for Sa Mangsang."

  "What's that?"

  "Hydra."

  Remo made a thoughtful face in the murk. "Hydra. Hydra. I've heard of the Hydra."

  Chiun pressed his hands together firmly. "Enough! It is time for you to awaken Sa Mangsang from his ancient sleep."

  Remo folded his arms. "No way I'm jumping into a sea full of unhappy squid," he said defiantly.

  Chiun's eyes narrowed in the darkness. "I will not insist that you jump, if you are afraid to," he said, voice as thin as his unreadable eyes.

  Remo looked at his master's stern eyes, "You don't exactly say that like you mean it."

  "I mean it exactly. I will not insist that you jump into these evil waters."

  "Good," said Remo. "Because I'm not jumping." And taking the rowboat's creaking oarlocks in both hands, Remo held on.

  Chiun took hold of his gunwales and began rocking on his seat. The boat began rocking in sympathy. Remo tried rocking in counterbalance. Chiun redoubled his rocking. Having established the rhythm first, he had the advantage. Remo tried to find the rhythm in the hope of setting up a counter-rhythm. But during the precious seconds in which he was searching, he only aided Chiun in destabilizing the tiny craft. The boat took on water on the port side, then in the bow.

  Quickly it began swamping.

  "If you don't stop," Remo warned, "we're both going in."

  And they did. The boat tipped precariously one way, and letting go of the oarlocks, Remo threw his weight to the other side desperately.

  With the end result that the rowboat capsized completely.

  Remo plunged into the cold water, automatically charging his lungs with oxygen. Though caught by surprise, his body did the natural thing and took in as much air as possible.