The Last Alchemist td-64 Read online

  "Then I will do it," said Chiun, "because you should know why you suffered."

  And thus Chiun began the tale of Master Go, who had gone west to the many kingdoms of Spain in the year of the duck, and in a time of modest prosperity for the House of Sinanju. There was good work in most of Europe because of an outbreak of civil wars, but Master Go chose the somewhat peaceful Spanish king because of a most interesting situation. The king said he wanted the Master of Sinanju to kill enemies he had yet to make.

  Now Master Go thought this might be a new, more intelligent way to use an assassin. Why, he asked himself, should kings wait until they made enemies before calling on an assassin? Why not prepare beforehand? It could only bring honor and glory to Sinanju to serve such a wise king.

  But when he reached the court of the Spanish king and enjoyed an audience, he found out the king had no specific enemy in mind.

  "Everyone will be my enemy who is not my friend, and even some of my friends will become enemies."

  "And how is that, your Majesty?" asked Master Go in the formal manner of the Spanish court.

  "I am to be the wealthiest man in the world," said the king.

  Now Master Go said nothing. Many of the Western kings, like little children, considered only their small place and time in the world. Though these kings were the richest of their regions, there were many wealthy kings elsewhere whom Westerners had never heard of, with jewels and gold that would make even the richest in the West seem poor. But, as is proper, Master Go said nothing, for an emperor's enemies, not his ignorance, are what a Master of Sinanju comes to cure.

  "I have more than a gold mine. I have the mine of the human mind."

  With that, the king ordered many weights of lead to be brought to him, and he called his alchemist before him and said, "Show this man from the Orient how you can change lead into gold."

  Now the alchemist, rightly fearing disclosure of his secret, performed his transformations in private. But though there are defenses against most men, the defenses against Sinanju are none. The Master easily made himself into the silent shadow of the alchemist to watch and see if the man indeed could make gold from lead.

  And he did, mixing the lead with many ingredients. But he also added real gold, the gold paid by the Spanish king. And all of this, he claimed, he made from lead. What this meant, Master Go did not know, until he saw the alchemist receive more money to make more gold for the king. Money was, of course, gold. And this time, the alchemist added even more of the king's gold to the pile he claimed he produced.

  And again the alchemist received gold, and again he gave back more until finally the king emptied his treasury. With all that money the alchemist and an evil minister began to purchase something more valuable than any treasure-the loyalties of the army-and this time did not return any gold to the king.

  But before the minister and alchemist could seize the crown, Master Go went to the king and told him of the plan. The alchemist fled with only a small portion of the gold and his secret. In gratitude, the king paid Go with some of the gold made by the evil alchemist.

  But Master Go refused it.

  "Your Majesty, this gold may be good for you, but for us it is cursed. I have seen the ingredients used, and in them is something that makes a fully trained body nauseous in its most essential humors."

  "Do you mean, great Master of Sinanju who has saved the crown of Aragon and Asturias, who has brought the wisdom of your magnificence here before us, that this gold is not good?"

  "No, your Majesty. The gold is good because it can buy things, it can coat things, it can be used for ornament and tool, but for us, it is cursed."

  And the king gave Master Go good gold, none of it marked with the curse of the evil alchemist, the stamp of the apothecary jar.

  This then, centuries later, was noticed by Master Chiun but ignored by the impetuous, disrespectful Remo. And thus did the stubborn Remo bring harm to his body because he heeded the influence of bad white habits instead of the glory of Sinanju.

  "You added to an old legend, little father," said Remo. By the time Chiun had finished repeating the tale he was sitting up. He felt as though the retelling had put carbonated water in his bloodstream. "I thought the legends were eternal. You can't rewrite them."

  "I added nothing to history but history. Didn't you feel anything when you held the pendant close to you?"

  "I was angry at being bugged."

  "Any silliness like anger diminishes the senses. Lust diminishes the senses. Greed diminishes the senses. The stronger the emotion, the less we perceive," said Chiun.

  "You get angry. You get angry all the time."

  "I never get angry," said Chiun. "And to be accused of such makes my blood boil."

  "When will I get better?"

  "You'll never get better. You're an evil child, Remo. I've got to face that."

  "I mean physically. When will I recover from this thing that hit me?"

  "Your body will tell you."

  "You're right," said Remo. "I should have known." He finished the water, easing himself out of the bed. It felt good to move again, although he had to think about every step.

  "What was in that stuff the alchemist used? How did Master Go know there was poison in it?"

  "Doesn't your body know poison? Did you have to wear a badge like the others at the manufacturing plant in McKeesport? Do you have to see whether it changes colors to know if you are receiving harmful essences through the air?"

  "Radiation. Uranium. He made the gold with uranium. Do you think the uranium being stolen now is going not to make bombs but to make gold? Do you think someone has rediscovered that old formula?"

  "No," said Chiun.

  "Why not?" asked Remo.

  "Because I don't think about things that are so trivial. Remo, I have saved your life again. Not that I am bringing it up. But I have. And for what? For you to care about these foolish things? Are we guards of metals? Are we mere slaves? What have I given you Sinanju for but to enhance your glory and that of the House of Sinanju, and here we are with puzzles. Do I think this? Do I think that? I will tell you what I think. I think we should leave mad Emperor Smith, who will never seize the throne. We should serve a real king."

  Remo made his way to the bathroom and washed his face. He had heard this a lot. He would hear it more often now that he had almost gotten himself killed.

  The phone rang. Chiun answered it. Remo could tell it was Smith. There were the flowery protestations of loyalty, the grandiose exaltations of Smith's wisdom, and then the hanging-up with a flourish of the hand, like a rose being brought ceremonially to its rest in a gilded vase. But this time, Chiun had said something strange.

  "We shall hang their heads from the Folcroft walls, and speak their pain as your glory forever," Chiun had said to Smith.

  "What's happening, little father?" asked Remo.

  "Nothing," said Chiun. "Don't forget to wash your nostrils. You breathe through them."

  "I always wash my nostrils. Who are the people we're supposed to do in?"

  "Nobody."

  "But you said we'd hang heads on walls. Whose heads?"

  "I don't know what Smith talks about. He's mad."

  "Who?"

  "No one. Some people who have surrounded the fortress he calls a sanitarium. Now don't forget your nostrils. "

  "They have Folcroft surrounded? The whole thing can go under."

  "There are other lunatics if you prefer."

  femo moved to the phone. His legs were not quite working right and he had to force them ahead in a crude sort of walk, something he had not done since before training. He got the motel switchboard and had them place a call. He didn't know if the security codes would work on this open line, but if they took Smith and Folcroft, everything else was over anyway.

  Smith answered right away. "Open line," said Remo.

  "Doesn't matter. They're closing in."

  "How much time?"

  "Don't know. They're holding off until they ca
n make sure I won't be able to get out. I am going to have to go into a destruct as soon as that happens, you know. In that case we won't be seeing each other, and you can terminate your service."

  "Don't give up yet, Smitty. Don't take that pill I know you have with you."

  "I'll have to. I can't be taken. The whole country will be compromised."

  "Just hold on. I'm coming up. There's a small airport in Rye, isn't there?"

  "Yes. Right near here."

  "Use those magnificent computers and get me clearance on some plane that will get me up there fast. Hold on. I'm coming."

  "How are you? I thought you were dead."

  "Get me the plane," said Remo. He only had to wait thirty seconds before Smith had gotten him a clearance on a private government jet out of Dulles Airport.

  "Where are you going?" said Chiun. "You were lying in bed helpless moments ago."

  ''I'm helping Smitty. And you should too. You always tell me how Sinanju has never lost an emperor. Well, he's an emperor."

  "No, he is not. He is the appointed head of CURE, an organization set up to protect your country by doing things the government wouldn't dare get caught doing."

  "So you do know," yelled Remo. "So you do understand. What was going on all those years with the Emperor Smith business?"

  Remo found his slacks and shoes and put them on, and walked to the door.

  "He's not an emperor. And besides, it is his wish to die and release you. I couldn't help overhearing what he said."

  "Especially since your ear was next to mine."

  "You can't go there in that condition. You're no better than a normal human being. Maybe one of their prizefighters. You could get killed."

  "I'm going."

  "Then I must go with you. With luck Smith will kill himself and then we can all leave, as he suggested. He did say it. Those were his words. One must obey."

  "Now, one must obey," said Remo angrily.

  In the cab on the way to the airport, Chiun reminded Remo how to breathe and massaged his lungs through his back. The cabbie wondered what they were doing back there. Obviously the younger man was sick. He offered to help Remo out of the back seat, hoping for a larger tip. His response was obliterated by the scream of the jet engines. The cabdriver covered his ears. So did Remo. Chiun of course could equalize the pressure within his head, as Remo used to be able to do. Chiun shook his head.

  "I'll go and save mad Smith, and you stay here."

  "No. I'm going. Somehow I feel he may find himself unsaved if you go alone."

  On the plane they sat behind the pilot. Chiun suggested they might want to see the coast of Florida before they went to Rye, New York.

  They landed within an hour. Remo grabbed another cab. Chiun joined him, making sure the driver idled his motor a few moments because, as Chiun said, he did not want Remo breathing fumes from unidled motors. "Never mind him. Get going," said Remo. "How much do you charge per meter travel?"

  "It's a regular fare to the sanitarium."

  "I never pay regular fares. They are unreliable," said Chiun.

  "Don't worry. He'll pay. Get going," said Remo.

  "He said he wouldn't."

  "I'll pay," said Remo. And to Chiun: "You never give up, do you?"

  Chiun raised his hands in a motion of the supplication of the innocent. His eyes widened in curiosity, as if the very suggestion of deviousness lacerated his purest of souls.

  "If Emperor Smith is dead by the time we get there, it is not our fault."

  "No, but it's your hope," said Remo.

  "Is it a sin to want only the best for you and your skills? Is it a crime?"

  Remo didn't answer. He forced his breathing. Somehow the more he breathed, the more harm that had been caused by the uranium-tainted gold eased out of his body. He practiced short finger moves, positions of his body. To the cabdriver, the passenger looked vaguely as though he itched. Remo was getting ready.

  At the high brick walls of Folcroft Sanitarium, Remo saw the problem instantly. Two boats were bobbing in the sound, holding a position. They did not move with the other boat traffic but appeared to have anchored to fish where no one else was fishing. Large tractor trailers blocked both entrances to the building and men dressed as movers waited in the backs of the open vans. If they had carried screwdrivers they would have moved with lightness. But they didn't. They all moved as though they had weapons; their steps were the movements of men who maneuvered around their pieces instead of with them. No one, no matter how experienced with arms, ever moved as though the weapon was not there. Remo had not believed it in his early training; he had tested Chiun's ability to detect a concealed weapon again and again. He could have sworn that when he was just a policeman, before he was trained, he himself was seldom conscious of the gun he carried. But Chiun had said that he had always known it was there even if his mind didn't.

  Remo didn't understand what Chiun was talking about until he had actually seen it in action, when he knew someone was carrying a weapon by the way the body moved, even when the person had become so used to it he forgot it was there.

  Now Remo left the cab. The problem was how could he do what he knew he had to do with what he had left. He looked up to the high corner mirror windows. He hoped Smith had seen him, hoped he had not taken that pill to remove himself and the danger of exposing the organization.

  He waved but did not know if there was anyone up there alive to wave back.

  "You're going to die," said Chiun. "You're not ready."

  "There are some things worth dying for, Chiun."

  "What idiot whiteness is that? Did I train you to get killed like some white hero, like some kamikaze Japanese? There is nothing worth dying for. Who tells you this craziness?"

  Chiun got out of the cab too. The driver wanted to be paid. This in itself was a task, because Chiun did not surrender money lightly. He did not believe in paying. He pulled a silk coin purse from the sleeve of his kimono. When he opened it, dust rose from its folds. "That's it?" said the driver.

  "To the penny," said Chiun. Chiun also did not believe in tipping.

  Four large men, dressed as movers, ambled over to Remo.

  "We're moving this place today, buddy. You got to get out of here."

  "Wait a minute," said Remo.

  "There's no waiting. You gotta get out of here."

  "Have you paid?" said Remo, turning to Chiun. He felt one of the men try to lift him. He wasn't sure what the best response was, actually how much he had to work with. So he pretended the man's arm was actually a much stronger steel beam. He needn't have. The large arm went sailing down the road like a forward pass. He had enough control.

  "Stop that," screamed Chiun. "Smith will see your balance. You're not ready to fight. Your rhythms are wrong. Your breathing is wrong."

  With a single blow into the chest, Remo dropped the man who had lost the arm, stopping his heart. Then he felled the other one by collapsing the spine with a blow through the belly. The man folded like a card table. A pistol dropped out of his shirt. The cabdriver suddenly decided he did not really need a tip, dived into his car, and had the accelerator to the floor before he got his hands fully on the steering wheel.

  The trucks began emptying and the guns came out, some automatics, some rifles, some pistols.

  "Quick. Hide," said Chiun.

  "From what?"

  "From showing how badly you work. You are disgracing the House of Sinanju."

  "I'm good enough."

  "Good enough is not Sinanju."

  "You mean to tell me you think Smith can tell the difference between balanced breathing and internal rhythms? He doesn't even know one blow from another."

  "You never know what an emperor knows."

  "Since when is he an emperor again?" said Remo.

  "Since he may be watching," said Chiun. "Sit, and watch perfection."

  There wasn't that much to watch, since Chiun made short work of the attackers, but the Master did show off some variations for
Remo. But each variation was more subtle than the one before, which meant each movement was less, so that by the time he had gotten through the two truckloads and the one boat that had come in for support, even Remo could hardly tell the movements.

  Toward the end, the point was to make the bodies fall in a pattern. Remo did not notice the attackers seemed to be parts of units. He told Chiun to save a few for information.

  "How many?"

  "Three," said Remo.

  "Why three, when one is enough?"

  "If they're American, two of them won't know what they are doing here."

  Chiun saved three stunned groggy men who could not believe such a frail wisp of a man had done such damage. One of them had a vicious scar across his cheek. They tried to focus on the one boat that remained on the river. But it was not easy for the three battered men to spot their potential rescuers. The boat had fled.

  "Come with us. We'll talk to you later," said Remo.

  "You are going to bring prisoners before an emperor?" said Chiun.

  "I want to talk to them."

  "One does not bring prisoners before an emperor unless the emperor requests it."

  "Another damned king," said the man with the scar on his face.

  Remo pushed them along through the gates of Folcroft. Apparently, since no shots were fired, no one inside knew of the mayhem outside. Nurses and patients went about their business in orderly routine, the perfect cover for a secret organization, a lunatic asylum.

  They went through the main entrance and then up three flights of stairs. The prisoners looked around to see if they might escape, but Remo's reassuring smile changed their minds. The smile said that Remo would be pleased for them to try it. They didn't.

  "What do you mean by another king?" asked Remo.

  "Kings are lunatics. We know. We're working for one now. This guy has been holding tryouts all week. He says he is looking for his king's champion."

  "Spanish," said Chiun. "They have champions to fight battles. They are not true assassins, but the best fighters."

  "Yeah. Well, our team won. We wiped out a Burmese SWAT team, three Ninja groups, and a South American enforcer for drug smugglers. And now look at what we run into."