King's Curse Read online

  Losing his guide, Cortez would give up the expedition, but for centuries after, those who followed him would continue to search for the Seven Cities of Cibol, cities that never existed except in the imagination of a king who wished to keep the greedy Spaniards away from him and his people. On that fifteenth night, the king left with a horse and one gun with powder and bullets and flint and many books.

  And a month later, he arrived at the main city of the Actatl. The king had been gone for four full seasons.

  There was a new king now, and the priests of Uctut, in their confusion, announced one king would have to be killed. So the new king, who was a son of the old king, gathered his warriors and prepared to sacrifice his father. But when the first warrior approached, the old king used the thunder stick and, throwing nothing at all, killed the man. All seeing this turned on the new king to make him sacrifice for the old, but the old king would not have this. He had not returned to be king but to bring a message of a new undertaking that Uctut should approve.

  The old king would take fifty women and ten young male children and ten young female children, and he would go off with them. But the priests would not have this for that would mean two kings lived and Uctut would be angered.

  “Within but a few generations, Uctut will not be,” said the old king. “This city will not be. The words we use will not be. The way priest greets king and king priest and people greet their lords will not be. Nothing of the Actatl will be.”

  They asked if a god had spoken to him in a sacred vision, and so they would understand, he said that Uctut had told him.

  This greatly worried the priests, who ordered each family to give a sacrifice so that Uctut would speak to the priests. When the sacrifices were over, a person could not walk on the stone above the well for it sloshed with blood.

  Basins of blood filled the cracks and crevices in the steps to the high stone. Red was the well that fed Uctut. Strong was the stench that came from the high stone.

  And then there was knowledge. The old king could live, but each who left with him would have to become a priest of Uctut who would have to know the real name of the stone, and should the king’s predictions be true, each would have to promise a priest’s service to protect Uctut.

  In this promise, in a civilization soon to die, in the lush green hills between Mexico and South America, was a seed planted that would sprout more than four hundred years later. Its flower would feed on human life, and nothing in that future world that could put a man on the moon would be able to defend against the descendants of those who still looked upon the shiny yellow moon in the night as another god.

  The old king took his new family away toward an uninhabited valley he had seen once on a march. He bred well and he taught well. Each learned language and writing and numbers and the primitive science of the west. And when the new generation of his loins was ready, he sent them out in groups to find the pale invaders—not to kill them for there were too many—but to reproduce with them, taking the best child of each brood and teaching it that it was Actatl. Even if its hair were yellow, still it was Actatl.

  For the king had discovered that the only way his people could live was to camouflage themselves in the colors of others, whoever they were.

  Only one thing bothered him. He could not break them of Uctut, the silly rock. For while he taught them everything, Uctut and its real name became the one thing even the children knew, but not he. And thus it was prized even more. The more he said it was just a silly rock, the more important Uctut became to them as the symbol of what they had been and what they would preserve in their future lives. So he just stopped talking about it.

  One day the last of the original women died, and he realized he was alone. He gave her ritual burial, although piling the stones was hard because he was an old man.

  The new village was empty, and the clay tablets upon which Actatl sounds and European speech were written had not been used for many years, since the last trained group of youths had left. The older ones had not taken well to the new language and way of things, and most had stayed with him here in the hidden village. It was empty now, but for an old dog that could hardly move and had cried very much when its master had left years before.

  “Done,” said the last king of the Actatl. He tried to coax the dog to come with him, but he could not. He put as much food as he could carry into a small bundle and opened the storehouse to the dog, who would probably be a meal for one of the cats of the jungle, now that the man was gone.

  The king made the trek back to the city of the Actatl. Even before he set foot there, he knew the kingdom was gone. The roads were grassed over and the fields untilled. Great plants grew in stone watchtowers.

  Perhaps a few old friends would be biding their last days, hiding in the remains of the city. But there was no one, not even dogs, left in the great city from which once the empire of the Actatl had been ruled. And something else was strange. There was no sign of the fires that usually accompanied a siege.

  He thought, Yes, the Spaniards have been here. All the gold had been removed. But the pieces, he saw, had not been torn away or hacked away or ripped away but were carefully taken out. He thought for a moment, with great happiness, that one of the later kings had wisely taken the people away, something the old king knew he never could get the priests to agree to. But when he arrived at the high stone altar, he knew otherwise, and he let out from his stomach a deep wail. Whitened bones covered the steps and formed in great piles, already mingling with plants. A small tree grew from the mouth of a grinning skull.

  He knew what had happened. Hearing of the Spaniards nearby, they had all come to the high place, hiding what they knew would be of value to the pale men invaders. And they had killed themselves here, their last offering to Uctut. Probably one group killing another, until the last made himself sacrifice to Uctut. He noticed the chest bones chipped on the lower bodies, but higher up there was no such bone breakage. Probably the first were sacrificed ritually, and as the days of blood wore on the killing became like the tilling of a field, something to be gotten over with as quickly and effectively as possible. At the top stones he saw skulls with holes in them, and this confirmed his guess. At the end they were smashing in heads.

  He was tired, more of spirit than of his old body.

  He looked up at the carved rock, a king’s height, and said, “Uctut”—for he did not know its secret name—“you are not even stupid because people are stupid and you are not people. You are a rock. A rock made special by people. You are like a pebble that gets in the way of a plow. Rock. Stupid rock.”

  He sat down, pushing bones aside, amazed at how light they were, now dried, and he was tired. And on the fourth day he felt something sharp at his heart and reached weakly to his chest just to assure himself that there was no blood. There was none, of course, and he shut his eyes and he felt good and wanting of death in a natural way. And he slipped away into that deepest sleep, knowing his job was well done.

  Centuries passed, and with nothing special to preserve the bones of all who were there, they blended into the natural substances from which they came. Not even the dreams remained when a heavy rope crane dragged the king-high stone with the carving from the high place. Other men chopped up stones with carvings on them, but this stone would be worth more uncut, even though it took four mules to drag it through the jungles and over the mountains, where men with Aztec faces and Spanish names sold it to the highest bidder.

  Uctut, the stone, came to a large museum in New York City on Central Park West and was incorrectly put into a display of Aztec art. One day a German businessman saw it and suggested that it have a room of its own. A wealthy Detroit industrialist made a large contribution to the museum and, on becoming a trustee of that institution, moved to follow the suggestion of the German.

  The curator objected, saying it was a rather insignificant piece of pre-Aztec work and didn’t deserve a whole room, and shortly thereafter, to his surprise, he was dismissed for his “surly a
nd unprofessional attitude.”

  A Japanese architect designed the new room for the stone with a rather gross, heavy wall blocking out the north light from what had been a fine window. And the architect even put in a large water fountain, although there was a drinking fountain just outside.

  Apparently, the new trustee and architect knew what they were doing because this stone received many visitors from all over the world. A fiery Arab radical visited it on the same day as an Israeli paratroop colonel, and apparently the stone had some sort of soothing effect because they not only seemed to get along, but they embraced just before leaving. Both, when asked if this had happened by their countrymen, denied the incident. Of course, none seemed as enamored of this pre-Aztec stone as Count Ruy Lopez de Goma y Sanches, who came every day.

  One October evening, a guard discovered that someone with a spray can of green enamelglow had written in large letters on the stone: “Joey 172.”

  The next day, the congressman from the district was found in his Washington office with his chest over a pool of blood. His heart had been ripped out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HIS NAME WAS REMO, and he was disbelieving his ears.

  “Remo, this is Smith. Get back to Folcroft right away.”

  “Who’s this?” Remo asked.

  “Harold W. Smith, your employer.”

  “I can’t hear you. The waves here are too loud,” said Remo, looking at the quiet gentle roll of the sea green Atlantic coming onto the white sandy beach of Nag’s Head, South Carolina.

  The motel room was quiet also but for the faint scratching of goose quill against parchment. A wisp of an aged Oriental worked the quill quickly, yet his long-nailed fingers scarcely seemed to move. He would pause and look off into that well of creativity and write again, hardly moving his golden morning kimono.

  “I said you’ve got to come back to Folcroft right away. Everything is coming apart.”

  “You said you want to speak to a Harold Smith?” Remo said.

  “I know this is an open line but…” Remo heard buzzing. Someone had cut them off. He put down the receiver.

  “I’ll be back in a while, Little Father,” Remo said, and Chiun turned regally from his scriptures.

  “Were you cringing and fat, or were you lying in the dirt when I found you?” asked Chiun. The voice was squeaky and hit highs and lows like a mountain range of slate—with giant paws scratching across it.

  “Neither,” said Remo. “I was coming out of unconsciousness. I was pretty healthy for this civilization. As a matter of fact, I was pretty healthy for almost any time or place. Except one place.”

  “And lo,” intoned Chiun—the quill had become a blur of speed, yet each Korean character of the writing remained clear and precise—“did Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, see the groveling white amid the garbage of his birth. Deformed of limb he was. Dull of eye he was with strange round orbs set in his head. But most deformed, saw the Master of Sinanju, was this white in his mind. A dull, sodden, lifeless mass in his ugly pale skull.”

  “I thought you had already contributed your section about me to the history of Sinanju,” Remo said.

  “I am revising it,” Chiun said.

  “I’m glad I see you writing this because now, with great certainty, I can reiect the whole history of your village as bilge and fantasy and nonsense. Remember I’ve seen the village of Sinanju. We have better looking sewer systems in this country.”

  “Like all whites and blacks, you are prejudiced,” said Chiun, and his voice became scriptural again. “And, lo, the Master of Sinanju said unto this wretch, ‘Arise, I shall make you whole. You shall know your senses and your mind. You shall breathe clean air fully in your whole body. You shall have life in you as no white has ever had.’ And the wretch knew that grace was upon him, and he said, ‘Oh, Awesome Magnificence, why do you bestow such gracious gifts upon one as low as I?’ ”

  “Blow it out your ears,” Remo said. “I’ve got work. I’ll be back soon.”

  Late summer in Nag’s Head, South Carolina, had all the charm of a roaster bag in an overheated oven. Remo saw car windows rolled up with people preserved by air conditioning. Those who were on the street this steamy day lagged as if their feet were weighted with lead.

  Remo moved briskly. He was just short of six feet and thin but for the extra thickness in his wrists. He had sharp features and high cheekbones that seemed a platform for dark penetrating eyes that some women had told him made their stomachs “liquidy.”

  “Hey, don’t you sweat?” asked the clerk as Remo stepped into a small luncheonette and asked for change.

  “Only when it’s hot,” said Remo.

  “It’s a hundred and five outside,” said the clerk.

  “Then I’m sorry, I forgot to,” Remo said. Actually he knew that sweating was only one form of cooling the overheated body and not the most efficient form. Breathing was, but most people did not know how to breathe, treating it like some function that had to be looked after only when you noticed it wasn’t working right. From proper breathing came the rhythms of life and power.

  “Funny, ah ain’t ever seen nobody not sweat on a day liken today, not even a nigra,” said the clerk. “How you do it?”

  Remo shrugged. “You wouldn’t understand if I told you, anyhow.”

  “You think ah’m dumb. You some smart yankee, come down hyeah, think ah’m dumb.”

  “Not until you opened your mouth,” said Remo and went to the telephone booth. He piled up the change in front of him. He dialed the 800-area code emergency feed number. It was designed more for availability than security, but he could always leave a message for the real Harold W. Smith to call him back at the phone booth.

  “I am sorry sir,” came the distant voice of a tape recording. “The number you have reached is not in service at this time. If you need assistance, please wait and an operator will be with you in a moment.”

  Remo hung up and dialed again and got the same message again. This time he waited. A live operator answered with a nonregional sort of voice—neither the guttural consonants of the northeast, the syrup of the south, or the twang of the midwest. California, thought Remo. The drop phone number is in California.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes,” said Remo. And he gave the number he had tried to dial.

  “You’re where, now?” asked the operator.

  “Chillicothe, Ohio,” lied Remo. “Why is that number not working?”

  “Because, according to our records, this number has never worked. You’re not in Chillicothe.”

  “Thank you,” said Remo.

  “But we do have some information on this number.” And she gave him another number, and this was even stranger because if Smith had set this up, he would never have given out an alternate number. And it occurred to Remo that the operator was not there to give him information but to find out where he was. He hung up.

  Outside a gray and white police car with a red bubble atop parked at the curb. Two heavy officers with hands on pistols were out of the car lumbering into the luncheonette. The clerk ducked. Remo left the booth.

  “Were you in that booth making a telephone call?” asked the first officer. The other moved to one side so Remo would be facing two guns.

  “No,” said Remo.

  “Who was in that booth then?”

  “How should I know?” Remo said.

  “He was in that booth,” said the clerk from behind the counter. “He’s a weirdo, Jethro. Watch him. He don’t sweat.”

  “I want to talk to you,” said the officer.

  “You seem to be accomplishing that,” said Remo.

  “Down at headquarters,” said the officer.

  “Are you arresting me or what ?”

  “Just to talk. People want to talk to you.”

  “Weirdo don’t sweat, Jethro,” said the clerk rising from behind the counter.

  “Shut up, Luke,” said the officer.

  “I do too sweat,” said Remo. �
�That’s slander.”

  And when they were in the air conditioned offices of the Nag’s Head Police Department, Remo. perspired while others complained of the chill. Two men who said they were lawyers from a joint congressional committee investigating CIA and FBI abuses arrived and said they wanted to talk to Remo. They wore three-hundred-dollar suits and didn’t comb their hair. Remo was not being charged with anything, but he had phoned a telephone number they were interested in, they said. This number had come to light on an FBI voucher no one could explain. Perhaps Remo could help. Why did he phone that number, who gave it to him, what was it used for?

  “I can’t believe this,” Remo said. “You guys have come all this way to check some guy’s expense account phone calls?”

  “It’s not exactly just a phone number. We have discovered that within the FBI and CIA there were whole units unaccounted for in their investigative work. Incomplete files on American citizens that seemed to lead nowhere and a loose tie-in to a computer system that the committee investigators could not locate,” said one of the lawyers.

  “That makes you pretty important, fella,” the other lawyer told Remo.

  “We’ve had our own experts check out leads into this system and they believe it is massive. Massive,” said the first lawyer.

  “That makes you very, very important,” said the second lawyer.

  “So do yourself a favor, fella, and tell us why you were dialing that number, and maybe we can do you a favor.”

  Remo stopped perspiring. He had to leave soon. He had promised Chiun he would be back quickly.

  “Like what?” he said. “Not charging me with felonious dialing? Conspiracy to make a phone call? Aiding and abetting the Bell System?”

  “How about material witness in a murder, fella? How about material witness, if not suspect, in the murder of a United States congressman investigating coverup operations? How does that thrill ya, fella?”

  “Because I tried to make a phone call, I’m a murder suspect?”

  “Because you tried to reach that phone number, fella. Now we know that number appeared on an FBI voucher no one seems to know about. We know that in the last three months of the investigation, only one person has called that number. You. We know there was a congressman looking into that computer network and intelligence money hidden in federal budgets. And we know that he’s dead now with his heart ripped out of his body. It’s not just any phone number anymore, fella.”