'Thank you, Little Father," Remo said. "Do not worry. I will think of something," Chiun mocked. "Always will he think of something—he whose most recent thought was that he had soiled his diapers. Pah."
"Don't look now, but someone else knows we're here," Remo said. He nodded toward a slight, handsome man swathed in silken jodhpurs and a turban of brilliant white, who strolled casually toward them through the flower garden near the wall. The man stopped well ahead of them and bowed with a flourish.
"Welcome to the sacred Palace of Vadass, gentlemen," he said in precise, softly accented English.
"Yeah," Remo answered. "That was some welcoming committee you sent after us."
The man smiled. "Those were our outer guards. The watchman in the tower felt you were attempting to enter the palace without permission."
"Who, us?" Remo said, watching the man's hands and feet for any sign of quick movement.
"Of course, they were in error. I have been informed by my master that you are quite welcome to the hospitality of the palace." "Is that so?"
"Indeed, even expected. Please come with me,
Mr. Remo. I will have your belongings brought to
you." He bowed again and walked with careful steps
through the garden. Remo and Chiun followed.
At the end of the garden path, the grounds
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opened into vast manicured lawns dotted with sculptured greenery that sported fragrant blossoms in full bloom. In the distance sprawled the Palace of Vadass, its gilt onion domes gleaming in the sunlight.
The man in jodhpurs led Remo and Chiun to a pristine white walkway past a row of uniformed guards. The heavy brass doors of the palace opened as they neared, as if by magic.
Inside, they walked through a huge antechamber of inlaid black and white marble, ornamented by colossal pillars set with glittering colored stones.
"This way," the guide said, leading them to a smaller room where the walls were draped with silk cloth and the floors strewn with fluffy oversized pillows. Since the room had no windows, the glimmer of candles offered the only light. In the corners, cones of incense glowed with smoky fragrance.
"You will please wait here," the guide said. "Refreshment will be brought to you in all possible haste." He bowed again, then stepped quietly through the half-darkness and was gone.
Chiun lowered himself onto a cushion. In a moment, the dreamy silence of the room was punctuated with the sound of bells, high and tinkling.
"What's that?" Remo said.
"Peace be with you," a woman's voice whispered from the darkness. With the same gentle tinkling sound, the girl moved closer, into the candlelight. Remo saw that the bells were on her toes, beneath gossamer harem pants that revealed the inviting outline of her legs. Above, she wore a brief bandeau of bright silk, which covered her breasts modestly while allowing full view of her smooth olive skin. Her eyes were big and almond shaped, rimmed in
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black to match the dark cascades of hair that streamed to her waist. On her forehead sparkled a blood-red ruby.
"I have brought you tea," she said, her voice
husky.
Involuntarily, Remo's nostrils flared to give himself more oxygen. Ordinarily for Remo, one woman was pretty much like another, but for some reason this woman, in this place . . . For the first time in months, he felt a stirring in his loins. He wanted her.
Her eyes never left his as she poured the tea daintily and offered a cup to Chiun. "Would you . . . like . . ." she faltered, gesturing toward the ornate teapot she carried and looking toward Remo.
"I would like," Remo said, touching her hand.
They were interrupted by the opening of the door at the far end of the room. The guide in jodhpurs walked silently into view.
"Mr. Chiun," he said. "Will you follow me, please? Your chambers have been prepared."
"Chiun is sufficient," the old Oriental said. "Of course, 'Awesome Magnificence' would be appropriate."
As the last light disappeared with the closing of the door behind Chiun and the other man, Remo took the beautiful serving girl in his arms and kissed
her deeply.
"My body is yours," she whispered, unknotting the scrap of silk binding her breasts. They popped into his hands, round and firm, and her eyes slowly closed as he touched them. "Have me," she said.
Slowly he unwrapped the sash around her waist, allowing her transparent pants to fall to the floor. When she was unclothed, he helped her to undress him until they both stood naked in the flickering
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candlelight, their eyes locked together in desire. He reached out a hand to caress her, and she brushed her lips across his.
"Beautiful stranger," she said, pulling him onto one of the floor cushions with her. "I was sent to pleasure you, and yet it is I who am pleased."
"We can please each other," Remo said, touching the warm inside of her thigh. Her flesh trembled under his fingertips. With her hands on his back, she pressed him close to her and guided him inside with the movement of her hips.
"Hey, I haven't even gotten to step one," he said.
"Step one?"
"Of the 52 steps—oh, never mind."
And for a suspended moment in time, Remo let himself forget the magical techniques of lovemaking from Sinanju and permitted the beautiful girl in the candlelight to accept him with her body, taking him into her, gasping with his thrusts as he rocked and petted her and brought her-moaning to ecstasy and he lost himself in her wetness, her sweet warmth.
She held him tightly. "No man has ever loved me so," she said. Her breath came in ragged gulps. From the corners of her eyes, two glistening tears trickled across her temples.
"What's the matter?" Remo asked gentry, pressing his lips to her eyes.
"Go," she rasped, choking on her tears. "Go now."
Remo smiled, bewildered. "Wait a minute. Haven't you ever heard of afterglow? This is where we're supposed to cuddle up and make plans for the future."
"Go quickly, before it is too late," she said, rising to her feet and slipping on her clothes.
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"Why?"
"I—" She pushed him away from her. "I have done a terrible thing," she said.
"Tell me," Remo said. "Whatever it is, tell me."
"My master understands that you are an extraordinary man," she began, trying to compose herself. "Difficult to kill. I was sent to weaken you, so that you may be taken. The guards are outside now. Come with me. I will shield you with my body, for I am the sheik's concubine and may not be killed unless Vadass himself orders it."
"Chiun," Remo said, pulling on his clothes. "What about Chiun?"
"The old man has been poisoned. It was the tea. He drank, but you did not. He is dead by now."
Remo swallowed hard. He clenched his jaw as he thought of the frail old Oriental lying poisoned somewhere in the palace, out of Remo's reach. "Where is he?" he demanded, shaking the girl by the shoulders.
"I do not know," she sobbed. "I cannot be forgiven for this. I cannot forgive myself."
Suddenly the door burst open and the light outside the room silhouetted four archers like ghostly shadows, their bows trembling in a wake of arrows shooting blindly across the room.
The girl gasped. Remo saw the arrow enter her chest beneath her throat. With a noise that sickened Remo, she staggered under the impact of the arrow, then fell, blood streaming from her mouth in black strings, darkened by the candlelight.
Remo's attention wavered for a split second when he saw her. It was long enough for another arrow to pierce his right shoulder.
He recoiled with the pain, but it brought him
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back to alertness. He forced his mind away from the girl and focused on the hail of arrows, which he fended off easily using only his left arm and his legs. He formulated a plan. Following Chain's example with the spear warriors outside the palace, he would wait until the archers ran out of arrows, then charge them. He would ki
ll all but one, and would force that one to lead him to Chiun.
But before the arrows were depleted, an eerie crackling electronic noise filled the room, and a woman's voice said, "Stop."
Immediately the bows were still and the archers slipped silently out the door. When it closed behind them, Remo was left again in the shadowy firelit room, which already had begun to smell of death.
There was laughter in the room, familiar laughter, and soon Remo recognized the woman's voice as Randy Nooner's. "All the girls love you, don't they, Remo?" she asked from four different points in the room, her voice amplified painfully.
"The last one betrayed her master for you. That's quite an honor, you know. The sheik's concubine," she sneered. "She was so sure she could protect you, the little ditz."
"Where is Chiun?" Remo demanded.
"Sleeping peacefully. I wouldn't disturb him if I' were you. He'll be sleeping for a long, long time."
He squinted through the darkness to locate the loudspeakers, which were hidden behind the sheets of silk on the walls. He blinked, trying to ease a growing pain in his eyes. Even the dim candlelight of the room began to burn with a terrible intensity. And the crackling of the speakers . . . Convulsively, Remo covered his ears to block out the sound.
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The movement jolted through his shoulder, reminding him of the arrow wound. It had entered cleanly and gone out the other side—a small wound, insignificant compared with many he had taken—but the pain was worsening fast.
"Uncomfortable, Remo?" Randy's voice crooned. "It's a native poison. Works like strychnine but it's undetectable. No smell, no taste. Sharpens the senses to the breaking point. The old man drank his dose with his afternoon tea. Yours was more direct."
Remo pinched his ears shut to block out some of the booming sound from the loudspeakers.
"This is just the beginning, Remo. It gets worse. Much worse. Listen." Through the crackling of the speakers, Remo heard the amplified shuffling and clanking of gadgets as Randy readied herself. Then his eardrums nearly burst. The ring of a large bell clanged through the room, growing louder with each echo as Randy pumped up the volume on her controls. Remo covered his head with his arms, as if he were protecting himself from falling bombs.
"You should never have looked further than Fort Vadassar," the voice snapped, still shrouded in the echoes of the bell. "You had Artemis. You could have blamed everything on him. That was the point. Instead, you decided to come after me. It was the wrong decision."
"Stop," he cried. "I can't stand the noise."
"Poor Remo. You're so cute when you're vulnerable. Boyish. I like you this way." She laughed again, a high, cruel laugh like a hyena's, which echoed and roared through Remo's ears.
He forced his head up. The sound was deafening, and the light from the candles seared him. When he
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breathed, the incense in the room nauseated him with acrid smoke.
He struggled to his feet, the room awhirl around him, and looked for a weapon. There was nothing.' The pillows, the candles, the incense—everything in the room was soft and pliable. The place was as harmless as a padded cell.
Straining his eyes, he looked at the incense again. The glowing cones were burning in tiny brass lamps. They weighed two ounces at most, but they were shaped in an aerodynamically sound wedge. If he threw them exactly right, weighting his thrust from the middle of his back, at exactly the right angle, he could knock down the loudspeakers and stop Randy Nooner*s laughter from pounding in his ears.
His right shoulder was throbbing demonically. He would have to use his left arm. He tried to aim one of the little lamps at the speaker's base, but the speaker was covered with the silk wall draperies, and the poison that the arrow had carried into Re-mo's body was distorting his vision. The objects in the room appeared to waver and melt together like party-colored spaghetti.
He missed. He stumbled to retrieve the lamp, threw it, and missed again. The effort left him limp and gasping for breath.
Randy's witchy laughter cackled over the speakers again. "The fighter to the end," she said. "It won't do you any good. Your Oriental friend knew that. He didn't struggle at all. He just lay down quietly, the sweet little thing."
"Chiun," Remo whispered. "Hang on, Little Father. I'm coming for you."
It was then that Remo saw the camera. It was poised over the door, hidden in the shadows beneath
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the drapes of silk. Summoning the small strength he had remaining, he weaved his way across the room and stared up at it.
"You found me," Randy said. "Good. I'd like a closeup of you as you die. The fihn will make a good conversation opener when I show it at parties." Her laughter reverberated in Remo's brain. "Can you hear me, Remo? I don't think I'm getting my message across. I want you to die."
Her words rang and cracked as the sound became louder.
"I'm turning up the sound, Remo, so that you'll understand me clearly. Die, Remo."
"Die, Remo. Die, Remo," the distorted, disembodied voice echoed.
"Die."
"Die. Die. Die. Die."
Remo felt a small blood vessel in his ear explode. A trickle of blood trailed down his neck.
"I will not die," Remo said.
Slowly he raised his arms toward the camera as if in salute. Then, using his arms as borders, he willed the area between them into focus until he could see the camera clearly. He shifted his weight slightly to center himself directly below it. Randy was talking, but he did not hear her now. Now the universe was a space between his two upheld arms, and nothing more. Only the television camera above him existed. Nothing more. One by one, Remo removed all other sensations from his mind. There were no memories, no past, and no future. Only the camera.
He closed his eyes. The camera was still there, its presence exerting gravity, the only object in Remo's consciousness. He felt it. He was ready.
His knees bent automatically. His back straight-
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ened. His heels left the floor, and he was springing reflexively as a cat toward the camera. His hands closed around it. It came away from the wall in a tangle of wires and bolts. It rested in his arms, the weapon he needed.
"You pig!" Randy screamed. But Remo did not open his eyes and pushed the sound out of his ears. He positioned himself in the center of the room and permitted the sound vibrations from the loudspeakers to touch his skin without entering his ears. He felt the corner sources of the speakers, and sent the camera spinning toward one, then another, then another. As the fourth speaker smashed to the ground in a fury of sparks, Remo allowed his concentration to dissipate. The speaker groaned once, then was silent.
Remo sank to the floor.
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Thirteen
Quiet.
Remo luxuriated in it. The ringing in his ears stopped. The throbbing from his burst eardrum subsided. His eyes rested on the dim, incense-smoky wall ahead. He pulled his mind back deep into semi-consciousness, away from all thought. There was more in store for him, of that he was sure. There would be plenty of time for worry later. Now he had to rest.
Then the light appeared. It came from nowhere, a blinding expanse of light where the blank wall used to be. It sent him reeling. He blinked and tried to shield his eyes, but the light was unrelenting.
Into it stepped the figure of a man, his shadow attenuated against the yellow-white light. "Come," he said gently. Remo recognized the voice as that of the guide who first escorted him into the palace.
"Where is Chiun?" Remo whispered. "The old man who was with me?"
"Do not ask, my friend. In the Palace of Vadass, it is always best not to ask." His voice was low and sad.
He helped Remo stand and supported him as he
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dragged himself toward the great light. "It hurts my eyes," Remo mumbled, his lips beginning to numb.
"Then do not look," the man said. "Here, to open one's eyes is to look upon pain. One must learn not to see what i
s too painful to watch."
As they neared the source of the light, Remo noticed fuzzily that the doorway he was walking toward wasn't a doorway at all, but rather the space where the wall once was. The walls must have slid away to form the opening, he thought.
"Where am I going?"
. "The royal throne room. The sheik and his woman await you." Remo looked at the man's face. He had remembered it as a handsome face, but now it was creased and careworn. "You were waiting in an adjoining chamber," the man continued. "You and . . . and the dead girl."
"Who was she? I want to know."
"She was not important," the man said bitterly. "Nothing is important here. I must speak with you no more." They walked the last few steps in silence.
The man left Remo when they entered the throne room. Its walls were covered with gold leaf, its brilliance painful. Remo squinted to see. On the gold walls blazed enormous sconces with dozens of candles, and a candelit chandelier 15 feet wide hung from the ceiling, as bright as the sun itself. The furniture was a mishmash of different styles and periods, the pillage of centuries. All but the throne itself, which stood out in Arabic splendor, framed in ornate gold filigree. The occupant of the throne, if there was one, was obscured by thick curtains of many layers of white silk.
Otherwise, the room was empty. It pained Remo to move, but he took a hesitant step forward. As he
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did, a monstrous pain crashed across his back, and he fell face first to the floor.
"One bows in the presence of royalty, Remo," Randy Nooner said, stepping out from behind him. She was swathed in gossamer veils and held a bronze staff in her hand.
"Chiun," Remo said. "Where's Chiun?"
"You'll see him soon enough. But you're going to answer some questions first. Over there." She prodded him with the staff. He pushed himself to his knees, but a blow across his shoulders knocked him down. "Crawl," she said slowly.
Remo crawled.
Near the throne, Randy sat cross-legged on a Victorian settee. She ripped the veil from her face. "Damn nuisance," she muttered. "I meant the veil, but that applies to you, too. Now, suppose you tell me why you came all the way to Quat, Remo. Ifs not in the tourist books."
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