Warren Murphy - Prophet Of Doom

"Those people were scum," said Remo bitterly. "He should have wasted the whole ungrateful lot of them."

"Ah, but waste them Paekjo could not," said Chiun, lifting an instructive finger ceilingward. "For it is written that the Master cannot raise his hand against a member of the village. And, alas, he was

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both protector and provider, and understood that the

people's anger stemmed from a fear of the future.

"So this was to be his final tour of his beloved Sinanju, for while the coffers in the House of the Master were full, due to his tireless labors, with no heir they were fated to run empty. This is a sad fact of life, Remo. The best Paekjo could hope for would be to leave forever his beloved home and ply his trade in foreign lands until his bitter end days, and thus save the infants of his reign from the cold waters of the West Korea Bay, and so preserve his good name in the Book of Sinanju."

Chiun's tight-squeezed eyes relaxed. His pupils, touched by candlelight, shrank to ebony points. "This, Remo, was the reason for his final tour." Remo nodded. A Master lived for his place in history—the only thing that survived his passing.

"But on his way from the village," Chiun resumed, "Paekjo did notice something wallowing in the mud and ordure at the outskirts. A child, weak of limb and dull of senses. An idiot-youth, abandoned by a lesser family, who daily scrounged for scraps and rice hulls for sustenance. And the Master's heart filled with pity. For it was for this child, and others like him, that all Masters of Sinanju plied their deadly trade.

"Seeing this foundling, Master Paekjo turned to those who dogged his footsteps, vilifying him. And his countenance grew wrathful. The women, taken aback, ceased their shouting, clasped their abusive children to them in fright. These slatterns did cry and beat their breasts, rending their garments. And the words they shouted were these—'O wise and

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benevolent Master. Do not be angry with us, who did question thy perfection. For we are but women.'

"And the Master fixed his steely gaze upon these ingrates and he spat, 'Women of Sinanju, begone! You who were not able to breed a cup worthy to receive the ocean that is Sinanju are as worthless as the children who cower at your hems. Your cowardly husbands hide from my sight and grow fat under the beneficence of my toil, yet their seed is like a mongrel's waste—plentiful and valueless. Hear me now. Though your lives are filled with shame and sloth, though the very sight of you is painful, the Master of Sinanju and his successor will continue to fill your unworthy bellies.'

' 'At this, the women gave voice to their confusion. 'But you do not have a successor, Master,' they cried. And Paekjo fixed them with an iron stare, intoning, 'I have today chosen a pupil that is more worthy than all others in the village, and it is he.' At that the Master pulled the bewildered idiot-child from the mud and cradled him in his arms."

"Tang," said Remo.

"Yes," Chiun said somberly.

"I thought you said he was a braggart, not a dullard."

"The two terms are not mutually exclusive," sniffed Chiun. "I have heard you brag. Heh-heh-heh." And though Chiun would ordinarily revel in such a witticism, this day his laughter sounded hollow.

The tense look on Remo's face shattered Chiun's cackle. He continued the story.

"On that long-ago day, Master Paekjo detected deep in the eyes of young Tang a certain promise. And

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while this promise was far from that of the least Master who had come to Sinanju up to that time, it was still superior to the clay available to him.

"Under the patient and determined guidance of his Master, Tang learned. The day finally came for Tang to assume his role as Master of Sinanju, and when this day arrived Tang the Dullard was assigned the simple task of protecting a minor assemblyman—which was another name for a Greek nobleman—in the town of Bura in one of the far Greek provinces.

"While not a glorious task, Tang approached it with an enthusiasm normally discovered only in the very young or the very stupid. The noble was old and weak and had made many enemies during his years of public life, which is not only not unusual in a Greek, it is something that is expected in their politicians.

"Now, this noble had enemies who lusted after his assembly seat. These enemies whispered behind the old Greek's back that he would die on a certain date in a certain way because an oracle had predicted it to be so. And it was with the promise of gold and fine bolts of silk, slaves and fabulous jewels, sweetmeats and confections and many gallons of fine wine that the noble did hire Tang to protect his life from danger until the ordained hour had passed. To this, Master Tang agreed.

' 'Now, even Tang at his most obtuse knew that oracles were merely fabrications meant to frighten men. They were nearly always ambiguous and never reliable. So Tang took his place at the nobleman's right hand for a period of one month. And when the day of doom foretold by the oracle was at hand, Master Tang slipped into the Greek's bedchamber under cover of

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darkness and spirited him away, secreting him in a cave several miles distant until the death hour had passed.

"At daybreak Tang returned the noble to his home. This man was so overjoyed to have cheated certain death, he offered Tang the hand of his loveliest daughter in marriage. Tang declined the offer, saying that his lot was a marriage of duty and obligation to his tiny village. So he bade farewell to the noble and his daughter who was, in point of fact, far from lovely. The girl was ugly and white and a Greek, and it was for these three reasons that Tang did not wish to wed her, for while he was an idiot, Tang was not completely stupid. He returned home to Sinanju, there to rest from his travels."

"That's it? End of story?" Remo asked, perplexed.

"Of course not," Chiun rejoined. "When the day the noble was prophesied to perish came around again—Greeks for some reason repeating their days—word reached Tang that death had struck in the foretold method. In a vile bathhouse where all manner of perversions took place. This on the exact date, one year later, as prophesied by the oracle. While the cause of death was ascribed to heart failure while in the act of pederasty, word was spread that the elderly statesman had been killed in battle against Xerxian forces, an all-too-common lie created to mask an ignominious death among Greek nobles. No one believed the story, save the nobleman's trusting daughter. The very one whom Tang refused to take as his wife. And this daughter traveled in secret from the house of her uncle in Thebes, to Delphi in Phocis, there to visit the famed Pythia who had prophesied the demise of her father.

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The girl thereupon had vanished—a victim of roadside thieves, according to the slave with whom she had traveled.

"Now, Master Tang, being an idiot, was troubled by these things. Instead of considering himself fortunate to have earned a large payment despite what some might consider a technical failure, a nagging pressure filled his heretofore empty head, entreating him to return to Greece to avenge the death of his former charge."

"His conscience," offered Remo.

"His stupidity," explained Chiun. "The noble was already dead and Tang was already paid. What need was there for him to run halfway around the world on a fool's errand? But this is what Tang did.

"Tang returned to Greece and made his way to Pho-cis and Delphi, there to confront the priests of the Pythia, the peristiarchoi. Tang assumed, as only a fool would, that the priests had been paid by a rival noble to predict the death of the old man, whereupon the death was arranged, leaving the all-important seat in the assembly open." Here Chiun broke from the narrative and leaned over to Remo. "I say all-important, Remo, because that is how it is written in the histories. But I tell you that nothing white people do is ever important. This is a myth perpetuated by whites about whites to make themselves feel more worthy in one another's futile estimation."