Warren Murphy: Time Trial

Kukulcan, the white god. Kukulcan, magic one, he of the flaming chariot come to lead his ancestors to greatness. As old as the wind by now. As old as the strange old man across the river.

"Kukulcan," he said softly, then dragged the body of Father Sebastian through the shallows toward the grave.

* * *

"What'd he say?" Remo asked.

Chiun wasn't listening. His eyes were on the boy as he dragged his heavy burden toward them.

It was Chiun who had insisted that they let the boy come to them. To approach him would have only frightened him away, and there was danger in the jungle for a child alone, even an Indian child who knew his way.

And there was something else, something special about this boy. It showed around his eyes and mouth. Serenity, for one so young. Strength, perhaps. Possibility. Not possibility in Remo's way; the boy was lame. He could never learn the ways of Sinanju. But his eyes had met Chiun's, and in them the old man had seen something rare and ancient.

"Let me help him," Remo said.

"There is no need."

The boy dragged the body to the gravesite, his head down. He raised it only once, to look at Chiun. The old Oriental nodded, then took Birdsong's body from the boy and lifted it over the open grave.

Birdsong was nearly twice Chiun's size, yet the old Oriental handled him as if he were made of cotton, holding him aloft, closing his eyes and mouth and arranging his clothing with hands so swift, they seemed to move in a blur. When he laid the body in the grave, it appeared to float into the waiting earth. Remo covered it.

The boy said nothing.

"Okay, kid, it's been a rough day for you," Remo said, slapping the last particles of dirt from his hands. "Let's get you home."

"Imbecile," Chiun said. "He lived with the dead person. The person's mission burned down. He said so himself."

"The village, then. We've got to get him to the village. Wherever that is." He turned back to the boy. "Village," he enunciated carefully. "Town. People. Coca Cola." He pointed in several different directions, querying with his eyes. "Village that way? There?"

The boy was silent.

"Oh, hell," Remo said. "We'll have to take him back to Progresso. We'll miss at least three days getting to the temple. Well, come on, then." He reached absently for the boy's arm.

The boy skittered away. Standing a few feet away, he stared at Remo. There was no way to tell what the child was thinking. His dark eyes conveyed nothing. Not fear, not hope, not sadness. Nothing. It was as if he were waiting for something. But what?

"That's one funny kid," Remo said. "What does he want?"

"He will let us know," Chiun said.

"Well, I'm not in the mood for playing games." Remo walked toward the boy. "Now listen. We've got to find a way to get you to somebody who'll take care of you, understand? You can't stay here by yourself. And you sure can't come with us. The Temple of Magic is off limits to you."

The boy ran away, limping, his leg dragging behind him as he disappeared into the soggy marsh of the riverbank.

Chiun placed a restraining hand on Remo's arm. "Let him go," he said.

"Are you crazy? We can't leave a crippled kid alone out here. You saw what whoever-it-was did to Birdsong."

Chiun turned away and began to walk delicately through the brush.

"Didn't you hear me, Little Father? We can't leave him alone."

"He is not alone," Chiun said.

Remo ran to catch up with him. "You're talking in riddles again. He looked alone to me. Who's with him?"

"We are." He nodded toward the left. Two dark eyes peered out of the foliage. A small hand beckoned them forward. When they arrived at the spot where the boy had stood, he was gone, staring at them from a place beyond.

"He is leading us to the temple."

"We can find our own way," Remo said. "This is no place for a kid."

Chiun sighed. "You forget, my son. He has lived here all his life."

"We can't be responsible for him."

"And so, then, to whom are we responsible?" Chiun's withered old face was suddenly, passionately full of emotion. "I carry the responsibility of a whole village upon my shoulders each day. For whom do you toil, my son? For yourself, who has no family, no home? For me, who already possesses the skills of a thousand men? For your Emperor Smith, perhaps, who loves a country, but cannot see the faces of the people who make up that country?"

A heavy feeling settled into Remo's chest. He did not like to be reminded that he was an outcast. An orphan, raised by nuns. A soldier, returning from a hideous war to no one. A policeman, framed and scapegoated by his peers. And now an assassin with no official identity, no friends, no family. He had been born, it seemed, to dance on the fringes of humanity, never touching the real people of the real world.

"Don't get philosophical on me," he said thickly.

The boy beckoned. They followed.

"He needs a doctor or something," Remo said. "He can hardly walk."

"And yet he struggles to keep ahead of us," Chiun said.

It was true. Through the orchestra of sound that pervaded the jungle at full daylight, Remo could make out the boy's raspy breathing. He was gasping as his footfalls fell harder and more unevenly with each step.

"True strength is not in the muscles of the body," Chiun said. "It is something in the mind, a power that makes the muscles work beyond endurance. That is the difference between man and beast. It is what separates the teachings of Sinanju from the trickery of the lesser martial arts. The boy has strength. The Master respects that."

"Even if he dies?" Remo said with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"Death comes to us all at the appointed time," Chiun said simply. "The boy knows that. Why don't you?"

"For Pete's sake, he's a child. A baby."

"And he is showing us the way," Chiun said, following the trembling, beckoning hands of the boy.

They walked for several hours, the boy darting ahead, silent, waiting. The jungle changed color from green to indigo again, the sunlight blocked out by the thickening foliage.

"One thing I'd like to know," Remo said. "Why are you making such a big deal about this kid? You act like you know him."

"Perhaps I do," Chiun said cryptically. "There is something in his eyes. Maybe what I see there is all the children of Sinanju who were sent back to the sea."

Remo took a deep breath. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's Oriental sentimentality," he said.

There was a crackle in the forest, nearby. Feet, many feet moving swiftly, intakes and outrushes of breath. The boy's ragged gasp. Chiun leaping ahead like a bird, grasping the boy in one swift motion, hurling the child behind him to safety. Remo's reflexes, like lightning, shooting through his body, melting it to liquid, moving it smoothly, automatically.

Seconds expanding into hours. Time, time enough for everything as Remo's body readied, his senses taking in everything, his mind sorting, storing, reacting. The men— six of them— their naked bodies brown and tough as leather, their faces stained with color to make them look ferocious. At the center of each brown forehead was a black ash dot, the tribal marking.

The Lost Tribes. They fought, not like modern men with soft hands and clumsy legs, but like jungle fighters. Smooth, interchangeable cogs, surrounding the two of them, a circle of black dots, like third eyes peering from the dense greenery. Their weapons were primitive but wielded with precision. The first spear was aimed at Chiun. He caught it in midair and turned it, in the same movement, on the attackers. One fell, screaming. The others did not even seem to notice. The knives came. Slingshots filled with sharp stones.

They kept away. No hand-to-hand. No way to use Sinanju until they were close enough. But they would be close enough. A frontal rolling attack, two of them at once, and...