Warren Murphy - The Ultimate Death

Chiun the Elder scolded the younger Chiun in severe tones-but there was a touch of humor mingled in his father's admonishing tone. They both knew it would happen again. For Chiun the Younger was still just a boy, and boys never understand the responsibilities of manhood until they grow into men themselves.

"As punishment," his father had told him, "you will repeat the thirty-seven basic breathing techniques."

They were in the third hour of the exercise when a commotion broke out at the edge of the village.

It began with a single shout, but soon others had joined the cry.

Chiun the Elder started for the village so quickly, young Chiun did not register his sudden evaporation until the Master was a full thirty feet away. With the grace of a gazelle and a speed five times that, Chiun the Younger followed.

They were nearing the outer houses at the edge of the shore road. An elder of the village, whose responsibility it was to safeguard Sinanju while the Master was away, was running toward them. There was much weeping and shouting behind him.

"Master of Sinanju, protect us!" a woman's voice cried.

"Where is the danger, that I may crush it to dust?" Chiun the Elder had called back, his voice charged with fury.

They were met by a confusion of shouted pleas.

The village elder accosted them at the outskirts of the ramshackle fishing village. There was a frenzied look in his eyes that frightened young Chiun. He circled the Master of Sinanju and his pupil, while baring his teeth and grunting strange inarticulations.

The villagers were coming out of their houses now, some holding the limp bodies of dead relatives. Several more bodies lay unmoving along the main street.

"He has killed many, Master," the blacksmith accused.

"He will kill more! I am frightened!" a woman wept, drawing her child close to her.

A wailing chorus went up. "Protect us, O Master! We beg you!"

"Kill him!" several implored.

The Master lowered his head. "People of Sinanju, I cannot," he said gravely. "For it is written that no Master shall raise his hand against one of the village."

"But he will kill us all!" lamented an old woman.

"You would condemn us all to death for one man?" the basket weaver demanded.

And it was at that moment that the village elder had lunged at young Chiun. His father's hand sliced through the air like a falcon descending on a pheasant. A perfect line was drawn through the man's throat, and he dropped heavily to the thick dust.

The villagers gasped. They gathered first with hesitation, then with increasing boldness around the fallen body.

Chiun the Elder dropped to his knees beside the stricken villager and gently cradled the man's head.

The wretch looked up into the face of the Master of Sinanju, a ghastly cast of evil on his calm features.

"The one you called master is not the true master, people of Sinanju!" he cried. "The Leader is master of all! The gyonshi die in life! The Final Death nears! Reject meat! Prepare for the hour of reckoning!"

At that, an exhalation of orange smoke escaped his throat with his dying gasp, to fade in the chilling air.

Woodenly, Chiun the Elder lowered the man to the ground and wept. The people of the village formed a curious ring.

Chiun the Younger could only stand and watch, helpless.

From the back of the gathering crowd the murmurs began. They rolled toward the inner circle, where the keen ears of the Master of Sinanju could pick them up.

"If he would kill him, he would kill us," the old woman whispered.

"He has shamed our traditions," the blacksmith agreed.

"He is a disgrace to Sinanju," the basket weaver added in a hushed voice.

The Master of Sinanju slowly rose to face the villagers. As one they drew away from him, pulling their shivering loved ones closer to them.

"People of Sinanju, hear me!" he intoned. "I have ended the suffering of the one that has brought death to our village, and though he required death, he did not deserve it. I will not excuse my actions, for there is no excuse. I will leave the village this day and attempt to make peace with my ancestors in the mountains, where I may die in atonement. Do not allow the shame of the father to pass to the son, for Chiun the Younger is now Master of Sinanju."

He took himself from the village that very evening, an outcast whose name would be erased from all official records kept by the village.

The last young Chiun saw of his father was a black-clad figure disappearing through a cleft in the hills to the north of Sinanju, his broad shoulders hanging in shame.

The new Master of Sinanju had awakened that morning a happy boy and ended the day a grieving man, and so learned one of the most sorrowful lessons of his life.

Although this was a day Chiun had relived many times, he thought he had locked it away for the last time more than a decade ago. Self-indulgence was not seemly in a Master of Sinanju.

But the image was there again. He held it for a moment in his mind's eye, feeling the cold wind of night on his skin, hearing the reveling of the villagers behind him as they celebrated their new Master and protector, feeling the onerous weight of five thousand years of tradition bearing down on his too-young shoulders.

He was at that time but forty years of age-a stripling, by Sinanju reckoning. His training had not gone far enough along, he knew, for him to fulfill his duties properly. He despaired.

And then out of the hills had come the venerable Master H'si Tang, he who had trained Chiun the Elder, saying, "I am your Master now. And you, my pupil."

Chiun did not question the man, whom he had been told was dead. He only knew that his ancestors had been wise. The unbroken line that was Sinanju would remain unbroken. That was a moment of such emotion that it had dried the tears behind his eyes before they could form.

Long, long, long ago, thought Chiun.

The image faded into gauzy shapelessness and vanished.

He was back. Back in America. Back to be tested once again.

He would do for Remo what his own father had done for him. As he had done for Remo in times gone by. Protect him at all costs.

And the key to avoiding death was distance.

Chiun continued to stalk the halls of Three-G, Incorporated, a grim specter in search of poisons he knew he would never find.

Chapter 12

Mary Melissa Mercy displayed her white gloves in response to Remo's question.

"Poison ivy," she said, smiling. "I caught a frightful dose during weeding duty." She noticed Remo looking around, his attitude bored and impatient.

"Are you a true Vegan, by chance?" she asked suddenly.

"Got me," Remo admitted. "I don't even know what a false Vegan is."

"False Vegans come in many disguises," Mary Melissa Mercy said primly. "The lactovo-vegetarian thinks dairy products are proper. But the lacto-vegetarian refuses eggs, but will consume milk products. Then there is the debased vegetarian, who allows so-called white meats to desecrate his holy stomach, but not red."

"No, I am not a vegetarian," Remo cut in. "Not by your definition of the word, anyway."

"How strange," she said, her brow knitting. "I haven't eaten meat in years, and I have developed the ability to smell a non-vegetarian. You don't have that odor about you."

"I'll bet that comes in handy around the salad bar," said Remo wryly, who thought he detected the scent of blood on Mary Melissa Mercy's breath.

Mary Melisa Mercy smiled sweetly. "Shop talk," she admitted with a shrug. "I'm sorry."

"I met some of your people down the road," Remo said. "They seem very . . . dedicated."

Her smile broadened. "You mean 'fixated,'" she said. "That's understandable. To an outsider, we would seem a little strange." A skeptical look crossed Remo's face, and she laughed out loud. "All right, we seem like a pack of loons. But it's just the way we live. We've chosen the strict Vegan lifestyle in this community, and it suits us. It also doesn't hurt the image of our products. We live healthy, so you eat healthy. Instruction by way of example."