Warren Murphy: Last Rites

When there was a tiny mountain, Remo's fingernails scratched metal.

"Found something," he said, lifting a dirt-caked disk to the hot Spanish sun.

"Clean it," commanded Chiun.

Rising, Remo gave the disk a flick as if flipping a coin. The disk spun upward, shedding the accumulation of grit through centrifugal force. Then it landed in his open palm. It was a thin bit of hammered metal with the profile of a man on one side. An inscription ran around the rim.

"Looks like an old Roman coin."

"A denarius," corrected Chiun. "Did the vestal virgins who reared you teach you Latin?"

Remo looked at the inscription. It read J. CAES. AUG. PONT. MAX. P. P.

"Yeah. It says, 'Julius Caesar Augustus Pontifex Maximus.' I don't know what the 'P. P.' part stands for."

"Pater Patriae. Father of his Country."

"Just like Washington," grunted Remo.

"Once the Roman Empire extended to the far corners of the earth. Now all that is left are ruins, countless worthless coins in the dirt and idle eaters of pasta and makers of pizza."

"Meaning?"

"You must find the meaning for yourself. For it is time for you to run."

"Run where? I thought we came to see a bullfight."

Chiun examined Remo critically. "Let me straighten your scarf, for it is on wrong."

"It's fine," said Remo, nevertheless letting the Master of Sinanju adjust his scarf.

When it was retightened, it covered his eyes completely.

"Now I can't see," Remo complained.

"Can you hear?"

"Of course I can hear."

Then a dull whoosh like a rocket going up came from a mile or so away.

"You must run toward that sound," said Chiun.

"Why?"

"You will know when you get there. Let me point you in the proper direction." Remo felt himself being spun in place. "Do you remember the open gate?"

"Yeah."

"Run through it. Follow the cobbled path. Do not stop. Do not allow any obstacle to dissuade you from your path. There will be barriers on either side to keep you on the correct path."

Chiun gave Remo a quick shove and said, "Now go!"

Remo ran. His memory guided him to the open gate at the far end of the ring, and when the dirt beneath his feet became wood and then cobblestones the size of loaves of bread, he switched from a flat-footed run to a toe sprint that propelled him lightly from cobble to cobble.

His other senses guided him along. He heard cheers. They swelled. A few shouted Spanish at him, he didn't understand.

"iEsticpido! iNo te das cuenta de que te estas equivocado?"

The cobbled pathway twisted and turned as Remo ran through a world of smells. There was bread and coffee and liquor and the sweat of human beings worked up in a frenzy of excitement.

Far ahead he heard the sound of another rocket. Then a rumble. It grew nearer. The cobbles, connected to one another by mortar, communicated an impending vibration that grew and grew the farther Remo ran.

Something was coming his way. But Remo couldn't stop to worry about it now. He had a goal. He didn't know what it was all about, but the Master of Sinanju had given it to him. And his training wouldn't let him turn away until he reached it.

EVERY YEAR Don Angel Murillo looked forward to the Festival of San Fermin.

And every year he was glad when it was over. The foreigners with their drinking and their drugs and their lack of appreciation for the glorious art of bullfighting were difficult to stomach.

But he took solace in the running of the bulls. Always in the running of the bulls.

It was Don Angel's responsibility to oversee the running of the bulls so foolish men, both Spanish and otherwise, did not ruin the glorious event.

The rules were firm. From the moment the first rocket was fired from the town hall to set the runners on their way to the firing of the second rocket, announcing that the bulls had been released from their corrals at the bottom of Calle Santo Domingol, no man intending to stay ahead of the bulls could call attention to himself or incite the brave bulls in any way that brought harm to others.

If a man stumbled before the rushing hooves, that was his privilege. If the horns caught him and hooked him upward, well, that was what the horns of the bull naturally did. Everyone knew that. Even drunken Princeton students.

It was strictly forbidden for a runner to do anything to cause a bull to deviate from the barricade-lined nine-minute run to the bull-ring. Or injure an unsuspecting runner or bystanders.

Don Angel Murillo was stationed at the barricade along Dona Blanca de Navarra to see that none of these things happened.

When the first rocket was fired, the runners were off and the first cheers went up. When the second rocket arced smokily upward in the bright blue sky, the rattling drum of hooves made the very ground vibrate and the souls of men and woman thrill with anticipation.

Don Angel Murillo was looking up toward the town hall in heart-pounding anticipation of the first redsashed runners in white pants when a man in gray chinos wearing the scarf of San Fermin, the patron saint of Pamplona, and the red sash of a runner came flying up the course.

He was going in the wrong direction. This was not only very definitely against the rules but very strange indeed.

More strange undoubtedly was the fact that he wore the scarf over his face, obscuring his vision. "iEstupido!" Don Angel called in Spanish. "Do you not know you are running the wrong way?"

Then around the corner came the first stumbling wave of men, and behind them the snorting black bulls of Pamplona.

A WALL OF MOVING FLESH jumped around the corner. Remo heard their feet and hooves mingle and blend into a mass of sound as great as the mass of flesh and bone he faced.

The panting of men mixed with the snorting of bulls. Remo recognized that the brutes were bulls. This was Pamplona, made famous by Ernest Hemingway for the running of the bulls, despite whatever name the Master of Sinanju called it.

Calculating the closing distance, Remo flashed ahead, knowing he had a better chance of surviving if he shortened the ordeal's duration.

Men were stumbling and pressing themselves up against the barricades as the bulls pounded down the straightaway.

Remo fixed on the heartbeat of one man who ran ahead of the pack and made for him.

The man tried to swerve from the unexpected obstacle, but Remo was too fast for him. Leaping off the cobbles, Remo used his shoulder for a catapault. Remo launched himself over the heads of the other runners and toward the mass of bulls.

One foot touched an undulating back, rebounded, and the other jumped off the bullish rump.

After that, his feet took him from bull to bull, so tightly clumped there was almost no space between them. They were running in a bunch. No stragglers. No mavericks. And though they were moving fast, especially if one was trying to keep one step ahead of them, to Remo's highly trained reflexes they might as well have been grazing.

His toes bounced him from back to back with such grace the spectators lining the barricaded runway exploded into spontaneous applause. And then Remo alighted back on the cobbles and was racing toward the place where he had fixed the sounds of the rockets.

When he reached it, he sensed a broad plaza and a rowdy crowd who shouted Spanish compliments. "iBravo! iBravo!"

"iMagnifico!"

"iYva San Fermin!"

"iTlenes duende! iSe siente tu duende!"

Remo reached up to remove his scarf when a third rocket pistol banged back the way he had come. "What the heck does that mean?" Remo muttered, wondering if he was supposed to run back the way he had come or not.

"It means," squeaked the Master of Sinanju, suddenly at his elbow, "that you have braved the first athloi."

Remo snatched off his scarf.

Chiun stood looking up at him, his face unreadable. "Athloi?"