Warren Murphy - Line of Succession

Down in the ruins, the Dutchman walked, his purple clothes loose against his body, his short blond hair sticking up like a cartoon of a man who has jammed a wet finger into an electrical socket.

Remo climbed onto a block of granite and called down to his enemy.

"Purcell! "

The Dutchman did not react. Something in the sky held his attention.

Remo looked up. High in the early-morning sky, like a diamond in a jeweler's case, the planet Venus shone like a star.

Chiun came up behind Remo. "What is he doing?" he asked.

''Search me. He's just staring at the sky."

"No, at that star."

Down below. the Dutchman pointed an accusing finger at the bright planet. His harsh voice ripped up from the center of the ruins. "Explode! Why don't you explode?"

"You're right," said Remo. "He has gone around the bend."

"We must stop him," declared Chiun.

"That's my idea," Remo said resolutely.

Chiun hurried after him. "No, not for revenge. Remember the Dutchman's other powers. The ones that are not illusions. "

"Yeah, he can make things catch fire or explode. All he has to do is think it."

"He is trying to make Venus explode. With his mind."

"Can he do that?" Remo asked, stopping suddenly. The concept shook him out of this grim certainty.

"We do not wish to find out. Because if he can, he will not stop with Venus. He will put out the very stars in the sky, one by one, until only our world lies spinning in the Void. And then he will obliterate this world too. I know madness. He is full of power, Remo. Our lives no longer mean anything against this threat. Come."

And the Master of Sinanju surged ahead. But Remo overtook him.

"Purcell!" Remo yelled. His voice bounced off the ruins like an echo in a deep cave. "Purcell. Forget that crap. I've come for you."

The Dutchman turned his electric-blue eyes toward them. They seemed to take a long time to focus.

"I will be with you in a moment, my old enemy. It seems that putting out a star requires more concentration than I realized. "

"You don't have that kind of time," said Remo, jumping into the ruins.

"Inside line," said Chiun. And Remo nodded, taking the inside-line approach. He went at the Dutchman in a straight line while Chiun circled around in back. Distracted, the Dutchman reacted to Chiun's circling attack. But Remo was faster. He gathered the Dutchman up in his arms, taking him under one shoulder and around a thigh. Remo spun him like a baton.

The Dutchman stopped his midair cartwheel with a reaching hand. He took Remo by the throat, bringing Remo into the momentum of his spin and throwing Remo against a shattered turret.

"I am more powerful than you," said the Dutchman, picking himself up. He wobbled on his legs dizzily. "I am the Dutchman. I can extinguish the universe with a thought!"

The Master of Sinanju saw that his pupil lay unmoving. There was no time to see if he lived. Chiun moved in on one of the Dutchman's knees. The fourth blow would no longer be denied.

The Dutchman turned, dropping into a fighting crouch. But Chiun did not put up a matching defense. Let the Dutchman have a free strike. Just as long as the Master of Sinanju had his fourth blow.

Chiun felt his toe connect with the Dutchman's knee at the same time the flat-handed blow struck his temple. Chiun rolled with the impact. Both combatants fell.

"You have thrown in your lot with Shiva," the Dutchman said bitterly, trying to rise to his feet. "You should have known better. You could have been father to a god." And the Dutchman, disdaining Chiun's prone form, turned his attention back to the beckoning gleam of Venus, the morning star.

As Chiun watched, the Dutchman lifted his arms to the purple sky, first imploringly, then with a face shaken by rage and wrath. The sky seemed to vibrate.

But all around them another voice suddenly reverberated, deep and full in strength. A voice the Master of Sinanju had heard before. The only voice he had ever learned to fear.

"I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju. "

And the Master of Sinanju smiled grimly. For standing on a ruined turret, a block of granite the size of a small car held over his head, stood Remo Williams.

"Who is this dog meat who challenges me?" Remo said in the voice of Shiva.

The granite block accelerated through the air like a bullet. The Dutchman executed a backflip, landing on top of the block a mere second after it crashed onto the spot where he had been standing.

"Not good enough," crowed the Dutchman. And then it was Remo who was flying through the air.

The two men collided, irresistible force meeting immovable object. They grappled, hand to wrist and toe to toe. They strained against one another like wrestlers, their faces warping and contorting. The sudden wave of sweat-smell coming from the spot where they struggled told the Master of Sinanju of the terrific force being expended. Then, under their quivering feet, the ground cracked and buckled.

The Master of Sinanju crawled to avoid a widening tear in the earth. He found his feet with difficulty and moved to one side of the ruined castle.

This was a battle of gods on earth. There was no place in it for a mere Master of Sinanju. With pained eyes Chiun watched the display of naked power and prayed to the gods of Sinanju that he would not be asked to carry a body down the mountain this day.

Remo Williams struggled mightily. He had one hand around the Dutchman's wrist and the Dutchman had his opposite hand around Remo's other wrist. They pushed and strained against one another, their feet stepping and locking like horses trying to pull a too-heavy load.

The Dutchman suddenly brought one foot down on Remo's instep. Remo responded with a circle kick. The Dutchman jumped with both feet. He let go of Remo's wrist, but Remo did not let go of his. With a swift floating motion Remo caught the Dutchman's other wrist. He had them both now.

When the Dutchman's feet touched ground, Remo pushed him. The Dutchman's weakened knees started to buckle. "This is for Mah-Li," Remo said angrily.

"You kill me and you die!" snarled the Dutchman, his face working with fury. His eyes grew wilder still. His legs quivered as they were forced further and further down. One knee touched the earth, sending shooting pains up the Dutchman's injured leg.

"No!" he screamed. Beneath their feet, the earth cracked again. A serpent jumped out of the earth, long as a train and bigger around than a redwood. Its orange-brown translucent body writhed like an earthworm. And out of its massive jaws, yellow flames seared.

"You'll need more than your tricks to beat me now, Purcell," Remo said. "You're finished."

"No!" shouted Jeremiah Purcell. And the voice was the voice of the beast within him, but the cry was tinged with fear. He felt his other knee sink inexorably, humiliatingly to the ground. "I am stronger than you! Greater than you! More Sinanju than you!"

Colors swirled around him and the discordant music swelled. The Master of Sinanju put his hands over his eyes to block out the awful glare. The ground bubbled, as if it had turned to lava. Blocks of granite stood up on caterpillar legs and marched toward the center of the ruins, where the combatants were locked in a death grip.

The Master of Sinanju watched in horror, not knowing what was real and what was not.

It had seemed as if Remo were winning, but now, with the music rising to a manic crescendo, the Dutchman suddenly had Remo in a chokehold. Remo's arms flailed, his mouth gulping air like a beached fish. Chiun watched as, brutally, like a python squeezing its prey, the Dutchman continued his cruel hold until Remo's face darkened with congesting blood.

"Remo! Do not let him defeat you!" Chiun cried. He started for them, but with a callous glance the Dutchman made a line of granite blocks between them explode into a thousand pieces. The Master of Sinanju retreated into the shelter of a fallen castle wall. He remained there while the fragments of stone peppered the ruins around him.