Warren Murphy - The Last Alchemist

What Francisco knew he needed was a distraction. And the finest distraction in the world was a Giri warrior. While the pair were fighting against the poisoned arrows and spears of the Giri, Francisco would put them away.

The question was how to get two men and one woman down to a miserable patch of jungle.

The answer was James Brewster, the man he knew they would follow. And the vehicle was the woman who was chasing him, Consuelo Bonner. She trusted Francisco. And even if she did not trust, Francisco trusted the fact that her desire for him was strong enough to overcome any wariness.

That was the way he routinely made use of her kind.

Knowing they would follow, he had come down the day before and gone through the nauseating ritual of buying the Giri. The bugs had turned his fair skin into a painful red mottle. Even the repellent burned now.

Carefully he had laid out a small pile of gold at the edge of the jungle and sat down. This showed the Giri they could kill him anytime. It also indicated that the gold was a gift. If that was all there was to it, these ugly little men with haircuts like upside-down bowls would kill him as soon as eat a snack.

But Braun knew their minds. Within a half-hour the little men with their bows and arrows, wearing bones in their noses, were poking around his clearing. The first one there took the gold. The second one there took the gold from the first one. The third and fourth took it from the second. Four of them were dead and rotting in the jungle before anyone thought to speak to him.

In Portuguese, he told them there was a great deal of gold to be had. Much more than the small pile he gave them today. He said he would pay this gold for whatever they could pillage from three people who would be coming up the Giri tributary very soon. They would come on a boat. One would be a yellow man, one a white man, and one a white woman.

Who, they asked in broken Portuguese, would get the liver and the heads of the people?

He said they could keep them. He just wanted what the people had and, in exchange, he would pay ten times the amount of gold he offered as a mere gift.

Francisco knew how their minds worked. First, they would think he was an incredible fool to give up the best parts of the victims. Second, they would assume that the trio had to have much more gold with them than he was offering to pay; otherwise why would he pay it at all? And third, they would plan to kill the three, keep the best parts, take their gold, and then collect the gold Francisco offered, as well.

For the Giri it was a foolproof scheme.

For Francisco it was a way to finally eliminate the men with the incredible powers. While a hundred men fired hundreds of little poisonous arrows, Francisco would get off three good clean shots. Then he could fly out of this armpit of the planet and return in triumph to Harrison Caldwell.

When Francisco heard the coughing engine of the river craft, he knew it would only be a few moments. The forest seemed to wriggle with the beetlelike bodies of the Giri. The whole tribe had heard of the great treasure and the good pickings that would be coming up the river. The warriors packed themselves into the slice of jungle that overlooked a narrow bend in the river. Some of the women brought pots for cooking, old iron pots taken from Portuguese traders now of course long passed through the intestines of the ancestors of the Giri.

"The Anxitlgiri are an innocent people," Chiun said as the craft chugged up the churning mud of the tributary toward a leafy point so dense with foliage no light shone through. "They do not know evil, but are susceptible to the blandishments of the more sophisticated. They served the ancient great empires as hunters and guides. What has become of them now, who knows, but they were good hunters at one time."

"Probably hunted babies," said Remo.

"Don't you ever give up?" said Consuelo.

"I've known him a bit longer than you," said Remo. "Ever heard of Ivan the Good?"

The crew did not notice the leaves in the brush, but Remo saw they did not move with the wind. They jostled in peculiar ways. Up ahead, at the point, he sensed a great mass of men. Something was going to happen. He thought of moving Consuelo behind the cabin of the river craft now, keeping her facing the farthest shore.

But Chiun refused to let him do this. Instead, the Oriental raised a single finger and ordered the boat to go directly into the shore.

"What are you doing, little father?" Remo asked in Korean.

"Shh," said Chiun.

The boat headed into the hidden mass of men. Chiun strode to the prow, letting the wind rush against his flowing yellow kimono, a small man like a flag in the front.

On shore the Giri could not believe their good luck. Sometimes riverboats got through their arrows and they would have to chase in their canoes. Sometimes they lost many men storming a boat. But this one had come ashore among them. Some of the women asked if they could start the fires now for the pots. The Giri saw the wisps of white hair floating on the breeze. They watched the beautiful pale yellow cloth billow in the wind. The men were already planning to cut it into strips for loincloths when they saw the yellow man on the prow raise his arms. And then the Giri heard a strange sound, an ancient sound, a sound they had heard spoken only around their campfires during the great ritual times.

They heard the old language of their ancestors. The small yellow man did not call them Giri, but their full proud name: Anxitlgiri. And what he was telling them in their own tongue was shame. Shame on the men and shame on the women, and shame on the children who followed.

"You move through the forests like logs, like whites. What has happened to the hunters who served the great empires? What has happened to the Anxitlgiri men who moved like the wind kissing the forest leaf, or the women so delicate and pure they hid their faces from the sun? Where are they now? I see only clumsy stumbling fools."

So shocked were the Anxitlgiri to hear their ritual language spoken that they rose from behind their cover. A few pots falling softly on the forest floor could be heard.

"Who are you?" asked an elder.

"One who has memory of what the Anxitlgiri were, one who knows of your forefathers."

"There is no need to do the hard work of our ancestors anymore. There are people to kill. Fat animals raised by the whites to steal. We need no such skills," said a younger hunter.

"The tales of our ancestors are but stories for children," said another.

In Korean, Chiun told Remo to listen to what they were saying. Remo answered: How could he, he didn't know the language-and Chiun said that if Remo had learned all the histories of the Masters he would have known Anxitlgiri.

Remo answered: The only thing he wanted to know about them was which direction was upwind. Consuelo, fearful of all the little brown men now rising from the forests, many with human bones in their noses, asked Remo what was happening.

Remo shrugged. The boat crews shut themselves in the cabin and loaded guns. The pilot, panicked, threw the engines into reverse. Chiun told him to quiet the engines. He wanted to be heard.

He challenged the Anxitlgiri to send forward their best archer. He opened his palm.

"Come now," he said in that ancient language. "Hit this target."

And he held out his right hand, his long fingernails separating, indicating he wanted the archer to hit the center of the palm. But the archer was hungry for the gold and other things. He aimed directly at the center of the pale yellow cloth covering the man who stood on the prow, the one who had challenged the honor of the whole tribe.

The short arrow sang out from the bow. And was caught in the old man's left hand, right in front of his chest.