Warren Murphy: Spoils Of War

After what seemed like an eternity of aimless

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drifting, Remo's head banged against a cold, hard surface. The movement jarred the numbness from his brain and set it on fire. But he would accept the pain, because to feel pain was to know he was alive. Chiun had taught him that.

Chiun. Through his kaleidoscopic vision, Remo saw him, lying like a statue on the stone floor. He reached out his hand to touch him. The old man was cold.

"Chiun," Remo whispered unbelievingly. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be.

The anger that rose in him turned to hatred, and the hatred brought him to his feet. The hatred electrified his useless shoulder and forced his arm back and ahead, into the throat of one of the guards, as his left hand exploded into the skull of another. There was no pain, because the hatred was stronger than the pain. He kicked a third guard in the groin, sending him flying in a screaming heap. He held another by the hair as he bashed the guard's head into the stone floon.

Then Remo saw the brass staff swinging prettily through the air an inch from his face, and it was too late. Randy Nooner's face was twisted into an ugly mask, her teeth bared, as she brought the staff down. Remo ducked his head. It was all he could do.

And he thought sadly, as the pain of the blow registered and the blackness began to envelop him, that he had failed. He would never see Chiun again.

i

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Fourteen

He was flying.

It was all so familiar somehow—the rarified air, the tether . . . the tether. Ahead of him, a beast of gigantic dimensions glided gracefully on the wind.

He was back in his dream, the Dream of Death, and the dragon of the dream was carrying him away into eternal blackness.

A monumental force from the West will seek to destroy Shiva, the voice in the dream had told him. But now another voice spoke, high and reedy and absolute in its authority. Chiun's voice.

And it said, You are that force, Remo.

Remo stirred in his delerium. "Father," he said.

Silence. He called again. "Father. Father!" he shouted. "Come to me."

/ am with you now, the voice said gently. I am in your mind, where I may help you.

"How?"

Understand you this. You are Shiva, and only Shiva may destroy Shiva. No harm may come to you but by the wavering of your own will.

"We are poisoned, Father."

Your body can withstand the poison. But it can-

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not heal itself without your will. Go into your body and expel the poison from it. Deep within. I will help you, my son.

And Remo felt locking into his mind another force, very strong, very sure. It took him into the depths of his living, physical self, past his weakened muscles, through his organs, diseased by the poison in them. It carried him along the roadway of his bloodstream, cluttered with moving cells and on into the volatile neurons of his nervous system.

This was where the poison had come to rest, among the powerful nerve cells that spurred Remo's senses and reflexes to action. They lay numb and dormant now, their potent electrical charges reduced to fizzling, unconnected sparks. This was where the force brought Remo, and where the voice commanded him to heal himself.

Go within the poison. Eliminate it by your will.

Remo's body shuddered as the strength of Chiun's concentration flowed into his damaged nervous system. He focused on the source of Chiun's thoughts and joined it, and together their combined wills took on an awesome power. Inside the delicate system, translucent ooze seeped out of the sluggish cells into Remo's bloodstream. He gasped as it coursed through his veins, burning like acid. His muscles twitched in spasm from the shock.

The poison entered his heart, and Remo cried aloud with the pain, his unseeing eyes flying open, his fingers clutching empty air.

Father, the pain.

Ahead, the dragon soared to the chilly heights of the stratosphere with Remo following helplessly behind, jerking in agony from the pain.

He was cold. The sky became darker. He was

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growing numb as the dragon carried him toward oblivion.

Let me go, father. The pain is too great, and I am only a man. Forgive me.

You are not a meat. You are Shiva. Withstand the pain and live.

Remo cried out. "Why?" IDs body racked with sobs. "What* s the difference, if you're dead? If s all a joke, Chiun, and I'm tired of laughing. Just let me go.»

Things are not as they appear. If I were dead, 1 would still be with you always. But I live. So must you live also.

"Father," Remo said.

Live, my son.

And the poison passed from Remo's heart and seeped through the layered tissues of his muscles, cramping them in hard knots of pain. Remo bucked forward, vomiting.

' Then he began to sweat. Rivulets poured from his skin and dripped into pools beneath his feet. He shook from the cold, the perspiration soaking him in the musty chill of the dungeon.

The dragon turned back. Back into warmth, into light.

Live, my son, the voice repeated.

And he was breathing heavily, and the trembling of his hands subsided.

Remo opened his eyes tentatively. They were filled with sweat, which cascaded from his forehead and blurred his vision. Through the stinging waterfall, he saw Chiun's still form lying lifeless on the cement floor.

His voice was a croak. "Chiun."

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He had pained to bring the dragon back from peaceful oblivion to live. For nothing.

His shoulders ached. He followed them upward with his eyes to his wrists, which were shackled and strung by chains to~the ceiling. His feet dangled free, inches from the floor. He was near enough to Chiun's body to see his face clearly. The old man's expression was peaceful and serene. He had accepted death well.

Remo wept.

Then he thought he saw a movement. Remo blinked twice rapidly to clear his eyes. It was Chiun's face. Something about it had changed.

Remo squinted. Was it his imagination?

No, he decided. There had been a change, an imperceptible change, but enough to alter the utter stillness of the old man's repose.

It happened again. This time, he saw it. "Chiun," Remo shouted.

And it happened once more. By fractions of millimeters, Chiun's eyes were opening. No other part of his body moved. Only the eyelids raised infinitesi-mally higher until Remo could see the hazel of his irises. Finally, when his eyes were fully open, the old man bunked slowly.

"Chiun," Remo said, the exclamation a mixture of laughter and fear.

The old man didn't respond. "Chiun?" Remo questioned. "Chiun. Answer me, Little Father. Chiun, do you hear me? It's Remo. Chiun!"

The Oriental's lips parted soundlessly.

"Chiun! Say something! It's Remo."

"I know who you are, dogface," Chiun said.

Remo gasped, his joy overwhehning all the pain

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in his body. "Chiun," he said, almost choking with relief.

"I also know who I am. Therefore, you may cease your incessant wailing of my name, o brainless one."

"I thought you were dead."

"Thinking has never been what you do best, Remo."

Remo looked again at the chains that dangled him helplessly from the ceiling, and blushed with shame.

Chiun floated to his feet swiftly and walked toward Remo, shaking his head and clucking like a disappointed hen. "The worst of it is that this hideous thing was perpetrated on you by Quati, who are possibly the most incompetent warriors on the face of the earth."

He sighed as he inserted a finger between Remo's wrist and the shackle around it and snapped it into fragments. "To be captured at all is embarrassing enough. But to be captured by Quati is unspeakable."

He broke the other shackle, and Remo fell to the floor. "The utter shame of it," Chiun muttered, prodding the wound in Remo's shoulder. He ripped the hem of his robe and bound the cloth expertly around the festering sore. "I will carry this shame with me to my grave."