"It shall be as you wish, ally of my forefathers."
Chapter 12
Wang Weilin was the first one to hear the sound.
It began as a distant hum. It was in his ears for many minutes before the eternal thunder-in the years to come, he would refer to the phenomenon in exactly those words-intruded upon his brain.
He was a peasant, was Wang Weilin. He squatted by the side of the road where his Flying Pigeon bicycle had struck the sharp rock that fattened his front tire.
He had no spare and the road was ill-traveled, so Wang had squatted by the roadside to smoke patiently as he awaited a passerby who might assist him.
When the eternal thunder first penetrated his morose thoughts, Wang stood up, casting his narrow darting eyes in all directions.
He saw nothing at first. Then, north, somewhere beyond the Tianshan Mountains, there was dust. Just dust.
"Karaburan," he murmured. But it was not the Black Hurricane of the desert, he realized a moment later.
The thunder swelled. It did not rumble or gobble, or change tone or pitch in any way. It was steady. It drummed. Gods drumming on great iron rice bowls might have produced this thunder.
It disturbed Wang Weilin for some reason. Its very inexplicability was disheartening.
The dust continued to lift. Whatever phenomenon was producing it, it was many miles away. Yet the wind carried some of the dust to his nostrils, and with it an unpleasant odor. It was not an odor Wang would naturally associate with the gods. It was animallike, distasteful. Tigers on the prowl might smell so. Or perhaps, he thought-his superstitious nature asserting itself-so might dragons.
Whatever it was-gods, demons, or dragons-it was following the old Silk Road that Marco Polo had once plied. And it was grinding westward.
And as it passed due north of Wang Weilin, another sound lifted over the thunder.
It was eerie, melodic. Unlike the thunder, this was not a constant sound. It undulated. And could only have been produced by a living throat.
But what throat? Wang Weilin thought, his heart skipping a beat. For the sound was huge, gargantuan, and in spite of its haunting beauty, threatening.
Thinking again of dragons, Wang Weilin threw away his Blue Swallow cigarette and grabbed up his Flying Pigeon bicycle by the handles.
He would push the balky thing all the way back to the village of Anxi, he vowed.
Even though Anxi was due east, in the opposite direction from which he had been traveling.
For if the singing dragon was bound west, Wang Weilin was going east. He did not wish to feed that melodious full-throated song with his mortal bones.
Chapter 13
General Winfield Scott Hornworks was adamant.
"I do not take orders from sheiks; prince generals or . . ." He groped for a polite word. None came. "Whatever the heck you are."
"I am the Master of Sinanju," said the tiny little Asian guy who looked like death warmed over. He wore a kimono of raw silk. It was the color of a shroud. He stood with his sleeves joined together, his hands tucked inside.
"I especially do not take orders from Masters of Sinanju, whatever that may be," Hornworks added.
The old Asian cocked his head to one side. "You are a soldier?"
"Ninth generation. A Hornworks fought with General Washington at Valley Forge."
"A Master of Sinanju stood at the throne of Pharaoh Tutankamen, with Cyrus the Great, Lord Genghis Khan, and others of equal stature."
General Winfield Scott Hornworks' blocky jaw dropped. He shut it. The sand fleas loved open mouths.
"You got me outflanked and outranked ancestrywise," he gulped. He doffed his campaign hat in sincere salute.
They were standing outside Central Command Headquarters in the Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base. Patriot missile batteries ringed the perimeter, to protect against incoming Iraiti rocketry.
The sheik had had a tent erected beside a Patriot radar array for this meeting. They were outside the tent now. Prince General Bazzaz looked lost and unhappy standing beside his adoptive father.
"O long-lived one," he began, "I agree with the infidel general. I do not see the reason why-"
"Silence," said the sheik, chopping off the sentence with a swipe of his hand. "I command obedience." He turned to the American general. "As for you, your President, my ally, has commanded that you defer to the Master of Sinanju."
General Hornworks squared his star-bedizened epaulets. "I gotta hear that from the President himself."
The sheik snapped his fingers. A cellular telephone was slapped into his upraised hand. He worked it briefly, spoke, and then handed it to General Hornworks.
The general no sooner said, "Howdy," than he snapped to attention. "Yes, sir," he barked. "No, sir," he added. "Of course, sir," he concluded. "You got it. In spades."
Hitting the disconnect button, he returned the phone to the sheik. His broad features were sheepish. He swallowed uncomfortably.
"Are we in agreement'?" asked the sheik in an age-cracked voice.
"Absolutely," said General Winfield Scott Hornworks, who knew exactly on which side his bread was buttered. Especially after his commander in chief had reminded him in a testy voice.
"Summon your lackeys," said the one called Chiun.
Hornworks assumed a blank expression. "My which?"
"Your lackeys," repeated the sheik, who wondered if the infidel general was hard of hearing.
Hornworks gulped. "Sir?"
"Your officers," the prince general put in, recognizing that the infidel general was somehow under the impression he was not a mere paid mercenary.
"Oh. Officers. Why didn't you say so?"
No one offered an answer. They could see the American was suffering delusions of equality-a very common Western mental affliction for which there was no known cure.
They convened around the war room deep in the basement of the UN Central Command Building. The sheik sat silently, toying with his worry beads.
As they settled on the rug, forming a semicircle around the Master of Sinanju, the prince general went among them, handing out crisp white sheets of paper to each.