"It is not a thorn."
"Sure it is. It's growing out of the tree."
"If it is growing from that tree," Chiun went on, "it is growing backward. Look again, O brave and foolish one."
"What are you ... ?" Then Remo noticed that the thick end of the thorn stuck out. The point was embedded in the bark.
"Booby trap, huh?" Remo said.
"If we scratch ourselves on it, we die."
"You are beyond help, Remo. It is a blowgun dart."
"Blowgun! I didn't hear anything."
"That is why they are so dangerous. That one missed you by the span of one hand."
"Oh," Remo said in a small voice. He was looking around him.
"Now that you are enlightened, you will listen for the sound of the man who expels darts. You will be aware of the tiny tick of a sound as the dart embeds itself in a hard object."
"Fine. No problem." Remo started to go. Chiun restrained him with a firm hand.
"I have not finished my instruction, you who think dancing in the path of loud and large bullets is all there is in the world to know about preserving one's life."
"What else is there?"
"A question. It is this. What happens if you hear the expelling breath but not the tick?"
"I duck?"
"No, for by then it will already be too late."
"I look for darts in my skin?"
"If you live that long, you may," said Chiun with undisguised disgust, and abruptly took the lead.
"Guess I'm on my own," Remo muttered to himself. He took up the rear, his eyes questing this way and that. He moved with greater caution, his overconfidence gone.
"We will not follow them," Chiun said so softly it might have been the winds in the turtle grass. "We will go to this haunted grove where these devils in human form live."
Remo, surprised at the vehemence of Chiun's words, asked what he thought was a logical question.
"Business aside, why do you have it in for these cultists?"
"I suppose you were not taught about octopus worshipers in these schools where they knew naught of Moo."
"Not really."
"Westerners," Chiun mumbled. Then he spoke up. "There are many legends about the creation of the world, Remo. Every land has stories of how the Supreme Creator brought forth the universe and those who inhabit it. Of course, the Korean version is the only factual story, but in different lands, other stories are told."
They came to a clearing bathed by the full moon. Chiun crouched down, signaling for Remo to follow suit. Remo did.
As Chiun's hazel eyes raked the open area, he went on in a sonorous voice.
"Just as lands tell their tales of the Supreme Creator, they have stories of his opposite. Now, in some lands this opposite creature is ludicrously described as a man with a tail and the horns and hooves of a goat. Of course, this is beyond reason."
"The nuns who raised me didn't think so."
"They probably told you laughable stories about angels too. "
"As a matter of fact-"
Chiun hushed him with a gesture. Then he waved Remo forward. Remo followed the Master of Sinanju through the clearing. He noticed that Chiun's eyes were on the ground. Remo looked down. He saw the disturbances-imperfect footprints and gouges in the porous black earth-that went through the clearing. Chiun was obviously following them. As he walked along, Remo saw that they veered off to one side. But Chiun continued in a straight line.
"Little Father, I think you-" Remo began. He never finished, because the trees over their head emitted a high keening sound. A skirling bird cry. In spite of himself, Remo froze.
The Master of Sinanju did not. With a countercry of his own, he twisted aside. His long-nailed fingers went up like predatory claws. There came a mushy cloth-ripping sound, and when Remo focused on the sound, he saw the Master of Sinanju holding the limp body of some sort of creature.
The thing was black and oily-looking. It had a pulpy head and two legs. But from every point, tentacles grew. These quivered as they hung to the ground. The thing was big, larger than Chiun.
"Jesus H. Christ. What is that?" Remo asked.
"Dead," Chiun said. "It is dead." He held it over his head and Remo realized that he was not holding it in his palm. It was hung up on Chiun's long lethal fingernails. Impaled.
Chiun slowly tipped his hand, twisting his wrists so that the thing came off his fingernails without breaking them, like meat sliding off a fork.
The man-size thing sprawled on the ground. Gingerly Remo approached it. Its skin glimmered under the moonlight, glossy and quivering, like a sea creature. But here and there were greenish feathers, wet and drooping. There was some blood, and Remo was surprised to see that it was red.
"Is it real?" he asked.
"Yes and no," Chiun said. He reached down and Remo almost cringed. Chiun ripped off the thing's head. It landed at Remo's feet wetly.
"A mask?" Remo asked, picking it up. It was slimy. But where the head had been was the glassy-eyed face of a Moovian man.
"It is a disguise they use to spread their terror. An old trick."
"Not that old," Remo said. "When I was a Newark cop, I never had to deal with suspects who thought they were octopi. "
"This is older than Newark, older even than Sinanju. An ancient evil long thought banished from the world. This man wore the mantle of Rangotango, the Plumed Octopus, one of the messengers of Ru-Taki-Nuhu."
"Any relation to Riki-Tiki-Tavvi? Or Rin-Tin-Tin?"
"Hush. Ru-Taki-Nuhu is the Enemy of Life. He was known by many people under many names. For as I told you, Remo, the Supreme Creator had an opposite. He was Ru-Taki-Nuhu to the Moovians. To the Koreans, he was Sa Mansang, the Dream Thing. Many are the legends, but their source is one: the octopus."
Remo's lopsided grin was fading. He searched the surrounding jungle for other assailants.