"And you snicker at angels," Remo said.
"In ancient times," Chiun went on, "there were men and women so evil that they sought through chants and rituals and other ways to pull down the tentacles of Ru-Taki-Nuhu. Others sought to awaken him before his time, hoping to produce the same wicked result."
"Not that I buy any of this," Remo remarked, "but what kind of idiot would be crazy enough to end the world?"
"Most of them were what you would call teenagers."
"Oh. Makes sense now," Remo said.
"The last of these cretins were thought to be extinct. And they weren't all Moovian. Some were Greek. Others Arab. There were even Koreans, believe it or not."
"I believe it."
Chiun made a face. "You would. Come, let us track the last of these octopus worshipers to their lair and stamp out their kind once and for all."
As they pushed on toward the southern shore, Remo thought of another question.
"Little Father, you don't believe all this octopus-demon stuff, do you?"
It was a long time before the Master of Sinanju answered. "If we eradicate them all, then we will not have to worry about separating truth from legend."
"Gotcha."
"Until Ru-Taki-Nuhu awakens, that is," Chiun added. Remo didn't have an answer to that.
The jungle path meandered between vines and banyan trees. At their approach, a monkey ran up a coconut tree. He chattered at them raucously. Chiun chattered back at him and the monkey scampered off.
"Wonder what made him run?" Remo asked idly.
"I insulted his mother," Chiun said. And Remo thought the Master of Sinanju wasn't kidding.
At last they came to the edge of the plateau that looked down on a declivity bordering the white sands of the southern tip of the island. Offshore, waves pounded a jutting blue coral reef. Closer inland was a shadow-clotted blot of foliage.
"There!" Chiun hissed, pointing.
Remo stared into the dark area. His eyes spied the brief starlike twinkle of a dying ember. Then it was gone. The wet smell that sometimes hung in the air around a burned building drifted up to their alert nostrils.
"Someone just doused a fire," Remo whispered.
"We approach without the advantage of surprise."
"Now what?"
And down in the grove, Remo heard a series of soft sounds. Puff. Puff. Puff.
"Darts," Chiun hissed.
Remo's eyes telescoped. He spotted them coming up out of the grove. They showed up as dull floating slivers, but when they reached the apex of their flight, for an instant moonlight painted them silver. Poised for instant action, Remo was astonished by how slowly the darts appeared to move. They reminded him of tracer fire rising up out of the Vietnam jungle as he helicoptered over enemy positions. Neither tracers nor darts appeared dangerous. Until they struck.
Remo felt something shoved into his hand. "Here," Chiun said. "Protect yourself."
Remo saw that he held a huge rubber-tree leaf. He knew instantly what he should do with it.
As the darts descended, he shielded his face, feinting. The little ticks sounded, quick and vicious.
Out of the corner of his eye Remo saw Chiun dance with the leaf over his head. His leaf quickly sprouted thorns. Remo caught a second volley. The ground in front of him took several hits as well.
Abruptly the puffing ceased. Remo turned over his leaf. It was peppered with darts. None had penetrated.
"Do you have respect for your enemy now, Remo?"
"Yeah," Remo said grimly. "I suppose these are dipped in some poison?"
"No. They are stonefish spines. They come prepoisoned."
"Brrrr," Remo said. He had faced death in back alleys and in bizarre situations, but on this isolated, demon-haunted island, there was something almost supernatural about how casual death could be. No sound of machine guns, no cries of rage. Just silent death from the darkness. "Now what?"
"Do as I do," Chiun instructed. He flipped his leaf over so the needles pointed outward. Remo followed suit. The Master of Sinanju drew his leaf back like a tennis racket and let go with sudden violence. Remo grinned and copied the action.
The silent darts rained down on the grove.
Remo listened for the cries of surprise. No sounds came. "The poison works pretty fast, huh?" he said. "They don't even have time to yell out."
"They have probably left the grove," Chiun said unhappily.
"Impossible. We have the high ground. We'd have spotted them."
"Come," said Chiun, slipping down the sheer wall of the plateau.
Down in the grove, the wet smoky smell annoyed their lungs. The grove was choked with vegetation and Chiun was forced to cut a path into it with his fingernails. He did it with circling motions, like a man brushing cobwebs out of his way. Except that cobwebs broke apart silently. Here, jungle vines and branches cracked and flew off as if attacked by a thresher.
"You could help," Chiun called back.
"Mine aren't long enough," Remo said. But when he showed his hands, he had to swallow his words. His nails were much longer than normal. He shrugged and started to slice the thick growth.
"I'm going to have to find something to pare these down with," he muttered. "They grew a lot on the voyage." Chiun said nothing.
Presently they came to something that Remo at first mistook for a huge dead tree. Then its hard outlines made him stop in his tracks. "Looks like a tiki god or something," he muttered.
"It is an octopus totem. A bad thing."
Remo walked around it. It possessed a big open-mouthed face, six arms, and a serrated belly. The feet were short and stubby.
"This one is obviously male," he pointed out.
"Octopus worshipers are preoccupied with sex. They believe that by mating in certain ways, they can awaken Ru-Taki-Nuhu with their base cries."