The blow used to murder Pullyang.
Impossible as it might seem, Chiun was forced to accept what had happened. Somehow Nuihc lived. It was that accursed family. Although Nuihc's father was brother to Chiun, the boy's mother was from a less than worthy family. Their line could be traced back to before the time of the Great Wang. They were mystics and shamans. In past ages, when there was not one Master of Sinanju but many, members of this family coveted the title of Reigning Master. It was thought that their seething envy had died centuries before. It had not.
The seeds of ancient hate had taken root in Nuihc. When Nuihc's aunt, the old crone Sonmi, disappeared months before, Pullyang wrote to inform the Master. At the time Chiun tore up the letter and spit on the ground, satisfied that the evil spawned by that wicked family was finally no more. But the hatred in that family now seemed stronger even than the pull of the grave.
It was she. The last of her line, Sonmi had used the final magic of her wicked clan and somehow revived the most dangerous foe Remo and Chiun had ever encountered.
Chiun needed to protect Remo. Had to warn him of the danger. But he was torn. As Reigning Master he had an obligation to the village. Yet he couldn't explain to Smith, an outsider, what had happened. Couldn't tell him why Remo needed to be warned away. Chiun's American employer understood little beyond the so-called facts presented to him in Western books and on his computing devices.
Two Masters of Sinanju will die. Master and student.
He had trained both men. Did it mean Chiun and Remo or Chiun and Nuihc?
And there was another. Jeremiah Purcell was at large in the world. If Nuihc had returned, so, too, might have his wicked protege.
Two will die. But which two?
He would sort it out in Sinanju. There he could protect the village. With his telephone restored, he would speak to Remo. They would devise a strategy.
Remo was protected. The young man was a full Master in his own right. Prepared to take the final step to Reigning Masterhood. Chiun had given him the skills he needed to keep himself safe. Remo would survive. He had to.
Two miles from the village, Chiun caught the scent of the early-morning stove fires. Night had long since fed the dawn. The village of Sinanju was stirring awake.
As he came closer, Chiun expected to see threads of black smoke rising into the pale sky.
The smoke grew thicker. Clogging daylight.
Feeling a sudden strain of fresh worry in his narrow chest, Chiun began to run.
A mile from the village, the daylight vanished. The black smoke swallowed the sky, turning day to night. Chiun raced from the highway. The weeds along the path to his ancestral village whipped his kimono hems.
He crested the hill. Sinanju spread out below.
The buildings had been burned to the ground. The air was thick with smoke. It swirled around the old man.
Training kept him from breathing it in. Not that it was necessary. The terrible sight that befell him robbed the aged Korean of breath.
There were bodies all around the streets. Scattered like seeds amid the charred and ruined houses. Chiun ran. Down the hill and into the main square of his doomed little village.
The first body he came upon was that of the carpenter's granddaughter. The fat-faced woman and her family had kept the old ways even in hard times. They were of the few in Sinanju who remained faithful to the Master.
Her body was cold in death.
She had been killed with a simple force blow. It had shattered her chest and collapsed her organs to jelly.
The dead woman's lavender dress was mocking bright. Brighter than a color should be. Fabric paid for by the labors of the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun ran to the next.
They were fishermen. Old men who sometimes dragged their nets through the cold water of the bay. There was the butcher. Near him was his wife.
Over there was the seamstress, who had been teaching her little daughters her craft. The girls, as well as their father, lay dead near the mother.
Chiun found Hyunsil. In final repose his caretaker's daughter looked like her dead father.
There were more bodies. Lying in the dirt. All around. Everywhere his gaze settled.
He ran from house to burned house, looking amid the ruins for a single living soul.
There was none. He counted as he went. There were none missing. They were gone. All of them. All the souls he was sworn to protect. All dead.
As the fires smoldered, the Master of Sinanju returned to the center of the desolate village.
He turned around and around, soaking in the devastation. When his twirling brain could take no more, Chiun fell to his knees in the main square and wept cold tears. The bitter wind racked his frail frame as he cried out to his ancestors in pain. A questioning howl of animal agony.
No answer came.
His ancestors were gone. As were their descendants.
Dead. All dead. Sinanju, now dead.
Tears burning his hazel eyes, the last Master of Sinanju of the pure bloodline looked up at the sun. Otherworldly smoke blotted out the heavens.
He had followed his heart and in so doing had allowed death and destruction to rain down upon his village.
Tearing his garments, the Master of Sinanju got to his feet. Howling in rage and anguish, he fled the devastated village and stumbled off into the wilderness.
Behind him, a discordant song of triumph seemed to rise from amid the smoldering ruins and ashen-faced corpses.
Chapter 29
At six o'clock on the dot, Dr. Harold Smith shut off his desk computer. The buried monitor winked to darkness. His briefcase was where it always was, in the foot well of his desk. Gathering it up by the worn handle, he stepped over to the coat rack next to the door and threw his scarf and coat over his forearm. Shutting off the lights, he left his Spartan office.
Mrs. Mikulka was gone for the day.
When the clocks were changed weeks before and the days grew short, Smith's secretary had started switching on a single fluorescent bulb above an old filing cabinet. This so her employer didn't stumble coming out of his office in the dark. After all, none of them was getting any younger, and a spill at their age could mean worse than a bump or bruise. This was just one of the many small ways Eileen Mikulka proved her thoughtfulness on a daily basis.
Snapping off the light, Smith made a mental note to tell his secretary to stop wasting electricity.
Out in the hallway the lights were mostly off. The only illumination came from a few dim emergency lights along the walls and the glowing exit sign above the stairwell doors at the end of the hall. Smith headed for the stairs.
Folcroft at night operated on a skeleton crew.
Smith encountered not a soul in the administrative wing. Like a comfortable gray spirit haunting familiar halls, Harold Smith descended the stairs to street level.
Instead of ducking out the door to the parking lot, he continued down to the basement.