"That is not the nature of our peoples."
"How do you know? This dumb contest's been going on for a thousand years. Maybe ten thousand. Maybe we ought to try and get along."
"This is a useless argument," Ancion said. "We are not here to abolish the Master's Trial."
"Why not?"
"What is your choice, coward?"
Remo sighed. "I'll fight you," he said at last. "What a pain in the ass you are."
As the Inca rose, the people in the room prostrated themselves on the floor. Ancion glided regally down the long staircase to a covered palanquin held by four stocky men on their knees. At a signal, they rose and carried Ancion outside.
Remo followed him into a stone amphitheater on the grounds behind the palace. Ancion's subjects, numbering nearly a thousand now, gathered around to watch.
"What happens if I win?" Remo asked, indicating the crowd.
"They will only kill you if you use magic."
"You learned a lot of terrific things at Harvard."
"They will watch for sorcery," Ancion said. An aide handed him what looked like a large ball made of leather strips.
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"I hate to break it to you, but there's no such thing as sorcery," Remo said.
The Inca didn't iook at him. "Now I see you are ignorant as well as arrogant."
"Knock it off, Ancion."
"Ancion," the crowd chanted.
"Will you guys cut that out?" Remo yelled. "So I'm ignorant because 1 don't believe in magic, huh? Well, this isn't the Middle Ages, you know. Which is what I've been trying to tell you since I got here."
"There is sorcery," Ancion said. "If you do not recognize it, then it will defeat you."
"Oh, I see. Is that what you're going to do, put the old whammy on me?"
"I have no magic," Ancion said quietly. "H'si T'ang has. The Other has."
Remo started. "The Other?"
"The one of legend, whom only magic can conquer."
"What's his name?"
"He has no name. He is the Other. But you will not meet him, because I will kill you first."
He grasped the end of a leather string protruding from the ball in his hands and snapped his arm outward. The ball unraveled with a crack into a long whip ending in a baseball-sized sphere that glittered with green light. It sang as Ancion twirled it above his head.
"My weapon is a bola of cut emeralds in mortar. What is yours?"
Remo watched the flying stone twirl in expert figure-eights in the sky. He knew by its speed that it could slice him in two in a fraction of a second. Ancion's face was set in deadly earnest. There was no way to talk him out of the Master's Trial now.
"What is your weapon?" the Inca repeated.
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Remo readied himself, relaxing his muscles, focusing his energy, preparing his mind. "Sinanju," he said.
The crowd hushed. Ancion's bola whistled as it swung low, the first attack. Remo leaped over it. The Inca turned effortlessly, keeping the sparkling green ball taut at a distance of ten feet between himself and Remo. Then, the whip advancing like a snake, the second attack came. Small fluttering circles that sent Remo flying backward. When Remo was almost at the edge of the spectators, Ancion pulled the bola back into a huge, shrieking ellipse that cut through the air at different levels on each lightning-fast rotation.
The ball came at Remo's knees, then his neck, then his stomach. There was no way to get close to Ancion, unless he timed his attack with the rhythm of the bola. He waited, he counted. He felt the beating of the sailing ball, and prepared himself to advance when it was farthest from him. Then he moved quickly, straight ahead.
In the split second before he went down, Remo saw the hint of a smile on Ancion's face. For in that moment, just as Remo's feet twitched to advance forward, the Inca changed the rhythm of the flying weighted whip in his hand. With a jerk he shortened the length of leather cord. Before Remo could react to the movement, he felt the cut gems slit three deep grooves in his back.
"Are you still so sure you will kill me, American?" He pulled the bola back.
Remo got to his feet, feeling the throb in the flesh of his back. "Why-why didn't you kill me? You had the chance."
"The Master's Trial is a contest of skill, not a massacre. I will not harm a man on the ground." He swung the weapon forward.
Remo dodged it, but barely. It came at him again. He rolled, scattering the crowd. Again he was on the ground,
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and again Ancion stepped back, waiting. His aristocratic features were impassive.
Who is this man? Remo thought. Ancion had sworn to kill him, and yet he had spared his life twice in five minutes. This wasn't the kind of fighting Remo was used to. It was clean. It was fair. And it was good. Weapon or no weapon, Ancion knew how to handle himself.
"All right," Remo said. "You've made your point."
Ancion moved in, the bola forming a complex pattern in the air.
"1 mean it. You're too good to be wasted."
"Get up," Ancion said contemptuously. "At least have the courage to die like a man."
Remo blinked. It had not occurred to him before that he might die. No one had ever been good enough to scare him, really scare him, in years. But Ancion was.
The bola sped by Remo's face. He swallowed. He couldn't move in forward. Ancion knew all those tricks. And he couldn't get to him from behind, because Ancion could control that, too. He had to stop . . . the arm. The easy, effortless swinging had to stop first. Then they could talk. Or something. Just stop the arm . . .
The bola came around on another pass. Remo waited. On the third, he leaped directly over the ball into a backward spin and landed hard on the Inca's shoulder. The bola spun wildly, but it never left Ancion's grasp. Remo arched backward, out of the way, as Ancion jerked the leather whip in crazy directions. His shoulder was broken, but he kept the weapon moving.
"Stop it!" Remo shouted. "You're hurt."