Music?
You'd hear the music if he wanted you to hear it, Remo had said.
The music grew louder. Emrys unsheathed his knife and whirled around. Nothing.
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But the music . . . Suddenly his feet shifted beneath him. He lunged, but he remained rooted where he stood. His feet were covered to the ankles in soft, bubbling mud the consistency of gruel.
"Quicksand," he whispered, unbelieving. As far as he could see, the dry, grassy soil had turned into a roiling cauldron of yellow muck. He struggled, dropping his knife. It disappeared into the liquid earth.
The figure appeared again on the hill. "Remo!" Emrys called. "By Mryddin, come get me out of this mess!"
The quicksand disappeared. In the blink of an eye, Emrys was standing once again on firm ground. His knife lay beside him in a tuft of grass.
"All the gods," he said. The figure was still standing on the hill, which, inexplicably, seemed to turn blue.
He shook his head. It was a damn good thing he hadn't fought Remo in the Master's Trial, he thought. His vision wasn't just weak, it was playing tricks on him as well.
He walked toward it. The blue of the mound changed to green, and then to violet. The hill itself appeared to change shape, into an impossibly correct geometric pyramid. The low rises around it spiked upward into perfect triangles, glowing in a spectrum of unearthly colors like some modernist stage set.
"This can't be happening," Emrys said. It must have been the sea voyage. He'd heard about sailors who'd claimed to see strange things from being too long off land. And the food had been scant and bad, and . . .
"Your eyes are failing," a voice said, seemingly from nowhere. He turned around, jabbing the air instinctively with his knife.
"Can't you see me?" The voice was smooth, mocking.
"Come out here and fight me like a man."
"But I am here." Emrys whirled back to face the
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mountain. Where a moment before had been only empty air now stood a tall blond man with cornflower-blue eyes.
"How-how-"
"It depends on what you see," the man said. "In your case, that isn't much. Why, you're nothing but a stumbling, blind thing. A wounded animal. It would be far too easy to kill you."
"Well, now, why don't you just try it then, you motherless snake?"
The Dutchman's eyes widened. "You would do better to be afraid."
"The day I'm afraid of a skinny big-mouth fool like you is the day I'm buried in my grave," Emrys said.
"As you wish."
The Dutchman was gone. Then, instantaneously, his lone figure stood once again on the surrealistic mountain. Two birds swept near him, squawking. The Dutchman snatched out with his hands and plucked them out of the sky. Emrys stood poised for battle, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
The Dutchman released the birds. They flew like bullets in a straight line toward Emrys. Halfway to their target, the birds changed into hurtling balls of white light. Emrys swatted at them with his knife, but their speed was faster than anything he'd even seen. The glowing spheres shot into his eyes, burning them to blackened holes. The Welshman screamed once, then fell, his hands covering his head while his body convulsed in pain.
"Da!" Griffith shouted in the cave. He stood up, his hands slapping against his eyes. "My da! He's hurt."
Jilda put her arms around him.
"Let me go!" My da needs me now!" He strained toward the open mouth of the cave.
Jilda breathed deeply. "I'm going," she said.
Chiun nodded, rising.
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"We shall all go," H'si T'ang said.
They found Emrys still writhing in pain, the ground where he had fallen kicked up from the movement of his legs.
"Da!" Griffith called, running to him.
H'si T'ang pried open the big man's hands to touch the ugly black wounds where his eyes had been.
Remo came over the hill. "I heard someone," he said. Then he saw Emrys. "Oh, God." The boy had his small arms wrapped around his father.
"Can't you do something?" Remo asked H'si T'ang.
"It is too late," the old man said. "He is dying. There is nothing to be done."
"Jilda . . . Jilda," Emrys whispered, barely able to move his lips.
Jilda knelt beside him. "I am here, my friend."
The Welshman struggled to speak. "Take care of my son," he said. Sweat poured off him. "Take him back home. See that he's safe, 1 beg you." He clutched her hand.
"I promise," Jilda said. "May the fields be sweet where you walk."
"Griffith ..."
"Yes, Da, yes," the boy sobbed.
"None of your weeping. You are to take my place, so your job is to stay well and strong."
The boy shook. "Oh, Da, I did it. Your sight's gone because of me. That day in the tree, when you fell-"
"No!" The big man's voice rose. "My blindness was not your doing."