"I hesitate to say this, but this entire procedure has been unorthodox. I have no qualms about going to the authorities with the entire sordid story, such as I understand it."
"What do you suspect this of being?" Smith asked in a chilly voice.
"I have no idea. A criminal enterprise of some tawdry sort. I imagine Folcroft is a suitable place in which to remake notorious criminals. I am only sorry that I have been made a party to this."
"If you had these suspicions, why did you proceed with the operation?" Smith demanded.
Dr. Axeworthy hesitated. He was obviously thinking, Smith saw. The surgeon cleared his throat and said, "I was playing along. Yes I was being a good citizen and gathering evidence so I could testify in court. Had I not performed the surgery, there would be no crime, nothing to report to the police. "
Harold Smith and the Master of Sinanju exchanged glances. "You want the . . . ah . . . organ. Is that it?" said Smith.
"And my fee, naturally. I am willing to exchange the organ for my silence."
Smith nodded to the Master of Sinanju and said, "Kill him."
The Master of Sinanju started forward, his hands coming out of his sleeves like talons.
Dr. Axeworthy almost laughed. But there was a coldness of purpose in Harold Smith's eye and a strange confidence in the advancing Oriental's strides.
Reflexively he jumped back a pace, snatching up the black orb. He was careful to cup it loosely in his half-closed fist. If it were an eye, it would be hollow and filled with fluid. He did not wish to injure the orb's organic integrity. The New England Journal of Medicine would demand proof or they would refuse to publish his findings.
With his other hand he placed the point of a scalpel to the unknown patient's throat, saying, "One more step and I will slit him from ear to ear!"
The old Oriental stopped in his tracks.
"Have a care," he said in a cold voice. "You know not what you threaten."
"Some cheap hood. What of it?"
Dr. Axeworthy had no sooner touched the scalpel point to the patient's throat than his hand suddenly felt cold. It was the hand that cupped the orb.
He brought it up. His fingers were uncurling like a pale sunflower opening. He was not making them uncurl. He was certain of that. They were uncurling on their own. He had nothing to do with it. And he could not stop it because his hand was suddenly numb, as if from a local anesthetic.
The orb was slowly revealed. Dr. Axeworthy found himself staring into the glowing purple-black orb.
Even though it was as featureless as a licorice drop, he experienced the eerie sensation that the eye was scrutinizing him.
Dr. Axeworthy brought the orb to his face. He didn't want to. He had no control now over his own arm. His other hand joined the first to lift the orb closer to his own widening eyes.
He screamed then.
Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, beheld the look of terror on the face of the physician. It was washed in a violet radiance. He held his ground, sensing danger.
In his ear came Harold Smith's harsh voice.
"Master Chiun, what is happening?"
Before Chiun could venture an answer, the physician's upraised cupped hands began to glow from within. Through his purplish skin his finger bones shone white.
"Help . . . meee. . . ." The physcian's voice was tiny, almost squeezed down to inaudibility. "Help . . . meeeee!"
Without any warning, his hands began to melt into a lavender vapor. The vapor wafted and flowed into the physician's mouth and flaring nostrils like a viper seeking sustenence.
Chiun swept backward, pulling his emperor from the room.
"What is happening?" Smith repeated, his face stark as marble.
"It is the orb of Shiva," Chiun hissed. "It is doing the only thing it can do. Destroying."
The double doors gave before them. Chiun pushed Smith into the safety of the corridor. He turned and leaned his weight against the double doors, one hand on each.
After several seconds the Master of Sinanju put his surprised face to the round window of one door. His eyes narrowed at the sight that was transpring within the operating room.
Rooted like a lightning-lashed tree, Dr. Rance Axeworthy watched the stumps of his wrists as they melted away. He was screaming. At least his mouth was screaming and his chest heaved air in and out. But no sound was emerging from his straining lungs.
His forearms melted into gaseous exhalations, eating down to the elbows. Then the biceps went, until the last of his arms were a violet mist swirling around him.
The decay did not stop there, Chiun saw.
It continued until his head, a cloud of purple smoke, simply floated off his shoulders. The inexorable process worked its way down his chest to his waist, consuming Dr. Rance Axeworthy's torso until his legs stood apart and disarticulated.
They wobbled, tipping over. One went left. The other right. They swiftly lost all substance and then there was only a purple fog rolling along the white tile floor.
In that mist, the orb of Shiva rolled.
Smith, hearing nothing, put his patrician nose to the window of the other door.
"Where is Dr. Axeworthy?" he croaked.
"He is the mist," intoned Chiun, his eyes cold slits.
"Impossible!"
"You saw it begin with your very eyes," Chiun said. " I have seen it end. And I say that mist is the doctor."
Angrily Dr. Smith pushed his way back into the room.
Slowly he approached the operating table, where Remo lay oblivious.
His feet disturbed the mist, sending little clouds and twists and vortices eddying silently away. There was no scent, no odor at all.
In the center of the floor, the black orb glowed violet.
"What is it?" Smith asked.
Chiun approached. "The thing I have told you of. It is the third eye of Shiva. According to legend, it had the power to destroy all it beheld with its awful fury."