"Twelve!" Chiun shouted back.
They settled on fifteen percent, but only because the rest of the Mongols rode up, having driven off the last PLA stragglers.
They went inside carefully, batting the dust away from their faces as they felt their way along the high inner walls. They were covered with ancient dingy murals, depicting Buddahs, Chinese demons, and dragons. Remo counted five of the latter, which explained to his satisfaction why it was called Five-Dragon Cave.
"This is the fork," Chiun said at a split in the tunnel.
The dust was coming from the right-hand tunnel. The entrance was jammed with broken rock, dirt, and other debris. Dusty, blood-caked limbs projected from the choke of rock. Some were human, and some equine.
"How are we going to clear all that away?" Remo asked, trying not to think of Fang Yu buried under all that crushing rock.
"We will not," Chiun said, striding on to the left-hand tunnel.
Remo caught up. "I thought the skull said not to take the left fork."
"No. It instructed the reverse. Before I presented the skull to Wu Ming Shi, with my nails I incised the word not in a certain place. Blinded by greed, he neglected to examine the riddle closely for signs of doctoring. And so he perished."
They came to a high-ceilinged vault of rock. Mongol yak-butter candles lit the area with shuddery yellow light.
"Dig," commanded the Master of Sinanju, pointing to the wide flat ground before them.
Not a Mongol moved.
"Go ahead," Remo said quietly.
The Mongols threw themselves into their work with enthusiasm.
"You gotta know how to handle these guys," Remo said with a straight face.
Chiun fumed wordlessly.
As they dug, Remo spoke up. "One thing I still don't understand."
"There are many things you do not understand," Chiun said testily.
"Wu Ming Shi. When he walked, he left the screwiest tracks behind him."
"Ah," Chiun said, gesturing Remo back to the tunnel fork.
There he pushed aside loose rock with a sandaled toe and uncovered a foot encased in a soft black slipper, the toe pointing up.
"That is Wu Ming Shi's foot," Chiun pronounced. "Examine it and see how foolish you feel after you behold the sublime truth."
Remo knelt down and removed the sandal. The exposed foot was wrinkled and leathery brown, the nails curved like blunt talons. The ankle skin was withered like a huge twist of beef jerky.
"He could have used a good foot manicure," Remo remarked, "but that's about it."
"Extract the cadaver," Chiun suggested.
Remo shrugged. He pulled away more rock and debris, exposing a second foot. Taking the corpse by both ankles, Remo pulled. He had to twist and turn, because the body was really stuck. He got most of Wu Ming Shi pulled loose from the rock. The body was missing an arm and the head.
But that wasn't what made Remo abruptly drop the body as if it were contaminated.
"What the hell?" he said in surprise.
For Wu Ming Shi's remains had landed chest-down, even though the toes pointed upward.
"This is crazy!" Remo blurted out. "His feet are on backward!"
"Truly," Chiun beamed. "It is the insult I inflicted upon the wicked mandarin Wu Ming Shi, to these many years ago."
"You turned his feet around?" Remo said incredulously.
"It is a simple trick. Perhaps one day I will show it to you."
Chiun padded off, the high carriage of his head telling Remo his pride had been restored.
A call came out of the left-side tunnel. Chiun picked up his skirts in his haste. Remo flashed after him.
They plunged into the candlelit vault.
"Behold!" Kula said, lifting a dirt-clotted skull from the wide hole his Mongols had excavated.
Chiun snatched it from him, wailing, "Another stupid skull! What manner of Mongol trickery is this!" He spanked the dirt from the bony forehead, revealing Mongolian script. Chiun read it with narrow suspicious eyes.
"What does it say?" Remo asked.
"It says, `Know, O hasty one, that the tortoise has more than one egg.' "
"What's that mean?"
Chiun's eyes suddenly lit up. He turned to the waiting circle of Mongol faces.
"To your steeds, sons of Temujin! We ride to Karakorum!"
The Mongols regarded the Master of Sinanju with identical metallic expressions.
"Why should we do this?" Kula asked in a reasonable voice.
"Because that is where the treasure truly lies!" Chiun hissed.
"You swore that it lay here, where we dig," Kula returned, unmoved.
"I was deceived!" Chiun flung back. "The Khagan was having a last jest on us all. We did not dig deep enough at Karakorum. It is there!"
The Mongols folded their arms stubbornly.