growing numb as the dragon carried him toward oblivion.
Let me go, father. The pain is too great, and I am only a man. Forgive me.
You are not a meat. You are Shiva. Withstand the pain and live.
Remo cried out. "Why?" IDs body racked with sobs. "What* s the difference, if you're dead? If s all a joke, Chiun, and I'm tired of laughing. Just let me go.»
Things are not as they appear. If I were dead, 1 would still be with you always. But I live. So must you live also.
"Father," Remo said.
Live, my son.
And the poison passed from Remo's heart and seeped through the layered tissues of his muscles, cramping them in hard knots of pain. Remo bucked forward, vomiting.
' Then he began to sweat. Rivulets poured from his skin and dripped into pools beneath his feet. He shook from the cold, the perspiration soaking him in the musty chill of the dungeon.
The dragon turned back. Back into warmth, into light.
Live, my son, the voice repeated.
And he was breathing heavily, and the trembling of his hands subsided.
Remo opened his eyes tentatively. They were filled with sweat, which cascaded from his forehead and blurred his vision. Through the stinging waterfall, he saw Chiun's still form lying lifeless on the cement floor.
His voice was a croak. "Chiun."
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He had pained to bring the dragon back from peaceful oblivion to live. For nothing.
His shoulders ached. He followed them upward with his eyes to his wrists, which were shackled and strung by chains to~the ceiling. His feet dangled free, inches from the floor. He was near enough to Chiun's body to see his face clearly. The old man's expression was peaceful and serene. He had accepted death well.
Remo wept.
Then he thought he saw a movement. Remo blinked twice rapidly to clear his eyes. It was Chiun's face. Something about it had changed.
Remo squinted. Was it his imagination?
No, he decided. There had been a change, an imperceptible change, but enough to alter the utter stillness of the old man's repose.
It happened again. This time, he saw it. "Chiun," Remo shouted.
And it happened once more. By fractions of millimeters, Chiun's eyes were opening. No other part of his body moved. Only the eyelids raised infinitesi-mally higher until Remo could see the hazel of his irises. Finally, when his eyes were fully open, the old man bunked slowly.
"Chiun," Remo said, the exclamation a mixture of laughter and fear.
The old man didn't respond. "Chiun?" Remo questioned. "Chiun. Answer me, Little Father. Chiun, do you hear me? It's Remo. Chiun!"
The Oriental's lips parted soundlessly.
"Chiun! Say something! It's Remo."
"I know who you are, dogface," Chiun said.
Remo gasped, his joy overwhehning all the pain
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in his body. "Chiun," he said, almost choking with relief.
"I also know who I am. Therefore, you may cease your incessant wailing of my name, o brainless one."
"I thought you were dead."
"Thinking has never been what you do best, Remo."
Remo looked again at the chains that dangled him helplessly from the ceiling, and blushed with shame.
Chiun floated to his feet swiftly and walked toward Remo, shaking his head and clucking like a disappointed hen. "The worst of it is that this hideous thing was perpetrated on you by Quati, who are possibly the most incompetent warriors on the face of the earth."
He sighed as he inserted a finger between Remo's wrist and the shackle around it and snapped it into fragments. "To be captured at all is embarrassing enough. But to be captured by Quati is unspeakable."
He broke the other shackle, and Remo fell to the floor. "The utter shame of it," Chiun muttered, prodding the wound in Remo's shoulder. He ripped the hem of his robe and bound the cloth expertly around the festering sore. "I will carry this shame with me to my grave."
Remo smiled. "I really thought you were a goner, Chiun."
"As soon I will be. The shame of your capture by Quati will doubtless deliver me into the Void before my time. Let it be on your head."
"Give me all the guilt you want," Remo said brightly. "I'm glad to see you. I was sure—"
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"You were sure. You are always sure. And always wrong. Did I not tell you I was alive? Did I not help you—yet again, may I add—to overcome your weakness?"
"I thought that was my imagination."
"Imagination!" Chiun squeaked. "Oh, the odious pride of you. The insufferable arrogance. After overcoming the poison in my own delicate being, I bring myself to the brink of the Void to rescue you from your unbelievable weakness and stupidity, and you call it your imagination."
"I'm sorry, Chiun. I should have known you'd be allright."
"Your imagination is of the same quality as your powers of reason. At best, they are dangerously inadequate. Do us both a service, Remo. Never think. Take up a new profession for which a brain is not necessary. Become a wrestler. Write commercials for television. But do not think."
"I said I was sorry," Remo pouted.
"Sorry, sorry. Sorry us out of here, if you will, Remo. I have seen quite enough of Quat."