"Wasn't that something to do with a love affair? Some tawdry thing a private detective in America might handle? An unfaithful spouse?"
"Like a typical American, you remembered the dirt and missed the point. If you remembered the point we would happily join with this firm of lawyers right now and kill Smith. This already has good, solid precedent in the lesson of Master Sayak, who, when faced with death, when faced with a bitter, bitter choice, made the right choice and continued the line of Masters of Sinanju. For there is one thing a Master must know before all else: to continue the line he must not allow himself to be killed. There is nothing any more noble in death than there is something noble about rotting fruit. One does whatever possible to delay that inevitability. Fruit and life." Chiun folded his hands in his kimono and shut his eyes. Remo had learned well the tale of Master Sayak from the histories of Sinanju. As he though about it, he returned to his shower, turning on both the hot and cold water slowly, until a warm, comfort able mixture streamed over his body. Strategically Chiun was not all that wrong. The tale of Master Sayak applied all too well to this situation.
The more Remo thought about it, the more troubled he became. It appeared Chiun might be right. Killing Smith might be the only way to survive. But did Remo want to survive at that price? What was life worth?
He wasn't born in Sinanju, where life was a struggle, where pushing it on to old age was a major triumph, especially for an assassin.
And he was not just a killer. He was Sinanju just as much as he was American, but not more. He let the warm water splash against his face and received the water now as a gentle stream, just as he had received it as an immense force shooting him through the sluice.
He had been given Sinanju, and it was a trust for the future as much as it was a tool for the present. He let the water touch his body. become one with his body. and tried to forget the tale of Master Sayak.
Chapter 10
From the histories of Sinanju: "The Tale of Master Sayak and the Emperor's Concubine":
And it came to pass, during the masterhood of Sayak, that an emperor of a kingdom west of the middle kingdom of China, on his throne in Rhatpur north of the populated city of Delhi, suffered an affront to his life of such skill and daring that he realized no guards would keep him alive, no soldiers could stay the dagger now aimed at his imperial heart.
And beseeching Sinanju he sent a courier with a message. "O Master, my empire is held in the grip of a murderer's blade. None of my ministers or captains know how to help. No shield will prove sufficient. Only Sinanju and its glory can sustain my kingdom. Ask but the price and it will be delivered unto you."
Now, Sayak knew Emperor Mujjipur was the grandson of Emperor Shivrat, who paid well and promptly to the House of Sinanju when seizing the throne from his brother, and Sayak knew that blood often ran true. And the honor of a grandfather was often passed through the blood to the grandson.
But Sayak had made one mistake. Being Sinanju, he assumed that the problems of a soldier or a minister would not be problems for a Master of Sinanju. So he did not ask about the problems. But when there is a thunderstorm, the wagons of Master and soldier, Master and peasant, Master and courtesan, are all stuck in the same mud.
And when Sayak presented himself to Emperor Mujjipur in the summer palace of Rhatpur, the emperor gave to him a freedom few emperors would have allowed.
"To protect my royal life you are given fiat to kill whoever in my kingdom threatens that royal life," said Emperor Mujjipur. "Only one person may you never kill. Only one person's life must at all cost be spared, no matter what the provocation, and that is my beloved concubine, Hareen. No harm may come to her under any circumstance."
Now, Emperor Mujjipur was an old man, in his middle fifties, and his girth was wide, his breathing heavy, and his life hanging by a thread. And yet in that age men often delude themselves about love, and like boys again believe that whoever they happen to love at the moment is a gem beyond compare. So Sayak did not think this announced protection as anything unusual.
Besides, in these situations, such announcements are irrelevant. If Emperor Mujjipur had placed such a prohibition on a son or a cousin, then that might have posed a problem, because in these matters, the one who benefits from the removal of the emperor, the one likely to inherit the throne, is usually the one who seeks the ruler's death.
More significantly, though he had granted his concubine her protection, he had failed to put the empress under that protection. For if he loved this concubine Hareen so much, the queen, out of anger, might possibly have sought Mujjipur's death. Sayak understood the purpose of royal marriages is not sexual but political. Yet he was aware that some empresses felt themselves lovers as well as consorts of their mates. As a Sinanju saying went, all the best planning in the world could get out of hand in a lover's bed.
Yet this was not the case with the empress, who only laughed when Master Sayak respectfully asked her of her life at court, hoping to find the source of her troubles.
"We are all doomed because of the emperor's foolishness-me second, assassin, and you first," she said, and would explain no more.
Sayak knew there was only one way to avert danger and that was, of course, to stop it at the source, which was most simply done at the moment the danger struck. For the most deadly point is also the most vulnerable point.
And it came to pass that the assassin who had attempted twice before to steal the life of Mujjipur sent another deadly hand against the emperor.
He was a common strangler of some skills and some strength, but one of insufficient power. Sayak easily took the strangler's rope and put it about the strangler's neck, turning it slowly so that the face purpled and the teeth bared as the strangler struggled for breath, a move designed to injure the mind more than the body. The strangler would know for the first time, firsthand, the suffering he wrought and fear it.
Naturally it worked, and the strangler said he had been hired by a young captain in the palace quarters of the concubine Hareen. And keeping his promise, Sayak did not put the strangler to death with the rope, but dispatched him with a certain speed that would be welcomed by any of the dying. For it is not the purpose of Sinanju to cause pain. Pain for pain's sake alone is a waste and the mark of a sloppy assassin, and Sinanju would never allow that.
Knowing the injunction, Sayak formally asked the emperor for permission merely to enter Hareen's quarters.
"I honor this beauty so much that I allowed as how her quarters were like her kingdom. You must ask her permission," said the emperor.
But Sayak saw a danger. "Oh gracious Emperor, ruler from the throne at Rhatpur, light unto your subjects, the land you do not control in your own kingdom is land set against you. And land set against you is a danger."
"Sayak, from Sinanju in the Koreas, you have not seen her soft skin, or her eyes as bright as all the mornings of all the suns of all the universes. You have not seen her smile, or receive your body with her gentle love. You cannot know the rapture of this heavenly creature."
And so the answer was no. And Hareen refused even to see Master Sayak. Shortly thereafter there came five men with spears to take the life of the emperor, and these five did Sayak dispatch, but not before these five did again point the finger to the young captain in the quarters of the beautiful Hareen.
And again Mujjipur forbade entrance, saying he had mentioned this to Hareen and that it had brought her to tears.
The next killers came in a band of twenty, with arrows and slings and all manner of death in their hands, and Sayak through Sinanju prevailed, although this time the arrows were close, and the missiles closer, and he knew that while he could defeat the next in all probability and the one after that in all probability, sooner or later even a Master of Sinanju would suffer loss if all he did was sit as a target, like the emperor.
And he told this to Mujjipur, saying the emperor must take back his word to the concubine Hareen. An enraged Mujjipur called Sayak a lesser Master of Sinanju.
"All I ask is that you protect my life without harming my one blessed relief in a burdensome kingdom, and you say you have failed. Since when does Sinanju fail?"
Now, knowing one should never call an emperor fool, Sayak accepted the rebuke and promptly entered the quarters of the beautiful Hareen.
She was in the arms of the captain who had sent the killers one after another against her emperor. She told Sayak she would have him executed for violating the sanctity of her quarters. She told him her Mujjipur would never allow his ears to hear of infidelity. She told Sayak to leave the throne at Rhatpur and return like a dog to the kennels of Sinanju.
Sayak heard her noise, but saw her predicament. This was a girl in love, for otherwise she would have accepted the favors of the emperor and grown rich and comfortable, a noble purpose for a courtesan, for in fact that would mean that her family and village would be secure from want. Sayak could appreciate this, for he provided the same security for his poor village, Sinanju, on the rocky slopes of the West Korea Bay.
Seeing Hareen lying on the multicolored pillows with soft silk cascading about her and her lover in her arms, Sayak saw she had made an improper move for a courtesan. For she did not seek the crown, but someone else, and of course it was he who controlled the beautiful Hareen, the captain of her guard, the man who held her now.
And with the inimitable grace of Sinanju, Sayak did move upon the multicolored pillows and snuff out the life of the captain, even while the beautiful Hareen screamed of murder, screamed of treachery, screamed she would see Sayak's death, no matter what the cost.
Using the force of her anger, Sayak let the anger work around her body in traditional ways, as he prepared to move her from the tension of anger quite naturally into relaxation with common touching and breathing techniques of the first level of Sinanju, and then up to sexual tension. At the height of her transformed energy, he took her, bringing her to an orgasm of peak intensity.
Since it was her body and not her mind that craved the captain, it was her body now that told her she loved Sayak.
And indeed, this beautiful girl who was no more than sixteen offered some attraction for Sayak, for even though Masters of Sinanju are at one with their bodies, they are still men. And she was a most beautiful being, rounded perfectly in all the places that were to be rounded, and thinned in all the places that were to be thinned, and smelling too of lilacs and roses and all the fragrances of a thousand gardens on her perfect skin.
But Sayak was Sinanju, and abiding by his responsibility he told her that first she must order the death of the emperor, order it from Sinanju, as a service. She did this readily, as she had gone along with the now dead captain.
That night Sayak sent the Emperor Mujjipur from a peaceful sleep into the deepest sleep for which there was no morning.
And by so doing, Sayak stilled the one voice that would accuse Sinanju of failure, though it had been the emperor's failure all along. But one could not be too careful about evil words from clients. Mujjipur had no right to defame Sinanju for his own faults, and thus justice was done, a necessary justice because Sayak knew that sooner or later even he would have succumbed.
Now Hareen did not want her new lover Sayak to leave, offering him instead the throne at Rhatpur. But Sayak said, and it should be remembered by every Master unto the ages when all men leave the earth and assassins are no longer needed, "Beautiful Hareen, you offer me the throne at Rhatpur. But look now, a thousand years ago there was a kingdom here which you do not remember, and a thousand years from now, there will be a kingdom here which will not remember the throne of Rhatpur. But a thousand years ago, there was Sinanju, and a thousand years hence there will be Sinanju."
And the lesson from this tale of Master Sayak was that an emperor who foolishly does not allow his assassin to do his job has not hired him. But he who will let an assassin be what he should be, that one is the rightful employer.
Thus it was written in the histories of Sinanju that there was a time when a Master owed to Sinanju the correct move in seeking the right employer for the awesome talents and power of Sinanju.
Millennia later, in a motel shower alongside Lake Booree in Colorado, getting the mud out of his body pores, Remo remembered the tale of Master Sayak and knew Chiun was right. He had almost died in saving that dam. He finished washing, dried off, and put on his slacks and T-shirt. He could travel with all his clothes in a briefcase. He had never gotten into wearing kimonos as Chiun had tried to have him do. He didn't like them, and Chiun attributed this bad habit to early training which could not be broken. Remo paused before the meditating Chiun.
"I could never get myself to work for Palmer, Rizzuto " he said.
And Chiun knew Remo had been thinking properly. "We can then leave. Insane Smith would never say we had failed; he is obsessed with keeping our glory hidden. Why would he not do the same for our shame?"