"I don't know who that is. I've racked my brain-"
"You must not stop searching in your mind, in your heart or in the world of flesh and earth."
"Just tell me his name," Remo pleaded.
"I am sorry."
"Look, if it's so freaking important for me to find him," Remo said hotly, "just tell me his name."
"I would not be a fit mother if I led you by the hand long after you have learned to walk."
"Then give me another hint. Please."
"Sometimes he dwells in the land where the Great Star fell. Other times he dwells among the stars."
"What does that mean?"
"Search for him south of Great Star Crater or among the other earthly stars."
"I don't know what an earthly star is."
The woman closed her dark eyes. "I am permitted to show you a vision."
And in the formless space between her face and her bare feet, the darkness congealed. Dim shadows darkened, took form. Patches of moonlight bent themselves into artful, impossible shapes.
Gradually a picture resolved. There was no color, just blacks and grays. A night image.
"What do you see, my son who is not known to me?"
"A cave..."
"Look deeper. What do you see in the cave?" Remo peered into the vision. The cave was dark, but his eyes took in the ambient light, amplifying it.
He saw at first a pitiful thing wrapped in a blanket. The blanket had color once. But now it was faded and tattered. In the blanket was a bundle of desiccated sticks and patches of dried brown hide, and above the bundle, tilted to one side, lolled a human head, shriveled, wizened, eyes withered shut above a sunken nose and a mouth that appeared to have been stitched shut.
To the bald, drum-tight skin of the head clung dirty tatters of hair.
"I see a mummy," said Remo.
"Does the mummy have a face?"
"Not much of one," Remo admitted.
"In death, do you see whose face the mummy wore in life?"
Remo's eyes took in the ruined mask of parchment skin and dead bone for a long time. He swallowed once, hard.
And turning his head away, Remo squeezed his eyes shut and said nothing.
"Whose face?" the woman insisted.
"You know whose face," he said thickly.
"You will visit this cave soon. You have only to take the first step."
"I don't want to go anymore."
"You seek your father. You seek the truth."
"Not if it costs me-"
"You have searched with your eyes and your brain. You have not yet searched with your heart. His eyes look down upon you, although he does not see you."
"What does that mean?"
"My people are the people of the Sun. Your people are the people of the Sun. Find the people of the Sun, and you will find understanding and the peace you have sought all your life."
"I-I can't."
"You will. Listen to the mother you have never known. You will enter this cave, and all will be revealed to you. Do not be afraid. There is no death. You are no more alive than I am. No more conscious than your most remote ancestor. And I am no more dead than my genes that you carry in your body."
And with a last wistful look, the apparition faded from the room.
Remo did not sleep the rest of the night. He lay flat on his back looking up at the ceiling, trying to convince himself that it had all been a bad dream.
But Masters of Sinanju, the absolute lords of their own minds and bodies, did not experience nightmares. And Remo knew that his worst fears were only days away.
THE MASTER OF SINANJU was making longevity tea for breakfast.
The water boiled happily in its celadon teapot while the ginseng strips and crushed jujubes and raw pine nuts waited patiently in their individual bowls. Warm sunlight streamed through the kitchen window as the Western sun shed its good radiance upon the loose imported green tea leaves.
The Master of Sinanju would have preferred an Eastern sun, but he lived in difficult times. Yet they were not terrible times, he reflected as he bustled around the kitchen with its electric stove and running water and other Western conveniences.
As he prepared the morning meal, he hummed a song from his village of Sinanju in faraway Korea. The song made him feel closer to his village. But in truth, he was not unhappy.
True, he dwelt in a barbarian land. True also, he dwelt with a son who was not only adopted, but white and large of foot and nose and blankly round of eye. A ghost-faced white.
But the Master of Sinanju had known harsher times. He had experienced the bitter comfort of his village during the difficult days when he had no son, no heir, no pupil. Only the awesome responsibility of his village and the cold knowledge that the five-thousand-year tradition, of which he was the last caretaker, had come to an ignominious end.
In those days he had tasted the gall of failure, the sure knowledge that he had let down fifty centuries of ancestors, and faced his final days alone.
Those had been the darkest hours of his life. How could any event seem more distasteful? How could any ignominy make that one pale into insignificance?
So he happily prepared longevity tea in the warm morning sunshine and, although his pupil should have arisen with the sun, Chiun didn't go upstairs to awaken him.
"Remo will appear in due time. He is a good son, if pale."
But Remo didn't appear. And when the water had bubbled down to trace metals, the Master of Sinanju simply put on a fresh pot and resumed his wait.
Longevity tea is worth waiting for. And so are good sons.
THE HUMMING had long since ceased and the teapot had grown cold when Remo Williams padded barefoot into the kitchen, the lines and planes of his strong face unhappy. His deep-set eyes were like burn holes above his high cheekbones.
"I have made longevity tea," said Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, not turning from the stove.
"I'm not hungry."
"That is good, because I have thrown yours into the sink."
"That's okay," Remo said absently, taking a tumbler from a cupboard and holding it under running water.
He drank two glasses of the metallic-tasting water, and the Master of Sinanju still didn't turn around.
"I have wasted the entire morning," Chiun said abruptly.
"Doing what?"
"Being happy."
"That's not a waste."
"When one spends an entire morning thinking well of inconsiderate boors, it is a waste. It is a betrayal." Remo said nothing.
Chiun whirled. "Do you know what time it is?" Remo didn't have to look at the wall clock in the shape of a black cat whose rocking tail swung in constant opposition to its shifty cartoon eyes. "Ten thirty-two," he said, setting the empty tumbler in the stainless-steel sink. His wrists were freakishly thick.
"Why did you keep me waiting?"
"Couldn't sleep."
"If you could not sleep, why fritter away the morning on your back?"
"Because I was afraid to get out of bed."
The Master of Sinanju stopped, his mouth a perfect O. "Why?"
Remo hesitated.
"Why do you fear morning?" Chiun pressed.
And when Remo turned, there were tears .in his dark, deep-set eyes. One rolled down the curve of a high cheekbone. "You're going to die," he said.
"Possibly," Chiun admitted, searching his pupil's troubled features.
"You're going to die soon, Little Father."
A dark cloud passed over the Master of Sinanju's features. "Why do you say that?"
"I don't want to be left alone in the world."
And seeing the pain deep in his pupil's eyes, the Master of Sinanju dropped his anger like a mask and padded toward Remo.
"What troubles you?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
Chiun clapped his long-nailed fingers together. "Speak!"
The doorbell rang.
"I will answer it," said Chiun.
He came back a minute later with a heavy plastic mailing envelope and laid it on a kitchen counter carelessly.