"What are you doing here? What's your name? How come no one could stop you at the gate? What is that silly pink dress?"
The questions came so quickly that Chiun could barely answer them, but answer he must.
"Great Wang, what are you doing here?"
"Look, I asked you first. If I wanted to answer I would have answered first already. So what's with you and that pink dress?"
Of course the Great Wang was joking, but Chiun would never presume to refuse an answer.
"O great one, it is I, Chiun, I am here on the most wonderfully paid assassination in all history. A mere hypnotist named Rabinowitz, and the price I got-"
"Who wants to kill Rabinowitz?"
"The Mad Emperor Harold. He is nothing, but I did not expect to see you again, great one, in my lifetime. It is Remo's turn. "
"Why would anyone want to kill a nice person like Vassily Rabinowitz?" asked the Great Wang. Soldiers who had been advancing on Chiun made it up to the platform. In order to be absolutely perfect before the Great Wang himself, Chiun used the simplest of breathing combined with the basic force stroke, taking off heads as a form of honor. Nothing special, single movements through the spinal column, leaving the heads for the dust. He could have popped them up, caught them, and done a presentation, but that was flamboyance for customers.
The soldiers, seeing jackhammers smash off heads, went for their weapons or for cover. No one watched the horror without doing something, except for Old Blood 'n' Guts and the strange killer in the pink dress.
The old Oriental was talking weird. One of the soldiers thought of getting up on the platform with them, but the prospect of a severed head made him think twice. Far off, tanks stopped their firing.
Men crowded around the wood platform to see what the man in pink would do to Old Blood 'n' Guts. Someone chased a head, trying to match it to a body. Not knowing what to do with it, he put it down on the ground and covered it with his own helmet. Graves Registration should take care of that, thought the soldier.
"Mad Harold has the strangest assignments, Great Wang. But why do I see you twice in this lifetime? Is it that I, perhaps, am the greatest Master after you?"
"Shut up already with the greatness, hazarei. Is this Mad Harold a communist sympathizer?"
"I betook myself too much greatness, didn't I? For that I am sorry. Mad Harold is a client."
"What do you sell'?" asked the Great Wang.
"What you did, magnificent one. The services of the greatest house of assassins of all time."
"And you want to kill this nice fellow Rabinowitz?"
"You know him, Great Wang?"
"Know him? Man's a peach. Life should be defended at all costs. He's our main client."
"That's what you came to tell me?" asked Chiun.
"And that you shouldn't let anyone bother me, either. Either one will do. Hang around."
"What joy, to be in your presence again, great one."
"A little bit to the left. You're blocking my view of my army. We're planning big things. Big. Ever have a war? I think they're fun. Used to hate them. Wondered why they had such bad publicity. Damned well couldn't be from the generals who ran them."
Was this the Great Wang? Chiun looked again. No assassin approved of war where thousands of amateurs worked or where the professionals got paid. But there was the high forehead. There was the jolly smile. There was the somewhat full body, and of course, there was the unmistakable kimono of Sinanju.
Chiun bowed at the Great Wang and stepped aside. With contempt he broke the box with the button Mad Harold has asked him to press when the assassination was done.
To understand Sinanju was to understand that if the Great Wang seemed odd, it was the student who was odd. For the Great Wang had gone to the center of the universe, and anything that was not of that center was off balance. So had spoken the many Masters since the passing of the "joyful one," as the Great Wang was known.
It was not Chiun, but it was Sinanju. Remo knew that. He had been looking at the sky, feeling himself become all the darkness the sun was not, feeling the water in the little fountain of Vistana Views, feeling all that was alive in him succumb to the lethargy of what might be the last sleep, when he heard the movement.
It was a step, but not a step. Most people walked on the balls or the heels of their feet. Sinanju walked on the whole foot. It was a rustling of a glide, so quiet one had to hear it with one's mind.
But it was there.
"I have been waiting a long time to meet someone from outside the village," came the voice. It was Korean, the northwest dialect, like Chiun's, but it lacked the shrillness. It had a laugh to it.
Remo did not answer.
"You're white. I always knew a white could do it. Good for you, Remo. Good for you, Remo Williams. Good for you."
It felt strange to hear that dialect say something so positive. Remo did not turn around. It was not that he was afraid it might be a mirage. He was afraid it might not be. He was at the lowest point he could remember. He felt worn and useless, and incapable of anything. More important, he didn't want to do anything.
"Are you feeling sorry for yourself? Have you become like Chiun?"
Remo did not like anyone talking about Chiun like that. He had often thought that of Chiun, and worse. But he did not like to hear anyone else say it.
"If you have something against Chiun, why don't you tell him?" said Remo.
"I have. I told him he was childish and self-centered. I told him sometimes he was ludicrous with his pretensions about who we are."
"You may be in my mind. I've achieved realities through my mind. I'm not even going to look at you," said Remo. There was laughter behind him. He ignored it.
"Of course I am only in your mind. So is the world. So is the universe, a mind inside a mind inside a mind, Remo. Ah, you are most certainly Chiun's pupil. He loves you, you know. He had a son who died, who did not survive training. "
Remo turned around. A short, somewhat fat man with a high forehead and a perfect smile sat on the bed, with his hands resting on his knees. He looked as though all the world was a joke.
"The Great Wang," said Remo.
This the figure dismissed. "Your Brother Wang, Master Remo. You are become a Master."
"So?" said Recno.
"Better than kissing a litchi nut. Why are you moderns so serious? You and Chiun. Both of you. You think you're saving the world. Chiun thinks he is saving the House of Sinanju, and between you both, neither of you has stopped one second to smell a flower or watch a sunset. What are you on earth for? To speed the population to its graves?"
"You weren't an assassin?"
"Of course, but not like you two. Are you getting paid by the head? What is the matter with both of you? Chiun kills at the slightest disappointment, you kill as though you personally can bring justice to the world, and both of you need a good night out. When was the last time you loved a woman?"
"A while ago. It didn't work out. It never does. I didn't know Chiun lost a son."
"Yes, he failed to be aware of his son's shortcomings, and in attempting a high climb the boy died. He doesn't want to lose you. He doesn't admit it, but he loves you, more than his son."
"He always rags me about being white."
"Chiun is a snob. The best thing he ever did was bring a white into the family. Remo, you're home. America is not your home anymore. It is your roots. But your home is Sinanju. And you are sad now because for the first time you are really leaving your home."
"Am I coming to a new level?" asked Remo.
"You have been there a while," said the Great Wang. "That is what hurts. From this moment on you begin to die."