"Do not ask, my friend. In the Palace of Vadass, it is always best not to ask." His voice was low and sad.
He helped Remo stand and supported him as he
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dragged himself toward the great light. "It hurts my eyes," Remo mumbled, his lips beginning to numb.
"Then do not look," the man said. "Here, to open one's eyes is to look upon pain. One must learn not to see what is too painful to watch."
As they neared the source of the light, Remo noticed fuzzily that the doorway he was walking toward wasn't a doorway at all, but rather the space where the wall once was. The walls must have slid away to form the opening, he thought.
"Where am I going?"
. "The royal throne room. The sheik and his woman await you." Remo looked at the man's face. He had remembered it as a handsome face, but now it was creased and careworn. "You were waiting in an adjoining chamber," the man continued. "You and . . . and the dead girl."
"Who was she? I want to know."
"She was not important," the man said bitterly. "Nothing is important here. I must speak with you no more." They walked the last few steps in silence.
The man left Remo when they entered the throne room. Its walls were covered with gold leaf, its brilliance painful. Remo squinted to see. On the gold walls blazed enormous sconces with dozens of candles, and a candelit chandelier 15 feet wide hung from the ceiling, as bright as the sun itself. The furniture was a mishmash of different styles and periods, the pillage of centuries. All but the throne itself, which stood out in Arabic splendor, framed in ornate gold filigree. The occupant of the throne, if there was one, was obscured by thick curtains of many layers of white silk.
Otherwise, the room was empty. It pained Remo to move, but he took a hesitant step forward. As he
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did, a monstrous pain crashed across his back, and he fell face first to the floor.
"One bows in the presence of royalty, Remo," Randy Nooner said, stepping out from behind him. She was swathed in gossamer veils and held a bronze staff in her hand.
"Chiun," Remo said. "Where's Chiun?"
"You'll see him soon enough. But you're going to answer some questions first. Over there." She prodded him with the staff. He pushed himself to his knees, but a blow across his shoulders knocked him down. "Crawl," she said slowly.
Remo crawled.
Near the throne, Randy sat cross-legged on a Victorian settee. She ripped the veil from her face. "Damn nuisance," she muttered. "I meant the veil, but that applies to you, too. Now, suppose you tell me why you came all the way to Quat, Remo. Ifs not in the tourist books."
Remo said nothing. Randy raised the bronze staff she carried and slammed it into his wounded shoulder. "Talk," she said.
"Artemis was making those recruits desert for you so that you could have your army. The officers who didn't see things your way on those bases were killed. You did that."
"Ah-ah, Remo. I told you long ago that the recruits were doing the killing. It was the truth. Oh, they had a little encouragement from Samantha's communion brew and Artemis's rhetoric, but the boys took care of their officers on their own. Artemis just gave them a taste of bloodlust with the chaplains they offed at those revival meetings of his. He loved Trilling, you know. He lived for it. An inspiration to the men."
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"But he worked for you."
Randy shrugged. "We all work for somebody."
"What about you?" Remo .asked groggüy.
She smiled. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt for you to know now. You'll be dead before the day is over, even if you run away." She stood up and added, "Which you won't."
She strode over to the throne and pulled a tassled cord hanging down the side of the draped area. The curtains swung apart.
Remo blinked in amazement at the sight. On the middle of the great throne sat a tiny man of indeterminate age, his face as bland as a baby's, his black hair cropped close to his head. In his hands he held a glass ball, which he watched with unending fascination, oblivious to the presence of Remo or Randy Nooner. The man gurgled and cooed as he turned the ball slowly. His face broke into a broad smile, and he kicked his feet playfully into the air.
"Vadass the Sheik," Randy announced sardonically, laughter tumbling out of her.
His attention drawn to her, the baby-faced sheik began to cry until the guide who had brought Remo to the throne room appeared with a new toy to distract him. Without a word, the guide closed the curtains and slipped away.
"That's who I work for. Or what I work for, to be exact. He's got the mind of a cabbage." She cocked her head disgustedly toward the throne. "He's forty-three years old, if you can believe that. But he still needs a woman. That's where I fit in. You're looking at the soon-to-be Queen of Quat, baby."
"Why you?" Remo asked, trying to pull himself from the floor and failing.
"He was neglected, the little dear. His brother
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was the sheik, and he ran everything. A year ago, . the brother went to the trouble of executing all of his male relatives to make sure nobody would try to take over the throne—all but Poopsie here, that is. Nobody thought this drooling fool could take over anything."
"Except you." .
She shrugged. "I can't take all the credit. Actually, it was my daddy's idea to have the sheik assassinated and put Poopsie in charge. But he was going to do things the American way, with American advisors and all. It would have given the United States an ally in the Middle East.
"Daddy was going to present his idea to the president, but fortunately he told me about it first. Once I showed him what we could do on our own, Daddy masterminded the rest of the plan. He was the one who picked up on Artemis and found out he was a killer. Daddy figured that a preacher who got off on murdering strangers could do a lot to set up an army, especially if that army had the complete approval of the American people."
"That's what the press conference was for," Remo said. "Artemis brainwashed the recruits at the four army bases for you, then you had them revolt and come to Vadassar."
"That's right," Randy giggled. "Now all those newsmen are telling millions of people that Fort Vadassar is a haven for poor, mistreated soldiers."
"Soldiers for Quat."
"They don't know that yet, of course. Vadassar is on file at the Pentagon as a regulation army base, even though the land belonged to me and Poopsie's money paid for the buildings. It was just a matter of changing records. By the time people find out that
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the soldiers at Vadassar aren't working for the American government, it'll be too late to do anything about it. My reports say that a thousand recruits a day are deserting their bases and joining the Vadassar forces. Even civilians are enlisting. By next month I'll have a hundred thousand soldiers ready to leap at my command."
"How does Daddy fit in?" Remo asked, sliding imperceptibly away from her.
"Daddy will see to it that Ouat gets more financial aid from America than India does. That, or we let loose the Vadassar army on the Texas countryside." She cackled with glee. "Can you see the implications of this!" she said breathlessly. "Never before has a foreign power occupied territory on the continental United States. Quat is going to become a world power. With American funds, we can even build our own atomic arsenal. We'll have Uncle Sam by both balls."
She tapped the brass staff on the palm of her hand. "Now you know." She walked closer to him, her steps deliberate. "This is the end, Remo. What a shame. You were so good in bed."
At her signal, a handfuj of uniformed guards burst in and rushed toward Remo. Through his blurred vision, they looked like a hundred, stampeding toward him with monkey faces and thousands of arms. They lifted him like a wave.
The poison was working at its peak. Remo's body felt like rubber, his senses chaotic. He was drifting through corridors and stairwells as though he were flying in slow motion, floating past the walls of stone and wood, the footfalls of the men who carried him as loud as thunder.