"It ain't a curse, is it? Because if it's an old curse, then, you know, forget it already. It goes back in the ground. Screw the Indians." This from the major partner of Del Ray to the linguistics professor he had brought down from the States.
"No, no. It's nothing to do with Carib Indian. I would swear it's a form of Indo-European."
"We own this beachfront. It's ours. The Brits have been out of here for years."
"No. It's before the English language."
"Over a hundred years?" said the developer, who had never made it through high school and, as a form of compensation, liked to hire at least a dozen Ph.D's a year for various projects. Not for big money, of course. Big money was for his girlfriends and bigger money was for the private detectives who found out about it on behalf of his wife.
"Well over a thousand years," the professor said.
"What does it say?"
"I don't know. We may never be able to translate it."
There were, however, two people who translated it almost immediately. The sales manager for Del Ray said the stone promised peace, beautiful sunsets, and a resale value so unbelievable that only ancient Indo-European could describe it.
And Reginald Woburn III, called in by his father from a polo match to read the inscription on a photograph of the stone, did it too. Not as easily as the sales manager who was making up a sales pitch, but laboriously, step by step, picking his way carefully through the symbols of a language he had learned but never used. He sat in the dark polished room of the Woburn estate in Palm Beach and saw letters that he had learned as a child, when his father explained to him that the Jews had Hebrew, his Roman Catholic friends used to have Latin, and the Woburns had a language too.
"But, Daddy," Reginald had said. "Other people use their languages. Nobody uses this language but the Woburns."
"And the Wolinskys. And von Wollochs and the de Wolliues and the Worths," his father had said.
"What sort of a language is that where you can only talk to a few hundred people?" Reginald had asked.
"Ours, son," his father had said. And since he was a Woburn and it was something his father had done and his father's father had done and everyone had done way back even before their name had become Woburn, Reginald Woburn III learned the language. Which was not too much to ask, considering that the rest of his life was to be spent in polo and bridge and yachting.
Now, in his prime, a full seven-goal polo player, Reginald was going through those old markings again.
It was gloomy in the main study. There was a reason for that. The light had to be filtered through dark windows. The rest of the world was sunny and gay and there were at least three delicious young ladies waiting for Reginald, and just as he did at twelve years of age, he picked laboriously through the letters.
Reginald was a darkly handsome young man in his twenties with high cheekbones and eyes that looked like black marbles. He was athletic but he never strained at it. When a coach had once told him, "No pain, no gain," Reginald had answered, "And no me."
This language had always been a nettling nuisance and he had hoped that it was something that was behind him. But here he was again.
He identified his verbs, his nouns, his proper nouns.
So typical of this language, the inscription on the stone included the word "stone." The language took the obvious and made it stupid. Not only was the inscription on the stone, it had to tell you it was on the stone.
"Seven times," said Reginald with his finger on the word in the photograph of the inscription. "No," his father said. "Seventh stone."
"Right," Reginald said. "Seventh stone." He prayed that he was not going to have to read six others. He was getting thirsty but he knew one never allowed the servants around when you read the language.
There were six other stones, according to the inscription. The first was the stone of the sword and then the poison and so forth, through all manner of mayhem, including a pit somewhere.
Reginald looked up. Daddy was smiling. Therefore, Reginald could assume he was translating correctly. At least this was more interesting than most of the writings which had to do with the family of some Prince Wo and pithy little sayings like "If you fear someone, you never rule." This inscription told about setting a trap, a trap through history. It was a trap to kill someone named Sinanju.
"No. Not a person, a village," his father said.
"But it's a person sign here," said Reginald.
"Person or persons from Sinanju."
"Right," Reginald said wearily. "Person or persons from Sinanju. Kill them."
"Good," said his father. "Now you know what you have to do."
"Me? I'm a polo player."
"You're a Woburn. That inscription is your instruction."
"I've never killed anyone in my life," Reginald said.
"Then you can't be sure you won't like it."
"I'm sure I won't," Reginald said.
"You don't know if you don't try, Reggie."
"Isn't killing illegal?" Reginald asked.
"This thing you must do was written for us and for you before any laws of any country now existing on earth," said his father. "Besides, you're going to love it."
"How do you know?"
"Read on."
Reginald Woburn III picked his way through the lines of letters, seeing the thoughts become more intricate, seeing a stunning logic in a people disappearing from the face of the earth only to return in disguise to deliver the final and victorious blow.
It was sort of challenging in a way and even though the other predictions of the stone had come true about how the island would be found by others and how Wo's descendants would move out disguised in the stream of humanity that came to the islands, Reginald could not quite believe the last prediction: that the first son of the first son of the direct line would, from a life of skilled idleness, become the greatest killer the world had ever known.
Of course, that would require eliminating all those who were the best now.
It was a game after all, Reginald reasoned. He did not know yet how much he was going to enjoy the blood of others.
Chapter Two
His name was Remo and he was going to make sure the man's children were on hand. With no other children would he ever do this, but this man had to see his children's faces looking at him. It was the way the man had killed. It had earned him this magnificent estate in Coral Gables, Florida, with the electrified Cyclone fence surrounding lawns like carpets on which sat, like some gross jewel, a magnificent white building with orange tile roof. It was a hacienda in America, built on needles and snorts and death, the death of children too.
Remo saw the television cameras pace their scans over the chain-link fence. Their mechanical rhythms were so steady, so dull, so avoidable. Why these people trusted technology instead of the native viciousness which had made them rich, Remo could not fathom. He waited, stock-still, until the camera caught him full face. Then he slowly moved a forefinger over his own throat and smiled. When the camera suddenly stopped and moved back to him and stayed on him, he smiled again and mouthed the words:
"You die."
That would do for openers. Then he went to the front gate where a large fat man sat in a booth, chewing something with enough garlic and peppers to fumigate the Colosseum at Rome.
"Hey, you. What you want?" said the man. He had a dark little mustache under his wide nose. His hair was thick and black like that of most Colombians. Even though he was just a guard at the gate, he was probably a brother or a cousin of the owner of the Coral Gables estate.
"I want to kill your patron and I want his children to see it," said Remo. He might have been mistaken for Indian himself with the high cheekbones and dark eyes. Yet his skin was pale. His nose was arrow straight and thin, as were his lips. Only his thick wrists might have drawn special attention. But the guard was not noticing the wrists. He had been told from the main house that a troublemaker was making strange signs at the cameras and he had been told to take care of him.