This mattered not at all to Chiun.
“We may be able to repulse it. You know, turn it off. It would require some sort of counteractive device.”
The prince left, eventually.
Next came the woman.
“I am capable of caring for him,” Chiun snapped.
“It cannot hurt for another to care, as well,” said Sarah Slate, taking the hard, limp hand in her own as she lowered into an identical cross-legged position. She looked at Remo and said nothing. She left hours later, but she came back the next day, and the next.
Chiun took rice, he took water, but he seemed to fade.
And all around, the world seemed to fade with him.
Chapter 41
Sarah Slate came into the room again, to find nothing changed. For days it had been like this.
“I have held my tongue.”
There was no response.
“I thought I knew you,” she said to the frail, gaunt little figure in the kimono.
Chiun emerged from his meditation. “You do know me. Leave me be.”
“My family,” she said sternly, “traveled the world for generations. We had incredible adventures. We knew many peoples. I thought I recognized the kind of man you were from reading the histories of my family. I thought I knew you, but I was wrong.”
“Then we can end this pointless discussion. Depart now.”
She was angry; Chiun didn’t know why and didn’t care why. He just wanted her to go away. Now she was scribbling on the walls with a reed brush dipped in ink, which she must have brought with her.
“Look, old man!”
Chiun raised his head.
“I thought this was you. I was wrong.”
She threw down the bottle and the reed, splattering the floor with black ink, and stalked out of the room full of hot indignation.
Leaving behind her a sad old man, and the empty shell of another man, and on the wall, scrawled larger than life, the simple lines of a trapezoid pierced by a single slash mark.
It was the symbol of the House of Sinanju.
It was a poltergeist, or a demon, certainly not a human that came into small suite of rooms in a convalescent wing of Folcroft Sanitarium. The doors literally came off the hinges and rattled to the floor, but by then Sarah Slate was near to death.
“Chiun, stop!” Mark Howard cried as he hoisted himself out of bed as fast as he could move.
“Who are you?” demanded the Master of Sinanju Emeritus, one finger pressed against her throat. “Tell me this before you die.”
Sarah Slate opened her mouth, fighting for breath, her body flattened against the wall as if buried under tons of rubble. ‘Who are you, really, old man? Tell me before I die.”
“I am Sinanju, as you know! But what fool knowingly insults a Master?”
“What kind of a Master insults another Master?”
“I will not engage in word play with one such as you.”
“Chiun, you’re killing her!” Howard said, dragging at Chiun’s bony arm.
“I intend to.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Because I have exposed him,” Sarah croaked as her face colored. “He has not the strength to save his pupil.”
“There is no way to save him or I would have done so.”
“I can save him.” Sarah said, her last words coming out in a ragged, empty breath.
Her neck was abruptly released. Chiun’s eyes were green fire that burned her. “I do not believe you.”
“You have nothing to lose,” she gasped.
“In this you are correct.”
“What is going on?” Mark Howard demanded. Sarah tried to smile as she forced herself to walk. “A Slate goes to resurrect a Master of Sinanju. Again.”
Chapter 42
“What potion will you pour in his gullet?” Chiun asked bitterly.
He hated her, this woman who dared tantalize him with hope when he knew there was none—and yet she believed in herself. Certainly this woman’s ancestors were acquainted with the greatness of Sinanju. But to dare claim to have saved the life of a Master was outrageous.
Sarah Slate sat on her legs in a child’s pose, rested her hands on her knees and, with a wave of her hand, indicated Chiun should take his seat across the limp body of the Reigning Master of Sinanju.
“Tell me about this man,” she said.
“No,” Mark said, standing off to the side.
“What would you learn?” Chiun asked. “Already you know he is Master of Sinanju.”
“That is not the all of him,” Sarah Slate replied. “He has a past and a future. He has known love and loss. In this he is like all human beings.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Sarah,” Mark Howard said. “There is knowledge you cannot have.”
“For what purpose would you know these things?” Chiun demanded.
“He is lost. He is beyond the Void. Masters have ventured there before.”
“Never by choice,” Chiun said. “Never to come back.”
“Yes. Some came back,” Sarah said. “At least one did. A master who called himself Go.”
“I know of Master Go,” Chiun said. “Go did not travel beyond the Void. Our histories are carefully kept.”
“As are ours,” Slate replied. “Master Go was in search of gold when he met Andrew Slayte, an ancestor of mine. My ancestor also sought the gold. In Spain they met a mesmerist who tricked Go and drained him of all his thoughts.”
Chiun stared. “This is a fairy tale.”
‘It is in the history of my family.”
“That does not make it true.”
“Andrew Slayte was more than a partner to this Master Go—he was a friend.”
“Phah!” Chiun waved the air away as if it smelled bad.
“Andrew knelt by the side of Go and used his voice to entice Go out of the emptiness beyond the Void. He reminded Go of all the wonders of Sinanju. He reminded Go of a girl Go loved, back in the village. Even, he reminded Go of the vipers’ nest outside the village where Go loved to play when he was a boy, teasing the snakes for entertainment. Go heard Andrew Slayte’s voice and recovered.”
“This is too simple a cure,” Chiun protested.
“But it is all that is needed,” Sarah said gently. “Master Chiun, you do not bear the responsibility of bringing him back to our world. All you must do is light a tiny flame of remembrance in him. Any memory at all, if it is potent enough to reach him, will be light enough to see by, and then he will see all of it, everything that was wiped away.”
Chiun was silent as stone. Sarah said, “Tell me of this man, Master Chiun. Tell me about something or someone he loves. What gives him great joy?”
Chiun looked over Sarah, at the black slashes of her symbol of the House of Sinanju.
Chiun spoke in the voice that was so gentle and beautiful that Mark Howard swore it came from someone else. “There is a beautiful girl,” said Chiun. “She is Freya. With hair like gold. It is his daughter, who loves him, and he loves her.”
Sarah Slate smiled, as if she, too, knew joy at this recollection. Sarah leaned close to the prostrate Master and spoke in a gentle, soothing voice. “Remo, do you see Freya? She’s with you. You love her with all your heart, and she loves you. She has hair of gold. She is beautiful. She is the most beautiful girl in the world.” Mark Howard was silent, but the words were reaching him, too. Yes. The most beautiful woman in the world. He didn’t know if he was thinking about Sarah Slate or Freya, daughter of Remo Williams, and for a moment it didn’t matter.
Chapter 43
He was in horror and misery and it was the horror of blackness unending, where there was no vision or sound, no smell or touch, nothing. Eternal awareness of eternal emptiness.
The horror melted into the mundane, and with profound relief it was forgotten. Emptiness, after all, was easy to forget, once there was anything to erase it. In an instant his identity surged back into his thoughts. He knew who he was again. He knew his past again. His name was Remo.