Dream Thing

The great tentacle slapped at the surface of the water, and Sa Mangsang regarded them balefully. It shifted its great torso—reminding Remo of seeing a plastic sack full of semisolid filth being moved around. Underneath its great bulk was a crushed and mangled starfish—Sa Mangsang’s seat cushion, as large as an aircraft. The thing had two of its five vast arms remaining, until Sa Mangsang wrapped a tentacle around one of them and dragged it off the starfish body. Black liquid spurted from the wound and the starfish trembled.

The starfish arm went into Sa Mangsang’s beak, and it crunched the arm. Its body trembled, as well, as if the agony of its victim instilled a new trickle of vitality.

Why have you broken your pact, Master of Sinanju?

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Remo answered. He felt terror bubbling in his very core, but the anger was bigger, and the anger glowed hot and orange.

The answer didn’t satisfy Sa Mangsang. It dipped into the waters again with one tentacle after another, scooping up human beings—limp, but alive. Sa Mangsang snapped their heads off with its beak and gagged on the taste, but swallowed them.

He’s starving, Remo thought. He’s growing weak from lack of human sustenance.

“Take me!” It was the young man who had escorted them into the city. He was staggering into the courtyard, blinded by his head wound, but he managed to blunder up the ramp of bones and down again into the pyramid, where he trembled into the steep-sided lake. He splashed into the thick water and was instantly snatched up by a monstrous tentacle. Sa Mangsang snapped off Henry Lagrasse’s head, sucked the sour juice from his brain and let the cadaver tumble into the water again carelessly.

Master of Sinanju, send me that sweet sustenance.

Remo looked at Chiun and smiled a shallow smile. Chiun appraised Remo emotionlessly.

“He means me,” Chiun stated.

“I know. He can go hungry.”

I require nourishment for my brain—it does not keep pace with this body.

“Forget it. You’re not getting him. You’re not getting anybody else. You might as well go back to sleep.”

You are required to fulfill your oath.

“Who do you think cut off the food supply?” Remo demanded. “We were the ones who arranged to have this piece of real estate isolated from the rest of the world.”

This was news to Sa Mangsang, and not good news. An enraged scream issued from its beak and it thrashed at the waters. This is in violation of what was promised!

Remo forced himself to stand his ground. “I don’t know who you made your deal with, but you ought to know that Sinanju contracts don’t carry over from one generation to the next.”

Sa Mangsang screeched and slapped the water, and near the shore many of the Colossal Squids—gnats compared to their master—bubbled to the surface with more living human beings in their tentacles. Five of them were shoved up onto the ledge.

They wore the ceremonial sashes of the Faithful of Saraswati, but their eyes were white, soulless orbs in their skulls. They came sightless up to Remo and to Chiun.

No, to Chiun. They encircled him and approached him with their arms raised. Remo took one of them by the shoulder and crushed it, but the man moved with preternatural speed, spinning and clasping Remo’s hand in his own.

Remo Williams felt the hand sucking something out of his body and it hurt. It leaked from his mind and into his arm and out through the hand of the Faithful. Remo slashed the elbow and severed the arm from the body of the man, then he lashed out at the man’s foot with a single brutal kick that crushed his rib cage as it sent him flying, then tumbling down into the water. By then, Remo had moved in on the others, slashing at them, cutting through the muscles and ligaments that made their arms function. They fell away, but one of them was left and he moved faster than any man had a right to move, faster than the Master of Sinanju Emeritus. He stepped around Chiun’s flashing arms and grasped the old Korean by the face, then pulled. For an instant, Remo imagined he could see the dark, phantom shadows of essence being leeched out of the strong and precious soul of Chiun.

Chiun hung, knees bent, arms loose, and through the grasping fingers Remo saw the childlike green eyes roll up, up, into the ancient, graceful head.

“No, Chiun, hang on!” Remo slashed vigorously at the Faithful of Saraswati, who turned on him and struck back with his amazing and unnatural speed.

Remo couldn’t move faster than that. He was human, but the Faithful of Saraswati were imbued with something beyond human. Even a Master of Sinanju couldn’t defend himself—