"Destroyer 055 - Master's Challenge.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"There is safety here," he said softly.
The splendidly robed Oriental smiled. There is always safety among persons of honor.''
Chiun brought food and drink, and treated each of the guests with impeccable courtesy. "Now that you have all assembled here, I wish you to meet another of my people," he said.
"Your son?" Emrys asked.
"No. According to the rules of the Master's Trial, the protegee of the victor does not meet with the challengers before the hour of combat. At the appointed time, my son will travel to your lands, just as you have come to Sinanju, alone. This is a meeting of peace among those of us who have kept the old ways in the face of the new."
"The old ways are not always the best ways," Jilda said. Her voice was respectful, but her chin was thrust out defiantly.
Ancion's dark eyes flashed. "Do you mean to lead your people away from their traditions?" He looked at Jilda with contempt.
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"I speak only of the Master's Trial. It is a tradition that is unworthy of us."
Ancion set down his bowl with distaste and rose quickly. As he did, he stepped on the hem of his cloak, momentarily losing his balance. He broke his fall with his hands, digging into the red-hot peat of the fire. Ancion yelped with the pain, righting himself. "You do not belong here!" he spat.
"And you are only angry because you have shamed yourself by tripping over your clothes like a child," Jilda taunted.
"Hold. Hold." The voice, thin and quavering, came from deep within the recesses of the cave. The contestants fell silent as they watched an old, old man emerge from the shadows. He was heavyset and bald, and his face was so worn and wrinkled that it looked like a crumpled sheet of translucent parchment, but he held his back perfectly straight. His eyes were like those of a statue, their pupils pale and unseeing.
Emrys rose. "The old Master," he said. The others murmured. "My father spoke of you. The most powerful of all the Masters of Sinanju."
"The Venerable One," Jilda said. "1 remember, too. It is he of the Sight."
"H'si T'ang," Kiree whispered. "The warrior who can see the future."
"I would much rather see the present," the old man said, smiling. "But these eyes have long since abandoned this old body." He turned his sightless gaze toward the fire.
Chiun took his hand. "H'si T'ang was my teacher," he said, helping the old man to a place at the fire beside Ancion. The Inca regarded him coldly.
"And who are you, my children?" H'si T'ang asked.
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"If you have the Sight, you should know who we are," Ancion said.
Jilda slapped the floor with her open palm. "How dare you speak to the Venerable One in this way!"
"Venerable One," Ancion mocked. "A useless blind man who lives in a cave."
The others protested, but H'si T'ang quieted them. "Ancion may speak as he likes here." He turned to the Inca. "You are quite right, my son. It is to a shamefully inadequate dwelling that Chiun has brought you, but it was for a reason. You see, the Master of Sinanju occupies, by tradition, a house in the village, but Chiun believed that you would prefer to meet in secrecy. That is why he chose my home for this gathering. He did not intend to insult you by bringing you here."
"It is a holy place," Kiree said. "The cave where our fathers met."
"You remember well," H'si T'ang said.
"It's good enough for me," Emrys added belligerently.
"It is still a cave," Ancion said flatly. "And I would like to know why the so-called Master of Sinanju allows his teacher to live in such a rough place. In my homeland, when the old king passes on his powers to the new, he continues to live in splendor. It is his due. You seem to me a man worthy of little respect among your own people."
H'si T'ang smiled. "At my age, respect from one's peers is not so important as understanding of one's own heart. This 'rough place,' as you call it, is of my own choosing. For it is here, away from the traffic of daily life, that I may contemplate all the things that I was too busy to notice during my youth." He reached for the Inca's long, tapering fingers. "For example, twenty years ago, I would not have been able to know that your hands were burned without seeing or touching you,"
Ancion snatched his hands away. "Don't touch me."
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"I am more than one hundred and thirty years old," H'si T'ang said. "1 would not harm you, but I can help you." With an impossibly swift motion, he clapped Ancion's hands between his own and held them. When he released them, the Inca stared at his palms in amazement. The burns had healed completely in the instant that H'si T'ang had touched them.
"Sorcery," Ancion whispered, making a sign against witchcraft. "One such as you should never have been permitted to fight in the Master's Trial. You killed my grandfather with trickery."
"1 felled your grandfather, the great warrior Huaton, in combat."
"You bewitched him!" Ancion shrieked.
"1 cannot bewitch. 1 can only heal. 1 would have healed Huaton if 1 could, but he was dead even before he fell."
Ancion shouted him down. "There is no Master's Trial, only the work of sorcerers!"
"Stop it!" Jilda commanded. "The Master's Trial is an evil thing. It is causing us to rum against one another already.''
"This is not your affair, woman," Ancion said coldly.
"1 am one of the contestants in this misbegotten game, and it is my affair," Jilda said. "We must stop the Trial before it begins. There are so few of us left, we people of honor and strength. Why should we seek to destroy one another when the whole world pushes to destroy us?"
"Sorcery," Ancion muttered.
Jilda rose. "Inca ruler, I witnessed the death of my predecessor at the hands of the Master Chiun. He used no sorcery. But if that is what you fear, then help me to stop this wicked contest."
"1 fear no one! It is you who fear, because you are a woman, and by nature a coward."
15
Jilda's jaw clenched. She stared at the Inca for a long moment, as if Fighting with herself. Then, exhaling suddenly, she pulled the dagger from her belt and leaped like a deer toward Ancion. He moved out of her way swiftly, pulling out his own knife.
it happened in a matter of seconds. Then, in another moment, a third pair of moving hands entered between then, snatched both daggers away, and thrust them upward, where they quivered embedded in the stone ceiling of the cave.
"This is why we have the tradition of the Master's Trial," Chiun said wearily, his hands still on their wrists. "This way, only four from each generation among us are destroyed."
Ancion jumped up and extricated his knife from the rock. He held it, hesitating as he watched the blank eyes of H'si T'ang. Then he slid the blade back into its sheath. "I will fight your apprentice. But if there is any trickery, my people will stand ready to tear his limbs and scatter his blood on the wind." He threw his cloak over his shoulder and left.
Chiun poured more tea into the remaining cups and cleared the Inca's things away. "Not the peaceful meeting I planned."
"It was my fault," Jilda said. "I attacked him." She hung her head. "I, who wished to abolish the bloodshed."
"Violence is a difficult habit to break among our kind," H'si T'ang said kindly. "It is the way of all our peoples. It is how we have survived."