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.A single tear escaped his right eye.It was the only tear ever shed over the passing of Maddas Hinsein, self-styledScimitar of the Arabs.And it was red.The Master of Sinanju took his time wiping the tainted blood from the blade ofhis ancestors.Then he left the bunker like a ghost from the storied past ofdoomed Abominadad.Chapter 43On the roof of the Palace of Sorrows, Kali danced.Clasping her mate, her lover, and her dancing partner all in one to hercorpse-black bosom, she turned and spun.Her naked feet made dry rustlingsounds on the limestone roof, like the dead leaves of autumn skittering alongpavement.She led, because her dancing partner hung limp in her four-limbed embrace.Hisslipper-clad feet dragged uselessly.His head hung low, bobbing on a bonelessneck like that of a strangled chicken."Dance! Why do you not dance, lover?" Kali whispered."I need for you todance.For without your mighty feet moving in concert with mine, dancing theTandava, this world of woe will toil on as before.Dance, O Red One.The RedAbyss awaits us both."Though no reply came from her mate's blackened lips, she danced on, her limbsshaking and quivering in death throes that would never end.Tears flowed from Kali's blood-red eyes.The tears were a poisonouswhitish-yellow, like pus.She was thinking of all the hot fluids she woulddrink from the Caldron of Blood, if only Shiva would lead.Chapter 44Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, ascended to the roof of the Palace ofSorrows to watch the fall of Abominadad by starlight.He found instead a macabre dance, and the body of his dead pupil clasped inthe scorpion's grip of the demoness that, as much as the Arab tyrant Maddas,had brought him to the end of all happiness.As she went through her impotent motions, Kali's scarlet eyes stared blindlythrough him.She might have been oblivious of all the universe.Yet she spoke."Begone, old one.There is nothing for you here." Her voice wasakin to a death rattle."This is the body of my son, whom I now claim," said the Master of Sinanju inan austere voice.Kali expelled a rude laugh."If he will not dance, then I shall split hisbones, lick of his marrow, and depart this body to await the next avatar ofShiva."The Master of Sinanju noticed the palsied twitching of her black features, theshivering of her limbs.She almost dropped her limp consort, whose head lolledso pitifully.Her anchorless head, too, whipped from side to side in her madgyrations.They were two corpses dancing in a mockery of life.The sight filled Chiun with the ice of bitterness.Twenty years of love and discipline, and it had come to this sick end.Helifted his voice."Though you are Kali the Terrible, and I but an old man," Chiun warned, "Iwill expend the last of my essence before I allow you to despoil my son's bodyfurther."Kali laughed mockingly."You are but a mortal husk, bereft of virility, devoidof power.I will gnaw the living flesh from your old bones if you do notbegone.""Bare your teeth, then, harlot," said the Master of Sinanju, advancing, thegreat sword of Sinanju before him."For you face a fury more implacable thanthe hell from which you sprang."Kali swept to a stop, Remo's head bobbing ghoulishly.Her blind scarlet eyesfixed upon the old Korean.A corpse grin twitched her lips into a deathrictus."I hunger for blood, but living flesh may suffice, " she said, dropping RemoPage 84 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlinto a pitiful pile.Her quivering arms lifted in unison, like an opticalillusion."And I yearn for vengeance," said Chiun, sweeping in.The Master of Sinanju shook his pipestem arms free from billowing kimonosleeves, the better to wield his mighty blade.Kali's outspread arms closed like a Venus's-flytrap.The sword's spade-shaped point clicked against a dead black forearm.TheMaster of Sinanju thought this would be the final blow he was destined to landin life.But it was not.A black hand, like a spider descending a strand of silk,simply dropped off the attacking wrist
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