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Chun continued. "Your first task is a simple one." He caught Raidon's eyes with his own. "You are to journey to the Temple of Yarom here in Telflamm, where blasphemers claim a soul's salvation lies beyond life, even beyond the gods we all revere. Raidon, you are to deliver them to that final day. Today. See to it these fools who deride the gods are pushed through death's door. Since they doubt the gods' divinity, let them pass into darkness. As they've lived in ignorance, so shall they die. By your hand."

Raidon had never heard of the Temple of Yarom before. He shook his head and said, "I will not kill strangers in cold blood in the very halls of their temple, no matter their dogma."

"No?" Chun still sounded bored. "I'm afraid you've come too far to back out now. You know us. We know you. You must be brought in all the way, ot…" Chun shrugged.

"I must restore the honor of my family."

"Honor is what you seek? I give you this"-Chun swirled the tip of the daito-"and your family's honor is restored, is that it?"

Raidon's earlier guess was on the mark. Chun wasn't sipping tea in the monk's favored tea house by chance.

"Our honor is too besmirched for such easy mending."

"I don't know about your family, but all I see before me is a baying mongrel dog," Chun noted.

A strand of Raidon's carefully woven serenity slipped free, but he held his focus. Despite his control, heat flushed his cheeks.

Chun continued. "I saw your name as a petitioner. I've watched you since then. I wondered if you were merely a revenge-minded idiot. Prove me wrong, and you get to live. Prove me right, and join your father. He made excellent pig fodder, and I guess you will, too."

Fury bloomed and crowned Raidon, choking his reply to an inarticulate snarl. His viewpoint conttacted; his anger expanded.

Chun kicked the table onto its side, simultaneously rushing Raidon, trying for a disemboweling strike. Raidon flipped backward, head over heels three times, rolling to his feet twenty paces away, out in the busy stteet.

Chun lost the advantage of his attack by stumbling on the overturned table. The thug rushed forward unhindered and tried to shove a dirk into the monk's face.

Raidon leaned forward and slightly to his left; the knife flashed past his right ear. Before his attacker could retract his arm, Raidon caught the man's wtist in a painful grip. He twisted the wrist, levered the man around, and flung the shrieking thug onto Chun's advancing blade.

Screams, yells, and a few whistles blared in Raidon's ears. He hadn't wanted a fight. He had simply intended to demand that Chun hand over the blade. He hadn't realized Chun was trained in sword play. But Raidon was committed to seeing through what he'd statted, despite the foolhardiness of engaging in a fight. A tea house in the market district of Shou Town was too public for anything prolonged and bloody. Chun had expertly baited Raidon, made him forget himself; he'd lost his center. Raidon concentrated on walling off his anger, separating it from the skill and grace that marked him as a Xiang Temple graduate.

His enemy, finally clear of the table, charged. Chun's blade perfectly shielded the center line of his body, and was simultaneously set to deliver any number of killing strikes to Raidon's head, neck, stomach, or wrists-

Raidon dropped and swept Chun's legs with his own. Unprepared, Chun toppled, his sword out of alignment. As the man hit the ground, Raidon rolled onto Chun's chest, his knees painfully squeezing the man's sides. He trapped the hand that gripped the sword on the ground with his right hand, and smashed the man's temple with his left elbow.

Chun went limp and the sword fell from his grasp.

Raidon stood. He clutched his grandfather's daito in one hand, raised it in a salute. Raidon had never held it before, only admired it from afar when his father had shown it to him as a child. It was perfectly balanced, a wonder of craftsmanship. His anger relented. Honor was his once more, and his family's.

He allowed himself a nod