"Forever?" ""Forever" is a word for children." "The tallest candle burns to an end." "Even the stones which form our temple walls built to last 1 000 years will grind down under the attrition of time." "A thousand years." "Yet, even in the time I have been master of monks here at Honan there have been occasions when it seemed like the end would come far sooner." "Strike block." "Ready strike." "Strike." "Strike." "Strike." "Take heart, Shaolin!" "Strike." "Tamo, the brave wild one is here." "Cross-stance, strike." "Hammer fist, strike." "You are Shaolin?" "Yes, we are Shaolin." "I am Tamo of Cold Mountain." "I am Caine." "You see I've broken your door?" "Yes. I see." "You did you not hear me knocking?" "l heard." "You did not come?" "My attention was focused on my master." "You speak of Chen Ming Kan?" "No." "l speak of Master Hake Tao." "He is no master here as long as Chen Ming Kan lives." "He lives." "Then take me to him." "I have business with him." "Master Kan has no time for itinerant beggars." "And I have no time for idiots." "Move out of my path, boy." "Kwai Chang, move out of the way." "I will teach this beggar a lesson." "Your tread must be light and sure as though you path were upon rice paper." "It is said a Shaolin priest can walk through walls." "Looked for, he cannot be seen." "Listened for, he cannot be heard." "Touched, he cannot be felt." "This rice paper is the test." "Fragile as the wings of the dragon fly, clinging as the cocoon of the silk worm." "When you can walk its length and leave no trace you will have learned." "Yes?" "There is a man in the courtyard, master." "He says his name is Tamo." "Tamo." "I know of this man." "What is he like?" "Like no one I have ever seen before." "What does he want?" "He wants you." "He asked for me by name?" "Yes, master." "A challenge?" "I do not believe so." "Though Master Hake Tao was of that opinion and fought him in your stead." "How badly was Hake Tao injured?" "He is defeated." "Tamo of Cold Mountain?" "His reputation precedes him." "Braggart, bully, boaster badly in need of a lesson in manners." "Tamo?" "Bag of wind." "Are you there?" "Who is this fat old man?" "Can he not see?" "My name is Po." "I am a master here at Honan and I can see you well enough now that you speak." "I have no wish to fight a blind man." "Keep talking." "Your mouth gives me eyes." "Do you wish to fight me?" "If you would be so kind as to strike the first blow." "l will not." "But you are the challenger." "You are the offender." "So be it." "Enough!" "Who speaks?" "Chen Ming Kan speaks." "I have a thing to tell you, Chen Ming Kan if you will agree to hear me." "I will hear you." "Leave us." "Your young master mistook me." "I challenge no one." "I come as a messenger from the Fukien Shaolin and what's left of them." "What should be left of them?" "You have heard nothing?" "Nothing." "Then there is much to tell." "Please, come in." "What I have to tell is for all the monks." "That is for me to judge." "Our visitor is Tamo, the hermit." "He lives alone on Cold Mountain in the high range of Chiu Lien." "He has come to us with news of our brother monks at the Shaolin monastery in Fukien." "I ask you to hear him." "Shaolin of Honan Province earlier this year, Mongol hordes met and defeated the best of the Imperial Dragon Guards." "Upon hearing this, your Fukien brothers joined the battle and put the Mongols to rout without suffering a single casualty." "The emperor was grateful but his advisors were fearful of the power of the Fukien Shaolin." "Lies were invented, and liars were paid to tell them." "In due course a warlord was sent to destroy the Fukien temple." "And with the aid of a traitor and the big cannon of the warlord the temple was destroyed." "Only five Shaolin survived and escaped." "Three of them were old men seriously injured." "The other two were young and unharmed." "Di Sum Si, the master monk?" "He is dead." "Where are the survivors?" "They are at my cave on Cold Mountain." "How does this happen?" "One of the survivors is a student of mine led the others to my cave for sanctuary." "Who is this warlord that has destroyed a Shaolin temple with a cannon?" "His name is Sing Lu Chan." "Does he know where the survivors are hiding?" "No, he does not." "But he keeps searching for them." "And what do you seek here?" "I seek nothing but your answer." "The five seek sanctuary here." "What will the warlord do if we provide refuge?" "If he knows the survivors are here he will attack, but of course, that changes nothing." "Because you are all Shaolin, are you not?" "Anyone else wish to speak?" "Then we must decide." "Whatever we decide will be decided by vote." "Shall we, no matter how great the danger give sanctuary to our Fukien brothers?" "Those who so desire." "It remains only to determine who shall go to the rescue and who shall remain." "May I offer a suggestion?" "Certainly." "It should be a small force, not more than six." "With your permission, reverend master, I will go." "You have your six." "Tamo does me honor." "I do honor to myself." "It would take six ordinary mortals to knock Tamo down." "Of course, I am 77 years old and past my prime." "Master Po sympathizes, I am sure." "He is 83." "For the return journey I will need someone else to be my eyes." "Yes." "For your companion, Kwai Chang Caine." "Then it is decided, Tamo." "We, the Shaolin of Honan owe you great thanks." "Don't thank me, Shaolin." "The chances are excellent that, through my coming you will all have a violent death before the month is out." "It is Tamo." "We will keep out of sight." "Follow him to where the others are hiding." "Are we passing through a village, grasshopper?" "No, master." "There is no village." "I feel eyes upon us." "There is no one." "There are troops of Warlord Sing Lu Chan in the bluff behind us." "They know me." "Don't look." "They will want to follow us to the mountain?" "They will try." "We will discourage them." "The master and the disciple followed Tamo the man of Cold Mountain, up into his mountain." "It was as Tamo had said." "Troops of the warlord were lying in wait hoping to be led to Tamo's lair." "But the wily Tamo conceived a plan." "He asked the master and the disciple to lend him their outer garments." "And when the warlord's men found the three peacefully at their meditation he ordered them destroyed." "The soldiers advanced ready to cut the defenseless monks to pieces but all they found were hats and coats and bales of straw in between." "Master and disciple were safely up the mountain." "What is it, grasshopper?" "Two graves." "Two graves that were not here when I left the mountain." "My cave is over there." "I will go first." "Our brother, Pei Fu, died last night." "We are about to bury him with the others." "We saw the graves outside." "Who are the dead?" "Master Yung." "Sifu Yee -l knew them." "May they find peace." "This is Master Po and Kwai Chang Caine of the Honan Shaolin." "I am Kang Li." "of the Fukien Shaolin." "This is Nan Chi." "We are honored." "It is true, then, all the rest are killed?" "It is true." "We alone survive." "And we are told, this was done by the warlord called Sing Lu Chan?" "Yes." "We must not delay." "Soldiers tried to follow us here." "We will bury Pei Fu." "Then we will go." "You are returning with us, Tamo?" "To the bottom of the mountain." "Until you are clear of the soldiers." "As they buried their dead and went to the bottom of the mountain what they could not have known was that the warlord's Captain Shun Low would be waiting, ready to destroy them." "It is Shun Low, Warlord Sing's first officer." "An evil man." "ls there another way down?" "No." "Can we conceal ourselves?" "We can try." "Back." "Back." "Kwai Chang Caine?" "Yes." "How many Shaolin are there in the Honan Temple?" "More than 200." "There are over 1 000 men under the warlord's command." "Even now, after the battle at Fukien?" "He used to have 1 800 men." "A high price to pay for his anger towards me." "Why is he so angry towards you?" "Because I defied him when he made ready to attack the monks." "Because I escaped from his house and went to Fukien to warn the monks." "You escaped from his house?" "What is the warlord to you?" "Nothing." "It is what I am to him." "What do you mean?" "He wishes me to be his wife." "You are a girl." "How else could I be a wife?" "You thought I was a man." "Caine!" "Nan Chi!" "We must hurry." "The way you are dressed." "You noticed only the way I was dressed?" "Not my manner, my gait?" "You've been at the temple too long." "One cannot see clearly in this thin air." "You could not have been at the temple long." "Less than a week." "Then you are not kung fu." "Not of the temple, no." "But in the internal ways of Tamo, I've been training five years." "Your parents permitted this?" "They did not know of it." "After the death of my parents, I was left in the care of servants." "Why do you not stay with Tamo?" "I intrude upon his solitude." "And I do not wish to be a hermit." "You wish to be Shaolin?" "I wish to be free of the warlord." "I might want to be a wife." "But not to this man." "What if I did wish to be Shaolin?" "The training requires great strength." "I was not speaking of the training." "Of what then?" "Of being accepted to your temple." "To my temple?" "A girl?" "Caine!" "Nan Chi!" "Take cover!" "They are upon us!" "Seize them." "Fall back." "Fall back." "Keep them in sight!" "We regroup and come back with more men." "They're on the run!" "Master Po." "Yes." "They will attack again with more men and try to surround us." "Well, is there a way to prevent them?" "Here, where the trail ends between these two rocks we can prevent them." "Caine." "Take Nan Chi and Kang Li back to the Shaolin Temple." "I must stay with Master Po." "Go along, grasshopper." "Tamo's plan is best." "I will return with Master Po when all this is finished." "But we cannot run away." "We will not." "You will do as you are told!" "We cannot run ahead of Shun Low's horse all the way to the temple." "Certainly not Master Po nor I." "We are too old and too fat and much too dignified for running." "We will fight here." "That will give you time to get ahead." "But, Tamo" "One more word and I will knock you down." "Go!" "Come." "We should not leave them." "We have no choice." "We can conceal ourselves until we are out of Tamo's sight." "Then when Shun Low comes, we can come back and fight." "We cannot do that." "Why not?" "We are Shaolin." "They are going?" "They are gone." "It is well." "For the soldiers are upon us." "What is that?" "Behind you, my friend." "On top of the rock." "Tamo!" "Surrender, or I will kill your friend!" "I surrender!" "Bind him!" "You must find a larger rock." "The warlord will be pleased." "Please." "If I survived a massacre, surely I can cross a stream." "I am sorry, Kang Li." "I'd be pleased to receive assistance from a Fukien Shaolin." "And a Honan Shaolin." "Meanwhile, the warlord took to the field in force." "For he was determined to spare nothing in his efforts to recover the woman he felt was his." "My fourth wife, the only woman I ever loved she died of adultery." "She got in the way when I shot her lover." "Nan Chi looks so much like her." "And she will be a Shaolin nun if we don't find her." "I don't understand how everything could turn out so badly." "Sir." "I have captured the mad hermit, Tamo." "This is excellent, captain." "Another medal shall be awarded to you for a fine piece of fieldwork." "Quickly, pour a cup of wine for the captain." "Now then, where is Nan Chi?" "Despite aggressive pursuit, she escaped with a large force of religious outlaws." "Moron." "lncompetent." "Where is this wild man, Tamo?" "Sir, the patrol is bringing him in with another." "What other?" "An old woman, perhaps?" "No, an old man." "A blind one." "Wonderful." "Who is he?" "He will not give his name." "Who will not give his name?" "There is no such thing as "will not"  if you have tortured him properly." "I did torture him with exquisite care." "I dragged him here behind my horse." "Yet, he will not speak." "Probably Shaolin." "He will not say." "He does not have to say." "Bring him here before I kick you." "I send him for my woman, and he drags back a blind monk." "The blind dragging the blind." "Well we'll persuade this blind monk to tell us where Nan Chi has gone." "Here is your refuge." "You need only present yourselves and you will be welcomed with love." "Where are you going?" "To Master Po." "I will go with you." "Your master has said he will knock you down." "He would." "Go to the temple with Kang Li." "Kwai Chang." "Do not die." "Master Kan!" "Master Kan!" "What have we here?" "I am Kang Li once of the Fukien temple." "You are not alone." "No." "This is Nan Chi." "You are welcome here." "I am Chen Ming Kan." "Where is Master Po?" "He stayed behind with Tamo to fight the soldiers." "And Kwai Chang Caine?" "Just now started back to his master." "Very well." "Come with me." "Master Kan." "You must send a force after Kwai Chang Caine." "And the others?" "Of course." "Whatever has happened has already happened." "We will wait to hear the outcome." "If Master Po and Tamo have been killed or taken prisoner we will know of it soon." "Then we may only wait, master?" "Yes." "Kang Li, you are Shaolin and welcome." "Nan Chi, you are welcome to join the community." "Whether or not you will be admitted to training as a monk will depend entirely on how you conduct yourself." "I might wish to become Shaolin but I would not be acceptable as a monk." "Perhaps you should let me be the judge of that." "Yes, master." "But I think you should know that I am a girl." "I know something of the nature of this Tamo." "He has a record of half a century of assorted tortures by the army and the navy." "And he has never revealed anything." "But then, he's a maniac." "A man who lives with wild animals in a cave." "It's the fat one that doesn't make sense." "I don't understand the nature of this priest." "He allows his body to suffer such abuse just to hide one girl from me." "It would give me great pleasure to shoot them both." "But for now, we need them." "Perhaps if I described additional torture to the fat one." "Don't you know that the minds of these priests are even more stubborn than their bodies?" "If you cannot even bend the part of one how do you expect to break the other?" "The Warlord Sing knew the value of his two prisoners." "All his precautions were as nothing against a daring and skillful young Shaolin monk determined to save his master." "Po." "I hear you." "Why has he not killed us both?" "He will, Tamo, he will." "That is monstrous." "To die?" "To die is nothing." "To give him the opportunity of killing us both." "That is monstrous." "My death will not give him nearly so much satisfaction as it will me." "Does not being able to see make you weary of life?" "No." "It is being able to hear." "What do you want?" "General Sing wishes these prisoners to be executed." "So?" "You are to release them into my custody." "Your custody?" "These two?" "They will hand you your head." "Then you may accompany me." "Who are you, anyway?" "I have never seen you before." "Grasshopper?" "Yes, master." "Are the soldiers in the woods around us?" "Yes, master." "We are surrounded?" "Yes, master." "Are the horses still attached?" "Yes." "Good." "Then we will take the cart." "Excellent." "Excellent." "We are skilled, we Shaolin, in the arts of silent and invisible action but we know too when it is time to abandon these skills." "And so the young Shaolin monk, wise in the ways of our order took his prisoners and walked them boldly through the heart of the enemy camp under the very nose of the captain of the warlord's forces himself." "Master Kan, I beg a word with you about what you said last night." "That I might be admitted here as a Shaolin." "I have given serious thought to the training knowing very well it would depend on my conduct here as you have said." "You are female." "Yes, master." "Why did you not make this clear to me last night before I spoke?" "Forgive me, master." "But it did not seem so important a thing..." "It is a very important thing to me." "And to me." "There is no place for you here, my child." "You mean you will not even consider me?" "That is exactly what I mean." "You cannot refuse me." "I am the master of monks here." "You are master of Shaolin here." "I am Shaolin." "I have been accepted as Shaolin." "You have accepted me, made me welcome and I have accepted this as a place of sanctuary." "You cannot now deny me this place simply because I am a girl." "You are also of mixed blood." "And what of Kwai Chang Caine?" "We made a single exception in that case." "Make another." "We have neither the inclination nor the facilities to accommodate nuns at this temple." "Then that is a deficiency you now have an opportunity to remedy." "I do not regard it as an opportunity and I certainly do not regard you as a remedy." "Every Shaolin has the right to demand and receive a trial of the merit of his cause by combat." "Do you deny this?" "l do not, but" "Then I challenge you, Master Kan, to such a trial." "Nan Chi I acknowledge your right to a trial of this issue by combat and I submit my judgment to such a trial for either confirmation or reversal." "I plead, however infirmity of years and for this combat I beg to exercise my privilege of appointing a champion to fight you in my place." "I appoint as my champion when he returns Kwai Chang Caine." "You think he will return, then." "I have every confidence in that young man." "Captain, one of our men was found in a thicket." "Give him 30 strokes." "But, captain, he is naked." "Good, the punishment can begin now." "Sir, he is unconscious." "Where are the prisoners?" "The prisoners?" "Sir, I was told the cart was taken away." "What?" "Who took it away?" "Where?" "One of our men was seen driving it." "That's what I was told, sir." "One unconscious soldier in the thicket, naked and another driving a cart." "Where's your mind?" "The cart is in the hands of a priest!" "Get ready to follow." "Yes, sir." "Master Po, did they hurt you?" "How can they hurt me, grasshopper?" "Only this poor body." "With the warlord's forces almost upon them and Master Po grievously injured the circumstances called for desperate measures." "But the man from Cold Mountain had lived his life by heroic, larger-than-life actions and was willing to die by one too." "Faster!" "Faster, you fool." "He has driven off the cliff." "He did not even try to stop." "He gave his life for us, deliberately." "They must be dead." "They couldn't have survived that." "I thought I would never see you again, my friend." "I am safe." "Tamo is lost." "Dead?" "lt is because of him that we are safe." "Help Master Po to my quarters." "You must have a tale to tell." "Kwai Chang." "We must fight." "Why?" "If I am to have the choice of remaining at the temple, I must defeat you." "You cannot fight me." "Why not?" "Because you are a girl, and I am" "An offensive idiot." "We must fight at once." "l cannot fight you." "Are you afraid of me?" "No." "Then prepare yourself." "This is ridiculous." "Master Kan!" "Master Kan!" "The enemy is here!" "At the gates!" "Sound the alarm!" "The enemy is here!" "Sound the alarm!" "Master Kan!" "Master Kan!" "Greetings, Chen Ming Kan." "I am Sing Lu Chan." "Give me my woman, or I'll be forced to take her from you." "I've sent for my cannon." "You may have heard what it did to the temple at Fukien." "From one half mile, it is capable of scattering all of you into many directions." "When it arrives, I will position it to, perhaps right over there." "Give me my woman." "Give me Nan Chi!" "I cannot." "She is a guest here." "She has asked for sanctuary." "It has been granted to her." "Take a little time, Chen Ming Kan, and think this over." "If you do not give me my woman I will rearrange your temple so that you'll never again be able to grant sanctuary to anybody!" "You will have no temple." "No walls, no roof, no chambers." "Nothing!" "Only your solitude." "Everlasting solitude!" "The master, the disciple, the man from Cold Mountain all had been through much to bring the survivors of the Fukien Temple to safety here at Honan." "But the warlord had traced them here." "And the hardships, the terrors, the dangers they had gone through were as nothing to what we would all have to face." "As the warlord labored to make good his threat to turn the Honan temple into a pile of rubble."