Jungle Of Steel And Stone (17 page)

He leans against the side of the wooden object and waits, trying to remain calm. He is certain that the Nal-toon will soon clear the sky for him, and his faith is rewarded; soon a wind rises from the north and begins to blow the clouds across the sky. Veil gains his bearings from a brief glimpse of the stars, and a short time later clouds blow back over the moon, shrouding him in darkness.

He retches again. When the spasms pass, Veil carefully removes the piece of
clothes
covering the base of the Nal-toon, then allows a small amount of the precious blood-shilluk to flow into his palm. He inhales the powder and, as before, his pain and nausea immediately disappear. It is a fine night, Veil thinks. It is good to be alive, under the Nal-toon's protection.

* * *

Time has lost meaning. Veil moves slowly, wearily, staggering from side to side. He constantly has to remind himself not to test the Nal-toon's mercy by being careless, and yet he is only dimly aware of entering an area of more
streets
and
buildings.

He almost weeps with joy when he comes upon a wooded area that seems almost as densely forested as
Centralpark.

He enters the jungle on a stone path, passes through a copse of trees, and finds himself at the edge of a clearing filled with stone totems. These totems are different from the one his people erected on the graves of Reyna's parents, Veil thinks, but he instinctively senses that they are death-totems. He is in a jungle where the
Newyorkcities
bury their dead.

His first reaction is fear, for in his feverish state he imagines that he can see the spirits of dead
Newyorkcities
hovering over their totems. Then he reminds himself that he is under the protection of the Nal-toon; no spirit will attack a warrior moving under the protection of God. His fear passes.

In a spirit of thanksgiving and respect, and to assure that the
Newyorkcity
spirits do not betray his presence, Veil sets about constructing his own small peace totems. When his closed left eye begins to throb, he sniffs more of the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk. He finishes his totems in a state of pain-free euphoria.

Within a short time he has found an area suitable for going to ground. There is a shallow stream nearby; Veil lies down in its clear waters, occasionally drinking as he allows the water to cool his burning flesh.

He uses a sharp-edged, flat rock to scoop out a shallow trench in the soft, cool earth on the stream's sloping bank. He anchors the surrounding soil with sticks and rocks, then devises a cover of leafy branches woven together with vines and supple twigs. Finally Veil settles down in the trench with the Nal-toon close to his belly. He pulls the woven cover over him and rests his head on a soft, leafy mat he has woven for that purpose. Feeling pain and nausea, he sniffs more blood-shilluk and closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of sanctuary and the warm sense of well-being that the Nal-toon's gift brings him.

He realizes with some surprise that he is not hungry, despite the fact that he cannot remember when he last ate. Hungry or not, Veil thinks, he must eat to keep up his strength. He will stay in this jungle of the dead until he feels better. Here he can snare small game and fashion new weapons.

Veil allows himself the luxury of sniffing more of the precious blood-shilluk, and he drifts away like a leaf rolling in a gentle breeze.

* * *

Veil is no longer concerned with the passage of time. Far more important to him is the fact that the blood-shilluk seems to have dried up his insides, for he no longer suffers such severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. However, he remains very weak, and he finds it difficult to hunt for food. Despite his weakness, he does manage to snare a rabbit and a large rat.

Veil imagines that he can feel some of his strength returning—but very slowly. The swelling on the left side of his face has gone down, and his left eye has opened, although the vision in that eye is so blurred as to be useless. He manages to fashion new weapons: a bow, its wood flame-hardened and strung with thin, plaited vines; arrows with flame-hardened tips dipped in his own waste; a throwing stick.

But he is not recovering as quickly as he thinks he should. Every labor is an immense effort requiring deep concentration and exercise of will; he suffers terrible headaches, and the flesh on the left side of his face burns when he touches it. He begins to fear that his continuing sickness and pain are at least partially the result of some
Newyorkcity
magic spell that is draining his strength, and it is only the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk that is keeping him alive in this place.

He has confirmed his suspicion that the Nal-toon's gift is very dangerous if used in excess—it brings deep unconsciousness, which, however pleasant, could prove deadly to him, inasmuch as it renders him totally vulnerable to his enemies. Thus he is now constantly on guard to use the great gift sparingly, only on those occasions when his sickness and pain seem unbearable, or when his bowels loosen, or when the ache in his head threatens to blind him in both eyes.

He has also begun to notice another effect of the blood-shilluk: When he goes too long without using the gift, he experiences sharp stomach cramps.

At last he decides that he is simply not going to grow stronger as long as he remains where he is, possibly being drained by a
Newyorkcity
magic spell. Despite his terrible weakness, Veil resolves to move on at nightfall.

* * *

Later in this dream-day Veil is aroused from his stupor by the sound of a voice. A woman is speaking his language.

Reyna.

He should trust her. He should go to her. She will help him.

No.

Overwhelmed by loneliness and longing at the sound of his own language, Veil begins to weep soundlessly. He has never been so sick or weak, and he comes very close to removing the woven cover over his head and revealing himself.

No.

If the
Newyorkcities
can cast a spell to drain his strength, Veil thinks, they may also be able to raise spirits from this jungle of the dead to try to trick him. Even if the voice is really Reyna's, there is always the possibility that she means to betray him. The voice could be but a part of the trial set by the Nal-toon, and Veil feels that he cannot afford to take a chance.

No.

Veil wriggles even deeper into his trench. He holds the Nal-toon tightly in an attempt to banish his loneliness. Faced with the possibility that he is being hunted by spirits, he is now firmly resolved to move at nightfall, no matter how weak he is. He must get to the
airplane
that will take him home.

V
eil waited, back braced against a tree trunk and hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, as Reyna slowly approached through a field of small, uniform grave markers. She looked pensive, Veil thought, but not as distraught as she had appeared earlier. Throughout the morning they had walked, together and apart, through Calvary Cemetery, with Veil playing a recording of Reyna's voice while Reyna called out—and sometimes sang—in the K'ung tongue. They had made no attempt to track Toby, only to announce their presence. Then Reyna, fearing that Veil's presence would frighten Toby, had gone off alone.

She had been gone almost an hour and a half, and from the way she walked, Veil felt certain she had found something.

"He's been here," Reyna announced as she came up to Veil, wrapped her arms around his middle, and rested her head on his chest. In her voice was relief, mingling with anxiety and fatigue.

"You're sure?" Veil asked.

"Yes," she said, freeing one arm, turning and pointing to the north. "He came in around Fifty-first Street, just below Queens Boulevard. I found one of his footprints on some bare ground. He's sick, so I guess he can't help being careless."

"That's good news," Veil said quietly. "Just so long as he doesn't become too careless."

"Um-hmm." Reyna again wrapped both arms around Veil, and he eased them both down until they were sitting on the ground. For a few minutes Veil thought the woman might be sleeping, but then her voice came to him, muffled slightly by the material of his light jacket. "I don't know whether or not he's seen any of my totems, but I saw one of his. It's a spirit-totem erected to show respect for the spirits in a place of the dead. Toby recognized this as a cemetery."

"But no sign of Toby himself?"

Veil felt Reyna shake her head. "I found the place where he went to ground. There's a stream beyond the woods behind me."

"I know. I saw it."

"That's where he rested—near the bank." She paused and looked up at Veil. "There were feces and vomit around the site, as you would expect," she continued with a slightly puzzled frown. "What's surprising is that the feces aren't as loose as you'd think they would be in somebody suffering from typhus or dysentery—or both. We know he's very sick and badly injured. Lord, the very fact that he can still walk at all is amazing. He must have a very high fever and be in terrible pain."

"It could be the heroin," Veil said as he absently stroked Reyna's hair.

"What?"

"The heroin, Reyna. Toby may have accidentally found how to use it in a way that can benefit him. It's true that it wouldn't take much of it to kill him, but it's also true that if he, say, sniffs a small amount at a time, he'll get the benefit of its medicinal properties. Heroin is an unbelievably potent anesthetic, of course, but it also tends to dehydrate. It would tighten his bowels somewhat. In this case, the crap inside that idol could be Toby's salvation— at least for a time."

"But how could he know to sniff it?"

Veil shrugged. "It comes from the Nal-toon, right? It's a divine gift, so he has to do
something
with it. It tastes like hell, so he must have tried smelling it and gotten some into his nose. Bingo."

"If that's true, Veil, then it's another miracle."

"Mmm. What do you think the chances are that he'll come back there?"

"No chance. If Toby intended to use that place again, he'd be there now—during the day. He was there last night, but he's someplace else now. Sick or not, Toby feels that he must keep moving as best he can." Reyna sighed, rose to her feet, and brushed off her jeans. "Rest time is over. I'm going ahead."

"Let me come with you," Veil said, rising. "I'm not the tracker you are, but I'm not bad."

"Indeed," Reyna replied impishly, rising up on her toes to kiss him. "You're not bad at anything. Still, you'd only frighten him, and I don't want you getting a spear in the belly button. Sick as he is, he probably hasn't gone far.

You wait here, I'll be back."

* * *

Veil glanced at his watch; it was almost six-thirty. He cursed softly under his breath, then set off at a quick pace through the field of grave markers. He passed through a stand of trees, jumped over a stream, and hurried toward the southeast end of the cemetery. He sighed with relief when he saw Reyna sitting on the edge of a low stone wall that marked the border of the cemetery. Behind her, traffic moved by on Fifty-eighth Street. Stripped of the muffling effect of the trees inside the cemetery, the air was filled with the groaning hum of rush-hour traffic on the Queens leg of the Long Island Expressway.

"I was worried about you," Veil said as he sat on the wall next to Reyna. "You've been gone all afternoon."

"I'm sorry," Reyna replied, squeezing Veil's hand. "I've been waiting. I think you passed Toby somewhere back there. I wanted to come back and get you, but I was afraid to take a chance that he might get spooked and slip out ahead of us at this end."

Veil raised his eyebrows slightly, then shaded his eyes from the slanting rays of the setting sun and looked back the way he had come. "You're sure he's still back there?"

"Not a hundred percent, maybe ninety. After I left you I did a quick walk-through to this end. I figured that if I found sign here, it would mean that he was still ahead of us and we wouldn't waste time looking any longer in this cemetery. Anyway, as you can see, there's a lot of bare ground down here at this end. I couldn't find any tracks."

"Granted that he's sick, hurt, and moving very carefully, it's still only a mile, maybe less, from the stream to here. You'd think he would have come farther during the night."