Jungle Of Steel And Stone

'I'm sick,' Veil whispers, still hanging on to the platform. He can see nothing now, and his head feels as if it is about to explode. 'I need . . . help.'

A second kick knocks Veil to the ground. Dimly, through a shimmering orange haze, Veil sees the blurred images of two men emerge from the hole of darkness above his head. The Newyorkcities have him now, he thinks. He is finished.

But they must not get the Nal-toon.

Veil rolls to his right. He pulls the sling from around his neck and uses the last of his strength to hurl the Nal- toon into the darkness beneath one of the wooden structures. Then he passes out.

* * *

There is too much pain in this dream, Veil thinks. Too much misery and loneliness in imagining himself as the K'ung warrior-prince. He does not want to suffer like this, and he starts to roll away from the dream of Toby, drifting off toward the Lazarus Gate and the woman he loves trapped beyond it. Then he stops. His suffering is only imaginary, while Toby's is real. Only by entering the mind of Toby can he hope to understand what the man is thinking and perhaps anticipate his actions.

'. . . Veil, come to me. Love me. Tango with me on the edge of time. . . .'

'. . . Can't . . .'

'. . . You don't have to suffer like this . . .'

'. . . Dream is the key to finding him, must . . .'

* * *

Veil returns to Toby, once again becomes Toby as a squealing blade of sound seems to slice through his brain. He senses movement all around him, and he shakes his head in an effort to clear it.

The Nal-toon! he thinks. Where is the Nal-toon?

He lifts his face from the gravel and turns his head in time to see that the wooden object under which he lies is moving over him; one of the metal wheels is rolling toward his stomach, and in a moment he will be cut in two. . . .

Veil pushes against the ground with his hands, rolls to his right, and lies flat between the thick strips of metal. A moment later the heavy wheel grinds over the place where he had been.

The air is filled with nerve-shattering sound, but Veil is virtually oblivious to it; he feels the hard, familiar surface of the Nal-toon pressing against his ribs, and joy floods his being. Still keeping himself pressed flat to the ground as more objects roll over him, he reaches out and wraps his arm around God. As he does so, he feels a thin stream of powder trickling from His base.

The blood of the Nal-toon! Veil thinks, turning his head and gazing in awe at the white streak on the ground. It is a bad sign; he has failed, and his punishment will be death in this terrible, flickering tunnel of darkness, movement, and noise.

Then the darkness suddenly lifts, and the great roar dissipates, leaving Veil and chasing after the wooden objects as they move away. Bright, hot morning sunlight beats down on his back.

The Nal-toon has spared him!

Despite nausea and a hammering pain on the left side of his head where his eye is swollen shut, Veil manages to struggle to his feet. Cradling the Nal-toon in his arms, using the palm of his left hand to stem the flow of God's blood, he staggers toward the open, black maw of another wooden object. He knows there could be danger in the darkness, perhaps more Newyorkcities waiting to attack him, but he feels that he has no choice but to take the risk. He must find a place to hide.

He reaches the opening, sets the Nal-toon down inside, then pulls himself up over the lip of the floor. He lies on his back for some time, too weak to move, gasping for breath. Finally he manages to roll away from the light at the opening. He listens, but there is no other sound in the darkness; he is alone and safe. He is still under the protection of the Nal-toon.

He puts his hand to the left side of his face where the Newyorkcity kicked him. Pain stabs through his skull and flashes behind his eyes as his fingers touch the tender, puffy flesh. He is sick, Veil thinks, is missing teeth, and he cannot see out of his left eye. But he is alive, and besides, he has suffered worse. Long thirst in the desert is worse. This would not be a worthy trial if there were not some suffering demanded of him. The only important thing is that he continue to think and act as a warrior.

'Thank you, Nal-toon,' he murmurs.

Now his thoughts turn to the strange, powdery blood of God. It is a good sign, not bad, Veil thinks with growing excitement. Since it is obvious that he still enjoys the Nal-toon's favor, it seems possible that the Nal-toon has provided His white blood as a gift to help him.

Gritting his teeth against the fierce pain that whipsaws back and forth behind his eyes, Veil rolls over on his side. He sits up and carefully, reverently, examines the Nal-toon and the white blood trickling from His base. God must be providing him with this blood for a reason, Veil thinks, but he does not know how it is meant to be used. However, it is certain that any gift flowing from the very heart of the Nal-toon will be far more powerful than anything he has ever known; it will have to be used with great care.

Veil tears off a piece of clothes from his sling and uses it to stop up the flow in the Nal-toon's base. Then he carefully sweeps the blood that has already flowed onto the wood into a small pile. Uttering a prayer, he pinches some of the powder between his thumb and forefinger and puts it on his tongue. The blood has a bitter taste, like a medicinal herb. He takes a slightly larger pinch, puts it to his nose, and sniffs.

Immediately a sensation of warmth sweeps up through his nostrils and flows like warm water behind his eyelids. A few seconds later, to Veil's amazement, the pain in his face dulls, receding to a tiny point somewhere inside his left ear.

The Nal-toon's blood acts like shilluk, Veil thinks, and his heart pounds with excitement. Except that the blood is many times more powerful than shilluk. Now he knows that the Nal-toon has given him His blood in order to ease his pain, and it is meant to be sniffed in very small amounts.

As if to reaffirm his new knowledge, Veil takes a slightly larger pinch of the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk and breathes it into his nostrils. The residual pain in his left ear blinks out as a pleasing sun-warmth oozes down through his entire body. He hears a sound like the rustling of wind in the desert; the wind is filling him, lifting him off the ground. He is floating away . . .

Enough! Veil thinks. The Nal-toon's gift must be used with as much care as water in the open desert.

The pain has disappeared, and despite the odd sensation of floating, Veil is no longer nauseous. None of the magic machines the Nal-toon has given the Newyorkcities can compare with this wondrous gift, he thinks. He cannot remember ever feeling so at peace.

Veil eases himself down on his stomach, rests his head against the Nal-toon, and drifts off to sleep within sleep.

* * *

It is night when Veil awakens, as Toby, in his dream; once again he is nauseous and in excruciating pain. He vomits, and this causes new club-blows of pain to hammer against the left side of his skull.

Moaning in agony, he searches in the darkness until he finds a few grains of the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk. He hurriedly sniffs some from the palm of his hand and immediately begins to feel better. He starts to inhale more, then stops himself. He will take only as much as he needs to ease his pain and sickness, Veil thinks; to take more, to deliberately seek euphoria and the comfort of sleep, would be to abuse this most wondrous gift. Also, he must remain conscious now; it is night and he must move on.

Replacing the carrying sling around his neck, Veil eases himself to the ground. His stomach knots with anxiety when he looks up at the sky, for clouds obscure the stars. His sickness has disoriented him, causing him to lose track of the direction in which he must go in order to reach the airplane fields. He needs the stars.

The stars in the sky over Newyorkcity are different than in the sky over the desert, he thinks, and it is often difficult to see them through the background of lights and the haze of smoke that chokes the air of this strange land. But the configuration of the stars, though different from those at home, remains consistent, and that is all he needs in order to orient himself. But he must be able to see them.

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