Free Jungle Of Steel And Stone by George C. Chesbro Page A

odyssey.
    In Southern California, a Church of the Black Messiah had been formed; emissaries from the mother church were en route to New York in order to consecrate Victor's gallery as holy ground.
    Toby emerged from his cover on a Friday night, close to midnight. Veil had been painting at his easel since dawn, working on a new series of canvases, monitoring—as always—the news on both radio and cable television. When the bulletin was announced, Veil turned off the radio and concentrated on the CNN coverage. He tried to call Reyna, but she was not home.
    After an hour of watching live coverage, interspersed with reporters' speculations on where Toby had been hiding and where he was heading, Veil cleaned his brushes, washed up, and prepared to go out. Then he thought better of it. First, he knew he was exhausted; second, he saw no point in going to Central Park to join the crowd that was already there—police, reporters, and, undoubtedly, Carl Nagle. There was simply nothing he could do. Also, he strongly suspected that wherever Reyna Alexander was, she was not in Central Park.
    Veil downed a stiff drink, then went to bed in order to rest his body and search his mind for the important thing that he knew.

Chapter Seven

    V eil dreams.
    He sees Toby running up the street toward Central Park and imagines himself entering the bushman's body, mind, and soul. In the process he wills himself to lose his language, to remember only those few English words Toby would have learned from Reyna and the missionaries. He will see through Toby's eyes, feel with Toby's body, think with Toby's mind, filter sensations through Toby's consciousness.
    Veil will be Toby.
    He has never seen such a weapon before, one that attacks hearing at the same time as it hurls an invisible spear to pierce the flesh and cause terrible pain. However, at the moment he'd heard the crash of the bang-stick and felt the hot pain in his left shoulder, he'd made a number of split-second decisions. Even as he'd hurled the spear at the man wielding the magic weapon, he'd been planning ahead, aware that he would have to run and seek sanctuary.
    Now, as he runs on the street toward the jungle Reyna has called Centralpark, Veil feels weighed down by the clothes the missionaries have forced him to wear. However, there is no time now to remove the clothes ; his acute hearing and warrior instincts combine to warn him that a Newyorkcity warrior is close behind him and gaining. His shoulder burns with pain; he cannot stop and fight, so he must reach the safe, green darkness of Centralpark.
    The muscles in his back reflexively tense in anticipation of the agonizing sting of a bang-stick spear, but he does not slow his pace as he approaches the street with its speeding cars. Buoyed by the feel of the Nal-toon under his arm, knowing that to stop or slow down will mean certain death or capture, Veil leaps out onto the street and races for the other side, rhythmically driving the shaft of the second spear he has taken to the smooth stone at his feet in an effort to maintain his momentum.
    He is immediately assailed by blinding lights and sharp, blasting cries of hurting sounds that swirl around him like a great desert wind. Then he is across the street. He leaps over a low stone wall, trips, gets up, and stumbles into the protective, dark shroud of Centralpark. He trips again as he goes down a stone embankment and twists onto his wounded shoulder in order to protect the Nal-toon and his spear.
    Ignoring the fresh stabs of pain in his shoulder, Veil removes his shoes and socks, then struggles to his feet. Without the shoes he feels lighter—just as the Nal-toon somehow feels lighter than it did in memory. He races through a stand of trees and around the perimeter of a huge clearing; bushes and tree limbs tear at his clothes, slowing him down, but he remains inside the line of trees in order to avoid the white glow of moonlight on the meadow to his right.
    He stops on the side of a