A chill ripples through his body. Veil starts to roll out of the depression—then freezes.
What if he is wrong? What if his trial is not over and the voice of Reyna is really that of a Newyorkcity spirit calling him to doom? How can he know? Only the Nal-toon decides such things.
Deciding that he cannot risk failure simply because of personal suffering, Veil settles back into the depression and finally manages to pull some leaves over his body. He closes his eyes and reminds himself that no personal suffering is beyond endurance as long as God is with him, and God is; the Nal-toon has repeatedly provided him with sanctuary and has even given him His precious blood to ease his suffering.
Veil shifts his position slightly until he can see out through a space in his covering of leaves. He tenses when he sees blurred movement on a knoll just beyond the field of spirit-totems. He squints and is finally able to make out the figure of Reyna. She stands very still for a long time, and Veil begins to fear that she has picked up his spoor and is about to descend on him. She slowly turns in a full circle, then drops to her hands and knees and begins to crawl along the edge of the field.
Veil's stomach knots with anxiety. If the figure is Reyna, or a spirit with Reyna's skills, she will certainly find his spoor. Perhaps.
She has found it, Veil thinks as adrenaline flows into his system, sharpening his senses and reflexes. He watches with growing tension as the Reyna-figure crawls slowly through the spirit-totems, following his spoor of wet, crushed grass and leaves. Surely she will find him now.
He must quickly decide what to do.
Should he kill the Reyna-figure?
Or does the Nal-toon mean for Reyna to find him, since he has not gone to her? Has the Nal-toon sent Reyna to end his suffering and take him home?
"Help me, Nal-toon," Veil whispers. "Help me to decide."
As if in immediate response to his prayer, the Reyna-figure abruptly crawls off in the wrong direction. She stops, looks around, then shakes her head in frustration. Veil begins to relax but then tenses again as the Reyna-figure stands, puts her hands on her hips, and appears to stare directly at his hiding place.
She has found him, Veil thinks.
He will attack if she comes for him, he thinks. He will let the Nal-toon guide his muscles and reflexes, will let the Nal-toon decide whether this Reyna-figure lives or dies and whether or not he must now prepare for his final battle with the Newyorkcities.
Then the Reyna-figure turns and stares off in another direction. And another. Then she shakes her head again and walks quickly back the way she came, disappearing over the knoll.
It certainly was a spirit, Veil thinks with satisfaction, but he was not tricked by it. He held firm, and the Nal-toon sent the spirit away.
His loneliness dissipates as Veil begins to feel a comforting sense of oneness with God. His heart fills with joy and thanksgiving as he sniffs a small portion of the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk and drifts off to sleep.
At nightfall Veil-in-Toby rises and moves on through the jungle of the dead. He abruptly stops and drops to the ground when he again hears Reyna's voice calling to him from somewhere in the darkness ahead of him.
He sniffs some blood-shilluk to focus his senses, then creeps soundlessly forward until he comes to the edge of a stand of trees. Before him, thirty running-steps away across an open expanse, Reyna and a man whose features are hidden by the night sit on a stone barrier. Between them is some kind of magic box that makes the sound of Reyna's voice. The box repeats the same message over and over, but Veil no longer even bothers to listen. It is silly magic, he thinks, and now that he knows it is magic, it has lost its stranglehold on his heart.
Veil moves laterally, inside the shrouding darkness of the line of trees. He fears the Reyna-figure most; if she does possess Reyna's skills, she might well see or hear him, no matter how stealthily he moves. But he goes on, moving silently past the position of the man-in-night until the sounds from the magic box can no longer be heard.
He waits, crouched behind the stone wall and peering over its edge until the street beyond is momentarily clear of cars. Then, gripping his carrying sling against his chest, he sluggishly climbs over the wall and runs as straight and fast as he can across the street. Fueled by anxiety, he makes it safely across the street and into the shadows cast by a building.
The effort is exhausting, and now he doubles over as his stomach muscles knot with pain. He waits for the spasms to pass, then turns and moves south along the face of the building, darting from moon shadow to moon shadow.
Suddenly he sees before him a great street that is even wider than the one he had to cross to get to the river. There are a great many fast-moving cars on this great street, their light-eyes cutting sharp, moving swaths in the darkness. Veil waits, but the great street never seems to be entirely empty of cars.
He could wait here forever for the street to empty, Veil thinks. Despite the cars, he must go on.
Veil eases the carrying sling to the ground, lifts the Nal-toon, and allows some of the blood-shilluk to flow into his palm. He sniffs it, but this time the pain does not immediately vanish, as it usually does. He waits for the familiar, warm rush that will wash away his terrible hurt, but it does not come. There is some easing of the pain, but Veil still feels crippled. Recognizing the danger but feeling that he has no choice, he sniffs still more of the blood-shilluk. Finally the rush comes and the pain vanishes. He replaces the Nal-toon in his sling, lifts up the bundle, then walks forward a few steps and crouches down at the very edge of the great street.
A cluster of cars speed by, leaving in their wake a relatively long stretch of darkness. There are more light-eyes in the distance, bearing down on him, but Veil feels that he must move now, for there might not be another moment of darkness as long.
He straightens up and runs as fast as he can halfway across the great street to a stone barrier that separates the cars on his side from those on the other, which move in the opposite direction. His lungs ache and his chest heaves as he gasps for air; sweat pours off his naked body and his vision blurs badly, but he knows that he cannot stop to rest. It is too easy for the Newyorkcities to see him in the light-eyes of their cars.
Everything seems to be spinning around him, but Veil somehow manages to climb over the stone wall. He stumbles into the street, staggers and falls. Despite the fact that he is totally disoriented, he struggles to his feet. He sways, then sits down hard with a jolt that shoots up his spine and sends shock waves of pain through his head.
Suddenly he sees the light-eyes of a car bearing down on him very fast. Veil wills himself to his knees, then up on his feet as the car emits a wave of screeching, blaring sounds like those he heard when he crossed the street by Centralpark. The light-eyes shoot toward him, then suddenly begin to veer wildly back and forth as the screeching sounds build to a deafening, almost physical thing that batters at his ears. He smells something burning. Then the sound abruptly stops as the light-eyes stop, and Veil feels the cool touch of metal against his stomach.
Veil sways as he stares, mesmerized, into the right light-eye of the car. Then he falls forward onto the car's metal skin.