Eye of the Forest

  “I said I needed a break,” said Zadie. “I didn’t say I wanted to go back.”

  “How can you look at the size of that bug and want to go on?” Groanin asked. “To say nothing of that thing last night. It could have killed any one of us. And me in particular.”

  “You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?” said John. “We have djinn power to protect us.”

  “I wasn’t forgetting it,” said Groanin. “And I still wouldn’t mind going back.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to any of us,” insisted Nimrod. “We’re armed with djinn power and rifles.”

  “You promise?” said Groanin.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Nimrod.

  Groanin nodded. “Very well, sir. Please forgive my earlier cowardice. I’m a little unnerved at this latest turn of events, that’s all.”

  “Don’t mention it, old fellow.”

  Groanin looked at Zadie and nodded back at her nervously. “Er, thanks, miss,” he said. “For what you said back there.”

  Zadie pulled a face. “It’s no big deal,” she said. “All I said was that maybe we needed to slow down and take a break.” Hearing a fluttering sound she looked up and smiled as her pet bat settled on her sleeve. It was Zotz. “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, I’m sure,” said Groanin.

  CHAPTER 8

  CAT PEOPLE

  It was getting dark and, after they had pitched camp and while they were still able to see it, they all inspected the beginnings of the trail indicated on the map given to Mr. Vodyannoy by Faustina.

  “May I see the map?” asked Zadie.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Vodyannoy, handing it to her.

  “Do you think this is the way the other party could have come?” asked John.

  “There’s no sign that anyone has been along here with a machete,” said Sicky.

  “It must be the way they came,” said Zadie, and advancing several yards into the undergrowth, stooped to pick something up before turning to show everyone the contents of her hand. “Look.”

  She was holding an English candy wrapper and a cigarette butt that she handed to Nimrod, who then inspected these two objects with a forensic closeness that would not have disgraced Sherlock Holmes.

  “You see this gold E and S on the paper?” said Nimrod. “That stands for Empha Seema. An English brand of cigarettes. And this candy wrapper is from a Callard’s English toffee.”

  “So I guess we’re on their trail, after all,” said Philippa. “It’s typical of Europeans that they should leave their garbage lying on the forest floor. Eh, Sicky?”

  But Sicky was no longer listening. He pointed silently into the distance and eventually Nimrod managed to distinguish what the guide was looking at. Lying in the boughs of a tree were a couple of jaguars.

  “You don’t think they’re meaning to ambush us?” asked Nimrod. “I mean, they’re very close to the trail.”

  “I don’t think so, boss,” said Sicky. “For one thing, they would never have allowed us to see them if they was planning anything like an ambush. ‘Sides, these big cats are half asleep. Probably they’re just having a siesta until it gets dark. Then they’ll go a-hunting.” He sighed wistfully and rubbed his tiny head. “Be nice to see what else lies along this trail, boss. Before we’re on it, don’t you think? Just like them two cats.”

  “Yes, wouldn’t it just?” said Nimrod.

  Sicky looked up at the sky. “Too late now, of course. Soon be too dark to see very much at all. Unless you’ve got cat’s eyes.”

  “You’ve given me an idea, Sicky,” said Nimrod.

  Upon their return to camp, Nimrod told everyone what his idea was.

  “I think it’s reasonable to assume that the other expedition might have planned some other surprises in store for us farther along the jungle trail,” he said. “Therefore, what I think we should do is to separate for a while. John and I will scout ahead and check that things are safe. If they’re not, we’ll come back and warn you. What do you say, John? Are you up for this?”

  “I’m game for anything,” said John.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “What if it’s not safe?” objected Zadie. “Won’t you just be putting yourselves at risk instead of everyone?”

  “I’m glad you mentioned that, Zadie,” said Nimrod. “We could go invisibly, of course. But it’s very easy to get lost when you’re traveling with someone you can’t see. So what I propose is this: You recall those two young male jaguars we spotted sleeping in a tree? Well, John and I will borrow their bodies for a while and scout the trail ahead. Nothing moves more silently in the jungle than the jaguar.”

  “Except perhaps the snake,” said Zadie. As if evidence of this was required, she pointed to a Peruvian coral snake that was slithering almost invisibly across some dead leaves on the rain forest floor.

  “True,” admitted Nimrod. “But I’ve never much liked being a snake.”

  “And soldier ants,” said Zadie. “And spiders. And bats. They all move more silently than the jaguar.”

  Nimrod smiled patiently. “I’ve never much liked being those creatures, either.” Seeing that she was about to add some more animals to an extending list, Nimrod raised his hand to silence her. “Anyway, as two jaguars we’ll very likely see if there are any surprises that lie in store for us in plenty of time. So that then we might deal with them.”

  “I don’t think I like the idea of us splitting up,” said Philippa.

  “Me, neither,” admitted Zadie.

  “You’ll be fine with Mr. Vodyannoy and Groanin and Sicky,” said Nimrod. “And it’s just for a few hours. Until tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “No harm will come to you while I’m here,” insisted Mr. Vodyannoy. “Trust me.”

  John and Nimrod walked up the trail to the giant red cedar where the older djinn had seen the two jaguars.

  “There they are,” said Nimrod. “Panthera onca. They’re beautiful animals, don’t you think?”

  “Very,” agreed John. “This is going to be cool.”

  “I’m rather looking forward to it, myself,” admitted Nimrod. “In my experience, there’s nothing that’s as much fun as being a cat. And among cats, the jaguar, or otorongo, is one of the most exciting. I’ll take the bigger one, on the left.” He paused. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Animal possession? I mean, I seem to remember your mother telling me you’ve had experience of being a bird.”

  “I was a peregrine falcon once,” said John. “In Central Park.”

  “After you’ve been a peregrine falcon, frankly, being a jaguar is a piece of cake,” said Nimrod.

  John looked around them. “Where are we going to leave our own bodies?” he asked a little anxiously. “Just about anywhere around here, and we’re likely to come back and find something eating them.”

  “Good point,” said Nimrod. “I don’t suppose you thought to bring your lamp.”

  “Er, no,” said John. “Should I have?”

  “It’s a good habit to get into. That way you’re never stuck for somewhere to lurk while you take your spirit off somewhere else. Don’t worry. You can share my travel lamp.”

  From his coat pocket, Nimrod produced a small silver bottle and placed it in the trunk of a tree. “Right,” he said. “We should be safe enough in there.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t done this before,” said John. “I can transubstantiate all right. But I don’t know how to separate my transubstantiated self from my spirit.”

  “It’s called decanting,” said Nimrod. “And it’s relatively straightforward as long as you make sure to leave the stopper out of the bottle, or the lid off the lamp. My travel lamp has no stopper so there’s nothing to worry about.”

  John uttered his focus word and was gradually enveloped by an almost animated white smoke. As he returned to his natural element, which was fire, he took a deep and euphoric breath of the many millions of carbon at
oms that were his combusted self and, with a tremendous sense of well-being and deep relaxation, he gave himself up to his own true form. Each time he transubstantiated, John felt as if he had achieved some deeper understanding of who and what he was, like a kind of holy man finding nirvana. It was akin to coming home after having been away for a long time.

  Inside the bottle, a feeling of anxiety overcame John momentarily, as it always did when the moment came to become pure djinn. He gathered his atoms urgently, like someone catching dollar bills caught by a gust of wind, and put himself back together, as he always did, fearing that he would forget some small but important part of himself. But somehow he always managed it successfully. Nimrod had already reassembled and was inspecting the inside of the travel bottle which, as was normal, was many times larger on the inside than on the outside. John still didn’t know how that worked.

  The interior of Nimrod’s bottle was furnished like the lounge of an elegant hotel, with many fine paintings, several large leather sofas and chairs, and a blazing log fire. Nimrod sat down, removed his shoes, and invited John to do the same.

  “Just think of decanting as a normal out-of-body experience,” he told John. “A few deep breaths and then out through the top of the bottle. All right?”

  John nodded.

  “One more thing. I nearly forgot. A decanting is much more effective if you leave the body not on an inhalation but on the exhalation.”

  “What’s an exhalation?”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot you’re an American. English words of more than three syllables are a foreign language to you.”

  “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “But true.” Nimrod smiled sweetly. “You leave the body as you breathe out. That way, when later on you reenter, you can do it as if breathing in again. This is where the Indian yogis got all of their ideas about breathing. From us.”

  John let out a deep breath and let himself lift up through the neck of the bottle. This felt very different from a transubstantiation. Whereas that was about smoke, this was all about air and free spirit. This felt like an incredible lightness of being.

  The two jaguars lazed in the high branches of the tree, paws hanging down on either side of the bough, and their eyes closed, although neither was asleep. Jaguars don’t like to miss anything. And seldom do. They were brothers and quite young and not yet the solitary hunters that most jaguars become. Several hours before, they had just enjoyed a light lunch of river turtle and were looking forward to hunting down a more substantial supper such as a capybara, a peccary, or perhaps a monkey. Their mother was already a distant memory.

  John slipped into the smaller of the two big cats and immediately set about licking his paws, on which there was still a trace of turtle meat. Meanwhile, Nimrod stood up and after vocalizing a few mews and grunts, he opened his lungs and let out a powerful roar. John almost jumped out of his beautiful rosette-covered coat and temporarily lost his footing. For a second he clung onto the bough of the tree with his huge sharp claws before his own body weight got the better of him and it seemed easier to drop down on the ground. He looked up at Nimrod and waited, flicking his long tail impatiently. Nimrod roared again, as if demonstrating his superior size and strength.

  “What’s that for?” John’s question was telepathic, for the simple reason that, in common with most other animals, jaguars can’t talk. “You scared the heck out of me.”

  “Just opening my chest,” explained Nimrod. “This fellow’s been lying across a tree for three hours and he’s a bit stiff.”

  As soon as Nimrod jumped down from the tree, John bounded along the forest trail.

  “Not so fast, John. Remember, the whole point of this exercise is to spy out the land ahead of us. To move stealthily. To exploit the natural characteristics of this wonderful member of the Felidae family. And we should stay to the edge of the beaten track rather than be on it. I mean, there’s no point in being a jaguar at all if we just march along the trail like a couple of stupid tourists.” And so saying, he stepped into the dense undergrowth and almost immediately vanished from view. The dark brown rosettes on his tawny yellow coat were perfect jungle camouflage.

  John growled and then followed the other jaguar. For good measure he growled again. He liked growling. In fact, he liked everything about being a jaguar and couldn’t imagine why he’d never before tried out being a big cat. And he was a very big cat. About five feet long and thirty inches tall at his shoulders, John weighed nearly two hundred pounds. Nimrod was an inch or two longer and several pounds heavier.

  For a whole hour, they made easy progress through the jungle. Their short and stocky build made them adept at climbing, crawling, and swimming — for, as with the tiger, the jaguar is a cat that enjoys and excels at swimming. But while they were crossing a tributary of the Amazon, John caught sight of a turtle and, suddenly feeling hungry, grabbed it in his powerful jaws.

  “What are you doing?” Nimrod’s telepathic voice was impatient.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “This is no time to stop for a snack.” Nimrod licked his lips. “Even if it is a delicious-looking turtle. Besides, if this jaguar’s memory serves me right, we had turtle for lunch.”

  “I don’t think we have time to hunt anything larger.” John kept hold of the feebly struggling turtle in his jaws. “Do we? Hunting a deer or a tapir could take hours. And now that I’ve got this — well, it’s a bird in the hand, isn’t it? In a manner of speaking.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Nimrod. “I suppose I am feeling a bit peckish myself, and he is a beauty, isn’t he? I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm if we eat something.”

  “Unless you’re the turtle.” There was a harsh laugh and something of the jaguar’s cruelty in John’s thoughts because, after all, it is impossible to be a jaguar without becoming just a bit like a jaguar. The next second, John bit down hard into the turtle and, since the jaguar has the strongest bite of all felids — stronger than a lion or a tiger — his powerful jaws pierced the turtle’s protective shell easily and killed it instantly.

  Nimrod took hold of the back half of the turtle, and the two jaguars tore the poor creature apart and ate it quickly.

  “I had a pet turtle once,” admitted John, licking his chops. “When I was a kid. But I never liked it much. It was always biting me.”

  “I think you just had the last bite,” suggested Nimrod, crunching his way through the last bits of shell and turtle meat. Later on he would throw up what he couldn’t digest. “Now then. Can we get on? While it’s still dark and we can enjoy the advantage of being able to see in the dark. I can’t remember when I enjoyed such perfect eyesight. I really must make myself a better set of glasses when I’m in a human shape again.”

  They were just about to move on when a rhythmic noise filled the damp forest air.

  “What’s that?” wondered John. “It sounds like jungle drums.”

  “Do you think it’s those headhunters Sicky was talking about?”

  “There are two tribes of Indians in this part of the forest, John. The Xuanaci and the Prozuanaci. Only the Xuanaci seem inclined to be warlike.”

  “Maybe we should go back,” suggested John. “See that everyone is all right.”

  “Mr. Vodyannoy is more than equal to the task of protecting everyone,” answered Nimrod.

  “If you say so.”

  They resumed their reconnaissance, walking alongside the trail Nimrod had memorized from his last perusal of the map. After an hour of walking, during which the drums continued to beat, John halted and passed a thought through the air to Nimrod. “It all seems safe enough. Don’t you think we should go back now?”

  “We’ll just see what’s over the next hilltop,” argued his uncle, slinking forward underneath a fallen tree trunk and through a thick bush without as much as moving a solitary leaf. A second or two later he stopped dead in his own tracks as if something had frozen him to the spot.

  “What is it?” wondered John.

  Nim
rod did not answer and, after almost a minute, he settled down on his stomach watching something that lay somewhere ahead of them. John crept alongside him and tried to make out what this was.

  It began to rain. And still Nimrod did not answer.

  John flicked the rain off his ears and, narrowing his eyes against the relentless stream of water, stared into the darkness. Nimrod was looking at the twisted trunk and boughs of a small tree that was twenty or thirty feet ahead of them and about which there seemed nothing at all remarkable. Try as he might, John could see nothing in the tree but, trusting his uncle’s experience, he waited, and it was fortunate that patience comes easier to jaguars than to boy djinn, for eventually this patience was repaid.

  Almost imperceptibly the tree was moving. Not moving in any direction. It was as if the tree was breathing very gently. Then something flickered on the tip of one of the branches, like a bird or an insect, and suddenly John felt a chill of fear as he realized that the tree was not a tree at all. He let the thought drift out of his mind to the creature lying beside him.

  “It’s a giant anaconda.”

  “To be rather more accurate,” Nimrod replied silently, “it is a giant giant anaconda. Normally, these snakes grow to twenty or thirty feet in length. But this one appears to be at least twice that size. Perhaps even bigger. It’s hard to tell in the dark. But given its size and position immediately next to the trail, there can be no doubt that it has been placed here to ambush us.”

  “How are they doing this?” asked John.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Nimrod. “But however they’re doing it, we have to get rid of that snake.”

  “We’re going to need a very large gun.”

  “There’s no guarantee it will be in the same place tomorrow,” said Nimrod. “And, despite its enormous size, in our human shapes we might never even see it. Not until it was too late. No, John, we must attack it together. We must try to kill it right now.”