Entangled (35 page)

Hond waited, looking calm, breathing deep and steady, until Murgh turned and squared up to him. Then he advanced on the older man and drove three merciless, bone-shattering jabs into the pulpy mess of his nose.

Murgh sat down with a
THUMP,
obviously dazed, and Hond kicked the side of his head, knocking him onto his back. Taking his time, he knelt over him, pinned his shoulders, and began to punch down hard into the bloody centre of his face. This time he didn’t stop but just kept on punching until Murgh’s features became unrecognisable and Ria lost count of the number of blows.

It was what the code of single combat demanded – that one man, unaided, kill another with his bare hands.

Yet as he watched his father being beaten to death it seemed that Grigo’s self-control broke and he rushed towards Hond, with a guttural howl. Braves stepped forward to bar his way but he was fast-footed and dodged them all. Too late Ria saw the long Illimani knife glinting in his hand – the knife that had killed Rill; the knife she had seized in battle and that Grigo must have taken from her in the ambush. Before she could cross ten paces to stop him he had plunged it with such force into the centre of Hond’s back that it passed through his body and out of his chest.

A collective gasp of outrage rose from the elders and rippled out across the huge crowd as Grigo pushed Hond’s limp body aside, slung Murgh over his shoulder and strode away with him.

Ria saw Murgh was not dead.

As he was carried off he opened one eye, filled with hate, and glared at her through a mask of blood.

Ria dropped to her knees beside her brother, cradling his head, willing him to survive, forgetful of all else. But she knew at once there was no hope for him.

Hond was gone. He had been taken from her and then returned, only to be snatched away from her for ever. The breath had left his body. Not even the magic of the Uglies could save him now.

Ria raised her face to heaven to proclaim her anguish but no tears would come. Instead she was cold and clear in her grief, wide awake, as though she had dived into a mountain stream. Laying Hond back on the ground, she stood up and signalled Bont and Bahat: ‘Grab Grigo and Murgh before they get away. They broke the code. I want them dead.’

She was already hastening to the bonfire to free the Uglies when she saw that Grigo’s uncle Grine, his shoulder bloody where Hond had speared him, hadn’t given up the fight yet. He was rallying braves from Murgh’s faction and now four of them rushed to intercept Bont and Bahat while others, shouting their defiance, formed a protective ring around Grigo and Murgh.

The elders had seemed frozen with shock during these events, unable to react fast enough to exert their authority. But silence fell across the meeting ground when Rotas at last rose from his stool and adopted the ritual posture – arms crossed high over his chest – that signalled he was about to pass judgement. ‘The settlement of disputes by single combat is ruled by an ancient and binding code,’ he intoned. ‘By the cowardly murder of Hond, Grigo has dishonoured the code and there can be only one judgement. HOND IS THE VICTOR AND ALL HIS TERMS MUST BE ENACTED. Ria and the Uglies go free. The lives of Murgh and Grigo are forfeit to Ria.’

‘Fuck your forfeit,’ yelled Murgh. ‘We’re walking out of here. Try and stop us!’

Despite the beating he’d received he was on his feet again, standing beside his son in the midst of their growing group of defenders – a phalanx that had already swollen to thirty strong. He looked confident, like he knew a secret no one else did, and was hurrying away unopposed when one of the peculiar short spears of the Illimani whistled down out of nowhere, falling almost vertically, punched a hole in the top of his skull, tore through his brain, split his palate, skewered his tongue and his lower jaw, burst out in a splash of meat and blood below his chin and embedded itself in the earth between his feet.

‘WAIT FOR THE FIRE!’ Grigo screamed over the heads of the
crowd, seeming to appeal to someone far away. ‘YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WAIT TILL WE START THE FIRE.’

But the air was already filled with a menacing whirr, and a flight of the same short spears hafted to jagged flint points arched overhead and fell upon the meeting ground, killing men, women, children, braves and elders until the dead and injured lay heaped everywhere.

At once the sky darkened again and a second volley came in.

Ria took a spear through the muscle of her thigh; painful, but not crippling. She pulled it free and balanced it in her hand. Ligar and Vulp suffered flesh wounds but could still fight. Amongst the elders Torba and Otri were killed, Krant was speared through the foot, but Rotas and Ezida survived uninjured.

Almost the entire population of the Clan had scrambled to pack into the meeting ground to witness Ria’s trial but now, after two volleys from an unseen enemy, the bloodied survivors scattered, shrieking and screaming, fleeing the next avalanche of spears.

All except Kimp and Chard, the fathers of Duma and Vik. Ignoring the danger from above, they were climbing the huge pile of firewood heaped up to burn the Uglies. They had axes in their hands and murder in their eyes.

Leoni stepped outside the thatched
maloca,
the longhouse that formed the central ceremonial space of Mary Ruck’s jungle lodge, staggered three paces and dry-retched until she poured with sweat and gasped for breath. She had never needed to barf so badly but her stomach wouldn’t let go and the spasm seemed to continue for ever. Then the vile taste of the Ayahuasca she’d drunk an hour earlier rose up in her throat, her guts cramped and she vomited. It was embarrassing that the others had to hear the weird yodelling sounds she made, but she didn’t care too much. It was just such a relief to hurl. Finally she straightened, lurched two more paces across the clearing, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and looked up at the vast Amazonian sky.

Amongst a few scattered clouds the stars glittered and the half-moon rode high, bathing the surrounding jungle in fairy light, outlining each leaf and bough with silver tracery. Heady fragrances filled the air – rot, orchids, the breath of the river – and Leoni was alert to the shrieks and whirrs of nocturnal birds and insects, to the soft flap of bats’ wings, and to distant bumps and crashes that could have been branches falling or large animals pushing their way through undergrowth.

She coughed and spat.
Yecch!
By comparison with Ayahuasca, pure DMT by intravenous infusion was an absolute breeze. They stuck the needle in your arm, pressed down the plunger and WHOOSH, off you went to the other side of reality.

Ayahuasca was supposed to do that too, or so everyone kept saying. But for Leoni anyway one cup had produced absolutely no WHOOSH.

She stumbled back to the door of the
maloca
and poked her head inside. It was a simple rectangular room, maybe twenty feet long by twelve wide, and it was dark in there with just a single candle flickering on the shaman’s table.

It occurred to her that, for all the hype, Ayahuasca should be like any other drug.

If you didn’t have a big enough dose you wouldn’t feel the effects.

Gut-wrenching though the thought was, she was going to have to drink a second cup.

On the twenty-mile boat ride from Iquitos to the lodge Bannerman had announced, since this was now private research, conducted legally outside the United States, that he intended to join their first Ayahuasca session this evening not as an observer but as a participant. ‘I need to see this kind of experience from the inside,’ he admitted.

Now, as she picked her way back across the crowded floor of the
maloca,
Leoni saw that Bannerman lay on his back on one of the thin mattresses they’d all been provided with, his eyes closed, his features composed, totally silent. In the very faint light cast by the candle she couldn’t even be certain he was breathing but she suppressed an urge to check as she stepped past him.

She and Bannerman had been placed on one side of the
maloca,
on the shaman’s left, with Bannerman closest to the shaman. Mary Ruck and Matt were on the other side, with Mary closest to the shaman.

The shaman was sitting cross-legged on the floor near the middle of the rear wall of the room with his little table in front of him and the two rows of mattresses arrayed on either side of him. Next to the flickering candle, in the middle of the table, was a bowl full of
mapacho
cigarettes, thick as rifle bullets. As well as an assortment of crystals and various small figures of wood and bone there was a bottle of
Agua Florida,
a cheap local cologne. Together with the tobacco, Mary had explained earlier, it was believed to clear dark energies from the room. There were also two
chacapas,
bundles of dried leaves bound together in such a way that when they were shaken they produced a rhythmic and hypnotic susurration.

For a short while during the first hour of the ceremony, the shaman had stood to sing eerie high-pitched songs called
icaros,
and had shaken the
chacapas.
But now he sat stock-still on the floor, his skin the colour of shoe leather, his back straight, his black eyes sparkling in the candlelight. He was just a little guy – probably not more than five feet, Leoni guessed – but he had something about him, she couldn’t quite put her finger on what, that made him seem bigger than that.

His name was Don Emmanuel Alvaro, and Mary had made a big deal about how lucky they were that he had agreed to ‘hold the space’
at their ceremonies. He was eighty-six years old, not a
mestizo
but a full-blood Shipibo Indian who had been preparing Ayahuasca since the age of fourteen.

Well, great.

Except so far his brew had done nothing for Leoni.

No sooner had she asked for a second cup than Mary Ruck crawled forward over her mattress, where she’d been lying at Don Emmanuel’s feet, and reminded Leoni that the shaman didn’t speak a word of English. ‘It’s a bit early to have a booster,’ she advised. ‘The brew can take a while to kick in. Maybe you should wait another hour?’

Leoni sat next to her and responded in a whisper, ‘I don’t think so. This Aya just isn’t hitting me, and I need it to hit me.’ She looked Mary up and down: ‘It doesn’t look like it’s hitting you, either.’

‘It is,’ Mary replied: ‘Believe me. But I’ve been drinking for ten years. After a while you learn how to walk in both worlds.’

Despite her Anglo name, Bannerman’s anthropologist friend claimed Native American descent on her mother’s side and looked like a Spanish diva. She was in her late thirties, a sexy, tanned, full-figured woman with world-weary dark eyes and thick raven-black hair that cascaded over her shoulders. ‘The effects will come on soon enough,’ she said. ‘Be patient and you’ll see. It’s good not to be too eager with Ayahuasca.’

But Leoni was adamant: ‘I need that second cup.’ She was counting on Mary’s support. Nothing of her story had been held back and now the older woman wrapped her arms around her in a warm and deeply sympathetic embrace. Then she said a few words in Spanish to Don Emmanuel who gestured Leoni to come closer. As she did Matt got to his feet, hurried to the door and disappeared outside. A moment later Leoni heard the sound of vomiting.

Don Emmanuel was looking Leoni over, as though measuring her. When he was satisfied he reached out to his table, lifted the grubby plastic bottle containing the Ayahuasca brew – dark, almost black, with sinister red tones deep in its heart – shook it several times, and unscrewed the cap. There was a faint
hiss
and a reddish-brown froth rose up in the neck of the bottle and spilled over the top. Don Emmanuel allowed it to drip to the floor and poured what looked like three ounces of the brew, still slightly foaming, into a stained ceramic cup. He set the bottle back on the table and screwed
down the cap again. Then he lit a
mapacho
cigarette from the candle, picked up the little cup and blew clouds of tobacco smoke into it while muttering words in a language Leoni did not recognise. Finally he passed the cup over to her, holding it with both hands, and indicated she should drink.

She took it from him and was hit at once by the indescribable smell of Ayahuasca. It caught in the back of her throat and made her gag.
Uggh!
She looked down and shuddered again at the red-black sheen of the thick syrupy liquid, wrinkled her nose, raised the cup to her lips and drank it in two gulps.

Argh!
That taste!
Uggh! Yecch!
Somehow a thousand times worse than the first cup. A horrible gut-cramping amalgam of cheesy feet, raw sewage, jungle rot, sulphur, vinegar and chocolate that seared her oesophagus on the way down and now lay in her stomach like battery acid.