Nirvana Effect (43 page)

“Kill him, Manassa!” shouted someone in the crowd.  The rest of the crowd
joined in the yelling.

One of the inner circle
stepped up and
whispered in Manassa’s ear.  Edward could make out what was said by his lips.  “There is no need to take a challenge from him.  He is not a member of the tribe.”

Manassa looked at Edward, then checked out the crowd.  It was the same look he’d
had while
sparring with the panther
as he waited
for an audience to build. 
He
’s building his mythos.  He won’t pass this up
.

“I challenge
you
, servant, once my champion!
” proclaimed Manassa.
 
“
Your people shall come to learn the Onge rule!”  And in
Latin
, Manassa said quietly, “Edward, you are a fool.  You are dying.  You may be in trance now, but that will soon wear out, and when it does, that poison will kill you.  I will keep
you in trance, and help you, I’
ll even give you the antidote, if you will just show me what you did to make the pill.”

“I WILL CRUSH YOU!” answered
Edward in Onge
, non sequiter
.  The crowd was taken aback.  Here was a
white
man with quite a bark
.

Edward
strained against the bindings.  He fel
t his muscles almost pull.  The
ropes loosened slightly and h
e wiggled free
.
He sprang up at th
e ready on his own two feet. 

The poison was still just in his
right
arm
, making it feel a bit too heavy
. 
He wouldn’t be able to contain it as well while he fought
. 

Edward
steadied himself.  He
felt dizzy. 
Tomy had given him q
uite a blow to his head.

Edward
saw a knife flit out of Manassa’s belt.  He almost didn’t see the gun.  In one smooth motion,
Manassa
pulled a pistol
to
his hip and fired.  The bullet slid out of the barrel.  Edward whipped his body to the right instantaneously and the shot whizzed past and buried into the truck behind him. 

He saw Manassa shoot again.  Edward rolled forward
and
the bullet
passed overhead
.  Manassa
kept firing
.  Edward leaped out of his roll, flying over the third shot.  His eyes were locked with Manassa’s.  He knew the timing of
the god’s
sho
o
t
ing
by the tensing of
his
muscles. 
Edward
was only a few yards away, now. 

Manassa aimed the gun at
Edward’s
torso.  Edward slid in reaction, but Manassa waited to shoot until after Edward committed. 
Edward
twisted sideways but the bullet nicked
his
arm.  He felt the poison start spreading again as his body adjusted to the shock of impact.

Edward
hammered Manassa’s gun hand
and sent
the weapon flying.  He followed up with a high kick, which Manassa took in the jaw
.
  Manassa
reeled
back and lost his footing, sla
mming into the ground.  The villagers
gasped. 

“The white man is a god…a devil…he is a Christian devil…he might kill our god…we must stop him…we cannot stop the challenge…don’t do anything.”  In his peripheral vision, he saw an Onge train his gun on Edward.  Still, he did not fire.  He would honor the challenge, for now.  Once it was over, however, it would be free reign to slaughter the whites.

Edward caught Callista’s gaze again.  She had not wavered. 
He caught no sadness on her face
. 
She looked
tense
but
determined.  She had not given up.

Manassa launched himself back to his feet with snakelike
precision
.  He charged Edward with
his
knife.  Edward waited for him to slash, blocking
Manassa’s strike
by slamming his kni
fe wrist with his fist.

Manassa didn’t let
go
this time
.  He jabbed at Edward, who dodged
Manassa
deftly and then got hold of his wrist.  He
violently
twisted the Onge’s arm.  The knife fell to the ground.  Edward followed up with a
body
throw
, sending Manassa flying.  Edward jumped to land on Manassa with his knees and fist, but Manassa rolled out from under him before he hit the ground
and pulled away.
 

The poison was moving, now. 
Edward
couldn’t stop it, not with h
is heart rate up, not with needing to
use his right arm. 

The limb
felt heavy and numb. 
I’ve got to take him out quick
ly
.
 
Edward
remembered
Nockwe’s duel with Dook.  Nockwe had tried to
eliminate
Dook in
the first
minutes.

Manassa
knows I’ll try the same thing.

Edward lunged for the knife.  Manassa grabbed him and t
ried to throw him. 
Edward grappled him
and reversed the throw, sending
Manassa back
down to the ground. 

Manassa pulled himself up, but Edward was right there with punch after hook.  Manassa was unable to block all
the blows
and took a few to the face.  He dropped again.

The crowd was in an uproar. 

Manassa took back the initiative, throwing
an upper cut
from the g
round.  Edward tried to block
, but there was so much force behind it that Manassa stil
l managed to get the blow to Edward’s
jaw.  Edward
reeled back,
blocking as Manassa followed
with blow after blow.  Gradually Manassa started getting in licks on Edward’s right side.
 
Punch, block, kick, block.  Edward’s arms and shins
started aching.  He shut
off the pain
.  He knew Manassa had the same level of pain tolerance. 
Edward knew he’d have to practically decapitate Manassa to stop him while in trance.
 

Edward’s right arm grew useless.  More blows got through
his defenses
.
Manassa’s fists
came
faster and faster.  Each hit was punishing. 
Manassa
had a lot more muscle than Edward.  He broke Edward
’s nose.  Blood dripped everywhere.
 

Edward realized too late that Manassa had been positioning him.  In an impossible move, Manassa punched twice, kicked twice, and then somersaulted backwards, picking up the dropped knife as he flew.  From there he launched with his fists flying.  Edward had to block the left hand with the dagger, which left the right to jolt him down to the ground.

He could not see Mahanta, only the
gravel
, but he saw the future.  It had a knife through his back, puncturing his heart.

Only, instead, he heard a familiar voice.

“
At’tan!  At’tan!
”

Where is Bri?
  Nockwe first looked for his wife when he reached the encampment.  He feared for his family’s safety first and foremost.  She was in a crowd - the whole village was gathered in an oval.  He watched them by the dawn light. 

He was alone. 
The car had broken down, so he had finished his trip by foot. 
He had run the whole way.  The others were far behind him.

He pushed through the mass of villagers and touched her elbow. 
“Where are the children?” he asked.

“They are
with their grandmother, farther from the coast
,” she answered.  
Near the jungle.
 
That was wise.  There is great safety in the jungle.

“What’
s happening?” he asked.

“Go to the front, quickly.  Manassa fights the white man.”

The man who saved my life.
  Nockwe plunged through the crowd.  His wife followed in his wake.  He didn’t want her to, but there w
ould be
no stopping her.  They reached the front of the circle.

He couldn’t help but
think about
his
duel with Dook
,
and Edward’s intervention
.  He pushed
thoughts of honor aside.  If he were to save
his village from this tyrant, he would need to
wait for
his opportunity.  It would not be now, with village burned and his people homeless, and all of the tribe’s resources under Mahanta’s
thumb
.

Nockwe watched the rhythms of the duel. 
Ma
h
a
nt
a was winning. 
The Onge
god landed a heavy blow to Edward’s face.  It looked like he broke the white man’s nose
. 
Mahanta seized the initiative, striking furiously and recovering his knife.

Bri grabbed Nockwe’s arm.  “Nockwe,” she shouted
over the din of the crowd
.

He looked back at her
.  She sounded disturbed.

“Look at
her
,” she said, p
ointing to a young white woman
held hostage by two warriors.  “That is the savior of our child.  That is her.  And this is surely her death.”

Edward jerked his head
up
.  He saw Mahanta
, mid war cry
, coming down with the knife.  He saw a dark blur that yanked Mahanta’s body to the side like a rag doll. 

Edward tried to scramble away.  The poison didn’t let
him.  It was sapping his whole body of life.
Edward
only managed to drag a few feet to the side.  He turned to where the blur had gone.

Nockwe! 
The knife
which had spelled Edward’s death
was nowhere to be seen.  Mahanta had rolled with
Nockwe’s
tackle
, and
the chieftain
let
the god get his bearings before the challenge bega
n in earnest. 

Nockwe had intervened.

All around Edward,
t
he crowd
was
in uproar. 
Edward forced his thoughts inward.
 
He had to focus. 
He had to stop the poison.

I
’ve
got
to help Nockwe.  He isn’t trancing.  He isn’t even in the lightness.  Ma
nass
a will murder him.

“Nockwe!” Edward yelle
d weakly.  He could not get any
force
behind
his voice.  The poison must have
moved further
than he thought.

Nockwe turned.  Edward grabbed the pill from his pants and threw it at Nockwe
’s head
.

“
Under the tongue
!” Edward yelled as it
flew
toward his face. 
Manassa lunged toward Nockwe, but the chieftain
caugh
t it in his mouth with his hand before Manassa could reach him.

Manassa clipped Nockwe
, both rolling
to the ground.  They bounced to their feet
, circling, their fists in the air before them.

Manass
a spoke once more in traditional Onge.  “Do you test the lord, your god?”

Nockwe answered in a rage, “We shall see if you’re still a god without a beating heart.  We shall see if they’ll worship you after you’re dead.”

“Enough!” shouted Manass
a.  He
attacked Nockwe in
rage
.  Edward could tell that the trance
had taken hold
in Nockwe, but
the chieftain
was making the same mistake that Edward had at first
.  Nockwe was sticking to Onge fighting-style
, rather than adapting his style for the moment.  M
anassa
was much more fluid, much more agile, and was getting in blows.  Nockwe was on the defensive.