“Mr. Jones?” said Mrs. Russet.
“Yeah?” answered Billy, his gaze still planted firmly on the sand vortex that spun downward to infinity.
“Mr. Jones, pay attention!” she snapped. Billy turned to face his teacher. “Good. Your attention is critical for this—and, indeed, every—test. I am your Sponsor, so I will tell you a bit of what is going to happen.”
“Thank you,” mumbled Billy. In his amazement and fear at what had just happened, he had momentarily forgotten that he was there for a test. Now he did his best to ignore the eddying sand behind him and focus on Mrs. Russet as she continued to speak.
“As you may have guessed, you are not on Earth,” she said. Billy didn’t respond. He had guessed that, but didn’t think it was a good time to show how smart he was. Besides, a two-year-old would have been able to tell that this wasn’t Earth. “Where you are,” continued Mrs. Russet, “is a small meteor created in another galaxy expressly for the purposes of this test.”
“How are we breathing?” asked Billy. “I mean, there’s no air in space, right?”
Mrs. Russet nodded. “Indeed,” she said. She pointed at the pale blue glow that surrounded both her and Billy. “This is an air supply,” she said. “The point of this test is to see if you have any control over the Element of Earth, so I have isolated you from everything else as much as possible. There is no water here, no life other than you and me, no fire, and no air other than this little bit that surrounds us. And that will be gone within a few minutes, so you will have only a limited time to pass this test.”
“So what do I do? What’s the test?” demanded Billy, his sudden nervousness at the prospect of suffocating on a meteor in another galaxy lending desperation to his question.
“Again,” answered Mrs. Russet, “the primary objective is to survive.”
“But survive what?” asked Billy again.
“Survive that,” answered his teacher, nodding over Billy’s shoulder.
Billy turned around, and his face grew pale.
Up out of the maelstrom of swirling sand, something had appeared. Something terrible and ugly, massive and strong. At first all Billy could see was two long legs, pulling the monster up from the bottom of the sand whirlpool at the center of the valley. Each leg was as long as a bus, with eight joints that allowed the legs to bend as flexibly as a monkey’s tail. The legs were a deep gray, thick and gnarled, and Billy could tell instantly that they were made of some kind of stone. The legs had no feet. Rather, each leg ended in a single, wickedly curved stone claw: a nasty hook that tapered to a sharp point.
The two legs sank their claw-feet into the mouth of the maelstrom, hauling up the beast that was behind them. The two front legs were followed by two more, then two more, then two more. When it had finally pulled itself to the surface of the vortex, Billy could make out a total of ten legs along the rock beast’s thick body. The horrible fiend looked like a great scorpion, but each leg had one of those terrible curved claws in place of a foot, and the monster’s body was the size of an eighteen-wheeler big rig.
Like a scorpion, the beast had a tail, and the tail was articulated so as to allow it to curve in any direction. Rather than a scorpion’s barb, however, the tail ended in a trio of spikes that pointed in three different directions. Billy could tell just by looking at it that the three spikes would enable the beast to strike someone standing in front of it, by stabbing forward over its head—or where a head would have been if it had had a head—as well as allowing it to skewer attackers that stood on either side by sweeping the tail back and forth and using the two spears that pointed to its right and left.
Billy did what he thought was sensible under the circumstances. He did his best to faint. Then, in the middle of the action—he’d actually gotten his eyes to roll back in their sockets and was halfway to the ground—he thought that fainting might not be a good idea after all: who knew what a giant ten-legged rock scorpion would do? Maybe it would leave him alone. But then, maybe it would eat him, and if that happened Billy wanted to be awake to at least try to make a run for it.
Billy knew that in space, there was no air, so no sound could travel, and therefore he was surprised that he could hear the sound of the scorpion’s ten legs thudding against the earth as it turned to face him. Then he realized that the vibrations were traveling through the sand, and through the very bones of his body. He gulped as the massive stone that constituted the monster’s head turned a baleful glare upon him. The beast had no eyes, but its rock-head was pitted and cratered in such a way as to make it appear as though the scorpion had dozens of them. All of them were staring their blindly unblinking gaze at Billy, and to make the horrific image complete, there were two car-length mandibles on the bottom of the thing’s head. Billy couldn’t see a mouth, so he knew that those serrated jaws would have no other purpose than to tear, rend, and destroy.
The monster was on the other side of the vortex, the subterranean sand tornado standing between it and Billy. Billy didn’t have any time to be relieved, however, for at that instant the whirlpool stopped its motion, and the many-colored sand rose back up again to a level plane.
Billy turned to run, and found that he had already gone as far as he could go: the bare stone cliff face that surrounded all sides of this valley was right behind him. He swung back to face the hideous rock scorpion, and saw it scuttling towards him with huge lumbering strides that were surprisingly lithe and quick coming from a monster made of what must be over twenty tons of rock.
The monster reared up on its back four legs, its mandibles snapping against one another so hard that tiny plumes of dust flew up from them each time it happened. It was only a few feet away, and Billy threw up his hands in a futile protective gesture as the monster threw itself forward, its front legs arcing in to hook into Billy’s flesh on both sides before tearing him apart.
Billy closed his eyes and waited for certain death.
And, surprisingly, certain death didn’t come.
He opened his eyes. The scorpion was as still as…well…stone. Its two front legs were only a few feet away on either side of Billy, but the monster was utterly motionless, appearing to be suddenly lifeless. It was as though some insane sculptor had crafted the nightmare creation, decided very sensibly that no one would buy it, and had catapulted it into space where it came to rest on this lonely rock.
Billy couldn’t believe his luck. Then he realized that Mrs. Russet—whom Billy had quite forgotten about in the terror of coming face-to-face (or face-to-rock) with the monster—was staring at him. She was tapping her foot impatiently in the sand, tiny puffs of dust coming up in a beautiful rainbow of particles before settling to the ever-changing ground.
“Are you quite finished?” she asked.
“But…I mean…that is…,” was all Billy could say. He felt, deep inside, that any terrified running and/or screaming and/or almost fainting he may have just done was totally justified under the circumstances. Apparently Mrs. Russet thought differently, though. She had the irritated look of a person caught in the checkout line of a supermarket behind someone who has coupons for everything and wanted to pay for it all with bags of uncounted pennies.
“Now, as I was saying,” she said when Billy had managed to stop himself from blathering, “this test is the Test of Earth. This creature,” she said, gesturing at the rock scorpion, “is a Fizzle. A Fizzle—”
“I know what a Fizzle is!” said Billy, almost triumphantly. “Ivy told me. When we were in the anteroom. It’s…,” he furrowed his brow, trying to remember exactly what Ivy had said. “It’s a non-living creature that some of the Powers can make out of their Element, right?”
Mrs. Russet nodded. “Very good, Mr. Jones. But I suspect she did not tell you quite everything about Fizzles. For instance, each Fizzle requires some energy on the part of its maker. Right now, I am concentrating on two things: holding this rock scorpion together, and keeping it from moving.”
“What do you mean, you’re concentrat
ing on keeping it from moving?” asked Billy. “I mean, it’s just you, isn’t it? Fizzles are like remote controlled robots, right?”
Mrs. Russet nodded again. “For the most part, yes. But there is always a danger when creating a Fizzle that the magical creature will take on a bit of its own personality and life.”
Billy remembered how Vester’s Fizzles—the blue and red horses—had pranced and danced on their own, as though they were living creatures. He nodded at what Mrs. Russet was saying. “So you mean, some Fizzles aren’t totally under the control of the Powers that make them?” asked Billy.
“Correct. The greater the Fizzle, the more danger there is that the Fizzle will break loose and simply do what it wants to. For a lower level Power, the danger inherent in that is minimal, for its Fizzle will disappear unless the Power is touching it. However, for a greater Power—such as myself, if I may be so bold—there is a bit more danger involved if the Fizzle breaks free of its maker’s power. Because in that case, the Fizzle will continue to exist for quite some time, and there may be…unfortunate consequences when such a Fizzle is allowed to do what it wishes. For example,” she eyed the rock monster. “Eugene, here—”
“Its name is Eugene?” asked Billy incredulously.
“I made it, I can name it anything I want,” replied Mrs. Russet indignantly. “I had a fish named Eugene once, and I’ve always liked the name. Now don’t interrupt. We haven’t got a lot of time before your air runs out.”
Billy noticed how she didn’t say “before our air runs out,” and was filled again with that silent dread that he was coming to recognize so well.
“Eugene is quite a large Fizzle, and I imagine that if I were to lose control of him, he’d probably do quite a lot of damage to anything—or anybody,” she added pointedly, looking at Billy, “that was anywhere nearby.”
“Well,” said Billy with a forced smile. “It’s a good thing you won’t let that happen, ha, ha.” He literally said that, said “ha, ha.” He was trying for a reassuring laugh, but just didn’t have it in him. He didn’t think that was a sign of cowardice; he imagined even Rambo or the Terminator would probably have trouble laughing when standing between the hooked talons of a giant scorpion rock monster named Eugene. Plus, he had a very bad feeling about the way Mrs. Russet pursed her lips when he said hopefully that she would never let the monster out of her control.
Sure enough, Mrs. Russet’s next words did nothing to soothe Billy’s fears. “As you can see, Mr. Jones, there is nothing but sand and rock all around you. If you are a Power of Earth, it is very likely that your control over that Element will show itself now.”
“Why now?” he managed to squeak.
“Because people with the potential to do so are most likely to become Powers when their lives are in danger,” she responded. She turned to the cliff wall nearby, took out her beehive key, and inserted it into a keyhole that appeared at that moment. She turned the key, whispered the words that would activate the key, opened the door that appeared, and put one foot through into the blackness beyond.
“You have about three minutes of air left, I should think,” she said. “Good luck.” Then Mrs. Russet took a deep breath, stepped through the opening in the rock, and was gone, the cliff face sealing behind her as though she had never existed.
Billy had little time to notice all this, because the instant Mrs. Russet wished him luck, the rock monster moved.
It shook itself, as though confused. Its head moved left and right, throwing off whatever traces of magical control had kept it from tearing Billy apart. Then the monster refocused on him.
The monster reared up, its terrifying body standing on only one set of legs, the front legs curling and grasping at space eighty feet over Billy’s head, then the beast came crashing down with terrible speed, hurtling toward Billy.
Billy rolled away at the last moment, barely missing getting crushed by the impact of the scorpion’s body on the colored sand. The beast shook itself, dazed, then looked around to see where Billy had gone.
Billy was running across the valley floor, weaving between the scorpion’s huge legs, which were set like curved pillars in the ground. The sand below him pulled at his feet, making forward motion difficult, but Billy tried as best he could. He was aided, at least, by the fact that this place had lower gravity than Earth, so he was able to take great jumping strides and move faster than he normally would be able to.
The scorpion spotted him, and immediately the stone leg nearest to Billy raised up and then slammed down, narrowly missing him. The leg pulled up, leaving a curved crater in the sand where it had impacted. Again it smashed down, and again Billy barely missed becoming a Billy-ka-bob as he rolled away at the last second.
At last, he was out from under the scorpion’s body. But Billy was hardly free from danger. He looked over just in time to see the three-pointed tail whistling down at him, its tips so sharp that he thought he could see moonlight reflecting off them.
Billy ducked, rolling through the sand ungracefully, frantically trying to figure out how to get out of the mess he was in.
What would Mrs. Russet do? he thought. The answer his brain coughed up wasn’t at all helpful: She never would have let herself get in this situation in the first place, dummy.
Billy almost sighed. Here he was, a bizillion light years away from his house, about to run out of air if he didn’t get pulverized by a rock scorpion first, and his subconscious mind was being sarcastic to him. He just couldn’t get a break.
As if to answer that, the scorpion took another swing at him, which if it had hit would not only have broken Billy, it would have shattered him into a million twitching pieces. Billy ducked out of the way at the last second, however, and the spiked tail buried itself in the nearby rock wall. The scorpion pulled at it, but was clearly stuck, giving Billy a few precious seconds to run as fast as he could toward the other end of the tiny valley.
Come on, think! he shouted at himself. If I’m a Brown Power, what do I do?
He supposed that Mrs. Russet would have created an impenetrable rock fortress around herself, or made a great wave of rocks come ripping through the ground to crush the scorpion into sand. Most likely, she would have just thought about the scorpion dissolving, and it would have happened. But Billy had no idea how to make any of those things occur. He tried imagining them, hoping that was all he would have to do, but the only thing that happened was that the scorpion had time to pull its tail out of the cliff. The beast wheeled around on its many legs, again bringing itself to face Billy, and once more, the monster started lumbering after him.
Billy began wheezing. He thought at first it was just exhaustion from running across the sand, jumping and ducking and rolling to avoid the attacks of a homicidal space monster made of meteor. But then he realized it wasn’t mere physical exhaustion: his air supply was running out. He glanced down at his legs, which were pumping madly through the rainbow sand. Sure enough, the blue glow that had surrounded him was rapidly fading.
WHUMP! WHUMP! The scorpion’s footfalls were coming louder now, as though the titanic monster was angry that Billy had the nerve to stay alive this long. It came at Billy like an express train, and Billy once again had to roll away from a downward-curving leg. Sand exploded all around him, getting in his hair and eyes. The hooked leg had missed him by bare inches, and was still stuck in the ground right in front of him.
What Billy did next was insane. It was purely crazy.
It was also the only thing he could think of.
He took two huge steps, then grabbed the leg. He wrapped his arms and legs around it as tightly as he could. There were small craggy pits in the rock-leg, allowing Billy some foot and handholds.
The scorpion’s jaws clicked together again, the vibrations rattling Billy’s own teeth in his head. The monster pulled its leg out of the sand, taking Billy high up into the air with it. It shook its leg, trying to dislodge Billy, who was holding onto the leg with the tenacity of a woodland tick.
Billy refused to budge. His hands cramped, his leg muscles locked in quivering pain, but he wouldn’t let go. The scorpion shook harder, trying even more forcefully to dislodge him, but that didn’t work, either.
The monster paused, as though gathering its thoughts for a moment. Then Billy could swear he saw some of the thing’s eyepits widen with an idea. The rock monster hobbled on its nine unencumbered feet to the nearest cliff wall. It raised Billy up, and then he realized that the monster was about to scrape him off against the rock of the wall.
Billy saw the cliff face coming at him and knew that he was a goner. He concentrated as hard as he could on the rock wall that he was now speeding toward, trying to will it into becoming soft as pudding, or blowing into a million pieces, or turning to sand. Something, anything that would save him. But nothing was happening. He finally gave up wishing for specifically rock-related things to happen, and just settled for a more generic wish that anything would happen. Just so long as it would save him.
At that moment, Billy was suddenly gripped by a surprising feeling of calm. He was going to die here. There was nothing he could do about it. But he was at peace. As though nothing could really harm him, nothing could touch him. He didn’t know where the feeling was coming from, but he didn’t care. It was delicious as fruit to a starving man, this feeling, and Billy actually closed his eyes to savor it.
Then there was a noise.
It wasn’t a big noise, but nor exactly could it be called a small noise. Not a sharp noise, but nor was it a soft noise. It wasn’t particularly loud, but it was hardly quiet, either. It was as though the very stuff sound was made of were being released from a container, where it had been confined for a thousand years, and was now calmly but firmly making its presence known throughout the universe.
Apparently, even though it had no ears, the scorpion heard the noise as well, because it stopped trying to scrape Billy off its leg. Its head began moving back and forth in a rhythmic pattern, reminding Billy of a snake being charmed by some kind of wise man.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 15