by Scott Meyer
Brit instantly understood what he meant. She yelled, “Hold on,” and pushed the tiller to the right. The cart rattled and groaned. The inside wheels stayed on the ground, but only just. Roy tried to help by jamming his full weight into the brakes. He had been babying them, but now he knew it was all or nothing. The cart had reached the end of its usefulness, and he could save the people he was with, or he could save the brakes. It was an easy choice. He peered over the shield and saw that the creature had drifted to the right.
Brit slowly pushed the tiller a little farther to the right. Martin and Gwen held on, white knuckled, to the inside edge of the cart bed, but the force of the turn was pulling them toward the other side. Brit pushed the tiller farther still. Now the left wheels were in the air. Brit feared they would break under the strain. Roy was clinging to the brake lever like a sea captain clinging to the mast in a typhoon. Martin and Gwen looked like they were hanging from the edge of a roof, not lying on the bed of a cart.
Roy yelled, “A little more, Brit!” He continued leaning hard into the brakes, but he heard and felt a snap; then the lever went limp. He didn’t know what had broken, but the brakes were out of commission.
Brit gritted her teeth and pushed the tiller just a hair farther. There was a scraping noise from the shield, and the cart had no power. Brit heard heavy footsteps recede to her right, but she was far more concerned about the cart, which was still teetering on two wheels in the middle of a tight turn and now had no forward impetus.
It teetered for an instant. Brit swung the tiller back past the center, and the cart fell heavily back onto four wheels and coasted forward on its own momentum.
Brit closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. She drew in a lungful of air, opened her eyes, then shrieked, “Brakes!”
They had come out of the turn aimed almost directly at the edge of the canyon. They had lost some speed, but they were still rolling fast enough that jumping off the cart into the darkness in a rocky desert was an unappealing prospect.
Roy saw what Brit saw, and yelled, “No brakes! Turn!”
Gwen lurched for the middle of the cart, shouting, “No! Keep straight! Straight!”
Brit immediately knew what Gwen meant, and did as she was told, steering directly for the cliff. Gwen grabbed a stick that was tied to a cord that disappeared between the floorboards of the cart. She yanked the cord hard.
Beneath the cart, the cord was tied to a second cord, which was threaded through some small notches in the cart’s frame. The second cord terminated on both ends at identical, folded bundles of the tough fabric of Roy’s former trench coat. The bundles were square and tied up like little gift-wrapped presents. When Gwen pulled the cord, the bows holding the bundles untied. The bundles unfolded into long strips of material six feet long and five inches wide. The free ends were weighted with lead. The other ends were nailed into the frame of the cart and reinforced. The bundles were positioned in front of the rear wheels. Because the cart was going perfectly straight, when the fabric hit the ground it was drawn beneath the rear wheels. The fabric pulled tight. The wheels stopped turning. The cart made a sound like it had been hit with a wrecking ball, but the wheels pressed the fabric onto the ground and the cart came to a stop.
Brit said, “That could have been worse.” The cart was on solid ground. The cliff was still at least ten feet away. She turned around and smiled at Gwen, who was crouched in the bed of the cart with the ripcord in her hand and a relieved look on her face. Martin laughed.
Roy said, “I knew it would work,” in a tone of voice that said otherwise, then looked back over the shield behind them. That’s when he saw the dirt beast rapidly approaching.
Roy shouted, “Jump! Jump now!” Then he led by example, diving off the cart.
Gwen and Brit leapt off the cart, landing hard on the desert floor. Gwen looked back to the cart and saw Martin standing as if preparing to jump, but not moving. His right leg twitched rhythmically as he watched the dirt beast closing in. Martin only waited a moment longer than the others, three seconds at most, but they were three very important seconds.
Some of the earth elemental’s targets had scattered, but one was still directly ahead. The algorithm that governed its actions saw no need to recalculate. It continued running straight ahead at full speed.
Martin held the shield-wall to brace himself, then glanced to the cliff edge. He waited approximately one half of one second, then jumped. The elemental struck at an angle, spinning the cart slightly while shoving it forward. The impact was substantial, and the cart lurched forward with surprising speed. The front wheels of the cart had already crossed into thin air by the time Martin’s feet had left the cart. He didn’t allow for this sudden forward speed when he calculated his trajectory and found himself flying through the air sideways, toward the cliff’s edge. He landed on solid ground but desperately clawed at the soil with his hands while his feet swung out into the abyss.
The dirt creature noted Martin’s jump and attempted to change its course, but it was far too late. Instead of simply following the cart over the edge, it veered off as if attempting to pass the cart as they both went over the edge and were swallowed by the darkness.
Brit, Gwen, and Roy were still too stunned to move. They were panicked from the close call, confused from Martin not jumping with them, impressed at his quick thinking, alarmed at his nearly going off the cliff anyway, delighted when Martin’s plan worked, and relieved when he came to a stop safe and sound. Now they were standing there with all of those emotions still swimming in their systems. In the distance, there was a dull, quiet crashing noise as Martin pulled himself to the safety of solid ground and bellowed, “My name is James Tiberius Kirk!”
Only Gwen got the joke, but that was enough for Martin.
The others advanced on Martin, making sure he was really okay. Then they looked over the edge into the canyon below. The floor was alive with flowing rivulets of lava. They branched off of one another, flowed away and around seemingly random dark shapes that were only visible for their failure to emit light, then reconnected to continue flowing down the ravine. They knew that what was left of the cart and what was left of the dirt creature were down there somewhere, but even with the light from the lava, it was impossible to know where in this light, and at this distance.
Gwen said, “Roy, not one crack about women drivers, okay?”
Roy said, “Of course not. One just saved my life.”
30.
Jimmy asked, “Was that the earth elemental?”
Phillip said, “I’m not sure.”
Whatever it was, it had fallen out of the night with almost no warning, along with what appeared to be a large heap of wood and metal. The wood and metal landed frighteningly close to where they’d been sleeping. The other thing landed on the edge of the lava flow and exploded into a cloud of dust.
There was a dark spot where it had landed, and for a moment, that spot was vaguely man-shaped, but half of it was on the surface of the slowly flowing lava, and the man shape grew disconnected and deformed. The dust floated, suspended in the air, then began to move, as if propelled by a strong breeze toward the dark spot drifting away in the river of rock. The dust coalesced into a cloud, which compressed into a form and hardened into the earth elemental, which immediately sank to the waist and began melting into the lava.
The elemental faced the wizards and moved its arms as if it were walking toward them, but with each passing instant more of it was consumed into the flow. It would have been tempting to think the creature was merely partially submerged, but the dark brown slick that was spreading out from where its body met the surface of the flow told a different story. The slick grew redder and brighter the farther away from the creature it got until finally it was just more molten rock. The elemental’s head was the only part still visible by the time it was pulled around a bend and out of the wizards’ view.
“Yup,
” Tyler said. “That was the earth elemental.”
“To think, it re-formed and chased us all this way,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, it seems crazy,” Phillip said, “but that’s the only logical explanation.”
“Doesn’t explain this, though,” Tyler said, turning his attention to the mangled pile of scrap lumber that had accompanied the elemental back into their lives.
After a brief examination, Phillip said, “Looks like it was a cart, maybe?”
Tyler said, “The cart must have gotten hung up on the elemental at some point between here and where we left it.”
“No,” Jimmy said, “no, if there’d been a cart between here and the bog where we fought Pigpen, we’d have seen it.”
“Yeah,” Gary said. “The last cart like that we saw was in Bowmore.”
Tyler said, “Yeah. Wait, what?” Tyler closed his eyes and sighed. “Oh man, he’s right. There was a cart in Bowmore. It was the first thing we passed on the way into town.”
Phillip and Jimmy both closed their eyes, trying hard to remember, and regretting it deeply when they did.
“Why didn’t any of us remember that until now?” Phillip asked.
“Never mind that,” Jimmy said, looking at Gary. “Why didn’t you mention it back when we were looking for a way to carry the blade? You clearly remembered the cart just fine.”
“Well, I thought about it,” Gary said. “But I realized we couldn’t use it.”
“Why not?”
Gary shook his head as if the answer were obvious. “It was an oxcart. Jimmy, do you have an ox?”
The other three men groaned in unison, like a barbershop quartet whose tenor just called in sick.
Tyler said, “Gary, just because it’s meant to be pulled by an ox doesn’t mean we need an ox. We could have put the blade in it and pushed it ourselves.”
Gary looked at the others, wheels turning in his head. A look of comprehension flickered across his face. “Wow.” He gasped.
“Yeah,” Tyler said.
Gary whispered, “I didn’t realize . . .”
Tyler nodded. “See it now, do you?”
“Yes,” Gary said. “You guys really think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Of course I considered putting the blade in the back and pushing it. That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Then I thought about it for five seconds and I saw what a bad idea it was.”
Tyler said, “I don’t know about that.”
“Then let me explain. First off, that cart weighed a ton. It was meant for horses or oxes or something to pull, not four out-of-shape guys. It wouldn’t have been like pushing a stalled Toyota in a parking lot. We’re talking about wooden wheels on rocky terrain. Second, did you look at the path we were going to be traveling? From where we stood at the time, it looked like it was going to be mostly downhill, so we couldn’t pull from the front or push it from behind. We’d have had to pull on it from behind to keep it from going out of control, and that would have been really hard.”
“Well, maybe we could have ridden it down the hill,” Phillip offered in a quiet voice.
Gary shook his head. “That’s just dumb. We’d have crashed and broken our necks, even if we didn’t have the magic cuts-through-everything blade in the cart with us. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Todd left it there for us as a trap, hoping we’d pull a Calvin and Hobbes and kill ourselves.”
Jimmy said, “We could have rigged up some brakes or something.”
Gary rolled his eyes. “It had a kind of parking brake thing, but it wouldn’t have stopped the cart if it had any speed. We’d have had to improve the brakes, and none of us have the know-how to do that sort of thing. No, I see now that I should have mentioned it to you guys, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. Now, are we gonna stand here questioning every decision I’ve ever made, or since we’re all awake now, shall we get on with it?”
Five minutes later they were on the move. As with every other part of the quest, the terrain forced them to go a certain direction. In this case, the spot where they’d slept was surrounded on one side by a sheer cliff and on two sides by an impassable expanse of hot orange lava emitting smoke so thick you couldn’t see halfway across the flow, let alone the far bank. The only options were to either climb back up the cliff wall or follow the land along the lava flow’s bank for as long as it lasted.
It didn’t last long. They walked “upriver” for less than ten minutes before they rounded a bend. Shortly before the bank disappeared, it was connected to one of the rocky islands in the middle of the flow by a thin, precarious bridge, as if the lava had eroded straight through a large boulder, leaving two islands and a thin tendril of rock between them. Beyond that island there were many more islands, piles of dangerous, sharp rocks surrounded by dangerous molten rock. The islands were just different enough from one another to seem essentially interchangeable. Each island was connected to at least one other by a rocky bridge, but many of the islands seemed to be dead ends. They were sure that this was the only way forward, but toward what?
They stood and gaped for a moment. Jimmy said, “What could create something like this?”
Tyler shook his head. “Some guy who wants to make a maze.”
Phillip crossed the first bridge. It narrowed to only a foot wide in the middle, which would seem easy enough to balance on when you’re walking on the ground, but suspended over a moving stream of foul-smelling fiery death, it might as well have been a tightrope. Tyler, Gary, and Jimmy took turns, two of them carrying the blade across the lava. Like spreading your arms, carrying the blade actually made balancing easier, if more terrifying. Phillip’s right arm was still in a sling. He had to trust his inner ear to keep him out of the lava.
After two hours of balancing on narrow bridges while breathing in mystery fumes and roasting from beneath, they reached the far side of the flow. Resting against the black canyon wall, looking back the way they’d came, they couldn’t see the far side where they’d started. They had intended to stop and take a breather, but the air quality did not encourage breathing. They had all wrapped whatever fabric they could spare around their noses and mouths, and their inhalation had created black soot stains over their mouths and nostrils. Phillip hated the idea that if not for the torn bit of T-shirt fabric stretched over his face, all of that would be in his lungs. He tried not to think about all the stuff that had made it through the T-shirt.
They followed solid land for as far as they could and soon found themselves at the source of the lava. The canyon walls towered over their heads, extended out in front of them, and met at a single point. Beneath that point, a crease where the walls merged ran down to a fountain, spewing wild gouts of lava from beneath the surface of the earth. Viscous, orange blobs of hot liquid minerals spurted from the orifice as if the planet’s artery had been severed. The sustained roar was low and loud enough that they felt it in their ribcages. The lower part of the spray merged with the existing lava to form the source of the flow they’d been following. The upper portions of the plume hardened and cooled in midair, then rained down, landing with enough force to crack open on the rocks or make small splashes in the lava flow.
Some trick of convection caused a steady wind to blow out, away from the fountain of rock, pushing all the fumes and particulate debris away from this part of the canyon to collect in a thick cloud downstream. The very cloud they had just walked through.
The flow started fairly high on the canyon wall, then split around a large, almost perfectly circular expanse of flat, bare rock big enough to serve as parking space for several buses. The lava flow rejoined itself and continued down the canyon from that point, and there were several more of the rocky islands connected by bridges that all seemed to lead to the large, round island. Also, because of some quirk in the way sunlight filtered down past the surrounding walls and pierced into the shade at the bottom of the chasm, there was a sort o
f natural spotlight shining in the center of the flat, rocky expanse.
“I may be reading too much into this,” Phillip said, “but I think Todd wants us to go over there.”
“Yes,” Jimmy said, “that’s what Todd wants.” Jimmy nodded to Phillip, then to Tyler and Gary. The closest thing they had to a plan was the simple rule “Don’t do what Todd wants,” but up until this point they’d had little choice. They had to complete the quest because it was their only hope of getting out alive. Now the quest was all but complete, and they all suspected that Todd would try to kill them anyway. This was their chance. As soon as they saw any opportunity to mess up Todd’s plan they would spring into action, unless that was what Todd told them to do.
They stood and scanned the area, examining their goal, the path forward, the ground on which they stood, the canyon walls, and the sky above. Finally, Jimmy sighed and said, “I think we have to go over there. I don’t see a choice.”
They navigated across the islands and the narrow bridges to the broad, flat stage. The smoldering fumes seemed to darken and intensify, making the single spot of light stand out even more. They stood along the edge of the stone disk for a long time, looking for the trap they knew was there somewhere.
Jimmy held up a single finger, telling the others to wait a moment before they proceeded, which seemed odd to Phillip, as none of them had indicated any intention of doing anything.
Jimmy let go of the blade, leaving it in the hands of Tyler and Gary, and took one large step forward. Nothing happened.
Jimmy took another step, with no result.
Jimmy lifted his leg to take another step, and suddenly the air was filled with the same defining voice that had ordered them to be silent when the quest began.
“You have done well,” the voice said. “And now you shall be rewarded. Bring the Möbius Blade into the light, and the identity of the chosen one will be revealed!”
