The Boy from Earth (9 page)

I remember my rocking horse vividly, my favorite plaything until I got too big. I kept him at the foot of my bed, and I loved him more than anything else in the world.

Here on Jupiter, he's alive and trapped in a cage by a snap-together monster. He looks up when he hears his name. I know he can understand me. My heart swells like a wet sponge. I care about him. I really do. I feel so bad for him.

“We've got to save him!” I cry. I forget about fate and free will and things working out the way they do. I cannot let Barnaby be taken to the Black Dey, and broken. I cannot.

I'm right above the cage now, close enough to see how the door works. Barnaby rocks himself over to where I am, and
whickers softly and very horsily. The appeal in his eyes is like a hook in my heart.

“Norbert,” I whisper. “I want you to distract the proteor while I get Barnaby out.”

–
How are you going to do that? You're hooked.

“Just do it, okay? Talk to him. You're a great talker. I need only thirty seconds or so. Ready? Go!”

Norbert called me a good friend. He's a good friend too. Even before I finish my sentence he's in the air, talking loudly. Sounds like he's pretending to be an image consultant.

–
So let me ask you this, Mr. Proteor: what were you
thinking
when you put yourself together this morning? Did you even
look
in the mirror? Because you left the house with only one eye. Do you know that? Have you noticed a lack of depth perception? I thought so. Dear, dear. You're going to have to pay more attention to yourself, Mr. Proteor. A little more
you
time, if you understand me. Oops! Careful there.

I check over my shoulder. Norbert is hovering near the box part of the crane. The proteor flails its crane arm across, narrowly missing him. Norbert keeps talking.

–
And I want to talk to you very frankly about your choice of shape….

I can't pull the hook out of my bathrobe belt, but I can untie the knot at the front. The ends of the belt fall, and the hook comes loose. I drop to the ground, landing gently in the snow. I run to the cage, slide open the latch, and reach for Barnaby. He struggles. He is a wild rocking horse, after
Mr. Proteor all. But he's not heavy. I gather him into my arms and hold him tight.

“Sorry, Barnaby,” I whisper. “I'm so sorry!”

He nuzzles me in the neck. His striped fur is soft and silky. His nostrils are pink and smooth. His heart beats loudly against my chest.

Time to go. I take a step and fall to the ground. Boy, does that hurt!

Barnaby leaps from my arms and stands nearby, quivering with fear.

I can't believe it. My foot's in a trap. A great big one, with jagged jaws and a spring. The trap is made of yellow and blue snap-together bricks, just like Barnaby's cage, which is … gone. Oh, oh. That was a fast transformation.

What'll I do?

Lying on the ground full length, I cast around for something to break the proteor's snap-together bonds and free myself. All I find are rocks. I keep looking.

I hear Norbert's voice.

–
I really think you'd do best to take yourself apart and start again. You're a proteor, right? Right? So you can be anything. Honestly, cranes with hooks are so last season. Windmills are even worse. Everyone remembers their windmill years. Now, are you a ladies' man at all, Mr. Proteor? You are? I thought so. You want the ladies to notice you? Sure you do. Well, here's a tip….

Another rock. I try again. My hands close on a heavy piece of metal. It's rusted, but unmistakable. A sword hilt. I pull it towards me. The sword rings on the stones. I
wonder how it got here. Some knight or warrior must have climbed to the top of the Sudden Mountains and fallen in battle to a proteor, leaving his weapon behind for me.

Whoever he was, he was awfully big for a jupiterling. My hand fits the hilt perfectly. The sword feels nicely balanced in my grasp.

A friendly weapon. I don't know how else to put it. My right hand tingles. It's like the sword is saying,
Hi, there. I've been waiting for you!

I've never held a real sword before, let alone a used one. Good thing it isn't complicated, like a computer or a car. The manual for our computer is 400 pages long. The typical sword manual would be a lot shorter:

• (1) Swing hard.
  

• (2) Cut enemy in half.
  

• (3) Repeat. Battle cry optional.
  

You'd get the whole thing on one page, even if you put the instructions in twenty languages.

Of course, if you make a mistake with a computer, you can just press the undo key. There's no undo key on a sword. If you miss your stroke and, say, cut off your own leg – well, that's permanent. Get used to hopping.

I'm afraid of cutting my leg off. I sit up straight, and lift the sword over my head. Gosh, it's heavy. I close my eyes, and let it fall.

What a noise it makes! Like a blacksmith's hammer striking the anvil. I open my eyes. The trap is in two wriggling pieces on the ground. The rock is chipped.

I'm free!

“Hey!” I cry aloud. The sword flashes excitement into me. This is a seriously powerful weapon. I mean, I wasn't even trying, and I cut right into the mountain.

I lift the sword, and strike again, and again. Take that, you stupid trap! The pieces split into more pieces. Two more chips appear in the rock. The sword itself is undamaged. It may be my fancy, but it seems lighter, as if it's happy to be used again, after all these years of lying on the mountainside rusting.

The pieces on the ground look like bugs. Nasty wriggling things. I slash at them in a frenzy, chopping them into
smaller and smaller pieces. The air fills with a hissing sound, like ice cubes popping.

–
Hey, Dingwall
, cries Norbert, from over my shoulder.
Stop playing with Excalibur. You can't kill a proteor by chop ping it up; you can only make more of them. We've got a minute while the big guy's transforming. Let's get going!

I take a step back. I can feel the sweat running down my body, under my space suit and bathrobe. The little things are wriggling in the snow. I kick at them in disgust.

Norbert's right. It's time to go. The crane is now a heap of wriggling bricks. They're turning into something, though. Something rectangular, with a handle on the short side. I don't want to wait and find out what it is.

I loop the belt of my bathrobe around the sword, and tie it on. I'm bringing it with me. Finally, I have a weapon. A good one, too.

Barnaby looks up at me with his big round eyes. He hasn't moved more than arm's length from me since I pulled him out of the cage. I'd feel so bad if I left him on the mountain with the proteor. And I feel bad enough about him already. “Come here, boy,” I say, kneeling down. He trots over. I pick him up and leap into the air. My slippers do the rest.

Norbert darts a quick interested look at the rocking horse under my arm, but doesn't say anything. He's watching the heap of bricks with a smile on his face and his antennae perked forward eagerly.

–
Hey, the big guy is following my fashion advice
, he says.

“What'd you tell him he should turn into?”

He coughs. –
A toaster.

I peer down. He's right. It's a giant two-slice toaster. Each slice of bread would be about the size of a door.

Barnaby struggles in my arms. I almost drop him, managing to grab him by the neck before he falls. And then he … well, relieves his discomfort. “Relieves” is the word, all right. I don't know if you've ever seen a horse relieve his discomfort, but it's pretty spectacular. My grandma used to sing a song about someone named Jeannie with the light brown hair, flowing like a river in the soft summer air. That's Barnaby, only it isn't his hair that's flowing.

It all lands on the proteor. Barnaby keeps going, producing a full and steady stream of … well, a full and steady stream.

–
Look out!
cries Norbert.

The proteor is attacking. A huge piece of plastic toast flies out of the slot, heading right for us. I dodge out of the way, keeping Barnaby pointed in the right direction. The toast missile falls to the ground. I aim Barnaby at the open slot.

He's amazing. Like the bunny on
TV
, he keeps going, and going, and –

–
Smoke!
cries Norbert.

I peer down. A wisp of black is leaking from the heart of the toaster. Something's gone wrong with the mechanism. “Good for you, Barnaby,” I say.

It feels good to hit back at the proteor. A personal message.
Say it with showers.

The smoke gets thicker and darker. Something is burning. The snap-together pieces begin to melt. From up here I can see the bumps and dimples disappear, the straight edges blur and warp. No more transforming for them. There's a loud grinding noise, and one side of the toaster collapses. Norbert and I cheer.

Barnaby's finished. I tuck him under my arm, and fly down the far side of the mountain. The slope is gentle and easy. The wind is gusty, driving a fleet of clouds across the sky like so many purple-gray battleships. Sun and moons peep from behind the clouds, and then disappear behind them again.

Lightning crackles ahead of us, and thunder follows close by. This would have been important to the Ancient Greeks, who believed there were spirits everywhere.
*
I'm more concerned about getting rained on.

It doesn't take us long to reach a plateau – high flat tablelands that stretch into the distance without a break. A sea of grass rippling in the wind.

“Welcome to the Plains of Ich,” says Norbert.

Barnaby is no part of the ancient prophecy. I decide to let him go. But when I release him on the grassy plain, he
stands there, looking at me. “Good-bye,” I say. “There's a little pond here, and grass. Have a nice life!”

He doesn't move. I shoo him away. He moves closer, and nuzzles my thigh.

Norbert is drinking from the pond. He comes back, wiping his face, looks at me and Barnaby, and doesn't say anything. After a moment I put the horse under my arm and take off again. Norbert follows me. I ask which direction we should head, and he shrugs his shoulders.

–
It's your show now, Dingwall
, he says.

It's a couple of hours later, and we haven't come very far in a straight line. I've been leading us all around the compass trying to avoid the storm, but I can't get the wind to stay at our backs for any length of time. The path of the storm seems to veer with us, so that there's lightning wherever we are headed.

I haven't found the Lost Schloss.

Not a sniff of it. Not close. The Schloss has got to be a big building, but I haven't even found a little building. I haven't found the Lost Bungalow. I haven't found the Lost Tent.

I'm not worried. I figure it doesn't really matter where I look for the Schloss. An orderly search is great if you know all about what you're looking for, but I'm looking for something only I can find. So it's all about me. If I'm supposed to fulfill the prophecy, I will. I'll find the castle when
it springs from the ground, or falls from the sky, or materializes out of thin air. Or when it turns up on the horizon.

The weather is exciting: wind and dark clouds up close; thunder, lightning, and rain in the distance. But the Plains of Ich are a mere flat infinity of waving grass, an unbroken disc of green stretching to all horizons, a front lawn for Insurance Nation. At this point I'd welcome the sight of a pile of dog poop just to break the tedium. I feel like an ant in the Astrodome.

We fly on. And on. I turn left, and left again. The horizon doesn't change. And then it does. I slow down and squint.

The deep purple clouds overhead part for an instant, so that a single shaft of light can drop like a fly ball into the middle of the landscape. It looks adventitious. At least, I think it does. Maybe I mean advantageous. Or truculent. I've never been sure what truculent means, but it sounds great.
*
Anyway, what I'm saying is that I notice this pop fly of light not only for its truculentness, but also because it glints off of something.

“Hey, Norbert!” I say, pointing.

There it is again. Another glint. I alter my course, shifting Barnaby under my left arm like a football. He's not much bigger than a football anyway. With difficulty, I draw
my new sword. I don't want to be caught by surprise. The weapon feels warm and alive in my hand.

“Look ahead, Norbert. Tell me what you see.”

He frowns, pauses.
– I see a settled land, under a strong king. I see a beautiful youth with a secret sorrow. I see children playing in a golden afternoon. I see treachery and murder, and the land in ruins. Then, for some reason, I see a tennis racket, and the six of clubs.

“Very funny,” I say. “What I meant was, do you see the knights up ahead? The sun glinted on their armor a minute ago.”

–
Yes, Dingwall. They're sitting down at a picnic table, eating and drinking. Their hair is the color of straw, and their mustaches fly in the wind like banners. There's a lake behind them.

My mouth fills with water at the thought of food. “Do you think they'd let us eat something too?”

–
There's enough on the table for an army! Anyway, they have no weapons that I can see. And they're waving at us.

By the time we get there they are on their feet, waving and calling cheerful greetings. As Norbert said, they have blonde hair and enormous mustaches.

I stop worrying. These guys are obviously friendly. And they're real people, not proteors. I put away my sword as they crowd around me. They're not too much smaller than I am. For Jupiter, they're pretty big.

“Pleased to meet you, flying travelers,” calls the biggest knight, in a voice of brass. He comes up to my chin.
“We've been expecting you. My name is Mount, and I am a knight of Ich.”

“Pleased to meet you, Sir Mount,” I say, bowing clumsily. “My name is Dingwall and I come from Earth. These are my friends: Prince Norbert of Betunkaville, and Barnaby, a rocking horse.”

Sir Mount salutes Norbert and strokes Barnaby's head. He introduces the other knights, who turn out to be his brothers. Their names are Vey, Mise, and Prise. Mise and Prise are twins.

“How do you do,” I say. “Sir Vey, Sir Mise, Sir Prise.” Vey has bulbous staring eyes, Mise has a long thin nose that crooks a little to the side, Prise has tufted eyebrows that point up all the time. They say they're pleased to meet me. They have English accents, like all the knights I've ever seen or heard of. They say “what” a lot, even when it doesn't mean anything. Kind of the way I say “kind of.”

“Sit down, what?” says Sir Prise. “You must be hungry.”

“Yes, yes,” says Sir Mise. “When I was a boy, I was always hungry. Still am, what?” with a laugh.

“What what?” say the others.

It's hard to take them seriously. Remember the uncle who used to throw you into the air when you were a kid? Who jumped into the pool with a loud splash, so that your mom shook her head? These guys are kind of like him – slightly alarming, but nice.

They have incredible mustaches. Sir Prise's is my favorite: a thick growth all over his cheeks, spreading almost up to his
eyes. He looks like he's peering at you through a window in an ivy-covered wall.

“What do you mean, you were expecting us?” I say.

Sir Mount blinks, as though I've asked a stupid question. “I don't know how else to put it,” he says. “We knew you had landed. We heard about your quest. We thought you'd come here. We
expected
you, what?” He nibbles at a raw carrot. Yuck.

Norbert and I sit down at a table the size of a tennis court. It's full of all of my favorite foods: fresh oranges and smoked sausages, fried peppers and cabbage rolls, spaghetti and meatballs, spareribs and corn on the cob, kung pao chicken and vindaloo curry, and taffy tarts. There are mountains of peanuts, fields of oatmeal cookies, forests of black licorice, and oceans of chocolate milk. There's more than that, but I don't have time to notice. I reach out greedily, filling my hands, my plate, my mouth.

–
Careful, Dingwall
, says Norbert quietly.

“Something more to drink, boy?” asks Sir Prise kindly. He's sitting next to me.

“Yes, please.”

“Oy, down there!” he shouts. “Oy, Vey, pass the cold cocoa for our guest.”

Norbert sits up eagerly. –
There's cocoa?

“Oy, yourself,” says Sir Vey. He passes the cocoa. I notice that he's got a carrot going too.

“Ahh, that was good,” I say, putting down my glass. “Now, you knights say you know my quest. Can you help me with it? I really want to find the Lost Schloss.”

The knights look at each other across the table. Eyebrows and mustaches are hard at work. Sir Mount takes the floor. “I think we can offer our mingled congratulations and condolences, boy,” he says.

“That's like good news and bad news, right?”

“The good news is that you stand at the gates of the Lost Schloss.”

I look around. I can't see it. Is it invisible? Are they making a joke?

“Okay, what's the bad news?”

Sir Mount raises an ironic eyebrow. “I think it only sporting to tell you that, when you have finished eating, you will have to fight us,” he says.

“Hear him!” says Sir Vey, nodding vigorously, so that the ends of his mustache bounce up and down like a cheerleader's pom-poms. “Hear him.”

“You see, boy,” explains Sir Prise, “we are the guardians of the Lost Schloss. Our lord and master is called the Black Dey of Ich. This is his food you are eating.”

Lightning flashes off to the right.

Norbert squeaks in dismay, spilling his cocoa.

I leap to my feet. I can't tell you how stupid I feel. I still don't see any kind of castle. I'll have to look later, though. The knights are on their feet, too, brandishing their carrots at me.