The Trials of Avalon (or "An Iowa Yankee in King Arthur's Court")

[Ravilah]

Bobby Tremont had been to private school. He had worn glasses and a uniform with a blue blazer. He had been a member of the literature club. He had been the top student in the ninth grade.

He had been.

Black Monday and the stock market crash had changed all that. Oh, he still wore glasses--but the blazer, the lit club, and the school had all been left behind in Iowa. Now Bobby was an orange picker in Southern California, just like the rest of his family.

Bobby strolled down the unkempt street that led from the general store to the shack he now called home. He held a Flash Gordon comic under his pointed nose, clasped in hands that still reeked of citris. His parents would probably be angry when they saw how he had wasted five cents of his pay, but then again, they just as probably wouldn't notice him at all. Fifteen years of being raised by servants while Mom and Dad counted stocks and cruised the Riviera couldn't be dispelled by eight months of living in a two room hovel.

Using peripheral vision to navigate the dusty alleys, Bobby's lanky frame weaved around the scattered refuse and occasional stray dog. The comic book's offer of far away places and cosmic adventure absorbed almost all of Bobby's attention. That is why the man suddenly appearing in the dark alley came as such a complete surprise.

"Hey, kid. Wanna make an easy three bucks?"

Bobby stopped short and almost dropped the comic book--all thoughts of Flash and the vile Emperor Ming feld from his mind. The man looming in front of him wore a brown trench coat and a wide-brimmed fedora which cast a shadow across his face. Under one arm he held a small, brown paper package.

"You deaf kid? I asked if you wanted to make three bucks."
"What do I have to do?" Bobby said cautiously.
"Just take this package over to the factory on Grove Street, and give it to the man standing by the pumps. Here's a dollar now; come back when you've done it for the other two." A flash of white under the hat's shadow suggested a grim smile, as the man held out the package and a crisp dollar bill. Robert only hesitated for a minute before taking both of the man's offerings then dashing down the street. Three bucks! He could buy Flash Gordon comics for months! He could maybe get enough money down for a bike. No more walking to and from the orange groves. His racing thoughts suddenly skidded to a halt, grabbed by an unwelcome and unpleasant new thought. These guys were surely up to something illegal, and he was helping them. Then again, there was no proof that this was not on the up and up. Unfortunately, Grove Street was only two blocks away, so Bobby had arrived at the factory before his conscience could make up its mind.

The factory was a large, shoddy building, with few windows and a couple of billowing smoke stacks. The wooden, double doors were warped and noisy, but unlocked. Bobby stepped into the dark, steamy interior of the building, and almost turned back at once. Before both conscience and fear could turn him, however, another man's voice stopped him. "You the kid with the package?"
A smaller, older man stepped out of the misty vapors which filled the factory, fed by the three, make-shift steam engines that rumbled ominously in the background. Bobby simply nodded, wishing he had the courage to run for the cops. The older man beckoned Bobby closer, and despite himself, Bobby stepped father into the room. "Good boy," said the man, dressed, as Bobby now saw, in a nice, three-piece suit, "Hand me the package, and then go get your tip from Bruno." Bobby gave up the package, then slowly began to back toward the door.
The sound of the door slamming made him turn around. A tall dark figure now blocked the exit, his body little more than a silhouette in the shadow and mist. "How's business, Mr. Krindle?" came a low, cheerless voice, "Not up to anything too dangerous I hope."
The older man in the suit spoke in a voice laced with panic, "I'm not up to anything! Get out of my factory!" Bobby caught a flash of movement from the older man, and then saw the shape of a gun in his hand. The next moment Bobby heard a shot, but it came from the dark man at the door. Bobby ran. He ran deeper into the factory, hoping to find a back door or even a window. More gunshots followed, maybe some of them aimed at him specifically. A metallic clang preceded a sudden whish of steam as a stray bullet punctured one of the steam engines. Bobby was blinded by the enveloping cloud of shadows and hot steam, but he stumbled on in the dark, sweating from the heat and moisture. With a shock, his hands smashed into a wall. Feeling along its splintered surface, he felt the handle of a door, which he quickly opened and entered, ready to break into a run down the street.

 

[Ravilah]

But the door did not lead outside. If anything, Bobby had run into an even darker room. He could still feel the wetness of the steam on his face, but the new room was much colder than the rest of the factory, making him shiver violently. Instinctively, Bobby checked to see if the comic book still stuck out of his pocket before moving on. The room could not have been large, because Bobby's hands felt another wall after only a few steps, though this wall had the cold, rough feel of stone. Completely disoriented, Bobby tried to make his way back to the door. "Maybe I can hear if they've gone...or killed each other." The second thought formed a deep pit in his stomach.

After his tenth step Bobby knew he was not facing the right direction. "I should have hit the door by now, or at least the other wall." Just as he considered turning around again, his foot kicked something on the floor, accompanied by the sound of shattering pottery. "Great. With my luck, I've probably knocked over a Ming vase or something. Maybe these guys stash their stolen stuff back here. I'm an idiot. I never should have come here." Bobby bent to the ground, trying to figure out what he had kicked. His hands fell on several large, curved pieces of what felt like ceramic, though all the pieces seemed to be covered in something wet and slimey. "Oh, gross!" he said aloud, dropping the pieces to the ground with another crash.

Standing straight, Bobby suddenly realized that he could see somewhat. A vague, reddish light had been slowly growing, giving a sense of shape and dimension to the room. The walls of the room were apparently curved, forming a large circle. A huge, twisted shape dominated the center of the room, and Bobby squinted at it several times before recognition siezed his brain, throwing him back against the wall. The bared claws and horrible open maw of a scaly monster rose directly in front of him, the red light pouring from the creature's mouth. New sweat poured instantly from every pore on his body, then went instantly cold. It took a full minute for him to realize that it was a statue.

The ever-growing light now clearly revealed the scales, teeth, frills, and tail of what some artist had certainly intended to be a dragon. "I've wandered into China Town," thought Bobby with a sign of relief, "I didn't even know they had a China Town in Anaheim." He could now see that his foot had smashed a wide, but shallow, ceramic bowl, which had been filled with an oily liquid, colored black in the red light. Several such bowls made a circle around the dragon statue. But Bobby's curiosity was waning quickly as hunger and cold overtook excitement and fear. Walking around to the other side of the statue, he found the large double doors. Oddly, Bobby did not recall them being double doors when he had entered in the dark, nor quite so hard to push open (and hadn't there been a doorknob rather than a handle?), but the doors opened, at last, into a long, stone hallway. Statues of many strange creatures, though all much smaller than the dragon, lined the hall on both sides. "What happened to the factory?" thought Bobby," I'm sure didn't come in from this way. I must have missed the other door." He turned away from the hall of statues, only to have a sudden wave of heat hit him in the face. The dragon statue had begun to glow all over, and was radiating heat as if someone had just opened the mouth of an oven. Squinting into the light, Bobby's eye caught the sign of movement. At first he thought that the statue was melting, for one of its claws was starting to bend. But a moment later, the huge, horrible claw started to flex, rippling its long, spear-sharp digits.

Again, Bobby ran. If this was some sort of sadistic funhouse, he was not amused. All he wanted was a door that opened up on sunlight; he prayed as he ran down the statue-line hallway, telling God that he would never accept an offer of easy money again, just so long as he could find the way out. The floor unexpectedly lurched under his feet, which sent him sprawling. "This is not the time for an earthquake," he said out loud as he tried to stand. But the ground continued to tremble violently every few seconds, and Bobby had to grab the head of the nearest statue to keep his balance. Catching his breath, Bobby took a good look at the statues around him, and saw that aside from being terribly realistic, all of them rested on odd stone mounds rather than pedestals. The one across from him was a large, but strangely thin, cat-like creature, with six pairs of legs. The one he held was of a skeletal looking man with pointed ears, clasping a sword to his chest. The sword, Bobby noticed on his second glance, was actually real--glinting metalically in the statues's stone hands. Curiosity returned, and leaning his spectacled face close to the hilts, Bobby could clearly read the name "ROBERT" spelled in gold and red.

Another tremor rang through the hall, this time accompanied by a sound so terrible that both curiosity and surprise at finding his name on the sword both fled and vanished. The sound could be compared to either the opening of mile-high iron doors groaning under a thousand years of rust, or the roar of some pained and angry beast. In his current surroundings, Bobby's imagination tended toward the latter image. The tremor once again set Bobby off balance, and he toppled to the floor with a metalic clatter.

A metalic clatter?

Bobby turned his head, and saw that the sword lay a foot from his side. Then his eyes fell upon the statue of the skeletal man. The man's emaciated hands flexed much as the dragon's had done. Panic rising more than ever, Bobby turned to the statue of the cat-beast, and saw three of its six legs were pawing at the mound beneath them. Glittering bits of metal fell from the mound. Coins. The statues were all resting on piles of coins.

Curiosity, however, made no attempts at another visit. Bobby grabbed the sword off the floor, got to his feet, and continued down the hall at a sprint. The heavy, awkward blade made running more difficult, but Bobby felt the primal, unspeakable need to be holding something pointy and dangerous. In his peripheral vision, Bobby could see statues beginning to writh and move all around him. The floor still shook, and the horrible roar sounded twice more down the impossibly long hallway. With a surge of adrenaline, Bobby saw another set of double doors ahead. Hardly slowing, he slammed into the doors, which unexpectedly swung open effortlessly.

Daylight. Wonderful, blessed, blinding daylight shone from a cloudless blue sky. Cold, fresh, mountain air filled his lungs as he hurtled through the doors, only to find that no path or landing lay beyond them. Slipping on a ledge of loose gravel, Bobby went tumbling and sliding down the steep slope, rocks and dirt roiling around him. For one moment, Bobby felt himself free falling, then felt the air crushed out of his lungs as he landed, his skull rebounding against a hard surface. Instinctivley, Bobby tried to feel if his comic book still stuck out of his back pocket. It was his last thought before everything went black.

 

[Ravilah]

As he opened his eyes, Bobby wondered why his bed was so uncomfortable. As he shifted his body, piles of dirt and gravel slid around him, reminding him of what had happened. "I fell," said a passing coherent thought. His legs and his back greatly resented the attempts to climb out of the dirt that half buried him; and his head throbbed so badly his eyes watered. Despite the pain, however, Bobby got to his feet, and could finally observe where he had fallen. He stood on the bottom of a tall, steep slope, the top of which could not be seen through a cloud of thick mist high above. Around him lay scattered bits off pebbles and rocks, along with larger boulders and rocky outcroppings. Below him stretched a landscape of thick, dark forest, all the way to the horizon. The crispness of the air confrimed it: he was on the side of a mountain.

Bobby rubbed his bruised shoulders, letting his thoughts sort themselves out. It was miraculous that he hadn't broken any bones; he had no fat and little muscle to help soften the blows he had taken on his way down the slope. But everything still seemed to work properly, if painfully. His legs could walk, and his arms could still bend. He flexed an empty hand. The sword. His eyes scanned the rocks until he saw the glint of steel and gold sticking out of a dirt pile. Bobby retrieved the blade from the dirt, and lofted it awkwardly with both hands. This, surely, belonged to some antique dealer or British museum. Those guys in the factory probably stole it, along with all those statues. Memory of the statues was like ice water in his stomach. The flexing hands and pawing feet sent shivers through his mind. He abandoned the thought.

"I need to get back to town," he thought, "I must be somewhere a bit north of Anaheim." He knew that there were mountains and forests in Northern California, though if he had known how far they were from Anaheim he would never have made such foolish conclusion. Dragging the sword in his left hand, Bobby looked for a way down to the forest floor. The rest of the mountian side sloped much more gentley than it did near the top, so he had little difficulty in making his way among the rocks. Before long, the rocks became interspersed with long grasses and wild flowers, followed soon by small, hardy trees. As the scenery grew more verdant, the sun began to set, casting long shadows and turning the sky a blazing orange and violet. He couldn't have journeyed far, but in his battered condition, he felt like he had run fifty miles. On top of that, he could hardly remmeber ever being so thirsty.

As the sky grew less orange and more deep purple, Bobby's ears caught the delicious sound of rippling water. He groped toward the sound, the sword bobbing in front of him like the stick of a clumsy blindman. Then, through the growing shadows, he spotted a row of small trees with drooping limbs, like willows. Passing through them, Bobby found a large pool gleaming at the base of a cliff, with a trickle of water splashing down from a hole in the rock face. A space of thick grass surrounded the water, and the willows pressed in from all sides like a garden wall. Bobby stumbled to the water's edge and scooped up a glittering handful. He paused for a moment as a pang of guilt washed over him. It wasn't exactly dinner (or even food), but Bobby said grace over the water, and asked God to forgive him for taking the gangster's money. That said, he started scooping liquid to his lips until he couldn't hold any more. No longer thirsty, hunger set in fiercely. But Bobby had gotten used to hunger by now, and being just shy of exhausted, he threw himself down on the grass and went to sleep.

He remembered dreams of haunting lullabies when he awoke. The blueness of the sky told him that he had slept late into the day, and the feeling in his stomach told him that he seriously needed some breakfast. But water was the only breakfast available, so Bobby rolled over to the edge of the pool and had another drink before getting to his feet. Getting to his feet proved to be a strangely difficult process. He stumbled twice, feeling oddly off balance. His feet, he noticed, were painfully sore, but the rest of him felt surprisingly free of aches and pains. He bent down to get the sword, and found it a great deal lighter than yesterday. He could hold the hilt with one hand, he realized, and it was then that he noticed what had happened. His hand. Whereas before he could clasp all of his spindley fingers around the hilt, his hands now had the large, strong digits of an athete. His eyes went from his hands to his arms, then down to the rest of his body. He had grown into the massive form of a college football player. His shirt pulled tight over muscles he had never had before, and his feet cramped painfully in undersized shoes. At his feet he now saw that his glasses lay cast off in the grass, yet he could see clearly still.

Shock and wonder lasted for quite some time. To be honest, a great deal of posturing and sword swinging lasted for some time as well. But eventually, Bobby's practicality took over again. "I might still be dreaming, of course. Or I could have gone mad. Or maybe something in the water could have messed with my head. Then again, maybe this is real, and I'm really bigger than dad," Bobby scowled for a minute, "I need to get home."