Lovers of Babel (12 page)

             
“Now, to start the competition with a game of Hexes, will Emily and Raven walk to the center of the arena, please?”

             
The audience silently examined both girls as they walked to the center. Emily walked with discipline and her hands stayed clinched in fists. Raven walked with less confidence and couldn’t help looking up and around her at the hundreds staring down at her and her opponent. They met in the middle and stood facing each other. The Herald continued.

             
“Your challenge will be to create a dangerous animal of which none of you have seen in real life. This challenge comes to you from one of our dearest sponsors all the way from what used to be a place called Trinadad. Mr. Mustafi, please stand so the crowd can see you.”

             
In the center of the crowd stood a dark man with a strange looking wrap around his head with a golden medallion in the center. He waved at the audience, bowed, and then sat down again.

             
“Mr. Mustafi told me that he would love to see a real anaconda in person.”

             
The audience gasped.

             
“Snakes as well as most reptiles were not able to survive the equinox many decades ago, and snakes that live now are only in our imaginations. But not today folks! Today we will witness the vicious nature of this reptile with our own eyes. Raven and Emily, as soon as the trumpet sounds, will conjure up for us two mighty anacondas and whosever snake kills the other one will win!”

             
This was the first time in a junior high Tourney that the competitors would have to create something that would in turn, compete itself. This was an extra challenge, because it was difficult enough to create a living animal. Then, to be forced to create an animal that is able to defend itself using instincts, is extremely difficult for a rookie. Both girls looked nervous about the added challenge.

             
The sky was overcast that day and the aurora was dull reflecting bits of pink, purple and blue lights all around the glass dome. This gave the effect that we were being enclosed by a ball of celestial light and the two competitors were at the center.

             
The Herald brought his horn to his mouth once more.

             
“Now that you have your instructions you will begin once the trumpet is finished sounding. Are you ready!?” He waited for the girls to respond.

             
They each nodded without looking up at the Herald keeping their concentration.

             
“Alright!” The Herald signaled to the trumpet player who was sitting high in the stands on the opposite end of the arena.

             
The trumpet sounded high pitched and soft then gradually got louder until it stopped.

             
Emily quickly held out her hands in front of her and closed her eyes tightly, straining to create a giant snake out of nowhere. Then, Raven sprinted towards the west side of the Tourney near the exit. The audience gasped at her cowardice, but she was not trying to escape. There, near the west exit doors, was a stick lying on the lawn. She picked it up and ran back to the center where Emily was making small improvements on her creation. Emily had the tail end of a snake, but it was taking a while for the whole body to appear.

             
Raven sat the stick down in front of her and began to concentrate on it. The audience was in a state of frenzy. Never had a contestant attempted to create an animal from an inanimate object. It was always said that creators couldn’t manipulate objects or animals that already existed. They could only create authentically. What Raven was attempting not only defied the laws of hexing, but threatened to break the rules of the Tourney. Still, she continued to concentrate on the stick and even dropped to her knees to get closer to it. Suddenly, the stick began to move. The audience was stunned. I looked up and noticed the Herald shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

             
Emily was so distracted by what Raven was doing that her own creation was failing her. She managed to create a lime green snake, but it was small and thin. The audience of Emily’s peers who were sitting in the front row was cheering her on. She focused her concentration again. Her snake began to grow heavier in her arms and eventually she let it fall to the ground. Raven’s snake had also grown and its skin looked like wood. Eventually, their snakes had grown twenty five feet and were coiled in their own bodies.

             
Raven began to command her snake to move. It lifted its head slowly and slithered down onto the lawn towards Emily’s creation. Emily was trying to get her snake to move, but it wouldn’t budge. Raven’s was getting closer to her snake and began to open its large mouth exposing vicious fangs.

             
Suddenly, Emily kicked the mound of anaconda flesh and it lifted its massive head out from the middle of the coil.

             
“Now, attack!” Emily commanded her creation.

             
Emily’s snake began to slither toward Raven’s until they were only a few feet away from each other.  Raven’s creation began striking at the green snake. Emily’s snake dodged the blows and began striking as well. Then, in an instant, Raven’s snake bit Emily’s right on the neck and held the entire neck in its mouth. The green snake tried to pry itself away, but the snake’s jaw was locked. There was blood gushing from parts where the fangs were impaling the skin. Emily was shouting and stomping her feet trying to get her anaconda to escape the grip of the wooden snake. Then Raven’s snake began to swallow.

             
It took nearly ten minutes for Raven’s anaconda to swallow half of Emily’s. The more it swallowed, the bigger it grew. From where I was sitting I could see the outline of Emily’s snake moving inside the other. Raven’s snake was eating it alive.

             
After an hour of watching an anaconda eat another of the same size, it was finally over. What remained on the Tourney floor was the largest snake to ever exist and it was too heavy to move. It just laid there with a year’s worth of food in its belly.  If snakes could burp this one would’ve caused an earthquake.

             
Emily looked utterly defeated and embarrassed. She looked up at the Herald seat to hear the official winner’s announcement, but he wasn’t there. He was deliberating with one of the Tourney game masters on the ground floor. After a few minutes of deliberation, the stout Herald climbed his way up to his seat. The contestants and audience waited silently to hear that Raven had won the hexing competition this year.

             
“Ladies and gentlemen, after a game-changing move on the part of Raven, I was forced to consult with a game master to make sure that no rule was broken during this afternoon’s competition. Of course that game-changing move that I am referring to is using a substance of one’s environment to create a thing. This has never been attempted in a Tourney before and we all must understand why. Manipulating one’s environment to create is strictly forbidden and should never be attempted by anyone in the Tourney or outside of it. Because Raven Sissero broke the rules she must forfeit her winnings to Emily who will be crowned the new winner of the hexing competition.”

             
The crowd was in an uproar. Some audience members were pleased with the verdict, but most were appalled. Although most of us knew that there were restrictions in place about how we use our powers, hearing it from the Herald made us more aware of how controlled our world really was. However, seeing Raven use her ability in a way that no one else had –or has dared to admit – inspired me to explore the secrets of my power.

             
The next game was mimicry. The competitors were Esmeralda Torres who had dyed her hair blue for the competition and Alex Walker who had red hair. Upon second glance I realized who Alex was. He was the victim of the worst bullying that I had ever seen. Maybe it was his small size or red hair, but for some reason he was a huge target for abuse. It was just a week before the Tourney that I remembered seeing him tied to a tree branch from his ankles. I could tell he had been hanging there for a while because his face was fire red when I came to cut him down.

             
“Thanks,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if anybody would come.”

             
They each walked to the center of the Tourney and stood looking awkwardly at each other.

             
The Herald raised his horn to his lips.

             
“It’s time for the transformers to take their rightful places in front of the Tourney. I know your power may not be a crowd favorite, but I hold a special place in my heart for transformers.” He said placing his right hand over his heart.

             
“I want to give you two a challenge for this year’s junior high mimicry competition. I hope you’ve been studying about the legendary creatures of the old age. Your performance here will reflect your studies on the subject.” The Herald said.

             
The brightness of day was slowly descending and the light of the outside world was laying its sleepy eyes upon the arena lawn. The audience was talking amongst themselves about what the contestants would have to mimic this year. Last year I heard that the Herald was in a patriotic mood and wanted the competitors to transform into the bald eagle which was a symbol of freedom for what was once known as the Americas. The competition turned into a history lesson on the old world, which bored the audience to death.  What would the Herald choose this time? A founding father? A fig tree? I wasn’t in the mood for a history lesson. I wanted to see some action.

             
The Herald began to speak again and I perked my ears.

             
“Mythical creatures have always been an interest of mine. They are so fierce and odd.”

             
The audience erupted in murmurs of anticipation.

              “I don’t think Equinoxians spend enough time studying the subject to be honest. There are so many interesting creatures. Like fire-breathing dragons,” the audience roared, “or fairies and giants. There are endless creatures to marvel at, but the one creature that always got my attention, lived in the sea!”

             
Some audience members began shouting out names of mythical sea creatures to see if they had it right.

             
“No, no, no you’re all wrong. This creature is less popular, because those who have seen it never lived to tell about it.”

             
There was a collective gasp from the audience.

             
“This year I wanted to give you something more exciting to witness during mimicry. You have all seen some marvelous things on this arena floor, but nothing will be as shocking as this.”

             
The Herald looked down at Esmerelda and Alex.

             
“This creature comes from Norse legend and was said to have consumed entire ships. It would use its enormous tentacles to drag the ship under the water creating a whirlpool with its body so that no one could escape. At times it would poke its head out of the water so that sailors would think it were an island until the octopus would move in for the kill!”

             
Esmerelda and Alex looked at each other with concern.

             
“But since we are on land you will have to improvise. Are you ready?” The Herald asked the competitors and they nodded reluctantly.

             
“Are
you
ready!?” The Herald addressed the audience and they cheered in anticipation.

             
“Well then, MIMIC THE KRAKEN!”

             
The horn sounded loudly over the roar of the audience. For a few seconds the Tourney was in complete uproar and I was unable to hear my own thoughts. Then, all was silent.  

             
Alex looked around at the massive glass arena and all the spectators waiting for him to transform into a giant octopus. Esmerelda was in such intense concentration that from my seat I could see the vein popping out of her forehead. Then suddenly her legs were gone and had been replaced by four gigantic blue tentacles. The audience was shocked by the size of those things. They were so big that they expanded from one end of the arena to the other.

             
Alex was obviously waiting on Esmerelda to make the first transformation so that he could copy her method, because as soon as her legs transformed, he began to concentrate. In just a few minutes Alex’s right arm morphed into a disgusting red tentacle with hundreds of suction cups ranging in size. His was just as big as Esmerelda’s, but he had a ways to go.

             
By then, Esmerelda was forty percent human and sixty percent octopus with just her head and torso unchanged. The audience was in hysterics at the spectacle that was Esmerelda. She went from standing five feet four inches tall to ten feet tall because of her enormous tentacles. It looked like she was standing on a heaping pile of gigantic worms.