Convergence by Convergence

see the others, smaller and still closed, which completely circled the room well above his head.
    "This is the first of your tests, but it can also turn out to be the last," the man continued, sounding as if he spoke a prepared speech. "It doesn't matter whether or not you want to pass, you have to pass if you intend to continue living-Failure in this test means death, so you'd better keep that in mind during the next few minutes. Good luck or goodbye."
    And with that the man shut the wide panel, leaving Lorand shocked and disbelieving. They couldn't be serious about that, about it being his life if he failed! That was ridiculous and totally unreasonable, not to mention insane! People don't kill you if you fail, they just—
    All thoughts of protest died when the smaller square windows opened all around, and soil began to pour through them. Lorand was already on his feet, and reflex sent his head down and his arms up to keep the cascading earth away from his face. His last glimpse said they meant to drop tons of earth on him, enough to bury him alive. But they also hadn't told him what to do, what way they expected him to save himself!
    And that was when the chills hit, despite the dust and closeness generated by the falling soil. How Lorand avoided dying was for him to figure out, there on the spot, in the middle of the cascading earth. It had already begun to pile up on the floor, showing how little time it would take to fill the room completely. He would be dead long before that happened, of course, buried under the first tons of earth to rise above his six-feet-plus worth of height.
    Lorand had never been so frightened in his entire life, but when he began to cough and choke on the dust rising into the air he also began to get angry. He wanted to be there and show what he could do, but no one had stopped to find that out. They'd simply assumed he had to be forced into trying his best, and had put his life at risk to accomplish that. They were ignorant fools and would-be murderers, and he'd show them the error of their ways if it was the last thing he did!
    And that was when he reached for the power, finding it leaping to join with him even more eagerly than it usually did. He used it first to cause the earth to fall around rather than on him, at the same time clearing the dust from the air he breathed. That gave him a place to stand and think in peace, at least for a handful of minutes. After that he'd start to run out of time, but he hadn't yet reached that point. He still had time to think of something . . .
    He sent a searching gaze all around the room, looking for something, anything that would help to save him, and he almost missed it. With all that earth pouring out of the walls it was hard to see anything clearly, but he finally noticed that the large panel his guide had opened and spoken from wasn't joining the others in pouring dirt on him. Beyond the stream of earth he could just see that it remained closed and quiet, and even more importantly didn't have mounds of earth piled in front of it. The door he'd come in by did, and trying to clear it would have been futile even if he could have opened it. It was possible to do many things using Earth magic, but making earth go against its nature and not mound wasn't something that would work for long .
    So that left the large panel as Lorand's only chance for escape. The biggest problem with that, however, was the panel's location, a good six feet above Lorand's head. The falling earth had already mounded knee-deep around Lorand and got deeper by the minute, but it wasn't deep enough—or firm enough—to stand on to reach that panel.
    Lorand automatically pushed his clear space out a little farther as he looked around again, wasting no strength or effort on keeping his feet and legs free. When he thought of something to do he'd free himself, but right now he needed to figure out how to get a lot higher. If only there was something to climb on! The short stool was