Billy: Messenger of Powers (14 page)

“The Book of the Earth,” said Mrs. Russet. She opened it, and read. “In the fourth Age of our Power, the White King came.” Mrs. Black snorted in derision at this, but Mrs. Russet ignored her. “He was the all-Power, the one Power who has ever been a master of all the Elements, and he ushered in an age of peace that lasted a generation.”

“Folklore. Myth,” said Mrs. Black. Billy noted that the Blue and Gray Councilors nodded in agreement.

Mrs. Russet frowned at them. “Do you dispute the Power of Earth here in the presence of its heart?” Billy again felt like dropping to the ground, this time because he sensed that an all-out fight was on the verge of breaking out, and he knew for a fact that he didn’t want to be in the middle of it.

Mrs. Black and the two other Powers backed down, saying nothing. Mrs. Russet nodded. “As I was saying….” Her eyes went back to the book, reading from its pages. “And after the White King worked his Power upon the face of the world, he was loved and revered, until,” she turned a page. Billy thought he could almost hear the sound of the continents shifting when she turned the pages of that great book. “…until his closest friend attacked him, mortally wounding the White King. The King, in the midst of his pain, Prophesied. He Prophesied that he would return. And that before he did, a boy would come forth, a boy who was of the Power, but held none in his control. A boy that the Earth would protect, and that Life would seek to reject. A boy with Death in his past, but Hope in his present.”

She looked at Billy. “I believe this is that boy.”

Billy was unprepared for the chaos that followed this statement. All the Councilors, it seemed, erupted from their seats, several of them literally, Nehara the Blue rising up on a small, agitated water spout that burst from his throne; and Dismus the Gray whipping about the Diamond Dais in a whirlwind that sprang into existence out of nowhere.

Billy noted that only Fulgora, the Red Lady, remained calm, her sparkling eyes watching everything as though she were waiting for something, waiting for a special, perfect moment to occur. Billy had no idea what that moment would be, just that he got uneasy watching her. The fact that Vester loved her made Billy want to like her automatically, but he couldn’t help but be spooked by her for some reason.

The rest of the Council, though, was screaming and yelling at the tops of their lungs. Billy caught snatches of the exchanges, but couldn’t focus on any one thing in particular.

“Impossible! The White King is a legend….”

“How do you know this? Explain yourself, Lumilla!”

“If Lumilla says it, I’m inclined to….”

Around and around they went, a dizzying barrage of conversation that flew over and around Billy as though he were an innocent bystander in the middle of a firefight between two hostile armies.

Nor did it seem at all likely that the arguing was going to stop any time soon. Instead, the verbal combatants seemed to be increasing the energy of their attacks. Louder and louder the Council became, until suddenly there was a great noise that silenced all of them.

The Diamond Dais bucked under Billy’s feet, sending him falling down hard to the shining floor below him. He heard a scream, but couldn’t tell where or who it came from. Then the ground rolled again. He heard a great cracking far to his left, and thought with horror that it sounded as though one of the great stones that made up the great tower had separated from its moorings and would crash down to the island below.

Again the ground swayed and rolled below Billy. He looked over and saw Vester, Tempus, and Ivy reel, trying to remain on their feet. The tiny blue and red horses made of lightning and fire which were still riding across Vester’s shoulders reared up in fear, then galloped into his pants pockets and disappeared.

Billy had no time to reflect on the strangeness of the scene, because another great shiver ran through the ground. To Billy’s horror, the dais upon which he was so precariously perched began to crack below his hands and knees. A long, jagged fissure appeared below him, and Billy rolled to one side as the dais split in two, a four-inch crack running the length of the platform.

Billy’s roll to the side was an instinctive move, nothing he consciously decided, but the move saved his life, as a long diamond shard erupted through the crack in the Diamond Dais, right where Billy had stood only a moment before. It speared four feet into the sky, a frighteningly sharp diamond shaft with a razor point at its tip.

The ground continued its roller-coaster movement, and Billy almost rolled right off the podium, but caught himself at the last moment. He looked around in panic as the ground continued to quake. Several of the Councilors, he saw, were holding strange objects in tightly-clenched fists. Fulgora the Red was clutching a red rose, her mouth moving as though she were speaking rapidly, though Billy couldn’t hear what she was saying. Mrs. Black was rubbing her scarab broach wildly, clearly hoping that it would do something; just as clearly disappointed that whatever she was hoping would happen hadn’t happened yet.

And Dismus was…. Billy blinked. The Gray Councilor was still whipping around the dais at full speed, but now he seemed out of control, as though something else was moving the wind, and he no longer had any say in its movements. The old man was swirling around the group faster and faster, in tighter and tighter circles… and he had an electric toothbrush in his hands the whole time.

He’s worried about
cavities
? Billy thought in amazement as the ground rolled him around again, his body loose and limp as a piece of yarn. I don’t think gingivitis is really an issue right now.

Then he remembered what Vester had said while Billy was caught in the cave. Tempus had asked where the Darksiders that had been a part of Billy’s death—Mrs. Black and the cold Blue Power, Wade—had disappeared to. Vester had mentioned that Mrs. Black’s broach was Imbued, and that she had grabbed it, then grabbed Wade and they had both disappeared.

Of course, Billy thought. The broach, the rose, and Dismus’s tooth brush must all be like Mrs. Russet’s beehive key: they must be Imbued Objects that can take them away from here.

Billy certainly couldn’t blame any of the three from trying to get away; he was quite certain that he would be doing the very same thing if he’d had any such magical object. But he did wonder why the objects weren’t working for the three Powers.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the quaking stopped. Billy looked at Mrs. Russet, who alone among the Councilors had remained calmly seated at her throne during the great shaking of the tower. That made some sense, Billy realized: surely as a Power of Earth an earthquake wouldn’t particularly concern her. But then he noticed that the knuckles of the hand that still held her crystal staff were white and strained. She was afraid, too, he realized, and that thought alone was enough to scare him as much as anything that had happened this day. Mrs. Russet did
not
get scared. She could make others uneasy at times—during surprise quizzes, for example—but did not get scared herself.

Slowly, though, as everyone became more or less sure that the ground had stopped its violent flinging about, the Councilors settled back to their seats, sinking onto them with a mixture of relief and tightly coiled fear. Billy spared a glance to where Vester, Ivy, and Tempus had been before this all started and saw the three Powers climbing out of a net-like lattice of soft vines. Evidently Ivy—or perhaps her father, Veric, the Green Councilor—had called the plants up to protect them from the shaking.

For a long moment, all were silent.

Then Mrs. Russet picked up the Book of the Earth again. She opened it, then read in a somber voice: “And before the White King comes, shall come the Messenger. And with him, the Earth shall shake, and the Seats of Power shall tremble, and there shall be a great rending, even as of a diamond splitting in two.”

She looked pointedly at the Diamond Dais on which the thrones all sat. The crack that had opened below Billy stretched the length of the podium, interrupted only by the gleaming spire that now thrust skyward out of its center. Billy noted that the diamond shard was so clear, so perfectly formed, that he could see through it and gaze upon many-faceted images of the Powers who sat on the other side.

“I think,” said Mrs. Russet after a long silence, “that we can dispense with the idea that the White King is a legend.” She shut the book with the authority and awful certainty of a landslide crashing down. “I also think,” she continued, “that it appears certain that this boy,” and here she gestured at Billy with her crystal staff, “is the Messenger foretold.”

There was another long pause. Then Fulgora said, “Not necessarily.” Her lips, as flame red as her throne, moved slowly, her words deliberate and careful. “He may be the Messenger,” she said. “Or this may have been coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” shouted Dismus the Gray in shock, the electric toothbrush still whirring in his hands. “That wasn’t a coincidence! That was prophecy! And I should know! I’m of the Wind!” He harrumphed as though that settled the question, then seemed to notice his toothbrush for the first time. “Not only did the Diamond Dais crack, but the Wind was spinning me—
me
—without my being able to do a thing about it.” He shook his toothbrush at them all. “And my Transport key didn’t work. Nor did yours or yours,” he continued, looking at Mrs. Black and at Fulgora the Red in turn. “Don’t deny it! I saw you grab your broach, Eva, and Fulgora still holds her rose in her hand! Something blocked us, something I’ve never heard of or felt before.” He took a few deep breaths, visibly calming himself. “I think Lumilla is right, and I
don’t
think,” he added, looking at Fulgora, “that this is a mere coincidence. That would strain belief.”

And with that, Dismus crossed his arms and sat back on his throne of air, swaying ever so slightly as the wind of the chair moved him back and forth in its eddying breeze.

“I agree that if this is a coincidence, then it is an extraordinary one,” said Fulgora. “But then, we don’t notice
ordinary
coincidences anyway, do we? So a coincidence, when anyone speaks of it, does tend to be an
extra
ordinary occurrence. Nevertheless,” she said, holding up a hand to silence Dismus, who appeared about to go flying about on his tornado again, “I do agree that the odds against this being such a coincidence are high. But there
is
one other alternative.” She gazed around the Council. “You all know of what I speak. Of
whom
I speak.”

“Wolfen was not the Messenger. He was exiled over twenty years ago, and no one has heard of him since,” said Mrs. Russet.

“Wolfen the White was not exiled,” snapped Mrs. Black. Then, in an almost piteously sad voice, she said, “He left us.” Then she straightened. “But I heard the prophecy at the boy’s Gleaning. ‘He is returning,’ Tempus said. I believe he has. I believe that Wolfen is coming, if he is not already among us.” Billy heard Ivy gasp fearfully at this, and wondered who this Wolfen person might be.

Mrs. Black continued. “And as for this boy, I don’t think this Billy Jones is a Messenger, or even a mere Power. We’re wasting our time with him.”

“Then how do you explain what just happened?” asked Mrs. Russet indignantly, waving to the cracked dais and three diamond spires in its center.

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Black, arms crossed. “It bears looking into. But to suggest it’s because of him,” she nodded at Billy, “is premature, if not just foolish.”

The Councilors again erupted in a cacophony of disagreement, each trying to speak louder than the others. Veric stretched out a thick arm, the vines that made up his throne curling about him like infatuated snakes. “Silence!” he hollered. The others all quieted immediately, as much in surprise as out of a desire to obey, thought Billy.

“I think that the Council should not be bickering like schoolchildren. At the very least, not in the presence
of
children.”

“At long last, Veric, you have said something I can agree with,” said Mrs. Black. Veric looked momentarily pleased. The look disappeared, however, when Mrs. Black stood. “I am not going to waste my time in arguing, or in remaining here any longer.” She touched her broach, clearly preparing to leave. Dismus, too, stood, and withdrew from his watery cloak a small seashell, apparently ready to follow her.

“Beware, Eva,” said Mrs. Russet. “This discussion will continue without you. If a vote is held, we will still have the necessary majority.”

“Not in this,” said Mrs. Black. “As for this Billy Jones, he is nothing. He has not Glimmered, and has shown no power. More important, if you dare to declare anyone other than Wolfen the White as the foretold Messenger—and the rightful leader and King of all Powers—I will see to it that all Darksiders will leave Powers Island. The Truce will be over, and heaven help you.”

She spoke a word, and disappeared with the loud sound that Billy had come to expect with such appearances and disappearances. A moment later, another clap sounded as Dismus exited also in a swirl of watery mist.

The remaining Councilors looked stricken. Billy didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but he knew it was something awful. Something even worse than earthquakes, or dragons shooting lightning at you. Even worse than dying in the basket of a great tree.

Mrs. Russet turned slowly to look at Billy. “Tempus, Vester, Ivy,” she called.

The three stepped closer to the dais, but did not step up onto the platform. Apparently that was reserved only for the Councilors and those that were specifically invited.