Billy: Messenger of Powers (31 page)

“You went to school with her?” asked Billy, incredulous.

Vester nodded. “Yeah, we were both in college together. I knew she was on the fast track to become the Red Councilor even then. She was in my biology class with me.” He grimaced. “I didn’t get very good grades; was always the one who kept everyone after class because I had about a thousand questions about the things I hadn’t understood about the teacher’s lecture.”

Billy knew what
that
was like. Occasionally he had made his own elementary school class late for recess when he’d had a last minute question or two. Facing thirty kids who hated your guts for making them lose the prime spots in the line for the swings or the slides was worse than facing a firing squad.

“Well,” said Billy, still trying to console his friend. “You saved her, and that’s the truth. She’s bound to remember that even more than biology class.”

Vester shrugged.

“I hate to interrupt this little ‘chin-up’ session,” said Tempus after a moment. “But I do want to point out that we are currently hiding in a volcano without any kind of plan for the future.”

“I like the idea of hiding,” said Billy. And he did. Hanging on a precipice hundreds of feet over boiling lava was a huge improvement in his eyes over being chased by zombies, though he wasn’t sure whether he liked it better than being chased by murderous giant rock scorpions in space. He decided he’d have to call that one a tie.

“Actually,” said Ivy brightly, “we
do
have a plan.”

“Really, young lady?” asked Tempus.

“What plan?” said Vester, always more to the point than the Gray Power was.

Ivy’s brightness dimmed almost instantly. “I’m not sure.”

“So,” said Tempus slowly, “we
do
have a plan, but we’re not sure what it is.” Ivy nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t see the difference between that and not having a plan at all,” said Tempus.

Billy agreed. Wasn’t a plan something you knew you were going to do—or at least something you knew you were going to try? How could they have a plan and not know what it was?

“Let me explain,” said Ivy.

“Please do,” answered Vester. There was a burble nearby, and a small pocket of lava popped open in the wall near to the precipice. Vester absent-mindedly walked over and put his hand in the flowing lava, looking like he was as refreshed by that as most people would be by putting their feet up and enjoying a cold drink.

“On the tower, right before Lumilla was, well, touched,” said Ivy, “she managed to say something.”

“Was it ‘Argh, I’m about to be zombified’?” asked Tempus.

“No, but that would have made more sense,” said Ivy. “What she said was, ‘Tell Billy—’”

“Tell
me
?” asked Billy incredulously. “Tell me what?”

“Well, I’m going to tell you if you’ll let me,” said Ivy. “She said, ‘Tell Billy to go to where you’re empty when you should be full, and say the words you’ve heard me say to the jumper that never quite eats.’”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Finally, Billy said. “Why would she tell you to tell me that?”

Ivy shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, the words don’t make any sense to me.”

“No, not the words,” Billy said. “I mean, why would she want to tell
me
?” Everyone looked at him blankly. “I’m just a kid. Not even a Determined Power, maybe not a Power at all. So why would Mrs. Russet bother telling you to give me a nonsense message right in the middle of a life and death struggle with the undead?”

“That is a good question,” said Vester.

Tempus cleared his throat. “Yes, Tempus,” said Ivy. “If you have something to say, just say it. Let’s do away with the pauses while you wait for us to realize how smart you are, shall we?”

Tempus frowned good-naturedly. “I don’t wait for you to realize that. I assume that you already know it. In any case,” he continued, “I think that the reason she shouted the ‘nonsense’ is quite clear.”

Everyone looked at him. Clearly it wasn’t clear to anyone except him. Which, Billy realized, made some sense: nonsense might appear more sensible to someone who was so prone to speaking a great deal of nonsense himself.

“Don’t you see?” asked Tempus. “She wants us to do something. Something important.”

“So why not just tell us what that is?” asked Ivy.

“Code,” murmured Vester.

Tempus nodded at the fireman. “You don’t really remember the last war,” he said to Ivy. “But there are certain things one doesn’t do in such a conflict. Go trick-or-treating behind enemy lines, for instance, or shout ‘Magical Bomb!’ in a crowded theater on Powers Island. And one more thing you don’t do is scream out ‘Hey, there’s something terribly important that needs doing, and here’s what it is’ while you’re standing in the middle of the enemy’s army.” He smiled playfully. “It rather gives away one’s plan of attack, wouldn’t you agree?”

“So she gave Ivy a code? A clue of what we have to do?” asked Billy.

“Exactly, my boy,” said Tempus.

“But why for me?” asked Billy.

Tempus shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated gesture of ignorance. “Who knows? Perhaps because it was the only thing that came to mind. Maybe because she panicked. However,” he said, looking piercingly at Billy, “I tend to think that it’s because you are something very special.”

“I’m not special,” said Billy.

“Yes, you are,” said Vester. “You had to be, or else Mrs. Russet wouldn’t have risked her life for you.” He pulled his hand from the lava where he had been holding it, and when he pulled out his hand he also pulled a long string of the molten stuff with it. In an instant, the string had turned into a small snake of lava, which coiled itself around Vester’s wrist like a pet, a tongue of fire flicking out of its mouth. Billy was fascinated by the sight, but his eyes were drawn back to Vester’s face when the fireman said, with strange intensity, “Do you remember what Ivy called Mrs. Russet when you were being Gleaned? When Eva Black was about to kill you to see if you Glimmered?”

Billy thought hard, but couldn’t remember anything specific. He supposed that impending death might make a lot of people’s memories a bit spotty. He shook his head.

“Ivy called her your Sponsor,” said Vester. “Do you know what that means?”

“That Mrs. Russet was in charge of helping me with the tests to see if I’m a Power?” asked Billy.

“Yes, partly,” nodded Vester. “But more than that, it meant that she was willing to protect you. A Gleaning is risky. Not everyone comes back. Some people die on the Gleaning table.”

“But she said I’d be safe,” said Billy, shocked.

“And she meant it,” said Vester. “Because when she said she was your Sponsor, she was doing more than volunteering to be your teacher in the world of the Powers. She was saying that if you died and it didn’t look like we could bring you back, she would have sacrificed her own life force and passed it to you so that you could live.”

“You mean,” Billy said, thunderstruck, “she could have died?”

Vester nodded. “She
would
have died. So you could live. And Mrs. Russet, as nice as she can be, doesn’t go around volunteering to trade her life for just anyone. She clearly believes that you are important, Billy. That you have some critical part to play in the battle that we’re now in. And I tend to agree with her. You’ve managed to wound a Black, you survived your first Test of Power, you have ridden a Unicorn. And since you came to Powers Island, there have been all manner of strange events.”

“Like Fulgora turning into a dragon,” said Tempus.

“Not to mention Wolfen showing up, and the war beginning,” agreed Vester. “Billy, I think that you are at the center of all this. So Mrs. Russet’s message to you was one that only you would understand, and whatever it means, we have to figure it out, and do it quick.”

Billy felt like a three hundred pound barbell had just been placed on his shoulders. He had gone from being that kid that no one sat next to at lunch to being the center of a war in a world he still didn’t understand.

Ivy seemed to intuit what Billy was feeling. She hugged him. “It’s okay, Billy,” she said. “We’re here. We’ll stick by you and help with whatever you need to do.” The tendrils that encircled her arms reached out to Billy as well. It felt like he was being hugged and tickled at the same time. It was a nice feeling.

Billy squared his shoulders as well as he could. “What was it she said?” he asked.

“‘Go to where you’re empty when you should be full, and say the words you’ve heard me say to the jumper that never quite eats,’” recited Ivy.

They all looked at Billy. He thought. Nothing was coming to him. He thought some more. And even more nothing came to him.

“Go to where you’re empty,” he mumbled. “Empty, full, jumper.” He rolled the words around in his mind. They felt like they should mean something.

And then, suddenly, his head popped up. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see a giant light bulb flashing over him.

“What is it, my boy?” asked Tempus. “You know what she was saying?”

“Not all of it,” grinned Billy. “But I think I know where we have to go.”

“Then, by all means, let’s go there,” said the Gray Power. “Shall we go by Wind, or travel by Fire?”

“We can use my key,” said Vester.

“Bah!” snorted Tempus. “Never again. No home-made Transport Keys for me. Especially not one you’ve made.”

The two looked as though they were about to start bickering once more, but Ivy, ever the peacemaker, broke in. “Boys, boys!” she shouted. Tempus and Vester broke off long enough to look at her.

“Don’t you think we should find out where we’re going before we decide how we’re going to get there?” she asked.

Both Vester and Tempus looked slightly embarrassed. “Quite so,” said Tempus, and Vester nodded mute agreement.

Ivy turned to Billy.

“Well,” she said, “it looks as though you are to be our guide on this quest. So where are we going?”

Billy grinned for a second, but then his grin faded. He
was
pretty sure where they had to go.

But he was also pretty sure he’d prefer to stay in the pit of a Russian volcano than go there.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

Once Billy had told them where he thought they should go, they decided to travel by Fire, which Vester told Billy was the fastest of the Elemental traveling methods. Though Tempus insisted that Wind was much more comfortable, even he agreed that speed probably counted more than anything in this case.

Billy was nervous, though. Holding hands with Vester, perched at the edge of a slim outcropping that was all that stood between him and a volcano’s simmering stomach, he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Vester’s spell went wrong.