Billy: Messenger of Powers (48 page)

Mrs. Black’s hand traced itself along his shoulders, almost playfully. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked. “Twenty years in the making, a plan so perfect that all would happen in a single day. A plan that would stage an attack and, in one single moment, both begin and end the war.”

Billy looked away from the terrible sight of all the imprisoned Dawnwalkers. He peered around Dark Isle, trying to find something that would lift his spirits. But there was nothing. The entire island was still forbidding, dead and gray. It was nothing but cliff after cliff, each peak separated by a tiny valley or just a series of paths carved into the naked rock. Periodically, the stark bareness of the place was broken up by a river or a lake. All of the bodies of water seemed gray and angry, however. Not a single one was at peace: all the rivers were rapids, all the lakes were tempestuous and stormy. Most of the water drained through the angry rivers and led eventually to the black sea around Dark Isle, to the deadly rocks and the circling sharks.

Billy could also make out people in the island: Darksiders who were hurrying from place to place, working at some chore or other. No doubt they were carrying out some kind of nefarious plot to expand the war to encompass the whole earth.

There were also zombies. Even at the distances involved, he could clearly make out their mottled skin and those huge, fly-like eyes that all of them had. And not just a few of them, either, there were thousands of them, crawling like death-bearing ants over an anthill.

Mrs. Black’s fingers pushed at Billy’s cheek, forcing his gaze back to the huge prison where his friends were probably all imprisoned. “Beautiful,” she repeated.

“What’s going to happen to them?” asked Billy.

“They will be…re-educated,” said Mrs. Black. “You’d be surprised how many people change their minds given the right incentive.”

“Not my friends,” said Billy.

Mrs. Black laughed. “No?” she asked. “Well, you might be right about that, Mr. Jones. Tempus, he already went through this once, and the old gray fool could never be turned.” Her lips curled in disgust. “Some people just don’t know what’s good for them.”

Billy didn’t respond, still looking for some way to get out of his predicament. He saw none. Even if he could run, where would he go? Perhaps he could lose himself in the cliffs for a time, but he suspected that the Darksiders would be able to track him. Maybe he could try swimming away, but then he would be at the mercy of the rapids, and eventually would find himself in the deadly ocean, among the waves and the hungry sharks.

Billy shivered. Mrs. Black smiled. “You see, there is no hope for any that would stand against us.” She looked at Billy. “In fact, that’s why we’re here. So you can see that.”

Mrs. Black suddenly took Billy’s hands in hers. Her touch now felt surprisingly gentle, almost caring. “I wanted you to see the lies you’ve been told.”

“Lies?” asked Billy. “What lies?”

“The lies that you have believed, because you have never known truth,” said a new voice.

Mrs. Black straightened up instantly, smoothing her dress self-consciously as Wolfen appeared beside them. The dark master joined them in looking over Dark Isle. His long hair, now loose and hanging to the middle of his back, whipped around his head in the strong winds that ruled on this peak. The salt-and-pepper hair looked like some kind of evil halo around him.

Wolfen, too, touched Billy’s shoulder in a way that was more familiar than Billy liked. He almost preferred it when Wolfen and Mrs. Black were trying to kill him: at least he knew how to react in that case. This new friendliness disconcerted him.

“I’ve never been told any lies,” Billy managed, more to say something than because he had any idea of what Mrs. Black and Wolfen were going on about.

Wolfen laughed. “My boy,” he said, “you’ve been told nothing
but
lies since you first were introduced into our world.”

Billy was confused. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“The War of the Powers, the Messenger, my role in it all,” said Wolfen. “All of it. None of what you have been told by the Dawnwalkers is true.”

“Yes it is,” Billy said. “It was in the Book of the Earth.”

“Was it?” asked Wolfen. “Did you
see
any of what they told you was written in the book? Or did you just hear it second hand from the Dawnwalkers? And from Lumilla, who appeared to read from the Book of the Earth, but never actually let anyone else see it?” And Billy, thinking back, had to admit to himself that he
had
never actually seen anything that Mrs. Russet had read from the book.

“So?” he asked. “That doesn’t make it a lie.”

“No, it doesn’t,” agreed Wolfen good-naturedly. “But it doesn’t make it true, either.”

“At least they never tried to kill me,” said Billy.

“No?” said Wolfen. Mrs. Black laughed, appearing genuinely amused at Billy’s statement. “Who brought you to the Test of Five? Who suggested that you be killed in the first place? Mrs. Russet. Who wrapped you in weeds when you wanted to leave? Ivy the Green. Who took you to a volcano where you almost died? Vester.”

“Who actually killed me during the test?” retorted Billy. “Mrs. Black. And who attacked me on the top of the tower? You did, Wolfen.”

Mrs. Black winced as though Billy’s words had cut her deeply. “Billy,” she said, “I was bound by the laws of our people to kill you. But I didn’t want you there in the first place. I was doing everything I could to convince you to leave. I thought the Test of Five was too dangerous, and I wanted you to have no part of it. So I tried to scare you away. And it would have worked, too, if it hadn’t been for Ivy and Lumilla keeping you pinned there.”

“And I wasn’t attacking you when you arrived on top of the tower,” said Wolfen.

“You were!” shouted Billy. “You cast the Dread on me!”

“Only to stop you from running, from hurting yourself,” insisted Wolfen. He knelt before Billy, hands still on the boy’s shoulders, and looked earnestly into Billy’s eyes. “I wanted to stop you and ask you to join us.”

Wolfen turned to look at the crystal prison that covered so much of the island. “They didn’t want me to say anything,” said Wolfen. “And who can blame them for wanting me to remain silent! After all, it was the Dawnwalkers who stole our birthright from us.”

“What?” asked Billy. He had expected to be taken away by Mrs. Black and killed or tortured. What was going on? Why were they talking to him like this?

“It’s true, Billy,” said Wolfen. “There
was
a War of the Powers. But the Darksiders didn’t start it. It was the Dawnwalkers, trying to stop us from taking our rightful place.”

“What place is that?” asked Billy. He still didn’t believe what Wolfen was saying, but he had to admit he was curious. He had never heard this side of the story before.

“We wanted to help humanity,” said Wolfen.

“By ruling them?” challenged Billy.

“Yes, by ruling them,” said Wolfen. Again Billy was surprised. He had expected a denial of this charge. But Wolfen was admitting it.

“Think, Billy,” said Mrs. Black. “What is the world like? Evil at every doorstep. The nations constantly in turmoil. People dying in senseless wars everywhere. Children suffering at the hands of people thousands of miles away from them. The earth itself in danger of being snuffed out by the ravages of humanity. Why would anyone want that?”

“And yet,” said Wolfen, “that is precisely the status quo that the Dawnwalkers seek to protect. That is the way they want things to go on. And always they are there, behind the scenes, working their magic so that they are always comfortable, happy, content. Humanity suffers because they are left to themselves, and to the whims of uncaring Powers who will not lift a finger to save them.”

Billy opened his mouth to say something. But nothing was coming. He felt Wolfen’s words seeping into him, like water into wood. Wolfen’s eyes bored into his, burning the words he said into Billy’s mind, which was starting to feel confused and weak. Could Wolfen be telling the truth? Vester had himself said that the Dawnwalkers believed that their control over the Elements should only be used by and for the Powers, hadn’t he? And Tempus had shown little compunction about terrorizing Howard and Sarah, though Billy had to admit he too had enjoyed the moment.

Could the
Dawnwalkers
be the evil ones?

As though sensing his thoughts, Wolfen said, “We’re not what you think, Billy. We’re not evil.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Billy. But the words were more a whisper than anything. He clung to his belief in his friends, but his grip on that belief seemed to be weakening.

“Don’t just take our word for it, Billy,” said Mrs. Black. She waved a hand expansively, taking in the whole of Dark Isle. “Look, and see for yourself.”

And suddenly, Billy found he could see all parts of Dark Isle. It was like the Close-Up spell in Powers Stadium, allowing him to see anything and everything he wished. “What the…?” said Billy.

“Death sees all things, Billy,” said Mrs. Black gently. “It is the thing with the truest vision, and through it we can see reality as it is.”

Billy cast his now far-reaching gaze around the island. He could suddenly see that the Darksiders were not, in fact, moving around like people engaged in evil deeds. There were young and old, fat and thin, short and tall, beautiful and plain people. There were doctors, and police officers, and gas repair people, and people in business attire, and some in pajamas. Just normal folks. Nor were they holding dead cats or cutting up chickens while chanting strange-sounding incantations. Instead, most of them seemed like they were on a vacation, chatting with one another in small, close-knit groups that moved from place to place. True, they were moving around in close-knit groups that had to move out of the way to avoid a zombie from time to time, but other than that it looked like any of the little cliques that Billy saw moving around the halls of Preston Hills High School.

Most of the people, Billy saw, were smiling. Many of them were laughing. Some wore scowls and frowns, too, but no more so than you would expect to see on any street in the world.

“Do you see, Billy?” came Wolfen’s voice. “Do you see us, not as you have been
told
we are, but as we
truly
are?”

“No,” was all Billy could say. “I don’t believe you,” he repeated once again. But the words were weak. They were beginning to lose their meaning.

“Then look, see one more thing,” said Mrs. Black beside him. Suddenly, Billy’s all-seeing gaze was moved without his control. It zipped through the peaks and valleys of Dark Isle, soaring above it like an eagle, passing lightly among the throngs of Darksiders who walked its paths. And finally, his view came to rest upon one person.

Billy gasped. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. It couldn’t be.

But it was.

Blythe Forrest, the most beautiful girl in school, the only girl to be nice to him since as long as he could remember, the closest thing he’d ever had to a friend his own age, was walking with a group of other young people along one of the paths that crisscrossed Dark Isle. She was laughing with them, not a care in the world, it seemed. One of the kids in the group punched her good-naturedly in the arm, and she laughed even harder, apparently enjoying whatever joke she was the butt of.

“You see?” said Mrs. Black. Billy felt her hand on his neck. “You like her, don’t you? You think she’s a good person, right? Then why not the other Darksiders like her?”

“She’s,” Billy stammered, “she’s not. She can’t be…. She just….” His voice disappeared like a sigh in the night, petering out to silence. He felt his breath hitching in his throat, felt his head spinning. Blythe, a Darksider?