Billy: Messenger of Powers (55 page)

With a sound like shearing windows, the prison began to fragment. Crystalline cubes separated from one another and plunged into the water all around them. Most of the cubes themselves began to fragment, allowing those inside to push their way out.

Any freedom the imprisoned Powers might have felt, however, was in most cases swiftly stolen from them as wave after wave churned over the island. There was a crash, and one of the highest of those waves actually crashed over the peak that Billy was on. He now saw why the starfish was there, as its firm grasp was the only thing that kept Billy from being washed off the cliff by the wave’s force.

Billy screamed in spite of the starfish’s sustaining grip, terrified at the dark cascade of water sweeping over him, and more terrified at the thought of what havoc was being wrought on the lower parts of the island. He closed his eyes against the thrashing surf, and when he could open his eyes again, he saw that Dark Isle…was gone. Covered in water, only a few of its highest peaks still in evidence. It was like the city of Atlantis, now lost forever below the ocean’s angry tides.

There was no trace of the prison.

There was no trace of the Dawnwalkers.

There was no trace of the Darksiders.

There was no trace of Blythe.

Billy began to cry.

“Why so sad, Billy Jones?” asked Blue. Billy looked over and saw that she was floating lazily in a nearby wave as it rolled over what had just moments before been thin air between mountainous peaks which were now buried.

“You lied!” he shouted, half-blinded by a combination of tears, rage, and sorrow.

Blue looked genuinely surprised and perhaps even a little hurt by this statement. “I never told an untruth of any kind, Billy Jones,” she said. Her voice, now in the air, had lost that musical tone it held while underwater, and her eyes were not as blue. But Billy could still sense the power radiating from this alien creature.

“But you said you would save the Dawnwalkers,” he protested.

“No,” she said firmly. “I said that I would save your
friends
. Vester, Ivy, Tempus, and Mrs. Russet are the people you named.”

“And you didn’t even do that!” he shouted, rocking back and forth furiously, trying to get free of the starfish that still clung to him so tightly. “You just buried Dark Isle underwater forever and destroyed the prison.”

“Not forever,” she answered. “The waters will subside in time, just as they always do. In and out, out and in. The deep becomes shallow and the shallow deep. It is the way of the sea, and not long shall pass before this island rises once more.”

“Who cares about that?” screamed Billy. He pulled one arm free and began using it to try to peel the sucker arms of the starfish away from the rest of him. He didn’t have much success. “I wanted my friends, and they’re gone. They were
in
that prison, don’t you understand that?”

“Of course I do,” said Blue. And now she sounded a bit irritated, perhaps even angry. “And they are safe.”

“Then where—” began Billy. But before he could finish his words, he heard a sound. The rushing water again. He turned to look, fully expecting to see some further devastation or destruction.

Instead, he saw a great wave, formed in the shape of giant seahorses, rolling over the water toward where Billy lay. And each foam seahorse bore someone on its back:

Vester, the fireman looking thoroughly uncomfortable around all this water.

Ivy, her eyes bright and shining, holding her hands high up to take in as much sunlight as possible, the black and withered plants that plaited her body turning green and lively once more.

Tempus, his knobby knees knocking together, his moving Hawaiian shirt flapping in the tempest, shouting “Giddap!” for all he was worth.

And, on the last seahorse, Mrs. Russet. She alone was not moving. She was unconscious, draped over the back of one of the watery seahorses.

Vester was the first one to see Billy in front of them. “Billy!” he shouted happily, waving one hand, then immediately re-clutching at the seahorse, clearly worried about losing his grip and falling into the water.

Ivy and Tempus both saw him then, and shouted and laughed with joy. The starfish let Billy go as his friends approached. Soon Vester, Ivy, and Tempus all held Billy in a huge group hug on top of the mountain. Their seahorses all dissolved into foam and disappeared as each of Billy’s friends stepped off. At last, only Mrs. Russet’s steed remained, water flowing through it in salty currents, as it waited for them to notice its burden.

It snorted, and Billy tore himself away from the happy reunion long enough to say, “Mrs. Russet?”

Vester hurried over to the seahorse, and tenderly took Mrs. Russet’s limp form from the seahorse’s back. That seahorse, too, disappeared in a shower of sea foam as Vester turned back to the group of friends.

He lay Mrs. Russet down tenderly—or as tenderly as he could considering her bed was the wet, cracked ground of this mountain peak. “What happened to her?” Billy asked in a quiet voice.

“We don’t know,” said Ivy. “She wasn’t with us in the prison. Or at least, none of us saw her there.”

“Bah,” said Tempus, his familiar combination of gruffness and absent-mindedness a welcome treat to Billy’s ears. “They wouldn’t dare put the likes of her in something like our measly ‘prison.’ Why, Lumilla could have escaped that thing with both eyes closed and one leg tied behind her back. No, they weren’t even going to
try
‘re-educating’ her, of that I’m sure.”

“Then why did they keep her alive?” asked Billy.

Before the friends could answer, Billy heard Blue speak his name. He turned, and saw her still there in the ocean, her head poking out of the water. He also noticed that, just as she had said, the ocean level was already dropping back to its former place. Soon Dark Isle would be above water again. Who knew how many Darksiders or Dawnwalkers had survived the tidal wave, but whatever Darksiders were left were sure to return. They had limited time here.

But that didn’t matter to Blue, Billy knew. “Remember,” she said. “Remember our deal.”

“I will,” Billy said. He felt both grateful for his friends’ lives and sick at heart that the deal he had struck had been followed in such a way that countless others might have been lost.

“The sword,” said Blue. “When you find it, it is mine.”

“It’s yours,” Billy agreed. Blue did not, he knew, have any interests but her own at heart. She had met the letter of their deal, but had violated its spirit. But in spite of that, Billy would keep his word. “As soon as I find it.”

Blue nodded, and her eyes became even deeper blue for a moment. Billy felt an arc of power pass between them, sealing the deal. The promise made had magic behind it, he knew, and he could not break it, even if he wanted to.

Blue nodded again, and then with a flick of her coralline tail she disappeared below the surf.

Billy turned back to his friends and saw them staring at him oddly.

“What?” he asked.

“Uh…,” began Tempus, the old Gray Power clearly unsure how to say this. “What was…what was that all about, Billy?”

“She saved you,” was all Billy could think to say. “She was the one who saved you all.”

The confusion on Tempus’s, Vester’s, and Ivy’s faces didn’t go away. In fact, their confusion appeared to grow even worse. “How could that…thing…have saved us?” asked Ivy.

“I don’t know,” admitted Billy. “But she did.”

“And how do you even know it was a ‘she’?” asked Vester, the fireman’s face still visibly concerned.

Billy rolled his eyes in the universal “Well, duh,” he had recently seen a small fish do. “You can tell it’s a girl by looking at her, Vester.”

Vester blinked, confused. “You can tell a girl dolphin from a boy dolphin?”

Dolphin? thought Billy. Then, out loud, he said, “What the heck are you talking about?”

“You,” said Ivy. “We rode up here, found you with a big starfish, and then we got Mrs. Russet down, and then there was this dolphin in the ocean.”

“And you were clicking at it,” said Tempus.

“Clicking at it?” said Billy dumbly.

“Clicking at it,” affirmed Tempus. “And it clicked back at you, and then it swam away.”

“But it wasn’t a dolphin,” said Billy. Why hadn’t his friends seen Blue as she was? “It was a mermaid.”

Ivy, Tempus, and Vester all looked at one another for a moment. Then the three burst out laughing.

Billy felt himself get a bit upset. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“There’s no such thing as mermaids,” said Ivy with a weary giggle. Billy could see now that much of his friends’ apparent humor wasn’t really directed at him: they were just happy to be alive after their captivity and the tidal wave, so they were letting that happiness out in semi-appropriate bursts of laughter. But it still stung Billy.

“How can you say that?” he asked. “How can you say there are no mermaids, or that the Unicorn wasn’t real, or anything else? You all live in a world where rock giants box, and there’s a magic room for hot chocolate, and hot dogs want to be eaten. So why not a mermaid? Why not a Unicorn? Why not believe in me?”

Hot tears started to drip down his cheeks. He was ashamed of himself; he had cried twice now in less than a few minutes. But he didn’t try to hide the tears or even wipe them away. Let them make fun if they wanted. He knew he wasn’t really crying about their apparent lack of faith in him, anyway. Not really. He was crying about Blythe being a Darksider, and about the huge wave that had washed everyone away, and about the fact that he was hungry, and tired, and had no idea what to do next. He was crying about the fact that only a few short months ago he had thought the end of the world was being stuffed in a locker, and now he knew that the end of the world might actually mean the world literally coming to an end. He was crying because Mrs. Russet, the first teacher who had ever taken much interest in him, was lying here, unconscious on a cliff on Dark Isle.

He was, in short, crying for himself. For the world he had once had, and should have enjoyed, that was gone forever. The world where he had not been the Messenger, just Billy.

Now he wiped away his tears, sniffling and trying to get himself back under control. Tempus laid a bony hand on his shoulder and Ivy said, “We’re sorry, Billy. We didn’t mean anything.” Now she began to cry, too. “I think it was just because we’ve been in there so long.”

“What do you mean?” asked Billy. “How long has it been?”

“My boy,” said Tempus, “it’s been several weeks since we last saw you at the Accounting Room.”

Billy’s jaw gaped open like a bass fish. “How is that possible?” he asked. “I just left you guys a little while ago….” But then he realized that he had no idea how long he had been unconscious when the zombies had touched him, or how long he had been asleep after blacking out in the mouth of the whale.

But weeks?

He shook off the thought. It didn’t matter now. What mattered now was getting off Dark Isle, and figuring out what to do next.

“What now?” asked Tempus, apparently thinking along the same lines as Billy.

“I don’t know,” said Vester in response. The fireman looked haggard and worn, and Billy’s friend had the beginnings of a beard on his sweat- and sea-drenched face. He looked like he had lost a few pounds, too, and Billy wondered if the Dawnwalkers would have simply been allowed to dwindle and die in their cages if Billy—and Blue—had not intervened.