Billy: Messenger of Powers Read online

  Vester reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. “Watch this,” the fireman grinned. He reached out a hand, and lightning arced out of the sky, lancing down until it hit Vester. Vester clenched his fist at the same time, as though catching a fast fly ball. The lightning dissipated, and Billy couldn’t help but crane his neck to see as Vester opened his fist, revealing a small ball of electricity. The ball sparkled and crackled with contained energy, then shrank down for a moment before expanding again. Just as the match flame on the beach had done, the energy formed itself into the shape of a horse, which galloped up Vester’s shoulder to join the other horse. The two equines—one made of fire, one of lightning—pranced across Vester’s shoulders and arms, and Billy couldn’t help but laugh a silent laugh.

  Vester smiled. “We’re safe as houses,” he said. Then, pointing up, he added, “And we’re almost to the top.”

  Billy looked skyward.

  It was true. They were, at last, almost to the top of the tower. The top, like the rest of it, was twined in the think branches of the Earthtree, which joined together at the top of the building to form a bower of sorts. A waterfall flowed from the top of the tower, flowing off the side of the stone tower, its spray gradually dissipating and losing itself in the force of the ever-present storm below it.

  The craft finally slowed as it flew over the lip of the tower, touching down gently on a soft mat of greenest grass that sprang up impossibly from the bare stone of the tower. Once more, Billy felt himself gripped—gently, but firmly—by the wind and lifted out of the craft. The others, too, were lifted up and set softly on the stone ground that constituted the top of the tower. Then Mrs. Russet clapped her hands, and the glass craft suddenly lost cohesion, falling instantly into a large pile of sand again, the sand then flowing over the side of the tower and disappearing into the vast emptiness below.

  Billy looked around. The top of the tower was enormous, hundreds of feet in diameter, so he felt no sensation of being particularly high up, even though he knew he was many thousands of feet above the earth. The wood of the Earthtree cradled the tower in branches that moved of their own accord, not twisting with the wind but constantly shifting and joining to create beautiful shapes, a living work of art. Nearby, a straight river flowed, the one that fed into the waterfall that Billy had seen earlier. As far as he could see, the river bisected the tower perfectly, and he suspected that it somehow ended in another waterfall on the other side of the tower, though that would mean the river was moving in two directions at the same time. That would have been impossible anywhere else, but here….

  Strange, beautiful flowers grew at the edges of the water, and Billy had the feeling that if he were to lay down among them, he might never wake up, but would sleep forever and dream only of beauty and light.

  “Come on then,” said Mrs. Russet, walking toward the center of the tower. Billy could see something in the distance, which gradually resolved so that he could make it out. It was a crystal dais, a raised platform of that appeared to be made of purest diamond, glimmering and glinting as the sun’s rays kissed it before shattering into a million shards of rainbow and light.

  The dais was perfectly round, and around its circumference sat seven chairs. Actually, they were thrones, more ornate and beautiful than any furniture Billy could imagine gracing a head of state in the “normal” world.

  One of the thrones was dark red, and appeared to be carved out of a single enormous ruby. On it was a pillow, maroon and gold of deepest velvet that made Billy sure that sitting in it would be nothing but bliss.

  Another of the thrones was blue, and it moved like the waves of the sea, slowly ululating and pulsing while still somehow managing to hold the general shape of a chair. Lovely many-colored shells and coral coated it, and Billy even thought he could see tiny sea creatures—shrimps and damselfish and wrasses—floating within the chair.

  The next throne was carved of brown marble and dark granite, exquisitely inlaid with fine etchings of gold and silver, and sporting carvings that looked to Billy like some kind of writing, though in a language that appeared both ancient and alien.

  Following that was a green throne, one that grew from the branches that wound around the dais. Its living frame writhed ever so slightly, as though the chair was waiting impatiently for its master or mistress to come and sit on it.

  And the last two chairs were the most beautiful of all, though completely opposite in many ways. One was black as deep space, absorbing the light so completely that Billy almost couldn’t make out the details of its structure. It looked as though it were formed of a million tiny black pearls, all held together through some dark force. Billy shivered as he looked at it. This chair, alone among them all, seemed like one he would not care to sit in. Beautiful, but a throne of fear.

  But as frightful as the black seat was, the throne to its left was just as beautiful and more. It was purest white, gleaming with a brilliance that outshone even the diamond platform on which it sat. Billy couldn’t tell what it was made of, but every so often the chair would flash, exploding in a rainbow of colors that reminded Billy of mother-of-pearl, only a million times brighter.

  “What is this place?” he asked, surprised to find that he could speak again. He glanced at Tempus.

  The old man shrugged. “I figured that you weren’t screaming any more, so you could have your voice back.”

  “This is the Council Seat, atop the Diamond Dais,” answered Mrs. Russet, disregarding Tempus’s aside. Billy looked at her when she said this. Her voice had changed somehow. It was deeper, more resonant. As he watched, she walked toward the dais. Before her, the stone floor of the tower shifted like liquid, forming stairs that allowed her to step gracefully onto the top of the diamond platform before they sank back into the stone as though they had never been.

  Mrs. Russet walked to the center of the dais. She withdrew a stone from her pocket. Once more, the stone changed in her hands, becoming the same crystalline staff she had used before to summon Vester, Tempus, Wade, and Eva Black at the time of Billy’s Gleaning.

  She touched the staff to the exact center of the dais. No sound came forth this time. Instead, a dazzling rainbow of colors emerged. The display was so bright, it should have blinded Billy, but it didn’t. Rather, it seemed to heighten his sense of sight: everything suddenly appeared clearer to him, the colors more vivid, like he had been seeing in pastel his whole life and now at last could see the bold colors of an oil painting.

  Mrs. Russet closed her eyes. “I summon the Council,” she intoned.

  Almost immediately, a voice responded. The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, as loud as a wave crashing down, yet silent and piercing as the whisper of a friend. “Who summons us?”

  Mrs. Russet stood tall, gripping the crystal staff with a confidence and strength that belied her years. “It is I,” she said, “Lumilla the Brown, Power of Earth and Councilor of the Powers.”

  The light from her staff flared even brighter with this, as the disembodied voice came again: “And why are we summoned?”

  “Because I believe that the White King, long prophesied, has at last begun his return,” answered Mrs. Russet. She paused a moment, as though weighing her next words carefully. Finally, she said, “And I believe I have found his forerunner: the Messenger who will go before the White King and prepare us for the final battle.”

  Mrs. Russet took in a great breath, apparently steeling herself to say what followed. She looked right at Billy, her dark eyes piercing him to the soul. “I believe I may have found the boy who will destroy us.”

  CHAPTER THE FIFTH

  In Which Billy meets the Council, and the Diamond Cracks…

  Destroy? thought Billy. She’s not talking about me, is she?

  He looked over at Vester, and saw that the youthful fireman looked just as surprised as Billy did. So did Tempus, for that matter. Ivy was the only one who seemed as though she knew that pronouncement had been coming. Billy remembered that she an
d Mrs. Russet had been engaged in deep conversation on the ride from the Lagoon to the top of the Tower. Was this what they were talking about? he wondered.

  Apparently Tempus also had questions of his own, for he looked at the green-garbed woman and asked, “Ivy? What is this that Lumilla is saying?”

  Ivy looked almost helpless, shrugging her shoulders as she said, “It’s not for me to say, Tempus.” She nodded toward the diamond podium where Mrs. Russet still stood. “The Council is convening.”

  Billy followed her gaze and saw that, over each of the colored thrones, a light of the same color as that throne was beginning to appear. Soon, there were six glowing orbs: green, blue, gray, red, brown, and black. All but the black one cast a beautiful glow, leading to a many-colored rainbow dance that played across the diamond podium like a symphony of tone and hue. As for the black orb, it seemed to grab whatever light passed near it and pull it in, as though seeking to extinguish the very existence of all around it.

  Billy looked at Vester. “What’s going on?” he whispered. “What’s the Council?”

  “The six strongest Powers, the governing Masters and Mistresses of each of the Elements,” replied Vester.

  Billy looked at the thrones. “Six Elements?” he asked. Vester nodded. “Then,” asked Billy, “why are there seven chairs?”

  Vester pointed at the one chair that did not have a light-orb glowing over it. “That one is the White Throne. Only the White King may sit upon it.”

  “The White King?” asked Billy. “What’s—”

  “Shush,” whispered Ivy. “They’re here.”

  Billy looked up, and saw that the orbs were slowly shifting, changing from circles into glowing shapes that gradually resolved themselves into human figures.

  Only the brown globe maintained its shape, but it moved toward Mrs. Russet, who had remained standing where she was during the dance of the lights. The brown globe overtook her, seeming to merge with her, then obscuring her figure for a moment before re-coalescing into what was recognizable as Billy’s teacher. Only where before she had been wearing a pale blue blouse and no-nonsense ankle-length skirt, she was now clothed in an outfit that was brown from top to bottom, a beautiful cloth with what appeared at first to be intricate stitching. But when Billy squinted, looking closer at the cloak, he saw that the stitching was really something else, something far more marvelous and breathtaking.

  “What is that?” he couldn’t help but whisper, tugging on Vester’s shirt and pointing at what he saw.

  “The Outlines of History,” whispered Vester in return. His voice had taken on a hushed, almost awed tone. “Lumilla the Brown is the greatest Power of the Earth—perhaps the greatest Power alive today. And the earth is the repository—the resting place—of most of the past. So when she is in her fullest power, here on the Diamond Dais, Lumilla is cloaked with the knowledge of that past. She—” he continued, then interrupted himself. “Look there!” he half-whispered, half-shouted, pointing at Mrs. Russet’s cloak. “I think it’s—yes, yes it is! It’s the Battle of Gettysburg!”

  Billy looked where Vester was pointing, and, sure enough, could just barely make out the shapes of two great armies clashing in a field, their dark outlines barely visible against the brown background of Mrs. Russet’s velvet cloak. The two armies of the Civil War came together in a fury of fire and smoke, then were swallowed up in the ever-changing pattern of the cloak.

  Billy kept watching, mesmerized by the scenes he saw unfolding. He saw a man at what looked like an ancient printing press, making a thick book. He saw a man in a wheelchair, talking into a dozen microphones, the eyes of those around him showing clear relief and happiness, his words—though Billy could not hear them—buoying them up in times of great need. He saw a man on a horse, riding among frozen troops in a wintry fort, shouting courage to them, urging them to great heights of bravery. He saw a woman moving among the poor and hungry of the world, ministering to them in her own infirmities.

  The images swirled, deeper and deeper, faster and faster as Billy watched. A rocket ship taking off, a great medieval army marching across a field, a dark flash of men walking across a parade-ground, heels kicking high in unison as they saluted the screaming man beside them. And more and more, faster and faster. Billy felt himself falling into the threads of the cloak, helpless, suddenly consumed with the urge to know, to see…everything.

  A hand clamped itself around his wrist, dragging him back from the abyss of History. It was Vester. “Don’t look too long,” he whispered in Billy’s ear. “The Earthessence is powerful. Almost everything goes into it eventually, but if one looks upon it for too long without the right preparation, the secrets it yields can be too much. Men and women have lost themselves in History, and forgotten that they are creatures of the present, and ever bound for the future.”

  Billy withdrew his attention with difficulty as Mrs. Russet walked regally to the brown throne, casting her cloak around her in a dark blanket of History as she sat. He looked around at the others who were now appearing from the orbs above their thrones.

  The first to appear was a man from the orb of Gray.

  “Dismus the Gray, Power of the Wind,” breathed Tempus. “The greatest of my kind.”

  Just as Mrs. Russet had been cloaked in brown, so Dismus the Gray wore an outfit of deepest gray, rich in tone. But where Mrs. Russet’s cloak had been deep and solid, Billy saw that Dismus’s cloak seemed ethereal, as though it might disappear at any minute, and the Gray Councilor along with it. And when Billy peered into Dismus’s cloak of wind, he saw sights he did not understand: people in strange clothing, odd buildings the like of which he had never seen, each visible for only a fleeting moment before being lost in the wispy winds of Dismus the Gray’s cloak.

  Billy looked at Tempus questioningly. “Just as the Brown Earthessence bears in it all History past, so the Gray Windessence brings with it glimpses of the future, glances of what is to come, or what may be.” Tempus looked at Billy, his expression one that appeared to be a mixture of affection and fear for the Gray Councilor who had just appeared. “The Grays are the Prophets, the Seers of our people.”

  Next came the Red Power. Billy noticed that Vester’s eyes lit up as a beautiful young woman appeared in the orb. Her body was as the flame that clothed her, lithe and sinuous, never seeming to be at rest. Her eyes were like two rubies set in fire, bright against her pale face. “Fulgora, the Red Lady,” said Vester. Billy looked at his new friend: the young fireman’s words were not the hushed awe with which he had spoken of the Council, nor were they the comforting tones that he usually used when speaking to Billy. No, Vester spoke in a tone of voice that Billy had only heard rarely, a special kind of timbre and tone that immediately conveyed the fireman’s feelings toward the Red Councilor.

  He’s in love with her, Billy thought. He wondered whether the beautiful Fulgora returned the sentiment, or even knew of Vester’s love. But Vester seemed lost to the world when she appeared, whether the woman knew of his love or not.

  Billy peered into her flame-cloak, but seemed to see nothing this time. Apparently flame was not a power that came with knowledge of the past or future. Perhaps there was nothing to be seen…

  Then Billy’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe what had suddenly appeared as he watched Fulgora’s cloak. It was…him. A Billy Jones of flame, but still clearly him. He saw himself on his eighth birthday, a wonderful day where his father had actually managed to show up and stay the whole day with the family. Then that image faded in the fire and he saw another image: this time a more recent one, of himself being bullied by the ever-present Cameron Black. Then that one, too, disappeared, replaced by something more pleasant: the flickering outline of Blythe Forrest as she had appeared to him in the terrible, embarrassing, and perfectly wonderful moment when he first laid eyes on her. She seemed to look at him, peering forth from the fires of the Red Lady’s garb.

  “What am I seeing?” he wondered aloud.

  “Memories,” said
Vester. “As powerful as flame, as quick to come and go as lightning, they can warm…or they can burn.” The fireman, too, was looking now at the Red Power’s outfit, and Billy wondered what memories Vester was seeing, and how many of them featured the Red Lady in them.

  Billy spared one more fleeting, longing glance at the image of Blythe Forrest in the flames, before he was again drawn to the appearance of a new Councilor: the Blue.

  The Power appeared as a form out of the white spray of a breaking wave, not there at all and then suddenly solid. His outfit was a shifting mass of water, for he was cloaked in what Billy now could guess was the Earthsea itself. And when he looked in the man’s watery cloak, Billy saw gold, gems, rubies. Then the cloak shifted, and Billy caught a glimpse of himself, only much larger than he really was: well-muscled and tall. Blythe was under his arm, giggling with delight as they walked down the halls of school together.

  A hand covered his eyes. “Even more dangerous than the Power of the Earth,” said Vester. “Water is the resting place of the world’s most hidden treasures. And so the Blue Powers have the ability to influence our minds with the subtle promise of riches, of power, of influence, and none can do this better than Nehala the Blue. He is a wily one, like a fox that will smile at you while all the while planning how to catch and eat you.” Vester shuddered, almost overwhelmed with revulsion.

  Of course, Billy thought. Vester is fire and this Nehala is water. Of course they won’t like each other. Natural enemies.

  Another flare drew Billy’s gaze to the last two orbs. Out of one, the green one, coiled thin tendrils that grew and grew. The tendrils budded new tendrils, which turned to flowers, which in turn ripened into fruit that fell from the vines, disappearing before they hit the pristine Diamond Dais. Then the vines withdrew for a short time, as though asleep under a blanket of snow, before starting the cycle again. Finally, the vines ran together and became muscle and sinew, a man being created from the living greenery of the Earthree itself. Billy watched in wonder at the sight. The man that finally became flesh sat at his throne. He looked right at Billy and smiled.