“Father!” Ivy screamed again. And this time her voice was joined by dozens, hundreds, thousands of others. The dying Greens.
Billy looked through a curtain of tears, and saw that Veric was writhing on his bed, having some kind of seizure or fit.
The sound of the Greens grew beyond imagining, beyond Billy’s ability to cope. He saw Vester’s good hand go up to cover one of the young man’s ears, saw Tempus bend over as though being beaten down with the force of the sonic attack. Only Terry and Mrs. Russet remained firm and upright, though he could detect a wrinkling around the corners of their eyes that told him how hard they were working just to remain vertical.
Then, suddenly, the Greens all quieted. Silence reigned in the hospital room, and in that same instant the pain departed from Billy’s body. He could stand straight and tall again.
“What was that?” he wanted to ask. But didn’t. Because he could see on Mrs. Russet’s face that something horribly wrong had happened. He followed her gaze, and gasped. She was looking at Veric. The man’s eyes were still sightless and black. But something about them had changed. It took Billy a moment to realize what it was, and when he did, he almost couldn’t believe it.
The man’s eyes were lifeless.
Veric was dead.
CHAPTER THE TENTH
In Which Billy sees a Friend Taken, and sees his Death…
Billy had seen dead people before, in his time with the Powers. But never one like this. Veric, the epitome of Life itself, had disappeared into a shadowy place. A dark place. His eyes stared at the bright “sun” above them, but did not reflect its light. His body was relaxed, but did not seem at peace. Indeed, his face was contorted into a final rictus of pain and terror, the look not of a man who died in bed, but of one who had been terribly tortured.
Tempus reached out a trembling hand, and touched the Green Power’s chest, felt his throat, clearly feeling for a pulse, and just as clearly failing to find what he sought.
“No,” whispered the Wind Power, and Billy could not remember ever having seen him look so stricken. Not even when faced with the destruction of Powers Island, not even faced with his own certain death at the hands of a horde of Darksider zombies, not even then had he looked this weak, this enfeebled.
Terry stood motionless, his face contorted into a look of pain and horror. Mrs. Russet started to reach for her husband, as though intending to hold his hand, but stopped herself in the last second.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
No one, it seemed, so much as breathed.
Veric was dead.
Finally, Vester reached out a hand to the Green Councilor. “Goodbye,” he said simply, and closed the man’s unseeing eyes with his fingers.
Billy felt pain again. But it was not the pain of the DeathBlade. It was, instead, the pain of loss. He had lost Veric. He had failed the man. He, Billy, the Messenger and the Seeker, had not been able to save his friend.
He felt tears stinging his cheeks, etching hot trails down to his chin. He didn’t wipe them away. He felt like doing so would be wrong. Veric, the Councilor of Life, was gone, and so all Life should show that it mourned.
He looked over at Vester, seeking to draw strength from the Fire Power. Through all his adventures, Vester had been the most unshakable of his friends. Even Mrs. Russet, with her vast power and knowledge, didn’t seem as steady and sure as Vester sometimes did. And Billy needed that – needed something sure. Something steady. Something that would remind him that the fight would go on. That they could continue the struggle. That they could win.
That was why it was such a shock to see Vester suddenly look up and scream. The scream was loud as the Greens’ shrieks had been, a wordless cry of agony that left Billy feeling ravaged inside.
“My friend,” said Tempus, and reached out a hand to comfort Vester.
But Vester would not be comforted. He shook Tempus’ hand off his arm, then ran.
Vester ran so suddenly that it startled the group, and no one moved to follow him for a moment. Then Billy ran after him, feeling strange to be running among the rows of the dying Greens. He felt like it was wrong somehow, like spitting on the floor in church or something. But he knew that his friend needed help. So he ran anyway.
Vester moved quickly, and Billy was hard-pressed to keep up. It didn’t help that the sword was banging against one leg, the dagger hitting the other, and the shield was just generally getting in the way of everything. Billy was glad he had found them, but in that instant he wished he hadn’t.
No sooner had he thought this, then the three items disappeared. Billy almost stopped running, but somehow felt that they hadn’t really gone. They were still there, somehow. Still present, though unseen and unfelt. He knew that they had merely made themselves scarce in response to his thoughts, and that when he needed them, they would return again. Just one more amazing fact about the weapons of the White King.
Then he pushed those thoughts away as he ran after Vester. The Fire Power was blazing fast, and reached the elevator at the far end of the cavernous room long before Billy. He saw his friend punch the call button, and then an elevator came. Vester stepped in, and was gone.
Billy got to the elevators several long seconds later. He hit the call button himself, and a few moments later the doors opened for him. He hoped that he would see Vester inside, but knew that was unrealistic. The tower at the center of Powers Island seemed to have hundreds of elevators, all whizzing through its heights constantly. So it was almost ridiculous to hope that Vester would have been inside this one particular elevator, just waiting for Billy to come and find him.
Billy entered the empty elevator.
“Where to?” asked a silky, feminine voice.
“Do you know where Vester went?”
“I don’t even know what a Vester is,” answered the elevator.
“The Fire Power who just got into an elevator on this floor a second ago,” said Billy quickly. He could almost feel Vester getting farther and farther away.
“Sorry, we don’t give out that kind of information,” said the elevator with a sniff. “It’s against policy.”
Billy grimaced, and suddenly felt the shield on his left arm again, the sword and dagger at his waist. “You will answer,” he snarled.
“Yes… my Lord,” answered the elevator in a hushed tone. “I’ll… would you like me to take you to him?”
“Yes,” answered Billy. The doors slid shut, and his stomach lurched as the elevator began moving.
He thought about the weapons and shield disappearing, and again they did. Handy.
“Ummm,” said the elevator haltingly.
“Yes,” said Billy.
“Is it time?”
“For what?”
“For the end.” The elevator’s voice was hushed; breathless. It sounded like it was on the verge of getting something it had waited for over untold millennia.
“The end of what?” asked Billy. As he had several times before, he suddenly felt as though the elevators knew much more than they let on, and wondered if he could get some of the answers he so desperately needed.
“The end,” continued the elevator, “of everything.”
Billy didn’t know how to answer that. Or at least, he didn’t think he did. So it was something of a surprise when he felt his mouth open, and heard words come out of it. “Not now,” he said. “But soon.”
“Finally,” sighed the elevator.
Billy would have asked what the elevator was talking about, would have asked it what it knew, but in that moment the doors slid open.
“We’re here, my Lord,” said the elevator.
The thousands of questions that Billy could have asked were pressed out of his mind as he was brought back to the present. Vester still needed him. Not that Billy knew exactly what he could do, but he did know that his friend – maybe his best friend ever – was in pain. And Billy couldn’t just let him run off and struggle with his agony alone.
Bi
lly stepped out of the elevator, and heard it whisper shut behind him, thought he heard it say, “My Lord,” one more time before it disappeared.
He looked around. He was outside. Behind him, the sheer – though slightly listing – face of the tower loomed overhead, as far as the eye could see and beyond.
And in front of him… Billy guessed it was a garden. He had to guess, because in its current state it was hard to imagine what it had looked like in its prime. Everywhere there were large bushes, clinging vines, reaching trees. But they were all twisted and blighted, looking as though they were clinging to the last gasps of life.
Billy shuddered. He was surrounded, not by death, but by the instant of terror before death finally claimed a living thing. He could feel fear on every side. Could feel it as tangibly as a skeletal finger running down the base of his spine.
Billy put that macabre thought aside. Where was Vester?
He walked deeper into the wasted garden, searching for his friend. It didn’t take him long to find the Fire Power. Vester was standing in front of a long line of trees. Like the rest of the garden, the trees were twisted and black and rotten looking. In spite of this, however, Billy got a sense of regal beauty from the trees. Like he was looking at royalty.
Vester was watching a bare patch of ground expectantly. Billy walked closer to his friend, and could soon hear that he was whispering. “Please, please no, please, please, please no.” Vester sounded like he was praying, though Billy could not tell what he might be praying for.
Then the air changed. All grew suddenly silent in the already-quiet garden, as though nature itself was holding its breath. Billy heard a creaking, and realized that the dying plants all around him were moving. He knew that he should have been afraid at the sight, but for some reason it didn’t scare him. Rather, it seemed somehow right. As though he was witnessing a thing that was not only natural, but ordained from the beginning of time. Something that must occur, just as the moon must circle the earth, the earth circle the sun, and the sun circle around the greater centers of the galaxy. The dying plants all around him were leaning toward the row of trees in their center. Expectant, somehow. Waiting.
“Circles within circles,” he murmured, the words coming to his lips unbidden. “Life within life. The beginning is the end, and the end but a new beginning.”
Vester must have heard him, but did not look up. He continued staring at the bare patch of earth before him.
And then, suddenly, it was bare no longer. The earth crumbled, and something pushed forth from below its surface. A plant of some kind. Not green – nothing in this place was green anymore – but clearly a plant, nonetheless.
It was a tendril, small and shiny, a newborn thrusting its way into the light. Then, as Billy watched, the tiny plant grew. It became thick and heavy, though still darkened with the blight that the Darksiders had caused. It pushed its way higher and higher into the sky, thickening and broadening with every passing second. And in less than a minute, there was one more tree in the row of trees Vester was standing before.
“No,” whispered the fireman. “No, no, no, no, no!” And again he screamed, again shouted that wordless shriek of rage and pain that Billy had heard escape his lips in the hospital room in the tower.
To his surprise, the Red Power threw himself at the newly born tree, pummeling it with his one good hand. “No, no, no,” he was murmuring to himself, the word almost pounding at Billy’s eardrums like a curse. “No.”
Billy stepped forward, but didn’t know what he could do. What he could say. He didn’t understand what was happening, and so had no clue how to fix it.
After a long moment, Vester stopped hitting the rough bark of the newly born – yet at the same time, already dying – tree. Billy was horrified to see that his friend’s hand was bloody and raw from hitting the thick bark of the trunk.
Vester didn’t seem to notice his wounds. He leaned against the tree, putting his forehead against it like he was leaning into the embrace of a loving friend. The young man reached into his pocket, and brought out his lighter. He flicked it, and then grasped the flame that sprung to life. He touched a finger to the tree, and Billy could smell the distinct odor of charring wood. The plants all around them began writhing, as though preparing to uproot and throw themselves at Vester if necessary to stop him from harming the new tree.
But after a moment, Billy could see that Vester wasn’t trying to hurt the tree. Or at least, he wasn’t hurting it as his main purpose. Rather, he was writing something on it. Using his Fire to burn letters into its surface. Billy couldn’t make them out at first, but then Vester finished, and slumped. He curled up at the base of the tree, like a dog laying on the feet of its master.
“For my father,” read the words that Vester had burnt on the tree.
Billy didn’t understand. He knew that Vester had lost his father, during the second War of the Powers. Darksiders had killed his friend’s dad, though he didn’t know any of the details.
“I couldn’t save him,” said Vester. “I couldn’t save either of them.”
“Vester,” said Billy quietly. He stepped closer to his friend, and put a hand on Vester’s shoulder.
“There’s one for each of them, you know,” said Vester, nodding at the line of trees that stretched into the distance of the garden. “One for each Green Councilor who ever lived.” He touched the base of the trunk he was leaning against tenderly, as though caressing the brow of a sick friend. “One for each of them.” He looked at Billy, and Billy was shocked to see the depth of anguish in his friend’s eyes. “I didn’t believe he was really gone. Not until I saw his tree. Not until I saw it with my own eyes.” The Fire Power’s fingers touched the words he had just burnt into the surface of the tree. “He took me in,” he said after what seemed to Billy like an hour of silence. “After my mom died, after my dad was….” His voice drifted off, lost in the pain of his memories.
Billy ached inside. He wanted to do something, to help. What good was it to be the Messenger or the Seeker or anything else if he couldn’t help his friends? But he knew that whatever Vester was going through was beyond the help of any Power. Only time would heal him, and time was something that Billy feared was in very short supply.
Vester sniffled, then wiped his tears away and stood up suddenly. He placed his hand softly against the tree. Against Veric’s tree. It was a movement of infinite tenderness. A moment of the purest love. Billy thought of his own father at that moment. Of his mother. Of what he would do if he lost them. And his heart ached for Vester.
“How touching.”
Billy’s heart raced. He and Vester both turned, and he saw the person he least expected to find in this garden.
It was Eva Black. She was as tall and white of skin as Billy remembered her. Her hair was drawn up into a tight bun. One eye was covered by a patch. It had been wounded in the Battle for Powers Island. Indeed, Billy himself had caused the injury, when he had used Excalibur to destroy the evil woman’s Death’s Head Moth. She was dressed all in black, as was her wont, and she looked like a dark pit of despair, standing in this Death-tainted garden.
Behind her was another person that Billy knew well: Cameron, Eva’s son. The boy had been the bane of Billy’s existence for months at school, relentlessly bullying and bothering him. But during the Battle for Powers Island, Cameron had also been injured. Not physically, but emotionally. He had cast a spell known as the Dread at Billy, but the spell had backfired, and struck Cameron instead. The Dread was a spell that caused someone to relive their worst fears forever, until finally they died in despair. As far as Billy knew, the only cure was to go into the afflicted person’s memories and heal them from the inside – a dangerous operation that no one but he had ever successfully performed.
Mrs. Black must have found some way to pull her son back from the brink of death caused by the Dread. Not that she had cured him. Something was clearly wrong with Cameron. He was no longer the strong, tall, and threatening figure he had once been
. Instead, he was hunched over as though his muscles and bones had been twisted somehow. His face was red and flushed, and his eyes had a light in them that reminded Billy of a wild animal. Dangerous, and insane with rage and hunger.
Cameron giggled. “Send in the clowns,” he whispered, and the sound of his voice, insane and cracked, gave Billy chills.
Behind Mrs. Black and her son was a third Darksider. Mordrecai. The man who had been behind Blue’s attack on the Earth. The man who was apparently trying to recover the same arms and armor that Billy was on a quest to find. He smiled at Billy, a wide grin that was probably a lot like the smile a spider gave to a fly as it invited the smaller insect into its parlor.
Billy took all this in in the space of less than a second. So did Vester, who curled his hand over his head and threw a lance of fire at Mrs. Black.
Mrs. Black laughed and slapped the flame away from her. Just as Mrs. Russet was an extraordinarily strong Brown Power, so Eva Black was her equal among the Black Powers. Vester was no match for the Darksider, and he could see in his friend’s eyes that Vester was aware of that, too.
Mrs. Black crooked a finger, and a dark, whip-like tendril lashed forward from her hand. It wrapped itself around Vester’s neck, and the Fire Power was suddenly choking on his knees.
Cameron giggled and clapped his hands like a three year old on a carousel. “More, Mommy, more!” he laughed.
“Or course, precious,” said Mrs. Black. She moved her hand slightly, and the dark lasso seemed to pulse. Vester’s choking noises cut off completely. He was struggling to remain conscious, Billy could see.
Billy thought of Excalibur, and the sword was suddenly in his hands. He raised it over his head, prepared to slash it down and cut the evil rope that was choking Vester’s life away.
“I wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Black. She moved her hand again, and Vester gasped, suddenly able to breathe, though the evil black rope remained around his neck. “Touch the spell, and it will sever his head from his neck before it is gone.”
Billy: Seeker of Powers (The Billy Saga) Page 14
