He thought about Mrs. Black, about the enigmatic Mordrecai, but quickly discarded those answers. If either of them had been able to get this far, they wouldn’t have been standing at the bottom of the stairs.
The stairs….
A kernel of an idea sprouted in Billy’s mind. The stairs. The place where he had gone forward only by going back. The place where he had met animals that seemed confused not about where they were, but about when they were. The place that was the one place other than Powers Island where time didn’t seem to act as it should.
And suddenly he knew. Even as the animals were crouching, as they were getting ready to throw themselves at him, he knew the answer. He knew who it was who now looked at him, though with many eyes.
“Merlin,” he breathed.
The animals drew back. They pulled away from Billy; and not just away from him, but closer to one another, like they were now afraid of him. Closer and closer to one another, until it became hard for Billy to know where one animal ended and another began. He found himself in a shifting sea of gray, full of fur and teeth and claws and eyes, and then even those features disappeared in the endless monochrome ocean.
There was a rushing sound, the noise of a hurricane beating down on stone walls. The noise grew so loud that Billy screamed, but his voice failed even to reach his own ears. He lifted up the Shield of the Sea, as though it might deflect not only weapons but the sonic attack that now came relentlessly at him.
And then, without warning, all was silent.
Billy lowered the shield.
He looked. And saw only endless cloud before him.
“Hello, old friend,” someone said.
Billy spun around, and there behind him was Merlin. The first Gray Councilor, the man who had helped the White King to craft Powers Island, and separate it from the time-stream of the rest of the world.
Billy expected a tall, wizened old fellow, probably with a beard. And the man who stood before him was tall, but hardly old. He seemed like he was in his mid-thirties. Maybe even younger. It was hard to tell, because his eyes – gray as stormclouds – seemed to speak of ageless knowledge, of wisdom without end. They were the eyes, not of a Power, but of Power Itself.
When Billy had first met Tempus, the old man had been clad in a swirling gray mass of stormcloud. Merlin, too, was dressed in a cloud. But where Tempus’ outfit had seemed permeable and ethereal, the gray mass that swathed Merlin seemed somehow to epitomize reality itself. Billy had the impression that when the sun itself burnt to a cold dark cinder, Merlin would still be standing in this place, watching the universe slowly spin and wearing his cloak of softest gray.
“How did you know me?”
Billy almost didn’t answer. He was too in awe of the man – of the master Power – he stood before. It took him a moment to find his voice, and even when he did manage to speak, the words came haltingly. “I knew about you. From… from school,” he finally said. “Merlin lived backward. And I figured that Arthur’s most trusted advisor would probably be the one who helped him make the time envelope that shielded Powers Island from the rest of the world. Also,” he added, gesturing around the cloud that had until now been coated with teeming masses of animal life, “I read somewhere that Merlin liked to play tricks on people by turning himself into animals. So….” He shrugged, unable to say much more.
“Just so,” said the Gray Power. He had a far-off look in his eyes, as though thinking about a treasured memory, then he shook it off and stared at Billy. “So you’re here for the spear, eh?”
Billy hadn’t known it was a spear he was after – it could have just as easily been armor – but he nodded and tried to put on a knowing expression. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Merlin waved away the words. “I’m no ‘sir,’” he said. “At least, not to you.”
Billy squinted. “Do you know me?”
“Of course I do,” said Merlin. “We will have met some years hence, and have since become good friends.”
Billy’s head felt like someone was pounding on it with a sock full of quarters. He wasn’t very good at the rules of normal grammar, let alone the convoluted syntax involved in talking to someone who lived life in reverse.
“So… this isn’t the first time we’ve met,” he finally managed.
“Oh, no, of course not,” said Merlin. “We met for the first time many years from now, and since then we were going to work closely on any number of things.”
Billy tried to follow that sentence. He failed miserably. Tried again. Failed again. Shook his head in an attempt to dislodge the memory of ever hearing it, and then tried his best to move forward with the conversation without having his eyes cross or his brain implode. “So… if you live backwards… then you can tell me what happens next?”
Merlin tsk-tsked and looked at him with disappointment in his eyes. “That would be cheating, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hmph,” said Merlin. “Me either. The rules are so very confusing. Now,” he added, and started walking across the cloud before Billy could respond, “where is that spear?”
Billy watched Merlin go, suddenly remembering what Nehara had said about walking on “unhardened” spots on clouds. Billy didn’t want to have come all this way, only to walk somewhere, um, cloudy (cloudish? cloudesque?), and fall to his doom.
Merlin stopped walking and looked back at him. “You coming, my friend?” he asked, a bit petulantly.
Billy nodded and started walking before he could think about what he was doing. When in doubt, push forward, he thought. Another thing his father had always said, and the more time Billy spent among the Powers the more he recognized what a wise person his dad was.
They walked in utter silence, even their footfalls muffled by the soundlessness of the clouds below them. Billy had a thousand questions, but something about Merlin invited peace. Like he was an island of quiet in the middle of the stormy conflicts all around Billy. Occasionally the man would stop, look around as though spotting a specific landmark, then would turn sharply to one side or another. Billy looked around every time this happened, but to his eyes every part of the cloud looked exactly the same as every other part.
Then Merlin stopped, and this time he did not turn to the right or the left. He stayed still, rooted to the spot, and then he disappeared from view as he suddenly dropped through the cloud.
Billy felt panic grip him. He had been alone before, of course, but somehow no isolation was quite as thorough as what you could find on a cloud untold thousands of feet above the earth. He was on the verge of screaming in only a few seconds, and a few seconds after that probably would have pitched himself off the side of the cloud… if only he could find it.
Luckily, he couldn’t, so he was still alive when Merlin reappeared. The man was holding something, but for some reason Billy couldn’t see what. It wasn’t that it was invisible; more like it somehow invited your eye to slide off it. Like finding one specific face in a crowded sports stadium was almost impossible, so looking directly at Merlin’s prize was equally difficult.
“I present you,” said the Gray Power, “the Spear of the Winds.” Merlin raised his hands, palms up, and whatever it was he was holding suddenly disappeared. At the same time, Billy felt something strap itself to his back.
He reached behind him (willing the other weapons away), and pulled the thing from behind him. It felt almost like a spiderweb, nothing but a single gossamer thread, but at the same time he could tell it was an object with the capacity for incredible destruction. Like the Windessence from which it had been crafted, the Spear of the Winds was almost invisible, barely even in existence… but could be terrible when roused to action.
“It is yours, my friend,” said Merlin. “And now, I must leave for a time.”
“Wait,” said Billy, the panic he had felt before now welling to the surface once more.
“Yes?” said Merlin. He flickered, as though in giving up the spear he had given up some of what anchored
him to this time and place. “Have we more business? I have seen to the task you will have given me, I have been true to the promise I once will make. What more can I have done?”
“I….” Billy didn’t even know what he wanted to ask. Only that he didn’t want to be alone, and he wanted this clearly powerful person to help him defeat the Darksiders. “I don’t know what to do,” he finally said. “I don’t know what comes next.”
“Precious few of us do,” said Merlin. He was still flickering, and now when he could be seen he almost appeared as two people: one the young man that Billy had met on the cloud, and the other an old man with the saddest eyes he had ever seen. The old man spoke, and his voice was as melancholy as his gaze. “And those that do know what comes next most often wish they didn’t.” He waved, then the young man was now the brighter of the two versions of Merlin. “Fare thee well, my friend,” he said.
“Wait, wait!” Billy was just about beside himself, screaming for Merlin not to go, but no matter how loud he yelled, both the young Power and the old had soon faded out and disappeared.
“But how… how do I get down?” he said. He asked the question to himself, with no hope of an answer, but as soon as he gave voice to the query the wind whipped up all around him. And in the wind he heard the words of Merlin.
“Use the spear, my friend.”
The words were as soft as a summer breeze, yet sure and real as a hurricane. With them came calm and a sureness that Billy had seldom enjoyed.
He raised his hands, knowing that the spear was in them but still unable to focus on it. “Take me back,” he said.
And, like the wind, he was gone.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
In Which Billy finds Battle, and braces a Beast…
Billy had flown before, but he had never Flown.
He had flown under Tempus’ power, both on his first time to Powers Island and also during the battle when the Darksiders tried a sneak attack to destroy the Dawnwalkers. It had been exhilarating, frightening, awesome… and was absolutely nothing in comparison to what he now felt.
The spear was in his hands, but also somehow all around him, converting him from Billy to Wind itself, to a Power so great and fierce that it toppled buildings, changed landscapes, altered the face of the world itself. He felt utterly insignificant and at the same time like the one thing that made all life possible.
He was Wind. He was Air. He was the surge of oxygen through every breath taken in the world.
And then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling ended and Billy found himself in the middle of a nightmare.
He had said, “Take me back,” and had thought little of it. The words just came to him, just flew to his lips without conscious effort… and the spear had heeded them and had taken him back to the last place he had been.
To the cloud of the Darksiders.
Billy would have thought this would be a terrible idea, and he would have been right… but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of the mass of Darksiders standing in cruel ranks that he expected, he saw tangled knots of people fighting. Fire, tempest, water was everywhere. The cloud itself seemed to be ablaze, and everywhere people were screaming. Some of the shrieks disappeared, petered off, and Billy had a moment to realize that some of the people screaming had fallen in fiery balls through the cloud, plummeting to burning deaths far below.
What was going on? he wondered. But there was no way he could make sense out of the maelstrom of destruction.
“Billy!”
Billy heard his name, shouted as from a faraway place, and spun about trying to locate the source of the sound.
“Billy!”
This time he was able to pinpoint the voice. It was Fulgora. The Fire Princess was galloping over the top of the cloud on a lion of flame, holding a blazing sword of pure fire in each hand – swords that she swung with wild rage, dispatching a Darksider with every swing.
Then she was next to him, the fiery steed snorting under her legs and glaring at Billy like it was trying to decide whether to attack him or not. As though in response to the beast, Billy felt the Dagger of Flame in his hand. The lion saw it and immediately grew docile, even bowing a bit to Billy – or at least to his weapon.
Billy barely noticed any of it. His eyes were on Fulgora. She was in full armor, every inch of her covered in red plate metal that he knew would burn anyone who came too close. Only her eyes could be seen, and they burned as well, twin embers of flame that sparked within the darkness of her helm.
“Fulgora, what’s happening?” he asked.
“What it looks like,” she snarled. “War. We’ve found them, Billy. We’ve found them and we’re going to end this. End it now.”
She tore off her helmet. Billy saw her eyes, saw her face, and knew the worst had come to pass.
“Vester’s dead,” she said. Tears streamed down her cheeks, sizzling into steam against her skin and dissipating before they got as far as her chin.
“How do you know?” Billy said. For a moment the battle around them seemed to disappear. There was nothing but him and the Red Lady and her tears and the hope that he had been nursing that Vester was alive, that he was alive and could be saved.
“They sent us… they….” Fulgora’s voice choked out and she looked down. Then she looked up again and her tears were gone. “He is dead,” she said, and in the sudden calm of her voice Billy found more to terrify him than he had found in the death and mayhem all around them. Fulgora was a warrior, a princess of people who came into life fighting and went out the same way. The look in her eyes wasn’t just dangerous, it was deadly.
“What happened?” said Billy.
“We found them. Lumilla and her husband –” and Fulgora’s nose wrinkled at that last word, as though she had suddenly discovered she was wearing underwear made of dog-doo, “– discovered this place. And then the proof of Vester’s death was delivered.” She swung around and held out a hand, and a firebolt darted out and scorched a trio of Darksiders who had been sneaking up behind her. They fell, screaming and burning, through the cloud.
“But what –”
“What it looks like!” she snapped. Her lion-steed snorted fire and roared, clearly sensing its mistress’s mood. “We’re going to kill them. Once and for all, every single one of the Darksiders.”
She spurred the lion and it roared again, then turned away. Billy knew that she was going to return to the battle, and return to the killing until every Darksider was dead… or she was.
“Wait!” he screamed. “What about the Greens?” He meant it as a way of stopping her. Of saying that they couldn’t risk an all-out attack when so many of the Dawnwalkers were down for the count. Of saying that she couldn’t give in to her selfish need for revenge when there were so many others relying on them.
Fulgora’s eyes flashed… not metaphorically, but literally – actual puffs of flame shot out of her eyes and circled her face in a terrible halo of wrath.
“The Greens are dead,” she said. Then she threw her helmet back on, screamed out a terrible battle cry, and returned to the fray.
Billy didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt like he had just been dipped in concrete. His arms, his legs, his chest were all frozen in a terrible moment.
The Greens were dead.
That meant Ivy.
That meant Blythe.
Billy stood. Just stood. He barely noticed the battle, barely noticed the death that surrounded him.
He simply stood.
And then, slowly, he realized what was happening. A war in the sky, a war on the sky. The air itself seemed to be on fire now, the sky brightened by spats of lightning and bursts of flame. The wind had whipped up, teeming and boiling like a kettle on a stove. Tornadoes were everywhere, as far as the eye could see, spinning funnels of danger that grabbed everyone in their path and flung them to their deaths like so many matchsticks in the hands of a cruel child. Crackling purples and blues that Billy knew were spells of Dread flung themselves upon Powers all around hi
m. The cloud itself periodically belched up the water it held in vast mid-air waves that drowned those Powers unlucky enough to be in the danger zone. And rocks flew out of nowhere, called forth from the Earth to crush enemies’ bodies.
Every Power was being brought to bear.
Fire – the lightning and flames that tinged everything with a scarlet hue.
Water – the waves sweeping through the sky.
Air – the tornadoes ravaging all around them.
Earth – the rocks.
Death – the Dread.
Only the spells of Life were absent. Because the Greens were dead.
The Greens are dead, the Greens are dead, the Greens are dead. Blythe is gone, Ivy is gone, the Greens are dead the Greens are dead the Greens are –
“Stop!” he screamed.
The word had no effect on the battle around him. The sky continued to burn, to shake, to drown. People fell from the cloud and died in blazes and screams and whimpers.
Billy drew himself up to his full height – all five-foot-nothing of him – and felt the White King’s weapons come upon him. He held the Dagger of Flame in one hand, Excalibur in another. The Spear of the Winds rested lightly on his back, and the Shield of the Sea clung to his arm. He raised his arms to the sky.
“Stop!” he shouted again. And then he felt something else, felt that presence he had felt before. He felt himself become more than Billy. More and yet still the same. Not a stranger, but his potential. He became what he could one day hope to be. “Stop, I command thee!”
And with that, he smashed the ruby Dagger of Flame against the pure diamond edge of Excalibur.
A shockwave exploded from within him, a blue-white circle of energy that blew across the cloud and knocked down everyone in its path. Darksiders and Dawnwalkers alike were pushed into kneeling positions, as though worshipping at his feet.
The energy pulsed out, then again, and then a third time. The fires in the sky were quenched, the rising waves returned to the depths of the cloud and the rocks that had been falling all around now plummeted out of sight – returning to the Earth from whence they had come.
Billy: Seeker of Powers (The Billy Saga) Page 22
