Billy didn’t answer her. He didn’t have time. In that moment the frozen figure beside her also reanimated. The muscled hand and arm that had been outstretched continued the movement they had begun before Mrs. Russet froze the couple. The fingers splayed out like the hand had just let go of a major league-quality fastball, and darts of razor-sharp flint shot out of the fingers, piercing the air where the others had been standing only moments before.
Billy swung Excalibur, and the darts shattered in midair. Tempus whispered something that might have been a curse or – knowing Tempus – could have been some craziness about aliens trying to take over the world’s supply of chewing gum.
“How is this possible?” said Mrs. Russet. “How can your father be a Power? He’s never been Counted, he’s never shown up in the Book of the Earth.”
The man who had just cast the spell looked at Billy. At the weapons Billy wore. He smiled, but his dark eyebrows knit together like he wanted to frown more than he wanted to grin. “So you finally know,” said the man. “You have come into your own.”
“Not completely,” answered Billy. “There is still much to do.”
“What does this mean?” demanded Mrs. Russet. A trace of her old self came back into her voice, the voice of a Brown Councilor, a leader of Powers, a high school teacher. “What is going on here, what… what…?” The strength dropped out of her voice again as the man who had just shown himself to be a Power slowly sank to his knees. A moment later, so did Billy’s mother.
Billy put out a hand to the woman first. “Rise, Lady Guenevere,” he said. And then he held out his other hand to the man. “And my faithful protector, rise also. Rise, Lancelot.”
Billy could practically hear the jaws dropping all around him. He glanced to the side, and even with his sudden new awareness – both of who he was and what he faced – he couldn’t help but smile at Tempus’ expression. The old Gray looked like he had been caught trying to eat a live cricket and now couldn’t decide whether to swallow it or spit it out.
“What’s going on?” the old man finally managed.
Billy looked at the man and woman who now stood nearby. He pointed at the man and said to his friends, “May I present to you Lancelot, champion of Powers, friend to Arthur, first of the Brown Councilors and co-creator of Powers Island.” He pointed at the woman. “This is the lady Guenevere, Arthur’s wife. And,” he said, “my mother.”
“But… but that means….” Tempus looked back and forth between Guenevere, Lancelot, and Billy so fast that his neck was in danger of snapping. “You’re. You’re….”
“Yes. It’s why I could pull the sword from the stone,” said Billy, holding Excalibur aloft. “It’s why I have been able to call on the unicorn. I am Arthur’s son, the White King’s favored child and intended successor.”
“No,” said Fulgora. As usual she was the first one to move from confusion and awe to imperiousness. “This isn’t true – Lancelot betrayed Arthur. Lancelot stole Guenevere away from her king.”
Lancelot shook his head. “That was the story we told. The story we wanted known. So that no one would think to look for Arthur’s wife and son, because no one would ever believe that a traitor so cruel would also be their protector.”
“Is this what the Book of the Earth referred to, is this why there was confusion in the Powers’ histories about what happened to the White King?” asked Mrs. Russet.
“Yes,” said Lancelot. “With Arthur’s help, I changed parts of the Book of the Earth. We created a history that foretold the return of Arthur… and Billy,” he added. Then, looking at Billy he said, “Or should I call you Prince William?”
Billy shook his head. “Who I am is who I have been. Who I shall be is yet to come. For now, it suffices that I be called Billy. It is a good name, and one that has meant much good in this world.”
Lancelot nodded gravely, and Billy felt a flush of pride. He had found himself in the last moments before his dissolution at the hands of Mordrecai, had found the knowledge that had been locked away in his mind for just this time. He knew now that Lancelot was not his father, and never had been. But still, he had acted as Billy’s father for almost his whole life, and the fact was that Billy still craved his affection and approbation.
“Well then, we’ve won,” said Tempus.
“Hardly,” said Mrs. Russet. She looked at Billy. “We haven’t found the armor yet,” she said. “And I think it unlikely we will find it.”
“How so?” asked Fulgora.
“Each of the items of prophecy have been linked to a Power – the dagger to Fire, the sword to Earth, the shield to Water… and is that a spear of Air?” she said. Billy nodded and she continued, “It stands to reason the armor is also linked to a Power – most likely the Life. But….”
“But the Greens are all dead,” Fulgora finished. “And so we can’t get the last item needed to call Arthur forth and end this conflict.”
Mrs. Russet nodded, and Billy could feel his friends’ spirits fall faster than a cliff diver with lead swim trunks. He smiled and turned to his once-teacher. “Mrs. Russet, do you remember when we talked about why people would try to become creatures who were part of the Elements?”
She nodded. “So that they could cheat Death. So that they could sidestep mortality.”
Billy nodded. “And so it is with the creatures who are guardians of the items. The blue dragon, Serba, was once known as Taliesin – Arthur’s bard, the singer of tales and keeper of memories. He became a dragon so that he could keep the Dagger of Flame and live until he was needed once again. The Lady of the Lake became the mermaid, Blue, and kept the Shield of the Sea. Merlin already lives outside of time, and Lancelot – the crafter of Excalibur – was sent with my mother into the future. All were thus beyond the reach of Mordrecai’s power.” He paused. “And there is one more, whom I pray cannot have been harmed by Mordrecai’s power either.”
“But who is Mordrecai,” said Fulgora.
Billy’s face grew tight, his mouth turning into a thin line. “My cousin,” he finally answered. Then he clapped his hands together and the group moved from where they were to where they needed to be. He didn’t know how he did it, only that he could do it. The magiq that had been hiding below the surface of his life for so long had finally become not merely part of him but a pervasive, almost controlling, force.
Mrs. Russet, Tempus, and Fulgora reeled. “How did you… how did you…?” Tempus whispered.
“Where are we?” asked Fulgora. The haughtiness was gone from her voice, leeched away by the trip they had just taken – a trip that was not through any one Element, but through almost all of them. A combination of Flame, Water, Earth, and Air that skipped them over the seas like stones thrown at the speed of light .
“We are on Powers Island,” said Billy. “At the gravesite of the Green Councilors, the place their trees grow when their lives as humans end.”
“But where are they? Where are the trees?” said Tempus. Then he smacked himself on the side of the head and grimaced. “The Greens are gone, dopey-dodo,” he muttered.
“Not all,” said Billy. He pointed. “There is one that lives.”
The others turned. One tree – the largest of them – still stood, though it was blasted and withered. It was in the shadow of the tower that dominated Powers Island, and the darkness all around it seemed like a gauzy shroud, a funereal cloth that had been woven to prepare for the tree’s impending death.
Billy walked to it. No one accompanied him. He knew that Lancelot and his mother were waiting because they knew only he could do what came next. The others were probably too shocked to follow. Regardless, he was alone when he knelt at the base of the tree.
“Awake,” he said. It was just a whisper, but he felt it carry through the entirety of the planet, a murmur that would cause every living thing to shift. The tree was grown in and of Life itself, and its sudden change after so many eons of sleep would register with all creatures that walked, crawled, slithered, swam, or fle
w on this earth.
The tree bent slightly, a stately nod. Then the cracks and chasms that marred the blasted bark of the tree drew together. Suddenly there was a face in the wood, where none had been only a moment before. The eyes of the face were closed, and they remained so for a long time – long enough that Billy worried that perhaps Mordrecai’s spell and his mastery over Death might even have snuffed out this great Power, this last of the First.
Then the eyes opened. Underneath the bark were two eyes, almost human in appearance. The pupils were green, but the green was stricken through with red and black, creating a rotten appearance.
“Who… who calls me?” said the tree, with a voice that crackled like falling timber, that rasped with the sound of countless years of life and vision.
“It is I, the son of Arthur,” said Billy. “I have come for the armor, good Pellinore.”
Behind him he heard Tempus whisper, “Who’s Pellinore?”
“One of Arthur’s truest friends and, it is said, the only man who ever beat him in battle,” said Mrs. Russet.
To the tree that had once been the White King’s – his father’s – trusted ally, Billy said, “Will you yield it to me, that I may find my father?”
The tree looked at him, the eyes opening and closing from time to time as it seemed to debate the question within itself. Then, at last, it said, “Do you know what you ask?”
“I do.”
The tree blinked again. “And you ask this of me nonetheless?”
Billy nodded. “I do,” he said again. “Because I must. The world is at a turning point. Mordrecai has come, and he intends to destroy all, to create a universe where only Death reigns supreme. I ask you to do what you must, that life may return, that all may live once more.”
The tree said nothing. The eyes closed and did not open again. Then the tree shuddered. It crackled like brittle bones breaking, then seemed to fall in on itself. Billy thought for a moment that he would be crushed as the huge tree collapsed, but as it fell it seemed almost to disappear. Each withered leaf, each gnarled limb fell to smaller pieces. Then those pieces in turn shattered into still tinier parts. And those parts disintegrated and left nothing behind at all. Bit by bit the tree turned to dust and blew away. At last only the heart of the tree remained, the deepest part of the long-slumbering Power.
Billy looked at the gnarled mass of wood that sat alone on the blackened earth. It seemed like nothing more or less than a huge knot, a curled knuckle of wood that was all that remained of Arthur’s friend Pellinore. Billy reached to touch it, then stopped himself. He realized that this was the last remaining bit of plant life left anywhere. That what lay before him was all that was left of the Greens, and their part of the world’s history.
He reached the last inch. Touched the wood. And rather than feeling hard and knobby, it felt tender as a mother’s first kiss on her baby’s cheek, as soft and supple as the skin of a sapling. The wood heart flowed around his hand, then up his arm and shoulder, across his body and waist and legs. He suddenly found himself in a shell as hard as an insect’s exoskeleton. Then the wooden armor grew warm and supple. It melted through his clothes and Billy felt it mold itself to his skin. He was no longer wearing the armor, he realized: he was the armor.
He turned to look at his mother and Lancelot; at Tempus, Mrs. Russet, and Fulgora. “The Messenger has been awakened,” he said, and his voice did not sound like that of a teenager. He sounded, suddenly and completely, like a prince. “The Seeker has found what was hidden, and the Heir has come into his own.”
As one, the assemblage knelt before him. All but one.
Billy snarled and lunged at the man who was revealed when the others knelt.
It was Mordrecai.
Billy threw the Spear of the Winds at the same time as he jumped toward his enemy. The almost invisible javelin flew through the air, moving as fast as a bullet, but somehow Mordrecai managed to deflect the speeding weapon. Still, in the time it took for that to happen Billy was on the Black Power, raining down blows with his sword and dagger, bashing at his cousin with his shield.
Mordrecai managed to put his hands together, and when he drew them apart again he held his own dagger, his own sword. They were darker than the blackest midnight, weapons of Death in its purest and most dangerous form, evil reflections of Billy’s weapons. Mordrecai deflected Billy’s attacks, then returned an attack of his own. Billy twisted and danced to the side, and the blades missed him. The air crackled as they passed by, as though the atmosphere itself was being blasted out of existence by the touch of the cursed weapons.
They fought. Billy gradually became aware that the landscape was changing as they battled, responding to the immense energies unleashed by Death as it fought for final supremacy over the other Elements. The Earth shifted. The Waters rose. Fire and Wind mixed and became one.
And Life… Life had no place in the struggle. No place at all.
Billy heard, through the noise of the conflict, someone screaming and thought it sounded familiar, but then was drawn back into the fight.
Billy could not touch Mordrecai. Death had been well-fed with the passing of the Greens, by the deaths of Veric and Ivy and ten thousand other souls, and it could not be destroyed or defeated when in its primacy of Power.
But neither could Mordrecai seem to harm Billy. Every attack was blunted by the shield or the armor, every move back was countered by the bright flash of Excalibur or the deadly crimson arc of the Dagger of Flame.
Finally, Billy and Mordrecai stepped back as one. Neither could win. Neither would back down. Mordrecai smiled, and Billy was disconcerted to see how very like his own smile the Black Power’s was. He felt like he was looking into a dark mirror, a mirror that showed what might become of him if he did not fulfill his proper destiny.
“Enough,” said Mordrecai. He wasn’t even panting. “I didn’t come to fight you, boy.”
“Then what came you for?” asked Billy, lapsing back into the speech pattern that he now recognized as being as much a part of his DNA as his eye or hair color. It was the manner of speech of Arthur’s court, of the First Councilors of the Powers.
“For this, young prince,” said Mordrecai. He held out a hand, and a box appeared on his palm. The box was about a foot long, six or seven inches wide, and only a few inches deep. It was black, and had a dark ribbon wrapped around it and tied in a simple bow on the top.
“What is it, cur?” spat Billy.
“Now, now,” said Mordrecai, and his smile widened as though Billy had just rained praises on him. “Speak not to thine elders in this wise, child.” He tossed the box to the ground at Billy’s feet. Billy realized that the ground – which had before been pitted and darkened and bereft of all greenery – was now black and littered with boulders. He glanced to the side and saw Mrs. Russet and Tempus cradling Fulgora, who appeared to be unconscious and had blood running from a nasty cut on her temple. Lancelot had covered Guenevere, and both of them were shielded behind a wall of heaped stones that Lancelot must have called up to protect them from the forces unleashed during Billy’s fight with Mordrecai.
Billy returned his gaze to the box. He nudged it with his toe. “Give heed, whelp,” said Mordrecai, and his voice lost all playfulness. Scorn and anger fought a jealous battle for supremacy over his words. “I offer this pact, and do so but once: yield the weapons and armor to me, or else….” He looked meaningfully at the box.
Billy laughed. It was a deep, throaty laugh, but one that held nothing but disgust. “Thy pact is a poor one, I think,” he said. “Even should we survive this day, our death comes soon.”
“What does he mean?” whispered someone – it might have been Tempus, though again the question sounded altogether too sensible to have come from the hair-brained Gray.
Even though the question hadn’t been directed at him, Mordrecai looked at the old man. “The Greens are dead, you idiot,” he said, and Billy intuited that he would not speak formally to anyone but him. No one else wou
ld be deemed worthy of such courtesy. “And with them, all plants have died also. No plants means no photosynthesis, no food, no air in a short time.” Then he looked back at Billy. “Still, there are ways to die and then there are… unpleasant ways to die. For some, Death may come not at all… and that is the most infinite of tortures.” He was wearing a black cloak, which he now drew tight to his shoulders. He suddenly looked like a bat, a creature at one with the night and searching for a way to bring the sun to permanent rest.
“I give you until the full moon,” said Mordrecai. “Return to this place before then, and leave the items of prophecy here. Do so,” he said, and at the same time he nudged the box with his foot, “or I will never let him rest or be at peace.”
Then, before Billy could say another word, the Black master turned. Before he had completed his movement, he seemed to melt away, becoming a shadow, then a shadow of a shadow, and then nothing at all. Billy could feel that Mordrecai had just Transported himself somewhere; could feel the scar that traveling by Death left on the world. But he also knew he could not follow the evil mage. Death was beyond his reach and Death’s realm not open to his traveling unless he was aided.
He looked at the box at his feet. He bent down to grab it, but before he could a strong hand stopped him. It was Lancelot. “My Prince,” said the man Billy had thought of as father, and who had been his protector and teacher though he had not recognized him as such. “Do not. It could be a trap.”
“I don’t think so,” said Billy. He was relieved to hear what he thought of as his “normal” voice coming from his mouth again. “He wanted to show me something, not try to kill me again.”
“Well, let me open it nonetheless,” answered Lancelot.
Billy nodded. He didn’t like having others take risks for him, but he recognized the wisdom of what his protector said. Why bother being catapulted through time to take care of someone if they were just going to open possibly booby-trapped boxes?
Billy: Seeker of Powers (The Billy Saga) Page 24
