That comment, delivered in Tempus’s typically scatter-brained tone, made Billy want to laugh. But before he could, the edge of the ledge that he was standing on suddenly started to crumble below his feet, no doubt weakened by the roots of the Venus flytrap, and still further weakened by the action of the plant and the zombie being ripped out of it by Billy’s desperate pushing.
Billy wheeled his arms around in huge circles, his feet suddenly standing on ground that had the consistency of a waterfall. He scrabbled to stay on top of the ledge, but then the entire section he stood on fell away, dragging Billy down with it. Billy screamed, but there was nothing he could do. He was falling, falling, falling. Doomed to be burned alive in the lava.
Then, suddenly, Billy felt something grab his feet. In the next instant he found himself strangely indignant, his fear suddenly elbowed aside by anger. What? he thought. It’s not enough for me to get almost crushed, zombie-touched, plant-eaten, zombie-touched again, then fall into lava? Something else has to happen, too?
He looked down at his feet, then, and saw something thick and green winding serpent-like around them. That was what he was feeling. But before he had a chance to figure out what the green stuff was, his downward fall was jerked to a stop. Billy felt his feet slam out from under him, and felt the green stuff tighten around them. He screamed as he resumed falling again, then screamed even harder when he bounced upward, feet first, then bounced back down, then back up, like he was being suspended over the lava pit on a rubber band or a bungee cord.
So now, on top of almost dying at least twenty different ways in the last minute or so, Billy was also in danger of losing what little he had in his stomach.
Slowly, however, the bouncing came to a halt. Billy was now hanging head-down, his feet held tightly by the thick green substance that had wrapped itself around them. He looked down (or, rather, he looked toward his feet, which was, in fact, up) and saw that the stuff around his feet was some kind of huge, elastic vine that went up to the side of the ledge.
Billy felt a jerk, and the vine started to pull itself—and Billy—upward. It reeled itself into the face of the volcano ledge like a fishing line. Finally, Billy felt his feet grabbed by a pair of strong hands. He was pulled up over the side of the ledge, and saw Tempus smiling at him as the old man hauled Billy to safety.
“Like I said,” said Tempus with a wink and a smile. “That was lucky.”
“Lucky nothing,” said another voice. “That was extremely difficult.”
Billy looked toward the sound of the voice, and smiled. “Ivy!” he shouted happily.
Sure enough, it was the Green Power, the chubby young/old woman who had been there at his Gleaning! She smiled wearily back at him, her hand clutching tightly to one end of a vine that looked an awful lot like the one that had just saved Billy from being fricasseed. The vine pulled up and wrapped itself around her, joining with the rest of the foliage that cloaked her.
“Where did you come from?” asked Billy.
“I showed up at the same time you guys did,” said Ivy. “No one noticed me, though. Not surprising, what with the zombie appearing.”
She weaved suddenly, as though about to topple over. Tempus moved quickly, the old man putting a steadying arm around her waist and helping her to the ground.
“Thanks,” said Ivy gratefully. “The zombie’s effect on my plant, and then my plant’s death in the lava….” Her voice trailed off, showing clearly how exhausted and weak the Green Power was.
“Thanks,” said Billy. “Thank you so much. I would have… well…you know.”
Ivy smiled, still exhausted, but obviously trying not to let it show. The spells she had cast to save Billy’s life must have taken nearly everything out of her.
“How did you know to come here?” asked Tempus.
“Vester showed me this place years ago,” she said. “He told me to come here if there was ever.…”
“A war,” said Vester, completing her thought. Billy looked over at the fireman. Billy’s friend was finally stooping to put the still-unconscious Fulgora down. Vester glanced at Ivy as he did so. “Still think I was being silly?”
“War?” asked Tempus. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Vester. “That little explosion in the stadium was a signal. All the Darksiders on Powers Island disappeared at that instant, so that they could launch an attack on the Dawnwalkers.” His voice was bitter, the loss of Vester’s father years before clearly coming to the surface again. The fireman looked at Tempus. “I scoped out this hiding place years ago, just in case I needed it.” He grimaced. “I hate being right sometimes.”
“I know the feeling,” said Tempus. The old Gray Power grew suddenly wistful. “One time, I bet my friend Typhoon—that wasn’t really his name, just a nickname. I forget what his real name was. Anyway, I bet him that I could hold my breath for over a minute with my head immersed in a giant barrel of pickle juice. Of course, that was before everyone was doing it, and Typhoon—John! That was his real name….”
Tempus’s voice suddenly dropped off as he realized that everyone was looking at him. He shrugged, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Nervous rambling.” Tempus looked at Ivy. “Where did you come from?” he asked.
“The top of the tower,” she answered, laying her head back against an outcropping of rock, using it as something of a pillow. Vines snaked out from her outfit to cover the rock, making it more comfortable for her. “The council was meeting when it happened.”
“When what happened?” demanded Vester in a tone that scared Billy more than a little. As though it could sense Vester’s rage, the volcano they were in rumbled, and a spurt of lava jumped twenty feet up from the steaming pool of magma below the ledge. Billy unconsciously moved farther away from the edge of the ledge.
Ivy looked almost sick, as though she couldn’t bear to say what had to be said. But finally she pushed the words out. “It was Wolfen,” she finally managed with a dead-sounding voice. “He appeared on the Diamond Dais while the Council was meeting. They were talking about you,” she said, nodding at Billy. She broke off from her train of thought. “Is it really true that you were rescued by a Unicorn?”
Billy nodded, and Tempus started visibly. “A Unicorn?” He harrumphed. “Impossible. They’re imaginary.”
“Apparently not,” said Ivy.
“They are, I tell you,” insisted Tempus.
“Tempus,” said Vester warningly, and the Gray Power went silent. Vester touched Fulgora’s forehead. “It’s cool,” he said to himself. Then he looked at Ivy. “What happened when Wolfen appeared?” he asked, his tone almost angry.
“He demanded that the Council abdicate and turn over the ruling of all Powers to him,” said Ivy.
“Ridiculous!” bellowed Tempus. He looked like he would say more, but another near-murderous look from Vester silenced the older man.
Billy felt deeply afraid. He didn’t know Wolfen, but he knew he’d felt odd at meeting him atop the tower, and knew that his friends hated and feared the man. So the fact that he was demanding control over all the Powers couldn’t mean anything good.
“But, how is it possible?” asked Tempus in a quiet voice. “He swore fealty to the Council. He promised he had not broken the Truce, or done anything in contravention of the laws of his Exile. He promised, right there on the Diamond Dais, and the Diamond Dais turned green! The sure sign that he was telling the truth.”
“I don’t know how he did it,” said Ivy wearily. She sounded like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Billy went to her and sat beside the rock she was laying on. He didn’t know what else he could do, but sensed she was appreciative of his gesture of support, however small it was. “I only know what I saw,” she continued. She shuddered. “Wolfen appeared, and demanded the Council abdicate, and they refused. It was only a partial Council. Just my father, and Lumilla the Brown, and Dismus the Gray.”
“So Eva Black and Nehara the Blue Councilor were conven
iently absent when everything went crazy,” said Vester.
“And what made the tower crack?” asked Tempus.
Ivy paled visibly. “Wolfen went insane with fury when the Council refused his demands. And all of a sudden there were explosions, and fire raining down, and the tower started to break apart right there. Dozens of zombies appeared out of nowhere, and started ransacking whatever they could.”
“Then he’s broken the Truce,” whispered Tempus, as though trying to convince himself that it had actually happened.
“Not just that,” said Vester stridently. “He’s started a war.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” said Tempus, but his heart clearly wasn’t in his protestation.
“I’m not being hasty. The Darksiders all disappeared, the Dawnwalkers were attacked, and Wolfen was behind it all. War has come upon us again. Whether we like it or not.”
“Oh, Vester,” said Ivy, and Billy could suddenly see tears in her eyes. “It’s much worse than that.”
All eyes on the ledge swiveled to face her. Ivy was drooping, looking as wilted as one of her plants. She turned a dull gaze to Billy. “Zombies were everywhere.”
Billy just looked at her. He didn’t understand.
Great tears dripped from her eyes now, and Billy could see that they were green. They trailed down Ivy’s cheeks and the plants that she wore reached up to wipe them away. “The zombies,” she said. “There were too many of them. I got away, because they weren’t interested in me. But,” she gulped, fighting to get the words out. They wouldn’t come.
Tempus patted her on the head, smoothing her vine-laced hair. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s all right, my dear. Take your time.”
Ivy paused for a long second. She closed her eyes, obviously struggling for composure. Then she opened them again. “The zombies… they touched the Council.”
She looked at the group, ending with her eyes on Billy. “Dismus, the Gray Councilor, was touched first. My father tried to stop them, but there were too many of them.” Her voice choked off again, before she managed, “My father, and Lumilla—”
“What’s happened to Mrs. Russet?” asked Billy, dread sinking icy tentacles into his spine.
Ivy gulped. She sat up straighter, and had to take a deep breath before she managed to say the last thing, the worst thing, the most terrible sentence that Billy had ever heard in his life.
“The zombies got them. They’re gone.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
In Which Billy begins a Quest, and must go back to the Beginning…
“What do you mean, they’re gone?” squeaked Billy. “Like, ‘I’ve gone to the supermarket’ kind of gone?”
Ivy’s eyes were closing as she struggled to stay awake. Billy remembered what Vester had told him at the Challenge: that it took tremendous effort to increase the size and strength of an Element. And here Ivy, in short measure, had Transported herself, then used her energies to make two huge plants to rescue Billy from a zombie and then from becoming a French-fried Billy in a lava pit. She must be exhausted, on the verge of collapse.
Still, Billy had to know what Ivy had been talking about. “Ivy,” he said loudly. “What do you mean ‘gone’?!”
But it was no use. Ivy’s eyes closed. Billy shook her gently, then a bit harder. He would have shaken her even harder—say, hard enough to make her head pop off—had it not been for Tempus’s hands, softly prying Billy away from the unconscious Life Power’s form.
“Easy there, my boy,” soothed Tempus. “I’m sure she meant something more than ‘gone to the supermarket’ gone, but less than ‘gone to Heaven’ gone. Lumilla and Veric and Dismus are all extremely tough. You don’t get to be a Councilor without being tough. And tough Councilors are very hard to kill, or even hurt.”
“But….” Billy searched for words that would ease his fear. None came to him. Nothing could have happened to Mrs. Russet! He knew he should also be concerned for Ivy’s father, Veric, the Green Life Councilor; and for Dismus, the Gray Wind Councilor. But all he could think of was Mrs. Russet, his teacher. He pictured her crossed arms, scolding the entire history class for not being able to tell her King Tut’s favorite color, and strangely the image made him smile a bit. Surely such a fearsome human being as a high school teacher couldn’t be harmed by anything less than a nuclear missile with a Kryptonite tip.
He looked at the side of their ledge, the raggedy edge marking where part of their resting spot had disintegrated and nearly dropped Billy to his death.
“What’s a zombie?” he asked, searching for some way to change the subject. He had to distract himself until Ivy woke and could give them more information, he knew, or he would go crazy with worry.
Vester, standing nearby, gave an involuntary shudder at Billy’s question. “A zombie is a Power that has been taken over by another Power.”
“Like they’re possessed or something?” asked Billy. Once again, he was venturing into that huge area he was starting to think of as Stuff-I-Don’t-Know-Land.
“Or something,” said Vester. “Zombies are created when a Black Power—a Death Power—uses its Element to invade another Power’s body.”
“You mean,” Billy gulped, “when a Black Power kills them?”
“Not just that,” said Vester. “Some of the most powerful Death Powers can actually hold back—or even reverse—the onset of Death. So you become,” Vester’s eyebrows came together as he tried to find the right words. “Dead, but not dead. Dead but still moving.”
Billy didn’t understand. How could a person be dead but still moving?
His face must have shown his confusion, because Tempus went into lecture mode again. He started absent-mindedly smoothing at his Hawaiian shirt, and again Billy was for a moment distracted by the moving landscape on the shirt, the magic that animated it both fascinating him and making him wonder what kind of person would want to make the tacky things in the first place.
“Zombies are dead Powers,” said Tempus. “They were outlawed under the terms of the Truce, years ago.” His face got that far-away look in his eyes. “Some of the Black Powers discovered that they could use the dead like some of us use magical keys. The Black Powers could actually put a portion of their essence into a dead body—”
“You mean Imbue them?” asked Billy. He remembered that Mrs. Russet had said that about her beehive key, that it was an Imbued Object, which a Power had put some of her essence into to make it able to do magic.
“Exactly, exactly,” said Tempus. “Quite so, quite so.” Billy almost smiled. Tempus’s airily scatter-brained tendencies were already as much a part of Billy’s life, it seemed, as putting on clean underwear every morning. “But Imbuing isn’t just a process of making something magical, it’s actually putting the spell-caster’s power into the object. Some Powers, like a Power named Artetha, for instance, have great talent at Imbuing keys. Artetha made Lumilla’s—Mrs. Russet’s—beehive key. You see, Artetha is a very strong Power of Fire, and she can travel with the speed of light, breaking through time and space in an instant. So when we say she is Imbuing a key, what we really mean is that she is putting a small piece of herself into the key, and thus gives that key the power to help others travel as she can.”
“So Mrs. Russet couldn’t do a Transport spell without her beehive key?” asked Billy.
“Oh, she could,” said Vester. “But it would be much harder, and using an Imbued key doesn’t sap her energy at all. Better all around to use a key. Plus, using an Imbued key means that if she arrives into the middle of difficulty—a magical battle, for example—then she’s at full strength. Plus,” he added, looking darkly at Vester, “when you do a Transport spell on your own, or using your own unprofessionally crafted key—or marble—you might find yourself with a misfire. So you could land in the wrong place, or not go fast enough, or get touched by a zombie.” He said this last very pointedly, clearly still upset by the marble debacle. Vester apparently didn’t notice, however, since he was now sitting
by Fulgora, tenderly cradling the unconscious Red Lady’s head in his lap.
“So the zombies are Imbued,” prompted Billy after a moment.
Tempus returned his gaze to Billy. “Yes, yes, they’re essentially Imbued Objects. Like the keys, they are Imbued with some of their maker. Therefore, logically, if the maker of something is a Death Power, then what you get is something that carries death in its very touch.”
“Then that means….” Billy couldn’t finish his thought for a moment. It was just too fearful. Ivy had said that the zombies had touched Mrs. Russet. So the thing Billy said next was the easy conclusion to that line of thought: “Mrs. Russet—and all the other Powers in the stadium who were touched—they’re…they’re…dead? Like Ivy’s plant?” he added, thinking of the huge flytrap that had wilted upon eating the zombie.
Tempus frowned and chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Not necessarily,” he said at last. “Most Imbued Objects don’t have the full strength of their makers. So most zombies can’t kill with their touch. They’re more likely to induce paralysis or a coma or mere unconsciousness. Though some, more powerfully Imbued,” he continued unhappily, “could conceivably cause death.”
“Then, we don’t know what happened to Mrs. Russet. Or Veric the Green, or, or….”
“Dismus,” prompted Tempus. “Dismus the Gray Councilor. No, we don’t know what happened to them. We only know what Ivy said before she had to recuperate her strength.” He smiled, a clearly faked grin that Billy knew was solely for his benefit. “But, as I’ve said, Lumilla and the others are tough, so I wouldn’t worry yourself overmuch, at least not now.”
“Why would anyone even want to make something as horrible as a zombie?” asked Billy.
“Well, for one thing,” answered Tempus, “they make excellent manual workers for certain jobs. Not for everything, mind you. You wouldn’t want a zombie babysitter, for instance, or a zombie gardener. Not unless you like dead and rotting tomatoes—which aren’t as bad as they sound, by the way. This one time, I was at a very popular little restaurant on Powers Island, a nice old place called GreenPower Inn….”
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 21
