In moments, only Billy was left. He looked at Mrs. Russet, wondering what—if anything—she would want him to do. She was sitting on the other side of the Diamond Dais, so the shaft of crystal that bisected the podium stood between them. Billy could see her through the tall, thin shard of diamond, but the prismatic refractions of the crystal made it seem like there were hundreds of Mrs. Russets looking intently at him.
“Billy,” she finally said, “I would like you to do something for me.”
“What?” he squeaked. He really couldn’t think of anything he could do. He had no powers that he was aware of—other than an apparent power to get into lots of trouble—and certainly did not have any kind of special knowledge that would help in preparing for the coming onslaught. So what could he do?
“I want you to tell me everything,” replied Mrs. Russet. Billy’s look apparently told her loud and clear that he had no idea what she was talking about, because she added, “I know that you were giving us the short version of what’s happened to you while we were on Dark Isle,” she said. “I would like the long version now.” She motioned, and stairs flowed up in front of Billy. He walked up them, grateful that he was no longer being required to climb awkwardly up to the top of the high podium without assistance. She motioned again, and the stairs followed him as he approached Mrs. Russet, forming into a smaller version of the stone Brown Throne upon which she sat.
Mrs. Russet motioned for him to sit. Billy did. “Why do you want to hear more?” he asked. “Why didn’t you want to hear it before?”
Mrs. Russet seemed to think hard before answering. “Because what you said,” she finally replied, “was enough at the time. But since then I have been thinking, and what I have thought is that you seem to be at the center of everything. And I think that you will be the key to the coming battle.”
“What?” Billy asked, incredulous. “I know I’ve been at the center of stuff, but that’s just been luck—bad luck—and I don’t see how I can contribute to what’s going to—”
Mrs. Russet waved off his protestations. “Billy, I’m not talking about whether you are a Power, or the Messenger, or anything like that. I’m talking about the fact that you are an extraordinary boy—no, an extraordinary young man. Without apparent benefit of any power over Element, you have managed to become a central piece in the game we now play.”
“Game?” Billy said almost angrily. He didn’t meant to say it, but the fact that Mrs. Russet called all of what had happened up to now a game almost cut him. Such suffering and pain as had been felt by so many was no game. None at all.
“Forgive me, Billy, I meant no offense,” said Mrs. Russet. “I just meant that great events have been afoot, and you have been one of the greatest parts of them. No, don’t be modest,” she said as Billy started again to protest. “You have saved all of us by virtue of your courage and wit, and I think that whether you are a Power or not, whether you are indeed the Messenger that was prophesied or not, you are definitely an asset to our cause. And so,” she finished, “I would like to learn from you.”
“Learn…from me?” Billy asked, not really believing such a thing could be possible.
Mrs. Russet nodded seriously, as though speaking to a colleague instead of a very unsure fourteen year old. “Yes, Billy, learn from you. You have done much, and I want to know all about it.”
“But I still don’t understand,” he said.
Mrs. Russet sighed. “In truth, sometimes I don’t either,” she said with a half-laugh. “But still we go on, finding our way around like we’re in a dark room looking for light to guide us. And sometimes we find that light in the most unusual places.” She leaned in close to Billy, holding her crystal staff for support. “So tell me what you have done, Billy Jones, and perhaps we shall be enlightened together.”
And Billy did. He told her everything, from start to finish, this time leaving nothing out of his account. They were interrupted periodically by Fulgora and Vester wanting to ask Mrs. Russet’s opinion about some battle strategy, and by the reports of Tempus and the return of Veric with Dismus, the Gray Councilor. But through all this, she treated them as mere distractions, listening intently to Billy’s story as though nothing else mattered.
When he was done at last, after what seemed like two years of talking, she leaned back on her throne. They were alone once more, the others all gone on various errands, preparing Powers Island for battle. No one knew how long they had before the Darksiders started to appear in the Accounting Room, so some of the strongest Powers among the Dawnwalkers—Napalm and the British bobby Bellestus whom Billy had seen in the Accounting Room when he first came to Powers Island—had been sent there as quickly as possible, both to warn the rest of the Dawnwalkers when the attack began, and to try to hold off the Darksiders where they could be most easily contained. Billy understood that it would be critical for the Darksiders to be held to that room; if they broke free, all would likely be lost, because they would be able to simply overwhelm the Dawnwalkers by sheer force of numbers.
“Well,” said Mrs. Russet when Billy’s tale was done, “you have told me much, Billy.”
“Like what?” he asked. He didn’t feel like he had said too terribly much of value, but was glad to hear she at least didn’t feel like he had wasted her time.
Mrs. Russet smiled. “Much,” was all she would say. Then she stood, putting her hands to the small of her back and stretching. “Ahh, these old bones shouldn’t sit so long,” she said at last.
That triggered something in Billy. “Mrs. Russet?” he said.
“Yes, Billy?”
“When I was…in you. That is, in your memory, you seemed younger.”
“Yes,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. “I was younger once. Go back far enough, I was even a baby at one point, if you can believe it.”
“But, you seemed much, much younger during the last War of the Powers. And Vester said that was only about twenty years ago. So….”
“So what happened?” asked Mrs. Russet. Billy nodded. She grew quiet for a moment, then said, “As you probably guessed, Terry was the Brown Councilor before me. And then after….” she paused, and Billy almost thought that he could see a tear in one eye.
Impossible, he thought. Teachers don’t even have tear ducts, do they?
Mrs. Russet cleared her throat, getting herself under control. “After what happened to him, I was made the Brown Councilor. And I have spent much time here, so like Tempus and some others, I have aged beyond what most would think of as my years in the ‘normal’ world.”
Billy nodded. He had suspected as much. But still, that led to another, totally disturbing thought. “So,” he said haltingly, “so you’ll die.”
“Oh, goodness gracious, Mr. Jones. We all die, don’t you know?”
“But you’ll die sooner,” said Billy. He didn’t like that thought. Not at all. People like Mrs. Russet shouldn’t die. They should just stay old forever and teach students until the sun burned out.
“No, I won’t die ‘sooner,’” she disagreed. “I’ll die exactly when I should. As will you, as do we all, sooner or later.” She could clearly see, though, that Billy still didn’t like this idea. So she leaned even closer toward him, taking one of his young hands in her old weathered one. “Don’t you see, Billy? It’s not about how long we live in the eyes of strangers, or how great we look to them. It’s the way we live, and how we look in the eyes of those we love.” Her eyes grew misty again. “And believe me,” she said quietly, “I know.”
Then she straightened, helping Billy to his feet. She also stood up and, seeming almost embarrassed, said, “Now let’s go. We’ve got a battle to prepare for.”
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
In Which Billy helps Prepare, and Darkness Comes…
Within only a few hours, Ivy and Veric had managed to rouse most of the Dawnwalkers, and Tempus had them organized into groups according to the Element each Power commanded, their experience with the Darksiders, and a host of ot
her criteria. Billy was amazed to hear the old man report his doings to Fulgora, shocked at the level of detail that Tempus was able to provide apparently by memory only.
Fulgora, for her part, immediately began issuing orders to the captains that had been called to preside over the groups of the Powers. The final count was a little over twelve thousand: less than a quarter the number of Darksiders that they expected. Fulgora was clearly disgusted to find out that over four thousand of the Dawnwalkers were Green Powers. At first Billy didn’t understand why this would upset her, but after asking Vester a few questions under his breath he quickly got the idea that the Green Powers were essentially useless in a fight. They were better as medics, helping the wounded to recover quickly.
“And in a fair, evenly-matched fight, that’s great,” said Vester. “You can keep a battle going longer if your wounded are able to return quickly to the front lines. But this….” He shook his head. “This doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a fair fight. So after you take out the Greens, all we have less than ten thousand people against an army five times that size.”
“Who are the rest of the people?” asked Billy. “I mean, are there some of every Element on both sides?”
Vester frowned. “Well,” he said, “we have a pretty fair mix of Grays, Browns, and some Reds. Most Blues tend to ally themselves with the Darksiders—the chaos in their natures gives itself easily to ideas of submitting others to their will. And the Death Powers are almost all in the Darksider camp.”
“There aren’t any Black Powers with the Dawnwalkers?” Billy asked. He had expected that there wouldn’t be many, mostly based off his experiences with Mrs. Black and Cameron. But he had thought that surely some of each Element would be on each side.
Vester just shook his head. “No, the Black Powers are all Darksiders, save perhaps one or two. A Black Power in the Dawnwalker army is just about as rare as a Green Power with the Darksiders.”
Billy thought fleetingly of Blythe Forrest. He wondered what she was doing now. Was she preparing for battle with the other Darksiders? He didn’t remember seeing her among the sharks and the other sea creatures who had carried the Darksiders around Dark Isle, but there had been so many of them that he couldn’t have seen more than a small fraction. She could easily have been there. She could easily have spotted him.
Does she hate me? he wondered. And his heart seemed to shrink a little inside him at the thought.
To keep himself from thinking about such things, he asked Vester, “But aren’t the Black Powers the fighters?”
Vester nodded. “Yes. They’re the ones who train from infancy to cause mayhem. There are some other Powers who also train that way—like Fulgora’s people, for instance. But mostly the Black Powers are the destructive forces in our world. They’re also the only ones that carry their Element in their own natures.” When Billy looked askance at him, Vester continued, “The other Powers need their Element to work with: a Brown needs some Earth nearby, a Red needs a fire or some other access to Flame. The Blacks don’t need that kind of assistance. That’s why they can just conjure up their spells—the Dread for instance—from within themselves. It also makes them very hard to catch and contain. If you cut me off from Flame, like they did in the crystal prison on Dark Isle, then I’m fairly useless. But put a Black in chains, and he or she can conjure up their Element from within, and still escape.”
“Then,” asked Billy, “how can we hope to win? Or even just survive?”
“We’re putting a lot of hope on the fact that the Darksiders have to come through the Accounting Room,” answered the fireman.
“Where do you want the giants working on the battlements?” someone asked the fireman suddenly. In the short time since Tempus had organized the Dawnwalkers, many of them had already begun working on the things the island would need in order to prepare for the coming battle. Fulgora was the prime battle leader, the general of the impromptu forces, marshalling them quickly and efficiently. But all of Billy’s friends seemed to have found themselves quickly in charge of various tasks. Mrs. Russet was constantly discussing the battle and the island’s defenses with Fulgora, as well as having hurried conferences with other Dawnwalkers whom she would send on some errand or other. Veric and Ivy were busy preparing what Billy understood was the equivalent of a Powers field hospital. Tempus was flitting about, vacillating between his usual absent-mindedness and that unusual level of concentration that Billy had seen him bring to bear recently, the Gray Power flying in and out—literally—with critical messages from all over the island as the preparations got underway.
Vester, for his part, appeared now to be a permanent fixture at Fulgora’s side, and Billy was happy to see that the Red Lady was constantly asking the fireman for his opinion on various matters, and even deferring to his judgment completely when she was already involved in one thing and someone else came with another matter that needed attention.
So when Vester said, “Have the rock giants fortify the east side of the island, near the Caves of Wind,” it wasn’t the first time Billy had heard the fireman issue such an order. Still, Billy was surprised to hear the assurance in his friend’s voice. He sounded like a natural-born general.
Vester noticed Billy’s look. He shrugged, embarrassed. “Fulgora says I have ‘strategic talent.’” He shrugged again. “I don’t know what that means, but she put me in charge of finalizing the island’s defenses about half an hour ago.”
“But if the Darksiders have to come through the Accounting Room just three at a time,” said Billy, “then there’s no way the fight will spill over to the rest of the island, right?”
Vester didn’t answer for a long moment. Then, when he did, it was with the air of someone who had thought hard about how to express something difficult. “The great thing about magic is that there is always something new to surprise you. But the problem with magic is that there is always something new to surprise you.” He paused as though to drive his point home, then said, “We’ll plan the best we can, but we can’t only plan for what we hope will happen. We also have to plan for our worst fears.”
Vester looked grim. He glanced around, making sure that Fulgora didn’t need him right at the moment, then put his hands on Billy’s shoulders. “Billy,” he said, “I’m going to level with you: we’re in a bad situation here. We’re doing everything we can, but still….” He looked at Billy seriously. “This isn’t really your fight.”
“What do you mean?” asked Billy, guessing what Vester was about to say, and almost surprised at the sinking feeling that accompanied his suspicion.
“Meaning that if you want to go home, no one will blame you,” answered Vester, confirming Billy’s guess.
“No way!” Billy shouted. He said it loudly enough that several of the nearby Powers looked up from their various tasks for a moment before turning back to what they were doing.
“Hear me out, Billy,” said Vester. “I know you probably feel like you want to be here. But this isn’t some game. This is going to be a brutal, ugly fight. And there’s no assurance that any of us is going to come out of it in the end. My dad didn’t. So if you want to leave, then I’ve already spoken to Lumilla about it, and she said she’d arrange for Transport for you any time you wanted it.”
Billy thought how to respond to his friend for a long time. Then, deciding that the short answer would be best, he simply said, “You’re nuts.”
Vester grinned. “Fulgora said you would say that.”
“Really?” asked Billy, more than a little surprised. He knew he had gained some measure of respect in the Red Lady’s eyes, but it was still a bit of a shock to hear that she had apparently been talking about him with Vester. “She did?”
“Well, no, actually what she really said was, ‘Billy Jones is a warrior spirit, and my fires will turn to ice before he allows us to take him away before the confrontation,’” answered Vester.
“Well, she’s right,” Billy said.
Vester smiled. But the smile was
a bit subdued. “Okay, Billy. But remember what I’ve said. This isn’t going to be a fun thing. And if you ever change your mind, just say the word.” He clapped a big, callused hand on Billy’s shoulder.
Billy hesitated. He bit his lip for a second, as though chewing on it would magically help him know the best way to say what he wanted to.
“What is it?” asked Vester.
“Well,” said Billy, “I’m not going anywhere until this is over. I mean, I’ll stick around and help in any way I can. But if things are so bad…why doesn’t everyone just leave? Why don’t the Dawnwalkers all just leave and hide?” He smiled what was meant to be a reassuringly unserious smile, which he knew probably looked more like the smile of a dog which has just found out that the bone it’s been chewing on and enjoying actually used to be a favorite cousin’s leg. “You know,” he continued. “He who fights and runs away….”
Vester thought long and hard about how to answer Billy. “Usually that would be good advice.”
“But?” prompted Billy.
“But we have nowhere else to go,” admitted the fireman. “There’s a whole world out there, but this is the only place we’re organized at all. For better or for worse, the Dawnwalkers have spent the last twenty years assuming that the Truce was in force, the Treaty of the Powers unbroken. So we have no system, no reserve forces, no preparations for protection at all.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” said Billy. “Why can’t we all go somewhere else and hide and get some preparations?”
“Because the Darksiders are already organized,” said Vester. “So if we leave here, it’s going to be an army of fifty thousand, against nothing but hundreds of small pockets of resistance. It won’t be a battle, it’ll be a thousand tiny slaughters, and there’s only one way that can end.”
Billy’s expression fell. Vester tried to smile in a reassuring way, and Billy suddenly knew exactly what his “reassuring” smile had looked like just a minute ago.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 44
