The Dark Master looked at the bone-body of Napalm. “Sorry about him,” he said, “but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a messenger who doesn’t know how to deliver the messages I want him to deliver.” He said this last while looking directly at Billy, a wicked smile playing across his lips.
“How did you get here?” whispered Vester. “You didn’t come through the Accounting Room. How did you get here?”
“Well, see, that’s the thing I wanted your three friends to tell you,” said Wolfen with an amused grin. He looked to Billy like a fox who has just been asked by the chickens if he’d like to come in for some chamomile tea and a scone.
He leaned in to Billy, and lightning tore through the sky again. It made the Darksiders appear like ghosts, bright white in the flashing light, and then disappearing into nebulous black forms among them.
Billy could not see Wolfen’s eyes in the darkness, but he felt them on him. Burning him. The Dark Master spoke, and his voice was filled with the terrible threat of death and mayhem. And worse, with a sound that made it clear how much he would enjoy those things when they came.
“The thing I wanted them to tell you was this,” said Wolfen. He paused, then said quietly, “We don’t need to come through the Accounting Room any more. We can come through anywhere we want.”
And with that, a huge fireball ripped through the night sky, an explosion from somewhere in the middle of Powers Island. Then another and another. Wolfen laughed, and the lightning flashed again, this time illuminating white teeth that looked like those of a predator, spittle thick on the man’s lips.
Wolfen raised his arms, and when he spoke again it was with a voice of thunder, a sound that Billy immediately knew could be heard on the whole of the island. He spoke only a single word, just two syllables in that thunderous scream. But it was the single most terrifying word that Billy had ever heard.
“Attack!”
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH
In Which Billy does battle, and a star Falls…
The Darksiders around them all erupted into action, but before they had more than an instant to move, Fulgora responded to Wolfen’s battle cry with one of her own.
“Destroy them!” she shrieked, and whirled her bright sword of fire. A sheet of flame erupted in front of Billy and his friends, momentarily separating and protecting him from the nearest Darksiders.
Even with the sheet of flame between them, however, Billy saw Wolfen move. The Dark Master clenched his fist as though he were holding an invisible baseball, and hurled it at Billy. Something visibly punched a hole through the flames, which seemed to literally curl and blacken around the void created by Wolfen’s spell, and an instant later Billy felt something hit him in the chest. It was something cold and painful, slamming into Billy like a frozen shotgun blast.
The force of the magical attack shoved Billy backward, hurtling him toward the edge of the tower near where the tower’s river disappeared over the edge in a spray of watery mist that dissipated in the many thousand foot drop over the side. Billy felt himself being slammed to the edge the deadly precipice, but couldn’t manage to care about it. His chest was spasming like he had been shocked with a defibrillator, and he was trying to scream in pain, but couldn’t do it. He coughed, trying to catch his breath. He was drowning in agony, and still hurtling toward the edge of the tower.
I’m a goner, he managed to think. He was peripherally aware that fighting had broken out, but was not aware of much else. His whole universe had contracted to only the pain in his chest, the hitching breath in his lungs that just wouldn’t come out no matter how badly he wanted it to.
Back, back, back he hurtled. The edge of the tower was only yards away. Then feet. Then inches. And then, in a tightly curled ball of pain, Billy fell off the edge of the tower and plummeted downward.
It was a measure of his suffering that he barely noticed the fact that gravity had grabbed him tightly and was now yanking him downward at a horrific velocity.
How fast can you be going before you die of sheer speed? he wondered fleetingly. But then he grabbed his chest and doubled up in midair as another surge of pain hit him like a mallet in the sternum. He cried out, but the sound was muffled by the wind whipping past him in his descent to oblivion.
Billy’s ears were popping continuously, altitude changes squeezing them and then letting them go as his eardrums tried to keep up with what was happening. His eyes were tightly squeezed shut, tears flowing across his face and then being left behind to fall on their own.
He felt mist on his face, and heard a crackle of electricity, and realized that he was now falling through the cloud cover that encircled the tall tower. But he didn’t care. His whole world was pain now. He was pain. He tightened into a fetal position, trying to concentrate, to will the pain out of him. It was probably hopeless, but as he devolved into a writhing ball of chilled agony, it was all he could think to do.
Get out of me, he thought. Get out of me!
But the pain grew worse, intensifying until the mallet that had been pounding at him now became a white-hot sword, skewering his heart and leaving him breathless. Thick roiling darkness curled in around the edges of his consciousness, and he realized that he was not going to make it long enough to die from his fall: whatever spell Wolfen had cast was going to kill him before he had that chance.
No! Billy thought to himself. It won’t end like this!
He concentrated, slowing his breathing as he tried to cast out the pain, the destructive agony that coiled like an angry serpent in his heart. He focused on the pain, trying to wall it off from himself, trying to isolate it and cut it out with his mind.
Billy was acting on instinct now, some animal part of him taking over without thought or plan. He was just a reactive beast, calling on some instinctual response to whatever was happening. And like a bear that can ignore hunger pains over the long winter months of hibernation, like a frog that could sleep below the ice for months without oxygen, Billy gradually became able to function without the part of his spirit that was in pain. The pain was still there, but suddenly it was like it was in another room in the house of his body.
This is not my Message, came the thought into his mind. My Message is not of pain, but of hope.
And with the thought, Billy thought he could feel a ball of pure white light exploding in his mind, a diamond of hope that refracted radiant happiness all around. And when the light dimmed, the pain that Wolfen had inflicted on him was gone.
What just happened? he thought. What is happening to me?
But then he realized that he had bigger things to worry about. The fact that Wolfen’s power over him had somehow been broken didn’t changed the fact that he was still falling. And very quickly, too.
He fell the rest of the way through the cloud bank, and when he emerged the entirety of Powers Island was spread below him. And it was on fire. Billy could see explosions everywhere, conflagrations running out of control among the hills and forested mountains of the island. The snowy parts he had noticed on his first flights over the island looked half-melted, scorched by the battles going on all around.
He could make out rock giants, thudding huge heavy steps back and forth as the enormous Fizzles swept clubs of stone at tight-knit groups of Darksiders. One of the giants struck, and Billy could almost hear the sound of the club pulverizing everything below it. Then the rock giant looked up, and screamed a scream like an avalanche, and vibrated rapidly. It became, as had Prince, as had Napalm, a creature of skeletal Death. And now the Death’s Head Giant swept a club that had become an enormous bone, and when it struck, it struck groups of Dawnwalkers who had until a moment before huddled safely at its feet.
Everywhere on the island, Billy could see that the battle was being lost. The Darksiders were rampant. Huge malignant blobs of darkness kept exploding into existence as Death Powers cast spells of mayhem, leaving unconscious Dawnwalkers in their wake at every turn. Waves rushed over the defensive battlements that had been cre
ated on the island, called up by a group of Blue Powers who had aligned themselves with the Darksiders.
And Billy was still falling.
Well, he thought, at least I’ll go out with a view.
Then, suddenly, his fall slowed and stopped. He felt strong hands grip him around his midsection, jerking him to a halt.
“See?” said a familiar voice in his ear. “Travel by Wind is the way to go! You think you can get this kind of view traveling by Earth? No! But still Lumilla insists on doing it. And Vester! Don’t even get me started on Cresting! Travel through Fire indeed!”
Billy almost laughed. Tempus had saved him! The Gray Power had caught him, snatching him away from certain death. But still, not even the battle all around them could stop the old wizard from complaining good-naturedly. For a moment, in spite of everything going on around him, Billy felt like all was suddenly right with the world.
And then all was suddenly wrong again as a bolt of lightning sizzled out of the clouds above, missing Billy and Tempus by mere inches. Then another, and another, each one making the hairs on Billy’s body stand on end, each one accompanied by a deafening clap that alone was almost enough to knock them out of the air.
“Drat! Drat and double drat!” hollered Tempus, his old bony hands digging into Billy’s skin as the Gray Power yanked him left and right, taking evasive action from the bolts of lightning that were following them like heat-seeking missiles.
“What’s happening?” screamed Billy through the maelstrom.
“Some dratted Darksider!” yelled Tempus, yanking them left through the air as a streak of lightning sliced open the sky where they had both been only a moment before. “Some Red Power is attacking!”
Another streak of lightning sheared close by, and Billy actually felt his arm hairs singe with the heat of its passage.
“Gotta set us down!” hollered Tempus.
“But we have to get to the top of the tower! Mrs. Russet, Vester, the others all need us!” shouted Billy.
“They can take care of themselves, boy!” yelled Tempus in return, and this time he took Billy on a sickening loop through the air as three separate lightning strikes tried to shoot them out of the sky. “Gotta get us grounded!”
Tempus re-adjusted his grip around Billy, then closed his eyes for a moment, and Billy felt the soft pad of air that had been pushing them to and fro suddenly disappear. He and Tempus dropped like rocks to the ground below. Falling, falling, then stopping suddenly for a moment as Tempus slowed them, then falling again as he let his power cede. Billy wondered what on earth the old man was trying to accomplish, but then realized that the erratic pattern of stops and starts would make them incredibly difficult targets to hit.
About one hundred feet above the ground, Tempus concentrated again, and they shot off to the right, skimming over the intense skirmishes that were blazing all over the island. Billy could see Dawnwalkers everywhere, usually huddled in small groups under the baleful gaze of advancing Darksiders.
The island is lost, he thought. Then, in the part of him that was buried deep, in the part that had fought off Wolfen’s spell and that somehow was part of him yet not part of him, came another thought: All is not lost, but shall yet be found.
But still, Billy couldn’t see how that would be possible.
Then, he saw something bright and shining, like a star hurtling to earth. It fell straight downward, right beside and parallel to the tower, sending off puffs of smoke and sparks of flame. Billy watched it for a moment, wondering what it could be. Then he realized what he was seeing, and he felt himself begin to panic.
Fulgora, he thought. Not Fulgora!
It was one thing to plummet to his own death, but he could now see that somehow the Red Lady, too, had fallen from the heights of the tower. She was spinning wildly in the air, a free fall that could have only one possible end, a bright shining ember that would descend to earth and, as all embers do, disappear forever.
“Tempus, it’s Fulgora!” he screamed.
“I know, boy!” shouted the old Gray Power.
“Save her!” screamed Billy.
“Can’t,” said Tempus, in a voice that was strangled with grief. “I’ve got barely enough power to keep just us up.”
“Save her!” Billy shouted again, unwilling to believe that he was about to witness the death of a friend.
“I can’t, I can’t!” said Tempus, and Billy could hear the tears in the old man’s voice.
Fulgora fell and fell, her brightness shining in the night. Billy could see some of the fighters below him looking at the sight, their battle momentarily on hold as they watched the falling of a star from the heights of power.
No, no, no! thought Billy. She can’t! She can’t fall!
But Fulgora was falling, the forces that gripped her deaf to Billy’s wishes, pulling her to her doom.
Then Fulgora’s panicked movements slowed. Like a parachute jumper adjusting to perform an aerial stunt, the Red Lady managed to right herself in the air. She was only a few hundred feet above the ground, and still falling, but suddenly something appeared around the burning halo of her body. Something sprouted from her like a crimson vine, then uncurled itself.
Wings! thought Billy. She’s becoming the dragon!
And sure enough, the wings beat down in a furious updraft of hot air. This time, however, Fulgora did not completely transform. Only the wings grew from her shoulders, only part of a dragon came from within her. But it was enough to slow her fall, allowing her to drift at a manageable speed to the base of the tower.
“Tempus!” shouted Billy.
“I know!” hollered the old man, and indeed he did seem to know what Billy had been about to say, for he was already banking to go to where Fulgora would land. Billy and the old man arrived just as she touched down, her huge wings pumping in a flash of red light, sparks shooting off her armor like sunspots. Then, in another flash of red, the wings disappeared as they had come, wrapping themselves into their tight curls, and then disappearing into her body.
Tempus let go of Billy, and Billy ran to Fulgora. He almost hugged her, but before he did he could sense the oven-like heat coming off her and changed his mind. He didn’t care to get burned by a hug.
Fulgora was looking around herself, blinking as though waking from a dream. One entire side of her head was a huge bruise, an ugly purple and yellow, and one of her arms hung limply at her side. It looked like she had dislocated a shoulder during the fighting. “What happened?” she asked.
“You fell,” said Billy breathlessly. “You fell, but you became the dragon—part of a dragon, anyway—and you…you flew down and landed safely.”
“What?” said Fulgora, still dazed-looking. “Impossible.”
Tempus was wheezing nearby, his hands on his knees, clearly winded by the effort of catching Billy and the ensuing aeronautical acrobatics. “It’s true,” he managed. “What Billy said is true.” He straightened. “I thought you would have believed it possible by now,” he managed between gasps.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Fulgora, and Billy was almost relieved to hear her do so: she was coming back to herself, assuming the personality he had come to appreciate in recent days.
“Well,” answered Tempus, “I just assumed…I thought that was probably what you were doing all that time when you were gone and we were imprisoned on Dark Isle. I mean,” he paused a moment, still trying to catch his breath, “I figured you were off with your people, trying to find out how you turned into a dragon.”
“No,” said Fulgora, a far-away look in her eyes. “As I said before, I did go to my people, and tried to find out for a short time, but never did. Nothing like that had ever happened before, and I got nowhere in my search.”
“Then what were you doing while we were incarcerated?” asked Tempus.
Billy was surprised. Explosions were still going on all around them, the island was on the verge of collapse, and who knew what was happening on the top of the tower. But apparen
tly Tempus really wanted to know. “Well?” he asked.
Fulgora’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t answer him, but looked up toward the top of the tower. “He cast me down,” she said angrily.
“What?” asked Billy, now even more confused than ever.
Fulgora swung to look at him, anger blazing in her face. “Wolfen. He hit me with some spell, and I only managed to put up a shield in time to block most of it.” Billy grabbed his chest in sympathy, suspecting that she had been hit with the same devastating attack he had. But Fulgora didn’t notice the movement, now in her own world of indignant anger that someone—anyone—would dare attack her.
“Well,” said Tempus almost conversationally, still apparently oblivious to the noise around them, “what did you expect?” He looked at her witheringly. “What kind of special privilege do you think you had?” He spat to one side, clearly disgusted with Fulgora. “Especially considering how useful you’ve been,” he added sarcastically.
Billy was shocked. This was totally unlike Tempus. What did the old man think he was doing? Forget about the fact that Billy was pretty sure Fulgora could wipe him out without even thinking about it, but there was a war going on. And Tempus suddenly wanted to insult the Dawnwalkers’ general and get into some petty argument?
But Fulgora obviously didn’t care that there was a war going on either. She drew herself up in the face of Tempus’s derision and said, “You dare? You dare insult Fulgora the Red Lady, Councilor of Fire and Princess of the Underworld of Flame?”
“Princess, Shmincess,” said Tempus derisively. Billy looked back and forth between his two friends, his head whipping this direction and that with the speed of a marble in a blender. “Don’t wave your credentials at me, ‘Red Lady,’” Tempus continued, bowing in mock courtesy. “Results are what matter.”
“You wish to see results?” she whispered. “Results?”
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away. One of the bonfires that had been set around the island was nearby, and she strode straight toward it.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 46
