Billy: Messenger of Powers

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Billy looked at Tempus in horror as she went, and was shocked to see that, far from looking angry, the old man was grinning. He winked at Billy, and chuckled quietly.

  Fulgora, meanwhile, had almost reached the fire when a group of three Darksiders sprung from a patch of nearby shadows. They all hurled their spells at her, but Fulgora was suddenly holding a shield of flame, and the spells bounced off it back at the Darksiders, rendering them all immobile and crying in the darkness, obviously gripped by some form of Dread.

  Then, with a last angry backwards glance at Tempus—and Billy noticed that the old man put on an angry face when Fulgora looked back—the Red Lady stepped into the bonfire. There was a great crackling of logs popping in flame, and suddenly she was gone.

  Billy wheeled on Tempus. “What the heck are you doing?” he demanded. “You risk getting turned into a toasted Pop Tart by baiting her, and then you keep doing it until she runs away? She’s our general, for crying out loud! How long are we going to last without her?”

  Tempus grinned again, then grew somber. “The battle was lost,” he said. “I was flying over the island doing recon—that’s how I came to be nearby when you were falling, thank goodness—and I know. We’ve lost, completely and utterly.”

  “So you got rid of our battle leader?” said Billy incredulously.

  “Not got rid of,” said Tempus, a twinkle in his eye. “Just encouraged her to bring reinforcements.”

  And with that, there was a bright eruption of flame from the bonfire that Fulgora had just disappeared into, and just as suddenly as the Red Lady had gone, she was back again. Only this time, she was not walking. She was riding.

  Billy gasped. Fulgora was astride a huge lion of fire. The red animal growled, and flame shot from its mouth. “Meet Volcano,” she said, and patted the huge beast.

  “What’s going on?” asked Billy under his breath.

  Tempus grinned, visibly pleased with himself. “I knew that if she went back to her home, they’d see what had been done to their Princess. They usually don’t get involved in the affairs of the Powers—though heaven knows we’ve asked them to often enough—but I knew if they saw Fulgora all roughed up the way she was, they’d take it rather personally….”

  “They?” asked Billy. “Who is ‘they’?” Tempus didn’t answer, but just grabbed Billy suddenly and whipped him into the air. They went up about a hundred feet, Billy writhing in the old man’s grasp. “Who’s ‘they’?” he demanded again. “What’s going on?”

  “Relax,” said Tempus quietly. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”

  Then, before either of them could say anything else, Fulgora, still on her fire lion below them, raised a flaming sword in her one good arm. “Warriors of the Underworld, now is the time to avenge your Princess!”

  And with a great rending blast, a huge wave of heat rolled over the island. Tempus went up even higher, allowing more of a view of Powers Island, and as he did so, Billy gasped. He knew from watching the defensive preparations that there were about a thousand bonfires scattered over Powers Island, and from what he could see now, every one of them had grown white-hot. A tongue of flame shot up from each one, a thousand blazing columns of fire that Billy could feel raising the temperature everywhere around them.

  And then, figures stepped out of the infernos. They were all dressed in red armor, like Fulgora. And like Fulgora, each was astride some beast of flame. There were war-horses with saddles of ruby fire, giant red bears whose riders roared with the same ferocity as their steeds, huge wolves of flame that bared teeth that looked like the white-hot fires of a welding torch, and even some giant crimson eagles that rose on the updrafts of the bonfires and carried their armed riders into the air.

  The riders all held swords, and spears, and shields. And every one of them saluted toward Fulgora.

  “See?” said Tempus in a decidedly self-satisfied voice.

  At the same moment, Fulgora raised her eyes and spotted the flying pair. “And don’t go thinking you goaded me into this, you old Gray manipulator!” she shouted. “I’ve been planning to bring these reinforcements for weeks, and Vester and I have been working on the appropriate time to bring them into the battle since we got here!”

  Tempus’s eyes bugged out of their sockets. “When did you have time to go to your home and get them ready?” he shouted.

  “What do you think I was doing the whole time you were in prison?” answered the Red Lady, Princess of the Underworld of Flame, and smiled grimly. “What is a general without an army ready to do battle at her call?”

  In spite of the dire circumstances, Billy almost laughed out loud at the befuddled expression that took the place of Tempus’s satisfied smile.

  Fulgora raised her arm, and a lightning bolt arced down from the sky to touch her sword, ringing it with blue flame. Then she slashed her sword downward, breaking the connection between earth and sky, and a sound like a sonic boom rolled over Powers Island. Billy could see an avalanche begin on the snowy summits to the west.

  And at the sound, the warriors of fire screamed as one, and attacked the Darksiders.

  The battle erupted in earnest now. It had been slowing as the Dawnwalkers’ forces were forced toward an inevitable defeat, but now that the red fighters had joined them, the battle raged anew.

  Billy and Tempus hung above it all in the sky. Occasionally Tempus would swoop down and Billy would grab a rock or a discarded brick from the ground, then they would go up again and Billy would take careful aim and drop his crude bomb, aiming for the head of a Darksider. “Bombs away!” Tempus would scream, laughing manically as he played the part of a B-17 in this strange war.

  The mirth was short-lived, however. Because as they watched, Billy could see that even with the influx of force and skill the Fulgora’s warriors brought, the battle was still being lost. The Darksiders still had too many people on their side. Their forces were still too well-organized. And worst of all, the Darksiders’ own troops were being continually augmented by the Death’s Head Moths that Billy could see flitting about the island. Whatever they touched turned into that hideous latticework of tiny bones he had seen before, and whatever they touched turned instantly into an agent of the Darksiders. Billy gasped as he saw one red fighter astride a huge angry tiger of fire attack a group of Darksiders, scattering them in panic. Then the red warrior suddenly writhed, and both he and his steed were turned to bone as they stood there. What had once been a red warrior now wheeled on his friends, attacking them with a spear that had been transformed to a huge dead tooth in his hands.

  We’re losing, Billy thought. We’re still losing.

  He thought about what might be happening on the top of the tower, where he had left Mrs. Russet, Vester, and Ivy behind with the host of Darksiders, but he knew that there was no way he and Tempus could fly up there. The clouds were full of lightning being pulled down by Red Powers on both sides, and to fly upwards would be suicide. So he pushed the thought of his friends out of his mind, and he and Tempus did their best to do their small part in the battle by casting their pitiful bombs of brick and stone.

  Billy dropped one rock on the head of one of the Darksiders’ monsters of bone, trying to forget that it had until recently been a Dawnwalker, and was thrilled to see the gruesome puzzle of skeletons that made up its head explode into a million tiny pieces. But his smile fled as the pieces then reassembled themselves in midair, and reset themselves on the Death’s Head’s shoulders again. The monster went forth and continued its attack, undeterred by Billy’s direct hit.

  Still, Billy clung to a hope that the battle could be won. The red warriors were now aware of the Death’s Head Moths, and were taking care to avoid them, burning the tiny insects out of the sky. The battle began to turn again, a fluid beast that could be won or lost at any time by any side.

  Billy and Tempus, now near the beach of Powers Island, swooped down to grab another rock. And as they did, Billy saw something in the dark waves that were pounding up to
the rocky shores nearby. The waves hissed and burbled, and Billy felt a thrill of hope.

  Artemaeus! he thought. The whale had saved him and his friends before, so maybe he had come again in this hour of desperate need. Billy didn’t know what a bunch of whales could do, but he had sensed the age, wisdom, and power of Artemaeus, and knew that such a force would find some way to help.

  Then, a moment later, he realized it wasn’t Artemaeus. Nor was it Blue, the mermaid of the deep.

  The forms broke through the surf, their dark shapes barely visible in the night. They slogged out of the water, their bodies shining as moonlight and the fires of battle refracted off their wet bodies and revealed without a doubt what new force had arrived at the island.

  Oh, no, Billy thought.

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH

  In Which Billy sees two new Armies, and finally speaks the Message…

  But how? was Billy’s first thought. How can it be possible?

  He knew magic changed many of the rules, but he also had come to understand that though the rules of magic were different, still they did exist. But this…this seemed to go against all the rules.

  Not only that, it just seemed downright unfair.

  It was zombies. Thousands of them. Their insectile eyes glistened like dark oozing sores, and their mottled skin looked even more hideous when illuminated in the fires of war.

  Above him, Billy heard Tempus gasp, and felt the Gray Power lurch for a moment, surprise clearly gripping him as well.

  And below, the creatures of the Dark moved up the beach in that horrible lurching gait that Billy had come to know and fear. They climbed out of the sea, and then up the beachhead in knots of tens and twenties, and as soon as they had scaled the beach they broke into smaller groups, the evil new army exploding like a dark nova. The undead forces quickly reached the fringes of the battle and began extending their deadly touch to the Dawnwalkers all around them.

  How? Billy thought again. They were washed off Dark Isle. Washed into the sea.

  And then he realized: they were washed into the sea. They were already creatures of Death, and didn’t need air. So they had been merely pushed out, and sunk to the depths. And just as several of them had managed to clamber up and attack Billy and his friends when they were stuck on Dark Isle, what would stop the rest of the creatures from simply walking back onto Dark Isle as well, and then being deployed as an encircling army by Wolfen and his followers? Or even just walking straight to Powers Island?

  Either way, the horrible creatures were here now, and once again the tide of the battle turned against the forces of the Dawn. The red warriors and the Dawnwalkers had already been harried by the Darksiders. They had had their numbers stolen by the Death’s Head Moths. And now they were having their remaining numbers culled by the devastating touch of the zombies.

  Not only that, but Billy could feel Tempus losing steam above him. The old man was drifting lower and lower with each bombing run, and having more and more trouble avoiding the lightning strikes that were hurled from above and the Death attacks thrown from below. On one occasion, Billy saw a black-garbed Black Power hurl one of Death’s terrible spells at them, and could feel it barely miss him. Tempus cried out and almost dropped Billy, but then managed to grab onto him again. “It’s all right, just a scratch,” the old man yelled. But Billy could hear the quaver in Tempus’s voice, and knew that their attacks, pitiful and unhelpful as they might be, had drawn attention. They couldn’t continue on much longer.

  The two dropped down for another rock, and once again scored a bulls-eye: a zombie crumpled to the ground. But once again, the victory was temporary, as the creature slowly stood and continued its relentless pursuit of the Dawnwalkers’ forces.

  “Can’t keep this up,” wheezed Tempus. His flight was now disturbingly wobbly, and Billy knew that they would be going down soon.

  “Head toward the tower!” shouted Billy. He didn’t know how he could be of any help once he got there—the only real help he’d given was because of Tempus’s powers, and not any qualities of his own—but he knew he wanted to end things as close to his friends as possible. And Vester, Ivy, and Mrs. Russet were still—he hoped—fighting on the top of the tower. So the tower was where he should be.

  Tempus banked, pulling Billy and himself wearily to the center of Powers Island. And as they passed over the island Billy could see that not only had the battle turned, it was now all but lost. The Darksiders’ forces appeared almost untouched, while the Dawnwalkers were running away, disappearing as they Transported off the island, or just huddling in magically-exhausted groups, awaiting destruction.

  Tempus dipped toward the ground, and once more Billy grabbed a rock from below. They were near the tower now, flying around the base of the huge structure. The fighting was at its most intense here, since the remaining Dawnwalkers who had any fight left in them had withdrawn into a circle around the tower, the giant edifice providing some cover at their backs. But it also allowed for no further retreat.

  Billy could see Fulgora, her red lion weary and dim, the light snuffing out of it like a candle flame whose wick has burned out within it. But the Red Lady herself looked as angrily determined to fight to the end as ever.

  Billy passed his rock bomb from hand to hand, looking for the best place to drop it, knowing that this would be the last one. Then he and Tempus would fall to earth, to fight and probably die in a lost cause.

  But at least I’ll be with friends, thought Billy. At least I won’t be alone.

  The thought was oddly comforting. His whole life, he had longed for friends, for people who would stand by him in the halls and invite him to the events of their lives.

  Now, he had found such friends, and more. People who would stand by him in the battles of Power, and would invite him to stand with them and face doom together.

  As he thought this, Billy spotted a Darksider that looked like a good candidate for a rock on the head. It was a man who was threatening a small knot of Dawnwalker kids who looked like they were about Billy’s age. Billy pointed them out, and Tempus nodded and swung in for their final bombing run.

  Billy hefted his rock, taking careful aim….

  And then he almost dropped it. Not purposefully—had he dropped it in that instant he would have missed his target by a mile—but in surprise.

  Because the rock moved.

  Billy yelped in shock as he looked down and saw that the rock was staring at him. Its two craggy eyes were glaring at him as if to say, “I was just sitting there, doing my own thing, and you go and grab me! Who do you think you are?”

  Then, even more surprising, Billy felt the rock sprout small arms and legs. Then more arms and legs. And then still more arms and legs.

  “What the…?” began Billy.

  Then the creature kicked Billy in the hand. Billy yelped again, this time in pain, and dropped the tiny monster. And as it fell, Billy realized what it was. Because as it fell, the creature yelled out what sounded a lot like “Banzai!” in a tiny, high-pitched voice.

  It was a Kung Fu Cleaner. In fact, Billy now realized it was the leader of the Kung Fu Cleaners: the one who had first appeared when Billy had spilled hot chocolate in the anteroom in a desperate attempt to escape Wolfen.

  The tiny Fizzle hit the rocky ground below with a tiny puff of dust, landing on a cliff on the side of a short mountain. And where he fell, Billy saw something unusual.

  “Down!” he yelled at Tempus.

  “But what about—” began the Gray Power.

  “DOWN!” hollered Billy, in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Tempus shrugged and took them down, dropping them lightly within inches of where the tiny Fizzle had fallen. The Fizzle was still there, waiting as the rock ground near it—and near Billy and Tempus—bubbled and rolled like a wave on the beach. A blob of rock rose up, and then started to take shape. It grew arms, then legs, then a head. Features started to appear, as though the stone was being sculpted by an invisible artist, a work of
art created without hands.

  And then the artist finished its work, and the figure became clear.

  “Rumpelstiltskin!” shouted Billy in delight.

  And so it was. The bent, withered old man had come from the depths of his cleaning room at last, and now surveyed the island.

  “What’s going on?” Tempus was saying. “Who is this?”

  Billy ignored him, watching the new arrival. Rumpelstiltskin seemed not to have noticed Billy yet. The old man just reached down and picked up the Kung Fu Cleaner that Billy had mistakenly grabbed, and put it on his shoulder like a bizarre parrot.

  “My, my, my,” said Rumpelstiltskin. Now he noticed Billy. “Don’t I know you?” he asked.

  “It’s me, Billy,” said Billy.

  “No, you’re not Billy,” said the tiny old man. “I know Billy, and you’re nothing like him. He was surrounded by Fizzles.”

  Billy rolled his eyes. The last thing he wanted to get into was a discussion like that again. “Forget it,” he said. “What are you doing here?” And then he paused before adding, “Are you here to try to help Mrs. Russet?”

  “Help Mrs. Russet?” said Rumpelstiltskin quizzically. “Who in the world is Mrs. Russet, and why would she need helping?”

  Billy’s heart fell. He had hoped, somehow, that Terry had in fact come. But Terry wasn’t here, only Rumpelstiltskin.

  The ancient man was now looking around the island. “What in the name of all Powers is going on?” he asked.

  “A battle,” began Billy, but he couldn’t say more than that. It was over, the war was over, Wolfen had won. And he stood here talking to an insane old man on a cliff. He wasn’t even going to end things at his friends’ sides, and be with them when doom came for them all.

  “A battle, eh?” said Terry. He leaned his head to one side, toward the Fizzle on his shoulder, and whispered, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Pip.”