“But what if,” said Adin, and her eyes filled with tears, “what if he can’t help?”
Nehara gathered the woman into his arms. “It will be all right,” he whispered tenderly.
Adin nodded, and then separated from Nehara’s embrace. “Come with me,” she said, and headed down a nearby hallway.
Billy looked at Nehara, who made the slightest of nods in Adin’s direction, clearly implying that Billy should follow her.
Billy didn’t want to. This whole thing made him feel uneasy. But he still didn’t feel as though Adin or Nehara meant to cause him any harm, so he followed the prematurely-aged Adin down the hall.
There were a few doors in the hall, but they were all closed. Billy felt an impulse to open one of them and check to see if they hid dungeons. It would be just like him to get out of one horrible situation, only to find that he had then put his foot right into another.
At the end of the hall were two doorways, one on the right, one on the left. Adin stopped in front of the one on the left. She looked at Billy. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, help us.”
Then she opened the door.
Billy stepped through, though he did so warily. He still hadn’t given up the idea that Adin and Nehara were up to no good, acting either for their own benefit, or as a way to somehow trick Billy into giving up the sword, shield, and dagger for the Darksiders.
His wariness disappeared in the next instant, torn apart like a dream upon waking.
The room itself was nothing extraordinary. The place was a bit messy, but not uncomfortably so. A desk stood on one side of the room, holding a laptop computer and a writing lamp. The walls were festooned with pictures of various musical groups and celebrities. It was clearly a girl’s room, with light pink trimming on the walls and a frilly duvet cover that sat at the foot of the bed.
Billy took all this in in a moment, but he did so only subconsciously. The entirety of his conscious attention was focused only on one thing.
“Blythe,” he whispered.
Blythe Forrest lay on the bed, tucked tightly under sheets and blankets that covered her thin body, almost making it seem to disappear in the folds of the bedspread. Only her face was visible. Her eyes were closed, her hair was spread out on her pillow.
She looked, as always, beautiful.
But in spite of her beauty, Billy could see that Blythe, like all the other Greens, was deeply ill. Stricken would be a better word for it. Her cheeks were fever-red, bright spots of color on each one. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, and every one of them was accompanied by a small grimace, though she did not seem awake, or even conscious.
“What… how?” stuttered Billy. He looked over at Adin, and suddenly realized why the Darksider looked so familiar. “You’re her mother?” he said.
She nodded, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “She’s my daughter. Mine… and Nehara’s.”
Billy reeled internally. Blythe was not only the daughter of Darksiders, but of one of the most powerful ones? He looked at Adin, and finally managed to say, “What are we doing here?”
Adin looked at Billy with eyes that shone with half-hidden tears, a gaze that held love and pleading in it, feelings so strong and clear that Billy felt like he could read the woman’s mind.
“Save her,” said Adin. The words were a whisper, but as she said them, Blythe stirred.
“Mother,” said the girl.
Adin hurried over to her daughter, and rubbed her hair tenderly. “Yes, Blythe?” she said.
But Blythe said nothing else. She had either lapsed back to unconsciousness… or had never left that state.
“You see?” said Adin, clearly talking to Billy though her eyes never left the face of her daughter. “You see what they’ve done to her?”
“My dear,” said Nehara from directly behind Billy. Billy started a bit. He hadn’t heard the Blue Power come down the hall. “You know we’ve talked about this. The Darksiders didn’t –”
“They did,” insisted Adin. She took Blythe’s face in her hands, touching her forehead to the feverish forehead of the dying girl. “They did it to all the Greens.”
“Yes, to all the Greens,” agreed Nehara. He sounded weary, like this was a conversation he had had many times before. “Not to Blythe. To all the Greens. They didn’t mean to –”
“Stop! Just stop!” shouted Adin. Her voice echoed in the house, it was so harsh and strident. “Don’t you say what they didn’t mean to do. They meant to kill the Greens, and our daughter is one of them. So they are trying to kill her, too. And I’ll not stand with them anymore.”
Billy stepped forward tentatively. “What’s happening to the Greens?” he asked.
Nehara shook his head slightly, but Adin seemed to ignore him. “The Darksiders are stealing their life from them.”
“How?” asked Billy.
“I don’t know, exactly,” said Adin. “I know that there are many Blacks who have been summoned by Eva or by Mordrecai. Most of them have never been seen again, and those who have returned were unwilling to talk about what they had been doing.” She shuddered and clutched Blythe to her chest. “But whatever it is, they’re killing the Greens to accomplish it.”
Nehara stepped farther into the room, and put his hand out to touch the blankets on his daughter’s bed. Adin’s furious gaze stopped him mid-motion, though, and he stepped back again until he was beside Billy.
“You have to stop them, Billy,” said Adin. “You have to save the Greens. To save Blythe.”
Billy shook his head. He didn’t know how he could possibly help do that. “I don’t even know what’s going on with them,” he said, “let alone how to fix it.”
“Tell him,” said Adin, almost glaring at Nehara.
“Tell him what?” asked Nehara.
“Everything.”
Nehara stood quietly for a moment, as though weighing his options and choices. Then he nodded. “The Darksiders know that you are searching for the items of prophecy. The knife, shield, sword, armor, and spear.”
“So?” asked Billy.
“So, they want to stop you from getting them.”
“Why?” asked Billy.
Nehara’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Eva won’t share that information with anyone. Only she and Mordrecai,” and Nehara’s face contorted as he said the word, disgust fairly oozing from his expression, “know the details. All the rest of us know is that we must stop you from getting to the items. Preferably by getting to them first.”
“Who is Mordrecai, anyway?” asked Billy. “I don’t remember hearing about him before.”
“Not surprising,” said Nehara. “He’s gone to great lengths to keep himself hidden from view. Even many of our own ranks don’t know anything about him.”
“What about you?” asked Billy. “What do you know?”
“Not much more than most,” said Nehara. “He appeared – as though from nowhere – a few years ago. He hasn’t shown himself to be much of a Power, but has somehow managed to ingratiate himself with certain of the Darksiders.”
“Like Eva Black,” said Adin.
“Like Eva,” agreed Nehara. “Her most of all. But as I said, both of them are incredibly tight-lipped about whatever information Mordrecai is giving her, or whatever help he is rendering to our cause.”
“You mean, to the Darksiders’ cause,” said Adin.
Nehara looked pained. “Adin,” he began.
Adin held up one of her withered hands. “It was one thing to want a proper place. To want to see the Powers at the top of the world, at the head of things, where they belong. But now they have gone beyond warring on the Dawnwalkers, or even on humanity.” She pointed now, her entire arm trembling as she indicated Blythe’s pained form. “They have come after our daughter.” She crossed her arms. “We are not Darksiders, Nehara. Not anymore.”
On one hand, Billy was relieved. This explained why Nehara and Adin had suffered so much – and risked far more – to free him. But at
the same time….
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “What can I do?”
“Help her,” said Adin, again gesturing at her daughter.
“How?”
Adin looked at Nehara. The Blue Power did not answer, but instead went to Blythe and lay a hand across her forehead.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know what you can do.”
“Then why save me?”
“Because they are killing the Greens to stop you from getting the items,” snapped Nehara. “So our only chance – our only hope – was that you would somehow know how to cure Blythe. And since you don’t….”
Billy tensed, fearful that Nehara was going to try to kill him out of sheer disappointment. He needn’t have worried, however. The Blue Power stood, and faced Billy. Billy was struck by the force of the man’s gaze, by the strength he saw behind Nehara’s eyes.
“It seems we’ll have to help you.”
Billy stared for a moment, not really comprehending what he had just heard. Then, slowly, he repeated, “Help… me?”
Nehara nodded. “If they are trying to stop you by killing the Greens, then perhaps if you succeed in your quest, then it will reverse the effects of the spell. Perhaps,” he said, with eyes gone suddenly wistful, “you can save our daughter.”
Billy nodded. Even if he hadn’t already been on the quest to find the prophesied items, even if he hadn’t been interested in saving Blythe’s life, he would have nodded. Because he could see the pain of a parent about to lose his child in Nehara’s look. The appearance of such anguish almost stunned Billy.
“How can you help me?” he finally asked.
“You have the sword and shield and dagger,” said Nehara. “Items of Fire, Water, and Earth.” The last almost sounded like a question, so Billy nodded again. “So there are two items left. We will help you find them, as much as we can.”
“You know where they are?” asked Billy, pleased. Perhaps with these unlikely allies he would be able to find his way to the end of this dark journey.
His hopes fell, however, as Nehara shook his head. “We think we know the… general area… where one of them might be.”
“Which one?” asked Billy. “Where is it?”
“We don’t know which one,” said Nehara.
“So,” said Billy carefully, “you know the general area of one of the items, but not exactly where, and you aren’t sure which item is there, if it is there at all.”
“That’s about it,” said Nehara.
Billy shrugged. It was all he had to go on. Then he stopped as a thought struck him. “Vester,” he whispered. How was he going to get back to his friend? “We have to go back to the dungeon,” he said. “We have to get Vester out.” Nehara shook his head slowly. “Don’t shake your head at me,” said Billy. “I’m not helping anyone until I get Vester out of that place!”
Nehara reached out and gingerly touched the sword in Billy’s hand. “Your friend is dead,” he said.
Billy wanted to shout at Nehara, to deny what he had said, to scream that it wasn’t true, that Vester was alive – that he had to be alive. But he didn’t. Because when Nehara said that, the sword changed. It shifted in color, going from perfectly clear to a deep, lustrous green.
Billy’s heart sank. The sword had come from the Diamond Dais, a perfectly round diamond atop Powers Island where the Council had ruled for generations. The Dais itself was a thing of mystery and power, and one of the things that it was capable of was showing the truth of a person’s words. When someone touched it and spoke truth, the Diamond Dais glowed a deep, beautiful green. The same green that the sword – the sword that had come from the Dais itself – now shone forth.
A shimmering curtain appeared in Billy’s vision. He thought for a moment that Nehara was casting a spell on him, then realized that it was no spell. He was crying.
“The Death rope was pulling too fast, too far,” said Adin. She moved quietly to Billy’s side, and held out one of her withered hands, putting it softly on his shoulder. “There was no way he was going to survive,” she added.
Billy nodded. He sniffled, trying to hold the tears back, but they came anyway. Strong and fast and hard they came, and he wept. He wept for his friend, who was so brave and true, so bright and strong, the first and best friend that Billy had made during his time among the Powers. He wept for Fulgora, the hard warrior princess who had fallen in love with Vester, and whose edges had grown slightly less sharp because of it. He wept for the world of the Powers, which would never seem as bright without his friend.
Adin gathered him in her arms, and Billy felt for a moment as if he were being held by his own mother. Strange, to be comforted in the embrace of an enemy. But he turned to her, and held her back.
“Don’t cry,” she said. “He was brave. He is at peace.”
“He has to cry,” said Nehara. “Not for his friend, but for himself.”
Billy let himself sink into Adin’s arms for a moment, then pulled away. He straightened up and wiped his eyes with the back of his arm.
“What now?” he said. “You said you could help. How?”
“Come with me, Billy,” said Nehara. He held out a hand, and Billy grasped it in his own. Nehara’s other hand went to his pocket, and withdrew a small seashell. He brought it to his lips and breathed on it. The world swum in front of Billy’s eyes, as though he was standing behind a waterfall, and when it cleared he was back in the place where they had been when they left the dungeon: that strange cloud with the doors sprinkled over its surface.
“Where is this?” Billy asked.
“This is one of the Darksiders’….” Nehara paused as though looking for the correct word. “Well, I suppose you would call it a research area of sorts.”
Billy’s mind reeled at this. First at the idea that the Darksiders had a “research area.” He didn’t generally associate them with research, any more than he associated atomic bombs with library cards. But almost as disturbing was the fact that Nehara had brought him here less than sixty seconds after claiming he was going to help Billy.
Help me what? thought Billy. Help me get caught? Tortured? Killed?
Nehara must have understood what Billy was thinking from his expression, for he quickly grabbed Billy around the shoulders and held him close. Billy felt his entire body clench, until he realized that the Darksider wasn’t trying to attack him, but was… hugging him. And, incidentally, he also realized, shielding him from view of the two men who appeared on the cloud not twenty feet away.
“Be calm,” whispered Nehara. “I didn’t brave Eva Black’s wrath, and my wife didn’t literally give up years of her life so that we could just turn around and give you to the Darksiders again.”
Billy relaxed. As much from the fact that Nehara was speaking of “Darksiders” as though he was no longer one of them as from the logic of the man’s statement.
Nehara apparently felt him relax, for he was suddenly no longer grasping Billy so tightly in his arms. He didn’t completely release him, though. “Are you going to keep yourself under control?” Billy nodded. “Good. We won’t get two chances at this.”
“At what?” Billy accepted the fact that Nehara wasn’t trying to catch him or trick him somehow. But he still didn’t know what was going on.
“At getting you one of the items of prophesy,” answered Nehara. He looked around. “Ah, there we are,” he said suddenly, and let go of Billy as he started toward one of the doors that dotted the landscape.
Cloudscape, Billy corrected himself. The thought made him want to shiver.
Apparently Nehara was thinking along the same lines as Billy, for he turned suddenly. “Step only where I do,” he said.
Billy nodded mutely. The thought of pitching down through a patch of unhardened cloud was not an appealing one, in much the same way that the idea of being beaten to death by an angry mob was not an appealing one. Definitely something to be avoided.
He watched Nehara’s footsteps
through the cloud, following in them as closely as possible. It was a strange experience, walking through this silent place. It would have been almost peaceful if it weren’t for the fact that he knew himself to be in the middle of some kind of Darksider outpost. And if thoughts of Vester hadn’t kept intruding.
Vester! He felt himself starting to tear up when he thought of his friend. His friend who was gone. He tried not to think of him, tried not to think of how he must have died, of the pain. But he couldn’t stop it. It tore at him with the sharp teeth of grief, the razor claws of shame that he hadn’t been able to save his friend. What good was it to be the Messenger or the Seeker if he couldn’t even save his best friend? What good if the people he loved most of all were those that had to die to accomplish the mission he had undertaken?
“Did you say something?” Nehara whispered from in front of him, and Billy realized he was whispering Vester’s name over and over again, as though by doing so he might somehow bring his friend back.
“No,” he said after a moment. He pushed the sorrow inside, deep down where it would be safely buried. Later, when time and circumstances permitted, he would dig up the grief and let himself experience it. But now was not the time.
“Good,” said Nehara. “Be extra quiet.”
“Why?” asked Billy before he could stop the question.
Nehara’s brow furrowed. Clearly the man was not accustomed to people questioning him. But then he exhaled, a sharp puff of air that bespoke a mixture of impatience, irritation… and fear.
“Because we’re here,” answered the Blue Power finally.
Billy looked ahead. Then up. And up. And up.
He was, indeed, here.
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
In Which Billy becomes Grotesque, and is unCovered…
The stairs went up forever. That was bad.
There were Darksiders everywhere. That was worse.
Billy looked around at the milling throngs of people. He was glad that his shield and dagger and sword were… wherever they were when they disappeared from view. But his face was another matter. He suspected that more than a few of the Darksiders would recognize him at this point, and that was a problem, because it looked like most of the Darksiders in the world were nearby.
Billy: Seeker of Powers (The Billy Saga) Page 18