He would have thought at this point that nothing could surprise him. And he would have been wrong. The sight of buildings and tents and crowds of people on top of a cloud was by far the strangest thing he had yet seen. If he had to describe it to someone else, he didn't know if they would have understood why it was stranger than, say, a dragon or a city floating on tides of magma. But the sight of the people and the various structures sitting atop a cloud – a cloud – struck him not only as strange, but somehow wrong.
It was more than a village or a town in the clouds, it was almost a city. Since Billy suspected that most of the Darksiders in the world must be on this particular cloud, that meant that it was someplace terrifically important – and tremendously dangerous.
In the center of the strange city – which would have been beautiful if Billy hadn't known of the evil it housed – were the stairs. Gleaming white stairs that went up and up and up and finally disappeared in a haze of light.
The stairs touched ground – or touched cloud? – in the middle of what would have been a town square if it had been on earth. There were hundreds of Darksiders around the plaza, a dark clot of people that milled about with the quiet danger of a wasp nest.
Billy knew somehow that the stairs were what Nehara had brought him to see. He shivered. Though Nehara had once been the Blue Councilor, he doubted that even the great skills of the ex-Darksider would be enough to save him from a concerted attack by so many people who wished him ill.
Nehara waved a hand, and a portion of the cloud moved, rising like a boil from the rest of the white mass. Within a minute, there was a boulder-shaped extrusion of vapor between Billy and Nehara and the mass of the Darksiders who were at the bottom of the stairs.
“We have to get you to those stairs, boy,” said Nehara as soon as they were hidden from view.
Billy bridled a bit. He didn’t like the way Nehara called him “boy.” It sounded like the man was saying that in lieu of a few words that would have gotten Billy grounded if he said them in front of his mother. “My name is Billy,” he said through clenched teeth.
Nehara’s brow furled, but then he took a deep breath, visibly calming himself. “Sorry,” he said.
He didn’t sound particularly regretful, but Billy nodded anyway, aware that it was probably the best he could hope for from the man.
“Where are we?” asked Billy.
Again Nehara took a deep breath. He must have incredibly big lungs, Billy thought, what with the amount of deep breathing he does. He bit back a smile. Now was not the time to poke fun at enemies. Or whatever Nehara was. A frienemy, Billy supposed.
“We are at the stairs that lead – we think – to the City of the Sky.”
Billy almost gasped. The City of the Sky! The place where Mrs. Black asked Blue to send her and the Darksiders after Dark Isle was flooded.
Nehara’s expression darkened, and Billy remembered that the Blue Councilor was probably among those who had been sent tumbling into the sea when Billy enlisted Blue’s help to spring his friends from the Darksiders’ prison camp on Dark Isle.
“But I don’t get it,” stuttered Billy. “If you think the stairs go to the City of the Sky, why would Mrs. Black need Blue to get her there?”
“Because no one has made it to the top of the stairs,” answered Nehara.
As if on cue, Billy heard something. It was thin, almost seeming to be an aural illusion. But then it got louder. And louder. And soon Billy could make out what it was: a scream.
It was coming from somewhere above him. He looked up, and could make out – barely – the rapidly growing figure of a person plummeting down, down, down through the air. The person was falling in a straight line beside the stairs that disappeared into the heights of the sky. The scream grew in volume, and Billy could see now that the person was a woman. She fell, still shrieking, through the cloud, and apparently continued falling, for Billy heard her voice disappear as she sank out of sight below them.
“What was that?” he asked. He felt shaky. The experience of watching someone fall – presumably to their death – was not a pleasant one. It brought back memories of the time he fell off the tower at the center of Powers Island, during the battle with the Darksiders. Not a fun experience. Billy was suddenly glad he couldn’t remember the last time he ate, because his stomach started flip-flopping around inside him like a drunken trapeze artist.
Nehara gripped Billy’s shoulder with a steadying hand. “You all right?” he asked after a moment.
Billy didn’t want to chance speaking for fear his stomach would see his mouth opening and try to make a break for it, but he nodded.
“That,” said Nehara, “was the reason Eva asked for Blue’s help to get to the City of the Sky. We found the stairs some time ago, but no one has been able to make it to the top. Everyone who has tried – every single person – has died.”
The good news about that statement, Billy thought, was that his stomach immediately stopped trying to escape through his face. The bad news was that it instead switched to trying to burrow its way out through his belly button. He felt ill as he realized why Nehara had brought him here.
“And I guess I’m the next sucker – er, volunteer,” he finally said.
Nehara shrugged. “Believe me, if it were up to me, I’d just as soon see you back in the prison.” And for a moment, Billy saw the old hostility in the man’s eyes. Though he had apparently decided to help him for the moment, Billy could see that Nehara hadn't completely given up his Darksider leanings. Then the black look disappeared as quickly as it had come. “But my daughter needs you. So I will help you as much as I can.”
“You mean you can help me get to the top of the stairs?”
Nehara shook his head. “I have no idea how to do that. But I can help you get to the stairs themselves – the bottom – without being seen. Or at least, without being recognized.”
Billy nodded. Even getting to the steps seemed impossible at the moment, since it would entail traveling through the Darksider city and the tight-knit mob of Powers at the base of the stairs.
“How’re you going to do that?” he asked.
Nehara smiled. Billy didn't like the smile. It made him feel like a turkey on the day before Thanksgiving. “I’m a Power of Water, remember,” said the man.
“So?”
“So, the human body is mostly water,” he answered. “Which means I can… adjust your appearance somewhat by adjusting the water inside you.”
Billy gulped. That didn’t sound pleasant. And something in Nehara’s eyes convinced him that there was more to it than just a simple spell. “What are you leaving out?” he said.
Nehara almost looked embarrassed for a moment. Then he shrugged and said, “The reason you look the way you do is because your whole body pushes itself a certain way. If I push it a different way, your body isn’t going to like it.”
“Meaning…?” said Billy.
“Meaning the spell is going to hurt. A lot.”
Billy thought for a moment about telling Nehara to forget it. He was supposed to climb some unclimbable steps to get to what people thought might be the City of the Sky, then once there find one of the items of prophecy (if it was there), and then somehow make it back down the stairs, and to cap it all off the whole process was going to start out with some major pain?
“Sure,” Billy mumbled. “Why not?”
He meant the words as self-pity. But apparently Nehara took them at face value, because he reached out without further preamble and placed all ten of his fingers on Billy’s cheeks, chin, and forehead.
And in the next instant, Billy's entire body seemed to implode. It was as if a supernova was going off in his head, as though his bones had been replaced with TNT that was blowing up one atom at a time.
Billy threw his head back and started to scream, but the pain increased to the point of paralyzing him. Every muscle in his body locked as tightly as if he had been hit by lightning. Forget about screaming, he suddenly couldn’t even br
eathe. Everything went blurry as he felt his eyeballs themselves start to shift and move.
Billy felt himself drifting into an abyss of pain. He didn’t know if he could handle this for much longer. Didn’t know if he could take the feeling of his skin stretching out like a balloon, the sensation of something in his back curling and curdling, forcing him to bend over under the pressure until he was looking at his toes whether he wanted to or not.
The pain seemed to continue for a lifetime, though a small part of Billy’s mind recognized that it couldn’t have gone on for more than a few seconds. More than a few seconds of this level of agony would have rendered him unconscious, if not killed him outright.
Gradually, though, the pain ebbed like a wave slowly receding from the beach; leaving pieces of itself behind as it left, pockmarks of sand and surf that would serve as an ephemeral reminder of its presence. Billy’s windpipe hitched, and he coughed so hard that he felt like the lining of his throat was coming apart.
He felt something pounding him on the back and realized it must be Nehara, but the sensation was strange, as though the Blue Power was hitting him through layers of blankets.
“Stop,” Billy finally managed to stutter. The sound made him blink in surprise. The voice that emerged was a far cry from his usual one. It was deeper, for one thing, and guttural as the growl of an angry grizzly. He tried to straighten up, and found that he couldn’t. He seemed locked permanently into a stooped-over position. “What did you do to me?” asked Billy.
“I changed you,” said Nehara. “As we agreed.”
Billy looked at his hands. They were no longer the smooth tiny hands of a smaller-than-average high school freshman. They were now knobby and splotched, with skin that seemed to be stretched as tight as a sausage casing over strange layers of fatty tissue. Billy looked at Nehara. Or at any rate, he tried to. Bent over as he was, the best he could manage was to look slightly higher up Nehara’s shins. “What did you do?” he repeated.
Nehara sighed as though he was more than a little irritated at Billy’s repetitive mode of questioning. He fished around in a back pocket and pulled something out. Billy flinched away from it automatically when Nehara waved it at him. Then he heard a digital camera shutter, and realized that the Blue Power must have taken his picture with a camera or a smartphone.
Sure enough, Nehara held out a cellphone. On its screen was a picture of what Billy could only assume was him. But it looked nothing like the boy he had last seen in a mirror. The boy in the picture was bloated and hideous. Not exactly fat, but looking as though he had been stung all over by a variety of highly venomous bees with attitude problems. A huge hump sat malignantly atop his back.
“Jeepers creepers,” Billy whispered. “You turned me into the Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Nehara’s eyebrows raised in apparent surprise, which in turn surprised Billy. “Didn’t you know this was going to happen?” he demanded.
Nehara snorted. “Of course I did,” he answered. “I was just surprised that you’d ever read The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
“You mean it was a book?” said Billy. “I was talking about the guy in the Disney movie.”
Nehara looked slightly ill. Then shook it off. “Let’s not get side-tracked. We have to get you to the stairs.”
“Won’t anyone stop us?” asked Billy.
Again Nehara rolled his eyes. “How did the Dawnwalkers ever win anything?” he muttered. Then, louder, he said, “Of course not. That was the whole point of the spell, wasn’t it?”
“No, I don’t mean ‘will they recognize me.’ I mean, if this stairway leads to the City of the Sky, won’t there be guards or something?”
Nehara drew himself up to full height. At least, Billy guessed that was what he was doing, but it was still hard to tell for sure by staring at the guy's shins. “You forget who you are speaking to. No one would dare stand against Nehara the Blue.” Then he seemed to wilt a bit as he continued, “Besides, not many people try to climb the stairs, and those that do are welcomed.”
“Why?” said Billy.
“Because to get to the City of the Sky, the Darksiders have to find someone who is able to climb the steps, and so far, no one has managed to do that.” Nehara sighed. He took Billy by the arm and started to lead him around the mound of cloud he had summoned to hide them from the crowd at the base of the steps.
Billy pulled away. A thought struck him. “Wait a second,” he said. “Why can’t you just get a Gray Power to fly up?” He remembered the Battle for Powers Island, when Tempus had flown through the air, Billy in his arms, the two of them dropping rocks on Darksiders’ heads from above.
Nehara shook his head. “We’ve tried it,” said Nehara. “But it doesn’t work. There’s something – some kind of counterspell – that keeps anyone from doing any spells on or around the stairs.”
“Great,” said Billy. Not that he had ever been able to cast a spell himself, but the fact that no one else could indicated some very strong forces at work. Forces which, apparently, did not take kindly to people trying to climb the stairs.
So of course, thought Billy, that’s just where I’m headed. He wondered what it was about him that attracted danger like iron filings to a magnet.
He sighed as Nehara drew him toward the cloud city. Billy’s too-tight skin felt as though it had a platoon of army ants crawling over it as he approached the buildings. Even though he was safely hidden inside Nehara’s shape-shifting spell, Billy felt exposed. He almost wished for the sword, dagger, and shield to appear, but managed to quell the thought before it was fully born in his mind. Disguised or not, he suspected he might be noticed if he had those items strapped to his malformed body.
They walked for what seemed like an eternity. Billy trudged silently, not wanting to draw attention to himself in the very stronghold of his enemies. Then, still bent half over, he started to see feet all around him and knew that he was among the Darksiders.
“Ew!” said a woman’s voice. “Nehara, what is that?” Billy couldn’t see who said it, but he immediately decided he didn’t like her.
“Is that your business, Trixie?” answered Nehara coldly, and continued to pull Billy forward. Billy considered drooling to add to the already horrific picture he must present, but decided against it. Less is more, he thought.
Then a pair of feet planted themselves firmly in front of him. They were dressed in black high heels, with legs that were wrapped in dark black hose that seemed like the kind of thing that the Goth girls who hung around the bathrooms at Preston Hills High would wear. But Billy knew with a shiver that the legs and feet belonged to someone much more dangerous than a Goth girl.
“And where are you going?” asked Eva Black. Even though Billy couldn’t see her face, he could feel her gaze on him, and had to consciously stop himself from running automatically. The most dangerous person he had ever met was within mere inches of him. He didn't want to die, and he felt a tremor begin to build within him. Terror gripped him in icy claws, and Billy quailed within himself.
Then he felt strength flow into him as he remembered the look in Vester's eyes as Billy left the Darksider dungeon. The silent goodbye, the stolid bravery. Mrs. Black had killed his friend. His best friend. Anger replaced fear, and Billy was suddenly glad his disguise had him hunched over, for he suspected that if he could have looked Mrs. Black in the eye at that moment, no level of spells would obscure the naked hatred he felt for her.
I'll get you, he thought. I'll get you and stop you from ever hurting anyone else. I swear it.
Nehara wasn't speaking either, and for a moment Billy wondered if Nehara was going to forget about Blythe and turn Billy in. Then the Blue Power said, “To the stairs, obviously.” Billy was almost relieved to hear the man’s normal haughtiness.
“And who is this… creature?” asked Mrs. Black.
“My… um….” Nehara stuttered, suddenly at a loss for words. Billy realized that neither of them had taken the care to come up with a good cover story for him, and fear
again started to writhe within his guts.
“Well?” demanded Mrs. Black, and Billy heard more than a little suspicion in her voice.
Acting without thought, Billy stepped forward and raised his hands as though he was about to fall at her feet and worship her.
“Majeshty!” he hollered thickly, and now he did let himself drool. A thick gobbet of spittle welled out of his mouth and fell like a water bomb onto Mrs. Black’s right shoe, where it splashed and was quickly absorbed into her stockings. “Ish it true?” he wailed. “Am I at lasht shtanding before the beautiful Eva Black? Long have I wished for shuch a shpiffy shight. Many long nightsh have I dreamed of….”
He didn’t know where he was going with this soliloquy, and worried he would run out of things to say. He let another drool bomb spill out of his lips. It had the desired effect. Mrs. Black screeched and danced out of the way. “Never mind!” she yelled, her tone raising a few dozen octaves. “Just get him out of here.”
“Of course,” answered Nehara, and continued forward with Billy.
Billy sighed in relief. Home free, he thought.
But not yet. Another set of feet planted themselves firmly in front of him.
“You never answered her question,” said another voice that Billy recognized immediately. Mordrecai.
“Out of the way,” said Nehara.
Mordrecai’s feet didn’t move. “Answer the question,” he insisted.
Who is this guy? thought Billy. He seemed to be everywhere, seemed to be following Billy like a bloodhound.
Nehara sniffed as though the very thought of doing what Mordrecai asked was as far below him as an earthworm’s belly. He stepped to one side, clearly attempting to maneuver around the Darksider. Mordrecai stepped just as quickly, though, once more planting himself firmly in front of Billy and Nehara.
“Answer the question,” he said again.
Silence reigned. Even the mob around them seemed to quiet, as though it waited to see who would win the battle of wills.
Billy: Seeker of Powers (The Billy Saga) Page 19