Billy slowly maneuvered himself so that he was floating face down, his eyes only inches above the sand drawing. “It looks,” he said at last, “like some kind of sword or something.”
“Yes,” Blue breathed. Billy looked at her in surprise. She sounded really excited. More excited than he would expect over him simply being able to tell what the picture was.
“So what about it?” he asked.
Now it was Blue’s turn to look a bit nervous, as though unsure how to say this. “It is mine,” she said.
“But it’s a sword. Aren’t swords for air-breathers?” Billy asked.
“Yes, they are, but that one is mine. I don’t know how I know, but I do know it. The sword is a thing of Blue. And I want it.” Blue’s voice was almost trancelike, detached, like she was speaking from somewhere so deep inside herself that Billy wasn’t sure if she was even seeing him right now.
“I don’t know where it is,” said Billy.
“No, you don’t,” said Blue, snapping out of her reverie. Then, without any kind of preamble, she said, “What are you?”
And Billy answered as in a tone that was as quick and frank as her question had been. “The Messenger,” he said simply. He was surprised how much he was starting to think of himself as that, even though he still had no idea what it meant to be the Messenger.
Blue nodded. “I thought as much. Artemaeus certainly seems to think so.”
“He does?” said Billy in surprise.
But Blue wasn’t really listening to him now. “The Messenger can find my sword,” she said, then focused on Billy. “You can find my sword, and return it to Blue,” she announced with finality.
“I, I don’t…,” began Billy, totally confused. His role in this magical world was as fluid as the water he now floated in, currents of change around every moment. The Messenger could get Blue her sword?
Then a chilly thought swept through him. He remembered that several of the Prophecies about the Messenger and the White King had mentioned a sword:
A sword, a spear, and armor strong
A shield to wear, and dagger long
To fell the Dark and bring the Light
To call the spark that ends the night.
And also, in Rumpelstiltskin’s silly-seeming limerick prophecy:
He used a big blade,
And the dead were waylaid,
“Is this sword,” he said, gesturing at the sand picture below them, “the sword of the White King?”
“It is,” said Blue, “and it is not. It was mine, then his, and now his, but to be mine.”
“But, I think the White King needs it to fight the Darksiders,” stammered Billy.
Again, Blue made that dismissive gesture of hers. “Air-breather problems. They have nothing to do with me here; they cannot touch the deep. They cannot touch Blue. And,” she added, with an intense look that Billy didn’t like at all, “I want the sword.” She stared at the sand picture for a very long time, then looked back at Billy. “What is it you want me to do?” she asked.
“Save my friends,” he answered immediately.
“What friends?” she asked. “And where are they?”
“Vester, Ivy, Tempus, and Mrs. Russet are my friends,” he said. “And they’re on Dark Isle.”
Blue pursed her lips, thinking. “Dark Isle moves about,” she said, almost to herself. “It’s how it avoids being found by the Dawnwalkers or by the world of mortals. Finding it could be difficult.”
Billy watched her as she said this. It looked like she was figuring something out in her mind. Then, at last, she looked up at Billy.
“I will trade you,” she said. “I will give you the lives of your friends and free them from Dark Isle, if you will promise to return the sword to me.”
“But I don’t even know what the sword is,” Billy protested. “I don’t know what it is, or where it is, or anything. How do you even know I’ll ever find it?”
“If you are the Messenger, then you will find the sword. It is your destiny,” said Blue.
“But then I’ll need it for the White King,” said Billy.
Blue shrugged. “This is the bargain. You may remain here with me and mine in the deep, and be happy. Or you may return to the world of the air-breathers, and I will free your friends, and you will promise me the sword when you find it.”
Billy didn’t know what to do. He knew he didn’t want his friends hurt, but he sensed that the sword Blue wanted possession of was something very important to the return of the White King. Something that might change the course of this current War of the Powers.
Then again, he thought, if I don’t save my friends, there won’t even be a War of the Powers. Because near as I can tell, the Darksiders have already won.
Billy would have taken a deep breath if he had been breathing. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he just looked at Blue as evenly as he could, and simply said, “Done.”
He held out his hand to shake and seal the deal. Blue just smiled and turned on her tail—literally—and swam toward a new door that was opening in the coral.
“Come,” she said. “Dark Isle has moved again and is close by. Now is the time to act.”
Billy hurried after her, his supernaturally fast strokes letting him keep pace with this strange creature. They swam out into the open sea, and as they did Blue plucked an outcropping of rock from the sea floor. It was long and flat on one end, and coiled in upon itself on the other. It looked, Billy thought, like a cross between a gong and a tuba. And as it turned out, he wasn’t far off. Blue snapped another rock off another nearby outcropping and used the second piece to hit the first rock on its flat end.
A clear, bell-like tone rang out. It rattled Billy’s teeth in their sockets, and he knew it must be heard for miles around.
“What are you doing?” he managed to ask when the sound petered out.
“Warning the deep,” she said.
“Of what?” he asked.
Without ceasing to swim or slowing her pace, Blue looked at him. “Do you think that freeing your friends on Dark Isle is something that can be easily done?” she asked. “It is going to require great magic, great movement of the deep. I am warning all those around the island to get away, lest they be caught by the violence and destroyed.”
Billy gulped. Blue was still lovely as she had been, but now that subtly-sensed danger he had felt in her was surfacing. She was part of the water itself, it was certain, and just as water could be beautiful, so also it could be deadly. He was now seeing the dangerous part of Blue. And it frightened him.
On they swam. Blue used a few more ocean rocks to sound her alarm periodically, each time causing Billy’s teeth to come a bit looser in his head.
I better not eat any apples any time soon, he thought. My teeth’ll pop right out if I do.
At last, they arrived at what looked like the base of a tall mountain, which stretched up high before them, disappearing above the surface of the ocean hundreds of feet above.
“We’re here,” Blue announced. She began to swim upward, and Billy realized that what he was looking at was not the base of a mountain, it was Dark Isle itself.
Billy thought about warning her of the sharks, but then realized that he hadn’t seen any sea life at all for the last half an hour or so. And besides, he realized, Blue was probably not the kind of creature that would be scared of sharks, not even special forces sharks armed with bazookas and tuna nets.
Billy swam up beside Blue. As they neared the surface of the ocean, she moved closer to the undersea rock face of the island. She pointed, and Billy’s mouth opened wide. “What is that?” he asked.
“Your ride and your protection,” answered Blue.
It looked like a starfish. But where most starfish had five thick legs and were about the size of Billy’s hand, this one had several dozen legs and was the size of a Toyota. Each of its legs was studded with powerful suckers, and Billy could tell just by looking at the creature that whatever it grabbed onto wou
ldn’t get out unless the starfish let it get out.
Without further warning, Blue shoved Billy at the starfish. Two of the creature’s legs immediately lanced out and gripped Billy around the arms and shoulders. As he had suspected, the grip was like iron. He kicked and shouted, but it was to no avail. The starfish had him held fast.
He looked at Blue. “We had a deal!” he cried.
“And we still do,” she said. “The star is part of it.” Then the mermaid nodded to the starfish. The creature wrapped more of its arms around Billy, hugging him tightly to it, then began using the rest of its prehensile arms to climb.
The starfish moved rapidly, its sucker feet enabling it to grasp and hold onto anything. Soon, both it and Billy were fifty feet above the turbulent water, dripping as they ascended the highest peak of Dark Isle. Billy managed to look down, and could see Blue, still below the surface of the water, apparently waiting for Billy to get to some predetermined spot.
But then he lost sight of her as the starfish continued to pull him up. Up, up, up they went, until finally they crested the very peak where Wolfen and Mrs. Black had tried to convince Billy that they were on his side, and that he should join them.
The starfish mostly let go of him then, though it still clung tightly to his ankle with one of its serpentine legs. Billy could see the island once more. Nothing much had changed, though he could see that Blue had been right: the island itself had moved. The sky here, wherever “here” was, was now a slightly different color, as was the water around the island. They could be on the other side of the earth from where they started, for all Billy knew.
But other than that, the rest of the island was as it had been. Darksiders walking about, doing their chores or meeting with one another. Thousands of zombies lurching about doing the menial tasks of the island. And a glimmering, terrifying castle of transparent cubicle cells looming over the whole of it.
How is Blue going to save all of them? Billy wondered.
He felt something tugging at his leg. It was the starfish, one of its rubbery legs curling more tightly about Billy’s. He could also see that the starfish’s other legs were gripping the rock below it with all their might.
What’s going to happen? Billy asked himself. For clearly something was going to happen. And whatever it was, it was going to be big.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
In Which Billy sees what he has Done, and realizes the Price…
It started with a sound.
Not a large sound.
But in spite of the fact that it was a small sound, it was piercing. All around the island, wherever Billy could see, the Darksiders stopped walking or talking, and looked at one another as if to say, “Did you hear that?”
The sound came again. Louder this time.
It sounded like a waterfall, Billy thought. Or maybe like pounding surf crashing on a beach at night.
He looked over the cliff to the ocean below and saw that he was wrong. It wasn’t like waves crashing onto a beach. It was quite the opposite, in fact. The water all around Dark Isle was drawing away, exposing the stone foundation of the island, withdrawing more and more until Dark Isle could be seen from its top to the very lowest point where it joined itself to the ocean floor.
Billy tried to position himself so he could see more of what was happening, but the starfish wouldn’t let him. Indeed, it clung tighter to Billy, and pulled the him with closer to it.
“Hey, I want to see,” he protested. But apparently the starfish either didn’t hear or didn’t care. Either way, Billy once again found himself cocooned in the starfish’s strong grasp, with only his head free to move. The starfish flattened out as much as possible, using its arms to wiggle into every crack and cranny in the ground below them, holding as tight as it could.
Billy was upset for a moment, wanting to see what was going on, but soon realized he needn’t have worried about not seeing. Indeed, he wished he couldn’t see.
The rushing sound stopped. All was silence. Billy thought he could have heard a pin dropped on the far side of Dark Isle. Then, he once again heard the noise of rushing water. This time, though, it was from much farther away. He craned his neck in the starfish’s grasp, trying to see what was happening, and realized that all the water around Dark Isle hadn’t disappeared. It had just moved away, stacking impossibly on top of itself like sand dunes on the beach. Now the entire island was ringed by an unbroken circle of water that loomed higher than the peak upon which Billy was being held.
On the very crest of the water that circled the island, Billy thought he could see a tiny figure: Blue, arms high in the air, clearly sustaining this magical water surge.
No, not surge, Billy thought. Tidal wave.
Sure enough, an instant later Blue dropped her upraised arms. The circle of water collapsed inward, a violent implosion that brought all the pent-up water crashing down on Dark Island.
Billy could see the water forming into the shapes of sea creatures as it slammed into the cliffs and plowed through the valleys of Dark Isle. He saw sharks and seahorses of surf, whales and walruses of water, all of them sweeping over the island like a tsunami.
And then the water hit the prison. At first, the giant wave just exploded into diamond slivers of surf as it impacted the strong structure. But then another surge of water came, and another. And Billy screamed, because whatever Blue was doing, she wasn’t freeing his friends. She was letting mayhem loose on the island.
With a sound like shearing windows, the prison began to fragment. Crystalline cubes separated from one another and plunged into the water all around them. Most of the cubes themselves began to fragment, allowing those inside to push their way out.
Any freedom the imprisoned Powers might have felt, however, was in most cases swiftly stolen from them as wave after wave churned over the island. There was a crash, and one of the highest of those waves actually crashed over the peak that Billy was on. He now saw why the starfish was there, as its firm grasp was the only thing that kept Billy from being washed off the cliff by the wave’s force.
Billy screamed in spite of the starfish’s sustaining grip, terrified at the dark cascade of water sweeping over him, and more terrified at the thought of what havoc was being wrought on the lower parts of the island. He closed his eyes against the thrashing surf, and when he could open his eyes again, he saw that Dark Isle…was gone. Covered in water, only a few of its highest peaks still in evidence. It was like the city of Atlantis, now lost forever below the ocean’s angry tides.
There was no trace of the prison.
There was no trace of the Dawnwalkers.
There was no trace of the Darksiders.
There was no trace of Blythe.
Billy began to cry.
“Why so sad, Billy Jones?” asked Blue. Billy looked over and saw that she was floating lazily in a nearby wave as it rolled over what had just moments before been thin air between mountainous peaks which were now buried.
“You lied!” he shouted, half-blinded by a combination of tears, rage, and sorrow.
Blue looked genuinely surprised and perhaps even a little hurt by this statement. “I never told an untruth of any kind, Billy Jones,” she said. Her voice, now in the air, had lost that musical tone it held while underwater, and her eyes were not as blue. But Billy could still sense the power radiating from this alien creature.
“But you said you would save the Dawnwalkers,” he protested.
“No,” she said firmly. “I said that I would save your friends. Vester, Ivy, Tempus, and Mrs. Russet are the people you named.”
“And you didn’t even do that!” he shouted, rocking back and forth furiously, trying to get free of the starfish that still clung to him so tightly. “You just buried Dark Isle underwater forever and destroyed the prison.”
“Not forever,” she answered. “The waters will subside in time, just as they always do. In and out, out and in. The deep becomes shallow and the shallow deep. It is the way of the sea, and not long shall
pass before this island rises once more.”
“Who cares about that?” screamed Billy. He pulled one arm free and began using it to try to peel the sucker arms of the starfish away from the rest of him. He didn’t have much success. “I wanted my friends, and they’re gone. They were in that prison, don’t you understand that?”
“Of course I do,” said Blue. And now she sounded a bit irritated, perhaps even angry. “And they are safe.”
“Then where—” began Billy. But before he could finish his words, he heard a sound. The rushing water again. He turned to look, fully expecting to see some further devastation or destruction.
Instead, he saw a great wave, formed in the shape of giant seahorses, rolling over the water toward where Billy lay. And each foam seahorse bore someone on its back:
Vester, the fireman looking thoroughly uncomfortable around all this water.
Ivy, her eyes bright and shining, holding her hands high up to take in as much sunlight as possible, the black and withered plants that plaited her body turning green and lively once more.
Tempus, his knobby knees knocking together, his moving Hawaiian shirt flapping in the tempest, shouting “Giddap!” for all he was worth.
And, on the last seahorse, Mrs. Russet. She alone was not moving. She was unconscious, draped over the back of one of the watery seahorses.
Vester was the first one to see Billy in front of them. “Billy!” he shouted happily, waving one hand, then immediately re-clutching at the seahorse, clearly worried about losing his grip and falling into the water.
Ivy and Tempus both saw him then, and shouted and laughed with joy. The starfish let Billy go as his friends approached. Soon Vester, Ivy, and Tempus all held Billy in a huge group hug on top of the mountain. Their seahorses all dissolved into foam and disappeared as each of Billy’s friends stepped off. At last, only Mrs. Russet’s steed remained, water flowing through it in salty currents, as it waited for them to notice its burden.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 37