“You got it, Mom,” said Cameron. He frowned in concentration, and held his hands out like he was holding an invisible basketball. Between them there was a spark, and a dark cloud of violet and black appeared, roiling between his fingers. Billy thought he could see writhing bodies in the tiny cloud, souls forever doomed by the imprisoning grip of fear.
Billy had been touched by the Dread before, when Wolfen had cast it upon him. But he hadn’t seen this pool of darkness then, and realized that Wolfen had been only playing with him. This, on the other hand, was the real thing. This was the thing that had destroyed Mrs. Russet, that had rendered her into a doomed shell of what she had been.
Cameron smiled again at Billy. The Black Power pushed his hands forward suddenly, and the dark mist he had been holding coalesced and speared forward, shooting toward Billy like a ghostly arrow.
Billy did the only thing he could think to do. And actually, he didn’t even really think to do it, he just did it.
He ducked.
Cameron’s spell of Dread arced out, and hit directly where Billy had been. But Billy had dropped to the ground, banging his knees on the unforgiving surface of the Diamond Dais, and the spell lanced over him. It hit the shard that speared up through the middle of the podium, and with a deafening concussion, the shard cracked, a piece of it shearing off and then falling to the ground at Billy’s feet.
As for the Dread, the instant after the spell hit the diamond shard at Billy’s back, he saw the dark projectile bounce back…and hit Cameron squarely in the nose.
For the second time, Billy had to smile as blood starting dripping from the bully’s beak. But this time, instead of crying about the fact that he was bleeding, Cameron’s eyes widened into terrified circles of fear. “Please, no, don’t!” he shouted, his mind already lost in the grip of his terror. “Don’t bring the clown to my birthday! I’m scared of clowns! Nooo!” And the boy fell over, writhing and unconscious.
Mrs. Black was clearly stunned. But only for a moment.
“Kill him!” she shrieked. And the Death’s Head Moths now flew at Billy, closing the distance between them and him with frightening speed.
Billy knew that, unless he could do something, this was going to be it for him. Avoiding Cameron’s blast had been sheer luck. But Mrs. Black and Wolfen…the Black Councilor and the Dark Master would not leave him any room for luck. There would be no bouncing of their spells off any crystal shard.
Billy turned, looking for somewhere to run and hide, knowing even as he did so that he hadn’t the time to do either. He was doomed, he knew it.
Then he frowned.
Everything around him seemed to slow down, and then disappear. Mrs. Black, Wolfen, the deadly moths, his friends dying in the background. It all faded out, and all he saw was the crystal shard that had cracked the Diamond Dais.
Through fires of fate and storms that save
Through winter’s gate and water’s grave
Shall come the One, once lost, now found
Seen by the Son whose love abounds.
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 through it all, one twist of fate:
A child whose call will seem too late
But though the Dark seems once to win
The child will spark the light again.
Billy leaned over and grabbed the shard. The top of it, where it had been broken by Cameron’s spell, was rounded and smooth. It fit in his hand perfectly. Billy pulled at the shard, and with a cracking noise that seemed to shake the whole earth, Billy pulled the shard free of the Diamond Dais. He lifted it up, and as he did, the world returned to him.
He suddenly saw the two Death’s Head Moths winging towards him, the deadly intent in their minds clear. They swooped down, and without thinking Billy swung the crystal shard in his hands. He moved with an expertise that he could not possibly possess, the swings sharp, quick, and true.
There was a crackle of spent energy, and the two moths fell to the Diamond Dais, each one split neatly in half.
Billy looked at Mrs. Black and Wolfen. They were both staring at him in shock. Then Mrs. Black’s face again bunched up into the living embodiment of hate and rage. She raised both fists, and Billy saw that each held the Dread. Wolfen, too, the Dark Master only a second behind her, raised his fists, and two more dark orbs of Dread appeared in his hands.
Billy knew that there was no way he could block all four of the attacks, not if they came at once. And Mrs. Black apparently knew it too, or at least could see it in Billy’s eyes, because she laughed. The laugh was tinged with insanity now, and Billy felt almost positive that what had happened to her son had perhaps been the thing that inalterably snapped an already disturbed mind.
“You are mine, Billy Jones,” she screamed in triumph, and both she and Wolfen clenched to cast their spells. “Any last words?” she said.
Billy felt a sharp pang of fear, but only for an instant. In the next, the fear dissipated, replaced by that strange sense of being guided. He felt what had been Billy Jones disappear, or at least recede into somewhere deep within him. And what took its place was something different. Something far older, tied to the very Essence of Power.
“My words are these,” he said, in a voice no longer entirely his own. And Mrs. Black and Wolfen both paused, as though he had stopped them merely with his words. “The Diamond Dais has cracked, the White King’s sword has been found.” As he said this, the Diamond Dais began to glow a deep, forest green, the sign of truth being told upon it. At the same time, Billy held forth the shard that he clutched in his hands, and as he did, bits of it fell away, leaving only a diamond blade and hilt—a perfectly crafted sword hewn without hands from a single diamond.
Billy raised the sword in both hands, high above his head, and now the sword began to burn with an inner light, a fire that was not only brighter than the sun, but seemed to pull the sun down from the heavens itself.
“I am the Messenger,” said Billy. “And my Message is this: the White King comes. The Dark shall give way to Light, and the worlds shall end at my hands.”
And with that, Billy swung the sword downward in a fierce, fiery arc, slamming the blade onto the Diamond Dais.
There was a sound: a pure, bell-tone that was followed immediately by a pulse of energy that had the tip of the sword as its epicenter, and which pulsed outward to flow over Powers Island.
Billy felt the pulse go out, and it was like he was a part of it, as though some portion of him had become the energy cast forth by the sword. He could see what it touched, and what happened to those things that it touched.
The ring of energy rode in a white pulse over the top of the tower. It moved slowly at first, then picked up speed. It hit Cameron, then Wolfen and Mrs. Black, knocking the Darksiders to the ground like they were paper dolls in a hurricane. It hit Prince, the snake that had once been Billy’s friend and then turned to a servant of the Darksiders, and as it did the snake turned back to fire. It looked around, and Billy could see a subtle smile on the fire serpent’s face. It looked at Billy, and flicked its forked tongue, and then disappeared in a pleased puff of smoke, its time as a Fizzle done.
And still onward rolled the power that came from the sword, pulsing forward and touching Vester, Ivy, and Mrs. Russet.
Mrs. Russet gasped, suddenly able to breathe. Ivy stopped crying and fell into a deep sleep, the weeping now replaced by a slumbering smile. And the gray-white bone structure that had slowly been replacing Vester’s arm now withered and burned away, leaving only pink flesh behind it.
The ring of energy moved outward, flowing over the river that bisected the top of the tower, touching the dead plants that covered it. And as it did, the river glowed like blown glass, like a flowing diamond of light, and the greenery was restored, the Earthtree claiming the tower once again.
Then the pulse
traveled to the edges of the tower and flowed downward, traveling in an electrified ring to the tower’s base and then rippling over the island. Everywhere it touched, the fighting Powers were knocked down. It flowed over the zombies, as well, and as soon as it did the undead beings also fell, their skin transforming from the mottled color that had distinguished them and their eyes returning to the normal, closed eyes of the dead who have found peace at last.
It flowed over all, and where it went, everything changed. The Darksiders fled, terrified by the forces that had been brought to bear against them and the sudden dissipation of the most terrible part of their army. The Dawnwalkers brightened with new hope and a rekindling of the happiness and optimism that had been theirs until the recent weeks.
Wherever the sword’s power flowed, all were touched, all were changed. And wherever it went, all could hear a voice. The voice of a boy who was not a boy. The voice of youth that was tied into the ages.
“The White King comes,” said the Messenger. “And the worlds will end.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH
In Which Billy sees the End Begin, and knows his Fate…
Billy blinked and looked around. A circle of faces crowded in on him. His friends. Ivy, Vester, Tempus, Mrs. Russet. Even Fulgora was looking down at him, blood running in rivulets from various cuts all over her, but still looking uncharacteristically concerned.
“What happened?” Billy groaned. His head felt like a gorilla had pulled it off his shoulders and played a rousing game of kick-ball with it.
“It’s over,” said Tempus. “It’s over, my boy, and we won!”
His friends helped Billy to his feet, and he saw that he had been laying on the Diamond Dais. The sun was up, and birds were singing in the foliage that now cloaked the tower.
Billy almost tripped getting up, though. He looked down and saw the reason why: the White King’s sword, the sword that had been prophesied as one of the tools that would end the Dark, was at his side. It rested in a golden scabbard that had somehow appeared and attached itself to a bejeweled belt he now wore, only the diamond hilt of the sword visible above it.
Billy looked around. He could see a still form nearby, a dark lump curled in on itself. “Cameron?” he said.
Vester shook his head. “Cameron and his mother skedaddled,” he said. “Along with the rest of the Darksiders—the ones that were still conscious anyway.” He nodded at the still form. “That there is Wolfen. And he’s dead.”
“What?” said Billy, aghast.
Mrs. Russet nodded. “It’s true. And it explains a lot.”
Billy’s head was reeling. “Wolfen is dead?”
Mrs. Russet nodded. “And I think he’s been dead for a long, long time.”
Not just Billy, but everyone now looked at the Brown Councilor in surprise. “Remember how he was able to swear fealty to the Council, and swear that he had not broken the terms of his exile, all while the Diamond Dais glowed the green of Truth?” she said.
“That’s right,” said Ivy. “How did he manage to lie like that?”
“I don’t think he was lying,” said Mrs. Russet. When the others looked askance at her, she continued, “We know that the Darksiders have developed new powers. Like that insect—”
“The Death’s Head Moth,” interjected Billy.
Mrs. Russet frowned, clearly not appreciating interruptions even when she wasn’t giving a lecture in history class. “Is that what it’s called?” she asked. Billy nodded. “Interesting. And do you remember when you first saw it?”
“On Dark Isle, with Mrs. Black,” said Billy with a shudder. He would never forget it.
“With Mrs. Black,” said Mrs. Russet, nodding as though she had known he would say that. “I think that Eva has reached deeper into the Dark than any Power that has gone before. Even beyond Wolfen, it seems, in her evil quest for power. And she is powerful, indeed. She raised an army of zombies, she orchestrated this attack. And I believe that she killed Wolfen as part of it…and then raised him up again.”
“But why?” asked Vester. “Why would she do that?”
“Several reasons,” answered Mrs. Russet. “First of all, I think that in stealing his life, she stole something of his essence, his power. And Eva would surely want that, even as a much younger girl. She was always a servant of Death and the Dark, and I never believed that she was acting truly when she—like the other Darksiders—swore to keep the Truce after Wolfen’s first uprising. But more than that,” continued Mrs. Russet in a thoughtful tone, “I think that she always felt betrayed by Wolfen. I think she felt he had abandoned her. And Eva takes those things personally. So I believe she hunted him down, and killed him…and then brought him back as something like a zombie, but more powerful. Smarter, retaining its powers…and totally under her thrall.”
Tempus snapped his fingers. “That was why he could tell us he hadn’t broken the terms of his exile: he hadn’t. And that was why he could swear allegiance to the Council: because if Eva told him to do it, he would have to, and he would have to mean it. But she could then tell him to fight us, and he would flip over in an instant to the other side.”
“But if she hated him,” said Billy, “why would she bring him back? Why not just use her powers to gather the Darksiders and be in charge on her own?”
“Because everyone knew Wolfen, and believed he had the power to control the Darksiders,” said Vester, clearly grasping, as Fulgora would have said, the “tactical implications” of Mrs. Black’s plan. “No one would believe Eva Black could do such a thing. No one would follow her, unless it was through him.”
“Not only that,” continued Mrs. Russet, “but I also think Eva always loved Wolfen. And this way, she could have him. Not the thing he had become—not the vanquished Dark Power who had perhaps come to understand the error of his ways—but as she had always envisioned him, and wished him to be. Not weak, but strong. What she saw as his true self.”
“Then,” Billy said, still looking at Wolfen’s still form, “when the White King’s sword unleashed its power and destroyed the force keeping the zombies alive….”
Mrs. Russet nodded. “It also released Wolfen.” She glanced at the body as well. “May he rest in peace. And may he find mercy in the hereafter.”
“So we’ve won!” shouted Billy.
“Of course we’ve won!” said Tempus with an impatient snort. “I already said that.”
Then, a terrible thought came over Billy. He looked at Tempus. “Tempus, you were knocked out,” he said.
Tempus looked at the others uncomfortably. “I wasn’t knocked out,” he finally said with as much indignation as he could muster. “I was just resting my eyes.”
“Whatever. When you woke up, where was Rumpelstiltskin?” asked Billy. He wanted to make sure the old man who had come to the Dawnwalkers’ rescue was all right.
The company of friends looked uncomfortable. Mrs. Russet, in particular, looked like she was about to cry.
Billy looked at them. “What?” he asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Vester pointed, and Billy noticed that one of his arms—the one that had been touched by the Death’s Head Moth—hung loose and lifeless. It had been made flesh again, but apparently some things that were damaged could not be completely healed, not even by the sword of the White King.
Billy looked where Vester was pointing, and saw Rumpelstiltskin. The old man was cradled in a giant velvety leaf, propped upward so that his face was to the sky. He was terribly gray and wan.
“How is he?” whispered Billy.
No one spoke for a long time. Finally Fulgora, ever the practical—and tactless—one, simply said, “He’s dying.”
“What?” Billy hollered. Then without waiting for a reply he scrambled over the side of the Diamond Dais and ran to where the ancient man was laying.
Rumpelstiltskin was dying, he could see at a glance. Billy felt tears start to burn behind his eyes as he took in the shriveled form of the man who had done so
much to save them all.
“What happened?” asked Billy as his friends slowly approached.
“His Fizzles,” said Ivy softly. “Too many of them were destroyed. It took too much out of him.”
Billy leaned in to the old man. Rumpelstiltskin squinted, as though blinded by the light, and then smiled. “Well who are you, young man?” he asked.
“Billy. Billy Jones.”
The old man smiled. “I knew a Billy Jones once,” he said weakly. Then he added, “But you’re nothing like him.”
Billy smiled and laughed, bittersweet tears running down his nose. He turned to his friends. “Can’t something be done?” he asked.
Mrs. Russet shook her head, then moved away, far enough that she was out of earshot.
Billy watched her go. “Shouldn’t she be here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be with him?”
Vester shook his head. “She should, but he doesn’t know her. And she can’t bear to see him die like that.” Without thinking, the fireman reached out his good hand and took Fulgora’s. She flinched in surprise, then slowly Billy saw her fingers curl around those of the fireman, the two young Red Powers drawing support from one another in this sad moment.
“How long does he have?” asked Billy.
“Only a few minutes at most,” replied Ivy after feeling Rumpelstiltskin’s head. “Death is coming to claim him, and the Earthtree sings for his soul.”
And with that, Ivy herself began singing, a wordless tune that nonetheless spoke of grief, and loss, and sadness. But it also spoke of hope, and happiness, and life born from the ashes of despair.
Billy felt himself join in the song, unsure of how he knew what the tune should be, but knowing it nonetheless, and singing not just for the passage of Rumpelstiltskin—Terry to his friends—but for all those who had suffered and fought to protect the world of the Powers. It was, Billy realized, the Earthsong, the song of Life. And it was beautiful, because it always went on, throughout eternity.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 49