Billy: Messenger of Powers (13 page)

Billy kept watching, mesmerized by the scenes he saw unfolding. He saw a man at what looked like an ancient printing press, making a thick book. He saw a man in a wheelchair, talking into a dozen microphones, the eyes of those around him showing clear relief and happiness, his words—though Billy could not hear them—buoying them up in times of great need. He saw a man on a horse, riding among frozen troops in a wintry fort, shouting courage to them, urging them to great heights of bravery. He saw a woman moving among the poor and hungry of the world, ministering to them in her own infirmities.

The images swirled, deeper and deeper, faster and faster as Billy watched. A rocket ship taking off, a great medieval army marching across a field, a dark flash of men walking across a parade-ground, heels kicking high in unison as they saluted the screaming man beside them. And more and more, faster and faster. Billy felt himself falling into the threads of the cloak, helpless, suddenly consumed with the urge to know, to see…everything.

A hand clamped itself around his wrist, dragging him back from the abyss of History. It was Vester. “Don’t look too long,” he whispered in Billy’s ear. “The Earthessence is powerful. Almost everything goes into it eventually, but if one looks upon it for too long without the right preparation, the secrets it yields can be too much. Men and women have lost themselves in History, and forgotten that they are creatures of the present, and ever bound for the future.”

Billy withdrew his attention with difficulty as Mrs. Russet walked regally to the brown throne, casting her cloak around her in a dark blanket of History as she sat. He looked around at the others who were now appearing from the orbs above their thrones.

The first to appear was a man from the orb of Gray.

“Dismus the Gray, Power of the Wind,” breathed Tempus. “The greatest of my kind.”

Just as Mrs. Russet had been cloaked in brown, so Dismus the Gray wore an outfit of deepest gray, rich in tone. But where Mrs. Russet’s cloak had been deep and solid, Billy saw that Dismus’s cloak seemed ethereal, as though it might disappear at any minute, and the Gray Councilor along with it. And when Billy peered into Dismus’s cloak of wind, he saw sights he did not understand: people in strange clothing, odd buildings the like of which he had never seen, each visible for only a fleeting moment before being lost in the wispy winds of Dismus the Gray’s cloak.

Billy looked at Tempus questioningly. “Just as the Brown Earthessence bears in it all History past, so the Gray Windessence brings with it glimpses of the future, glances of what is to come, or what may be.” Tempus looked at Billy, his expression one that appeared to be a mixture of affection and fear for the Gray Councilor who had just appeared. “The Grays are the Prophets, the Seers of our people.”

Next came the Red Power. Billy noticed that Vester’s eyes lit up as a beautiful young woman appeared in the orb. Her body was as the flame that clothed her, lithe and sinuous, never seeming to be at rest. Her eyes were like two rubies set in fire, bright against her pale face. “Fulgora, the Red Lady,” said Vester. Billy looked at his new friend: the young fireman’s words were not the hushed awe with which he had spoken of the Council, nor were they the comforting tones that he usually used when speaking to Billy. No, Vester spoke in a tone of voice that Billy had only heard rarely, a special kind of timbre and tone that immediately conveyed the fireman’s feelings toward the Red Councilor.

He’s in love with her, Billy thought. He wondered whether the beautiful Fulgora returned the sentiment, or even knew of Vester’s love. But Vester seemed lost to the world when she appeared, whether the woman knew of his love or not.

Billy peered into her flame-cloak, but seemed to see nothing this time. Apparently flame was not a power that came with knowledge of the past or future. Perhaps there was nothing to be seen…

Then Billy’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe what had suddenly appeared as he watched Fulgora’s cloak. It was…
him
. A Billy Jones of flame, but still clearly him. He saw himself on his eighth birthday, a wonderful day where his father had actually managed to show up and stay the whole day with the family. Then that image faded in the fire and he saw another image: this time a more recent one, of himself being bullied by the ever-present Cameron Black. Then that one, too, disappeared, replaced by something more pleasant: the flickering outline of Blythe Forrest as she had appeared to him in the terrible, embarrassing, and perfectly wonderful moment when he first laid eyes on her. She seemed to look at him, peering forth from the fires of the Red Lady’s garb.

“What am I seeing?” he wondered aloud.

“Memories,” said Vester. “As powerful as flame, as quick to come and go as lightning, they can warm…or they can burn.” The fireman, too, was looking now at the Red Power’s outfit, and Billy wondered what memories Vester was seeing, and how many of them featured the Red Lady in them.

Billy spared one more fleeting, longing glance at the image of Blythe Forrest in the flames, before he was again drawn to the appearance of a new Councilor: the Blue.

The Power appeared as a form out of the white spray of a breaking wave, not there at all and then suddenly solid. His outfit was a shifting mass of water, for he was cloaked in what Billy now could guess was the Earthsea itself. And when he looked in the man’s watery cloak, Billy saw gold, gems, rubies. Then the cloak shifted, and Billy caught a glimpse of himself, only much larger than he really was: well-muscled and tall. Blythe was under his arm, giggling with delight as they walked down the halls of school together.

A hand covered his eyes. “Even more dangerous than the Power of the Earth,” said Vester. “Water is the resting place of the world’s most hidden treasures. And so the Blue Powers have the ability to influence our minds with the subtle promise of riches, of power, of influence, and none can do this better than Nehala the Blue. He is a wily one, like a fox that will smile at you while all the while planning how to catch and eat you.” Vester shuddered, almost overwhelmed with revulsion.

Of course, Billy thought. Vester is fire and this Nehala is water. Of course they won’t like each other. Natural enemies.

Another flare drew Billy’s gaze to the last two orbs. Out of one, the green one, coiled thin tendrils that grew and grew. The tendrils budded new tendrils, which turned to flowers, which in turn ripened into fruit that fell from the vines, disappearing before they hit the pristine Diamond Dais. Then the vines withdrew for a short time, as though asleep under a blanket of snow, before starting the cycle again. Finally, the vines ran together and became muscle and sinew, a man being created from the living greenery of the Earthree itself. Billy watched in wonder at the sight. The man that finally became flesh sat at his throne. He looked right at Billy and smiled.

“My name,” he said to Billy, “is Veric the Green.”

Billy was surprised. He had been wondering that. Could the Green Power read minds?

At the moment Billy thought this, Veric shook his head. “We of the Green cannot read minds. But we do sometimes sense feelings, and I have lived long enough to guess the likely questions that flow from your confusions.” He smiled again at Billy, then looked at Ivy. “Hello, Ivy,” he said.

The young/old woman curtsied, her living dress flaring out and appearing to add to the depth of the bow. “Hello, Father,” she answered.

Veric looked around at the seated Council. “All here?” he asked.

“Not yet,” replied Mrs. Russet. Or, rather, Lumilla the Brown. Billy had trouble thinking of this as his history teacher when she sat in the brown throne, a living tapestry of all history swirling about her. The old woman nodded at the black throne. “We wait on Death.”

“As do all creatures, great and small. All shall come to It eventually, and It is the greatest Power, which all other Powers serve,” replied a voice. Billy hoped the voice didn’t belong to who he thought it belonged to, but sure enough, as the orb reached out, its inky darkness seeping into the light that surrounded it, it gradually took human form, and became Mrs. Eva Black. She looked venomously at Billy as she took her seat.

“A great Power,” agreed Mrs. Russet. “But the greatest? I think not.”

“Do you claim Earth to be greater than Death?” asked Mrs. Black haughtily.

“I do not claim it is, nor do I admit it is not,” responded Mrs. Russet. Then she nodded at the White Throne. “But I think we all can admit that the White is the greatest Element, and the White King the greatest Power of us all.”

“Shall we agree to that? Shall we indeed?” taunted Mrs. Black. Billy hated it when she talked. It was like the angry edge of her voice was amplified when she sat in her throne.

He noticed that she, of all the Council, wore only her regular clothing. As though the Death Power was one that wore no adornment, and came with no more than what it was. Billy shivered, and thought, And what it is, is quite enough. Adornment or not, Mrs. Black was clothed in her Element, and that Element was indeed dark and frightening.

“The White King exists,” said Mrs. Russet, in a tone that brooked no argument. “And he
will
come again.”

“If you say so,” said Mrs. Black.

“Please, ladies, please,” said Veric, the Green Councilor. “We are not here to argue the truth or legend of the White King. We have convened the Council for another purpose, have we not?”

He looked at Mrs. Russet, who nodded. She looked at Billy as though she were waiting for something. He didn’t know what she wanted, so he stood there, rooted to the spot. “Well,” she finally said. “Don’t just stand there like a stick figure.” She gestured for him to come to stand in the middle of the Council.

Billy gulped. “Go on, my boy,” said Tempus. The jolly old Power of the Wind was grinning impishly at him. “No one has ever died in the midst of a Council session.” He winked. “At least, I don’t remember it ever happening, but then, we Wind folk have short memories.”

Billy gulped again, hardly reassured by what he hoped was Tempus’s joke. But he managed to make his feet take several leaden steps toward the Diamond Dais. He didn’t have the benefit of Mrs. Russet’s power, so no stone steps rose to help him climb gracefully atop the raised podium. Instead, he had to clamber awkwardly up the side, no mean feat considering that the smooth dais was over half his height, with no handholds to help him.

He looked over at Vester, hoping the fireman would see his trouble and give him a lift, but Vester was still staring at Fulgora, the Red Lady, apparently lost in love by the mere fact that she was near.

Billy continued trying to hoist himself up, but instead just felt increasingly foolish. Here six of the most powerful people in this strange new world were waiting for him, and he was hanging off the edge of a diamond platform like a half-paralyzed monkey trying to climb a coconut tree. His ears burned, but he refused to give up.

Suddenly, he felt something give him a boost, pushing him up by the seat of his pants. It pushed a bit too hard, in fact, sending Billy up over the lip of the stage, where he landed with an “oof.”

He glanced at Tempus, and the old man winked as though to say “You’re welcome, kiddo.”

Billy rolled his eyes at the gray man’s sense of humor. Then he slowly got to his feet. He felt incredibly awkward, standing in the center of this circle. Not only because it was a focus of the earth’s great Powers, but because no matter which way he was facing, he had at least two of them behind him. He had never before wondered what the back of his head looked like, but he suddenly had a crazy thought: I hope my hair is combed.

Then, on the heels of that thought came another: Sure, you wouldn’t want these six wizards or Powers or whatever they call themselves to think you didn’t comb your hair this morning. I’m sure that would make a huge difference in whatever earth-shattering decision they’re about to make.

He faced Mrs. Russet. While not exactly what he would call a “friendly” face, she at least had a face that he was used to, and more importantly it didn’t come with the almost frightening beauty of the Red Lady, or with the
completely
frightening look of Mrs. Black. He could feel the Death Power’s eyes fairly burning a pair of holes in the back of his neck, and resisted an urge to drop to the floor of the podium like a kid in a fire drill.

“Very well, then, Lumilla,” said Veric, the kind-seeming Green Power. “You have us here, and you have this boy. The question
we
all have, I think, is why?”

Mrs. Russet looked slowly around the ring. “We all know of the Prophecy. Of the return of the White King, and the ending of our world.”

The Council members each nodded, some looking somber, others—like Mrs. Black—just looking bored or annoyed or both.

Mrs. Russet took a breath, then said, “I believe that the One Prophecy has begun to come to pass.”

At this, the Councilors all sat up straight in their thrones. “Explain yourself, Lumilla,” snapped Nehala, the Blue Power.

Mrs. Russet held forth her crystal staff. She touched it again to the Diamond Dais, and Billy saw something rise up from below, ascending through the diamond like an air bubble in the ocean. Then the object emerged from the diamond.

It was a book. A deep brown book that looked heavy as lead, and thick as all of life itself. He knew somehow that this book, like Mrs. Russet’s deep-colored cloak, held the sum of History in its pages. That it had come at Mrs. Russet’s call from the very center of the earth, and that in its pages he could find out anything that had ever happened before, from the beginning of existence to the present day.