Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years (34 page)

“We have a Cowardly Lion and a Sentimental Goose, is that it? No thank you,” said Iskinaary. “I’m not interested in the position.” He curled his neck like the hoop of an iron rail marking out the edge of an ornamental border and he nipped viciously at his breast. “I’l dine alone on my own nits, thank you.”

The humans sat cross-legged on a blanket. Under the circumstances Little Daffy offered a brief grace in a general sense, addressed to Sender. The slop was good as wel as plentiful. Brrr ate with his tongue rather than a spoon. He was getting too old to fuss with a spoon at every meal. Rain sulked and wouldn’t touch a bite.

When they were done, Candle suggested that she and Rain might take a knife to the peonies and cut some to arrange on the shel altar. Tay slunk after, docile as an old family colie. After they’d wandered away, Lir ventured softly, “Before they come back, in case it’s upsetting to Candle, can anyone tel me about Rain?”

“She’s a bothersome girl, more trouble than she’s worth,” said Mr. Boss. He’d hardly spoken since they arrived. Wel, observed Brrr, ever since the Clock took its tumble, Mr. Boss has gone very silent indeed.

Lir’s fixation on the girl seemed to annoy the dwarf, who continued, “What you see when you look at Rain is al there is. You can’t get milk from a salamander. I want to know what’s going on down
there
.” He swept his hand skyward to the north and east. “We’ve spent a year with Quadlings who wouldn’t know a current event if it roled over and squashed their granny. I can see you’ve removed yourself from the cocktail party circuit, but you must hear something in your aerie up here, if you have an assortment of winged foreign correspondents. What’s the news out of Oz?”

“Since when?” asked Lir.

“When we left Munchkinland more than a year ago,” replied Mr. Boss, “Lady Glinda was confined to Mockbeggar Hal. Her country estate on Restwater, as you may know. An army of Loyal Oz had gotten halfway up the lake, heading inland, but its armada was destroyed by a spot of magic. A dragon escaped and flew south, we think, and that’s the last we heard for certain.” Some bad memory there, thought Brrr, seeing Lir pale at the mention of the beast. Evenly enough, though, Lir replied, “We’ve seen or heard no sign of any dragon.” The dwarf snorted. “Yes, Lord Limp in the Lap, but what about the armies bucking about Restwater?”

“We came here to get out of the path of armies.”

The Goose suddenly snapped to life again and hissed at Lir. “You’ve invited them to stay the night and you’re suddenly above gossip? Has the arrival of that child mischiefed your mind? Listen, little man,” he told the dwarf, “the last we heard, General Cherrystone had taken the lake, even storming Haugaard’s Keep. The Munchkinlanders cleverly vacated their stronghold so they could isolate and contain Cherrystone once he took it. They have him holed up there. He retains lake access but he can’t move farther inland toward Bright Lettins, the new capital. Some fortresses are harder to quit than they are to breach.” The dwarf said, “Smart. And…?”

The Goose went on. “Tit for tat, the Munchkinlanders have formed an aliance with the Glikkuns to their north, and appropriated the emerald mines in the Scalps. Easy enough to defend those mountain passes. And the Glikkuns have cut the rail line into Loyal Oz. You can hardly be surprised. They’ve been taken advantage of by the Emerald City for decades. It’s al stupefyingly predictable. The Glikkuns, those trols, are natural alies to the stumpy Munchkinlander folk.”

“You should talk,” said Little Daffy. “You’re not any taler than I am.”

“Who’s leading the Munchkinland government?” asked Brrr, to keep the conversation civil, and also to find out.

The Goose gargled and hootled. “Lir himself would be eligible for Eminence in Munchkinland, should he ever claim the seat. His aunt, the so-caled Wicked Witch of the East, having been the last Eminent Thropp.”

Lir shrugged. “Not interested in the job. Anyway, I’ve changed my name to Lir Ko, so maybe I’m not eligible.”

“Since the Emperor of Oz, Shel Thropp, was Nessarose’s younger brother,” said the Goose, “it’s on the basis of a blood claim to the position of Eminence of Munchkinland that the Emperor validates
his
invasion. You’d pass muster too, Lir.”

“But names,” said Brrr. “Who’s holding Munchkinland together?”

“To the north, the Glikkun aliance is managed by a mangy old trolwoman named Sakkali Oafish,” replied Iskinaary.

Brrr closed his eyes. He remembered Sakkali Oafish. The Massacre at Traum, for which he’d earned his sobriquet as the Cowardly Lion. The one thing about a social indignity was that, like several of the nastier rashes, it was never completely cured, and could flare up at a moment’s notice.

“In Munchkinland proper,” the Goose continued, “the mastermind is an old witch named Mombey.”

“That’s not a Munchkinlander name,” scoffed Little Daffy.

“She’s Gilikinese originaly. But as you may have noticed, the Munchkinlander that might serve, won’t.” Again Iskinaary indicated Lir. “And the one that would serve, namely the Emperor, isn’t welcome. So Mombey’s holding things together somehow. Her chief military strategist, who’s kept Cherrystone boxed up in Haugaard’s Keep al year, is a saucy young warrior princess named Jinjuria. General Jinjuria, she cals herself.”

“Yes, Muhlama told us about her. Wel, Munchkinland was ever a stomping ground for strong women,” said Little Daffy. “Nessarose Thropp, this Mombey, this General Jinjuria. You got to hand it to them.”

“Yes, they’re just as bitter and conniving as men,” said Iskinaary. “They might’ve offered a position to one of the many Animals who took refuge inside their borders al those years ago, back during the Wizard’s pogroms. But
noooooo
. When women share power, they share power with women.”

“And you have a problem with that?” Little Daffy picked up a smal sharp stone and tossed it up and down.

The dwarf intervened. “Come on, Husky Honey, remember we’re guests. Not nice to stone our hosts.”

“This is hardly news,” said Iskinaary, “but Nessarose was no fainting sweetheart, once she took the chair. The way I hear tel it, Elphaba Thropp had her own permanent case of broom rage too. Don’t murder the messenger. I’m just answering the question you posed.”

Once again Brrr broke in. “Is Lady Glinda free?”

“The latest gossip,” said the Goose, “is that she was charged with treason against Loyal Oz. For somehow arranging the assault on the armada. As if she could manage that!—she who can’t manage to thread a needle. But if she’s been taken from Mockbeggar I couldn’t say. My circle of informants doesn’t stoop to information of such particularity.”

“It en’t al her fault.” They hadn’t seen Rain and Candle come back, arms ful of satiny white peonies glowing in the fading light. The girl said, “Me and Lady Glinda—we did it together.”

“Keep marching in the direction you’re going, little girl,” said Iskinaary, “and you’l hit the banks of Restwater again. If you apologize to General Cherrystone nicely, maybe he’l only slap you in prison for the rest of your life instead of kiling you outright.”

Ilianora gasped, and Lir belowed, “Iskinaary! Mind yourself.”

“Somebody’s got to tel that girl the truth,” snapped the Goose. “Or eventualy she’l put herself in the same kind of danger she’s putting you.” He craned his neck and looked, just for an instant, regal—at least regal for a Goose. He kick-stepped his way across the stones to where Candle and Rain had paused and he stood before them. From Brrr’s vantage point, his graphite feathers made a sort of silhouette against the white blossoms drooping from Rain’s arms. The Goose al but honked at the girl. “I have no reason to like you, Miss Oziandra Rain, but neither wil I let a damaged child waltz into peril because her companions are congenitaly foolish.”

“Wel, I don’t like you either,” said Rain, pelting the Goose with her heap of blooms. Unfazed, he poked his bil among them to enjoy the ants crawling in the sweetness. Brrr had to admire his composure.

Candle hid a smal smile of her own by raising her armful of blooms up to her nose.

4.

Under their common blanket Lir comforted Candle that evening. “You hover too close, you’l scare her away,” he murmured. “She feels safe with the Lion. There, there. Hush, don’t let them hear you.”

“You always said I could see the present,” said Candle, when she could speak. “But I can see nothing about her—my own daughter.” Lir smoothed his hand over her silky flank. “Maybe that’s not so surprising. Maybe al parents are blindest to their own offspring.”

“It isn’t right. It isn’t natural.”

“Hush. They’l hear you. Remember—the morning is always brightest after the moonless night.”

Eventualy she fel asleep, if only, he guessed, to escape his platitudes. But it was the best he could do.

Even at this slight elevation, Highsummer was passing more quickly than in the valey. The dawn revealed a new ruddiness to the greenery. “I want to have a better look at that Clock,” Lir told the dwarf after breakfast. “You’re the chargé d’affaires about that, right?”

“You could cal me the timekeeper,” said Mr. Boss, “only I seem to have lost track of the time. Sure, come along. There’s little to be lost or gained in the Clock’s prophecies anymore.” They stumped down the stone path to where they’d left the Clock the night before. The assemblage look weather-beaten with age. Which it had every right to look, after al these years.

“I always thought this Clock was apocryphal,” said Lir.

“It is apocryphal. That’s the point.” The dwarf seemed to be tilting into a sour mood.

“I never expected to see it,” said Lir. “Somehow it’s smaler than I imagined.”

“Most of us are. You too, bub.”

Lir had more than his share of personal flaws, but rushing to take offense wasn’t one of them. “How’s this thing work, anyway?”

“It doesn’t. That’s the crisis.”

The stage curtains yawned open like a fresh wound. “Is this supposed to simulate something?”

“Ruin,” said the dwarf. “Of the Clock, or of my life. Makes little difference. Perhaps its time has come. Even a thing can die, I guess. Though I never thought about that before this year.”

“Maybe someone could fix it up?”

“Some magician, you mean?” The dwarf glanced up at Lir. “I know your mother is said to have been Elphaba. The Wicked Witch of the West. Great stage name, that. But I doubt you inherited the talent.”

“I have no capacity. I wasn’t volunteering for the job. I was just wondering.”

“The magic of the Clock doesn’t originate in Oz, so it can’t be amended here.” The dwarf kicked at the hub of a wheel. The drawer with the Grimmerie in it sprung open. “I suspect you were looking for this little number, once upon a time.”

“The Grimmerie?” guessed Lir.

“The same.”

“Yes, I was. Once, anyway. Maybe twice… I hunted through Kiamo Ko for it, but it’d either been hidden or taken away.”

“It’s made the rounds, this great book. It was given to Sarima, your father’s wife; then to Elphaba; then to Glinda, more than once. When it’s not being used it’s come back to me. But the Clock can’t keep it safe anymore, and I can’t determine through the Clock who should have it. So it’s yours now. Happy birthday and no happy returns. I don’t want it. You’re as deserving a candidate as any. Besides, I hear your daughter can read it some.”

“But—whoever brought it to Oz—whoever magicked the Clock—might want it back.”

“Whoever.” The dwarf snarled.

“I mean,
your
boss.”

“
My
liege and master?” Mr. Boss made a rude gesture. “He cast me away in this land with a job to do and a Clock by which to count the hours of my service. He hasn’t come back. If the Clock is done counting my shift, so am I. The book is yours, bub.”

“What if I don’t want it either?”

“Try to get rid of it and see what happens.” Mr. Boss grinned, nastily. “I wouldn’t like to be an enemy of that thing. I’ve managed to stay neutral, but even so.”

“Yeah. I’ve tried to stay neutral too. It isn’t always possible.”

They paused, in a stalemate about something neither could name.

“Wel. Are you going to pick it up?” asked the dwarf.

“And what if I don’t? I came here with Candle to protect her, to protect myself. I’m not Elphaba. Never could be. I know my limitations. I don’t deserve anything this powerful. I can’t use it and I can’t protect it.”

“If you don’t take it, sir,” said the dwarf, “I shal give it to your daughter.”

So Lir had no choice. A moment that comes, sooner or later, to al parents.

5.

Rain saw Lir carry the Grimmerie into the chancel. She was uneasy about the great book now she knew that Lady Glinda had gotten into trouble by reading it. Yet Rain stil felt the book’s subtle alure. Her mouth watered. She was eager not to do magic but to read. She’d had too little reading. What few things that General Cherrystone had taught her were languishing in her head, polywogs that could never grow up into frogs.

“What you going to do with that?” she asked, as casualy as she could.

“I don’t think this is a good thing for you to look at. It’s powerful stuff, from al I’ve heard.”

“I’m powerful stuff.”

He grinned and shook his head. Without having words to express it, Rain knew that a smile tends to avert or disguise the natural tension that pools around people trying to be in the same place at once. But Lir’s smile would have no effect on her. She would see to that. “Where you going to stow it?”

“I don’t know. No place seems safe enough.”

“I’l hold it for you.”

“That would be like giving you a boa constrictor for a pet. No father would do that.”

“You’re not my father.” The words just slipped out—they weren’t antagonistic, just commentary.

“Actualy, I am. Though I surely can see how you might doubt it.” As if he was afraid the book would open up of its own accord, he set it on the ground and sat on it. She hoped it would bite him on his behind. “If you could look in this book, what would you be looking for?”

“Words,” she said, cannily, honestly.

“Which ones? Magic ones?”

She didn’t feel like saying that al words were magic, though she thought so. But she wasn’t skiled at indirection. She was more arrow than hummingbird. “I want to read the burning words,” she said at last.