This time Liir shouted out, “You have no right to plant that danger here! Take it back! We don’t want it!”
But the horsemen reemerged and cuffed him silent. He was on a horse, being taken somewhere by men to whom he’d never been properly introduced.
He noticed the jackal moon, sooner or later, and remembered the last time he’d seen it. That was just before he met Candle and fell in love with her, before he met Trism and fell in love with him. The jackal moon was no friend to love. Fall under its spell and look what happens. Your wife never forgives you for giving her a child who must be hidden to survive. Your boyfriend never returns. You have your life, that scrappy thing you keep dragging after you as long as you can. Less visible than the weightless shadow you also drag but oh, so much heavier. You have your hopes for your daughter. You have little else.
Except the damn book.
He turned his head from the jackal moon, unwilling to meet its eye. Cutting it in society. You’ve already had your truck with me. I’m not going to scombre in the snowdrifts for you like a poodle. Look elsewhere, jackal. Hunt up some other jerk. I want no more love and no more regret than the investments I’ve already made.
It was a better day. Maybe more protein in the diet, or his blood was slowly replenishing itself. He was more alert. He realized that by now they must have passed any turnoff to the Emerald City. They’d been weeks on the road, no? They were approaching a range of low hills spiked with the scorched trunks of scrub pine. Maybe torched to reduce coverage for snipers. The Madeleines, probably. So he worked it out. They were coming up near the border between Gillikin and Munchkinland, where the second army of the Emerald City was said to be in fierce hostilities with an Animal contingent roped up by the Munchkinlanders. Though he could read no sign of activity at the moment. Were they going to try to make a run for it, cross the breach of wasteland?
Or maybe hostilities had been concluded, miraculously. It could happen. Wars stop eventually, don’t they? If not in our own lifetimes, surely peace hies into sight for our children?
Around midafternoon on a day of dry, hurrying winds that whipped the first leaves of autumn around the horses’ hooves, the captors stopped. An outcropping of feldspar trusset, sparkling with mica, big enough to be a landmark.
“The cart is supposed to be here,” said the captain.
“It en’t here.”
“You’ll have to go find one.”
His colleague cursed, but two of them took off and returned next morning with a cart and several donkeys looking dubious.
“They’re not talking Animals, are they?” asked the chief abductor. “Fled over the border to escape the war, and passing as stupid beasts?”
“They tell me they’re not,” replied his colleague. For that, the donkeys were whipped with a riding crop to see if they would cry out in Ozish, but they only haw-heed as they bucked.
“All right,” said the captain to Liir. “You have a choice now.”
“I prefer two choices, if you’re offering,” said Liir.
“You can open that book of charms and find a way to make us all invisible until we get across the border.”
“You wouldn’t trust me with that book,” said Liir. “If I could read it at all, I would turn you into shoes or ships or sealing wax.”
“If we don’t arrive within the next few days, the word will go out to take in your wife,” said the captain. “We left her there as an encouragement to you to cooperate, but if you try to escape, the vengeance will be swift.”
“So. That’s one choice,” said Liir.
“The other one is to ingest a little potion we’ve had supplied for us. It will put on you a disguise that will help us smuggle you over the border.”
“A disguise,” said Liir.
“The trouble is, there’s no telling how long it will last,” said the captain. “It’ll probably work itself off in a few days.”
“Do I get to know what it is?”
“You’ll be an Animal. You’ll appear to be dead. We’ll be seeking a mercy crossing to bring you to burial in the land you fought for. The EC brass are cruel but not inhuman; the armies exchange their dead every few days.”
“I’m not sure I can adequately play a dead Animal. I haven’t had academy training.”
“You’ll learn on the job. What’ll it be?”
“I don’t believe I could be much good to La Mombey if I remained a dead Animal for very long. So I’ll risk the disguise, and I’ll go that way across the border. If the sentries don’t believe you and they kill me, well, I’ll be dead already, won’t I? So presumably it won’t hurt a great deal more.”
“I would try the book if I were you,” said the captain.
“You’ve been so kind with advice along the way,” said Liir. “But I can’t read that book. All your labors will be for naught in the end, I’m afraid.”
“We’ve had our job, and it’s almost done. Put the book in its casing, and lie on top of it in the cart. I’m afraid you’re going to have to take off your clothes. You’d look a bit rare splitting out of your tunic and leggings.”
“Oh, I’m going to be something larger than a bread box?”
“Hurry up.”
He did as he was told. The air felt good on his skin. They let him pee as a human, and then helped him climb into the cart. Nakedness among men might once have bothered him for all sorts of reasons, but it didn’t bother him now. He was going to his death in a tumbrel, humble as a deposed king.
The captain cradled Liir’s head in his gloved hand and forced the vial to his lips; he was like a child being given medicine. Elphaba had never given him medicine, though. It had been Sarima, or Nor, or Nanny. Elphaba hadn’t noticed if he was ever sick or dead. The feel of the captain’s strong hand on his scalp and the plug of the silvery flask at his still bruised lips felt almost tender. He could see only fans of golden leaves against the autumnal blue sky. The world was waving him out, cheerily enough. He closed his eyes not to betray his sense of final calm.
“For all our sakes, may this be a safe crossing,” said the captain. The last thing Liir heard. Behind his eyelids, the sun began to blacken in segments, and sound peeled back like a rind, exposing the silence within it.
Above the cart, an old Eagle watched with a steady eye. He saw the donkeys struck with cudgels, he saw the naked man curled like an overgrown embryo. He saw poison administered. He didn’t know this was intended as a temporary death, a coup de théâtre. He hadn’t been able to hear well; hearing he left for his friend the Hawk, who was nowhere near.
When the cart moved, the Eagle waited a while and then made a short circling flight, keeping to a height. He didn’t want to be seen paying his last respects. Liir would have preferred this final indignation to be private, he knew. Liir was like that.
Kynot watched as his old friend, the boy-broomist, began to tremble in his death, and thicken. Liir’s lifeless body didn’t so much disappear as become bloated with something that looked fungal, growing from his limbs, spine, buttocks. The swellings emerged pale, like new mushrooms after an overnight downpour, but blackened as they enlarged. The wounds on Liir’s back disappeared, and that was a mercy, even to an Eagle who abhors sentiment of any variety.
He waited only to see what shape Liir would take in death, in case the information was ever useful to him. One never knew. By the time the Eagle was ready to fly away on his unsteady wings—he was good only for short hauls with longish rests, these days—he recognized Liir as the corpse of a small Black Elephant. The soldiers must have known that was the aim of the liquor, as they pulled from their supplies a silly sort of mash-up of harness and brocade and arranged it on Liir’s back like a crumpled howdah, ruined in battle. Then they took on the aspect of mourning, and raised a periwinkle standard, the sign of request for safe passage.
Go in peace, or something like that, thought Kynot, and flew away.
7.
If Tip has been brave enough to go look for the Grimmerie in Munchk
inland,” said Rain, “I’m going to the Emerald City and present myself to the great and powerful Emperor of Oz. If he has the Grimmerie, he can keep it. But if he has my father, I want him back.”
Chistery had only been acquainted with Rain for a week, but he knew her well enough not to doubt her. “Suicidal, but I’ll pack you a satchel,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” said Iskinaary. “Your parents have spent their whole lives keeping you out of the way of trouble. They’ve lived and, who knows, they’ll die for it. And you’re identifying some adolescent martyr impulse in that flat breast of yours? Squelch it, darling, or I’ll squelch it for you.”
“I’m going,” said Rain. “How much good has choosing to be fugitive done anyone? No one has ever stood up to Shell, at least not since the Conference of the Birds. That political gesture should have been only a beginning. Discussion comes next. I’ll bargain with him if I have to.”
“Hi-ho, I don’t think we can be of use in this particular venture,” said Mr. Boss.
“We’re going,” said Little Daffy. “At least as far as the gates of the Emerald City, anyway.”
“Isn’t marriage bliss?” he replied, and went to ready his kit.
“Well, it’s a fool’s errand, and I suppose I’m fool enough to qualify. I’m coming too, then,” said the Goose, but Rain said, “Think again. If you didn’t go with my father when he was kidnapped, you can bloody well stay here. When my mother comes back with the broom, you need to tell her where we are.”
“Chistery can do that,” said the Goose.
“Chistery can’t fly on his old wings. If my mother has the broom and can learn to fly it, she’ll have to catch up to us soon enough. You can accompany her, if you want to accompany someone. And if she doesn’t come back, but something else happens…” She meant, if Tip returns for me, and they all knew what she meant though she didn’t put it into words. “… you can come let me know.”
There was sense in what she said, but Iskinaary didn’t like being bossed around by a schoolgirl. He hissed and rushed at her legs. She batted him away absentmindedly as if she couldn’t bother to feel the pinches.
She was furious at Tip, and fury made a useful source of energy. She’d never known. It was almost fun until she realized that the fury was partly a disguise for raw fear. How could he keep safe? In some ways Tip was more innocent than she was. However hobbled a childhood she’d had, she’d learned to be more wary than he had.
One final time she mounted the steps to the Witch’s chambers. She looked around to see if there was some scrap of something bewitched she might take as a souvenir, in case she never came back. In a wild sense, this was her ancestral home, though she’d never seen it before, and by the looks of things the castle wouldn’t survive the next earthquake. She might never see it again.
She couldn’t find anything worth saving. The dead scraps of beast bored her now. She intended to live among the living for a while longer, so she wanted no huffle yet with bones and bits. “You’re enough for me, Tay,” she said to the otter.
For reasons she couldn’t name, she went up to the gazing globe. It came off the stand easily enough. She held the world in her hands, if it was still the world. “I don’t care,” she told it, “don’t show me another glimpse more, it’s too much.” But she looked again. Was she seeing herself, cold and heartless at last? The face in the globe looked green and leering, mocking. Almost daring her to manage this mayhem. She hurtled the glass bubble out the window so widely that she never heard a crash.
From under a bench she pulled a few baskets. One of them revealed a substantial collection of deer antlers; she left them there. Another had desiccated bits of moss, or that’s what it looked like now; she didn’t want to know. A third had a scatter of spare buttons. Imagine the Witch sewing on her own buttons! Rain clattered the lot all over the floor and left the room with the basket, which was the right size.
She didn’t look back to see if the crocodrilos was rolling its dice at her. She didn’t care.
On the way downstairs she passed a children’s dormitory and went in. Underneath one of the beds was a grey stuffed mouse. Rain put it on her finger for a moment, then slipped it in her pocket.
Next level down, she stopped to peek in at Nanny, who now slept in a library off the reception rooms. Nanny was awake, awake enough, and sat up happily among her pillows when Rain came forward.
“My Elphie, give Nanny a kiss,” she said.
“I’m not Elphaba, Nanny, I never was.”
“That’s a duck. No, I suppose you’re not, or not today. When is she expected back? Off larking I suppose?”
“I suppose.” But Rain had never mastered lying and she didn’t want to lie to Nanny as she left her behind. “She’s not coming back, Nanny. She’s gone.”
“Oh, she’s a tricky one, she is,” said Nanny. “Don’t you fret.”
“I’m leaving now, too,” said Rain.
“If you see her, tell her to hurry herself up. I can’t be doing about the oven any more or I’ll set myself on fire, the way she did.”
“Nanny.” Rain tried one final time. “What did you come upon when you got to the parapet? The day Dorothy threw the bucket of water at her? You were the first one up the stairs, and you never let anyone else see.”
“No, I didn’t, did I,” said Nanny. “I was a smartypuss, I was.”
“But—but what? What was there? What did you do with her body?”
“Little girl,” said Nanny, “you don’t need to worry your head about that. I did the right and proper thing, to save that Liir any more grief. Adults know what to do. What to do, and what to say, and while I haven’t always been the most honest woman in my life, I’m telling you the truth now.”
Rain leaned forward and grasped Nanny’s hands.
“And the truth is this. What I did is none of your business.”
Rain almost hit her.
“Was that you throwing Elphie’s globe out the window, or has that air-bubble Glinda been floating around in her private pfenix again? Never a moment’s peace around here. Child, let me confess something to you.”
Was this it? “Yes, Nanny.”
“I stole a lot in my time. Garters, beads, a considerable amount of cash. A pretty little green glass bottle, once. It did me some good. You have to learn to take what you need. But don’t tell anyone I said so.”
The original Handy Mandy, thought Rain. “I’ve stolen a bit already. Good-bye, Nanny.”
“Good-bye, dear,” said Nanny. “Good-bye, Rain. Yes, I see it now. You’re not Elphaba, are you? But you’ll do.”
They left before dinner, to make it at least to Red Windmill, maybe even to push on to Upper Fanarra. Since the skies were cloudless, the jackal moon would be usefully glary. Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, the dwarf and the Munchkinlander, Rain and Tay. On the stony path again.
Iskinaary and Chistery waved from a wobbly wooden porch that looked about to become unglued from the side of a turret. A raft of flying monkeys tossed their jaw-edged spears into the air as a salute. They clattered into the dry moat and blunted, which would give the monkeys a lot of work to do over the long winter, repointing all those blades.
At Upper Fanarra they paused long enough for Rain to scour the weaving collective and single out the tired teenage mother who’d kept smacking her child. Rain offered the babykin the small stuffed mouse she’d found in the vacant dormitory in Kiamo Ko. The infant grinned and gummed it at once. “Tell the mother,” said Rain to a factotum of the clan who could translate, “the mouse is from Tip. From me, a promise that if she keeps hitting that child I’ll come back and wallop the crap out of her. I’m not as nice as Tip.”
Easier going down than up, though hard on the calves. It only took about five days for them to get to the dam where they could cross the Vinkus River. Once again most of the Beavers were out foraging, but Luliaba was still hanging about, minding the mother-in-law.
“Let her go,” said Rain.
“It�
��s none of your concern,” said Luliaba.
“The little girl said let her go,” said Mr. Boss, baring his teeth.
“I could take you in a bite fight, mister buster,” replied the Beaver, baring her own.
“Let her go,” said Little Daffy.
“I keep her locked up for her own good. She’s a menace to herself.”
They all looked at Brrr, but he didn’t speak. Since the death of Nor he chose his moments more carefully.
Dorothy said, “Let her go, or I’ll sing.”
“Sing away!” called the mother-in-law inside her prison. “She hates that. I do it all day to annoy her.”
Dorothy began that song about plain fruits and majestic purples. The others joined in as best as they could. They sang it twice, three times, four, until Luliaba said, “Stop! I give up. You win. I can’t take that kind of malarkey. What kind of a patriotic song is it that doesn’t even mention Beaver dams? That’s what makes our nation great. Come on out, you old bitch. Your constant carping has set you free at last. What your son will say when he gets home I don’t want to think.”
“He’ll thank you for it,” said the old Beaver, emerging and blinking and twitching her white nose. “He never liked me neither. So, who’s the little dolly who was leading that anthem?”
They all pointed at Dorothy. The Beaver mother-in-law said, “Most disgusting song I ever heard, but it did the trick. You’re a sweetheart.”
“Here’s your coracle,” said Rain, handing her the button basket.
“I hope it floats, but where I’m going, it doesn’t really matter,” she replied, climbing in and rocking it a little. “Hmmm. Sound bottom, near as I can make out. Push me off, honeybunches, and let me go find my sweet Lurline and give her a little love nip on her holy ankle.”
As she rocked away on the vicious water, they heard her begin to sing.
O beautiful, to make escape
And leave this world behind.
Out of Oz Page 53