by Lisa Fiedler
Mythra nodded, then spun her finger in the air in a stirring motion. Glinda watched as the spoon rose from the table and dipped itself into the cauldron, where it waited, perfectly still.
Copying Mythra’s motion, Glinda circled her finger and the spoon began to stir.
That done, she eyed the collection of fluids and powders spread out before her. “How shall I proceed?”
“The potion calls for the following: half a dram of Eniarrol extract, seven scruples of Trebla concentrate, a quarter pint of Nootski juice, a paste made from equal parts Serolod solution and Kire powder, and twenty-five U–ndpicky seeds. Have a care with those, for they are exceedingly rare and surprisingly powerful.”
Glinda hurried to read the inscriptions on the containers, selecting the ones that Mythra had named. Popping the cork on the Eniarrol extract, she tipped it over the edge of the cauldron.
Just before the first drop splashed over the lip of the vial, Mythra stopped strutting. Glinda jerked her hand back. “When do I add them?” she asked.
“You pour the Nootski juice now.”
Glinda put down the extract, picked up the juice, and poured it in.
“Wait for it to come to a bubbling sparkle,” Mythra went on, “then add the rest, but always exactly three seconds apart and in this sequence. . . .”
As Mythra recited the order in which the ingredients were to be added, Glinda lined up their containers. When the cauldron began to bubble, she waited three seconds, then picked up the Trebla powder.
“How?” she asked in a reverent tone.
“With your left hand, by tossing it over your right shoulder.”
Three seconds later she prepared to add the Serolod-and-Kire paste. “How?”
“With your eyes closed.”
Glinda did as she was told.
The extract went in next and had to be dribbled into the mixture in a counterclockwise circle. Lastly the U–ndpicky seeds had to be sprinkled in with her right hand while she stood on her right foot, touching the tip of her nose with her left thumb.
The potion simmered in the cauldron (which Glinda found quite marvelous, since there was no fire beneath it). Finally Mythra said, “Pick up the ring. Use the pinky of your right hand. Very good. Now, immerse it. And when the plating is complete, the power it will contain will be the power of the lesson you have just learned. Do you know what that lesson is?”
Glinda thought for a moment, then gave her mentor a confident grin. “To ask for help when I need it.”
Mythra’s hazel eyes twinkled. “This ring will carry the power to summon help whenever you most require it. It is as simple as giving the band one full turn to the right, then back around to the left.” She nodded to the cauldron. “Remove it.”
“Why?”
“Because it is ready.”
“How?”
“With both hands, for it is precious.”
“When?”
“As soon as I finish my incantation.” The Priestess closed her eyes, extended her hands toward the cauldron, and to Glinda’s great joy, sang a version of Maud’s counting song:
“Count by one and count by two, with Sorcery I now imbue
Count by three and count by four, a summoning ring forevermore
A turn to the right in the dead of the night
A turn to the left, when lost or bereft
Whosoever can help you shall swiftly bring aid
As I decree, so it is made.”
24
OH, BROTHER
Something smelled wonderful. Sweet and lush; a tempting aroma strong enough to tickle Locasta out of a deep and dreamy sleep.
Her eyes came open slowly, clouded with fleeting images—an emerald statue, a heavy shield, four new stars around the moon.
Sitting up, she shook away the dream and blinked into the shade of a tall, leafy tree. All around her lay at least a peck’s worth of plump, deliciously scented tamornas.
Smiling, Locasta reached over Illumina lying beside her in the grass and snatched up one of the soft, shiny fruits. And as she did, she realized with a start that she was surrounded by the dry indigo grasses and purple-tinted ground of Gillikin Country.
“How did I get to Gillikin?” she asked aloud, biting into the squashy, ripe tamorna and wiping the juice from her chin on the sleeve of her tunic.
No, not her tunic. Her old purple mining shirt.
“What?!”
She jumped to her feet, frantically examining her altered clothing; her stomach nearly rejected the fruit when she realized her bold purple garments had once again become a pair of faded lilac overalls and a tattered top. Even her high strapped boots had been replaced by her old worn ones with their broken laces and patched soles.
Worst of all, the golden cuffs Tilda had conjured for her were gone and the tight rusted manacles had returned to her wrists. Locasta nearly wept for the loss, but her shock and disappointment soon gave way to understanding: it would not do to be strolling through Marada’s country clad in leather breeches and lovely bangles—she would be spotted immediately and arrested. And that would be only the beginning, for Marada had a very particular way of dealing with those who displeased her. So Magic had interceded in the face of her homecoming, adjusting her wardrobe for her own safety.
With a heavy sigh, she slid Illumina into a belt loop. Taking another bite of fruit, she began to hum the melody of her father’s song.
“Greetings, Locasta,” came a familiar voice from behind her.
Locasta turned. Dark hair, gray cloak, an aura of absence . . .
“Shade!”
From inside the cloak’s hood, the spy cocked her head. “What are you doing in Gillikin?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Locasta said, and took another bite of the drippy fruit.
“I went to find the Grand Adept on the Road of Yellow Brick,” said Shade, “to ask about the Elemental Fairies.” She shook her head, her hair swinging silently inside her charcoal hood. “On that front, the news is not good, I’m afraid. . . .” In her clipped and quiet way, she relayed what had happened to both Nick Chopper and Tilda.
Locasta felt a shiver at the thought of Tilda being captured a second time, this time by the fifth Witch. Tossing the tamorna pit into the grass, she told Shade everything that had taken place in her absence—the dice game, the monkey battle, Glinda’s heart-wrenching disappearance, the dance of the fireflies, and finally, how the altered poem had revealed Norr’s compass (which she herself had stupidly surrendered to Marada) to be the hiding place of Terra.
“And your plan is to return to Gillikin to retrieve it?” said Shade, incredulous. “All by yourself?”
Locasta was about to answer, but another voice—also familiar—filled the space between the question and its answer. Not with words. But with humming.
And Locasta found herself looking at her brother, Thruff, bruised and dirtier than usual, approaching at a jaunty clip with a scowl on his face.
“Hello, brother,” Locasta said, her voice as tight and scratchy as the manacles around her wrists. “No longer a glorified monkey trainer, I see.”
“I could say the same to you,” Thruff retorted.
There was a glint of something dark and desperate in his eyes that was not quite malice, but a shade away from safe. Locasta’s hand went to the sword, and she let out a quick spank of laughter. “Come to battle me again, brother? To capture another of my friends, perhaps? Though that didn’t work out too well for you last time, did it?”
Thruff glowered but said nothing.
“I’ve seen this boy before,” said Shade. “This past winter, when I found myself in Gillikin. He was on his way to the Witch’s castle. He’d asked an old miner, who told him your mother and sisters were being held captive there.”
“Because you wouldn’t tell me!” Thruff interjected, glowering at Locasta.
“Because I didn’t wish for you to be hurt!” Locasta hurled back.
“Hnh,” Thruff grunted, kicking at a
stone in the road. “Didn’t work.”
Locasta sighed and nodded for Shade to continue.
“I followed him. He was small and alone, and I thought I could help him if he found danger.”
“And how does he repay that kindness?” Locasta seethed. “By attacking us with monkeys, that’s how!” She dove for him, but he dodged her attack.
“Wait!” he cried, reaching into his pocket. “I have something—”
“I want nothing from you!”
Locasta lunged again and Thruff let out a roar of outrage. Then he screamed the strangest thing:
“ZIZZLE. UMPH-SCUTCH. WURDLIN. DINK!”
And suddenly Locasta wasn’t looking at her brother anymore.
25
GOING TO GREAT LENGTHS
The ring fit perfectly on Glinda’s finger. Plated in summoning Magic, its shimmer was even brighter than it had been before.
“Well done, Zephyr,” said the Priestess.
Glinda looked up from her ring. “Why do you call me Zephyr?”
“Because a zephyr is a draft, newly born,” the Mystic said, perturbed at having to explain herself. “A breeze that has not yet become a gust. And there is something slightly windy about you. In your company I sense breezes, sometimes powerful blasts. As if you will one day enjoy some mystical communion with the Fairies of the air.”
“You mean like Ria?”
“What do you know of Ria?”
“Only that she is hiding,” said Glinda with a shrug. “But I picked up the emerald stone from the map before the game could show me where.” Suddenly her eyes lit with realization; indeed, she could not believe she hadn’t thought of asking sooner: “Grand-mamá . . . I mean . . . Priestess . . . you were King Oz’s Mystic. You must know where Ria is!”
Mythra hesitated. “Yes,” she replied softly. “Two bore witness. And I was one.”
“I know you’re sworn to secrecy and all,” Glinda rambled on, as a thrill of hope shot through her. “But Miss Gage said the secret would only be kept until Oz was ready for its rightful ruler and the time to unleash the Fairies had come. Surely, with the Revolution underway, this is that time!”
“So it would seem,” Mythra averred, then abruptly motioned to the last two items from the Paragon Chest. “Now, take up the rope.”
“Wait . . . What?”
“You heard me! There’s still work to be done here.”
“But . . . you just agreed to tell me where to find the Air Fairy!”
“I agreed to no such thing,” the Priestess snapped. “I merely said it seemed as if the time had come.”
Frowning and frustrated, Glinda snatched up the tight coil and saw that although the rope was thick and sturdy, it was not particularly long. If she were to hold one end at the tip of her nose, she suspected the other end would barely reach the floor.
“Can you think of a use for it?” Mythra inquired.
“Perhaps I could use it for skipping,” said Glinda, with a sarcastic curl of her lip.
“Excellent idea,” Mythra retorted, matching Glinda’s tone, “because as we all know, Wicked Witches live in mortal fear of a Sorceress with a jump rope.”
“I was joking,” Glinda grumbled. “And besides, it’s too short.”
“Is it? Look again.”
Glinda looked; the length of the rope was now twice her own height. “You didn’t even need an incantation,” she noted, reluctantly impressed.
“I’ve been at this awhile,” was the Mystic’s modest reply. Then she snapped her fingers, and the rope shrank back to the length it had been. “I would like you to use that rope to move all the rocks in this cave.”
Glinda made a quick survey of the rocks in question and was glad that she had Magic at her disposal; many of the larger ones would be too heavy to lift otherwise.
“Move them where?” asked Glinda.
“Wherever you want. As long as you use the rope.”
Use the rope? Glinda scowled. Like a plow horse? But she bent down over the rock closest to her, wrapped the rope around it, and tied a good strong knot. Then she looked up at the Mystic for approval.
The Mystic looked back with an unreadable expression.
Glinda sighed, turning her focus back to the rope. “Move!” she instructed.
The loose end of the rope squirmed obediently, but the rock stayed where it was.
Mythra let out a little snort.
“Well, it did move. I guess I just wasn’t specific enough.” Clearing her throat, Glinda tried again. “Move the rock.”
The rope obeyed, moving the rock forward exactly one inch.
“Looks like we’re going to be here awhile,” Mythra muttered, settling into a chair.
Glinda glowered at the rope and ordered, “Move the rock across the cave!”
This time the rope leaped up, yanked the rock off the ground, and spun it in a wide circle, just as Trebly had done with her sling. Glinda ducked in time to avoid being clonked in the head as the rope released the stone, flinging it across the cave to crash against the wall like a cannonball, where it shattered into several small pieces that showered down all over Mythra’s bed.
Mythra sighed.
“Can you at least tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
“It’s not what you’re doing. It’s how you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking like a Sorceress,” Glinda countered. “I’m using Magic to enchant the rope to do my bidding, just like you said.”
“You’re using small Magic,” Mythra corrected, indicating the number of stones on the ground. “This is a big chore. You must always adapt the Magic to the size of the undertaking, and trust that it will be equal to the task. Sometimes a Sorceress must go to great lengths to accomplish her Magical objectives.”
Great lengths, huh? I’ll show you ‘great lengths.’ Glinda snapped her fingers at the rope, and it unwound itself from the stone to jump into her hand.
“ To move these rocks from hither to yond
This determined Sorceress will use all her strengths
These stones are to be relocated, above and beyond
As I stretch my Magic to the greatest of lengths.”
Clutching the center of the rope with two fists, Glinda slowly pulled her hands outward until it had doubled in length. She repeated the process until the rope’s span had tripled, then quadrupled. By her fifth pull, the rope seemed to understand what she wanted and accommodatingly began to grow on its own.
When she finally let go, the rope leaped into action; while one end went meandering across the cave floor, wrapping tightly around every stone it encountered, the other end climbed the air and squiggled to the high ceiling, where it secured itself around the sturdiest of the stalactites.
“Now hoist!”
The enchanted rope seemed happy to oblige, making a sort of primitive pulley system of itself, dispersing weight and energy to lift the stones upward to the full height of the cave. Stone after stone rose up, and whenever the rope paused to grow longer, the rocks hovered, suspended at different heights like fruit from a tree.
When at last the task was completed, an enormous rope web had been woven overhead, dotted with rocks of all shapes and sizes.
She turned a satisfied smile to her mentor. “Is this what you had in mind?”
“The better question,” said Mythra knowingly, “is, is it what you had in mind? Look closely now. Do you recognize the arrangement of those stones?”
It took Glinda only a moment to make the connection. She bobbed her head excitedly, for she knew exactly what she was looking at! A particular portion of the diagram hovering from the cave’s ceiling mirrored precisely the results of the pebble game that had informed her of the Entrusteds and their charges. A large rock at the midpoint clearly represented the embroidered compass rose stitched into the center of Tilda’s map, while the placement of the four rocks hanging closest to it echoed the four landing places of the stones from the velvet pouch.
At first, anyway . . .
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But the section of rope that had suspended its rock over what would have been the eastern quadrant of Tilda’s map—Munchkin Country—was slowly beginning to swing the stone southward, toward Quadling.
Glinda opened her mouth to comment.
But what came out instead was a bone-chilling scream.
26
DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
Where Thruff had been now stood a towering dragonlike creature, shining with purple scales, flapping two huge, powerful wings.
“What is that?” cried Locasta. “What did my brother just turn into?”
“It’s a Rak!” said Shade. “I saw one once in the Oogaboo Valley of Winkie Country. It’s believed they are exceedingly vicious.”
“Gee . . . you think?” hollered Locasta, sidestepping a slap from Thruff’s newly acquired claw foot. “Get behind me, Shade. Or better yet, get invisible.”
Shade wavered, then disappeared as the Rak opened his mouth and spit out a column of flame. Locasta jumped back just in time to avoid being seared. With a roar of fury, she reached for Illumina.
And realized with a jolt that someone else had reached for it too.
* * *
The scream was so brutal it had shattered the Magic of the ropes. Mythra threw herself between Glinda and the shower of stones as they slipped from their snares to crash around them.
But Glinda was barely aware of the falling rocks; she was too busy groping madly at her sash.
“What is it?” asked Mythra. “What’s happening?”
“A battle,” Glinda rasped. “No, more like a duel. Someone against someone—or something—very large. And very, very mean.”
“You must engage.”
“But how? My sword—”
“Draw it!”
“But it isn’t here!”
“Because it’s there . . . at the duel. Now draw it. Feel it in your hand, remember it.”
Fingers trembling, Glinda let her grip close around the place where Illumina’s handle should have been and gasped when she felt the cool firmness of the braided metal against her palm. With a yank, she removed what wasn’t there from the sash that did not hold it, and brandished the memory of her sword against an opponent she could not see.