The Shattering Of Oz

The sun was soaring high above the mountains, and the clouds simply weren't in the mood to gather; below, the cities and towns and villages of Oz were miniscule things that scarcely looked real from this height – except, of course, for the Emerald City, which glittered magnificently from every single angle it could be seen from. From it, the Yellow Brick Road snaked outwards, a length of yellow twine against the patchwork quilt of the landscape, coiling away into Munchkinland, and… and…

The Wizard's contented smile cracked and fell off his face for the nineteenth time.

He couldn't stop thinking about how it had all gone wrong so quickly. It had started with that apparently inexplicable feeling of depression upon hearing of Elphaba's death. At the time, he'd thought that it hadn't been anything more than simple regret that he hadn't been able to make her see reason; but now the awful truth was clear: she was his daughter and he'd signed her death warrant.

And not just that, either.

Alone in his balloon, he'd had time to think about Elphaba's life and everything he'd heard of it; he'd heard of how she'd grown up ostracized and bullied because of her appearance; how her mother had died thanks to her father's vain attempt at making sure the next child didn't turn out green; how Elphaba had blamed herself for this and the crippling of her sister…

Just about every tragedy, from birth to death, spiralled back to him – beginning with the day he'd sauntered into the Thropp household with a few bottles of Elixir in his coat and an evening of fun on his mind. The sheer scale of it seemed to dwarf everything he'd done in his time on the throne of Oz; but then again, that was easy; all he'd had to do when suppressing animal rights was sit back and say to himself that it was for the good of the public. This… this couldn't be justified, no matter how he looked at it: his own daughter, wronged at every turn of her life by her own father. Her face loomed from his memories, caught forever in an expression of hurt and disillusionment; the words she'd said that day echoed over and over again: "Nobody believed in you more than I did."

At this point, the Wizard would have given anything in the world to stop thinking about her. But the truth was, he couldn't – and he had nothing left to give, anyway. He'd lost his kingdom, he'd lost his authority, he'd lost his machines, and he was on his way back to Nebraska in much the same condition he'd arrived in – admittedly with much more expensive clothes this time. He'd even lost a daughter he'd never known existed…

Stop thinking about it. Please, just stop.

Machines! Machines were good; he was always good at losing himself in planning out a new machine, a little something for the next audience. And if that didn't dull the pain, there was always the bottle of…

Damn it.

He'd been up here for the better part of an hour, floating sharply east across the Land of Oz, and he still couldn't stop thinking about Elphaba. As he flew across the Deadly Desert, he toyed with the idea of fooling himself into thinking that all his time in Oz had just been a dream – yes, an old, deluded circus magician's dream, the sort you'd conjure up on a warm summer afternoon with nothing to do but sit in your tent, put your feet up and maybe practice throwing your voice. That'd work, wouldn't it? He'd fooled an entire country, hadn't he? What was one foolish old man's belief compared to the beliefs of a whole country?

"Elphaba," said his memory, treacherously, "where I'm from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it "history"."

Bastard. Stupid, stupid old bastard.

He couldn't take any more of this. And why should he? It wasn't as if anyone would miss him if he just threw himself out of the balloon right here and now; in Nebraska, he was just another cheap trickster with delusions of stardom; in Oz, he was almost certainly forgotten by. After all, did anyone remember the old monarchy that came before him? Certainly not! And not now, not with Glinda taking the assumed role of "Shining Beacon of Hope" so seriously. Maybe the Animals would remember him for a while, but undoubtedly as the hated dictator who'd tried to reduce them to mindlessness. As for Dorothy and her friends, they'd remember him. But they'd probably dismissed him as a foolish old humbug by now. That left Madame Morrible, a careerist maniac who was probably doing her very best to get in Glinda's good books – not an ounce of care from her.

So, with nobody to miss him and very little to live for, the Wizard began thinking about death.

When would be the right time to end it all? The decision had occurred very quickly; after all, the Wizard had always been very prompt in acting on his impulses, and right now, the impulse to end his life – if it would stop him from thinking about all the waste, all the pointless struggle and all the points in which he could have offered complete amnesty to Elphaba, have surrendered himself to her judgement, possibility after possibility, one wild fantasy after another. He couldn't bear it.

In fact…

he was well past the Deadly Desert, now; he couldn't recognize the mountains below, but they looked pretty lethal to him. Beneath those towering peaks, his body would vanish, never to be seen again by the precious few who still thought of him; yes, it sounded more and more promising by the minute. And though there was the issue of pain, something that he'd avoided wherever possible, he doubted it would last longer than a few seconds.

He took a deep breath and began climbing up the side of the basket; as he took hold of the ropes, he found himself looking down at the landscape unfolding below him, the gargantuan mountains that looked close enough to touch, and found himself curiously exhilarated. Standing here on the very edge of a long drop, with only the balloon's tethering to stop him from falling to his death, he wondered idly if Elphaba had felt this way when she'd first flown from his palace on her broomstick.

Time to obey gravity, he thought sadly.

Pausing only to remove his top hat and place it in his left hand, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stepped out of the basket.

Down he went, plummeting into the air, through the skies and down, down, down…

Apart from the brief lurch in his stomach, the fall was so long it almost became peaceful. In fact, it took so long for him to reach the nearest one of the mountains that he actually had to open his eyes at one point just to see where he was, only to slam them shut in surprise as the jagged peak of the nearest mountain abruptly stabbed upwards towards him. But he missed it, and continued plummeting along the side of the mountain, never once even so much as brushing the rough granite wall.

So, it was to be a truly epic fall to the death, all the way to the ground. Somehow, he felt better for it; he'd die quickly, yet spectacularly. Wasn't that just the way he'd wanted to go out when he was a young man, just starting out with his act? Way back then, his death of choice had been pyrotechnic accident – a little too much phosphorous in the flash-bang, a little too much heat, and kaboom! Spectacular death, with an entertained audience to boot!

It was such a shame that nobody was here to watch him tumble out of the sky; and audience would make him feel even better for it, enough to take his mind off... her.

As the ground rushed up towards him, the Wizard held his breath: this was it. In a minute or so, it'd all be over; no more guilt, no more memories, only peace. He wondered idly if heaven existed, and then quickly decided that he probably didn't deserve a place in it. Maybe there was a spot waiting for him in purgatory if all went well. He could feel time slowing; seconds were becoming minutes, every moment dragging out longer and more ponderous; he could see, out of the corner of his eye, his coat rippling and fluttering in the breeze, like wings. Oddly beautiful, but when was he going to hit the ground?

Suddenly, there was a loud rumble, and suddenly, where there had been a vast patch of sharp rocks less than twenty feet below him, there was a massive hole in the earth. The Wizard scarcely had time to utter a yelp of surprise before he plummeted right through it, the hole vanishing behind him as the rocks slowly crawled back into place.

For what felt like an eternity, he tumbled blindly through the darkness; what had been a simple plunge to the hard, unforgiving ground had become an unexpected and unwelcome voyage into the ground, where God only knew what nightmarish monsters lurked, just waiting to enjoy the taste of tender human flesh.

He'd heard stories about the lands beyond Oz, about the things that dwelled there: he'd had a few ambassadors from these lands, almost all of them terrifyingly inhuman, and some of them magical enough to make him worry about his future. What if this lightless cavern wasn't the home of some eyeless, six hundred-legged abomination that could eat the entire population of Oz without needing to swallow, but of an intelligent race? Would that be worse?

Then light flooded the cavern, and the answer occurred to him, for he wasn't falling anymore: he was floating through an chamber of crystalline stalactites – razor-sharp crystals of every colour of the rainbow, glittering eerily in the dim magical light hovering just above him; words like "enormous" and "colossal" wouldn't do justice to this chamber, for it seemed to go on for miles. For several minutes he floated through the jagged labyrinth, before emerging into what appeared to be a chamber entirely given over to row after row of less gigantic precious stones, all lined up in neat ranks like farmed crops: diamonds, rubies, garnets, amethysts, sapphires, topazes, lapis lazuli, and... and emeralds.

As he drifted past the gemstones, the Wizard felt his stomach sinking all the way to his dangling shoes; he couldn't be certain, but something about this place was worryingly familiar – not that he'd ever been here. He'd have remembered a place like this. But perhaps he'd met someone who'd told him about this place, a diplomat, maybe, or even a king. He tried to remember who this person was and what they'd been talking about, to no avail; stress and misery had hopelessly jumbled his memory.

As he tried to remember, the wall to his left opened, and whatever magical force that had caught him now ushered him inside, depositing him unceremoniously on the hard stone floor. Trembling, he rose to find himself standing in a small room – well, small in that it wasn't much larger than his own audience chamber back in the Emerald City. There was no furniture and no decorations – only craggy black stone walls and hexagonal black floor tiles like honeycomb.

Then, with a deafening rumble of rock grinding against rock, the craggy stone wall in front of him moved, rolling upward to reveal another wall, this one smoother, paler, more rounded and with what appeared to be a large, circular carving in its centre. The new wall appeared to swivel left and right, and for a moment, the Wizard thought it was about to slide away and reveal another wall behind it; instead, the first wall came rolling back over it, and then rolled back into the ceiling. Then the carving at the centre of the new wall appeared to turn in his direction, and the Wizard realised with horror that he was staring into the dilated pupil of a gigantic stone eyeball, and it had been blinking at him.

Blinking, he thought, his mind trying get its bearings amidst the indescribable, I'm being blinked at by something the size of a mountain...

"TELL ME WHO YOU ARE," boomed an old and terrible voice from all around him, "AND WHY YOU HAVE COME ALL THE WAY TO MY KINGDOM, AND WHAT I CAN DO TO MAKE YOU HAPPY."

Oh God.

He knew who this creature was.

And things had been looking so promising...

Chapter 2: An Unexpected Letter

Summary:

One year later...

Chapter Text

"Well now," said Fiyero. "This is unbelievable."

Elphaba looked up from her writing to see her lover holding a crisp white envelope in one burlap hand; for a moment, she wasn't quite sure what was so extraordinary about it. Then she noticed the green wax seal- and the very distinctive Z-inside-the-O symbol that had been, for as long as Elphaba could remember, the official emblem of the Ozian government.

"Where'd you get that?" she asked, getting to her feet and hurrying over.

"I found it on the front step just a few minutes ago."

"But how did it get here, Fiyero? We don't exactly receive mail on a daily basis out here, especially not from anyone back in Oz! Gods almighty, how did they find us?"

"I don't they found "us" at all," said Fiyero, as he opened the envelope and began pouring over the letter. "It's addressed to me. To the Honourable Scarecrow, Companion of Dorothy, it says here. Doesn't explain how the messenger found us, but at least we know it's probably not a demand for our surrender. And..."

There was a deathly pause, as the Scarecrow's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Oh damn," he said quietly. "Uh, Elphaba, you'd better hear this."

"What's wrong? What does it say?"

"To the Honourable Scarecrow, Companion of Dorothy," Fiyero recited. "I have no doubt that you needed solitudity to put your new brains to use, and I must apologise for disturbing you; however, I find myself in desperate need of assistance- specifically from one of Dorothy's legendary companions. Despite my best efforts to keep the people united, I have been beset by political unrest: numerous Anti-Animal groups have opposified me for daring to support Animal Rights, while others suspect my motives simply for my past associations with the Wicked Witch of the West. If you recall your last visit to the Emerald City, you would remember the warm reception you received, and how so very many citizens suggested making you king; I wouldn't dare to impose such a burden on you without your permission, but for the time being, I must humbly request your presence in the Emerald City as soon as possible. It may be that I may only require your public support to calm the less agreeable elements of my constituency, but that remains to be seen. Sincerely, Glinda the Good."

There was a very long silence.

"At least we know how the letter reached us," said Elphaba quietly, latching onto the first certainty within reach.

"We do?"

"Of course; Glinda has the Grimmerie, remember? She's had at least a year to try and decipher it, and tracking spells aren't too difficult to master, so long as you've got a sample of the target's hair, skin or blood."

"Or straw," grumbled Fiyero bitterly. "I knew I should've gotten that rip in my back fixed before that last visit – I must have left behind a few bits of straw in the throne room. Oh well, I suppose it's not all bad."

"True, true," Elphaba admitted. In spite of her shock, she was pleased to hear from Glinda, even if the letter technically wasn't for her; and for all the difficulties the letter mentioned, the politics and power-plays, it was good to know that her old friend really was living up to her title. Perhaps, with her in power, Oz might actually have a chance at a prosperous future – one not founded upon trickery and suppression. A faint echo of the hatred she'd felt for the Wizard echoed through her, before being hastily buried; after all, what was the point in getting angry at someone who had been well and truly ousted from power well over a year ago? Instead, she began thinking about Glinda again:

What was it like in Glinda's court, right now? Was she sitting alone at a desk, bent over papers and treaties and official statements and other paperwork? Was she mingling with her people, offering reassuring smiles and heartfelt promises that all would be well? Was she trying to practice magic, with the Grimmerie and so many other mysterious works on magic and of magic strewn around her?

"What are you thinking of doing?" she asked.

"I'm honestly not sure. I mean, I'm all in favour of helping her, but what happens if I really do end up as the King of Oz? What would happen to you?"

Elphaba offered a wicked grin. "Whoever said I'd have to stay here while you rule the kingdom? If you do become king, servants aren't going to ask questions about why his Royal Highness wants the highest of the tower suites put under a permanent Do Not Disturb notice."

"I've gotta admit," laughed Fiyero, "I like that idea. So, you'd get a letter from me and fly in under the cover of darkness, that sort of thing?"

"Something like that, your Highness."

"Har har. Well, hopefully, I won't have to become king- I'll just be the political support: they'll just ask me to make an appearance at some parade, wave, shake a few hands and go home; Glinda will get all the support she'll ever need, and the anti-Animal groups can scuttle off under the rocks they've been living under since the Wizard left. No loose ends, everybody's happy. And if not..."

"... There's always the Do Not Disturb notice," finished Elphaba. The grin on her face could not have been removed without the aid of a hammer and chisel.

"So you're fine with me leaving?"

"Of course. We've got all eventualities covered, haven't we? Come on, let's start preparing..."

"Will you be needing that diploma?"

"Oh, might as well; she'll expect that I'll still need proof of my brains. Let's also have those history books from the top shelf - I might as well have something to read..."

Sometime after acquiring the house, Elphaba had decided that, even without the Grimmerie, she could still put her powers to good use: so, she'd set up a modest laboratory in one of the largest rooms in the building for experimenting with certain forms of magic, and spent weeks gathering or assembling quite a few important items to that end: a set of alchemical equipment (alembic, crucible, beakers, scales, mortar and pestle, and so on); a number of spellbooks (all Ozian and nowhere near as potent as the Grimmerie, unfortunately) and other tomes on magic; a practice dummy (made of wood – Fiyero got very panicky when he witnessed straw dummies being abused); a collection of elemental conductors and batteries; a replacement broomstick (she'd taken great pains to memorize the levitation spell); a jar of sand from the Deadly Desert; and of course, her crystal ball, taken from Kiamo Ko.

They were here now, gearing the intrepid strawman ("Please don't call me that," he'd muttered despairingly) for the long journey that lay ahead: being virtually immortal, he didn't need much in the way of protection, but the sands of the Deadly Desert could still dissolve the burlap and straw that had replaced his flesh and blood.

So, after their hurried flight across the border, Elphaba had decided that the broomstick would be a much too noticeable form of transport if they ever needed to return to Oz, and after much experimentation, had created two amulets that provided more than enough protection from the sands. They also allowed the wearer to walk on water, but that usually resulted in considerable embarrassment (and wet shoes).

There was more than that to prepare for, though... and much more to think about. She was already missing Fiyero even though he was standing right beside her; it seemed silly in light of everything that could actually go right for once, but that didn't stop the little concerns from creeping up on her. After all, they'd managed to build a stable if isolated life for themselves out here in the wilderness beyond Oz, and any disruptions to it were bound to cause massive tremors.

In the year they'd spent outside of Oz, they'd been content for the most part; quite apart from the intricacies of magic and the pleasure of Fiyero's company, Elphaba was just relieved that she'd finally managed to escape her old miseries - with Fiyero's help. It had been a rough start, though: at the time, Fiyero still walked with his staggering, boneless gait; sometimes he toppled over on the rocky, uneven ground and needed to be helped up - or worse, sewn up. Elphaba had kept having nightmares: sometimes they were about their escape from Oz, in which, instead of sailing gently over the sands on the oak branch, they fell to their deaths in the shifting dunes; other times, she was being chased through the corridors of the Wizard's palace by a cackling, spider-legged duplicate of herself, until a giant mechanical hand descended from the sky and flattened them like bugs.

And then there had been the difficulties just staying alive – finding food, keeping hostile creatures away from the house, and so on. A few magical fireballs initially kept the hungry wolves at bay, but it wasn't until they'd ripped off Fiyero's arm that the wolf packs decided that the newcomers simply weren't appetising enough. Eventually, after living off wolf-meat and berries for a week and a half, a small town had been located scarcely a few miles from the house, and though the locals were quite surprised by the unexpected visitors, they gradually accepted them, just as the two of them came to accept the town. Fiyero in particular enjoyed the chance to mingle, even if people were constantly staring at him: there was always the occasional gang of children daring each other to "ask the green lady and the straw man where they come from," and the odd clerk at the general store getting nosy, but that was about the limit of difficulties.

And so they'd carried on in peace for the past year. Unfortunately, the letter had changed all that: the old guilt had returned with a vengeance, and the words "others suspect my motives simply for my past associations with the Wicked Witch of the West" had only made it sting even worse.

Of course, guilt had been her default emotion by the time she'd left Oz: guilt that she'd failed to save Nessarose, guilt that she hadn't been able to do more for Boq, guilt that she'd failed to save Fiyero (or so she'd thought).

And there had also been a considerable amount of rage, as well – usually neatly intertwined with the exact same events that instilled guilt in her. On and on it went, building up to that spectacular breakdown where she'd refused to sleep for almost a week and hurled just about every form of magic she'd learned across the countryside in a maelstrom of chaos and destruction.

It had taken that long year to finally put it all to rest, and she wasn't prepared to see it all come crashing back down on top of her just because of a few malcontents who actually missed being lied to by the Wizard. She was going to see the best of this: Glinda would have the assistance that she deserved, and Fiyero would be allowed the company that they so often lacked out in the wastes.

There was only one other thing that bothered her, as she carefully tightened the amulet around his neck, one thing that had escaped her self-reassurances...

Back when she'd been interested in espionage, she'd tried to use the crystal ball to spy on the Wizard, but to her disappointment, all she'd received was static. At first, she thought that the crystal hadn't been properly attuned to the ether, but when she'd later managed a very clear picture of Dorothy Gale and her companions, she decided it must have something to do with Madam Morrible. Weather magic was the press secretary's speciality, but gods only knew how many enchantments the old bitch had up her sleeve to keep the Wizard's illusion of power in place. Or perhaps it had been the work of other witches or magicians that the Wizard had employed; maybe it hadn't even been the work of the Wizard at all, but the rulers that had come before him and whatever eldritch mages they'd had among their retinues.

Whatever the case, unfortunately, this meant that she'd have no idea what how things had gone for Fiyero until a message arrived back. Nor did she have any idea how Glinda was faring, what had been done with Madame Morrible, what Boq and the Cowardly Lion had done with their lives, and even the political situation in the Emerald City.

Maybe, if Fiyero was crowned the king of Oz, there would be the chance to unravel some of the more troubling secrets, to ensure that her lover never had to fall onto jagged rocks and shred every stitch in his body again... and to see – albeit clandestinely – that her old friend was still alive and well.

So it was with growing hope for the future that she found herself shepherding Fiyero down the garden path and towards the desert with a warm farewell.

As the Scarecrow goose-stepped towards the outskirts of the Deadly Desert, a solitary stone eyeball watched him from the soil.

Then, blinking ponderously, it focussed on the green-skinned woman as she walked slowly back through the garden and into the house.

Its original mission had been to spy on the newly-located Scarecrow, but suddenly, new orders were pouring into its stone brain- orders to watch the figure that had bid the original target farewell.

The eyeball wasn't troubled by this change of plans; after all, there were another few million eyes from here to the Emerald City left to watch the Scarecrow.

Chapter 3: Journey Of The Kings

Summary:

Old friends meet, two monarchs make their way to the capital, and a newfound crisis looms on the horizon - getting closer and closer by the second...

Chapter Text

The Deadly Desert lay before him, stretching onwards in mile after mile of lethal sand dunes, each grain containing enough malignant energy to dissolve anything bearing the slightest resemblance to living tissues – and that included Fiyero's burlap skin. This place wasn't natural: anybody who'd seen the long grass and lush forest that ended at its borders could see that. Astonishingly enough, once upon a time, this place had been nothing more than a pouchful of enchanted dust lying at the bottom of a ditch; some ancient spell prevented it from being carried very far beyond its resting place by wind or rain, so for years, it subsisted on brigands and travellers, until it grew enough to fill the ditch.

Then a war broke out between Oz and some long-forgotten country, and troops from either side had charged across the countryside where the sands had been discarded time and time again, each charge bringing them across the sands, each charge growing shorter and less enthusiastic as the dunes grew larger with every regiment they consumed. It took some time, but eventually, the soldiers learned:

Anything living that touched the sand turned into sand.

More precisely, anything possessed of a soul that came into contact with the sand disintegrated, taking on the same curse that surrounded the rest of the desert. Once the transformation had begun, it took less than a second for the victim to collapse into a new dune, and no magic in the world could possibly reverse it. And sometimes, so the legends said, if you looked carefully enough on windy days, you could see their ghosts take shape in the shifting sands, reaching arms and grasping hands, sometimes even a face – permanently frozen in one last agonised scream.

Fiyero shuddered, and felt for the amulet around his neck, just to remind himself that it was still there, still preventing his body from dissolving. He really shouldn't have started thinking about the old legends, but with the sands of the desert all around him, what could he possibly do?

At present, he was sitting on the rusted base of an enormous steel column half-buried in the sand, reading one of the enormous tomes on history he'd borrowed from Elphaba; it took his mind off the endless concern that the amulet might somehow fail, but then again, the column he was leaning against was doing enough distraction on its own. After all, this was rusty spire was one of at least fifteen leading off into the distance – for all intents and purposes, the path that would lead him back into Oz – and it had quite a history of its own.

This had once been an elevated tramway, starting at the lower reaches of Oz's northern outskirts and leading across the Deadly Desert and into the northeastern Kingdom of Ev; they'd called it the Desert Ferry, and it had been one of the Wizard's most ambitious construction projects – and by far the most dangerous. Once completed, it had enjoyed a heyday, for at the time, Ev had still retained an interest in the Land of Oz, so their royal family could be transported across the desert in luxurious tramcars suspended hundreds of feet above the lethal sands. Slowly, the Desert Ferry grew in fame, accumulating titles like "The Pride of Oz," and "The King of the Sands," and for a while, there was talk of making expanding the tramway so that it began in the Emerald City, and adding secondary lines that would allow it passage to other countries beyond Oz.

And then of course, one of the Wizard's ambassadors was sent into Ev – on the exact same day that the tramcar's windows happened to accidentally open halfway through the journey; nobody saw what happened inside the car, but guards positioned at the far ends of the tramway could see the freak sandstorm that had sprung up around it. There were no bodies to bury that day, only heaps of sand that collected on the seats and in odd corners of the tram. Quite naturally, the Ozian nobility had accused Ev of sabotaging the car, and spent the next few weeks howling for their blood until the Wizard put a stop to any potential invasions by ordering the tramway cables cut and the cars permanently dismantled. Now, all that was left of the Desert Ferry were the support columns that Fiyero now leaned against, reading his books.

It still seemed strange how quickly he'd taken to reading; back in Shiz, he couldn't have cared less about these books, and most of his career as captain of the Wizard's personal guard had been occupied with trying to find Elphaba. But once he and Elphaba had made their escape across the border – and after the first few weeks they'd spent just trying to stay alive – there honestly wasn't that much to do; so, against all expectation, Fiyero had asked if he could borrow one of Elphaba's books. She'd been surprised at the request but pleased that he was taking an interest in one of her favourite subjects – always a plus in Fiyero's books.

And so it was that Fiyero found that once he'd started reading, he simply couldn't put the book down. He couldn't tell if this was because the book was more interesting than the ones he'd tossed aside back in school, or if he'd matured enough to appreciate the content, but whatever the case, he'd changed. He certainly couldn't take up his old lifestyle of carefree hedonism, not as the clumsy scarecrow he'd become, unable to eat or drink (though he could still sleep if he tried hard enough). So, he found himself not only reading more, but acting as Elphaba's assistant during some of the more strenuous experiments- and surprised both his lover and himself by learning about chemistry.

Elphaba had thanked him time and again for the help he'd given, but to be honest, he didn't need her thanks – he was happy enough just being with her, making her happy. Besides, she'd saved his life, a point in his life that his dreams would never let him forget, for on those nights when he concentrated hard enough to sleep, he always dreamt back to the cornfield.

He always remembered the feel of the splintery wooden poles under his arms, the baking heat of the sun on his heat, and above all, the thudding pain as the angry guardsmen beat him again and again. He always remembered the pain, the fear, and the vague sense of triumph at the fact that they still hadn't made him confess, even as they broke his other leg. And then he'd felt the magic spiralling through the air, washing across his body, permeating, and altering it; from somewhere beyond the normal realms of sound, he heard a voice chanting in an incomprehensible language. And then, as the chanting faded away, the pain went with it, and Fiyero had opened his eyes to see the Wizard's guardsmen fleeing in terror.

He smiled to himself. How things had changed in his life! From hedonist, to guardsman, to captain, to traitor, to scarecrow... and now to king! Uttering a contented sigh, he returned to his reading; after all, he still had quite a distance to walk, and no idea when he'd next get a chance to stop and read.

An hour later, Fiyero stood and stretched – purely out of habit –, put his books back inside his satchel, and continued onward through the desert, following the trail of the old tramway.

Not too far away, a stone eyeball watched him thoughtfully; it waited until he was in the process of vanishing over the next dune, and then closed its lid. Several hundred metres away, another stone eye appeared in a boulder not too far from the Scarecrow's position.

The watchers weren't afraid of the Deadly Desert.

Fear wasn't something that came easily to the soulless.

Hours later, trees began to appear on the horizon, and Fiyero knew that he was on the right path back into Oz; for a time, he enjoyed the sight of the verdant countryside unfolding around him, before heading south towards the nearest village. It was several miles away, but Fiyero didn't mind all that much; after all, he was incapable of feeling even the most basic pains in his feet.

The villagers were quite surprised to be visited by one of Dorothy's legendary companions and treated him to just about every luxury they could possibly offer; Fiyero politely accepted a few of them – directions being the most prominent of them – before taking his leave. Then it was back to walking across the countryside, sometimes walking along the gravel paths, sometimes taking shortcuts through cornfields (the exquisite irony of this wasn't lost on him), until at last, he arrived in the upper reaches of Munchkinland. From there, he was very careful not to delay any further: he bypassed just about every single one of the villages and towns he came upon, doing his very best to avoid contact with his adoring fans- for as much as he enjoyed their attentions, it slowed his pace. And he didn't want to keep an old friend waiting.

How much had Glinda changed since he'd last seen her?

She'd already dropped a good deal of her old superficiality during their last meeting in the Emerald City, but what else had changed about her? Did she rule over Oz with the same brand of glib charm that she'd used while working for the Wizard, or was her rule more sober? Did she mingle among the nobles and politicians, as she did in the old days, or did she spend her days alone amidst paperwork?

The questions nagged at him, fuelling his stride as he marched awkwardly out of the underbrush and onto the Yellow Brick Road. From here, it was a straightforward walk towards the Emerald City, as far away as it might seem; thankfully, there weren't too many people travelling on the road that day, so Fiyero managed to avoid slowing down too much. He didn't know how long he'd been walking just to get this far, and frankly he didn't care. All that mattered was arriving at his destination.

Before long, the Emerald City glittered magnificently before him, its towers and turrets soaring ever-upwards towards the sky as he drew closer to it. Taking this familiar route towards the city gates was like meeting an old friend: he'd lived in this city for a time after his so-called graduation, and it had satisfied his baser desires for wine, women, and revelry – along with an endless supply of tailored suits. He'd joined the Wizard's personal guard, too, partly so that he could enjoy the benefits of a splendid uniform and the respect of the citizens, but most because it would allow him to meet Elphaba again. Ah yes, in the end, it had been all about finding her. None of his old distractions could quite bury his growing attraction, not even his ascent through the ranks; if anything, it made him more determined to find her, more determined to keep her out of the Wizard's clutches. By the time he'd reached the rank of captain, he wasn't even a shadow of the workshy lout that had arrived at Shiz University so long ago.

Fiyero took a deep breath he didn't really need anymore; he could hear the crowds even from here, hear the marching feet of the guards as they took their positions at the gate. They'd seen the familiar figure staggering up the Yellow Brick Road, and they wanted to give him a welcome worthy of one of Dorothy's Companions.

And so, it began...

Several hundred miles away, a voice rang out in the stygian darkness of the mountain caverns: it was a harsh, unpleasant voice, vaguely reminiscent of someone dragging a file across a stone. Had anyone been watching the events going on in these tunnels, they would have been able to make out – if only by the pale light of phosphorous rocks – he roughly-carved face of the speaker protruding from the wall.

"Your Majesty!" the voice hissed. "The Scarecrow has arrived in the Emerald City at last."

There was the sound of grinding rock from the shadows, as the occupant of the cave stirred from its slumber; eventually, a voice boomed, "VERY GOOD. IS GLINDA STILL WITHIN THE PALACE WALLS?"

"Yes, Your Majesty; though we cannot hear her voice within the earth, we see her from afar. She often sits upon the windowsill of the topmost tower of the palace."

"AND WHAT OF THE WITCH? HAS SHE YET MOVED FROM HER POSITION?"

"No, Your Majesty; at present, she is still busying herself with her magics and potions. Do you wish her taken, Your Majesty? We could easily burrow through the floorboards if that is your wish."

"NO. AN ATTEMPT AT KIDNAPPING WOULD ACCOMPLISH NOTHING – LEAST OF ALL HER CAPTURE. REST ASSURED, WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, SHE WILL COME TO US. HAVE YOUR SPY CONTINUE WATCHING HER FOR THE MOMENT, AND ENSURE IT KEEPS ME INFORMED OF ANY DEVELOPMENTS. THEN CONTACT MOMBI AND INFORM HER THAT HER FORCES WILL SOON BE NEEDED."

"It will be done, Your Majesty."

For a moment, there was silence as the messenger's face disappeared from the wall; then there was a contented sigh that sounded like molten lava oozing down the slopes of a volcano.

"AT LONG LAST," purred the voice. "EVERYTHING IS FALLING INTO PLACE…"

"This way, please, sir," murmured the Captain of the Guard.

The city hadn't changed much; the people were still dressed in the height of fashion, the streets were still gleaming with cleanliness, and the emerald-studded walls of the city still glittered enchantingly in the sunshine. In fact, the only thing that had changed was the advertising: the orderly rows of posters for "Wizomania" and "A Celebration Of The Great Oz" had been replaced by layer after layer of posters for "Glinda the Good – Bringing Hope To The Hopeless." It wasn't until Fiyero got past the improvised parade that the screaming crowds had thrown for him that he saw a new kind of poster arriving on the scene; to his shock, it read, "Let The Man With The Brains Take The Crown: Scarecrow For King."

Thankfully, they'd arrived at the palace before any further nasty shocks had arrived; here, little had changed either. True, there were a few obvious changes to the place: for a start, there were fewer cringing servants and more bureaucrats this time, and most of the guards had replaced their halberds with crossbows and sabres; also, to Fiyero's delight, it seemed that there were Animals employed here, and if the clothes were any evidence, some of them had risen quite high in their fields.

And of course, he thought, dodging a harried-looking Munchkin secretary and two neatly dressed Otter lawyers, the place is a lot busier than ever before.

"We're in the middle of a rather busy period right now," the captain droned. "It's all this rush to make a king out of you, y'see. I think they're bringing out every single bigwig with the slightest bit of sway just to let 'em get up on the podium and say how great you'll be for Oz."

So much for just attending the odd parade, Fiyero thought bemusedly. At least we planned for this... sort of.

Out loud, he asked, "You really think I'm going to be crowned king?"

"Oh, of course; Glinda's been brilliant at running the country, but none of them bastards in the Anti-Animal League are going to listen to a word she says; and then there's all the daft buggers who think that she and the Wicked Witch o' the West were friends." The captain scoffed contemptuously; if he hadn't been walking through the corridors of the most lavish building in the country, he'd probably have spat against the wall, too.

"And none of them have anything to say about me?"

"Course not, sir! You're a hero. Besides, you're a scarecrow, sir – nobody's gonna talk about how you and the Witch were old school chums."

Fiyero hastily submerged his laughter and continued down the hallway. "You said they were bringing in a lot of bigwigs," he added hurriedly. "Any of them I'd know? Bear in mind that I've been living in the wilderness for the last year."

"Well, apart from the usual lot of governors and such, they're also calling on the Lion and the Tin Man – not as hard as it sounds, mind you, because they've all had business about the Emerald City for last few months."

"All the old companions are here, then?"

"That's right, sir. Matter of fact, we'd probably bring in Dorothy Gale herself if we could find her. Now, if you'd just follow me through here sir- shortcut, y'see…"

They made a sharp turn to the left, through an archway, and out into a courtyard; Fiyero recognized it almost instantly as one of the official training grounds for the guardsmen. At this time, it was almost empty except for the training dummies (straw and sacking, he noted with a shudder), the old obstacle course, and two figures currently engaged in what looked like an extremely lethargic sparring session- one figure holding a distinctive axe, the other holding a halberd.

The first of the two was instantly recognizable as the Tin Man, AKA Boq, who hadn't changed all that much in the last year. The second was…

Well, it looked rather like a copper cauldron on legs.

More specifically, it was four feet tall, with an almost spherical body of burnished copper, two thick pillar-like legs, two spindly little arms, and an equally spherical head perched atop the whole grotesque ensemble. As Fiyero drew closer, he saw that the thing had what could loosely be described as a face: though it had no mouth as such, it did have a handlebar moustache and two enormous turquoise eyes of glass. The moment it saw the two of them strolling across the courtyard, it immediately snapped to attention and saluted with a loud clank of metal on metal.

"Mister-Scarecrow-Sir!" it said. The thing's voice was an even monotone and sounded as though it was coming from somewhere around its stomach. "Very-Pleased-To-Meet-The-Future-King-Of-Oz,-Sir!"

"At ease, Tik-Tok," said the Boq. "Pleased to see you too, Scarecrow. How are you?"

Fiyero offered a welcoming smile; they'd been friendly enough back when they'd been in the company of Dorothy Gale, even though the Tin Man's brief and unsavoury career rallying the Witch-Hunters. Maybe it was the conversations they'd had on the road – the old debates on whether brain or heart was better. Then of course, Elphaba had admitted that his on-and-off friend was also the obsessive nerd that had been stalking Glinda back in Shiz, and Fiyero's head had almost dropped off in amazement.

"Oh, you know," he answered cheerily, "still keeping myself as well-stitched as possible. What about you? Have you gotten yourself nickel-plated yet?"

"Not yet, no; been too busy."

"Why? What have you been up to?"

"Oh, I've been organising security for Her Highness Glinda. It's been so terrible in the last few months, what with all these riots and protests by the Anti-Animal Leagues, so I thought it would be best if I offered my support."

You're still hoping to catch her eye, aren't you?

"And does she appreciate it?"

"Oh of course, of course!" Boq exclaimed, his tin expression ever-so-slightly manic.

You poor bastard.

Fiyero tried not to look too sceptical, and asked, "So you're helping out with security? I take it that this thing here's helping as well- actually, what is this thing?"

The copper cauldron creature saluted again. "Allow-Me-To-Introduce-Myself,-Your-Future-Highness: I-Am-Tik-Tok, The-Royal-Army-Of-Oz."

"Army?" echoed Fiyero.

Boq offered a somewhat sheepish laugh. "That's the funny thing about Oz; apart from the Emerald Guard and all the other local security forces, the country hasn't had a proper army in years. From what little we've learned, Tik-Tok here was one of the Wizard's creations – supposed to be the first of an army of clockwork soldiers; trouble is, the court artisans never got around to mass-producing the design before he left. As a matter of fact, we didn't even know Tik-Tok existed until about four months ago, while we were clearing out some of the old vaults."

"He stayed down there for six months and didn't even call for help? Why?"

Tik-Tok turned around with a cacophonous thudding to display three clockwork handles set into his rounded back; they were labelled "Speech," "Thought," and "Action."

Fiyero processed this information as quickly as he could, and eventually asked, "So his clockwork wound down, is that right?"

"Exactly, Your-Future-Highness. But-Now-That-I-Am-Out-Of-Storage, I-Am-Now-Serving-To-The-Best-Of-My-Abilities, As-Will-My-Fellow-Units-When-The-Court-Artisans-Begin-Production." He saluted again.

Well, you're short, you're clumsy, your arms are tiny, and if your thought or action runs down, you're totally defenceless. The future of Oz is in small but capable hands, ladies and gentlemen. And if you could please stop calling me "Your Future Highness," I might be less inclined to have you sent to the scrap yard when I actually become king.

"Well," said Fiyero, trying not to laugh despairingly, "I'm very glad to see that we're well on the way to having a reliable and incorruptible military, Mr Tik-Tok. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an appointment with Miss Glinda."

"I-Understand, Your-Future-Highness. Shall-We-Continue-With-Sparring, Mr-Tin-Man?"

After many twists and turns, they finally arrived at the double doors that marked the entrance to the palace's throne room; as those doors swung open, Fiyero became aware of another change that had occurred in the palace: where once the throne room had been filled with the deafening boom of the Wizard's amplified voice and the whirring of complicated machinery, there was now a deep silence, broken only by the faint rustling of paper. The silence up here was palpable- it layered every single inch of the enormous room, absorbing the sound of their footsteps like thick carpet. In fact, the quiet of the throne room was so startling that it took a while for Fiyero to notice Glinda.

She was sitting quietly at her desk, sorting through a small mound of paperwork in front of her. By the looks of things, she'd been working for a very long time; quite apart from her pallid complexion, tangled hair, and the dark rings around her eyes, her face had acquired that look of weary determination common to tired bureaucrats everywhere. I can make it, the expression read, I can make it. Just a few more forms, then I can go home and sleep. Just a few more forms.

Eventually, she looked up to see Fiyero and the captain of the guard standing in the doorway; her eyes lit up, and she exclaimed, "Mr Scarecrow! I'm so sorry- I didn't hear you come in. Do sit down, please!"

She waved a hand in the general direction of the marble floor in front of the desk, and a plush armchair slowly materialised in the indicated spot. As the captain left the room, Fiyero eased himself into the chair, and asked, "How have you been, Miss Glinda?"

"Bearing up," sighed Glinda. "There has been a lot of work to get through in the past year; but believe me, it's all worthwhile. Well, apart from the sleeping problems, but I've got potions for that."

"At least someone else will be doing the all the administrative work from now on," Fiyero joked idly.

Glinda looked blank for a moment. "Ah," she said at last, "You've seen those posters, then?"

"And heard the gossip, too; I think about half of the Emerald City wants me to become king – even the royal army's calling me "Your Future Highness". Not bad for someone who couldn't keep the birds off the crops, eh?"

"Oh, I can think of hundreds of people who've risen above their own disadvantages: the Tin Man, the Lion, you, and-" Glinda's expression flickered; Fiyero didn't need to be told what it meant.

Then, as if by magic, the smile was back on her face. "Well, you get the idea. But as for the administration, I'm sure you won't have to actually do too much of the paperwork – we have servants for that. All you need to do is make the decisions, sign the forms, meet the diplomats- you get the idea. How does that sound?"

Fiyero shrugged. "Fine by me. How long until the official coronation?"

Now it was Glinda's turn to shrug. "I don't know. Does an hour and half sound okay?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

She offered an apologetic smile. "I told you in my letter that there are groups opposifying my administration. What I didn't mention was that there was never any question of you becoming king: the moment I suggested you as a replacement, they agreed on the condition that you took power the moment you arrived in the city, just so I wouldn't have the opportunity to interfere. They're fine with me acting as an official Defender of the realm, and that's it. So, as of half an hour ago, you are the King of Oz."

Damn it.

"And... you're not troubled by this?" Fiyero asked. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

Glinda sighed. "At this point, Mr Scarecrow," she said wearily, "I'm too tired to be troubled; I've never been attracted to power – popularity maybe, but certainly not power – and I'm not upset that I have to step down. And don't forget," she added brightly, "it was me who suggested you as a replacement; I knew you were supportive of Animal rights; I knew you were responsible enough for leadership... and you were the only one I knew of with the brains for the job."

And in spite of themselves, they laughed.

Three hours later, the scraping voice of the messenger sounded yet again - this time aboveground. By this time, it was late afternoon, and the sky above Munchkinland had turned a fiery orange, bathing the conspirators in an appropriately hellish glow as they turned to face the visitor.

"I take it that the Scarecrow has finally been crowned?" one of them uttered. Some time ago, this voice had been much louder, but with mortal ears so close by, it had lowered itself sufficiently enough to avoid any unwanted interruptions.

"Yes, Your Majesty!" cackled the messenger. "The entire city is in celebration, and messages of the coronation are being sent to the other cities and towns of Oz."

"Very good indeed. Where is his highness at present?"

"My spy in the area reported him standing at the topmost window of the palace's tallest tower, your majesty; Glinda is with him at present."

"Of course she's with him, the loathsome little trollop," spat another voice. Unlike the other two, this voice was that of a human woman, and it bubbled with venom. "Probably trying to curry favour with the strawman the only way she knows how."

"Somehow, I doubt that very much, Mombi." There was a soft grinding of rock, as the voice's attention returned to the messenger. "Return to the rallying grounds and give the order to begin the march. I will join them shortly."

"As you command, Your Majesty," said the messenger. "Have you any specific orders for the advance teams?"

"Yes: have them attack the palace's foundations- the tallest tower, for choice."

"It will be done, Your Majesty."

"As for you, Mombi," said the first of the conspirators as their messenger burrowed back into the earth, "You will return to your forces and lead their charge into the city; we should have arrived by that time. I am counting on you to ensure the death of anyone who might have escaped the effects of my spell- with the exception of the Scarecrow, of course."

"And you will uphold your end of the bargain?"

"Provided you uphold yours. Now run along, my dear: the Wheelers must be growing restless..."

"... and then of course, there's the Last Resort Protocols," the secretary droned.

"And what do they entail exactly?" asked Fiyero, suspecting he'd regret it.

"Well, Your Highness, the Last Resort Protocols are to be used on any occasions in which find ourselves facing a crisis that our military is unable to combat and have no way of summoning our traditional allies. This entails contacting potential allies from beyond our world by means of a quick and easily ritual of teleportation, performed upon a letter of urgency or similar item. Now, this ritual can be performed even by those with little experience, skill, or natural talent with magic, and it pr-"

"Hold on a minute!" Fiyero interrupted. "Exactly what allies are we supposed to contact?"

"Oh, there are so many. The protocols specify anyone who might have helped Oz in the past: Dorothy Gale, for example, or even the Wizard himself. Now, your majesty, this ritual proceeds as follows: place the item you wish to teleport on the ground in front of you, draw a circle in blood (not your own, of course), and recite the words Calexemephrabis Revemexpi Ardunagux Kai Trobuxis until the item disappears. Now, if Your Highness would repeat after me..."

Fiyero had been king for hours now, and he certainly didn't feel any more powerful than he had before- not with this idiot drooling on about court protocol. In fact, the only bit of influence he'd had over the man was in deciding where they could hold this discussion- in the uppermost room of tallest tower of the palace; he'd intended to use this as a chance to see if the room could be used as a hideaway for Elphaba, but as the evening wore on, it looked as though he'd be using it as a chance to hurl the secretary out the window.

"Kettleborough," said Glinda, as Fiyero finally managed to repeat the words of the ritual off by heart, "Don't you think that's enough?"

"Not to worry, Miss Glinda- we'll be finished in a minute or two. If you'd just care to sign these, your majesty..."

Pausing only to scan the papers for anything remotely connected with Anti-Animal Rights groups or other objectionable content, Fiyero then scrawled his signature; the sound of fireworks and cheering in the distance helped numb the boredom as he wrote. Finally, with all twelve of the papers signed, he handed them to Kettleborough, who bowed and scurried away.

It was then that he sat back against the cushions of the bed, and surveyed the room: at first glance, it looked quite standard for a guest room of the palace- four-poster bed, thick rugs on the floor, soothing oil paintings on the wall, and a fine rosewood vanity in the corner. However, as Fiyero's gaze swept across the room a second time, he realised that something was ever-so-slightly different. It took him a while to isolate it: a faint, musty odour that no amount of perfume could mask, a smell redolent of abandoned lofts and garrets...

"Was this once an attic?" he asked innocently.

"Yes," said Glinda, surprised. "I had it remade as a bedroom for my private use."

"Why's that?" asked Fiyero.

"Oh... memories."

Ah.

So, this had been the attic where Elphaba had first taken flight on her broomstick. Back when he'd been little more than a corporal in the guard, Glinda had told him about this place, of how she'd watched in amazement as Elphaba had floated into the air towards the open skylight, sending horrified guardsmen scurrying for cover as she went. But of course, Fiyero had to keep up his disuise; so, he let his face go blank with confusion.

There was a pause; eventually, Glinda said, "I'd like to show you something, Mr Scarecrow – something I've never shown anyone before. Even the servants haven't seen this," she added, as she guided him across the room towards the vanity.

She paused, appearing to gather herself, and then waved her hand in a complicated gesture: as she did so, the vanity slowly blurred and faded into thin air, leaving behind a small pedestal of finely-carved white marble. Above this pedestal hovered the spectral image of a woman; Fiyero didn't even need to look closely to recognize her as Elphaba – younger, shyer, and hiding behind her long hair, but undoubtedly Elphaba. The image had obviously been taken not too long after the dance at the Ozdust Ballroom, because she was still wearing the black dress she'd worn that night.

Below the image, silver letters hung in midair: IN LOVING MEMORY OF ELPHABA THROPP.

And below them: "Some are born wicked; others have wickedness thrust upon them."

Fiyero remembered his disguise just in time. "Is that-?"

"Yes. I wanted to have a picture of her when she was at her happiest- so I took it from my memory."

"So..."

Think, Fiyero, think! Don't blow your cover now!

"You really were friends."

"Once upon a time, we were the best of friends; back in university, I was the only friend she had. And sometimes, just sometimes, I think she deserved so much better. She wasn't always as bad as she was towards the end, you know: even when the press started calling her a Wicked Witch, she still cared about people; she still thought she could change Oz for the better. But after her sister died, and after F... she just..." Glinda swallowed. "It wasn't her fault," she said shakily.

"What do you mean? Whose fault was it?"

Glinda tried to speak slowly, but she'd been waiting too long to discuss this with another living being for coherency to play any part in her speech.

"I could blame just about everyone in Oz who wronged her in her life... but in the end... it was my fault. If I hadn't told them about her sister, if I hadn't been so selfish, if I had gone with her when she flew for the first time I might have been able to help her against the wizard and she wouldn't have gone mad and we'd still be friends and she'd still be alive but she isn't she's dead and it's all my fault!"

There was silence, broken only by the astoundingly quiet sound of Glinda crying. Eventually, Fiyero put an arm around her; it probably didn't help much, considering that, as far as Glinda knew, the Scarecrow had hated the Wicked Witch of the West just as much as any citizen of Oz, but he couldn't just leave her in tears. Eventually, she calmed enough to say, "I was there when she died, you know. She was just so... calm, too; she took the bucket of water into the room with her. She wanted to die by then. And all I could do was watch."

For a moment, neither of them spoke. And then, under the influence of surprise, guilt, and a dozen other accumulated emotions from the long day, Fiyero made one of the worst mistakes he could have possibly made: he opened his mouth, and said, "It wasn't your fault, Galinda."

"What did you say?"

Oh NO.

"Uh, what?"

"You called me Galinda. Where did you hear that name?"

There was a very tense pause as Fiyero mentally assessed every possible excuse he could possibly use to throw Glinda off the scent, dismissed most of them for sheer unfeasibility, tried to decide which of the remainder to use, and realised he'd pretty much blown his cover anyway.

And then the tower suddenly gave an almighty lurch, sending them tumbling across the suddenly vertical floor and out the window, which quite frankly came as something of a relief.

Chapter 4: The Invasion

Summary:

The King and the Protector do their best to save whatever they can...

Chapter Text

Elphaba sat alone in her laboratory, her eyes open and unblinking, her hands crossed in her lap. To anyone foolish enough to peer through a window, she would have seemed utterly relaxed- and in an emotional sense, she was. On the other hand, her mind was furiously active, directing her magic into the world and focussing it on a single object.

Slowly, the armillary sphere on the floor in front of her began to rise into the air, an eerie green light cast upon it from no recognizable source. As it rose further, one of Elphaba's many books slid off its shelf and began orbiting the sphere - once again, lit by emerald light. More books joined it, and before long, almost the entire library was circling around the celestial model.

This form of magic – telekinesis, her spellbooks called it – had been one of the very first inklings of her power; it wasn't until Madame Morrible had selected her for an education in magic that she actually learned how to use it on anything other than an instinctual level. Since then, she'd found that it was one of the most useful parts of her repertoire: quite apart from the usual avalanche of mundane uses she could find for it around the house, Elphaba found it was perfect for soothing her nerves.

Meanwhile, the books continued orbiting the armillary sphere, bobbing ever-so-slightly as they moved, as if they were dancing to a tune that Elphaba couldn't hear. Her eyes followed their path about the room, and as she grew more and more relaxed, she imagined the music that the books danced to...

...and heard the sound of something enormous burrowing through the earth at an incredible speed, a sound like a hundred million termites gnawing at the rotten planks of a derelict house...

…and the ear-splitting crash of the armillary sphere and all the books that had been orbiting it returning to earth, and the musical shattering of glass as one heavy tome landed right in the middle of her alchemy kit.

For what seemed like hours, Elphaba sat frozen in her seat as the noise finally died away, trying vainly to forget the smell of sulphur. It took her a moment or two to recover, and when she finally did so, she realised that she'd just experienced another unpleasant glimpse of something yet to come. She sighed wearily, got to her feet, and began returning the fallen books to their shelves. The last time she'd experienced such a vision, her sister had been assassinated a few short moments later, which couldn't bode well for anything in the near future.

As she swept away the smashed glassware with a wave of her hand, she remembered why she'd felt the need to calm her nerves in the first place: she'd been worried about Fiyero.

She knew well enough that Fiyero didn't need to sleep; he didn't need to eat, either; he didn't suffer any of the aches and pains that human beings suffered while walking the hundreds of miles between the house and the Emerald City. He'd been confident that he'd have been able to simply walk to the Emerald City in perhaps a day and a half at the most, and Elphaba had agreed with him.

So, assuming he'd arrived on time, why hadn't he sent a message notifying her?

Had he been delayed?

Or had something much more sinister prevented him from contacting her?

Could this have something to do with her vision?

It is a universally recognized fact that scarecrows, being made of burlap and straw, don't have to worry too much about falling to their deaths; so, the worst injury Fiyero sustained when he hit the ground was badly bruised pride. True, it took him a minute or so to untangle his legs and retrieve his battered crown from the wreckage of the tower, but once he'd managed that, he was on his feet and ready for just about anything.

Unfortunately, he was immediately met by a sight he couldn't have possibly prepared for:

In the plaza that bordered the palace and its grounds, a colossal stone fist was punching its way through the paving stones; and there was another one tearing through the ground by the Grand Library; everywhere Fiyero looked, there were craggy stone hands reaching upwards – climbing upwards – and if the distant screams and cries for help were any evidence, it was happening all over the city.

Frozen in disbelief, Fiyero watched as the owner of one of the closest of these hands finally clawed its way through the road and clambered into the light at long last, sending terrified citizens fleeing for their lives.

The stony figure that had emerged was well over seven feet tall, with worryingly long arms and tiny, stump-like legs; its carved face, plainly-featured as it was, was almost expressionless, though Fiyero could clearly see its eyes scanning the plaza. As he watched, the thing marched slowly but relentlessly towards one of the buildings on the opposite end of the square. Halfway across the cratered plaza, a guardsman came charging up to the invader, waving his sabre ineffectually at it and bellowing a demand for its surrender. Without even bothering to turn in his direction or even stop walking, the stone soldier grabbed the guard by the side of his head and began to squeeze...

Fiyero quickly looked away, just in time to see Glinda floating to the ground, looking shaken but otherwise unharmed.

"What in Oz is going on?" she asked nobody in particular.

"I think," shouted Fiyero over the sound of collapsing buildings, "we're being invaded."

And we don't even have a proper army. Wonderful.

By now, the first of the enemy soldiers had reached the Museum of Oz, and in the process of getting there, it had ripped three guards limb from limb and trampled a pedestrian to death. It fastened its stone fingers around one of the emeralds adorning the building's wall and began slowly prising it free. In the distance, Fiyero could see more of the soldiers engaged in similar acts of vandalism, pausing every so often to crush any guardsman foolish enough to try and stop them.

Who are these people? Fiyero thought, over the wet, rhythmic splattering sounds of a guardsman being grabbed by one leg and thrashed against a wall. Why are they stealing the emeralds off the walls of my city? Wait a minute, did I just think "my city"? I'm getting too used to being King...

There was a loud rumble from somewhere nearby, and Fiyero looked up just in time to see another stone man looming over him; it was almost identical to the first – same plain features, same proportions, same pale grey stone.

There was a pause, as its eyes swept across him and Glinda, and then it spoke in a voice like the roof of a cave collapsing; "Your Royal Highness, we are officially placing you under arrest."

"What?"

"We are officially placing you under arrest, Your Highness," the stone man repeated, its voice utterly toneless. Tik-Tok's voice sounded jaunty compared to this emotionless rumbling.

"For your protection, Your Highness," it added.

Fiyero severely doubted this. He turned to run, only for the soldier to clamp one hand down on his shoulder.

"Please do not resist arrest, Your Highness," droned the soldier. "We do not wish to cause you unnecessary harm, but if it will prevent you from escaping, we are more than capable of removing your limbs-"

There was a violent flash of orange light from somewhere behind the soldier: in a matter of seconds, hundreds of tiny cracks and fissures raced up and down it's stone body, and in the next instant, it exploded.

Shaking loose bits of gravel out of his clothing, Fiyero looked up from the place where the soldier had once stood, and saw Glinda standing behind it, holding her wand in one shaking hand.

"That," said Glinda, "was a lot easier than I thought it would be."

You've learned a lot in the last year, haven't you, Glinda?

Aloud, he asked, "Can you repeat that spell if we run into any more of these creatures?"

"I can repeat it, but it takes a few seconds for the magic to build up enough to kill them... so I think we might need a few reinforcementors."

"Your Highness!" called an urgent voice.

FIyero turned around to see the Captain of the Guard hurrying up to him, followed by Boq, Tik-Tok, and a few other guardsmen. All of them were coated with a fine layer of ash and dust, and most of them looked extremely worried – except, of course, for Tik-Tok.

"Thank Oz you're alright, Your Highness!" puffed the captain. "We're getting reports from all over the city about these things- we've counted no less than seven hundred of them, and there are more of them emerging from the earth every minute!"

The newly-crowned king of Oz thought carefully. "Do these things have any weaknesses?" he asked. "Apart from magic," he added, noticing Glinda's pointed look.

"I-Strongly-Suspect-That-Blunt-Instruments-Might-Suffice," intoned Tik-Tok.

"Or explosives!" said Fiyero excitedly; ideas were pouring into his brain in a frenzy – suddenly, the situation didn't feel so dire after all. "Captain, do we have anything explosive that could be used against these things?"

"Well, we have a store of grenades in the armoury, Your Highness, but I'm not sure if we have the manpower to mount an attack."

"Yes we do!" Fiyero shouted, throwing caution to the winds. "Miss Glinda here has a perfectly serviceable airborne regiment on hand!"

Glinda's jaw dropped. "How in Oz did you find out about that?"

"The same way I know that your name used to be spelt Galinda with a "Ga"," he said flatly, ignoring the sound of Boq's own jaw dropping with a clank. "Now, can your soldiers handle matches and fuses?"

"Well... yes. But do you really think we should bring them out now? We don't want to panic the citizens any more than they already are, do we?"

As if in answer, there was a tremendous explosion from somewhere to the east, and the screams of the people briefly increased in volume.

Glinda lowered her head despairingly, and very slowly drew a tiny golden whistle from her dress. "Before I use this," she added softly, "I want you to promise that they won't be harmed once this business has been cleared up."

"You have my word as King of all Oz," said Fiyero solemnly. He turned to the captain: "I need your men to start evacuating the citizens as quickly as you can; there's no telling just how destructive this counterattack will get."

The captain nodded, whispered an order into the ear of the nearest runner, and watched as the man hurried off to the barracks to organize the men. "With all due respect, your Highness," he said uncertainly as he turned back to Fiyero, "Could I ask what it is you're planning?"

At that point, Glinda blew a single note on the whistle; the sound that emerged seemed to warp the air as it moved, curling insidiously around their heads and doing unpleasant things to their eardrums as it shivered through the air – towards the palace. There was a pause, and then an answering shriek echoed from the base of one of the towers, as every single window on the ground floor swung open and the inhabitants surged outwards into the burnt-orange sky.

Nobody needed to be told what these creatures were: after all, the flying monkeys had been servants of the Wicked Witch of the West far too long for anyone to forget their ghastly silhouettes in the sky.

As a fresh burst of terrified screaming rang out across the city, Fiyero turned around and discovered that most of the guardsmen that had arrived with the captain had turned tail and run for their lives; the captain himself was looking more than a little bit apprehensive; Tik-Tok's face was naturally expressionless; as for Boq, his growing suspicion was written very clearly on his face.

Meanwhile, Glinda was shouting orders to the monkeys as they soared past her: "To the armoury, Chistery! Get the grenades and destroy as many of the enemy soldiers as you can!"

From somewhere in the swarm, Chistery yowled in the affirmative as it swooped towards the Emerald Guard Barracks and the armoury hidden inside. A moment later, they came swarming out of the building, each one carrying a small pouch of grenades- simple clay spheres with a rope fuse.

"Alright," hissed Boq, grabbing Fiyero by the shoulder and dragging him well out of earshot, "Let's hear some answers, Scarecrow. How the hell did you know Miss Glinda's original name?"

"How did you?" Fiyero shot back.

The events of the day were beginning to wear out his friendly demeanour. So far, he'd been forced to walk mile after mile across open country to reach the Emerald City, been made King against his will, earned a tutorial of every single diplomatic procedure that the Wizard had never used, and been tipped out of a window and into a warzone. About now, he was sick of being Mr Scarecrow, the paragon of previously inanimate objects, and as for His Royal Highness, Scarecrow the First, he could go jump in a bonfire.

Somewhere in the distance, the first of the grenades exploded, and there was a ragged cheer from the guards as more explosions rang out across the skyline.

Ignoring them, Fiyero continued ranting: "You weren't too shocked when the flying monkeys showed up, were you?" he sneered, enjoying Boq's outraged expression. "Of course you didn't – you followed her into their living quarters, right?"

"Someone needs to protect her!" Boq snarled defensively. "You wouldn't imagine the assassination attempts this she's dodged in the last few months."

"Any houses involved?"

"WHAT EXACTLY IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" roared Boq.

He'd struck a nerve.

Glinda swivelled around. "Your Highness, Mr Tin Man; would you both kindly shut up?"

The two lapsed into sullen silence, glaring furiously at each other. Then, they saw Glinda's expression.

"Something's wrong," she whispered softly.

Chistery had felt the change in the air as well; much like Glinda, he'd been around magic long enough to recognize the distinctive flickers of energy that preceded a very powerful spell- a spell of transformation. Somewhere out there, a magician was casting his or her will across the landscape, reaching out towards the Emerald City.

The monkey to his left let out a screech of warning, and Chistery darted to the left as a huge chunk of masonry rocketed into the air: by now, the enemy soldiers had noticed that they were being attacked and were retaliating the only way they could – with the very buildings they were destroying. As Chistery twirled out of the deadly missile's path, he heard the blood-curdling scream as it struck the monkey behind him, shattering his bones and knocking him clean out of the air.

Chistery saw the soldier who'd hurled the chunk of rock at him and swooped downwards, readying the fuse on one of his grenades as he went. Closer and closer he flew, picking up speed; perhaps fifty feet away, details of the enemy soldier came into view: it was much taller and much more imposing than the others, and the rock that composed its body was darker and craggier. Then it turned to face Chistery with a face that, unlike all the other soldiers so far, had an expression.

This, Chistery realised, could only be one of the enemy officers.

A disgusted sneer slowly spread across the officer's face as it raised a fist towards the oncoming attacker.

Chistery gritted his teeth as he sped closer and closer to the officer; he didn't think of what would happen if he was too slow to dodge the officer's counterattack, or if he simply crashed into it head-on; in the years since Elphaba had given him wings, he'd learned that thinking about horrific mid-air collisions couldn't exactly help him avoid them. So, he all thought of at that moment was depositing the grenade; instinct did the rest.

As the fist swept towards his face, Chistery dived downwards, between the officer's legs; he had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the shattered paving stones rocketing towards him before his wings kicked in again, slowing his descent just enough to let him hit the ground on all fours without breaking his limbs. Before his opponent could figure out what had just happened, Chistery let the grenade in his hands clatter to the ground as he scampered away across the potholed street, up the side of a half-demolished house, and onto the railing of a balcony

There was a deafening boom as the fuse finally ran out. Once his ears had stopped ringing, Chistery turned around to see, to his shock, that the officer hadn't been completely destroyed in the blast: its legs had been completely shattered, as were its left arm and most of its torso, but it obviously wasn't quite ready to give up the ghost just yet, for it was now crawling slowly towards him.

With every inch it crawled, a few chunks of the rubble that had once been its body would roll across the paving stones and reattach itself to the officer.

Chistery was already lighting the fuse of his last grenade when he felt magic flooding the air around him – the blast front of the spell he'd felt building up a few minutes ago. He could feel it permeating him, oozing through his flesh and bone as it swept across the city, and suddenly...

...he couldn't move...

There wasn't any pain, but his feet were anchored to the railing, and a steady numbness was consuming his body below the waist. It took him a moment or so to realise that the spell that had struck him was slowly turning his body to stone.

The officer had repaired its lost arm and was now knuckling gleefully towards him.

And the grenade was still in Chistery's hand, even as the spell claimed his hips.

Even for the parts of his body that hadn't been petrified, movement felt impossibly slow; but he had to get rid of the damn explosive while he still had the chance, or he'd be reduced to so much gravel and shredded meat.

He drew back his arm...

...thrust one arm out...

...and a small clay sphere went flying through the evening sky.

The last thing that Chistery saw was the look of surprise on the officer's face before the grenade blew it to pieces.

In less than thirty seconds, every single one of the flying monkeys had been petrified; those who'd been unlucky enough to be in flight at time had tumbled out of the sky and shattered themselves to pieces on the ground below.

Many had managed to reach a safe perch in time, but that was little comfort to Glinda, whose attempts to lift the spell had all been in vain. For a time, she'd stood, crying brokenly as she tried again and again to dispel the petrifaction, until at last, she fell silent.

And now it seemed as though the situation could only worsen:

Fiyero surveyed the situation in as calm a manner as he could manage; this wasn't easy, as he was standing on the outskirts of a war zone, his only army had just been wiped out, the enemy was still at work in the city, and the captain of his guard had been reduced to one of the most undignified-looking statues in all of Oz.

"When did this happen?" he asked softly.

"Only-A-Few-Moments-Ago," Tik-Tok intoned. "The-Petrifaction-Was-No-Doubt-Cast-On-The-Entire-City, So-All-Of-Its-Inhabitants-Were-Exposed-To-It."

And, indeed, the city did sound noticeably deprived of all human noise: apart from the occasional explosion and the distant thudding of enemy soldiers marching down the street, the city was almost completely silent. And, worsening the group's already dismal mood, several petrified citizens could be seen across the plaza, frozen in the act of running for their lives or cowering under what little shelter they could find.

"Then why haven't we been petrified as well?" whispered Boq.

"Well," said Glinda, her voice hoarse from crying, "I can protect myself against enemy enchantments if I have enough time to prepare... if not Chistery and the others," she added bitterly. "I don't know how you three survived, though."

"I-Would-Presume-That-The-Spell-Only-Targets-Living-Beings, Making-Me-Immune-To-Its-Effects." Tik-Tok's mobile moustache twitched with artificial pride. "As-For-His-Majesty-And-Mr-Tin-Man, I-Would-Presume-That-The-Same-Rule-Applies."

No it doesn't, thought Fiyero. We're both living beings – well, after a fashion, I suppose. Either we're just more resistant to this spell's effects, or whoever's casting it wants us alive.

"Look," he said flatly, "Whatever happened here, we've got to get out of this city, find help somewhere."

"What kind of help?" asked Boq suspiciously.

Fiyero briefly grappled with the idea of admitting that Elphaba was still alive, and almost immediately decided against it. "Just because these things have taken the Emerald City doesn't mean they've taken the rest of Oz," he pointed out. "It doesn't matter if the other countries of Oz don't have armies of their own – once they hear what happened, they will raise armies against these things! All we've got to do is get out of here, and we can get started!"

He turned to Tik-Tok: "How far is the nearest pathway out of the city?"

"Approximately-Half-A-Mile, Your-Highness."

"Right! Let's get moving! Come on!"

There was a pause, and then they all began hurrying across the plaza, listening very carefully for the sound of approaching footsteps; as they ran (and Tik-Tok lumbered) Fiyero wondered exactly what he'd been thinking in the last few minutes.

Raising an army? I must be out of my mind. There's no way in hell we'll be able to raise anything against these things- if the enemy had any sense, they'll have petrified everyone in Oz long before attacking this city.

Fiyero shook his head; he couldn't keep thinking like this, not now that the escape attempt seemed to be going so well: after all, nobody had seen them, nobody had stopped them, and best of all, Tik-Tok had no trouble whatsoever keeping up, in spite of his bulky frame. And then, Fiyero heard Boq say, "Miss Glinda, what's wrong?"

He turned to see that Glinda had stopped right in the middle of the road; Boq was holding her arm and trying to guide her along, but she might as well have been a thousand miles away for all the attention she paid it. Eventually, her distant gaze met Fiyero's.

"The Grimmerie," she said softly.

"What about it?"

"I left it in the palace."

"Never mind the Grimmerie!" Boq hissed. "They'll never find it the way they're wrecking the city!"

"I can't take that chance." Her voice was hard. "If it ends up in the enemy's hands, I'll have failed her again... and I'm not going to let that happen." A sad smile crossed her face. "It was nice knowing you, Scarecrow; good luck, Your Highness."

Suddenly, Boq was lying in a heap, and Glinda was sprinting back across the road towards the palace; none of them were in a position to stop her – Boq was still trying to get back on his feet, Tik-Tok's speed was set at an ambling walk, and Fiyero's limp-legged stride didn't cover too much ground at the best of times, so before long, she was out of their reach.

"Why are you just standing there?" Boq howled at the two of them. "Help me up! We're going after her!"

"This is no time to act on your obsessions, Tin Man; we've got to get out of here!"

"Are you insane?" he demanded, as he clattered awkwardly upright. "We can't just leave her alone in the palace with-"

"Tin Man," said Fiyero as patiently as he could manage, "She's learned enough magic to kill these things permanently; the one she destroyed didn't try to put itself back together again. She'll be fine."

"But... but... I can't just-"

"Logically-Speaking, Mr-Tin-Man," interjected Tik-Tok, "Miss-Glinda-Is-Not-Only-Capable-Of-Defending-Herself, But-Pursuing-An-Equally-Important-Goal: The-Grimmerie-Is-An-Immensely-Powerful-Magical-Artefact, And-Cannot-Be-Allowed-To-Fall-Into-Enemy-Hands. Should-We-Follow-Her, We-May-Draw-Unnecessary-Attention-To-Her-And-Compromise-Her-Mission, Possibly-Resulting-In-Her-Death-Or-Capture. For-Now-We-Have-No-Choice-But-To-Depart."

If Boq still had lips, he would have bitten the lower one in indecision; he obviously couldn't just leave Glinda to go on what might very well be a suicide mission, but at the same time, he couldn't follow her and endanger his life. After a minute or so of hemming and hawing, he let out a rattling, metallic sigh; "Alright," he said, despairingly. "Let's get out of here."

However, as they continued onwards, they heard something that made Boq halt once again- a sound like badly-greased wheels; Fiyero turned and saw that the Tin Man's face was frozen in an expression of shock.

"Oh no," he whispered. "That's all we need..."

"What's wrong?"

There was another metallic squeal, followed by a loud burst of maniacal laughter.

"I've seen these things before on the Yellow Brick Road," said Boq, passing his axe from hand to hand in agitation. "They weren't too much trouble even at the worst of times, unless someone hired a group of them as mercenaries. If they're still alive now, it means that they're working for the enemy in bulk, and we're in serious trouble..."

"Why? What are they?"

A brightly-coloured blur whizzed to a halt on the other side of the road, and Fiyero found himself staring at a roughly human figure dressed in a garish suit of silver and red that glittered malevolently in the firelight of burning buildings; its grinning face was painted like a clown's, and its enormous eyes rolled wildly from left to right. Instead of hands and feet, this stranger had wheels; they squeaked and squealed as he rolled gently towards them, giggling madly.

From somewhere behind the figure, there were more peals of laughter, and more squeaks- the sounds of an army rolling their direction.

"They're Wheelers."

The palace was still intact, for the most part: a few of its towers had been torn down, and most of the emeralds had been torn from the outer walls, but otherwise, it was more or less in one piece.

And by now, it was completely empty except for the petrified workers; they littered the hallways, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in their last panicked rush towards the nearest exit. Thankfully, Glinda hadn't hidden the Grimmerie in any of the lower offices, or she'd have found it almost impossible to reach without smashing her way through the ranks of statues.

As a matter of fact, the secret of where she kept the priceless spellbook was the subject of considerable gossip among the staff; so far, most of them seemed to believe it was buried deep in the vaults of the palace or suspended just above the tip of the highest mountain in the country. Glinda had laughed to herself when she'd heard these rumours; she kept the Grimmerie in a much safer place – specifically, the locked drawer of her desk.

She hurried down the main hallways as quickly as she could, trying not to think of petrified figures crashing to the ground and shattering to pieces, trying not to wonder if Chistery had been among them. With a ragged snarl of frustration, Glinda forced herself to think of something else: for example, how anyone had managed to cast a spell of petrifaction on the entire city? Quite apart from the ridiculous amounts of energy it would have required, the city itself was supposed to be protected against spells of that magnitude; from what little Glinda had managed to glean from the gigantic stacks of paperwork on the subject, the Wizard had commissioned a number of loyal magicians to outfit the city with a very sophisticated runic system to prevent any dissenters from attacking it with magic- at least, directly.

Of course, there were no answers to be found; she might as well ask how the Wizard managed to attract so many magicians into his service even when they knew he didn't have any power of his own.

Except I know the answer to that one already, she thought bitterly. Why do I keep asking myself such stupid questions?

All but hurling the door open, she dashed into the throne room and made her way to the very back of the chamber; during the lead-up to the coronation, her desk had been unceremoniously shoved behind one of the curtains and hadn't been moved since then. It took about four seconds to unlock the drawer and retrieve the book; after that, Glinda was running back across the room and through the corridors towards the entrance hall.

She was dashing across the polished marble floor of the entrance hall, the gates in sight, when she heard a voice like grinding rock say, "Why exactly does his Majesty want this building spared?"

Glinda stifled a gasp of horror; the voice was right outside the front door. She began readying her magic for another stone-shattering blast of energy: hopefully, there'd be only one or two of them. If there were more, she might be able to subdue them for a time with lesser spells, long enough for her to make her escape.

"He said he wanted it as a reward for the witch's services when the rest of Oz is subjugated," said another grinding voice. "On top of those... organic components she requested," it added with a note of disdain. "Have the Wheelers reported any survivors in the area?"

"The last communiqué noted that sixteen individuals had been found and executed; it would seem that even the Wheelers have some semblance of use. The Scarecrow has yet to be located, however. Is that why we have been sent here?"

"Presumably. It..."

There was a dangerous pause, and the officer's stone eyes focussed on the human that had been trying to sneak past them. "Is that-"

As the rubble that had once been the first officer landed at the bottom of the stairs, Glinda took the opportunity to start running; however, as she reached the edge of the plaza, she was immediately brought up short by a trio of soldiers marching down the street towards her. Hurrying in the opposite direction, she quickly realised that she must have triggered some kind of alarm, because soldiers were charging into the plaza from every single connecting street.

In desperation, she let her magic blast outward through her wand, detonating the nearest of them, before telekinetically sweeping another one off its plinth-like feet and hurling it back into the oncoming horde. She cast every single form of magic she'd learned in the last few months at the soldiers, and though several were smashed to pieces in the blizzard of energies – if not completely disintegrated – dozens more appeared to replace them. Glinda didn't care; so long as she had the chance to destroy the Grimmerie before they killed her, she didn't mind.

However, as she prepared another spell, the soldiers and officers suddenly ground to a halt; then, as one, they began moving very quietly into two lines. The pathway they formed led to the opposite end of the plaza, where something was slowly digging its way through the cratered ground.

Whatever it was, it was clearly enormous; it stood taller than the four-story building behind him, and it didn't appear to have set foot on the ground yet. From what Glinda could see by the pale glow of the streetlamps, it had the same rocky grey skin as the soldiers and the officers, but its imposing features seemed curiously... human. Its face bore the faintest hint of a neatly-trimmed beard, and though Glinda couldn't be certain, it seemed to be wearing a five-tined crown. One thing that couldn't be denied, though, was the fact that it was smiling.

"I must admit, I wasn't expecting to encounter a capable witch here, of all places." Its tone was curiously dignified, almost charming, but there was no mistaking the menace present. "You are Glinda the Good, yes?" it inquired.

Glinda nodded hesitantly.

"A pleasure to meet you, dear lady," it purred. "You may call me the Nome King; these," he indicated the ranks of stone figures beneath him, "are my retinue, and we are here on affairs of state."

Glinda swallowed, and finally found her voice: "In other words, you're taking over the country."

"That is one reason for my being here, yes. I was also seeking an audience with his majesty, the Scarecrow, but alas, it seems that our meeting shall have to wait until my operatives track him down. Rest assured, my troops will find and arrest him..." The King's smile broadened. "...and I have a most intriguing specimen to study while I wait. Though I think you should probably surrender the Grimmerie before we continue our conversation, or else my officers may become disagreeable."

"She isn't going to agree, Your Majesty," said one of the nearest officers. "We should just kill her and take the book from her remains."

"As practical as that suggestion may be, I would allow her to respond first."

Five crowded seconds later, Glinda's wand was glowing cherry red, and smoke was gently pouring from her fingertips; the entire left side of the Nome King's face had been blown off in the ensuing barrage of magic, and most of his army looked in the mood to attack. However, as the scattered chunks of stone began to take the shape of the King's face again, Glinda could clearly see that he was still smiling.

"Ah," he said, his voice delighted, "A challenge. Stand aside, gentlemen: we shall see how the Defender of Oz fares in a duel of magic..."

Chapter 5: Apparent Last Stands

Summary:

The protectors are forced to take drastic steps to save their kingdom...

Chapter Text

In the days before her friendship with Elphaba had blossomed, Glinda would never have even thought of opening a book, let alone reading it. However, those days of carefree hedonism were long-dead and since then, Glinda had done quite a bit of independent research – and not just on magic, either. In one of the enormous tomes of history she'd ended up leafing through for evidence to support Animal Rights Laws, there'd been a very interesting chapter on Wizard's Duels:

In the days before the Wizard had come to power, it wasn't uncommon for rival magicians to settle their differences with a fight to the death, using only the most destructive and violent magicks in their repertoires. Of course, given the sheer amount of property damage that would result, the Wizard outlawed the duels as soon as he had the authority to do so; to keep down any "unofficial" duels, he also kept the more powerful magicians in the country as preoccupied as possible, distracting them with impressive job offers, luxurious homes, and other incentives. Madame Morrible herself had been pacified by the position of headmistress at Shiz University… and later, as the Wizard's press secretary.

When they were called upon to fight, the magicians and witches of this new regime generally refused to get within a mile of their enemies, preferring to blast them with lightning from afar.

Or drop houses on them, Glinda reflected bitterly.

And now, decades after the duels had been banned and all but forgotten, with the Wizard gone, his citizenry dead and the wreckage of his empire all around her, Glinda was about to fight the commander of the invading forces in a Wizard's Duel.

The first explosion didn't come as much of a surprise, and to be honest, neither did the barrage of masonry hurled in her direction: fire and telekinesis were pretty standard as far as offensive spells went. True, it felt a bit strange to be on the receiving end of them for a change, but with a well-chosen magical shield, it wasn't too much of a problem.

As the Nome King readied another blast, Glinda counterattacked with a surge of energy that tore the giant figure's left hand off and sent it rocketing away across the skyline. This time, the King didn't bother to wait for the disconnected stone to rejoin him; he simply eyed the stump with annoyance and let a new hand form. And then the discarded original hand came hurtling back through the sky, thundering into Glinda's shield and almost knocking her flat on her face. It took another blast of magic to actually kill the wretched thing and stop it from trying to crush her feet, and by that point, the hand's owner had telekinetically detached the roof from one of the neighbouring buildings and lobbed it at her.

For the next five minutes, they fought: the King had an extraordinary amount of magical power at his disposal, not to mention the ability to regenerate at will, but he didn't have Glinda's agility and speed.

I suppose when you're a seventy-foot-tall monstrosification with a face like the side of a mountain, I suppose everything looks impossibly fast, she thought snidely, ducking a hail of needle-sharp stalagmites and returning fire with a bolt of lightning that almost scoured the King's face blank.

Glinda couldn't keep this up forever; handling so much magic at such a phenomenal rate was beginning to tire her out. The Nome King was toying with her, by the looks of things, waiting for her to exhaust herself to the point of collapse before killing her and taking the Grimmerie. She had to think of a new strategy, and fast; she wasn't prepared to see the Grimmerie (Elphaba's last gift to her) in the hands of some warlord hell-bent on destroying everything they'd worked for. And even though she was at a serious disadvantage, there were a few aces left up her sleeve – maybe not enough to kill the King, but maybe enough to buy her the time to transport the Grimmerie well out of the King's reach.

A flickering tongue of energy lashed her wand out of her hands and knocked her to the ground; against all expectation, she didn't panic. True, she hadn't quite got past the basics of using magic without a wand, but she wasn't defenceless yet...

"You are capable indeed, Miss Glinda," purred the Nome King, all charm and swarm. "But I wouldn't recommend continuing this duel; you're clearly beginning to tire, and I would rather that your skills did not go to waste. Now, kindly hand over the Grimmerie, and we can negotiate."

As the King continued speaking, Glinda was very subtly opening the book in front of her: it had taken her months, but she had managed to decipher a few of the spells in here, and one of them could be very useful – if only as a distraction. Yes, there was a strong smell of paint in the air...

"Well? Do you have an answer? Or... what are you doing?"

She was chanting, now, all her concentration fixed upon ensuring that this spell would work: slowly, the magic surged back through the gates of the palace, towards a room that the builders hadn't quite finished repainting just yet. And then the intended effects of the spell came rushing back across the paving-stones in a colourful haze of paint and pigments; the Nome King scarcely had time to react before the multicoloured phantom was upon him.

Screaming diabolical expletives, the Nome King swatted furiously at the thing, trying vainly to pry it off his face; but because the creature was made of paint, there was nothing for him to grasp, and his attempts at swatting it away merely chipped huge pieces of stone from his head. Unfortunately, for the same reason, it couldn't hurt him, only cover his eyes and distract his attention; eventually, the King realised this, and simply burned the paint-phantom off his face with a stream of conjured flame. But by that time, Glinda had gotten her wand back, and was already casting another spell as subtly as she could without the Nomes noticing.

"It would seem that I underestimated you," admitted the King, brushing flakes of crisped paint from his shoulders. "I never suspected that you were capable of actually reading the spells of the Grimmerie."

Glinda offered a grim smile. "What can I say except for, "Don't judge a book by its cover"?"

"True; it would seem that my informant was a touch... misinformed. His last report indicated that you were barely able to use your wand, let alone advanced sorcery: no doubt, you have developed since then."

"What informant?" Glinda demanded, trying not to make the next wave of her wand too obvious. She had to keep the king talking long enough for her to complete the spell; no easy task, considering that this last ace wasn't exactly meant to travel at high speed. And then, just on the edge of hearing, there was a sound not entirely unlike an engine.

"Oh, I think we can do without introductions for the moment. Rest assured you'll have the chance to meet later on. But let's get back to the duel, shall we? I mean, it's only just getting interesti-"

Something large and spherical crashed into the back of the King's head, and in an instant, he and all the other Nomes were reduced to silhouettes against the brilliant light that emerged. Then the shockwave rushed across the plaza...

The Bubble had been constructed shortly after Glinda's rapid climb through the social ranks of Emerald City, and no expense had been spared in making it the perfect transport for one of the most adored figures in all of Oz.

Merging powerful enchantments courtesy of Madame Morrible with intricate mechanisms of the Wizard's own design, it had been used often in the early years of Glinda's career; then, as she actually began to participate in the work of government, it fell into disuse, gathering dust in some long-forgotten corner of the palace – until now.

True, it wobbled uncontrollably at any speed higher than forty miles per hour; true, it didn't offer much defence against aerial attacks; and yes, around this time it actually looked pretty stupid. But there was one design fault that made up for all the others:

It reacted very violently to high-speed collisions.

Glinda didn't stick around to see if the King had survived the explosion.

She had to get the Grimmerie as far away from him as possible- outside the Emerald City if necessary. So, the moment the Bubble had struck the King, she had torn her shoes off and started running down the steps and through the darkened streets; at the risk of making herself too noticeable, she lit the tip of her wand to guide her across the potholed ground and past the ranks of petrified citizens.

Maybe I can just transport it to the Scarecrow's house by magic, she thought; they won't think to look there...

In the distance, there was a loud grunt, and the sound of a new body emerging from the shattered paving-stones. "OW," said the faint voice of the Nome King.

She didn't have much time, now. All she needed was a place to hide while she readied the spell... just a few more yards... and if she couldn't manage that, she could at least try and give herself a decent pair of wings to fly away with.

There was a rumbling somewhere beneath her, and the King's voice murmured, "I admire your ingenuity, Miss Glinda."

"Obviously not enough to let me escape," Glinda panted sarcastically.

The chuckling from beneath rattled the paving stones. "It wouldn't matter even if I did let you escape just this once. I mean, how do you think I'm following you now? I can feel your footsteps through the earth. It's the same for my agents, all of whom are fully prepared to capture you on sight... or sound."

"I don't care," she snarled raggedly. "I don't care about your army, your power, and whatever else you've got up your sleeves... I'm going to stop you somehow, even if it kills me."

"You have changed, my dear. Elphaba would be proud of your determination."

Glinda skidded to a halt; all thoughts of escaping or hiding the Grimmerie tumbled out of her head at that moment. "How do you know that name?" she hissed, flame suddenly roaring from the tip of her wand. "Answer me!"

"All in good time, Miss Glinda. But first, allow me to apologise in advance..."

A massive stone fist hammered up through the road just inches away from Glinda, tumbling her to the ground; she landed heavily on her back, her wand gone from her hand and the Grimmerie lying just out of reach. She tried to get to her feet, only for a pair of stone hands to emerge from the ground and fasten around her arms and legs, dragging her back down; another followed, wrapping itself swiftly around her face and imprisoning her head in coffin-like darkness.

Thankfully, there was just enough space for her to breathe... and to hear what was happening outside...

"There!" cackled a voice. This one wasn't the eldritch purring of the King or the grinding monotone his soldiers used, but the rasping tones of an older human woman who'd scraped the inside of her throat raw from screaming in rage.

"Hold her still, boys!" said the voice. "It's time I claimed my prize."

"No."

"What?"

"This one is far too dangerous for your keeping, Mombi. She will be much more secure in my custody."

"That wasn't the deal!" she whined petulantly. "You said I could have any head from any citizen of Oz I wanted, and you know how much I like the pretty faces!"

"I do, Mombi. And believe me, this decree is for your protection; I doubt you would much appreciate having your palace and everything in it being burnt to the ground by one of your collection simply because you failed to check if it knew magic in life; this one in particular may know enough to resist your spells of taming. Apparently, she is not quite as incompetent as you were led to believe."

"How competent are we talking about, here?"

"Competent enough to read the spells of the Grimmerie."

Mombi laughed hysterically. "This trollop? She couldn't read a stop sign without help! She barely passed Madame Morrible's magic course with the help of her second-best student! Give me that axe and we'll see just how capable this brainless beauty is..."

"No, we won't,"said the King, his voice suddenly harsh. "You can have any other head in the Emerald City: this one – along with the information in it – is MINE. Now, I have made it clear that this decree is for your benefit, and again you insist on endangering yourself and my plans; do not try my patience, Witch. Now, have your Wheelers captured the Scarecrow yet?"

"No, but-"

"Then you have business elsewhere. Don't let me detain you."

The Nome's grip on Glinda's head shifted, allowing her a split-second glimpse of a haggard-looking woman, clad in the tattered remains of a once-expensive dress, stomping away through the ruined city with a large axe in one hand. Then the cloying mass of a sleep spell descended upon her, and everything went black.

I'm so sorry, Ephaba. I failed you...

"Stay back!" Boq ordered.

The Wheeler let out an ear-splitting peal of laughter. "Tin Man!" it yowled happily. "Where are all the other officers, Tin Man? Gone to stone, Tin Man! Yes, Tin Man, to stone, to stone!" It laughed uproariously. "Give up the Scarecrow, Tin Man, or we flatten you under our wheels and use you as chassis!"

"Are we really going to take these things seriously?" Fiyero muttered.

"The-Last-Time-We-Took-Them-Lightly," said Tik-Tok solemnly, "We-Fell-Victim-To-A-Surprise-Attack. They-Were-Hired-As-Mercenaries-Then, Just-As-They-Are-Now; The-Mercenary-Wheelers-Ingest-Large-Amounts-Of-Mind-Altering-Fungi-Before-Battle, Making-Them-Even-More-Dangerous-In-Combat."

"And this one's got reinforcements on the way," hissed Boq, hurriedly tightening Tik-Tok's works. "You'd best get behind cover, Your Highness; this won't be pretty."

The Wheeler laughed in agreement, and then threw back its head and let out a weird, honking call; to Fiyero, it sounded uncannily like a bicycle horn. As if in answer, someone in the ruins nearby screamed in terror. But that was quickly drowned out by the squeaking of wheels, and a growing chorus of bicycle-horn cries, getting closer and closer... until their source finally burst into the street in front of them.

Four people dashed from an alleyway to the left, their eyes wide and their clothes ragged and soaked with blood; three of these survivors made it to the entrance to the next alley before the petrifaction spell finally caught up with them and froze them in place. The straggler who lagged too far behind was quickly brought crashing to the ground in a lacerated heap by the pursuing Wheelers. These ones wore large metal pads on their legs and shoulders, studded with blades and spikes, and most of them were already soaked in blood- if not layered with chunks of shredded flesh and amputated limbs.

These ones didn't even bother to order Boq's surrender, they simply charged across the road towards them in one honking, giggling, shrieking mass. As Boq raised his axe in readiness, Tik-Tok thundered into position in front of him with a borrowed mace in one scrawny hand, and Fiyero had just enough time to think Well, so much for the army of Oz, before the oncoming horde slammed headlong into them.

Later, he admitted that he'd expected to see Boq slicing through the Wheelers like a hot knife through butter; what he hadn't expected to see was how very few Wheelers got past Tik-Tok to be sliced. True, his body looked absolutely ridiculous, and he had the land speed of a tranquilised donkey, but in combat, he was lethal: with his 360˚ spinning torso, the Wheelers found it almost impossible to get close enough to attack him, and with his trunk-like legs and compact frame, it was even harder to actually damage him. As such, a few Wheelers decided to try and creep around the growing pile of bodies at the clockwork army's feet to try and attack Fiyero, only to be hacked to shreds by Boq.

"Your-Majesty," said Tik-Tok calmly over the howling of a broken-legged Wheeler, "This-Is-Not-Helping. I-Recommend-That-You-Make-Your-Escape-While-The-Tin-Man-And-I-Keep-These-Ones-Under-Control."

"Well, that's not – Oh no you don't, you bastard! – going to help much either, is it?" yelled Boq. "There's – hold still – still quite a ways until we reach the exit. If he's going to make it, he's going to need – yaaaargh – protection!"

By way of an answer, there was a deafening roar from the back of the Wheeler army, and the bike-horn cry rang out again – this time sounding almost alarmed. Then, the three of them saw the source of the roar, barrelling through the attacking column of Wheelers and knocking them aside like ninepins before galloping to a halt before them.

"Need any help?" said the Cowardly Lion, cheerfully.

Several busy minutes later, Tik-Tok and Fiyero were hurrying as quickly as they could through the statue-clogged alleyways of the city; Boq and the Lion were covering their escape over seven blocks away. Fiyero wasn't entirely comfortable leaving two people he'd once counted as friends to the tender mercies of the Wheelers and whoever had hired them, but with their reassurances and the constant urging of Tik-Tok ringing in his ears, he'd had little other option.

Glinda, he thought worriedly, I hope you're doing better than we are, because even if our luck holds out, even if our old friends somehow manage to kill every single Wheeler in the city, we're still going to be captured.

"So," boomed the Lion, bowling another Wheeler across the street with one sweep of his paw, "Why do you think we haven't been turned to stone yet?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Boq, dodging a mule-kick from one of the brighter attackers. "And the same goes for why we've been attacked, what the enemy wants, and just about every other question that's cropped up since this whole blasted invasion began."

There was an embarrassed clattering, as the Wheelers finally realised that they were outmatched and began sheepishly edging as far away from the two of them as they could without actually retreating. Boq wouldn't have minded if they hadn't had the presence of mind to gather thickly at the available exits, pointing their spiked armour plating outwards to form a lethal barricade.

"Well," the Lion muttered, "This doesn't look too good. How many of them do you suppose we killed altogether?"

Boq's metallic brow wrinkled. "Maybe twenty-three between the two of us; fifty, if you count Tik-Tok's score. It looks like they're waiting for someone, though; I think we might be about to meet whoever hired them."

"Those stone men? I've seen a hundreds of them around town in the last twenty minutes; what are they supposed to be, anyway?"

"Nomes," snicked a voice behind them.

As one, Boq and the Lion turned.

The speaker at least looked human; she had the same proportions and the same number of limbs as a human being, but there was something about her that seemed inexplicably wrong. Perhaps it was the tangled mass of hair that exploded from her head like a nest of snakes; perhaps it was the sharp-featured, skeletal cast of her face; it might have even been the way she seemed to lean against thin air. But Boq knew that what really disturbed him were the woman's eyes, which were wide and unblinking, and seemed to focus somewhere around the jugular.

The fact that she appeared to be hiding an axe behind her back was just icing on the cake.

"Of course," she continued, "I'm not one myself, but then, you can see that."

"And just who the hell are you?"

"Call me Mombi, little tin soldier. Or call me Your Eminence, if you like: after all, I'm in charge here. Empress of Oz, you see." She let out a low giggle. "Why don't the two of you bow down to your new ruler? After all, you haven't got the stupid one with you- you're just the heartless one and the cowardly one. I'm sure the cowardly one would be very eager to bow..."

"Look," growled the Lion, "Before you waste any more time bringing up old news, I think you should know that we aren't going to be rattled by any of that. Me, Tin Man and Scarecrow got over these things a very long time ago. So you might as well just kill us both and save yourself a whole lot of time and effort."

"You're certain of that?" Mombi's voice took on a teasing note. "I think I can think of a few things that would make your heartstrings wilt, gentlemen. Oh yes, a few things here and there... like the Ballad of Nick Chopper! What a heartrending story that was! The best bit of invention I've heard all year- my complements to its author!" She curtsied mockingly in Boq's direction.

If Boq still had blood, it would have run cold at that moment. A few days after Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West, he corrected himself furiously) had transformed him into the Tin Man, he'd realised that he couldn't just say "Oh, I used to be the Wicked Witch of the East's manservant and she accidentally obliterated my heart with a spell, so her sister saved my life by turning my body into a metallic monstrosity." So, he came up with a rather elaborate cover-story: in this version of events, he had been a poor woodcutter by the name of Nick Chopper.

In a startling display of wish-fulfilment on Boq's part, Nick had actually managed to win the heart of the woman he loved before the transformation. Of course, everything had gone wrong when a rival suitor had hired the Wicked Witch of the West to get him out of the way: hacked to pieces by his cursed axe, he was rescued by a master tinsmith who provided replacements for almost every organ or limb lost- except for his heart. And Boq stuck to this story, people had accepted it, and nobody had thought otherwise... but now it seemed that somebody knew the truth, or at the very least suspected it.

"What are you talking about?" the Lion snarled.

"An issue of misnaming," said Mombi. "I mean, you're called cowardly. Hardly fair, is it, especially when we've got such a basic natural coward standing right next to you. Yes, a coward!"

She turned to the crowd of Wheelers that were still watching pensively from the alley entrance. "After all, what other kind of man so craven and weak would actually cost the Munchkins their independence because he couldn't bring himself to tell the truth to a cripple? A coward! A coward and a joke!"

She laughed, and the Wheelers joined in with renewed mirth, happy to hear any story that portrayed the implacable Tin Man of the Guard as a false hero.

Boq couldn't bring himself to tell Mombi to shut up: he was too busy grinding his teeth together with a sound like a whetstone in action and asking himself how this maniacal old bat could possibly know anything about his past. But she was still talking, still gloating about how he'd been a failure and a deserter on top of everything else, and the Wheelers were still laughing. Boq found himself too deafened the call of his own rage to hear most of it until the end:

"... And the love of his life- the woman who never noticed he was there and couldn't even remember his real name, by the way- she had a very special name for him. What was it again...? Oh, that's r-"

Boq didn't wait for her to finish: he swung his axe at her with such force that she barely had time to jump out of the way. Howling incoherently, he swung again, and this time Mombi tripped over one of the potholes in the road and fell flat on her back; Boq raised the axe for one final strike that would split the maniac's head in two... just in time to feel the distinctive rush of magic through the air.

Mombi was channelling the power of the petrifaction spell, redirecting it from free-floating energies infecting the air and refining it into a single, compressed beam of energy that shot from her fingers and struck Boq and the Lion head on. The effects were almost instantaneous; Boq didn't even have time to finish his swing before the curse claimed his skull and sent his world plummeting into the void of unconsciousness.

And perhaps that would have been the end of it had he not awoken a few seconds later to find Mombi's grinning hatchet-face peering into his eyes; an ice-cold droplet of fear landed in the pit of his stomach as he realised that he was still petrified, arms still holding his axe over his head, eyelids still frozen open.

"Don't you go nodding off just yet," Mombi crooned. "I want you to see this..."

Her hand was suddenly incandescent with energies as it moved toward him; she was carving something into his chest, the magic that surrounded her hand easily tunnelling through the tough granite. It didn't hurt in the physical sense – after all, his body didn’t exactly have the capacity to feel pain – but when Boq realised what she was carving, it hurt in an entirely different way. If he could have used his voice at that point, he would have used it to scream. And worse still, the Wheelers weren't just laughing anymore, because they'd seen The Name being carved into his chest, and now they were all chanting it.

"There," said Mombi as she finished carving. "That's your name from now on, Biq. Now, sleep well, Biq; sleep well and dream of your failure for all eternity."

She waved a hand, turned on her heel, and stalked away. There was a very long pause as the Wheeler horde began to noisily disperse into the ruins, some of them in search of food, others looking for intact stores to loot. Most of them were still giggling even as they vanished, still chanting The Name quietly and wondering to themselves what it could possibly mean.

Unknown to all of them, one of the spells cast in the last few minutes had been botched.

Boq, now forever known as Biq, hadn't lost consciousness.

"Damnit," whispered Fiyero.

"What-Is-It, Your-Highness?"

"More of those stone men, maybe eight or nine of them. They're blocking the gates."

"Does-That-Matter?"

"Tik-Tok, they'll flatten us."

"Not-Necessarily, Your-Highness: I-Could-Be-Able-To-Distract-Them-Long-Enough-For-You-To-Make-Your-Escape."

"How is that any better? They'd flatten you, instead."

"True. But-There-Are-Always-Other-Armies. Besides, They-Might-Take-Me-Prisoner, And-I-Could-Learn-Valuable-Information-In-The-Process."

Fiyero shook his head and wondered exactly how it was possible for something with no emotions to be so damnably enthusiastic. The only thing Tik-Tok was likely to learn was exactly how much force it would take the Stone Men to crush him into a burnished copper plate.

"Are there any other options?"

"We-Could-Always-Seek-Shelter-Within-One-Of-The-City-Vaults," Tik-Tok suggested. "You-Were-Provided-With-The-Royal-Master-Key-At-Your-Coronation, So-Obtaining-Entry-Should-Be-Easy."

Fiyero was about to remark that – considering that most of the invaders had arrived by burrowing through the ground – an underground vault would be the least intelligent thing they could possibly do, when an idea struck him. He felt for the golden chain looped around his burlap neck, and yes, thank goodness, here was the Royal Master Key, a simple iron key with the Royal Z-Inside-O emblem.

An involuntary smile arced across his face, and he found himself asking "Isn't there one of these vaults just a couple of minutes away?"

"Exactly, Your-Highness."

"Then let's go!"

It took maybe five minutes for them to reach the nearest vault, not counting the time it took for Fiyero to wind Tik-Tok's action and thought back up. There were also one or two moments when they thought they could feel the ground trembling very faintly beneath their feet, as though the enemy soldiers were following them through the earth; however, to Fiyero's mounting apprehension, no stone soldiers burrowed up through the earth to attack them at any point in their flight through the ruined streets. Either the tremors had nothing to do with the invaders, or...

Fiyero shook his head in a vain attempt to shake the niggling doubts from it, and realised that Tik-Tok was pointing down a long alleyway; at first glance, it appeared to be a dead end, until Fiyero noticed the tiny keyhole in the wall. Once they'd unlocked and opened the heavy brick door, they found themselves staring into one of the smallest rooms in the entire city, empty except for a few miniscule boxes.

"Is this it?" said Fiyero disbelievingly.

"It-Would-Appear-So, Your-Highness. Shall-I-Go-First?"

"Of course," said Fiyero.

Thank Gods he volunteered. But here comes the hard part...

He waited until Tik-Tok was well and truly inside the vault, then slammed the door shut and locked it as quickly as he could. Immediately, there came the sound of the clockwork army thumping futilely at the stonework.

Eventually, the noise faded, and Tik-Tok asked "May-I-Ask-Why-You-Have-Done-This, Your-Majesty?"

"A last-ditch attempt at sending for help," Fiyero said wearily. "I haven't been King long, but I've been so long enough to know about the Last Resort protocols. The only thing left to do is to call for help: I think I can remember the spell well enough, but there's no time for me to write a letter to explain what happened here. So, I'm going to send the master key..."

"And-Hope-That-They-Can-Find-This-Vault-And-Me-Along-With-It."

"Exactly."

"Why-Did-You-Have-To-Shut-Me-In-Here-Without-My-Permission?"

"Would you have agreed to leave me undefended?"

"Good-Point. Well-Done, Your-Highness. There-Is-Still-The-Matter-Of-What-You-Intend-To-Do-Afterwards."

Fiyero laughed bitterly. "I'll probably get captured," he said dryly. "But whatever happens, don't worry: just wait for a while, and help should be here soon. It might be Dorothy Gale, it might be the Wizard, it might even be Elph- uh, it might be someone else. Whatever happens, don't worry."

"I-Am-Only-A-Machine," said Tik-Tok flatly. "I-Cannot-Be-Worried-Or-Fearful, Regardless-Of-The-Circumstances. But-I-Can-Wait. I-Can-Wait-Until-My-Clockwork-Runs-Down-And-Rust-Claims-My-Body. I-Can-Wait."

"Fair enough," muttered Fiyero, and hurried away.

Blood was relatively easy to find in the ruins, as were spaces clear enough to draw the circle.

Remembering the words was harder. But he had to work quickly: there was no telling how long it would take for the enemy to find him.

Eventually, he managed to speak the words: "Calexemephrabis Revemexpi Ardunagux Kai Trobuxis."

It took a few seconds of chanting these words for the key to disappear from the circle, and by then, the squealing and giggling of approaching Wheelers was filling the air, accompanied by the thunderous boom of stone feet marching down the road alongside them.

Elphaba, he thought quietly, as the first of many shadows appeared at the alleyway entrance,

I really hope you're the one this spell summons, because I can't imagine how Dorothy Gale or the Wizard could possibly stop this nightmare.

Scant miles away, the Nome invasion had torn open the walls of the Emerald City Maximum Security Jail, exposing the cells to the open air and rendering just about every single containment procedure null and void.

The inmates would have been overjoyed had they not been among the very first frozen when the petrifaction spell hit. However, one prisoner had survived, having more than enough skill and experience in magic to withstand the transfiguring energies.

That prisoner was now hobbling out of the city as fast as possible, pausing only to gather a few bits of clothing to augment what was left of her grey prison slacks. Occasionally, she would mutter, "I hope you prove me wrong... I doubt you will," sometimes embellishing it with a hiss of "spectaculous work, too. Where would the kingdom be without my students?"

The Nome King watched her go with an odd little smile on his rough-hewn face.

Ah, yes, everything was proceeding as planned: the Scarecrow was in captivity, the Grimmerie was safely contained within his growing library, Glinda had proved herself valuable enough to spare, and soon, Elphaba Thropp herself would join the fray.

He chuckled darkly to himself and surveyed the ruins of the Emerald City.

This, he thought, is only the beginning...

Chapter 6: Teacher And Student

Summary:

In the wake of the invasion, A mentor and her pupil meet again.

Chapter Text

In all her years of practising magic, the weather had been her closest ally. Even within the deepest, darkest prison cell that she'd been kept in, even when inhibited by the wards the prison used to keep captive magicians under control, she could still manipulate the passage of the clouds across the sky; she'd even wreaked some petty revenge on her jailers by making it rain on them for two whole weeks. But she'd done far more in her glory days.

She'd flung lightning bolts at unsuspecting muggers.

She'd called the winds to drag truant students to class.

And once, she'd even harnessed the awesome power of a tornado for a simple assassination.

Now, she was going to do something just as extraordinary, all for the sake of leaving the city that had been her jail for the last year- especially not that it was being invaded. She felt no sadness at the death and destruction that had occurred because of this, nor did she regret the fact that her first day of freedom was to be spent on the run. By now, she'd learned to adapt to tragedy.

She felt only the need to escape... coupled, of course, with mild annoyance.

"I hope you prove me wrong... I doubt you will." Hah! Stupid, blonde-tressed twit!

Her hands now traced the path of several ancient and intricate magical gestures through the air, sculpting the wind into new and unusual shapes. Her last two students had chosen means of flight that best suited them – one had enchanted a broomstick, and the other had commissioned a bubble of magic and mechanism; now their teacher forced the air itself to carry her away on a gale-force wind.

She hadn't the slightest clue where she was going, but quite frankly, she didn't care.

The Emerald City was no longer a safe haven for old witches; in point of fact, the Emerald city was no more – just another province in the expanding Kingdom of the Nomes. After all, they'd already chosen a governor... and they'd chosen her all too well.

"At last!" Mombi cackled, her voice echoing across the ballroom. "It's mine! I've wanted it for years, and it's all mine now!"

Her exalting reflections danced wildly across the mirrored walls of the chamber, cavorting madly among the golden pillars and all but leaping onto the velvet-cushioned throne. This had once been the ballroom of the palace, where the Wizard's grandest courtiers had danced the nights away; now, with more than half of the palace torn to pieces, it was Mombi's throne room.

From one of the few windows in the room, the Nome King's massive eye looked on with considerable interest: she'd been collecting her payment for the last hour or so, and the results lay in a sizeable burlap sack beside the throne. Occasionally, the sack would twitch and ooze crimson over the fine tiles. Her other possessions – a few worm-eaten pieces of furniture and one of her more talkative test subjects – had been hauled upstairs by a small procession of Nome soldiers; however, she'd insisted that the Powder of Life and the Prison Orb remain with her.

As she frolicked insanely about the room, Mombi raved about how she planned to craft a magnificent display cabinet for all the heads she had collected, and then going about the process of altering her-

The Nome King coughed loudly.

Mombi blanched, suddenly remembering the King's other request. Digging through her tattered pockets, she retrieved the Prison Orb. On the surface, it seemed to be little more than a cheap glass bauble; however, as Mombi's hands traced the brass bands surrounding the orb, the faintest sounds of sobs and screams could be heard from within.

"The mirrors, right?" Mombi asked.

"As agreed upon."

She nodded, and strode over to the nearest of the mirrors, orb in hand. As she held it aloft, a faint blue glow began to creep across its glassy surface, and the screaming from within suddenly fell silent- as if something within was holding its breath. Then Mombi spoke a single word:

"OZMA."

A thick cloud of luminescent blue smoke poured out of the orb, seeping through the glass as if no more solid than water: for a moment, the cloud hung in the air, trying to coalesce into a human shape, before a single gesture from Mombi sent the spectre tumbling into the mirror.

"How long should I keep her here?" Mombi asked, raising her voice over the renewed screams of the prisoner.

"Forever. In the meantime, you have other duties; in the event that she arrives here, you are to signal me immediately and keep her in captivity until I arrive. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have territories of my own secure..."

As he spoke those words, the Nome army began to burrow back into the earth. Unfortunately for any prospective heroes, there were no tunnels to follow; as earth elementals, the Nomes moved through the earth without disturbing it – unless of course, they felt like it.

They left behind a city in ruins: very few buildings were left standing, and most of those were on fire anyway.

From the Emerald City, they moved on to the rest of Oz, tearing into almost every single settlement that the country had to offer. Buildings were demolished, walls were toppled, citizens were trampled to death, and acres of farmland were either excavated or burned. For this next stage of the conquest, the Nomes didn't even bother to completely emerge from the ground; so, to the terrified civilians fleeing their homes, the invading army appeared to glide eerily through the soil, destroying anything in their path – and showing particular bloodthirstiness towards chicken farms for some reason.

The armies that the Ozians did have at their disposal were rendered useless before the Nome King's magic: most of the defenders were simply petrified and ground into dust, but every so often, in the case of more resistant victims, the King would be more creative, burning them from the inside out, crushing them between thrown buildings, or pouring floods of molten metal upon them.

The slaughter was still continuing when the cloud of dust roared overhead.

Almost nobody looked up at the sky and wondered what could have caused such a dust storm - after all, they were too busy fighting, killing, or dying. Only one of them bothered to spare a glance skyward at the dustbowl, and he already knew that the witch who'd started it was right in the middle of the cloud, heading for the border.

She was exhausted now.

By now, the strain of having forced the wind to carry her for so far and so fast was beginning to weaken her. Her advanced age and the months she'd spent in the cramped and draughty confines of a diseased prison didn't help much, nor did the fact that she'd had to expend even more energy keeping the sands of the Deadly Desert from being swept into her transport as she flew across it. But she had to carry on – just for a little longer.

The dunes blurred beneath her, forming faces long forgotten; students, teachers, employers, all of them dead or running for their lives now. She ignored them: if she lost concentration now, she would almost certainly fall to her death – either dashed to bloody pieces on the rocks or dissolved by the sands themselves.

But the visions carried on, nonetheless. Had the prison food been tainted? Was she diseased and feverish? Had she gone insane at some point? Why was her mind so confounded?

"Exasperitating," she muttered to herself.

Her words were lost in the roar of the wind, along with the rest of her.

Then, from out of the chaos ahead, a house emerged. Was this another vision? Perhaps so. Maybe Nessarose would be under it.

But no, this was not the Gale house: this one was built like fortress, with reinforced walls and windows glittering with enchantments. Besides, the Gale house hadn't arrived in Oz with a garden wall surrounding it, and certainly not a garden wall studded with wrought-iron spikes.

And the woman emerging from the house was most certainly not Dorothy Gale: no, this was a completely different vision...

She just about managed a laugh before the winds finally gave out, sending her tumbling into the void of unconsciousness.

Elphaba looked from the rapidly dissipating cloud of dust to the crumpled figure it had dumped in the middle of the vegetable patch.

Five minutes ago, she'd been in her laboratory, trying to focus her crystal ball on events occurring in Oz (and failing – she was too agitated to concentrate) when she'd heard the roar of the wind, and had hurried outside just in time to see the dust cloud sweeping up from the desert towards her: in the six seconds she'd had to think before the cloud had broken apart, she'd sensed the magic barely holding it together, emerging from somewhere at the centre of it. And now, the stranger that the storm had disgorged was slumped face-down in the garden, ragged, bloodied, but obviously still breathing.

Whoever this is, Elphaba thought, it's obviously a powerful magician. The question is, does this have anything to do with my vision, and if not, why is she here?

Gingerly, she reached down and turned the body over. As she did so, the figure stirred, and awoke.

From behind a thick mask of dirt and bruises, a familiar face looked back at her with cold, imperious eyes: even without the makeup, even with most of her silvery-blonde hair turned white, there was no mistaking the face of Madame Morrible, former headmistress of Shiz University, and press secretary to the Wizard himself.

And, Elphaba thought with sudden bile, my sister's assassin.

"Well," said Morrible, "Of all the people I expected to encounterate, you were the last of them." Her voice had changed, too: where it had once been capable of swinging between doddering joviality and ice-cold menace, it had now been reduced to little more than hoarse whispers and crone-like rasping. "Does that mean that I died in the landing?"

"No," said Elphaba, barely managing to keep her voice steady. "You're very much alive."

"As are you. Assumerating I'm not imagining you, I'd be very interested to know how you survived the melting. If you were melted at all," she added sharply.

Elphaba ignored her: she might have already been quivering with rage, but she wasn't prepared to let the old witch provoke her so easily. "Why have you come here?"

"You mean you couldn't make an educated guess from the state of my clothes?" Morrible laughed – and was almost immediately cut off by a sudden spell of coughing. "Come now, Miss Elphaba, you've been taught far better than that. Shortly after your friend Glinda took power, she had me imprisoned for numerous offences, and for the past year, I've been languishiating in the securest of Emerald City's prisons."

In spite of herself, Elphaba found herself smiling.

Morrible noticed: "Ah, now there's the Elphaba I remember," she mused nostalgically. "But before you get too happy, you're probably wondering how I came to be here."

"Well, I certainly didn't think you were given early parole for good behaviour, and I doubt very much that Glinda offered a royal pardon for your crimes – there are things even she can't forgive."

"True, but I doubt a pardon from Glinda would mean anything; she's no longer in power."

"So F- the Scarecrow's been declared king, has he?"

Come on, Elphaba, pay attention; just because you're worried about him doesn't mean you're going to give every little secret away.

Morrible was now eyeing her with thinly veiled suspicion. "I wonder how you came to know anything of that, my dear. Exactly how long have you been living in this wilderness?"

"That's none of your business, Morrible."

"And why not? As your teacher and mentor, I at least retainify the right to know a little about your new life."

"You gave up that right after you publicly denounced me as a traitor," Elphaba snapped, her self-control briefly failing her. "Not to mention when you joined the Wizard in lying to the people of Oz about everything, and when you turned a blind eye to what the Wizard's "specialists" did to Doctor Dillamond! And- how could I forget this- when you murdered my sister!" She was all but shrieking with rage by now, her eyes shining with tears. "And those troops you sent after me on that same day- do you know what they did to Fiyero?"

"Still holding old grudges, I see," said Morrible impassively. "But it seems as though most of them would be better directed at the Wizard; after all, wasn't it he that signed the order to have the good doctor fired and re-educated to begin with? Wasn't he the one who gave me the order to have you branded as a traitor? Wasn't-"

"DON'T TRY TO DISTRACT ME!" Elphaba screamed. "I know exactly what he's responsible for, Morrible – I spent years trying to bring him down for it."

"Oh, poor, naive Elphaba," Morrible purred. "If you only knew how much the Wizard was responsible for, you would have shot his balloon out of the sky as he left Oz. You see, he is responsible for the catastrophication which allowed me to escape."

"What are you talking about?"

Morrible took a deep breath, coughed loudly for ten seconds, and explained:

"The Scarecrow is no longer in power; as a matter of fact, the Emerald City is now in the hands of hostile forces bent on conquering all of Oz. Its inhabitants have been petrified. The Scarecrow has been taken as a prisoner of war; the Grimmerie has been seized as a prize; and your dear friend Glinda has been imprisoned for gods only know what horrible purposes the enemy has in mind. And," she added with a grunt of pain, "I think I may have broken something in the fall."

She attempted to stand up, and promptly let out a piercing shriek. "Yes, I think it's both my legs," she mumbled helpfully, and passed out.

It took ten minutes to drag Madame Morrible inside, lie her down on a couch, and see to her wounds.

Fortunately, though her legs were broken in several places, she hadn't ended up with any shards of bone tearing through her flesh, and the diagnostic spells couldn't detect any internal injuries - or at least, nothing that could have been caused by the fall and nothing immediately fatal. However, she wasn't in the best of health, either: months in prison hadn't done her any favours, and the strain of travelling by dust storm had weakened her even further. Disease, damp, poor nutrition, stress, and sheer magical exertion had all done their part in undermining Morrible's constitution, and her lungs had took the brunt of it.

But as the ex-press secretary settled deeper into unconsciousness, Elphaba pondered what she had just been told. Had Morrible been telling the truth? What did she have to gain by lying? Was the Emerald City really in ruins? She tried to put the question out of her mind until she could properly interrogate Morrible, but it still wheedled and nudged at her mind until she eventually stormed back into her laboratory and turned the crystal ball in the general direction of the Emerald City.

Not expecting a response, she let out a strangled gasp of horror as the static rapidly cleared from the surface of the crystal ball, revealing the blazing ruins of a city that had once been known for its emeralds and prosperity. As she watched in disbelief, the ethereal eye of the crystal ball roamed aimlessly across the wreckage, giving Elphaba an unwanted view of every act of destruction that had been committed against the once-great city: the monuments had been toppled spectacularly, and the statues had been defaced; residential areas were aflame, as were the residents themselves, flooding the night sky with smoke and bathing the skeletal remnants of buildings in a hellish orange glow; and in every street, there were the petrified figures of the citizens, some frozen in the act of trying to flee, some of them trying to hide under what little shelter they could find...

And in all the ruins, there was no sign of Fiyero or Glinda.

For several minutes, Elphaba sat there, feeling as though someone had just disembowelled her with a shovel. To her disbelief, she couldn't even cry over the destruction - she could only gape in horror at the ruins of the Emerald City, and wonder, could I have done something to help? Is this my fault for not investigating my vision? What are they going to do with Fiyero and Glinda? Who's "they" anyway?

There was a loud wheezing from nearby, and Elphaba, still reeling with shock, hurried back into the sitting room to find Madame Morrible coughing herself awake.

"For someone who's supposed to be dead," she croaked, once the coughing had subsided, "You've managed to make quite a comfortable home for yourself out here."

"It wasn't easy," Elphaba said quietly.

"No doubt it was easier after you faked your death. I wonder, did you merely exploit the rumour about water being your only weakness, or did you start the rumour yourself?"

"Don't give me too much credit: I had help."

"Oh, old teachers can never give their star pupils enough credit, Elphaba, even if they've casually disregarded a promising career in the service of a generous employer. Twice."

Elphaba said nothing. She wanted to tell Morrible to shut up, to demand information on the invasion, to howl bitter recriminations as to how this was all her fault. But in the end, she didn't even have the heart left to do that.

"Supposing you had accepted the Wizard's second offer," Morrible continued, "even in the face of Doctor Dillamond's degenerification; what do you imagine would have happened next? Or better still, what if you'd agreed to the first offer, even knowing that the Wizard was and always had been a fraud and a perpetrator of offences against Animals? What then? Would you have tried to change the system from the inside, or would you have just assassinated the Wizard and taken his place?"

"Is this going somewhere, Madame Morrible, or are you just delirious?"

Morrible chuckled heartily and coughed for thirty seconds before answering: "Everyone gives into temptation sooner or later. From what he told me, the Wizard took the chance to take power the moment it appeared. I jumped at the chance for higher office as soon as it was offered to me. Glinda was delayed by your escape from the palace, but she eventually accepted. As for you, you either refused, or backed out of the deal when you realized that you couldn't live with the results... but sooner or later, somebody will make you an offer you won't even think of refusing. One day, you'll accept corruption."

Was that despair in her voice?

Elphaba took a deep breath. This was no time for reflection; she needed to find out what happened to Fiyero and Glinda, and fast. "I've seen the Emerald City, Morrible," she said flatly.

"Ah. Terrible, wasn't it?"

"From what my crystal ball could see, yes. But who was it that invaded? You told me that the Wizard was responsible for the invasion, but how?"

Now it was Morrible's turn to take a deep breath, mixed with the chopping-wood sounds of her coughing. "Did you ever wonder where the Emerald City got its emeralds? It's a secret known only to the most important of the Wizard's advisors, and the exceedingly well-paid miners that were sent to collect them. Of course, if it were simple as mining, there wouldn't be much a problem. No, the origins of this disaster are far more diplomaticatory in nature. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Nomes?"

Elphaba shook her head.

"They're earth elementals, you see; beyond that, there's not much to talk about: hierarchical society led by a King, great cultural value given to magical power, gemstones, emotions, that sort of thing. Oz hadn't had all that much contact within them before the Wizard arrived in Oz: their Kingdom lies far beyond any of Oz's borders, and most of the time, they simply live within rock and soil; going about whatever mysterious business they go about beneath the earth... Then, one day, not too long after the Wizard had taken power, they decided to send in an ambassador to negotiate alliances and trade."

"And the Wizard put on his usual show of smoke and mirrors, right?" said Elphaba, smothering a newfound wellspring of hatred for the Wizard.

"Of course, though it did take a bit effort on the part of the actual magicians in the Wizard's employ to make the illusion convincicating. One way or the other, the Nomes ended up getting the least out of the deal: in exchange for permission to travel freely through Oz, the Wizard requested access to some of their most valuable mining territories. There was much complaining from the Nomes, but eventually their King allowed Ozian miners into their dominions, from which were taken the very emeralds that decorated the walls of the Emerald City up until tonight. And apart from the few disputes over old debts - some of which I observed personally - they remained very quiet about the whole situation."

Morrible sighed deeply. "This evening, Oz was attacked by an army of Nomes; either they finally realised that they'd been fooled, or they discovered that the Wizard was no longer in power. But then, I suspect that they've had a change of leadership as well- the old king was never brave enough to take to the battlefield himself..." She began coughing again, and when it finally subsided, there was a particularly ragged edge to her breathing

"But what about Glinda and the Scarecrow?" Elphaba demanded impatiently. "Where would they have been taken?"

"Those," Morrible wheezed, "are questions which you're going to have to answer yourself. I'd imagine they'd have been taken to the Nome Dominions, but there's no way to be certain unless you investigate the ruins and examine what little evidence they left behind... and maybe interrogate Mombi, but I wouldn't recommend it..."

"Who's Mombi?"

"As of tonight, she's the only surviving human being in the Emerald City, and the Nome King's watchdog. Gods only know what she's watching out for-"

Morrible suddenly began coughing again, and as she hurriedly pressed a ragged lace handkerchief over her mouth, Elphaba saw a distinctive red stain blooming across its surface. As Elphaba looked from the bloodied lace to Morrible's bloodshot eyes, the coughing fell silent long enough for Morrible to continue speaking:

"There is another thing you need to know: if you do choose to question Mombi, you need to keep in mind that she is yet another graduate of my magic class."

Elphaba's brow wrinkled. "Is that supposed to mean anything to me?" she asked sarcastically. "Just because this Mombi was one of your former students doesn't automatically mean she's the most dangerous witch in Oz. I mean, just how powerful is she?"

"She was a capable enough student, and above average in magical strength. But the problem is, she was always… obsessivitory. Ill-tempered. Power-hungry. Unstable. She kept getting in trouble for starting fist-fights with fellow students, and I had to caution her more than once for trying to modify her face through magic… and her interests took a darker turn as she progressified through my class. Legends of living skin masks and youth elixirs brewed from fresh blood, that sort of thing. Once she graduated, she vanished from the legitimate world for over a decade; as a qualified witch, she would have been eligible for all kinds of profitable work, but no record of her could be found in any of the government archives I had access to. I didn't see her again until a month or so before the Wizard left Oz... and she told me that she'd somehow managed to invent a new magical technique – keeping human organs alive even after they'd been amputatiated."

"Did she tell you why?"

"No, and quite frankly, I didn't want to know. I remembered her morbid obsessions all too well and I didn’t want to lose my appetite, so I asked no questions. But I did see her again after the Emerald City had fallen. She was collecting the heads of petrified citizens, restoring them to normality – with the Nome King's permission, no doubt – and then preserving them with the spell."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'd rather that my star pupil didn't end up decapitated and left to fill some space on that madwoman's shelf for the rest of eternity!" Morrible hissed urgently. "So, in the event that you choose to risk a battle with Mombi, do not let yourself be captured alive! Kill yourself first-"

Her warning promptly dissolved into another violent coughing fit, and this time she didn't raise the handkerchief to her mouth in time to catch the small clouds of blood she was expectorating. With blood pouring from her mouth and her lungs sounding as though they were about to collapse, Morrible did the only thing she could possibly do under the circumstances.

She passed out.

Chapter 7: Parting Words

Summary:

An old tutor bids farewell, and a quest begins...

Chapter Text

By the time Morrible awoke, Elphaba had just about laid waste to her own laboratory in a feverish search for anything that could be useful in her search for Fiyero and Glinda, and exhausted her limited repertoire of healing spells in trying to stop Morrible from deteriorating any further.

While the first had resulted in a satchel of homemade magical artefacts that ranged from the purely destructive to the broadly useful, all she'd ended up doing in the latter was delaying the ex-press secretary's encroaching death by a few hours – at the most. And worse still, Elphaba wasn't quite sure why she was going out of her way to try and save the woman's life.

She pondered this as she rummaged anxiously through her satchel, occasionally glancing at the worn figure of Morrible on the couch.

Why am I even keeping her around? She asked herself. It's not as if I owe her my life or anything. It's not as if she'd ever done a single decent thing in her life after she started working for the Wizard. It's not as if she actually did a thing to stop these Nomes while they were laying waste to the Emerald City. It's not as if...

It's not as if she took you under her wing and taught you how to control your magic, a nasty little voice remarked inside her head. It's not as if she was the first person in Oz who valued your talents, who encouraged you, who even attempted to help you.

And while she was doing that, the only thing on her mind was presenting me to the Wizard as his personal servant, Elphaba sniped back. You could not have made that anymore obvious without having me gift-wrapped beforehand.

Is that why she was kind enough to accept your request to allow Glinda into the course? Is that why she overlooked you disrupting the history class on the day that Doctor Dillamond was replaced?

Another violent burst of coughing from the couch interrupted her musings. Turning around, she found that Morrible, still in the middle of wheezing blood onto her handkerchief, was looking intently at the satchel Elphaba was wearing.

"So," she said, once the coughing had subsided, "You really are going to try and save the King and your friend. I wouldn't expect to be given a royal pardon or a parade thrown in your honour if I were you."

"And I'm not," Elphaba snapped. "This is about rescuing people I care about, not about trying to gain acceptance from Oz or anything like that."

"Just as well then," said Morrible, "Because there's hardly any people left in Oz to gain acceptance from. The citizens of the Emerald City have all been petrified. The Nome army moves among the towns of Oz, scattering the people far and wide, and killing all who stand in their King's path... whatever path that may be..."

Her eyelids fluttered, and she gave herself a shake, as if to clear her head.

Elphaba paused in the middle of adjusting the cloak on her shoulders. "Hang on a minute – I heard what you told me just a few minutes ago: you said that all the Nomes wanted was revenge against Oz for stealing their emeralds. What else could they possibly want? Territory? Mineral deposits? What?"

"The Nomes wanted revenge, yes," Morrible mumbled, her voice wavering. "They would have wanted the emeralds returned to them; they would have wanted revenge against Oz; they would have wanted the opportunity to punish the Wizard, or his successciator. They have everything they could possibly want on this night... so the question is, what does their King want? I heard them talking among themselves... the King ordered them to find the Grimmerie... and to take Glinda with them even after she caused them so much trouble. Why?"

"Like you said," Elphaba sighed, "Those are questions I'm going to have to answer myself."

"There's one question you can answer right now, however."

"What's that?"

"Why do you care so much about the Scarecrow? Since when do you count him as one of your friends?"

For a moment, Elphaba was torn between the need to keep the secret, and the inexplicable urge to indulge the dying teacher's wishes. However, a bit of applied logic made her realise that, what with Oz having been apparently driven into the ground, Fiyero being deposed, and the only witness sure to die in a few short hours, it might not be all too unreasonable to answer Morrible's question.

"Since we were at Shiz together," she replied. "More specifically, ever since a certain aborted history class: he helped me carry a tortured lion cub out of the class, and he set it free."

Morrible's face wrinkled in confusion, and Elphaba added, "You bumped into me a few minutes later with that acceptance letter from the Wizard, remember?"

Morrible's eyes lit up, and she began to laugh. "Prince Fiyero," she cackled, "Captain of the Guard! And the guards told me that he'd been executed for trying to help you escape – you must have intervenified... with the Grimmerie! My, how that tome can confuse things!"

"It was a spell to protect him from the torture," Elphaba explained, the details all but pouring out of her mouth. "I enchanted him against pain, against his bones breaking, his blood flowing, even against death... but I didn't even realise it had worked until I got a letter from the Scarecrow explaining everything. And that was when I organised the plan to fake my death and..."

Morrible shrieked with laughter – and was immediately interrupted by another blood-coughing fit. "You know," she rasped, "For someone who disapprovated of trickery and lies, you're quite adept at it."

"You do wonders for my self esteem," said Elphaba through gritted teeth. "You know that, don't you? For your information, I'd pretty much exhausted every single option available to me at the time: keeping up with my attempts to kill Dorothy and the others wouldn't have solved anything, and I've never been enough of a people person to talk down a psychotic tin man. Trickery was the only way out I had, and I know how much it hurt Glinda to have to watch my faked death, so don't presume to lecture me on the similarities between me and the Wizard."

Silence followed, and Morrible smiled mysteriously.

"And another thing," Elphaba continued, "I don't care if I have to destroy every single lie that allowed me and Fiyero to live out here in the process, but I'm going to save him and Glinda – even if I can only save them out of all the citizens of Oz, I will save them."

Morrible's smile widened. "Never forget that little vow, Elphaba," she said softly. "Hold onto your resolve, and you might actually succeed." She coughed up more blood into her handkerchief. "Good grief, how long have I been talking? I must be one of the noisiest corpses in existence."

There was an embarrassed pause.

"Well?" said Morrible. "Aren't you actually planning on carrying out that daring rescue at some point in the near future?"

"What, you just want me to leave you here?"

"Why not? It's not as if you'd actually be coercified into dragging along a dying old woman, especially one that you despise as much as me."

Elphaba foundered. "But... but you'd die here alone. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It does indeed: it means that I won't be a burden on your limited resources, and it means that my star pupil has the speed to accomplish her goal. Besides, you forget that I spent many years as one of the least popular headmistresses at Shiz, and several more as the Wizard's chief lackey; I am more than accustomed to being alone in both the figuratory and the literary sense. Besides, it's not as if you care about what happens to me, is it?"

"Of course not! Why would I care?"

"Then be on your way."

She should have moved at that point: as Morrible said, it wasn't as if Elphaba actually cared enough about her to stay by her side.

But against her own urge to run, to take her broomstick from the laboratory and fly for the Emerald City, she stayed – just long enough to assuage her curiosity.

"One last question: when you found out that Dorothy had killed me, what was your first coherent emotion?"

For the first time, Morrible's smile looked a touch melancholy. "Regret," she whispered.

"What?"

"Over the waste of such a unique talent," Morrible said quickly. "I'd never tutored a student of such power before, never seen someone who could manipulate magic by instinct alone, never even imagined that someone would be able to deciphericate the spells of the Grimmerie by intuition alone. And the thought of that glorious talent wasted on performing cheap transformations for people who'd never appreciate your power..." She sighed. "I was upset. Not upset as the Wizard, though."

The Wizard was upset? Elphaba asked herself. Why?

"Do you remember what I told you about corruption?" Morrible continued. "Sooner or later, everyone opts to take the easy way out; sooner or later, you'll be given the offer to compromise your principles in exchange for everything you've ever desired. Somehow, I doubt Mombi will make that offer – she's even less inclinated towards friendly conversation than you. But perhaps the Nome King shall..."

She sighed.

"I do have one last request before you go."

"What's that?"

"I'd like to be seated in the garden: if I can enjoy nothing else about my escape from prison, I want to see if I can stay alive long enough to enjoy the sunrise..."

Chapter 8: Captivity And Corruption

Summary:

An offer too tempting to refuse is made...

Chapter Text

After what felt like an eternity, Glinda awoke to find herself lying on a fairly soft mattress, staring into the kind of darkness only produced by a room without windows.

For a while, she entertained the delusion that somehow, this really was just her room back in the palace but with heavy curtains draped across all the windows and doors; for a while, she tried to convince herself that the disastrous events of the previous evening hadn't taken place.

Unfortunately, as soon as her hand touched the wall next to her and felt the rough-hewn stone wall, it quickly became apparent that she wasn't awakening in her palatial bedchamber, but in an underground jail cell. Immediately, all her misery and despair at failing her duties as a protector came flooding back, along with the same inevitable line of thought; I'm sorry, Elphaba. Even now that you're dead, I can't stop failing you in every way.

Glinda shook her head and tried to think on anything but her failure – most prominently, what might have become of Fiyero and the others, and what the Nomes were doing to the Emerald City and to Oz.

Eventually, she decided to focus on her surroundings, which she couldn't see. So, she reached out… and quickly found that the mattress, though reasonably comfortable, was bare except for a single ragged bedsheet. Groaning, she sat up in bed, and found, as she stretched, that the mattress had been placed in a small alcove set right into one of the walls; at least I'm not sleeping on the floor, she thought dryly.

Gathering her strength, she tried to conjure a light… only for the magic to flicker away before she could cast the spell.

Muttering in disbelief, she tried again, this time with a spell to construct a handheld sphere of fire. That didn't work either. This, coupled with the fact that her wand was nowhere in sight, awarded Glinda with the impression that her captor might be preventing her from using magic.

…leaving me struggling to find my way around in total darkness. Wonderful…

Against her own fear of the dark, she stood up and began to feel her way across the wall towards the far end of the cell.

Hopefully, this'll lead me to the exit. Trouble is, where are the lights in this room? How am I supposed to see where I'm g-

Glinda's left knee slammed into a protrusion of rock jutting from the wall beside her. Hissing a skin-searing expletive, she continued hobbling along for the next thirty seconds, occasionally scraping her legs against the wall as she limped. Then her hands struck the far end of the cell – a blank wall.

Quickly, she felt the wall for doors, then the next wall, and the next. Eventually, she was forced to assume that the cell really didn't have any kind of entrance; trying not to lose her temper, she staggered back towards her bed and lay down on it, swearing quietly and massaging her kneecap.

Okay, Glinda, stay nice and calm. Just because they put you in a cell without entrances or exits doesn't mean they're going to leave you here to rot. If the Nome King had wanted you dead, he'd have done that back in the Emerald City. Just relax…

By way of automatic response, Glinda's imagination helpfully supplied her with an image of her own emaciated corpse, lying in a contorted heap on the blood-streaked mattress, clutching the half-eaten remains of her own wrist.

And in a matter of minutes, she found herself standing in the middle of the room, shouting "HELLO? IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?"

Unexpectedly, someone answered with a toneless drone of "Yes," seemingly from the wall directly in front of her.

"Who are you?"

"I am your designated attendant for the duration of your sentence here."

Glinda took a deep breath. "Right. Um, where's "here" exactly?"

"You are presently in the dungeons of the Palace of Nomekind, recently constructed by His Majesty the King in celebration of his victory over the beings of flesh."

Glinda took an even deeper breath. "You haven't actually answered my question: where exactly is this palace supposed to be?"

"Beneath the Nome King's Mountain, within the Dominions of the Nomes."

"You aren't going to be more specific than that even if I ask, are you?"

"No. I have been ordered not to clarify my statements on the matter of certain predetermined subjects, so as to ensure the maximum security of this prison cell."

"Does that mean you can't tell me why I've been brought here, how long I'm going to be kept here, or why the Nomes invaded Oz?"

"This is so."

Glinda sighed deeply. Brilliant, she thought, the nearest thing to a companion I have here is bound by a decree of unhelpfulness. This is going to be even worse than an evening indoors with the Emerald City Bureaucratic Union.

"Well," she said eventually, "On the subject of things that you can do, can you get some light in here? This place is starting to feel like a tomb."

"As you wish," intoned the attendant.

There was a low whirring from the walls, and suddenly the room was bathed in pale grey light that poured out of no discernable source- except, of course, for magic. Glinda was halfway through taking in the craggy rock walls of her cell, the roughly-carved sleeping alcove, the smooth stone floor, when she suddenly realised that she wasn't alone.

On the far wall of the cell, the stone face of a Nome protruded, watching Glinda closely but expressionlessly: its features were human, for the most part; they weren't remarkably attractive, but they weren't noticeably ugly, either. Everything about this face, from its hairless scalp to its expressionless lips, was plain and undistinctive, as if whoever had carved it had wanted it to be unobtrusive to the point of boredom. This face could only belong to her "attendant."

"Do you have any further requests?" it inquired.

Glinda thought for a moment: what could she ask a stone face in the wall of a prison cell? Would it actually answer any of her questions? As she pondered this, she realised that she was feeling hungry, which made a certain degree of sense, considering that she'd spent the last few hours running around, fighting for her life, panicking, and getting knocked unconscious.

"Could I have some breakfast, please?" she asked, hesitantly.

The attendant nodded; then, it turned it head as if to look over its shoulder (not that it had any shoulders), and somehow disappeared back into the wall, leaving behind only a blank patch of wall.

Several minutes later, the attendant's face reappeared in the wall, followed swiftly by a pair of newly-grown arms holding a tray: breakfast consisted of a few slices of buttered toast, and a tin cup of water.

"Enjoy," said the attendant.

"Thank you," said Glinda, suddenly remembering her manners.

She was a little bit hesitant to eat, at first – after all, prisoners of war weren't generally treated this well, were they? But then again, if the Nomes had wanted her dead, they’d have done so as soon as their King had defeated her instead of wasting time with poisoning her breakfast; eventually, hunger got the better of her, and she began attacking the toast with ravenous abandon.

"By the way," she added, as she wolfed down her third slice of toast, "When I asked who you were, you never told me your name."

"This is true."

"Well, could you-"

"I am not permitted to inform you of details that do not exist," said the attendant.

Glinda blinked. "You mean you don't have a name?"

"This is so."

"But why?"

"I have not attained the Privilege of a name yet," said the attendant simply.

Noticing Glinda's bewildered expression, it clarified: "I am only a lowly servant and can only achieve the Privileges of Identity through achieving higher rank, through diligence and loyalty to my masters. In time, I may acquire a name... but beyond that, I cannot tell what I may achieve."

Oh gods, Glinda thought. It really is too early in the morning for this many complicatory concepts... assuming, of course, it is morning. What the hell- if it distracts me from going completely insane from grief and claustrophobia, I'll listen to it...

Out loud, she sat down heavily on the bed, sipped at her cup of water, and asked, "Apart from a name, what exactly are these Privileges of Identity?"

"Emotions; the capacity for growth of personality; varying levels of imaginative ability; intuition; independent thought... there are many. I am unlikely to attain many."

Oh brilliant. We've been conquered by a race that considers things like names and emotions to be a fringe benefit of promotion. Now I know for a fact that I'm dreaming. I'm back in Shiz, mumbling in my sleep and waiting for Elphaba to wake me up for the morning exam.

Glinda cringed, forcing herself to focus on the present.

"You said that emotions were among the privileges," she said hesitantly. "Is that why the soldiers that attacked the Emerald City were so... toneless?"

"Not entirely: our infantry are not given emotions, but they are given a minor Privilege in the form of the instinct to fight and kill. Should they perform their duties admirably, they will be rewarded with an emotion – usually anger or hatred; should they continue to perform their work with excellence, they will be promoted further, receiving more emotions as they-"

"I think I understand, now," Glinda interjected. "Thank you very much. There's just one more thing I'd like to know: where does the Nome King come into all this Privileges of Emotion business?"

As if in answer, there came the deafening clamour of stone grinding against stone from somewhere very nearby, and the sound of Nome voices shouting, "All Hail His Majesty the King!" all of it drawing steadily closer…

Then, as the attendant quietly withdrew, a figure began to form in the wall to Glinda's left. His form had been altered and shrunk down just enough to fit inside the cell, but still undoubtedly the Nome King.

Now that they were under a much more efficient light source, the King's features were easier to discern than they had been in the shadows of the square: the heavy brow, the intelligent stone eyes, the angular shape of the face, the long but well-carved beard, and above all, the smile. There was something remarkably mischievous about the way the King smiled, for his eyes appeared to glitter like quartz crystals and his teeth gleamed in the as if they were made of silver ingots.

"Ah, Miss Glinda," he purred. "I trust you're not finding your accommodations too squalid."

"Let me guess," said Glinda, barely managing to keep her voice below a shout, "if I say that they're to my liking, you'll take away the mattress or something, and if I say that they're uncomfortable, you'll make them even worse."

The Nome King chuckled softly, and waved a hand. Glinda flinched, only to realise that the bolt of lightning that she'd been expecting hadn't struck her. Instead, a silver chair and table had risen from the floor: the table was laden with several platters of unfamiliar-looking foods, along with three large pewter goblets filled with a warm, bubbling liquid.

"What is this all about?"

"I am told that it was the custom of Ozian businessmen to share a meal with their future business partners."

This time, Glinda couldn't stop herself from shouting: "Business partners?" she shrieked. "Business partners?! You just spent the better part of last night destroying the Emerald City, killing or petrifying its citizens in the process, stopped just short of killing me, AND NOW YOU HAVE THE GALL TO SUGGEST GOING INTO BUSINESS WITH ME?"

"I never said you had to accept my offer, Glinda," said the King, gently. "All I ask is that you listen to it, and if you don't find it to your liking, I'll leave you in peace. You don't have to actually like me for us to come to an agreement, do you?"

"...No," Glinda admitted grudgingly.

"Good, good. And don't look so bitter – have a drink, have something to eat. The pies are most suitable for humans, I am told."

Temporarily swallowing her anger, Glinda reached down towards the nearest platter, picked up one of the small pies, and took a bite. To her surprise it actually tasted rather pleasant, if a little bit on the crunchy side.

As she reached for another one, she found herself asking, "Why did you have to attack the Emerald City in the first place, anyway?"

"Do you really need to know that now? It'll do you no good to operate under all this stress and frustration, you know."

"Indulgify me a minute; it's pretty obvious that you took the Grimmerie for its magical power – pretty much the exact reason why anyone would take the Grimmerie – but when your soldiers were first set loose in the Emerald City, I saw them stealing the emeralds from the buildings. Why were they so important? Why invade Oz for them?"

"As a service to my people," he replied; the warmth was gone from his voice now. “Once upon a time, our finest crop of emeralds was demanded as tribute by the Wizard. Taken in by the illusion of power, my predecessor obliged him, and so a priceless mountain of gemstones polished by magic itself was lost forever to Oz’s vanity and greed. For years, my people longed to see our cultural treasures returned to us and the Ozians punished for their avarice. Now, under my guidance, they have taken all due revenge: the human cities have been made to suffer, their king has been brought here to face the judgement of the War Council."

"But the Scarecrow wasn't responsible for anything the Wizard did!"

"I'm afraid that in the absence of the Wizard, my people are forced to take out their frustrations on a suitable scapegoat. Those of them capable of frustration, anyway. It's doubtful that the War Council will have the time to decide what to do with him, considering they're all busy conducting mop-up operations across Oz, so I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."

"So, the question is, what do you want with me?" Glinda asked, unable to keep the apprehension out of her voice.

The King smiled benignly. "What I want may not be as bad as you think. In fact, it quite neatly coincides with you want."

"No offence," Glinda sneered, meaning every bit of offence she delivered, "But what could you possibly know about what I want?"

"The same could be said of you, my dear."

"Answer the question," she snapped, biting savagely into another of the pies, briefly fantasizing that she was biting the Nome King's head off.

The Nome King laughed. "Glinda, I want you to picture, if you will, a network of Nome spies spread across Oz, watching the merchants’ carts rumbling down the Yellow Brick Road, listening to the words spoken by haughty nobles in their luxurious mansions. Can you grasp the implications?"

Glinda could; in fact, she could already feel the blood draining from her face as she let her imagination run wild.

"And… how long have you been doing this?" she asked, as the half-eaten pie dropped from her hand and fell to the floor.

"Many years, now... oh, my predecessors weren't above sending the odd spy to far-off lands to listen at the base of some castle for diplomatic gossip, but I was the first to send the spies out en mass, to organise them into an information-gathering force that covered all of Oz. And there was a great deal of information to gather and catalogue. For example, "Ooh, the artichoke is steamed!" and other sly put-downs by Galinda Upland, young socialite."

Glinda's face flushed as she heard her own words repeated in exactly the same tone of voice she had used on the first day of university. She wasn't proud of those days, most of which had been spent surrounded by sympathetic hangers-on and giggling her way through schoolwork; she was even less proud of her treatment of Elphaba in those days. In hindsight, it seemed that she’d never really developed a social conscience until she'd taken a good look at Elphaba's face at the Ozdust ballroom: standing there in her black dress and pointed hat, with almost the entire student body gawping at her, her expression hadn't been one of anger, hurt or confusion- but resignation, as if to say "Oh well, I should have expected something like this."

And after that inexplicable little dance they'd danced? Well, slowly but surely, the old "friendships" began to lose their appeal; slowly but surely, with a bit of encouragement from Elphaba, the homework began to seem a touch less difficult; slowly but surely, Animal Rights became a touch more important to her than before. And then, before she knew it, she was standing outside the gates of the Wizard's Palace, hand in hand with Elphaba, and a guard was booming "the Wizard will see you now!"

But you didn't change fast enough, she thought bitterly. If you did, you would have supported her when she came up with the idea of rebelling.

The Nome King, noticing her stricken expression, continued in a far gentler tone of voice. "For years, I studied the reports for events in Oz that we could benefit from – booms in the market, rebellious Animal activity, clients willing to pay for our clandestine services, that sort of thing. However, our spies would occasionally bring me word of you and Elphaba: it wasn't until I discovered that your friend had escaped the Emerald City with the Grimmerie that I started paying attention. Intrigued, I followed that little story until Kiamo Ko, the day you heard that your beloved Fiyero had died, the day you saw Elphaba melt... and the day that the Grimmerie passed to you. And you see, I believe I have a very good idea of what you desire more than anything else in the world."

"What's the point?" snapped Glinda, her voice hoarse. "You couldn't possibly make my wish come true."

"Couldn't I? In that case, just for the sake of argument, supposing I could send you back in time, where exactly would you want to be sent?"

"Are you toying with me again?"

"I'm trying to get down to business, Glinda. Now, if I could send you back to a point in time where you might be able to prevent Fiyero and Elphaba's untimely deaths, where would you go? Would you travel to sometime as recent as your little squabble in Munchkinland, or as early as the day you first met? Or perhaps somewhere more pivotal to your futures, like-"

"The attic," said Glinda quietly. "The attic of the Wizard's palace.”

“Go on.”

“That was the point that decided everything, in the end – the one point where I could have made some kind of difference and I didn't. And believe me, I've had enough time to imagine what would have happened if I'd decided to help Elphaba, instead of staying behind as a figurehead – as a mouthpiece for every stupid, vacuous uplifting speech the Wizard wanted the people to hear. In the earlier days, I even tried to justificate my decision, told myself that I'd be giving up a good career, that I wouldn't know what would happen to me if I'd decided to go with her, that I would have just slowed her down, that ..."

She stopped, tears streaming quietly down her face. Then, she took a deep breath, and continued: "All I'd need to do was get on the broomstick with Elphaba: I didn't. And because of that, because of me, the Wizard had an even more convincicating figurehead to control the people of Oz with; because of me, Nessarose was murdered; because of me, Fiyero was tortured and killed; and because of me, Elphaba was melted. So, you have your answer. What was your point?"

"I thought it was quite simple: I have the power to send you back in time, to give you that second chance you've been longing for."

"And how would you do that?"

The Nome King told her.

Glinda's jaw dropped.

"B-but... how did... I thought that th... How can they-"

"Their creator was something of an overachiever when it came to enchantments... but then again, you already knew that."

"But how did you even find them? I thought that-"

"They fell out of the sky, Glinda: everything with the potential to bring great change seems to fall out of the sky these days."

"So you can use them to send me back in time?"

The King laughed. "Glinda," he chuckled triumphantly, "There is absolutely nothing these artefacts can't do. With so much pure magical force contained within, their versatility, their sheer power is... well, unlimited. Just like their creator, really."

"She didn't think so, towards the end," said Glinda sadly.

"Well then, it's up to you to make sure doubt never enters her mind, isn't it?"

There was a pause, as Glinda grappled with her own desire. "You told me that we were here to discuss business," she said eventually. "Just for the sake of argument, what would I have to do for you in return?"

Her mind immediately conjured up every possible humiliation and torture that the Nome King could possibly inflict on her, followed swiftly by the horrible things he could make her do to the citizens of Oz; and then of course, a vision of herself soaked to the skin in blood and guts, wand in hand, assaulting a small cluster of chained prisoners with agonising blasts of energy as the Nome King applauded deafeningly on the fiery horizon.

Being prepared for the worst, she was understandably surprised when the King said, "Nothing, if all goes well. However, if things go awry, I'll need your help with a matter involving the Grimmerie."

"And what do you want to do with it?"

The Nome King explained; it took several minutes, and by the end of it, Glinda was even more bewildered than before.

"You're serious?" she said incredulously.

"Absolutely."

"But I haven't even managed to get that far in studying the Grimmerie!"

"Relax: you'll have all the time in the world... and better accommodations to study in. One of the luxury guest rooms, I should think. There, you will be given use of your magic again- under strict observation, of course- along with all the resources you will require. How does that sound?"

Glinda said nothing.

"It's a simple choice, Glinda: if my offer doesn't appeal to you, you can stay in captivity until the War Council finally decide what to do with you. I doubt that they'll have an execution in mind, so at the worst you'll face a life sentence, and at best, you'll be released back into Oz. But to be brutally honest, I don't think there's anything left for you there. The army has been very thorough in ensuring that almost every single major settlement from the Vinkus to Munchkinland is ruined. You might want to try and eke out a living amidst the chaos... or you could accept my offer, and return to a time when Elphaba, Fiyero, and Oz could have been saved."

In that moment, Glinda wanted to be defiant: she wanted to tell him that she wasn't interested in collaborating with another dictator, that he had to be out of his mind if he thought that she'd join the services of the man who just destroyed Oz; she wanted to tell him that he was a smug, self-important scumbag with delusions of affability and that he could go stick his head in a rock-crusher. Most of all, he wanted to be like Elphaba, as she always hoped she could be when the worst came to the worst.

But she couldn't bring herself to do so. She couldn’t even speak.

"I'm not the only one waiting for your answer, Glinda. Elphaba is waiting: she wants to know if you'll join her; she has the broomstick ready, even now. Don't you want to see your friend again? Don't you want to be as brave as her, as courageous as her? Don't you want to throw away the pathetic half-life that the Wizard offers? She awaits your answer, Glinda... but she won't wait forever."

Glinda opened her mouth to tell the King to get stuffed, but what emerged was a strangled whimper of "I accept."

She wanted to hate herself for saying those words, but for once, there wasn’t a trace of self-loathing to be found. In its place, there was a warped, twisted hope – of seeing Elphaba again, of bringing down the Wizard, of stopping the invasion before it could even be thought of.

Meanwhile, the King was grinning, stone lips peeling back to reveal jagged, rocky teeth agleam with silver.

"Good, good," he purred. "I knew you would see reason. A toast!" he proclaimed suddenly, seizing his goblet. "To New Friends!"

With arms that felt as though they had been made of lead, Glinda wearily lifted her own goblet, mumbled a reply, and drank heavily. It wasn't until she'd almost finished drinking that she realised that the reply she'd mumbled was, "To Old Friends."

"Well now," said the King happily, "Why don't I escort you to your new chambers? I'm sure you'll want some time to yourself after this decision, and perhaps a bit of relaxation..."

He waved a hand, and the entire front wall of the cell thundered aside, revealing a freshly-built corridor, leading away into the darkness of the palace's lower floors. But as the "door" finished opening, there was a rumble from the remaining unoccupied wall as the attendant reappeared, shifting its whole body out of the stone as it went.

It immediately dropped to its knees before the King, and intoned, "Please forgive the intrusion, Your Majesty, but the generals of the War Council have requested that I keep the prisoner in this cell until they return."

The King eyed the attendant dubiously.

"And does the word of a general outweigh the word of the King?" he said, voice dangerously calm.

"No, Your Majesty; I merely state my duty to keep the prisoner under guard."

"Very commendable. In that case, you shall continue guarding Miss Glinda once she is relocated to the guest rooms: you are hereby promoted to the station of Bodyguard, and given the Privilege of a Name. Congratulations."

The attendant-turned-bodyguard blinked. "But what shall be my name, Your Majesty?"

The King rolled his eyes. "Perhaps Miss Glinda can decide on that. Now, you have a room to escort her to..."

As the Bodyguard ushered Glinda hurriedly down the corridor, Glinda tried, belatedly, to try and feel the slightest bit of regret over the decision she'd just made… but there was no regret, in the end. The moment she had uttered the words "I accept," she'd lost sight of that particular emotion. All she felt now was mild surprise that she'd managed to make such a decision, a colossal sense of weariness, and last but certainly not least, the familiar yearning to see Elphaba again – amplified a thousandfold now that the chance might very well be within reach.

It'll all be worth it in the end, she thought. If I can make sure she doesn't face the Wizard's forces alone, if I can stop it from ending the way it did, it'll be worth everything. Every sacrifice, every compromise, every humiliation... Elphaba is worth it.

Chapter 9: Remnants

Summary:

Elphaba explores the ruins of a once-great nation.

Chapter Text

Had there been any Ozians watching the skies above the lands of Oz in the early hours of that morning, they would have been witnesses to the return of a woman thought dead for over a year.

They would have undoubtedly been surprised at the lack of fanfare, at the mysterious absence of maniacal laughter, magical attacks, or murderous slogans written across the sky in fiery letters. And they probably would have wondered why she was frantically scanning the ground with a handheld beam of light, and what she could possibly be looking for.

Some of them might have even speculated that she was to blame for the events of the previous evening, or that she might have allied with the invaders.

But they didn't: no citizen of Oz had the time to watch the skies that morning; they were either too busy worrying about more immediate problems, or already dead.

But there were a few foreigners watching the skies that dark morning, but they had already been warned of her approach, and they were content to watch... and report.

Elphaba watched in horror as the ruined landscape unfolded beneath her, her handheld light spell piercing the early-morning darkness all too easily; even moving as fast as she was, she couldn't help but witness the devastation that the invaders had wreaked upon the country: acre after acre of farmland incinerated, wooden houses smashed to matchsticks, stone houses torn apart, machinery crushed and flattened into scrap metal. If any Ozians had survived the carnage, they'd almost certainly fled for their lives without looking back or attempting to retrieve anything from the wreckage.

Worst of all, in most of the ruined settlements that she flew over there was a large bonfire in what had once been the town square. Elphaba didn't have to catch the smell of cooking meat to realise that the Nomes had been very orderly in disposing of the bodies of anyone brave enough to try and fight them.

How many had been killed last night? Thousands? Millions? How many had escaped? Would they be organised enough to try and fight back? Would the Nomes hunt them down and destroy them?

She gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but her mind kept drifting back to the neatly-stacked corpses, all ablaze and all filling the air with the smell of burnt flesh and ashes. One in particular stuck in her memory – a vision of one man, freshly-dead from horrific burns, lying face down on the cobblestones just a few metres from the bonfire. Immediately after seeing it, her imagination had told her everything she hadn't wanted to know – that the Nomes hadn't noticed or cared that the man wasn't dead when they started burning the bodies, and that the man had lived long enough to crawl away before finally succumbing – alone and in agony...

Just as she was beginning to feel as though she was about to vomit, Elphaba finally saw something below that distracted her from the bonfires: it was the Yellow Brick Road, uprooted by what could only be the burrowing Nome army and reduced to a scattered trail of broken yellow bricks.

Broken, just like the rest of Oz.

And at the end of the road, stripped of its famous emeralds, lay the ruins of the once-great Emerald City; even though it looked far better seen from above and in the morning, even though the fires had long since died, it was still a ghastly sight- almost skeletal, as if the city was the corpse of some gigantic creature, picked clean by swarming insects and trampled by careless feet. Elphaba shuddered, and tried to clear her head of her morbid thoughts; the last thing she wanted to do was crash the broom while distracted.

But in truth, there was so much to distract her, from the merest sight of the desecrated city and the statues that its people had been reduced to, to the mysterious and curiously nerve-eroding sound of squeaking wheels that would occasionally echo from beneath its crumbling bridges and archways. And, of course, it didn't take long for her to smell the all-too distinctive melange of ashes, blood, and charred flesh.

The first time I came here, Elphaba thought, as she began descending towards one of the few streets that wasn't strewn with rubble or crowded with petrified citizens, it was because of Madame Morrible. And here I am all over again, at Morrible's behest, finding something even worse than the Wizard.

She shook her head and finally brought the broomstick to a halt on the cratered pathway.

As she clambered off, she heard the sound of squeaking wheels in the distance yet again and looked up just in time to see a vaguely humanoid figure scurrying out of sight – not walking but rolling. She remembered Madame Morrible's delirious explanation of Mombi's private army, and frowned: back in the garden, the Wheelers hadn't seemed too much of a threat, but now that she was standing in ruins of the city that they had helped conquer, the idea of a drug-crazed harlequin with wheels for hands and feet didn't seem quite as silly.

Elphaba briefly contemplated getting back on her broom and trying to find whatever tunnel that the Nomes had used to get into the city from. But she knew she wouldn't – and almost certainly couldn't – take that shortcut: she had to see what the Nomes had done to the Emerald City first. So, taking a deep breath, she began marching down the street towards the remains of the palace, all the while noticing how unnaturally loud her footsteps sounded.

With so many of the main roads blocked by crowds of petrified citizens, it didn't take her too long to start inspecting the statues closely, hoping to find some way of dispelling the petrifaction (and trying not to look too closely at the expressions of horror frozen on their faces). Unfortunately, after experimenting with numerous spells, Elphaba found that whatever curse had been placed upon the citizens, it couldn't be so easily remedied.

At that point, she would have been more than happy to get back on her broom and fly over the blocked thoroughfare, had a shape perched on one of the higher ledges of a nearby building not caught her eye: it was another petrified victim of the invasion, but curiously enough, this one hadn't been trying to flee when the spell had caught up with him; his right arm was flung outwards, as if he'd been throwing something, and his wings were...

Her mind processed the word "wings," and she suddenly recognised who and what the figure was; even at a distance, even with his features turned to marble, there was no mistaking him.

Chistery. Oh Gods, no...

Chistery, unofficial leader of the flying monkeys, stared at the ground, his face frozen in one last grimace of effort; whatever his gaze had been fixed upon was long gone, leaving only a shallow crater.

Elphaba took a tentative step towards him, and something crunched under her foot; she looked down and realised with horror that she’d just trodden on the petrified remains of one of the other flying monkeys: this one must have been in flight when the spell hit, because it had been smashed to pieces upon the paving-stones.

Horror-struck, she scanned the paving-stones around her and found the eight or nine monkeys in more or less the same condition; their last expressions – eyes open wide in shock, mouths frozen in silent screams – told Elphaba that these had been petrified in flight as well and had a chance to realise what was happening before their flesh had completely turned to stone. Scarcely able to breathe, Elphaba stared across the broken skyline, hoping to find those that had managed to land in time; it took her several minutes of alternatively looking around and running through the deserted streets, but thank goodness, there were several monkeys perched upon ledges or clinging to outcroppings like gargoyles.

At long last, she breathed again, and sat down heavily on a toppled column.

How could this have happened? She thought, her thoughts wheeling and buzzing about her head like flies. Who could have had the magical power to do... this to the population of an entire city? Do the Nomes really have this much power at hand? If they do, why haven't they used it before?

She massaged her temples: so many questions with no answers in sight.

For a time, Elphaba wandered aimlessly, her mind buzzing with thought, her senses absorbing every atrocity and feeding the information back into her brain, where it was examined, catalogued and filed away. This wasn't quite like when she'd thought that Fiyero had been tortured to death: here, there was no all-consuming rage, no heartrending sorrow, just cold, mechanical analysis. On some level, she realised that she wasn't thinking straight, that she seemed to have lost sight of her emotion, but it took almost half an hour for her to come to her senses.

When she did, she found herself standing in front of another group of petrified victims; however, as emotion and comprehension gradually filtered back into her mind, she recognised the two as the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man – AKA Boq.

They'd obviously been in the middle a battle when the petrifaction spell hit them, because the Tin Man's axe was raised high above his head, ready to strike a killing blow. However, someone had carved the word Biq into his chest some time afterwards; Elphaba frowned, recognising Glinda's familiar mangling of Boq's name. Who had defaced him, and how had this person known so much about his past? More importantly, why had this person even bothered? It wasn't as if he'd know about the graffiti or anything-

Elphaba paused: something was very different about this particular petrifaction; she could sense it in the very substance of the magic that had imprisoned him. Something about it was incomplete; she studied the petrified figure for a moment, trying to determine what it was.

And then it hit her: Boq was still conscious, and very much aware of what was going on around him.

A mixture of pity and horror filled her. Admittedly, Elphaba had always had mixed feelings about Boq: at Shiz, she'd found him an obsequious little tagalong, but she'd found grudging admiration for his persistence; she'd felt sorry for him when she found him being forced to work for Nessarose, but she'd also felt contempt for his failure to stand up to anyone – least of all his employer; and when he'd rallied the witch-hunters against her, when he'd joined Dorothy and her companions, her opinion of him had only worsened… though she knew that, directly and indirectly, she'd been responsible for his transformation.

Then again, this was something she wouldn't have wished on her worst enemy, let alone someone like Boq. She'd heard about Boq's problems with rust from Fiyero; was this anything like that? Or was it even worse? It certainly sounded as such. After all, he had to be aware of the graffiti on his chest, of the chaos and destruction that had occurred all around him the previous evening.

An idea struck her, and she began rummaging around in her bag of magical items: eventually, she found the notebook-sized spellbook, and rifled through it for a few seconds before she found the chapter she needed. Communicating with Boq on any level at this stage would be almost impossible without magic, and the means of actually doing so were still remarkably limited, but querying Boq was one of her only leads in finding where the Nomes had gone; beyond questioning the dreaded Mombi or trying to find a map of the Nome Dominions in the incinerated remains of the Emerald City's libraries, she was out of ideas.

The spellbook she'd brought out was largely comprised of minor spells created for use in times of war many centuries ago, which was probably the reason why Elphaba had found it half-buried in the dunes of the Deadly Desert. Whatever the case, though, the one she was about to use had been intended for use in questioning individuals that were conscious but incapable of speech – the mute, the mortally-wounded, and the psychically relocated.

She read the instructions carefully, laid the book open on the ground in front of her, and began to chant softly, slowly gathering her willpower and concentrating it into her breath; then, the chant finished, she exhaled into one hand, and clasped it over Boq's stone forehead.

Then, she asked, "Boq, can you hear me?"

Nothing happened; apparently, the spell was having trouble connecting with Boq's brain, which was somewhat understandable considering the state it was probably in by now.

She tried again: "Boq, if you can hear me, I'm looking for Glinda and the Scarecrow; from what little I've heard, they've been captured, and I've very little idea where they've been taken. While you were petrified, did you see or hear anything about them, or where the Nomes were going?"

Still nothing. Elphaba took a deep breath, and gave it one more try: "Boq, you need to answer me if you can: Glinda's life may depend on this!"

His despair had long since given away to curiosity... and other strange and unfamiliar feelings.

Boq had experienced many periods of rust and corrosion that had left him almost completely paralysed; these had been torturous, to say the least, but this was different. There was no sense that his body was somehow beginning to succumb to the elements, no dull whirring in limbs that yearned to move again, just stillness. It was curiously peaceful, but at the same time, just as bad as all the other times where he'd spent the days after a rainstorm frozen in mid-step.

In some ways it was worse; quite apart from the burning humiliation of having That Name burnt into his chest and being forced to listen as the Wheelers shrilled it gleefully at him, something about the petrifaction was beginning to affect his mind. Maybe it was part of whatever mistake Mombi had made; maybe it was just the normal effect of the spell on a conscious brain. Either way, his perception of time had slowed to a crawl, but at times, it would roar past him at a furious rate, so that he found himself amazed that the passing Wheelers didn't leave fiery trails in the pavement. Colours slowly dimmed in and out of existence, grey stone suddenly turning blindingly white, the vivid red and silver costumes worn by the Wheelers fading into black and grey. The low howl of the wind through the ruined buildings began to sound like a musical instrument, and sometime he would see the musician sitting upon a broken wall, piping mournfully.

Sometimes these sensations distressed him; sometimes they fascinated him; sometimes he could ignore them altogether and comfort himself with the idea that somehow, Glinda had recovered the Grimmerie and had escaped. Perhaps she was rallying the people of Oz even now, calling for them to take back the Emerald City from the invaders.

Yes, he was feeling nicely euphoric right about now.

As Boq wondered at nothing, a new hallucination appeared on the periphery of his senses: a voice, calling out "Boq, you need to answer me if you can: Glinda's life may depend on this!"

The voice sounded familiar, but then again, given the amount of voices he had heard in the past few hours (or had it been days? Weeks? Months? Years? Time made no sense anymore) it could be anyone. And how was he supposed to speak to anyone? He was petrified!

And then, as if by magic, he felt his larynx whirr to life. For several seconds, he gabbled wildly, trying to introduce himself, trying to ask who the voice was. In turn, the voice tried to calm him down, telling him that Glinda's life might depend on him answering; this galvanised him into action.

"She was heading towards the palace!" he said excitedly. "She was going to retrieve the Grimmerie!"

As he spoke, he noticed the source of the voice at long last: though he couldn't be sure, it looked like a tall, blurring shadow against the opposite wall. Or was it just a smudge on his eyeball? He couldn't tell. The shadow was still asking questions:

"But do you know where the Nomes might have taken her and the Scarecrow? Did you see them leaving? Did they leave tunnels or anything like that?"

"Oh no, no," said Boq, very happy to be indulging this hallucination. "The tunnels vanished behind them. I don't think I can be much help of you... but you could look in the palace if you like. Perhaps Mombi could tell you something. Maybe Glinda left clues."

There was an embarrassed pause. "Boq, you do know I'm being serious about this, right?"

"Of course!" said Boq, and laughed – maybe a little longer than necessary, but there was obviously something very funny about it.

When the shadow spoke again, the voice sounded almost despairing: "Do you recognise me?"

Boq tried to shake his head, but couldn't for obvious reasons. Eventually, he said, "No. Do I know you?" he asked innocently. "Are we friends?"

The shadow sighed deeply. "Thanks for your help, Boq. If it's alright by you, I'd like to help you in return..."

Five minutes later, Boq was sinking into the strongest enchanted sleep that Elphaba could conjure.

Five minutes later, Elphaba was flying towards the palace, deeply shaken.

"Empress Mombi! Empress Mombi! There's been-"

Mombi's sceptre hammered into the side of the Wheeler's head, toppling him to the ground. "I told you," she yelled, "My title is Princess Mombi, now! I told you and your idiot brethren scant hours ago – how many times do I have to repeat it?"

"But Empr..." The Wheeler, who was now trying to upright himself, realised what he was saying, and hurriedly backtracked: "But Princess Mombi, there's a-"

"I will not tolerate disrespect from my subordinates!" Mombi bellowed. "You will obey my commands without question or so help me I will rip your intestines out and strangle you with them! Now tell me, WHAT were you going to tell me before you showed such a grievous breach of etiquette?"

"Well, Princess Mombi," said the Wheeler, hauling himself awkwardly upright, "There's an intruder in the city."

"So what? Tear the impudent wretch to pieces as you'd do to any intruder that dares to set foot in my city!"

"But this one's different, Princess Mombi – she has magic."

Mombi's eyes narrowed. "Does the intruder have green skin?"

"Yes, yes, green skin and black cloak and broomstick and-"

"That's enough. Now, where was this particular intruder going?"

"She was flying in this very direction the last we saw her, Princess Mombi. We could surround her and tear her to pieces if you wish-"

"No!" Mombi snapped. "The Nome King wants this intruder alive. I'll deal with her myself, and you will not interfere; you are to make sure that your drug-addled brothers and sisters do the same. Now leave, while I prepare myself!"

There was a pause, as the Wheeler scurried away, giggling nervously; as soon as she was certain that she was alone, Mombi stood at long last, resplendent in her blood-red robes, and strode across the ballroom-turned-throne room towards the adjoining gallery.

"I think," she said contemplatively, over the horrified gasps from within, "That #13 would make the perfect first impression..."

As expected, the doors to the palace were locked and barred; it would have been relatively simple to blast them off their hinges, but Elphaba didn't want to risk alerting Mombi. But then again, that was assuming that Mombi didn't already know that she was there.

The last time she'd been here, the last time she'd actually been inside the palace, it had been her second meeting with the Wizard; that time, it had been in the middle of the night, and most of the Wizard's entourage had been too engaged in dancing the night away to notice her climbing in through an upstairs window. Of course, the Wizard had been expecting her, but then, the worst he'd done was make her jump fifty feet in the air by booming "I KNEW YOU'D BE BACK" at her and call the guards when she refused his offer.

If Mombi was expecting her, the results would probably be deadlier by far, and if Morrible's warning was to be believed, eternal.

Unfortunately, it looked as though all that was currently moot, because Mombi had reinforced most of the windows with bars, and sealed any doorways on the balconies. Even the entrance to the now-collapsed tower had been bricked up.

Muttering coarsely, Elphaba was readying a spell to blast away the new mortar, when she heard the sound of the front doors opening and slamming shut far below; she looked down just in time to catch the garishly-dressed figure of a Wheeler skating off into the ruins. Elphaba waited until he was well and truly out of sight before soaring back down to ground level and trying to open the doors again; immediately, she found that the doors had been almost automatically locked and barred. This Mombi character certainly wasn't taking too many chances with security.

And then she saw something protruding from the piles of rubble that had once composed the tower; curious, and hoping it might be something useful, Elphaba approached it, and began hauling away the fallen masonry that covered it. As more and more of the object was exposed to the air, she realised that it was an elegantly-carved marble pedestal, chipped and cracked in the fall from the collapsing tower, but very much intact. It also appeared to be enchanted for some reason, but she wasn't sure what effect it was mean to produce.

And then, as the last brick was hauled off it, the magic in the pedestal crackled back to life, producing the spectral image of a face; as letters began to appear beneath the monochrome image, Elphaba realised that this must be some kind of shrine or memorial, and wondered who it was meant to commemorate. And then colour began to bloom across the surface of the image; for three whole seconds, Elphaba thought she was looking into a mirror. Then her eyes flicked to the words below the image, and suddenly there could be no doubting who this shrine had been built for:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ELPHABA THROPP

"Some are born wicked; others have wickedness thrust upon them."

And given that these words, the image, and perhaps even the pedestal had been crafted with magic, there was only one person in all of Emerald City who could have possibly had the ability and the inclination to make them. How long had Glinda slaved away at this, slicing through marble with her wand, shaping words out of light and conjuring the image from her memory? Had it been over the course of a week, or had she finished the work in a single day of cathartic work? And what frustrations, what sadness had driven her to produce it at all?

Elphaba remembered their last meeting at Kiamo Ko; in between the tears, in between the farewells, she'd told Glinda not to tell the people of Oz the truth, to ensure that she never told them her story – lest she end up just as demonized as Elphaba had been. But what if Glinda had tried to tell at least part of the story... and met with an audience that simply hadn't wanted to listen?

So, Elphie, she thought to herself, was it worth it? Was your escape from Oz worth trapping Glinda in leadership? Was deposing the Wizard worth forcing your best friend to lie for him? Was your happy little home outside of Oz worth everything she suffered? Was any of it worth anything, now that the Nomes have all brought it crashing down?

She was crying, now; the world blurred and swayed around her as Elphaba tried to look away from the shrine, to try and ignore the guilt for at least a little while, but she couldn't. It was alive now, and gnawing greedily at her heart. Her memories lurched and spun inside her mind, and without warning, she was back in Kiamo Ko, howling despairingly at the pages of the Grimmerie and cursing herself for her failures, as her magic blazed wildly throughout the castle and across the surrounding land. Now, back in the present, she cursed herself for betrayal and closed her eyes so tightly that sparks blazed in the darkness behind her eyelids.

Somewhere inside her, a soothing voice whispered, You know you didn't have any choice in the matter; it was either convince Glinda and the rest of Oz that you had died, or carry on with the reign of terror. This way, you gave them a leader worth following. And true, it didn't last, but that's what you're here to change, isn't it?

Elphaba didn't like listening to this particular soothing voice – it reminded her of the Wizard – but that didn't stop it from being frustratingly helpful. She could believe what they said- at least for a little while; she could lie to herself for as long as it took to save Glinda and Fiyero... and then-

Someone was standing behind her.

"Well well well," a voice crooned. "Who would have thought that the Wicked Witch could be capable of shedding tears? And over her own memorial, no less! What an ego!"

Hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her cloak, Elphaba rose to her feet and turned to face the stranger, her eyes skimming briefly over the red silk robes, the golden collar, the long, skinny arms encased in golden bracelets, the bejewelled fingers. However, Elphaba quickly remembered the description of Mombi that Morrible had provided her with, and knew at once that this person didn't match it: this woman looked as though she'd just sauntered out of a ballroom, her skin ivory pale, her long dark hair bound by several golden clasps, icy blue eyes accentuated with makeup.

The stranger glared down at her. "You're a lot prettier than the rumours suggested... but clearly unsuitable for my purposes. Besides, I try to avoid collecting from those skilled in magic."

Elphaba stared. Had Morrible got the description wrong? Could this be Mombi?

Her eyes alighted on the golden collar that the stranger wore around her neck; was it just an affectation, or was she wearing it for a practical purpose? Could she be wearing it to hide something? Elphaba looked closer at the edges of the collar, and realised that the skin below it didn't quite match the skin above the collar. More to the point, both were speckled with tiny but telltale bloodstains.

Suddenly, the tales of Mombi's head-taking seemed even more grotesque.

"So," said Elphaba flatly, "You're Mombi, right?"

"Lucky guess," Mombi sneered.

"Where's your original head? Sitting on a shelf next to all the others you collected?"

"And how did you find out that?"

"Madame Morrible was kind enough to tell me everything she could about you."

A ghastly smile spread across Mombi's face. "Ah," she said, "Horrible Morrible; I heard the fussy old baggage taught you as well, before she gave up on teaching of course. How is she, anyway?"

"She's dead," said Elphaba, solemnly.

Mombi shrugged. "Good riddance to bad rubbish, I suppose. But back to my favourite subject: the collection of heads. It's just a shame that I couldn't collect Glinda's head, you know. I think I would have worn it very well indee-"

Elphaba's first blast of magic caught Mombi just under the chin, sending her rocketing back across the rubble-strewn ground; as she tumbled through the air, the second blast of magic caught her in the throat, snapping the her collar open, letting her head fly free of her body- and land right in Elphaba's waiting hands.

"Now," said Elphaba, "It just so happens that I need to know where Glinda is right now, and you're the only person in this city who might have a decent idea. Now tell me - where did the Nomes take Glinda and the Scarecrow?"

"Or what?" the head expectorated. "You're not threatening my real head, remember?"

"That doesn't mean that stomping it to paste won't hurt, though, will it? And it certainly doesn't keep me from finding and destroying your original head and the rest of your collection, does it? Now talk!"

A fireball shot over them and exploded noisily against a distant wall; Elphaba looked up just in time to see Mombi's headless body preparing another fireball. It might have been just about impossible for the head-swapping Witch to see where she was firing, but there was no denying that she had just enough talent to be seriously dangerous.

Mombi's head smirked. "That was a warning shot; the next one will be aimed at your face. So, let's negotiate, shall we? You give my head back to my body, and I'll tell you what you want to know."

"Oh, it's your head, is it?" Elphaba snarled indignantly. "How about I make a counteroffer at this stage: you tell me where the Nomes went, and then I'll hand the head over... or else I'll use it as a football!"

The head's eyes suddenly crackled with lightning. "You wouldn't have the time; I'd liquify your brains first."

"Try me."

The expression on the head flickered between fear and anger for a few seconds. "Very well," it said grudgingly. "The Dominions of the Nomes lie far beyond Oz, far to the East. Because they live underground, they're not easy to find unless you know the right landmark- and that landmark is something you can't possibly miss: the Nome King's Mountain. You'll recognise it by the two pinnacles at the top of it, like horns..."

Elphaba listened carefully as Mombi detailed the route towards the Nome King's mountain. Eventually, Mombi grumbled, "I've told you everything I know. Can you give the head back, now?"

Elphaba nodded, and held out the head towards the outstretched arms of Mombi's body...

Then she threw it into the air.

By the time Mombi had retrieved the head and fastened it back on her neck, Elphaba was long gone.

"The things I do for this job," Mombi grumbled.

"Your Majesty, the witch has just been seen leaving the Emerald City, heading east."

"Very good... it would appear that Mombi still retains some awkward comprehension of her duties; of course, whether she still has the capacity to obey her other orders is yet to be seen. Keep me informed of Elphaba's progress."

"As you wish, Your Majesty."

"And ensure that our spies along the mountainside recognise her on sight. After all, I would prefer it if we were ready to provide all due hospitality to our newest ally..."

Chapter 10: New Lodgings

Summary:

Two witches find new homes - and new friends...

Chapter Text

Glinda was just about ready to collapse by the time she and her bodyguard had arrived at her new room: quite apart from the long walk from the dungeons to the guest chambers, she was still feeling battered and worn out from the previous evening's fighting. The fact that the only sleep she'd had since then had been magically-induced didn't help much.

All she wanted to do at that stage was to lie in bed, with the covers pulled as far over her head as they could go, and forget that the last few days had ever happened. And when she saw the luxurious apartment that the Nomes had prepared for her, the desire for sleep became almost overpowering, for everything in the room had been selected for comfort, from the enormous four-poster bed to the ridiculously cushioned chair. Even the carpet looked thick enough to sleep on.

There were only two things stopping her from climbing into bed and dozing off at that moment: the first was the question of where the Nomes had gotten the furniture from. From what little she'd seen of them, the Nomes didn't seem to require much in the way of creature comforts, and if they did, it didn't seem likely that their idea of luxury would overlap with that of most Ozians. So, either they'd simply purchased them through perfectly legitimate trade, or Glinda was honestly entertaining the idea of sleeping in a bed that had been looted by the Nome invaders.

Probably dragged out of the house while the owner was bleeding his last on the ground outside, she thought wretchedly.

The other thing keeping her awake at that point was the question of where the Nomes had taken the Grimmerie; but as Glinda looked across the room, she found it sitting on the mahogany desk across from the bed. A scrap of parchment had been left on the cover, presumably for her to find; all it read was "Good luck in your studies."

Glinda sighed, sat down heavily in the chair with the Grimmerie open in her lap, and wondered where or how she was supposed to begin.

She'd heard the Nome King's request: it was utterly insane, and more to the point, she likely wouldn't even be the first in line to make his wish come true. She was an understudy, emergency backup, a safety net in place to make sure that the whole plan didn't go tumbling to its doom the moment the first option failed... whatever the first option was, anyway. But what if she was to carry out the final stage in his plan? Would she have learned all she'd need to know by then? She'd certainly have to step up her studies and work like mad if she ever hoped to make the deadline.

It'll be worth it, she told herself, it'll be worth it.

From behind her, there emerged a strange rumbling sound; she turned in her seat, and realised that it was the Bodyguard gently clearing his throat: "If you would pardon the interruption, Miss Glinda... His Majesty the King entrusted you with the duty of bestowing a name upon me."

Glinda sighed deeply. She didn't want to shout at him, even if he was becoming annoying, even if he was a representative of the King who'd just obliterated the capital of Oz and was carrying out the wholesale destruction of the rest of the country, even if she just wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a hundred years without this stone flunky bleating for favours...

Her annoyance must have shown on her face, because the Bodyguard immediately bowed his head as if in contrition, and said, "If you do not wish to do so immediately, it can be postponed until later..."

"No, it's okay. It's just..." Glinda tried to prioritize all the problems that were facing her at that moment, and eventually settled on, "I don't know any Nome names."

"It does not matter, Miss Glinda. Any name bestowed by authority is good enough."

Glinda thought on this for a moment. It seemed at first that naming this strange character would be the least difficult thing on her growing to-do list, but on closer inspection, it was something of a puzzle. She obviously couldn't just give him any old Ozian name, and giving him the name of a friend would be just plain inappropriate. So, that left descriptive names: what name would adequately describe the Bodyguard?

The word "Bland" swam temptingly through her imagination, and she almost smiled. What could describe him apart from that, though? He wasn't quite as tall as the Nome soldiers, and his build was downright spindly compared to them, but other than that, he wasn't much different from them. What name would work?

With tiredness setting in and running low on ideas, Glinda's mind picked a word out of her memory at random: she didn't know where she'd heard it- maybe it had been at school, maybe it had been overheard on a train somewhere- but she knew it had something to do with stone or rock.

"How about Basalt?" she suggested.

"Basalt," said the Bodyguard, rolling the word in his mouth. "If that is the name you choose to bestow upon me, then I accept it. Thank you, Miss Glinda. Eternal thanks are due."

Somehow, the newly-christened Basalt managed to convey gratitude in an otherwise toneless voice.

Glinda's eyelids fluttered; too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours: she'd helped her successor take the throne, she'd been hurled out of a tower, she'd seen the Emerald City fall to an army of stone men, she'd duelled their King and been captured in loosing, she'd been subjected to all manner of strange and terrible revelations, and now that she'd given a name to an emotionless bodyguard, all she wanted was a few hours of natural, uninterrupted sleep before she went back to trying to do the impossible.

She turned to Basalt, who was now asking her if there was anything she needed. "I'd like some time alone before I get to work," she said wearily.

"As you wish, Miss Glinda. Should you require any assistance, simply call my name."

And with that, Basalt vanished into the back wall of the room, leaving Glinda alone in her private suite.

Somehow, she thought to herself, I get the feeling that the situation can only get worse from here. But it's all worth it. It's all worth it...

Glinda was still thinking these words when she fell asleep in her chair less than a minute and a half later.

Flying high above what had once been the Land of Oz, Elphaba found herself wondering if Mombi had confessed a little too easily. After all, with the rest of her repulsive "collection" (along with her original head) in danger, wouldn't someone of Mombi's temperament put up more of a fight?

And even more worryingly, Mombi hadn't been too surprised to see Elphaba alive; either Mombi just didn't care that much- which certainly seemed possible- or someone had told her that Elphaba's death had been faked.

But who would have told her? The only person still alive to tell was-

Fiyero.

Fiyero couldn't feel pain anymore, so he certainly wouldn't have said anything if the Nomes had tortured him. But Elphaba had heard of certain esoteric forms of magic that could easily uncover a living being's deepest, darkest secrets, spells that could tear the memories from Fiyero's head and print them on paper- spells that, for all Elphaba knew, the Nome interrogators had in their repertoire. Perhaps, while searching for the kind of state secrets that only the King of Oz would know, the Nomes had accidentally unearthed the truth behind Elphaba's apparent death. So, knowing that she'd eventually try to rescue him, they'd warned Mombi.

In other words, Elphaba was almost certainly heading into a trap.

But what choice do I have? She thought, her psyche bubbling like a cauldron. I can't just leave Fiyero and Glinda in captivity. And besides, what's the alternative? Fly home, try to forget that the Nomes are sweeping across the country, and hope that they don't have me assassinated as a threat to their plans?

She smothered an expletive, and tried to focus her attention on the charred countryside below; she was over Munchkinland now, and she had several hundred miles to fly before she came anywhere near the Nome Dominions. Then again, Elphaba thought darkly, the way these Nomes are claiming territory, I'll be in the Nome Dominions before I leave Oz.

Oddly enough, she'd only caught occasional glimpses of the Nomes on her journey so far, most of them as they were leaving the overturned cities, having finished demolishing the houses and burning the bodies. Every so often, she'd see one or two of them hauling away piles of stolen goods: jewellery, ornaments, furniture, whole libraries of books; all of them carried away as the departing Nomes burrowed back underground. But whatever they were doing, they rarely stayed long: for whatever reason, they always left... usually just as Elphaba was considering flying down and attacking them.

But there were stranger sights to be seen here, though: unexpectedly, there was a house left intact close to the centre of one of the Munchkin towns. And though it was more or less in one piece, it was somewhat dilapidated. In fact, as Elphaba slowed slightly, she realised that it didn't even have foundations; it was as if someone had just dropped it there.

And someone had, she realised, bringing the broom to a halt; this was the house that Dorothy Gale had arrived in, the house that had crushed Nessarose to death. It was quite obvious why the Munchkins hadn't been interested in moving the house, but why had the Nomes let it be?

Suffocating both her sadness and the unwanted question, Elphaba moved on. As she ascended, she realised that discovery had done her an unexpected favour, for with most of the cities rendered unrecognisable by the invasion, navigating Oz had become somewhat difficult without the aid of a map; now, she had some idea how far she was from the border.

From here on, what was left of the farmland was broken up by an extremely long stretch of forest. Strange; as far as Elphaba could remember, this had once been an orchard of lunchpail trees. But somehow, in the year since Elphaba had last visited, this modest-sized orchard had grown into a forest large enough to cover the next few acres of land. Was this a side-effect of the Nome Invasion? It didn't seem extraordinarily likely, but there weren't too many alternative explanations in store.

As she passed over it, she thought she heard the sound of shouted voices from below; she remembered how she'd seen no people in her journey so far. Perhaps Munchkin refugees were hiding here; it sounded feasible: after all, the Nomes didn't seem to have much interest in destroying Oz's forests. Perhaps the forests of Oz were now becoming havens for fleeing Ozians.

Unfortunately, this meant that, after perhaps seven hours without encountering a single living soul, she was now flying over a group of doubtlessly panicked survivors. And if they were still armed with something that could reach her, that meant-

There was a bang from below.

So, she thought, they still have guns. They obviously didn't do much good against the Nomes, and at the height I'm flying at, they're not much good against me either.

She recalled the first time she'd taken flight, when a few guards on the outer walls of the Emerald City had had the presence of mind to actually fire their guns: every single shot they'd fired had missed her then, as well. How little things change.

There were a few other scattered gunshots from below before the forest was plunged back into silence, presumably as they reloaded. Then an arrow shot past Elphaba's head; another thudded into the broom, narrowly missing her left hand. Pausing only to remove the arrow, she put on an extra burst of speed and accelerated away as fast as she could, gaining altitude as she went.

As she ascended to what was hopefully a safe height, Elphaba wondered what the survivors were going to do now that most of Oz had been claimed by the Nomes. Were they amassing arms to try and fight back? If so, what else did they have in their arsenal?

She was still wondering this when something sleek and metallic rocketed out of the canopy and exploded almost right next to her; thankfully, because of the various supplementary enchantments Elphaba had placed on the broom, the explosion didn't kill her, nor was it enough to dislodge her altogether.

Unfortunately, it was enough to send the broom spiralling out of control towards the ground. Elphaba swore diabolically and tried to steer up, out of the death-dive, but it didn't take long to realise that while the enchantments had protected her well enough, the broomstick itself had been wrecked in the explosion: the handle was broken almost in two, and the straw bristles were either missing or on fire.

Oh well, she thought absently, as the upper branches of the trees rushed up to meet her, at least I know they have explosive shells at their disposal...

Whispering what protective spells she could, she crashed headlong into the forest; down she flew, barely avoiding head-on collisions with one tree limb after another, just managing to keep the broomstick intact until a particularly sturdy-looking branch loomed out of the chaos and neatly broke the fractured broom in two. Elphaba dropped at least ten feet to the forest floor and landed in a heap, badly bruised but otherwise unhurt.

She rose, awkwardly, still holding half of the broom, and realised that she was surrounded by a cluster of terrified-looking Munchkins.

Among the traditionally lethal array of guns, crossbows, and farming tools, Elphaba noticed that two of them were holding buckets of water.

What with trying not to laugh, it took a little while for Elphaba to find her voice. "Look," she said, trying not to sound too threatening, "Before you get too carried away, I'm not-"

One of the survivors poked her between the shoulders with his pitchfork. "Sh-shut it," he stammered. "Y-y-y-you just shut it."

"How the hell is she even alive?" hissed another.

"Nevermind that now," said another, who was almost unrecognisable as a Munchkin under the layers of camouflage she wore. "We've at least got something to show for this little scouting expedition; let's get back to the camp before those Nomes start wondering about the noise."

"Agreed," grunted another, hoisting a bewildering array of weaponry and canisters onto his back. "We've only got six of the damn shells left, and I don't have the materials to make more, so let's be off before we have to use any more."

The first of the survivors nodded, raised his pitchfork, and brought it down handle-first on Elphaba's head.

Elphaba was very much annoyed.

For all their panic and stammering, the survivors had a very clear idea of what they thought should happen from here on, and it wasn't hard to imagine: immediately after the devastating blow to her head, the Wicked Witch of the West would collapse in a heap; they would drag her back to camp and question her about her part in the invasion, whereupon she would scream and beg for mercy and volunteer every bit of information she had before they'd even started threatening her. One way or the other, she'd tell them how she had led the Nomes in conquering Oz, by what foul magic she had been resurrected, and how to stop her forces from carrying out her ghastly plans. The, being good Ozians they'd show mercy, and because she was the Wicked Witch of the West, she would immediately attack them, and they would have to melt her for the last time with a bucket of water. Then, with the information she had so cowardly volunteered, they would then go on to save all of Oz and be remembered as heroes.

Unfortunately for them, the Wicked Witch didn't quite react as expected:

"Ow! What was that for?" said Elphaba, rubbing the back of her head.

There was an embarrassed pause.

"Well? Aren't we going somewhere?"

"... W-We're supposed to knock you out first," said the first survivor.

"Hitting me on the head like that isn't going to do it! And is there something wrong with just letting me walk there with you?"

The survivors gaped at her, and Elphaba had to fight hard not to laugh; in spite of the situation, she was actually enjoying herself. "Come on!" she said, infusing her voice with a touch of real irritation. "Let's not wait around for the Nomes! Like you said, we don't want to waste anymore of those shells- especially now that you've blasted my broom to smithereens with one of them!"

"Sorry," the third survivor whimpered.

"Don't be sorry!" Elphaba yelled. "Move! You wanted to take me back to the camp, now take me there!"

"What?"

"Move!" she clarified. "Ambulate in the general direction of the camp! You want to get there sometime before the Nomes come and tear us to pieces, right? So, let's move! Hup one two three four…"

Unfortunately, the camp itself was little more than two or three clumsily assembled military-issue tents (presumably looted from a local barracks). The few other residents of this camp were naturally horrified to see Elphaba marching boldly down the path, and were only slightly mollified by the presence of their scouting party surrounding her on all sides. A very crowded twenty minutes followed, involving terrified shrieks, angry suggestions on what to do with her, and eventually, screamed insults and epithets.

Elphaba remained stoic throughout; she'd grown used to this sort of thing in the years beforehand.

What surprised her was how few of them were interested in just tossing a bucket of water over her and leaving it at that; perhaps they really did think interrogating her would be the best thing for her.

Before long, the survivors tired of shouting at her and seemed to remember that she was apparently their prisoner, so they finally took away her satchel of magical items, tied her hands together, and shoved her into one of the tents.

"Welcome to your new home!" one of them spat at her.

To their credit, they were smart enough to have a guard watching her at all times. Unfortunately for them, that guard was armed only with a bucket of water.

Elphaba would have burst out laughing if she wasn't so tired; she'd barely slept the previous evening, and the adrenaline that had powered her through the past few hours was beginning to fade.

She knew that escaping the camp would be relatively easy, even without her satchel. The trick, of course, would be doing so without accidentally killing any of these twits; as much as she resented Ozians for blindly following every bit of propaganda thrown to them, she wasn't prepared to start murdering them all over again. Besides, as firsthand witnesses to the invasion, they might actually have some important information to share.

The next problem would be continuing the journey; with her broom destroyed (her second broom, no less), she'd be crossing the Deadly Desert on foot unless she found another broom to enchant... or something else that might suit her purposes.

But first, she'd wait: she had the journey ahead to plan, she had the eventual attack on the Nome Dominions to prepare for, and a growing headache to try and recover from before she made good on her escape.

So, closing her eyes, she ignored the shouted arguments from the other tents, the crying of babies, and the all-pervading mutter of "We're doomed, we're doomed, we're doomed," and allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

Chapter 11: Strange Dreams, Strange Alliances

Summary:

Some find friends in dreams, others find friends among foes.

Notes:

Sorry for the delay: briefly overwhelmed by total failure of confidence upon reading what I've written. Good news is, I'm back and posting again, and possibly with new Wicked fanfics on the way...

Chapter Text

A ringing silence descended on the attic as Madame Morrible's demagogic announcement came to a close.

For a moment or two, Glinda and Elphaba stood by the barricaded door, rendered mute and paralysed by emotions - Elphaba by horror and betrayal, Glinda by fear, disbelief and frustration. All that they had seen and heard in the audience chamber was still flickering disjointedly through their minds, from the first sight of the Wizard's mechanical face bellowing down at them, to the way Chistery's new wings had seemingly ripped their way out of his twitching body.

Glinda was the first to regain the power of speech. She tried to speak as calmly as she could, but the mixture of fear and frustration rushing through her very quickly overrode not only her rationality, but most of her self control:

"Elphaba," she hissed, "why couldn't you have stayed calm for once instead of flying off the handle?"

Elphaba recoiled, as though she'd just been slapped across the face.

Glinda's temper, meanwhile, took this as a chance to attack: "I hope you're happy!" she shrieked. "I really do! I mean, do you really think anyone in Oz will be willing to listen to what you've got to say about Animal Rights? Of course not, because you've been officially classificated as an enemy of the state! I hope you think you're clever, Elphaba, I really hope you think that what you've done somehow does a credit to those brains of yours!"

"And I hope you're happy too!" Elphaba screamed back. "I really hope you're proud of the way you acted back there - grovelling and cowering at the feet of that fraud, all so you could feed your precious ambitions! Don't you even care about what he's been doing to the Animals, that's he's behind everything we came here to put an end to, or did you throw away your moral compass along with your self-respect?"

For another ten seconds they screamed and shouted and raged back and forth at one another; at long last, they stopped, out of breath, and almost in tears. And then, in the distance, there came the sound of booted feet marching up the stairs.

With a thrill of terror, Glinda realised that it was only a matter of time before they were found; she wasn't sure what would happen to her, but she knew that Elphaba could very well be facing execution- assuming the guards didn't just hack her to death there and then. And for all that she'd just screamed her frustrations at her, Glinda did not want to see her friend dead.

"Elphaba," she said urgently, "Listen to me - please; why can't you just say you're sorry?"

Elphaba gave her a look that could have fused sand into glass.

"I'm serious, Elphaba; the Wizard seemed like a fairly reasonable sort to me. True," she added hastily, as her friend's stare took on an expression of utter incredulity, "He's not really a wizard, and yes, he's responsible for what happened to Doctor Dillamond, but you've got to think about what you're doing: you came here to become Grand Vizier to the Wizard, don't forget. I mean, isn't that what you wanted?"

For a moment, there was silence, except for the shouts of the guards as they ascended the tower, battering doors open as they went.

When Glinda spoke next, she found herself almost pleading: "You can still be Vizier, Elphie; you can have everything you ever wanted-"

"I know," said Elphaba. Her voice was no longer angry; now, it was steady and determined. "But I don't want it anymore."

"What?"

"No, that's not true. I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't want everything this position could offer. You see, Glinda, it's not that I don't want it... it's that I can't want it anymore."

Glinda opened her mouth to ask what she could possibly mean by that, when she suddenly realised that she already knew what Elphaba meant; she knew what Elphaba would say and do next, and all that it would eventually lead to.

Worst of all, she knew that this had happened before...

...And that she was almost certainly dreaming.

And in reality, I'm asleep in a chair in a glorified prison cell, waiting to wake up so I can work to fulfil the wishes of an insane earth elemental, hoping that he'll send me back in time to this exact point as a reward and I'm only just beginning to wonder if he was telling the truth. How did my life get so complicated?

Elphaba was leafing through the pages of the Grimmerie, now, trying to find the levitation spell again; the expression on her face was no longer lost and confused, but growing steadily more determined... and almost hopeful. And Glinda knew that that same determination and hope would remain with her for the next few years of her rebellion against the Wizard, until the deaths of both Nessarose and Fiyero brought an end to her hope. Her determination - in the form of the urge for vengeance, this time - would drag on until the fateful day at Kiamo Ko.

Suddenly, caught between watching Elphaba prepare herself and worrying over what would happen next, Glinda found herself wondering if it was possible to change what happened next.

Even if this was only a dream, wouldn't there at least be a chance to see what could happen when the Nome King finally granted her the reward he promised?

No, she thought. Just because this is a dream taken from my memory doesn't mean that it's going to follow reality in any way. For all I know, this time she'll sprout wings of her own and go soaring off into the horizon with me bundled under her arm. Maybe the guards will burst in and kill us both. Maybe cupcakes will rain down from the sky and an army of Nomes will emerge from the earth to offer us discount plumbing. And besides, why would I even want to bother with this "dream of a better life" nonsense? I'm only going to be even more miserable when I eventually find out that the Nome King was lying about sending me back in time...

Somewhere in the background, Elphaba began chanting the words of the spell, and Glinda began automatically reciting the same denials she had uttered that day... right up until the broomstick slowly floated into view.

"Glinda," said Elphaba, her voice just as urgent as Glinda's had been a moment ago, "Come with me."

Still following the script, Glinda stared at her uncomprehendingly.

"Think of what we could accomplish," Elphaba continued, almost pleading. "If we worked together, nothing could stop us - not the Wizard, not Morrible, not even the armies loyal to them. Just think of it!"

As her own voice continued following the script, Glinda remembered the self-doubt she'd felt at that moment; after all, what help could she possibly be to Elphaba? At that time, she'd had next to nothing in the way of magical power or knowledge beyond a few paltry spells, and more often than not, they didn't work anyway; she'd be nothing more than dead weight.

Looking back, though, Glinda knew that she could have made a difference: after all, she had charisma, perhaps even enough to convince people that Elphaba wasn't the villain that Morrible had portrayed her as. Then again, even that wouldn't have guaranteed anything - especially not with the Wizard's legendary propaganda machine against her.

"Well? Are you coming?" Elphaba asked quietly.

Just as Glinda was contemplating the offer for the second time, the dream abruptly changed:

The thunderous sound of the approaching guards ground to a halt, and as the echoes began to die away, the room underwent an astonishing transformation: the walls shot outwards and the ceiling arched upwards as the attic expanded dramatically; the shelves and the heaps of junk scattered about the attic moulded themselves into lavish furniture - comfortable armchairs, oak dining tables, silver candelabra; the skylight oozed down the shifting brickwork and into the middle of the room, reshaping itself into an enormous circular mural window.

Even before the room's transformation was complete, Glinda had already realised what the attic had become: the design of that window and the landscape it overlooked told her everything.

This was Kiamo Ko.

An ice-cold droplet of horror landed in the pit of Glinda's stomach, freezing her insides solid.

Ever since Elphaba's death, she had gone out of her way to avoid the castle; whenever some special occasion demanded her presence there, she'd made excuses, pretended to be ill, whatever she could do to stay as far away as possible from the place where her friend had died. She could withstand the parades on the anniversary of the "Wicked Witch's death," but leading a pilgrimage to Kiamo Ko for a night of hypocrisy and meaningless ceremony would be intolerable.

Elphaba put a hand on her shoulder. "I know you don't want to be here, Glinda," she said gently, "But I'm anchored to your memories of this place; I can't properly communicate with you anywhere else in your dreams."

"B-but... you're a dream yourself! You're not real!"

"True," she said, a sad little smile on her face. "I'm just a figment of your imagination. But I'm also a memory given life by your desire to see me again. For all intents and purposes, I am everything that Elphaba Thropp was, and for what it's worth, I'm here to help you - if only to give you peace of mind."

Glinda tried to reply, but all that emerged was a choked whimper.

Once she had finally managed to get her voice under control, she said, "I just... don't know what I'm supposed to do about all this. I mean, I'm betraying everything you worked for just for the sake of an impossible reward, and even if it is possible, I can't tell if the King will honour the agreement."

She looked up, expecting to see disappointment on Elphaba's face, or worse still, rage or frustration or sorrow. But far from being angry or despairing, Elphaba's face was gentle and accepting.

"There's nothing of betrayal about what you've done, Glinda," she said, soothingly. "My work - our work-was doomed ever since the Nome King began to plot against us. Every single citizen of Oz has been either driven from their homes or slaughtered; right now, there's no such thing as human rights, let alone Animal rights. So, as hateful as we both find it, the Nome King's reward is the only possible solution to our problems right now. But I can certainly see why you've had doubts about it."

"Well... yes - for a start, why would he bother sending me back in time? If he did, I might be able to stop him from ever invading!"

The imaginary Elphaba shrugged. "Maybe he was planning on erasing your memories of the invasion before he sent you on your way," she suggested. "That way, he wouldn't have to worry about you threatening his plans. Or maybe he's planning to use that little collection of artefacts he's gathered to place himself and everything he's accomplished outside of history altogether, so when he does send you back in time, it won't matter what you try and do to him. Who knows?"

"But why would he bother to give me the reward in the first place? What's to stop him from just leaving me in my cell to rot?"

"If he did that, Glinda, then he'd have to keep you in the palace for the rest of your life. And he can't take that chance; you're far too dangerous for that, and far too useful to be executed."

Glinda let out a bitter, mirthless laugh. "Dangerous? Useful? What are you talking about? I am not dangerous or useful any sense of the word: the only reason why I managed to get the slightest bit of an edge over the Nome King in the duel was because of the Grimmerie and the Bubble. As for usefulness, I'm only here as an understudy, and I'd have to study the Grimmerie for years on end to achieve even the slightest competence at that! Oh, and let's not forget how well I did as Protector of Oz!" she continued, her voice on the edge of hysteria. "How could anyone forget that my first day on the job ended with the Emerald City being invaded? And what about my try at ruling Oz? I barely accomplished anything for the people, and even less for Animal Rights! And you know why? It's because I'm a failure and I always have been! I'm a stupid, selfish, overambitious little failure who thought she could do some good after causing the death of the one person in this world who could have made a difference-"

Without saying a word, Elphaba drew Glinda into a sudden embrace. Instantly, Glinda stopped ranting, and for a moment, fell silent.

Then, she started to cry.

"It wasn't your fault," Elphaba whispered.

"But it was," Glinda sobbed, bawling into Elphaba's cloak with all dignity thrown to the four winds. "Everything bad that happened to this country since that day in the attic has been my fault! How can you forgive me for what I did to you, for what I did to Oz?"

"Ssssshhhhhh..."

For several seconds, they stood there, Glinda crying, Elphaba wordlessly comforting her.

Eventually, Elphaba spoke: "I've already forgiven you for what happened, Glinda, just as you forgave me for the damage I caused. Besides, you're making the same mistake I once made," she said. "You remember well enough that I used to hate myself for things I couldn't possibly be responsible for: the death of my mother, the damage done to Nessarose's legs. I told you that back at Shiz, and you were the one who helped me then; you were the one who said 'Elphie, it was the milkflowers that did that!' remember?"

In spite of herself, Glinda let out a snort of laughter that suddenly metamorphosed into a long, drawn-out burst of laughter - partly due to remembering her childish naivete, but mostly out of sheer relief.

Once Glinda had stopped laughing, Elphaba added, "Besides, we both know who's really responsible for all that's happened to Oz, don't we?"

"We do?"

"Of course: the Wizard. After all, you know the results of his little coup d'état: political terror, deprivation and discrimination, all of which you were left to clean up after the Wizard fled. The King told you all about the Wizard's theft of the Emeralds, so you can't be blamed for the invasion. And as for Nessa's death- you might have told them that I still cared about her, but who was it who authorised her assassination? The Wizard. Who was it who authorised my assassination? The Wizard."

And though her self-loathing roared its denial, Glinda found herself slowly agreeing.

"So you see, you don't have to blame yourself for what happened anymore, now that you know who was really at fault. And don't doubt your strength, either: you've had the strength to take the reins of power when lesser human beings would have delegated the task to someone else; you've had the strength to take on the Nome King in a duel to the death and not only survive - but end up enlisted instead of executed! That's how I know for a fact that you have the strength to complete the Nome King's task and set things right for all of Oz."

From somewhere overhead, there was a distant boom, and a disembodied voice thundered "Miss Glinda? It's time to rise."

As the sound echoed through the castle, the very walls of the castle seemed to fade, losing first their colour, then their opacity, and finally, their solidity: for a moment, the walls of Kiamo Ko appeared to be made of water. Then, they began to evaporate, the landscape behind them dissolving along with them... followed swiftly by the rest of the castle.

Glinda felt her eyes sting with new tears, as the dreamworld began to collapse. "I'm going to have to wake up now, aren't I?" she asked quietly.

"I'm afraid so. But don't worry, Glinda; this isn't goodbye. I'll be here when you dream again; as long as the past is imperfect, as long as the worst of the Wizard's crimes plague Oz, I'll be here to help you..."

"Miss Glinda?"

The Nome King smiled, quietly withdrawing from Glinda's waking mind before she could notice his presence.

It would seem that the evening's work had been a complete success: Glinda's doubts had been well and truly extinguished, and she was ready to stop wallowing in self-pity and approach her work with enthusiasm and diligence. He could barely stop himself from laughing as he watched Glinda lurch out of her chair, trying and failing to shove Basalt out of the way. Already, she was hurrying to her desk, hurrying to get the Grimmerie open and begin her work.

"No rest for the wicked, I suppose," he mused happily. "Or for the virtuous, for that matter."

Now, all that he needed to do was wait - either for Glinda to finish translating the necessary spell, for Elphaba to arrive at the Mountain, or for all the components of the ritual to be seized by Mombi. One main plan, and two contingencies, with as little as possible left to chance.

Yes, everything was falling into place...

Of course, Elphaba had been delayed by the unexpected interference of the survivors. Who would have known that any of them would have been able to salvage artillery from the ruins, let alone put it to any use? Thankfully, she had survived the fall, and as far as the spies had reported, the survivors posed no extraordinary threat to her; Elphaba would soon be on her way again.

The King's musings were suddenly interrupted by the rumbling of a Nome Butler emerging from the wall across from him.

"Your Majesty," the butler grovelled, "The Scarecrow is becoming increasingly disagreeable; he has requested an audience with you... again."

"How many times has it been?"

"Thirty-seven, Your Majesty."

"Hmm. Perhaps it is time we domesticated our other prisoner somewhat... Have him brought to the outer balcony; I will attend to him soon..."

Several hundred miles away, Elphaba opened her eyes, and looked up at the shape that had been kicking her for the past second or two; after a few minutes of blinking, she realised that it was the same terrified guard that had been watching her for the past few hours she'd been asleep.

"Morning," she said blearily.

"Shut it," snapped the guard, raising his bucket of water in what he probably thought was a threatening way. "There's someone to see you."

He stood aside to reveal the figure of another Munchkin standing in the doorway of the tent: this one looked even more pathetic than the guard, who at least had had the good fortune to scavenge some proper armour to make it appear as though he was well-defended in spite of his terror.

This latest visitor looked as though someone had connected a bicycle pump to his eyeballs and hadn't stopped pumping until the man's eyes were the size of saucers; his other features only made him look more pathetic, from the manic explosion of hair atop his head, to his sunken, neurotic-looking chin. He was dressed in the rumpled remains of a fairly expensive suit of clothes; perhaps he'd been a civil servant or official before the invasion - presumably why the guard appeared to be treating him as some kind of leader.

"Has she said anything?" he asked nervously.

"Nossir," grunted the guard, clearly trying to disguise his own nervousness. "She's been asleep for the last sixteen hours, sir."

"Really? I was wondering why you didn't have any problems keeping her in while I was away."

"She's been very quiet, for some reason, sir."

"She is well within earshot," said Elphaba, snidely. "If you want to say anything to me, now would be the time."

There was an embarrassed pause, as the official shuffled warily towards her; as he did so, Elphaba thought she saw the canvas door shift slightly, as though someone was standing outside, listening. Then again, knowing how she was viewed by the Ozians, the entire population of the refugee camp might be listening on all sides of the tent, just waiting to hear what the infamous Wicked Witch of the West had to say.

"Now," said the official, "I honestly don't want to get violent here, but we have been on the run from the Nomes for the better part of two days, and we need to know why they're doing this, how we can stop them, and what part you played in all of this."

Elphaba, deciding to make an attempt at diplomacy, smiled in a way she hoped would look accommodating, and said, "Would you believe me if I told you if I had nothing to do with it?"

"No," said the guard automatically.

"No," confirmed the official. "And I'm being serious when I say that I'm not afraid to use this." He pointed to the bucket of water. "Now, if you remember how painful it was for you last time, you'll tell us what we want to know."

Elphaba sighed. Screw keeping this a secret, she thought.

And before anyone could even realise that she'd gotten her hands free, she grabbed the bucket of water out of the guard's hands, and before either of them could stop her, she'd dipped both her hands into the ice-cold water and begun to wash her face.

There was a shocked gasp from the official and the guard, and many of the eavesdropping refugees were suddenly whispering, "What just happened?" or "Did she just do what I thought she did?"

Truth be told, this wasn't just for shock value, however; after sixteen hours sleeping in the dirt, Elphaba really needed a few handfuls of cold water to the face, if only to wash the sleep from her eyes and the dust from her cheeks. In any event, once she was certain that she'd shocked the observers enough, she dried her face with the hem of her cloak, and said, "Can we talk sensibly now?"

"But..." the guard mumbled hopelessly for several minutes. "But... how did you... I mean, everyone knew that you - everyone saw what happened when..."

To his credit, the official was much more level-headed: "What's there not to be sensible about?" he said, exasperatedly. "We've just been invaded, for Oz's sake! We've lost everything we own, we're sleeping in tents, and you've somehow returned from the grave without your weakness to water! How are we not supposed to be serious about this?"

He took a deep breath. "Look, I just want to know what the Nomes are up to besides invading, and if there's any way of stopping them."

"That makes two of us," said Elphaba, dryly.

"What?"

"You heard. I've heard reasons for why the Nomes would invade, but they don't answer all the connected questions. And as for stopping the Nomes, I was following the only lead I had when you shot me down."

"You expect us to believe that?"

Elphaba smiled sadly. "Of course not: nobody in all of Oz has believed a word I've said in my own defence for the last few years- with a few exceptions. But what I've told you is the truth: the only reason why I returned to Oz in the first place was to find out what had happened."

The official took a deep breath, and said, "Just because you're suddenly immune to water, don't start thinking that we've run out of ways to make you talk. I mean, we've got-"

"Before you start describing every weapon you've managed to salvage so far, I think I should make a few things clear to you: before you entered this tent, my hands were tied." She presented the shredded lengths of rope that still dangled from her wrists. "It took me all of five seconds to slice through them with my magic. the only reason I haven't left this tent and gone looking for another broom I can enchant is because, quite frankly, I may need your help."

There was a very long pause; for a moment, Elphaba thought crickets really would chirp, if only for the sake of cliché. Then the official all but shouted, "Are you serious?"

"I've never been more serious in my life," said Elphaba. "Besides, you're running low on weapons effective against the Nomes, aren't you? I know spells that can shatter rock like glass. Doesn't that sound useful to you?"

"A more important question would be- how am I supposed to trust you, of all people?"

Elphaba thought of all the things she could say to this man; that the Wizard had lied about her, that she'd been the victim of propaganda for the last few years of her life, that in reality all she wanted was equal rights for Animals; that she was a lot more trustworthy than the Nomes currently scouring the countryside for living Ozians to mince beneath their feet; that she wanted the same thing that he and the other refugees wanted - the safety of those she loved. But by now, she'd learned that trying to reason points like these with a panicky Ozian was less than pointless.

So, she said, "You can't. But it's the only option you have at this point; and truth be told, it's beginning to sound like the only option I have right now: I don't fancy attacking the Nome King's Mountain alone."

"So you're going to use us as an army?"

"You said you wanted to stop the Nomes," Elphaba pointed out. "If you've got any better ideas, let me know."

Before the official could answer, another refugee hurried into the tent (keeping one eye trained on Elphaba at all times), whispered something into his ear, and hurried away.

"Damn it," he muttered, and turned to leave.

"I'd appreciate an answer," said Elphaba. "Would you agree to an alliance?"

The official sighed. "I'll take it under consideration," he said wearily, and turned to the guard. "You are to keep her under guard until we're ready to get moving; if she tries to escape, shoot her."

"Yessir," said the guard, readying his crossbow.

As the official scurried away, Elphaba thought about the future: these people didn't seem like much of an army, but if the explosive shells she'd heard mention of really were effective against Nomes, and a way of mass-producing them could be devised, there might just be hope yet.

But first, she'd have to get past the most obvious obstacle, namely that her potential allies wanted her dead.

"Ah well," she said, "No rest for the wicked."

Chapter 12: Welcome Home

Summary:

A strange alliance takes our gaggle of misfits into strangely familiar territory...

Chapter Text

The first few hours travelling with the refugee group were particularly trying.

As expected, none of them were particularly happy with the idea of dragging Elphaba along with them; thankfully, neither the official nor the guard had mentioned anything of the possible alliance, otherwise they probably wouldn't have even been able to leave.

Nonetheless, that didn't stop one or two of the refugees from tossing buckets of water at her when the guard ushered her out of the tent, and this time, the horrified gasps of the onlookers weren't nearly as funny.

"Looks like they weren't all eavesdropping," Elphaba muttered sourly.

As she went about the laborious process of wringing the water out of her cloak, the guard hesitantly prodded her towards the middle of the gathering crowd, barking "Stand aside, please; we've got to keep her right in the centre, stop her from running away. Governor's orders."

In the end, she found herself surrounded on all sides by people, a gap of at least four feet between her and them, her hands once again tied and a crossbow pointed at her back as they began marching westward.

All in all, there were seventeen refugees, including the official and the guard: most of them were Munchkins, with the exception of the two very visible businessmen from Gillikin country, who'd apparently arrived in Munchkinland for a conference on industrial development.

At the moment, they stood at the front of the crowd, talking worriedly about how their home offices might be faring and occasionally trying to get the attention of the official, who was - if their excited mumblings were to be believed - none other than the Governor of Munchkinland.

From what little Elphaba could hear from the whispered conversation all around her, one of the most recent arrivals had brought word that a platoon of Nomes were moving in the direction of the forest, and the Governor was leading the refugees as far away from them as possible.

Another topic being whispered of was the fact that the forest they were trying to leave hadn't been a forest at all until the Nome invasion: apparently, some of the refugees had seen a gigantic Nome casting a spell on the orchard.

Elphaba pondered this as the conversation turned to the more familiar topic of just how they would go about killing her. There were spells that could be used to accelerate the growth of the trees, but most of them were fiendishly complicated and remarkably obscure to boot. Perhaps the Nomes had some knowledge of them, but why would they have used any of them on an orchard of all things?

"Damnable witch," someone snarled behind her. "Oughta tie her to a tree and leave her for the Nomes."

Here we go, Elphaba thought. Just grit your teeth and keep walking.

"Why bother? She's probably working for them anyhow. Just cut her wrists and watch her bleed to death- see if her blood's green, too."

"Better yet, try something nice and slow," another voice hissed, this one belonging to a bizarrely thuggish-looking Munchkin with a neck like an upturned mixing bowl and a face that looked as though it had been scrubbed vigorously with sandpaper. "I know a place that's still standing- even the Nomes didn't want to touch it- and it'll be just full of stuff like that."

There was a derisive laugh from one of the other refugees, this one a woman at the front of the group. "Call me crazy, but I don't think our esteemed governor is going to let you go fossicking around in the cellars of the old manor for some rusty torture machine that might not even be there."

"Of course it'll be there! Have you forgotten who owned the place? She had hundreds of people arrested for speaking against her, and in prison, all of them were-"

"Woolwax, my dad worked in that house for five years as a servant, and from the day he was hired until the day he was fired, he never saw any torture machines in the house. Besides, I don't think even someone as crazy as the Wicked Witch of the East would actually have any of the political offenders locked up in her cellar: she had prisons for that."

"Besides," Elphaba said quietly, "The house doesn't have any cellars."

"Shut your face," snapped Woolwax automatically. "Once we get to the manor, we're gonna dig up the thumbscrews, and we're gonna-"

"No, we're not," the Governor interjected. "We're going to keep on walking until there's a good deal of distance between us and the Nomes and a bit of shelter over our heads. And before you say anything," he added, seeing Woolwax's mouth open hopefully, "We're not going to use the manor as shelter. My predecessor had all the doors and windows locked and boarded up, so unless anyone here has a crowbar, a set of lockpicks and the guarantee that the Nomes won't notice us while we're using either of them, I suggest that we keep on moving."

There was silence for several minutes, except for the odd mumble of "Thumbscrews," from Woolwax. Several people broke it by making some half-hearted death-threats or grumbling about how their great uncle wouldn't have stood for having the witch being allowed among them, or how many people had been killed in whatever calamity that Elphaba had cause.

Eventually, the forest slowly began to clear, and before long, the crumbling walls of ruined buildings could be seen in the distance. By the time the last oversized lunchpail tree was behind them, the refugees had stopped snarling amongst themselves, and started watching for Nomes.

It was a slow march through the ruins: every now and again, they'd stop, one of the lookouts hissing that they'd seen something moving in the distance or heard the rumble of an approaching Nome. All too often, the group would be delayed by the urge to stop and stare in horror at the ruins, or to try and retrieve something from amidst the shattered brickwork. Elphaba was well aware that standing pokerfaced amid the carnage wasn't helping her case, but quite frankly, there wasn't much left to horrify her; she'd seen the ruins of the Emerald City and its petrified citizens, and she'd had time to grieve over both the flying monkeys and the sad little memorial that Glinda had built.

Yes... she'd probably have nothing else to do but walk, defend the group from incoming attackers, ignore the death threats being flung at her, and hope that nobody would have the guts to make good on those threats, all for the next few hours- if not the next few days. After all, the refugees had no intention of letting her begin hunting the ruins for a broom or anything else that could be enchanted to fly. And there was so much to plan for as well: how they were going to go about mass-producing the explosive shells, how she was supposed to make any of the refugees trust her, and when she did, how she was supposed to even start fighting the Nomes...

Several hours later, she found herself unexpectedly proven wrong: by that stage, they had reached what had obviously once been a much more affluent region- if the sheer space between the ruined mansions was any evidence. By now, it had been so comprehensively demolished that Elphaba didn't even realise where she was until she saw the manor looming on the horizon.

Just as the Governor had said, its windows and doors had been thoroughly boarded up; ivy had grown across it in several places, erasing the side entrance and strangling the balcony; the perimeter wall had been torn to pieces, and numerous "CONDEMNED: DO NOT ENTER" signs protruded from the rubble.

Other than that, though, the manor of Colwen Grounds was exactly as it had been when Elphaba had last visited it over a year ago.

Back then, she'd been astonished at how little the house had changed in the years since she'd last set foot in it, but then, her father had always been obstinate and resistant to change, even if it was something as basic as a renovation; as for Nessarose... well, the house had always been more of a home for her than it had been for Elphaba. Perhaps that had been why she had secluded herself here after her graduation: with father dead of shame, Boq trying to leave, and the pressures of governance weighing down on her, the best sanctuary that could be found was her childhood home. But when, in the years between her rise to power and Elphaba's ill-fated visit, had she realised her newfound authority? When had she decided that the only way she could keep Boq at her side was by suspending the rights of Munchkins?

You probably helped there, said a poisonous voice in the back of her mind. I hardly think that she'd have been totally alone in that house without your reputation hovering over her...

Elphaba shook herself, ignoring the call of her guilt and focussing on more important things. For example, why had the Nomes left the house standing? They'd torn down just about every single building in all of Oz, so what made this one so special?

There was a stabbing pain between Elphaba's shoulders, and she realised that the guard had just jabbed her in the back with his crossbow; apparently she had been standing still a little too long for his tastes.

However, it seemed that several refugees had stopped to stare at the decrepit mansion as well, in spite of the Governor's best efforts. Of course, this had naturally set Woolwax off again: "I'm telling you," he said loudly, "this is the best possible place to hide for the next few days on. I mean, if the Nomes haven't touched it-"

"Have you got the tools to get those boards off the front door?"

"No, but that doesn't mean we can't find some around; there's a hardware store just a mile or three down the road..."

As the argument skidded back and forth, the guard turned to Elphaba and unexpectedly remarked, "Quite a sight, isn't it? The mansion, I mean. People think it's haunted nowadays; they say the Wicked Witch of the East's ghost haunts the study an' the drawing room. I seen kids trying to get in on dares, pryin' boards off the windows and everything, just to catch a glimpse of her. Not that they ever got in- place used to have security guards."

Elphaba sighed deeply. "Are you trying to have a conversation or have you just gotten tired of telling me to shut up?" she asked, snidely. "And no, I don't think it's quite I sight, I grew up there and after what happened to Nessarose, I never wanted to return."

"Oh." The guard looked crestfallen. "Wait a minute, who's Nessarose?"

Damn it, this again. One thing that had always irritated Elphaba was the way that her name and Nessarose' name had vanished so readily once the Wizard's propaganda machine had begun turning against them: as far as the general population of Oz was concerned, they were and always had been nameless except for the title of Wicked Witch. And maybe this could be justified by the fact that neither of them had ever been terribly well-known before they became infamous -father had been very careful to keep Nessa cloistered and spoiled, and Elphaba had been an outcast from the start - but that still didn't explain everything.

"It doesn't matter," said Elphaba. "Not at this point, anyway. And why are we talking, anyway? You're not doing a good job of pretending that you don't hate me, you know."

"I know that, but if I don't speak my mind I'm going to go out of it, and with this lot moanin' about which rock we're going to hide under for the next few days, I'm runnin' short on people to talk to. So, if you're not too busy plannin' the downfall of what's left of Oz, could you please tell me who the hell Nessarose is?"

"Ah, now we're cooking with gelignite. But seriously, you couldn't guess that..."

Elphaba suddenly fell silent, her eyes fixed on the distant ruins behind the mansion; something enormous was moving up on those hills, something with skin like the face of a cliff.

The guard turned, following her gaze, and if the sharp intake of breath was any evidence, he saw it too.

"Nomes!" he boomed. "NOMES!"

As one, the refugees turned to the guard, and then to the hillside ruins.

The Governor had just enough to say, "Don't panic, it hasn't seen us yet," before Woolwax began sprinting down the path towards the front door of the mansion, followed closely the other refugees.

"Oh for Oz's sake!" the Governor shouted after them. "Did any of you even hear what I said? It hasn't seen us yet! And besides, have you all forgotten that we can't get the boards off the... the..."

He stopped and seemed to sag. "Is anyone listening to me?" he asked nobody in particular.

Elphaba looked from the Nomes slowly emerging from the ruins to the small crowd of people attacking the doors and windows of the mansion with what pitiful weaponry they'd managed to gather, and reached a decision: taking a deep breath, she grabbed the Governor by the collar and began dragging him down the path towards the front door.

By the time they reached it, the refugees were beginning to despair.

"It's no good, Governor," the guard panted. "We can't get through the-"

"Boards," finished the Governor, smiling in a way that suggested that he was about to go for the man's jugular. "I know: my predecessor was very thorough. So, does anyone have any other ideas? Quickly now, before the Nomes appear and flatten us into ornamental paving stones."

Elphaba coughed politely. "If everyone could please move away from the door..."

"This wouldn't have happened if we'd have just gone down to the hardware store!" Woolwax bawled, oblivious to the coughing. "We'd have been inside if you'd let me go down the road and get a-"

Stifling a sigh of annoyance, Elphaba waved a hand, propelling the crowd of refugees apart, all of them landing awkwardly in the long grass on either side of the doorway. Another two quick gestures neatly smashed the once-sturdy wooden planks into matchsticks and catapulted the door inwards at such a speed and with such force that Elphaba found herself marvelling that it wasn't simply torn from its hinges.

For a moment, there was a confused silence as the bewildered Ozians processed the fact that the Wicked Witch of the West hadn't just killed them.

Then the Governor shouted, "INSIDE!"

Galvanised by the sound of his voice, they charged inside, barely waiting for Elphaba and the Governor to follow before they slammed the door shut.

And here we go, thought Elphaba grimly, as darkness descended on them, back to a place I hoped to never set foot in for as long as I lived. This seems to be my week for breaking old vows...

The entrance hall was ankle-deep in dust, and pitch black except for the pale green light that Elphaba had conjured; for the moment, all that was illuminated was the staircase, the cage-lift, and several hallways and passageways, all of them in decay and disrepair, and all of them leading off into stygian darkness. Of course, the frightened faces of the refugees were also illuminated, and Elphaba knew at once that most of them were staring at her.

"Right," said the Governor, "Now that we're inside, all we've got to do is make sure that the Nomes don't know we're in here. I don't know if they'll notice that the door's no longer boarded up, but there's not a hell of a lot we can do about that right now. In the meantime, I think we should also search the building; my predecessor wasn't too interested in removing anything from the house before it was closed off, so there's a chance there might be something useful still here."

"So now you want to loot the place," said Woolwax smugly. "I don't suppose there's any chance I could have an apology in the next five minutes?"

Under the emerald glow of Elphaba's handheld light, the Governor's exasperated expression looked particularly grotesque; for a moment, he looked as though he was actually about to respond, but instead, he turned to Elphaba. "Would your sister have kept anything useful around the house?" he asked. "Maps? Weapons? Tools? Anything that we can put to practical use?"

"Well, if nobody's thrown anything of our old library away, there should be a few atlases there - if they haven't been eaten by rats or anything. As for weaponry and tools, you've got the kitchen and the toolshed at your disposal. And amongst other things, we've also got..."

She glanced around the room until she found the side table, reached into the small drawer in its side, and drew out an armful of candles, placing them on the floor.

Woolwax glared at Elphaba, and then saw the thoughtful expression on the Governor's face. "You're not going to just take all this on faith, are you?"

"Of course not," said the Governor, briskly. "We've got the rest of the day to search the place, after all. Now, if I remember the floor plan of this place correctly, the library should be on the east wing of the ground floor, the kitchen likewise, and... um... the tool shed will have to wait until we're sure that the Nomes aren't watching the garden."

He paused, and appeared to be counting under his breath.

"Right," he said eventually, and pointed to a small cluster of refugees. "The seven of you, take some candles and search the upper floor - but be careful around the stairs, they might be rotten. And for godsakes, don't touch the lift. Woolwax, you and the four next to you search the east wing. And you three investigate the north end of the house - it shouldn't need too much exploration. Mr Gnoll," the guard obligingly clanked to attention, "You and I will investigate the west wing and the study."

"But what about the Witch?" someone asked quietly.

The Governor swallowed. "She'll go with me. More specifically," he said over the resulting din of confusion, "She'll take the lead. After all, she's the one holding the light."

After a brief squabble, in which twice as many coarse epithets than normal were used, the refugees gathered up their candles and began edging furtively into the shadows. Seeing Gnoll (now with a small candle perched on the brim of his helmet) positioning his crossbow between her shoulders, Elphaba sighed, turned to her left, and began marching down the corridor, the Governor walking beside her.

Against all expectations, less than ten steps along, Elphaba found speaking - if only to take her mind off the problems that needed to be solved sooner or later. "Is it my imagination," she asked quietly, "Or are you starting to trust me?"

"No," said the Governor. "I still don't trust you, but I know for a fact that you're not an idiot."

"What does that have to do with anything? Hang on a minute, we've got a door here..."

As the three of them hesitantly explored the shadows of the drawing room, the Governor explained:

"It means that while I can't trust you with my life, it means that I can trust you not to make stupid decisions; I mean, back outside, you could have just run for it, and ended up being caught and killed by the Nomes for your trouble."

"I've already told you I've got spells that can shatter rock, haven't I?"

"True, you could have fought quite a few of them off, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have eventually succeeded in killing you. So, rather than getting yourself flatted into a makeshift doormat for this house, you showed that you were smarter than that. And given that you're staggering around a dark room, with no certain way out and a crossbow at your spine, I'd assume you're smart enough not to try and turn on us now."

"Thanks. I think." She sneezed. "Have you found anything useful?"

"Other than some comfy chairs, nothing. Let's get out of here."

Back in the corridor, Elphaba found herself muttering, "Tell me, before the invasion, did you always have to calculate risks as often as you have in the last two days, or have Munchkin politics quietened since my sister was in power?"

"Well, it took a few months for the country to recover from..." He hesitated. "...From the regime change," he continued delicately. "But it settled down eventually: laws were rewritten, business started booming, and everything was flourishing- until the invasion, of course. But truth be told, I'm new to all this. In fact, I'm only the acting Governor, and I wasn't exactly high on the list of chosen substitutes if you know what I mean."

"How far down on the list were you?"

"Uh, right at the bottom," the Governor admitted sheepishly. "I think the only reason I ended up on the list to begin with was because I was already privy to the same emergency procedures that all the other substitutes would have to be briefed in during national crises."

"Who were you?"

"Iwstgvnrsctry."

"What?"

Even under the mixture of green and yellow light, Elphaba could see clearly that the Munchkin was blushing. "I was the Governor's secretary before the invasion- secretary and personal assistant, to be pedantic."

For a moment, there was silence except for the sound of Gnoll chuckling to himself, and the creak of the next door being opened. "I was wondering how you managed to have access to the floor plan of this place," said Elphaba quietly. "Was this the same reason why you actually knew that the invaders were Nomes in the first place?"

"Of course. You'd be amazed at the things people have left in the archives. It didn't explain why they're on the warpath, but at least we know who they are."

"Well, if it's any comfort, you're doing a lot better than the last Governor's assistant I ran into."

"Thanks. I think. Gnoll, what are you doing with that pail?"

"Just checking to see if I can use it as a better helmet, sir."

"Put the damn thing down, Gnoll; you don't know what's been sitting in it for the past year. Besides," he added over the hasty clatter, "I don't think we're going to find anything of use in here, anyway: this looks like the ground floor bathroom."

Once they were back in the corridor, Elphaba remarked, "By the way, I never got your name."

"Quintether Rasp. And yours?"

"Elphaba Thropp."

There was a muffled expletive from Gnoll, followed by the sound of someone falling heavily against a door, and then an equally heavy crunch of termite-gnawed wood collapsing under the guard's considerable weight. As the echoes died away, Elphaba shone her handheld light in the general direction of the noise, revealing that Gnoll was now lying on the opposite side of a wrecked door at the end of the corridor, his head clasped firmly between his knees. "Are you alright, sir?" he said eventually.

"Gnoll, you just leaped through a door: I'd be more worried about your own health at this point if I were you."

"Sorry, sir: I was always told that hearin' a Wicked Witch's real name burned you from the inside out."

Rasp's left eyebrow crashed into his hairline. "Er, I don't think I've heard that one, Gnoll, and believe me, I've heard them all."

There was a derisive snort from behind the broken door.

"No, really, I have: I think archives documented just about every single tall tale ever told about the Wicked Witches, including the one that turned out to be tr..."

He paused, and looked sharply at Elphaba.

He's catching on, she thought. Who knows? Maybe he might be clever enough to guess at the truth. "Is there something wrong?" she asked aloud.

"Nothing, nothing," he mumbled absently. "Uh, Gnoll, I don't suppose you'd mind opening the door for us? Manually, if you please."

Once they were inside, it didn't take long for Elphaba to realise where they were.

Even a year's worth of dust and cobwebs couldn't disguise the fact that this room had once been the study, where Nessarose had taken her very first steps with the aid of the Ruby Slippers, and Boq had quite literally lost his heart. Unnervingly, not a single piece of furniture had been disturbed in all that time since then: the drawers and cabinets were still locked; no books had been removed from the shelves; apart from the dust, the desk was arrayed as neatly as it had been.

And behind the desk, its scarlet cushions faded and its wheels strung with cobwebs, sat Nessa's wheelchair.

"Who do you suppose that belonged to?" Gnoll asked softly, as he tried to force one of the desk drawers open.

Elphaba couldn't bring herself to answer; to her surprise, however, Rasp whispered, "I would imagine that it belonged to the Wicked Witch of the East."

"You mean-?"

"Yes: most of the records pertaining to the Wicked Witches were destroyed as per the Wizard's orders, but a few survived... and ended up in the government archives during my last inspection. They're mostly reports by doctors, official diagnoses and the like; for one reason or another, they don't mention names- only official titles- but they do mention that for most of her life, the Wicked Witch of the East was paralysed from the waist down."

Gnoll goggled at the luxurious wheelchair. "So this thing here actually belonged to the Wicked Witch of the East?" he whispered in awe.

"Her name was Nessarose," said Elphaba quietly.

"What?"

"I said, her name was Nessarose."

There was a deathly silence. Why did I even say that out loud? Elphaba thought bitterly. It's not as if any of them really care; it's not as if they'd apologise. It's not as if any of these gormless twits would even comprehend what had happened and why. As far as any of them are concerned, anything we've ever done was all in the name of pure, undiluted evil.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed; let's see how long I can keep my temper under control...

And then Gnoll brought the silence crashing down by asking, "Were you the one who taught your sister how to use magic?"

Four seconds.

"Oh for f- what are you talking about?" Elphaba exploded.

Gnoll jerked backwards in alarm, dropping his crossbow.

"Exactly which inbred backwater did you hear that rumour in?" Elphaba carried on, throwing courtesy to the wind. "Nessarose didn't learn magic from anyone! She didn't study it, she didn't practice it, and she definitely had no natural talent in it! Apart from being my sister, she'd had absolutely nothing to do with magic up until the day before she died, and the only reason that happened was firstly because I wanted to make up for all the trouble I caused her, and secondly because I was stupid enough to leave the Grimmerie open on the floor when her assistant tendered his resignation! After that, Nessarose had absolutely nothing to do with magic apart from the Ruby Slippers, which were used exclusively to help her walk, and she only wore them for the last thirty-two hours of her life before Dorothy Gale's house crushed her to death. Do I make myself clear?"

She took a deep breath - and realised that while Gnoll had been fumbling to retrieve his crossbow, Rasp had drawn a silver letter-opener from his pocket and was now pointing it at her throat; for a moment, Elphaba wondered if she should take the man seriously, for his hand was clearly trembling.

Then common sense kicked in: "There's no need for that, Governor," said Elphaba softly.

"Just making sure the conversation stays civil, Miss Thropp. And," he added, gently withdrawing the blade, "while we're on the subject, exactly what did your sister do to the assistant? I presume this was the same assistant that wasn't as lucky as me. If the employment records were accurate enough, his name was Boq- and he was the very last member of staff to leave this manor."

"He's alive, if that's what you're wondering."

"Well," said Rasp coldly, "Whatever your sister did to him must have been horrible, because he certainly didn't show his face after her death, even when his family sent out search parties to look for him. So what happened to him?"

"I'm afraid it's not my place to answer that question."

And that was the truth, wasn't it? Even if Boq had been missed by his family, he'd done his very best to avoid encountering them ever again after his transformation. If he didn't want his past to be known, then surely it was his right to have it kept that w-

Rasp interrupted this train of thought by snapping, "Then perhaps it's your place to answer me this: if your sister had no magical power of her own, and no way of using magic without the Grimmerie, then explain that."

He pointed to the wall behind Elphaba.

Very slowly, she turned, and found herself facing a massive crater; an entire section of the plaster had been crushed inwards, as if a battering ram the side of a stagecoach had been hammered against it.

"I don't know much about construction or architecture for that matter," said Rasp, "But something tells me that this didn't occur naturally, and since nobody's touched this room since the manor was abandoned last year, I'd say there aren't too many other culprits."

Elphaba suddenly felt as though her blood had turned to ice. "Other than the Nomes," she mumbled.

"What?"

"Back in the Emerald City, the Nomes looted just about anything magical they could get their hands on; so, they came here looking for more artefacts, and when they couldn't find anything, either one of them decided to inspect the wall for hidden compartments, or lost his temper." She bit her lip. "If any of the others find holes in the floor, I think we should leave as quickly as possible: if the Nomes have left this house in one piece, they might have plans to return."

"So what you're saying is that the Nomes tunnelled through the floorboards, went rummaging through the house for whatever magical artefact they thought they could find here, and when it didn't show up, one of them thumped the wall before throwing in the towel for the day. Is that right?"

"Well, yes. Doesn't it make sense?"

Rasp made a valiant attempt not to look sceptical, and failed miserably. "Miss Thropp," he said on a tone of exaggerated diplomacy, "How could something the size of a Nome walk through this house without disturbing the dust?"

"Besides," grunted Gnoll, "That hole's been there for ages - it's had time to decay."

"Oh, and I suppose you were a builder before you were a security guard," Elphaba sneered.

"How'd you guess?"

"Oh, shut up! You," she snapped, rounding on Rasp, "You said that this place hadn't been entered since the manor was abandoned. What if one of the builders vandalised the wall while they were-"

"No, because nobody went inside the house at all; all the work was done from the outside. I'm afraid you're going to face the fact that your sister had magical power and you didn't even know it."

Elphaba sighed deeply, and tried not to lose her temper.

"Look," she said carefully, "I know that Nessarose was about three steps removed from insanity by the time I visited her, but magic's a completely different issue altogether: when did she start learning? Without any inherent gift, it would have taken her quite a while to learn how to deliver the force needed to crush that wall inwards... and more to the point, where did she get her knowledge? Oz doesn't exactly have a thriving trade in authentic spellbooks, you know, and Nessa certainly didn't own any artefacts that might have provided the knowledge or the power."

Several hundred miles away, the spymaster repeated these words, and the Nome King laughed quietly behind one monolithic hand. "Oh, Elphaba," he chortled, "If you only knew..."

Back in the manor, Elphaba and Rasp turned at the sound of approaching footsteps: it was Woolwax, accompanied by another man whom Elphaba recognised as the artilleryman who'd shot her down in the first place. They were both holding two enormous sacks, and though the words stencilled on them couldn't be seen in the dim light, the foul chemical odour wafting from the sacks was information enough.

"Good news," said Woolwax gleefully. "Young Curter and I managed to sneak these out of the toolshed."

Rasp groaned: "You really weren't listening when I advised against it, were you?"

"Don't worry sir," Curter soothed. "We made sure none of them saw us. Besides, look at what we've managed to find- but mind that candle, this stuff's very flammable."

With Elphaba providing light, Rasp peered awkwardly at the one of the labels, and then leaped back in alarm.

"Gunpowder?" he hissed. "Why the merry hell would there be a store of gunpowder in the toolshed?"

"As far as we can tell, someone broke into the shed a while ago and up until now he's been using it as a private storehouse for a lot of dangerous ordinances- most of them stolen from local barracks and excavation sites, by the look of things. We've taken note of just about anything useful in the shed, and believe me, we are in serious luck!"

He handed Rasp a sheet of paper.

After reading for several seconds, Rasp looked up rather sheepishly. "Not to sound ignorant," he asked hesitantly, "But what the hell is t... trin... trinitrotoluene? And why is having over four hundred pounds of it such a good thing?"

And suddenly, in spite of all the strife and chaos that she'd been embroiled in, in spite of all the screaming and shouting and misery and pain, Elphaba found herself laughing with genuine mirth. Eventually, she calmed enough to notice Rasp's bewildered stare and took a very close look at the list in his hand.

"You know," she said brightly, "I think the situation might just be looking up!"

"Why's that, exactly?"

"Because, O Esteemed Governor, we now have exactly the kind of explosives we need to combat the Nomes en masse!"

Chapter 13: A Land Remade

Summary:

The Nome King sows the seeds of the future...

Notes:

By now, I'm hopefully updating on a regular basis, but it still takes a little time.
As I said, this was completed a very long time ago, but there's a very good reason why I've haven't backdated my old stories: all of them need editing by an older, wiser, and hopefully saner author, either for mistakes, tweaked pacing, or even better language (The Land Of What Might Have Been will be a key example of this when I finally get around to it).
Suffice it to say, this isn't the same thing I posted to fanfiction.net over a decade ago. I'm immensely grateful to A03 for making editing and rewriting so much easier than the other site, but it still takes a little time to get right.
As such, I must thank you for your indulgence.

Chapter Text

"For the forty-second time, get off me! GET OFF! Ge- oh, why am I bothering?"

One of the crows blinked stupidly down at Fiyero and pecked absently under its left wing. The other twelve carried on hunting about his clothing for wherever that smell of rotten meat might be wafting from. Obviously, this land didn't have much in the way of proper Animals.

Fiyero would have given anything just to be able to move his limbs, to shake the bastards off, but he couldn't: the stone men - the Nomes, as he knew them now - had made sure of that.

Right now, tied to this crude scaffolding, he really was just a very talkative scarecrow.

Well, most scarecrows aren't placed atop cliffs, Fiyero thought bemusedly. And at least I've got a more interesting view this time around.

And this was true: above him, the towering horns of the Nome King's Mountain provided shelter for dozens of other carrion-birds eager to investigate the tiny figure bound between them. Below him, the Nome Kingdom stretched out in mile after mile of uninhabited plateau, for the Nomes lived exclusively beneath the earth and none of them had much interest in colonizing the surface. In the distance, Fiyero could see the long expanse of the Deadly Desert that separated the kingdom from Oz... and if he strained his eyes, he could just about discern the green fields of Munchkinland.

There was a lot of smoke on that horizon, though; it didn't take a genius to guess that the invasion had spread far and wide across Oz, without much successful opposition. Why would there be? Oz's army had gone into decline under the Wizard in favour of glorified security agencies like the Gale Force and the Emerald Guard, who'd only be equipped to put down rioters and rebellious witches at the most, with the Wizard's illusion of power keeping external threats at bay; Unless they'd been able to get hold of artillery before the Nomes started sweeping the country (which didn't sound likely) the Emerald Guard would be slaughtered by the hundreds.

Fiyero let out a long, drawn-out snarl of frustration: he'd been up here for hours, now, waiting for an audience with the Nome King... after spending hours slumped in the darkness, waiting for an audience with the Nome King!

Was he ever going to speak with him, or were the Nomes just screwing around? It was certainly beginning to look like it; after all, now that his powerbase had been demolished in the invasion, what right did he have to demand anything from his jailers? They'd probably leave him up on the cliff for another few hours and then drag him back into the shadows... and this time, they'd leave him there and forget all about him.

Elphaba, he thought, I hate to nag, but I really wouldn't mind it if you appeared and saved the day right about now. Come to think of it, I'd be happy just knowing that my message reached you.

There was a polite cough from his left.

Fiyero turned just in time to see another Nome emerging from the wall; in startling contrast to the blank-faced servants who'd manhandled him up and down the corridors, this one was bearded and smiling, and also conspicuously taller than most of the other Nomes Fiyero had met so far. There were even the five points of what could only be a crown protruding from his head.

"I hope this is not a bad moment," said the Nome King.

Fiyero eyed the crows still pecking at his clothing. "Oh, I don't think these damn things mind you intruding," he remarked sarcastically. "Do you?"

The crows cawed indifferently and went back to searching his clothes for rotten meat.

"You must excuse my being late for our meeting, Your Highness; I've been very busy of late with the territory we've successfully annexed. But enough of all that," he said, apparently oblivious to Fiyero's outraged expression, "Allow me to introduce myself: King Roquat the Red, at your service. And you, of course, are the Scarecrow, King of Oz- or, to use your birth name, Fiyero Tiggular. You don't mind if I call you Fiyero, do you?"

Fiyero's jaw dropped. "How the hell do you know my name?"

"A little stone bird told me," the King chuckled cryptically. "I have quite an aviary. But enough about me; let's talk about you. You wanted an audience with me, yes?"

"Well, yes," grumbled Fiyero, barely keeping a civil tone. "I'd like to know why you invaded, thank you very much. What are you planning to do with Oz, now that you've conquered it? What are you going to do with me?"

"Our invasion was one of retribution... and, of course, it was also to retrieve a stolen cultural treasure: you saw my soldiers removing the emeralds from the walls of the Emerald City, did you not? As for what I plan to do with the country... that shall become apparent shortly. As for what's in store for you, I can assure you that it doesn't involve your death, because quite frankly, I'm not sure if we could manage it."

Fiyero made a face. "I'd have thought burning me would do the trick," he remarked idly.

"True, fire would destroy your physical form... but would that guarantee the cessation of consciousness? What's to say that your mind wouldn't live on, trapped for all eternity within a heap of ashes, awake and somehow still aware of all around it?"

With the possible exception of his stuffing, Fiyero had no blood to speak of, but that didn't stop him from feeling as though the veins he no longer owned had turned to ice.

His alarm must have shown on his face, because the Nome King let out a deafening boom of laughter: "It's certainly something to ponder, isn't it? But then, I'm sure you've had time to think on such things; that's something we immortals have in spades: time."

"I take it that you're immortal, too, then? Oh well, I suppose the stone skin and echoey voice should have at least given me some kind of hint. Is that the same for all Nomes, or did you just earn it by becoming king?"

"Can you picture a Nome getting old?"

"Uh... not really."

"Then you have you have your answer. Elemental embodiments, as a rule, do not age. Not physically, anyway."

You're having far too much fun for your own good, Roquat; you're obviously gearing towards something unpleasant, but what? And why are you wasting my time like this?

"You can still be destroyed, though," he said quietly.

"True."

"Then I think we should start making deals about now."

"What are your terms?"

Fiyero drew himself up as best as he could, which wasn't too easy considering he was still tied up. But he needed to look and sound as kingly as possible for this little speech.

"You can keep the emeralds," he said, in his best 'diplomatic but unyielding' tone. "I couldn't care less about them. I won't ask you to rebuild anything for us, I won't ask any repayment: all I want is for you to leave Oz and release any other Ozian prisoners you have in captivity. That's all I ask."

"And how would you ensure that I uphold my end of this deal, Fiyero? What exactly is stopping me from refusing your offer?"

"Back when your army was tearing the Emerald City to pieces, Your Highness, I called for help: we may not have the same magical strength you possess, but we have a ritual used for contacting help, even if help lies beyond the world. Do you really want to risk coming face to face with an army from another world, one loyal to Oz?"

The Nome King smirked. "Pardon me for being presumptuous, but that isn't what you're hoping for, is it? You're hoping that Elphaba will receive your call for help, follow the trail of clues, rain destruction down upon my kingdom, rescue you and save the day. Isn't that right?"

"W... h... how did you- oh, don't tell me, a little bird told you. You've been spying on me, haven't you?"

"You and all of Oz. But, as it happens, the call will not reach Elphaba. In point of fact, the call will not need to reach Elphaba. She's already learned of the invasion through other means, and she will soon be here, exactly as I intended. You see, Fiyero, I haven't brought you here to torture you, execute you, or convert you... you're here as bait."

Once again, Fiyero felt as though the blood he didn't have had turned to ice. "What do you want with Elphaba?" he whispered.

"For the same reason I have Glinda in captivity as well," said the King, his smile broadening horribly. "At the moment, you needn't know the exact purpose I have in mind, but know this: I was intending for you to call for help. You see, I've known about your emergency protocols for some time now, and I developed a method of controlling the magical signal you sent. Under my guidance, your call for help will reach the next component of my plan, and very slowly guide her back to Oz."

"You mean-"

"Of course. But enough about that; you wanted to know what I had in store for Oz, didn't you?"

"I get the feeling that you haven't got anything pleasant in mind."

"Everything dies, Fiyero," the King intoned solemnly. "Everything comes to dust eventually; even immortality doesn't necessarily guarantee eternal life. After all, as you've seen, we Nomes can be destroyed. As for the accomplishments of mortals, they last only as long as their keepers have the power to maintain them: the cities, the monuments, the knowledge recorded in books... sooner or later, it will all be reclaimed by the earth."

"Is this going somewhere, Roquat? I've known this for quite a while, now."

The King waved a hand, and suddenly, the horns of the mountain above shimmered with magical energy: as Fiyero watched, the landscape spread out below them seemed to warp and shift, growing slowly larger. It took a moment or so for him to realise that a watery skein of magic had grown across the space between the horns, magnifying the distant Ozian countryside as if it were seen through an impossibly powerful telescope.

Then, the magnification grew substantially: to Fiyero's eyes, it looked as though the ruined towns and farms of Munchkinland had suddenly decided to leap out of their mangled foundations and say hello.

"Shiiii!"

"Yes, I have to agree with you there, I think I might have overdone it. Lowering magnification..."

With another wave of the King's hand, the houses began to retreat; when the image settled, Fiyero found himself with an aerial view of Munchkinland that still provided astonishing details of the settlements below, albeit without feeling as though he was being pressed against the windowpanes.

"Nice view," he said blearily. "What exactly am I looking for?"

"The future of Oz. You see, inevitably, plants will play a key role in destroying the remnants of mortal civilisation: they grow to strangle buildings and destroy entire cities if left to grow out of control. The process usually takes decades, sometimes even centuries... but magic, as always, offers a more entertaining alternative: for the past few hours, my soldiers have been planting seeds across Oz. Normally, it would take several years for the resulting trees and creepers to grow to full size, but, with a little bit temporal magic on my part - and few other brands of thaumaturgy - they will achieve maturity in a matter of minutes, crushing the last remnants of Ozian "culture" and hundreds of thousands of resistance groups with it."

"Oh come on," Fiyero grumbled skeptically. "I've been around Elphaba long enough to know that you can't just fling a spell at plants all over Oz and actually expect it to work. That's a whole country you're planning to alter, in case you hadn't noticed."

"How right you are," said the King, his voice thick with condescension. "However, two very important factors must be taken into account: first of all, as King, I have access to vast personal reserves of magical energy. Secondly, I am in possession of two very powerful artefacts that, well..." He chuckled. "Actions speak louder than words, as they say. Corporal!"

The face of another Nome appeared in the face of the cliff. "Yes, sir?" it said.

"Have the Generals withdrawn their troops from the area?"

"They have, sir, though they are asking exactly why the mop-up operations have been suspended."

"Tell them that an explanation will be forthcoming... and to enjoy the show. Now," he said contemplatively, "Where should we begin? Munchkinland? No, too easy... why don't we start with the Vinkus?"

Rasp surveyed the growing pile of explosives and ammunition with considerable apprehension.

"Are you sure that this is safe?" he asked Woolwax, who was leaning against the wall, leisurely sharpening a butcher's knife.

"From what Curter tells me, not really," he admitted. "One spark, and there won't be much left of us to bury, so I suppose I should be glad that none of us smoke."

"What are you talking about, Woolwax? I've seen you smoking!"

"That's true, but I haven't been able to find any tobacco in the last day, so there you go." He slid the butcher's knife back into his belt, stretched a moment, and then began crossing the room towards the pile. "Where's the Witch gotten to, by the way?"

"I think she's helping to unload the toolshed."

Woolwax tripped headlong over a crate of musket balls, landing with a crash among the saltpetre.

"What?" he yelped incredulously. "You let her out of your sight while she's doing something like that?"

Rasp held up a placating hand. "Relax; I haven't left her completely unsupervised, as surprising as that may seem to you. Gnoll's still keeping an eye on her."

"No offence, Governor, but Gnoll's about as useful as a chocolate kettle when it comes to guard duty. And while we're on the subject of jobs certain people aren't cut out for, why would you let the Witch even look at the toolshed, much less move explosives out of it?"

"Sweaty dynamite," said Rasp, obliquely.

Woolwax blinked. "Er... I did notice there were a few boxes of it in the shed, but w-"

"Out of the way, now!"

Completely forgetting the urge to turn around and argue, Woolwax stood aside as the Wicked Witch of the West (now known unofficially as "Miss Thropp") marched into the room, carrying a large stack of boxes. However, she wasn't carrying them in her hands: instead, they hovered eerily (and more importantly, unwaveringly) through the air less than two feet in front of her. As Woolwax watched in amazement, the stacked dynamite continued to float across the room as the Witch sat down wearily on the staircase, eventually settling in a corner of the room, where the pile couldn't collapse.

There was a long pause, as the three of them eyed the wooden boxes, and tried not to think about the explosives within, slowly oozing pure nitroglycerin. Then Gnoll finally plodded in.

"Sorry about that," he mumbled. "Nobody wanted to see what would've happened if she'd dropped it."

"I can't blame them," said the Witch, glaring meaningfully at the latest addition to the munitions dump. "Is it just me, or does anyone else think we should have left that back in the shed?"

"Ah shaddup," snapped Woolwax.

"Is that really all you can say to me?" the Witch shot back.

"Not now, you two," said Rasp. "But to answer your question, given our track record, I think we'd eventually figure out a way to accidentally set it off even without taking it off the shelf. Question is, who was stockpiling all this and what were they planning to use this for?"

"Maybe someone was planning on rebelling," Woolwax suggested. "The Wicked Witch of the East might be dead, but there's always someone upset with the way the country's being run."

"Oh, come on, I don't think my predecessor was doing that badly-"

"Not just in Munchkinland, Governor. I'm talking about all of Oz; a lot of people weren't happy about Animals being given equal rights."

"I know, I know. I think more than half the letters we received in the last six or seven months were complaints about the new laws. Or about Glinda. But would they really go as far as using all this," he indicated the heap of explosives, "just to get their way?"

"Why not? The anti-Animal people sure as hell weren't above holding protest rallies against Glinda: I mean, that protest two months ago, how they were shouting about 'GLINDA, LEADER OF THE ANIMAL REVOLUTION!' You remember that one? What about 'GLINDA, DOOM OF HUMANITY'? The protesters there were just about ready to stage a coup d'état!"

"Woolwax, those riots happened in the Emerald City. If these people were planning to stage a coup, why leave the stuff here, of all places?"

The argument raged on for several minutes, occasionally straying in odd directions, including suggestions that the Nomes had been pawns of the anti-Animal movements, before it reached some kind of conclusion. By then, the other refugees had returned from their explorations (each of them carrying their own payload of pilfered equipment) and decided to join the argument.

As the noise grew, Rasp gently massaged his temples and surveyed the situation.

At that moment, Woolwax was nose to bellybutton with one of the two Gillikin businessmen, snarling accusations at a hundred miles an hour. Like many of Glinda's most ardent supporters, Woolwax clearly couldn't care less about the Animals; all he cared about was the slander made against Glinda the Good. The businessman, meanwhile, was a classic anti-Animal advocate, parroting every single slogan the movement had ever used, right down to "Animals Should Be Seen And Not Heard." Eventually, the two debaters shifted from making wild accusations to simply threatening each other, and it seemed that any minute, the two of them would come to blows, and already, some of the spectators were already placing bets on who would survive the ensuing brawl.

Meanwhile, the Witch, for once completely forgotten, simply sat in a corner and watched.

Then, Woolwax made the mistake of taking a step back into accusations: "...And don't think any of us have forgotten that it was you lot that accused Glinda of being an ally of the Wicked Witch of the West!"

There was an embarrassed pause, as all eyes turned in the Witch's direction.

"Well," said the businessman at last, "You can't blame that on us: Glinda all but admitted it!"

"No she didn't!" Woolwax roared. "She said that they met at school, and that's all!"

Another colossal silence followed, broken by Gnoll turning to the Witch and asking, "Is that true?"

The Witch scowled, and for a moment it looked as though she wasn't going to say anything. But eventually, she sighed, and said wearily, "Yes. It's true. We met exactly once at university and never saw each other again until I rebelled against the Wizard. Happy?"

Woolwax nodded in grudging satisfaction.

As expected, however, the businessman wasn't so easily swayed: "If that's so, then why did she say that you had 'wickedness thrust upon you' or whatever it was? She had a whole speech dedicated to how tough your life was, and if she hadn't been cut off, she'd have gone for hours on end. If she didn't know you that well, why'd she show sympathy?"

For a moment, the Witch's irritable scowl flickered, and Rasp saw an almost unreadable expression cross her face: was that shock he saw, or was it something else? Then, as if by magic, the scowl was back in place again.

"As I recall," she said coldly, "that was just Glinda's way: she'd show sympathy to anyone, no matter how little she knew of them. I mean, on our last day at Shiz, she changed her name in honour of one of the teachers..."

Somehow, Rasp thought, as the Witch carried on in the background, I get the feeling you're telling us at least part of the truth. You have a lot of secrets, Miss Thropp; question is, will we live long enough to hear the answers?

A loud knock on the door startled him out of his reverie, and sent the other refugees scrambling for weaponry. Woolwax, brandishing a musket, took up a firing position right in front of the door and barked "Who goes there?"

"Another survivor," a plaintive voice answered. "Could you kindly open the door? If I stay out here any longer, I'm dead: I can't run from them any longer!"

"Who are you running from, the Nomes?"

"Bugger the Nomes!" wailed the stranger. "I lost them over ten miles back. It's the bloody Wheelers who're after me now!"

After several more cacophonous thuds at the door and a sudden argument over whether or not they should let the stranger in, Woolwax hesitantly opened the door to reveal...

Rasp blinked, mentally assessed what little he knew of non-local Animal species. Based on the hooves, the slender frame, and the long, backward-curling horns, it was probably a gazelle. Regardless of who or what he was, the anti-Animal activists among the refugees immediately began shouting their disgust; one of them even tried to force Woolwax to shut the door, to no avail.

"I won't have that thing in here!" shouted the businessman, blocking the Gazelle's way into the house. "It's probably a spy for the Nomes!"

"Nor I! I won't stand for having an Animal among us!"

"Get that goat out of the door!"

The Animal glared at the speaker. "I'm a Gazelle," he said pointedly. "And would you mind making up your minds soon, before the Wheelers catch up with me and kill us all?"

"Look," said Rasp diplomatically, "Let's just let him in for the moment, and we'll decide what to do once we're sure that we're not in any danger. How does that sound?"

The Anti-Animal campaigners in the crowd roared in disapproval.

"Let him in," said a voice from the back of the entrance hall.

It was the Witch, once again almost forgotten about in the chaos. Something had changed in her demeanour: in the last few hours, she'd seemed largely chaotic in temperament, flicking between disinterest, annoyance and anger seemingly at the drop of a hat; now, her voice was eerily calm and her face set in a deeply tranquil mask, except for her eyes, which looked as though they could slice through flesh and bone with a single glare. And the air around her, too, had changed; it seemed to crackle with palpable energy that set Rasp's teeth on edge and made the hairs on his arms stand on end.

Was the Witch about to cast a spell?

Several people noticed and backed away from her. Only two people failed to notice: the Gazelle, who was too busy staring at the Witch with an expression of shock etched on his face, and the businessman, who was doing his very best to put on a brave face.

"If you think I'm going to take orders from the Wicked Witch of the-" he began.

"Of course not," she said icily. "You're going to let that Gazelle into this house, and you're going to do it because you're an upstanding, high-minded gentleman who cares deeply for those in need. And," she added, her lips curling upward into a ghastly grin, "because I'll kill you very slowly if you don't."

A tendril of lightning crackled across her fingertips.

The businessman paled, and stepped away from the door, allowing the Gazelle to canter inside. As he passed the Witch, he mumbled a "Thankyou," and ducked gratefully into the shadows of the entrance hall.

Then, as an amused-looking Woolwax began bolting the door, there came a deafening chorus of cackling laughs and squealing wheels, as whatever had been chasing the hapless Gazelle thundered into earshot.

As the sounds drew closer, Woolwax opened one of the nearest windows (inward-opening, thankfully) and peered cautiously through the gaps between the boards. "Yeah," he muttered. "It's definitely Wheelers. I've seen 'em before, but never this badly-dressed."

"Is it just Wheelers?" Rasp asked; having read far too many reports by local guardsmen, he knew that it wasn't likely that the Wheelers would be able to break down the door without help.

"No; they're pulling some kind of chariot behind them. Here, you take a look..."

Rasp peered through the improvised peephole and saw that there were no less than twenty-five Wheelers rumbling down the path at that moment, fifteen pulling an impressive-looking gold chariot, the remaining ten acting as bodyguards to the chariot's occupant, a tall blonde-haired woman dressed in shimmering crimson robes.

As Rasp watched apprehensively, the Witch (still followed by the crossbow-toting Gnoll) opened the window across from him and stared out at the approaching Wheelers. Then she muttered, "Damn it, her again."

Rasp was about to ask exactly what she meant by that, when the chariot came to a grinding halt less than six feet from the front door, and one of the Wheelers shouted, "In the name of Her Most Authoritative Majesty, Princess Mombi, I hereby declare all surviving Munchkins..."

There was a pause, as the Wheeler hastily checked the paper tied to his front leg.

"... property of the state... and to that end, demand that you open the door and surrender yourselves immediately!"

The silence that followed was almost deafening, and after a good eight seconds of it, Rasp turned around and realised that everyone, including the Witch, was looking at him. Of course, this wasn't the first time he'd ended up on the receiving end of an expectant stare; when he and four other members of the Governor's staff had found their employer's corpse spread from one end of his ruined office to the next, everyone had turned to him, all of them silently asking him what they were going to do next. And he'd done well enough, so far, hadn't he? He'd led them out of the blazing ruins of the previous Governor's home, he'd found other survivors, and they'd managed to survive well enough so far. They'd even managed to capture the Wicked Witch of the West.

If he could only feel as though it wasn't based entirely on luck...

And your luck can't last forever, Quintether, old boy. You're not a leader, you're not a diplomat, and you're not a strategist: you're a bureaucrat, and this is no time to get overconfident.

Of course, this was no time to get underconfident, either.

So, Rasp took a breath to steady himself, stepped towards the door, and said in a loud, clear voice, "As Acting Governor of Munchkinland, and being privy to the 22nd Military Defence Law Amendment, Section 11, Paragraph B, I'm less than inclined to obey that order."

"Well," said the Wheeler, "we shall have to... hang on a minute, what is the 22nd Military Defence Law Amendment, Section 11 Paragraph B?"

"To cut a long story short, it forbids me from surrendering to any army that can be defeated by a closed door. And," he continued, over the Witch's sniggering, "It also forbids me from surrendering to armies that can't batter down a door without concussing themselves."

"Speciesist bastard," growled the Wheeler. "You're dead. And you tell that Gazelle he's dead, too! We're going to barbecue him alive, the rotten cud-eating- OW!"

"That's enough from you," said an imperious voice.

A quick look through the peephole revealed that this voice belonged to the tall, blonde woman standing in the chariot.

"Now, you in there open the door this instant or I'll blast it off its hinges and make you eat the splinters. And believe me, that'll just be the start of what I'll do to you and those fools lurking behind you. I will use your blood to paint the bedroom walls of my palace; I will use your skin as a blanket..."

"Do you mind if I take over from here?" the Witch asked quietly. "I've had to deal with this maniac before, and believe me, she can carry on for hours."

Rasp nodded, and the Witch strode over to the door, and shouted, "You're sounding much hoarser today, Mombi. Did you cut a little too close to the vocal cords this time?"

There was strangled choking noise from outside.

"Thropp?" Mombi yelped. "What... what are you doing here? You should have arrived at the Nome King's Mountain ages ago!"

"Aha!" said Elphaba triumphantly. "I thought you surrendered the information a little too readily. So, does the King have a trap set especially for me, or does he have something worse in mind?"

Mombi hesitated. "Who said I did that any of that under the King's orders?" she eventually answered. "Who says I didn't just send you in that direction just to get rid of you?"

"Because," said the Witch smugly, "to be brutally honest, I don't think you're nearly smart enough to pull off such a feint. Come to think of it, I don't think you're smart enough to handle an axe without hurting yourself. So, I have to ask: just how many of your toes did you remove while collecting those heads of yours?"

"Damn you, Thropp, I'll take you to the Nome King myself if I have to! I'll bring the roof down on your head and drag your carcass out of the wreckage and take it all the way to the Mountain... once I've finished kicking your teeth out! I'll tie your hands with your own oesophagus and your legs with your optic nerve! I'll make your kidneys into a waistcoat for my lead Wheeler! I'll spike your eyes and use them as earrings! I'll wear your pancreas around my neck as a medallion, you talentless faux-prodigy! And then, then I'll get violent..."

"Talentless faux-prodigy?" echoed the Witch. "Do I detect a hint of jealousy in your voice, Mombi?"

"And did this woman study medical textbooks for these threats?" Rasp whispered snidely.

"I HEARD THAT, YOU LITTLE TURD! YOU'D BEST STAND AWAY FROM THE DOOR, BECAUSE I WANT YOU ALIVE! I WANT YOU PARBOILED ALIVE!"

"Your Majesty," said one of the Wheelers urgently, "Something's wrong... It's the plants-"

Over Mombi's screamed a reprimand, Rasp clearly heard the sound of the other Wheelers honking in alarm, and hurried to the peephole to see what had spooked them: it didn't take long for him to see that all eyes were focussed on the nearest patch of vegetation.

There was a sapling there, and Rasp briefly wondered when it had been planted, because as far as he could remember, it hadn't been there when they had first approached the manor. But then he realised that what had shocked the Wheelers was the fact that it was now growing at an incredible rate, stretching dramatically towards the sky and sending its thickening roots coursing through the soil.

And there were more saplings growing, too...

On every single patch of soil in sight, from the grounds of the manor to the ruined landscape beyond, young saplings were bursting free of the earth and growing into trees, tearing apart any building unlucky enough to be in the way. Judging by the flow of expletives, Mombi had realised that the trees appeared to be growing inwards towards the garden path - and her chariot.

One of the Wheelers clearly recognised this as well, and began frantically rolling towards the gate, only for a newly-grown root to burst out of the earth and impale him neatly through the chest: down he went, instantly covered in layer after layer of hungry roots, his screams at first muffled then silenced forever as he was crushed into the soil.

"Thropp!" Mombi yelled, her voice suddenly panicked. "Whatever you're doing, stop it now!"

"Sorry, Mombi," said the Witch, and it might have been Rasp's imagination, but she sounded genuinely surprised. "I'm not working any magic at present."

"I'm not stupid, you know- I recognise a tailor-made spell when I see it, and these things aren't touching your house!"

"True, but I haven't cast any spells in the last few minutes."

"Then who..."

Mombi turned and realised that most of her bodyguards were already fleeing for their lives as the ravenous trees grew ever closer.

"...RETREAT!" she howled. "RETREAT!"

And the Wheelers still harnessed took off so quickly that Mombi was almost thrown from the chariot as it lurched away, bouncing violently over the new roots and the four dead Wheelers that they'd claimed. Eventually, the screams and thuds were drowned out by the crunching sounds of rapidly-growing trees, and the thunderous booms of ruined houses being torn to pieces.

"Thank Goodness for that," Woolwax sighed, mopping his brow. He turned to the Witch, and said (with great difficulty), "Well done. When's it going to stop?"

The Witch smiled sheepishly. "I don't know. When I said I didn't cast any spells, I was telling the truth."

"Come on, woman, don't mess about-"

"I'm not messing about! I don't know who cast this spell, but it sure as hell wasn't me!"

"Oh really?" said the Gillikin businessman. "Can you prove that?"

"No, but-"

"Are you trying to kill us?"

"Don't be an idiot; the trees haven't touched the house-"

"GNOLL!"

The guard obediently snapped to attention, shouldering his crossbow.

"Right," snarled the businessman, "You've got ten seconds to stop this; if those trees haven't stopped growing in those ten seconds, Gnoll is going to shoot you in the heart- if you even have one!" There was a shout of agreement from the surrounding refugees.

"Hang on!" said Rasp indignantly. "Have you forgotten who's in charge here? I'm the governor, I give the orders!"

"And what's the order, you pretentious little bastard?" The businessman drewa flintlock pistol from his coat and pointed it squarely at Rasp. "Kowtow to the Wicked Witch of the West? Take orders from the woman who for all we know might have been behind this invasion to begin with? I'm starting to think you trust her a little too much for your own good."

"Oh for Oz's sake, have you completely lost your mind? I'm not on her side... and if you keep waving that gun around the munitions, I won't be on anyone's side!"

The businessman took a deep breath. "Fair enough," he conceded, pocketing the flintlock. "Gnoll, shoot her."

"But-"

"NOW!"

Almost on instinct, Gnoll fired his crossbow.

in the fraction of a second before the bolt reached her, the Witch suddenly waved a hand, sending the deadly missile rocketing away to the left, where it embedded itself harmlessly in the wall.

Outside, the rumblings of growing trees suddenly stopped, and in the ringing silence that they left behind, the Witch spoke in a low, menacing voice:

"All of you listen to me now: I know you're not interested in my explanations, but I'm going to tell you anyway; and since I know for an indisputable fact that none of you would believe me if I told you I did anything out of the goodness of my heart, I won't bother with that tall tale. Long story short, I'm not an idiot: if I had cast the spell and set it to destroy the house as well, I'd end up getting ripped to pieces along with you."

"There's another thing here we need to get straight: I'm not your prisoner. In the last two days, I could have left the camp and just walked away. I'm staying with you because I need your help, because as much as I'd like to think otherwise, I can't carry out a raid on the Nome King's Mountain all by myself. Try and take that as a compliment."

She let her breath hiss outwards at long last. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find a bed that isn't infested with spiders and get some rest. In the meantime, you've got a brainstorming session with your Governor to work on: we've got a lot of ground to cover, and it's all forested."

And with that, the Wicked Witch turned on her heel and marched up the stairs, into the darkness, Gnoll struggling to keep up.

Hundreds of miles away, Fiyero hung limply from his scaffolding, unable to take his eyes off the tide of destruction sweeping across Oz, crushing everything in its path: buildings, people, even trees already growing in the affected areas were torn apart or buried by the swift growth of new trees.

After the first ten minutes of watching, he'd stopped howling abuse at the Nome King, and simply watched in horror and disbelief as Oz virtually fell apart before his eyes.

"Quite a sight," said the King, softly. "I don't think any event of this kind has been seen in millennia."

"You bastard," said Fiyero, hoarsely.

"Doubtful. If it's any comfort to you, there will be survivors; there are always survivors."

"Not for long, not at the rate you're destroying the country," he laughed bitterly. "Big mistake there: that slaving run you've probably got planned next will be a hell of a lot harder now that you've got the survivors spread even wider across the country, won't it?"

"If you want my opinion, Fiyero, your mistake was bothering to care: I think you could do with a bit of the callousness you had in the old days, don't you?"

"Go chew on a stick of dynamite."

The Nome King tut-tutted disapprovingly. "I think you need some time alone with your thoughts, young immortal. Guards!"

A pair of hulking Nome guards materialised at either wall of the two pinnacles, bowing low as they approached the King.

"Take his Highness back to the cells... but this time, put him next to PINHEAD. will you?"

As the guards indelicately dragged him out of the scaffolding, Fiyero wondered absently who this Pinhead was and what he'd done to earn himself a stay in the Nome King's dungeons; after all, it was better than thinking about the chaos he'd just witnessed.

Anything was better than thinking about that.

So, when the Nomes finally dragged him into the darkness, he was still daydreaming, still imagining the character of Pinhead and still envisioning how the two of them would be rescued by Elphaba.

Elphaba, he wondered, as the tunnel closed behind him, I really hope you're prepared when the time comes...

Chapter 14: Rebukes And Rewards

Summary:

The Nome King lays down the law and Basalt finds himself puzzled by inconsistencies.

Chapter Text

"Damn you," Mombi snarled, her eyes blazing with unspent magic. "Where are you? Why are you wasting my time like this? Answer me!"

Mombi was in a very bad mood that evening: intending to parade grandly into one of the many territories that she and the Nomes had so easily conquered and take her due quota of slaves, she had ended up fleeing for her life across a landscape that had turned traitor. She'd lost at least half of her entourage, both steeds and bodyguards, and most of her magnificent gold chariot had been all but ripped apart by the multitudes of trees shooting through the ground in front of it and beneath it. For hours, she'd sped back across the newly-unrecognisable countryside on two battered gold wheels, dodging growths of new forest and trying not to fall off, her exhausted Wheelers motivated only by heart-freezing terror and the occasional blast of lightning.

Less than half an hour ago, they'd crashed back through the fresh undergrowth and over the tumbledown gates of the Emerald City, and by then, Mombi's terror had given way to rage; she'd had time to guess at what had caused the impossible growth of plants, and knew that there was only one being with the magical knowledge of such a spell and the power to cast it upon such a large area: the Nome King.

So, still smouldering with frustration, she'd all but leapt from the chariot, kicked aside the exhausted bodies of her surviving entourage, and stomped towards the city square, intent on giving her erstwhile benefactor an earful.

The other Wheelers, having learned to recognise one of their mistress's temper tantrums on sight, had sensibly decided to stay as far away from her as possible, slinking towards the shadows with their coat-tails tucked firmly between their legs and warning each other to stay as far from the city square as possible.

Days ago, the Nome King had converted the town square into an unofficial signalling ground, to be used in the event of 'serious developments.' Mombi had heard the Nome King's list of events that qualified as serious developments, but as far as she was concerned, if almost getting shredded to compost by an unexpected growth of forest didn't qualify as a serious development, nothing did. So, as soon as she'd arrived at the very centre of the cratered square, she'd began chanting the words of Summoning... and waited for the next five minutes as the magic signal echoed across the country.

"Come on!" she fumed. "I know you've heard me, you old fossil; why are you wasting my time like this?"

There was a low rumbling noise from behind her and, just as Mombi belatedly realised that the directions had insisted that she face northwest while summoning, a familiar voice remarked, "Wasting your time like what, my dear?"

As expected, the Nome King was standing there, his normally mountainous form exchanged for a roughly human-sized figure. He wasn't alone, however: on either side of him stood two slightly smaller Nomes, one a soldier, the other a servant. Mombi's ego was briefly mollified by the fact that the King had actually been cowardly enough to bring bodyguards to this meeting; then, it began to howl for blood again:

"I just got back from a tour of Munchkinland," she snapped. "It was supposed to have been a simple visit to newly-conquered territory, to inspire fear among the locals!"

"Is that so? I seem to recall that you were only supposed to signal me in the event of serious development."

"This is a serious development, you clod! I'd barely gotten through introducing myself as their new ruler when a small forest sprung up and ate half my retinue - and don't think I don't know it was your fault, either, you sneaky little bastard! I barely escaped with my life! I could have been minced! What were you thinking?"

The Nome King waited patiently for Mombi to finish shouting, his fingers steepled, a polite smile curling his stone lips. As soon as the echoes died away, he gently cleared his throat, and remarked, "That's all very well and good, but I'm still waiting for you to tell me all about this serious development... unless, of course, I missed it amidst all the swearing."

"You son of a bitch! You dirty, backstabbing, murderous, condescending heap of topsoil! You almost killed me! And let's not forget that you've just rendered all the territory I'd hope to settle completely useless! It's all forest now and all because you couldn't bear to let me have what I'd earned fair and square!"

A quizzical look crossed the King's face. "I do beg your pardon - senility does creep up on me at times - but I could have sworn that our original agreement didn't bequeath you any territory beyond the Emerald City."

"It was my right!" Mombi shrieked. "I gave you support! I gave you the Wheelers! I led my own attack! I petrified the Tin Man and the Lion! That territory was mine by right of conquest, and you had no right to take it from me-"

Without dropping his smile, the Nome King reached out, fastened one dinner plate-sized hand on Mombi's right shoulder, and squeezed.

Hard.

"I could be mistaken," he said, raising his voice over the resultant scream, "But you appear to be labouring under the belief that you're being mistreated. Do you feel you're being mistreated, Mombi? I can't imagine why: I was very generous when I granted you governance of the Emerald City."

"But - AAAAARGH - it's ruined! It's useless! I can't do anythinnnnnngggg..."

"Really, Mombi, I'd have expected so much more from a human of your talents; a few spells here and there, some careful transfiguration of this rubble, and I think you'd have some very suitable building materials. But then, you've got more important things to do: you've got mirrors to admire, heads to collect, and of course, the tasks I assigned you, none of which you can perform while you're in Munckinland, bullying the natives."

He suddenly released his grip on Mombi's shoulder, roughly shoving her to the ground in the process; he was no longer smiling, but the frown he wore showed no signs of anger or hatred - just mild annoyance, with a hint of paternal disapproval.

"From now on, you pretentious little coprolite," he continued chidingly, "I expect you to perform your duties without a word of complaint- lest I decide to give one of your collection a chance at governorship."

"Oh really?" sneered Mombi, just managing to recapture a shred of her confidence; she had to hold on to that arrogance, because she knew now that the two Nomes flanking the King weren't bodyguards but spectators: she was being humiliated before the very eyes of the Nome Kingdom, and she needed to save what little face she had left before it all trickled away. "I hardly think you can just give these heads a semblance of will, your highness, not without my permission."

There was a dangerous pause, and then a voice said, "Would you look at that - I think he managed it!"

Mombi blinked in confusion for a moment, belatedly realising that the voice had emerged from her own lips... or rather, from the head she was currently wearing.

"I trust I don't have to speculate aloud upon what Miss Mutius might do if she had your head in a cabinet and not the other way around, do I?"

"But-"

"Soccer, I'd think. Perhaps bowling. Maybe she's a golfer, I don't know. I suppose a human eyeball could fit on a golf tee-"

"Enough! Enough! I get the picture!"

"Remember, Mombi, I can make hilariously unrealistic threats as well. Trouble is, when I make them, they have a nasty habit of coming true..." The Nome King chuckled darkly to himself. "So, if you've no further reason to waste my time, I believe I shall depart. Don't forget those duties of yours, my dear..."

As the King and his entourage vanished beneath the broken flagstones, Mombi breathed a sigh of relief, and sat down heavily on a fallen length of column, and tried to stop herself from trembling. She'd had never been so thoroughly reprimanded since her days at Shiz, back when she was still under Madame Morrible's tutelage. But then, Morrible had never pretended to be her ally; Morrible had never approved of her studies into youth-extensions and beauty potions, or her political views, or the company she kept; as a matter of fact, Morrible had never approved of anything she had ever done in her time at Shiz.

And look who her favourite pupil turned out to be: a green-skinned tart born with just the right amount of luck and talent to get Horrible Morrible's attention! Bitch.

Her hatred flared wildly, and she tried to think of something else. Then, her eyes, though blurry with tears of humiliation, managed to focus on the gaudily-dressed Wheeler staring at her...

A Wheeler who'd been listening to her argument with the King...

She was already on her feet again and charging by the time the thought had ground to a halt in her mind; before the eavesdropper could pick up adequate speed to escape, she was upon him, hauling him upright by the collar and shaking him violently.

"You," she snarled, and to her shame, she realised that her voice was still quivering.

Determined not to lose forward momentum, she continued, snarling, "You breathe one word of... of w-what you have heard here, I'm going to... I'll take your... your... and..."

Her imagination had run dry.

She tried again: "Pain! You will be in a lot of pain! Lots and lots of spine-shredding pain!I will use your spine as a javelin to kill whoever you told, and if they've told anyone else, I'll..."

She gave up. "JUST GO AWAY!"

And even as the Wheeler fled, Mombi's brain was already frantically reciting a desperate mantra of all that had gone wrong: the territory I wanted is gone, the Nome King doesn't trust me, he can have any one of my heads take control of me whenever he pleases, and on top of that, my Wheelers know all about it.

What am I going to do?

Stupid question, Mombi: you're going to find something to soothe the bruising around your shoulder. Damnation, did the rotten bastard really have to grip so hard?

Fifty miles from the ruins of the Emerald City, two hundred and seventy feet beneath the earth, the Nome King's mind roamed freely through the dense rock, occasionally claiming just enough of a body to peer above ground before abandoning it once again and continuing on towards the Mountains.

With the Nome corporal having long since swum off to report to the generals, Basalt's own consciousness was left to hurry after the King, trying valiantly not to fall behind; had anyone been able to see the two of them and even comprehend what they were looking at, the spectacle would have resembled a goldfish trying to keep pace with a blue whale.

"A bizarre creature, wouldn't you say, Basalt?" the Nome King boomed softly.

Basalt offered the incorporeal equivalent of a shrug. "I would not know, Your Majesty; I have had very little experience with mortals, and as such, I cannot comprehend their intellectual processes."

"Who can? Mombi isn't the best template for mortal behaviour, however; by more enlightened standards, she'd be criminally insane. But to be honest, she's not the one I'm worried about; I believe we have more to fear from the generals of the War Council."

This made no sense to Basalt; the generals were military representatives of the King's himself, bound by oath to serve him and Nomekind, so how could they be any threat?

As he puzzled over this one, the King explained. "Now that they are returning to the dominions en mass to discuss strategy with me, sooner or later, they're going to realise what I have planned for Glinda, and they're going insist on her execution."

"But you have the authority to veto their demands, Your Majesty."

"That doesn't stop them from ordering an assassination while I'm still working out the latter stages of the strategy," the King pointed out.

It is a universally recognised fact among Nomes that underprivileged servants cannot feel or express shock; nonetheless, this didn't stop Basalt from abruptly grinding to a halt right in the middle of the bedrock and trying vainly to comprehend what the King had just told him.

Eventually, the King backtracked to explain: "Basalt," he said, in a lecturing tone, "you seem to be under the impression that the Generals are a principled cabal of military leaders elected to serve my interests and the needs of our people; unfortunately, they are also the proud owners of all the privileges afforded to our kind, coupled with all the obstinacy that three and a half millennia in office can bring. In all honesty, they're a ravening pack of power-hungry bastards that would collapse the very mountains if it meant keeping their authority. In other words, they need to be kept out of the loop. I can delay their return, but I can't keep them out of the palace forever. And in the event that they find out about Glinda, she will be dead in a matter of hours."

It was impossible for Basalt to feel concern, but nonetheless, he did feel a vague sense of unease at this concept; after all, he had been declared Glinda's bodyguard, and as such, he'd been tasked with the duty of serving and protecting her.

"The solution is quite simple however: you're to be promoted."

Basalt didn't know how to respond to this inexplicable suggestion, so he remained silent as the King elaborated.

"If I were to grant you the station of Protector, you'd be due the privileges of curiosity and initiative, exactly what you'd need to seek out threats to Glinda's life and eliminate them without wasting precious time getting permission. How does that sound?"

He waited patiently for the natural response to voice itself, for from the moment a Nome's consciousness first tumbled into reality, it instinctively sought out means of self-improvement.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the primitive earth spirits that they had been watched the sentients dwelling above them and observed that these creatures of flesh looked upon the world much differently. For centuries, they'd pondered the mysteries of emotion, imagination, and self-motivated reasoning, but it wasn't until one of these primeval beings, a pioneer among his kind, had taken steps to magically harness this "oddness" that they truly grasped the facts: at that moment, they'd stopped being a hive mind of crude spirits feeding blindly on whatever crossed their path, and started being a hierarchy of Nomes. Possessed of emotions and the ability to bestow them on whoever he pleased, the pioneer, as the first individual among his fellows, became the first King of a new species. As he restructured his people, he implanted them with the urge to attain the same gifts he had achieved, but through dedicated service, and not magical experimentation.

And now, Basalt was felling that same urge. The privilege he would receive fascinated him, in his own bland way. Along with curiosity, he would be given Initiative, the power to act without being told what to do, a power that some found almost impossible to comprehend.

How could any Nome resist?

"Most welcome, Your Majesty," he intoned.

Basalt's memories of his ceremonial promotion were hazy: he recalled the King, once again inhabiting a body, holding out a hand that was swarming with the energies that contained his next two privileges.

Then, he lost consciousness.

He awoke a few minutes later, feeling as though he'd been wearing manacles for most of his life and had only just been released from them. With only the command of "seek out any threats to Glinda's life" to follow, he took to his new initiative with a certain degree of trepidation, not being certain what he'd look for; for more than half an hour, he paced around Glinda's room, walking in and out of walls and occasionally checking the occupant's life signs as he tried to think of what to do next.

Then he remembered the King telling him about the return of the Generals, and without warning his newfound initiative flared to life: after ten minutes of thinking harder than he'd ever thought before, he found himself searching the palace for any sign of their arrival, from the rooms that could only be inhabited by Nomes, to those suited to humans, which were becoming increasingly common for some reason. Then, taking advantage of his new authority, he asked a few of the guards to alert him if any generals were to arrive; then, he sent a message to several spies on the Ozian border, ordering them to contact him if the generals were seen crossing. Finally, he hurried back to Glinda's room to make sure that no assassination attempts had been made.

Once Basalt was sure that nothing was amiss, he stood outside and leaned against the wall, exhausted for the first time in his life... and awed by what he had felt: he'd just accomplished three tasks without being told to do so and without asking permission. And these tasks had been devised almost entirely by himself; other than "seek out any threats to Glinda's life," he'd been given no explicit commands.

He felt weary, he felt bewildered, and most of all, he felt absurdly powerful.

Once he'd recovered his equilibrium and stopped wondering about how mortals enjoyed their personal initiative, he re-entered the cell to make inquiries about Glinda's health.

He found her seated at the desk, reading through the Grimmerie and taking notes. Though she appeared healthy enough (as far as Basalt could tell) she was muttering faintly under her breath; he managed to discern the words "you can do this," and "Elphaba's waiting..."

Basalt had heard the name "Elphaba" before: when the King had first brought Glinda to the Nome dominions, the two of them had used the name frequently, apparently referring to a human woman of some importance, but now deceased (apparently melted) and the King had been offering a way of travelling back in time and saving her.

None of this made any sense to Basalt, especially the way Glinda had been obsessing over her. Who was Elphaba, and what made her so important that Glinda would be willing to assist one of her enemies to try and save her life? More importantly, would this obsession develop into "insanity", and would Glinda remain useful to the King in such a state?

So, once he'd made sure that Glinda wasn't feeling any sickness or discomfort, he asked, "If you do not mind my asking, Miss Glinda, who is Elphaba?"

Glinda frowned; according to Basalt's associates among the higher ranks, (low-privilege Nomes didn't have friends) this could indicate a number of emotions, including "annoyance" and "sorrow." Either could be possible, as far as Basalt's limited understanding of them went.

"Hasn't your boss told you everything about her?" she snapped. She sounded "annoyed."

"No, Miss."

"Alright then, in that case, haven't you got anything better to do other than ask me stupid questions?"

"No Miss: I have completed all my set tasks for today, save for ensuring your health. I do not wish to intrude..."

Glinda sighed wearily. "No, it's fine. I suppose it might help if I talk about it..."

Over the course of the next three quarters of an hour, she told him everything she knew about Elphaba, beginning with how they'd first met at "university." A great deal of it had been beyond Basalt's understanding, as he'd had no comparisons to draw on: he had no idea why abnormal skin colour would be any grounds for discrimination, the concept of schools and state-enforced learning baffled him, and he found the details behind human families downright grotesque. At one point, he'd asked if they could stop for a minute while he tried to process the reason for Nessarose' "wheelchair."

Thankfully, once that was over and done with, Glinda began to talk about things that made a certain degree of sense: her reverence for Elphaba seemed justified when she told him of her rebellion against the Wizard, and her magical powers, a sign of greatness among the higher Nomes, only seemed to elevate her further. Basalt listened with great interest as Glinda told him of Elphaba's last days, her reaction to the deaths of Nessarose and FIyero, and her death by a bucket of water, a substance that she was apparently allergic to.

Once she had finished explaining, Basalt thanked her for the information, and politely departed; though still learning the intricacies of human emotions, he'd noticed an expression on Glinda's face that might have been "sorrow."

Besides, something she'd said had piqued his newfound curiosity.

It took him some time to find a book on human anatomy in the palace library (what with the high-ranking librarian gawping at him), and even longer to read it.

But once he was finished, he returned to Glinda's cell, bowed, and whispered, "Sorry to disturb you again, Miss Glinda, but I must ask one more question about Elphaba."

Glinda shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Did Elphaba have any scars around her eyes, or suffer burns or irritations in that area?"

Glinda blinked, evidently nonplussed. "No."

"Did you ever see her crying?"

"No; Elphaba kept her emotions very firmly bottled up. Even when she let me actually know how sad she was, she didn't cry."

Basalt thanked her once again, and rumbled away.

If Glinda's testimony was to be believed, Elphaba had not suffered any burns or other injuries to the area around her eyes, nor had there been any visible scars present there.

However, according to the medical textbook, human tears were composed of water, a substance that had melted Elphaba.

And Glinda had never seen her friend shedding tears, which would not be biologically feasible.

More to the point, how had anyone discovered this lethal allergy in the first place?

Had anyone in Oz witnessed any instance of it before her death?

What did it all mean, what did it add up to?

Even as Basalt prowled the Dominions, searching for threats to Glinda's life, the questions dogged him; he needed to find the answers, so long as they didn't interfere with his duties, of course.

Perhaps the Scarecrow, one of Elphaba's murderers, would know the answer...

Chapter 15: Flying Keys And Flying Carpets

Summary:

The King prepares his next gambit and Elphaba finds inspiration among allies and wine.

Chapter Text

In the chaotic aftermath of the Nome Invasion, the Scarecrow's emergency ritual had been somewhat overlooked by the new rulers of the country.

To the rank and file, it was insignificant compared to their duties. To the Nomes privileged enough to think about such things, it was curious, but ultimately unimportant. To the War Council, it was one last attempt by the defeated enemy to summon reinforcements, and since the reinforcements hadn't arrived, why should they worry? Even the Nome King was too preoccupied with his "guests" to bother with it.

However, unlike the others, the Nome King had known where the key was due to reappear; after all, he'd redirected its path through the ether sometime after the ritual was first performed. He also knew that the key had thousands upon thousands of miles to travel before it arrived at its destination, so he'd busied himself with the business of converting Glinda and disciplining Fiyero, waiting for the magical signal to finally ground itself.

But at long last, it had almost completed its journey, and two disembodied psyches raced to survey it, each for their own reasons:

The first was, of course, the Nome King. Eager to keep an eye on his investments, he'd decided that this one was at least worth the effort of casting his mind across the worlds, if only to ensure that it had arrived safely. Of course, the sheer distance between Oz and the Other World meant that he could only influence it in the tiniest of ways; however, he could still observe, and that would be enough... for now.

The second of the two was trapped inside the mirrors of Mombi's throne room, her consciousness sealed in by layer after layer of complicated enchantments and prevented from scrying the Land of Oz for help. However, she'd found that though it was impossible to cast her mind outwards through the barriers, her consciousness could drift upon the magical signal that the ritual had sent. Like the Nome King, her influence over this Other World was limited, even more so than that of the King, but if it allowed her escape, she would endure it.

Their journey through the earthly barriers eventually brought them to a wide expanse of countryside, bathed in moonlight and unbroken by any sign of civilisation except for a lonely-looking farm and a long stretch of dirt road.

It didn't seem the most auspicious place for the key to land, but the Nome King had been surveying this land for almost five months, searching for the third and final component of his plan. No easy task, but he'd found her.

She was to find the key. She was to recognize it as a message from the Scarecrow, and with some magical assistance from afar, follow the trail of breadcrumbs all the way to the Emerald City, where Mombi would keep her safely contained until the other components were in place and prepared. With all the elements arrayed and the understudies prepared to continue the transformation should anything go wrong, the ritual would begin; and then…

A pulse of magic shocked him out of his reverie, and he looked up to see the key, glowing cherry-red from the touch of magic, tumbling through the night sky. He chuckled excitedly, knowing that another piece of the puzzle was slowly falling into place.

Some distance away, the ethereal form of the second observer could only stare at the key as it passed and wonder what would happen next.

And inside the half-built farmhouse, a little girl was staring out the window.

She'd been lying awake in bed, trying to lull herself to sleep with thoughts of a world she longed to return to, a world which, as bad luck would have it, nobody else could believe in. Of course, trying to soothe herself to sleep with thoughts of Oz wouldn't work, and she knew it; it had failed many times before, to the point that she'd only been able to catch a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, and it was getting worse every week.

But anything was better than thinking about the doctor that she was to be sent to. She hadn't understood half of what had been said about the "treatment," but she knew that it was supposed to be For Her Own Good, to stop All Those Horrid Waking Dreams and All This Talk Of Ruby Slippers, and none of that sounded especially promising.

So, with so many concerns in mind, she found herself eagerly sitting up in bed to stare at the glowing shape rocketing through the air.

She paused and turned to the dog asleep at her feet.

"A shooting star, Toto," she whispered excitedly, for once not even caring that she was in a world where animals couldn't talk. "A shooting star!"

Elphaba's eyes creaked open.

Once she'd conjured a light and the memories of the previous evening permeated her brain, she found herself back in the dilapidated bedroom she'd cloistered herself in.

This, at least, was familiar, and not just because she'd chosen it as a means of isolating herself from the other refugees, but because this room had once belonged to her.

Oh yes, as much as people had liked to joke about it when she was a kid, she hadn't spent the first six years of her life bricked up in a secret room on the mansion's west wing. Of course, given her reputation, her bedroom hadn't been touched since the day she'd left for Shiz: everything had been left exactly as it was; the bed, the books on the one shelf, the chest of drawers, the wardrobe... even the clothes hadn't been disturbed. Unfortunately, this meant that the dust, the insects and the spiders had been given free reign over the room, so Elphaba had spent almost half an hour clearing the room before finally lying down on the bed to sleep.

All in all, the room was just as comfortably frugal as it had been in the past, which was probably why Gnoll (who was still acting as an unofficial guard) had decided to spend his evening on duty sitting on the floor, where he'd promptly fallen asleep.

Clambering sleepily out of bed, she stood and stretched for a minute, immediately shivering in the cold night air; after finding and donning her cloak, she stepped carefully over Gnoll's prone body and tiptoed out of the room in search of warmth.

Downstairs, the other refugees were clustered around a fireplace in the lounge, having apparently managed to clear the chimney of debris and get a fire started in the grate. They were now gathered around it, either sitting on the couches or lying on the floor, all of them wrapped up in the thickest blankets they could find in the decaying linen closets. And astoundingly enough, despite the terror of the day (or perhaps because of it), most of them were fast asleep.

They hadn't gone to bed on an empty stomach, either: judging by the half-eaten carcasses on the table, the marksmen among them had clearly managed to catch several decent-sized birds. Also among the improvised feast were packets of biscuits (scavenged from the pantry), a large pile of freshly cooked rats (also from the pantry), some fresh fruit (no doubt picked from the new forest outside), and far too many bottles of wine (taken from her father's extensive collection).

There were only a few people left awake, and none of them bothered to look up as Elphaba stepped into the room. Rasp, Woolwax, Curter the Artilleryman, and the rescued Gazelle all looked bleak and despondent, though the Gazelle certainly looked grateful to have avoided becoming part of the feast.

Elphaba, who was hungry after her long sleep, found one of the few clean plates available, helped herself to the scraps of the feast, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat down next to Rasp to eat.

"Sleep well?" he muttered.

"Decent enough, I suppose. Have you been helping yourself to the old wine racks?"

Rasp nodded sadly. "There's so many things that were left behind here," he said quietly, in that thoughtful tone unique to the mildly drunk. "So many useful things. And they were all left behind, you see. All left behind. Just because people thought this place was cursed. What's the point of that?"

"Don't mind him," said Woolwax, the belligerence gone from his voice. "He's pissed."

Elphaba eyed the empty bottles around him. "And you aren't?" she asked sceptically, as she idly gnawed at a wing of roast pigeon.

"No. I'm completely sloshed as well. All the better for dealing with a drunken secretary and a Wicked Witch, tha's what I say. Now, where's Gnoll?"

"He's asleep."

"Good for him. We'll all be too hung-over to even see straight tomorrow morning, and we'll need a watchman. Then again, it's not as if we can actually go anywhere tomorrow, not with all that damn forest in the way. Buggered thing's so thick we couldn't figure out where we were going if we ever set out, and in some places, you can't even walk through it."

"You didn't think of much in that brainstorming session, did you? I mean, haven't any of you got axes or anything that could cut down a tree with?"

Woolwax's inebriated smirk turned very ugly. "Don't suppose you'd know how long it'd take to cut down a tree as big as the ones growin' on our doorstep? We'd be cutting down trees for months before we could get anywhere! Not that I'd expect anythin' less from you, born with the magic silver spoon in your mouth and livin' in an ivory tower like this with all the damn thumbscrews locked away in a basement that supposedly doesn't exist-"

"Oh, don't start," groaned Rasp. "The last thing I want right now is a lecture on class and another paranoid rant about thumbscrews. Have another drink and go to sleep, would you?"

"I'll have you know," he said to Elphaba, as the overbuilt Munchkin drew yet another bottle of wine from the table, "The brainstorming session was very productive; we've established that we won't be able get anywhere in a hurry, and that none of us are interested in using the explosives to try and clear a path. All in all, the uprising is dead in the water."

"That's it?" said Elphaba incredulously. "That's all you could think of? In case you haven't noticed, it's not just your lives that are at risk here! This is about all of Oz; this is about everyone who survived the Nome invasion! I mean, I don't know how you'd make any start on putting the country back together again, but are you just going to give up on them? Are you just going to let the Nomes steamroller us into submission? Do you want the Munchkins to remember you as the Governor Who Gave Up? Great Oz, Rasp, if you thought my sister was an unpopular Governor, then you haven't even considered how contemptible this will seem to future historians."

"In case you hadn't noticed, Miss Thropp," Rasp grumbled, a noticeable slur in his voice, "we are facing almost insurmountable odds; we have had people standing on the roof with binoculars, and they tell me that the forest goes on for miles and miles and miles. Now, with that and whatever else the Nomes have up their sleeve, coupled with the fact that the destruction of just one of them depends on careful placement of our very limited supply of explosives, it doesn't paint a very hopeful picture of the future. As I say, almost insurmountable odds. Insurmountable," he repeated unnecessarily.

Elphaba thought for a moment, and took a sip from her glass of wine, which tasted rather like being stabbed in the eyes with a red-hot poker. Once she'd shaken off the synaesthesia, a very obvious question suddenly occurred to her.

"Almost insurmountable?" she echoed.

"Well, you told me you've got spells that can smash Nomes to smithereens. And maybe we'll be able to put your magic to another use, as well..."

He hesitated.

"Like what? Parting the trees? Burning the forests? Opening doorways between worlds? Turning the clouds into marzipan? What?"

"Well, it all depends on how much this lot's prepared to put up with you. And me," he added quietly. "And the whole... situation."

"What situation?"

"You know why the drinking started? It's because, about an hour and a half after you'd gone to bed, they finally realised just how many people have died. From the invasion to the growth of the forest, millions have been killed; just about everyone in this room has lost friends and family. They'll have lost parents, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives... and children." He sighed deeply.

"Have you lost anyone?" said Elphaba carefully, as she refilled her glass.

"Me? No." Rasp smiled broadly. "I was a civil servant before I became Acting Governor: bureaucrats don't have friends or families. We're not even classified as real people."

He laughed self-deprecatingly, and maybe it was the wine eroding his professionalism, but Elphaba swore she could hear the mirthless, hollow quality to the laughter; true to form, the smile on his face didn't reach his eyes.

"Have you lost anyone recently?" Rasp asked.

Elphaba wondered briefly if it would be better if she just threw caution to the wind and told him everything; besides, it was doubtful that the acting governor would believe her if she were to say that she was friends with Glinda, or that she was in love with the Scarecrow. But then again, from what Rasp had just told her, the refugees were on the brink of mental collapse; hearing the truth about their beloved leaders could only make things worse. In fact, if she were so inclined to share it with them, the truth behind the Wizard might just break them...

...and a part of her mind that should never have been exposed to alcohol muttered, Tell them everything. Wake up the others and tell them the truth. Give them all the evidence you never had the chance to present without the Press making you look like an idiot. And make sure it drives their pitiful little minds to insanity.

Elphaba shuddered, and hastily suppressed the urge to act on these thoughts. E

ventually, she offered a wry grin, and said, "Nope. Witches don't have friends or family either."

A melancholic frown spread across Rasp's face. Perhaps Elphaba's glib tone had been just as transparent as his, or perhaps there'd been records mentioning the deaths in her family, assuming he hadn't noticed her frustration over Nessa's death.

Then, the Acting Governor raised his refilled glass in an awkward salute. "To absent friends and family," he intoned solemnly.

Elphaba raised her own glass, returning the toast. "To absent friends and family," she agreed.

They each finished off their glasses in a single gulp; then, eyes watering, Rasp staggered over to the table to fetch another bottle of wine.

As he fumbled with the cork, he muttered, "I suppose you can only look on the bright side. I mean, if we actually do save Oz with your help, you might just end up as a hero to the whole country."

"If I wanted to look like a hero to the people of Oz, then I would have taken the Wizard's employment offer from the moment it was voiced, and if I'd ever had any doubts about it, I wouldn't have backed out of it the second time."

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the snores of the refugees, and the sound of Woolwax finishing off his bottle of wine and letting out a belch like a mangled foghorn.

Then Curter, who was getting more and more interested by the minute, leaned forward and murmured, "The Wizard offered you a job... and you turned it down?"

"That's right."

"But why?"

Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Haven't you heard?" she asked snidely. "I'm the Wicked Witch of the West, too wicked to even think of accepting promotion from the Great Oz."

"What kind of excuse is that?" snapped the artilleryman.

"The kind that satisfies most Ozians, as I recall."

Curter shot Elphaba a look of purest indignation. "It's just going to start all over again with you, isn't it?" he hissed furiously. "The denouncements of the Wizard, the attacks, the murders; now that you've returned to life, you're going to do it all over again!

Elphaba laughed. "You've been waiting for ages to say this, haven't you?" She sniffed the Munchkin's breath tentatively. "How much have you had to drink?"

"I've had exactly two glasses," the artilleryman lied (she'd seen him just about empty at least four glasses in the last half an hour). "…and don't change the subject!" he continued. "Haven't you ever thought of making up for what you've done in the past? Returning from the dead didn't stir any urge to actually live an honest life? Haven't you ever given any thought to redemption?"

"In my experience, redemption's usually only offered by smug opportunists with even worse atrocities to their names. Like your precious Wizard, for example," she added slyly.

"Oh bloody hell," muttered Rasp, who was obviously too drunk to keep up with the usual flow of pro-Wizard/Anti-Wicked Witch sentiment.

He stood, and stretched awkwardly. "Does anyone mind if I borrow Miss Thropp for a minute?" he asked nobody in particular. "I'm not defending her or anything; I just have this aversion to drunken brawls to the death."

As Elphaba followed the Acting Governor away, she reflected somewhat absently on the fact that, had she woken up a few hours before, nobody in the room would have permitted a private conversation without an armed escort.

Thank heaven for the old wine racks, she thought.

Stopping at the foot of the stairs, well away from the warmth of the fire, all attempts at talking were wrecked by their teeth chattering, until Rasp hurried off to fetch some blankets and another bottle of wine. Eventually, Elphaba managed to force out the words, "What did you want to talk to me about, exactly? Hurry, before we both die of hypothermia."

Rasp sighed. "Apart from getting you out of the room before Curter started talk, I didn't have much on my mind. Of course, there's always the issue of you helping us get into Nome territory and back, which nobody's going to like if and when I bring it up."

"So? Nobody's been very happy about me tagging along with you since I first landed… although," Elphaba admitted, "I was expecting more attempts on my life when I first joined you."

"Well, there were a few people who wanted to knife you to death while you were asleep, but they were put off by that rumour about you sleeping with your extra eye open. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised at the way things have turned out, too."

"How so?"

"You're more… er, personable than I expected."

Elphaba snorted. "Go on."

"You're also… well, I've already told you that you seemed practical enough not to make any attempts at killing us when you had a crossbow pointed at your spine. Question is, were you telling the truth when you said you needed our help?"

"Can you see me trying to take on an entire army of rock monsters alone?"

"I don't think any of us would make much of difference, especially since we're supposed to be fighting them on their home territory. I mean, assuming we can actually find a way of forcing them out of Oz."

"And releasing any hostages they have captive," said Elphaba quietly.

Rasp nodded. "And like I've said, we've still got to worry about getting there… which is where I start to question my sanity: I'm about to suggest a very stupid idea that I only came up with on my fifth glass of wine, and it's almost certainly going to get me lynched by the other refugees, but it's the only thing I imagine will get us anywhere near Nome territory before the end of the next century."

He sighed, reached into the heap of military-grade explosives that sat beside the stairs, and drew out a very serviceable-looking broom.

Elphaba stared at it. "You want me to fly you to the Nome dominions?" she whispered incredulously.

"Why not? You were flying there when Curter shot you down, weren't you?"

"This is different: assuming you've got at least eighteen brooms on hand for me to enchant-"

"I found about twenty-two," said Rasp helpfully. "I mean, we won't be taking absolutely everyone with us, will we? We certainly can't guarantee the safety of the children of the group, and something tells me that Gazelle won't be much good on a broomstick."

"Well, there's no telling anyone else will be any good on a broomstick, either: before I go ahead with the enchantments, I'll need guarantees that people won't fall off or lose their supplies or whatever. Flying by broom isn't as easy as it looks, you know."

"Alright then, what do you suggest? We've got plenty of materials to work with if you want to improvise something. Oz only knows there's no shortage of bloody carpets."

There was a long pause, as the word "carpets" hovered invitingly between the two of them.

"Could we actually do that?" Rasp whispered.

"I don't see why not; the levitation spell's hardly restricted to broomsticks. With some of the carpets we've got around here, we could certainly carry a lot more supplies… yes, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea."

"Brilliant! When can you start?"

"Ideally tomorrow, when the hangover's lifted and people are capable of moving again."

Rasp frowned. "Oh yes, and we've also got to start sorting the explosives into what we can and can't use against the Nomes; we might have to wait quite a while for people to be able to handle this stuff safely. Still," he added, brightly, "At least we know what we're doing now. I suppose things can only improve from here on…"

Chapter 16: Nightmares, Literal Or Otherwise

Summary:

Basalt is met with a challenge and Glinda is given additional motivation...

Chapter Text

Sitting alone in his cell, his back to the rough crags of the wall, with patches of frost gathering on his burlap, Fiyero was very glad that he longer had any sense of touch.

On the other hand, he didn't envy the mysterious "Pinhead" in the next cell; assuming this person was a human being, he'd probably be on the verge of freezing to death at the moment.

Unfortunately, the walls between the cells were far too thick to shout through, and Fiyero's attempts at trying to get his neighbour's attention by banging on the wall with his fist didn't have much of an effect either. So, with little else to do but sit and stare into the shadows, Fiyero amused himself by wondering (yet again) who this Pinhead was and what he'd done to end up imprisoned; unfortunately, once he'd sorted through the more fantastical explanations, he started to wonder if his neighbour was actually dead. It seemed worryingly possible: perhaps these weren't just jail cells but…

There was a word to describe the situation he and Pinhead had likely ended up in; Elphaba had told him about it several months ago, on one of the quieter evenings when they'd had nothing to do but sit and talk. What had that word been again?

Ah yes: immurement.

A way of disposing of troublesome prisoners without having to sharpen the axe or measure the noose; all you needed to do was brick the victim up in the spare room and leave him to rot... which didn't sound too far from what had happened to Fiyero. After all, the Nome King had made it clear that Fiyero's only real purpose here was to act as bait for Elphaba. With that and his own immortality in mind, it wasn't as if anyone in the palace was obliged to give a damn, was it?

And as for Pinhead, if he was human and he'd been here longer than Fiyero, then…

Fiyero shuddered in disgust, and hastily shook the idea out of his head; perhaps it would be best if he didn't think about Pinhead anymore.

From then on, he let himself drift: with no way of measuring time and almost nothing to occupy his attention, his stay in the darkness seemed to stretch on for months and months on end. He knew that it probably wasn't much longer than a few short hours, but it was a very vague kind of knowledge that had to work its way through the many layers of daydreams that had sprung up in the meantime.

With nothing else to do, he entertained himself by imagining Elphaba's path across the forest that Oz had become, the journey she was taking to reach the Nome King's Mountain. When he ran out of ideas, he started reminiscing on the days when he and Elphaba had been together. When he'd exhausted all three hundred and sixty days of that hard but joyous life outside Oz, he moved further backwards through his memories. And though at times his memory of his early days as the Scarecrow grew too hazy to visualize…

… if he closed his eyes and thought hard enough, he could just about recall that painful day when, blood-streaked and broken-limbed from the tender ministrations of his former unit, the wave of magic had swept over him, transmuting torn skin to burlap and ruined flesh to straw, saving him in the only way Elphaba could manage at the time. Under the influence of torture, his mind had drifted then, too…

There was a rumble from the wall in front of him, and he looked up in time to see the figure of a Nome emerging from the rock. For a moment, he thought that the King had arrived for another unwanted conversation; then he noticed the bland, semi-featureless cast of the face. This was clearly another one of the servants.

"I apologise for the intrusion, Your Highness," it intoned, "But I was wondering if you could assist me with my inquiries."

"Is that so?" Fiyero asked. "I suppose the King's too busy to question me, then."

"I was not assigned this duty by the King; I am conducting this inquest as a sideline investigation into the health of one of the King's personal guests."

"And exactly who are you, then?"

The Nome bowed. "I have been given the name Basalt. I have been made Bodyguard and Protector to Miss Glinda Upland, the guest I previously mentioned."

Fiyero's heart turned to ice. For a moment, he pondered the fact that Glinda was a personal guest and not prisoner; then the fact that Basalt had been making inquiries about Glinda's health finally hit home.

"She's not hurt, is she?" he asked hurriedly, lurching clumsily to his feet. "She's not in any danger?"

"She is under no threat of assassination at the moment, and physically, she is in perfect health. Mentally, however…" Basalt hesitated. "I believe she may be at risk. She has become obsessed with the work the King has given her-"

"Wait a minute, work? She's working for the Nome King? Why?"

"I confess that I do not know all the details: it is not my place to know. However, I know that she was promised a means of going back in time and-"

"What?"

"-saving an individual named Elphaba, known in the Land of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West."

Fiyero's jaw dropped open. Ever since their escape from Oz over a year past, both he and Elphaba had agonised over the fact that they'd left Glinda thinking that the two of them were dead; they'd known how much it must have hurt her, and Fiyero himself had seen her grief face-to-face just a few days ago. But the idea that Glinda was so desperate to undo what had happened that she'd made a deal with the Nome King - that she might actually be on the verge of insanity, assuming that was what Basalt was implying - was almost too much to process.

He slumped against the wall, his straw legs somehow feeling even more boneless than usual. "What is she doing for him at the moment?" he asked weakly.

"I do not know; I am merely to ensure Miss Glinda's wellbeing."

"Then what do you want me to do, exactly?"

"Only to provide a few details; I have made inquiries elsewhere, and Miss Glinda has told me of Elphaba's notoriety in Oz and the death than resulted because of it. However, in my attempts to ensure the sanity of the King's guest, I have discovered something rather strange in Glinda's memories: she affirms the fact that Elphaba died from exposure to water, a substance she was allergic to. However, she also mentions the fact Elphaba was never seen crying, nor did she ever suffer any injuries as a result of crying. As you were among those responsible for her death, were you ever close enough to her to observe any facial scarring?"

Fiyero took a deep breath and tried to collect himself a bit before responding. The most he could say was, "You don't beat around the bush, do you?"

Basalt looked nonplussed.

"I mean, you're very direct; you haven't given me much of a chance to think about all of this, if you know what I mean?"

"I apologise for my offence," said the Nome. "I merely wish to know if Glinda's memory is incorrect, and if so, whether or not this is indicative of a mental breakdown."

Fiyero opened his mouth to produce the same cover story he'd used whenever somebody asked him about the "Wicked Witch's" final moments, when a thought struck him.

"Don't you know already? The Nome King told me that he'd been spying on me and the rest of Oz for years. Shouldn't you know too?"

"I was promoted from the ranks of domestic servants, not the spies. Only they would be privy to such information, and those of them who were assigned to observe Oz before the invasion have refused to tell me anything."

"Your charm and sparkling wit had no effect on them, I take it?"

"The spies are the least privileged of us," Basalt explained, completely immune to the sarcasm. "They cannot be persuaded, for they have no emotions to appeal to and no imagination to promise to; they are what you might call "soulless." They can only be dealt with by authority, and it would appear that the King wishes to keep what they have learned a secret. So, I have come to you for help."

"Can't you just ask the King?"

For the second time in as many minutes, Basalt's otherwise blank face managed a look of confusion.

"Okay, stupid question," Fiyero admitted sheepishly. "I just thought Roquat might be willing to share that information with his underlings."

There was a brief pause, and then Basalt's stone skin bristled, the granite abruptly reforming itself into a mess of nonspecific shapes before hurriedly flatting itself back into his body (Fiyero later learned that this was the Nome equivalent of a double-take).

"Roquat?" he asked flatly.

"Roquat the Red, the Nome King," Fiyero clarified. "He told me his name a few hours ago."

"… You are certain?"

"Very certain: he introduced himself as that, anyway. Why, is there something wrong?"

For fifteen seconds, Basalt said nothing; perhaps he was having trouble believing what he'd just been told, or maybe he just thought very slowly at the best of times.

"King Roquat has been dead for almost fourteen years," he said at last. "Our current monarch is his successor."

"That's not much of a handicap these days," Fiyero remarked, completely deadpan. "I've been dead for over a year and it hasn't gotten in the way of my success, as you see."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Never mind."

He knew he probably should have been a bit more tight-lipped about what he said to this particular Nome considering just how nosy he was being about Fiyero's better-kept secrets, but to be brutally honest, the situation was so far beyond repair that any mistake he made could hardly worsen it.

He shrugged: "I suppose I could have heard wrong," he admitted.

Basalt shook his monolithic head. "The name is too specific for it to have been a mistake; but why would the current King take on the name of his dead predecessor? Why would he even tell you his name when he has not…"

He paused, and Fiyero suddenly had the feeling that the bodyguard had almost said too much. "I should not inconvenience you any further than I should," he said. "I need only to know if you were able to see any scarring on-"

There was a rumble from behind him, and the face of another Nome servant materialised on the wall behind him; it whispered quickly into Basalt's ear for a moment, and then vanished.

"I must go," said Basalt, his tone suddenly very rushed. "Perhaps we can continue this discussion another time; thank you for your cooperation…"

As he tunnelled back into the wall, Fiyero wondered what could have gotten the otherwise emotionless Nome so worked up; then he remembered the fact that a) Basalt was, as per his job description, concerned with Glinda's well-being, and b) he'd said that she wasn't in danger of assassination at the moment; in other words, not yet.

Damn it, he thought, slumping wearily to the floor. When will it end?

And how?

One of the few spies that Basalt had the authority to command had just delivered a very important piece of news: against all expectations, one of the Generals had arrived in the Nome Dominions ahead of schedule and was now burrowing through the mountain towards the palace.

So, remembering the King's warning that the War Council would have Glinda killed if they ever learned of her purpose, Basalt took a brief detour to the guest quarters to check for intruders; finding Glinda fast asleep and clearly unhurt, he hurried to the entrance hall to witness the new arrival.

As expected, the entrance hall was crowded with Nome servants and guards, arrayed in neat ranks against the walls, separated only by the massive columns that dominated the chamber; in the centre of the room stood the Chamberlain, who was managing the palace in the King's temporary absence and as such, obliged to greet an emissary of the War council in person.

Meanwhile, thanks to his recent promotion, Basalt was assigned a position next to a unit of palace guards to the immediate left of the Chamberlain; he didn't feel that this was at all appropriate, for the palace guards were far more privileged than he was, having long since earned anger, pride, bloodlust, and even the right to alter their bodies according to personal preference. Standing next to them, with their ruby carapaces and expressive faces, he felt very out of place. There was nothing for it though: protectors were part of the guard, and there was no time to debate it.

From the patch of towering bedrock that marked the entrance to the palace itself, there was a thunderous rumbling as the General arrived in the hall, his fifteen-foot-tall body setting foot on the stone floor with an equally loud thud. As generals were among the most privileged and magically skilled of all Nomes, they generally crafted their bodies with much extravagance, and this one was no exception: having contained the substance of his favoured shape in a field of pure magic, he now stood before the assembled crowd in a streamlined white marble body with long, tapering limbs and a conical torso decorated with what could only be handcrafted veins of gold.

As he stepped closer, Basalt realised that this predilection for the metal hadn't stopped at his body; his shoulders were also decorated with long quills of the same material, and his eyes had been replaced with two orbs of solid gold, in which Basalt recognized the emotions of "confusion" and "annoyance."

The Chamberlain bowed low, his own platinum decorations gleaming in the ambient magical light. "Greetings, Most Honoured Lord Scathelex; on behalf of His Majesty, allow me to welcome you to the Palace of Nomekind."

Scathelex inclined his head in some semblance of a bow. "Greetings, Chamberlain. However, I am well aware of where I am; this palace has become somewhat notorious among the council. So, where is his Majesty at present? The library? The foundations? Or is he cataloguing his… ornament collection?"

"I am afraid his Majesty is currently engaged in business outside the palace."

"And why would that be? Surely our dealings in Oz have concluded for the moment?"

"I am not at liberty to say, My Lord."

"And what of this talk I have heard of prisoners being moved under the King's own authority? I thought he still at least deferred to our judgement? And more to the point, why was the Council not informed of the secondary attack on Oz? As their representative, I cannot stress the inconvenience it poses to future developments!"

"Again, I am regrettably not at liberty to say, My Lord; I can only recommend you voice these concerns to the King when his business is concluded."

Scathelex's lips pursed; "I presume you are in charge for the duration of the King's… business?"

"Yes, My Lord."

"Then can you at least provide me with refreshment while I wait? The withdrawing rooms should be finished by now, if I am not mistaken."

As the Chamberlain ushered Scathelex hurriedly away and the gathering slowly began to disperse, Basalt noticed the wall behind him ripple; it was a miniscule Nome, probably little more than a spy, skimming the surface of the wall as it followed the General down the corridor. By that time, the Chamberlain had moved slightly ahead, allowing the two Nomes to exchange a few words in privacy, or what they thought was privacy.

The moment the spy left, Basalt followed it into the walls and tailed it as closely as he could without drawing attention to himself; however, it had been told how avoid being followed, for it took such a longwinded path that Basalt almost lost it more than once. Eventually, the two of them emerged in the corridor outside the guest rooms- somewhat unsurprisingly, just outside Glinda's room.

As the spy began inspecting the sealed door, Basalt cleared his throat, and rumbled, "State your business."

The spy blinked at him, an impressive feat, considering that most spies were all eyeball. "I represent Lord Scathelex," it said, and went back to inspecting the door.

"You have not stated your business," Basalt reminded it.

"I represent Lord Scathelex. He wants to know about the King's prisoners."

"Then you may inspect the dungeons; you will find no prisoners here, only guests, and the King has ordered that they are not to be disturbed or observed."

The spy blinked again, and disappeared into the opposite wall, tunnelling away from the guest quarters; obviously, it hadn't been expecting a bodyguard, so it had probably gone back to Lord Scathelex to gain his personal permission to inspect the rooms.

And then, just as Basalt was wondering what he would have to do to thwart the spy when he returned, Glinda's voice broke the silence with a deafening scream of horror.

Glinda wished she could have looked Elphaba in the eye while saying this; she honestly wished she could say what she had to say next without shame, but she knew well enough that she'd never manage it, no matter how many times she told herself that Elphaba was dead and that this was all a dream.

So, her eyes to the floor and her throat seized up, she mumbled, "I don't think I can do this, Elphaba; this spell, I… I just don't know if I can bring myself to carry on with it."

She heard her friend sigh, and she hurried on: "I mean, I think I'll be able to finish translating it in a week or so if I've been accurate enough so far, and I should be able to cast it without too much trouble, but… knowing what the King hopes to use it for, I can't… even if it means never seeing you again except in dreams…"

There was an agonizing pause, broken only by the sound of Dorothy crying from the tiny holding cell bellow them, one of the few constants maintained in the dreamworld replica of Kiamo Ko.

At long last, Elphaba said, gently, "I don't blame you for having doubts about this; it's true that the spell will allow the Nome King to destroy all that remains of Oz- and probably bring the rest of the world under his control, too. But that doesn't change the fact that everything we fought for was a lost cause long before he came along; the only way you have of changing things for the better is to continue working on the spell. And besides," she added, "Do you really want to spend the rest of your life waiting to fall asleep so you can see me again?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm dead, not blind; I've noticed how you look forward to these little meetings. Every moment you're awake, you yearn to be asleep again just so you can dream of me. That's no way to live, Glinda, and besides, the dreams can't stay pleasant forever; sooner or later, they'll become nightmares. Sooner or later, they'll become just as miserable as the waking world is to you now."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to know what will eventually happen should you refuse to continue working. I won't blame you if you do, but I'd rather if you made your decision with full view of the consequences-"

From somewhere in the distance, there was the crash of a battering ram colliding with a door, followed by a shout of triumph from a freshly-materialised mob of angry Ozians. "Oh no," Elphaba whispered. "It's starting."

"What?"

"A nightmare. I think you should probably get behind the curtain again, Glinda; I think it's going to be slightly different this time around, but no less painful for both of us-"

At the far end of the hall, there was another crash of splintering woods, and door collapsed inwards, revealing a small army of heavily-armed witch hunters. Bellowing, they swarmed across the room towards Elphaba, howling the familiar battlecry of "Wickedness Must Be Punished!" If they could even see that Glinda was standing in the way, they certainly didn't care; they charged onwards, literally walking right through her as the first four of them seized Elphaba roughly by the shoulders, dragging her to the ground.

Glinda backed away in horror, her mind blank save for the words This wasn't how it happened, repeated over and over again.

She'd gotten about five feet away before she bumped straight into Madame Morrible, who was smiling with undisguised delight.

"Well done, Glinda!" the Press Secretary cackled. "I hardly imagined that you'd be the one who'd bring us final victory over the Witch, but it would seem that you've outdone even the Wizard's expectations!"

"But… but I didn't-"

"Oh, don't be modest; you know full well that all our major successes in the last few days have been in no small part due to your services; you gave us a way of forcing Elphaba to show herself, you helped exposiate a traitor in the ranks of the guards, and you even risked your life in distracting Elphaba from noticing our approach until it was too late!"

No, no, no… please make it stop, please, someone wake me up; this wasn't how it happened, this wasn't how it happened, this wasn't how it happened, this wasn't how it happened…

Elphaba was now on her knees, her arms and legs heavily manacled, and her face covered in fresh bruises; one of the witch-hunters was buckling an unpleasant-looking assembly of belts, clamps and vices to her head. Glinda couldn't be sure what they were hoping to do, but it looked as though the device was meant to force the eyes and mouth open.

Then she saw the bucket of water being passed through the crowd, and her heart very nearly stopped.

She opened her mouth to protest, to beg them to leave Elphaba alone, to take her into custody instead of executing her, but her voice refused to sound. She couldn't move either; she could only stand there and watch as the chant of "KILL HER!" rose from the amassed witch-hunters, growing louder and more bloodthirsty with every second that passed.

And then, just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, Morrible drew an eyedropper from her robe, and said, "Glinda, dear, would you do the honours?"

And the same force that had paralysed her limbs and muted her voice turned her in Morrible's direction to accept the eyedropper; as her mind howled in disbelief and horror, her body marched like a sleepwalker towards the bucket of water, filled the eyedropper, and slowly turned to face Elphaba. The restrained witch returned her gaze calmly, almost reassuringly, as if she knew that Glinda couldn't stop herself from doing what she was about to do.

Glinda, meanwhile, was still screaming helplessly inside her own skull, looking out at her own body mindlessly following the course of the nightmare; she saw her hand raising the eyedropper over Elphaba's face, and in that instant she would have given anything to be able to look away, to close her eyes, to wake up- anything that would take her away from this place. But no: she could only watch as the dropper stopped just above Elphaba's left eye.

For what felt like centuries, a miniscule droplet of water dangled from its end.

Then, it fell.

Elphaba screamed.

Inside her mind, Glinda, who'd had an undisturbed view of what had just happened to the eye, screamed as well.

It's only a dream, she gibbered helplessly, it's only a dream, it's not real, I haven't just blinded my best friend in one eye and I'm not about to do the same for the other one and I won't take part in killing her, it's only a dream, Elphie please forgive me, someone stop me please, someone wake me up, somebody do something-

But nothing could stop her from applying a second droplet of water to the right eye. And the worst was still to come; the bucket of water was now being raised, Morrible ready to pour it down Elphaba's throat and dissolve her from the inside out.

"No further lingering doubts, I hope," the Nome King muttered irritably, a few hundred thousand miles away. "Now awake… and get back to work."

Basalt lurched into the room, fully expecting to see Glinda under attack by an assassin; instead, he found her still in bed, her eyes shut, and all life signs currently indicating that she was still asleep, except for course for the fact that she was screaming.

Was this the start of madness? The effects of a poisoning? The symptoms of a disease? Might there be magic involved? Cursing himself for not studying the book on human anatomy for longer, Basalt surveyed his options as quickly as possible; in the event that Glinda was in any physical danger, it wasn't likely that he'd be able to help much without accidentally damaging her bone structure, doubly likely given how she was thrashing around. Of course, there was the possibility that there were individuals in the palace able to help; the higher-ranking soldiery might understand human physiology enough to help, but that would mean uncovering what the King had wanted to keep secret.

Then, just as he was about to risk trying to wake her up, the screaming abruptly ground to a halt; after a moment of silence, Glinda's eyes flickered open, and she very slowly sat up in bed.

Remembering the possibility that this strange fit might have been caused by poison or illness, Basalt hurriedly took in as many observable symptoms as possible. Among the most noticeable of them was the fact that Glinda was shivering, even though the room was comfortably warm by human standards. She also appeared to be sweating, further evidence of a worsening ailment, perhaps?

For a full minute, she sat there, her eyes downcast and her expression blank; then, she murmured quietly, "Why can't I even dream of doing the right thing?"

"Miss Glinda?" Basalt whispered. "Are you alright?"

Glinda let out a sigh that could only be of exasperation. "No, Basalt; I'm as far from "alright" as I can get at this point. In the last year or so, I've tried to do what was right for the people of Oz. True, I was deposed for it, but you can't please everyone. But then, the Emerald City gets conquered by the Nomes; I accept your King's offer and compromise every single one of my principilations, and I can't even back out of the bargain without leaving the country even worse off than it was in the time of the Wizard! What is wrong with me?"

Basalt did not know how to respond to this, so he remained silent.

Glinda somehow managed to sigh even deeper than before. "Basalt," she said wearily, "Do you trust the King to… to do what's right with the power I'm supposed to give him?"

"I trust him to do what is right for Nomekind," Basalt answered simply.

"You're not just saying that because he's promoted you, though, are you? You really do believe that?"

"Yes."

"What about doing what's right for everyone? What about that?"

"The King's duties do not extend to non-Nomes; he is merely to govern us, to safeguard our civilisation and culture. Everything he does is for our own good."

Glinda made a face. "Word of advice, Basalt: never believe anyone when they say they're doing something "for your own good." Even if they are, it's safer to at least question them; I found that out the hard way."

Basalt, who knew enough about Oz to know of how it had been subjugated by the fraudulent "Wizard" for more than twenty years, had to admit that Glinda had a point. However, the idea of it applying to the King didn't seem entirely plausible to Basalt, even with the mystery of his name to think of. So, he carefully diverted the conversation:

"Miss Glinda, I meant to ask; you were screaming in your sleep a minute ago-"

"I was just having a nightmare. That's all."

"A… nightmare?"

The conversation halted for almost five minutes, as Glinda went about explaining the concept of a nightmare, then dreaming, and stopping just short of explaining the process of sleep (which Basalt's studies into human physiology had thankfully included). Eventually, after some cajoling, Glinda also explained that the nightmare which had been the cause of her earlier distress had been about Elphaba, her dead friend that she'd bargained with the King to see again through time travel, combined with her anxieties over the bargain.

"I know there's no other option that could actually save Oz, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it." She offered a smile of what could only be apology. "I know that some of this might be a bit confusifying to you, but I've hardly said anything in the last day or so, and I just need to get some things off my chest. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all, Miss Glinda; if it will help you retain your sanity, I will listen."

Glinda nodded, smiling once again, this time in "relief" and "satisfaction." Then, sobering again, she asked, "If you were given the chance of undoing one of the worst mistakes of your life, would you take it? If you could save your best friend from death, would you pay the price to do so? Just a rhetoricalitific question."

Rhetoricalitific?

"I have never had friends in my lifespan thus far," Basalt admitted. "So I know nothing of friendships."

"Really? Is this something to do with the Privileges system?"

"Yes: as low-ranking Nomes lack emotions, we find it very difficult to form connections of any kind, and those of us who have risen high enough and attained enough privileges to do so cannot reveal the secrets of friendship, for they would mean little to the unprivileged."

"But if you could make friends," said Glinda, wheedlingly, "If you did have a best friend, wouldn't you do anything to save their life?"

Basalt wasn't certain how to answer this; with so few emotions of his own, there was no way for him to guess at what befriending another living being would be like. However, in the hours since he'd earned the latest of his privileges, he'd grown accustomed to them, learned to appreciate them and perhaps, on some distant level, even enjoy them. And he also had just enough imagination to know that a future without them would not be one worth living, and that he would fight to defend them in any way he could. Perhaps, he reasoned, were he fortunate and diligent enough to one day gain enough privileges to form friendships, he would feel the same way about his friends.

So at long last, he rumbled, "I imagine that I would."

Glinda smiled; and for some reason, Basalt found this curiously reassuring. "I'm probably just trying to justify what I've done, even though I didn't have any choice in the end," she said quietly. "But for what it's worth, I want to thank you for listening; it means a lot to me."

Basalt bowed his head respectfully.

However, when he rose again, he heard the sound of the rock wall behind him shifting, and he turned to see Lord Scathelex's miniscule spy finishing a hurried inspection of Glinda's desk. Before he could make a move against it, the spy had already retreated back into the wall; for a moment, he considered pursuing it, but eventually decided not to- after all, spy Nomes had a natural advantage in speed, and even if he did catch up, what could he possibly do to stop it from revealing what it had learned? Killing it certainly wouldn't do much good, not when its master was expecting a report.

So, he simply stood guard on the room as Glinda slowly returned to work; it was always interesting to observe magic being practiced, so for the next half an hour, Basalt was content to watch Glinda painstakingly translating the cyphers of the Grimmerie, taking careful notes of the meanings, and occasionally testing what she had learned on one of the test subjects the King had provided.

Eventually, Glinda looked up from her notes and asked, "What time is it, Basalt?"

"Approximately 6:43 AM, Ozian time, Miss Glinda."

"I think it's time for breakfast, then."

Basalt nodded, and left. He wasn't intending to stray too far from the guest quarters, not with the King out of the palace and the threat of assassination looming closer to Glinda by the hour, so he simply emerged into the corridor, just far enough to call for one of the servants.

Instead, he found himself face to face with Lord Scathelex.

"I assume I need no introduction," he said coldly. "You were present in the entrance hall when I arrived, yes?"

"Yes, My Lord. I have been given-"

Scathelex held up a hand. "I have no need of your assignment, servicer."

"As you wish, my lord; how may I assist you?"

Scathelex offered a singularly unnerving grin. "You can assist me by delivering a message to His Majesty the King when he returns- in the event that you have the opportunity to do so of course. Tell him that I know what your charge is studying; we of the War Council were generous in tolerating the previous monarch's senility, and we are more than generous in tolerating the eccentricities of the current one. We even put up with all the perusals of mortal literature and music. But we will not tolerate his attempts to become a human being, least of all through the efforts of an Ozian witch."

"I beg your pardon?"

"My operative was not able to comprehend the spellbook, but it knew enough of the language to understand the Witch's notes, and they were very clear on what he'd commissioned her to do. Now, in all likelihood, you won't be able to deliver this message: His Majesty will probably be gone for upwards of seven hours, and believe me, servicer, a lot can happen in seven hours. On the other hand, you could always opt to work for me and the other generals; that way, you could forget about that message, and any unpleasantness that might befall the prisoner will bypass you altogether."

"I do not understand."

"Come now, servicer," Scathelex purred. "You must have some idea how little power the King has. Those tall tales you've no doubt heard about him are just that and nothing more: he was never in battle when the time came to take Oz. He led from the sidelines, pushing figurines around a map, pretending to strategize. He scarcely has the power to travel on his own, let alone reward you for your services in attending to this Witch; haven't you wondered when your name and privileges will be granted to you?"

"No," said Basalt. "I have a name, and the rank of protector: both personally granted to me by His Majesty."

Two solid-gold eyeballs stared at Basalt in consternation.

"Furthermore, despite my guard duties, I am not one of the military, nor am I a member of the law enforcement; I cannot work for you, My Lord, even if I wanted to. I am bound to serve the needs of the King and his guests, not the War Council."

"Very well then," Scathelex fumed, his spidery fingers clicking irritably together, the quills on his shoulders whirring with metallurgic sorcery. "If you insist on remaining loyal, then I will not insult you further. Just remember that you had the option of serving those who have ruled the Nome Dominions since before the death of the previous king. Oh," he added, as he turned to leave, "And should you ever have the chance to speak to his majesty, also tell him that we have noticed the… abominations dumped in Northern Munchkinland. If this has anything to do with him, then our retribution will be swift and unpleasant."

He stormed off, leaving Basalt with a lot to think about.

The revelation that the King had introduced himself to the Scarecrow with the name of his predecessor was unusual, to say the least, considering that the King had proclaimed that he had given up his name as part of his ascendency to the crown.

But now, the King was apparently attempting to transform himself into a human, the very details of the conversation held between him and Glinda that Basalt had only half-heard.

Why would the king want to become human?

What else had Basalt been foolish enough to avert his ears to?

And what were these "abominations" that Scathelex had mentioned?

Basalt shook his head; these questions could wait until he had the time to make his inquiries. He had his duties to attend to…

… and an assassination to thwart.

Chapter 17: Ascending

Summary:

Glinda and her bodyguard grapple with internal threats, the resistance movement arms itself, and I get to use the insult "triple-headed dingleberry."

Chapter Text

Early that morning, the refugees rose from their blankets and pillows like half-hearted ghosts, all of them groaning, whimpering, clutching their heads as if they were afraid that their skulls might sprout wings and fly away.

Hangovers were in full swing all over the house; for almost an hour, the afflicted sat upright in the makeshift beds, trying to make the room hold still, not daring to move in case the pain worsened. Any attempts at getting up or making noise of any kind were met with an immediate chorus of "Shut uuuuuuup" from the others.

There were a few people who weren't in this condition, though: Gnoll had slept through the boozing, and as such, clumped noisily down the stairs at eight o'clock with a buoyant smile on his face, whereupon half a dozen refugees told him to go and shove a goose where the sun didn't shine.

Elphaba and Rasp were also up and about; Elphaba had insisted that they track down a source of drinkable water the previous evening, and with Rasp's knowledge of the floor plan, they found the old well and enough water to stop their hangovers from becoming crippling.

And of course, there were the few refugee children, who'd been forbidden to even approach the wine racks on the grounds of being young enough to spend the journey across the ruins of Munchkinland hiding under the coats of their respective parents and dodging Elphaba's initial tally of the refugees.

Unfortunately, this meant that they were loose in the house, either laughing at Rasp's "toilet-brush" hair or fleeing in terror from Elphaba. Thankfully, after half an hour of cajoling and threatening, the two of them finally managed to get the kids organised enough to help them haul their makeshift transports down the stairs and unfurl them on the ground floor landing. By then the refugees were shambling out of the lounge, allowing Rasp to present their best hope for taking the fight to the Nomes.

After several uncomfortable coughs and the occasional groan of pain, one of the refugees managed to say the only thing that could be said under the circumstances: "Carpets?"

"Flying carpets," said Elphaba smugly.

There was a strangled moan from the Gilikin businessman, who was leaning against the wall, his skin pale and clammy from the previous evening's binge, his clothes sporting more than a few unpleasant-looking stains from bingeing. "As if we're not in enough danger already," he said shakily, "You're going to ask her to make these things fly, just so she can tip us all off at high altitude when she loses interest in us?"

"I'm not going to ask her," said Rasp. "I already have. And she's accepted."

"Listen, you chinless wonder-"

"Acting Governor, if you please."

The businessman rolled his eyes, and grumbled, "Acting Governor, this is insane. Everybody here knows you can't trust her. Great Oz, everybody in this country knows you can't trust her."

"Well, that's true enough, but I'm afraid we've run out of options. It's either this or we spend the next few decades trying to chop and saw our way through the thicker sections of the forests… unless of course, you've got any better ideas?"

The businessman scowled furiously but said nothing.

Rasp smiled pleasantly back at him, before announcing, "We still have to prepare for the journey; we've got to pack supplies, we've got to ready the explosives so we can use them quickly if need be, and we've got to decide who actually goes with us."

There was a discontented grumbling from the crowd, and Rasp added hastily, "Well, we don't want to endanger the children, do we?"

The grumbling slowly became a ripple of yesses and other affirmatives.

"Right then. Now, since I don't want anyone blowing themselves up, I think it'd be best if we wait until the hangovers die down a little before we get to work; in the meantime, we'll sort out who'll be going with us and who'll be staying here to keep the children safe."

"And while you're at it," said Elphaba, "I'm going to need a volunteer to help me make sure this thing functions properly." She smiled broadly at the crowd. "Any takers?"

There was immediate silence, except of course for the sound of fifteen adults and four children simultaneously backing away. Hurriedly, they glanced around themselves, looking for a patsy; their mutual gaze eventually landed on (in order of appearance) Gnoll, the Gazelle, Woolwax, and Rasp. All of them looked sceptically back at the crowd and shook their heads.

"I can't be an assistant," Gnoll grunted. "I'm still guarding her."

The Gazelle rolled his eyes. "If the assistant duties involve any serious dexterity, then I'm afraid I'll be of no help to you." He nodded meaningfully at his hooves.

"I'm still hungover," mumbled Woolwax, who certainly looked the part.

"Oh for Oz's sake," sighed Rasp. "Mr Brollan, congratulations; you're Miss Thropp's new assistant!"

It was the first time that Elphaba had ever heard the Gilikin businessman's name used in conversation, or at all, in fact. Unsurprisingly, though, the newly-unveiled Mr Brollan was looking shocked and stunned at the governor's decision.

"Why me?" he demanded.

Rasp shrugged. "You wanted to know if Miss Thropp could be trusted or not; you'll get to find out, this way. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got work to do."

He turned, and led the huddle of refugees streaming back through the corridor towards the lounge; all that remained were Elphaba, Gnoll, and a very surly-looking Brollan.

For the next five minutes, he leant against the wall and sulked as Elphaba rummaged through her bag for the collection of notes she'd used to record some of the more useful spells of the Grimmerie. Gnoll, meanwhile, pointed his crossbow vaguely in her direction and helped himself to a plate of biscuits leftover from the previous evening's meal as Elphaba began chanting the words of the levitation spell.

She was just beginning to feel the first stirring of serious nostalgia for the time when she'd enchanted her first broom, when Brollan interrupted her reverie with a snarl of "What are you playing at?"

Elphaba stopped chanting, and glared at the businessman. "I'm trying to levitate a seven-by-four-foot length of knotted wool," she said irritably. "Does that answer your question?"

"No. I want to know what you're planning."

"Not a lot, unfortunately; the best plan Rasp and I have been able to work out is to fly into Nome territory and wage a guerrilla war destructive enough to get the attention of their leadership. If we can keep it up long enough without getting caught or killed, or landing either one of the carpets for that matter, we might be able to eventually force them to capitulate… but it's still a long shot."

"Rasp and I?" echoed Brollan.

"Mutual brainstorming; I was obliged to provide most of the realism."

"And we're supposed to trust you not to betray us? We're not going to wake up one morning to find ourselves surrounded by Nomes and you soaring off into the horizon?"

Elphaba laughed. "Is this before or after I'm supposed to have bombarded them with magic? Something tells me that they wouldn't be interested in listening to anything I'd have to say after that. Of course," she added, her smile fading, "they might not be interested in anything I have to say anyway; the Nomes don't strike me as the kind of invaders likely to take prisoners."

Except Glinda and Fiyero, she thought sadly.

Brollan's sarcasm was not to be dampened, however: "So there's a good chance they won't even stop to demand prisoners before killing us? Perfect! Just what I always wanted: to spend the last few minutes of my life clinging to an oversized bathroom rug, right before some Nome reaches up and makes me the filling of a carpet sandwich! I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this!"

"Would you mind shutting up? I've got spells to cast, in case you hadn't noticed."

Unfortunately, the Gilikin kept on talking: he'd been in a foul mood ever since they'd allowed the Gazelle into the house, and the hangover had not improved it. And now that his fellow businessman had tired of being the only sympathetic ear in the building, his rage had been left to build to cataclysmic levels. So, for the next minute, he screamed his misgivings about almost anything he could think of, from the fact that Governor Rasp was obviously a madman and a traitor who'd been in cahoots with the Wicked Witches ever since they'd appeared in Oz, to the fact that there was an Animal in the building who had no doubt been sent by the Nomes to undermine their efforts, and so on and so forth. He pointed fingers, he gnashed his teeth, he jumped furiously up and down on the spot, he kicked the wall and immediately clutched his foot in pain, he used language that would have made Woolwax blush; he performed every single cliché appropriate to a temper tantrum, stopping just short of physically attacking someone. Surprisingly, though, Elphaba found Brollan's ranting so predictable and repetitive that she was able to almost completely disconnect herself from it as she went about chanting the words of the spell; of course, it helped that none of the abuse was actually directed at her. In fact, a good deal of the shouting was addressed to the ceiling, and occasionally to Gnoll's left boot.

I suppose that means I can at least stop thinking of him as Mombi with the serial numbers filed off, Elphaba thought snidely.

A minute later, Brollan finished his monologue with a paranoid rant about how the invasion had clearly been planned by his business rivals to destroy his offices and factories, and the resurrection of the Witch had been planned ahead of time to destroy his own standing among Emerald City's selfish, hidebound old-boys club of industrialists.

Then, he fell silent, red-faced and panting, his rage finally spent, and Elphaba took this as an opportunity to say, "I've finished; care to have a seat?"

The businessman looked sceptically at the carpet, which was now hovering just a couple of feet off the ground. "I honestly don't understand you," he grumbled.

"I wasn't aware that understanding me was necessary. Now get on the damn carpet."

He let out a furious sigh but began crossing the room all the same; though he was a little hesitant to even touch the carpet at first, with some gentle prodding from Gnoll and Elphaba, he eventually sat down. As Elphaba checked the carpet for any signs of warping or collapse, Brollan chose that moment to repeat himself: "I don't understand you. I'm serious; everything you've done since you joined us has baffled me. I mean, why are you doing any of this?"

"Any of what?"

"This! Helping us!"

Elphaba rolled her eyes as she began examining the fabric of the carpet with a jeweller's loupe. "Is it so unbelievable that I need your help to fight the Nomes? It doesn't mean we have to be friends or anything like that; even Rasp isn't naïve enough to trust me unreservedly."

"But why do you even want to fight the Nomes in the first place?"

"Oz was my home too, in case you've forgotten."

Brollan laughed bitterly. "So you're doing this out of patriotism? Fine time for it, considering how many years you spent trying to destroy Oz. You see what I mean about not understanding you? One minute, you're flying through the sky, cackling like a madwoman, next minute you couldn't be more down to earth if you had weights attached to your feet. You certainly aren't making it easy for me to guess at your motivations, least of all with that cackle of yours."

"Well, if it's any comfort, the feeling's perfectly mutual: I don't understand you either. I mean, you almost got us killed yesterday by waving a gun around the munitions during that little temper tantrum of yours. And you were prepared to let Mombi and the Wheelers kill the Gazelle simply because you couldn't stand to have an Animal in the house. Where's the sense in that?"

"Oh, I could have a few words with you about your temper, Miss Thropp, assuming that's your real name. But you want to know why I'm angry? Fine; I'm angry because I was supposed to be in Munchkinland for half a day at the most; it's now been almost three days and there's a good chance that the very reason I came here in the first place is gone. My business… Our business," he reluctantly acknowledged, "Has most likely been torn to pieces; our offices? Gone. Our factories? Gone. Our client base? Gone. Our employees? Either dead or in hiding. Seventeen years of hard graft flushed down the toilet in the space of a single night!"

"Not to sound callous, but I'm sure everyone here's lost just as much as you have, including friends and family. But what about the anti-Animal prejudice?"

"I'd hardly expect somebody like you to understand."

"Try me."

"Have you ever had to run a business? Have you ever had do the old tightrope walk of keeping the workers safe and keeping the profits moving? Well, I know for a fact that you haven't, so just try to imagine, after fifteen years of peaceful work on the factory floor with as few accidents as possible, you have to rejig almost every single machine in the building to accommodate hooves and paws, then face down the workers who've gotten angry at having to share the assembly line with a pack of livestock, all because Glinda passed a law allowing Animals to take human jobs. That strike almost cost me everything." He sighed wearily. "I do not like losing control of a situation, Miss Thropp."

In other words, you're not just a speciesist; you're a speciesist with a grudge, Elphaba thought privately.

Outwardly, she offered her best equivalent of an accommodating smile, and remarked, "That makes two of us, then. Well, on the upside, the carpet works well enough. You don't appear to be weighing it down, and the fabric doesn't appear to be shifting under your movements. Now… I can see you're hanging onto the edge of the carpet, so that'll save us some time: when I say the word, I want you to pull the front corners of the carpet upwards."

"Why?"

"You'll see. Who knows, you might get some headway into knowing why I cackle. Now, on three: one… two… three!"

Brollan, startled by the volume of Elphaba's shout, instinctively twitched upwards, taking the corners of the carpet with him; instantly, the carpet rocketed into the air at an incredible speed, almost crashing into the ceiling before Brollan, screaming in terror, let go of the corners. For a moment, he lay there, face pressed into the carpet, mumbling and gurgling incomprehensibly.

Eventually, he managed to gibber, in a ripe mezzo-soprano, "Help."

"There's nothing to worry about, Mr Brollan; the carpet's still working, so you can get down from there without too much difficulty. Just remember- you're in complete control of the situation."

There was a pause, and then Brollan let out a soprano whimper of, "How do I get down from here?"

"Just turn the corners of the carpet downwards, gently, this time."

Very slowly, Brollan gently turned the corners downward, propelling the carpet slowly but surely towards the floor. But at perhaps seven feet above the ground, curiosity must have overtaken his nervousness, for he gave one corner an experimental twist, whereupon the whole carpet unexpectedly flipped upside down.

Once Brollan had stopped screaming, he opened his eyes long enough to realise that he hadn't fallen; he was still sitting on the upside-down carpet, his backside firmly anchored to its surface even as his keys and wallet dangled out of his pockets.

"That's the trouble with carpets," said Elphaba. "You might be able to carry more passengers and cargo on it, but it's a lot harder to grip than the average broomstick, especially for people in the centre; so I decided to cast a few supplementary enchantments to stop us from losing everything if we're ever flipped upside down. I've also cast a number of other useful spells I normally use when enchanting a new broomstick: protection from wind and airborne dust, lessening of ambient noise, that sort of thing."

"Ah," Brollan mumbled, in a tone of voice that indicated that he was far too startled to be rude. "Very comforting. So, when you first went flying out of the Wizard's palace, your broom was enchanted just like this carpet?"

"No, no; back then, it was a lot more rushed and a lot more improvised. In fact, the spell I used to make my first broom fly was supposed to give me wings- or so I thought. By the way, you might want to twist that particular corner to upright yourself."

Slowly, he took hold of the opposite corner of the carpet and gently rotated himself upright. As he once again lowered the levitating rug towards the floor, a strange expression slowly spread across his face, and he asked (somewhat hesitantly), "Can I… keep flying for a while? Just to practice, I mean."

Elphaba smirked. "That was the reason why I asked for a volunteer in the first place," she said.

"Huh?"

"You're being trained as a pilot, Mr Brollan."

In the last few hours, Basalt had not dared to venture outside Glinda's cell; with the threat of assassination steadily drawing nearer, it simply wasn't safe to leave her unguarded and unsupervised.

Thankfully, though, he knew that Lord Scathelex had no control over the structure of the palace, and couldn't simply delete the room and leave Glinda to suffocate; however, after a bit of hurried research on the subject, he also knew that as a member of the War Council, Scathelex had sufficient authority to draw on the services of assassins- highly specialised assassins trained and privileged specifically to kill organic targets.

Almost as concerning was the fact that the assassin's tactics could only be estimated: would he emerge from the wall behind Glinda's desk and attack her directly? Would he wait until she went to bed and launch his attack from beneath the mattress or from the ceiling above it? If he had magical power, would the assassination be just as straightforward, or would it attempt to use a subtler approach? Would it sear all organic life from the chamber with a blast of fire? Would it flood the room with carbon monoxide? And would the assassin also feel it necessary to kill Basalt first?

With no way of telling exactly where the expected intruder would emerge and how it would go about extinguishing Glinda's life, Basalt had decided to remain in the centre of the room, his upper body continually swivelling to allow him a 360˚ view of the walls and ceiling.

Meanwhile, Glinda herself was torn between studying the Grimmerie, occasionally helping herself to the tray of food at her side, and staring at Basalt's gently revolving form.

"Don't you get dizzy after a while?" she'd asked.

Basalt (who'd read enough about human anatomy to know what "dizziness" was) had assured her that he had no way of becoming disoriented by this activity. For a while, there'd been silence between the two of them, as Glinda reached what he gathered was an especially complicated line; eventually, she leant back in her chair, massaged her temples in exhaustion, and took a heavy draught of her goblet.

Then she eyed the goblet with sudden curiosity, and muttered, "I've been sipping from this thing for hours, now, and it's still hot. What is this stuff, anyway, Basalt? I ate and drank some of this when I first arrived, but I never asked what it was."

"It is hot molten silver, Miss Glinda."

Glinda blinked. "Molten silver?" she repeated.

"Yes, Miss Glinda."

"What about the pies?"

"Limestone, Miss Glinda."

There was a pause, as Glinda's skin slowly paled, and her expression went blank. According to Basalt's research, these two factors could indicate several different emotions, including shock, anger, disgust, and many others.

Unfortunately, he had no way of identifying which, so he asked, "Have I spoken in error?"

"No, no; it's just that… How… how have I been able to eat and drink any of this without dying or breaking my teeth or something like that?"

Basalt quickly classified the expression as one of "alarm" and answered: "During the construction of the palace, the Nome King placed certain enchantments upon its rooms, allowing foreign dignitaries to ingest and digest Nome food without suffering ill effects."

And thankfully, Basalt thought, none of these enchantments can be reversed by Lord Scathelex.

"Just as well, then," Glinda muttered, her expression registering "relief." She eyed the limestone pies curiously, and asked, "Do you eat this? Regularly, I mean."

"No, Miss Glinda; this food is reserved explicitly for nobles and other highly-privileged Nomes. Lesser Nomes such as I are content with dull granite and molten copper to dampen our appetites."

"Oh well; it was a bit silly of me to think you'd be eating toast and hard-boiled eggs for breakfast. But can you eat human food at all, though? Have you ever gotten curious about the things you've seen me eating at other times? Cheese, bread, fruit, that sort of - Basalt, are you alright?"

Basalt had gone very still, an instinctive reaction to hearing the mortal name for The Poison. However, there was something else amidst the instinctual revulsion, something new he'd earned in his transition from bodyguard to protector…

Though they were hardly expected to be the most inventive of the Nome King's household, the protectors were also gifted with enough imagination and creativity (in other words, any at all) to bolster their newfound privileges of curiosity and initiative. It was this imagination that had suddenly stirred within Basalt's mind at the mention of the Poison, and slowly, an idea began to form. It was a very hazy idea, with considerable improvisation given to an already fractal theme, but somehow, it made sense.

For the next minute, he remained silent, calculating distances between him and the materials he would need for this strange and unorthodox plan, and trying to decide whether the risks of the plan outweighed the benefits.

The palace storeroom is twelve floors beneath us; it will take a few seconds to reach. The required materials are sorted in alphabetical order, therefore I must head directly to shelf P24, which will take time to locate. Even with alchemical assistance, it will still take a minute to shape and prepare. Therefore, I must assume that the time I must take to leave accomplish this task would be adequate time for an assassin to infiltrate the room and kill Glinda.

Basalt's brow furrowed with thought.

However, Glinda is skilled enough to defend herself against other Nomes; fighting an assassin in single combat might be beyond her capabilities, but it may allow me the time I need. Of course, to do this, I will have to disobey my orders not to inform Glinda of anything occurring outside her room.

"Miss Glinda," he said at last, "I must go; I will return shortly."

"… Alright then," said Glinda hesitantly. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I am fine. Thank you for your concern." Then, Basalt, not certain of what he was doing, added, "Miss Glinda, does your wand still function?"

"It did, last time I looked. Why do you ask?"

"You may need it in the next few minutes; there are those in the palace who would prefer it if your work remained unfinished."

Then, bound by orders not to elaborate further, he vanished into the floor.

By the time the others had recovered from their hangovers and gotten down to work, it was almost midday, and Brollan had managed to temporarily conquer both his apparent fear of heights and his general inability to accept orders without complaint, and had apparently mastered the basics of flying a carpet. In fact, he was now attempting some more complicated manoeuvres, flying the carpet around sharp corners and down narrow hallways.

Meanwhile, Elphaba had finished enchanting the other carpet, and had selected a second pilot; naturally, since nobody else had wanted to be in the same room as her and Brollan, this second pilot was Brollan's stoic partner, Moleburr.

Once she'd given her basic tutorial of how to fly, she let Brollan take over the training process for a time- much to the relief of both- and went to check on the other refugees. At this point, a good deal of the explosives had been moved into one of the back rooms for Curter (the only qualified industrial alchemist among the refugees) to prepare them for the journey ahead: pausing only to take the boards off the walls so they could avoid any accidents involving candles, he and his team had starting turning the safest of the explosives into grenades, easy-to-set bombs, and makeshift shells for Curter's portable launcher. A brave few were even trying to make replicas of the launcher from lengths of pipe.

Curter himself was surveying the finished items as they arrived, checking the shell casings and clay grenades for leaks, and occasionally turning back to the team to say things like "Put that stuff outside with the rest of the rejects, Jobel," or "I wouldn't leave that in the sun if I were you."

Amusingly enough, they were so agitated with the workload that Elphaba's arrival in the room scarcely stirred a ripple; in fact, Curter was the only one who noticed her at all.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"Decently enough," Curter muttered, tapping experimentally on the side of a shell. "Well, it's slow as all hell and nobody knows if we'll even hit anything with the grenades or the shells, but at least nobody's lost a hand yet."

"Yet?"

"Well, that's the problem with this work: everyone wants to get it over and done with as quickly as possible so they can take the fight to the Nomes. The trouble is, impatience killed the alchemist, if you know what I mean… and that's only after it finished painting the room with his blood and gluing his eyeballs to the ceiling… and doing the same to anybody else in spitting distance."

Elphaba sighed; the explosives team weren't the only ones feeling impatient at this point. The barely suppressed yearning to get out of this mausoleum and into the sky was back, along with the longing to see Fiyero and Glinda again, which, she had to admit, wasn't helped by the fact that she'd spent a good deal of the time between enchantments wondering about them and what the Nomes were doing.

She bit back an expletive, and said, "Alright then, assuming nothing goes wrong, how long do you suppose it'll take?"

"Hours."

Curter's expression suddenly turned hesitant, and he asked, "How long do you suppose it'll take you to finish working the… erm... the magic? I mean, doing something as serious as that, it's got to take hours as well, right? Drawing the circles in the floor in your own blood, calling upon the grim spirits of beyond and probably binding the elements to your will, that's got to be a long and dangerous process, right?"

"You've been listening to the same rumourmongers as Gnoll, haven't you? Magic isn't usually as complicated as that; I finished enchanting the second carpet a few minutes ago."

"Oh."

"Although," Elphaba admitted, "if you're working with something as cryptic and powerful as the Grimmerie, it can get pretty close."

"Ah."

"It's a bit like working with explosives, really, except you run the risk of accidentally creating a subspecies if you botch a spell."

"I see."

"You're a lot friendlier when you're sober, by the way."

Curter laughed nervously, his tone of voice settling somewhere between embarrassment and terror. "I meant to apologise for what I said last night, by the way," he said. "I was a little drunk, I'll admit that, but not enough to excuse what I said, if you know what I mean…"

He stopped, realising that the rest of the explosives team was staring at him, and his ears immediately turned a vivid shade of crimson.

"Apology accepted," said Elphaba, privately wondering why the artilleryman was being so civil.

Maybe he was just afraid that he'd be the first casualty if she ever went off the deep end again, but most of the refugees were too convinced that she was already plotting her downfall to even bother with that. So, what reason could Curter have for being polite?

She turned to leave; but just as she reached the door, Curter added loudly, "I was being serious about redemption, mind you."

There was a sudden clatter of metal as one of the explosives team accidentally knocked over a pair of scales and swore diabolically.

Mentally, Elphaba did the same.

"Would you care to discuss this outside?" she asked, not even bothering to turn around. "I'd rather not have the room explode next time you shout like that."

Once they were out of earshot, she took a deep breath and whispered, "We've had this discussion already, Curter, and as much as I appreciate being spoken to on civil terms, I'd rather not have to repeat it. Okay?"

Curter sighed. "Listen, Elphaba - can I call you that? - I know that you aren't interested in sermons, but this is very serious. What are you going to do when this is all over and done with? If we actually manage to get the Nomes to undo whatever they did to the country and let us start rebuilding, what's going to happen to you, then?"

"I was planning on vanishing and never being seen again," said Elphaba truthfully.

"So, you return to the afterlife once your work here is done?"

Elphaba laughed; for almost a minute, she cackled helplessly, at first leaning against the wall, and then slumped bodily against it.

"No," she said, once she had gotten her breath back. "I was actually planning on living out the rest of my life in peace, far away from Oz. Truth be told, I wasn't even planning on meeting any Ozians when I arrived back in the country; once I'd learned who was to blame for the invasion and where to find them, I was supposed to have a straightforward flight from the Emerald City to the Nome Dominions, up until you shot me out of the air, of course."

"Can we get back on topic, please?" wheedled Curter. "Haven't you thought of making amends for your crimes and rejoining society? I mean, it might mean having to swallow your pride and apologising for everything you did, and I know that's hardly the easiest thing in the world to do, but spending the rest of your days in hiding and alone and hated by everybody doesn't sound like much of a life to me-"

"I wouldn't be alone and hated by everybody, I'd…" Elphaba paused, remembering herself, and hastily changed the subject. "That's not the point; if I wanted a comfortable life and the adoration of the masses, I wouldn't have opposed the Wizard in the first place, would I? So answer me this- if you're so intent on giving me the second chance you think I've been denied, why would I be interested in it?"

"Doesn't everyone want to be forgiven for their past mistakes?"

"Not in the way you suggest, but yes; even I have things I want to make amends for. But why are you so intent on… redeeming me? It just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of your qualifications; industrial alchemist, member of the Experimental Artillery Brigade… and a walking moral compass?"

Once again, Curter's boyish face turned pink. "You might not believe it," he said, "But before I went to university, I was a gnat's wing from becoming a cleric. Everyone else, even the other clerics, they warned me away from it, you see. They told me I had the faith, but not the fervour, so after a lot of soul-searching, I decided to study for a career and remain quietly faithful. But when the Nomes invaded…"

"… You were reborn as Curter the Pious, Holy Artilleryman and Redeemer of the Wicked Witch of the West," finished Elphaba, barely managing to keep the contempt from her voice. "My father might have gotten on well with you, Curter."

"The Unnamed God isn't as judgemental as the hardliners claim, Elphaba. Not all of the believers agreed with the angry mobs when they claimed you could never be forgiven. Only most of us," he conceded, "but my point is, you need to realise that you've been given a chance that few people ever get: another chance at life, and with none of the weaknesses you had then. I don't care what power brought you back from the dead, but you can't just squander this opportunity by hiding yourself away in the shadows as soon as you finish whatever business you returned to finish. You said yourself you wanted to be forgiven, why not seek forgiveness among the living? I'm not saying you have to convert; this can be…"

He foundered for a moment, before eventually suggesting, "A secular redemption, if you like."

There was a pause, as Elphaba considered this; eventually, she smiled. "I may have been mistaken, Curter: I don't think father would have gotten on with you at all, and I mean that as a compliment. Of course," she continued, "It doesn't mean I agree with you, and I'd recommend actually trying to learn what I want to make amends for before insisting on penitence, but… for better or for worse, your heart's in the right place."

"You make it sound like that doesn't count for much."

"Not in Oz, it doesn't," said Elphaba sadly. "But I think we've talked enough for now; I've got to make sure that Brollan and Moleburr don't end up hanging in tatters from the chandelier, and you've got to keep your team from accidentally blowing up the house."

Countless miles away, something sleek and bladed rippled through a solid rock wall and slid noiselessly onto the floor of Glinda's cell.

The assassin had arrived.

Nobody noticed him: as far as outside observers could tell, Basalt had left the room perhaps twenty to thirty minutes ago, and Glinda was lying in bed, evidently fast asleep. There were no hostile sentries assigned to the room, nor were there any indications that anybody was watching it via magic. Of course, as the lights had been dimmed for Glinda's benefit, it would have been difficult for anyone to see it anyway, and the assassin's enchanted obsidian skin upgraded "difficult" to "almost impossible."

Slowly, the assassin approached the bed, his clawed feet appearing to glide eerily across the stone floor; insulated by sound-dampening spells, his footsteps were completely inaudible. In fact, the only sound he made at all was the low hiss of blades being tested against air.

Two empty-looking stone eyes glared down at the figure on the bed, examining the face just to make sure that this really was Glinda Upland. Then, his inspection complete, the assassin raised one daggerlike index finger over the target's neck and began to slowly lower it towards the jugular vein.

"Excuse me, but could I please have your attention for a moment?"

The assassin turned with eyewatering speed, and found itself face to face with Basalt, who was returning the lights to their normal brilliance, without taking his eyes off the assassin, of course.

He was also holding something in his right fist.

"This isn't the best time to be a professional, friend," said the assassin, a mouth unexpectedly emerging from the lower half of his smooth black face. "I've been permitted to kill this target's defenders should they get in the way. Now please, step outside and let me get back to work."

"Would you really be willing to commit treason and kill one of the King's personal guests?"

"If the Council pays, I'd do anything they asked and more." The roughly-carved mouth smiled. "Hardly treasonous to oppose the King if the Council orders it."

"I have something here that might change your mind," said Basalt, holding up his closed right fist.

The assassin's smile broadened. "If it's a cease-and-desist from the King," he began, "I doubt I'll be impressed-"

Basalt opened his fist.

There was a horrified pause, as the assassin stared disbelievingly at the thing sitting in Basalt's stone palm: it was something that had been feared and dreaded in Nome culture for hundreds of thousands of years, a substance that could erode their bodies and destroy their souls in a matter of seconds, a material so unholy and destructive that few could even believe that on the surface it occurred naturally. Experiments had been conducted on it, spells had been invented to defend against it, and there'd even been a few wild attempts to destroy its sources, all to no avail.

And now, Glinda's bodyguard was currently holding a sample of the deadliest poison known to Nomekind in his hand.

'"You wouldn't," the assassin whispered. "You wouldn't dare bring… that into the palace. You wouldn't risk what would happen if it broke…"

"Wouldn't I? I have been ordered to defend Glinda with my life. If I must risk death or even suffer death in order to serve the King, then I am more than prepared to make the necessary sacrifice. Are you? Be warned that if you make another move towards the bed, I will break this against your face."

It took a while for the stunned assassin to find his voice, but when he did, a remnant of his old cockiness could be heard in it. "I don't need to make another move," he sneered. "All I've got to do is sweep my hand backwards, and she dies. You made a big mistake in letting me get this close to her, Protector."

"You made an even bigger one in thinking I was asleep," said Glinda.

The assassin wheeled around to find himself face to face with Glinda's wand, glowing with enough energy to rip clean through his obsidian body.

For a moment, his claws twitched, as though he imagined he could move faster than the first blast of magic.Then he glanced over his shoulder and realised that Basalt was now standing right behind him, ready to smash the Poison into the back of his head. For a moment, the assassin looked as though he was considering an escape through the floor; then Basalt's hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Ah," he said softly.

"I hope I don't need to tell you not to move," said Glinda pleasantly. "I'd hate to see what would happen if Basalt actually had to use... well, whatever it is he's holding."

"You don't seem too concerned about what would happen if you were to use that wand of yours on me."

"Of course not. I already know what would happen if I did something like that: your head would explode. Simple as that."

"I see. Will you accept my surrender?"

"Maybe." There was a note of teasing in Glinda's voice, now. "Basalt," she asked, "Is our guest going to be missed by anyone?"

Basalt nodded. "Lord Scathelex will be expecting a report from him; in the event that we kill this assassin, his master will merely notice the absence and send another- perhaps a team of them, he believes you are dangerous enough."

"Fair enough. Good news, Mr Assassin: your head isn't going to explode."

"Very generous of you," conceded the assassin. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

"Simple: I want you to go back to your boss and tell him that he couldn't find me anywhere on this floor, and that Basalt's probably hidden me away somewhere outside the palace."

A sly grin crossed the assassin's face. "Just speaking rhetorically, what's to stop me from telling Lord Scathelex the truth?"

"The fact that, as a Protector, I have the right to access the personnel records of every single subject of the Nome Dominions," intoned Basalt. "I know the route you take to reach mission briefings and know where you spend most of your free time; most importantly, I know where you prepare your meals. Also, the moment you leave this cell, I have a contingent of spies ready to follow you to ensure that you tell your master only as much as Miss Glinda allows you to tell."

The grin vanished. "Just checking. Can I go now?"

"So long as you remember: you are being watched. Now go."

The Assassin nodded solemnly, and melted smoothly into the floor, leaving Glinda and Basalt apparently alone in the room.

A minute of silence passed between the two of them, eventually broken by Glinda whispering, "Behind me, right?"

"Most likely."

Glinda nodded and pointed her wand at the wall behind her.

A moment later, the enraged assassin appeared in it, claws drawn and an expression of blistering hatred etched upon his almost featureless skull, until he realised that he was once again staring down the length of a magic wand.

"Gods damn it," he hissed, wearily. "I would have thought that you'd have the decency to let down your guard after accepting my surrender."

"The last time I did something like that," said Glinda, "I was lucky enough to get to a hospital without bleeding to death. So I've got to ask: did this Lord Scathelex even think to ask the King just how many assassinatory attempts that I've dodged in the last year before sending you here? Did you even bother to ask who you were being sent to kill?"

"The Generals of the War Council don't have to ask anything of the king, and I don't answer to uppity fleshlings who- OW! What was that for?"

"A correction," said Basalt, shaking chunks of shattered obsidian from his fist. "For the moment, you do answer to Miss Glinda. If you do not feel that the wand is a sufficient threat, then I can always use-"

"No! I get your point, I get your point. Look, can I just leave, now? I promise I won't try and attack you again, and I promise to deliver your message to Lord Scathelex."

Glinda nodded. "Be on your way… and don't forget what Basalt said: the walls have eyes, and they're all watching you."

Once the assassin was gone and Basalt's crew of borrowed spies had confirmed that he was heading in the general direction of the withdrawing rooms, Glinda finally released the breath she'd been holding for the past fifteen seconds and collapsed onto the bed.

"That," she gasped, "was interesting."

"Are you alright, Miss Glinda?"

"I'm fine, I'm just a little shaken- that's all. Do you know," she added, thoughtfully, "That's only about the second time in the last year or so that someone's actually tried to assassinatify me at close range? They tried shooting me, they tried bombing me, but after the first knifing, they never tried it again. At least this one wasn't after me for being a personal friend to the Wicked Witch of the West."

Basalt detected "bitterness" and "anger" in Glinda's voice, and decided to remain tactfully silent.

"Why is this Lord Scalpel or whatever his name is trying to kill me? Can't the King just order him to back down?"

"I am not certain; from what little I have been able to observe, there seems to be some conflict between the War Council and His Majesty, something involving issues of leadership, others involving your work. Apparently, Scathelex objects to the fact that His Majesty wants to... become human."

"Knowing why the King wants it, I can hardly blame Scathing."

"Scathelex," corrected Basalt, once again regretting the fact that he'd averted his ears from the King's explanation.

"Just one more question: what were you using to scare the assassin?"

Without saying a word, Basalt opened his right fist to display the thing that he had been concealing in it.

"It is merely a replica," he explained, "made of plaster and paint, both quick-dried with alchemical flame, but convincing enough to fool the assassin nonetheless."

"So this is why you left earlier? You were making this and hoping to scare off an assassin with it?"

"Yes."

Glinda reached out and gently took the plaster fakery from Basalt's cavernous palm.

"I don't get it," she said. "Why would he be scared of an egg?"

Half an hour later, Glinda and Basalt looked up from their work (Glinda from her translation of the Grimmere, Basalt from reading a book on human behaviour) at the sound of rumbling in the distance, followed by cries of "All hail His Majesty!"

Minutes later, the Nome King marched smoothly through the wall of the cell, a satisfied look on his face.

"No deaths in my absence, it would seem," he said happily. "How goes your study, Glinda?"

"I think I'm almost halfway there," she said. "There's still a lot of work to be done on keeping the spell variables from getting out of control, though."

"Take all the time you need; I know how chaotic the spells from the Grimmerie can be, and I'd very much prefer that my new human form kept its internal organs internal. In the meantime, I've noticed quite a few of the distinguished Lord Scathelex's personal servants running about the palace on spying duty, rather than attending to his Lordship. Tell me, Basalt, have there been any assassination attempts?"

"Only one, Your Majesty: Glinda and I managed to persuade him to leave with little incident."

"Truly? How did you manage this?"

By way of explanation, Basalt held up the plaster egg.

Very slowly, the King's face went slack. "Well now," he said slowly, "I know for a fact that there is absolutely nobody in the Dominions stupid enough to actually bring one of those into the palace, so would I be right in assuming that's a fake?"

"Absolutely, Your Majesty."

"Just as well then."

The King gently took the egg from Basalt and examined it carefully, turning it over in his hands and occasionally tapping its surface.

"Yes," he murmured, the smile edging back across his face. "Very clever. You've exceeded all expectations, Basalt; congratulations are in order, perhaps even another promotion. Of course, it may have to wait until after I've gotten our resident member of the War Council under control, but all good things come to those who wait, as they say. Keep up the good work, both of you."

As the King strolled out of the room, a thought suddenly struck Basalt: for some time, now, he'd been wondering about why His Majesty would want to become a human, what purpose it might serve, or even how he'd thought of it in the first place; in other words, everything Basalt had missed during that initial conversation, along with a few things that Scathelex had mentioned. And now that the King was back in the palace, most obvious solution was, of course, just asking.

"Your Majesty!" he called, hurrying through the wall after him.

The King, who was almost halfway down the corridor by that stage, turned. "Was there something else you needed to tell me?" he asked.

"Just one question, Your Majesty. About your plan…"

"Yes?"

"Why do you want to… to become human?"

"Basalt, you were in the same room when I told Glinda of it in the first place. Why do I need to tell you again?"

"I was averting my ears, Your Majesty; I spent most of that conversation hiding in the wall."

The King sighed deeply. "Oh yes, counterproductive reverence in action. I did wonder why you didn't join us at the table even when I'd prepared a third goblet for you. Never mind; if you must know, the reason why I want to become a human being is because I have recently come into possession of a set of artefacts that…"

He hesitated. "Perhaps it would be more appropriate if you learned the answers for yourself," he said at last. "Consider it a personal development project- another step towards your next promotion. After all, it's not as if you're unequipped for the task."

"But what of my duties in protecting Miss Glinda?"

"There will be no more assassination attempts while I am in the palace, Basalt; you'll still have your regular inspections to contend with, but other than that, you'll have all the free time you'll need to investigate. Oh, and another thing: just to make this a proper challenge, you are not permitted to ask Glinda. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to keep with Lord Scathelex to keep. Good day…"

As the King drifted away, this time taking a shortcut through the nearest wall, Basalt belatedly realised that he'd forgotten to inform him of Scathelex's remark about the "abominations" being dumped in Northern Munchkinland.

What exactly had that meant, anyway? Could he use this mystery as a starting point for his personal development project? And more importantly, could he learn enough about Ozian geography to navigate Munchkinland without requesting a guide?

"Lord Scathelex."

"Your Majesty."

There was a deathly silence as the two Nomes regarded each other: Scathelex, with his spindly custom-made body of marble and gold; the King, with his craggy, heavyset body of rough granite, with only the tines of his crown and his rudimentary beard to distinguish him from the rank and file.

Staring back at him, Scathelex could scarcely imagine anyone more plain and uninteresting outside of the servant class; even the King's predecessor, Roquat the Red, a Nome so senile and disconnected from reality that he could scarcely concentrate on anything outside his library by the end of his reign, had at least had the decency to customize his body with the ostentation one would expect from the ruler of Nomekind. Of course, given that most of the current King's time was spent snooping around behind the collective backs of the entire War Council, perhaps it was fitting that he chose a more unassuming exterior.

But what do you want, really? Scathelex wondered. What attraction does humanity hold for you?

"I trust you're finding the drawing rooms comfortable enough," said the King. "You haven't been greatly inconvenienced on my account, I hope."

Well, we've lost a very large plot of valuable territory to one of your mad schemes, you've been trying to transform yourself into a human being with the aid of an Ozian POW, and my one attempt to stop your insanity from consuming any more of the Council's precious resources has gone awry thanks to my assassin being unable to locate one imprisoned witch and her overpromoted bodyguard. But apart from that, no, I don't feel remotely inconvenienced at all.

Out loud, Scathelex shook his head. "I admit, I would have preferred to have held this meeting outside, in the caverns."

"You don't like the palace?"

"Your Majesty, if nothing else, I am a dutiful representative of the War Council; we pride ourselves on following the traditions of Nomekind to the letter, and replacing the seat of power in the caves of the earth with a constructed palace strikes us as… conspicuously untraditional."

"I've replaced nothing, Lord Scathelex; I've merely built a home for myself and my household. Besides," the King added with sudden venom, "it's not as if you consider this the true seat of power in the Nome Dominions, do you? If you did, you'd never have let me get past the planning stage; as far as you and the War Council are concerned, I'm just a figurehead with the occasional bright idea, the heir of a powerless ruler with nothing to rule."

Scathelex blinked. This was not what he had expected.

In the meetings in which he'd proposed the attack on Oz, the King had appeared to be everything the Council could have hoped for in a King: well-mannered, self-effacing, and ultimately subservient to their demands. Apart from his rather eccentric move to lead the troops from the front line, and his even more outrageous desire to become a human, he'd never shown signs of true defiance in the face of a Council representative.

"Your Majesty," Scathelex began, "I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot-"

"We might," snarled the King. "We just might, my little peon. Just a few seconds ago, you accused me of disobeying the traditions of Nomekind when the War Council has been, against tradition, taking control of non-military affairs in the Nome Dominions over the course of the last few years. Earlier today, you tried to have my most important prisoner assassinated. Four days ago, you tried to borrow members of my personal guard for a battlefield unit that would never see combat. Two weeks ago, when I suggested the attack on Oz, you suggested a full psychological evaluation. Frankly, our relationship has been nothing but a long string of you getting off on the wrong foot… and that includes the casual syphoning of magic from me, and allowing the Blessed Emeralds to slip from our grasp."

"In case Your Majesty must be reminded, that was over twenty years ago: Roquat the Red was in power at that time, not y-"

The King's fist caught Scathelex hard under the chin, flinging him across the withdrawing room and into a solid granite table.

"It occurs to me," the King mused, "that you could have pretended to be innocent. You could have claimed that what happened was an accident. Instead, I get "that was over twenty years ago." Is that really all you have to say to me?"

"You hit me!" yelled Scathelex, too indignant to be afraid. "You don't dare strike a representative of the War Council!"

"Don't I?"

Magical energy pulsed out the Nome King, lifting Scathelex off the ground and flinging him across the room.

"Last I looked," the King mused aloud, as another wave of magic tossed Scathelex against the ceiling, "the War Council wasn't in the palace, nor were they aware of your current attempts at assassination…"

He smiled up at the council representative, who was now being magically pounded headfirst into the fresco.

"… And something tells me that they aren't even aware of your presence in the building. Rather fortuitous, wouldn't you say?"

Scathelex wasn't interested in answering. He didn't know how long the King had been planning this rebellion, what he hoped to accomplish, or even why he was confusing Roquat's reign with his own. All he needed to know was he had to strike now before this maniac killed him. The Council would understand; they'd select a new King from the ranks of the military, and all would be right with the world.

So, gathering his powers, Scathelex returned fire: his ornamental quills, bent by their impact with the table, suddenly crackled with vivid blue sparks as concussive force roared from the palms of his hands, thundering against the King's flesh with all the compacted force of a runaway freight train, shattering him to pieces.

This was a technique Scathelex had actually tested in battle against humans and Nomes: human skeletons were all but liquefied by the blast, and Nome bodies simply exploded into inert rubble, unable to reform themselves.

So he was rather surprised when the shattered pieces of the King began to reassemble themselves.

From somewhere amongst the rubble, something that bore a vague resemblance to a mouth laughed obscenely: "Did you think that the advance of the forests across Oz was entirely due to Glinda's aid?" it cackled. "Did you truly think that I spent the Battle for the Emerald City twiddling my thumbs while my troops did all the hard work, too afraid to show my face without the magic to protect it? For their sake, I hope that the rest of the War Council isn't nearly as stupid as you."

Faced with his opponent recovering from an apparently lethal injury, and armed with no other spells that could really affect Nomes, Scathelex turned and ran for his life.

Less than fifteen feet into the wall, a tendril of magic wrapped around him and dragged him back into the ruins of the withdrawing room and directly into the path of the King's reassembled fist.

"I wouldn't be leaving so soon," he purred. "I haven't even started on you just yet."

This time, Scathelex called upon his entire arsenal of magic: he flung fireballs, he projected lightning from his golden eyeballs, and he also tried two or three more concussive blasts for good measure; he spat acid, he exhaled clouds of explosive energy, he enchanted the light fixtures to come to his rescue, he even commanded his golden quills to launch themselves at his attacker. He knew none of it would kill the king, but he didn't need to. All he needed to do was to force him to release him, if only so he could escape from whoever or whatever the King had become in his growing insanity, to reach another General and warn the council of the danger he now posed. No matter how powerful the King had become behind their backs, he couldn't possibly stand before their collective might.

Unfortunately, the King didn't flinch under the barrage.

Instead, he countered by opening his cavernous jaws and belching a stream of fire that washed over Scathelex's arms and body, heating them to colossal levels. And because he'd crafted his body to detect pain rather than actively feel it, Scathelex could only stare in horror as his arms, already glowing bright orange in the intense heat, began to drip, then run, then ooze off his torso altogether.

And the rest of his body was still to follow.

"WAIT!" Scathelex shouted desperately. "WAIT!"

The stream of fire abated, and after clearing his throat, the King rumbled, "Have you something important to tell me, or are you just pleading for mercy?"

"Your Majesty, I beg you, think about what you're doing. The Council might not know I've arrived here, but they won't be delayed forever: when they'll return and find me dead, they'll-"

"Execute me? Oh they would indeed. But you see, by the time they arrive, it'll be far too late for them to do anything about. Times are changing faster than you think, Scathelex; the reign of the War Council is ending, and soon, the reign of King Roquat shall begin again!"

Scathelex's marble eyesockets widened in surprise. "You mean… you're… you really are… you faked your death?"

"I faked nothing."

The King's fist rose over Scathelex's defenceless face, swarming with magical power.

"Sleep well in oblivion, My Lord; may your fellow Generals join your slumber soon."

The second last thing that went through Scathelex's mind was a whimper of, but I'm only two hundred and fifty, I'm too young to die!

The very last thing to go through his mind was, of course, the King's right fist.

"What in the name of Oz is wrong with you? You want your head to explode or somethin'? Point the soddin' launcher away from your soddin' skull and point it at the soddin' target! Yes, Mr McKordrek, what is it?"

"Uh, Woolwax, why aren't we using ammunition in these launchers?"

"Because, in case you were stuck behind the door when they were handin' out brains, we can't afford to waste any of it, and because you'd probably blow your head off if you were given anything remotely explosive! Besides, these makeshift launchers work well enough: if they're good enough for young Curter, they're good enough for you!"

"I'm not arguing that or anything, it's just that I feel… well, a bit silly pointing this thing at the bullseye, preparing an empty shell and shouting "bang!" that's all."

"You just be happy for that, my friend, because in a day, we'll be fighting against a real enemy that doesn't sit still, and you'll be using a weapon that will explode if you hold it the wrong way. So, you just count your blessings, point the launcher at the target, and shout "bang" proudly and happily when I give the order! The rest of you... TEN-SHUN! READYYYYYYYY ARMS! NOT THOSE ARMS, YOU TRIPLE-HEADED DINGLEBERRY!"

"Sorry, sir. Wasn't here for the first couple of drills."

"Again! READYYYYYY ARMS! SHOULDEEEER ARMS! READY! AIM… FIRE AT WILL!"

"Bang!"

"PUT A BIT OF BLOODY ENTHUSIASM INTO IT!"

"BANG!"

"MUCH BETTER! NOW RELOAD! WHAT IS IT, MISS JASPERS?"

"Sir, could you please lower your voice? I think I may be suffering from tinnitus."

"LISTEN, YOU… what's that noise?"

There was a long and embarrassed silence, as the entire bombardier squad slowly turned towards the source of the noise: it turned out to be Elphaba, half-slumped against the wall, paralysed with laughter. Rasp was standing next to her, trying valiantly not to join in.

"How… how m-many years has it been since you were discharged from the guard?" he asked, once he had gotten his voice under control.

"Five," grumbled Woolwax. "Of course, it wouldn't matter if it had been fifty: the old sergeant-major's patter never really leaves you. In the meantime, what brings our Acting Governor and pet witch among the bombardiers?"

"For a start," said Elphaba, who was too amused to be annoyed, "I'm nobody's pet. Secondly, the flying carpets are ready to go; we'll be gathering outside in five minutes."

"What's the hurry?"

By way of a reply, Rasp drew a battered fob watch from his jacket. "It's almost four-thirty," he said. "I'd rather get in the air while we still have enough light to see where we're going."

"Fair enough," Woolwax conceded. "Alright ladies and gents, let's get moving now: on your feet and outside, on the double! Hup-one-two-three…"

Five short minutes later, the refugees gathered just outside the manor; Elphaba had managed to clear a few of the trees, enough to give them room to set up the two flying carpets, both of which were now loaded with all the supplies they would need, from food to heavy munitions.

And, astonishingly enough, there was still enough room for about six to seven people on each carpet.

Unfortunately, nobody wanted to board them, because everyone, including both the pilots, was waiting for Elphaba to take the opportunity to kill them all in one go the moment they reached a certain height. The fact that she was flying in her own broomstick instead of one of the carpets didn't help her case much, even though the refugees would probably be even more reluctant to use the carpets if she was a passenger in one of them. And there were also several people who were terrified of magic on general principle, who refused to climb aboard anything that was already floating three feet off the ground.

"Look," said Rasp exasperatedly, "This is the only way we can reach the Nomes and mount a counterattack; it's either this, chopping through this forest over the next decade or so, or just staying in the mansion to survive on rats and anything else you can scavenge from this place. I mean, it's a nice place to live for a few days, I suppose, but it's already in poor condition, and it's only going to get worse the longer we stay here. Do you want to raise your children here? Do you want to see them suffer in trying to eke out a…"

Rasp took a deep breath and threw up his hands. "Oh, screw it," he muttered, and clambered aboard the nearest of the two carpets. "See? It's perfectly safe!"

A long silence followed.

"Well?"

Very slowly, Gnoll took a seat on the carpet.

"As I was saying," said Rasp, "This carpet is completely and totally safe. Can we get going now?"

Somewhere in the distance, crickets chirped.

Far closer, Elphaba stifled a laugh. "I think there might be an issue of trust somewhere at work here," she said.

"Oh shut up," grumbled Woolwax.

"Would it make any difference if I got on?" asked Brollan, helpfully.

"Probably not. We can't fly it without you, so you have to go."

"Then why don't you get on?"

Curter, who was now wearing a small backpack of ammo alongside the harness for his launcher, sighed, and took a seat on the carpet. "Can we get on with it?" he asked, wearily. "There are some things even I don't have the patience for."

Slowly, the refugees began boarding; all in all, perhaps four or five decided to stay behind to guard the children. However, the surprising thing was that the Gazelle wasn't one of them.

"Sorry, but I'm not interest in spending another minute in that dust-clogged mausoleum while the country needs saving," he'd said emphatically. "I admit, I might not be the most useful member of the team, but if you actually need a fast-moving distraction, all you've got to do is hurl me over the side."

"Just try and stop us," Brollan muttered under his breath.

"I'm sure it won't come to that," said Rasp. "So, shall we get going then? Miss Thropp, I believe you know the way to the Nomes from here: you go first."

Elphaba, who had already mounted her broom, offered the wickedest grin she could possibly offer, and kicked off, soaring high into the afternoon sky. Barely bothering to check if the others were following her, she flung back her head and let out a maniacal shriek of laughter.

At long last, they were moving.

Soon, they would be in Nome territory.

And soon… she'd see Fiyero and Glinda again.

Chapter 18: Abominations

Summary:

Elphaba and the resistance stumbles upon something horrific in more ways than one...

Chapter Text

"I'm not saying we're going to get lost, I'm just saying that without a compass, we might be heading in any direction but east."

"How hard can it be? All we need to do is keep flying until we reach the Deadly Desert; if it takes any longer than five to six hours, we'll know we're going in the wrong direction. I mean, back in your reign of terror, I'd imagine you didn't spend every other minute hovering in mid-air, consulting a map and compass."

"No, I didn't, and you know why? Because I had landmarks: cities, towns, villages, roads, rivers, fortloads of trigger-happy guardsmen, that sort of thing. When I returned to Oz, I found that half of my old landmarks had been destroyed; when Mombi fed me the directions, all I had was the Emerald City, the Yellow Brick Road, and the… the Gale house. Now, it's all covered in forest, and the only thing I can rely on is which horizon the sun rises and sets at. Just look at where we landed: nothing but trees, trees, trees, and - oh look! - more trees, and even once we've flown above them, there's a very good chance we won't remember the direction we were supposed to be going in. All in all, we might be at a serious disadvantage. In fact, even if we do make it as far as the Deadly Desert and beyond, we might never find any Nomes to wage this guerrilla war of ours against."

"Has anyone ever told you how pessimistic you are when you're on the ground? What happened to the cackling girl who led us into the air, screaming 'Fly My Pretties, Fly!' eh?"

"You'll see her again when we get back in the air. Assuming you're not suffering from another bout of airsickness. Is that why you're against airborne navigation, by the way?"

Rasp sighed and took a sizeable bite out of the cooked quail he'd been nibbling at for the past half hour. "This," he mumbled between mouthfuls, "actually tastes a lot better than I thought it would taste. I'm just glad we managed to find that bag of salt back in the manor, or we'd never have been able to give it the slightest bit of flavour."

It was currently six o'clock in the morning, and the refugees that weren't still asleep were currently huddled around the hottest fire Elphaba could conjure without injuring any of them, and helping themselves to a meagre breakfast of fruit and biscuits, plus whatever birds they'd managed to shoot. None of them liked their current camping ground; after all, in a world the Nomes had conquered and remade, anything from the trees to their own shadows could be hiding some kind of enemy. In fact, some of the refugees had only fallen asleep out of sheer terror that they might actually be awake when the Nomes emerged from beneath them to chew on their viscera.

Others, of course, had refused to even put head to pillow without Woolwax marching up and down outside, armed with Curter's launcher and a bag of shells.

Elphaba hadn't found it easy to sleep either: on the moments when she wasn't worrying about Fiyero and Glinda, she kept hearing strange noises in the distance, and no matter how often she tried to tell herself it was just the usual sounds you'd hear in a forest at night, she kept imagining the craggy figures of Nomes spying their campfire from a distance, and slowly drifting towards them like sharks towards a crowded beach.

And then, once she'd finally managed to actually close her eyes and sleep, she'd started having nightmares. For added irony, none of them were about what lurked beyond the lights of the camp.

Instead, Elphaba had found herself dreaming of Fiyero and Glinda; in every single nightmare, they were imprisoned somewhere deep inside Nome territory, dangling by their hands from a rock ceiling above the mouth of some enormous-jawed monstrosity or squeezed inside a coffin-like chamber or even being passed across an endless crowd of giggling, razor-fingered monsters, each one promising a more horrific torture to the two of them as it lacerated them.

Twice, Elphaba awoke from these dreams sweating, shivering and feeling as though she'd died in her sleep, and the only thing that made the whole thing slightly bearable was the fact that Gnoll had once again fallen asleep on watch, thus sparing her a great deal of embarrassment.

The last dream she had (before waking up to the sound of refugees whining that the fire wouldn't start) was almost pleasant, if a bit strange: in fact, the entire dream seemed to consist of five minutes hovering around a single room and observing its contents.

She remembered luxurious furniture and fine wood-panelled walls, and a massive oak desk; she even remembered the figure that sat behind it, a tall, bearded man dressed in an immaculate suit… and a very distinctive ruby ring on his little finger. He was turning something over in his hands, something that, even with the blurry fog that usually surrounded her dreams, could still be recognised as a key.

And there was magic in this room as well, a very subtle and enigmatic sort that was being directed into the man behind the desk; Elphaba couldn't be sure, but something about this magic felt as though someone was controlling the man or at the very least using him as a telescope into whatever strange world she was dreaming of. There was another outpouring of magic somewhere nearby, so weak she could barely sense it; in fact, Elphaba got so caught up in trying to decipher the origins of the two different magicks that she barely heard anything of what was going on in the background- the man asking questions, and a child's voice answering.

Of course, most of it was hopelessly muddled by the fog, but right at the end of the dream, Elphaba caught the words, "The Tin Man was human, once," and realised that the conversation was about Oz.

Then of course, the dream ended, leaving her awake and with even more questions than before, along with a navigation issue to clear up.

Elphaba sighed. "It never ends," she muttered.

"It could be worse," said Rasp, brightly. "It could be raining, for a start."

"… Did you really just say that?"

"Sorry."

"Never mind; don't worry about it. With our luck, it won't be rain at all: it'll be apple-sized hailstones and midair explosions… or an ambush."

They'd been travelling for what felt like days, now, lurching awkwardly across the ruined countryside on their malformed limbs, or being carried by those strong enough to do so.

The largest and healthiest of them, Oxen, was virtually covered in those who had fallen by the wayside, his gigantic shoulders clustered with those too infirm to move under their own power.

Against all expectations, their southerly march had actually made some progress, even as the landscape itself changed around them. They'd done their best to avoid these changes, because their misbegotten forms would have surely been torn apart by the growth of new trees, and sure enough, they'd lost at least five of their number before they finally encountered something the trees simply refused to grow on or in: a lake. Mercifully, the freezing water had numbed the pain and cleaned their wounds enough for them to stagger onwards once the growth had ended.

For a time, they lingered there, before carrying on, with Lord Eldrect taking the lead, as he had when they'd still been his retinue. None of them were certain where they were going, or even what they hoped to accomplish, but it had to be better than staying in the pit and dying. Eventually, though, one of them had to voice their concerns, and this duty fell to a semi-boneless thing clinging to Oxen's back like the world's ugliest barnacle:

"Are we… returning?"

"There can be no returning," whispered Lord Eldrect.

Ever since the alteration, he'd always whispered; perhaps his vocal cords had failed to develop adequately, or perhaps his lungs were too weak to give his voice adequate volume. Whatever the case, he never spoke any louder than a quiet murmur and today was no exception.

"We would not be welcomed back," he continued, "or even recognised by the border patrols; we have nothing to reclaim there, and nothing awaiting us but the King."

This time, it was Oxen who spoke, the Siege-Breaker's deep voice shaking leaves from the trees above them. "Then should there not be… revenge?" he boomed, cracking his knuckles with a sound like the grinding of tectonic plates.

But Eldrect only laughed hoarsely, until his chuckling abruptly gave way to a series of loud, wheezing coughs. For fifteen seconds, he leant against Oxen's leg and coughed, until he was almost bent double; finally, he stopped, retched, and spat out a mouthful of blood and other less-identifiable things. The others stared at it in mingled disgust and fascination: some of them had never seen blood before in their lives, and to them, the sudden spray of reddish-black upon the ground was as extraordinary as it was revolting.

"There can be no revenge against the King," said Eldrect sadly. "He is too powerful for us, and even if we could bring him down, we cannot burrow beneath the Deadly Desert to attack him- not anymore. We are denied everything, even the embrace of the earth. All that remains... is an ending."

Some of them rumbled in discontent at this declaration, and eventually, one of the simplest of the crippled asked the question that none of his more advanced fellows wanted to ask:

"Will it be soon?"

One of the crippled who wasn't dangling from Oxen's shoulders began to laugh, a high-pitched maniacal chortling that sliced viciously into defenceless eardrums and lacerated the nerves. Weeks ago, he'd been one of the Royal Librarians, respected for his knowledge and his mastery of the magical arts; now he was a giggling ruin of twisted limbs, inverted jawbones and torn flesh, hovering five feet above the ground to spare his broken legs from the journey.

"We are the dead," he laughed. "We are the dead. We are… abominations. The ending will not be gentle, and it will not be quick."

They continued south in silence, apart from the odd groan of pain, and the occasional delirious giggle from the Librarian; then again, this could hardly be complained about: all of them were in pain, and all of them were delirious to some extent… and most of them were growing angrier by the minute, Oxen being the worst. Every so often, he would howl with frustration and swing his fists wildly at surrounding trees, snapping them like matchsticks.

Eventually, they stopped at the ruins of an old stone hut that had proved too well-built for the growing forests to destroy altogether.

Most of them were able to squeeze awkwardly through the front door and huddle inside, but there simply wasn't enough room for Oxen and the Librarian as they were. Once upon a time, this would have been easy to solve, but their ability to change their size had been lost, along with their old bodies and several pints of their new vital fluids.

So, the two of them were left outside, one of them furious at everything, the other barely capable of discerning the difference between reality and delirious fantasy.

Neither of them had anything to say to each other, and neither of them had any realistic way of making the hours flow any quicker, so it didn't take them very long to notice the three distinctive shapes rocketing across the sky…

On the upside, the refugees finally knew how far they were from the Deadly Desert; on the downside, they'd discovered that Brollan's apparent fear of heights really was just "apparent," and in reality, he was a hopeless acrophile.

Nobody had expected the cantankerous businessman to get so enthusiastic about flying, but he had, and as they finally descended to a safe altitude, Elphaba was beginning to regret making him a pilot- hence why she was currently flying as close to Brollan's carpet as possible. This was partly to keep an eye on him, but mostly so she could remain inside the field of the sound limiter spell she'd placed around the carpet: here, the roaring of the wind and other ambient noise was lowered to comfortable levels, allowing the passengers to talk at normal volume.

"Let's not try any more mad stunts," she said firmly.

"I don't know why you're being such a killjoy," grumbled Brollan. "A minute ago, you were laughing even harder than I was."

"Yes, but that was before I noticed I was having difficulty breathing… and before my hat flew off. Oh, and a word of advice: it took a lot of effort to retrieve this hat after I lost it the first time; if anything you do causes me to lose it for good, then I am going to weave another one out of your scalp."

"Bit possessive, are we?"

"Shut up and pay attention to the ground."

"Look, we know where we're going now, don't we? Governor, don't you agree that that's a good-"

Rasp groaned loudly, and put his head very firmly between his knees. "Unless you really want to become intimately acquainted with my breakfast," he mumbled, "please shut up and pay attention to the ground."

"FEELING A BIT AIRSICK AGAIN, ARE WE?" bellowed Woolwax, who was sitting on the opposite carpet.

Thankfully, voices weren't considered "ambient noise" by whoever had first crafted the Sound Limiter spell, so the thuggish Munchkin could be heard reasonably well enough.

"NO," Rasp howled sarcastically. "I'VE JUST DISCOVERED THAT THE BIRDS WE ATE WERE DISEASED. WE'VE ALL GOT SEVEN MINUTES TO LIVE!"

"VERY FUNNY."

"JUST BECAUSE YOUR STOMACH DOESN'T TRY AND KILL YOU EVERYTIME YOUR PILOT DOES A BARREL ROLL DOESN'T… doesn't… d… d…"

Rasp fell silent for a moment; then, without warning, he leaned forward and vomited noisily over the right side of the carpet. There was a yelp of disgust from the rest of the crew, and Elphaba winced sympathetically, privately glad that she'd chosen to fly on the left side.

"Oh Oz," Rasp gurgled at long last, wiping his mouth of the back of his hand. "This is the part about flying nobody ever mentions: the Wizard, Glinda, you- nobody who's ever succeeded in flying ever says anything about spending the whole trip puking your guts over the side and hoping you won't fall to your death."

He gave Elphaba a look of pure jealousy. "You just don't suffer from airsickness, do you?"

"Don't talk," Elphaba advised. "Just close your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else."

"I'd like to, but it's a little hard to do that when I'm sitting on a carpet a few hundred feet in the air with the wind in my ears and face, being given advice by an ex-terrorist witch while the failed entrepreneur at the controls of this wretched thing tries to get us killed in the most spectacular ways imaginable."

"Who are you calling "failed"?"

"Don't look at me!" Rasp shrieked hysterically. "Look in front of your or below you or whatever the hell you're supposed to be looking at!"

"Governor, we are flying on a completely horizontal course: even if I do let go of these corners, it'll take us a good few minutes to hit the ground."

"As opposed to the upwardly vertical course you were setting a minute or two ago, in which we would never have seen the ground again?"

"Oh for Oz's sake, I'm never going to hear the end of this from you, am I?"

Elphaba smirked. "I could hear people on this carpet screaming from about fifty feet away, Brollan," she said, cheekily. "So, no, I don't think any of them are going to let you hear the end of it."

"Would it help if I explained? The only reason why I started going up in the first place is because this animal - Curving Horns or Swirling Antlers or Bent Tuning Fork or whatever the hell its name is - jabbed me with its horns."

The Gazelle took a very deep breath. "My name," he said loudly, "Is Javelin."

"You have my sympathies. Now, as I was saying, if you want to blame anyone for my upward course, blame the goat."

"First of all," said Elphaba, with an air of forced calm, "He's a gazelle, not a goat. Secondly, the only reason why you ended up with Jav's horns in your back-"

"Oh, you're on nickname terms with it now," Brollan sneered. "Wonderful. Does it call you 'Mistress?' Or 'Grand Witch?' 'Destroyer of Oz?' Oh, here's one I can just imagine it saying: 'Elphie.' How about that… Elphie?"

"Don't call me that," said Elphaba quietly. "Only my friends call me that."

"Friends?" echoed Brollan. "Is that what you call them? See, I've heard the stories about you and your 'friends,' and I'd just like to know if you're talking about the kind of people you kidnapped off the streets in the middle of the night, or the kind who accepted money up front and were never seen again? Because, and let's be frank here, those are the only people who would willingly associate with you outside of a crisis situation."

There was a pause, and then Elphaba, who was almost incandescent with rage, reached out and grabbed Brollan by the collar, forcing his head over the side of the carpet until he was in danger of falling off altogether.

"Listen very carefully" she snarled. "If I hear one more Anti-Animal remark drop from your purulent lips, then you are going to spend the last few minutes of your life trying to learn how to fly without wings. And, unless you honestly want to end up breathing through your EYESOCKETS, then you'll never even joke about what you think my friends are. Clear?"

"Absolutely crystal."

"Good. Now get back to flying."

She almost threw Brollan back into position.

Then, she took a deep breath, and turned to the rest of the crew, who were all staring at her in paralysed terror.

"Sorry," she sighed. "I just get a little bit touchy about these sorts of things."

"That's perfectly alright," squeaked Rasp, for once too terrified to be airsick. "But I think you might want to explain that to Woolwax."

He pointed behind her, and Elphaba turned to see that almost everyone on the other carpet was pointing their launchers at her, just waiting for Woolwax to give the order.

"IT'S OKAY!" she said quickly. "JUST A MINOR DISAGREEMENT."

"REALLY? THEN I HATE TO SEE MAJOR DISAGREEMENTS, WITCH. IS SHE ANY DANGER, ACTING-GOVERNOR?"

"NOT AT THE MOMENT, WOOLWAX. NOW, PLEASE STAND DOWN, I DON'T WANT TO DIE AND I'M SURE NOBODY ELSE ON THIS CARPET WANTS TO DIE EITHER."

As the opposite team slowly disarmed, Rasp sighed deeply.

"Alright you two," he said wearily, "This can't carry on the way it's been going; I know I can't expect you to just start agreeing with each other, but we just came within inches of being blown to pieces by our own bombardiers. Can the two of you at least agree to leave each other alone... and stick to the agreement this time, please?"

The two of them grumbled noncommittally.

"I don't suppose it'd be too much trouble to shake hands?"

"Piss off, Acting Governor," snapped Brollan, not even bothering to look up from the controls.

Rasp massaged the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "You'd think near-death experiences would make you people work better as a team, but no. I mean, just how many brushes with death can you take before you either start cooperating with each other or die?"

There was an ominous rumble from below, and a massive fireball shot past the carpet, badly singing the tassels of its right side and neatly removing Rasp's eyebrows.

"…Evasive manoeuvres!" he shouted.

To his credit, Brollan didn't feel the need to ask questions at that point; he simply put his head down, tweaked a corner of the carpet, and sent the whole thing speeding off towards the Deadly Desert as fast as its enchanted acceleration could carry it; on the other carpet, Moleburr was plotting a similar course at much the same pace. Elphaba followed, angling her broom slightly downwards, hoping to get a good look at what was attacking them; unfortunately, whoever or whatever had launched the fireball had done so from beneath the dense canopy.

With no way of getting a closer look without becoming a target, Elphaba put on an extra burst of speed and hurried after the fleeing refugees.

However, less than two hundred feet from them, she saw both carpets stop so fast that several of the passengers were almost jolted over the side; then, both reversed course and started drifting rapidly towards the source of the fireball. Elphaba didn't have to focus on the currents of magic dragging the carpets through the air to see that Brollan and Moleburr were no longer in control of either one. In fact, Brollan was engaged in a heated argument with Javelin, attempting to debate the point that Javelin should do the selfless thing and jump off the carpet to lighten the load, Gnoll was trying vainly to separate them, and Rasp was being sick again. Apparently, the sudden jolt hadn't helped his stomach much.

"What the hell is going on?" he shouted, once he'd recovered.

"A very potent spell, by the looks of things," Elphaba called back. "Obviously you're being drawn back to the source, and there's nothing much I can do about it until we actually see who's casting it."

"Oh," grunted Rasp, trying valiantly to help Gnoll shove Brollan back to his end of the carpet, "I suppose it's time we finally use our bombardiers, then. WOOLWAX! READY THE-"

A loud, piercing burst of laughter neatly sheared through the end of Rasp's order and silenced the arguing refugees; Elphaba swore she could actually see birds tumbling out of the sky as the laugh echoed towards the horizon, growing louder and louder as it went. And then, as the carpets finally shuddered to a halt, the refugees at long last caught a glimpse their attacker, but quite frankly, it would have been hard for them not to notice it under the circumstances:

The creature was levitating, rising up through the trees below until it was at least ten feet above the canopy. As if that wasn't enough, its body only made it even more distinctive: it seemed little more than an emaciated tangle of malformed limbs, broken only by thick chunks of stone embedded it its ghastly white flesh. As it hovered eerily towards them, Elphaba realised that this creature had no less than seven arms, most of which were busy keeping its spindly legs in the foetal position that the rest of it occupied; the remaining three, once again dotted with fragments of rock, now swarmed with magical energies.

Then, it turned to face them, and from the bird's nest of emaciated arms, a face emerged: bald, deathly pale, and bleeding foul-smelling ichor from a dozen rents in the flesh, it was not a pretty sight. Startlingly, the head was at least partially composed of stone, but the thing was so caked with blood and other discharges that it was hard to tell where the granite ended and the flesh began.

The eyes, though, were…

For a moment, the refugees sat paralysed under the magician's hypnotic gaze.

Then it opened its stone jaws and let out a deafening peal of maniacal laughter, and everything seemed to happen at once: Elphaba discerned just about everyone aboard the two carpets frantically scrambling for the weapons they'd dropped, and then another fireball roaring out of the monster's warped fingers, before her instincts kicked in.

There was a brilliant flash of vivid green light, as Elphaba's first attack sent the thing shooting backwards across the canopy.

Snarling and giggling at the same time, the magician-monster spun around and hovered back towards her, preparing a magical counterattack of its own: an assortment of ethereal knife-blades tore at Elphaba from all sides, slashing at her exposed face and hands, trying to dislodge her from the broomstick. Hissing in pain as one of the invisible knives cut deep into her forehead, Elphaba hammered at the creature's frail limbs with all the kinetic magic she could muster, and was immediately rewarded by a loud CRACK of breaking bones.

Somehow managing to scream in pain and laugh uproariously at the same time, the creature readied another spell…

...and not too far away, Woolwax's voice boomed, "OPEN FIRE!"

In between the explosions of magic and gunpowder against the magician-monster's flesh, the sparks of rockets bouncing off its deflective shielding, the sprays of blood, and the occasional shout of "bang!" from the bewildered bombardiers, Elphaba heard a voice ring out: the voice of the creature:

"OXEN!"

Elphaba was preparing another spell and wondering why the thing was screaming about Oxen, when she realised that she was suddenly hovering in shadow, as were the other two flying carpets, the monster, and a good deal of the forest behind it.

Her heart sinking, she turned around, expecting the worst.

As expected, the newest arrival towered over them and a good deal of the forest; even though the details of its face and body were hard to discern with its back to the sun, Elphaba could clearly see that it's flesh was once again a bizarre hybrid of flesh and stone, with lengths of humanoid tissues weaving clumsily into lumps of rough grey rock. And all of this disturbing mixture of the organic and inorganic had somehow resulted in a creature that looked more like a small and extremely angry mountain than anything else, except of course for the solid stone arms that looked uncomfortably like overbuilt columns.

The behemoth glared down at her, opened a set of mantrap-like jaws that could have chewed through a concrete bunker without having to swallow, and roared. Once the noise had subsided and all the birds in the area had departed, Elphaba uncovered her ears and turned around to find that the refugees had taken advantage of the first monster's distraction and flown away as fast as they could without even bothering to wait.

Sighing irritably, Elphaba turned back to see that the two monsters were closing in on her, each one carefully cutting off her escape routes: the multi-limbed magician gathering the energies of its next spell in its bloodied hands, the behemoth tearing a whole tree out of the ground to use as a club.

This, she thought, is going to hurt. A lot.

"I'm telling you, we have to turn around, now!"

All eyes aboard the two carpets, which were now flying side by side as the pilots made their own vague attempts at coordinating strategy, turned sharply in Curter's direction.

"And why's that, exactly?" Brollan retorted. "In case you've forgotten, that's the Wicked Witch of the West that's back there- you know, the maniac who terrorized Oz for years on end, tried to start a smear campaign against the Wizard, of all people, then died, returned from the dead, probably played a part in the Nome invasion, and now intermittently explodes whenever you say anything remotely negative about animals. Remember that?"

"Can't imagine why she'd explode, with what you've been saying," Javelin muttered sarcastically.

"I know that," said Curter, ignoring the gazelle, "but we can't just leave her there!"

"Why not?"

Curter opened his mouth to answer, and found that he had absolutely nothing to say that Brollan could possibly accept as a legitimate reason for returning, at least if he was being perfectly honest. No, this would require a certain degree of improvisation and guile; this would require all the persuasiveness and suavity he didn't have; this would mean having to lie convincingly.

So, what eventually emerged was, "Because you just can't!"

"It's because you're trying to redeem her, isn't it?"

"First of all, so what if I am? Secondly, it's nice to know that my alchemy crew gossip more than the average knitting circle."

Nervous laughter rippled through the cluster of refugees behind them, but Curter could also hear the derision in their voices; he had already lost the argument. But then, was it really so surprising that nobody on either carpet would be willing to turn back and risk death in saving the life of the Witch?

No, but that didn't make the truth any less bitter, especially when he knew that not far behind them, Elphaba Thropp was about to be thrashed to death with a tree trunk. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it but watch as her only chance at redemption died with her- along with any chance of discovering how and why she'd returned to life in the first place.

It couldn't end like this, could it?

Surely the Unnamed God couldn't be this anticlimactic.

And then, Rasp cleared his throat: "Turn this thing around," he said.

"What?"

Rasp took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and said in as clear a voice as he could manage through the approaching bout of airsickness, "We need to turn back now."

"Not this again," Brollan muttered wearily. "Acting Governor, I still don't know exactly why the two of you have gotten along so well until now, but this isn't the time to start pushing your friendship on the rest of us: in case you haven't noticed, we aren't exactly equipped to face up to whatever's back there right now-"

"Then we might as well just give up the whole idea of trying to fight the Nomes right now, shouldn't we? We've only got so many shells to use against them and no way of making more, and now that we've left behind the only person who might be able to destroy Nomes without using explosives, we might as well be totally unprepared."

"Hold on, we've got enough shells to sink a ship at this point! The last time I counted, we had hundreds of them. Don't ask me how we managed to even get them onto this carpet, either. So why are we worrying?"

"Because they won't last forever; it's a simple as that."

"So, we put our trust with the Witch just because you've got cold feet over a supply issue? Great plan, Acting Governor; you're really showing the responsibility your constituents have come to expect. I'm sure all the other secretaries in the former Governor's office dreamed that they could lead a small army on a suicide mission to earn brownie points with the Wicked Witch of the West-"

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Rasp said loudly. "Mr Brollan is attempting to imply that I am unfit for the duties of Governor, and that I am about to lead this force on a mission that will result in certain death for us all. Now, we can resolve this the democratic way: if you believe that the course of action I'm about to take is unwise, and that Miss Thropp's magical powers are of no use to us, then I will step down and let the Mr Brollan, obviously the more experienced leader, take my place. Would those in favour say aye?"

Silence followed.

"And would those in favour of my leadership continuing say aye?"

There was a loud chorus of ayes from the refugees, Curter and Gnoll being the loudest.

"Right then," said Rasp, smiling grimly. "Mr Brollan, would you be so kind as to turn this carpet around? We have a secret weapon to rescue!"

Curter stifled a laugh, and began readying his launcher. As he did, he heard Brollan muttering, "What is wrong with these people? Have they all forgotten that bitch's reign of terror? Does it really take one speech from that pop-eyed little turd to make her one of the family?"

"Of course not," said Javelin. "They're only agreeing with him because he suggested that you'd have to replace him if he was wrong."

"So? Is that such a bad thing?"

Javelin chuckled. "Brollan, you're a Gillikin businessman among Munchkin farmers. Plus, you came here proposing industrial development. That makes you about as welcome as a cold-sore in a kissing competition."

"Oh, thanks a lot. Moleburr! Let's get going before I lose any more of my faith in human nature!"

Slowly, the two carpets separated, turned, and began speeding back towards the battling figures on the horizon.

Normally, Elphaba reflected, as she ducked under the behemoth's oncoming fist, this would have been a lot easier if this giant had been her only opponent.

Though the thing moved a lot faster than its massive body suggested, it still would have had a lot of trouble killing anything soaring fifty feet above it. However, with the multilimbed monstrosity hovering after her, flinging bolts of lightning in her direction, Elphaba was hard-pressed to evade the two of them and fight them off at the same time- in fact, she was so caught up in dodging the swings of the behemoth's club and the magical blasts that she was barely able to concentrate on what spells she was going to use next.

And what the hell were these creatures anyway?

They were only partially composed of stone, so they couldn't be Nomes; in fact, the sheer amount of deformity and disparity pretty much ruled out most of the species that Elphaba knew of. And where had they come from in the first place?

Swerving violently to avoid the next magical attack, a writhing mass of energies that looked uncannily like a cloud of grasping hands reaching out to grab her, Elphaba returned fire with one of the most unpleasant spells in her repertoire: softly chanting an incantation, she gathered a sphere of lethal toxins and corrosives in her hands, and flung it at the magician's face.

There was a splash as the ball of chemicals struck home, followed by a loud hiss, and the monstrosity let out a deafening scream; Elphaba risked a quick glance behind her and saw that the giggling monster had stopped flying after her and had tumbled out of the air, too focussed on clawing at its mangled face to levitate in any direction but downwards.

The only problem, Elphaba thought, as the creature plummeted towards the canopy, is that the fall might not be fatal and the poisons might not kill the creature immediately, but they might at least debilitate it long enough for me to get rid of the thing…

No sooner had the thought entered her mind when the falling monster unleashed a salvo of fireballs; Elphaba was already getting ready to duck out of the way when she realised that they weren't aimed at her…

"Pull up! Pull up!" Rasp shouted desperately.

"Why? You want us to plot a course so we can fire on that big bastard on the right, don't you?"

"Brollan, have you looked a little to the right and down a bit lately?"

There was a short pause as Brollan looked in the indicated direction and saw the hail of fireballs roaring towards them.

"… oh, shit!" he yelped. "Stand by for emergency spiralling!"

"No, no, you don't need to manoeuvre like that!" Rasp yelled. "You don't need to spiral; you just need to turn hard to the left! Are you listening to me? I said, you don't need to OH FFF-"

Elphaba, who had stopped in mid-air some distance away, would have checked to see exactly what the monstrosity had been aiming at, but she was occupied with more immediate concerns; for example, the fact that the behemoth had given up on trying to hit her with its tree-trunk club and simply flung it at her.

This time, though, Elphaba had enough time to react: one spell later, the club had been reduced to a cloud of flying woodchips.

Well, that was easier than I thought it would be. Maybe the-

Another tree trunk shot past her, and Elphaba looked up to see the behemoth reaching deep into the canopy with its massive arms, tearing entire trees out of the ground and flinging them at her at a phenomenal rate.

In fact, they flew at her so quickly that Elphaba had to actually dodge and destroy the incoming trees, before deciding that life as a stationary target wasn't worth the effort; she took off with all the speed she could manage from a mid-air start, peppering the behemoth with magic, but unlike the magician, this creature's body was almost completely composed of rock, with only the face and some external tissues being fleshy enough to injure.

She tried to alternate her attacks in ways that should have been lethal, pummelling the body with spells that could tear through rock like cheap plaster and bombarding its face with anything that would hurt: fire, ice, poison, anything that would kill it, or at least weaken it enough for the killing blow.

But not only was the behemoth clever enough to shield its face with its colossal arms, but its stone body actively resisted the thunderous blasts of magic that should have chiselled it to pieces.

On the upside, Elphaba thought, as another tree roared past her, If I keep this battle up much longer, none of the refugees will have to worry about getting lost in the future; at the rate that this thing's tearing trees out of the ground, they'll have an ideal landmark to watch for. Of course, it'll have probably killed me as well, so they'll be happy regardless of what happens…

She was halfway through ducking under the next attack, when something large and distinctly carpet-shaped sped past her, trailing screamed expletives, closely followed another one, each one circling the creature as the refugees aboard them readied their launchers.

The behemoth saw the two carpets as well, and turned just in time for the familiar shout of "OPEN FIRE!" to ring out across the treetops.

Bellowing in pain, the monster lurched backwards as Curter's homemade rockets slammed into its upper body, scarcely managing to protect its face from the bombardment. Then, from behind its stony limbs, its expression went from pain to fury: Elphaba didn't even have the chance to call "look out," before it clambered to its feet, knelt down like a sprinter at the starting blocks, and charged.

What followed was probably the loudest noise Elphaba had heard in her entire life, as the enraged monster thundered across the forest at a speed matched only by derailing trains, its thousand-ton bulk shattering trees into matchsticks and tearing carriage-sized divots of earth out of the ground as it went; at the last hundred feet or so, the refugees finally gave up on trying to bring the charging beast down with their explosive, and took off in separate directions at such a speed that quite a few of them were almost thrown from their carpets altogether.

What with the forward momentum it had built up, the behemoth took a while to actually stop, and it did so with a jolt which virtually disintegrated a massive chunk of the forest in front of it. Then, it turned once more, readying to charge again.

Elphaba could see that none of the refugees were prepared this time around, least of all the pilots: Moleburr was struggling to climb back onto the carpet, and Brollan looked as though he'd hit his head on something. And with everybody else alternately trying to retrieve their weapons or help each other back onto the carpets, they were left completely defenceless before the approaching behemoth.

Searching her memories for anything which might have an effect on the creature, which was still picking up speed, Elphaba suddenly realised that she had the perfect weapon right beneath her: the trees, or more specifically, their roots.

So, hoping and praying that she had enough power to get this done without having to resort to her notebook of spells, she focussed all her attention on the ground below her and concentrated.

Yes, there magic here, leftovers from the spell which had created this country-spanning forest in the first place. Pouring her own magical power into the soil, Elphaba coaxed the roots of the trees to grow again, this time in new shapes and sizes that she dictated; then, she took command, directing the mushrooming plants to stretch out beyond the soil with long, tentacle-like roots, towards the behemoth… where they began to constrict.

The first one to reach the oncoming monster shot around its leg like a bullwhip, almost tripping it up; the root itself was almost torn from the ground by the sheer force of the behemoth halting, but that scarcely mattered: now that it was standing still again, it was an easier target. More roots emerged from the ground, the thickest of them wrapping itself tightly around the giant's waist; it tried to wrestle the creeper off, but another two wound around its arms, dragging them apart- and leaving its face defenceless.

For few seconds, there was silence except for the creature's snarls of frustration as it tried to escape its bonds; then, one of the roots snapped, and every single refugee aboard the two carpets were scrabbling for their weapons, even those still attempting to climb back on board.

With Elphaba occupied with trying to strangle the behemoth to death, the refugees in various states of injury and/or unconsciousness, and almost no loaded weapons within for those that weren't, there was only one of them capable of launching the killing blow.

Rasp.

Even from this far away, Elphaba could clearly see the look of terror on the Acting-Governor's face; she'd seen that expression far too many times in her days as the Wicked Witch of the West, usually attached to guardsmen who'd just realised that the rest of their unit was miles away and that they'd been left to fend off the Dreaded Witch by themselves. But at least they'd had some training: Rasp had only the few minutes he'd spent watching the bombardiers practice, and it was very probable he didn't have any practice at aiming at anything other than an office wastebasket.

For what felt like a century, he stood there, silently mouthing the words "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I'm going to die," until the behemoth looked up from its restraints and saw the tiny figure on the edge of the flying carpet, with another rocket launcher shouldered and ready to fire.

It roared its defiance.

And Rasp, being Rasp, flinched - and instinctively pulled the trigger.

There was a very damp explosion, a spray of blood and gravel, and the behemoth's freshly decapitated corpse gently toppled backwards, snapping almost every single one of Elphaba's restraining creepers as it descended, finally landing on its back with a colossal thud that would have no doubt registered on a seismograph.

What with the refugees being alternatively breathless, deafened, unconscious, or just paralysed with shock, it took some time for people to finally react; it took Elphaba arriving alongside the two carpets to finally galvanise them into some semblance of action.

Rasp, however, remained standing at the edge of the carpet, soaked to the skin with blood and shaking like the proverbial leaf in a gale-force wind, his eyes wide and fixed on a distant point on the horizon.

"Rasp?" Elphaba whispered. "Are you alright?"

"Not really," whimpered Rasp. "But then, I'm not really here, you see: I'm in bed, fast asleep and waiting for the alarm so I can live another boring day as a secretary; I'll have lots to do this morning, a lot of paperwork to sign and plenty of letters to deliver to the press and the governor said that we'd be expecting some dignitaries from Gillikin country, so I'll be sure to wear my one really nice suit and play it nice and professional until five PM and then I'll go out and get drunk with my friends. And that'll be the most likely thing to happen to me because Oz only knows I'm not really here, standing on a carpet hovering a few hundred feet in the air, holding a rocket launcher with my only really nice suit that I wore for the visiting dignitaries splattered with a monster's blood and brains and argh argh arghggghg…"

He threw up; once he had stopped gagging and retching, he lay on the carpet, shivering and oblivious to the stares of the other refugees.

"Do we have any wine in our supply bags?" Elphaba asked, eventually. "I think he might be in need of a stiff drink."

"That can wait!" said Rasp, staggering to his feet. "First, we go down and take a look at the corpse and try to figure out what it was… or at least, that's how these kind of dreams usually go, don't they? D-don't they?"

His eyes bulged, and he almost toppled over again. "That's how it goes, doesn't it?" he repeated.

"Brollan, you heard the man; first the autopsy, then booze."

In the last few days, any curiosity from the refugees had been dampened by their own fear; the proposed-but-abandoned search for food and equipment in the ruins of the villages they'd passed, the exploration of the abandoned manor, even the most basic queries into Elphaba's background, all of them had been curtailed by their own nervousness. But now that they actually had a triumph of their own to celebrate, spirits were refreshingly high, and morbid curiosity was free to flourish.

As soon as they landed, the refugees began studying the body of the fallen behemoth with reckless enthusiasm, scaling its mountainous knees to examine the flesh of its torso at close range.

For once, they were in too good a mood to be annoyed when Elphaba joined them to perform her own investigations, quietly surveying the corpse with diagnostic spells. Rasp, meanwhile, was propped up in one of the craters that pockmarked the body, very slowly drinking from a flask of whiskey and gradually beginning to look a bit less comatose.

"What the hell is this thing, anyway?" he said. "I thought this was some Nome general that got left behind when the forest sprung up, but you can clearly see that it's got flesh-"

"As well as stone," finished Elphaba. "I know. And it's definitely not a case of magical prostheses either; this isn't someone's attempt to replace lost organs or limbs with stone replicas. In fact, as far as I can tell, it looks more like a botched attempt at a transformation."

Curter grimaced. "Like the petrifaction? This is what happens when that goes wrong?"

"Not really; in fact, it looks more like the exact opposite of petrifaction: someone's tried to turn rock into flesh and bone. And judging by the amount of deformation," she added, wincing at the vestigial eyes staring blindly from the corpse's left armpit, "I'd say it wasn't successful."

"So this thing really was a Nome?"

"Once, yes."

Elphaba waved an explorative hand over one of the shallower wounds in the corpse, and frowned.

"This wasn't made by us," she said quietly. "This is a much older wound… and it's also badly infected. Well, at least we have a decent clue as to why this thing went crazy, but it still doesn't explain why this thing was so resilient."

"What do you mean?" Woolwax grunted. "All it took was one shot to the face to bring this thing down; I wouldn't call that resilient."

"Oh come on, the sheer amount of rockets and magic we threw at this thing should have smashed it to pieces long before Rasp blew its head off; even a Nome as big as this one shouldn't have been able to remain intact. No, there's something different about this one, something… something… just under the skin…"

Reaching out with an index finger suddenly glowing with magical energies, Elphaba traced a straight line for at least six feet across the creature's mottled skin; there was a pause, and then a long incision appeared, oozing syrupy black blood. Concentrating, Elphaba tore into the wound she'd made, magically peeling back the tissues to reveal the source of the gargantuan Nome's endurance.

There, around its stony waistline, was an interlocking row of solid metal plates, each one carved with a series of arcane symbols.

"Well, well, well," purred Elphaba. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are very much in luck! What we have here is a magical belt of protection, probably custom-made for this Nome; it looks as though it was cemented onto the body, and when the transformation started, the new skin must have just grown over it."

"So how is this a good thing?" Rasp asked. "I mean, wouldn't that mean that the Nomes have more of these technically impenetrable defence belts?"

"Not necessarily: belts as powerful as these take decades to build and enchant, especially with the amount of customisation this one had to go through, so I doubt very much they'd have a stockpile of these things. But the good news is that we now have a way of defending the carpets from magical attacks; these plates can be separated and still retain their enchantments, so-"

"We just have to tie one of these to each carpet. I understand. There's just one question, though… has anyone found the body of the other Nome yet?"

There was a pause, as the refugees considered this; Elphaba swore that she could actually feel their happiness evaporating as the logical implications occurred to them. A ripple of panic spread through the crowd; in less than a minute, almost all of the refugees were audibly worrying that, at any minute, the nine-limbed Nome sorcerer would suddenly appear above them and incinerate them all with a single spell. It wasn't until a few people (Gnoll among them) began to mutter about not wanting the last sound they ever heard to be "that bloody giggling" that Elphaba felt the need to step in.

"At the risk of putting a damper on this promising atmosphere of fear and paranoia," she said wearily, "In case you forgot, I did hit it in the face with a solid ball of corrosives and poison. And it fell at least a hundred feet."

"But it can fly," Curter pointed out. "And nobody actually saw it hit the ground."

"Ah. Good point. Carry on worrying."

Eventually, one of the refugees drew a pair of binoculars from his backpack (after admitting that he'd "borrowed" them from the mansion), and spent the next few minutes scanning the edge of the forest for any sign of the Nome magician. The others hastily armed themselves once again; in fact, the only one among them who wasn't readying some kind of a weapon was Elphaba.

She couldn't stop thinking about the behemoth they were standing on; if this creature really had been a Nome, then who or what had transformed it? If "what," was there a naturally-occurring magical phenomenon somewhere in the world that could actually induce random transformation in living beings? And, if "who," why the hell would anyone want to transform a Nome, an earth elemental with a body taken from the nearest source of rock, according to Madam Morrible, into…

What?

A human?

Well, obviously a badly-botched version of a human, considering that the end result had been somewhere close to a hundred and thirty feet high, ridiculously deformed, probably half-insane, and saddled with a flotilla of infections that would have probably killed it anyway if Rasp hadn't done it first... but yes, this might just be a possible explanation.

But why? Why would anyone want to try and turn a Nome into a human being?

Elphaba massaged her temples, and added this latest question to the long list of unsolved mysteries she was cultivating. On the other hand, if the Nome magician was still alive, it might be able to actually answer this one, assuming, of course, that it didn't kill them all first-

"Governor! Look!"

Rasp took the offered binoculars and peered into them, focussing them on a point on the other side of the clearing that the enraged behemoth had created.

"I see it," he said softly. "It looks as though it's leaning against a tree. It might be dead, as well… but I can't be sure. Maybe it's playing dead." He thought for a moment. "Curter, do you think you could hit the thing from here?"

"Probably not, in all honesty: even if I did have a scope on my launcher, there's still the problems of distance that the rocket would have to travel to reach the target, plus the difficulties of wind interference and the fact that this weapon is an artillery piece and not a sniper rifle. I'd just waste ammunition if I tried."

"Okay then…" Rasp's brow furrowed with concentration, and he quietly chewed on one of his fingernails. "Elphaba, can you-"

"On my way," said Elphaba, clambering back onto her broomstick. "And get ready to run if this turns out to be some kind of ambush," she called over her shoulder as she sped off towards the distant trees.

Seconds later, she dismounted less than a couple of feet from what was undeniably the corpse of the Nome Magician; having survived Elphaba's magical poisons and the fall to earth, the multi-limbed monstrosity had met a very timely end when one of the trees that its oversized friend had thrown at Elphaba had landed on top of it. Judging by the blood trail, it had remained conscious long enough to haul itself a little ways through the forest, rested against a tree for a while, and then died.

However, as she surveyed the scene, Elphaba noticed something in the distance, almost lost among the trees: it was a small stone hut, half-crushed by the growth of the forest, but somehow still standing for all the abuse that had been heaped on it. Had the magician been trying to find some kind of shelter in his final minutes?

Signalling the refugees to follow, she slowly approached the hut, alert for any signs of movement from within.

Long before she reached the front door, though, she could already smell the distinctive odours of blood, vomit, and decaying flesh.

She took a minute to steady herself, and to wait for Rasp and the others to catch up with her; there was something about this place that actively stifled the desire to enter alone, more than just the smell of death and disease shrouding it. Perhaps it was the strange, rasping sounds she could hear from within; maybe it was the way the barest branches of the trees around it seemed to reach towards the door like jealous, grasping hands; or maybe, it was just the fact that the door was left ever-so-slightly ajar…

As a child, Elphaba hadn't had too many encounters with real terror after her third birthday.

After all, it was hard to believe in the bogeyman when most of the servants around the house acted as though she was the bogeyman. The fact that she'd had much sharper teeth in her earliest years didn't help. With mother dead and father holding his eldest daughter in contempt, Elphaba had learned to banish her fear of the dark with anger, and gradually forgot it altogether. Since then, she'd felt fear and anxiety countless times, yes… but one thing she'd never felt since those days was pure, unmitigated terror at what could not be seen.

For a whole minute, she stood there, waiting for the others to arrive and trying not to think about the shadows that lurked and slithered behind that door, all the while failing miserably; her imagination was already painting a very vivid picture of the squamous tentacles and the glittering compound eyes in the darkness.

It's just a house! She told herself. It's just a tiny stone house that might just have a dead body or two in it; it's not as if we weren't expecting to find something like that. And even if it is, you have magic, remember?

And somewhere deep inside her, a poisonous little voice sneered, So what? It's not as if your magic could ever really save you in a crisis. It couldn't save Fiyero, not without turning him into a crippled, badly-stitched freak; how do you suppose it'll save you?

Somewhere behind her, a twig snapped, and Elphaba spun around, her hands crackling with magic and ready to incinerate any squamous creature from the abyssal depths… and found herself trying to fend off a startled and evidently non-squamous group of Munchkins, two Gillikins, and a Gazelle.

"Don't do that!" she yelled, quickly dispelling the energies.

"Don't do what? You wanted us over here, didn't you?" said Rasp.

"Well, I did but…" She took a deep breath. "As you can see, I found the magician, he's dead, and he was trying to crawl in here."

Rasp opened his mouth, likely about to ask either why the magician would be heading in this direction, or why Elphaba was so jumpy. Then, his face froze: he'd noticed the smell. And judging by the expressions of horror and disgust on the faces of the other refugees, they'd noticed it too.

From somewhere in the crowd, Gnoll mumbled, "Do we really have to go in there?"

"I don't see why," said Brollan. "I mean, now that we know that the other Nome's dead, we don't have to be here, so let's go."

"I never thought I'd ever agree with this Gillikinese twit," said Woolwax, "but the asshole has a point- we don't have to be here, and there's nothing stopping us from leaving."

"Mmmp," Rasp concurred.

"Is anyone else feeling a distinct sensation of crushing dread?" said Elphaba conversationally.

For once, no stares resulted from this comment, as most of the refugees were too unnerved to take their eyes off the front door of the house; they could only nod helplessly.

Rasp, meanwhile, managed to find his voice again: "D… do you think that there's magic involved?"

"Fourteen heavily-armed adults all feeling the exact same emotion about a single open doorway? It's sounding very likely. Maybe it's a spell to keep unwanted visitors out."

Question is, she thought, why resort to inducing fear when you could just make the house invisible, place a magical barrier around it, or better yet, just barricade the door shut? And another good question: which of us will manage to resist the spell enough to enter?

The seconds dragged by, as the refugees tried again and again to approach the door, all of them sweating and hyperventilating as they tried to force their bodies to move against the current of their own terror, and all of them failed. One or two of them actually collapsed, whimpering in horror as the magically-induced fear temporarily overwhelmed them. Even Elphaba found it difficult to move under the sheer pressure of the spell.

And then Javelin trotted forward; he, too, was affected by the spell, but obviously not as much as the others, and certainly not enough to keep him away from the door. Perhaps the spell had only been designed to effect humans; who could know? In any event, he made it as far as the doorstep, and nudged the door open with his horns; over the sound of hinges creaking in protest, Elphaba felt the sheer power of the spell suddenly lessen and fade into a steady background level of anxiety- the same kind of anxiety any adult would feel about walking into a dark room with the smell of rot about it.

"Urgh," muttered Javelin, who now had an unhindered view of whatever lay behind the door. "You might want to take a deep breath before following, governor, because… well, it's not pretty…"

Elphaba and Rasp were the first to enter the house, propelled by a twisted mixture of curiosity and the desire to uphold their reputations; the others followed hesitantly, some barely managing to enter the house at all- if only because the house was simply too small to allow too many people inside…

… Especially since the house was still inhabited.

The… inhabitants lay slumped against the walls and heaped upon the floors, their bodies contorted with pain. Elphaba didn't need to conjure a light to see that every single one of them was a transformed Nome, and that all of them were dying- if not already dead.

No wonder the magically inclined among them hadn't been able to create a more powerful defence- none of them had the energy to do so.

If the deformities on the behemoth and the magician were grotesque, the ones on these Nomes were downright horrific: some of them simply hadn't been able to develop a proper skeleton, and now lay in sagging heaps of rock and boneless flesh. More evident were the ones who had developed a spinal column, only to have it snap under the weight of stone shoulders.

Others were little more than disordered balls of limbs, eyeballs, and blindly gnashing mouths, probably unable to walk, let alone survive without assistance. But even the ones who'd manage to survive the transformation without being openly disfigured were in no better condition: much like the behemoth, all of them were rife with infections and old wounds. One or two had simply suffocated to death, their newfound lungs being too weak to support their bodies.

As Elphaba passed the rows of bodies, some stirred, and tried to reach out to her; whether they were trying to attack or beseeching her for help, she couldn't tell. She could only slip out of their grasp, and try not to think about what they might be feeling at the moment. Behind her, Rasp shuddered in horror, and a few of the others following him yelped loudly as similar grabs were made at them.

Then, from the ranks of the dying, another hand shot out and seized Elphaba's.

This time, the hand was made of solid marble and gripping too tight for her to escape. And because most of the refugees were too overcome with shock and not overly concerned over what might happen if the Nome went for her throat, there were no screams, allowing her to hear the choked whispers that followed.

"You… you... are still free," gasped the Nome.

"Am I?" Elphaba asked, trying vainly to pry the Nome's fingers off her hand. "I certainly don't feel it."

"It was… believed… that you would be… captive by now… he must be furious."

"What are you talking about? More to the point, who are you?"

The Nome laughed hoarsely, and barely managed to hold off a coughing fit. "Once… Lord Eldrect… Noble of the Nome Dominions… now… nothing…" He paused. "One request… Miss Thropp."

"How do you know my name?"

"In time… you shall learn how. But please… some of us will take hours to die… please… cleanse us…"

"What?"

"Burn us. Free our souls with fire."

There was an appropriately deathly silence, and Rasp asked, "Is he asking for-?"

"Of course," said Elphaba, her voice hard. "They're already dying; they want a quicker death."

"More than that," said Eldrect. "We want purification… we want our sickness to die with us… and reclaim our place in the earth… in eternal slumber…"

He fell silent, lapsing into hoarse, laboured breathing. But Elphaba could still see the Nome's mangled face, and the pleading look in his eyes. As much as she might hate the Nomes, this wasn't a fate she'd wish on anyone- not even the Wizard himself.

She sighed deeply. "Governor," she said quietly. "Get your people out of here."

"You mean you're actually going to-"

"Just get them out of here so I can put these Nomes out of their misery."

The moment Rasp had escorted the other refugees out of the room, Elphaba turned back to the crowd of dying Nomes, held up a handful of conjured flame and…

…Purified them.

None of them screamed. In fact, she was certain that she heard a few sighs of relief as the fires consumed them. And suddenly, for the blink of an eye, she was back in the Wizard's palace, finding Doctor Dillamond cowering at the back of the Flying Monkeys' cage; she remembered the sorrow and rage she'd felt at seeing the state of unintelligence he'd been reduced to, and wondered, not for the first time, if it would have been more merciful to simply kill him than to leave him with his debased half-life.

Would he have asked for a quick death, if he had the opportunity to do so?

As the fires continued across the room, immolating half-lives as they went, Elphaba realised she was blinking away tears. She hastily wiped them away and turned to leave before the fire reached her; but as her gaze drifted idly across the tiny room, it alighted on a corner that had previously been thick with shadows. There, the figure of a Nome was now visible, not one of the tortured hybrids, but a true, stone-bodied Nome.

A spy.

Chapter 19: Unwelcome Truths

Summary:

How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise...

Chapter Text

Basalt's search for the "abominations" had been long and halting.

Having little experience with Oz's geography beyond the maps that he'd committed to memory, and with only the vague coordinate of "Northern Munchkinland" to follow, it had taken him hours to locate the dumping ground that Scathelex had spoken of.

In the end, he'd arrived there by chance, only recognising the half-forested crater as what he'd been searching for when he discovered the first of the bodies on the southern embankment, entangled in the roots of a tree.

Even though its physiology now seemed closer in appearance to that of a human, even though it was currently in a steadily advancing state of organic decomposition, the corpse clearly belonged to that of a Nome spy.

As he tried to process this sight, Basalt noted somewhat abstractly that Lord Scathelex's decision to title the creatures he'd seen as "Abominations" might well have been appropriate, if all of them were similar hybrids of Nome stone and human flesh.

But who could have done this?

And why?

Not too far from it, another body lay in a crumpled heap: as far as Basalt could tell, it had once been a soldier, and much of the distinguishing points of its physique had been lost in the transformation and decay it had undergone.

However, this corpse lay at the start of a long trail of debris leading far off into the distance: at first, it consisted of yet more bodies, consumed by the growth of the forest, but as Basalt followed the trail to a small, they were replaced on the opposite bank by the fallen limbs of trees. It definitely belonged to the Abominations, for the branches and strips of bark were slowly joined by oddly human bloodstains and discarded chunks of the Nomes' own former bodies.

Eventually, the trail ended at a small stone house several miles south of the dumping ground. Unexpectedly, the house was defended, partly through a spell that evidently was not designed to effect Nomes, but mostly through the efforts of two guards: one of them was far too mutilated for Basalt to discern the former Nome's ranking, but the other was immediately recognisable as a Siege Weaponry Specialist, known among the emotionally privileged as "Siege Breakers," or "Anger Engines," both for good reason.

Uncertain of the reception he'd receive from the two, Basalt carefully slipped back into the earth and approached the house from below.

Thankfully, the house's foundations were unguarded, and there were no floorboards between the rest of the building and the soil, so Basalt was free to emerge from the ground and into the house. Immediately, he found himself surrounded on all sides by row after row of…

Basalt didn't feel like calling them Abominations; in spite of the obvious hybridisation of the inorganic and the organic, the name felt deeply inappropriate somehow.

Nonetheless, he rose from the piles of flesh and rock without complaining of the bodies he had to push aside in order to move, though he did his best to treat the dead and the dying with suitable reverence; these had once been Nomes, after all.

Slowly, he surveyed the room, examining the hybrids and committing every single mutation and distortion to his memory for future perusal, all the while wondering who or what could have done this to so many innocent Nomes.

Did the King have something to do with this?

Had he known of its occurrence?

Had he cast whatever spell had started the transformation?

Basalt's mind rebelled at the very thought of his master doing such a thing, but all the same, he couldn't quite drive the idea out of his brain altogether. So he focussed on the grotesquery around him and continued basic documentation. Then, just as he was beginning to wonder if anyone among the dying was capable of answering questions should he ask them, there was a loud grunt of anger from just outside the door.

Risking a quick look outdoors, Basalt saw that something had caught the guards' attention, and they were now zeroing in on three miniscule shapes far overhead. It might have been Basalt's new imagination confusing his senses, but for a split second, he thought he felt a wave of powerful magic emanating from one of the distant figures; then, it was gone, as if it had never existed at all.

Whatever they were and whatever capabilities they possessed, all three of them responded by quickly fleeing, up until the smaller of the two guards magically dragged them back towards it and began pelting them with energies.

Then, just as the Siege Breaker was joining the fray, a voice from behind Basalt whispered, "A Nome Protector… here?"

Basalt slowly turned to find himself face to face with…

Somewhere in his mind, the words "one of the dying" suddenly vanished and were promptly replaced with "a noble" and he instinctively bowed.

"My Lord, I-"

The Nobleman shook, apparently laughing and coughing all at once. "…No need to stand on ceremony, Protector… I have no rank to speak of anymore... I have only my name- Eldrect. But what brings you to… Muchkinland, young Protector?"

"I have been assigned a task by his Majesty the King; a test of personal development and-"

Eldrect smiled knowingly. "You wished to know of his plans, and he refused to make it easy for you. I am familiar with his Majesty's intricate games… and I imagine that he is now playing an even grander one with far bigger stakes at hand… toying with the lives of so many, human and Nome alike-"

Suddenly, Eldrect began to cough again, his body shaking as he tried to control the vagaries of his new respiratory system. For the next few minutes, he wheezed, gasped for air, and eventually began coughing up blood, clawing furiously at his malformed throat as he did, actually drawing blood in his vain attempts to clear his oesophagus. Basalt tried to help him, but this presented its own difficulties, as Eldrect's transformation had rendered him extremely fragile, and Basalt's stone hands had very little tactile sense. All he could really do was hold the former Noble's arms away from his flesh as gently as possible and try to prevent any further injuries.

And all the while, the sounds of battle continued to drift through the open door, the loudest of them being the sound of the Siege Breaker's footfalls.

When the fit had subsided, Eldrect spluttered helplessly for at least a minute, before continuing:

"I might not be able to justify what the king has done… there are limits to even my oratorical skills… and besides, I haven't the breath. But I… can… explain what he did to us… what he plans to do with our people… with the Nome Dominions... with Oz… with all of reality…"

He took a deep breath.

From somewhere outside, a voice bellowed "OPEN FIRE!"

Barely raising his voice over the distant explosions, Eldrect continued, "Go to the library... the protected volumes chamber… the librarian will grant you entry if you claim that you are acting on orders from the King. The book… I can't tell you the title, because the King periodically disguises it with an illusion… he… he wants to cover his tracks until the end, you see… but I can give you the location…"

Very slowly, the disfigured ex-Lord recited a long shelf code; once he had finished, he ordered Basalt to repeat it at least twice before he was decided that the code was well and truly memorized.

For a time, he lay there, staring at nothing in particular; as the silence dragged on, Basalt tried to imagine what the King might have done to these Nomes. Even though every fibre of his being and every moment of personal experience still prevented him from thinking too deeply on the subject, he couldn't stop thinking about it altogether.

What eventually shook Basalt out of his reverie was a massive seismic tremor, powerful enough to almost fling him off his feet. He later learned that this had been produced by the Siege-Breaker's corpse impacting the ground, but the time, the only realisation he came to was that Eldrect hadn't said anything for several minutes.

"My lord," he whispered, "What should I do once I have located the book?"

"Well, read it, obviously. If you're in a hurry, the first, second-last and last chapters are the most relevant to the situation."

"I understand that, my lord, but… what am I to do after that?"

He wasn't asking for orders anymore; many lower-ranking Nomes had a habit of asking higher ranking Nomes (or at least, the ones they were permitted to speak to) for advice.

Eldrect smiled, his mouth a ruin of blood, broken teeth and stone. "Quite simply, you draw whatever conclusions you feel you must from it, as any Nome with the Privilege of Initiative would. As for what you do next… well… that's up to you, isn't it? Now go; you're a very busy Nome, I'm sure, and you can't afford to waste time talking to forgotten nobodies."

Basalt wasn't sure how he should respond to this beyond thanking Eldrect for his help.

But then again, the entire situation was beyond anything he'd been prepared for in training or experience. First among the many confusions that now queued for his attention, there was the distinct sense of uneasiness and apprehension he felt around the bodies of the mutated Nomes, which made no sense to him; on occasion, he'd been asked to dispose of corpses as part of his cleaning duties, and whether the body had been human, Nome, or animal, he'd never once felt any real hesitation at handling bodily remains. Secondly, he was still trying to come to terms with the fact that the King could somehow be involved in whatever had happened. Thirdly, Basalt had never, in his entire life, heard a Noble denigrate himself to the level of "nobody"; even Nobles who'd ended up with next to no authority of their own would not think so little of themselves. After all, having ascended through the ranks, they were possessed of almost every single Privilege that a Nome could attain; how could they possibly be called "nobody?"

Basalt wondered what had happened to Eldrect to influence his opinions in this direction - or even what it would be like to be Eldrect at that moment. There were limits to Basalt's imagination, but even with them in place, such a life didn't seem enviable; given that the trail that had led him to this house in the first place had been made aboveground, it seemed very probable that these Nomes might no longer be able to travel through the earth or even alter their bodies on the most basic level; certainly, they didn't seem able to take new bodies at all. These traits had been present in their species since before they were Nomes, and had become as integral to them as working limbs were to a human.

Even Basalt couldn't fail to recognise the fact that what had been done to these Nomes was…

…Inappropriate?

…Unnecessary?

…Wrong?

Deciding to discard these troubling thoughts for the moment, he decided it would be best to just leave.

He was about to depart through the floor in much the same way that he'd arrived, when he suddenly felt another pulse of magic very similar to the one he'd felt when the guards had started chasing after the airborne intruders, but this one was much closer… and getting steadily closer.

Though Basalt had no skill in magic as of yet, the ability to sense it had been present since his formation, just as it was in all other Nomes, a basic supernatural talent common to the entire species. Now that he'd had some experience with witches like Glinda and Mombi, he knew that, as generally non-magical creatures, humans only presented a discernable amount of magic when they were using their powers, unlike Nomes. But while the entity that was approaching the house seemed human to a certain extent, the sheer quantity of magic contained within it seemed to overshadow the amounts he'd seen in most Nobles.

At that moment, he should have left; he should have acknowledged that a potential threat was approaching, and departed as quickly as possible so he could get back to the business of following the lead he'd been provided with. But Basalt's curiosity had been piqued; it might be worthwhile to stay and learn more about this magician, if only for the sake of his studies.

So, he hurried into the back of the house and squeezed himself into one of the corners, where the shadows would conceal him from human sight.

After a short delay, presumably caused by the few remaining defences set up around the area, a small crowd of humans entered; clearly, these were native Ozians, rendered itinerant following the invasion and reforesting. It didn't take much effort to determine which of them was the magician Basalt had detected, for she stood at the front of the group. Because the room's only source of light was behind her, Basalt couldn't see her face; in fact, the only thing about her that he could see of her, apart from the magic, was her black dress and pointed hat.

As he watched, the woman and her companions investigated the room in much the same way he had, barring fits of nausea, of course. Then, without warning, Eldrect suddenly reached out and grabbed the woman's hand.

The conversation that followed made no sense in the context that Basalt viewed it, the remark about how the woman had been expected to be "captive by now" least of all.

Judging by the questions she asked, the woman evidently found it just as confusing.

However, what caught Basalt's attention was how Eldrect referred to her as "Miss Thropp."

He'd heard that before, but…

"Burn us," said Eldrect, interrupting Basalt's thoughts. "Free our souls with fire."

The humans appeared to consider this for a time. Eventually, one of them, a diminutive Munchkin in a bloodstained suit, muttered "Is he asking for-"

"Of course," said Miss Thropp. "They're already dying; they want a quicker death."

"More than that… we want purification," Eldrect whispered. "We want our sickness to die with us… and reclaim our place in the earth… in eternal slumber…"

Basalt barely had time to wonder if the humans would show mercy to Nomes after all that had been done to Oz, before Miss Thropp began ordering her companions out of the room. Then, with a wave of her hand, she granted Eldrect's request: fire rippled from her fingertips, washing over the ranks of the dead and the dying alike, swiftly burning away every trace of flesh from their abused bodies and leaving behind only stone. Unfortunately, Basalt was unable to appreciate this, because his senses had almost overloaded at the sheer power that the woman had just utilised; incredibly, the power had been active for less than a second or two, but it had temporarily blinded his thaumaturgical vision, in much the same way that bright sunlight would dazzle a human after hours in the dark.

He'd predicted that he would experience such a thing in his journey, but he'd expected this to happen when he returned to the Nome Dominions, where the glare cast upon his senses by the Nobles would have made him shy away in discomfort... whilst the incandescence of the King would have blinded him just as Miss Thropp did.

Equally unfortunately, he was so occupied with trying to regain his equilibrium that it took him a moment to realise that the room was now on fire.

Though the heat posed no danger to him, his hiding place was now very visible.

And Miss Thropp was staring directly at him.

Basalt was halfway through diving back into the earth when his magical senses flared again, and a tendril of magic curled around his body before he could abandon it altogether, dragging him back out of the ground; but he didn't stop there: with a single gesture from Miss Thropp, he found himself suddenly soaring gently over the rows of burning corpses, leisurely crashing through the doorframe, and finally tumbling headfirst into the dirt just outside. Once again, before he could escape into the earth, he felt Miss Thropp's magic descend on him, yanking him bodily upright and suspending him just a few feet above the ground- imprisoned in thin air.

After a while, his senses adjusted to the sudden touch of magic, and he found that he could see without disorientation. Looking around him, he realised that he was now surrounded by humans; each of them was armed with a strange, tube-shaped weapon, and all of them bore expressions of obvious anger.

"Where the hell did this come from?" one of them demanded.

"I found him cowering in the back of the room," Miss Thropp replied, sounding almost as angry as the other humans looked. "He was probably spying on us."

"Really?" snapped another. "Then maybe he'll be happy to answer a few questions, won't he? Turn him towards me, Witch."

Very slowly, Basalt felt himself rotating in midair until he was facing the speaker- a tall Gillikin male with matted blonde hair.

"Now, you listen to me," said the man. "See that dead body over there? The really massive one you could call a mountain if you could stand it upright?"

He pointed at a point several hundred feet behind him, where the corpse of the Siege Breaker lay.

"We killed that," the man continued. "We blew its face off. Now, you're nowhere near as big or as tough as that thing, so unless you want to end up as the gravel in someone's driveway, I suggest you answer anything we ask you- starting now. You get me?"

Basalt nodded.

"Good. My first question… my first question is…" The man thought for a moment. "Damn it, what was I going to say?"

Somewhere to his left, Miss Thropp laughed. "No offence, Brollan, but maybe this should be handled by people with brains larger than a grape."

Once again, Basalt felt himself being rotated in a different direction, until he found himself face to face with Miss Thropp for the first time.

"First of all," she said icily, "Why were you spying on us?"

Basalt was about to answer, when his eyes finally focused on the figure of the woman in front of him: under the wide brim of her hat, her face was emerald-green in colouration; her long-fingered hands were of the same colour, so it might be safe to presume that her entire body was, in fact, green. Very slowly, he began comparing her to Glinda's description, just in case he really had beaten the astronomical odds of meeting a similar human woman with green skin. But no, every single feature matched; the dark hair, the piercing eyes, the distinct lack of scars around them, the sharp facial features... even the clothing was identical.

Elphaba Thropp.

The Wicked Witch of the West.

One of the most feared individuals in Oz's history.

And now, undoubtedly one of the most powerful magicians that Basalt had ever encountered.

Awe was an emotion that even the lowliest Nomes were equipped with, but Basalt never thought that he'd ever feel in awe of a human.

Unfortunately, according to the accounts of Glinda, the Scarecrow and the King, this particular human had been dead for over a year.

So, either she had somehow managed to return from death, or she had never died in the first place.

The latter appeared very likely: after all, the vulnerability had never been publically demonstrated until the day of her death, and there were no facial scars to indicate the kind of wounds her tears would logically cause, so perhaps the whole thing had been just a very clever ploy by Elphaba to confuse her enemies and to allow herself an escape route if the need arose.

"Well?" Elphaba said. "Answer me!"

Something in Elphaba's tone instantly silenced Basalt's thoughts and pierced his self-control; perhaps it was some brand of vocal magic, maybe he was still disoriented by his brush with sensory overload.

Whatever the case, before he could stop himself, he found himself saying, "I was not spying. I did not know you were here."

"Oh really? Then why were you skulking in that corner then?"

"I was following the trail of the… altered Nomes. I did not expect to encounter any practitioners of magic in the area, and…" He trailed off.

"And you got curious when I approached?" Elphaba finished.

He nodded.

"Convenient," grumbled one of the Munchkins. "How, exactly, are we supposed to know if it's lying or not?""

"More importantly, why are we even questioning it the first place?" said another.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if it's been sent all the way out here on its own, I doubt it's been told anything earth-shattering."

"I know, but you heard what it said- it wasn't expecting to meet anyone who had enough magic to stop it; I mean, maybe it's a messenger."

"Delivering messages to houseful of corpses?" Elphaba snorted. "I doubt that very much."

As the argument carried on, Basalt knew that he couldn't afford to stay here any longer, especially since, even if they weren't planning revenge against him for the invasion, they would probably kill him anyway to ensure that he didn't report their location to the King. However, as long as Elphaba had control of his restraints, he wouldn't be able to escape. Of course, breaking free might not be as hard as it seemed; from what he knew of magic, quite a few spells and techniques relied on the practitioner maintaining at least a certain degree of concentration.

But what would break that concentration?

For the moment, the humans were engaged in something of a dispute over what they might ask him; a few of them wanted to know why the Nomes had invaded, some wanted to know if they could ransom him back to his superiors for political favours, and several just wanted to kill him and be done with it. Elphaba meanwhile, stood to one side and looked somewhat exasperated.

Perhaps I should try for spontaneity.

"Miss Elphaba!" he called suddenly.

Elphaba blinked, and Basalt was rewarded with a sudden dip in height before the witch's concentration returned. Shoving a few of the disputants aside, she marched up to him, her expression revealing "distrust" and "irritation."

"That's the second time today that a Nome's used my name," she said. "How exactly do you know it, and more importantly, what the hell do you- or your superiors- want with me? And don't try and play dumb; Eldrect told me that someone was expecting me to be captive by now, and I know that Mombi was setting me up for a trap in the Nome Dominions, so what does your King want with me?"

Basalt thought quickly. Could he lie convincingly to a human? Lying to a fellow Nome was one thing, but deceiving a human, specifically one who didn't know that certain Nomes were forbidden to lie, was a different matter entirely. Also, Glinda had told him that Elphaba was easily provoked to anger, a trait that might become lethal to him should he irritate her further. Perhaps it would be better to calm her down before carrying on with the distraction. But what could he say? What could put Elphaba at ease, if only to stop her from killing him?

Perhaps - inspiration at last! - he could claim to be a representative of Glinda as well; if nothing else, it might assuage Elphaba's distrust.

"My superiors are not the only ones who would have business with you. There is another in the Nome Dominions who I speak for, one who would be much happier for your presence there."

"Is that right?" she said. "Don't keep me in suspense; who is it?"

"Her name is Glinda, and she misses you terribly."

There was a sharp intake of breath from the crowd of humans; Basalt once again wobbled in mid-air as the witch's concentration briefly faltered.

After a few moments of silence, Elphaba began to speak, and Basalt quickly realised that he'd made a very serious error.

"Why… exactly… would she tell you that- or anything for that matter?" Elphaba hissed, her voice shaking. "What exactly did you do to make her admit that? What else did you make her confess? I really, really hope you have a good excuse for me, because if I actually get to the Nome Dominions and find that she's been harmed in any way, or if she's been tortured for information or if- gods help you- she's died in captivity, then I am going to tear you to pieces! I don't care if your stone skin can't feel pain! I will find a way of making you feel pain! I don't care if it takes me the rest of my life - I will find some way of subjecting you to as much pain as you put her through!"

And Basalt could tell that this was different from the threats that Mombi had made during her fits of rage; this sounded more like a promise than anything else.

Suddenly, Basalt's feet were within reach of the ground: dipping one foot into the soil, he poured his spirit back into the safety of the earth, leaving his old body to collapse into rubble behind him.

As he hurried off to the north, cursing his limited knowledge of human behaviour all the way, he heard Elphaba screaming:

"Oh, that's right, run away, you cowardly bastard! RUN TO THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD!"

Elphaba stood very still, glaring at the spot where the Nome had once hovered. She took a deep breath and tried not to think on what her fears had just conjured up, but nothing could blot out the image that now occupied her imagination: Glinda's corpse, slumped in the torture chair, her hair turned crimson with blood.

Elphaba took an even deeper breath, and said quietly, "We're leaving."

"What?" Rasp demanded incredulously. "No! No, we are not, not until you explain that little outburst."

"What's there to explain?"

"Actually, I think there's an awful lot," snarled Woolwax. "Since when do you care about Glinda? You actually told us that you were never friends or allies, do you remember that?"

Brollan laughed. "Something tells me that it's time for a very awkward confession," he chuckled, rubbing his hands.

"Oh, shut up!" Elphaba and Woolwax roared in unison.

There was a long and awkward silence, and Elphaba realised that everybody in the group - Munckin, Gilikin, Animal, pro-Glinda, Anti-Glinda, or purely neutral - all of them were looking to her for an explanation.

"Alright," she said wearily. "I lied. I don't think that's much of a shock to anyone here."

"Could you be a little bit specific?" said Rasp. "What exactly have you lied about when it comes to your relationship with Glinda?"

"Would it help if I just told you the whole story?"

"It might."

"Okay, okay…"

Elphaba took yet another deep breath to steady herself; this would not be easy. But then, just a few days ago, she'd said that she'd happily give up all her secrets if it would save Fiyero and Glinda. So, it was with a certain degree of acceptance that she took a seat on the forest floor, and readied herself for the worst.

"Those of you who actually want to hear this might want to take a seat," she said. "This is going to be a long and boring story."

"I wouldn't know about that," said Brollan with a smirk. "Hearing the scandalous tale of the Wicked Witch of the West's university days? Something tells me I should have brought popcorn."

Elphaba rolled her eyes, and began her story in earnest:

"We met on the first day of the semester; it wasn't hard for us to notice each other, considering we were probably the two most noticeable students attending Shiz at the time. She was the undeclared queen of the students, while I was the outcast. She was rich, spoiled rotten by her parents, and ready to be the only student attending magical tuition; I was mainly there to look after my sister. Then, things went a bit awry for both of us; first of all, when I heard that Nessarose was to be taken out of my care, I lost composure and… well, I'd been showing signs of magical power for some years before that, but nobody except Father and Nessa had seen them. This time, everyone in the room saw my powers flare… and this time, I was rewarded for it: the headmistress gave the position in magic class to me. Add to that the fact that Glinda had to share a room with me, and we had one of the worst possible starts to a relationship ever.

"We hated each other in those first few months; we'd fling insults, we'd call names, we'd play pranks - the usual symptoms of a school rivalry. You don't need to know specifics, because it really did go on for ages. But the one thing that changed everything, the thing which actually made us into friends was this…"

She took off her hat, and showed it to the crowd: it had aged decently enough, considering the amount of wear and tear it had been exposed to over the years. Since it had come into her possession, it had been burnt, cut, bludgeoned, trampled, soaked, but still it remained intact; it had even survived the few instances of Elphaba retrieving it with a teleportation spell.

"This, she said, "Was a gift from Glinda. It wasn't meant to be that at the time, you see; she'd got it from some embarrassing relative and naturally wouldn't have been caught dead with it, so she gave it to me as part of yet another idiotic prank. But this one was different; she felt remorse for it. She apologised for it, in her own way. And, of course, we couldn't really be rivals anymore after that, especially after I got her enrolled in the magic course."

Her smile slowly faded. "And then, just a few short weeks later, our history teacher was arrested."

Rasp, who'd been taking a drink of water, almost choked. "That was an awkward segue," he muttered. "What was he arrested for?"

"What do you think?" said Javelin quietly. "Those were the years when Animals lost the right to hold jobs- and the years where several of them lost their powers of speech. And those that kept speaking out were arrested… or vanished. You'd hear stories of Animals deciding to walk home by themselves one evening and never being heard from again; or of friends and family finding the homes of their loved ones abandoned and emptied, as though nobody had ever lived there at all."

There were immediate grumbles of discontent from the refugees who'd professed to Anti-Animal leanings, and Brollan muttered, "Not this again. How many times do we have to refute this shit-"

"Forever."

"Look, I don't know where you claim to get your evidence from, Gazelle, but there's no proof that the Wizard's government was involved in anything as clandestine as that, or even that it happened in the first place-"

"I don't claim anything, Mr Brollan," Javelin whispered icily. "When you've had to cope with the disappearance of friends and family, when you've had to spend the night awake, terrified that you'd be next, we can talk about proof. For every year of the Wizard's rule, I was terrified that I'd end up dead, or incapable of thought. Every time I had to leave the house, I thought someone would be waiting to slip a collar around my neck; every time I went to sleep, I worried that I'd wake up in a cage. So whenever you get nostalgic about "the good old days" when humans didn't have to share personal space with Animals, just try and see it from my perspective - if you dare."

The Gazelle took a deep, shuddering breath, and turned back to Elphaba. "Your history teacher was Doctor Dillamond, wasn't he?"

"You knew him?" said Elphaba, scarcely able to disguise her amazement.

"Not personally. You see, a few months ago, Glinda unveiled a memorial to all the Animals who were killed or brainwashed during those years: at the top of all the names carved into the stone, there's Doctor Dillamond, Goat, Teacher of History at Shiz University."

Elphaba smiled sadly. "That wasn't the first time Glinda memorialized him; you see, before her university days, her name was actually Galinda, but Doctor Dillamond could never quite say it - he'd always stutter on the G and call her Glinda instead. So, when it turned out that he was never coming back from prison, she changed her name to Glinda in his honour."

(Elphaba didn't have the heart to tell them that this had mainly been to impress Fiyero, so she carried on with her story.)

"In any event, I was worried about what was happening to the Animals of Oz, and M-"

"I get it," Brollan interrupted. "This is where you claim that you carried out your long reign of terror all for the sake of the talking beasts."

"Do you want to hear this story or not? As I was saying, Madame Morrible had been suggesting that I should be presented to the Wizard as a candidate for the position of Grand Vizier. So, I thought it would be a brilliant opportunity to alert him to the injustices that the Animals of Oz were suffering, so that something might actually be done about it. When the Wizard finally requested an audience with me, I went to the Emerald City with a massive speech prepared on the subject, and Glinda tagging along. We were friends by that stage… and neither of us were prepared for what we found."

"And what was that?"

"Only what I told the rest of Oz during my "reign of terror": that the Wizard was a fraud and responsible for the atrocities being committed on the Animal Populace."

There was an angry grumble of dismissal from the refugees, punctuated by a few cries of "Do you actually expect us to believe that?"

"Not really," said Elphaba. "Nobody in all of Oz believed me; why should you? But my point is, that was when I became the Wicked Witch of the West… and when Glinda joined the Wizard." She sighed. "We parted amicably as we could…"

I hope you're happy, now that you're choosing this.

You too.

She bit her lip; there was still a little way to go in this sordid little retelling, and she couldn't give in just yet. "When we met again, she was Glinda the Good; sometimes we met in public, sometimes in private… but by the end, we were both unhappy."

"From having to publically oppose each other?" Rasp asked.

Elphaba offered a rueful smile. "That was one reason, yes. The other was that… we were in love with the same man."

Once the shocked gasps had died down, Rasp managed to choke out, "You mean Fiyero Tiggular? Glinda's fiancé? He was in love with you?"

"Of course."

"Then… was that why he disappeared?"

"No; he disappeared because he helped me escape from a squad of guardsmen. I doubt even the Wizard himself could put a good spin on "Glinda's ex-fiancé declared traitor and accomplice to Wicked Witch, summarily tortured for information." After my botched attempt to save Fiyero's life, everything fell apart: my sister was dead, all my plans and contingencies had failed, my friendship with Glinda had very nearly collapsed, and as far as I knew, Fiyero was dead. And by that stage, the Witch-Hunters were marching on Kiamo Ko with Dorothy's companions rallying them… and all I had left was the time to say goodbye to Glinda.

"I told her not to mention anything of our friendship to anyone else, or to try and clear my name; I knew that she'd be rejected if that happened. But, from what you've told me, she couldn't help but admit at least part of the truth." She sighed wearily. "If any of you wondered why she gave the speech you mentioned, why she told the rest of Oz how hard my life had been… well, now you know. We were friends."

There was dead silence.

Eventually, Curter, who was all but glowing with amazement, said, "You returned from the grave to save her from the Nomes?"

In spite of herself, Elphaba smiled. "It certainly seems that way, doesn't it."

She let her gaze sweep across the refugees, all of whom appeared to be still recovering from the shock: Rasp appeared to be mulling over what he'd just heard; Curter was still amazed; Javelin was ashen-faced from his outburst; Woolwax looked as though he didn't know what to think of the story; Gnoll's jaw was hanging open; and Brollan looked just as cynical and doubting as ever.

"Is that why you got so angry when I made that joke about your friends?" he asked. "Because I'd insinuated that Glinda was a p-"

"You're on thin ice, Brollan," growled Woolwax. "You just watch what you say about Glinda, or there'll be nobody to hear you scream when that ice breaks."

"I don't see why you're still so protective of her good name, especially since you've just been told that she was a traitor to the Wizard-"

"That's enough, Brollan," said Moleburr.

Elphaba blinked in surprise: beyond the odd whispered conversation with Brollan, this was the most she'd ever heard the tight-lipped Gillikin say.

But Brollan was not to be deterred: "Do not contest me on this one, my friend; "traitor" is the only word I can use to describe Glinda at this point: I mean, let's see, she maintains a friendship with a known terrorist even after achieving high office in the Wizard's government. She holds private meetings with the Witch, whilst giving away Oz only knows how much confidential information to the enemy in the process… oh, and when the bitch up and dies, what does Glinda "The Good" do? She decides to undermine everything the Wizard created by allowing the Animals rights, presumably carrying on her dear dead friend's work! If that can't qualify as a traitor to the Wizard and to the people of Oz, then I-"

"I said, that's enough."

Minutes passed in silence; nobody seemed to know what to do or say next, and anyway, most of them were beginning to look a bit too disheartened for it. Elphaba honestly couldn't tell if it was a result of the story she'd told or Brollan's attempt to highlight Glinda's "treachery", but either way, the unhappiness was almost tangible; by the time the third minute had passed, Elphaba half expected to find a miniature raincloud hovering over them when she looked up.

Of course, the refugees weren't alone in their depression: Elphaba herself was feeling gloomy, and not just from the history she'd just retold; she still hadn't recovered from the encounter with the Nome hybrids, and the run-in with the spy that had followed. She shouldn't have gotten so carried away in the case of the latter; she should have clamped down on the frustration as soon as she felt it, and carried on interrogating the spy. But she'd honestly been too shocked to stop herself from jumping to conclusions.

Maybe the spy hadn't learned about me by torturing Glinda; maybe he really was her representative… or maybe he was just trying to make me lose concentration. What does it matter? The bastard's gone, and he's probably reporting our location to the Nome King even as we sit and mope.

"I don't see why we can even believe what she says anyway," grumbled Brollan quietly. "She admitted that she lied about Glinda back at the manor-"

"Brollan, if I ever lie to you, chances are you'll recognise it if you pay attention to one very noticeable fact."

"And what's that?"

"People tend to believe them very readily," said Elphaba with a smirk.

Brollan groaned. "Oh, so you remembered that we believed you when you lied about Glinda. Very, very, very funny. Basically, this is another attempt to say that every single lie you told in your reign of terror was actually the truth."'

"No, I'm saying that most Ozians find it very easy to accept lies as truth."

"Did… did you just say what I think you just said? Not only do conduct a reign of terror that causes Oz only knows how many deaths and injuries, not only do you tell the most spectacular lies about the Wizard and about his policies toward Animals, but you call us gullible for seeing your propaganda for what it is?"

"Javelin, do you want to give a little more evidence for this twit's benefit? I'm out of ideas."

"You're on your own, Elphaba."

"See? Even the goat doesn't want to support you-"

"For the five hundred and seventy-fifth time, I AM NOT A GOAT-"

"Could you three kindly break it up?" snapped Rasp. "We're all very upset, and starting a fight is not going to help anyone."

Brollan's face, already scarlet with rage, turned very ugly. "What is the matter with you, exactly? Were you this unpatriotic and cowardly when you were a secretary, or did that only happen when you started spending time with the Witch? This woman is calling the people of Oz gullible! Where is your national pride? Why have you not confronted her over this?"

He threw up his hands in disgust. "More the point, why am I even talking to you? I already know I'm not going to get anywhere!"

"It's nice to know you've reached the same conclusions I have," said Rasp quietly, as the argument skidded on without him.

"Alright then, Witch," Brollan continued. "Let's hear your evidence: if you think that we're gullible, if you think we can accept lies easily enough, prove it! We believed you when you told us about Glinda, fair enough; name one other instance where you managed to lie convincingly to us- and by that, I mean all of us, and not just the governor. And," he said, leaning in just a little too close to Elphaba for comfort, "it has to have been told by you, and not something you ordered that two-faced little bitch to s-AAAH!"

As Brollan staggered backwards, the right side of his face blistering lividly, Elphaba finally spoke. "You want to know of a time when I managed to deceive you?" she said, barely managing to keep the rage from her voice.

She'd wanted to keep this particular secret hidden for the moment, if only because the refugees hadn't had enough time to recover from the last shock, but Brollan's endless complaining had once again managed to shorten her temper to vanishing point. In that moment, she didn't care about the consequences; all she wanted was to wipe that pompous smile off Brollan's face with a bit of evidence that even he couldn't deny.

"You want to know of a lie I told that you accepted?" she continued, her voice thick with venom. "Fine. I've managed to fool not only you, but the entire population of Oz. And you know what? You've all believed the lie I told for an entire year, and none of you even questioned whether it might have been true. Why? Because it was adapted from a bit of gossip that you'd already accepted as the truth, even though there wasn't the slightest bit of evidence to support it: 'I hear that the Witch's soul is so unclean, pure water can melt her!' Ring any bells?"

There was a horrified gasp from the refugees.

"You mean… water couldn't melt you?" whispered Gnoll in disbelief. "It never could?"

"Of course not! I was surprised that anyone in all of Oz was stupid enough to believe it; I mean, if I was vulnerable to water, what exactly do you think my tears were made of? Syrup? Whiskey? Hydrochloric acid? What exactly would have stopped my eyeballs from dissolving if water could melt me?"

"But people saw you melt at Kiamo Ko!" yelled Woolwax. "Dozens of people saw it happen!"

"And you didn't think it was strange that out of the many dozens of souvenir-hunters present, none of them tried to collect a vial of my liquefied flesh? All I did was lower myself into a trap door and leave my cloak and hat behind; once I was sure that everyone had left, I climbed out, fled for the border, and never looked back. I faked my death, and you and the rest of Oz bought it, hook, line and sinker! So, Brollan," she spat furiously, "If you want a picture of just how gullible the people of Oz can be, then look no further than the fact that you actually thought that dousing a witch with a bucket of water could kill her!"

There was a terrible silence as the echoes slowly died away, only broken by the crackling of the funeral pyre, and Elphaba's heavy breathing. Eventually, Brollan asked, "Where have you been for the last year?"

"Far from Oz, trying to make a new life for myself and trying to forget how badly I'd failed."

"What do you mean 'failed?' How did you-"

"Oh come on, Brollan, even you can't be that dense. I failed at what I set out to do when I first opposed the Wizard: the Animals were no better off than they had been at the start of my mission, and I was outnumbered and all but defeated. More to the point, I had to sink to the Wizard's level and commit the exact kind of fraud that he would, just so I could save my own life! I had to break Glinda's heart and convince her that I had died! But I stayed sane out there in the wilderness, and one reason for that was because I honestly believed that Glinda would be the ruler that this country deserved. She would give the Animals rights; she would treat the citizens fairly; she would rule honestly!

"Then I heard of the Nome invasion, that Glinda was captured by the Nomes, and I returned to Oz to rescue her; then," she pointed at Curter, "you shot me down before I could get to the Dominions, and for the last few days, I've kept hearing of just how many people hated her: either you wanted her off the throne just because she dared to give the Animals rights, or you wanted her off the throne because she admitted to meeting me at school!"

Elphaba choked back a sob, and as she struggled for breath, she found that she was actually blinking away tears of anger. "And you know what I've realised?" she snarled furiously. "You - the citizens of Oz - didn't deserve her! She tried to give you justice and prosperity, and you threw it back in her face! I'm surprised that you didn't bow down to the Nomes the moment they set foot in Oz, and I'm even more surprised that I put up with any of you for this long! I should have left you for dead as soon as I'd gotten the chance! That way, we'd all be happy: I'd have had my chance to save Glinda's life by now, and none of you would have had to listen to the truth, because heaven knows that none of you could ever stand to hear it!"

She turned on her heel, and stormed off towards the clearing.

There she stood completely still for a whole thirty seconds, before she finally erupted, unleashing her rage on the land around her in a frenzy of magical energies and mad, incoherent screaming. Nothing for the next two hundred feet in front of her was spared her wrath: fire incinerated it, lightning electrocuted and denatured it, ice froze it, the winds flung it away, the very soil tried to crush it. Intense light blinded it, shadows consumed it, winds of acid dissolved it, spectral figures gathered to drown it in air. Even the very trees that Elphaba was destroying were driven to attack one another by the animating magicks she poured into them- assuming they weren't crushed by the massive divots of earth that Elphaba was telekinetically flinging in their direction.

Five minutes later, the tempest subsided, and Elphaba collapsed to the dirt.

She felt no better than she had a few minutes ago; if anything, she felt even worse. Her guilt, temporarily assuaged by the confession and by the explosion of her anger, was back again, gnawing hungrily at her with fresh strength. And worse still, she'd just rendered everything she'd done in the last few days completely meaningless by throwing a temper tantrum at the refugees.

Elphaba, why couldn't you have stayed calm for once, instead of flying off the handle?

"I don't know, Glinda," she said quietly. "I honestly don't know."

What with Basalt's curiosity over the mysterious book that Eldrect had told him of, coupled with the need escape Elphaba wrath, It took less than a few hours to finally arrive back at the palace, hurrying onto the floor of the entrance hall with feet that he scarcely bothered to refine as he moved as swiftly as he could towards the palace library.

He'd been there some time ago to find books on human anatomy, and though he knew his way around the towering bookshelves well enough by now, the librarian on duty still regarded him with curiosity- and suspicion. Of course, just as Eldrect had predicted, the librarian had no choice but to put his suspicions aside when he determined that Basalt was being honest when he claimed that he was on an assignment from the King; all the high-Privilege Nome could do was guide him as far as the small room that housed the Protected Volumes, warn him that his actions would be closely monitored, and return to his desk.

Inside the chamber were housed the most precious and secret books that the Nomes had written or collected in their long history as a sentient species: ancient treaties and contracts with long-forgotten peoples, essays by researchers documenting only the most earthshattering phenomena, books of powerful magical technique that ranged from spells of miraculous healing to conjurations of deathly plague, works of fiction that had been deemed too enchanted to be read safely by anyone but the librarians, and even a sandstone tablet carved with hieroglyphs that glowed ominously when anyone passed by it. All were stored in this room, housed in shelves of transparent spellglass that flowed like water, but without any of the moisture or permeability of water; like the rest of the library, the books were perfectly preserved against decay, but the Protected Volumes were also preserved against each other: any dangerous magic that the books might possess was sealed and nullified so that neither its neighbours or its readers would suffer the effects.

Even with this in mind, even knowing that he was being monitored, Basalt approached the shelves with caution; apart from the obvious danger that quite a few of these tomes posed, he didn't know what he would find at the shelf code provided.

As Eldrect had said, the book he found there was disguised with an illusion: though it was titled "The Art of Sculpting Living Matter," opening the book revealed that it was, in fact, a journal written by the very first Nome King. Awestruck, Basalt continued reading, and found that it was also an heirloom intended for each new Nome King to study upon their coronation, and to contribute to as they learned how to master the technique that the book detailed.

It was a well-known fact that Nomes were immortal, incapable of dying through old age or disease, but susceptible to violence or misadventure. However, this technique had been created by the first King as a means of escaping such a death: in the event that he was on the verge of dying, his essence too damaged to sustain itself, the King could project his ailing spirit into the body of another Nome, assimilating the soul of its original occupant to strengthen himself. With this revitalized spirit, he could continue his campaign against the enemies that he and the Nomes were at war with at the time.

When he finally retired, he wrote the book for his chosen heir before he left the Nome Dominions altogether, but warned that the technique it taught was only to be used in times of direst need, for it would always require the sacrifice of the closest Nome that his spirit could find. In the millennia since then, the Nome Kings had studied and researched this mysterious spell, writing their notes in the blank pages of the book; in times of war, they'd used it when they needed to, but few ever used it more than once.

Then, King Roquat the Red had been crowned, and he'd carried out his reign in relative peace and prosperity, occasionally writing a few of his own notes in the book.

The next entry was dated fourteen years ago, less than a week after the death of Roquat: it detailed the circumstances of Roquat's death exactly as Basalt had been told- that during the transit of a highly unstable sphere of dimensionally-compressed magic, a rupture in its containment spells caused the whole thing to explode, killing hundreds of Nomes in the process. Among them had been Roquat, and as his chosen successors had died with him, the War Council had decided that the soldier who'd found the King's body deserved the honour of taking his place.

But according to the book, that soldier had been Roquat's new body.

The current King, the one who had conquered Oz, the one who had given Basalt his promotions and privileges, was and always had been none other than Roquat the Red.

The Council doesn't want a King, Roquat had scrawled furiously, they want a puppet, the same puppet as I was in my final years! Senile old shit that I was! So, for now, I will indulge them; I will play the naïve young King and pretend that Roquat the Red has passed into the hereafter once and for all… until I have the strength to challenge their false rule.

And the next entry was dated less than a year ago: I have found the perfect means of overcoming the Council and the Land of Oz. I would never have thought that these artefacts would simply fall into my hands, but how my fortunes change for the better! With these about my person, I have access to more magical power than I or any other King before me has ever possessed… but alas, their true power is sealed. They weren't meant to be used by non-humans.

If I truly want to unlock the awesome power that they contain, then I must become a human. And our Glorious Forefather's technique might just grant me exactly that!

Suddenly, Basalt understood.

Eldrect and his mutated retinue had not been transformed by any magical accident; they had been attempts by Roquat to create a human body for himself. One after another, he'd attempted to transform the Nobleman and his soldiers into human beings, but such an intricate transformation had been beyond even his magical powers: all of the transformed had been weak and sickly, too fail to contain the King's spirit. So, he'd kept them hidden until the invasion of Oz, when he'd had the chance to dump the half-dead bodies in a crater somewhere in the upper north of Munchkinland.

But the King had not spent the months following his failed attempt idle. He had found Glinda and the Grimmerie, both of which could grant him a much more stable transformation. And Basalt remembered, from what he had heard even while he'd tried to avert his ears from the conversation, that the King had mentioned that Glinda herself was little more than an understudy for someone far more powerful.

And the more Basalt thought about it, that someone was almost certainly Elphaba.

Basalt left the library in a daze.

He knew, now that he understood why the King wanted to become human, that he should probably report directly to the King to report his findings; and after that, he should return to his duties in protecting Glinda for as long as his services were needed.

But Basalt was still grappling with the revelation that he'd just experienced: the King, a being that Basalt had been taught to respect and obey without question, had…

His own words drifted back to him in a flood of memories: "The King's duties do not extend to non-Nomes; he is merely to govern us, to safeguard our civilisation and culture. Everything he does is for our own good."

But Basalt had just discovered that in the last year, the King had subjected a nobleman and his retinue to an agonisingly painful transformation that they could never recover from, all in an attempt to become a human and harness the power to - according to the notes - control reality itself.

And as far as the notes detailed, he'd set out to seize this power partly for the sake of revenge on the War Council and Oz, but mostly to fulfil his own ambitions.

And though Basalt had tried and tried to discern a worthwhile motive among the notes, or at least something that indicated that the King was doing this for the betterment of Nomekind, nothing could be found.

In the past, when a King had lost his grip on sanity, the War Council had simply instated the King's chosen heir and sent the old King off to retirement, and if no successor was available, they would govern the Dominions until they could elect a suitable replacement. But going to the War Council for help didn't appear to be an option to Basalt: even if he knew where to find them, his encounter with Scathelex and the attempt on Glinda's life had made him reluctant to trust the Generals.

Basalt leaned against the wall, trying to clear his head and make a decision, but the disorientation refused to subside.

For the first time in his life, he honestly didn't know what to do.

Chapter 20: Downtime In The Strangest Of Places

Summary:

Our heroes find comfort and camaraderie under unusual circumstances... but not without complications.

Chapter Text

The refugees spent the rest of the day huddled in the shade of the giant Nome's corpse, trying to occupy their minds with something that didn't include the revelation they'd been subjected to.

It didn't work.

Those of them who'd looked to Glinda as a saviour after the Wizard's abdication were left with the awful knowledge that much of the apparent slander her detractors had flung at her was, in fact, true. And those of them who'd gloried at the triumph of the Wizard and his champions over the Wicked Witch felt no better: they now knew that the victory had been a falsehood, and that everyone in the country had accepted it without question. Not only had this left a massive dent in their self-confidence, it had also made quite a few of them think back to the sheer relief that had gripped the country when the news of the Witch's death had reached them, the joy and prosperity that they'd revelled in, and wonder aloud, "Was it all meaningless?"

Nobody knew what to say to them, least of all the few who'd been paying close attention to Elphaba's story. It had seemed easy to dismiss it as lies and falsehoods at first, but the Witch's outburst had given it a worrying air of sincerity; before then, nobody would have imagined that she was even capable of shedding tears.

For the Animal-sympathetic among them, Javelin's testimony had only added more weight to it. Of course, they still didn't believe the wild tale of the Wizard being a fraud - after all, there was only so much they were prepared to believe - but nevertheless, their beliefs had still been badly shaken.

Of course, three particularly outspoken members of the group were engaged in their own private reveries:

Curter, Rasp, and Brollan all sat as far away from the refugees and from each other as possible, thinking furiously to themselves - and in Brollan's case, recovering from the burn that Elphaba had given him, whilst trying to staunch the nosebleed that Woolwax had given him scant minutes afterward.

Curter was thinking of just how much of an idiot he must have seemed, insisting that Elphaba had been given such a unique chance for redemption in her return from the grave, when she'd never died at all. What a stupid thing to have said! He must have looked exactly like the stereotype he'd tried to avoid whenever he brought up his beliefs in conversation. No wonder she'd laughed at him that morning! He might as well have added a little speech on the wrongness of the Time Dragon Clock, just to drive home what a gullible, self-righteous windbag he'd seemed.

The fact that she had admitted she wanted to atone for at least some of what she'd done was little comfort; after all, he and anyone else with a working brain could guess at the things she wanted to atone for, and the stand she'd taken against all of Oz wasn't one of them. But then, would she even need it? Up until the temper tantrum, she'd been quite generous in assisting them, all things considered, and she was still helping them even now.

Of course, there was one other question that nagged at Curter, worse than his retrospective embarrassment: had Elphaba ever really needed to atone at all?

Meanwhile, Rasp was trying to figure out what to do next; after all, even with his inexperience, he could still see that the group was once again close to the breaking point.

Nobody knew what they were going to do, or even if they should do anything at all: a few people had actually come up to ask him if it'd be better if they just returned to the manor, or tried to find another group of refugees to ally with. And Rasp could also hear more of them whispering about stealing one of the carpets and fleeing for their lives- believing that the Witch was in charge of the group, that she was using Rasp (or "The Fucking Governor," as they called him) as a means of leading them all to certain death.

Damnit, what would the governors before him have done in his position? What would Govenor Bruxwurl have done?

Well, in all likelihood, Rasp thought, he would have procrastinated for two straight months, refused an invitation to the Scarecrow's coronation ceremony, and ended up getting crushed to death by a rampaging Nome.

He tried again, this time using an earlier example: what would Governor Nessarose have done?

Am I seriously asking myself that question?

He gave up.

Meanwhile, the only thing Brollan had on his mind was one short but very important question: how was it that he'd been punched in the face by someone three feet shorter than him?

Outside of these private reveries, the others tried to busy themselves with menial tasks: checking their weaponry, taking stock of their ammunition, reading books they'd stolen from the manor library, or preparing meals.

And once again, none of them were able properly focus their attention on what they were doing, all except for Elphaba, who was crouched atop the mountainous form of the dead Nome, carefully removing the enchanted belt-plates with hands that luminesced with magical power.

Those of them brave enough to look closely at her face reported that she looked quite absorbed in her work; in fact, as far as they could tell, she looked calmer than she had at any point since she'd joined them. Of course, she'd already had the chance to get the worst of her feelings out of her system, and left a large section of forest charred and smoking as a result.

But what was she thinking about, really?

What was going on behind that impassive green face?

By now, after magically chiselling away its foundations, Elphaba had finally managed to prise the first of the belt-plates loose from the behemoth's waist.

Now, it hovered in midair, a slab of dense metal the size of a paving stone, carved with ancient magical glyphs and shrouded with protective spells. For half a minute, she tested it, just to be sure that the spells were intact; then, satisfied with the results, she put it aside and started on the next one.

With her mind so focussed on the task at hand, or on dreary thoughts of the future, it took a while for her to notice that one of the refugees had joined her atop the carcass.

It was Moleburr, the only member of the group who hadn't seemed overly troubled by her outburst, immediately recognisable by his distinctive shuffle. Having lost his shoes in Nome Invasion, he'd borrowed a pair of bathroom slippers during their stay in the manor, and while he evidently like liked them enough to keep them, they were at least two sizes too big.

Now that he'd managed to clamber awkwardly up the cliff-like shoulder of the dead Nome and make his way across its cratered body, he sat down less than a few feet away from Elphaba, cross-legged and silent, his gaze focussed somewhere on the horizon. After a while, he reached into the depths of his backpack and drew a newspaper from its cluttered depths; from what she could see from this distance, it looked as though as it had seen plenty of reading already.

Nonetheless, for the next ten minutes, he sat there and read.

Elphaba reflected that, had anyone emerged from the forest and happened to see him at that point, the image would have bordered on the surreal: a balding, middle-aged Gillikin dressed in the tattered remains of a business suit and an old pair of tartan slippers, sitting on the mountainous corpse of a human/earth-elemental hybrid, reading the last issue of a newspaper whose writers, editors, and printers were either running for their lives or dead.

Question was, did Moleburr do this out of sheer boredom, because there was nothing else to do but read a newspaper that he'd likely read a few hundred times already, or was he just clinging to old routines?

After ten minutes had gone by, he folded up the newspaper and spoke.

It took a while for Elphaba to work out what he was saying, because the Gillikin's voice barely rose above a murmur. However, when she finally discerned words among the low, whirring tones, she was quite taken aback when she realised that those words were, "I apologise for my colleague's behaviour."

Out of all the things she'd been expecting to hear from the refugees (barring Curter, perhaps), an apology was not among them; hearing the words from someone as tight-lipped as Moleburr, one of Brollan's closest associates, no less, made it all the more astonishing.

"Apology accepted," she muttered, trying not to let the shock register in her voice, and returned to work.

However, Moleburr didn't get up to leave; he remained sitting there, re-reading the headlines, his face impassive as ever.

After a few minutes, Elphaba set aside the belt-plate she'd just finished detaching, and asked, "What exactly brought this on? In case you forgot, I gave your partner a second-degree burn to the face. Not exactly proportionate retribution."

"He's had worse happen to him," said Moleburr. "He was once knifed through the hand in a game of cards."

Seeing Elphaba's shocked expression, he elaborated: "The other gambler accused him of cheating; Brollan got angry and threatened to force-feed him an entire box of gaming chips. Unfortunately, the man took him seriously, and stabbed him clean through his left hand before he could even reach for the box."

In spite of herself, Elphaba laughed. "Had he actually been cheating?" she asked eventually.

"I don't know. He never admitted the truth, not even to me. But he's always been that way, always getting angry over the slightest things, always provoking people, and always too proud to admit to a mistake."

"Haven't you ever tried to change his mind? From what I've seen, he actually listens to you."

"There's a limit to how much he'll listen to, I'm afraid. Besides, his aggression can be useful if I can point it in the right direction: after all, it made us rich; it allowed our business to expand throughout Gillikin Country. Unfortunately, it means I have to spend my free time writing formal apologies to everyone who Brollan managed to aggravate in the previous week, or announcing them, in your case… and worrying."

"Worrying about what? We're not exactly running short on things to worry about, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I thought it was obvious: I worry about Brollan."

"And why's that? Has he ever thanked for your help? Has he ever let you know that he appreciates the fact that you've always been there to clean up his mess, to write apologies for him, to keep the business stable? Has he done anything to justify you giving a damn about him?"

Moleburr gave her a meaningful look. "Did Nessarose do anything to justify you giving a damn about her?" he asked.

There was a dreadful silence, as Elphaba took a very deep breath, suppressed an eruption of rage, took an even deeper breath, and asked, "What exactly gave you the idea that I had that kind of relationship with my sister?"

"A few things here and there," said Moleburr vaguely. "You already told us that you were only allowed a place at Shiz so you could care for her. As for the rest… well, you'd be amazed at the things people say to fill the silence. Gnoll, for example, had a bit to say about your outburst in the study. But back to the question; did-"

"She wasn't always as crazy as she was in her final months, you know," Elphaba interrupted. "And besides, she was my sister. What makes you think she needed to justify my caring for her? I'd been responsible for her safety ever since she was allowed outside the house: when you're told to care for a loved one - a loved one who's paralysed from the waist down, by the way - you don't stop and think, 'does she deserve it or not?' You just do what's expected of you, care for her as best as you can, and make sure that she doesn't get hurt!"

Moleburr nodded. "My point exactly: I never asked myself whether or not Brollan deserved my help, either. He and I aren't brothers, of course. In fact, at times, I feel its best that I think of myself a doctor with a particularly accident-prone patient. Not too far from the truth," he added surreptitiously. "And he might not be crippled… but sometimes, I wonder if there is something wrong with his mind, more than just a bad temper, more than just childishness… and that's why I worry.

"I noticed just how often Brollan went out of his way to get on your nerves. More to the point, I noticed that he succeeded twice: the first time, you stopped just short of throwing him to his death; the second time, you left him with burns to the face… and, judging by the damage you did to the forest, you could have done even worse to him. And I know that Brollan always manages to avoid learning from his mistakes: he didn't learn from the knife to the hand, he didn't learn from the lawsuits, and he certainly won't learn anything from his confrontation with you. One day, he'll meet someone with all your power and none of your self-restraint; one day, he'll anger somebody who'll kill him without a second thought."

There was a very long silence.

"Of course," Moleburr continued, "there's no telling if he and I will survive this debacle or not, is there? Even with you on our side, it's still a gamble."

He stood for a moment, stretched with a series of vicious pops, and sat back down again, immersing himself in his well-read newspaper.

It took a while for Elphaba to realise what he'd just said.

"Are you saying you actually trust me?" she said incredulously.

Moleburr looked up from the newspaper, and offered a rare smile. "If you wanted to kill any of us, Elphaba, I doubt you'd have stopped at second degree burns."

And with an air of great finality, he continued reading, having said more in ten minutes than he had in the last few days.

Not too long after that, Rasp awkwardly hauled himself onto the corpse, scrabbling his way up the ragged stump of the dead Nome's throat.

"Let me guess," said Elphaba, her tone almost completely deadpan. "You're here to tell me that my little explosion finally convinced you that I'm simply too volatile to have around and you'll be leaving with all the other refugees within the hour."

"Er… yes and no," Rasp mumbled.

"What does that mean, exactly? If you're trying to talk like a politician, you're trying a little too hard, Rasp."

Rasp blushed. "Sorry. But the point remains: Brollan's goading aside, I think you can be trusted. You can help us. Trouble is, I can't speak for everyone else; with the way people are moping down there, it's starting to look as though they're ready to give up and go home."

"But they don't have homes to go back to!"

"Well, if that's the case, we have absolutely nothing to worry about! My constituents are such sensible people, as you know full well by now."

Elphaba honestly couldn't tell if Rasp was trying to be funny or just being cynical; the apparently cheerful grin on his face was almost identical to the exasperated rictus he wore in times of stress.

So she asked, "What did you come up here to talk to me about, then?"

"I wanted to ask you a question; it's about my… predecessors. Secretary Boq and Governor Nessarose, I mean; you told me that I was a lot luckier than Boq, but you did get a bit evasive when I started asking what happened to him, so-"

Elphaba threw up her hands. "He's the Tin Man, okay?"

Rasp opened his mouth to reply and immediately shut it again; for a good ten seconds, he sat there in total silence, his mouth flapping helplessly as he tried to compose a suitable rejoinder.

"Okay then," he said at last, "He's the Tin Man. Fair enough… um, are we talking about the same person? I mean, is he the Tin Man- tall, metallic, wields an axe- the genuine article?"

In spite of herself, Elphaba couldn't help but smile at Rasp's incredulity. "That's right," she said, barely suppressing a laugh.

Rasp let the breath his outwards through his clenched teeth. "What the hell," he muttered. "It's not as if it's the weirdest thing you've told me in the last few days. Normally, I'd ask if it'd help if I gave up and went mad, but I'm pretty sure I've gone nuttier than a barrel of acorns already, so tell me, how did a Munchkin assistant become a six foot-tall metal killing machine?"

"Do you remember what I told you back in the study? Nessa's only experience using magic came about because I was stupid enough to leave the Grimmerie open on the floor: the only spell she cast was on Boq."

"You mean she transformed him? She… but how? I mean, the Tin Man said you enchanted his axe to cut off all his limbs- was it anything like that?"

"No, no: my sister didn't transform him." She offered an ironic little grin. "Nessarose had been in love with him ever since her university days; she didn't want to ruin his life that badly. She tried to cast a love spell on him, and she botched it: it destroyed his heart, left him on the brink of death. So, at short notice, I had to transform him into something that could survive without a heart."

She allowed Rasp a moment to consider this.

"Boq blamed me, swore revenge… and went on to lead the witch-hunts against me. Nessa fell to pieces and ended up getting flattened by the Gale House while conducting the last press conference of her entire life. And all because I'd left the Grimmerie open on the floor," she concluded.

"… but what were you doing with the Grimmerie in the first place?"

"I was creating the Ruby Slippers," said Elphaba bluntly.

"Bwuh?"

"You see, Nessarose had been in that wheelchair her whole life, and I thought I should create something that would allow her to walk, so-"

"Stop!" Rasp commanded. "That's enough."

"You don't believe me?"

"Oh, I believe you; I've done enough digging around in the archives to know that the Ruby Slippers didn't exist until Nessarose' last days, and even if I hadn't, after everything I've seen and heard in the last few days, I've almost exhausted all my reserves of incredulity. The reason why we need to stop talking about this is because my brain is full: I literally cannot hear any more without my head exploding."

Elphaba once again stifled a fit of laughter. "I really think you doubt yourself a bit much, Governor."

"Have you ever seen government-issue brains? It's not pretty, least of all when it's sprayed over everything in a ten-foot radius; it'd ruin your hat for starters."

"That's where you're wrong, Governor," said Elphaba. "You'd be amazed at how well pink works with my colour scheme."

The smile froze on Rasp's face.

Then, laughing hysterically, he very slowly concertinaed backwards into a heap, clutching his middle as though he'd been shot.

Of course, with the spectre of Glinda's fashion advice hovering in the air; it didn't take long for Elphaba to start laughing as well.

Of course, as she lay there, shaking with the sheer force of her own guffawing, she gradually realised that she hadn't just been laughing at the jokes - which hadn't been that funny, all things considered - but at the ludicrousness of everything that had happened in the last few days. After all, it was hard not to laugh at the fact that she had somehow managed to convince at least some of the refugees that she could be trusted: after trying so many times to draw Ozians to her side in her struggle against the Wizard and failing in every single attempt, she'd somehow managed to earn the trust of at least two!

How could you not laugh at the sheer implausibility?

Basalt still wasn't sure what he was doing.

He'd been trying to determine what he should do next for some time now, hoping that some option would present itself. But no matter how he chose to look at the situation, the fact remained that neither the King or the War Council could be entirely trusted; he'd read both the Journal and as many record ledgers as he'd been permitted to read, again and again, and each line of text justified his caution a little more.

The King, planning to control the very fabric of reality with the artefacts he'd collected, and prepared to sacrifice even his fellow Nomes for the sake of his mission. Basalt could scarcely believe it. Even now, parts of his mind refused to, and tried to take solace in the fact that perhaps the King really did intend to use the power for the good of the Nomes. It didn't work.

But the War Council was no better: following the trail of ledgers, he found the generals straying further and further away from military concerns and into civilian affairs. He found countless records indicating that nobles qualified for their positions had been dismissed almost without notice and replaced with envoys of the Council, each one granting them a stronger hold on the inner mechanisms of Nome society. Besides, assuming he could even locate them, assuming that he could reach them before the King's plan came to fruition, even if they were only a slightly less destructive alternative to the King, would they even believe him?

He'd considered going to Scathelex, but he'd been unable to find him anywhere in the palace. Not even the servants knew where he'd gone.

So, with nobody in a position of authority to entrust with the truth, Basalt turned to his unofficial options. He considered simply informing Glinda that Elphaba was alive and that she wouldn't need to go back in time to save her life after all; but then, as if Basalt's estimations were correct, Glinda was only to be used as an understudy to Elphaba, so this wouldn't be severe enough just to stop the King's plan.

More to the point, the success of this objective would depend on Glinda believing his testimony- on trust, which could not be detected or measured by any means except through levels of emotional intuition which Basalt simply didn't possess.

Would she believe him? Would she accept his words at face value, trust him?

Or would she become angry and refuse to speak to him anymore?

Moving swiftly away from that idea, Basalt toyed with the idea of tracking down Elphaba and warning her not to continue her journey towards the Nome Dominions. Once again, he found himself beset with problems, the most obvious of them being that Elphaba would be inclined to kill him on sight. And even if he would survive long enough to explain himself, once again, there was no telling if she would even believe him or not.

So, against all logic, he went back to thinking about telling Glinda. He didn't know why; he'd already discounted the idea as unfeasible, but he thought about it all the same, entertaining the idea for as long as he could.

Eventually, he gave up, and decided it was time to present his report to the King; at least, this way he might be able to make further inquiries about Roquat's mission without appearing confrontational. This course of action found him standing right in the middle of the King's newly-furnished office, waiting patiently for the King to finish studying the book levitating just above his desk, and hoping that the King would not react violently to anything Basalt might say.

However, the King appeared too deeply immersed in reading to notice his arrival, so Basalt stood patiently before him, waiting to be addressed and taking in as much of the room as he could discern: evidently, during the construction of the palace, the King had requested that the office and all its furnishing to be carved from red marble. Basalt recalled the source of Roquat's old nickname = the red marble he had often sculpted his body from - and wondered absently if he had used the substance to memorialise his old identity.

It took perhaps a minute, but eventually, the King looked up from reading and finally noticed Basalt standing there. "Ah," he whispered, a soft smile edging across his face. "I was wondering if I should expect a visit from you soon or later. How goes your search for answers, Basalt?"

Basalt was opening his mouth to answer when something on the King's desk caught his eye; it was a pair of golden orbs- slightly flattened at the base, so that they didn't roll off the desk- weighing down a small pile of forms and documents. Normally, Basalt wouldn't thought much of it, as he'd known high-privilege Nomes who were in the habit of collecting much stranger things and using them as office equipment.

However, Basalt couldn't dismiss these as simple ornaments; after all, he'd been face-to-face with their previous owner, enough to recognise the signature iris and pupil embossed on each orb.

They weren't just orbs.

They were eyes.

The King was using Lord Scathelex's eyes as paperweights.

Suddenly, Basalt found that the report he'd appeared in this office to present had completely slipped his mind: all he could think of were the last words the King had spoken before he'd left - an almost offhanded remark about having "an appointment to keep with Lord Scathelex" - someone who'd known too much about his plan, someone who was in the perfect position to ruin it…

Just like Basalt.

Self-preservation instincts kicked in.

Basalt improvised.

"Not too well at present, Your Majesty," he lied. "I have uncovered a few leads, but nothing conclusive. For the moment, I believe it would be better if I discontinued my search for the time being and resumed my protection duties."

"A wise decision," the King conceded.

"How has Glinda fared in my absence?"

"She pushes herself too hard, I fear; in the last eighteen hours, she has done little but work, and I believe it is having a detrimental effect on her health, both mental and physical… hence why I am going to allow her some relaxation time in an environment built specifically for her comfort."

Basalt considered this: though he couldn't deny that it might give Glinda a chance to recuperate, it was still a risky move on the part of the King. After all, the War Council's return couldn't be postponed forever, and delaying Glinda's work could jeopardise everything… unless he was counting on Elphaba arriving before the Council did.

"However," the King continued, "Though I can provide the venue, Glinda would no doubt resist any further intervention on my part. That's where you come in: you are to act as both an observer and a participant in Glinda's recovery time; to monitor her for any sign of instability and to keep her mind occupied on things other than work; and, as always, to ensure her physical safety."

"As you wish, Your Majesty. When am I to begin?"

The King smiled. "Who said you haven't already?"

And with a wave of a hand, the King, his office and all its contents faded from Basalt's vision; Basalt scarcely had enough time to realise that he'd just been teleported before he found himself standing less than a few feet away from Glinda herself.

"… very hard to finish my work without the Grimmerie," she was saying. "Or pen and paper. Or a desk. I'm saying I actually need any of that, but it would be a big help. Hello? Is anybody there?"

She turned and finally noticed that she was no longer alone.

Several explanations later, Glinda took a deep breath and massaged her temples.

This wasn't how she'd hoped to be spending the afternoon, all things considered: if the King wanted her to actually get the job done, wouldn't it be better if she did it as quickly as possible rather than dithering around with free time and coffee breaks? Unfortunately, she tried to voice this opinion to Basalt, who naturally felt the need to make his boss's opinion on the subject clear:

"The King feels you are pushing yourself too hard," Basalt had intoned. "He wishes you to relax so that your work will not be affected by fatigue or distraction."

"And I suppose he's doing that just because he's such a nice guy," Glinda replied acidly.

Basalt hesitated. "You have made considerable progress in translating the spells," he pointed out. "Perhaps His Majesty is also rewarding your diligence thus far."

"Well that's very sweet of him, but don't you think it would be a whole lot better if I could just get back to work and finish up with the translatification? I mean, that way, before the week's out, he'll be human, I'll be back in the past, and you'll be… you'll… actually, that's a thought- what will you do when all this is over and done with?"

"I will most likely be reassigned to a different guest if there is one, or promoted."

"Fair enough. But my point is, since I've been working so hard, shouldn't I just continuate? Just because I've fallen asleep at my desk once or twice doesn't mean I'm in danger of going stir crazy. And more importantly, where exactly is this 'environment built specifically for my comfort' exactly?"

"We should be standing at its centre."

Glinda looked around her: at present, the two of them were standing in a tiny circle of light at the middle of a vast cavern; the ceiling was so high it all but vanished into the shadows overhead, and the walls had long since gone the same way.

So, where did relaxation come into all this? Nowhere, it seemed: no soothing music, no clouds of incense and perfume, no soft furnishings, nothing interesting to occupy, and almost no light- just hard, smooth stone underfoot. But then, would anything in this underground palace have been able to really put her at ease? After all, this was the home of the man who'd destroyed the Emerald City and had, by now, almost certainly conquered the rest of Oz; other than the chance to make reparations when her task was finally finished, what the hell could the King possibly offer her?

No sooner had she thought those words, when the spotlight directed at the two of them suddenly expanded outwards to encompass the entire cavern. And as the light bloomed, shapes began to appear, hazy, transparent forms that rose through the floor like ghosts. At first, they seemed almost featureless, but as they took their places around the massive cavern, they slowly became more and more detailed, enough to be recognisable as buildings, roads, and even crowds of spectral pedestrians. However, it wasn't until colour finally blossomed across the city that Glinda finally realised what was taking shape before her eyes.

"Miss Glinda, are you alright?" Basalt whispered.

"Oh, I'm fine," said Glinda, trying vainly to stop her voice from shaking. "I just didn't think that Nome King would conjure a city I saw him destroy."

She took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself. "What in the name of Oz are we doing here? Why would he want me to see this? Why would he think I'd be able to relax here- among illusions of people he killed!"

Some of the illusory pedestrians looked up at this outburst, and eyed Glinda curiously before returning to their non-existent business, making very obvious attempts to avoid looking in her general direction. Across the street, a gentleman muttered, "I suppose the Witch must be getting to some people worse than others."

Glinda herself didn't know whether or not she should laugh at this: everything was exactly as it had been, right down to the reaction to a public outburst.

"Do you wish to leave?" Basalt asked.

Glinda sighed deeply. "No," she said wearily. "I'll play along for now; heaven knows I don't really have a choice in the matter. Now, let's see…"

Smothering her frustrations, she glanced up at the nearest signpost, and realised that she knew this particular street quite well: in the earliest days of her career, not too long after Elphaba had taken flight, Glinda had found herself visiting it time and again, always making her way to the café that was the centrepiece of this odd little street.

Back then, she'd taken advantage of the building's oddly hushed atmosphere to meet and talk with friends. Then, as her social standing began to grow and her "friends" steadily drifted away from her little sphere of influence, it became a place to meet Fiyero, who was making his own ascent through the ranks of the guard. Then, as Fiyero became busier (and more anxious to see Elphaba again), she used it as a place to unwind by herself; and then, in the aftermath of Elphaba's death, Glinda had taken the reins of power, and she simply hadn't the time to attend again. But perhaps now, in the conjured ghost of the Emerald City, she could pay one last visit- if only to see how well the King had recreated it…

"This way," Glinda commanded, and began marching briskly down the street towards the café, Basalt plodding obediently after her.

Oddly enough, nobody seemed to find anything strange about the seven-foot-tall rock monster at her heel; in fact, most of the pedestrians didn't even seem to notice him. But then, from what little she knew of magical illusions, the ones that were designed to mimic people didn't really think; they just followed the set tasks their creator had given them, repeating them again and again until they were given new tasks or simply dismissed.

A pang of sorrow rippled through Glinda: days ago, these people had been real, with lives of their own, with families, and hopes for the future. Now, they were all dead, either slaughtered by the invading armies or reduced to statues by the spell of petrification; now, all that remained of these people, apart from the eroding husks that dotted the ruins of the Emerald City, were these mindless illusions that their murderer had conjured.

And for what? Was the King doing this to watch her reaction? Was he playing mind-games? Or - here, Glinda's eyes narrowed in suspicion - maybe he was trying to give her an incentive to work even harder, by showing just how many lives she'd save by going back in time.

Hastily burying her sadness under the growing pile of questions, Glinda carried on down the street, keeping her face almost completely expressionless; if this really was some kind of sick game on the King's part, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. After all, she'd been told to relax here, and the café- the one place in this mirage where she could relax- was in sight at long last, the tarnished sign above the door gleaming invitingly in the artificial sunlight.

Stepping tentatively through the door, she was immediately greeted by one of the waiters, who all but leapt from behind the counter with a muted shout of "Welcome back, Miss Glinda!"

Without warning, Glinda was wearing the same confident, bubbly smile that she'd always worn in public since the day the Wizard had declared her "The Good Witch." It was all an elaborate mask, of course, used regardless of her true feelings. Once, a very, very long time ago, she'd found it painful to force a smile and fake happiness; now, the mask slid into place so readily it frightened her.

"Good to see you again, Hallingstam," she said automatically. "Is my table vacant?"

"Always, Miss Glinda, always. I'll be bringing along your usual order along shortly."

The waiter turned inquiringly in Basalt's direction, and Glinda realised that this illusion was slightly more advanced than the others; it "saw" that there was someone standing beside her, though it obviously didn't notice Basalt's appearance.

"Will your friend want anything in particular?" the illusory waiter asked politely.

"No thank you," Basalt uttered. For someone without much emotion, he'd managed to do a very good job of looking uncomfortable.

The two of them took their places at Glinda's usual table at the back of the café, where the lights were dimmest and the already-dampened sounds of the outside world faded into nothingness. For several minutes, they sat in silence; Glinda's usual order arrived, and for the next few minutes, Glinda actually found herself drinking a cup of coffee that didn't really exist, and helping herself to a slice of cake made out of thin air. And all the while, Basalt sat, apparently lost in thought, his chin in his hands.

The minutes dragged on.

Finally, Glinda's curiosity got the better of her. "You know how you told me that Nomes earn emotions as they're promoted?" she asked.

Basalt nodded.

"Well, are there any emotions that you can't be given? I mean, are you or any of the other Nomes forbidden from being given compassion, for example?"

"Not to my knowledge, Miss Glinda."

"Alright then… is there any way of removing your emotions?"

"None are known to me, Miss Glinda."

Not for the first time that day, Glinda found herself massaging her temples in annoyance. She didn't know why she was so desperate to know the answer to this; after all, it wasn't as if knowing how the supposedly compassionate Nomes could do what they'd done to Oz would really put her mind at ease. In fact, it'd probably just upset her. But somewhere in the back of her skull, her curiosity - which hadn't aged a day since her time at Shiz - was stomping its foot and demanding to know.

So, after a few seconds of hemming and hawing, Glinda asked, "Can Nomes ever turn their emotions off?"

"I have heard that Nomes who have grown accustomed to emotions can ignore their effects, but that is all. If you will forgive my curiosity, Miss Glinda, why is it that you wish to know any of this?"

Glinda finally released the sigh that had been building for the last minute. Once again, she'd had the answer staring her in the face, and she'd been too idiotically childish to see it: of course the King and the other high-ranking Nomes could feel compassion: they just knew how to ignore when the need arose! After all, hadn't the Wizard been able to do exactly that? He'd been kindly and jovial in person, even while destroying the rights of the Animals, even while plotting the deaths of Nessarose and Elphaba. Why would it be any different with the Nomes who'd succeeded in ticking every single box on the emotional checklist?

And why oh why did she have to keep thinking about every little thing these days?

"It doesn't matter," she said wearily. "I'm just surprised you even want to be promoted considering how badly the higher-ups have been acing since I arrived."

"They are not all like Scathelex and his assassin," Basalt pointed out. "Some Nomes exercise compassion and sympathy more than others. Moreover, I could not refuse the call to promotion even if I wanted to."

"Turning down a promotion is against the law? How does that even work?"

"It is not the law that forbids us from refusing, but our instincts: all of us begin life without emotion or personality, empty except for the implanted urge to attain the privileges of higher rank and 'understand what it means to feel as well as think,' as our Glorious Forefather put it. I cannot resist this urge, any more than I can resist an order from a superior."

For some reason, Glinda found herself wondering what Elphaba would have thought of this had she still been alive to hear Basalt's words. She'd have probably have been deeply suspicious of it, if not openly outraged. After all, this implanted instinct sounded like a very underhanded way for the Nobles and the King to control the population, unless Glinda had misunderstood the concept, of course; Elphaba would have no doubt started asking questions and talked Basalt into taking her to a library to study the subject, before attacking the King head-on with what she'd learned.

Then again, Glinda thought bitterly, if Elphaba were still alive, the Nome invasion would probably never have succeeded. Hell, it probably wouldn't have gotten past the planning stage.

"Do you even want to be promoted, though?" she asked aloud. "I mean, what exactly do you want out of life?"

"Well, now that I have experienced curiosity and initiative, I am interested in seeing what other promotions might-"

"No, no, no; what do you want in life besides promotion?"

For once, Basalt looked almost completely thrown by one of Glinda's questions. "I do find that research holds a certain appeal," he said at last.

Glinda fought the urge to groan in despair and embarrassment.

Okay, so I guess the implanted instinct doesn't really count as a means of population control if they're already born without emotions or free will. Speaking of which…

"How old are you, Basalt?"

Basalt was silent for almost half a minute, his stone brow furrowed in concentration.

Eventually, he announced, "I do not know the precise date of my creation, but I have been able to narrow it down to approximately twelve years ago."

Glinda opened her mouth to say something, and then quickly closed it, realising that there was absolutely nothing she could possibly say in response. "You're a kid?" would have just been silly considering who and what Basalt was; "What was it like growing up in the Nome Dominions?" sounded even more vapid, especially since he'd never "grown up" or even been a child in the first place; and "Who were your parents?" would have just brought up the subject of how Nomes - urgh! - reproduced, and Glinda probably wouldn't be ready for that information for a very long time.

Eventually, Basalt (who'd been skimming through the menu as the silence dragged on) asked, "Would you mind if I ordered something for myself, Miss Glinda?"

Glinda nodded mutely, and watched as the Nome called over one of the waiters and somewhat haltingly ordered a cup of tea; after stumbling through wether he wanted milk and sugar or not, the waiter scurried away and returned a few minutes later with a tray bearing a pot of tea, a bone-china cup, a small jug of milk, and a bowl of sugar, and set it quickly down on the table before leaving to attend to other, non-existent customers. It didn't take long for the two of them to realise that the only way that Basalt could possibly hold the cup was between his thumb and forefinger; so, for the next five minutes, Glinda watched in total silence as her bodyguard tentatively drank tea from a cup that, to him, was about the size of a thimble, and once he'd managed to get the cup to his lips without breaking it, he drained the whole thing in one sip.

And then, as if the image couldn't get any more surreal, Basalt poured himself another cup, and then, holding the teaspoon between the very tips of his fingers and trying valiantly not to bend it out of shape, he began adding shovelfuls of sugar.

As he drank, this time in absolutely miniscule sips, Glinda finally burst out laughing; it wasn't her delicate rehearsed tittering, either, just a long, drawn-out cascade of helpless giggling that almost shook her out of her chair. It was the first time in a long while that she'd laughed with genuine mirth at anything, and it went on until her lungs started to hurt.

Meanwhile, Basalt was looking at her with a look of profound confusion on his face; Glinda was about to try and explain herself, when she realised that Basalt had given up trying to drink from a cup, and had started just adding milk and sugar to the pot of tea, which naturally made her laugh even harder.

"S… S… sorry," she stammered between the fits of giggling. "It's the… you just… the…"

She gave up and started laughing again.

Once she'd calmed down enough to speak coherently, Glinda took a very deep breath and said blearily, "Thanks, Basalt. I really, really needed that."

However, as she sat up in her chair, a question occurred to her that almost made her start laughing all over again, and she voiced it tentatively: "How was the tea?"

"Palatable enough, I suppose, considering that it exists only as an illusion. Would I be correct in assuming that you have succeeded in enjoying yourself?"

Glinda only just stopped herself from cracking up again.

"Pretty much," she admitted. "But," she added gleefully, "that's not what was asked of me, was it? The King wanted me to relax. So…"

A wild, manic grin spread across her face. "Let's see if your boss included the Shattered Gem in this illusion!"

"The Shattered Gem?" echoed Basalt.

"It's a bar I used to visit when I was younger, before the Wizard declared me a "Good Witch," and before Horrible Morrible banned me from drinking alcohol in public. Maybe it's here, maybe it isn't, but either way… you don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"For the most part, no; I have heard of alcohol, however. What is it?"

Glinda briefly wondered how she'd managed to end up as an unofficial tutor to her own near-emotionless rock monster bodyguard, before answering:

"Well, every so often, people feel the need to turn their brains off and… you know what? The bar's only a few blocks away- I'll show you…"

After five Green Haze cocktails, and a chaser of Goodbye Brain, Glinda's good mood was thoroughly secured, although she did feel a little bit unsteady on her feet as they carried her out of the bar, and her voice was slurring ever so slightly as she carried on her half of the conversation:

"… I'm just saying, I'm just saying that it's really obvious that your boss, King whatshisname, the bearded thing with the crown made out of his own head… he made this from bits and pieces of my memory that he thought I'd be happy with. I mean, I visited this bar only once or twice in my entire life before it closed, and that was before the café was even built. And that boulevard there, this whole road was rebuilt a few… a few… yes, it was a few months ago. I think. And that signpost, it wasn't made to wobble around like that when I last saw it!"

"It isn't wobbling at all, Miss Glinda," said Basalt.

"Isn't it?"

She reached out and prodded the offending signpost with a finger, missing it at least four times - clear evidence that the thing really was moving.

"Fair enough then," she mused sceptically. "I 'spose you can't really blame the King for thinking that signs are made out of rubber and windsocks; I mean, he's only got what his spies and my brain tell him, and that last one's about as reliable as a chocolate umbrella in a heatwave. Not that that wouldn't be tasty. Maybe that's what he'll do once he's got all of reality under control; make signs out of rubber. Windsock signs. Chocolate signs."

She gave herself a little shake. She was drifting a bit much for comfort, and she wanted to stay lucid for just a little bit longer; after that, she could return to the bar, have another round of drinks, and gently spiral off into the polka-dotted oblivion.

"I'm guessing that Nomes don't get drunk," she said idly, as she leant against the gently-swaying wall. "Am I right?"

"Most Nomes of my station would not know what drunkenness and alcohol are, Miss Glinda. In fact, I am not certain it has any effect on us at all."

"Shame; I think you'd be a lot more fun after a few drinks."

"Why? Does the prospect of me accidentally breaking everything I try to lift and constantly falling over sound especially 'fun'?"

Glinda snickered. "For someone who hasn't earned a sense of humour yet, that wasn't bad. I think Elphaba would have liked that if she were here; come to think of it, she'd probably like you, too."

For some reason, Basalt's only reply was a long and somewhat contemplative silence.

Eventually, he replied, "Somehow, I doubt that very much, Miss Glinda. If she were here, I would no doubt still be considered an enemy."

"Still?" Glinda echoed.

"I am a servant of the King who invaded Oz," he pointed out, a touch hastily. "Therefore, she would consider me an enemy."

Somewhere beneath the alcoholic funk that clouded her skull, Glinda found herself absently wondering if Basalt knew more than he let on. Had he slipped up in his first remark? Had he come to his conclusion through other means? Perhaps the Nome King had been telling him about what his all-encompassing spy network had brought back. Or… had Elphaba actually encountered Nomes while she was still alive, maybe even fought them off? It sounded plausible, considering that more than half of what she'd really been up to during the reign of terror was a mystery, but could it actually be true?

As Glinda pondered this latest round of questions, her gaze wandered idly across the street and settled on one of the nearest citizens: the illusion of a tall, burly figure in a greatcoat leaning against the wall. She presumed it was a man, judging by the shape of its body under the coat, but she couldn't figure out why this illusory character had drawn her eye until she looked closely...

...And realised that the "man" had been staring at her for the past several minutes.

And he had been doing so without eyes.

From the nose upwards, his face was just a blank expanse of skin, cratered with tiny luminescent patches and threaded with pulsating grey veins.

He's not an illusion, she thought, he's stolen one of the illusions and he's using it as a disguise... and wearing it out, obviously.

No sooner had this thought flown through her head, when the creature hiding beneath the illusion let out a weird, ululating scream and charged.

Ducking out of the path of the oncoming monster, Glinda had just enough time to see the last of its already frayed disguise collapse, allowing her to see the creature for what it was as it turned to face her:

Though hunched and clearly bent forward, it stood at well over six feet tall, made all the taller by the long, whiplike arms it flailed over its head. Under the artificial sunlight overhead, the creature's pitch-black skin appeared to shimmer like water, and it could have been the cocktails talking again, but Glinda was certain she could see tiny fanged mouths opening and shutting on every available patch of skin- except for the head, which was dominated by a gaping wound-like maw framed by dozens of grasping hands.

It let out another challenging bellow and lunged at Glinda; Basalt was already stepping forward to block its approach, when a second creature dropped from one of the rooftops and latched onto his throat, its tusk-tipped arms ripping into the Nome's defenceless back in a wild frenzy. So, with her wand left back in her room a few hundred stories above her, her only bodyguard trying to fight off his own attacker, and the Nome King apparently uninterested, Glinda improvised.

She'd never been very good at performing magic without the aid of a wand, but then again, up until a year ago, she hadn't been much good at any kind of magic, and right now, she didn't have a choice. So, in the last minute before the charging monster reached her, she drew upon all the magic she could at short notice, and sent it ploughing into the thing's body.

But instead of being flung backwards or knocked to the ground, the creature…

… burst…

"Oh, dis-gusting!" Glinda yelped.

There was a loud thud behind her, and Basalt asked, "Are you alright, Miss Glinda?"

"Apart from having about nine pounds of liquefactoried guts splattered all over my dress, I'm fine! How about you?"

As it happened, the monster had actually managed to inflict very deep wounds on Basalt's stone body, and had even managed to bite two of his fingers off before he'd finally managed to snap the thing's neck. For good measure, he'd been slimed up to his elbows in the creature's blood.

"It could have been worse," Basalt mused. "They were only juveniles, judging by their size."

"You mean you know what these things are?"

He nodded ponderously. "They are called Stygian Hungers; subterranean predators that live miles beneath Nome territory. Most of the adults are hibernating at this time of year, while the younger ones spend their time hunting for food, including Nomes."

Glinda's jaw dropped. "These things can eat Nomes?"

"If their spirits remain in their bodies while being devoured."

"Then why are they going after the two of us when there's a buffet table of Nomes just waiting to be eaten not too far above us? Why aren't these Thingummy Hungers trying to attack the Palace?"

"Because they are not stupid. The Hungers know that they would not be able to burrow through the Palace walls without being killed, so they prefer to ambush isolated targets. Also, the young Hungers have great difficulty organising large groups; the hunting parties rarely get larger than four members at a time. Or smaller for that matter…"

For a moment, the two of them stared at one another as the implications of what Basalt had just said tumbled into place.

Their eyes briefly strayed over one another's shoulders (or in Glinda's case, under Basalt's left armpit).

Then, in perfect unison, they shouted, "Behind you!"

Not even bothering to turn around, Glinda half-jumped half-fell to the left and flung another blast of concussive force at the Hunger that had been charging towards Basalt, popping it like a balloon.

Basalt, who was evidently bright enough to follow the cue, didn't bother to turn around either: instead, as the Hunger that had been dashing towards Glinda came within arm's reach, he drew back his sledgehammer-like fist and struck it hard in the chest, cracking its torso open with an almighty spray of gunk.

Seconds later, the two of them stood, once again alone amongst the illusions, and once again soaked in purplish-green sludge.

Then, there was a distant rumbling overhead, and the Nome King's voice boomed, "WELL DONE! OF COURSE, YOU MAY BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THE EXACT R-"

"Stop shouting!" Glinda shrilled back. "We're not deaf!"

A spate of muffled laughter shook the ground, and once it had subsided, the King spoke in a much lower voice. "As I was saying, now that you've had some time to yourselves and proved my theory that you really can get drunk on illusory alcohol, you may be interested to know the exact reason why I sent you down here in the first place."

"Well, given that we were nearly mugged by a gang of monsters, I didn't think you sent us down here to relax or anything like that."

"Oh, believe me, that was one objective among many. But truth be told, Lord Scathelex's hired assassin proved a lot faster than I gave him credit; after his escape, I could hardly afford to let him drift around the Dominions, waiting for an opportunity to derail the plan. So, I set a trap; you can easily guess at the bait I used, but as for the prey…"

There was an earsplitting caterwaul from somewhere far above them, and Glinda looked up just in time to see the familiar figure of the assassin drop from the shadowy cavern roof and hit the ground with a crash, immediately shattering into a dozen pieces.

"Bastards," the assassin's head screamed. "Treacherous, regicidal bastards!"

"I'm sure you've already been introduced. I found him skulking in a tunnel just a few feet below you, leading a pack of Stygian Hungersup from the depths to attack in his stead!" He laughed derisively. "Stygian Hungers, of all things! You might as well harness a gust of wind to shuffle a deck of cards. But then, you can hardly blame our friend, here: he probably thought that you had another egg ready."

From the clatter of broken limbs, the assassin raged impotently.

"LET ME OUT OF THIS BODY!" he bellowed. "RELEASE ME! RELEASE ME! When they find out what you've done to me and my employer, the War Council will bury you, you senescent pile of rubble! They will lay the foundations for their rebuilt kingdom on your pulverized corpse! They will rend your soul and feast upon your psyche! As for the Protector, they will make him eat himself alive until his very soul broils within his redigested throat!"

"He never shuts up, does he?"

"Pot, kettle," said Glinda snidely.

"Fair enough. I'll allow him some time to get his feelings off his chest before I sweep this rubble into a cell. What do you think?"

"And you, Glinda, the Council will ensure you survive your own execution! My masters will rip your head off and keep it alive for all eternity! They will impale you through the stump of your throat and force you to recant your deeds against the War Council until time itself unravels around your decomposed ears! We will make you watch as we dredge the souls of your pathetic mortal kin from the hereafter and DEVOUR THEM-"

The last leg of the assassin's speech was drowned out by the sound of his own already-broken body vanishing in what looked and felt like a miniaturized blast from an active volcano.

And when the King spoke again, his voice was devoid of the amusement that had flooded it before. "As I was saying," he hissed icily at the bubbling pile of slag that had once been the assassin, "It might be advisable to show courtesy to my guests… and to avoid making the kind of threats that I've seen the council gladly carry out."

For almost half a minute of anxious silence, Glinda and Basalt stared up at the roof where the Nome King presumably watched, not daring to say anything. Eventually, though, the King's voice sighed deeply.

"I apologise for my outburst," he murmured, his voice almost soft by his normal standards. "It seems that some things still annoy me more than others…"

"I'd… like to be returned to my room, now, please," said Glinda hesitantly. "I'm going to have to wash this gunk off sooner or later… and I'll also need to get back to work soon if we want to finish on time."

"Of course. If you'd just care to hold still for a minute…"

As the concluding wisps of the teleportation spell began to trace their way across her vision, Glinda was readying herself for the displacing lurch that every one of these spells tended to end with, when she happened to hear the King say, "Before you return to your normal duties, Basalt, I think you and I need to have a word in private…"

And then, everything faded away…

"Tell me," said the King, as his latest body took shape, "On your journey to Munchkinland, what did you find more enlightening? Discovering Eldrect and his retinue, or meeting Elphaba?"

Had Basalt possessed a heart, it would have skipped a beat.

In reality, his mind raced: the King knew that he'd found the abominations, knew that he'd spoken to the dying Lord Eldrect, knew that Elphaba was alive and well - and that he knew the King's plan.

And this likely meant that Basalt was going to die very soon.

"Don't even think of lying to me, Basalt," the King warned gently. "I know where you went, who you spoke to; I have spies that even the most accomplished of our Kind cannot find. So tell me, who was more enlightening? Eldrect or Elphaba? Or perhaps it was that wondrous book that I and my forbears have kept hidden from the rest of our people ever since the First King put pen to paper?"

"It is hard to say, Your Majesty," said Basalt, who could only think back to the stolen eyeballs on the King's desk and wonder if a similar fate was in store for him.

"I can imagine."

The King was now pacing idly around the cavern, a miniscule tongue of flame swirling around his fingers. Was he trying to pass the time, or was he readying a blast of fire that would sear Basalt out of existence?

"Are you going to kill me?" Basalt asked softly.

The King smiled. "There'd be little point to that, Basalt: you're not a member of the War Council, you're not one of their prize lackeys, and you certainly haven't set out to inform anyone of what I've done... though you've certainly thought about it. Besides, even if you do eventually decide to try to be a responsible Nome and remove an obvious lunatic from power, you've got two very serious disadvantages working against you. Can you guess what they are?"

Basalt thought carefully. "The most obvious source of assistance is out of reach, and those that are within reach will not believe me," he hazarded.

"A good try. But in truth, your most serious problems are engraved upon your very psyche: firstly, you're a Protector to Glinda. Now, when that position was first established, its creators made certain that anyone of that rank would be magically bound to protect their designated ward- after all, how else could you make someone with so few emotions care for another? I've seen how you behave: you try to anticipate her actions; you try to determine what she thinks; and though you have no concern of your own, you make every effort to protect her. True, you innovate and investigate on your own terms, but with a fervour that only the bond can explain."

The King's smile broadened. "If you were to tell her of my plan - and get her to believe you - I would be forced to set her free… but you wouldn't be able to continue protecting her, and that chain of magic buzzing away inside your head wouldn't let you even dream of her being released from your care."

"And the other disadvantage?" Basalt asked.

"Quite simply, your own curiosity."

"I don't follow, Your Majesty."

"You still don't know what the artefacts are; you know what they do, but you don't know what they truly are and what I will eventually do with them. You don't even know where I found them, or how I discovered their secrets. And you like to indulge your curiosity now that you have it, Basalt; you find it so very hard to resist. Curiosity may kill the cat, but satisfaction brings it back, as they say. You want to know, don't you? Don't you?"

For some reason, even though he already knew that the King was right, Basalt found it very hard to answer this question.

But eventually, he replied, "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then all I ask is that you remain patient; that you continue to care for Glinda and wait for just a few short days. Then, all the secrets will be unveiled, and you shall have a very well-deserved reward. All good things come to those who wait- remember that, Basalt. Now, do excuse me…"

With that, the King vanished into the ground, his presence rocketing back up towards the palace, leaving Basalt alone in the cavern, amidst illusions that were already beginning to fade away.

Unsurprisingly, the King hadn't left anything to chance; the moment Basalt left the cavern, he felt the faint presence of two Nome spies tailing him.

The situation had somehow managed to deteriorate even further: not only was he too far away to call for help from the War Council, unable to get a closer source of assistance to believe him, and working against his own mind, but the King no longer trusted him.

As he wearily returned to Glinda's cell, it occurred to Basalt that there was a human word to describe the current situation - one that he'd heard Glinda herself use many times in moments of frustration.

What was it again?

Oh yes.

"Fucked."

Chapter 21: The Herald

Summary:

Like ripples on a pond...

Chapter Text

Far beyond the Land of Oz, a storm was brewing over Dr Worley's clinic.

Had Kansas been home to anyone with even a thimbleful of supernatural power, they would have noticed the subtle traces of magic about those ominous storm-clouds, and known that someone or something had conjured them… and more.

But, as Kansas had never been a home to practitioners of the mystical arts, nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary about it.

Indeed, few people even noticed the storm at all.

Dr Worley was too busy preparing his machines for Dorothy Gale's treatment; the orderlies were all engaged with their usual chores around the clinic; Nurse Wilson was down in the cellar, checking that the locks were secure; and Dorothy Gale, alone in her cell, was too worried about her upcoming treatment to look out the window and notice the clouds advancing across the horizon.

But down in the cellar, the unofficial patients noticed.

They were the earliest visitors to the clinic: some of them had been willing participants - sufferers of cluster headaches, epilepsy and other ailments, desperate for the cure that Electric Healing represented. Others had been "donations" from asylum directors who'd been eager to dispose of especially troublesome patients. One way or the other, they'd all become Dr Worley's first test subjects.

To his disappointment, all of them had been damaged before he could find a voltage suitable for positively affecting the human brain. Rendered almost incapable of attending to their most basic needs, the patients were hastily removed from all official records, bundled into straightjackets and locked in the cage-like enclosures beneath the house. And there they'd stayed for the last few months, at least until Worley could refine the treatment well enough to cure them of their additional maladies.

After all, he reasoned, it really was just a matter of controlling excess currents.

Had he been aware of the weather outside, he would have found it quite appropriate that they'd known of the encroaching thunderstorm. But at that moment in time, all he knew was that the damaged patients would need another dose of chloroform to quiet their screaming.

The spectral form of Ozma had also noticed the storm, and knew that it was another move in the King's overarching game.

All she could do, however, was watch from the vantage point she'd managed to secure and hope that she could make her own, small move at some point; it probably would only be enough to prove a setback to the King's plan, but it had to better than sitting back and watching the King claim victory over everything. But whatever she was going to do, it would have to be sooner rather than later:

Not too far from the clinic, a portal was opening.

Meanwhile, on the western border of Oz, where the overgrown forest merged with the sands of the Desert, the opposite end of the portal began to open, sending a shockwave of mystical energies into the night and across the countryside at an incredible rate.

In a startling display of synchronicity, people gave it almost the same amount of attention the thunderstorm had been given back in Kansas: the energies of the shockwave were so subtle and diffuse, few noticed it sweeping through them.

But amidst the many thousands of refugees, fugitives, collaborators, and prisoners that composed the population of Oz and the territories of its new ruler at that time, there were a rare few that felt the tingle of mystic energies upon their skin. Most of them were those who'd been exposed to powerful magic or changed by it in some way; practitioners of magic felt it as well, only magnified a hundredfold, to the point that it was all but impossible to ignore.

But nobody in all of Oz or the Nome Territories - save one - could even guess at what had happened or what it could mean.

Deep within the crumbling ruins of the Emerald City, aged and weather-beaten by its regent's experiments with temporal magic, Tik-Tok's tarnished body remained hidden within the vault, his works having long since wound down into dormancy.

Once he'd been told what to expect, he hadn't been troubled by the long wait he would have to endure before reactivation; instead, he'd paced the room until his action ran down, then stood and pondered the situation until his thought ran down, and then finally drifted off to the clockwork equivalent of sleep. But as the shockwave swept through the ruins, it happened to permeate his oxidised copper shell, and deep within him, a few of his gears spun once more, if only for a split second.

On the cold streets outside, the petrified figures of the citizenry remained still and lifeless, their minds still mercifully unconscious... all except Boq, who merely drifted in sleep, thanks to Elphaba's assistance. Now he dreamt contentedly of a woman who he'd adored and worshipped for so long her face was all but engraved upon his mind. But then the energies that the portal had unleashed flickered through him, and suddenly, he no longer dreamt of Glinda.

Now, he could only dream of lightning.

Not too far away, the Wheelers lay asleep on the steps of Mombi's palace, huddled together for warmth. None of them awoke at the tremor of magic passing through them, even those impossibly rare few who were attuned to it, who only mumbled sleepily and spun their wheels without meaning to.

Above them, deep within her gallery, Mombi was reading the Lead Wheeler's report and trying to resist the temptation to roll her eyes at it.

So far, she wasn't having much luck. Given that the idiot could only write with the pen clenched in his teeth, the text was almost unreadable, and more than half of what was readable was taken up with grovelling requests for drugs. The other half briefly mentioned that a gang of Ozian resistance fighters had attempted to reclaim the City's southern quarter before being ambushed and slaughtered by the Wheelers; then, it moved swiftly on to asking if the Beautiful and Wise Princess Mombi could please stop practicing time magic on Wheeler-inhabited areas.

Mombi snarled wearily, cursing the Nome King for denying her conquest into Munchkinland…

...and then she felt the shockwave as it passed clean through the walls of the palace.

All around her, the heads of her collection stared at one another in mingled terror and confusion, murmuring anxiously to one another about what they'd just felt until Mombi silenced them all with an angry wave of her hand. Tossing the scrawled report aside, she began the slow march downstairs to the City Square to contact the King; she didn't know what had just happened, but it almost certainly warranted attention.

Upstairs, in the palace attic, one of Mombi's oldest experiments lay in a half-collapsed heap, his spindly limbs disconnected from his wooden body, his jack-o-lantern skull gazing morosely at the ceiling.

He'd been up here ever since Mombi had moved in, and most of his time had been spent worrying that his head might begin to rot if left too long; then, he felt the pulse of magic flicker through him, making vivid orange sparks flash before his eyesockets (for he had no real eyes, just holes cut into his head).

That was weird, Jack Pumpkinhead thought. I wonder if Mom had anything to do with it.

Out on the northern border of Oz, amidst the ruins of the once-prosperous Gillikin country, the War Council finally gathered.

It had taken them far longer than necessary to make their way here, having been delayed by skirmishes by human resistance fighters, by messengers from their subordinates, by Nome bureaucrats requesting their signature for one form after another, by the cataclysmic reforestation of all Oz, and - in one particularly harrowing case - a head-on collision with a chicken farm that had somehow ended up directly in the path of one of the generals as he hastened towards the meeting ground.

But at long last, against all odds, they'd finally assembled to discuss the invasion so far.

Holding the right to customise themselves to whatever ends they fancied, the twenty-seven generals there assembled virtually glittered in the moonlight, encrusted with gems or plated with gold and silver as they were. A few had built themselves exclusively for combat, replacing their fingers with cutlass-like blades and barbed spears; some even carried trophies of their many battles, racks of human skulls and fluttering banners of preserved skin hanging from their shoulders. But the most extravagant out of all of them was Lord Resherenkor, the Chairman; he'd sculpted all fifty feet of his body from magically-reinforced gold and platinum, his knuckles studded with diamonds, his colossal shoulders and back coated with sapphire-eyed statues, all human in shape, and all wailing in despair.

"My fellow lords and generals," he rumbled, "I thank you for finding the time to attend this meeting; I understand that most of you have been trying to return to the palace, or else to try and reclaim the territory we have lost to the forests, but I feel we need to plan accordingly if what we have determined is true."

"Is this anything to do with Lord Scathelex's absence?" one of the lesser generals asked.

"In part, yes: given that he was last seen on approach to the King's new palace, it would be safe to assume that he is being held against his will. In the meantime, the few of us that have been able to unite thus far have determined that the spell that covered this land in forest was not from a group of magicians loyal to the King, as we thought- but a single magician."

"What magician of our kind would dare oppose us?"

"Perhaps it is not a Nome at all," suggested another general. "Perhaps it is the witch that the King's warriors brought back from the Emerald City."

"Or the one that the King has employed to run the Emerald City."

The Chairman coughed for order. "Whoever this magician is, the King is obviously using him or her to support his own delusional whims, which clearly run contrary to this council's ongoing work. Furthermore, our operatives and underlings within the Dominions report that the palace has been declared off limits to civilian personnel- clearly an attempt to restrict our influence. Because of this, I am declaring the King potentially unstable, and intend to see him removed from office pending a full appraisal of his mental health- once we have determined what he had planned to do with this magician, of course. This meeting is to decide on how we will approach the Dominions: after all, we have the main bulk of the army to contend with, along with his personal guard, and this witch he has in his employ, so we cannot wholesale slaughter our way into the palace without incurring unacceptable damage to the stability of government."

"My Lord Chairman," one of the other generals murmured, "Is it all possible that the King himself performed any of the magic we have attributed to other magicians?"

Once the laughter had died down, the Chairman replied (in the same tone of voice more commonly used for speaking with small children and the terminally brain-damaged), "I very much doubt it; after all, we were very thorough when we performed our first test of his powers: he can barely even cast a simple illumination spell. As for the…"

There was a pause, as the shockwave vanished into the distance.

"Did anyone else feel that?"

On the outskirts of Munchkinland, the Elphaba's camp still lay in the shadow of the giant Nome's corpse.

By now, everyone was fast asleep save for the watchmen on duty. Despite the argument and the depression that had followed it, most of them had gone to bed in the most optimistic of moods; after all, a few of them had reasoned, they had much to be thankful for, from their continued lives to their recent victories in battle. It wasn't much, but it had to be worth at least something in the guerrilla war that was due to begin tomorrow.

When the shockwave swept over the camp, none of the sleeping refugees awoke or even reacted to the pulse of energy that had just breezed past. Brollan carried on muttering obscenities at nobody in particular, Rasp continued jogging directionlessly in his sleep, and Woolwax snored at a volume more commonly associated with industrial accidents.

Elphaba, meanwhile, sat bolt upright.

She'd been working with magic for far too long not to recognise magic when she felt it. And the dream she'd just awoken from - the vision of that basement, crowded with people in manacles and straightjackets, screaming in mindless fear as thunder rumbled in the distance - was there any connection between it and the shockwave? Was this somehow tied with whatever the Nomes were up to?

She sighed, gathered the thickest blanket she could find, and staggered out towards the campfire. This couldn't wait until tomorrow; she needed to analyse it, now, at least once she was warm enough to think straight…

"HHHHHHHNNNNNNKKKKK. KKKRRRRRRRRRRRRR. HHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNKKKKKK."

…And once she'd worked out a way of shutting out Woolwax's damnable snoring…

Across the Nome Dominions, several hundred million unsuspecting Nomes looked up in confusion as the magical shockwave finally dispersed itself in the skies far overhead.

Magicians among the civilian populace immediately began studying it, trying to determine its source: none of them had much luck, though- the energies were far too diffuse to be examined in detail- but whatever spell had caused this tremendous shockwave had clearly been one of impossible power.

Had Glinda been in contact with any of them, she would have agreed.

She, too, had been awoken by the wave of energy collapsing above the palace, and had taken a break from translating just long enough to try and guess what it was and where it might be coming from. Of course, with the need to finish the work still weighing upon her, she couldn't afford to waste too much time on trying to figure out the specifics of the shockwave, and in the end, she gave up long before any results arrived. She'd even turned down Basalt's offer to head upstairs and ask the sentries what had happened; after all, what was the point of trying to study something that might just be local weather, when there was much more important work to be done?

Basalt, meanwhile, suspected that whatever had just happened was the next stage in the King's escalating plan.

Not that there was much point in reflecting on it, given that he had even less means of determining what had just happened than Glinda; if the dissipated energies had been part of the plan, then heading upstairs to meddle- with two high-ranking spies following his every move and reporting them to the King- would not be among the safest potential moves. After all, the only thing that had kept him from being executed a few hours ago was the King's utterly incomprehensible generosity (he hadn't even bothered to order Basalt away from his investigations!). So, he remained in Glinda's cell, on watch, hoping that the truth would become apparent soon.

Several stories below, Fiyero was thumping on the wall and asking if one of the guards could please explain what had just happened.

Of course, it wasn't likely anyone could hear him, except perhaps for the mysterious Pinhead in the neighbouring cell, so he tried to guess at what he'd just felt was: maybe it had something to do with Elphaba; maybe she'd finally arrived in Nome territory, and was bombarding the palace with literally every single combat spell she could think of; maybe she'd already defeated the Nome King in single combat; maybe he would be free in the next few minutes.

No harm in wild fantasies, I suppose, he mused, sadly.

Next-door, "Pinhead" barely reacted to the curious electric sensation that had flickered through his crooked bones; once he'd collected his thoughts enough to think carefully on the subject, he presumed it was some new illusion that the Nome King had devised to play with his senses, a brief distraction from the avalanche of monstrous visions and noises that were no doubt due to assault his senses. But then, he'd experienced so too many of them since his life sentence here had begun all those…

… all those…

… how long had he been down here? Had he really been imprisoned beneath the earth so long that he'd actually forgotten when he'd arrived? Had the King really managed to make them feel as though each hallucination was as fresh and painful as his very first?

Pinhead sighed, and once again tried to imagine he was somewhere else.

As always, it didn't work: the real nightmare never gave him a chance to escape.

There was only one man in all of Oz and beyond who'd had the slightest clue where the shockwave had come from and what it signified.

Of course, it wasn't as if the Nome King was actually in the mood to spoil the surprise.

True, he could have dampened the energies of the shockwave, prevented anyone from even feeling the magic that the portal had unleashed; but after so many years of waiting, he couldn't resist letting this miniscule glimpse of the future reach the minds of his enemies.

It was, he decided, a herald.

… a sign of the ending still to come.

Soon, Dorothy Gale would be led through the portal and back into Oz.

She'd follow the clues that had been left for her, travelling across the ruined country and into the Emerald City, where Mombi would keep her in captivity until all the components of the ritual were assembled. Then, it would be a simple but delicate matter of persuading Dorothy to take part in it of her own free will.

Once it was finished, the King would be human, and the reality-distorting powers of the artefacts would belong to him.

Of course, if the ritual failed, or Dorothy simply refused to take part in it… well, there were two very capable witches in the area that could provide the transformation. Glinda had already agreed to help, although it might still be several weeks before she'd finished translating the spell. Once she arrived at the palace, Elphaba could definitely provide the spell without having to waste time translating, but it would be very difficult to persuade her to do so.

Difficult, but not impossible.

And from there, who could know what would happen? Even the King couldn't guess at exactly what he'd do with the power he'd obtain, beyond a few basic ideas for the future of his fellow Nomes.

One thing was certain, however: Oz would no longer exist.

It would be expunged from history itself, the foul and corrupt society that had festered at its heart purged and forgotten by all; the crime that it's people had dared to commit against Nomekind would never have happened, the perpetrators of the deed would never have been born. The land itself, forests, mountains, ruins and all, would be rolled up like a carpet and flung into oblivion.

And at long last, his mistake would die with it.

Chapter 22: Bombardier's Wrath

Summary:

Face to face at last.

Chapter Text

Elphaba's attempt to study the energies that had swept through the camp had proved, by large, almost completely pointless.

She hadn't been able to determine who had cast the spell, where it had been cast from, or even what it had been cast upon. In fact, the only thing she'd learned was that the spell itself had been some kind of teleportation or gateway spell- obviously a very powerful one if it had caused such a shockwave, but that was it. Irritated, she'd decided not to go back to bed; instead, she fetched another blanket and sat down in front of the fire to think on the battle plan for next morning.

It took less than five minutes to doze off.

She awoke after what felt like half a millennium, the sound of Curter's voice ringing in her ears.

"Elphaba!"

"Mmmmph. Whzst?"

"It's nine o'clock."

"Hm. G'dmrnnnng."

"We're supposed to be leaving at ten-thirty."

Elphaba shot upright, furiously untangling herself from her blankets.

"Have the preparations started already?" she yelped.

"Relax, we've barely finished eating breakfast," Curter soothed. "You can take a little time to get dressed, maybe even have a wash in the stream if you like."

"Curter, I've been sleeping in my clothes for the last two days; the only things keeping me from smelling even worse than I already do are a few spells and everything else I have on my mind at the moment. Besides," she added, hurriedly disassembling her unoccupied tent with a wave of her hand, "I didn't pack a change of clothes, or any towels for that matter, so let's just get down to business: where are we prepping the carpets?"

"Just by the Big Nome's left leg- wait! Wait! Could you at least have some breakfast first?"

"No time for that! I've got work to do! I've got the runic plates to set up, I've got ancillary spells to add to the carpets, and I can't afford to stand around eating roast pigeon while the deadline slips through our fingers!"

"Elphaba, we've still got an hour," Curter wheedled. "It's not so urgent that you can't sit down for a few minutes and eat something. Besides, if this is going to be the day we actually attack the Nomes, you're going to need to keep up your strength, so don't you think you could at least spare ten minutes? Five? Two, even-"

"Alright, alright," Elphaba grumbled. "Five minutes, and then we need to get moving."

The morning campfire was still smouldering, so it didn't take much magic to get it up to cooking temperature again; once her leg of Unidentifiable Scavenger Bird was hot enough to be edible, Elphaba sat down to eat it… and Curter took the opportunity to start asking questions.

"So, who's waiting for you?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You told me that you'd be leaving Oz once this whole grisly business is over and done with- and you also said that you wouldn't be spending the rest of your life alone and hated, either. So, who's waiting for you?"

Elphaba sighed deeply, and briefly considered changing the subject; why bother, though? She'd been pretty determined to hand over all of her secrets yesterday, so why stop now?

"Fiyero," she answered flatly.

Curter blinked. "So… he didn't die?" he said uncertainly.

"Far from it; he's been living with me in the lands beyond Oz for the last year. There's only one problem, though: he was captured and imprisoned by the Nomes when they invaded Oz - after he was invited back to the Emerald City for his own coronation."

For the next ten seconds, there was silence, broken only by the sound of Curter's jaw flapping aimlessly as he tried to organise a coherent sentence.

"He's… the Scarecrow?" he gibbered at last.

"My attempt to save him from his torturers went a bit awry," Elphaba explained sadly. "In fact, it went so badly, I thought I'd actually killed him until he finally revealed himself, on that night at Kiamo Ko. And, in the end, he was the one who came up with the idea of faking my death. By the way, you might want to close your mouth- there's flies about."

"Fair enough," said Curter blearily. "I've heard a lot of strange things in my life, Elphaba, but I don't think any of them were half as bizarre as the things you've seen and done. I mean, how did you even stay sane? How did you carry on for so long without losing hope?"

"More often than not, I didn't; towards the end, I almost lost my grip on reality. And in the end, there were two things that helped me back from the precipice. Can you guess what they were?"

"Fiyero and Glinda." The Munchkin artilleryman wearily pinched the bridge of his nose. "No wonder you got sarcastic when I started trying to convert you, I mean-"

"Curter…"

"- I must have looked like such an idiot, or worse, just like the kind of cleric who'd-"

"Look, you don't need to start chastising yourself now, of all times; besides, if you're worried about coming off as a self-righteous overbearing zealot, well, you've certainly made a better case for yourself than all the other unionists I've met in my lifetime. And most of the Ozians, too, incidentally, but that seems to be the case for most of our little band of guerrillas."

There was an awkward pause, as the two of them considered this.

"Is there anyone waiting for you?" Elphaba asked hesitantly.

For a moment, Curter's face looked downcast. Then, he smiled- a rather forced smile, but a smile nonetheless. "It's not important," he said quietly. "Besides, we've got a war to fight and a nation to bring back from the dead; we can't really afford to start getting melancholy now, can we?"

And that was all he'd say on the subject. In fact, it was all that he said for the next few minutes, until Elphaba finished her breakfast and the two of them finally began the slow march around the decaying bulk of the Behemoth Nome towards the Flying Carpets.

"Are you sure this is safe?"

"I don't know," said Elphaba, bluntly. "I've never tried to harness a quartet of hundred-pound rune plates to the bottom of a flying carpet. I mean, the ropes look tight enough, but there's always the chance of the knots slipping loose at high speed. The good news is that we're just about invulnerable to enemy attack, so long as we keep these rune plates held tightly against the carpet."

Rasp's face suddenly turned concrete grey. "Gnoll?" he called. "Could you double-harness those rune plates? Just to be on the safe side. Lots and lots of knots, if you please."

By now, the preparations were almost complete.

All eight of the runic plates had been tied to the bottom of the two carpets, and the refugees were testing their strength as best as they could without wasting precious ammo. Meanwhile, Woolwax was drilling the bombardiers once again, this time using launchers that Elphaba and Curter had modified; these adapted weapons fired with more accuracy and less recoil, and the ammunition that Elphaba had been able to magically enhance now exploded with more devastating results: during initial tests on the giant Nome's corpse, a full half of the monster's left arm had been blasted into powder by just one exploding shell.

They were also clear on the plan: from what Elphaba had been able to see through her crystal ball, the Nome Dominions were largely comprised of colossal mountains and vast plateaus, with all Nome settlements presumably hidden deep beneath the ground, which the crystal ball's ethereal eye could not penetrate. However, the surface was regularly patrolled by Nome warriors.

So, the plan was to enter the Dominions, open fire on any soldiers within range, and flee before they had the time to organize a counterattack; the next day, they would attack again with a similar strategy, but this time in a different region of Nome territory. If all went well, the refugees would continue this guerrilla warfare for as long as possible, using whatever weapons they could find (including magic) to attack the area and broadcast their demands, until the Nome leaders finally agreed to negotiate.

And oddly enough, there was a curious sense of optimism as the refugees went about their work, training, building, and modifying: Elphaba had actually seen a few of them smiling at her - before they'd realised what they were doing, of course. Nobody could quite fathom why they all seemed so happy: maybe it was the fact they had a developed plan to work to, maybe it was the fact that they were almost prepared for the ordeal ahead of them.

And maybe, just maybe, it was because they weren't really refugees anymore.

They were freedom fighters.

Guerrillas.

Or, as the official name still went, they were Bombardiers.

As the newly-christened freedom fighters slowly began clambering aboard the flying carpets, supplies and all, Elphaba couldn't help but grin with barely-concealed delight, for she'd just found herself at one of those impossibly rare moments in her life where the pessimistic voice in the back of her head had absolutely nothing to say; now, she felt only a mad and glorious sense of enthusiasm.

Soon, Fiyero and Glinda would be within their reach.

"Would anyone mind telling me just who the hell this Pinhead guy is?"

Fiyero knew that it wasn't likely that anyone would actually answer the question, and truth to be told, he wasn't sure he wanted to know just who was languishing in the cell next-door; in all likelihood, the answers would either be depressing, horrific, or just plain boring.

But by now, Fiyero had well and truly run out of things to do: he'd thought of every possible way he could escape, be rescued, or be executed; he'd imagined what he could have been doing today had the Nome King not invaded, including the things that involved Elphaba and a palace room with a permanent Do Not Disturb sign on the door; he'd forced himself to sleep, just long enough to stave off boredom for an hour or two; he'd hummed, he'd whistled, he'd sang, and he'd even made a few blatantly futile attempts to check for weak points in the walls and floor.

And now, with nothing left to do with his copious free time, he'd fallen back on the question of Pinhead's identity; and because he'd exhausted the answers to that particular question, he was now shouting it fruitlessly at the wall.

"Come on! How important is this guy supposed to be, anyway? Are you worried I might try to break him out if I knew who he was? I'm not exactly a security risk, in case you hadn't noticed; I can't kick down walls or erode solid rock with my voice… unfortunately. I mean, maybe Glinda could do something, but it's pretty obvious that I'm not her, and I don't have magical powers. You do understand that, right?"

Of course, nobody replied.

If anything, the Nomes had been even quieter of late; those of them who'd actually entered the cell had simply gone about their duties and left without saying a word. Of course, they'd mainly been there to inspect Fiyero's stitching and make necessary repairs, so at the time, he hadn't been in the mood to complain.

But with the silence stretching out so thin it would probably snap, Fiyero wouldn't rest until he got at least one word out of the Nome staff.

"Hello up there!" he bellowed cheerily. "I don't suppose anyone actually knows who my neighbour is? I'd ask him myself, but he hasn't said a word since I got here- very rude of him, I'm sure. Does anyone know who he is and what he did to earn a sentence down here?"

There was a five-second pause, and then, to his amazement, a familiar voice said, "You were shouting about Glinda a moment ago, Your Highness?"

Fiyero turned to see Basalt's face emerging from the wall, as blank and expressionless as ever.

"Nothing relevant to your job, I'm afraid," he said hesitantly.

"Apologies," Basalt intoned. "I was passing through the area and happened to hear you speaking. I will go, if I am not required-"

"Wait!" Fiyero exclaimed.

He wasn't sure why he was getting so worked up over this chance to get a simple answer out a Nome, and he wasn't sure why he thought Basalt would tell him anything, but he wasn't about to let the one chance for a conversation slip away.

Thankfully, Basalt dutifully reappeared in the wall, so Fiyero continued:

"I was trying to get the attention of someone who might know about the prisoner in the cell next-door to me; I heard the King call him "Pinhead" but other than that, I don't know anything about him."

"You are… curious?" Basalt hazarded.

"That's right."

Basalt nodded, as if in understanding. "I know little of the other prisoners here, if there are any, but I do have the right to inspect the cell. If you would excuse me for a moment…"

He turned on a non-existent heel and disappeared back into the wall.

A minute later, he reappeared, and it might have just been Fiyero's imagination, but the Nome's otherwise expressionless face looked ever so slightly confused.

"The prisoner is… not visible," the Nome announced hesitantly.

Fiyero laughed. "So, the cell's empty, and Pinhead wins the award for "Anticlimax of the Year." So how did he escape?"

"You misunderstand me, Your Highness: the prisoner is absent, along with the cell in which he was imprisoned. The marker for the cell still exists, and the room itself still exists according to the floor plan, but it is no longer physically accessible; when I attempted to enter, I was redirected to the next cell."

"O-kay then," said Fiyero, fighting the urge to let his jaw drop. "You're sure about that? You didn't just pass through a low ceiling on the way over or anything like that?"

"Positive: I attempted to enter the room four times, each approaching from different directions, and on each occasion, I bypassed it altogether. From little I was able to determine, several powerful magical spells have been cast around and on the cell itself."

"In other words, someone enchanted it out of reality - "someone" being the Nome King."

"The King would be the only Nome in the palace with the magical strength to do so, yes," Basalt concurred.

"So, in that case, why would he go to all this trouble to hide whatever he's keeping in that cell? Who or what could be so valuable that he's willing to shift it out of existence just to keep it hidden from other Nomes? I mean, it can't be just another prisoner, can it?"

The crews of the two flying carpets were silent by the time they'd reached the Deadly Desert.

Few among them had ever even glimpsed the lethal sand dunes, and Elphaba was the only one among them who'd ever been brave enough to venture across it and into the lands beyond Oz; as such, there was a curious mixture of fear and anticipation about them, a kind of pioneering spirit that hadn't been seen since before the Wizard had come to power.

Funnily enough, very few of the freedom fighters were especially worried about dissolving into sand, in spite of all the horror stories that they'd heard and told about the Deadly Desert. Maybe it was the growing sense of confidence that now seemed to surround them, or maybe it was just the fact that there were so many other things that could kill them on the horizon that the one directly beneath them didn't seem to matter.

Those of them that weren't too busy loading their weapons or piloting the carpets were discussing the Nomes: "They won't all have magic belts on them, right?" being the most-asked question, swiftly followed by "What do you suppose the Nomes actually want? Apart from taking over Oz and killing anything that looks at them funny, I mean."

Elphaba was quite naturally asking herself different questions: what had the Nomes been doing with Fiyero and Glinda while they'd been in captivity? What had they wanted them for in the first place?

And of course, what did they want with her?

But then again, it wouldn't be long before she might have the chance to ask these questions to the Nomes in person.

Up ahead, emerging from the dunes was a line of tiny, jagged rock formations, followed by another slightly larger row, and another after that. Each row of rocks was larger than the next, seemingly forming an embankment that sloped upwards into a seemingly endless plateau - a plateau that could only be the beginnings of Nome territory.

The towering, double-spired mountain far beyond just about confirmed the fact.

At the front of the lead carpet, Rasp was quivering in excitement - or terror; his expression lay somewhere between a grin and a hysterical rictus, and he was clutching his rocket launcher so tightly it looked as though he might leave dents in the outer casing.

Javelin was sitting next to him, muttering something in his ear; Elphaba caught a whisper of "look on the bright side, the worst they can do is kill us," before they both looked up to see her edging towards them.

"It might be time to get ready for battle," she called. "I saw Nome guards patrolling less than three hundred feet into that plateau."

"Really? Oh dear, and I here's me without my regulation brown rubber trousers."

"Would you relax? We'll be fine as long as we stick to the plan of attack: fly in-"

"- find a target, attack, leave a message, and get the hell out before someone kills us; I know the plan, I've been discussing it with you on and off for the past two hours of flight. I'm not scared, believe it or not; I just wish that I could stop myself from thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong."

"If it's any help, then you probably won't be thinking that when the fighting starts."

"True enough. I'll be too busy trying to force my intestines back down my throat."

He turned to the gaggle of people behind him. "Okay, ladies and gentlemen; we're almost there, so we need weapons out on the double, ready to fire on my order. Chop-chop, everybody!"

Over the clatter of weapons being readied, he turned to the neighbouring carpet and signalled.

There was a deafening roar of "LADIES AND GENTS, IT'S TIME TO KIIIIIIILL!" from Woolwax, and the crew immediately began loading their launchers.

"Here's hoping we don't have to go too far into the territories to find a patrol," Rasp muttered. "I'd rather not find out just how fast real Nomes can move."

Not for the first time that week, Border Guard Raggavom was on the verge of losing his temper.

Anger was perfectly normal for a guard and downright useful when appropriately directed; but with no fleshlings about, and with nothing else to do but listen to his underlings talk amongst themselves, Raggavom was at his wit's end.

He'd been perfectly happy with assigned job in the Upper Caverns Security Police, arresting renegades and removing undesirables from their positions, and enjoying the privileges of anger and pride that he accumulated with every promotion; he'd found it strange that so many of the offenders had been far more qualified for the work than the War Council-approved replacements, but otherwise, he'd had no complaints… up until last week, when a council representative had knocked on the door and told him that he was being reassigned.

The little coprolite had informed him that he was in "a key position to positively direct the thinking of an otherwise irreplaceable group leader" but that he was "regrettably unqualified to fill this role." As such, he would be "provided with suitable work in accordance with all known specialities and talents," which meant that he was given the job of a lieutenant in the border patrol and promptly frogmarched to the very edge of the Nome Dominions - specifically, the "area of least concern" edge, where nothing ever happened and nobody ever invaded- and given authority over a team of unprivileged Nomes who probably couldn't tell the difference between their fingers and their fists.

But in all honesty, it wouldn't have been so bad if he'd only been a sergeant.

After all, they didn't have to put up with boredom.

Lieutenants, intended to be always on the lookout for new assignments and new offenders, were given the privilege of boredom: with no new assignments and next to no offenders out here in the fringes, and nothing new to see above or belowground, Raggavom was on the brink of insanity.

And as recent as yesterday evening, someone in the upper echelons of Nome Society had made it their mission in life to drive him over the brink: every hour, orders would arrive by courier, directing his patrol further to the south - and the orders were always marked with the Royal Seal, so he had to obey, and when he did, he'd immediately receive a message from the local War Council representative demanding to know what the hell he was doing.

Around the time that his patrol came within five miles of the Deadly Desert, Raggavom was beginning to think that he'd be lucky to get through the week without hitting someone and losing what little rank he had left.

Then the corporal next to him exploded.

Wheeling around on the spot, he scanned the landscape for attackers, and found all three of them hovering in the sky a few hundred feet above him: two rectangle-shaped platforms, and a smaller, streamlined dart-shape. He'd barely enough time to recognise the blurry figures standing on the platforms as humans, before another explosion tore clean through his patrol, shattering two of the four remaining Nomes to gravel.

It's just one thing after another, isn't it?

Pausing only to cast the only spell he'd ever been taught - a signal to alert the nearest guardhouse of trouble - Raggavom dived beneath the earth without looking back, hoping against hope that the rest of his patrol would be too stupid to follow him.

As he sped off through the bedrock, he heard the muted roar of approaching Nomes, and looked up to see an entire platoon of warriors hurrying through the earth towards the surface.

Raggavom could tell that these weren't detachments from the guardhouse: no fringe base had warriors of this type in reserve, and even if there were a few squads of elites hidden away in his barracks, none of them would be here; it was far too soon for anyone to be responding to his signal. No, these Nomes had been waiting for something like this to happen.

But how'd they know those humans would attack the patrol? How could they have known that I'd be in the area when they-

The orders.

Every single order he'd received from the Palace had been redirecting him into the path of the invaders… as bait.

The reinforcements arrived less than ten seconds later.

The earth itself appeared to bubble and warp as dozens upon dozens of Nome soldiers began pouring out onto the plateau, quickly lining up in a formation too widely spread to be wiped out with a single rocket, a formation that neatly cut off any escape that the freedom fighters might attempt.

True, the Nomes might not be able to reach or outpace the carpets, but every single one of them was armed with a long silver spear, viciously barbed at the tip and almost incandescent with magic; doubly worrying, the soldiers were flanked by smaller Nomes almost weighed down with replacement spears. Even at this distance, Elphaba could clearly see that these already deadly-looking weapons had been built to explode the moment they came within inches of human flesh.

There was a long pause, as the warriors prepared to launch their spears, priming the enchantments and aiming carefully; they were counting on indecision and fear to keep their targets still - and it was working.

Eventually, a spokesperson from among the unit began demanding that the "human invaders" surrender immediately or die.

Far above them, Elphaba and Rasp exchanged glances.

"Do you think we'll make it through this?" Rasp asked quietly.

Elphaba offered her most reassuring smile. "Did you think we stood much of a chance in yesterday's fight?"

"In a word, no."

"But we survived that, and it wasn't because we fled or retreated, either. The odds we have to beat today aren't nearly as high- not while we're got those rune plates."

"Assuming they work against those damn spears." Rasp sighed. "In the event that we don't survive this, I'd just like to say that it's been a pleasure working with you, Elphaba."

"You too, Quintether."

There was an even longer silence, as the flow of demands from the Nome spokesperson finally ground to a halt.

Then, Rasp took a deep breath and bellowed, "FIRE AT WILL!"

As Elphaba kicked off and began accelerating towards the waiting ranks of Nome warriors, she saw the final millisecond before the bombardiers on both carpets opened fire play out as if in slow motion: she saw Rasp readying the fuse on a grenade, hands shaking almost uncontrollably; she saw Woolwax repeating the order to fire, his mouth open so wide that Elphaba could see his tonsils; she saw individual bombardiers yelling warcries of their own as their fingers clenched down on the triggers; she saw Brollan and Moleburr both changing course, obviously trying to keep the rune-plated base of the carpet angled towards the Nomes; and finally, she saw Javelin, clinging to the edge of the carpet with his teeth.

And then the bombardiers let fly.

If the spokesperson had anything to say about this, it was lost in the ear-pummelling boom that rang out across the plateau as the first salvo hit the Nome warriors head on. Whole sections of the regiment below simply vanished into sprays of gravel, or else were flung headlong across the battlefield by massed explosions, losing limbs and huge chunks of torso in the process.

As these particularly unlucky survivors began pulling themselves back together again, the Nomes which had escaped the blasts altogether now launched their spears as one: a hail of deadly missiles tore through the air towards the carpets, each spear exploding with bone-pulverising force.

Thankfully, Brollan and Moleburr had been quite adept at manoeuvring the carpets in the meantime, and most of the enemy's fire impacted upon their undercarriages: the shockwaves of exploding spears rocked and shook the carpets, almost bucking several of the crew out of their seats, but the magic of the rune plates shielded them from the worst of the attack.

Then, as the bombardiers hurried to reload and the Nome warriors began reaching for their next spears, Elphaba rocketed out of the blue at a speed that made the air burn, and with a wave of her hand, sent a wave of coruscating magical power sweeping into the few enemy formations who hadn't been hit by the opening salvo. In the cascade of vividly multi-coloured explosions that followed, Nomes caught in the blasts were utterly disintegrated, or else flung headlong across the battlefield with murderous force as the shockwaves of the explosions rippled outwards. Swooping away from the carnage, Elphaba let out an earsplitting shriek of triumphant laughter.

"Still worried, Governor?" she shouted, as the carpet swept past her.

"Not in the slightest!" Rasp yelled back: he was grinning compulsively by now, and readying to launch another grenade. "

BOMBARDIERS," he shouted at the top of his voice, "FIRE AGAIN! FOR THE SCARECROW! FOR GLINDA! AND FOR OZ!"

"FOR OZ!" the bombardiers roared back, and opened fire.

This time, the Nomes below were no longer interested in keeping formation, and many of the intended targets hastily retreated back into the earth before the rockets hit them; fortunately, this meant that the neighbouring soldiers took the brunt of the explosions, being either shattered to pieces or riddled with debilitating shrapnel. All the same, those who survived to return fire did so with a vengeance, flinging their spears two at a time, or hurrying to attack the carpets' undefended flank before either could re-manoeuvre; some even went so far as to take every single spear their attendants could hold, bundle them together and launch them at the carpets. Elphaba clearly saw the carpets buckling under the onslaught, and moving closer, she saw one Bombardier tumbling backwards with a scream as a jagged length of shrapnel ripped clean through his shoulder.

As she swooped down to provide covering fire, Elphaba realised with a jolt of shock that the barrier she'd set up to protect her from any incoming missiles hadn't actually intercepted anything yet; a quick glance in the Nomes' direction revealed that none of them were throwing spears at her. In fact, most of them weren't even looking at her. Even when her next spell tore through the ranks of soldiers, they still refused to fight back.

So, Elphaba thought, as she began ascending once more, either they can't see me - which doesn't seem terribly likely - or they've been ordered not to attack me. Fair enough; Eldrect said that the Nomes would want to capture me.

Question is, if these Nomes aren't going to try to capture me, then who is?

She was still thinking this when something that felt uncannily like a sledgehammer crashed into the back of her head, knocking her senseless.

The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was an aerial view of Brollan's carpet, rushing up to meet her.

"I can't believe you did that," said Rasp flatly.

"Don't look at me like that," Brollan grumbled. "The gazelle poked me in the back again; I accelerated by mistake, nothing deliberate about it."

"I did nothing of the sort, and you know it: you actually went out of your way to catch her!"

"Would the two of you stop making such a big deal out of it? Maybe I did catch her, maybe I didn't; let's just wake her up and try to figure out what to do next."

"Like moving, for example?"

There was a deathly pause, as the implications trickled into the brains of everyone on board; suddenly, the distant explosions and screams of pain sounded much closer than ever before. However, when Rasp finally plucked up the courage to look out across the plain, he realised that none of the assembled Nomes were attacking them; all of the spears they threw were aimed at Moleburr's carpet.

Very slowly, Rasp looked from the wildly shaking carpet to Elphaba's unconscious body, her broomstick still clutched in her left hand.

Then, he yelled as loudly as he could, "MOLEBURR! BACK TO FORMATION ALONGSIDE US, ASAP!"

It took several repeats, but eventually, Moleburr heard the shouting and pulled in alongside Rasp and the others; and as the carpet came within arm's reach of them, Rasp saw the Nomes in the distance lower their weapons.

"What the hell are they doing?" Woolwax hissed. "Why aren't they attacking?"

"Because they can't," said Rasp, a mad grinned etched on his face.

"What?"

"Do you remember what those crippled Nomes told us after the battle? They mentioned that the Nome leadership wanted Elphaba captured; as long as we keep her on one of the carpets, and as long as we keep both carpets as close together as possible, they can't return fire."

"So long as we all stay away from the edges of the carpet, you mean," said Curter airily. "Or they figure out a way to kill us without doing the same to Elphaba. Or… what was that?"

From far below them, someone was chanting the words of a spell; it wasn't an especially loud voice, but something about the incantation seemed to reach the ears of the bombardiers even from several hundred feet away. And as the casting seemed to reach a crescendo, a long, sinuous tentacle rocketed seemingly out of nowhere and wrapped thickly around Rasp's neck.

A scuffle broke out as the gaggle of refugees-turned-guerrillas tried to force the tentacle to let go, but to no avail: not only was the thing almost translucent, but it simply couldn't be touched; every hand that tried to prize it off Rasp's neck simply passed through the tentacle as if it were water.

And then, just as they were beginning to wonder if things couldn't possibly get any worse, the tentacle forked: another tentacle sprang from the side of the original and made a grab for Gnoll; it shot neatly around his midsection and began to slowly constrict. Then both tentacles forked: now there were four of them, the two new ones quickly seeking out new victims among the panicked crowd.

Curter found himself pinned to the carpet by the eighth of the multiplying tentacles, his chest and left arm being slowly crushed as the spell-creature continued working its way around his upper body, slamming his head hard against the reinforced surface of the carpet. By now, he knew that it was futile to fight back; the only way to stop this would be to wake Elphaba, but she was right in the middle of the carpet and well out of Curter's reach - and worse still, two tentacles were already gently lifting her into the air.

Well, he thought blearily, guess that leaves our revolution well and truly screwed.

However, as he lay there, head dangling over the edge and right arm weighed down with his launcher, something caught his eye.

It was the opposite end of the now sixteen-forked tentacle, reaching back towards the ground and becoming more and more transparent as it went.

It ended in the massive stone hands of a Nome; judging by the ominous supernatural glow and the fact that most of the army had stood back to let him work, this was obviously a Nome magician, much like the one that had attacked them yesterday had been before its transformation.

Curter looked from the distant figure of the sorcerer to the launcher that still dangled from his fingers, and realised that he was the only one on the two carpets in a position to fight back.

But could he hit the target from this distance, with his eyesight blurring and his lungs screaming for air?

Could he aim the launcher one-handed?

Could he fire it without recoil kicking it out of his hand?

Would a single shell be enough to kill the sorcerer, or break its hold on the crew?

Did he even have a shell prepared?

If the answer to any of those questions was "no," then he, Rasp, Woolwax, Gnoll, Javelin, and every single other bombardier on the carpets would be dead in the next minute; Elphaba would be captured and put to whatever grisly purpose the Nomes had wanted her for; the people of Oz would carry on suffering; and as for future resistance, something told Curter that any other rebel groups that might emerge after their deaths would have an even lower success rate.

Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained… or suffocated. Here's hoping the unnamed God's smiling on me…

Struggling for breath, Curter raised his launcher, took careful aim at the sorcerer below, braced himself for the pain, and fired.

The recoil was astonishing.

More than once in his short but colourful life, Curter had gotten bored enough to wonder what getting hit by a dud shell would feel like. Now, he had some idea: he felt as though he'd been thumped in the elbow with a steam hammer, hard enough to fold his arm backwards. This probably wasn't the case, but it was almost impossible to get a look at the results. Truth be told, all he knew at that moment was that he hadn't dropped the launcher.

On the downside, he'd probably never hold anything in his right hand ever again.

Caught between the crushing pressure against his ribcage and the fresh pain in his right arm, he barely even noticed the shell go streaking off into the distance. In fact, the first hint that he might have actually hit the target was that he could suddenly breathe again; lurching upright, wheezing and spluttering, he saw that the Nome magician was now lying on the ground, missing an arm and bellowing something presumably obscene.

The tentacles were still wrapped around the bombardiers, but they had loosened to the point that they were no longer actively throttling them; even better, the two that had been attempting to drag Elphaba away had dropped her, waking her up in the process.

"What's going on?" she gasped, sitting bolt upright.

Curter let out a yelp of pain as the tentacle coiling around his torso began tightening again, this time hard enough to make his ribs creak audibly. "This… really isn't the time for explanations," he choked.

"Then give me a quick outline so I can solve the problem before anyone dies!"

"Arrrgh… we've got a sorcerer below, he's choking us to death, I just shot his arm off, and I feel as though I've just been mule-kicked in the shoulder. Now please kill the son of a bitch before we all asphyxiate!"

"Y… you'd better get the message ready as well," Rasp panted. "I'd rather not stick around to see what happens afterwards."

"Fair enough…"

Down on the plateau, the Nome army barely had time to duck for cover as a blade of searing energy tore through the combat magician, heating his body so quickly and so devastatingly that rivulets of molten rock splattered the ground around them.

Then they all hid their eyes as a blinding flash of light erupted from the paralysed sorcerer, tearing him to pieces; for the next few seconds, the rest of the battlefield might as well have been invisible for all they were able to see of it, and by the time the light finally faded, the invaders had vanished without a trace…

… except, of course, for the message written in the sky:

THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

YOU WILL RELEASE THE PRISONERS YOU HAVE TAKEN, AND REMOVE YOUR TROOPS FROM OZ.

UNTIL YOU ARE PREPARED TO FULFIL THESE TERMS, WE WILL CONTINUE OUR ATTACKS.

OZ HAS NOT BEEN CONQUERED:

OZ WILL NEVER BE CONQUERED.

By the time Rasp and Curter had managed to explain what had happened while Elphaba had been unconscious, the Deadly Desert was just visible on the horizon.

Now that they knew that the only way to keep everyone safe from enemy fire was to keep Elphaba on-board with them, they'd kept the two carpets interlinked for the journey so far. As such, if there were any Nomes trying to follow them, they presumably wouldn't risk taking potshots at them; unfortunately, this also meant that the carpets had to move slowly and cautiously to avoid accidentally separating, meaning that dodging incoming fire was officially out of the question.

Elphaba sighed deeply, and winced as the lump on the back of her head made its presence felt again. "On the upside, at least there are still plenty of rune plates left back on the Nome corpse," she muttered. "We just need to figure out a way of mounting them on the carpet's flanks- some kind of scaffolding or something."

"What about creating a roof?" said Curter; he was still favouring his left arm, but at least he could move his right again. "It wouldn't surprise me if the Nomes figure out a way of attacking us from above the next time we attack."

"And it wouldn't surprise me if the Nomes decide to do that right now," Rasp deadpanned.

"And here I was, thinking you'd finally plucked up a bit of optimism."

"I am being optimistic; I'm just being very realistic as well. We're still in Nome territory, so we're not out of the woods just yet; all the planning can wait until we're safe and sure we aren't being spied on."

There was a pause.

"You know," he added brightly, "I think that first attack went quite well, don't you?"

Someone in the middle of the carpet let out a snort of laughter which gave way to a long, draw-out cackle of mirth. It took a while for Elphaba to realise that it was her - and that people were slowly joining in.

Brollan looked back at the chortling bombardiers, and shook his head. "Moleburr," he grumbled, "Sometimes I think you and I are the only people on this team who haven't gone stark raving mad or-"

Exactly what Brollan had intended to say next was lost in a teeth-rattling boom from up ahead, as a hundred-foot section of solid rock appeared to bend upwards as though it was on hinges, neatly blocking the carpet's escape in the process.

As Brollan and Moleburr struggled to bring the two interlinked vehicles to a halt and the bombardiers began scrambling for their weapons, the new rock formation began to grow, rising higher and higher with every second, until there was absolutely no question of what this thing was: it was a Nome, and it was by far the biggest that any of them had seen yet... and it hadn't appeared to have stopped growing yet; its massive arms were still taking shape, and already they looked as though they could easily swat the carpets out of the sky.

By the time the pilots had managed to reverse out of the thing's reach, it was five hundred feet tall, and approximately two hundred and fifty feet wide.

Its head, now tipped with three crown-like spires, had also gained enough definition for Elphaba to recognise a roughly human face amidst the crags and ledges that composed it: eyes, nose, a hint of a beard, and an eerily friendly-looking smile.

The enormous Nome cleared its throat with the sound of a thousand derailing trains, opened its colossal jaws, and said, "YOU WISHED TO NEGOTIATE?"

Rasp was the first of the Bombardiers to find his voice, and even then, he could only squeak "I beg your pardon?"

"YOU RECALL LEAVING A MESSAGE IN THE SKY ABOVE THE OUTSKIRTS OF MY KINGDOM? I WOULD HOPE SO, CONSIDERING YOU WROTE IT LESS THAN TEN MINUTES AGO."

"I…" Rasp swallowed. "I take it you're the King of the Nomes, then?"

"AT YOUR SERVICE. AND YOU ARE QUINTETHER RASP, ACTING GOVERNOR OF MUNCHKINLAND, YES?"

"Er, yes, that's correct…"

"AND THE WOMAN SITTING BEHIND YOU IS ELPHABA THROPP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST, YES?"

Elphaba glared up at the huge face overhead. "I'm hardly surprised that you know about us; we caught one of your spies in the act already, remember?"

"GUILTY AS CHARGED."

"Then what did you want with me? Everything I've seen and heard from your forces in the last few days suggests that you've been trying to capture me, so why? What do you want?"

"SURELY THAT CAN WAIT FOR LATER, CAN'T IT? AFTER ALL, THE ONES YOU TRAVEL WITH HAVE LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES OF THEIR OWN - SOME OF WHICH YOU YOURSELF SHARE. AFTER ALL, YOU ARE HERE FOR THE SCARECROW AND GLINDA."

"And for the restoration of Oz," Rasp added pointedly; Elphaba's defiance had obviously given his confidence another much-needed boost. "Those were the terms of our ultimatum, and unless you fulfil them, we will continue our attacks for as long as it takes for you to see reason and capitulate!"

The King chuckled, the sound reverberating hideously against the bombardier's eardrums.

"He's not joking, Your Majesty," Elphaba warned. "He and the others have been through hell and back over the last few days, and don't think they're not prepared to drag this out into the longest, bloodiest conflict you Nomes have ever seen."

"PATIENCE, ELPHABA. THESE OZIANS SHALL HAVE WHAT THEY WANT: THE KING, THE CHAMPION, AND THE FATE THAT THEIR HOMELAND SO RICHLY DESERVES. YOU, OF COURSE, SHALL BE REUNITED WITH YOUR LOVER AND YOUR DEAREST FRIEND… AND PERHAPS MUCH MORE…"

"I warn you, if you think we can't stand against-"

"NO, ON THE CONTRARY, I CAN SEE THAT YOU AND THE REFUGEES ARE WELL-EQUIPPED. YOU HAVE WEAPONS WHICH CAN HARM NOMES, DEFENCES STRONG ENOUGH TO WITHSTAND OUR ATTACKS, VEHICLES FAST ENOUGH TO OUTPACE PURSUERS, AND YOU EVEN HAVE A WAY OF KEEPING MY FORCES FROM ATTACKING YOU AT ALL. IN FACT, THE ONLY DISCERNABLE VULNERABILITY IS… WELL…"

"What?"

"OH, IT'S BARELY WORTH MENTIONING."

"What?"

"IF YOU MUST KNOW, THOSE RUNE PLATES THAT YOU LOOTED FROM OXEN MAKE THAT CARPET ALMOST INDESTRUCTABLE SO LONG AS THEY ARE HELD TIGHTLY AGAINST ITS SURFACE. NOW, WHEN HE WAS STILL ALIVE, OXEN BONDED THE PLATES TO BOTH HIS FLESH AND HIS SOUL WITH A MIXTURE OF CONCRETE AND SPELLCRAFT, ENSURING THAT THEY TRAVELLED WITH HIM REGARDLESS OF WHAT BODY HE ASSUMED. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, HAVE USED ROPES."

"What's your point?" Brollan shouted.

"I HATE TO BELABOUR THE OBVIOUS, BUT CONCRETE IS AS STONE: HARD, UNYIELDING, AND DIFFICULT TO DESTROY WITHOUT COMPREHENSIVE HAMMERING, EXPLOSIVES, OR MAGIC. ROPE, ON THE OTHER HAND, WELL… ISN'T."

Rasp and Elphaba were already screaming at the two pilots to get them moving again when the King made his move: with a single wave of his monumental hand, the ropes holding the rune plates to both carpets snapped with a nerve-shuddering crack, and in the next instant, several hundred pounds of enchanted metal went plummeting to the ground, leaving the carpets vulnerable.

"IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE MEETING YOU, GOVERNOR. FAREWELL."

The Nome King waved his hand again, and sent another wave of magical force scything through the very fabric of the carpets, ripping them to shreds.

And fourteen screaming bombardiers tumbled out of the sky.

"NOW," said the King pleasantly, "YOU WANTED TO KNOW WHY I WANTED TO CAPTURE Y-"

A small salvo of fireballs hammered into the King's face, blasting it to pieces and putting a merciful end to the conversation. Elphaba didn't wait around to see if the attack had actually killed him; having been spared the fall to the ground thanks to her broomstick, as the King had no doubt intended, she was already speeding towards the nearest of the plummeting Bombardiers.

She didn't know if she could save all of them, and she wasn't even sure how she was supposed to reach any of them in time...

...but she was going to give it her damnedest.

Chapter 23: Red Carpet Treatment

Summary:

Elphaba is formally welcomed to the Nome Kingdom and meets a familiar face or three among its residents...

Chapter Text

Out on the western border of Oz, the noonday sun glared mercilessly upon the encroaching dunes of the Deadly Desert.

Anywhere else in the country, under the sheltering canopy of trees, it might have been a pleasant day; here, there was no shade and no defence against the blazing sunlight - least of all the chicken coop that had appeared amidst the sands early that morning.

Scant hours ago, it had been a piece of waterlogged debris swept into a flood-bloated river and used as a makeshift raft by the only human in the area unlucky enough to be swept away as well. Then, the Nome King's portal had dragged it out of its reality and deposited it in Oz: now the chicken coop lay upright in a rapidly-evaporating pond of Kansas riverwater, within walking distance of the Ozian border.

Behind the crude wooden bars, Dorothy Gale lay fast asleep on the floor of the coop.

Next to her, a very confused hen clucked absently to herself.

And some distance away, Ozma's disembodied mind watched with no small measure of satisfaction.

She hadn't expected this last-minute improvisation to work, and carrying Bilina to the portal had almost drained all her reserves of energy, but it had been worth it to give Dorothy a weapon against the Nomes, even if it was only a psychological one.

After all, you couldn't expect chickens to lay eggs on demand, could you?

Two shredded carpets.

Fourteen people.

And nowhere near enough time to save all of them before they hit the ground.

Elphaba, still diving towards the tumbling bodies, spat a chain of expletives and tried to focus on her options: she could definitely catch a few of the falling bombardiers by hand; magic could ensure that others didn't hit the ground at lethal velocity, but she wouldn't have the time or the range to cast it on everyone; and while there were few people hanging on to pieces of the carpets that could still fly, they wouldn't stay in the air forever.

What approach would work best? If there was more than one, in what order would they work best? Should she magically cushion the fall of the bombardiers closest to the ground, and try to catch those furthest from it? Should she speed to the ground and try to catch the bombardiers about to hit the ground with one well-placed spell? Her mind was racing through every single possible alternative even as the nanoseconds ticked by; she even considered attempting to transfigure the ground into pillows, before realising that the spell was kept exclusively in the Grimmerie.

What, then? Try to put the carpet back together? No, not enough time. Could she give the bombardiers the power to fly? No- she always made a mess of that spell when she was in a hurry. Call a flock of birds to break the fall? Not a chance in hell of working. Teleport them to the-

Teleport!

Of course- Elphaba could teleport herself to them! She had a spell perfect for teleporting living beings, as well!

True, she was out of practice by about a year, and she wasn't able to travel very far under the spell's power, and it did produce a lot of excess heat, but it was definitely an instantaneous form of transportation- provided she didn't accidentally set her dress on fire this time. Of course, it wouldn't be enough on its own…

She gathered her concentration and then sent a quintet of spells arcing across the horizon: immediately, five of the closest refugees ground to an apparent halt in mid-air. In reality, they were still falling, only extremely slowly; it would probably take at least thirty to forty-five seconds for them to land. Hopefully, nobody would try to attack them in the meantime.

Elphaba turned to the remaining six people still falling and beyond the reach of her spell, then slammed her eyes shut, and began casting the teleport spell.

For a moment, she felt a sensation of intense heat gathering around her; then a sudden lurch of displacement; then…

BANG.

Apart from that initial jolt and the rush of heat, there was no sense that she had actually moved: one second, she was a hundred feet away from the nearest bombardier; the next, she was almost right above him, and diving closer and closer.

She took a deep breath…

…tried not to think about what would happen if she missed …

…put on an extra burst of speed…

… and with a wave of her hand and a flex of telekinetic magic, she snatched the falling Munchkin out of the air.

In between settling the man onto a rudimentary seat in front of her and trying to stop the man from panicking or falling to his death, she pointed the broom in the general direction of the next free-falling bombardier and began readying another teleport spell.

"Who are you?" screamed the freshly-rescued bombardier. "What just happened? Where am I? Where are we going? Why does everything smell of brimstone?"

"Shut up and hang on!"

BANG.

This time, she emerged right next to the target - Gnoll - so thankfully, there was no need to magically catch him.

Unfortunately, Gnoll was currently flapping his arms in a maddened last-ditch attempt to fly, and in no mood to be rescued.

"Take my hand!" she shouted.

Gnoll gibbered something about having almost caught the first thermal for a decent glide.

"TAKE MY HAND OR I'LL RIP YOUR ARMS OFF AND BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH THEM," Elphaba bellowed, as calmly as she could.

And no sooner had Gnoll obediently reached out and taken her hand…

BANG.

Quintether Rasp was beginning to wonder when his life was supposed to flash before his eyes.

After all, he'd already worked his way down the list of appropriate clichés so far without missing a single item on the agenda: he'd hung in the air a split second before falling, he'd screamed the longest possible expletive, he was now falling in a way that suggested that he was going to hit the ground face-first, and everything appeared to be moving in slow motion.

So, how soon would his childhood start replaying itself? Would it be during the next few seconds of his fall, or would it only happen at the very moment of death?

I'm going to die, Rasp thought absently.

Obvious, really, but why did it feel so impossible? After all, in the last few days, he'd had his fair share of near-death experiences, starting with that first panicky jog through the burning hallways of the capitol while Nomes tore through the foundations and hammered the old governor's body into mince. And what about that first meeting with Elphaba, back when he'd been content to think of her as "The Wicked Witch of the West"? He'd gone into that tent knowing full well that he might just end up getting charred to a crisp. So why, after so many narrow escapes, did death seem so unlikely now that it was less than forty feet away?

More importantly, would it hurt?

Would slamming facefirst into solid rock after a fall of several hundred feet hurt?

Would he even realise that he'd died before his relatives began ushering him into the light?

Maybe I should just stop thinking about this until I've actually kicked the bucket. On the other hand, he reflected, shutting his eyes against the wind, there's still plenty of time to worry about what'll happen to Oz after we're all dead and Elphaba's been captured. Speaking of which, where is she?

And then, just as he was trying to look behind him - or rather, above him - there was a thunderous explosion, and a broomstick-shaped comet slammed into his tumbling body at high speed.

"Aaaaargh!"

"Relax, it's only me!"

There was a pause, as Rasp finally stopped struggling and looked up at his rescuer. "Elphaba? How the hell did you get down here so quickly?"

"You'll find out in just a minute; now, brace yourself and try not to breathe in if you can help it!"

"Why-"

In the space of the next millisecond, the world around them disappeared behind a vaporous curtain of thick black smoke; Rasp had just enough time to catch a faint hint of sulphur about it, before he remembered Elphaba's warning and obediently shut his mouth as tightly as possible. Then, the temperature began to climb, the depths of the cloud of smoke becoming hotter and hotter until Rasp began to wonder if someone had lit a fire beneath them and was slowly roasting them to death; finally, there was a tremendous lurch that left Rasp's stomach hovering somewhere in his throat, and then-

BANG.

Far below the dissipating clouds of smoke, the Nome King watched the rescue attempt play out with no small amount of amusement.

He'd known that Elphaba would try to save the refugees, and he'd suspected that she'd take a minute to destroy or disable his body before doing so, but he hadn't been expecting her go so far as to physically catch individual refugees as they fell. Perhaps they'd been too far out of reach for a levitation spell; or perhaps, after Fiyero's accidental transformation, Elphaba didn't trust her powers at long range.

Whatever the case, it was something of a nuisance; had she tried to save them all from a distance with telekinesis or some form of gravity control, he could have simply grabbed her and put an end to this charade before it could drag on any longer.

On the other hand, rapid improvisation was becoming something of a trend this week, and this most recent setback looked to be the least taxing. All he had to do was sit back and wait for Elphaba to finish her rescue. While the King didn't doubt that the Witch could save most - if not all - of the refugees, she couldn't keep flying with four or five passengers weighing down the broomstick, and she'd have to land to retrieve those who were currently gliding to the ground.

And with Elphaba unwilling to abandon her allies, unable to devise another means of escape at short notice, and grounded on the very earth that he now inhabited…

"Turn, damn you, TURN!" a distant voice howled.

The King turned to see the last remaining piece of the first carpet, perhaps a thousand feet from the other refugees; it was now occupied and piloted by Brollan and Moleburr, and swerving violently as they tried to land without dying in the attempt.

Elphaba had noticed it as well and was hurriedly casting a spell of Slowed Descent on her passengers - before unceremoniously pushing them overboard; it didn't take much guessing to determine that she was lightening the broomstick so she could perform another mid-air rescue before the piece carpet crashed. As amusing as this spectacle was, it presented something of a problem: if Elphaba managed to actually save the pilots, there was a good chance she'd save the carpet piece as well, and if luck was on her side, maybe even restore it to full functionality.

There wouldn't be enough room for all of the refugees on it…

…but there might just be enough for Elphaba to cut her losses and flee the Nome Dominions with as many passengers that she and the piece of carpet could carry.

"Unacceptable," the King muttered to himself. "Simply unacceptable."

"Don't try manoeuvring anymore!" Elphaba shouted over the roar of the wind, her magically-amplified voice booming effortless across the sky. "Just hold still until I can get to you!"

She was about a hundred feet from the carpet-piece, which was now performing a serious of energetic loop-the-loops. Everything was going more-or-less to plan now, with the possible exception of holding a long-distance conference with Brollan.

"HOW THE MERRY HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO HOLD STILL WHEN THIS BATHROOM MAT IS TRYING TO BUCK US OFF?" the Gilikin entrepreneur howled.

"Remember the first test flight? I enchanted the thing so you can't fall off no matter what direction the carpet's facing; the spells should still work!"

"SHOULD? WE'RE HOLDING ON TO A SCRAP OF CARPET THAT CAN BARELY FLY ANYMORE! HOW DO WE KNOW THAT ENCHANTMENT EVEN WORKS ANYMORE? WHAT'S TO SAY WE WON'T FALL TO OUR DEATHS THE MOMENT WE STOP TRYING TO PILOT IT?"

"Then I'll catch you!"

"NO OFFENCE, WITCH, BUT HOW DO WE KNOW YOU'LL GET TO US IN TIME?"

"Trust me!"

Brollan's reply consisted mainly of swearing, followed by a muffled shout of "what the hell is that?" almost drowned out by a growing roar from below.

Elphaba looked down just in time to see a gargantuan stone hand emerging from the ground, holding a sizeable ball of flame.

She barely had enough time to yell "Start manoeuvring again!" before the hand tilted back and catapulted the fireball into the air, straight at the flailing carpet.

Once again, the attack wasn't intended to actually hit the target: all it needed to do was come within an appropriate blast radius and explode.

And explode it did.

The shockwave alone very nearly tore the already-tattered piece of carpet to shreds; the blinding flash of light and the gout of fire that followed didn't improve matters any. Fortunately, it wasn't enough to kill the two pilots, as they'd both been shielded by the carpet's ensorcelled undercarriage; unfortunately, it had been enough to send the piece of carpet on a blazing, uncontrollable dive towards the ground.

As she hurriedly traced the course of the carpet's descent, trying to determine if she would be able to reach them in time to perform some kind of rescue, Elphaba realised that they were on a collision course with the still-floating bombardiers.

Somewhere in the pit of her stomach, a small ice-age blossomed.

Elphaba, her mind racing through every single possible option she had on hand, took a deep breath, put her head down and all but flung herself towards the plunging carpet, half-flying half-teleporting her way through the air.

A little voice in the back of her head informed her that there would be no way of reaching them in time.

Elphaba politely told the voice to get stuffed, before starting another teleportation spell.

The world around her seemed to warp and twist out of shape with every teleport spell she cast, the heat from each successful teleportation climbing higher until she felt as though the broomstick was about to burst into flames. All the while, the voice of her own doubt refused to give her a moment's peace: they're already dead, it hissed poisonously, and you've only got yourself to blame. On and on it went, growing louder and louder until it was all that could be heard over the wind.

But, thank all that was sane, it fell silent as she emerged from the other end of her last teleportation spell and found herself within range of the falling carpet.

Scarcely pausing to take a breath, she reached out to it with all her power, ready to bring the speeding wreckage to a halt before it collided with the bombardiers; she felt it slow as her magical grip tightened...

"My apologies, Elphaba," said the Nome King's voice, apparently spoken directly into her left ear. "This may hurt a little."

… and then, something tore right through her metaphysical grasp.

The backlash was immediate and painful; it surged through her hands like electricity, burning the skin and searing the flesh as it went. It stopped at her wrists, thankfully, but Elphaba could tell that she was now the proud owner of a set of third-degree burns, and she wouldn't be holding anything in quite a while.

Then, she remembered what she'd been trying to do: cursing herself, she turned back to the sky below her, hoping against hope that she wasn't too late, that she might be able to try again - but no.

She could only watch in horror as the blazing carpet slammed head-on into the bombardiers, scattering them like ninepins.

There were screams of pain, desperate cries for help, and - audible even at this distance - the nauseating crack of shattering limbs; then, of course, the carpet finally hit the ground, only adding to the noise.

Heart pounding, Elphaba descended. This took much longer than it should have, given that she couldn't properly manoeuvre with her hands so badly burnt; by the time she had landed, the other bombardiers had finally returned to earth as well, so she hurried over to tend to the wounded.

It didn't take long to assess the casualties: three of the bombardiers were dead; two of them had suffered broken skulls and spines in the collision, and the other had actually caught fire and burned to death before she'd even landed.

Meanwhile, almost all of the surviving bombardiers had been injured in some way: Gnoll had a broken leg, Curter's ribs had been badly fractured, Javelin had snapped an antler, and Rasp looked as though there wasn't an inch of him that hadn't been bruised. The only one of them who'd apparently escaped unscathed was Woolwax, and that was probably because the crazed Munchkin was too stubborn to acknowledge that he'd been injured.

Less than ten feet away from the crowd of groaning bombardiers, Brollan and Molebur had hit the dirt. As Elphaba approached, she heard Brollan's voice - bleary and disoriented, but very much alive:

"That," he mumbled, "Was a doozy. How far do you suppose we just fell, Moleburr? Five hundred feet? A thousand? I mean, it had to be at least at thousand, right?"

There was a long pause, as Brollan waited for the reply.

"I mean, I don't even know how far we just went, but… Moleburr? What's wrong?"

Elphaba's heart sank.

Brollan was lying dazedly on the opposite side of the charred carpet, staring up at the sky, and thus couldn't see what Elphaba could, as she knelt down beside Moleburr's body.

"Moleburr?" said Brollan; this time, there was a flutter of panic in his voice. He repeated his desperate query one final time, before clambering awkwardly to his feet and staggering over to where his partner had fallen.

Moleburr had been flung several feet from the carpet on impact, and was now lying face-up in the dirt, holding a pose so relaxed he might as well have been asleep, had it not been for the expression of profound surprise frozen on his face, and the bevvy of injuries that had killed him.

He'd obviously landed very heavily on his chest, pulverizing his ribcage and sending shards of bone through his internal organs; puncture wounds dotting his torso also indicated that several ribs had also been thrust out of his body entirely. Diagnostic spells revealed that his limbs were also broken in several places, and his joints were so badly damaged that, had he survived, he would have been incapable of moving his arms and legs for the rest of his life without prosthetic assistance. Thankfully, in all likelihood, Moleburr hadn't felt any of these injuries; at some early point between the carpet impacting the ground and his body finally tumbling to a halt, his neck had snapped very cleanly in two.

Brollan went very pale. "Oh no no no no no no no no…" he whimpered. "No, no, this isn't how it's supposed to be, this isn't how it's supposed to be…"

He turned to Elphaba, the old sneering tone completely absent from his voice. "You - you can help him, can't you? He's going to be fine, right? There's gotta be some spell that can heal him-"

She held up a silencing hand. "Brollan," she said as gently as she could, "He's dead; there's no spell I know of that can possibly heal him. I'm sorry, I really am-"

"But… but… he's- he's- he can't… He's not supposed to die!" the Gilikin shrieked, his voice on the edge of hysteria. "He's not supposed to get hurt! He's the sensible one! He's the smart one! Bad things aren't supposed to happen to him!"

Elphaba had been prepared for him to blame her; she'd been ready for the bitter recriminations and the pointed fingers and the demands of "where the hell were you?" and perhaps even the accusation that she'd planned the whole thing from the moment they'd entered Nome Territory.

What she hadn't been expecting Brollan to do was start crying.

This was something she honestly had no idea how to deal with: never in her entire life had she been given the task of comforting someone in Brollan's situation. The nearest equivalent had been her final conversation with Glinda - and that had been a prelude to an outright lie on her part, she remembered with a fresh thrill of guilt. Elphaba hadn't the slightest clue how to comfort someone who had experienced genuine loss, and worse still, she couldn't bring herself to tell Brollan to buck up and get moving, even though their chances of improvising some kind of transport and escaping the plateau were dwindling with infuriating rapidity.

And then, with the other bombardiers hurrying over to see what was wrong and Brollan sobbing inconsolably into his dead friend's shoulder, Elphaba felt the ground beneath her tremble, and realised - as a decidedly long shadow began gently rolling over them - that it was already too late.

Two stone hands were emerging from the ground, at least as high as the walls of the Emerald City, and wide enough to enclose the entire crash site... and as Elphaba watched in horror, the two massive hands did exactly that, closing in on the group as two massive curving walls - either to imprison the bombardiers or to crush them right then and there.

Naturally, the refugees began fleeing as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, most of them were too far away from the hands to reach any gaps between them before they sealed shut; others were slowed down by injuries they'd sustained in the crash.

Only Elphaba remained still as the chaos played out around her; after all there was very little she could do, what with her broom lying among the dead bombardiers and next to no idea of what she would do if she could reach it in time. After all, could really just run and leave the others to a horrible death, or worse? And more to the point, how would she even escape? With her hands still badly burned, she couldn't even steer properly, and there was no telling if she could even get off the ground without the Nome King shooting her down again.

As for using magic, trying to blast a hole through the walls looked unlikely, especially given how fast the King had healed his "injuries." And on top of all that, she was just so tired…

In the end, she could only stand and marvel at how badly things had gone, suspecting that she'd known all along that this debacle - from being "captured" by the refugees to leading them on this wild attempt at a rebellion - would go horribly wrong. In the end, she was so immersed in her reverie that she barely noticed Javelin frantically tugging on her sleeve with his teeth, trying to get her to move.

Eventually, he gave up, leapt nimbly across the plateau and through one of the last remaining gaps between the closing hands.

Brollan, on the other hand, had been one of the first to get moving, and ironically, he was the only other member of the troop apart from Javelin to escape. As soon as he'd seen the hands descending upon them, he'd grabbed Moleburr's corpse and began dragging it away, barely managing to hurry out of the right hand's grasp just as it came crashing down on the spot he'd been ambling across a moment ago.

Far above the hands, the King's face emerged, seemingly much larger and more imposing from the perspective of the grounded bombardiers; curiously enough, it also seemed more expressive than before, and Elphaba found this all the more disturbing. Before the crash, when the King had been at an appreciable distance from them and his face had been distorted with shadows, he'd seemed accommodating and diplomatic in every way, but that was all that could be discerned of his expression or emotions: now that they were trapped below him and straining their necks just to make eye contact, the details of his features were thrown into sharp relief, and Elphaba found herself struck by the grisly look of satisfaction on his face.

It wasn't that he looked smug or even particularly proud; if anything, he just looked relaxed to the point of laziness. Staring up into that smiling countenance, Elphaba found herself thinking back to old Unionist oil paintings of casinos, brothels and other "dens of vice and squalor": though most of the patrons had been made to seem vaguely unhappy in some way or another, there was always one dignified-looking customer sitting in the back, fresh from having availed himself to the "merchandise" and sporting the exact same look of indolent delight that the Nome King now wore.

"Well, you've won," she said grimly. "I hope you're happy."

"Not exactly; I'm playing a much longer game by far. However," and here, the King addressed Rasp, "I am prepared to treat this attack leniently - on two conditions."

"And what conditions are those, exactly?" Rasp said wearily.

"You leave the Nome Dominions immediately, never to return; I will provide transportation, but you must leave Elphaba behind. As you probably already know, I have business with her - business that has waited far too long already."

"So you want us to go back to what's left of our homes and die of malnutrition or exposure or Oz only knows what could happen-"

"And leave Elphaba to whatever tortures you've been planning?" added Curter.

"While you live the high life on everything you stole from Oz?" Elphaba chimed in.

"And while you keep Glinda and the King of Oz locked away?" Woolwax bellowed.

Rasp coughed loudly. "I think we've made the point abundantly clear; the deal - if you can call it that- is just a little too lopsided for us to agree to."

"Whoever said that Oz would stay ruined and desolate forever? More to the point, who said that my prisoners would remain incarcerated for life? I certainly didn't. In fact, the work I have for Elphaba concerns the first of these concerns; she will be helping to provide a future for the Land of Oz… and much, much more."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That, my dear Governor, would be spoiling the surprise. The important thing is that I'm offering you a choice of how you can spend the last days before everything changes: you can spend it in Oz, alongside your friends and loved ones, with all the necessary supplies I can grant you… or you can spend it alone and imprisoned for crimes against the Nome Dominions." The King paused for effect. "What do you think?"

"You haven't exactly given us much reason to trust you."

"True. But then again, the same could be said of you and you might want to put that down, Curter."

The launcher clattered noisily to the ground.

"Thank you. Anyway, as I was saying, the same could be said of you and your constituents, Governor; after all, it's not as if all you're willing to give up so soon, is it?"

"Well, yes. But we've got twice as much to lose, in case you haven't noticed: if we betray you, the worst you'll get out of it are a few craters, and we might just escape; if you betray us, we're dead. More to the point, we don't even know what you're going to do to Elphaba. I think we're going to need a bit more than just your word for this bargain to work out."

"In that case…"

Overhead, the King's cliff-like brow furrowed with effort: hundreds of feet below, a massive hole appeared in the ground at the bombardiers' feet, growing steadily deeper by the second. As it continued deepening, Elphaba could see stairs forming in the wall of the pit, slowly leading off into the dark caverns below.

"This tunnel goes as far as the Governor's Mansion," said the King. "You'll find the promised supplies at the bottom of those stairs: food, water, medicine, everything you'll need for the next week or so. You'll also find automatic transportation that will carry you to the opposite end of the tunnel, which will close as soon as you've reached the mansion. Other than that, the only thing I can suggest is that you avoid walking."

After some prodding from Rasp, Gnoll hobbled down the stairs to check that everything promised had been provided; minutes later, he limped back up, reporting that four crates of provisions were waiting at the bottom, along with a "trackless tram car."

"I have upheld my end of the bargain, Governor. Now, you must uphold yours."

"But we can't just leave Elphaba here, she's-"

"Yes, you can," said Elphaba softly.

"Have you gone completely mad?" Rasp exploded. "With the carpets wrecked and the explosives gone, we don't stand a chance of winning without you!"

"We've already lost, Rasp. If you keep fighting now, you'll all die."

"Are you seriously thinking of trusting this bastard?"

Elphaba laughed mirthlessly. "In a word, no: there's a good chance that he'll just cave in the tunnel and crush you all to death. But if you try and fight him, he really will kill you."

"But what about you? There's no telling what he'll-"

"Just go, Rasp. Please. Try and eke out some kind of life back in Oz, rebuild the country if you like. You're the Governor, after all. Just don't waste your life on a lost cause."

For a moment, Rasp looked as though he might argue. Then, he seemed to sag. "Alright," he sighed. "Come on, everyone. We're going."

"I'm not!" shouted an indignant voice.

As the King's eyes focussed on the commotion, Elphaba turned to see that it was none other than Woolwax who'd spoken. "I'm not leaving before I've done my duty to the King and Glinda the Good!" he barked. "You can lock me up if you don't like it-"

"How very observant of you," said the King, dryly.

"-but I'm not leaving!"

"How very true."

There was a loud metallic thud, and when the dust cleared, Woolwax found himself looking out at the world through the barred window of an iron cage.

"I honestly can't tell if you're loyal beyond all rationality, or if you just want to meet your idol, but I can certainly say that you'll be in the same boat as her from now on."

The King's smile vanished, and he leaned forward to study the faces of the other bombardiers, producing a small earthquake in the process. "Any further takers?"

Silence followed.

"Then it's time to go. You may say goodbye to my newest guests before you leave, if you wish."

There was a long and decidedly awkward pause as the bombardiers exchanged farewells with the "guests." Elphaba noted with some amusement that Woolwax got the lion's share of goodbyes; in fact, there were only three people who could even look her in the face, let alone speak to her: Rasp, Gnoll, and Curter. One by one, they began filing towards the staircase.

Then Curter, who'd been the last to say his goodbyes, said something that made her heart stop:

"Do you remember how you asked if there was anyone waiting for me?" he said quietly; he was holding something behind his back, something that looked suspiciously like a grenade. "Well, this should make the answer pretty obvious."

And before she could stop him, he turned and threw the grenade as hard as he could at the Nome King's face. With the King leaning in as close as possible and obviously too big and cumbersome to move out of the blast range, it caught him square in the jaw.

Over the explosion, Curter shouted, "Run, Elphaba!" and readied another grenade.

Elphaba had barely gone ten steps before another iron cage appeared around her, cutting off her escape.

As she struggled to free herself, she saw that Curter's attempt at taking another chunk out of the King's face had failed: he was now fifteen feet above the ground and rising, dragged skyward by a powerful telekinetic grip, struggling furiously all the way.

But if Curter was furious, the King was beyond enraged: the look of slothful pleasantry was gone, replaced by an almost bestial snarl.

"How many times does it take before you learn that that approach… simply… doesn't… WORK?" he roared. "Or are you actively taking delight in wasting my precious time? You shoot Elphaba from the skies, delaying her arrival by days; you give these Ozians the weapons to become a full-fledged resistance group, dragging out the time I have to wait even further; and now you complicate what should have been over in SECONDS! Do you really think I wouldn't have been able to intercept your friend before she even came close to escaping? Do you think the tunnel would have stayed open without my permission? WHY ARE YOU WASTING MY TIME?"

Curter couldn't answer; the King had stopped levitating him, and was now shaking him violently in mid-air, swinging him to and fro so quickly and so violently that it seemed a miracle his neck hadn't snapped yet.

"ARE YOU THAT DESPERATE TO BE WITH YOUR GOD, CURTER? DO YOU WANT A MARTYR'S DEATH? BECAUSE I CAN GIVE IT TO YOU! I CAN GIVE YOU A DEATH YOUR EMPTY GOD WOULD LOVE YOU FOR!"

Elphaba didn't even bother to wait for the first scream to ring out; she flung every bit of destructive magic she could at the King, anything to distract him long enough to heal Curter and teleport him as far away as she could without accidentally turning him inside out.

And then everything went wrong: the attempted barrage of magic fizzled disappointingly and collapsed; the bone-kitting spell was reduced to a long and increasingly frustrating chant with no results whatsoever; and as for the spell that could have freed Curter from the King's grasp, a vague sense of dislocation was about the only effect that Elphaba could discern.

Somehow, the Nome King had disabled her powers.

Meanwhile, Curter was no longer being telekinetically shaken and flung about; now, he was hovering twenty feet off the ground, screaming. His skin was beginning to bubble and run like hot candlewax as the very air around him burned, slowly cooking him alive; before the horrified eyes of the onlookers, his hair and clothes caught fire, reducing him to a blazing silhouette of rags and molten flesh.

Over the screams and sounds of people vomiting in horror and disgust, Elphaba discerned the familiar click of a shell being prepared, and turned to see Rasp holding Curter's launcher, about to fire at the King in a desperate and now-futile attempt to save the artilleryman's life.

"Rasp, NO!" she screamed.

Too late.

A solid wall of telekinetic force hammered into Rasp, sending him flying; he soared for about twenty feet, slammed into the wall with a nauseating crunch of bones, and toppled to the ground.

He didn't move.

Fifty seconds later, the charred remains of Curter's body slumped to a halt next to him.

There was a deathly silence, broken only by the hurricane-like sound of the Nome King breathing heavily; finally, the rage left the King's face, and he looked down at the two mangled bodies on the ground below.

"I apologise for that outburst," he said quietly. "I was not intending to kill any more of you, least of all in this manner."

He sighed. "It would seem that my temper was not the only casualty from the… never mind. You may go now; I will return the bodies to you for burial if you wish. And," he added brightly, "as for you, my latest guests…"

The last thing Elphaba saw before she lost consciousness was the remaining bombardiers beginning the slow march towards the tunnel entrance; what little defiance that had remained in their stance was gone.

The revolution was dead.

Half an hour later, the spymaster emerged from the rock wall of the King's audience chamber, his wolfish grin wider than ever before.

"Your Majesty!" he exclaimed. "She has returned to Oz!"

The King smiled. "Good, good," he purred. "Keep an eye on her."

At long last, the final pieces were slowly falling into place: Dorothy Gale was back in Oz, soon to be taken and prepared for her part in the ritual; Elphaba was in captivity, able- in not yet willing- to use the Grimmerie if the ritual failed; Glinda was making headway in the translation of the Grimmerie if Elphaba refused.

Oh yes, it was almost ready…

He noticed that the spymaster was still hovering in the wall nearby; close examination revealed that his face had shifted into a frown of agitation.

"Well, what's the matter? What is it?"

"She has a…" The spymaster's face contorted with disgust and horror. "… a… chicken with her!"

"A CHICKEN?"

After what felt like a small eternity, Elphaba awoke to find herself almost lost amidst a small ocean of blankets and pillows.

She lay there for a time, happy to be sleeping in a bed that wasn't infested with fleas or mattressed with rocks; then, the events that had led her to this place hurtled back into her mind, and she sat bolt upright.

Immediately, she noticed that though she was still fully clothed (minus her cloak, hat, and shoes) one of her captors had healed the burns on her hands. Also, though her powers were still effectively shackled, they'd loosened just enough to allow her a few basic non-combat spells.

With this oddly courteous touch in mind, she examined the room with the aid of the brightest light she could conjure. With handheld illumination cutting neatly through the dim light, she could clearly see the smooth, unadorned stone walls that surrounded her. The only door in the entire room led to a bathroom that looked as though it had been stolen from the Emerald City, tile by tile. In spite of this noticeable lack of exits, the room was too large for it to feel claustrophobic, and apart from the bed, the only furniture in sight was a desk, a chair, and an elaborate hand-woven rug, all of which were almost certainly looted from Ozian territory.

A closer look revealed that her cloak and hat were now hanging from the chair, her shoes sitting on the floor beside it.

However, her bag and broom were nowhere in sight; in all likelihood, they'd been left out on the plateau.

They're obviously not stupid enough to give me anything magical to work with, she thought. And whatever they want from me, they obviously aren't prepared to get it by torture… unless of course, this is solitary confinement. A bit too well-appointed for that, though. Maybe this is meant to be some kind of psychological experiment, and they're watching me to see how I react to long-term imprisonment. Are they watching me? Or listening?

She scanned the room for Nome faces, listening for sounds of whispering or movement in the walls.

Finding nothing, Elphaba gingerly slipped out of bed… and the moment her feet touched the ground, a familiar voice whispered "Sleep well?"

Elphaba glanced upwards, and saw the Nome King's face, now almost human sized, peering down from the ceiling.

Immediately, she felt her anger give a fresh surge of energy: after all, this… being, this creature, whatever he was… was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, had laid waste to Oz, had kidnapped Glinda and Fiyero, had murdered Curter and Rasp without a second thought… and now she was face to face with him and she couldn't even kill him for what he'd done. She briefly considered shouting her various demands at him, but eventually decided against it; simmering resentment would work just as well for getting the message across.

Besides, she was still far too tired to get really angry.

"Quite well, if you must know," she replied icily. "Can all Nomes spy on the prisoners, or is that privilege reserved for you?"

The King smirked. "I can honestly say that you don't want to know just yet."

"And while we're on the subject of what I want to know, what have you done with Woolwax? Where have you imprisoned Fiyero and Glinda?"

"The three of them are quite safe here in the palace, I assure you. In fact, you can see them now, if you so desire."

"You'd allow that?"

"Of course; you're one of my honoured guests, not a prisoner."

Elphaba rolled her eyes. "And I'd imagine most of your guests aren't allowed to leave the palace, either."

"Sad but true. The restriction is for your own safety, however; my enemies outside the palace would be very quick to try and kill you if they were to learn of your presence - or my reasons for keeping you here."

"Is that right?"

"Oh yes. In fact, when one of them discovered Glinda's part in my plan, they actually tried to assassinate her."

Elphaba was about to ask what Glinda's part in this plan was and what the plan was in the first place, when the words "tried to assassinate" took her by surprise; she was immediately struck by a small avalanche of questions regarding how badly Glinda had been hurt, what her current condition was, and how long it would take to find and kill the assassin if he wasn't already dead. Just as she was about ask one of these questions, logic pushed an override key somewhere in her brain and politely reminded her that she had, in fact, just been told that Glinda was working for the Nome King.

In the end, Elphaba could only mumble, "What?"

"Now you know why I was so upset at Curter wasting my time. You can relax, though; she wasn't hurt."

"First of all, I'll expect proof of that. Secondly, why would Glinda work for you,of all people? What did you offer her?"

"Simple: I offered her the chance to undo your death. I promised to send her to that day when you first declared yourself an enemy of the Wizard, and join you as a fellow defector."

Elphaba felt her stomach lurch with guilt and horror as the ramifications slowly began tumbling into her mind. Had her faked death been so devastating to Glinda that she'd been willing to accept a deal from the man who'd captured her and destroyed Oz? Of course it had! And what of the months leading up to the invasion? She'd been forced to tell the world just how terrible Elphaba had been, to lie again and again and again, with nobody to confide to, nobody to truly sympathize with her, and nothing to validate her loyalty but a few law reforms and a shrine that she had to keep hidden from the rest of the world, and all the while, she'd been trying to abide by the last wishes of a friend who had effectively abandoned her. Why wouldn't Glinda want to undo everything that had led up to her predicament?

In that moment, Elphaba loathed herself more than she ever had in her entire life.

Eventually, she asked, "And why would Glinda even believe you?"

"Perhaps you can ask her yourself; as I said, you're free to see her and the others right now if you wish."

The King waved a hand, and the wall in front of Elphaba seemed to erode before her eyes, revealing a long, shadowy corridor lined with glowing gemstones; close examination under better lighting showed that the receding wall was actually being drawn aside like a curtain by hundreds of minuscule stone hands. Was this a spell? Was the wall just an extension of the King's body? Or were these individual Nomes at work?

A more important question occurred, and Elphaba voiced it:

"Why are you spending so much time on me instead of just getting down to business? I mean, I seem to recall you murdering two people for apparently wasting your time." Her throat tightened as she remembered Curter's final screams of agony, followed by the smell of roasting meat and burning hair, and the sound of Rasp's bones splintering. "I mean, how is this any different?"

The King had the decency to look at least partly embarrassed. "I very much doubt explaining it will improve matters, but consider that the delay Curter originally caused was half a week in length, and it almost got Glinda killed - twice. This delay can last an hour at the most… and I can imagine you can keep the casualties to a minimum."

"Go to hell."

"I'm sure that can wait until later. Shall we be on our way, then? Perhaps we should pay a visit to Woolwax first; he should be quite lucid now that the sedatives have worn off…"

Rasp's return to consciousness was slow and exceptionally painful.

Along with the injuries that were making their presence known as agonizingly as possible, he was also aware of a myriad of unpleasant sensations from all around him: the smell of charred flesh, the heat of the midday sun beating down on his head, and the distant rumble of Nomes moving around him.

His eyes shot open, and he was immediately dazzled by the sunlight.

The walls of the Nome King's hands were gone, along with the King himself, both of which had presumably retreated into the earth. Thankfully, there were no Nomes in sight.

He tried to sit up and was immediately greeted by a screaming pain in his back, left arm, and legs; for good measure, he failed to move any further than ten inches before slumping backwards into the dirt with a grunt.

He glanced down at his left arm and realised there was a good-sized shard of bone protruding from just above his left armpit.

Groaning in pain and disgust, Rasp turned his attention to his legs: he could see that the left one was broken and currently useless, but he couldn't pull up his right trouser leg to look at the damage; not only was it virtually glued down with fresh blood, but it had also been pierced from beneath by several jagged bone-shards.

Rasp turned over, sending a fresh jolt of pain through his fractured ribcage, and threw up.

Once he was certain that wasn't any blood there, he took a moment to get his breath back and looked around for any kind of assistance; he found only a long stretch of bare plateau.

"Oh… shit…" he gurgled.

Except of course for Curter's smouldering body, Rasp was alone. He was injured so badly he couldn't even walk upright; his mouth was dryer than one of the old governor's speeches, the sun wasn't showing any sign of relenting any time soon; there were no towns or other settlements in crawling distance; and, on top of everything else, he was still in Nome territory.

Prognosis: he was dead.

Unless…

The tunnel!

Turning himself around with his right arm, he saw that the massive hole in the ground was still there; laughing hoarsely, he began clawing his way across the plateau towards the tunnel entrance, barely noticing the distance or the jabs of pain in his chest. Unfortunately, he also failed to notice that the stairs that should have been visible from just a few feet away were gone.

By the time he was close enough to look again, he'd already fallen in.

As it happened, the steps were slowly folding away into a ramp, which Rasp immediately began sliding helplessly down. Thankfully, he landed on his right leg, which was rapidly going numb.

Not so thankfully, a quick look around revealed that while he'd been unconscious, the other bombardiers had taken what transport and supplies there were and left. Worse still, he found a good reason for the stairs disappearing; the hole above him was rapidly shutting.

On the upside, he was out of the sun.

On the downside, he was still horribly injured, still thirsty, still out of reach of any settlements, still in Nome Territory, and now he would have to travel in stygian darkness. For good measure, the Nomes now stood a good chance of finding and killing him now that he was underground, and there was a good chance that the other end of the tunnel would have already closed by now, leaving him to suffocate when the air finally ran out.

Oh well, he thought. I'd better get moving…

The meeting with Woolwax didn't go entirely as planned.

As it happened, the crazy Munchkin had spent half of his first hour protesting his imprisonment by a bunch of "lying backstabbing murdering stone bastards", and the other half trying to punch his way through the wall of his cell with his bare hands. Eventually, he had to be restrained, then straightjacketed, and then sedated when his temper tantrum showed no signs of abating. According to the Nome attendant, around the time they'd finally given him a dose sufficient to knock him out, he'd been trying to chew his way through the wall.

So, the meeting had been cancelled, and now Elphaba was being escorted to Fiyero's cell. In spite of her concern, she was secretly relieved at this little detour; there was a very good chance Woolwax might have taken her presence, unrestrained and escorted by the Nome King, as a sign that she was now working for the enemy. The last thing she wanted now, of all times, was to have another enemy when she was pretty much surrounded by them.

In any event, the journey to Fiyero's current residence led them even deeper into the palace dungeons, where the lights on the corridor walls grew so faint that the King eventually had to conjure a light of his own. As they walked, Elphaba wondered at how Fiyero had been treated while he'd been here; unfortunately, this began leading towards thoughts of how badly he might have been treated. After all, the last time the Nomes had been in close proximity to an Ozian ruler, he'd exploited them for all they were worth and more; who could guess at what frustrations they'd have been able to take out on him?

By the time they reached the cell door (which turned out to be a blank wall with a number embossed above it), Elphaba's stomach was churning with nerves: what condition would Fiyero be in when she found him? Would he intact? Would he even be capable of speech? What if the King had actually found some way of killing him?

As she went on silently fretting, the door was slowly drawn aside: unlike her own luxurious "quarters," this cell was little more than a cavern; bare walls, no furniture, and so little lighting that there was no way of telling if the room was occupied, except for a confused mumbling noise from the corner.

Then the Nome King shone his torch into the shadows, and at last, she saw Fiyero sitting in the corner, peering past the blinding light directed at him.

For a moment, they stared at each other, clearly not entirely sure if either of them were real.

Elphaba was the first to react, hurrying over and hugging Fiyero tightly around the shoulders. "You have no idea how much I missed you!" she exclaimed breathlessly, kissing him fiercely on his burlap lips.

"I might have some idea," Fiyero laughed giddily, in between kisses. "How did you get down here, Elphaba?"

There was a pause, as the two of them glanced back at the Nome King, who was still standing in the doorway, and Fiyero's overjoyed expression gently collapsed.

"Oh," he said, evidently crestfallen.

"Your sweetheart made quite an entrance," said the King. "She actually led a halfway-decent resistance movement into the Dominions and killed an entire regiment of my soldiers, before being captured. I can see why you fell in love with her, Your Highness."

"A res…. You led troops into Nome Territory?"

"Pretty much, and I failed miserably," Elphaba sighed bitterly. "Shame too; I think we were actually getting a fairly successful guerrilla war underway before the Royal Irritation here caught us."

"I take it Roquat's been pawning off some of his so-called charms on you. He never shuts up, does he?"

(Here, the King rolled his eyes with a sound not unlike a pestle being ground inside a mortar.)

"Tell me about it." A hint of the old anxiety returned to Elphaba, and she asked, "How have you been treated here? You haven't been hurt, have you?"

"Apart from being subjected to the King's endless monologues, no. What about you? What have you been up to in the last few days?"

Elphaba quickly explained. It took about ten minutes, and Fiyero spent most of it looking utterly astonished. Once she'd finished, he shook his head in amazement, and said, "You are unbelievable, you know that? You really are the most extraordinary person I've ever met in my entire life."

"Not extraordinary enough to actually succeed in rescuing you," said Elphaba bitterly.

"Don't lose heart yet; I think there might be…"

Fiyero glanced over at the King, who was currently giving every impression of not listening.

"There's another prisoner here," he whispered, almost inaudibly. "The King calls him "Pinhead," and nobody I've asked knows who or even what he is, but he's obviously important; the King's cut him off from the rest of the world. Even Nomes can't enter his cell. It's a very, very long shot, but Pinhead might just be the key to stopping the King."

"Why? Do you think he'll be able to kill the King or something?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I was thinking that he must be really valuable to the King if he's willing to hide him out of reality just to keep him hidden; maybe you can take him hostage."

"It's a long shot, like you say… but it's all we've got."

Fiyero bit his lip. "I think your chaperone's getting curious. You'd better go, Elphaba."

"But I can't just leave you here! I might not have access to most of my powers now, but whatever he's using to suppress them is probably a concentration-based technique; if you come with me, I might just be able to distract the King long enough to get some more magic back and teleport you out of here-"

"Elphaba, there's nowhere safe outside; the Nomes will find me even if you send me all the way back to Oz, and they'll probably punish you for trying to help me escape. I'll be safe here, Elphaba; so far, they've only used me as bait."

"But if you stay here, he'll use you to make me cooperate!"

"Then he's got a hard job ahead of him; he can't actually kill me, he can't make me feel pain, and you won't give in, will you?"

Elphaba sighed deeply; she wanted to argue with him, to scream and protest until her face turned from green to blue, but she knew already that it would be futile. If there was one thing that had always been present in Fiyero's character, extending all the way back to his hedonistic days at Shiz, was selfless bravery. Elphaba wouldn't have been able to convince him to run if she had twenty-four hours to do so, let alone only one.

"I'll be back for you," she whispered. "I promise."

"I know."

Very slowly, the two of them finally parted. Elphaba was blinking away tears as she trudged towards the doorway, and so she barely noticed the look of undisguised fascination on the Nome King's face as she finally reached the corridor.

The last thing she said to Fiyero, before the walls slowly closed over the doorway was, "I love you."

His reply, if there was one, was lost in the rumble of the door shutting.

By the time the two of them reached Glinda's quarters, Elphaba was once again feeling nervous.

Quite apart from the worry over what the King might have done to her old friend, she was not looking forward to once again revealing that she'd faked her death; this was something she'd been agonizing over for the past year, and even with her promise to unveil all her secrets if it would save Oz, she was still reluctant to compromise her secrets.

But the revelation that Glinda's part in the Nome King's mysterious plan had been her fault had pretty much guaranteed it; within the hour, Glinda would know the secret, and the King would be short a pawn. And quite frankly, Elphaba didn't give a shit what the King would do to her in his rage, so long as none of it reached Glinda.

So, she'd rehearsed her lines down to the punctuation: angry tears, bitter recriminations, slaps in the face, the lot. If it might happen, Elphaba had prepared for it as best as she could as she ascended to the palace's upper floor.

However, as the door to the cell slowly peeled open, she immediately knew something was wrong; when Fiyero had received visitors, there'd been a few surprised mumbles from the darkness, enough to let her know that the room had been occupied.

Here, there was only silence.

Also unlike Fiyero's cell, the King had obviously gone to considerable effort to provide its single inhabitant with comfortable accommodation: not only was the cell just as spacious the one Elphaba had woken up in, but it contained similar furnishings: a king-sized bed, a finely-made chair, an ornate writing desk…

…and it was at this very desk that Glinda now sat, face down in a stack of papers

"Glinda?" Elphaba whispered.

No response.

For one horrible moment, she thought that her worst nightmares had come to pass, until she finally worked up the nerve to tremblingly approach the desk and check for a pulse.

As it turned out, Glinda was very much alive, just fast asleep. In fact, the only thing that seemed amiss was the fact that she remained asleep, even as Elphaba went about gently lifting her head to get a look at her face.

To put it lightly, Glinda looked like death warmed up. In spite of the bathroom, she obviously hadn't washed very often since her imprisonment, and the dress she wore looked crumpled enough to have been worn for days; her hair, which was now approaching "bird's nest" status, hadn't seen any of Glinda's usual legion of haircare products in days; her skin had turned pale grey, most evidently around her now-haggard face, which also bore the tell-tale dark-rimmed eyes and sunken cheeks of stress and overwork. Her fingers were covered in ink stains and blisters – one of her most common complaints back at Shiz whenever she was pressured into using a pen for any longer than five minutes. And it might have been Elphaba's imagination, but it looked as though Glinda had been losing an unhealthy amount of weight: not only were her arms and shoulders starting to look uncomfortably bony, but a tray of food had been set on the desk at some point in the last few hours, and all of it was stone cold and barely touched.

The final horror was that there was no sign that Glinda might have done this under any kind of mind control or magical influence; all of it was down to wilful self-punishment.

What have you done to yourself, Glinda?

No, no… What have I done?

"Why is she still asleep?" Elphaba asked nobody in particular.

The answer hit her like a ton of bricks; it was so obvious that she cursed herself for not having anticipated it: the King was keeping her asleep with a spell, just so he could stop Glinda from hearing the truth.

Enraged, she turned to the King, who was still standing in the doorway, his smile wider than ever.

"I said you could see her," he chuckled. "I never actually said you could have a conversation with her."

Swearing furiously, Elphaba turned back to the desk, and tried to examine the papers strewn across it. Among the notes, she instantly recognized bits and pieces of written incantations and spells copied from the Grimmerie, all of which were being laboriously translated into modern Ozian. And beneath the pile of scribbles and diagrams, lay the Grimmerie itself. By themselves, the spells that Glinda had written didn't seem to make much sense, and she doubted none of them would make any sense until they were compiled in order, but one thing was clear.

"So this is why you wanted me here in the first place," she said. "Question is, what did you want me to cast? It's clearly a whole series of spells, if all these papers are any evidence, but-"

"All will be revealed in time," the King interrupted. "Now, I think it's time we moved on; there is one more prisoner I'd like you to visit before all the secrets are revealed. Now, if you'd step this way, please…"

"Hang on a minute! You're not just going to leave her sleeping at the desk, are you?"

"She has been content to do so for some time. And besides, when you leave, I'll just wake her up again. Is there a problem with this approach?"

"Well, she's clearly been working for too long without sleep; I don't know if you've been giving her breaks or days off-"

"I have."

"But she clearly hasn't been making the most of them. She needs to sleep, and in a bed, not at her desk."

She reached under Glinda's arms and awkwardly hauled her out of her chair. Elphaba was immediately struck by how light her old friend felt, as she tried to carry her around the furniture towards the bed; it felt more like she was lifting a hollow porcelain replica of a human being than anything else.

Meanwhile, the King smiled accommodatingly. "There's really no need to do that alone, Elphaba. Basalt, if you would assist our guest…"

Elphaba opened her mouth to ask what volcanic rock had anything to do with this discussion, and then realised that there was a Nome emerging from the wall beside her. Darting away in shock, she hurriedly scanned its plain features, and realised that this was none other than the spy who she'd caught skulking around the bodies of the Nome hybrids less than a day before.

The "spy" bowed low and plodded towards her, arms outstretched as if to take Glinda from Elphaba's arms.

Elphaba automatically backed away with a hiss of "Don't touch her!" She knew that the King had evidently treated Glinda well so far, and there was no reason for him to try and hurt her now, but overriding gut instincts told her not to let the Nome get too close.

"She will not be harmed," the Nome spy/servant intoned dully. "I have been assigned to keep her safe."

"Oh really? So I'll just pretend that you aren't working for the man who destroyed Oz, and that the last time we met, you weren't spying on me. Why should I trust you, let alone any other Nome in this palace?"

"Because he saved her life," said the King, smugly. "If you were wondering how your friend escaped assassination, it's because I had this young Nome acting as her bodyguard."

"So? He did that because you ordered him to; you can withdraw and rescind orders willy-nilly. For all I know, you'll order him to snap Glinda's neck if I don't agree to your demands, or torture her to get me to agree!"

"May I speak?"

Elphaba was about ready to tell Basalt to shut up, when she happened to glance in his direction and saw that the Nome was now standing perfectly still, head bowed, eyes facing the floor. She tentatively nodded; she couldn't guess as to what the Nome would say, but she might as well give him - assuming it was male - a chance to explain.

"I have spoken with Glinda many times during her imprisonment here, and she has told me a great deal about you, Miss Elphaba; she speaks very highly of you, and as I found on our first meeting, very accurately as well. You told me that if I harmed Glinda in any way, you would hunt me down to the ends of the earth and kill me, and from the power you displayed then, I know for a fact that you are fully capable of doing so. And…"

For a moment, Basalt hesitated, as if searching for the right words.

"… I know you have very little reason to trust me, Miss Elphaba, but I promise you that she will not come to harm while in my care: it is my duty to protect her life and to attend to her needs, and I cannot be employed to mistreat or abuse her in any way. Even the King himself cannot easily relieve me of my duties - no offence intended, Your Majesty - for they are bound to me by magic. And if I were not bound as such, I am still indebted to her for granting me a name."

"Are you saying that you're friends?"

For the first time, Basalt's expressionless features registered uncertainty.

"I… I do not know, Miss Elphaba. Most Nomes of my station do not have friends; I am not sure if I have the capacity to do so. All I know is that I have been given the task of safeguarding Glinda's life, even if it means sacrificing my own."

Now it was Elphaba's turn to hesitate; looking closely at the Nome bodyguard through the kind of vision that only magic could provide, she could tell that he wasn't lying about being bound to Glinda. But her suspicion wasn't quite ready to abate just yet.

"You said she spoke to you about me; tell me something that she told you, something that only she would know - and not something his royal pompousness would be able to tell you."

There was a pause, as the King gave the two of them his undivided attention.

"She has told me on many occasions that you had never cried in all the time you'd known each other. No matter how sad you were, you never shed a tear. Even when you said farewell to her in the Wizard's Palace, you never cried."

"But…" Elphaba couldn't speak; her throat was so clenched with emotion she couldn't even enunciate her next words.

Trying again, she asked, "How do I know the King didn't just…"

"Have you ever tried to scry your way into the Emerald City, Elphaba? Whether it's by crystal ball or Nome spy, all you get is static; that rune defence network, I shouldn't wonder."

Elphaba couldn't trust herself to speak anymore.

Instead, she wordlessly lowered Glinda's sleeping body into Basalt's outstretched arms; bowing his head in thanks, Basalt took her with surprising gentleness, lifting her easily over the furniture and into bed.

And as Basalt went about delicately covering the sleeping woman with a blanket, Elphaba knelt down by the bedside, and briefly regarded her friend's tranquil face.

Then she very gently kissed Glinda on the cheek.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

And with that, she rose, and walked away, eyes to floor until she left the room altogether.

"With that over and done with," said the King, "I have one last prisoner for you to meet before we discuss business."

Elphaba, who still hadn't recovered her voice, gave him a look suggesting that he'd soon find himself on the receiving end of a chisel if he kept up the obfuscation.

The King immediately held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Think of it as proof of my good intentions" he wheedled, "And as an opportunity."

"An opportunity for what?"

"That depends on your intentions: do you want answers, or just revenge? We'll see."

"Do you want to make things any clearer," Elphaba grumbled over the sound of the door shutting, "or am I going to be left guessing until the day I die?"

"If you insist on the former, the prisoner I'm about to introduce you to is known to me as Pinhead, and he has been in my custody for quite some time now; as for how he came to be with us, and what he was imprisoned for, I'm sure he'll be able to explain. In any event, you've been intending to meet Mr Pinhead for some time, and not just since you got the idea that he might be able to help you stop me," the King added smugly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It doesn't matter for now. He'll be able to explain quite readily enough… but this meeting is for you and you alone; I cannot interfere in the proceedings."

"You love this, don't you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"All this mask and mystery business; you love drawing out the suspense as long as humanly possible."

"Nomishly possible."

"Whatever. Take me to this Pinhead if you think I really am that anxious to meet him. Come on, we don't have all day…"

Back in Glinda's cell, Basalt had heard the beginning of the conversation, and though it had been cut off by the door rumbling shut, he had caught the mention of Pinhead's cell.

Basalt wasn't stupid.

He knew that there was no way that the two spies watching him would let him get within five feet of that mysterious, dimensionally-disconnected end of the palace dungeons.

He did have one major advantage on his side:

If the two spies saw him going anywhere he shouldn't go, they'd send off a signal to the nearest guard to apprehend him as soon as possible; however, their orders said nothing about the spies that he'd commandeered, especially given that these ones were cleared to assist him in his duties.

So, all he did was call for one of his own spies, and order it to move as quickly as possible to the dungeons, and follow Elphaba into Pinhead's cell as soon as the door was opened for her; from there, the spy would observe all that was said and done, and return as soon as the two of them were finished.

Of course, if the King had been right about Elphaba wanting revenge, "finished" might just be the most appropriate word to describe what would happen to Pinhead, whoever he was.

Much to Elphaba's annoyance, "Pinhead's" cell was located right next-door to Fiyero's, which meant taking the same long slog down through the dark corridors.

It took ten minutes, and thankfully, the King decided to remain silent for most of it.

Just as well really; Elphaba was so busy wondering about this "Pinhead" character that she wouldn't have been able to listen for anything important even if she'd wanted to: who was he? Why had he been imprisoned? Who was he to Elphaba? Why had the King implied that she'd want answers - or revenge - from him?

Doubly thankfully, these questions helped pass the time until they arrived at the cell, and the door was once again slowly peeled away, revealing a long dark corridor, and beyond it, the faint gleam of magical lighting. This time, though, as the door opened, she felt the distant magic that had kept this oubliette separated from reality itself suddenly shifting and twisting in the darkness, as the Nome King reached out with all the power at his disposal, and dragged the room back towards the physical world.

Where did you get all this magical power, Your Majesty? And why, if you've got this kind of thing at your disposal, did you have to wait for me to arrive instead of just capturing me yourself? More to the point, what do you want from me if you can do this on your own?

"You'll find Pinhead waiting for you inside," said the King softly. "If I can offer any last-minute advice, it's this: if you really are searching for answers, I'd advise keeping an open mind; if it's revenge, well… you already know what Pinhead's guilty of."

"I doubt it."

"We'll see. On you go…"

As Elphaba disappeared into the shadows of the corridor, the Nome King quietly let his consciousness stretch past her, into the cell itself, and into the mind of its single, traumatized inhabitant.

"And now, my dear Pinhead, it's time for the reward I promised you at the very start of your sentence beneath the earth: at long last, your torments are at an end, and I shall grant you the death you have begged for. But first, you must unveil your dirty little secret one last time. You admitted it to Glinda, you revealed it to Morrible, you confessed it to me; now, it's time to tell the sordid tale of your secret… to its result. I'm sure I don't need to tell you if she's real or an illusion; after all, you can make up your mind on your own, can't you?"

The King chuckled softly. "So," he purred, "Once more… with feeling."

Stepping out of the corridor and into the candlelit room, the first thing Elphaba noticed was the smell.

The room had been cleaned very thoroughly with what could have only been a very powerful alchemical cleansing agent and flooded with the smell of lemons and pine trees until it should have drowned out any offensive odours that remained. And of course, it didn't work; beneath the industrial-strength floor polishes and air fresheners, she could clearly make out the familiar smells of vomit, urine, excrement, and - of course - blood.

And judging by the freshness of the cleansing agents, a lot of the final substance had been spilled very recently. Whoever had cleaned the room had missed a few specks of it by entrance, and as Elphaba tiptoed through the door, she took the time to peer at the rust-brown stains that marred it, and realised that these ones were at least a year old.

The prisoner, whoever he was, had been tortured in this very room.

Repeatedly.

The room itself was lit by pale grey magical lights, most of which were angled away from the corners, allowing thick shadows to accumulate there and obscuring their contents; all that could be seen from her position was the outline of the ragged mattress that functioned as Mr Pinhead's bed. Meanwhile, the light had coalesced into a single, solitary spotlight projected onto the biggest piece of furniture in the room, a large wooden table. Strewn all over its pitted oak surface were papers of every possible size and description; the notes on Glinda's desk were nothing compared to this gargantuan heap.

Leafing through the pile, Elphaba found herself confronted with a series of ingenious-looking blueprints and drawings; the items they detailed ranged from the mundane to the grandiose, from the innocuous to the lethal. There were weapons, vehicles, buildings, even a few that suggested human-shaped automatons; whoever this Pinhead was, he was obviously a mechanical innovator, and he probably hadn't been given much to do with his time except draw.

But where was he?

As if to answer her question, there was a low groan from one of the shadowy corners.

"Hello?" Elphaba whispered.

The groan dissolved into a long succession of coughs and wheezes, and ended in a low murmur of, "Oh Jesus Christ. I never thought it would be this hard just to get up…"

The voice sounded curiously familiar, but if Elphaba really had met its owner before, it was far too long ago to be recognizable. "Who are you?" she asked hesitantly.

"… Nobody."

"Look, I know you're probably badly hurt right now, but this is no time to get disagreeable; I'm here to help you, and no matter what the Nome King thinks, this isn't ending with me killing you."

"If you were here to help me, Elphaba, you'd kill me without a second thought."

There was a loud grunt, and a figure slowly rose from the shadows, accompanied by the wooden thudding of a cane against the floor.

"But then, I don't think you're here at all; I think you're just another illusion, brought here by the King to torment me."

"What?"

"Don't act like you don't know," Pinhead snarled. "I've seen so many faces from my past, all of them hating me, all of them taunting me; my parents, my loved ones, Melena, Madame Morrible, Glinda - all of them have been here, and all of them were here to torture me, not that the King kept his hands clean in that regard…"

Elphaba ignored the urge to remark you're insane, and asked, "How long did this go on? How long have you been imprisoned?"

"A year. Please don't condescend any further, please: I know you're not Elphaba."

The man began hobbling towards light, his voice growing louder and more upset with every step.

"Oh, I know you can't be her. She died just a day before that year began, and I was responsible for it; my capture and torture here was my punishment, deserved so many times over. And that's why I knew he was saving you for the very last moment before my execution! Because you wanted to kill me ever since you knew what I really was, ever since the day you and I first met, and I deserved to die for everything I'd done to you since the day you were born!"

Elphaba's heart stopped; at last she recognized the voice.

There was a burst of hysterical laughter that ended in a choked sob, and finally, the owner of the voice stumbled into the light.

His once-portly body had been reduced to little more than skin and bones, a skeletal frame for his tattered coat and trousers, discoloured with blood and other fluids as they were; his back was hunched, probably from torture, and his arms were long and crooked, as if they'd been broken and been allowed to heal at odd angles; he walked with a pronounced limp, and leaned on a crooked wooden cane for support. As for the head, it was a mess of old scar tissue and badly-healed wounds, with barely enough hair to cover the cratered scalp; the face itself had been left largely untouched apart from the bloodshot eyes and the lacerated cheeks...

...enough for Elphaba to recognize that this was none other than the Wizard of Oz himself.

"You wanted to help me?" he screamed, tears streaming down his ashen face. "Then do it! Kill me!"

Chapter 24: The Great And The Terrible

Summary:

Elphaba experiences a revelation, as does the mysterious Pinhead.

Chapter Text

"What are you doing here?" Elphaba asked quietly.

She had wanted to shout those words, to announce them as loudly and furiously as possible; after all, she had somehow found herself once again face to face with the Wizard himself, even though he'd apparently departed Oz a year before the invasion (the invasion he'd caused, no less) and just to refine the impossibility of this moment to purest lunacy, he was now begging for her to kill him - not to spare him from torture, not for what he'd done to Oz, but for what he'd done to her.

In the end, she was still reeling from the shock and could only whisper the question at a volume slightly higher than that of her pounding heartbeat.

The Wizard, meanwhile, didn't appear to have heard her. "Please," he begged, tears still pouring along the channels carved into his face, "There really is no point in carrying on with this charade any further: I know you're just an illusion, and I know you're only here to kill me, so please, please… just kill me."

He glanced upwards at the ceiling for a moment. "Do you hear me?" he screamed, his voice suddenly hysterical again. "You promised you'd kill me, so do it, goddamn you! You've wanted the satisfaction of ending my life for a year - why wait any longer?"

"You know the rules, Pinhead," the King intoned. "If you want to die, you have to give Elphaba one last reason to kill you…"

"No! No, no, and for the last time no! I told you everything I knew about that, and I don't care if it's not enough for you! I am not going to give you the satisfaction of hearing that story again, and more to the point, I am not about to spill my guts to an illusion of the girl I failed-"

Elphaba calmly stepped forward and slapped the Wizard hard across the face.

"Does that feel illusory to you?" she hissed.

"You're not using that excuse again, Your Highness; I know your illusions can hurt me by now, and I know that the real Elphaba wouldn't waste time in trying to show me the difference between reality and fantasy-"

Her fist caught the Wizard in the jaw, almost knocking him over.

"I've been waiting for a very long time to do something like that," Elphaba said, a little surprised at how cold her voice sounded. "And believe me, I'd be tempted to do a lot more if you were in better condition. Incidentally, I would waste time showing you the difference between reality and fantasy, because in the real world, you've got a lot to answer for: the oppression and slavery of the Animals, the brainwashing - and don't think for a second that I've forgotten what happened to Doctor Dillamond, either - the lies, the propaganda, the worship of yourself, the assassination of my sister, and stealing a neighbouring country's national treasure - giving the Nomes good cause to invade the country you abandoned, by the way. Now, after all that, I doubt hearing the so-called worst of your secrets would make me think any less of you at this point. But first thing's first: how the hell did you get here?"

The Wizard hesitated. Then, he offered a weak, mirthless stutter of laughter. "You're giving yourself away too easily, Your Majesty; if she were real, she wouldn't know anything about my part in the invasion-"

"Do not make me hit you again," Elphaba snapped tersely. "If you must know, Madame Morrible told me all about the invasion after she escaped from prison, including how you were responsible. Oh, and I think it's worth mentioning that she told me this just a few hours before she died from injuries she sustained in trying to escape that same invasion… and of course, after several hundred thousand Ozians were killed or petrified during it. Now, my week wasn't nearly as bad as theirs or the thousands of refugees that have been scattered across Oz, of course: I only came to this desolate crater of a country to rescue Glinda and perhaps to save Oz while I was about it, and ended up being shot down, blown up, battered, burnt, exposed to the charming attitudes of your former citizens, and captured by the Nome King; I sure as hell didn't endure any of it for you. In fact, I'd very much like to get the hell out of here so I can get around to whatever this sanctimonious despot captured me for. So would you please tell me how you got here?"

"… but… you were melted! Everyone saw you die!"

Elphaba let out a snarl of frustration. "How many times a week do I have to admit this? I faked it: I took advantage of a rumour that everyone believed; I arranged the bucket of water, and I gave everyone there the chance to throw it. The moment it hit me, I lowered myself into a trapdoor and left my hat and cloak behind. End of story."

For a moment, the Wizard's face was unreadable. Then, fingers shaking, he reached out and very gently tilted Elphaba's chin up, as if to examine her face under the spotlight. As Elphaba tried to back away, she couldn't help but notice the scars running down the Wizard's arms; she wasn't entirely certain, but some of them looked suspiciously like needle marks.

"You see?" the King purred. "There are some things even I can't replicate in an illusion: her eyes are too bright, too intelligent to be anything other than the real thing; the skin is warm to the touch, reacts to external stimuli; and most obviously, she has a heartbeat. No vision I've created has ever managed to approximate that."

The Wizard was silent for a time; somewhere in those red-rimmed eyes, the faintest glimmer of hope blossomed. "You're… you're alive?" he whispered, his tone almost reverential.

"Yes," said Elphaba, gently forcing his hand away from her face. "I think we've established that by now."

In the silence that followed, an awkward smile spread across the Wizard's face.

Then, he began to laugh - not the hysterical giggling he'd emitted a few minutes ago, but genuinely relieved laughter; without warning, he flung his arms around Elphaba, very nearly toppling her over.

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" he whooped.

"We've made that abundantly clear, yes. Now, I get that you're very happy to see me alive, you're a sentimental man, I get the picture, but could you please let go of me? We're not exactly friends, in case you've forgotten."

"True enough." There was a teasing note to the King's voice now, a sly hint that he had guessed the punchline to a joke that nobody had even noticed yet. "Question is, does Pinhead want to explain what you are to him? Does he still want to die?"

The gloom returned to the Wizard's face. "It's not as if I don't deserve it," he whispered.

"And what brought this on?" Elphaba demanded. "You spent the last decade or so in power without so much as a guilty twinge about what you did to the Animals; when exactly did you grow a conscience? And, for the fifth time, how the hell did you get here? Last I heard, you'd been ballooning home."

"I jumped."

"What?"

"I jumped out of the balloon."

The Wizard's voice was tired, now; it hadn't quite sunk to the level of despair it had reached when Elphaba had first tiptoed into the cell, but it was getting pretty close.

"I tried to kill myself… and the Nome King caught me before I hit the ground."

"And why exactly did you do that? Something tells me that you probably wouldn't commit suicide just because you lost your empire, and even if you are as sentimental as you've said, I still don't understand why you'd kill yourself over me. Care to explain?"

The ex-dictator paused; the depression visible on his face was suddenly joined by a very complicated mixture of fear, apprehension, and… guilt?

"You know the rules, my friend," purred the Nome King. "If you want to be released from your torment, you'll have to tell her the truth."

"I… I didn't want it to be like this."

"How else do you think it could have been? Were you expecting joy? Fond remembrances? Forgiveness? After what you did, I think this was the only possible outcome. Besides, don't you think she deserves to know?"

"I'm not saying that she doesn't, it's just that-"

"Your cowardice is in full swing, yes. I understand. Some have the will to face their own mistakes; others ignore them for as long as possible. Well, if you're not interested in admitting the truth, I suppose we've nothing left to discuss. Elphaba, you can go if you wish."

"Wait! WAIT! I didn't say I didn't want to explain, I just need to think about it!"

Elphaba looked around in bewilderment. "Would someone please explain what's going on?" she demanded.

"What's to think about, Pinhead? Haven't you dodged your responsibilities long enough? Or perhaps you don't think you can do justice to what happened? Perhaps… you want me to tell the story?"

The Wizard was halfway through screaming in the negative, when Elphaba cut in: "Look, would one of you just tell the story? Right now, I'm on the verge of giving up and going back to my cell until someone's in the mood to talk sense."

There was a pause, and then the Wizard leaned against the table for support, ashen-faced and utterly miserable.

"I tried to kill myself that day," he began, "because…"

He took a deep breath.

"...Because I learned you were my daughter."

A small, non-existent freight train clattered out of nowhere and slammed into Elphaba at full speed, messily scattering her thoughts from one end of the room to the other. Back in the real world, Elphaba stood there, gently swaying back and forth on the spot as she tried to process what she'd just been told. In the end, the only coherent response she could organise was a flat mumble of "What."

It wasn't easy to audibly pronounce the absence of a question mark, but somehow, Elphaba had just managed it.

Sighing, the Wizard reached into the mountainous pile of documents left on the table. After a moment of rustling, he emerged, holding a familiar-looking bottle in his right hand. Elphaba immediately recognized it as the keepsake of her mother, lost on the day she'd faked her death; however, it took a while to realise that the Wizard was holding an almost identical bottle in his other hand.

"How?" Elphaba whispered. She couldn't bring herself to ask any other possible question.

"Before I became the Wizard, my name was Oscar Diggs- Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, if you want to be specific. And I was a travelling salesman."

The Wizard shook his head sadly. "I was a lot of things, really; I was a ventriloquist, a stage magician, an inventor - anything that paid the bills and got attention. But even when I was fresh off the balloon and the people of Oz were calling me a Wizard, I kept working as a salesman under an assumed name just to make ends meet; the government might have liked me, but they sure as hell weren't going to hand over the keys to the treasury just because I was from another world. All they gave me were the chemicals to make my first product."

He held up the bottles by way of explanation. "Green Elixir. Technically, it wasn't supposed to do anything special; it just numbs the pain, when all's said and done. I suppose chemical euphoria was the best I had to offer. Not many people wanted to buy it, though; after all, who could spare the money when the country was spiralling down the plughole?

"So, I got bored. I lost interest in making money; I started drinking my own product; I slept around; I ended up getting cosy with quite a few shady characters- government reps, down-and-out magicians, people who didn't like the monarchy too much. They were the ones who gave me the chance to seize power when the old government fell; a lot of them were convinced I really was a wizard, but a few just thought I'd be charismatic enough to hold the throne and grateful enough to protect their interests. One way or the other, they said they might have a job for me in a few months. Until then, I was kicking about in Munchkinland. And then, on the last night before my new "friends" called me to the capital… I met Melena Thropp. Her husband was away on business, she was lonely and I… exploited the situation."

"You had an affair with her," Elphaba whispered hoarsely.

The Wizard/Mr Diggs nodded, eyes downcast with shame. "We finished off a bottle of Green Elixir together that night. After that, I left and never saw her again; I didn't even think she'd have kept the bottle to remember me by - until Glinda delivered it to me a year ago, the day you died. And I knew, right then, that you were my daughter."

There was a deathly silence.

"You know," said Elphaba, her voice shaking with rage, "In all my years, I never thought anyone was to blame for how I turned out; but now, you tell me that you… you got my mother drunk on a product you didn't even bother to test, and you…"

She stopped, trying to steady herself. "You know, once, I actually thought you could help me! I thought you could make me normal, but all along, you were the reason I…"

"Elphaba, I'm sorry, I really am-"

"And what about my mother?" Elphaba continued, deaf to everything but the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. "What about the woman who you were happy enough to get pregnant and forget all about? Do you know what happened to her? What my father did to try and stop Nessa from turning out like me?" She laughed, a half-deranged cackle that echoed around the room and tore through the eardrums like nails on a blackboard. "You ruined hundreds of thousands of lives while you were in Oz, including the life of my mother! Why should the life of your… your bastard… matter in the slightest to you?"

"I told you before: I'd always wanted to be a father-"

"And you also told me that you did the best you could to treat the citizens of Oz as your children; I know, you told me. Then, of course, when you heard the truth about me, you hightailed it out of the country without even thinking twice about them. But I'm not here to talk about your failings as a leader; why, exactly, did my life matter so much to you once you'd learned that we were related? Was it really just because you'd missed your chance at being a father?"

"That was part of it," the Wizard/Diggs admitted. "What got to me, though was... well, you said yourself that I'd ruined so many lives, but I never got myself directly involved in any one of them. All I'd have to do was issue a command or sign an order form if it wasn't my own idea; if someone was going to lose their job, if someone was to be executed, if someone needed to be..." And here, an utterly wretched look crossed the Wizard's face. "… Prevented from speaking out," he finished. "Most of the time, I never saw the victim's faces, never knew anything about them other than what I'd been told. They were just… names on paper. I could look at all those deaths and those torments and imagine that they'd been for the good of Oz because I couldn't put a face to any of the names attached; and if I did see something- an Animal in the late stages of brainwashing, say- I could live with myself because… because…"

"Because you didn't think of them as people," Elphaba finished, coldly.

"Yes. But I couldn't do that with you: I knew you; I'd met you in person, I'd even been grooming you for high office. I was already reluctant to order your death. But when I learned you were my daughter, I couldn't distance myself. Once all the facts started adding up, I knew that I hadn't just ended your life: I'd ruined it from the very beginning, and I'd kept on with it, piling misery on misery until you finally died… and from the way Glinda described it, you'd all but killed yourself. I couldn't bear the reality of it. So, I jumped. And that's how I came to be here."

"There's more to it than that, isn't there?" Elphaba asked, softly.

She wasn't sure whether to accept what her "father" had told her just yet, but it might be worthwhile to listen, if only to hear the full story.

"What happened when the King captured you? I mean, he obviously didn't know who you really were: the last time you'd met Nomes, you were hiding behind your machines, and with the rune defence network shielding the Emerald City from observation, none of them would have known that you weren't actually the Wizard."

There was a sheepish pause, and then the Wizard mumbled, "I… panicked a little."

"You panicked "a little." Could you be more specific?"

"I thought they were going to beat the answers out of me, so as soon as the King arrived to question me, I told him everything…"

"TELL ME WHO YOU ARE, AND WHY YOU HAVE COME ALL THE WAY TO MY KINGDOM, AND WHAT I CAN DO TO MAKE YOU HAPPY," the King had said.

And it takes about five minutes for Oscar Diggs to condense the awful truth into a semi-coherent speech for the King's benefit: who he is, what the Wizard really was, and why he's here (omitting details of Elphaba and adding reassurances that he isn't here as the vanguard of an invading army). At the end of it, he's almost hyperventilating with fear, kneeling on the floor and trying not to look in any way threatening.

There's silence as the echoes die away, and for a moment, he thinks they're going to bring the roof down on his head.

Then, the King emerges from the wall, no longer a great eye staring out from the depths of the mountain, but a human-sized figure of solid rock that moves with all the flexibility of a living body. Years ago, when the two rulers had first met, the King had arrived at the palace in this shape, and Diggs hadn't thought terribly much of it; this time, though, he doesn't have the luxury of hiding behind a mechanical prop, so he can tell that this new shape is at least three feet taller than him; furthermore, the King's face is slowly contorting with rage.

Diggs is already preparing an excuse; it's true that he just tried to kill himself, but putting himself within arm's reach of the ruler he'd personally swindled isn't a method of suicide he's willing to try. So, he opens his mouth, charm and swarm polished and ready once again-

-and the King leans forward and strikes him hard across the face.

Something in Diggs' jaw cracks audibly, and he staggers backwards, moaning in pain; he tries to speak, to at least whimper for mercy though his broken teeth, but the King hits him again, this time in the shoulder. As Diggs soars across the chamber, he absently realises that the first strike had been comparatively gentle: he can't tell if his shoulder's been dislocated or just shattered altogether - either way, it hurts.

As he hits the ground though, the Nome King lunges at him, and suddenly the pain in his shoulder and jaw are forgotten in the wake of the beating that follows: there's no magic used here, no spells, no curses or incantations, just a long, drawn-out barrage of stone limbs crashing down upon Diggs' helpless body, shattering bones, tearing flesh and liberally coating the stone floor in blood. He can't fight back, or get to his feet; he can't beg for mercy; he's in too much pain to speak; he can't even see the King clearly enough to avoid the punches: every time he turns his head to look up from the floor, he finds himself staring into the knuckles of the next fist just before it smashes into his face, or glimpsing the King's massive feet stomping up and down on his kneecaps.

Then, he feels the world beneath him shift as vice-like fingers wrap around his left leg and hoist him into the air: then, the King begins rhythmically thrashing Diggs against the wall. For the first few swings, this is conducted in near-total silence. Then, on the eighth swing, he finally speaks; most of this speech is restricted to long, drawn out roars of hatred, incoherent oaths and threats, with a few human expletives audible over the wet crunch of pulping bones and Diggs' own agonized wails. Then, the world once again gives a great heave: the King has just thrown him across the room, and Oscar barely has time to prepare for the impact before he crashes bodily into the opposite wall.

Through eyes that feel as though they've been drained of fluid, he looks up at the approaching figure of the King: his body is now all but painted with blood, his fists pretty much dripping with it. And while his face is still a mask of hatred, the rage has departed.

He waves a hand, and with a mixture of fear and hope, Diggs wonders if he is finally about to die.

And no sooner has this swept through his mind when he feels his wounds slowly beginning to heal: his bones knit themselves back together, the cuts and gashes in his flesh seal, new blood forces its way into his veins.

"You don't deserve the luxury of a quick death," the King hissed, his voice a glacial whisper. "I don't even think you deserve any kind of death at all… because quite frankly, an execution wouldn't punish your crimes or make amends for what you've done to my country."

"J… just kill me. You really don't stand to gain anything by keeping me here: I mean, I don't know anything important, and like you said, I'm not the Wizard anymore, so you can't hold me hostage to get back the Emeralds or anything like that."

"Of course not. But then, I've harboured a great deal of resentment towards you over the course of the last few years, and you did end up nudging the Nome Dominions into the control of the War Council, so I'm afraid that I do stand to gain something by keeping you here: satisfaction."

"Roquat, please,-"

The King chuckled. "I imagine I'm going to be hearing those words from you quite a lot in the next few days."

"-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about the Emeralds, I didn't mean to-"

"Steal a national treasure? Destroy our heritage? Sabotage the leadership? That's another thing I'll probably be hearing about for a long time: all the things you didn't intend to do. Of course, you might as well try to put out fire with petroleum, but I won't deny you the chance to let your mouth run freely. Don't look so sad, my friend; I never said your torments would be endless."

"Then… you'll kill me?"

"Eventually. It may take years, but one day, I might just find it in my heart to forgive you. Or perhaps I'll get the chance to take revenge on those I hate even more than you. Either way, you'll be given a merciful execution, and whatever drove you to suicide will no longer trouble you."

A savage grin rips the Nome King's face in half. "Until then, we have all the time in the world to get to know each other…"

There's a short break while Diggs' room is magically shifted into an area where he won't be bothered by anyone else in the palace; Diggs spends most of it listening for the words of whatever spell the King is using, in the hope that he can use it himself, if only as a last-ditch attempt at deleting the cell with him in it. He fails, of course: if there were any incantations in this particular spell, he can't hear them, and given his lack of experience with magic, it probably wouldn't have made much difference anyway.

After a while, someone deposits a mattress at the back of the room and drapes a few threadbare sheets over it; as an afterthought, a bucket is added to the ensemble. Presumably, this is the nearest thing Diggs is going to get to a toilet.

Exhausted by the events of the day and the prospect of even worse things on the horizon, Diggs lies down on the bed and sinks into a fitful sleep.

Next morning, he awakes just in time for a bowl of porridge to materialize next to him. It's bland but curiously filling; obviously the Nome King doesn't want him dying of starvation before the fun can begin. Without truly intending to do so, he eats the food in silence, wondering if he might have the time to sharpen the spoon into something he could cut his wrists with - at least once he's finished eating. But no: the moment he finishes, both the bowl and the spoon disappear.

The torture begins soon afterwards. Worse still, it's nothing like yesterday's chaotic pummelling: no screaming, no shouting, no swearing, and definitely no chance of the King letting drop of blood touch him. This is a very slow, careful and deliberate study of pain as applied to Oscar Diggs (formerly the Wonderful Wizard of Oz). The process lasts for about an hour, and it involves a large wooden table, twenty iron nails, a hammer, a steel ruler, and a pair of pliers.

Diggs screams for mercy for the first minute and just screams for the remaining fifty-nine.

The pain in his fingers and toes is excruciating, but of course, the pain doesn't stay quite so strong over time, which is probably why he's also being vigorously slapped across the face with the ruler, and occasionally thumped in the back of the kneecap with the hammer. Forty-five minutes in, the nails are finally removed. Of course, the King ironically decides to take Diggs' fingernails and toenails with them, hence the pliers.

But the King himself hasn't moved from his place at the far end of the room: he's been operating all the instruments of torture by magic, while his gaze remains fixed on the figure he's had pinioned to the table. In spite of himself, Diggs finds himself desperately scanning that craggy old face for even the slightest hint of the blistering hatred he'd seen during yesterday's beating. It's a very vague hope, but if there's even a fraction of that berserk rage lurking in those stone eyeballs, there might a chance of the King losing his temper and killing him.

But there's no anger to be found in his expression, not even the slightest furrow to the brow.

And worse still, the King isn't smiling either; there's no sign that he's enjoying this, or that the sight of Diggs' torture stirs even the slightest bit of emotion in him.

Diggs is wondering if he could try to find a way getting the King angry in some way, maybe by insulting him, when a fresh pulse of agony rushes up his arm from the fingers of his left hand, and as five brutalized fingernails go spangling off into the darkness, Diggs passes out.

He wakes up an hour later, hurting like hell and unfortunately very much alive. For some reason, the King hasn't bothered to remove the table, though.

The torture continues late that afternoon, scant hours after a luncheon of boiled rats; Diggs is already in considerable pain, because although the puncture wounds in his hands and feet have been healed- if only to stop him from bleeding to death- his nails are still missing; plus, his stomach is rebelling at the taste of rat. So, he manages to maintain a certain degree of bravado about the approaching torture session: after all, he's already in serious pain. What could the King possibly do to make it worse?

Quite a lot, actually, Diggs realizes about ten minutes later; tragically, he only comes to this realization after the King has lacerated his defenceless arms with a hunting knife and forced them into a trough of salt water. Unfortunately, the damage to his arms is largely superficial, every slash of the knife directed away from the vital arteries that might have resulted in Diggs bleeding to death, so the King once again forgoes magically healing: instead, he laboriously cleans, sterilizes and dresses each wound.

Then, apparently to stop him from trying to remove the bandages and "doing himself unnecessary harm," Diggs is manacled to his bed for the rest of the day, his head and limbs fixed in one position. Thankfully, by this time, he's actually feeling tired in spite of his injuries, so Diggs decides to take this opportunity to get some rest before the next session.

No sooner have his eyes begun to shut when an ice-cold drop of water lands on his forehead.

Diggs opens his eyes long enough to determine that what just landed on his face wasn't poisonous, acidic, or foul-smelling, and then closes them.

Another drop splashes against the bridge of his nose.

Grumbling in annoyance, Diggs raises an arm to wipe away the water, before remembering that his arms are still chained to the floor. Just as he's resolving to put up with this particular nuisance until it goes away, two more droplets splash against his cheeks, followed by three more on his chin; on and on, the droplets fall, sometimes fast, but never enough to accelerate into a stream, sometimes slow, but never enough to stop altogether.

It takes him about a minute to realise that he's not going to get any sleep tonight; after all, the King wouldn't want him to sleep through the third torture session, would he?

At dawn, the water finally stops dripping, and the manacles finally click open; but then, Diggs is in no mood to sleep. The constant patter of water against his skull, too irregular to get used to and too cold to tolerate, has driven him to the brink of hysteria; he recalls screaming obscenities during the night, howling at anyone who might be listening to release him. But he also remembers that, at midnight or somewhere around that time, he was thinking how much he deserved this… and after that, when time grew murkier still and the line between sleep and waking blurred, that he had imagined his daughter, face twisted by sorrow and betrayal, crying out, "Nobody believed in you more than I did!"

His body aches after so many hours kept bolted down, his face and shoulders are cold and clammy from exposure to the water, and he's almost manic from stress, from insomnia, and from a jolt of adrenaline he probably didn't need… but, looking around the room, he suddenly knows exactly what to do.

Despite his best efforts, Diggs isn't entirely unfamiliar with prisons and the catastrophes that can occur within; back when he was young and still learning the tricks of the circus magician's trade, he'd ended up being jailed for disturbing the peace (in other words, he'd been a bit too loud in practicing ventriloquism). While he was waiting for the managers to pay the fine, the man in the cell across from him had hanged himself with his bedsheets. Diggs didn't stay long enough to find out who the man was and why he'd killed himself, but in spite of all the hooch he'd guzzled once he was finally released later that evening, he couldn't drive away the image of the man, face grey and body hunched, dangling from a ceiling vent.

Right now, in the present, he finds himself looking up at a point in the ceiling where the rock has visibly deformed into a pipe-shaped extrusion, partly separated from the cave roof by about a foot of distance. Better still, he has just enough bedsheets to make a rope, and he still has the table to jump from once everything is in place.

Had he been rested and thinking clearly, Diggs might have wondered why the ceiling had taken on such an odd shape or why the King hadn't been more careful in keeping anything that could be used to commit suicide out of his reach. But now, eroded by a combination of water torture, sleep deprivation and guilt, all he can think of is of dying. By this time, he knows that there's no other way of escaping the next session, no way of persuading the King to show any kind of mercy: at least this way, his memories will never trouble him again, and if there really is an afterlife to look forward too, perhaps Elphaba will be there…

Maybe I'll be able to make amends, somehow, he thinks absently, as he begins trying the knots. It's not easy, though: while the pain in his fingers is at a bearable level by now, it's not exactly improving his dexterity all that much. Eventually, though, he finally manages to tie two fairly decent knots- first in the ceiling, then in making the noose.

Then, he steps onto the table, and begins fitting the noose around his neck. From here, he can see that the drop isn't short enough to break his neck; there isn't enough space between the ceiling and floor for that, but there is just enough to keep Diggs off the ground while he strangles to death.

For about thirty seconds, he stands there on the edge of the table, trying to think of appropriate last words; in the end, the only thing he can think to say is "I'm sorry."

Then, he steps off the table.

To his surprise, there's no jolt as the rope tightens, no sudden wrench of pressure around his throat; all he feels is the sensation of dropping- and then, nothing at all.

Was the drop longer than he thought? Did he somehow manage to snap his neck?

He opens his eyes, half-expecting to find himself in another world, the gates of Paradise reluctantly swinging open to admit him (or else, the jaws of Hell lunging forward to devour him; Diggs isn't too choosy). But instead, he finds himself still in his cell, still dangling on the end of a rope.

A quick glance at his feet shows that he's actually hovering in mid-air, too far off the ground for the rope to throttle him.

"It's not going to be as easy as that, my friend," says the Nome King. His voice is omnipresent now; no face protrudes from the wall, no eyes stare down from the ceiling. "You gave up the right to a merciful death from the moment you first took action against the Nome Dominions, and the punishment I mete out is the only way you can earn it back."

"For Christ's sake," Diggs snarls, caught neatly between frustration and despair. "Are you still pretending this is justice, Roquat?"

For the first time, the King's voice sounds oddly regretful. "There's no such thing as justice, Wizard: if there was, you'd be dead at Elphaba's hands, and I'd be exiled to the wilderness for allowing a coprolite like you to steal from us. No, this is not justice; it's revenge."

There's a heavy sigh from overhead. "No more suicides, Wizard; it won't work, and it won't help. Now… let's continue."

From then on, Diggs is tortured every day.

There's no regularity to it, no perceivable schedule that the daily sessions work to. At times, he'll be woken up by his first session; at other times, the King will leave him be for the morning, knowing that he'll be spending the next few hours consumed with dread over the incoming torture. Sometimes, he'll be allowed a break between each session; at other times, there'll be no breaks at all, just a long, drawn-out carnival of violence and agony. It's all to keep him from getting too accustomed to the pain, to keep him from developing tolerance.

Then again, it's not as if there's anything particularly monotonous about the torture: as the months stagger onward, Diggs is beaten, bitten, broken, crushed, slashed, stabbed, burned, frozen, electrocuted, inflamed, poisoned, throttled, and thoroughly mutilated. All manner of devices are brought out to administer the many and varied effects, some of them improvised, some taken from museum exhibits to continue the work they'd been built for all those years ago; quite a few of these devices are left in his cell even after they've been dismantled, chunks of scrap metal that accumulate under the table. Occasionally, magic will be used to great effect: fires are lit beneath his skin, water gathers inside his lungs from no discernible source, his blood courses with lightning, his bones harden into immovable stone and leave him paralysed for hours on end. On one excruciating occasion, a spell actually makes his skin peel itself off his bones, leaving him to stagger around his cell in agony for the next hour until his skin is finally returned.

But he truly dreads the days when the King arrives with a cage or a tank in his hands, and something inside it wriggles- or worse, squirms. On those days, Diggs' hands (or his face) will usually be shoved deep into the box, allowing the rats, the insects, the spiders, the scorpions, the fish, or whatever's lurking inside to bite him. If there's venom involved, he'll be allowed to lie on the floor while his stomach tries to punch its way out of his body and his mind screams at giant sprouting mushrooms- until he's finally given the antivenin. If there's no poison involved, he'll be held inside the box as the angry little creatures nibble ravenously at anything in reach. And if there's nothing vaguely hazardous about what's been kept in the box, if it's just a tankful of cockroaches, worms, or maggots… it's still disgusting, and it's still almost suffocating, and Diggs has to force himself not to imagine the repulsive little things crawling up his nostrils, slithering around the back of his eyeballs, inching towards his brain.

Diggs wants to keep quiet during the sessions: if nothing else, he can suffer in silence and keep himself from blurting out any more secrets. And he fails miserably; not only does he spend every single minute of torture screaming in pain, but it takes him less than a week to lose his grip on his self-respect and start gibbering. In those humiliating hours, he tells the King everything he thinks he wants to know: he gives him the name and address of every single miner or geologist that was assigned to remove the Emeralds from the Nome Dominions; he provides up-to-date reports on the Emerald City's defences, including the runes that keep the city safe from magical attacks and hide it from the prying ears of Nome spies; he details the locations of every single government safehouse in the country; he confesses his real name in all it's embarrassing glory; he even tells the King where to find the Grimmerie, though he doesn't look especially impressed at this.

And then, just as he's beginning to think he can't sink any lower, he finally begins telling the story of why he committed suicide: he tells the King about Elphaba being his daughter, of how he'd romanced Melena Thropp that one night before he'd taken on the mantle of the Wizard, how he'd been grooming Elphaba for the role of vizier before she rebelled, and how her death had driven him to suicide. And Diggs is praying that this bit of information will be exactly what the King wants to hear, and that he might find it his heart to finally…

But the King is laughing.

"In all the years the War Council had that spy hovering under the Governor's residence, I never thought a single report from it would have been worthwhile," he chuckled. "But then, I started hearing word of a young woman of extraordinary magical power, and I began following the trail of reports, all way back to the date of her conception. You see, I knew Elphaba was not the Governor's daughter- not biologically, anyway- but I had no idea that you were the travelling salesman!"

"Roquat, please, if you have any mercy in your soul-"

"I did say you'd have to earn my mercy, Wizard. Or perhaps I should call you Oscar? Or Diggs… no, no, too pedestrian, too human; I think you deserve a much more fitting name, something that fits both your initials and your nature…"

Diggs isn't entirely surprised at the "Pinhead" epithet.

Of course, it still stings: when he was a child, during the three years of formal education he'd experienced, he'd had to suffer the jeers and taunts of every other kid in the schoolyard who'd managed to learn his full name. True, the Nome King isn't as childish as that; he doesn't sink to the level of shouting "Pinhead! Pinhead! Pinhead!" right in Diggs' face but he does manage to find ways to bring it up in just about every single conversation they share.

And he's not entirely surprised that the torture continues unabated. What demoralizes him more than anything else is that apart from that quiet chuckle to himself, the King only seemed vaguely interested in the news of Elphaba's parentage- as if the whole thing meant nothing.

But that was the truth, wasn't it?

With the exception of his theft of the Emeralds, just about everything Diggs has ever done in his long and colourful lifespan is nothing more than a cheap joke to the Nome King.

And for all that his flagging ego tries to convince him otherwise, Diggs knew that the King is absolutely right.

So, in spite of the warning he's been given, Diggs uses a piece of scrap metal left under the table to make another suicide attempt. True to the King's word, it doesn't work: the improvised blade bends harmlessly around his wrists with every slash.

Meanwhile, the sessions offer even less hope for his attempts to die. Every wound that looks like it could be fatal is instantly healed via magic; the rest are cleaned with the most painful antiseptic that can be administered, and allowed to scar.

(Thankfully, the wounds that result from the Crocodile Shears are treated as "potentially lethal.")

Of course, this doesn't extend to the treatment of broken bones, of which there are many, especially given the use of such instruments as the Copper Boot, the Rack, and the Iron Mallet. Most of the time, the King will re-set and heal a broken limb or extremity without even noticing it; occasionally, though, he'll simply leave it broken and allow it to set the wrong way. As such, life between sessions becomes increasingly difficult- as if it wasn't hard enough already- as simple tasks like walking and eating are extended to ridiculous lengths by the way his arms and legs have distended.

One day, the King offers him something to ease the pain, and Diggs jumps at the chance without even thinking that there might be strings attached to this innocent-sounding offer. In any event, he's given an injection of a dark, tarry-looking fluid and it doesn't just soothe the pain, but it makes him feel…

…well…

Wonderful.

In all his years spent performing, conning, boozing and philandering, he has never felt so rapturously good: all of his sordid affairs, the hardened streetwalkers with their thick makeup and coarse manners, the lonely housewives who smiled with joy at the sight of him tramping down the garden path towards them, the shy, blushing, easily-impressed "volunteers" from the audience – none of his sexual escapades ever gave him this much pleasure. The drug, whatever it was, it makes him feel beyond the reach of any torture the King can threaten him with; it even makes him forget about Elphaba.

And then, minutes later, the high fades, leaving him collapsed on his mattress in a blissful sleep.

The next day, he asks for more, and the King obliges; the next day, he does the same; and again, the day after that. For one month, there are no tortures, no punishments, only glorious rapture as the drug pulses again and again through his veins, in progressively larger doses to satisfy his burgeoning appetite. For one unforgettable month, he is no longer Pinhead; he's not even Oscar Diggs, but the Wizard of Oz once more. He doesn't remember why he wanted to kill himself; he doesn't care that he's lost his kingdom and he's trapped underground at the mercy of one of his previous marks. His mind is too wrapped up in narcotic bliss to notice.

But one day, he asks for his daily dose, and to his shock, the King refuses. No argument can convince him, no plea can sway him; he doesn't even explain why it's been withheld. He just vanishes back into the wall.

The Wizard's chemically-enhanced ego politely informs him that this is obviously a tragic mistake: the dose he needs is arriving shortly, no doubt with many apologies, all of which he'll accept graciously.

Two hours later, he's Oscar Diggs again, and he's slumped over his mattress in a sweating, twitching shivering heap: he's vomited at least three times, his bowels are on the verge of imploding, the room around him stinks from the overturned shit bucket, and the need for another dose is now so pressing that his veins seem to audibly scream for it.

But it's never given.

When the Nome King finally returns, the very last of Diggs' self-respect quickly vanishes down the plughole: he begs, he pleads, he threatens, he flatters, he bribes, he makes insanely honeyed promises that he has absolutely no chance of ever honouring; he even appeals to the King's better nature- assuming he has one.

But then he sees that the King is smiling for the first time in months, and he curses himself for not guessing the truth earlier: this was never about soothing his pain, or debasing him with addiction or even putting him through the agony of withdrawal. It was all a run-up to the moment when he, the former Wizard of Oz, had to beg; once upon a time, he'd demanded tribute of the Nomes and received the Emeralds without the slightest bit of diplomatic repercussion. Now, he has to get down on his hands and knees and beg for the very thing he needs to stop the searing pain in his flesh from consuming him, and he'll never receive it anyway because the King is finally enjoying himself.

It takes days, but eventually the pain subsides, and the cravings fade along with it…

… Just in time for the torture to start all over again.

"And you were like this for a whole year?" Elphaba asked.

The Wizard - Diggs, she reminded herself - nodded softly. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"Not really. I didn't think you got all that scar tissue from your last little chat with Glinda."

In spite of himself, Diggs laughed with genuine amusement. "Oh, I was amazed it didn't come to that, truth to be told; for someone who'd spent the last few years propped up in front of an audience, she took control of the country pretty damn quick."

Elphaba laughed too - but only once she'd crushed the upsurge of guilt she felt at the mention of the role she'd forced Glinda to assume. "You said you experienced visions," she said, quietly scrabbling for a new topic.

"So I did." Diggs pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose I should mention that if I'm going to be comprehensive. It began about six months into my imprisonment, a little while after the last of the withdrawal symptoms had faded. By that time, I thought that I'd gone as low as I could possibly go; I was actually starting to think that the King might run out of ways to torture me before the year was out."

He sighed deeply. "I don't know if the King was able to read my mind and added the visions to the punishment regimen or if he'd been planning to do that from the very beginning. Either way, it didn't take too long to find out just how wrong I'd been…"

In sharp contrast to the physical treatment he's subjected to, Diggs is given everything he needs to keep his mind from atrophying, if only so he can properly appreciate the effect that the torture has on his body: in the few hours a day he has to himself, he's given books to read, music to listen to, and paper to write on. The reading material is satisfactory but not always to his taste, and the music is too soothing and tranquil for him to listen with any real enjoyment- Diggs prefers the bombastic anthems and fanfares of Ozian marching bands- so his free time is spend hunched over the table, drawing.

At first, most of his attempts are incomprehensible scrawls; it's been a year since he put pen to paper, and since then his fingers and arms have been badly mangled. But eventually, he grows accustomed to the faults in his limbs, and slowly but surely, legible images begin to appear on the page in front of him: sketches for props he would have never been able to build on a stage-magician's salary; blueprints of magnificent machines that would have put even the mechanized Face to shame and made Tik-Tok look like nothing more than a windup toy; war engines that would have conquered entire worlds had Oz been able to build them en mass.

Diggs isn't entirely sure how, but this overambitious busywork is what actually keeps him sane, if only because it's an alternative to the torture- a distraction from reality.

Unfortunately, it's so much of distraction that it takes him a while to notice that he's missed at least three sessions that day; once he's gotten over the first jolt of anxiety and stopped thinking about how the King might be about to start torturing him again in the next few minutes, he begins to wonder if the next session is ever going to happen at all.

What if the King has finally lost interest in punishing him? Better still, what if the King has finally forgiven him for his crimes?

But if that's the case, why hasn't he killed him yet?

"Maybe he's going to let me starve to death," he muses aloud.

And from somewhere very nearby, a hoarse voice whispers, "More than you deserve, your Ozness."

Diggs stifles a gasp of shock, and asks, "Who's there?"

By way of an answer, there's the sound of feet- and paws, and hooves and other, less identifiable appendages- treading across the stone floor towards him, slowly growing louder with every hobbling step; in a moment of heart-freezing clarity, Diggs realizes that the footsteps themselves aren't growing louder: they're just growing more numerous.

The word "angry mob" flits horrifyingly in and out of his brain.

"Imprisonment has not been kind to you," says a voice from the approaching crowd. "It wasn't kind to us, either. But you still have your mind. You still have your life. You still have much to lose."

"What?"

"You heard me well enough, Your Ozness." Somewhere behind the voice's unsympathetic tones, Diggs hears something distorted in the speaker's voice, a drowned, half-choked gurgle. "We've been waiting a very long time for this day."

"Who are you?"

The voice laughs hoarsely. "You wanted to stop me from teaching, from speaking out against your atrocities. More than that, you wanted me and all my kind silent as the beasts you thought we were: I spent years imprisoned for the crimes you invented, so many years of my mind being driven back towards the primitive desires of an unintelligent animal that I couldn't even recognize the woman who could have rescued me. And once that was over and done with, you ordered my disposal; your underlings decided I was too old and broken to be used as a farm animal, so they had my throat cut and my carcass flung to the hounds. Does that sound familiar?"

Diggs' heart skips a beat, as the speaker takes the last few hobbling steps into light: even though the Goat has clearly been dead for almost year, even though his flesh now hangs in putrescent tatters from his weather-beaten bones, even though his horns have been broken into two jagged stumps protruding from the top of his bloodied skull, there's no denying that this visitor is almost certainly Doctor Dillamond. There's just enough of his face left for Diggs to recognize the familiar shape to muzzle, and the gold spectacles dangling from a chain around his shredded throat just about confirm his identity.

But Dillamond isn't alone: behind him stand the figures of other Animals, all them dead and mutilated in some form or another. Diggs recognizes only a few of them- after all, it's been months since he toured the re-education facilities (the parts of them considered acceptable for him to visit, anyway) but a good look at their mouldering faces show that they remember him well enough. Most of them are as badly decayed as their representative, but a few appear to have been given to a taxidermist following their deaths, and now these well-preserved few stare blindly down at Diggs with eyes of polished black glass. But regardless of their condition, all of them are united by the expressions of rage and hatred that they wear.

"Oh God," Diggs whimpers. "Oh God, Oh Sweet Merciful Jesus, no, no, no…."

"Did you ever wonder what would happen if you were to find yourself trapped in a room with all those you had abused and despoiled, Your Ozness? If not, I think this may prove enlightening."

"Please, I didn't mean to-"

"- order our destruction? Demand that we abandon our sentience and reduce ourselves to beasts? We don't care, Your Ozness. We are here for vengeance and nothing more."

"I swear, if you spare me, I will do everything in my power to-"

"You have no power, now; you have only empty words. If it's any comfort, this won't be lethal; think of it as a preview of your time in the afterlife…" The teacher's maggot-ridden lips twitch upwards in a ghastly smile. "A glimpse of what's to come."

For the next week, the "ghosts" are in charge of the torture: they don't bother to help themselves to the normal array of weapons and instruments that the Nome King has prepared; they simply attack him with their bare hands. Whatever magic has reanimated the dead Animals has also given them supernatural powers, for their decomposing fingers can tear through flesh like knives, and their touch seems to spread frost through just about anything permeable by the cold- including Diggs' soft tissues.

Eventually, the ghosts fade away, and are replaced by long stints of confinement without visitors. Unfortunately, this gave the King a chance to surprise Diggs again when he finally got used to the solitude; one by one, figures from his past began to appear, old friends and acquaintances flickering into existence to project their vitriol and frustration at him, and occasionally just to beat him up. After a few sessions of screaming rows and recriminations, Diggs finds himself unable to blame them: most of them have legitimate grudges against him, especially the ones from the circus, who he'd "borrowed" equipment and techniques from in the earlier days. The old engineer who taught him how to design and assemble machinery was especially upset; apparently the money that Diggs had stolen from him meant that he'd ended up spending his final years in a home for the destitute.

It's not until Madame Morrible shows up that Diggs starts getting suspicious; there's no doubt that the woman's a careerist bitch, but the criticisms she voices sound a little too heartfelt by her standards.

Eventually, the penny twigs: for the last few weeks, he's been tortured and harangued by illusions, the products of a trick with only slightly more intrinsic magic than the smoke and mirrors that Diggs himself used to employ when he was still the Wizard. The final blow to his ego arrives when the Nome King politely informs him that, with the exception of the dead Animals, most of the information he used to create these illusions was gathered not from the usual underground spies he had spread out across the country, but from trawling Diggs' undefended psyche for information while he slept.

The King follows this up by leaving Diggs alone for a few days, presumably allowing him to stew in his own embarrassment. Or better yet, he thinks to himself, giving me the chance to think about how my goddamn jailer can ransack my brain for information whenever I'm asleep. On the upside, he's probably not going to use illusions on me again.

As it happens, he's right: he's woken up the next morning by the distinctive pressure of restraints being fastened around his arms and legs, and opens his eyes to find himself seated in a vast iron chair. As usual, the King is standing in front of him, the chosen torture device of the day hovering just above his hands: this time, it's a large vial of pale green fluid; even at this distance, Diggs can just about make out the tiny shapes wriggling around inside, pressing their repulsive-looking bodies against the glass in a futile attempt to escape. To his eyes, they look like a sinister attempt to crossbreed fish and pill bugs; either way, he'd rather not guess at what they really are- or what the King intends to do with them.

"There are some truly fascinating things to be found in the dark caverns beneath the Dominions," the King muses aloud. "These, for example: Carcassborn Trilobites, scavengers found in only the deepest of subterranean lakes. These are but their young, of course; the adults are much larger."

"What's your point?" Diggs asks, trying vainly to take his eyes off the trilobites.

"The young require a great deal of food to reach their adult size, along with a safe environment to mature in. Of course, they have no way of hunting until they are mature, so the mother trilobite plants her young in the body of the largest animal she can find, and allows them to feast upon it until they are old enough to fend for themselves. But- and here is the truly extraordinary thing- if the animal isn't large enough to provide food for all the months they spend eating it, the young excrete a chemical that slowly changes their host's size and dimensions. Now, the host normally ends up looking like an oversized bag of meat attached to a hopelessly distended skeleton, but with a few subtle changes to the chemical application, I think I can make something quite unique out of this lump of scar tissue you call a body."

Once upon a time, Diggs' ego might have felt a tad bruised by this remark, but by now he knows full well that it's true: the constant wounding and bone-breaking has had quite an effect on his body, and there's no denying he looks decidedly grotesque at this point. But that's little compensation for the ten minutes of screaming agony he spends in the chair as the King forces the baby trilobites down his throat.

After this, he's left in the dark to await the stomach-churning mutations that will no doubt follow.

Two hours later, nothing's happened yet, apart from a curious prickling sensation in his skin.

Five hours on, Diggs is starting to wonder if the whole thing was a ghastly joke, because the prickling in his skin has vanished and his body doesn't appear to have changed in any way; of course, there's no real way of being certain about it, because the Nome King hasn't allowed him to keep a mirror in the cell. But then, the kind of change Diggs is undergoing should hurt, shouldn't it?

And then, the entire room gives a massive heave to the right. Diggs is flung to the floor, only narrowly avoiding being crushed by the table as it grinds violently across the room; he tries to get to his feet, only to fall flat on his face once again as the room shifts again, sending the papers on the table sliding on top of him. It takes a few minutes to dig himself out from under the heap, and by then, the room has lapsed into a full-scale earthquake.

"What the hell is going on?" he asks, not expecting an answer. To his surprise, somebody does.

"This is a first-priority emergency," a soothing voice intones. "There has been an accident in the magical testing grounds; time as we know it is undergoing a strictly localized collapse. The palace is in the process of being temporally disintegrated, and in all likelihood, the King is dead. All personnel must evacuate the building immediately."

Hastily ducking a piece of falling roof, Diggs unsteadily turns to find that there's a Nome standing behind him; it's clearly not the King, though. Quite apart from the fact that the voice is audibly different, the Nome's face has completely different structure, the most obvious feature of which is the calming smile.

"Who are you?" Diggs asks.

"I am one of the Palace Evacuation Officials; I have been charged with escorting all personnel from the building in as timely a manner as possible, under the automated orders of the Emergency Management."

Diggs briefly flounders; he doesn't have the slightest clue where he's going to be evacuated to, and quite frankly, it's probably going to involve another jail cell and more torture. So, he stalls for time. After all, he's been trying to kill himself for the last few months: why pass up a chance to succeed? "I'm not exactly personnel, in case you hadn't noticed," Diggs remarks.

The official's smile doesn't falter. "Due to a recent vocabulary guideline referendum, the definition of the term "personnel" has been expanded to include prisoners, slaves, guests, and furniture. Please hold still while evacuation procedures commence."

"No, really, I'm fine: I know my way out from here, you don't need to worry about-"

Diggs' next words are lost in the grunt of surprise he emits as the official grabs him by the shoulders and charges headlong through the wall; for the next few seconds, the world around him is plunged into stygian darkness as the official hauls him through the unlit caverns, occasionally creating a mobile air cavity around him as they pass through solid rock. As they finally exit into the tunnels closest to the palace, Diggs catches a glimpse of the subterranean fortress collapsing, its majestically-sculpted façade crumbling into rubble as a serious of brightly-coloured explosions tear clean through its walls.

He can't be certain, but he thinks he hears the Nome King's voice, bellowing in rage and frustration. For a moment, he feels a certain degree of satisfaction, knowing that his torturer is finally dead; then the official puts on an extra burst of speed, and all Diggs can think of is his lurching guts, and the renewed itching in his skin.

Minutes later, after a long and claustrophobic journey through the dark interspersed with brief glimpses of glittering Nome cities of titanic architecture and wildly-varying inhabitants, the two of them finally arrive, blinking and disoriented, on the surface.

As soon as the official releases him, Diggs crashes to the ground, eyes stinging from the sudden emergence into the blinding light of day; it takes perhaps a minute or two for his eyes to adjust, and when he opens his eyes, he finds himself standing on the level stone floor of a vast barren plateau. As he stands there, shading his eyes from the pale glow of a sun he hasn't seen in almost a year, a dozen other sensations begin filing through his mind: the feel of the air on his skin, the smell of rainwater, the sounds of insects buzzing and chittering in the distance; finally the realisation hits him on a comprehensible level:

He's outside.

"We are now outside the predicted blast radius," the official drones helpfully. "You are now permitted to return to your duties."

"But I don't have any duties! I'm a prisoner!"

"The Emergency Management would like to remind all prisoners that they have a duty to remain in their cells and accept punishment. It has been noted that, given that we are now aboveground, said duties are now strictly optional. Hence, you are permitted to resume your duties."

"So I can just leave?"

"Please note that a dutiful prisoner is an appreciated prisoner; you are allowed to roam free, but the Emergency Management may not necessarily approve."

"In which case, I think it's time you and I parted ways; it was nice knowing you, but to be brutally honest, I hope we never meet again."

"Warning: the Emergency Management has detected a number of temporal anomalies developing on the surface, and wishes to remind all prisoners that they cannot be held responsible for any injuries sustained by entering a potentially hazardous environment. Also, any period of stasis, progression or rapid aging suffered by prisoners during contact with temporal fields will not count towards their sentence; similarly, regression to childhood will not excuse prisoners from continued incarceration. Thank you for your time."

Diggs rolls his in annoyance, and limps away.

He's free.

After Christ-Only-Knows how many months imprisoned in his own private hell, he's finally free.

Of course, the question that naturally occurs to him is "what the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Against all expectations, the desire to kill himself has faded, and has been replaced with an insatiable curiosity: after all those months away from Oz, what has become of the country? How is Glinda faring? Has she found a way of changing public opinion, of posthumously declaring Elphaba a hero?

He smiles faintly; that might be worth seeing.

And if not… well, maybe he can help, enough to make amends for what he'd done to Elphaba.

So, he sets off across the plateau, optimistic for the first time in ages; he isn't too troubled at the thought of encountering temporal anomalies, because quite frankly, he wouldn't know what to do if he walked into one, or even how to recognize it. He's not concerned by the fact that there's a magically-saturated desert between him and Oz; after all, if he can't find a causeway or some kind of transportation nearby, he can just travel to one of the other neighbouring countries and gather the materials for another balloon.

He isn't sure how far he is from the border, though, or if he's going in the right direction, but then again, he's moving so damn slowly thanks to his hobbled legs, it probably doesn't matter anyway.

On he walks, barely noticing that the itch in his skin has blossomed into a swollen-looking rash on his arms and back.

He stops to rest every now and again to rest his feet, drink a few handfuls of rainwater and chew at the odd bit of non-poisonous fungi he uncovers; at night, he lies down to sleep on the bare ground, but he's usually so tired he isn't bothered until the little aches and pains start seeping in the next morning.

Sometimes, as he continues on towards the western horizon, he finds that the events around him seem to have slowed to a crawl, while his own comical stagger appears to have been sped to a lightning pace. At other times, he sees the sun move backwards across the sky, passing from evening through to morning in a matter of seconds. Diggs can't be sure if this is one of the temporal anomalies the official mentioned, or if it's his mind playing tricks on him; either one sounds equally possible.

Two days into his journey, however, he starts feeling inexplicable surges of pain in his skin; the worst of it is around his arms and his back. Tentatively examining his body, he finds that what he thought was a mild rash is actually a series of revolting growths, too large to be dismissed as boils or sores; some are little more than random growths of flesh and bone, while others actually seem more like functional organs. This is especially true of the ones growing from the fingertips of his left hand, which appear to be composed of bone as well as flesh, and are in the process of extending his fingers into eight-inch claws.

The trilobites, he thinks quietly. They've started.

What was he going to look like when this was finished?

More importantly, would there be enough time to find help before the transformation got any worse? With several hundred miles between him and the nearest friendly settlement, it didn't seem terribly likely, and even if he could somehow manage the distance in time, there probably isn't a cure for the transformation he's undergoing.

But he keeps on walking, because quite frankly, what the hell else can he do? Other than lie down and wait to die of starvation, exposure, or a transformation gone wrong, there aren't too many options available to him. At least this way, he might have a chance to see how Oz has changed before he dies.

How it's improved, he absently corrects himself.

As the days grind onwards, the weather grows ever stranger as time continues to flow in odd directions: the moon eclipses the sun at least nineteen times in a single hour; comets patter down around him like split-second drizzles of rain; puddles of water are sucked into the air by stormclouds; the nights seem to last for weeks, with vivid fields of shimmering aurorae rippling across the dark sky.

Sadly, these extraordinary sights can only distract him for so long before his attention's drawn back to his growing number of deformities; every day, he awakes to find a little more of his old body gone, replaced with lumps of misshapen flesh, or, as the transformation grows more advanced, leathery pachyderm skin. Once or twice, he catches his face in a pool of water, and almost vomits in disgust and horror. But he can't avoid looking at the claws that are starting to replace his hands; whenever he reaches out for food and water, they're there, always a little longer, always a little sharper.

By the time the third week rolls by, the transformation has reached terminal levels: Diggs has grown several feet in height, to the point that he's had to discard most of his ragged clothes; his skin has turned a dark grey and is thick with diseased lumps and vestigial organs. His spine has become so twisted and bent that he now has to travel on all fours; the fact that he's clearly still enormous even while loping along the ground like a dog doesn't do much for his self-esteem. Diggs has also learned to avoid talking to himself, because his speech has taken a turn for the incomprehensible, dissolving into dozens of inhuman voices alternatively screaming, groaning, or laughing regardless of what he's trying to say.

But on he goes regardless, loping ceaselessly across the barrens, a spindly-armed, crooked-legged thing moving far too quickly for its ungainly limbs.

It's somewhat appropriate that it's not until he's on the verge of losing hope altogether that he happens to look out across the land and realises that he's arrived at the very edge of the Deadly Desert… and to his amazement, the sands are no longer blocking his way: the dunes that could easily destroy his new body once and for all have been swept into the air by what can only have been one of the most extraordinary sandstorms in Ozian history, and now hover there, suspended by a flickering pocket of time magic. This upheaval had left a very obvious if narrow trail of rocks leading into the distance - a path leading back into Oz.

For the first time in a very long while, Oscar Diggs wonders if someone upstairs is trying to make a believer out of him.

He lopes across the path, too excited to pay much attention to the drop he'll face if he loses balance; the greyish-yellow sands around him blur as he runs, faster and faster, until his malformed feet scarcely touch the ground; the journey should be tiring, but obviously something in Diggs' new physiology has given him the vigour to push past his fatigue.

It takes hours to cross this desert causeway, but by mid-morning, the dunes have been replaced by the meadows and forests of Munchkinland.

He continues running for a time, hurrying past countless farms, fields, pastures, even whole tows without even think of stopping. Eventually, he reaches a town that he recognizes as the largest and most cosmopolitan settlement in Munchkinland - and therefore the only logical place to find a doctor of any ability, or better yet, a way of contacting Glinda. There, he staggers to a halt under the shade of an oak tree to take a rest and study the town below; is there anything different here? Has anything changed since he'd last been here? Actually, that's probably not the right question to ask; after all, the last time he was anywhere near the outer reaches of Munchkinland was during his time as a salesman, and god only knows how much the place has changed since then.

But as he looks around, he finds that he's wrong: nothing about the place has changed at all. The buildings haven't seen any demolitions or renovations, the roads and the traffic are still the same, even the people walking down the street look identical to the ones he saw twenty years ago. There's not even any sign that Glinda might have had an impact on the place. Diggs knows from personal experience that country towns are stubborn and resistant to change, but this is ridiculous.

Taking a deep breath, he sneaks down towards the outskirts of the town: as far as he can remember there was a newspaper building hereabouts. Assuming he's not too late and he doesn't get caught in the act, there's a chance he'll be able to catch the leftovers of the previous edition before they're thrown out.

It takes a lot of ducking and dodging to avoid the eyes of the Munchkins strolling up and down the paths, and even longer to climb over the wall, but eventually, he arrives at the headquarters of The Crier. And thank Christ, there's a large stack of abandoned newspapers waiting around the back of the building; actually picking one up without shredding it to bits is a trial, though. Eventually, he manages to gently tweezer one of the broadsheets out of the pile without turning it into confetti, and he's immediately greeted by a screaming headline of-

ANTI-ROYALIST CONSPIRATORS EXECUTED! TRAITORS TO THE CROWN FINALLY FACE JUSTICE!

Muttering a swearword that all eighty-seven of his voices mangle, Diggs hurries away from the building as quickly as possible; he doesn't know what to expect from the paper he has clutched in his claws, but he's not going to read it until he can do so undisturbed. His loping eventually leads him away from the town altogether, and into the neighbouring forest; there, he leans against a tree and start to read.

The first thing he checks is the date, and as he suspected, it's no less than twenty years ago.

Somehow, all the wandering through pockets of time magic has deposited him in the past, just seven years after he'd arrived in Oz.

As he reads, he finds that it's not just a question of time travel: somehow, he's ended up in completely different version of history.

The article details the fate of a group of revolutionaries who had, some years ago, attempted to overthrow the royal family. Though most of them had been executed immediately, several more had appealed to various foreign powers to save them from the death sentence and had been waiting in jail for the decisions to be made; today, they'd finally been hanged. Diggs recognizes the names immediately; the men executed today had been among the dignitaries who'd helped him onto the throne back in his own timeline, either because they'd believed he was truly magical, or because they just wanted someone malleable in power.

In other words, in whatever version of history he's ended up in, he never became the Wizard; but if that's the case, what happened to him?

The article certainly doesn't mention him.

Well, so much for trying to find Glinda. Question is, what the hell am I going to do now?

From somewhere very close by, a child's voice yells, "Nessa, be careful!"

"Can't catch me!" another child's voice shrills gleefully.

"You know we're not supposed to get too far away from the house, Nessa!"

"Can't catch me, Elphie!"

Somewhere inside Diggs' distended ribcage, his heart almost stops. It can't be the same Elphie, it just can't be; Elphaba wasn't even living anywhere near this town, and it's too far away from the governor's residence for them to be just visiting. But he can't just leave this mystery undisturbed, either, not with a year of guilt and self-loathing forcing him to act. Trembling, he creeps through the undergrowth towards the source of the voices, trying not to make too much noise as he moves: it takes almost a minute or two, but eventually he's close enough to hear the children crashing through the bushes and as he gently parts the branches in front of him, he finally sees…

… her.

She's probably not much more than six years old, but there's no mistaking the green skin and dark hair. Even at this age, her eyes have already taken on the fierce glare of her adult self; she's even wearing a black dress, tattered and dirty from play though it is.

Against all odds and all hope, Diggs has found himself standing just a few feet away from his daughter.

Right now, she's helping another girl to her feet; not much younger than Elphaba, her face shares a lot of the older child's features, with the exception of the green skin, of course, so this is presumably the aforementioned Nessa.

But if this is Elphaba's sister, then how is she walking? What happened to the wheelchair? What allowed her legs to properly develop in this timeline? More importantly, he'd heard Elphaba mention that they weren't supposed "to get too far away from the house"; did that mean they were living in the nearby town… or in this forest? Last he remembered, Governor Thropp had been a stingy old bore, but he hadn't been so stupid as to relocate his entire household to the middle of a forest. Of course, it was against tradition to move the seat of governance away from the manor, so what could explain any of this?

Just as these questions start slowly accumulating, another one neatly bulldozes them out of his mind: is this an opportunity to make amends?

An atom of hope quietly blossoms inside Diggs' mind: yes, it could be. After all, Glinda had told him just how unhappy Elphaba had been in the care of her father, how abused and neglected she'd been in her childhood. It would be fitting that in this alternate timeline, he'd be the one to set things right; he'd find a way to lead Elphaba away out of her miserable life, to give her the kind of life she truly deserved, and best of all, he would be able understand her perfectly, not merely because he'd known her as an adult, but because he now knows what it means to be an outcast!

Of course, it probably won't do to try and meet her right now; after all, Diggs isn't exactly at his most presentable, and he still doesn't know how to speak clearly enough to be understood. Perhaps it would be better if he kept an eye on them, if only so they weren't in any danger from abusive parents.

The sisters are now wandering away, so Diggs begins slowly creeping after them, relying on his new limbs to provide him with a measure of stealth he never could have achieved in his old life.

Quite naturally, he promptly trips over a tree root and goes crashing headlong through the undergrowth; he lands on his feet, thankfully, just managing to stop himself from falling flat on his face.

Unfortunately, he's also landed right in the middle of the clearing, and he's now standing in full view of both little girls.

There is a dreadful silence, as the two sisters stare in terror at the monster that now stands before them.

Then, Nessarose screams, and everything seems to happen at once.

Without even pausing to scream, Elphaba grabs her sister by the hand and starts running as fast as she can. Diggs lopes awkwardly after them, trying vainly to explain that he's not a monster and that he's not trying to kill them or eat them; his voices immediately distort every single word he says into a nonsensical stream of cackling laughs and agonized wails that only encourages the girls to run faster.

After twenty seconds of running and Diggs trying not to look any more monstrous than they already do, the trees part to reveal - of all things - a house, built right in the middle of a small clearing. Though clearly two stories high, it's a very ramshackle affair without any of the style or fripperies you'd expect from the Governor's traditional mansion. If this is Elphaba's home, then Frexspar Thropp is clearly no longer the Governor of Munchkinland.

After hastily crushing a brief surge of joy at the humiliation the hateful old fart must have endured, Diggs immediately feels a wave of sympathy for the two children who he's ended up chasing: how miserable it must have been to end up trapped in such a run-down little bolthole like this, subjected to the abuses of a failure-crazed and possibly alcoholic father.

No more, Diggs vows silently, they'll never have to put up with anything like this ever again.

Then he hears Elphaba screaming, "Daddyyyyyyy!" and looks up to see a man hurrying out of the building.

Though he's clearly lean and muscular, most of his features are obscured by his clothing: already dressed in grease-stained overalls and a pair of battered work-boots, he's also wearing thick leather safety gloves and a large steel welding mask. As he moves, his belt clatters with a variety of tools and devices, some of which are beyond even Diggs' engineering knowledge; but his eyes are drawn to the massive wrench in the man's left hand - and the oddly-shaped rifle in the other.

"Elphaba!" he shouts, voice muffled by the welding mask. "Nessarose! Get inside, now! Warn your mother!"

As the two quickly obey, the man (presumably Frexspar) puts his wrench aside and aims his rifle squarely at Diggs' face. He then begins shouting angrily at him; most of the words are almost incomprehensible thanks to the mask over his face, but there are quite a few swear-words included.

Oh, here we go, Diggs thinks furiously. The abusive father's getting territorial about his favourite human punching bags. Bald bastard.

So, he opens his jaws and sounds off with the loudest roar his mutated vocal cords can emit; it's a doozy, enough to rattle windows and startle birds out of the trees, but credit where credit's due, Frexspar doesn't budge an inch. Instead, he tightens his grip on the rifle and opens fire. To Digg's amazement, he isn't hit by single shot, but by a continuous stream of bullets: somehow, the governor has managed to get hold of a fully-automatic rifle, something so rare and complex that only the richest Ozians could afford it during his time as the Wizard. How had an impoverished ex-governor managed to get hold of one of the most expensive weapons in the country?

Diggs is so surprised that he doesn't even notice that there are now at least fourteen bullets embedded in his skin.

Thankfully, his hide's just as tough as it looks, and once enough reality's set back in for Diggs to realize what just happened, he lunges at Frexspar, raking his claws up at his overalled stomach.

But damn if the little bastard isn't fast on his feet, because he leaps out of the way so quickly that the claws almost end up embedding themselves in the wall behind him, and then fires another burst, nimbly ducking under the next sweep of the claws, and rolling under the one after that. Quite frankly, Diggs isn't too interested in killing the old politician - it'd be far easier just to knock him out and help the kids out of the house before he wakes up - but with the fight he's putting up, combined with the thought of the bullying the old cad subjected Elphaba to in both timelines, the idea of gutting him like a fish is becoming something of a temptation.

And then, over the next few blasts of the rifle, Frexspar finally says something comprehensible:

"You won't take them!" he yells, voice quivering with mingled rage and fear, "You won't take my children!"

Diggs' temper flares. "She's not yours," he roars back, his many voices for once screaming in perfect unison, "She's MINE!"

The next swing of his claws knocks the rifle out of Frexspar's hand and lacerates him across the chest.

Down he goes.

No sooner has Diggs taken the next few steps towards the house when there's a sharp pain in his back.

It seems the slash across the chest wasn't enough to keep Frexspar down, and worse still, he's armed with the wrench he tossed aside a few minutes ago. And that's just what he's holding in his right hand; fastened around his left, there's… well, it looks like a set of brass knuckles, but they're connected by a tube to a small container of fluid at his belt; with a press of a trigger set in the rightmost knuckle, the thing launches a jet of flame that burns through even Diggs' rhinoceros-like skin.

To his shock, Diggs is suddenly on the defensive, backing away from both the violent swings of the wrench and the gouts of flame. First the automatic rifle and now this, he thinks. Where the hell did he get this stuff? He can't have just built it, can he?

The wrench catches him hard in the chin, and Diggs all but scuttles out of reach, spitting out a few jagged-tipped fangs as he does so. He certainly doesn't remember the governor being this imposing; obviously, whatever changed this timeline also gave the bastard enough free time to build up some muscles… and engineering skills, if the damnable flamethrower on his fist is any evidence.

And then, miracle of miracles, Frexspar finally runs out of ammo, and the flamethrower grinds to a halt.

In the split second he's distracted, Diggs lunges at him, sinking all ten of his claws deep into the old governor's stomach; with a roar of triumph, he hoists him above the ground, and lets him dangle there for a moment, impaled and dying, before flinging him aside.

Someone behind him screams.

Diggs turns around and is promptly struck in the chest by a bolt of emerald-green lightning; roaring in pain and half blinded by the incandescence, he staggers backwards, trying desperately to get a look at his assailant before the next attack hits. Finally, the light fades enough for him to see, and he realises with a jolt of horror that what hit him wasn't caused by Frexspar's machinery, but by magic.

Elphaba is now standing in front of the house, fingertips blazing with energy, and her feet barely touching the ground; her tear-streaked face is now set in the same expression of fury that Diggs has seen so many times in his memories and nightmares, somehow even worse when seen on the face of a child. And worse still, she's using the magic intrinsic to her own body, the power that - until Morrible trained her - was only sparked by the most violent explosions of fear and anger.

He tries to approach her, hands extended in what hopefully looks like a placating gesture, but he's immediately sent flying by another blast of magic. Clawing his way upright, he looks up just in time to catch a brief glimpse of a very solid-looking elm tree, before Elphaba brings it crashing down on top of him.

Narrowly scampering out of the way, he hurries back towards Elphaba, trying vainly to explain that he's not going to hurt her and that he's here to rescue her.

It doesn't work, and once again results in Diggs earning a searing blast of energy to the gut that brings him crashing to the ground; as he lies there, vision blurring and flashing, he realises that Elphaba has finally stopped to take a breath.

Seizing the opportunity, he jumps to his feet and dashes towards her, arms reaching out to grab her as gently as possible; from here, it should be simple - he'll keep her restrained until she's calmed down and he's found a way to communicate with her, and then they'll leave, never to even think of Frexspar and his abuses ever again.

Unfortunately, a split second before Diggs scoops her up, Elphaba recovers and blasts him with all her might; Diggs manages to stay on his feet for a moment, his claws flailing wildly through the air for a handhold, before the supernatural gale sends him tumbling away.

He lands heavily on his stomach, right next to Frexspar's perforated corpse.

As he struggles to clamber upright, he notices that the dead man's welding mask has jarred loose from his head in the fall to the ground, and he realises that this isn't Frexspar Thropp at all.

There's no sign of the daggerlike nose, the bald scalp, the contemptuous sneer that not even death could erase.

Instead, he finds himself looking into the face of a man he hasn't seen in years: in spite of the grime and dirt caked on his cheeks, the blood clotting in his thick hair, the pale, deathly cast to its features, there's still no mistaking the well-fed, amiable-looking face of Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, age 39.

Diggs is staring into the eyes of his own corpse.

He's… killed himself.

Suddenly, the piece of the puzzle that had been floating around his mind instantly fit together: the newspaper didn't mention his name, because in this timeline, he'd refused to take part in the coup, either because he hadn't thought it was worth his while… or because in this weird assemblage of events, his relationship with Melena had been more than just a one-night stand.

Here, he'd been willing to turn the affair into a relationship, enough to eventually reveal himself as Elphaba's true father; it had almost certainly resulted in a divorce, probably while Melana was pregnant with Nessarose, hence why the girl wasn't confined to wheelchair in this timeline: Frexspar hadn't had a chance to start feeding his wife the milkflowers that would result in her death and Nessa's crippling. And so, this version of Diggs had ended up living out here, with all the time in the world to study his craft and care for the family he'd always wanted.

And he'd been a better man for it, hadn't he? The devices he'd seen his other self use in battle had been hand-made; they hadn't been constructed by a team of artisans and engineers who bowed to his every whim, with only his word and his designs to guide them. His other self didn't need to cower behind a gigantic metal face; he'd leapt straight into battle in defence of his children. And most of all, his other self had cared about someone - not the affable "sentimental man" kind of caring which Diggs had claimed to feel about his citizens when he'd been the Wizard- but genuine human caring.

Maybe he's just guessing compulsively, but Diggs knows that it least some of it has to be true, and he feels all the sicker for it; this hasn't gone the way he'd planned: he hasn't rescued two children from an abusive parent - he's murdered a loving father in cold blood and tried to kidnap his children.

He lurches away from the corpse, hoping that he can somehow apologise, to at least get away without hurting anyone else. And then sees Nessarose, sobbing inconsolably as she kneels beside the blooded corpse of-

Oh, no.

No.

No, he must have imagined it, it can't have happened again, not like this, not like this not like this…

Diggs vision focuses again on Elphaba's body; her throat's been cut somehow. For a moment, Diggs' mind can only scream in disbelief, not understanding how this could have happened.

Then he remembers the final blast of magic that had flung him away from her, and how he'd flailed for a grip on anything in reach, his claws slicing through the air-

-slicing through Elphaba's throat.

For a moment, Diggs feels as though his heart has well and truly stopped; every vein in his body has instantly turned to ice, leaving him numb and unresponsive to anything in the outside world. Even Nessarose' tearful shrieks can't even stir a reaction from him, for all he can think of in that moment are the words Not like this, not like this, not like this, not like this not like this not like this not like this not like this not like this not like this not like this not like not like this not like this…

"BRAVO!" a familiar voice booms.

Diggs looks up; the world around him is fading, the forest and the house slowly dissolving into the stone walls of an underground cavern. His body is changing too, the elongated claws shortening back into fingers, the twisted spine moulding itself back into its normal shape and allowing him to walk upright again, the leathery skin softening into ordinary human flesh covered by ragged clothing - even his massive jaws and enormous eyes shrink back into his old face. But something is wrong: he still wears the scars and crooked limbs of the torture he suffered. The transformation hasn't healed him in any way. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the more he begins to wonder if he ever changed at all.

"BRAVO!" the Nome King roars again, his thunderous laughter shaking dust from the roof. "Encore, encore!"

Diggs tries to respond, but all that can emerge from his mouth is a choked whimper.

"That's right," says the King, his face emerging from the ceiling. "It was all an illusion; the trilobites, the collapse of the palace, your escape and transformation - all just a dream. And I must say, I never imagined you'd remain as foolish and egotistical as you were as the Wizard, but some things never change, do they?"

"You… you did all that just to torture me?"

"Not entirely; I was a little bit curious to see what would happen if you had the chance to set things right, to see how you would react in seeing a version of yourself who'd lived a more worthwhile life - by your standards, anyway. I wanted to see what would happen if you were to bump into a man who'd had the family you'd always wanted, who'd been a father to Elphaba when she dearly needed it. In fact, I was actually going to let you take his place if all went well and let you spend the rest of your life in a dream while your body withered and died. Yes," he added gleefully, "You were within seconds of my mercy. And you failed: you killed your other self and your daughter - again, and not long after you tried to stalk them home, no less. So the study did have some very interesting results."

"And what are those?" Diggs asks. He's barely managing to keep the tears at bay; he doesn't want the King to see him lose whatever semblance of control remains.

"Quite simply, you want to be punished; in that illusion, you had every opportunity to keep Elphaba safe without having to barge into her personal life. You could have been her invisible bodyguard, protecting her against the lions and tigers and bears and so forth; and from there, you could have actually been her father! You could have had a chance to erase your mistakes, even if the chance was only an illusion. But, to put it lightly, you blew it. You killed your other self without even bothering to find out who he was, and you murdered your daughter for the second time in almost as many years. Congratulations.

"The only conclusion I can draw from this is that, at heart, you're a masochist. So, if it's any comfort, allow me to assure you that, barring the remote possibility of me finally regaining an atom of mercy, you are now the single inhabitant of a Hell without end."

Slowly, the King's face vanishes from the ceiling, and at long last, Diggs' fragile composure well and truly collapses: for the next half an hour, he sits there, sobbing and wishing he could simply lie down and die, because now the guilt and the sense of loss over Elphaba's death has somehow become even worse. He can no longer say he simply ordered her death; now he knows that he killed her, and he did so twice now.

Even if this time, it was only an illusion, it still hurts so… damnably… much…

He recalls that, as both a con artist and a self-styled "benevolent dictator," he'd been proud to never be directly responsible for the death of another living being; he'd hidden behind so many delusions, so many pathetic lies and fallacies, but now he knows the truth:

He's a killer.

He's a monster; the illusion of his transformation hadn't shown him being disfigured or deformed or twisted out of his natural shape in any way: it had simply showed him what he would look like if his body could somehow mirror his soul! Why else would the face of the monster bear the massive jaw and glaring eyes of the mechanical Face he had used to cow the people of Oz into submission?

Why else is he even alive if not for the punishment that a monster deserves?

This time, there are no rationalisations, no hope that he can see Elphaba in heaven or hell, no thoughts as to escaping or suicide; from then on, the only thing that occupies his mind is the spectral image of a murdered child.

The echoes died away.

Elphaba looked from Diggs' ashen face to the cave wall behind him; was the Nome King listening to this? Was he gloating over how he'd managed to finally destroy his opponent's will? Was he wondering what Elphaba would do next?

Diggs, meanwhile, was holding up something. "This appeared on my desk just a few days ago," he said quietly.

It was a postcard: somewhat unsurprisingly, the front showed an image of the Emerald City in the middle of the Nome invasion, caught in the act of being razed to the ground. On the other size, the King had written "I can honestly say that I wish you were here: quite a few of the citizens were screaming your name as they died; others were actually praying for you to deliver them from their ruination. I should have brought you along; they'd have been so happy to meet you."

"That's how I knew about the invasion," Diggs explained wearily, "all because the King wanted me to feel just a tad worse about myself - as if that was even possible! And somehow he managed it!"

He laughed mirthlessly, and then quickly sobered. "You see why I want to die? If you spare my life, there'll only be more torture in store for me; I don't know what the King plans to do with you, but once he's finished, he'll show me every grisly detail just to make it hurt that much more. I know I haven't done much to earn mercy from you, so please, don't think of it as mercy-"

"Diggs-"

"-think of it as revenge for all the harm I've caused; for the death of your mother, for the crippling of your sister, for everything I did to the Animals, everything I ever did to you. I don't even care if you draw it out for hours on end, just… just kill me. Please."

Elphaba hesitated; looking into the face of the man she'd loathed for all the years she'd known him, she tried to find even a hint of the old bravado, the old swarm and charm that she'd despised so much. But there was no sign of it in the former Wizard's face; in fact, all she could see was exhaustion. And for the first time, in spite of everything she'd been told in the past half an hour, she couldn't muster the hatred she'd need to take his life; all she felt was a vague and simmering resentment, and…

Pity.

A strange idea formed in the back of her head, and she glanced back at the table; just as Diggs said, under it lay the remains of old torture machines, chunks of scrap metal that he'd tried to cut his wrists on at one point. She pointed a finger at one of the larger pieces of metal; obviously, the pressure on her magic had been lessened, for it instantly sprang into the air and began slowly hovering towards Diggs; slowly, a relieved grin formed on the man's scarred countenance. Clearly, he thought Elphaba was going to impale him on it.

"Do you want to stand up for this?" she asked gently.

Diggs nodded, and painfully hauled himself upright, his hobbled legs and crooked kneecaps dragging this simple task on for two whole minutes; once he was well and truly upright and standing as straight as possible, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and whispers "thank you."

"You probably shouldn't thank me so soon, Your Ozness," she said coldly. "Ferruseld Magnetifus Estrallivar Vekt."

The air was suddenly filled with the sound of metal being twisted out of shape, and Diggs opened his eyes to see that the chunk of scrap metal that he thought Elphaba was going to kill him with was now slowly reshaping itself, warping and bending into a new, unrecognizable shape. Slowly, as Elphaba repeated the incantation, more bits of discarded metal joined it, all of them being incorporated into the structure she was slowly building, augmenting it with improvised joints and hinges. It wasn't until the whole thing began fastening itself around Diggs' body that he finally realised what it was for: it was a support frame, a makeshift reinforcement structure for his damaged skeleton; with this, his legs could move without buckling or collapsing, and he no longer ran the risk over losing his balance and toppling forward or backwards.

Diggs was opening his mouth to protest, when Elphaba started chanting again; this time, the spell she cast was designed to relieve the pain in Diggs' limbs and bones, plus any chafing the frame might cause. At last, she stood back to survey her work.

"There," she said. "How do you feel?"

"Weren't you listening?" Diggs exploded. "If you leave me alive, he'll just keep torturing me!"

"No he won't. You know why? Because it wouldn't be as satisfying as watching the great Wizard of Oz die at the hands of his only daughter; after all, that's one of the reasons why he brought me here - though it's probably not the main one. You already told me he was prepared to set up whole worlds of illusions just to break down your self-esteem; what's to say he wouldn't appreciate the irony of you being murdered just seconds after you explain who you really are? I don't know about you, but I'm not going to let that bastard win so easily. I don't care if he was justified in torturing you or not: he's murdered thousands of people, destroyed most of Oz, kidnapped Glinda, and he's probably planning to do even worse - I'm not going to give him the pleasure of an easy victory."

"So you're just going ignore everything I've done to you? All the suffering I've caused you? You're just going to walk away and pretend that never happened?"

"Mr Diggs," Elphaba snapped pointedly, "If I actually wanted to take revenge on you, I'd… well, just look at yourself. What could I possibly do to make you feel any worse?"

"Point taken," Diggs sighed. "But even if you're right about what the King wants, that means I've still got a lifetime in prison to look forward to, and that's assuming I'm not left to starve to death. In the meantime, you get to suffer whatever the King has planned for you. How is any of that better than just killing me and leaving the palace as quickly as possible before he can get his act together?"

"Well, for a start, he's probably already listening to us even as we speak, so there's no point trying to escape now." Elphaba smiled grimly. "Plus, would it hurt you to have faith in my abilities? When I said I wasn't going to give him an easy victory, I meant it."

There was a long silence.

"Does that mean… you forgive me?"

"In a word, no."

"Ah."

"Before you ask why, you've suffered for what you've done, there's no doubt about that, but you haven't made any real effort to atone for your mistakes."

"But how am I supposed to do that? I'm trapped in an underground prison cell with no way of escaping!"

"I didn't say you had to do it immediately, or in one go for that matter; any help you could give me right about now would be very much appreciated…" She lowered her voice. "For example, does the King or the other Nomes have any kind of weakness, anything we can exploit?"

"Eggs."

"What?"

"Eggs; Nomes are vulnerable to chicken eggs. From what the experts told me back when during the first diplomatic talks, egg yolk actually poisons their magical cores: once they've eaten it, they just dissolve into nothingness - they can't even escape the poisoning by creating a new body."

"Is that why the Nome armies destroyed so many chicken farms?"

"Absolutely. Trouble is, I don't think you're going to be able to find one at short notice."

"Remember what I said about having faith in my abilities?" Elphaba grinned, but without conviction: she hadn't forgotten how badly she'd been beaten. "I'll be back soon. Don't worry."

She turned, and began striding towards the door, mind racing through possibilities.

"Just a minute!" Diggs called.

Elphaba stopped, trying not to let the irritation show. "What is it?"

"It's about… well, you how I said that you're…" Diggs took a deep breath. "Are you okay with… well, with me being your father?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, I hate to state the obvious, but you're my daughter; I need to know these things."

Elphaba rolled her eyes. "I think you're still a long way from being allowed to call me that, Mr Diggs; I can't just up and forgive you for everything you've done, and I can't just start thinking of you as my…"

She sighed; the word still left a bad taste in her mouth.

"…My father. I think you'll have to work hard to earn that right. As for how I feel… I don't know what I feel about it. It doesn't matter now, though: I can deal with it later."

"One more thing, before you go… what was that spell you used before? The one you used on that scrap metal, by the way."

"Ferruseld Magnetifus Estrallivar Vekt? It's a spell for shaping and controlling metals too strong to be moved with telekinetic magic. It's not a very powerful spell- it's so mundane I didn't even find it in the Grimmerie- but it has its uses. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious."

As Elphaba strode away, Diggs sat down awkwardly on the mattress and wondered.

Over the course of a single meeting, his life had turned upside down; against all expectations, Elphaba was still alive, she'd refused to kill him, and she'd suggested that there might- just might- be a chance for her to forgive him if he worked hard enough to redeem himself. There was always the possibility that this might just be another one of the Nome King's illusions after all, but for some reason, Diggs no longer thought it mattered.

Supposing their conversation had been real, supposing he really had heard Elphaba saying that there was some hope left - and that there was - but if so, where should he start? Could there be some way of helping her against the Nome King from this cell?

He thought back to the incantation he'd heard: Ferruseld Magnetifus Estrallivar Vekt.

He couldn't forget those words; they were embossed on the inside of his skull, too powerful to forget, if only because Elphaba had shown him mercy though them. And something about the spell itself, about its function and its uses struck a chord with him as well: it wasn't something that could destroy entire cities or change the course of history or anything like that; it was just a spell for manipulating metal. And with that spell, Elphaba had accomplished in minutes what a skilled metalworker could only have done in hours or days.

In all his years surrounded by magic, he'd never once been inclined to learn any of it; he'd left that to the magicians who'd offered their services to him. But now he wondered if it was possible for an old fraud like him toactually use real magic.

He glanced under the table; there were still a few bits and pieces of scrap metal there.

Focussing his attention on the lumps of iron and copper, he pointed a finger at one of the largest possible sections, and recited, "Ferruseld Magnetifus Estrallivar Vekt."

Nothing.

"Ferruseld Magnetifus Estrallivar Vekt," he repeated, louder this time.

Still nothing.

This time, he gave it everything he had: he focussed every last iota of his concentration on the scrap heap before him, waved his hand with all the flourish of a trained conjurer, and bellowed, "Ferruseld Magnetifus Estrallivar Vekt!"

There was soft popping sound, and a screw leaped out of one of the largest sections of metal and landed at Diggs' feet.

Diggs smiled.

He didn't know how this was going to help him or Elphaba, but he was going to do his best to find out how.

After all, he had something to strive for now.

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Comments

plush_anon on Chapter 1 Thu 05 Aug 2021 08:55PM UTC

wait a minute
WAIT A MCFREAKING MINUTE
ARE YOU THE ONE WHO WROTE THE FANFIC WHERE ROUGHLY THIS LINE WAS INCLUDED?
"He found himself wishing he could scream - if only he knew where his mouth had gone."
BECAUSE IF SO YOUR WRITING HAS STUCK IN MY HEAD FOR LITERALLY A DECADE, SINCE I REMEMBERED READING (something along this lines of) THIS LINE IN A RETURN TO OZ/WICKED MUSICAL MASHUP FANFIC, AND I VERY MUCH WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT IT'S STUCK WITH ME ALL THIS TIME, EVER SINCE HIGH SCHOOL AND ACROSS A DOZEN NEW FANDOMS

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1. Straight_jacketed on Chapter 1 Fri 06 Aug 2021 08:33AM UTC
  
  Yep, that was me. Chapter 27, as I recall.
  Thanks so much for your kind review!
  
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dragonauri on Chapter 1 Fri 24 Sep 2021 05:47AM UTC

Coming back to ch. 1 to say I'm so glad I stuck around - this sucked me in! LOVE your writing style and characterizations :)

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1. Straight_jacketed on Chapter 1 Sun 26 Sep 2021 05:22PM UTC
  
  Thanks so much for your comments so far!
  
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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 1 Thu 15 Aug 2024 12:51AM UTC

Woah, what a way to begin this. I look forward to so much more.

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 2 Thu 15 Aug 2024 12:58AM UTC

Certainly feels like a continuation of the story, especially when addressing certain things that Wicked didn't acknowledge like the Scarecrow supposing to be ruler of Oz.

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I Write Fix-Its Not Tragedies (Jan3693) on Chapter 2 Wed 06 Aug 2025 12:28AM UTC

I love Return o Oz and cannot wait to see it blended with Wicked! So excited!

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1. Straight_jacketed on Chapter 2 Thu 07 Aug 2025 01:47PM UTC
  
  Thanks! Hope it lives up to the hype!
  
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Elphielover (Guest) on Chapter 3 Fri 20 Aug 2021 11:53AM UTC

Awwwwwwww! I totally love this story

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1. Straight_jacketed on Chapter 3 Fri 20 Aug 2021 03:00PM UTC
  
  Thank you :) !
  
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dragonauri on Chapter 3 Fri 24 Sep 2021 04:56AM UTC

Went in search of some Wicked fanfic after re-listening to the album and I *love* how cleverly you're writing this! The way you're intertwining all the books with the musical (and some elements of the movie?) is just marvelous. Absolutely hooked, invested, on to the next chapter, can't wait for more!
Also oh my god Fiyero, talk about not having brains... you really could've used some right before blurting that out, bro

Last Edited Fri 24 Sep 2021 05:01AM UTC

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 3 Thu 15 Aug 2024 01:09AM UTC

Oh boy, I know the Nome King when I hear him, and I'm liking this.

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dragonauri on Chapter 4 Fri 24 Sep 2021 05:15AM UTC

losing my MIND over ""The same way I know that your name used to be spelt Galinda with a "Ga"," he said flatly, ignoring the sound of Boq's own jaw dropping with a clank" and the ensuing shouting match between the two of them, that was great

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 4 Thu 15 Aug 2024 01:21AM UTC

Oh yeah, a duel between Roquat the Nome King and Glinda the Good Witch of the South. This gonna be good...
The Nomes and Wheelers invading is also pretty epic and dark.

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dragonauri on Chapter 5 Fri 24 Sep 2021 05:28AM UTC

MME MORRIBLE!? You think of *everything*

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 5 Thu 15 Aug 2024 11:34AM UTC

Awesome duel. I imagine Roquat has the silver slippers at this point, or maybe his magic belt, or possibly both.

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 6 Thu 15 Aug 2024 11:47AM UTC

I'd love to see Mombi and Morrible face off each other.
And fun fact: in the Oz books, Mombi was the Wicked Witch of the North, ruling over Gillikin Country only to be deposed by Locasta Tattypoo the Good Witch of the North.

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 7 Thu 15 Aug 2024 03:31PM UTC

Interesting lil titbit from Morrible.

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 8 Thu 15 Aug 2024 05:32PM UTC

Ooo, I'm really loving this. Roquat's really playing into Glinda's dreams and desires, tempting her with such to become true, even if she knows of potential consequences to those she knows and loves and even herself too. I really wanna see where this may go...

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 9 Thu 15 Aug 2024 09:19PM UTC

Seeing Mombi the Wicked Witch of the North and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West confront each other is definitely worth it.

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HRCStanley97 on Chapter 10 Thu 15 Aug 2024 10:33PM UTC

I'm really liking to see how Glinda is getting desperate and seduced by Roquat's offers.

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AppleBlossom785 on Chapter 11 Wed 30 Jul 2025 05:22PM UTC

Oh, wow, I read this several months ago and (sorry) didn't leave a review because I have insecurities myself about my review-writing. I know self-doubt is a beast but I do love this story. The ending to chapter 3, for example, was so clever that I read it and thought "I wish more authors were this good at ending chapters!" If you continue this further, I'm looking forward to reading more.

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