A/N: Well, here we are with a new chapter at long last. Fair warning, though, ladies and gents: we've got Mombi again in this chapter, followed by the perspective of a heretofore unexplored original character; if neither of these are your thing, this chapter may hurt. Sorry.
Now that the public service announcement is out of the way, read, review and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Wicked. Contrary to the evidence, it doesn't own me, either.
"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, and realised 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, this was different- 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, unless Basalt had missed something vital in the conversation- not entirely implausible, since he'd been averting his eyes and ears from most of it out of deference to the King.
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 around them?"
Glinda blinked, evidently nonplussed. "No."
"Did you ever see her crying?"
"No; Elphaba kept her emotions very firmly bottled away. 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.
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 spies would know; after all, the King had been using them to spy on Elphaba.
Or, perhaps the Scarecrow- one of Elphaba's murderers- would know the answer...