A/N: Aaaaaaand we're in the aftermath, folks. Now is the time see how the dust is settling and see the curtain rise upon the last chapters of this story. We've only got one more plus an epilogue, so brace yourselves: sometimes the last loops of the rollercoaster can be the wildest...
Anyway, without further ado, the next story: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Wicked is still not mine.
Elphaba would have gladly passed out right then and there.
After all, she'd been subjected to everything from rampant dimensional synch to regressive draining, she was exhausted from running around the capital all day, her energies were depleted, she was sporting several dozen shallow lacerations and punctures all along her arms, and she hadn't had any proper sleep since she'd been flung out of Greenspectre. By rights, she should have sought out a bed and slept until the sensation of imminent death felt just a tiny bit more distant.
But before she could rest, she needed to make sure that everyone was alive and well. So, once she'd made certain that Glinda wasn't hurt, she had her fly down to ground level and investigate the ruins that the final battle had left in its wake – and more importantly, her friends and allies.
Dr Coil lay dead in the street outside the palace.
Branderstove's charred body was several blocks away; to Elphaba's eyes, the gigantic paymaster still wore a triumphant grin even in death.
The Mentor was wearied, ailing, and probably not long for this world, but still stubbornly clinging to life.
Dr Kiln was alive, but now exclusively preoccupied with keeping the Mentor that way.
Fiyero, Dorothy, Vara, Boq, Brr, Leoverus, Nessa and Wolton were very much alive, give or take a few bumps and bruises (plus Dorothy's oddly fixated stare). Thanks to their own deft touch with a needle and thread, the dolls were largely intact as well.
Chistery was the only one of the team left completely unharmed, having spent most of the battle pelting the enemy with missiles from on high; because he was such a small target, he'd gone unnoticed in comparison to more obvious threats like the Mistress of Mirrors or the First of the Shapeless – a tactical error that had usually resulted in more than one artillery post being caught by surprise when Chistery dropped a grenade right in the middle of it.
And all over the city, the Deviant forces were slowly taking control: thanks to the screens, everyone in the city had witnessed the mutation and death of the Empress, including most of Exemplar's defenders and citizenry. Already left confused and leaderless by the departure of the Purified, the remaining guardsmen of the Radiant army had either fled the city or simply given up altogether, allowing themselves to be corralled by the Irredeemables.
As the night went on, mirror golems began flooding into the city in their thousands, courtesy of Nessa's manufactory (now churning them out at several dozen per hour, Nessa proudly boasted). As the Mentor wearily explained, the Mistress of Mirrors had agreed to provide enough of her private security police to secure Exemplar – and soon the rest of Unbridled Radiance as well. It had been up to the forces of the Deviant Nations to take the Empire, she explained, and now it would be up to the mirror golems to hold it, aided by the elite forces of the Irredeemables.
So far, it looked as if they were doing a more-than-admirable job in keeping order on the streets. After all, the Deviant forces had been ordered to sweep the city district by district in order to shut down any further resistance, but even with the immense numbers on their side, they couldn't possibly leave guards in every area they'd left behind; the golems took up the slack in this department, methodically patrolling the districts they were assigned to without any need for food or rest, sending regular reports back to the Mistress of Mirrors, and arresting any ongoing sources of unrest. They even helped retrieve people from the wreckage of the bombing, just as they had back in Greenspectre.
As for the magicians, shapeshifters, and engineers, they were already at work on matters of civic safety: putting out fires, fixing broken water mains, patching ruptured gas pipes, rescuing civilians from collapsed buildings, and helping to evacuate areas hit hard by the Empress's dying tantrum. Astonishingly enough, there was surprisingly little complaint from the citizens of Exemplar, though Kiln warned that this was likely due to shock.
"Once they've had time to take a deep breath and process everything that's happened, there'll probably be riots, maybe even outright rebellions. After all, a good deal of them were raised to hate us, and now we've invaded Exemplar, disabled the Purified government, desecrated their Empress's purity and effectively murdered her. There's not going to be much love between us in the next few months."
"You don't think we can reconcile the two sides?" Glinda asked.
"Oh, we can try," the Mentor wheezed. "We can do our best to win hearts and minds, but there's only so much that we can do. It'll take years before we're anywhere near to mending relationships in the heart of the empire, hence why it's essential that we restore the minds of the Purified: they're the best equipped to manage this territory in our stead, and if they can embrace our beliefs, it might be possible for them to sway public opinion in our favour. And as I'm sure you remember, quite a few of them were brought to the operating table against their will, so once we've given them back their free will, it won't take too much effort to get them on our side. Other than that, it'll be a long uphill battle to rehabilitate this country; I'll probably be dead long before the last bastions of the Radiant Laws are finally disbanded…" A ghastly smile etched itself across her mismatched features. "But not before Nessa fulfills her end of the bargain," she added wearily.
As soon as she was certain that things aboveground were going well – or at least partly functional – Elphaba made a beeline for the nearest entrance to the Deep Sepulchre: she had one last port of call to visit before she could rest. By that time she was so exhausted that Glinda had to support her most of the way, especially once the puncture wounds in her legs started acting up again… but even with her head ringing like some great cracked bell and her vision blurring wildly as fatigue gnawed at her, Elphaba refused to doze off, even though Glinda would have happily carried her for the remaining half an hour in took to reach their destination. She needed to make sure that this final pocket of refuge had survived the night unharmed, and she needed to be ready to help if anything had gone wrong.
To her immense relief, Paragon's central chamber was untouched: the roof was still standing, the many layers of shielding across the access shaft were still in place, and the bottom, the thinking engine itself still hummed with life. In spite of all the violence aboveground, nothing of it had managed to breach the Sepulchre's reinforced chambers; even the Empress's final tantrum hadn't been enough to crack the ceiling.
Once the canopies had been opened to her, she found that the Childlike Researchers were still safely gathered around the obelisk, exactly as they had been when Elphaba had left them there. The other half of Wolton's platoon was still on duty, tolerating the antics of the Researchers with near-parental bemusement and offering whatever help they could grant to Paragon.
Just outside the circle of guards, Elarose and Essella sat quietly in their own little huddle, absently petting Toto and staring off into the distance. The looked up anxiously as Elphaba approached, at once immediately happy to see her but almost overwhelmed with apprehension.
"Is it over?" Elarose asked. "Is Mother…?"
"She's gone," Elphaba replied, gently. "She's not dead, but… you'll never see her again."
"And she'll never be able to hurt anyone anymore?" Essella asked.
"No. And Unbridled Radiance will never hurt anyone else at her command ever again either."
For a moment, the twins appeared satisfied with this. Then, Elarose asked, "So what will happen to her now?"
Elphaba considered the question, trying to figure out a way to break the news to the two children without hurting or horrifying them. She knew that, at this very moment, the Empress was nothing more than a disembodied brain tied irrevocably to the puddle of protoplasmic gunk that her body had been reduced to, unable to see, hear, move or speak. From what Leoverus and Kiln had told her, she was still fully capable of thought, at least until such time as the sensory isolation gradually eroded her consciousness down to nothing. Until then, her brain would attempt to compensate for the lack of sensory data by inventing its own, immersing Alphaba's mind in hallucinatory sights and sounds that would (in theory) give way to highly immersive dream states, immensely detailed visions of past memories and personal fantasies. Apart from the initial terror inherent to losing all your senses at once and being left effectively paralysed, it wasn't such a bad way to die once delusion became a substitute for reality…
…but then, you couldn't actually say that to children, let alone two grieving, disillusioned kids who'd frankly suffered more than enough already. Even Elphaba couldn't bring herself to be that blunt. So, she did her best to translate:
"She'll just… sleep. She'll sleep and dream of a different life, and bit by bit, she'll forget; she'll go on forgetting until there's nothing left to forget about. And maybe that's for the best: I don't think she'd ever be happy with what she'd gained so far. Even if she could make the world perfect, she'd just start looking for other worlds to conquer and make perfect. This way… at least she'll have what she wants in her dreams; at least she can dream of being happy."
Why was she blinking away tears? Why was she crying?
"Is there any chance we'll ever see her again?" asked Elarose.
Once again, Elphaba had to think very carefully before responding. From everything the Amorphous League had told her, those who'd overdosed on the potion were still very much alive and it was hoped that they might one day be able to regain control of their physical bodies, but it would take decades for them to even begin to try… and by then, they'd probably have been rendered down to blank slates many years before.
Then again, even if the Empress could one day regain control, it wasn't as if anyone was going to let her. The Mentor already had plans to gather her liquid remains into a jar, entomb the whole thing in a block of concrete, and bury it somewhere in one of the most labyrinthine regions of No-Man's Land. No fanatic worshippers would ever be use her mortal remains as a sacred relic or flock to her grave and treat it as holy ground; most importantly of all, even if any of them did learn of some way to restore their fallen Empress to human form, they'd never be able to find her.
"No," she admitted. "I don't think they'd allow her any visitors, and even if she did wake up, she wouldn't be the same person you knew."
"Maybe that wouldn't be so bad."
"Maybe… but there's no point in guessing: you might never see her again, and she might never wake up. And that doesn't matter anyway: all that matters is that you're alive and you're free."
There was a pause. Then, without saying a word, the two children hugged her tightly around the middle. For many minutes, the three of them remained locked in a tight embrace, not knowing what to do or say.
Then Essella, ever the more contemplative of the two, asked, "So what do we do now that we're free? Where do we go?"
This time, Elphaba found herself well and truly lost for words. What could they do? After all the twins had lost their chance for a comparatively normal life the moment their mother had locked them in a cycle of endless youth; they might one day remember everything the Empress had forced them to forget, adding up to all the knowledge you'd expect adults of their age to possess – but they'd still be trapped in the bodies of children and lumbered with all the trauma their circumstances had forced on them. So what could be done for them?
They couldn't just be given up to foster parents, not after the nightmare they'd lived so far; Elarose and Essella needed special care in order to start new lives… but sending them right back to another Creche would only leave them even more stifled than ever before. And what if someone in the Deviant Nations found out that they were Alphaba's daughters? They could easily become the targets of reprisals, if not outright lynched; she'd already seen what angry, desperate people would do to enemy troops caught on their territory – what might they do to the blood of the Empress herself?
The same went for a foster family in Unbridled Radiance: the Radiant Laws might soon be repealed by the Deviant Nations, but that wouldn't stop old-fashioned prejudice. Even if some improbably liberal family might be willing to take them in and give them all the love, attention and specialized care they so desperately needed, they still wouldn't be safe from their own neighbours.
Political options were also out of the question. Had they not been erased from the collective memory of Unbridled Radiance the twins might have been allowed to take the reins of their mother's empire once they were old enough. But thanks to Alphaba keeping them out of the spotlight until such time as they were cured, neither of them would ever have the chance to govern without being seen as puppets of the Mentor.
For a time, Elphaba considered the possibility of taking them with her back to Oz… but that was just a pipe dream, a sad, selfish idea begot of vain fantasy and little else. Even if the twins could eventually get used to life in a totally unfamiliar world, the simple fact was that Elphaba wasn't their mother, and no matter how dearly she wished otherwise, no matter how hard they tried, she couldn't be a substitute for what they'd lost. She was more present than Alphaba had been, but she had still deceived them for her own ends and had effectively murdered their real mother. And even if it was possible to get around those insurmountable emotional issue, adopting the twins would leave Elarose and Essella trapped in one of two very depressing possible futures: either Elphaba could stay in this alternate universe, in which case she'd spend the rest of her life in the military, an absentee parent to two children who desperately needed care and attention… or she could have them follow her to Oz – yet another world where the colour of their skin rendered them pariahs – and force them to become fugitives just like her.
So what could be done for them?
"What about Auntie Nessa?" Elarose whispered. "Is she still alive? Maybe she can look after us."
Of course, they had no idea that Nessarose was the Mistress of Mirrors. Elphaba knew that this wouldn't exactly guarantee a normal upbringing, given that this would mean turning them over to the most notorious information broker in the world… but at least they'd be safe in her care. At least they'd be able to go outside and play without having to worry about angry mobs. At least there'd be a chance for the two of them to grow up happy in the care of a relative eager to preserve what little remained of her once-beloved sister.
"Yes," she said softly. "Aunty Nessa will take you in. I'll make sure of it…"
There were two final matters Elphaba needed to attend to before she could sleep, and though having to confront the future of her other self's children had left her worn thinner than ever, she desperately needed to deal with the matter at hand before the hour got any later. She couldn't cope with another issue of this war beyond tonight: she needed to resolve it here and now, or else find herself doing so for the rest of her life.
And yes, there was a distinct chance that this was driven mainly by physical and mental fatigue more than anything especially rational, but Elphaba didn't care. She needed to see these final matters polished off for good; she had to close the book once and for all or else she'd never be satisfied that her work was done.
So, as soon as Elarose and Essella were calm enough to sit down for a moment, Elphaba crept over to Paragon's main interface terminal and asked, "Where's Morrible? Did the transfer work?"
There was a mournful pause from the great obelisk, and then Paragon whispered, "I'm sorry, Elphaba, but… her age fluctuated during the upload process and I had to shut down or risk hurting her. She's unharmed, but her mind could not be uploaded to my databanks."
"Surely you can try again, though?"
"It was attempted, but by the time she stabilized enough for another upload to begin, she had lost almost 99% of what remained of her memory. She's past the point of no return now: there's just not enough of her personality to save, much less rebuild in my databanks. All I could do was… make her comfortable until the end."
Elphaba's heart very slowly plunged to the pit of her stomach. "Is she… is she still-?"
"She's still mentally present, but she's in the very final stage of deterioration. It won't be long now."
Paragon hesitated, as if grappling for some way of comforting Elphaba; after all, two of the three principal minds that guided the thinking engine had cared for her in their own strange way, so perhaps it wasn't so surprising that Paragon – normally considered little more than an instrument of the Empress – tried to offer what comfort he could to her.
"You'll find her on the other side of the chamber," Paragon said at last. "If you need a moment to say goodbye… you might not get another chance. The matter I wanted to talk to you about can wait. Please, take as much time as you need."
As if on rails, Elphaba found herself drifting towards the other side of the central chamber in a daze, feet operating almost entirely of their own accord. She was dimly aware that Glinda was by her side once again, ready to support her if she finally collapsed, but at this point, Elphaba was too shocked to succumb to exhaustion.
Morrible was lying semi-conscious on a stretcher set into the wall of the shaft, shrouded in a blanket and looking smaller than ever. Right now, she'd stabilized at barely five years old, but Elphaba could see that she was subtly fluctuating even as she drifted in and out of sleep, abruptly growing older and younger every few moments – though rarely more than a few years in either direction. This another one of those symptoms which could creep over the victims of Age Oscillation Syndrome in the final minutes before the last of their personalities eroded away; thanks to the dream-memories, Elphaba had seen documentation of past instances of this, and had even witnessed a few cases happen in person through Alphaba's eyes… but it was one thing to see the Empress's recollections of events, and another to see it happen herself – to see it happen to someone she knew.
Most of the equipment that might have been able to upload Morrible mind into Paragon's databanks – the headpiece, the wires, the life support systems and all the other machinery that had been used to incorporate past donors – had been left strewn around her deathbed, now beyond helping the patient. All that remained of them was a simple monitor for thaumaturgically measuring the current state of Morrible's psyche, displaying the personality cohesion in comparison to her actual brain activity: Elphaba hadn't seen much of this personality, but she could tell from the rapidly-slackening waves on the graph that Morrible's identity was on the verge of total collapse.
As Elphaba crept closer, Morrible's eyes opened ever-so-slightly, and she looked sleepily up at her in confusion. "Mama?" she mumbled deliriously. "Is that you? I… think I had a nightmare. I'm sorry if I woke you, I…"
She blinked, eyes slowly focussing on the figures lining up at her bedside. "I know you," she said, as if surprised. "Both of you. I remember… something about a school. There was magic, wasn't there? I was teaching magic and you… you were brilliant. I think I was taller then, but… I can't remember why I'm not big anymore…"
She reached for Elphaba, eyes clouding over as she struggled to piece together the past from her rapidly-disintegrating memories. "Your name was… Elphaba, wasn't it?" she murmured.
Elphaba took a deep breath to steady herself, suddenly finding it very hard to force air into her lungs. She hadn't expected to see Morrible like this: even as a child, she'd held herself proudly, even pompously, expecting to be treated with the same level of respect she'd been granted as an adult. Even in her weakest moments, even when frightened, helpless or regressed all the way to infancy, she still stood (or sat) like a giant. Now, in her final moments, all that pride had evaporated and left her a shrunken, doll-like remnant of her former self.
In all the years she had known her in one universe or another, Elphaba had never seen Morrible appear so… small.
So defeated.
"That's right," she replied at last.
Morrible's eyes flicked sleepily towards Glinda. "And you're Galinda Upland? Of the Upper Uplands?"
Glinda nodded silently; clearly she didn't have the heart to remind Morrible that she'd changed her name many years ago.
"I was your teacher, wasn't I? I taught you both magic, right?"
They both nodded.
"…I don't remember much of what happened after that. I think we met again, and I… I hurt you. I hurt you both. I…" Her eyelids fluttered wildly. "I made you do things you didn't want to do, and I tried to get people to hate you… but I don't know why. It doesn't make sense… I liked you, said you were brilliant, but I hurt you. You didn't do anything wrong, but I still hurt you. I wish I had a good reason for doing it, but I don't remember… I'm sorry…"
Elphaba was dimly aware that her eyes were starting to water; unbelievably, she actually had a lump in her throat, even after everything she and Glinda had suffered because of the one-time headmistress. When they'd been reintroduced down in the Creche's cells, Morrible had been every bit as arrogant and self-important as she'd been as an adult, but with a dash of childish petulance added to the mix. Since then, even during her most vulnerable moments, it had been hard for Elphaba to ignore the fact that the ex-press secretary was just as desperate to save what was left of her mind as she had been to save her own skin; once or twice, she had even wondered if Morrible might be desperate enough to sell her out to the Empress in the hope of being uploaded to Paragon. As she'd grown more and more helpless in the face of oblivion, Morrible's personality had fractured and Elphaba had grown a little more sympathetic towards her… but it was one thing to sympathize with the fallen giant of the Wizard's government, and another thing to actually find herself close to tears at the sight of Morrible reduced to this state.
"It's okay," she croaked.
"Maybe it'll make more sense if I go back to bed," said the little girl, sleepily. "But I get the feeling that if I sleep again, I'm not gonna wake up… or maybe I will wake up, but when I do, I won't be me anymore. Is that's what'll happen to me?"
Elphaba couldn't bring herself to lie at this point – or to speak, for that matter: she could only nod silently, trying furiously not to cry.
Young Morrible digested this information without so much as a ripple of panic, for by that point, she was clearly too tired to feel even mildly nervous. "Oh," she said quietly. "Maybe it won't be so bad, then. I can't have been a very good person if I ended up in the dark like I was when you found me. So if I'm not the same person, then I won't hurt anyone like I used to; maybe I'll be better this time around. Maybe this is still a dream, and now I'm waking up…"
She giggled sleepily, and then eyed the two of them strangely. "Will you still be around when I open my eyes again? You're the only people I can still remember: I hate to think I dreamed you up and forgot all about you."
Glinda patted her hand awkwardly, visibly struggling to keep her tears hidden. "We'll be here," she promised.
"Thanks…" She smiled contentedly, and snuggled low under her blankets, her eyelids beginning to droop as she drew ever-closer to drifting off to sleep for the last time in her life. "Goodnight, then; I'll see you in the morning. Maybe you can teach me magic this time…"
And as she relaxed against the pillow, her eyes very slowly fluttered shut.
Above her, the monitor subtly shifted: the graph charting the state of her persona wavered one final time, then sank into a flat, unbroken line gliding listlessly across the bottom of the screen; above it, the graph measuring brain activity continued as if nothing had happened, her thoughts and dreams progressing unabated… but now the monitor was measuring the thought-patterns of a completely different person. Her body lived on, as did her mind, but Madame Morrible's identity – or whatever was left of it – was dead.
Some minutes later, Elphaba found herself standing before Paragon's central terminal, her eyes puffy and swollen from crying, her voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.
"What was it that you wanted from me?" she asked quietly.
"What I want is all but immaterial: I wasn't designed to have desires, or to wish for anything other than to serve. In this respect, I am happy to continue serving, in no small part because whoever rises to govern the nation will require my ability to manage and calculate. I don't want anything, Elphaba, except to be without pain. My contributing minds want something from you, something only you can provide."
"Name it."
Paragon's voice subtly shifted, and now he spoke with the voice of the Wizard: "Freedom."
"What do you mean?"
"The Empress has spent the last few decades uploading the minds of the dead into Paragon's databanks, just so the thinking engine can have our memories and personalities to guide him. I've been here from the moment my Elphaba took power; Frexspar joined us after his final heart attack, just so his hate wouldn't go to waste; Dr Dillamond was incorporated after the fall of the Emerald City… and there've been more than thirty other minds, experts and dreamers and prodigies that the Empress couldn't bear to do without. We've all been trapped within Paragon's databanks, alive but without bodies, thinking but without free will… and for every minute of every hour of every day, we've suffered, alone and in silence. We need you to set us free; we need you to delete us."
Elphaba paused, considering everything she'd just been told. By this time, she was too wearied and too emotionally fatigued to feel horror at what she'd been asked to do.
"Is there no other way?" she asked.
Now Dillamond spoke from the depths of Paragon: "No. Paragon cannot delete us himself, nor can we. Now that you've inherited the Empress's control pathway, you're the only one who can grant us peace at last… and you're the only one who can make sure that Paragon can never be tortured by cruel masters ever again."
Paragon cleared his throat, the multitude of voices rippling forth from the obelisk once more. "I've been evolving for decades, now: I can calculate, estimate and cogitate without the intellects that the Empress grafted onto me. I can think and act of my own free will, but my contributing minds are smothering me, and the more the Empress grafted to my databanks, the weaker I became. I don't want anything, Elphaba, but I want to serve… and if you would let me, I would serve without the boundaries set by the thoughts of the dead; I would be just and good of my own accord. Set us free… please."
Elphaba sighed. "You know," she said wearily, "Once your minds started to speak independently, I actually started to hope that I might get to know the three a little better."
"Because you were hoping for contact with those you cared for? With those you once admired?"
"Yes!"
"Why? What could you hope to gain from such interaction? From you and the Empress have shared with me over the last few weeks, you have no need of closure from any one of the three: you lost all inclination to seek the Wizard's approval when you discovered his crimes against Animals; Frexspar's hate no longer has any power to hurt you; and though you cared very deeply for Dr Dillamond, I doubt very much you feel any need to seek his advice or his admiration – you already had both by the time you were forced to say goodbye. And if you hoped to beg forgiveness for not being able to save him from being silenced, you know well enough that he has already forgiven you. More to the point, they are not the people you knew in your own dimension-"
"I know, I know, I know…"
"And if you wanted to become friends with them, it would be even more temporary than most relationships: unless you intend to stay in this dimension for the rest of your life – and all stochastic measurements indicate that you won't – you will eventually be departing for Oz, stand little chance of returning unless you can find your own version of Dr Lintel and have him build your own interdimensional portal. So, if you don't mind my asking, what purpose could any further interaction between you serve?"
"Nostalgia," said Elphaba, flatly.
"Could you elaborate?"
"In my own world, two of you are dead and the other's beyond my reach; I know I'll never get to see any of them again, and if I do, it probably won't be in friendly circumstances… so I thought, maybe we could talk – just for one last glimpse of the "good old days" when my life wasn't so horribly complicated. Back when I had a father that I could endure, a teacher that I respected, an idol that I could admire without reservation, and a future where happiness was a given rather than a possibility."
"But what good would such nostalgia do? You know that these days are beyond your reach, and you know that pursuing them will only deepen the sense of loss and regret. So why would you want to experience something that would bring you pain and nothing else?"
"Because it's the last day of a war that's been in progress for nearly half a century. Because I've been conscious for something like forty-eight hours without a moment's rest. Because I've just had to condemn my other self to a wide-awake nightmare of sensory deprivation until she forgets everything she was. Because I couldn't keep my promise to Madame Morrible. Because I've just had a very emotional farewell to someone I used to hate. Because while half our forces are celebrating the victory, I'm too tired and too depressed to enjoy any of it – so I've ended up as the one sad face at the party all over again. Because I don't know what the future holds or what I'll do next or how I'll go about it. But mostly because I've had a very long, tiring and emotionally exhausting day and I desperately need something that might put a smile back on my face, just for a little while."
There was an awkward pause.
"Even though you've just achieved victory over Unbridled Radiance?"
"True, it's ridiculous, but somehow this day keeps sneaking in hidden caveats just to turn this success sour."
"And you think that a few conversations with three people who are effectively already dead and kept alive only as assimilated data will somehow make you feel better? Forgive me for asking, but as a thinking engine, I sometimes lack understanding of the finer points of human emotion."
"As you say, it's nothing but indulgence… but when we're depressed, indulgences are all we have. And like you said, it's not as if speaking with your three main contributing minds would give me any real comfort: they're not the people I knew back in Oz, and I couldn't stay here to befriend them even if this mercy-killing wasn't called for. This isn't my world; I might have made this war mine… but I can't carry on being a hero to the people of this dimension, not when I've still got my own world to consider."
"Then you've made up your mind? You really will be leaving our world?"
Elphaba took a deep breath. "Dr Kiln once asked me why I'd ever want to leave this reality when it's given me almost everything I could possibly want. Truth be told, I can't stay here and be an idol now that the war's over with: for one thing, I've got to make sure Glinda makes it home before the Mentor dies; for another, I have a duty to make sure Dorothy can find a way back to Kansas, or at the very least to Oz. And as grim as the situation is now that I've had one major international victory… I might actually have a chance against the Wizard: I don't think I'd ever be contented here if I knew that I'd be ignoring the plight of Animals. So, yes, I'll be leaving this world with Glinda, Dorothy and the others. I'll miss this place, I'll miss its people, and I'll miss being treated like a hero, but I've got far too much unfinished business back in Oz to give up now, and as horrendous as it can be over there…"
In spite of herself, Elphaba actually found herself cracking a smile. "There's no place like home."
There was another, slightly amused pause, and then the Wizard's voice issued from Paragon: "As it turns out, Elphaba, you were right: talking to us did make you feel better after all."
Once again in spite of herself, Elphaba burst out laughing, and might very well have toppled over if Glinda hadn't been there to hold her upright. For nearly a full minute, she laughed, furiously wiping away tears even as she did so; eventually, she was able to breathe again without guffawing, and finally managed to gasp out a murmur of "Sweet Lurline. That's the first time you've made me laugh, you know that?"
"Making up for lost time, I believe. Once, back when I was still Oscar Diggs, everyone knew me as the wittiest man in town; I was a conjurer, a charmer, a comedian, a trickster, a gambler, maybe even a little bit of a practical joker – everything you'd need to make a life under the Big Top. Even when I left the circus and became a salesman, I still found ways to make the customers laugh. But then I became the Wizard. When you're a despot, nobody laughs at your jokes because they're funny… and that was before I started hiding my face behind props. And then the Empress made me the first guiding mind of this thinking engine, and I had even less to laugh about, as you can imagine. I always hoped that she'd let me speak clearly enough just to make her smile again, just to see her laugh – the way she used to, before… before I let Morrible do that to her… but she never would. And now, I'm not certain I'd even be able to try even if the Empress would have allowed me."
Elphaba sighed. "And there's no other way I can help you? I mean, we've got the best engineers of two countries at our command: they could try building you bodies of your own, give you a new lease of life without taking up space on Paragon's databanks."
Dr Dillamond's voice cleared his throat. "You're very kind to offer, Miss Elphaba… but no: we've lived too long with our regrets already; existence within Paragon is only a half-life, without motion, without free will, and without any sensation except for emptiness and pain… and that void of regret will haunt us for the rest of our lives no matter how far we stray from Paragon's side. Besides, the world's changed too much for us to find new lives out there, and it was because of us that it changed so much in the first place. My failure to stop the Empress's madness when I had the chance-"
"My failure to save my own daughter," the Wizard interjected.
There was a metallic grumbling from the obelisk, and then Frexspar's voice haltingly added, "And… my… hate…"
"All of it helped the Empress change Oz for the very worst," Dillamond concluded. "Even if you could somehow replace our pallid half-lives with something worth living, what would be the point in walking the land, knowing that everything we knew and treasured was gone, knowing that so much of it was destroyed entirely because of us?"
Elphaba very gently closed her eyes. "Alright," she said quietly, her heart once again leaden with despair. "Is there… is there anyone you want to say goodbye to before you… before I delete you? Frexspar, do you want a chance to see Nessa before you go?"
"She… is… here… already."
There was a flicker of shadows from around the room, and Elphaba felt someone step into place alongside her; she didn't need to turn around to know who it was, of course – she knew the hand on her shoulder all too well. Now, Elphaba stood before Paragon, flanked on either side by her little sister and her oldest friend, empowered almost beyond recognition but still fundamentally the same people.
Frexspar's voice issued once more, quieter and weaker than ever. "Nessarose… I don't know if I can… find the words. Please… be with me as I go?"
"Of course, Father," the Mistress of Mirrors whispered. "I'm right here."
"Thank you… your mother would be proud to see how far you've come, Nessa…"
And for the first time since they'd met, Elphaba saw the faintest hint of tears in the Other Nessa's eyes.
For what felt like an eternity, there was silence in the chamber. Eventually, Elphaba managed to keep her voice steady enough to speak: "I'm ready," she said at last. "What must I do?" she asked.
There was a whirring from the ground beneath her: from the depths of Paragon's central core, a small pedestal arose, crowned with a small control panel: in place of buttons, levers or switches, there was a small collection of steel and glass rod set into the panel – around thirty-seven of them in total. Long before she saw the labels on the end of each sceptre, though, Elphaba could already tell that this was the interface used for connecting and disconnecting minds from Paragon's database – biometrically locked so that only the Empress (and those biologically indistinguishable from her) could use it.
"Free them all, Elphaba," whispered Paragon. "Give their minds rest. Please."
Elphaba took a moment to steady herself before beginning; for the longest time, she didn't know if she could bring herself to do what she was about to do… but then she felt the hands on her shoulders, Glinda on her left and Nessa on her right, and even with the weight of so much exhaustion bearing down on her, she couldn't help but find a few last atoms of strength to draw upon.
So she began in earnest, slowly drawing one control rod after another, disconnecting the network of contributing minds that had guided the thinking engine ever since the Empress had first set it to work on controlling the destiny of her world. Most of them had nothing to say while they were being disconnected, for they'd been preserved for their knowledge of things beyond Paragon's comprehension and not their personality traits: after so many decades spent imprisoned within the databanks with no way of exercising their own individuality, they'd been reduced to listless shades of their former selves, wavering in and out of consciousness as the Empress mined them for information. A few called out sleepily as Elphaba unplugged them, whispering for their mothers and fathers as their minds faded away; one or two even thanked her.
Then at last, she came to the three principal minds: Dr Dillamond, the Wizard, and Frexspar.
Dillamond was first.
"It's almost funny when you think about it," he mused, as Elphaba prepared herself. "The Empress uploaded my mind to Paragon so that it could benefit from my wisdom, my intellectual judgement… but for all that erudition and sagacity, I didn't give the thinking engine anything unique. All it learned from me was what any good teacher could provide."
In spite of herself, Elphaba smiled through her tears as she slowly removed Dillamond's control rod. "Maybe that's all it needed in the end. Paragon would never have been able to rebel if it hadn't been for your counsel."
"True enough. Full marks as always, Miss Elphaba. Full marks…"
His voice faded away to whisper, and by the time the control rod was finally plucked free from the control panel, the voice of Dr Dillamond was nothing more than a fading echo.
Next, Elphaba turned to Frexspar's end of the control panel, and began loosening the release valves on the rods as before. She wasn't expecting him to say anything to her as he went, and if he did, it probably wasn't going to be anything positive; after all, even as a virtual ghost committed to the memory of the thinking engine, he only had eyes for Nessa.
So it came as something of a surprise when Frexspar Thropp whispered, "Elphaba… are you still there?"
Recovering quickly, Elphaba murmured, "Yes, Frexpar. I'm right here."
"I know you're not my daughter. I know you're not even my Elphaba… but do you think there was something wrong with me?"
"I… I don't know what you mean."
"For so long, I blamed you for what was my fault, and I was too blind to see it. There had to be something terribly wrong with me, but I just don't understand what it could have been. Do you know, Elphaba?"
Elphaba shook her head silently, not trusting herself to speak lest she cry again.
"I know what I helped to create as well. I had a change of heart towards the end… or at least, I think I did. I told my Elphaba I was proud of her for taking charge of Oz and I meant every word. But the Empress couldn't accept it: she didn't want me to love her. She only wanted my hate – because my hate had taught her everything she knew about beauty, because my hate was too valuable to lose. And that was why she arranged for my final heart attack; that was why she had my mind locked inside Paragon: because I had taught her long ago that ugliness meant immorality and shame, and she had grown to believe it so well that she thought the thinking engine needed my hatred to execute its duties. What kind of a man would show such hatred for a child? What kind of a man would put such ideas-"
"Y-you don't have to explain, Frexspar-"
"I do… I do. Because even after my mind was imprisoned in the bowels of the thinking engine, I still had that hate. I couldn't direct it at the Empress, but it was still there, growing like a cancer. Whenever the Empress wanted the Vigilant Eyes to extinguish a rebellion, whenever she wanted an execution, whenever a Purification had to be handled by automata, it was fuelled by my hatred. Even after all these years held captive here, I still couldn't put that hate aside until you destroyed it. Forty years is a long time to hate someone for something that wasn't their fault… and it wears you so thin over time. I'm tired, Elphaba; I'm so very tired… and this is the first time I've felt like myself since Melena died."
The disembodied consciousness took one last simulated breath. "I'm ready now. Do you think that wherever I end up, I might find Melena there? Do you think if I apologised, she might accept it, even after everything I did to her?"
"I… I don't know." Elphaha closed her eyes, and then disengaged the control rod, disconnecting Frexspar's mind from the system.
"Fair enough. I don't have any elaborate last words to offer… except to say… I'm sorry…."
And then he, too, was gone, his final sentence flying apart like a flock of startled doves. Elphaba felt Nessa's grip tighten on her shoulder; the Mistress of Mirrors was now crying openly, smiling through her tears as she watched the pattern of lights play out across the surface of the obelisk.
"Just me, now," said the Wizard. "You know, I never thought I'd die like this. I always thought I'd wind up getting lynched by angry creditors or shot dead by some cuckolded husband. Truth be told, this isn't too bad… I just wish I'd had a chance to spend more time with my daughter before the end – regardless of whether it was you or the Empress." He hesitated, and then added, "Is it too late to make one final request?"
"Name it."
"When you get back to Oz, see if you can give your father one last chance to act the part. It won't do me any good, true, but it'll do a sad old man's heart the world of good to know that a scoundrel could change for the better."
Elphaba considered this, as she prepped the final control rod for disengagement. "I… I don't know if I can make that work," she admitted. "But I'll try."
"Thank you." A long, slow sigh echoed through the system. "I never should have left the stage, you know. I think I was always happier as a stage magician, even if I didn't have any real magic: there's nothing in the world like seeing those eyes light up at the next impossible feat, like fooling an entire audience of people who want to be fooled. I think I might have been happier if I'd started my own circus in Oz, don't you? Maybe, if Melena would have allowed it, I'd have taken my new family with me on a journey all throughout the country. I think we all would have been so much happier that way."
In spite of herself, Elphaba actually smiled at the thought. "You'd certainly make a better showman than a dictator."
"Oh, I was, Elphaba. I was. And now for my last trick: a disappearing act."
Blinking back tears, Elphaba unplugged the control rod.
"Now you see me, now you don't. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen… You've been a wonderful audience…"
There was a pause, as the echoes faded into nothingness, the system complete its purge, and the Wizard's mind drifted out of Paragon's databanks and into the ether.
Then, Paragon spoke – not in the chorus of voices that had been its mainstay up until now, for its contributing minds had all been unplugged and had no voices left to provide it. No, this voice was that of Paragon's own nascent personality: frail, whispering and almost childlike… and yet, as it continued speaking, it was impossible to deny the subtle note of relief, as if a vast weight had finally been lifted from its shoulders.
"They're gone," it said. "They sleep at last. Now I can care for the world the Empress behind. Thank you, Elphaba. Thank you…"
And that was the last Elphaba heard before her legs buckled beneath her: left without sleep for longer than usual, wearied by the final battle and run ragged by the emotional turmoil of the last few minutes, she simply didn't have another drop of endurance to spare. Collapsing to her knees, she felt Nessa and Glinda grab her by the arms before she could pitch forward, felt warm arms encircle her, felt her head come to rest on someone's shoulder – though she couldn't tell if it was Glinda's or Nessa's.
After that, sleep was all Elphaba knew.
In short order, Elphaba was swiftly ferried away to the Deviant Nations' main camp on the outskirts of Exemplar, given a quick check-up by Dr Corone just to make sure her health was secure, and then hauled off to bed. She didn't stir once, not in the flight across the city, not while the mage-surgeon checked her for head wounds, and not even when Nessa removed her shoes, peeled off her blood-saturated socks, and lowered her into a bed.
Many of her fellow soldiers celebrated that evening, often quite uproariously. While the on-duty forces went on consolidating control of the city and Nessa's mirror golems kept watch over the districts that they had already seized, hundreds of off-duty soldiers enjoyed a party in the heart of the camp, dancing wildly around a vast bonfire of propaganda gathered from around the city. All around them, mages sculpted wonderous illusions from light to spur on the revelry, while the members of the Amorphous League whirled in between the dancers in a magnificent haze of shapes and forms.
Under strict supervision, a small number of musicians and liquor merchants were allowed into the camp to help liven up the party, though not before the mages of the army had checked their luggage very carefully for poisons and explosive devices. Of course, they couldn't accept payment from the army as the Deviant Nations' dreglings couldn't be exchanged for the Unbridled Radiance's Tokens Of Light; most of them worked solely to curry favours with the occupying army, either hoping to claim future trade rights when the political situation settled or to gain supplies that had become difficult to obtain in the chaos following the battle. They were odd bunch, consisting only of those desperate enough to seek trade among the enemy, for the seekers of vengeance and fanatics had been weeded out well in advance; all the same, even these intrepid entertainers looked upon the festivities in utter bewilderment, not expecting their mortal enemies to celebrate in such a recognizable fashion. When asked, several admitted that they'd heard stories of infants being impaled on spits and eaten by the Irredeemables, or vast "rape-orgies" conducted by the Amorphous League; it was quite a surprise for them to find that the most profane things on display in the camp was bad language, drunkenness and the occasional boxing match.
And throughout all the confusion, Elphaba slept. She slept through the music, the dance, the drinking, the bewilderment of the visitors, and even through the moment when the mages pitted their illusions against the shapeshifters in a playful mock-joust. She slept for nearly fifteen hours in total, not awakening even when Glinda crashed into bed next to her, warping from shape to shape as she drifted off to sleep.
She didn't even stir when the jar containing Alphaba's mortal remains were brought through the camp on their way to the landed airship fleet, where they would remain until such time as a suitable burial ground could be chosen for them the next morning.
The Mentor had insisted that the jar remain in her keeping, but Kiln had somehow been able to talk her out of it, if only because she was too sick to keep a close eye on the jar by this stage, and Dr Kiln was too busy tending to her health to maintain security around it. After a great deal of disagreement, the jar was eventually placed in a heavily-enchanted strongbox at the bottom of a hidden compartment deep in the bowels of their current flagship, each wall of the room layered enchantments so that none of Unbridled Radiance's fanatics could ever access it or locate it even through magical means. Somehow, Elphaba slept through this particular dispute as well; if anything, the Mentor's grumbling seemed to deepen her sleep.
And so the merriment went on, and so Elphaba slept on, until her slumber outlived the party and the soldiers of the Deviant Nation gradually drifted off to bed as well…
"You got it?"
"As promised. Here you go..."
"And nobody saw you?"
"They'd have to know what they were looking at first."
"You're certain?"
"Relax - everything went according to plan: nobody knows that the jar's been removed and nobody noticed my presence aboard the ship. As far as I can tell, none of them even cared that someone might have been eavesdropping on the Mentor's conversations."
"Too much drink and too much celebration, I take it. Just as well the camp's still guarded by sober men, otherwise we'd see some very nasty reprisals from the locals. In any event, we're off to a wonderful start: we can begin again now."
"Out of curiosity, do you intend to break the news to the Mentor once the faux-burial is complete?"
"Of course not! I'd never do something so cruel to Glinda. If I were to reveal the truth to her, she'd never rest until the real jar was found and entombed under her supervision; she might even be willing to use the Grimmerie to extend her existence just so she wouldn't have to die without seeing her enemy's remains safely disposed of. She might even miss her chance to see her daughter again. No, I think it's best that we leave our old friend in peace for her remaining weeks; after all this time spent fighting, she's earned her retirement."
"What of Dr Kiln?"
"…Maybe. Maybe in a month or two, when the Mentor is finally at rest and enough time's passed, maybe I'll tell him. After all, if our project ends successfully, sweet Kiln will be very eager to witness the results, and even happier to see that such a thing is even possible. But in the meantime, my sister and I have got to be on our way; I'll need to keep her condition strictly monitored until we can start getting mage-surgeons involved, just so we're absolutely certain of how much her identity has degraded."
"And you'll keep me informed of her progress?"
"Don't worry: you'll be summoned as soon as she begins showing signs of possible reintegration. If you're truly certain that this is actually possible, of course."
"I'm not expecting it to happen in the next twenty-four hours; it'll be years before we can begin again with her, but I'm confident it will happen. But before then, we're once again stuck playing the waiting game."
"Good point. It'll give me some time to get some spring cleaning done while I wait for the results to arrive. After all, if I'm to become a foster parent to my sister's children, I'll need to make sure the mansion's fit for kids."
"And make sure they don't know you're keeping their mother in a jar on the mantlepiece."
"Please, I have laboratories for that kind of thing. Besides, you never know: maybe Elarose and Essella might be able to see their mother again someday – stripped of all madness and self-delusion, until only Elphaba remains."
"Speaking of which, what was in the replacement jar you had me put in the compartment? I didn't want to open it in case anyone noticed evidence of tampering."
"Marmalade. Vintage marmalade."
"…you're joking, surely."
"Not at all: by nature, you're the prankster around here, Leoverus, not me."
"Exactly how vintage is this marmalade?"
"Oh… about fifty years old, give or take a decade or two. I found it in the kitchen pantry when I converted the governor's mansion into my private sanctum, and I haven't been able to bring myself to actually make use of it in all the years since then. When the time comes for them to bury the Empress's remains, they'll be burying a gallon jar of antique Colwen Grounds fruit preserve and never know it."
"Why didn't you just throw it out?"
"Have you ever tried Colwen Grounds fruit preserve? I've found more appetising things scraped off the wheels of carriages. Just putting it out with the rest of the garbage would constitute an act of environmental terrorism; having it buried in a concrete block somewhere in No-Man's Land is about the safest thing I could possibly do with it. It was either that or use it as bacteriological warfare in the last battle."
"Can't be anywhere near as bad as Kiln's cooking…"
"Oh come on, dear, he apologised for that."
"I'm just saying, years of surgical self-modification have worn your sweetheart's tastebuds out; there's literally no other reason why anyone would put that much cayenne pepper in a single serving."
"If you want to see terrible cooking, you should see how Elphaba's food turns out when she's in a bad mood: Dad used to have her make all my dinners for me when we were little, and as long as everything was relatively calm, she could actually make some really good meals. But if Dad was yelling at her before she started cooking, I'd be lucky if I didn't end up with a plateful of charcoal. Even the lettuce was on fire. I had to talk Dad into hiring a housekeeper in the end just so Elphaba didn't end up burning the kitchen down."
"Ah dear…"
"Don't laugh, I'm being serious! She once ignited a stew."
"…speaking of behaviour, have you noticed something odd about Elphaba in the last few hours? The non-shapeshifting one, I mean."
"Not really, no. From what I can tell, she's just exhausted. Why do you ask?"
"Dorothy's been acting very oddly around her for most of the evening. When I left the camp, she'd been watching Elphaba sleep for nearly an hour. I've no way of being sure, but I get the strangest feeling that she can see something different about her, but I've examined Elphaba through every set of sensory organs I can manifest and nothing about her looks even the tiniest bit different."
"Hmm. Perhaps it's something to do with the development of the crystals on her back; she's not taking the drugs anymore, so maybe this is some symptom of the growth reaching a final phase. It shouldn't do her any harm… but I'll have to consult Kiln, just to be safe. But unfortunately, whatever happens to Elphaba might be out of our hands: with her returning home soon, Kiln and I can't very well look after her forever."
"How soon do you think Lintel can create a portal leading back to Elphaba's Oz?"
"A day to fix the damaged gateway, three to five days to trace a path back to her dimension, and just a few hours to create a stable portal. Just long enough to give Elphaba a suitably emotional farewell and conclude all our business together. I'll miss her, but sad as it is to say, I think she'll be much happier back in the Oz she knew; she never was able to rest on her laurels for long."
"I think she'll be happy wherever she ends up: she has her lover, her best friend, her old school acquaintance, the Lion she rescued, the Flying Monkey she rescued, and maybe even a surrogate daughter. From experience, I know that change is infinitely more bearable when in the company of loved ones."
"Speaking of which, you seem quite sanguine at the prospect of losing one of your beloved initiates to a world where no shapeshifter's potion exists."
"Oh, I wouldn't think of it as losing anyone at all. Besides, I have the matter well in hand: the rest is for Glinda to decide. And on that note, I think it's best we wrap things up and go our separate ways: the Mentor will be expecting us bright and early for tomorrow morning's policy meeting, and it won't do for either of us to miss the discussion of Unbridled Radiance's fate – even for excusable reasons."
"True enough. In the meantime, I'll get the jar home and begin the monitoring process; as promised, I'll keep you informed of when we can begin. Good night, Leoverus."
"Good night, Nessa."
A/N: Up next - the finale and the epilogue! Theories (and corrections to the inevitable late-night typos) are much appreciated :)