A/N: At long last, the latest chapter, ladies and gents! Wherever you are, I sincerely hope you're enjoying better weather than I am at the moment - or at the very least, more consistent weather. It feels like we've had at least four seasons pass in the space of a single day, to say nothing of all the bloody storms we've been having of late... and of course, we've had blackouts, malfunctions, internet breakdowns, and just about every other technical fault that could occur short of electrocution. So yeah, April was not a good month for writing, but your reviews - some of the best I've ever enjoyed, by the way - helped me stay sane on the occasions I could actually use my computer/laptop/internet connection. So, in heartfelt gratitude, I post this latest chapter of this humble text, and pledge myself to post another very soon.
Calliax, I'm glad that I've once again succeeded in shocking and horrifying both through a plot twist and through the Empress's vile behaviour. The latter is particularly important to me, because when I started writing the Empress, I wanted Alphaba's villainy to be more than just moustache-twirling feats of ham; I wanted her to unnerve and disturb - not just because of the horrible things she does, but because of how she can be so unshakeably convinced of her own benevolence, and at the same time, so heartlessly indifferent to the suffering of others. This is going to another villain-y chapter, with a lot of focus on the bad guys, with a few strictly neutrals thrown into the mix: hopefully, they prove just as creepy as Alpahaba... though admittedly, the Hellion's not the only monster out there... (ominous music plays) Thanks for the happy anniversary, and I can only hope my latest chapter lives up to expectations.
RedApple435, great that you're enjoying things so far... and yes, the first of many alternates - always a terrifying prospect when the purity-obsessed tyrant finds a way to spread influence further afield. Of course, Alphaba will have to catch Elphie first for this idea to work...
Witches always return - I have to admit that I enjoy seeing villains win from time to time as well. I'm a bit morbid like that, I suppose. But without spoiling the ending, anything's possible, and given that this takes place in a multiverse where almost any conceivable scenario can take place, it might happen in some form or another. I'm glad you're enjoying it, and that the plot twists are still keeping you guessing; hopefully I can keep the plot twists flowing and the story engaging - but you'll have to be the judge. Oh, and as for Elarose and Essella, I decided on names with a flowing, elegant sound to them, befitting Alphaba's personal tastes; also, despite the Empress's need to keep her history a secret from her own subjects, starting everything all over again from Year Zero etc etc etc, her ego means that she can't quite resist the use of names vaguely reminiscent of her original name - and Nessa's if you look closely, a touch of sisterly devotion too. How they turned green is a different matter: I won't say too much, but I will say that the Mentor intended it as a direct attack on the heirs to Unbridled Radiance - though how long ago this happened is ambiguous. After all, they are being held in the Creche. As for why the Mentor didn't discuss this, she honestly doesn't like bringing up painful memories, and after so many decades of war and retribution, she has far too many to deal with at the best of times. I hope I've been able to answer your questions, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.
EmberskyofShadowClan, your review was lovely; it's always nice to receive a long a detailed review, and I must say, I'm quite flattered by it. As far as the review count, well, that's mainly due to the time it takes me to polish off these chapters - ie: my own fault - and frankly, I'm just grateful to be reviewed at all. I hope the wait wasn't too long, and I hope you enjoy this latest chapter. PS: Please don't destroy me.
Nami Swann, I'm glad you found the Creche disturbing; I always envisioned it as a kind of hellish Neverland, where eternal childhood brings nothing but sadness and Peter Pan is weighted down keep him from flying, where the pirates are the jailors, and the only way to enjoy the place is to succumb to madness. So, definitely a bit of Wonderland there too!
CurlyHairedWookie, insidious is a wonderful word to describe Alphaba, I must say - and not just in the present either. I've still got some dream-memories to catch up where Oz learns just how insidious Alphaba can be... but that's a matter for another chapter. Thanks for the review.
Anyway, thank you all for reading, and feel free to furnish me with more of your lovely critiques and reviews! Read, review and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Wicked is not mine, as the bad, the mad and the mercenary all know.
11/5/15: Made a few corrections to typos, missing words, accidentally-deleted sentences.
For perhaps the second time in as many days, the generals of Unbridled Radiance stood before her in silence, awaiting her orders. Transmitting from the distant combat zones on the border of the Deviant Nations and projected through emitters concealed in the throne room ceiling, their images stood to attention several feet above the gilded marble floor, as colourless as paper and intangible as ghosts – as some of the less-sophisticated maids had whispered. An amusing observation, given that the officers gathered here today were Purified and effectively immortal, a blessing that they had more than earned over the course of their long and illustrious careers: all of them had been selected for tactical prowess, heroic valour and unfaltering loyalty, and all of them continued to justify their ascension to this day.
Like all citizens of Unbridled Radiance, there were no restrictions on gender or species among the ranks of the chosen: man or woman, human or Animal, native or foreign-born, anyone could be granted the blessing of perfection, so long as they strove to achieve in their respective fields and unlock their true potential. Here and now, the scions of Exemplar's oldest families stood tall alongside officers selected from the defeated armies of Nobruvo, Galathos and other nations recently absorbed by the Empire; sculpted lords and ladies shared the rank of general with lions, tigers, bears and countless other Animals: all of them had been judged as equals in normality, and all of them remained equals in perfection – as the greatest living servants of the Empress. And in the light of what she'd just learned from Lintel and Paragon, those unhesitating servants were needed now more than ever…
Twos hours after she'd concluded her business at the Crèche, the technicians at work on Paragon's computation centres had reported their findings to her. Lintel had been correct: this Other Elphaba was indeed from another reality. The energy signature that surrounded the woman was a near-perfect match for the distinctive thaumaturgical mix that commonly occurred in Lintel's dimensional gateways, likely a leftover from her journey across realities. It wasn't yet clear how this traveller had managed to enter the Mentor's service, but it was plainly obvious that the deluded old hag was now idolizing her just as she'd idolized the long-dead Wicked Witch of the West; the Other Elphaba certainly had all the distinguishing traits – the explosive temper, the keen yet twisted intellect, the unnatural green skin, the blasphemous ugliness, and all the other wretched features that the Empress had been cleansed of during her Purification.
Perhaps the Mentor intended to use the Other as rallying figure for the Irredeemables, a means of embarrassing Imperial Beauty, or maybe even a tactical advantage in this latest stage in the conflict. After all, she definitely had the magical potential for such a challenge, though whether or not the Deviants could unlock was a different matter entirely. Whatever they intended to use her for – a messiah, an insult or a trump card – it couldn't be tolerated, hence the meeting that had been in session for the last ten minutes.
"Have there been any reports from the repatriation squads?" she continued softly.
"No, Your Radiance," General Grinaan reported, his glossy black pelt still resplendent even in its projected form. "We lost contact with all three teams following our last attack; for the time being, we are assuming they met the same fate as the repatriation efforts in Loamlark – either captured or dead." The panther bowed his head in contrition.
"A pity; I had hoped that these isolated regions might be less susceptible to the Mentor's corrupting influence, or that the locals might at least be willing to grant their children better lives." She sighed. "The Deviants grow more callous every year, it seems. I will afford them one more chance, but after that, I'm afraid we may have to abandon these unfortunates as a lost cause. Now…" She paused for a moment, letting her gaze wander over the crowd of projections, until it finally settled upon the distinctive figures of General Stellham and the Champion. "There is one last matter to be discussed before we adjourn," she announced. "It concerns the Abomination now employed by the Mentor in the defence of Loamlark, this … Elphaba… and our ongoing efforts to eliminate her."
Stellham obligingly stepped forward. "Unfortunately, Your Radiance," he began, "approaching Loamlark has become almost impossible at present now that the defenders have the support of the Strangling Coils. It may be possible to send a team of snipers along the mountainsides and have them attack the Abomination from above, but it will likely be a very slow and difficult procedure."
"Would such a method even be necessary, Your Radiance?" one of the younger officers inquired. "If this creature is as dangerous as our estimate suggest, then why resort to subtlety? Perhaps a more simple and elegant possibility would be to have Loamlark bombarded until the Vigilant Eyes can confirm her death, yes?"
"A simple solution, doubtlessly," the Empress acknowledged. "However, not necessarily an effective one: even if Elphaba wasn't a potent witch in her own right, Loamlark is also under the protection of all the magicians that the Deviant Nations and the mercenaries can provide; a sustained bombardment would be difficult to accomplish with such defences in the way. Also, from what little our intelligence operatives have managed to glean, the Mentor herself appears to have made Elphaba's survival a top priority: now that she owns a copy of the Grimmerie, I doubt she'd be averse to using it in defence of her trump card."
"Would this apply to gas attacks as well, Your Radiance?"
"And flechette bombs, too, I'm afraid. And we cannot afford to waste too many resources on assassinating her, no matter how vital it may be: progress on the fleet must be continued, our defences on the border must be maintained, the reclamation of Loamlark must be ensured – all must be kept in balance."
"In balance lies perfection," the young lieutenant-colonel intoned reverently. "In perfection lies beauty-"
"- and in beauty lies truth, for truth is beauty," the Empress finished. And through the sacred tenets, the young learn truth, she mused silently. Another thing to ensure over the course of Elarose and Essella's tuition.
"There is another way," she continued. "However, first we must ensure that our beachhead remains undiscovered and undisturbed. Once the troops currently garrisoned at Loamlark have refortified their defences, the Mentor will likely reassign them – or at least some of them – to seek out and destroy our base of operations. General Stellham, how many artillery batteries do you have actively stationed at the beachhead?"
"Thirty-six in total, Your Radiance, along with twenty magicians qualified for artillery services. Current munition supplies are sufficient to run all of them including reserves for seventy-two hours of concentrated bombardment."
"A concentrated barrage will not be necessary: simply keep the road leading into the forest under surveillance; if anyone gets within fifty feet, open fire and maintain the bombardment until they're dead or forced to retreat. Continue this approach until they understand the situation, and keep their distance from the forest. Now, in this situation, their magicians will be at a disadvantage: most of them were trained and briefed to defend fortified positions, not several targets in motion, and unless they work in tandem, their protective spells will be virtually useless. And they won't be allowed to work in tandem, because the Mentor won't risk valuable magicians on a fruitless assault on an unknown target, just as the mercenaries won't risk their lives or their fleet on a blind charge across a wilderness bristling with artillery fire. Both the Deviant troops and the Strangling Coils will be grounded at Loamlark for the time being, awaiting further orders; Paragon intuits that the Mentor will either supply magicians or equipment that can withstand the bragge, or wait until an opening emerges in our defences. Unfortunately for her, both strategies will take time, and mercenaries are not renowned for their patience."
"Do you intend to start a mutiny among them, Your Radiance?"
"That is a possibility," admitted the Empress, "although I doubt we have the time to engineer such a conflict. For now, the most feasible option would be to lure them away from Loamlark with an easier target: mercenaries are cowards and opportunists by nature, and the prospect of a lightly-defended airship carrying valuable cargo might very well be enough to get them to abandon their posts after three or four days of boredom. General Stellham, if I were to provide you with some freighters from the merchant fleet, would you able to fabricate some desirable-sounding goods for them to carry?"
"I can already imagine several distinct possibilities that mercenaries would think worthy of hijacking, Your Radiance; I can easily falsify transmissions and manifests in order to bring authenticity to the ruse. What must be done once the mercenaries have left the area?"
"Have your magicians create a secondary lure, this one for Elphaba. The Mentor wants her "champion" preserved at all costs, and as long as she holds the line with her fellow Distortions, she'll be protected by them…" The Empress permitted herself a faint smile. "But as we've observed, Elphaba lacks the discipline necessary to sit still, not to mention just about every trait required of a good soldier. Over the last two meetings, she's shown herself to be proud, reckless, impulsive, quick to anger and even quicker to act in defence of those she fixates upon; given the right lure, it will not be difficult to force her out into the open."
And the Empress knew for a fact that these traits were not anomalies in the young witch's behaviour: if this Elphaba was anything like the Abomination that she herself had once been (the merest thought of it still made her Purified skin crawl to this day), then the Mentor would barely be able to keep her under the vaguest semblance of control at the best of times.
"What lure have you planned, Your Radiance?"
"Paragon will be sending you specifications in a moment; stand by…"
There was a muffled hum from the walls as the palace's transmission towers rumbled with the effort of sending compacted data across the airwaves towards the beachhead; a moment later, Stellham turned to his left, as – hundreds of miles away – his communications console received the ethereal blueprints and projected them for his examination.
Half a minute later, the General murmured, "This resembles-"
"Yes, quite closely. Are your illusionists up to the task of replicating it?"
"I believe so, Your Radiance. Proximity mines should be easy to teleport into the depths of the illusion, though it may be prudent to double the payload in order to increase the likelihood of a confirmed kill."
"Prudent and wise," the Empress concurred. "Remember, her broomstick allows her great speed: ensure that the explosives detonate the moment she arrives within the blast radius – no delays, no mistakes."
"It will be done, Your Radiance."
"Good."
She turned to the silent figure of her Champion, as impassive as ever behind his mask even as the music echoing across his augmented psyche began to pick up speed; most observers wouldn't have been able to notice the almost imperceptible change in his behaviour, but after so many decades in the company of her beloved, she'd learned to detect the subtleties of his mental programming.
"My love," she whispered. "I want you to lead a squad of your best fighters against the Mentor's champion; in the event that she evades the blast, you are to attack at speed. Ensure she doesn't reach the safety of Loamlark, and ensure that none of her allies have time to intervene. And…" The Empress paused, considering the next stage of the plan. "If the opportunity for a live capture arises, take it, but if this Elphaba proves too difficult to apprehend without risking mission success, then eliminate her by any means necessary. Recover her body, if possible: there are tests that Paragon and I wish to conduct. Is this understood?"
Her Champion bowed his head in deference.
"Excellent. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you have your orders. To those of you assigned to reinforce the western barrier, I expect you to have your transports loaded and en route to the border within the hour. The rest of you, provide your engineers with those blueprints and ensure production continues at acceptable rates; keep me informed of you progress and notify me once the construction is complete. Until then, you have my trust and my blessings; thank you for your time, generals."
In perfect unison, the projections saluted, and faded from view without another word; the gentle whirring of the many transmitters, receivers and emitters faded too, the concealed machinery returning to dormancy as the conference ended. And then, as the Empress settled back into the cushions of her throne, the everyday sounds of the throne room began to dwindle at her command: far above her, the windows slid shut, muffling the distant hubbub of the outside world; the muted footsteps of the few guards and servants attending her slowly vanished from earshot, as their owners hurriedly departed; even the distinctive echoes of the hall itself seemed to dwindle. And in their absence, silence settled upon the throne room like a shroud.
But even with that great void of sound blossoming across the chamber, even with no witnesses left in the room, the Empress waited a full minute before finally reaching out for the apothecary's stores.
A moment later, a single electric-blue pill materialized in her hand.
Lintel's notes on dimensional travel had been quite extensive, and not all of them purely theoretical either: if his latest entries were to be believed, his unique viewing portals into other realities had actually allowed him to experience the memories of his other self as dreams and nightmares. The applications of such knowledge were immediately obvious to the Empress, especially given the threat that Elphaba posed to the war effort.
Perhaps the Mentor had suggested a similar technique in order to learn more about these interdimensional travellers, to study the life of her other self – the Glinda that had so briefly strayed into Unbridled Radiance – and perhaps even to determine how best to manipulate Elphaba. Perhaps she hadn't.
Whatever the case, the Empress couldn't afford to let this opportunity pass: she needed to know; she needed to see the memories of her other self, to see how their realities had diverged, to see the subtler differences… and most importantly, to learn her hidden weaknesses. She doubted that the assassination attempt would be as simple as planned: if Elphaba was to escape the attack, they would need all the information they could get on possible vulnerabilities; even if everything went according to plan and Elphaba were killed or captured, they still needed that information, if only for details of other Oz and the gateway the Abomination had travelled through.
She had to know.
So, pausing only to make sure that she'd retrieved the correct dosage and to steel herself for the revolting memories that were sure to follow, the Empress closed her eyes, and swallowed the dream-stifling pill without a second thought.
She didn't often sleep these days, thanks to her immortal physiology: the blessings of Morrible's miscast antibiotic spells never ceased, it seemed, though month after month of unfatigued wakefulness was perhaps the least of the great boons her Purification had bestowed. And on the rare occasion that the need for rest finally caught up with her, those brief hours of sleep were almost completely undisturbed by dreams, except for those her piety afforded her.
Not this time, sadly, she thought, as she allowed her consciousness to slowly drift away. She had no doubt that the visions she would experience would be vile and blasphemous, and offend every sensibility she had acquired since the day she had been Purified in soul. But as darkness gathered at the periphery of her vision and her body sank deeper into the cushions of the thrones, she comforted herself with the knowledge that this repulsive experience would give her more than it could possibly take away.
She would dream of the Other and the terrible secrets her memories held.
She would learn her secrets and dissect her weaknesses.
She would discover where she had travelled from, and see if this Other Oz might be ripe for conquest.
She would know.
Glistening red fingers traced the broken frame of a child's swingset and played upon skeletons of both bone and metal. A little ways away, high-pitched giggling echoed across a landscape of shattered brick and splitered timbers and tiny toystore figures clambering over other tiny toystore figures, their happy sing-alongs drowning out the sad little whimpers of those underfoot. The air was leaden with vaporized fat and disappointment, and thick with the taste of weeping blue and ashen grey.
She'd wanted the air to taste of green, emerald green and spreading crimson waters, but the green wouldn't show itself among the dolls. She'd wanted someone who smelled of scars and tasted of bitterness to creep out of the Deviant Capital and give her the present she'd always wanted, but that was only a dream; but she'd at least hoped the green might be here. That might be possible. But no, the Green Girl was a coward and a hoarder and a miser and a vile foul hate-hate-hated thing. So the playground was blue and grey with not a trace of green and red in sight.
They'd found the village close to midday, a sprawling playground of dollhouses and toy farmhouses left somehow untouched by the tin soldiers' endless march across the deep green countryside. There were no ghosts here, no echoes, no hazy not-people following the real people down the street, no stories floating through the air and into her head – just solid buildings and little people. And the people who lived here were dolls, but not proper Dolls, not the kind of Dolls that she could hold in her arms and cradle and love and call her own, not even the almost-dolls lovable enough to be made her own.
No, these dolls and almost-dolls belonged to the other collectors – one of them, anyway: the stuffed toys of the Mentor, ready and waiting to be made into the patchwork people she loved so, and sent into battle against the Emerald Lady's pretty porcelain people. But until the day when the seamstress sat them on her lap and stitched them up into happy little soldiers, they were happy little cuddly toys going about their happy little lives in under a springtime sun that would never set upon their land, a land so far far from the capital, so far from the conflicted fringes, so far from the miserable depths of the toybox and the carnage of the nursery, so far from war and pain and death.
Peering down the hillside, she'd watched them for a time, admiring the happy little playground with its happy little doll citizens trundling around the sunlit streets of their happy little dollhouse town on their little wooden carts, working the fields and spinning the windmills, dozing happy little dozes in the warmth of the sun, riding along on their happy little railway, soaring through the sky in their happy little airships, before going home and raising their happy little families of stuffed toys.
But when the clock struck twelve, she'd summoned her own special Dolls from the caverns, before gliding down the hillside to introduce herself to the townsfolk.
It took less than an hour to kill every last one of them.
They knocked down the dollhouses, burned the fields, derailed their train and tore the railway to shiny metal splinters, swatted the tiny civilian airships from the sky and sent their blazing wreckage raining down on the airfield below. And as her magic laid that happy little town low, the Dolls went to work on the townsfolk and proved that they were the better toys: they cut down those sad little would-be-patchworks as they fled, sliced them to ribbons, speared them on steeples, plucked out their shiny button eyes, undid their stitching and let all their red stuffing fall out. Some got away, no doubt, but the rest burned and bled and died while the Dolls danced in jubilation around the funeral pyre that had once been a playground.
All to send a message – carried on the lips of the survivors, on the invisible waves of the radio, and on the charred grass of the hillside: "Give my little Doll back, or all little dolls die." And: "What the Hellion wants, the Hellion takes. What the Hellion takes, the Hellion keeps. And what the Hellion keeps, the Hellion bleeds."
But the Hellion had done that twice already: she'd told them and told them and told them and once she was done telling them, she'd burned things and hurt things and burn things and hurt things and they still wouldn't do as she said! Dorothy, her lovely little Doll was still hidden away among them, still locked and bolted behind thick walls and uncaring thoughtless hateful-hated-hate-hate-hated people how she hated them!
How many of the Mentor's dolls had she burned in the last few days? Hundreds? Thousands? More than she could count at any rate. And the mean old hag still wouldn't give her Doll back! No, worse than that – she was willing to see all her stuffed toys and patchwork men burn, just so she could hold onto one that didn't belong to her!
Oh, they hated her, they all hated her. The popular girl, the scarred outcast girl, the fat rich boy, the boy with a thousand faces – oh, they called themselves names like Empress and Mentor and Leviathan, but in the end, they were just children squabbling over the seesaws, and they hated her. Every collector on this miserable little playground hated her, and for what? For doing the exact same thing they did! They all collected toys and remade them better than ever, but they didn't love their dolls like she did – no, they made their toys worship them as gods and saviours and masters, and marched them off to war and death for the sake of their own blistering egos! But when she made a doll to cradle and keep away the cold, they disparaged her!
The unfairness of it gnawed at her and savaged her, until she could no longer stand the absence of the green or the scars. With a roar of frustration, she tore the swingset out of the ground with one hand and flung it at the nearest heap of charred corpses, hoping one of them would stand up, just so she could tell it just how mean the Mentor was and watch its face melt off in dismay. She wanted to cry, but she was too sad to weep, so she laughed instead: she laughed and laughed and laughed, and let her cackling wash over the broken buildings and down the crooked hills of the newly-formed wasteland and pour into the ears of so many fleeing farmers and so many terrified toys.
"You think I'M tired?!" She roared at the retreating refugees. "You think I'm GOING TO give up? I'VE ONLY JUST STARTED! I'll show youJUST how many of your toys I can SMASH! Do you hear me? I'm going to smash and BREAK and rip and tear until ALL YOUR LITTLE dolls will beg to be put back in the TOYBOX, untilyou give me my Doll back!"
But then her Dolls were suddenly gathering around her, crawling into her arms by the dozen to hug her; and within a minute, she was cradling them and kissing them and telling them how much she loved them and soon everything was right with the world once again. It took perhaps half an hour in total, but eventually she calmed down enough to set the throng of Dolls down and send them on their way with a delighted giggle.
While they went back to the games they played among the bones of houses and the bones of people, the Hellion floated south and thought about the future. She thought about the walls around Greenspectre, walls of air that not even her tunnels could carry her through, walls that she had only breached when the city was aflame and all its foundations with it. Dorothy, her sweetheart, her darling, her dearest, her Doll, was behind those walls and nothing could breach them now. And maybe the Mentor would be a wicked mean ugly old hag forever and never give her Doll back no matter how many of her own toys screamed for mercy day and night.
But maybe, just maybe, she needn't give her up at all… after all, Dorothy still remembered the handprint, and her nerves still remembered the handprint. Poor sweet fragile little Doll that she was, she'd been too frightened to go with her the first, second, third and fourth times… butmaybe, just maybe, she could ask something of Dorothy's nerves – nothing much, just a teensy-tiny favour – and with a little luck and a pretty please or two, maybe they'd be kind enough to carry the Doll to her. And wouldn't that be a sight? The sweet fearful little Doll, finally walking out the gates of the hateful old Mentor's mansion towards her, ready for the Hellion's loving embrace.
So, she paused in mid-air above a mountain of tiny shattered teeth her dolls had collected from the living and the dead, and sent her magic racing once more – not outward, but inward along the cobweb of her collection. Here, in threads thinner than spidersilk and as transparent as air, the ties and bonds and unbreakable connections all her Dolls shared with her were arranged, all forged from the moment she'd made them her own, all gathered up into a great glossy span of strings inside her head.
For a time, she dawdled along the inner threads, soothing the whimpers of those unlucky Dolls who were still recovering from what they called "The Ballgown of Fire" (the nasty blonde china-doll had a lot to answer for!) before soaring to the furthest reaches of the collection, where dwelt the unhappy almost-dolls who'd been selected to become real Dolls, true Dolls, her Dolls, but somehow slipped through her fingers. But she'd touched them, she'd marked them, she'd woven them into the web and made them Dolls in spirit even if they weren't Dolls in body yet. And so, she could find them wherever they'd been hidden and shepherd them back to her home and her shelves and her happiness.
And it was because of that, there was only one lonely little soul out here on the fringes of her web.
Dorothy Gale sat alone on the edge of the web, a tiny little mimicry of the real Doll; she see her thoughts fluttering around her like the pages of a book whilst her feelings blossomed and wilted like flowers across seasons. In the waking world, she was fast asleep, but with her senses still pouring into her mind and trickling into the cobweb of connections and her recent memories still copying themselves onto the walls around her in ethereal cursive, the Hellion could clearly tell where she was and how she got there.
She was hidden somewhere high above Greenspectre, above the ghost of the Mentor's lost friend that the withered old hag had transposed into so many mismatched buildings and crooked streets. Poor misguided sweetheart that she was, she'd thought to hide herself from anyone interested in complying with the Hellion's demand, and had the Flying Monkey sequester her in a place she thought nobody would look – a laboratory that wouldn't be accessed until its owner returned from the front, the invisible stories told , cloistered behind shelves brimful of glass and flesh, she lay shivering in her slumber, even as the Monkey draped blankets from the Doctor's bed across her. She hadn't slept well, poor thing; she'd been almost too afraid to sleep, and when she did, she woke with a start at the slightest noise, and it took the soothing murmurs of the Monkey to convince her that she wasn't in any danger. But Dorothy, dearest darling Doll that she was, couldn't believe those reassurances for very long: after all, somebody might search the room, or the Doctor might return early – someone might let even down the palace defences and allow the Hellion to reclaim her Doll in person.
Oh, her fear blossomed so brightly, the Hellion thought for a moment that she could reach out and stroke its petals. But then she saw Dorothy's sadness, and that made her fear seem like so many crushed daisies. If only she'd been sitting right before her, the Hellion could have hugged her until her sorrows faded away: so lonely, so despairing, so desperate to run back to the safety of dreams, and all the while yearning for home, for Kansas, for Toto, for Aunt Em and so many other meaningless words that only became more ridiculous for the familiarity they conjured. Once Dorothy forget them, she'd be happier.
So, in she reached…
And twisted.
"Dorothy? Can you hear me?"
In the real world, little doll eyelashes fluttered so adorably. In the cobweb and in the dream, Dorothy cried out "Aunt Em! I thought I'd lost you forever!"
Again, that inexplicable tinge of familiarity, and a curious sense of amusement too.
As the dream-selves hugged and kissed, the Hellion whispered, "I know, I know, my dear – for the longest time, I thought I'd never see you again. But that doesn't matter, now: you're home, and that's all that matters."
"I… I'm home?"
"Yes, don't you recognize it?"
The dream was difficult to see, like all almost-Doll dreams: she could just about recognize the shape of a farmhouse, pastures, barns, things that looked familiar to Dorothy.
"But what about the twister?"
Twister?
Familiar phrase.
Powerful phrase.
Why?
"What do you mean?"
"I thought I saw the tornado tear the place apart! I mean, the fences aren't broken, the barn's still in one piece, and even the house is back where it was. Surely there'd be some damage…" Her face contorts in confusion. "Or… did I dream that. I… I thought there was a tornado coming at some point, but… I… Oh Aunt Em, I'm so confused."
"You needn't worry, darling. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Now, I need you to do something for me…"
"Of course, of course…"
Nerve endings sparked and crackled; somewhere beyond the dream, Dorothy was starting to stir. Chances are, this wouldn't work if she were awake – her fear was like a brick wall, keeping the Hellion from influencing her directly. But in sleep, her mind was open enough to nudge in the right direction.
"There's someone outside the farmyard gate, Dorothy. Could you take a look out there and see who it is?"
And as dream-Dorothy ran towards the open gate, real-Dorothy tottered to her feet, and began sleepwalking towards the front doors of the lab. "I can see her," she called, as she hurried down the farmyard footpath of the dreamworld. "She's standing just by those trees on the hillside. Should I call out to her or –"
"No, just walk up to her."
"Oh… alright then…"
Nonplussed, she tottered onward, closer and closer to the where the laboratory doors lay in the real world, ready to whisk her down the corridor, down the flights of stairs, across the airtaxi's rushing lanes and out through the gates of Greenspectre. And then to the forests and the waiting arms of her new brothers and sisters.
And then, without warning, she stopped.
"Fire," she muttered, eyes fixed on the horizon.
"What's wrong, Dorothy?"
"There's a fire," she said softly, the tiniest flutter of panic in her voice. "No, it's… I can't… I've seen it before, but I thought it would be a tornado, not a… not another one of those!"
What was she seeing? What had happened to the little girl's dream?
"Oh god, the fire's spreading! Aunt Em, you need to run, it's coming this way! It's not going to stop at the hills, we need to move, now!"
"What are you talking about?"
But the Hellion's confusion had cost her precious concentration, just enough for her to lose her grip on the sleeping girl's mind. So, when Dorothy turned around to answer her, her perceptions no longer saw "Aunt Em" standing there. Instead, the Hellion towered over the dream in all her glory.
"You!" she shrieked.
"Little Doll,"The Hellion soothed, "I'Monlyhereto make you HAPPY. You don'thave to beafraid anymore: just keep walking, ANDYOU'LLBEwith mesoon-"
Dorothy's expression shifted rapidly, warring briefly between fear, grief, frustration and anger. Anger won, something hidden deep inside the little Doll's head building up to a bursting pressure. "Oh, for the last time, I DON'T CARE!" she exploded. "I'm not your Doll and I don't want to be like the others I met yesterday. Oh, and another thing, I'm not going any further through the gate– I'll be walking right into the fire if I do!"
"WHAT fire?"
"You…" Dorothy's face knotted with concentration as her own mind finally noticed the subtle threads connecting her with her new owner. "You tell me! You brought it with you!"
The Hellion looked from Dorothy to the Horizon and back again. "I brought NOTHING with me but myself," she said innocently. "But if YOU don't want to sleepwalk to freedom, why don't you just do so awake? Just open the doors and sneak away without the monkey, or silly little Varalinda knowing? It could be our little secret. Just call MY NAME in the forest like I told you, and you'll never have to be afraid of anything ever again!"
But Dorothy wasn't listening. She was staring at the ground in abject horror, back further and further away as the make-believe fire crept close and closer towards her. "Stop it," she whispered desperately. "Please, just stop it. I don't need to see whatever you saw, I got the message, you can stop, just stop…"
"STOP what?"
And then Dorothy began to scream, not in fear, but in pain; the unceasing high-pitched wails of a human slowly being consumed by fire. The Hellion was familiar with screams like this, having started quite a few of those fires herself, but there was something about the scream itself – the sound, the tone, the pitch, if not the words themselves – that seemed unaccountably familiar. Had she burned before, this Dorothy? Had the Hellion forgotten another Dorothy from another otherworld who'd stumbled into this world the past and burned alive? The invisible stories couldn't say: some things even she couldn't understand. The Hellion didn't know how to stop Dorothy's nightmare, but it probably didn't matter: after all, it was only a dream, wasn't it?
So, she watched as Dorothy screamed and cried and begged for help, giving every impression of burning to death without a single tongue of flame in sight or a single burn marring her skin.
"Someone wake me up!" she howled. "Aunt Em, wake me up! Chistery, Elphaba, ANYBODY! WAKE ME UP! WAKE ME UP WAKE ME UP WAKE ME UAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
And then, without warning, the dream vanished.
The Hellion found herself back in her body, staring down at the giant mound of teeth and wondering what had just happened. A cursory check of the cobweb revealed that Dorothy was now awake; she'd made a very spirited attempt at breaking the chain on the door, and had almost managed to get it open before the flying monkey had grabbed her – waking her up. Now, she sat half-collapsed on the floor, struggling to breathe through her agonized tears, hugging Chistery like a shipwrecked sailor might hug a floating figurehead from his sunken ship.
For a moment, the Hellion wanted to rage again, to find another village of sweet little toys and reduce them to so many mountains of shattered teeth and so many flags of flayed skin. But then she heard the happy laughter of her Dolls, and calmness flooded her almost against her will, and try as she might, she couldn't hang onto her rage.
Dorothy might be alert for her voice in her dreams from now on, and might sleep less because of it, so the same tactic mightn't work twice… but the whispering might.
After all, the poor little Doll was afraid of everything now: the Hellion, the Empress, the Mentor, the Mentor's staff, her guardians, her own surroundings, even her own dreams. She was stronger than she looked, her mind more likely to bend into new and interesting shapes long before it broke, but she wouldn't hold out forever.
Sooner or later, she'd find herself so sick of fear that she'd do anything to be rid of it. Sooner or later, she'd answer the Hellion's whispers, step outside the Mentor's defences and sink adoringly into her waiting owner's arms. Or perhaps, if the Empress were to launch another attack on the capital, the Hellion could launch another, stealthier attack of her from a different angle and spirit the little Doll away unnoticed in the carnage. And if all else failed, there was still the little stuffed lion cub...
One way or the other, Dorothy Gale would be hers.
The canyons of No-Man's Land were home to an astonishing variety of life, most of it undocumented, most of it extraordinary hostile: the lower you went, the nastier it got – not that the creatures you'd find on the upper tiers were any less lethal. The uppermost crags were often home to vast hives of winged spiders, nightmarishly poisonous hybrids of wasps and black widows with the swarming instinct of locusts. Away from swarm-haunted crags, the mouths of the canyons were inhabited by the equally deadly landsquids and ironfowl, migratory packs of slug-fungi, and on mercifully rare occasions, a few wraiths of impossibilities. Worms a hundred feet long oozed through the deeper walls of the canyon, only emerging to snatch up airborne prey that had made the mistake of flying too low; aptly-named behemoth birds feasted on worms too slow to withdraw, and often did the same to smaller airships who'd strayed too far into their territory. In the dimness of the lower tiers, the lowest still touched by daylight, schools of dry jellyfish and whale-bats floated aimlessly in wait for easy prey, and the few native humanoids went about their lives in perfect camouflage.
But it was in the lowest depths of the canyons that the true nightmares could be found: here, in near-total darkness, things that often defied both explanation and description lurked. Things with terrifying powers and wickedly sophisticated intellects. Things with a tendency to pursue unlucky travellers beyond the canyons, into the deserts, across the plains, up the mountainsides, and even over the borders. Things with Names: the Voice in the Void, Madness-That-Walks, the Lady of Eyeballs, the Slavering Hound, and most famously, the Hellion.
And it was because of these Things with Names that the scientists who'd been brave enough to investigate this strange wilderness had decided that they'd seen enough for one lifetime and promptly hightailed it back to their ships, leaving No-Man's Land to live up to its name. And because airships from both Unbridled Radiance and the Deviant Nations tended to avoid those canyons for fear of what lay within, the upper reaches of the canyons had become a perfect meeting ground for a very special kind of fugitive.
So it was that, on that afternoon, the sky above one such canyon was briefly hidden by a huge flock of crows gathering on a cliff just beneath the lip of the great abyss. Left inexplicably undisturbed by the predators of the canyon, the birds circled the outcropping for several seconds, before making their final descent: but instead of simply landing on the cliff in one vast monolithic murder of crows, they instead fluttered to a halt on a single patch of rock no bigger than a paving stone. And there, they coalesced… and transformed.
A moment later, a short, scrawny figure rose to his feet, the last of his feathers receding beneath his skin as he did so; a few short hours ago, Elphaba Thropp would have recognized him as the hotel kitchen boy, but now that disguise was done with, and he wore the boy's shape only out of familiarity. There was a pause, as he eyed the only bit of vegetation left on the cliff – a long-dead tree dangling on the edge of an eight hundred-foot drop.
Then, he rolled his eyes. "Oh come on," he grumbled. "How is that supposed to fool anyone?"
The "tree" shook, its branches creaking with what sounded like laughter. "I have to challenge your senses somehow, young one," it said. "Recognizing others of our kind while still disguised is perhaps our most important skill."
"But why the caterpillar? Surely that would look out of place here."
The tiny green caterpillar slinking along the topmost branches of the tree stood up on it back legs and wiggled itself in the air. "I had to make it easy for you somehow," the tree muttered.
"Can we stop buggering about, please? I've just flown a very long way to get here and hitched lifts on five different airships just to get with flying distance, and I'd very much like to know why you called me."
Without warning, the tree reared back from the edge of cliff until it was sitting quite comfortably in the middle of the outcropping; then, the caterpillar made an acrobatic roll off the of its branch and abseiled towards its visitor's feet on a line of silk… but as it fell, it changed. Its tiny body swiftly bulged outwards, forming hips, shoulders, and a rudimentary neck; its many legs began to slide out of place, converging on its midsection and gradually fusing into two miniscule human arms. And as its featureless little head began to erode, the tree changed too: its skeletal branches simply melted away, running like candlewax along its thickening trunk, rapidly shortening roots, and bark-covered toes. By the time the caterpillar hit the ground, it was a fully-formed human torso – and the tree had become a pair of legs.
The ex-caterpillar tentatively stretched his arms, ran a hand along his softly-balding head, and sighed languidly before clambering back onto his legs. "Good to see you again, Mr Knave," he coughed.
"You too, Leafcutter."
"How was your mission to Loamlark?"
"Not bad. Long story short, it's definitely her: it's not the Empress in disguise, and it's not a hoax; she's the real deal, Elphaba Thropp in the flesh. I don't know how they managed it, but they somehow brought her back from the dead exactly as the First says she was."
"Interesting. Well, the First has had his own ideas as to how they managed it; apparently, something to do with other dimensions or something like that. He's been spying on an expert by the sounds of things. But you were wanting to know why I called you here…"
"I have to assume it's important if you made me fly this long and far."
"You assumed right: the First has been in contact with Omber, and it looks like we might just have an alliance in the works."
"Really?"
"Yep. The First thinks that this Elphaba girl is a game-changer, might just tip the balance in the Deviant Nation's favour – and in ours. Omber's been discussing possible times and places for a meeting with the Mentor and Elphaba."
"Well, that's wonderful and everything, but what's that got to do with me?"
Leafcutter gave the young shapeshifter a pointed look. "You don't get as old as the First without making sure that the next step won't land in a bear trap, kiddo: he knows that Elphaba's trustworthy, but the Mentor's a different kettle of herring altogether… and we're a bit short in the numbers department right now. So, we need someone who can give us assurances that this alliance isn't going to get us all killed, someone who can find out where our lost brothers and sisters are hiding… and most importantly, someone we can trust."
"You're joking."
"Not this time, no."
"We're making a deal with the Mistress of Mirrors?!"
"Of course: we've been business partners for the last thirty years, and she's always been willing to help us hide from Unbridled Radiance when the need's arisen. And it seems she's gotten interested in making alliances with the Deviant Nations too."
"Again, I'm very happy for us all – though also deeply incredulous – but what has this got to do with… oh god."
"You finally figured why we're out here, eh?"
"She's going to be here?"
"In eight minutes and five seconds to be exact."
"You whoreson."
"What? What did I do?"
"You didn't think to tell me this in the telegram? "Hello, Knave, I'm just writing to tell you that you've been volunteered for a suicide mission/conference with one of the most powerful sorceresses in the region, she might just disappear us both for farting too loudly, but don't worry! We know next to nothing about the woman herself, let alone her strengths and weaknesses, but she knows everything in the world about us! I'm sure this'll go just dandy!" Seriously, Leafcutter, if you wanted to kill me, why didn't you just send me one of Limerick's parcel-bombs?"
"Well, I had to pay you back for the time you told my wife about that business down at the Corsair's Inn. Besides, I thought it was time the Knave got Knaved."
"For godsakes, are you still going on about that? Look, you lost the game fair and square, and nothing in the world was going to keep her from finding out about it. I just sped the process up a little."
"I was in the doghouse for a fortnight, in case you forgot. And she made me pay her tab next time we went to the Inn."
"Oh yes, very proportionate response: two weeks without sex and two hundred sollebrins worth of drinks should totally be repaid with a suicide mission."
"Would you relax? It's going to be fine: she's an information broker, not a serial killer. Well, she has performed the odd assassination now and again, but never for personal reasons. We'll be perfectly fine so long as we mind our Ps and Qs, don't ask too many questions, and keep our hands out of the shadows and away from the mirrors. And try not to spread any secrets around – that's her job, not yours."
"Thanks very much. By the way, why did the First assign two of us for this job? I'd have thought just one ambassador would be enough."
"You're my second: it's your job to warn the others if everything goes to hell, so if the Mistress of Mirros shows any sign of anger, untrustworthiness, annoyance, fear, amusement, displeasure or arousal, it's your solemn duty to run for the hills while she dices me up into bite-sized gibbets and fries them in my own spilt juices. Or," he added, grinning wickedly, "now that I think about it, maybe it's my job to spread the word and you're just there to shield my heroic escape."
"Very fucking funny."
There was an embarrassed pause.
"Okay, here's the real reason why you're being invited along: the Mistress specifically requested your attendance."
"Look, would you stop trying to be funny? I'm supposed to be the prankster around here, not you."
"I'm dead serious, Knave: the First calls me this morning with all the details of this little conference, but then tells me that the Mistress realized that she wasn't the only one keeping an eye on Elphaba – so, she wants a word with you."
Another awkward pause followed.
"Look, don't panic: I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."
"Leafcutter?"
"Yes?"
"If I don't come back alive, make sure my sisters in Windlebry are taken care of. That's all I ask."
The old shapeshifter put a comforting arm on the apprentice's shoulder. "You've got nothing to worry about," he said gently. "You'll be fine; the First of the Shapeless wouldn't have sent you out here if he didn't think you'd come back alive; you don't get as old as he is by being stupid."
"All the same, I'd just like to make sure that my baby sisters have roofs over their heads."
"The Amorphous League looks after its own, Knave. You know that, I know that: your sisters won't have to worry about a thing."
At long last, Knave smiled and – almost on reflex – whispered, "For Shapelessness."
"For Shapelessness," replied Leafcutter.
And then, just as Knave was beginning to feel almost reassured, there was a muffled whirring in the distance, and something tall and distinctly female stepped out the shadows of a crag on the opposite side of the canyon. Knave and Leafcutter didn't need to see her face to know who she was; they could tell by the way her shadow didn't follow the light, the way reflections in the glass ponds of the canyon fringes seemed to vanish as she passed by, the way the roaming predators seemed to shy away in fear as she approached.
Their appointment had arrived.
"Just one thing before we go," Knave whispered. "Who's going to be watching Elphaba from now on?"
"Shenshen-Pfannee."
"Wait, what?"
"You heard me. If necessary, she'll also be there to smooth things over with her if she's still grumpy about being spied on."
"Oh, come on; surely we've got better diplomats. From what the First told me, Elphaba hated those two with a passion when they were at school together."
"Well, they're not two anymore, are they? Besides, as you say, they were at school together; they know her, they understand how she thinks, how she behaves; half the data you received in the mission briefing was from their testimony. The only member of the League who knows her better is the First himself. Besides, the only diplomat we've got free right now is Mr Grippe, and you know how he gets around women. I don't know about you, but something tells me that Elphaba might respond badly to being goosed."
"Urg. Good point. Not exactly smoothing things over if our best ambassador has to spend his final minutes scrabbling around in the dirt for his own severed testicles."
"Hm, true."
"One other question: about Shenshen-Pfannee – when does she start?"
"Right now, believe it or not; she's already en route…"
"… I'm sorry," said Branderstove, "but I'm afraid I must respectfully decline."
If anything, the Mayor looked even gloomier. "Maybe I misheard," he sighed, "But when you decided to ally yourself with Elphaba, you agreed to operate on a strictly pro bono basis."
"That I did. Unfortunately, the terms of the contract are very clear: I have agreed to work with Elphaba on behalf of the Deviant Nations, this party being specifically identified as the administrating officials, regional leaders, and general population of the multinational alliance known as the Deviant Nations."
"So? I'm a regional leader, the people of Loamlark belong to the general population-"
"I'm afraid that's not strictly true, Mr Mayor. At the time you signed your contract with us, you'd withdrawn from the alliance and formally declared yourself an independent city-state, therefore you are not a regional leader of the Deviant Nation and the people of Loamlark are not part of the general population. True, you may have begun agreements to reintegrate this settlement, but until the Mentor sends the necessary legal documentation confirming it, the current agreement between us stands."
"On top of this new agreement?"
"Quite so."
"But you said you'd pay the necessary fees out of your own-"
"I said that I'd be prepared to forgive the debt; Colonel Gloss has a penchant for encouraging unfounded hopes, and I'm afraid he's taken you in quite readily. This arrangement doesn't require me to return your money, nor does it require that I automatically provide you with the services of a completely different contract. If you want our help with this matter, you either wait for another fortnight, or pay up here and now."
"But the secessionists won't wait that long! Surely there's another way-"
"There is. It merely requires that you draw up another contract with us… but it'll cost you extra. I'm afraid that if you really want me to provide training for your militia without resurrecting your astronomical debt, you'll just have to wait until the paperwork from the Mentor arrives: you won't be repaid as such, but you won't have the debt hovering over your head anymore either."
The Mayor very gently put his head in his hands and groaned. "What did I do to deserve this, exactly?"
"Oh, I wouldn't worry much about it, if I were you: the Mentor's having your railway rebuilt, after all."
"And by the time it's finished, we'll be fit for the poorhouse and nothing else. Why did I listen to those secessionists?!"
"If the lack of income bothers you, I'd be happy to you loan you an airship or two from my fleet. After all, now that the latest upswing in the war effort have pushed most of the smaller traders out business, any rare goods you can bring to the southern cities will make a killing… and I'd imagine your clients abroad would be comforted by the fact that their precious cargo would have the protection of a fully-armed mercenary freighter. How's that sound?"
And, god bless the silly little man, he at least had the decency to look suspicious. "Does require another contract with a small infinity of hidden fees and conditions that will haunt me until the end of time?" he asked hesitantly.
"No. Just think of it as a favour: you'll have to pay it back at some point in the near future, but debts of favour are far less ruinous than debts of currency, believe me."
"And how do I pay it back?"
"Simple: I send you a list of items - products found only in Loamlark and the surrounding mountains - and you provide me with them. Simple, reasonable and affordable - no additional fees, no strings attached. Now," he said, turning to the remainder of the conference table, "is there anything else you fine gentlemen would like to discuss with me or the mayor?"
As expected, none of the delegates looked confident enough to raise a hand. In the end, the only taker was Dr Kiln, his snakelike fingers writhing wildly in the air as he put up his hand for attention.
"There's just one thing I'd like to ask of the Mayor," he said tentatively. "Regarding enemy corpse disposal, is it possible for you to supply me and the other mage-surgeons with hoses of some kind?"
"Why, you want to wash the bodies before you assimilate them?"
"That was the idea, yes."
A cheeky grin etched itself across the Mayor's face. "Are you getting squeamish, Doctor? I'd have thought you'd be able to cope with a little blood and guts from time to time. Or is this some kind of sacred tradition of cleanliness among the Mage-Surgeons? I mean, we're not exactly short on soap given that we've had nobody to sell it to, but if you're asking for rosewater and lavender-scented candles, I'm going to have to decline."
"Maybe some cologne to go with your autopsy, sir?" one of the delegates chuckled.
"The corpth muth be wathed with thented oilth and gawanded with wotheth before I'll touch it," proclaimed a wag at the back of the room. "I mean," he added, swish lisp briefly deepening as the joke rumbled onwards, "they'll be such an upwoar among the enemy if they find uth looking dirty and the battlefield left untidy! It'll be a thcandal! A thcandal, I tell you."
Branderstove rolled his eyes: having attended enough board meetings with staff scapegoats and desperate pranksters, he'd learned to recognize an attempt to shift the focus of embarrassment elsewhere; by this stage, Loamlark's officials were looking just about anywhere for a means of escaping their humiliation, and with the approved militia still in the works, sneering at outsiders was all they had left.
Kiln, however, was smiling; it wasn't a pleasant sight for any parties concerned, for Kiln had the kind of teeth-baring rictus that could make gargoyles finch. "Perhaps you're not aware of what happens when the human body ceases to function, Mr Mayor," he said sweetly. "Needless to say, it's a bit messier than just collapsing to the ground and bleeding for a bit; I could go on for hours about how nasty things can get for the dying, but for now, let's just focus on the important matters, shall we? Long story short, the human body is crammed full of muscles that aid in countless bodily functions, including waste retention. Once life functions cease, those muscles relax, sometimes quite dramatically: in other words, the corpses that you want us to assimilate are now soaked in-"
"Yes," the Mayor interrupted. "I get the picture. You'll have your fire hoses by nightfall. Sorry I said anything."
The meeting adjourned shortly afterwards, much to Branderstove's amusement.
He was still chuckling over it by the time the last delegate hurried away, leaving him alone in the conference room. If nothing else, Kiln still had his sense of humour: he remembered that all too well from his days in the Pottery, back in the days when Kiln had gone by the name of Heart. Oh yes, he remembered that rictus grin, back when it had been performed out of fear, especially when the young man had found out that his first supply of flesh had been forcibly donated from Branderstove's own ponderous bulk.
There was a cough at his shoulder, and he turned to find Colonel Gloss standing at his elbow, his perpetual smile even broader than usual. "Just received word from Alexei," he whispered excitedly. "Apparently, his squad just captured a squad of U.R. soldiers left here during the last attack – only just managed to save them from getting lynched, by the sounds of things. Word is, they were trying to capture children from one of the schools."
"A repatriation squad?"
"That's what I thought too, sir. But what should be done with them?"
Branderstove thought for a moment. "Well, as long as we're stuck defending this cesspool, we might as well see what our newest prisoners can tell us… so, I think that would qualify as "anything you damn well want," colonel."
"Thank you, sir."
"Oh, and one more thing; you said there was a lynch mob on the hunt for these kidnappers?"
"Yessir."
"Be a good lad and invite them along; nothing sweetens a good questioning like audience participation."
The Colonel snapped a salute and hurried away, unable to suppress his gleeful cackling.
With that, Branderstove stood and turned to the conference room windows, idling puffing a kelp cigar as he did so. Yes, it all seemed assured for now: with the forest under enemy bombardment, the Strangling Coils were stuck in Loamlark, but with the prisoners around, at least there'd be enough entertainment to keep them from rioting. Furthermore, assuring the Mayor and appeasing the lynch mobs should improve their standing out here considerably.
All that remained was to wait for the right opportunity to strike at Unbridled Radiance… for vengeance.
And of course, to keep an eye on their allies while he waited.
Peering out the window, he could just make out the distinctive figure of Harker crouched on one of the nearby rooftops, the faithful protector watching over his beloved charge yet again. There was something familiar about that man; Branderstove wasn't certain where they'd met and under what circumstances, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd encountered this eyeless sniper at some point in the dim and distant past. Maybe he'd been part of the Imperial Entourage in the early days of Unbridled Radiance; maybe he'd been one of the first revolutionaries to join the Mentor's side. But neither of these possibilities could explain why Harker took such risks to defend Elphaba, risks above and beyond the call of duty: in their first battle together, he'd seen the sniper leap off the edge of a three-story building in his attempts to keep up with the girl, leaving cover just so he could get a decent shot at any snipers that might be aiming at her, even drawing the artillery strikes towards his position so she'd be safe. Why would the man take such risks? He was a loyal member of the Irredeemables, yes, and by all accounts he was a devoted servant of the Mentor, but that didn't explain everything. There was something personal, something desperate about the man's behaviour; at times it seemed as if he was afraid to look away just in case something terrible were to happen. Who had this eyeless marksman been, and who was Elphaba to him?
And speaking of Elphaba…
A flash of green from behind one of the nearest windows, visible only to Branderstove's cephalopod eyes: across the street, Elphaba had found her room and was settling in again. But perhaps "settling in" wasn't the right term: she appeared deeply uncomfortable, her entire body tensed and twitching with stress.
A moment later, she was scratching herself, long nails worrying away at her back with a desperation rarely seen outside of flea plagues. For perhaps a minute, she sat by the window, itching and scratching, digging into her shoulders and lacerating her spine as her discomfort peaked; then, there was a flash of accidental magic, and the back of Elphaba's shirt ripped open.
Immediately, the witch lurched to her feet with a mouthed expletive, hastily ducking out of sight – presumably off to repair or replace her clothes – but not before Branderstove got a good look at the witch's naked back.
Protruding from her left shoulder was a minute shard of colourless crystal, surrounded by a tiny halo of translucent crystalline skin.
And, on the right shoulder – the very shoulder that had received the most attention in her attempts to scratch – another crystal was slowly burrowing into the light.