A/N: Hello and welcome to the latest chapter, ladies and gents! I'm sorry it's taken so long, but in honesty, it seemed like every little thing under the sun was queuing up to keep me from writing over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I might experience a few disruptions to the updating schedule in this months, because I'm heading off to London in a fortnight and access to internet and writing time is not guaranteed - though I'll try to post a chapter again before I head off. Anyway, I'd like to thank all my viewers, reviewers, followers and favouriters - the response to my last chapter was amazing. I'll do my best not to get into the habit of breaking hearts, though; as rewarding as it is, I'd rather not become known as the George R.R. Martin of fanfic.
RedApple435 - alas, this is going to be another chapter that's hard on both Fiyero and Elphaba. Thanks for the review!
Emberskyofshadowclan - I loved your review! I'm glad I can provide a welcome surprise for you on your return, and I'm very happy that you find the chapters high-quality - though I wish I could be a bit more frequent about posting (my own fault, alas, alack etc). I'm glad that the finale of the chapter had the desired effect- though as I said, I'll do my best not to break hearts over and over again. It's very true that the Champion is essentially blameless after what's been done to him, and this chapter will expand on that - as well on the reactions of Elphaba and the Empress. Also, your theory about the Hellion was awesome, and I really appreciate how you took so many obscure clues into account; I'll do my best to resolve the mystery behind her very soon. And I have no problem with your typos - after all, I've got more than enough typos of my own - hence the corrections I find myself making long after the chapters have been posted. Once again, thanks for your lovely long review, and I hope you enjoy this latest chapter!
Calliax, I'm so glad you like my action scenes - I always feel as though I'm making them too slow and ponderous (plus, I left one hell of an embarrassing typo in the first posting; "blur of emotion"? Urg.)
Nami Swannn, this is going to be a bit slower in terms of pace, with a much lower body count, but I fear that this is going to be another angsty chapter. Alas, the Empress is going to have a lot more opportunities to show off her cruelty in this chapter, too. I hope you enjoy it!
CurlyHairedWookie - I'm glad the scene still delivered the tears, even if you did see it coming. I hope I can still deliver the tears in this chapter - thank you for your review!
I'll do my best to get another chapter posted before I head off for London - your reviews bring me strength, ladies and gents, especially nice long reviews with lots of dissection and theorizing!
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: grief, sorrow, rage, madness, and an F-bomb from Elphaba. Read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: the autopsy has determined that I do not own Wicked.
Glinda honestly hadn't expected to see Elphaba back in Greenspectre so soon; after all the pomp and bombast of her induction into the Irredeemables, her mission to Loamlark, and the parade of battles, bombardments and stalemates that had followed, it had seemed inevitable that Elphaba would remain on the northern front for months on end. So, for the last week, Glinda had done her best to accept it and keep herself occupied: she'd thrown herself into the Mentor's intensive training regimen with every last drop of enthusiasm she could muster on a daily basis; she'd blown off steam by taking as many tours of Greenspectre's markets and shops as her timetable would allow (no easy task, given that commerce was on the downswing as the war effort escalated); she'd started reading through the spellbooks assigned to her study program, even though her eyes ached for hours afterwards thanks to the utterly miniscule text; and once an evening, there'd be a radio conversation with Elphaba – an hour in total, just long enough to stave off the loneliness and worry, just long enough to smother the fear that Elphie might never return from the front lines. In the end, she'd go to bed thinking, just a few months, just a few months until I can see her again. Lurline only knows how many months it'll take, but I'll see her again.
And yet, less than a week after the mission to Loamlark had begun, Glinda had awoken to the fateful words "Elphaba's on her way back!"
According to Vara, the news had only arrived about an hour ago: the Mentor had received word from Loamlark about a small transport being sent back from the northern front on a priority mission to Greenspectre. Though most of the ship's cargo manifest was still classified, the Mentor had admitted that Elphaba was among the passengers – and that the ship itself was due to arrive at the palace in just under fifteen minutes.
Needless to say, the news all but catapulted Glinda out of bed, and it might have carried her all the way downstairs if only Vara hadn't talked her into getting dressed first. After racing through her morning routine as swiftly as possible, she'd hurried downstairs as quickly as possible towards the palace's cavernous airship dock, Vara in hot pursuit. By the time they arrived at the outermost gantry, the vast gates were already rumbling open to allow the incoming ship entry – and far above the ranks of half-repaired buildings and the blizzard of early-morning airship traffic, a miniscule grey dot was slowly descending from the ghostly-pale sky.
In a matter of seconds, the transport was close enough for Glinda to get her first decent look at it – and immediately, her heart sank: she'd seen enough hospital ships at work around Greenspectre's recovering districts to recognize one on sight. But was Elphaba travelling aboard the ship just out of convenience… or was she actually a patient? Had she been injured in battle? Seriously injured? Was she returning for medical leave, perhaps even for treatment she couldn't get anywhere else? What if… what if she was dying? Sweet Lurline, what if she was already dead? What if this "transport" was just a floating morgue, carrying Elphie's corpse back from a grisly death on the battlefield?
Glinda tried desperately to think of something else, if only to blot out visions of Elphaba's lifeless body being lowered to the gantry, but it was only getting trickier as the ship drew closer. By the time it had reached the gates, she'd already mentally re-labelled it as a funeral barge, and by the time the first docking clamp had locked around the ship's hull, she was half-expecting the passengers and cargo to be nothing more than ebony coffins… or worse still, blood-soaked carcasses on stretchers – with Elphaba at the very end of the procession, dead or slowly dying in agony. Vara must have noticed the horrified look on Glinda's face, because the next thing she knew, a warm hand was gently squeezing her shoulder, and reassuring words were being murmured in her ears; though she couldn't hear what was being said over the hammering of her heartbeat, it was enough to draw her back to reality.
By now, the transport had finally docked and the passengers were disembarking. To Glinda's relief, most of them looked pretty stable: most of them were heavily bandaged, and a good many of them were confined to wheelchairs or stretchers, but none of them seemed to be in any immediate danger. However, Elphaba didn't disembark with the rest of the patients; in fact, it wasn't until after the last of them had been escorted off the platform and back into that palace that she finally appeared at the top of the gangway, and Glinda could tell at once that something was very different. Even at this distance, even with her injuries hidden by the shadow of the transport, it was all too apparent that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Elphaba's entire posture was slumped and dejected, her arms dangling limply by her side, her footsteps listlessly slow, her head bowed – as if in defeat; her hat was gone, as was her broomstick, her clothes were torn and scorched, and as she drew closer, Glinda saw that her hands were swathed in a thick layer of stasis bandages. Worst of all were her eyes, just barely visible as she slowly descended the gangway: red-rimmed and wet with tears, they stared listlessly ahead, unblinking and somehow empty. Then, as she finally set foot on solid ground, she looked up and seemed to notice Glinda for the first time.
Glinda wasn't sure which of them moved first: one moment, she was standing at the far end of the platform and desperately trying not to think of all the horrible things that could have happened; the next, she was sprinting across the platform with an involuntary shriek of "Elphie!" flinging her arms around Elphaba and drawing her into a crushing hug – peppering her with several dozen greetings and questions in the process – ranging from "gods, I missed you so much!" to "gods, are you alright?"
And though she was visibly clinging to consciousness by her fingernails at that point, Elphaba managed to return the she didn't answer any of Glinda's frantic queries; she couldn't even meet her eyes. Instead, she glanced to her right, where a battered-looking Dr Kiln was slowly pushing a gurney down the cargo ramp, its occupant hidden by a thick black shroud. By now, Vara was standing at the foot of the ramp and querying Kiln at length in as quiet a voice as she could manage. Glinda couldn't hear what she was saying, nor could she hear Kiln's replies, but their expressions told her more than enough: the mage-surgeon's face was grave, a deep frown marring his cadaverous features; Vara had gone chalk-white with shock, her eyes shining with tears. A tragedy had obviously occurred in Loamlark, but what had actually happened?
Glinda hadn't been expecting an explanation, at least not until Elphaba had recovered from whatever she'd experienced in Loamlark; and to be brutally honest, she was almost dreading a response. However, after perhaps five more seconds of silence, Elphaba took a deep, shuddering breath and said, "She killed him. She…"
She shook her head. "No. I killed him. I killed him again, and I didn't even know it was him…"
"Elphie, what-"
"I didn't know it was him," she insisted, her voice hoarse with grief. "I didn't think he'd be here; even with everything I'd seen in the dream-memories, I thought he wouldn't be here. I didn't see it – I didn't realize it was him until it was too late… I've killed him again…"
"Who? Who did you kill, Elphaba? What happened?"
By way of explanation, she pointed to the shrouded corpse on the gurney (now parked at the bottom of the gangway). Resting on the figure's chest was a familiar-looking silver mask, its serene expression now marred by dozens of fresh scars, dents and pockmarks; Glinda wasn't exactly adept at assembling the clues at the best of times, but even she could hazard a guess that the Empress's Champion had been killed in action. She was halfway through opening her mouth to ask – among other things – why Elphaba would be upset to see the Champion dead and how she'd even managed to kill him in the first place, when Kiln began the awkward process of turning the gurney around, giving Glinda an unexpected glimpse of the corpse's scalp. In life, the Champion had been a startlingly tall man, and the average-sized shroud was barely enough to cover his body now that he was dead; as Kiln swung the gurney around, the shroud parted ever so slightly above the Champion's skull, revealing a mop of honey-blonde hair.
Suddenly gripped by morbid curiosity, Glinda found herself edging closer to the body on the stretcher and reaching out to draw the shroud away from the Champion's face. Just for a quick look, she told herself. Just to see what the problem is.
Of course, Kiln noticed her approach. "Are you sure you want to see this?" he asked. "It's not exactly-"
"Show her, Kiln," said Elphaba wearily. "She'll find out sooner or later anyway."
"But couldn't we wait until-"
"Kiln…"
Sighing, Kiln reached over to the nearest edge of the shroud and slowly drew it away from the Champion's face. For about seven seconds, Glinda could only stare uncomprehendingly at the doll-like figure on the gurney: the unnaturally smooth features, ghastly permanent smile and luminous eyes at first defied recognition… but then she looked closer, and with a thrill of horror, recognized him. The dark blonde hair, the strong jaw, the high cheekbones – even the mischievous smile and the bright blue eyes, now grotesquely amplified by Purification – she knew this face; she'd known him. More than that – she'd been engaged to him once upon a time, in another world.
"…Fiyero?" she whispered.
Kiln nodded sadly.
"I should have realized it sooner," Elphaba snarled, suddenly angry. "I should have known when I saw the dream-memories – Alphaba was brainwashing him from the very beginning, and I still didn't think of the implications! She was turning him into her Champion before Unbridled Radiance was even dreamed of – it was all there in the dream-memories. And she… she… I…" She stopped, either out of breath or simply lost for words. "I should have realized it," she said softly. "And I didn't… and I've killed him again."
Glinda could only stare down at the gurney: once again, she'd found herself at a juncture where she should have been sobbing, and yet she simply couldn't muster a single tear. It was if she was back in Kiamo Ko, hearing the news of Fiyero's death echo across the room and yet, she was too numb with shock to respond. History was repeating itself before her eyes, and she still couldn't think of anything she could say to make things right; even something as simple as comforting Elphaba was beyond her – or at least, it should have been simple. All she could do was stare blankly down at the corpse of the Other Fiyero, and wonder what had gone wrong.
There was a loud cough from somewhere behind them; spinning around, Glinda saw that the Mentor had arrived at the dock, and was now hobbling briskly down the gantry towards them at an impressive pace despite her ruined legs. As she drew alongside the gurney, she looked down at the Champion's corpse, eyeing the still figure not with sorrow, regret, or even surprise – as Glinda would have expected; no, the Mentor regarded the other Fiyero's body with undisguised loathing and nothing more.
Eventually, she looked up from the corpse, looking Elphaba up and down for a moment. "It seems congratulations are in order," she said at last, the ghost of a smile briefly gracing her distorted face.
"What for?" Elphaba demanded – her voice so harsh that Glinda actually found herself taking a few instinctive steps back from her. "What the hell have I achieved in the last twenty-four hours? I blundered into a trap, got Harker killed, and I-"
"Harker was there to protect you – and die for you if necessary, which he did. His sacrifice will be honoured, I assure you. And as foolhardy as you were, you still managed to put down the Empress's Champion: Unbridled Radiance has lost its most capable warrior and suffered a significant blow to morale; I'd say that the casualties of this morning fall well within the margin of acceptable losses. And speaking of casualties…" She looked from Elphaba's bandaged hands to Dr Kiln, and asked, "Why is she still in stasis bandages? I'd have thought you'd have enough time to treat her wounds on the trip back to Greenspectre."
"Believe me, I tried. Unfortunately, bandaging and anaesthetic were the only treatments she was willing to put up with; she's refused any further medical attention until you explain-"
"Did you know?" Elphaba cut in.
"Know what, exactly?
"You did, didn't you? You knew the Champion was Fiyero all along, and you didn't tell me!" Elphaba's voice rose to a scream, her temper audibly exploding. "You lied to me! You've been lying to be about a lot of things in the last few days – the witch-crystal, my second bodyguard, the fact that my first bodyguard had a secret identity and a death wish – but this… you actually had the gall to tell me that Fiyero 'vanished' when you knew he'd been Purified!"
The Mentor's mismatched gaze turned cold. "I told you only the facts I was aware of," she said icily. "Fiyero Tiggular was listed as 'missing in action' following the dissolution of Oz, and hasn't been seen or mentioned by either side until today. I suspected that Fiyero had been captured and forcibly Purified, and Harker certainly believed that this was the case, but neither of us had any means of confirming our suspicions even after the Champion was first deployed in battle: he's never been seen without his mask, he's never been referred to by anything other than his official title, and any documents concerning his past – official or otherwise – have been erased. So, I had nothing but baseless conjecture – conjecture which I chose not to trouble you with."
"And you didn't think that was worth mentioning? You thought I wouldn't want to know that Fiyero might actually be the Champion?"
"What would have been the point in telling you? Even if I'd been right, it wouldn't have done you any good in the long run: supposing you'd chosen not to fight him? Or supposing you'd hesitated when you had a chance to kill him? Sharing my wild speculations with you might very well have cost you your life; so, I gave you the known facts and nothing more – and thus you emerged the victor."
"But I could have saved him!"
"I doubt that very much, Elphaba: Fiyero was beyond saving from the moment he was Purified."
Elphaba's jaw dropped, her expression flickering wildly between disbelief and rage; in the silence that followed, Glinda finally managed to recover her voice. "How do you know?" she said, voice angrier than she'd intended; her shock was beginning to thaw, it seemed. "You didn't even know he was Purified until now!"
"And if I had, what difference would it have made?"
"Well, you could have helped him!"
"You've seen Purification for yourself, Glinda; do you think Walter Luddestone could have been helped after what they did to him? Could you undo all the torturous things that were done to his brain? More to the point, do you think he'd let you? Do you think he'd be capable of understanding that someone other than the Empress would be willing to help him?"
"What does understanding have to do with anything?!"
"Oh, everything: the Purified resist capture by any means available to them, and as long as the conditioning remains in place, they will never stop resisting. And the conditioning cannot be undone. So, Fiyero was doomed."
"You don't know that!" Elphaba exploded, her anger once again boiling over. "If you'd told me the truth, I could have saved him! I could have captured him alive, brought him back here in restraints, and we could have undone the conditioning together; maybe Kiln could have altered his brain structure, maybe I could have used the Grimmerie – I don't know what would have worked, but we could have done something!"
The Mentor's eyebrows rose in amusement. "Well, you're clearly an expert in these matters," she sneered. "You've been in our world for – how long? Five days? A week at the most? Obviously forty years of dedicated study and experimentation mean nothing compared to your insights; tell me, how would we have been able to capture the Champion alive? How would we have been able to save him? How could Kiln have repaired a brain fused with clockwork? What spell could have undone the Empress's finest techniques? Don't be shy, Elphaba, I'm all ears! How could we have saved the Champion, and more importantly, why would we have bothered?"
"YOU LOVED HIM!" Elphaba roared. "You were in love with Fiyero from the moment you met, and you want me to justify saving his life? You wanted me to kill him all along, and…" She stopped, as if out of breath, anger slowly giving way to exhaustion and grief once again. "You loved him," she whispered. "And…"
"Yes," said the Mentor quietly. "I loved him. But the man I loved died almost fifty years ago." She eyed the Champion's corpse disgustedly, a furious scowl deepening the canyons of scar tissue on her face. "That… thing is not Fiyero. Purification is death, Elphaba: the surgery might grant them physical immortality, but the alterations to their minds kill them nonetheless; every last vestige of self is eradicated, their personalities overwritten and their identities destroyed. All that's left is a living corpse, an animated mannequin held up as the pinnacle of existence for the citizens of Unbridled Radiance to aspire to."
"But what if something of Fiyero managed to survive?" Glinda demanded. "What then?"
"Even if some tiny fragment of his old self endured, it wouldn't mean much: the conditioning is completely irreversible; every attempt we've made to rehabilitate captured Purified has ended in failure and death. So, Elphaba, if your conscience troubles you over what happened this morning, reflect on this: you didn't kill anyone – all you did was cut the strings on a marionette. That's it."
There was a long and distinctly unpleasant silence, as the Mentor allowed the tension to slowly dwindle away. Eventually, asked, "Dr Kiln, how soon can we conduct an autopsy of the Champion?"
"Easily within an hour, my lady. I'll just have to set up the operating theatre-"
"And finish treating Elphaba's wounds, I hope?"
"That too. Um, Elphaba if you could just-"
"No."
"I'm sorry?"
"I said no," Elphaba hissed. "The treatment can wait until later: I want to attend the autopsy."
Kiln blinked in astonishment. "Elphaba, is this really what you-"
"I want to see what was done to him. I want to know exactly how the Empress made him her Champion… and I want to know if he could have been saved."
"Me too."
And even with all the stunned looks in her direction, it took perhaps half a minute for Glinda to realize that she'd just volunteered.
From somewhere above the mortician's table, there was a loud click as the dictation machine slowly rumbled to life.
Doctor Kiln cleared his throat loudly, and began in earnest. "Subject: Fiyero Tiggular, also known as the Empress's Champion. Subject is male. Age at time of death: approximately seventy to eighty years, estimate informed by deep tissue analysis. Height: six feet, eight inches. Weight: one hundred and sixty-four pounds. Time of death…"
You've killed him again.
Elphaba gently closed her eyes, fighting the urge to scream; they were only a minute into the autopsy, and she was already regretting her decision to attend. Judging by the revolted look on Glinda's face, the feeling was pretty mutual between the two "audience members." Not that any of the others looked particularly at ease: Dr Kiln spent every minute away from the autopsy glancing anxiously around the operating theatre, constantly eyeing Elphaba and the Mentor as if he expected the tension to give way to an all-out brawl. As for the Mentor herself, she stood alone at the back of the theatre, her expression cold and unreadable. And at the centre of the room…
You could have saved him.
At the very centre of the room, the Empress's Champion lay on a solid concrete slab, naked except for the remains of his armoured leggings – fused to his thighs by the intensity of the energies that had finally killed him. Now without his mask, his luminous eyes carefully closed and his armour stripped away, the Champion looked so much like Fiyero it hurt to look at him; true, his skin was still that of a doll's, still cracked and cratered in about a dozen places, but even Elphaba couldn't pretend to ignore the resemblance – not now, anyway.
And you didn't.
Back in Loamlark, with the fires slowly drowning beneath the magicians' conjured rainclouds, with the rising sun still hidden behind the mountains and the freshly-recovered body still blanketed in shadows, Elphaba had almost been able to convince herself that the Champion had been a stranger. It hadn't worked, of course, but as long as the face had remained hidden by the shroud or by the darkness of the cargo hold, she'd at least be able to keep her composure from shattering altogether. But there were no shadows in the operating theatre; nothing could be hidden here: everything was bathed in searing fluorescent light, everything laid bare and plain on the harsh white tiles of the slab.
And the familiar mantra blared across the inside of her skull: You've killed him again; you could have saved him, and you didn't. You've killed him again…
Shuddering, Elphaba forced herself to listen to something else, quickly focussing on Kiln's ongoing monologue into the dictation machine. "… Eight superficial cracks in the outermost layers of flesh-porcelain," he was droning. "Four serious fractures across the solar plexus, likely a result of puncturing injuries from the shards of his own sword; diagnostic spells confirm that enchantments placed upon the subject's internal components were disabled by the punctures, similar to the ruined enchantments found on the subject's uniform armour-plating – suggesting that the sword was augmented to collapse protective spells." His eyes flicked nervously in Elphaba's direction, then to the Mentor. "Uh, metallurgic examination of the blade is still pending…"
Sweet Oz, how had they gotten up here without going completely mad? She recalled leaving the dock in the company of the Mentor's retinue, leaving Vara to remove Harker's body from the hospital ship for later burial (another death on my conscience, Elphaba thought); after that, though, things got a little confused: she recalled being hastily shepherded into an elevator and ferried upwards, into the highest towers of the palace. There'd been explanations, commentaries, muttered commands and whispered conversations, and probably far more to the journey than a simple elevator ride, but most of it was little more than a jumbled blur of noise and colours, all secondary to the runaway train of thought rampaging across her brain. She dimly remembered a long, winding corridor lined with doors, and padding along thick green carpet dotted with incongruous welcome mats… and at the end, an ebony door to a room flooded with darkness… and beyond that, the operating theatre.
"One open access port on the subject's neck just below the left ear, along with numerous torn cables; according to testimony provided by Elphaba Thropp-" Here, Kiln offered an apologetic glance to Elphaba. "-this damage was self-inflicted. These cables are not on record among the standard augmentations utilized in Purified physiology, another example of mechanical implants unique to the subject." Kiln cleared his throat. "The noted resistance of flesh-porcelain to diagnostic spells makes further study on this level futile. Thus, initial examination is complete; now progressing to dissection."
He reached into the tray of surgical instruments to his right, and drew out a long, blade-tipped wand – a heavily-modified scalpel built specifically for cutting through flesh-porcelain. "Making the first incision to the subject's chest cavity… now."
Glinda's eyes slammed shut; even so, it was clear her imagination was supplying her with all the details she couldn't see, for her face was already contorting with nausea. Almost instinctively, Elphaba put a hand on her shoulder – though whether it was to comfort her or to comfort herself, she couldn't say. Her eyes remained firmly open, and yet she couldn't bring herself to look directly at the operation in progress: she knew she'd have to sooner or later, but doing so meant looking at the Champion – Fiyero – and seeing him cut open. Doing so meant seeing Fiyero – her Fiyero – as he might have been in the moments before he'd died, bleeding from a dozen wounds inflicted by his former comrades, his stomach sliced open after they'd realized he wouldn't talk, and surrounded by a bevy of spells that either failed to save him or killed him outright. Doing so meant facing the fact that-
You killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him
Elphaba gritted her teeth, and tried desperately to focus on something else – once again settling on Kiln's droning monologue.
"… internally, the subject's augmentations are quite dissimilar to those exhibited by other Purified: extensive reinforcement apparent in the ribcage and likely extending to the rest of the skeletal system. Muscles enhanced through a fusion of mechanical piston power and thaumaturgically-soaked threads, granting impressive strength and agility even by Purified standards. Some of these systems are clearly decades old, and have not been modified in any way since they were first implanted; others show signs of drastic upgrading and replacement; evidently, the Empress wished to ensure her Champion's supremacy on the battlefield. The removal of "redundant" organs remains consisted for the most part, as do the augmentations made to the heart and lungs. However, additional organs have been implanted in the subject's chest cavity, many of which are not on record, though-"
There was a sharp intake of breath from Kiln, and Elphaba looked up to see a look of dawning terror slowly settling across the mage-surgeon's face. It was a surprisingly subtle expression, all things considered: in fact, the only thing that gave away the man's fear was the distinctly frozen expression on his face, and the wide-darting eyes bulging manically in their sockets. "Elphaba," he said calmly, voice just a few octaves higher than usual. "Would you be so kind as to fetch me that large container on the bench behind you? No questions, please…"
Glancing over her shoulder at the squat metal box – which looked more like a safe than anything else – Elphaba waved a hand and sent it floating gently across the room on a current of telekinetic energies, bringing it to a halt in Kiln's outstretched hands. Placing the open box on one of the trays beside him, Kiln muttered a thank-you, before drawing a pair of diagonal pliers from the tool tray and reaching carefully into the depths of the chest cavity. For perhaps a minute, there was silence except for the muffled clicks of pliers opening and shutting; then, Kiln carefully drew a small spherical canister from the depths of the Champion's body.
"What is that?" Glinda muttered; by now, she'd plucked up the courage to open one eye, and it was clear she was already regretting it.
At first, Kiln didn't answer: he was too busy placing the canister inside the open box, taking care not to jostle the sphere as he closed the lid. It wasn't until the last airtight seal was in place around the container that he finally took a breath, leaned against the nearest bench, and whispered, "It's a bomb."
"What?"
"Specifically, a gas bomb hooked to a dead-man's switch. First time I've seen one implanted into one of the Purified, but there you go." He laughed nervously. "It's simply a pressurized canister connected to the Champion's internal regulating systems: as soon as his heart-rate monitor registered a flatline, a countdown would have begun; if vital signs didn't resume within the time limit, mechanisms built into the chest unit would have opened the canister and begun venting its contents up through the oesophagus, allowing toxic gas to exit via the mouth and nostrils… and likely killing anyone within range of the body."
"Then why I still here?" Elphaba asked. "Why didn't it activate when I…"
Youkilledhimyoukilledhimyoukilledhimyoukilledhim
"Good question. I'd speculate that the mechanism was damaged during the battle, but that doesn't quite match what I've seen of the body so far: most of the internal components were destroyed or disabled by your powers, but the dead-man's switch was intact for the most part – shielded to prevent accidental releases, by the looks of things. Of course, there's…" Kiln's eyes narrowed. "Hang on a minute…"
He reached into the Champion's ribcage once again, peering deep into the clutter of mechanical organs and organic fluids. A few minutes later, the tangle of wires and cables protruding from the corpse's throat sparked briefly.
"Well," Kiln remarked, "these were undoubtedly part of the dead-man's switch. You say the Champion tore these out?"
Elphaba nodded silently.
Kiln frowned, brow furrowing in consternation. "So he deactivated the bomb."
"How does that make any sense?" the Mentor scoffed. "He had to have known he was going to die by that stage, so why would have bothered to deactivate it? No, he must have been trying to do something else: maybe he was attempting to open the canister before Elphaba could escape, perhaps he was attempting to perform last-minute repairs-"
"With me standing over him?" Elphaba demanded, suddenly angrier than ever. "With two limbs broken and most of his organs no longer functioning? I'm pretty sure that randomly ripping wires and circuitry out don't exactly qualify as repairs... and while we're on the subject, I took a good look at F… the Champion's utility belt: incendiary grenades, shock-batons, flechette guns, tranquilizing darts – all weapons he could have used even with half his limbs ruined. He even had a flare gun at his belt for artillery signalling according to the quartermaster: the Champion could have shot me with that at any time in the battle this morning, or he could have called in an artillery strike and killed everyone in the blast radius. So you tell me, why would he have wasted precious time messing around with cables when he had an entire arsenal of more effective weapons up his sleeve?"
"Do you have a better theory?"
"As a matter of fact, I do: he intended to defuse the bomb, and he did it of his own free will because in last few minutes of his life, he recognized me."
"Not possible," snapped the Mentor. "I've told you before that Purification destroys all traces of the subject's original personality-"
"And what if you were wrong? What if something of Fiyero really did manage to survive Purification, and the last spell I cast on him managed to set it free?"
The Mentor's face, already contorted by a ruinous scowl, turned almost monstrous as her anger grew a thousandfold. "You've no way of proving that," she snarled.
"I heard his last words, my lady," Elphaba shot back. "He spoke to me. 'Nothing matters, but knowing nothing matters.' Does that ring any bells?"
She waited for the reply, but none emerged: the Mentor remained as silent as the grave. "I'm sure you've got your fair share of theories on the matter," she continued. "Maybe you think that he was trying to lure me in for the kill, maybe you think some malfunction dredged a random sentence from his memory – or, gods forbid, you might actually be willing to face the fact that Fiyero could have been saved-"
"I don't think you heard anything," said the Mentor, her voice cold and unyielding once more. "I think he died without saying a word, and you didn't hear a thing until you removed the Champion's mask: you heard what you wanted to hear. After all, it's not as you had any witnesses to this miraculous event, is it? Kiln, did you hear any of this?"
The mage-surgeon shook his head. "I was on the other side of the forest fire by that stage, Mentor, and still in combat with the Champion's lieutenant." He hesitated, eyes once again nervously flicking from Elphaba to the Mentor. "It is possible that the answers can be found in further dissection," he suggested carefully.
"Then you may proceed."
There was a pause, as Kiln scurried back to the body on the slab, his snakelike fingers sliding gracefully under the corpse's ribs. For a little over fifteen minutes, he continued with the inspection of the chest cavity, sorting through the Champion's mechanized innards and announcing his findings to the dictation machine overhead. And all the while, Elphaba and Glinda had watched in mounting horror as the alterations to the body became apparent: Glinda took the awful spectacle better than expected (obviously, her ordeal in Unbridled Radiance had hardened her to the sight of gore), but she still insisted on clinging to Elphaba's hand throughout the autopsy. Not that Elphaba minded; she was happy for something to take her mind off the terrible mantra of you killed him now screaming its way through her mind.
Eventually, Kiln covered the gaping hole in the Champion's chest, and politely warned them that he was going to investigate the Champion's skull.
"Any visible access ports?" the Mentor asked.
"I can see a few at the back of the cranium, but they've been melted shut by intense magical discharge. I'm going to have to open his skull the hard way." He glanced cautiously up at Glinda and Elphaba. "Is that alright with you?"
Glinda swallowed hard, but nodded her acquiescence, as did Elphaba; if the Mentor was bothered by the prospect, she didn't show it – or even react at all, for that matter.
Alright, Elphaba told herself, as the diamond-tipped blades gently sliced through flesh-porcelain, then through the reinforced skull beneath it. Nothing's wrong. It's just a corpse. It's not Fiyero – it's not my Fiyero. He wouldn't have died like this. It's not really Fiyero… it's a different Fiyero… he…
YOU KILLED HIM. YOU KILLED HIM. YOU KILLED THEM BOTH.
"Oh shit," Kiln muttered.
Elphaba's eyes snapped open: once again, the mage-surgeon was staring in horror at the contents of the Champion's body. "Another bomb?" she asked.
"No, no, it's just… er…" He took a deep breath, and continued dictating. "Subject's cranium is… extremely… augmentations made to the brain are likely… oh, screw it. It's a mess in here: cerebral alterations not even remotely consistent with most Purified, old or new. Surviving brain tissue has suffered invasive physical trauma, extensive scarring and repeated disruption of neural pathways."
The Mentor eyed the skull curiously. "Possible side effects of the spell that killed him?" she suggested.
"No, no: these scars are decades old, and most of them are too uniform to be battle wounds, too clinical. Specific areas of the brain have been targeted and systematically traumatized, keeping the subject alive on a basic level while effectively disabling him on more advanced levels. Maybe this was sabotage, or maybe this was some radical new variation on the normal "Purifying" surgery… Either way, higher brain functions would have been seriously impaired: intelligence, creativity, memory, speech, coordination and even the most basic ability to move would have been crippled. Where most Purified brains are mechanically altered to enhance their ability to calculate and reason – within boundaries – the Champion's brain has undergone cybernetic augmentation to compensate for injuries that would have made 'perfection' as defined by the Empress impossible."
He took a deep breath. "Damage to the cerebellum, cerebral cortex, and other areas concerned with movement and senses have been repaired with synthetic neural webbing and sophisticated microprocessing units: these would have restored motor function, coordination, reflexes, normal sensory input – and likely enhanced it far beyond the Purified norm. More delicate areas concerned with memory and thought have also been repaired, but not to the same extent. Augmentations to reasoning and logic centres are crude: processors of this kind are barely capable of human intelligence, and even with multiple units working in tandem, the subject would have had the intellectual ability of a small child and almost no capacity for independent thought. Modification of prefrontal cortex and other areas concerned with memory would have left the subject with little or no recollection of his life prior to Purification. Most of these modules have been irreparably damaged over the course of the subject's demise, and records indicate they never meant to be replayed anyway. However…"
Kiln peered down at the open skull, once again reaching into the depths of the cranium; a moment later, he held out a small armour-plated cylinder. "Attached to one of the memory units is a black box recording device," he announced softly. "All data passing through short and long-term storage would have eventually been channelled here for easy access by the Empess's technicians. As with other such devices built to record classified information, it's been heavily armoured to prevent loss of vital data, and fitted with a self-destruct failsafe to prevent its contents from falling into enemy hands… but as with the gas bomb, the failsafe has been defused."
In the background, the Mentor's scowl deepened.
"Still think he was trying to repair himself?" Elphaba remarked snidely. "Or do you think he might have actually-"
"Shut up. Kiln, does this mean you can access the Champion's memories?"
"It seems so, Mentor: the device shouldn't be too difficult to open without the failsafe, but…" There was a soft mechanical whirring as the cylinder opened, exposing a neatly-arranged row of tiny metal discs, each one held in place by a slot built into the device's lining. As he examined the contents, Kiln's hopeful smile instantly soured into a disappointed frown. "Damn," he muttered. "It seems the dataspools were only meant to record about a month of footage before being replaced, and this particular set's only been in the Champion's head for about a week or so."
"Nevermind. He'll still have more than enough classified information to give us an edge over his mistress: send the black box down to Analytics for comprehensive examination, and tell the technicians to keep an eye out for any details pertaining to the location of Unbridled Radiance's northern beachhead."
"It will be done, my lady."
"Oh, one more thing before you continue, doctor…"
"Yes, Mentor?"
"What the hell's that noise?"
There was a long and slightly horrified pause, as Kiln, Glinda and Elphaba noticed the sound: it was almost inaudible at first, a faint insectoid buzzing scarcely louder than a hornet, even in the notoriously echo-prone depths of the operating theatre; but as the sound went on, it grew louder and louder until the sheer volume almost eclipsed Kiln's grumbled expletives. For about a thirty seconds, the four of them searched the room (and in Kiln's case, the corpse) for the source of the noise, but it wasn't until Elphaba noticed the sound of rattling metal that they finally found the offending object on one of the larger trays, hidden beneath the Champion's gear: a tiny silver oblong just large enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
As Elphaba picked it up, the buzzing finally ceased; without warning, a section of the device's casing slid away, revealing a small aperture and an even smaller lens: there were a series of clicks and whistles from behind it, and then a beam of vivid blue light poured out of the aperture, sweeping up and down Elphaba's face.
"User not recognized," said the oblong. "Distortion detected."
"What the hell is this?" Elphaba demanded of nobody in particular.
"I think it's a personal communications module," said Kiln. "Probably not much use now, but-"
"Incomplete match for voiceprint," the module interrupted. "Likely result of subterfuge. Owner heart-rate monitor registering zero. Transmitting details to executive oversight. Entering emergency shutdown mode…" There was a pause, and then the tinny little voice proclaimed, "Shutdown overridden by executive order. Opening long-distance channel."
"Executive order?" Glinda echoed. "Does that mean-"
There was a roar of static from the device, followed by silence. Then, somewhere on the other end of the channel, a familiar voice laughed.
"I should have known you'd be the one to reply," said the Empress. "Fitting, really. I presume you were the one who killed my Champion; so tell me, does this feel like a victory to you… or it just another failure to add to your overwhelming surplus of miseries and defeats?"
For a moment, Elphaba could only stare at the module in disbelief. Then, the anger returned with a vengeance. "You tell me, Your Radiance," she snarled. "You're the one who's lost a Champion today."
"And yet, I'm not the one who's been crying. You never were especially adept at hiding your emotions, Elphaba, and you're even worse at actually controlling them: I can hear the grief in every single facet of your voice, even over the tiresomely familiar strains of your anger – you do enjoy venting your ire, don't you?"
"So you've actually decided to acknowledge that I'm the real Elphaba Thropp, then?"
"One of them, at any rate: it seems that one of Dr Lintel's wilder theories has finally been proven. I imagine it must be strange for you, venturing into a reality so different from Oz, yet with so many trace similarities to the world you knew. How does Glinda find life in another world? Does the Mentor frighten her? Does the knowledge that she could one day be so decrepit and loathsome horrify her?"
"You leave her out of this - you've hurt her enough already!"
"I didn't hurt her at all: I simply took a few security precautions and allowed her the chance to find a home in Unbridled Radiance. It's not my fault if the offer frightened her… but perhaps she learned something from her sojourn in Exemplar. I could tell from the moment I met her that she'd never be a true disciple of the Mentor; perhaps that innocence has a chance to blossom into wisdom. Tell me, do you see disgust in her eyes when she looks at you? Do you think she hates you, now that she's had a chance to see what you could have been?"
"What's that, exactly? A self-righteous, self-important, self-deifying narcissist? A petty sadist with delusions of grandeur and a pretentious streak a mile wide? A screeching madwoman who's butchered and mutilated everyone who's made the mistake of trusting her? Or perhaps you'd like to go with something succinct, like 'Wonderful Wizard Wannabe.'"
"And how many times have you levelled those same insults at yourself?" the Empress sneered. "How many times have you sat alone in the darkness, wondering if all your attempts to dethrone the Wizard were just the by-products of self-deifying delusions? How many times have you asked yourself if you were seeking justice, or seeking attention? How many times have you marvelled at all the friends and loved ones who had to die because of you? I'd offer a rough count, but I'm pretty sure you know your own mind."
There was a pause, as Alphaba slowly allowed her audience to digest this information.
"You really think you're alone in feeling the effects of synchronization? Your past isn't such a great enigma anymore, I'm afraid, now that I've delved deep into your history, Elphaba, seen your memories laid out before me like a tapestry: I've been witness to the loneliest moments of your life, the days where you thought that even Glinda had abandoned you and the weeks of desolation that followed; I've felt the depths of your grief and pain, the towering heights of your rage and hatred; I've heard you crying for Dr Dillamond, Nessarose, Fiyero, listened as the echoes roared across Kiamo Ko on gusts of raw magical power and shattered the summits of mountains. I know everything about you, Elphaba Thropp, and I am not at all impressed."
"And I've seen your memories too, Your Radiance: I've seen how Unbridled Radiance came to be, and I've seen enough to know that you're either insane-"
"As I hadn't heard that one before-"
"SHUT UP WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!" Elphaba roared. She took a deep breath, and continued: "I've seen enough of your memories to know that you're either insane or a hypocrite: I've heard you preach about the inherent goodness of perfection and beauty, the evils of ugliness and chaos and Lurline only knows what else – but you were behind the Plague of Transformations! You created the distortions you've been trying to wipe out ever since! You started a riot, you caused the deaths of hundreds – if not thousands of people – just so you could kick the Wizard off his throne! Not much beauty and harmony to be found there, Your Radiance!"
"Sometimes we have to destroy in order to rebuild."
"Oh really? What about Fiyero, then? I saw what you did to his brain: the scarring, the mutilation, the crude reengineering; you destroyed his mind – you destroyed him! You didn't want to make him perfect, did you? You wanted to make him into a slave – or a pet!"
"Nothing could be further from the truth, child. I didn't destroy Fiyero in mind or body: I saved him from further corruption, from indoctrination by the Mentor's fanatics, from ugliness and chaos. Believe me, I'd have been happy to give him the same blessing that the other aspirants seek, but alas, the Mentor had already done her best to ruin him: he was infatuated with her, with the ugliness of the past, and those obsessions refused to fade even when I Purified him. So, I had to take drastic steps in order to save him from himself."
"You butchered his mind and left him barely able to feed himself, then you forced enough clockwork into his skull to make sure that worked exactly the way you wanted him to; I'm pretty sure that doesn't qualify as 'saving' by any definition. And more to the point, it didn't work! Your Purification failed, and your Champion defied orders: he held back in our last battle, he hesitated when he had the opportunity to kill me, he even disarmed the bomb you planted in him! You – and your Purification – failed!"
Elphaba was all but shouting by now, the words pouring out of her in a deluge of all-consuming rage: there was no self-restraint, no holding back, and even she had been interested in pulling her punches, she'd have probably forgotten all about it: here and now, she wanted to hurt the Empress. She wanted to say something that would wipe the smile off Alphaba's face and sweep all her pretentions into the gutter, make her admit to grief, to loss, to everything she should have felt at the Champion's defeat.
"Every single torture you put him through was for nothing!" she went on. "You couldn't make him kill me, and you couldn't drive his 'obsession' out of his head: you failed! You lost!"
There was a deathly silence. Then, without the faintest change in tone, the Empress said, "I fail to see why you're so angry about this, Elphaba: it's not as if he was your Fiyero. But then, that's the problem, isn't it? You couldn't give a damn about the man who died this morning. You didn't even see him, the man I loved and treasured, my perfect Champion. No, you saw only an echo of the man you left to die. And that's why this is 'victory' is really just another defeat to add to your résumé of failures and disappointments: because Fiyero is dead, and once again, you have nobody to blame but yourself."
Mocking laughter echoed along the channel. "And for all your talk of the butchery I committed, you know that I saved him: by purging his mind of all unclean thoughts, I rescued him from a lonely death at the Mentor's side, and I made him stronger than ever before. You, on the other hand, made him weak; you sapped him of all his strength and then you killed him – in person this time. Tell me, does that make the victory any more pyrrhic, or have you simply forgotten what triumph feels like?"
"Don't pretend this is a victory for you," Elphaba growled. "You've lost your best warrior in single combat."
"I've lost nothing, Elphaba. Do you really think this is the first time that my Champion has fallen in battle? He's died perhaps twice in the last half-century, each death costing the lives of thousands – in conflagrations that destroyed entire airships fleets, in buildings hammered into dust by continuous bombardment: but when the dust settled, I was always there to pluck his body from the wreckage and rebuild him better than ever before. Even if he's rendered down into nothingness, I will still reshape him from formless matter into a new Champion – because I can. Because everything I create can be repaired, restored, revived, and resurrected, because I am building a world where death has no dominion. And that is where we differ, Elphaba; that is why you will lose."
"What?"
"I'm building something, Elphaba. I am sculpting a world without ugliness, ignorance, and suffering, a world of neverending prosperity and unrestrained beauty, a world shepherded from darkness by the Unbridled Radiance of Perfection. And to that end, I've already eradicated most of the evils you tried and failed to destroy: the Wizard is long dead, and the ignorance that allowed him and his ilk to flourish has been annihilated; the systemic corruption and sickening decadence that blossomed under his leadership has been cleansed, and no footing remains for it among my Empire's elite – not when Purification strips them of all competing desires; and the Animals? In my empire, they stand alongside humans as equals; nobody shall silence an Animal ever again, and nobody shall refuse an Animal their right to freedom, to liberty, to the glory of Purification. By the time Unbridled Radiance found its name, I'd made Oz into the paradise you dreamed of. But I did not rest on my laurels, and I never will: once I purged the corruption from the heart of the nation, I fashioned my utopia from the ruins of the Wizard's petty dictatorship. I brought forth vast forests and bountiful farmlands where there was nought but barren wastes. I tore down the slums and ghettos and carved a metropolis of gleaming marble in their place. I swept Oz clean of monuments to the Wizard's vanity, and brought forth the great Temples of Ascendance. And where once an ignorant, short-lived populace cried out for the blessings of a god who would not answer, now a prosperous and worldly people sing the praises of the One True Deity. For I am the Radiant Empress, Goddess of Perfection, Avatar of Beauty, Creator Spirit given flesh.
"But you, Elphaba, you create nothing. You build nothing. You are nothing. You're happy to run from one end of the country to the other, shouting, screaming, fighting, rebelling, obeying orders, intermittently exploding and accomplishing absolutely nothing. Even your newfound allies have some twisted ability to build and create: Loamlark has its railroads and fortifications, its subterranean temples to their Lost God, its trade hubs and militias; the mercenaries have their great fleet and flagship, their hidden manufactorium, their great automaton army; even the Deviant Nations have the capacity to create, if you can call their blasphemous metastasis 'creation.' Even they have their nightmare zealots, their whirring clockwork sculptures and blasphemous monoliths of moulded flesh. But you… you've never built anything. You bring only destruction – to yourself and everyone you claim to love: Chistery, Frexspar, Boq, Nessarose, Dr Dillamond, Fiyero. If you didn't kill them outright, you simply distorted them and left them to their fate. Do you think that Glinda would have endured such heartbreak and doubt if not for you? Do you think she'd have had to lose the man she loved if not for you? You mightn't have killed her or distorted her, but believe me, there's still time. Your devotion to chaos will never end: no matter what you say or do, you'll go on building nothing, creating nothing, being nothing… and you will have nothing.
"One day, you'll wake up and find yourself alone except for the corpses of your friends and the smouldering debris of whatever nation you've chosen to hide under. You'll bury Glinda's body and try to hide your tears from a world that has long since turned it's gaze from you… and then you will wander, aimless and desolate, through the ruins of long-abandoned cities, through skeletal palaces and defiled temples, through the carcasses of houses and into the wilderness. And eventually, after crossing a wasteland you thought would go on forever, the desert will finally give way to lush stretches of emerald grassland, and you'll find yourself on the doorstep of Unbridled Radiance. Staring up at the gilded monuments and towering spires, you'll feel a ghost of your old defiance; you'll lash out, try to start another reign of terror, and maybe you'll even be able to wipe a few lesser settlements off the map. But in the end, you'll give up, because the last atoms of hope in your body died with your friends and you have nothing left to fight for anyway. In the end, you'll surrender. But you'll be shown compassion. You'll be led through the streets of my empire and displayed to the people, a relic of a forgotten world, a freak to be pitied and coddled by every right-thinking citizen of my world. 'Why did she try to hurt us, father?' children will ask. 'Why did she try to ruin everything?' And the answer always be, 'She was just an animal, son; she didn't know any better.' Then, once the pitying is over, you'll be led in tears from the city square to the palace audience chamber for once last interview with the goddess you could have been… whereupon I will gladly put you down like the rabid mongrel bitch that you are."
There was a pause, as Elphaba silently grappled with the urge to scream obscenities into the module.
"Of course," said the Empress. "You're more than welcome to challenge me in person if you don't feel like waiting a few more months for Glinda to die with the rest of the Deviant Nations. That way, you'll never have to hear her screams, never have to see her body torn to shreds… but then, that's just the way Fiyero went, isn't it? You never got to see him suffer before he died; you just flew away like a coward and gave up on him – you didn't even hear him scream. Perhaps I should remedy that…"
From the other end of the channel, there was a muffled click, followed by a sputter of static and the faint hiss of a spindle in motion; then, voices began to echo from the module's speakers.
"…you don't have to do this," said a pre-recorded voice, and not even the age of the recording nor the static fogging the channel could conceal the speaker's identity; this was Fiyero – his voice hoarse and his breathing laboured, but still undeniably Fiyero.
"Oh, I'm afraid I do," said another – this one clearly that of the Empress. "As I said, I always meant to commit your beauty to the ages, and this… moment of weakness on your part…" The Empress sighed. "Losing Glinda to wickedness was painful enough; I don't want to lose you the same way, Fiyero."
Suddenly, the fear in Fiyero's voice turned to desperation: "Elphaba, you didn't lose her – she's still alive! She's still out there: you can make peace with her, put an end to this war-"
"That time has long since passed, my love. Glinda's made it perfectly clear that she isn't interested in peace, and more to the point, she's also made it clear that she's not interested in giving up her new identity, or her deranged philosophy." There was a contemplative pause, broken only by the sound of buttons being pressed at high speed. "I will admit, she got one thing right, though: Purification is death. Rebirth, by its very nature, requires death – a sacrifice of self in order to attain the splendour of everlasting life. That is the sacrifice that you and I will make today."
Over the growing hiss of static, there was a rumble of heavy machinery.
"Elphaba, please, just listen to me; that's all I'm asking." Fiyero was trying to be brave, but the fear in his strangled voice was already climbing the scale from dread, to horror, to terror, to outright panic. "You don't have to do this – to me or to anyone else-"
"Hush now, my love. Hush…"
And to Elphaba's disbelief, the Empress started to sing: there were no lyrics to the song, just wordless humming, but it was clear from the soothing lilt to the tune that it was meant to be a lullaby.
A moment later, Fiyero screamed – a long, drawn out howl of agony as the first of the blades sliced into his flesh and began methodically peeling away his skin. And in that moment, as the screams and the strains of the lullaby and the hiss of razors through tissue slowly fused into one great cacophonous wail, Elphaba was dimly aware of another noise echoing across the operating theatre, an ear-splitting wave of sound hammering into the walls and cracking glass fixtures from one end of the room to the next. With rage boiling her blood and almost every last drop of her attention focussed on the recording of Fiyero's agonies, it took Elphaba several seconds to realize that the ear-splitting noise was her – screaming at the top of her voice.
Suddenly conscious again, Elphaba tumbled back into reality to find herself repeatedly smashing the communications module against the mortician's slab, roaring mad incoherent half-words as she tried vainly to shut out the discordant music of the recording – to no avail: even when the speaker finally caved in and the module's casing burst open, the noise went on. Even with a torrent of wires spilling out of the device and half the components of its miniscule transmitter shattered, the discordant anthem refused to stop: Fiyero's agonized screams, the incessant lullaby, and the sickening noises of Purification in action continued louder than ever.
With a scream of fury, Elphaba flung the half-ruined module at the wall with a flex of wild magic; by the time it struck the tiles, it was already little more than molten metal, and the impact reduced it to a thousand glowing shards of scrap, but the noise refused to abate. Again, she lashed out with her magic, telekinetically drawing the fragments of the module back into place and hammering them to dust until nothing was left but a crater in the wall – and the recording refused to stop. Elphaba's rage erupted outwards in a vortex of raw power, hammering the craters with bolts of lightning, melting the tiles with gouts of fire, ripping cabinets from the walls and surgical instruments from their trays and even chunks of stone from the slab and hurling them at the offending spot in a hail of splinters, stainless steel and concrete. Currents of transmogrifying energies vitrified the crater, shattered it down to sand, fused it back into glass and shattered it all over again; volcanic heat melted once again, glacial heat cooled and froze it and shattered it all over again; a further gust of transformation turned the crater from glass to flesh, and a hail of broken glass sliced it open – blood pouring from fresh wounds that instantly scabbed over and peeled open all over again, festering as the flesh decayed into nothingness; fire cleansed away the revolting mess and purged the room of infection…
And still the noise would not stop.
Somewhere, the Empress was laughing at her.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Elphaba howled. "I'LL KILL YOU I'LL KILL YOU I'LL KILL YOU I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Suddenly, Elphaba felt warm arms gently wrapping around her; Glinda was hugging her, whispering frantically in her ears as if trying to calm her. It was impossible to hear her over the mind-pummelling sound of Fiyero's torture, but Elphaba didn't need to guess what she was trying to do. And though she wanted to struggle free of the embrace and carry on trying to force the clamour into silence…
…she was just… too…
…tired…
And so, she gently slumped forward into Glinda's arms and let the vortex slowly fade away with her rage. And as she did so, the noise of torture finally dwindled away into incoherent echoes; maybe the Empress had enchanted the module to continue transmitting as long as it was fed with magic, no matter how destructive, or maybe she'd cursed it to carry on for as long as Elphaba was willing to listen. In all honesty, Elphaba didn't know and didn't care; she'd been awake too long, seen too much, learned too much – about the Wizard, about Harker, about the Champion, about the Empress, about herself. She didn't want to think anymore, not until she'd had a chance to sleep, but sleep was still so far away beyond a procession of debriefings and reparations and gods only knew what else. So instead, she just stood there and let Glinda hug her, marvelling at how deeply she'd missed her in the five days they'd been apart.
For almost a minute, Elphaba stood there, unaware of anything except for Glinda's arms around her shoulders. Then, on the other side of the operating theatre, the Mentor dispelled the shield she'd been sheltering behind, and Kiln rose awkwardly from behind the remains of the mortician's slab.
It was the Mentor who finally broke the silence: "This is what the Empress wants for all life, Elphaba; we might disagree as to how much of Fiyero survived Purification, but even you can't deny that this is never going to stop. Empress won't hesitate to destroy other minds if that's what it takes to ensure that her chosen people remain under her control… and the Purifications won't stop either, nor will the expansion of their empire. Unbridled Radiance needs new territories, new resources, new people to exploit, and the Purified need to be given duties befitting their status… and of course, the parasite's ego will never be sated-"
Somewhere at the back of Elphaba's head, the tiny bubble of serenity she'd been nurturing shuddered, wobbled and very suddenly burst.
"Shut up," she said quietly.
"What?"
"Just shut up, please." She gently extracted herself from Glinda's arms and rounded on the Mentor with a fresh burst of anger. "I know that the empire will never stop expanding, I know they'll never stop the Purification, I know that the Empress won't hesitate to use extreme measures, I know, okay? I can grasp the implications easily enough, and I don't need another speech to illustrate the point! You and the Empress, I swear – it's like the two of you can't make a point without distending it into a five-hour monologue. And another thing, I'd appreciate it if you could keep your delusions to yourself: there is no parasite. Okay?"
The Mentor paused. "I can see that the good doctor's been entertaining you with some of his more elaborate theories-"
"Oh, because I'm too stupid to reach a conclusion on my own, is that it? Is that all I am to you? A grunt? A tool? A pawn? Actually, that's exactly what you think of me – after the witch-crystal debacle, I don't need any confirmations from you."
"Elphaba…"
"And you know how I found proof that the parasite doesn't exist? Because of what I've seen in the dream-memories: there's been nothing in the Empress's memories to indicate the presence of any kind of parasite, physical or ethereal. There've been disruptive chains of thought and drastic changes in personality, but that's because of Morrible's botched attempts at mental control. More to the point, if my other self really was dead and the Empress was just the parasite using her corpse as a finger-puppet, don't you think the dream-memories would have stopped? Seriously, what is the point of giving me the dream-pills if you're not even going to pay attention to what I've observed?"
The Mentor's eyes flashed with rage.
"And yes, Kiln shared some of his theories with me, but I found the evidence of my own accord: there is no parasite. Just my other self. Delusional? Yes. Sociopathic? Undoubtedly. Mad as a hatter welded to a march-hare and stapled to a fox? Without question. But she's still very much alive, and still possessed of free will. The only reason why you came up with this idea of a parasite is because you still can't bring yourself to admit that your best friend went mad and turned on y-"
The Mentor's prosthetic hand whirled around at blinding speed and caught Elphaba hard in the jaw, sending her staggering backwards. "I SAW ALL THE EVIDENCE I NEEDED!" she thundered, her clockwork hand and gnarled arthritic claw bunching into fists. "I know that the Elphaba I knew wouldn't commit such atrocities!"
"And how do you know?" Elphaba demanded, wiping blood from her lower lip. "How much evidence did you have to overlook to reach your conclusion? Face it, the only reason you're still hanging onto your delusions, even after fifty godsdamned years, is because it's the only way you can bring yourself to fight on; because if the Deviant Nations won the war, you'd have to kill the Empress to make sure of it, and you'd never be able to justify it to yourself if you ever believed the Empress really was the Elphaba you knew!"
"Now you listen here-"
"No, you listen: over and over again, you've been trying to convince me to fight for the Deviant Nations; the moment I passed your little secret test of character, I spent the next twenty-four hours listening to nothing but sales pitches: you gave me that endless speech about the consequences of what would happen if Unbridled Radiance won the war, you gave me the great and glorious induction ceremony to make me feel accepted, then the direly serious mission briefing just to cement the overwhelming importance of my staying in Loamlark – and I bet you thought that'd be a nice quiet place for my powers to mature, didn't you? You didn't want me getting killed before you could unlock my true potential, right? Over and over again, positive reinforcement!"
Kiln sighed deeply. "Elphaba, we weren't lying to you, if that's what you mean-"
"And YOU," Elphaba roared. "You said I wasn't invested in this conflict! You said I was only interested in an easy ticket home for me and Glinda – you even gave me a laundry list of reasons why I shouldn't bother returning to Oz and why I should accept the Deviant Nations as my new home. Well, guess what?"
She raised her hands and delivered a mocking round of applause. "Congratulations!" she shouted. "YOU WIN! I am now fully invested in this war. I am now wholeheartedly dedicated to serving as your Champion in this godsforsaken war-to-end-all-wars! I'll help you drive the Empress's forces back from Loamlark; I'll destroy their northern beachhead; I'll follow them back through portal to Exemplar, and I will reduce their vaunted capital to rubble, and then I will do the same to every other city of their empire. I will not rest until Unbridled Radiance has been brought to its knees and every last mile of ground has been reduced to desert. And then I will find the Empress – wherever she's hiding – and once I've ensured that she experiences the same torture that Fiyero suffered before she destroyed his mind, I will kill her. Just like you wanted all along.
"And if you're out for a little revenge of your own or you want to find some proof of this non-existent parasite in her corpse, listen up: if you try and stop me from ending her life, you'll be next."
The Empress hummed thoughtfully to herself as the communications channel shifted elsewhere, absently reflecting upon the deep grooves her fingernails had left in the table in front of her.
It had been quite a while since she'd been that angry with anyone; it was an interesting experience, to feel such depths of hatred for someone so alike and yet so repulsively different. For a time, she considered another visit to Elarose and Essella, just to restore her equilibrium; but then, what good would that do? Her beloved daughters still had no memory of the time before their infection, and would not understand the significance of the Champion's death. Knowing that their father had died might spur them towards vengeance, but even if they could be made to understand, they were still crippled by their illness and of little use in warfare. Besides, the Champion could always be rebuilt, and even if he was beyond her reach, there were still other methods of reclaiming what was lost.
And if not…
She reached up and idly wiped away a tear. All will be made perfect, she told herself, as she reached for the intercom controls. All will be at peace.
"Chief Technician?" she whispered.
"Awaiting your command, Empress."
"How soon can the Champion recovery process begin?"
"We are ready to proceed, Your Radiance: even with the intense resistance provided by the Mentor's protective enchantments, the amplifiers implanted in the Champion's body should allow us to recover well over forty-seven percent of him without difficulty. The rebuilding process might be problematic, however, and it may not be possible to-"
"That can wait until later. Until we have rebuilt him, we will need a means of directly opposing the Mentor's abomination, something that can match her strength: tell me, has there been any headway into harnessing Paragon's emotional centres?"
"We have completed the emitters and are now ready to begin channelling one of the targeted minds; Operation UNDYING HATRED is ready to begin physical projection."
"Excellent. Keep me informed of your progress. Oh, and remain in contact with Lintel: if his research bears fruit, he'll need your help in order to build the retaliatory portal."
"As you wish, Your Radiance."
"General Stellham?"
There was a pause as the palace's broadcasting system reconnected with the northern front, and then the communications channel issued a reply of, "Yes, Empress?'
"I think it's time that Loamlark understood the full extent of my displeasure. They've already made the mistake of resisting negotiations, then compounded stupidity with outright deviancy by colluding with the Mentor's forces… and now, they have played host to my Champion's murderer. Tell me, just how many units of undifferentiated Clarity do we have on the northern front?"
"Over four hundred thousand, Your Radiance, all of them shelled and ready for bombardment."
"Good. Then I think it's time we stopped holding back: you may begin bombardment as soon as the mortars are loaded."
"It will be done, Your Radiance."
"Oh, one more thing, General: target the residential areas first, if you please. Clarity is a blessing that should be extended to even the lowliest of traitors – and their children."