The Land of What-Might-Have-Been

by Straightjacketed

After spending so many years wishing that things had been different, what happens when, halfway through their final meeting, Elphaba and Glinda find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the worst of all possible worlds? AU.

39. From Potters' Fields To Mourning Halls

A/N: I'm back, and I'm finally enjoying writing again! At last!

Before we begin, I'd like to extend thanks to all my reviewers, favouriters and followers, and all the other readers who tolerate my many foibles, typoes and hiatuses - though I'm doing my best to correct the types as quickly as they appear.

Calliax: I thought it was cute too, though it wasn't all for the d'awww factor; it actually made a certain degree of logical sense to me, even outside of the usual Gelphie standpoint: basically, Glinda is still feeling the aftereffects of her time in Exemplar, commonly taking the form of night terrors and flashbacks; as such, she doesn't much like sleeping alone. Elphaba's already been happy to share her bed with Glinda in order to keep the nightmares away (see chapter 17); however, at this point in the story, she's hit rock bottom psychologically speaking. She's a mess of self-loathing and grief, and every time she refuses to take the dream pills, she's grappling with very real nightmares. So, it made sense to have the two of them help themselves through the worst of their mutual PTSD and keep the loneliness at bay. Meanwhile, I'm glad you like the change in pace, and I hope I'll be able to keep the slower pace going for a little while longer in this chapter - but as always, you'll have to be the judge.

Nami Swannn: I'm glad - and a little amazed - that you found the last chapter intense; I'm of the mind that it was a little slow, but maybe that's just me getting back into the habit of second-guessing myself. Thanks again for the review, and I hope that I can continue the roller-coaster ride in this chapter.

So, without further ado, the latest chapter: feel free to review, comment, critique, and alert me to the typos that creep in during the late hours of posting. Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked doesn't belong to me and IwillbefreeIwillbefreeIwillbefreeIwillbefreeIwillbefreeIwillfindawayoutdamnyoulistentome

---

"You're sending me out again?"

"That was more or less implied, Doctor: if we're sending Elphaba back into the field, it naturally follows that she'd require your expert medical attention."

"At the risk of sounding even more like a stuck record than usual, I think the two of you are on a relatively equal footing in terms of health problems; I mean, when I was last here, these blisters were only mildly irritated – now, they're infected. The recovery rate on those scars has dropped to less than ten percent, the heart palpitations are even worse than usual, your toes have turned gangrenous again, and you clearly haven't been sleeping much in the last week, have you? I can tell from those bloodshot eyes. I mean, it's just as well you're not the one going into battle today, Mentor: you'd probably collapse from exhaustion the moment you tried casting a spell."

"I think the missing arm would probably ruin troop morale long before then. I can already imagine the enemy gossip: "Look at that, the Mentor's 'armless! Bwahahaha," etcetera, etcetera."

"It'll only be off for about ten hours. Once the artisans have replaced the lining on the prosthetic, it'll be safe to wear again. I'd still recommend that I stay and conduct a few minor-"

"Kiln, any more of this, and I will officially rename you "Mother Hen" and have you followed around for the rest of your life by minstrels trained in the art of comedic clucking. Do I make myself clear?"

"Transparently crystalline, my lady. Since your personal physician is officially no longer allowed to openly worry about you, I have to ask about Elphaba: do we really have to send her back out now? I mean, I understand the purpose of this manoeuvre, but I can't pretend that I understand the timing: most subjects are dangerously unstable at this stage in their crystallization, and even if her output returned to normal levels within an hour, Elphaba still isn't ready for-"

"No. By your calculations, she won't be ready for several weeks… but that instability might just give us the edge that we need for this battle."

"Maybe so, but we'll still need an energy sink to draw off the excess magic."

"I've already had one commissioned. I've given it to Glinda."

"You did what?"

"I presume you noticed Glinda's recent spate of early-morning appointments with me, Doctor."

"Ah. Training sessions, I take it. In other words, you'll be sending her to Loamlark as well. Exactly how did you'd get Elphaba to agree to this plan?"

"She hasn't. Glinda will be incognito for the duration of the mission to Loamlark."

"Speaking out of concern for your health-"

"This is a clucking offence, Doctor."

"- the last time we discussed Glinda's possible inclusion in our war effort, you made it abundantly clear that Elphaba wouldn't tolerate a word of it. I believe you used the term "deal-breaker," if memory serves. Now, I know I'm risking an eternity of persistent clucking by bringing this up, but do we really want to find ourselves on the receiving end of Elphaba's bad mood for the second time in the space of a single week? I have a sinking feeling that the backlash is going to be even more violent this time if she discovers the truth."

"That's just a risk we'll have to accept, I'm afraid: we have the opportunity to end the war here and now, and if the Mistress of Mirrors is correct, we can't afford to let this latest gambit go unopposed. This has to be done. The magical requirements are too specific for anyone but Glinda to wield the sink, and more to the point, she might very well be the only bodyguard who can drag Elphaba back from the edge if she starts getting self-destructive."

"That might very well be true, but I honestly don't know if we're ready for an offensive of this magnitude... although I take it you're expecting the enemy to be concentrating all their fire on Elphaba – hence the reason why you want me looking after her again. Oh well. Could I ask just one favour before I go and pack?"

"For the love of Lurline, yes: I'll book an appointment with one of your old apprentices this evening and settle in for some therapy – on the sole condition that you don't nag me any further about it, and you don't grumble about not being allowed to do your job."

"Erm… would you mind if I asked a second favour? I hadn't even thought of that first one, by the way."

"Urrgh. Make it quick: you've got a sizeable inventory to pack for this mission."

"There was another reason I wanted to stay: Dorothy Gale's reported some very unusual dream phenomena since she arrived, and I think one of her parallel universe counterparts might have been psychically aware of the events that occurred in Oz fifty years ago. I'm going to need access to one of Lintel's surviving prototypes and the necessary experts on the subject… and if I don't make it back alive, I need your solemn vow that those experts will continue my research."

"I seem to recall you doubting that our world could be connected to Kansas or its alternates. I take it that Elphaba's report on Lintel's work at the Pottery was accurate?"

"Ahaha, yes. I may have ended up with the tiniest bit of egg in my face…"

---

Glinda wasn't surprised when the Mentor ordered Elphaba back to the front.

Truth be told, she wasn't sure how to feel: on the one hand, she experienced the usual barrage of fear and worry she'd usually experienced whenever Elphaba was in danger. And yet, as Elphaba visibly struggled to suppress the urge to punch the air and roar in triumph, Glinda found herself feeling curiously happy for her; as saddening as it was to see her getting ready to leave again, Elphie was finally getting what she wanted – even if it did mean putting herself in the line of fire once more. And of course, she felt the all-too familiar upsurge of loneliness: Dorothy and Vara were decent company, but even they couldn't quite compensate for the absence of her best friend…

…Or for the fact that, with Elphaba gone, the night terrors were going to be even worse.

Ever since she'd escaped from Exemplar, Glinda had gone to bed with a candle lit on her dressing table and her eyes firmly clenched shut until the tranquilizing effect of the pills took over. And she'd dreaded those rare moments when she had the misfortune of waking up in the middle of the night, because by then, the candle had died and the room was full of shadows – shadows in which they would appear. Glinda would spend those awful evenings half-paralysed on the bed, staring at the grinning faces of Cataphlax and Ranse as they slowly descended on her, scalpels gleaming in the moonlight and long delicate fingers pulsing with magic, both of them ready to flay her just as they'd flayed Walter.

She knew these apparitions weren't real, of course: it was just a nightmare, just her imagination dredging up a few unpleasant memories and projecting them on the darkness. But it was easy to say that when she was awake and the room around her bathed in sunlight: at night, those nasty little visions were as real as anything she'd encountered in Unbridled Radiance. On some particularly horrible evenings, even the smells of the lecture theatre came back to her – the odour of varnished lecture-hall desks and worn gum-trodden carpet, the cloying stench of hospital-grade disinfect, and the distant but distinctive scent of blood.

When Elphaba had retuned, it had been easier to deal with. She'd still experienced night terrors, but they lasted only for a few seconds at a time; at times, Glinda had actually found herself childishly wondering if Elphaba was somehow able to scare off nightmares. The events of the previous evening had also helped: quite apart from the fact that Glinda had finally been able to vent her grief over what had happened, it was comforting to know that Elphaba understood what it was like to suffer these nightmares.

Then the orders arrived, and Glinda found herself faced with the prospect of losing her all over again – and with her, what little sanity she'd managed to recover since her return.

No, Glinda wasn't surprised when the news of Elphaba's return to the front had arrived; even the knowledge that she was due to depart in less than twenty-four hours didn't stir much emotion in her.

Less than an hour later, the Mentor summoned Glinda to a private meeting and informed her that it was time to put her training to ultimate test: she was to follow Elphaba to Loamlark and serve as her battlefield adjutant.

Technically, Glinda wasn't surprised then, either: she was too busy prizing her jaw off the carpet.

After that, of course, she was too exhausted to feel much of anything, for in preparation for the next day's deployment, the Mentor worked Glinda's abilities to their absolute limits: the warm-up run alone stopped just short of giving Glinda a heart attack, and the magical exercises that followed almost sealed the deal; her head felt as if it was about to split open, either from the energies she had to channel and wield, or from the library of spells, curses, hexes and enchantments she had to memorize. And the Mentor wasn't satisfied until every single spell had been cast, recast, and mastered; until the anvil moved at lethal velocity, until the missile bounced off the shield, until the training dummy burst into flames.

For good measure, the gymnasium was bewitched to resemble a war zone: a dense mantle of illusions transformed the room into a blasted wasteland studded with mile-wide bomb craters and festooned with barbed wire, broken only by derelict trenches – most of them flooded and reduced to stagnant moats of floating corpses. The smell of rotting meat and overflowing toilets filled the air, accompanied by the harsh stench of gunpowder and lightning; all aromas that drew Glinda back to points in her life she'd rather have forgotten. Explosions sounded at regular intervals, loud enough to make Glinda jump and near enough to splatter her with mud; thunderous spates of gunfire echoed across the wastes, and every so often, the Mentor roared "DUCK!" and Glinda would have to throw herself flat against the blood-soaked earth as the snipers turned their guns in her direction. Fortunately, the bullets themselves were miniscule pellets that couldn't even break the skin, but as Glinda discovered, that didn't stop them from leaving extremely painful bruises.

"Can't we just practice the normal way?" she moaned.

"You're not going to be fighting in a nice clean gymnasium tomorrow," the Mentor reminded her. "You're going to be dealing with harsh terrain, constant noise, and the constant threat of death; if we can't get you prepared for that, then there's no point in sending you out at all. I very much doubt you'll be capable of blocking a bullet at this stage in your training, so I'd get back to hugging the mud if I were you."

She paused for effect, and added, "Unless, of course, you want Elphaba to face down the worst of Unbridled Radiance alone."

"Alone?"

"Unbridled Radiance is launching a major offensive on the northern front tomorrow, probably the greatest seen in this stage of the war. Elphaba will have an army on her side, yes, but you know how headstrong she can be… and more importantly, you know how she's lusted for vengeance these past few days. With Harker dead, there's precious few bodyguards fit to shield Elphaba, and none of them capable of saving her from herself – except you."

And so the training had continued on for the next five hours, thought at times it felt like months; Glinda found herself driven on by a mixture of desperation, self-reproach, and the Mentor's carrot-and-stick style of motivation. And whenever it got too much for her, whenever she felt the mud seeping into her shoes, whenever the cold gnawed hungrily at her bare arms, whenever her head pounded with the effort of committing so many difficult spells to memory, whenever she balked at wearing the filth-encrusted uniform that was required for this exercise, whenever she couldn't convince herself that this was all an illusion… Glinda took a deep breath and told herself, Elphaba put up with worse than this. This is what Elphaba went through for every day you spent in the Emerald City. This is what she'll have to go through all over again… and this time, you can be there for her. This time, you can be more than just another drippy socialite. This time, you can be a real witch.

So, she persevered: she took cover when the gunshots sounded in her direction; she waded through the muddy craters and lakes of brackish water; she cast her spells and flung her hexes; she memorized incantations that left her throat an aching mess and her brain weeping with the strain; she even managed to conjure the bubble – a pale ghost of its former self, and for a trip across the gymnasium that lasted no longer than fifteen seconds, but that alone was a victory in itself.

In the end, she'd been given a mark of "satisfactory," and dismissed with a warning not to tell Elphaba about her unexpected promotion to the front lines. She was also warned not to bother packing just in case Elphaba noticed – as if Glinda had anything worth packing for a mission like this! No, Glinda's clothing and gear was now strictly military-issue, of the kind apparently given to magicians in the support corps; and though Glinda had often recoiled in distaste at the drably practical outfits she'd been made to wear over the course of her training, she had to admit that she actually liked the gear she'd been given for tomorrow's battle.

True, green wasn't her colour, adjusting the hood was strictly forbidden in case she accidentally ruined her disguise, and though her robes were only classified as "light armour" they still made her feel as though she was wearing a lead-lined raincoat. But on the upside, the robes were surprisingly trim for military-issue gear, and augmented with beautifully-made leather gloves and boots – supposedly for the sake of absorbing random surges of energy, though Glinda doubted any other magicians in the corps were outfitted with anything so expensive. Indeed, after the first minute of admiring herself in the mirror, she found herself wondering if Mentor had customized the outfit, just for the sake of making Glinda feel more comfortable.

But best of all was the mask: carved from jade, shrouded in enchantments and outwardly featureless except for the two eyeholes, its sculpted contours hid her face perfectly – both from Elphaba and from the many magical dangers that she'd face on the battlefield. Standing there before the mirror, posing dramatically in her new robes, her face cushioned by the silk lining of her mask, Glinda could only look at herself and marvel. She was no stranger to masks, of course, having attended far too many masquerade balls with Fiyero and the other socialites of the Ozian upper crust to feel uncomfortable with a domino on her face. But the masks Glinda had worn at these midnight revels were filmy porcelain things designed to accentuate her face rather than conceal it – which had been exactly the way Glinda preferred things. What's the point of going to a party if nobody can recogniziate you? She'd tittered once upon a time.

Perhaps that was why the Mentor had given it to her, as another snipe at her younger self's naiveté. But then, it wasn't as if there weren't practical reasons for this: as long as she kept her hair tied back and her hood up, the disguise was essentially impenetrable, and as long as the defensive enchantments held, Glinda stood at least half a chance of leaving the battlefield with her skull intact – as the Mentor had cheerfully noted.

She'd given her a new wand, too.

It was much more ornate than the practice wand she'd been using, and much more imposing, too: it was made of polished obsidian, a swordlike length of needle-sharp volcanic glass shimmering eerily in the light of the gymnasium; its handle was carved with indecipherable runes and studded with miniscule emeralds, and it surface almost seemed to ripple as Glinda stared down at it – as if this wasn't a solid object at all, but a liquid, an undulating mass of black oil moulded into a shape. And as Glinda lifted it from its pedestal, she couldn't help but notice the subtle pulse of energy slowly flowing down her arm – reaching slowly outwards, out of the gymnasium and rushing down the corridor.

She couldn't explain why, but for maybe half a minute or less, Glinda found herself suddenly possessed by the idea that the wand was looking for something, sending out tendrils of energy into the depths of the palace in search of some unknown quarry. Eventually, though, the pulses of magic ceased and all the credence she'd given the idea simply trickled out of Glinda's head like sand through a colander; so she dismissed the idea, and went back to testing the wand.

Overall, the gleaming black wand hadn't done much to improve her spellcasting, and the Mentor hadn't explained why she'd needed this strange new weapon when her practice wand had served her perfectly well for the last week, but Glinda had to assume this was standard issue for the support corps. And at any rate, she wasn't complaining: if anything, the sight of the wand in her hand buoyed her spirits even further, to the point that Glinda had to feign depression just so that Elphaba wouldn't get suspicious.

Glinda spent the rest of the day wandering around in a daze of mingled excitement and apprehension, caught between imagining everything she might accomplish tomorrow and worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong tomorrow – of which there were all too many. In the end, the events of the day were reduced to a vague blur of forgettable activities: she dimly recalled Elphaba sitting alone on the couch, puzzling over a scrap of paper in her hands and occasionally casting suspicious glances in the direction of the nearest mirror; she remembered watching Vara holding Dorothy's hand and whispering reassurances in her ear as Kiln went about drawing a blood sample; and of course, she recalled the constant checking of the clock, the constant unspoken query of "Oh dear god, is time really moving this slowly? How is possible for so many hours to go by without anything actually happening?"

And yet, somehow, the sun finally set and Glinda had an excuse to turn in early, though by then she was so electrified with nerves she might never have gotten to sleep without her customary dream-pill.

The next morning, Elphaba left amid kisses and heartfelt farewells, totally unaware that Glinda would be travelling alongside her; of course, with secrecy so paramount, Vara didn't bring in the uniform and gear until she was absolutely certain that Elphaba was on her way downstairs – and by then, Glinda could barely stand still long enough to get dressed. It took about five minutes of fitting and fidgeting (and considerable fussing from Vara) to complete all the necessary preparations, but eventually Glinda stood resplendent in her new robes and mask, ready to leave and looking every inch the witch that Glinda had never been in Oz.

This is me, she thought, as she examined herself in the mirror once last time. This is who I should be.

This is Glinda the Good – the real Glinda the Good.

This is me.

---

Somewhere in the middle of No-Man's Land, overshadowed on all sides by gargantuan pinnacles of ancient sandstone, Boq staggered to a halt and tried to get his bearings for perhaps the second time that day – without success.

How long had he been walking? A week? A fortnight? A month? He'd had no way of measuring the passage of time except by counting the sunrises and sunsets, and to his dismay, he managed about two in total before the exact number had slipped through his fingers. Once he'd left the airship graveyard behind and tobogganed gracelessly into the dunes, the Tin Man had found himself without landmarks, points of reference, or anything that might differentiate the next sandbank from the last: apart from the rim of the crater that he'd slid down on his way in and the bone-white shapes of mountains forever out of reach, every mile of the dunes looked the same; that monotony had quickly eroded his perception of time, fusing the days together and rendering them effectively indistinguishable… and worse still, interminable.

The sight of the pinnacles rising over the next dune had been a relief beyond measure, if only for the fact that they'd given some definition to his journey. Around the time they'd appeared on the horizon, he'd found himself wishing that he'd stayed in the Hellion's lair, if only because fighting his way through an army of Dolls would have been less dull. True, it might have been a losing battle, but at least he'd have a purpose to keep him occupied, and if by some impossible stroke he'd actually succeeded in killing the entire army, Hellion and all, he'd be able to rescue the Lion and they'd be able to find their way to safety together. Out here, he had literally know idea what he was doing or where he was going, other than the vague destination of "Loamlark" (AKA: Oz Only Knows Where).

But then the miracle had appeared, the great mesas and pinnacles slowly tearing their way through the sand like the clawed fingers of some gigantic hand reaching skywards, the hateful dunes slowly bleeding away to bare cracked earth as the wound deepened and the hand stretched ever higher towards the sun.

Of course, once Boq had actually stepped inside that vast stone forest, he'd quickly discovered that the reprieve he'd earned was all too brief: true, the scenery was much more interesting, and there was at least some variety to be found in the shapes of the rock formations that surrounded him, but in the end he was still wandering an endless wasteland with no idea how to reach civilization and no way of finding his way back to the Lion even if he found help. For all he knew, this desert could go on for thousands of miles; he could wander for months without ever meeting a single soul, and never know if he was headed in the right direction or not. This barren landscape, with its monolithic columns rising all around him like the smokestacks of an industrial metropolis, might very well be the nearest thing to civilization he'd ever see again.

On the upside, at least he didn't have to worry about dying of thirst; despite the inconveniences of rust and all the irritating noises that came with it, his tin body did have its perks. With no biological needs except for regular oil and the occasional panel-beating to remove the dents, Boq had gone on walking for days without shelter or sleep… though for some reason, he had dreamed.

Every now and again, when the monotony of the desert overwhelmed him and the hours had seemed to flow together like molten wax, he'd lapsed into a kind of near-unconsciousness, a drowsiness just shallow enough for him to keep walking but just deep enough for dreams to creep into his head – the same dreams he'd experienced while locked away in the Hellion's lair. Over and over again, he dreamed of another Boq – one who'd somehow escaped Nessa's employment and found a new life in a nest of secret laboratories hidden deep beneath the Emerald City; he'd been apprenticed to a giant snake, taught magic and science and the art of moulding bodies into clay, even used his power to escape Nessa once and for all in a way that brought on such guilt that Boq still shuddered to remember it. But most impossibly of all, this other Boq had been working for Elphaba, of all people.

He didn't know what it could mean, but he knew one thing for certain: Elphaba was still out there, still roaming free in this strange new world. One day, Boq would catch up with her and…

What?

He didn't know. Once, he'd known for a fact that he wanted revenge, but now it was almost impossible to guess at what he wanted anymore: his certainty had dissolved in the face of that terrible desert ahead of him, and the symptoms of his own cursed body hadn't helped. Whenever Boq thought of Elphaba, his temper erupted in a flurry of violent fantasies and delirious promises of revenge, punctuated by brief flickers of memory – of shouts and screams and accusations being flung in every direction, and a crushing pain in his chest. And when the rage cooled, he always felt a little worse: his body felt clumsy, almost immobilized by its own weight, his joints creaked and squealed and clattered so noisily he thought his head would split in two, and those conspicuous gaps in his memory yawned open like chasms in his brain…

And worst of all, the terrible absence inside him ached even further. Oh, it wasn't as if he couldn't ever forget about it, but he'd learned to live with it… up until his rage exploded and subsided once again, and that awful void where his heart used to be seemed to grow teeth.

Right now, Boq would have been happy if he could just decide what to do with Elphaba when he found her – if he found her: he wanted revenge, but he also wanted to know where they were and how they'd gotten here, and yet he wanted a cure for whatever Elphaba had done to him, he wanted to know why she'd done it, and for reasons he couldn't explain, he wanted to apologise to her. It didn't make any sense, and every time he tried to remember why he would want such a thing, his head hammered so violently that Boq had found himself almost paralysed by the pain rippling across his skull and down his spine.

It doesn't matter, he told himself. You'll figure out what to do when you get there. For now, let's just focus on actually getting there before rust sets in.

So he shambled onwards, the path ahead slowly rising upwards into a hill; but as he ascended, the pinnacles flanking him began to look less and less like sandstone and more like crystal – slowly transforming the tangle of chimneys and columns into a bewildering kaleidoscope of lights and shadows. And as the hill sloped ever higher, the colour of the suddenly crystalline pinnacles began to change as well, shifting from colourless transparent quartz to richest emerald, every pinnacle refracting the sunlight into haunting incandescence and dyeing the barren earth a vivid green.

But as he reached the summit of the hill, the emerald obelisks abruptly dwindled away, leaving Boq with an unhindered view of the next few miles.

It had clearly once been a city: he could tell as much by the weather-beaten silhouettes of roads still visible beneath the desert sands, and those crumpled shapes standing between them had to be buildings; there was even the occasional streetlamp standing bent and crooked in the midst of the rubble. Other than that, the resemblance to a city was tenuous at best: already veiled by sand blown in from nearby dunes, most of the roads were rent with fissures and cracks, their potholed bulks now home to a variety of plantlife too frail to survive in No-Man's Land proper; craters dotted the ruins like long-healed scars, some no bigger than a roadside ditch, others spanning entire city blocks; and across the entire city, not a single building had been left untouched. A lucky handful had merely had to endure the indignity of losing a wall or a roof to the chaos, and somehow they still lingered on despite the decades of erosion they'd suffered since then; but they were small structures, none of them an inch higher than two stories. Every other building in town had been annihilated: some lay on their sides like felled trees, toppled towers slowly dissolving into rubble under the onslaught of years. Some of them (the smaller ones in particular) had been cleaved in half with astonishing precision, their walls lying in solid blocks or left perpetually teetering on the brink of collapse. Some appeared to have melted, stone and metal and even wood having somehow liquefied in the face of whatever cataclysm had descended on this place, towers and turrets and parapets oozing down their own flanks, dripping from their buttresses and flowing across the paving-stones in great puddles; decades afterwards, those puddles still remained – now solidified into ghastly lakes of fused brick and timber like the remains of melted candles. Others still had succumbed to more exotic fates, perhaps transformed into glass and shattered into a billion glittering shards, or replaced with trees long since felled and petrified, or even fused with skyscraper-sized beasts of which only the bones remained by now. And some buildings had simply been shattered into rubble as if struck by a wrecking ball.

But there were two distinctive things about this place that caught Boq's eye: first, several buildings had escaped destruction in a rather unique way – namely by simply not being there; perhaps twenty buildings had vacated their foundations, leaving only empty city blocks in their place, as if a giant had simply ripped them out of the ground and wandered off with them still clutched in his chubby fists. Secondly, along with the dense layer of sand, the outskirts of the ruins were littered with millions of tiny glittering shapes.

Emeralds.

In fact, looking at the hillside beneath him, Boq realized that a few thousand of them had inexplicably taken root, burrowing into the barren soil and sprouting upwards into the pinnacle forest he'd just escaped from.

Gemstone plantlife, Boq mused. What the hell, it's not as if floating skinless women, armies of animated dolls, crater-dunes that go on forever and melted wood make any more sense.

But if these were real emeralds, why hadn't anyone attempted to steal them? Why hadn't treasure-hunters picked this place clean?

The answer to that question lay just a couple of yards down the hill, where a trio of human corpses lay at the foot of one of the larger emeralds, the corroded remains of pickaxes still clutched in their withered hands. As he descended, Boq saw more unfortunate treasure-hunters scattered among the geodes, all dried into papery mummies by the heat of the desert, all of them caught in the act of trying to chisel an emerald free; whatever had killed them, it had left them decidedly unpalatable to scavenging animals – and the few who hadn't gotten the message lay alongside the corpses, mangled carrion birds and jackals sprawled in agonized heaps next to the cadavers they'd tried to eat.

As the emeralds finally dwindled away to dune-choked streets, the trail of bodies began to dwindle away as well; the breeze that had been drifting across the sands faded, too, as did the sounds of the desert – the moaning of the wind, the calls and cries of animals, even the whisper of Boq's footsteps slowly dissolved into silence. Overhead, the sun bulged and bloated and discoloured until finally it turned as black as night, a swirling sphere of darkness looming over the ruins like a gaping wound in the sky; and around it, the sky was stained deepest crimson – almost like blood. And as Boq set foot on the shattered paving-stones, the sand swirled and eddied around his feet, reaching out with half-formed fingers. But the moment Boq retreated back into the outskirts, everything from the sun to the streets returned to normal; whatever weirdness had infected this place, it couldn't pass beyond the city limits.

Up ahead, a crude wooden signpost stood half-collapsed against the warped stem of a streetlamp, a series of angry red words proclaiming this impossible place "THE POTTER'S FIELD."

Scant minutes later, Boq found his first corpse, half collapsed on the ground in a screaming heap, its clothing and flesh completely petrified; judging by the erosion, this granite cadaver was decades old. Nearby, other bodies lay half-buried beneath the sand, slumped on the floor in the final moments of the petrification – not all of them human; there were even the shattered remains of birds, obviously petrified in mid-flight and brought crashing to the ground. Most disturbingly of all, some transformations obviously hadn't been completed: some victims were just skeletons attached to petrified organs – or just disembodied stone limbs gripping the pavement in perfectly-preserved death throes. Corpses littered the silent streets in their hundreds, all of them remnants of the city's original populace by the looks of things; many had been petrified, but that was hardly the only death on display. Many of them had suffered the same fates as the buildings, perhaps melted into indelible gunk or vitrified into transparent glass; a few had been reduced to blackened silhouettes on the walls and pavement. And some were just skeletons, long since picked clean and scattered into component bones by scavenging animals.

Twelve minutes later, Boq saw blood on the road – very fresh blood by the look of things. Following the trail, he found it led to a deep pit in the earth, perhaps the basement of a house long since swept away by the carnage aboveground: peering into its depths, he saw that the chamber below had been cleared of sand and wreckage, until Boq could actually discern what this had once been. He couldn't guess at exactly what this place had been for, but he recognized the shapes of half-collapsed cubicles and workbenches, and long-defunct medical equipment. Oddly enough, this place seemed eerily familiar to him – as if he'd been here before, as if he'd worked at one of these benches at some point in the dim and distant past.

But piled at the back of the chamber sat the source of the blood: twenty fresh corpses, stripped of clothes and heaped together in a gory pile. Not for the first time since he'd arrived in the wastelands, Boq found himself wondering about the inhabitants of this unnatural desert: he'd seen more than enough birds in the sky to know that No-Man's Land did support some form of life, and he'd seen distant figures scuttling across the dunes or between the pinnacles – some of them humanoid, most of them definitely not – and though called out to them, none had approached. From time to time, he'd even seen larger shapes rumbling across the horizon, but they'd never strayed close enough for Boq to see exactly what they were. Perhaps there were predators roaming the sands, but Boq hadn't seen head nor tail of them: either they hadn't gotten a decent enough look at Boq to take an interest, or they simply didn't like 0the taste of tin. Of course, if he'd really just blundered into the lair of one of these things…

He couldn't bring himself to finish that train of thought. Up until now, his shiny new body had afforded him a certain degree of bravery, but with so many unknowns surrounding him and the prospect of a horrible death approaching, he was beginning to feel the first real qualms of terror.

And then, just as he was ready to take a step back and run for his life, there was a low rumbling noise from somewhere just beneath his feet, and then a new sound broke the silence: a faint hissing sound, like a heavy leather coat being dragged across a stone floor, a whisper of something huge and scaly rushing across the paving stones, moving steadily closer and closer until Boq – unable to stand another minute – spun around, axe in hand.

The monster at least had the decency to look amused. The creature was obviously a python of some sort, but Boq had never seen any breed of snake that grew as large as this one: fifty feet long from tail to teeth, with a body thicker than the trunk of a full-grown oak, a coat of glistening red and black scales as dense as chain-mail, a set of jaws that could have happily accommodated Boq's shoulders without stretching, and a pair of enormous eyes that glowed metallic gold in the sanguine gloom of the city. This was a giant of its kind, a behemoth, a titan… and with a thrill of horror, Boq realized he now had the beast's undivided attention.

There was a pause, as the serpent gathered its coils and wound itself into a spiral as it considered the tiny figure below it. Then, to Boq's astonishment, it spoke: "What is thissssss, I wonder?" it asked nobody in particular. "The Potter's Field holds no refuge to wanderers and automatons, little tin man. So what would bring sssssssuch an inedible ssssssnack into my home?"

It leaned closer, forked tongue flicking in and out. On instinct, Boq swung the axe in a vicious arc that missed the creature's face entirely; in a desperate attempt to buoy his flagging bravery, he shouted, "Stay back! I'm warning you, I'm not going to just sit still and be eaten! You stay back!"

There was a pause.

Then, the python cocked its head to the side in a quizzical tilt, and whispered, "MIssssssster Heart?"

Boq hesitated, slowly realizing that he'd heard that name before… in his dreams, as a matter of fact.

"No," the giant snake went on. "No, I've heard too many whispers of you in the lands beyond the wastes. You're not him… and yet, perhaps there's something of him about you. Tell me, who are you? What's your name?"

"I-it's Boq."

"As he said it was, almost four decades past. And yet, you're not him: I'm quite sure I'd remember the tin skin and silent heartbeat. Do you know who I am?"

Boq was opening his mouth to admit that didn't have the slightest clue who he was talking to – or where he was, what he was doing and how he hoped to escape this debacle with his life intact – when he realized that he'd seen this figure before, in a dream. True, the python had been barely a fraction of his current size at the time, but there was no mistaking those coppery swirls on his face, no forgetting the eerie golden eyes that now stared back at him.

"You're Doctor Coil," he replied at last.

"So there is something of him about you. How very interesting."

"B-but what are you doing out here?"

Boq's question, like most important questions he'd attempted to voice in his lifetime, was left incomplete; a crippling combination fear and social awkwardness had ensured that it never left his mouth. What he really meant to say was "What are you doing outside of my dreams? If you're real and I haven't actually lost my mind, why the hell would I dream about you and this Mister Heart? And by the way, who the hell is this Mr Heart, and if this is real, where is he now? Come to think of it, where the hell am I? What is this place, and why does it seem so familiar? What happened to it? Why has the sun turned black and the sky turned red? And what happened to you? Last I looked, you were about fifteen feet long – what turned you into a giant? And what in Lurline's panties possessed me to walk this far into this cesspool of a city? What am I doing here, you bootmaker's dream come true, what the FUCK am I doing here?!

Of course, Boq's vocal cords had seized up, so the only thing that had been voiced was "What are you doing out here?"

"I live here, little tin man. I've lived here ever since Distortion claimed and the Empress banished me from her sight. It's not as bad as it looks: the climate's a bit unstable for my liking and the energies of this place occasionally do mad things to gravity and perspective, but I've still got my old lab to work with and all the space I need to continue my research. And if I ever get tired of mutated bison for dinner, there'll always be treasure-hunters and thrill-seekers to spice up the menu. If anything, I should probably ask the same question of you: what brings you so far from home and safety?"

He leaned closer, unearthly golden eyes surveying him dispassionately. "Perhaps the Deviant Nations have been experimenting with artificial intelligences? I can't hear any clockwork or pistons about you, so you're obviously a golem of some kind… but why would anyone bother imbuing an artificial mind with the identity of a living person?" Coil thought for a moment, the tip of his tail waving idly through the air in absent contemplation. "Tell me," he said at last, "What is your mission? Why would your masters send you out here of all places?"

"I don't have a mission… and I don't have masters. Well, not anymore."

"Then what could possibly bring you into the Domains of the Fallen and Forgotten?"

"The what? I thought this place was called the Potter's Field or something like that."

The python chortled bemusedly to itself. "Oh, this place has too many names for its own good: the Potter's Field, the Charnel House, the Pauper's Grave, the Open Morgue, the Bone Pit, the Great Necropolis, the Eternal Tomb… in the end, they all mean the same thing: a home for the unhallowed dead. No-Man's Land is cursed, yes, but the ruins in which you now walk are damned, and have been ever since the Empress and the Mentor held the first of their cataclysmic battles in its streets and birthed No-Man's Land from the smouldering rubble. So tell me, where did you come from and why are you here?"

Boq took a deep breath and explained himself as quickly as he could, including only the most pertinent of details: namely that he'd started his journey in Oz, that he'd been pursuing Elphaba, that he'd left the country via a magical portal that had deposited him gods only knew where, and that he'd been kidnapped by the Hellion and deposited gods only knew where. It took perhaps a minute and a half to complete, and by the end, Dr Coil was spinning his tail in contemplation once again.

"Interesting," said the python. "So you are Boq – just not the one I'm familiar with. Perhaps Lintel's theories have finally born fruit at long last. I'm sure the hateful old bassssssstard'sssssss happy about that, wherever he is now… but that'ssssssssssss beside the point. You say you were pursuing Elphaba, this green girl?"

"I need to find her, Doctor; she needs to account for what's happened to me. The Hellion said she was in Loamlark, and that's why I've been crossing the desert for the last week-"

"I wouldn't trust the Hellion's advice, little tin man: in case you hadn't noticed, she's mad as a hatter sewn to a rabid dog; I've seen saner people running for high office in my time, and most of those well-heeled maniacs didn't frighten me nearly as much she does."

"In other words, you wouldn't be willing to help me rescue the Lion."

"Not unless you've got an army on your side, little tin man."

"That's a no, then. But what about Loamlark? If the Hellion was lying-"

"I didn't say that; I'm just saying that there's a world of difference between what the Hellion perceives and reality. But…" Coil thought for a moment. "I've already told you that magic has altered this place, but I haven't explained all the myriad ways it's changed: down in the tunnels beneath us, cold winds carry whispers drawn from thousands of miles away, echoes transmitted on currents of rarefied energy. Sometimes, if I listen carefully, I can hear the words of these echoes… and sometimes I can even feel the Mistress of Mirrors listening in for the few titbits of knowledge that escape her reach, but that's beside the point. Point is, I've heard quite a few rumblings from Loamlark in the last couple of days, some of them obvious rumours, some of them too official to be anything but fact, but all of them mention a green girl leading the defence of the town."

"That's all very well, but even if it's true, how am I going to get there? It's still thousands of miles away, as you said."

"And it so happens that you'd be travelling right through Rustmen territory on the way over."

"…Rustmen?"

"Yes."

"Is that as bad as it sounds?"

"Worse. That little tin frame of yours is inedible to most of the beasts out here, and probably not interesting enough for other Things With Names to take an interest… but the Rustmen? Ooh, they'd be divvying you up and spitting you out by sunset."

"Well, if you know a way around them, that'd be helpful, but-"

"I can do more than that, little tin man. Loamlark was founded on the remains of an old mining town, and they've got more than enough tunnels to link up with the catacombs of this place, and more than enough magic in them to slice the normal travelling time in half – and no danger of any Rustmen presence. I'll be happy to guide you… on one condition."

"Name it."

"You explain everything of your world to me on the way over – and if you choose to kill the Elphaba you know, at least allow me to question her first. Oh, one more thing?"

"Yes?"

There was a slightly worrying pause, as Coil eyed the heap of bloodied corpses in the corner with undisguised hunger. "I'd like to finish breakfast first."

---

Elphaba had been dreading the journey to Loamlark ever since she'd been given the order to return to the front, and with good reason: her first trip into the northern reaches of the Deviant Nations had lasted hours on end, and Elphaba had been lucky enough to spent most of the flight asleep; she'd even had the luxury of travelling in one of the smaller, faster troop transports. Now, she was virtually imprisoned aboard one of the fleet's gigantic personnel carriers and moving at barely half the original transport's pace, a cushionless chair and growing anticipation making sleep utterly impossible. So far, the only bright side to the entire journey was the fact that she now had almost a thousand soldiers and Irredeemables to share her bad mood with.

Kiln was here with her, as was Vara – still wearing a black armband over her fatigues. And with them had arrived a whole host of figures from both the Irredeemables and the army, from stoic men and women patchworked with scars and freshly reattached limbs, to bubbling collections of external glands and pressurized stingers mounted on dozens of crustacean feet ("I'm in artillery," said the gland-man, cheerfully shaking Elphaba's hand with a pincer). There was even a new sorceress joining one of the magician teams, easily recognized by the tailored robes and jade mask she wore; unfortunately, the masked witch had spent most of the journey either completely silent or fast asleep, which only added to the mixture of frustration and boredom suffusing the next few hours.

If only I'd managed to retrieve the broomstick, she thought, I wouldn't be here right now. If I'd seen that trap coming, if I'd found the broom before the fires reached it, I'd be back in Loamlark before the first carrier left the dock. But no, here I am, broomless, hatless, and no closer to anything I've been promised. Still no closer to revenge. Still no closer to her.

In an attempt to take her mind off the Empress and the increasingly inventive revenge fantasies she featured in, Elphaba found herself rereading the note that had been left for her, trying to guess at what it could mean. She'd wracked her brain for hours as to who she was going to meet, and still the answers eluded her: most of the people she'd had any real success in saving were inmates of the Wizard's re-education camps and probably long-dead in this particular universe; and though she'd toyed with the possibility that the "proof" might just be one of the POWs she'd rescued from the lynch mob, it didn't seem likely. After all, if one of the prisoners had ended up back in the cells again, they'd probably been subjected to the full extent of the militia's hospitality by now and wouldn't be in any fit state to serve as proof (or talk, eat, sleep, resemble a human being, etc, etc, etc). Hundreds of possible candidates fluttered in and out of Elphaba's imagination like drunken butterflies, every single one of them more far-fetched than the last, and all of them rejected long before she could put the slightest bit of faith in them.

One thing was certain, however: she'd seen how the note had been placed in front of her bedroom mirror, felt the uncanny sensation of being watched by her reflection… and most tellingly of all, she'd heard the officers whispering about how the Mistress of Mirrors had provided key intel for this mission. The question was, why was this Mistress of Mirrors taking an interest in Elphaba? Why did she feel the need to prove anything to her?

Who was she?

That question kept Elphaba occupied for the next four hours, until the pilot finally ordered the passengers to brace themselves for a rough landing on extremely dangerous terraid. Once the carrier had finally shuddered to a halt and the troops caught off-guard by the sudden descend had peeled themselves off the ceiling, the ship quickly began disgorging its contents: in sharp contrast to the sluggish boarding procedure and the languid flight, Elphaba found herself abruptly swept off her feet and out of the airship by the rising tide of personnel making their way to the exits.

Once she'd found the time to catch her breath and get her bearings, however, Elphaba very quickly realized that Loamlark had changed.

Quite dramatically, in fact.

From her current vantage point at the top of the troop carrier's third gangway, she had a clear view of Loamlark's skyline, and even from this distance she could easily see the scars of bombardment marring the town, the scorch-marks burned into the flanks of buildings and the craters punched in the rooftops. Some of the larger buildings had simply collapsed into rubble; others were in flames, surrounded by desperate teams of volunteer firefights armed only with garden hoses and buckets of water. And in the distance, enormous clouds of noxious-looking gas billowed and swirled behind hastily-erected magical shields; though the figures on the northern wall were almost invisible at this distance, Elphaba could still see the vivid glow cast upon the ramparts by dozens upon dozens of magicians visible struggling to corral the gas into a safe position. And beneath them, buttressing the wall as they prepared to fire, were the distinctive shapes of war engines – now too numerous to gather on the wall.

Peering down at the streets below her through the ethereal magnifying lenses of a spyglass spell, Elphaba found herself focussing on the distinctive figures of militiamen rushing down the streets, easily recognized by the golden "L" insignia on their armour. Once again, however, things had changed since her departure: gone were the fresh-faced civilians and improbably enthusiastic volunteers; in their place now stood a sizeable army of grim-faced men and women, unsmiling and battle-scarred. They'd obviously seen some heavy fighting in the last few days, and judging by the patrol routes, they'd also been given some comprehensive training – either from Marchfly or from the visiting generals… or possibly just from being shot at. Still, as twitchy as they looked, these troops were still in one piece: the three hospital ships now parked outside the city walls were still ushering in dozens upon dozens less-than-fortunate militiamen, along with hundreds of non-militia townsfolk in various stages of dismemberment.

And as for the city's leadership... well, they were waiting for Elphaba the moment she set foot on solid ground, the familiar figures of Mayor Wilder and Chief Marchfly shambling towards her from the chaos of the southern gates. Neither of them had fared terribly well from the looks of things: the Mayor's distinctive comb-over had been burnt away, and his newly-bald dome was marred by a spectacular array of smudges, scratches and vivid indigo bruises; and as for Marchfly, the squat police commissioner's face was livid with chemical burns, pockmarked with shrapnel wounds and almost split down the middle by a quartet of diagonal scars – most of which were still being treated by Dr Corone, now apparently a permanent part of Marchfly's retinue. For good measure, he'd replaced his long-defunct helmet with a spectacular peaked cap; as Corone later explained, it was apparently a souvenir recovered from the battlefield, newly-repaired and repainted emerald green, with Unbridled Radiance's distinctive mask-sceptre emblem replaced by the gold "L" of Loamlark.

"What kept you?" asked the Mayor quietly; his voice was hoarse, as if worn-out from constant shouting. Was it Elphaba's imagination, or were those tears in his eyes?

"I've been on medical leave," she explained. "The Mentor wouldn't let me back to the front until I was judged fit to return to the front lines. But what the hell happened here?"

Wilder sighed. "Apparently, the Empress didn't take the death of her Champion terribly well: a few hours after you left, she hammered our defences with just about every single artillery piece she had… but she spared the worst of the attacks for the residential areas. Gas, mostly. Undifferentiated Clarity."

"You mean-"

"Yes." He took a deep breath. "Three hundred people tore themselves apart before your magicians could get things under control. Three hundred innocent men, women and children dead in about a minute and a half, and I'm not even counting the ones still in hospital… or those who were killed in the next raid – or the raid after that. Needless to say, we've had to move all non-combatants underground to keep them safe; technically I shouldn't be up here to talk with you, but Chief Marchfly said he-"

Marchfly let out a strangled growl of rage. "Jonatim," he snarled, "If you want to sugarcoat things, you can fuck right off back underground. I'll put it plain." He jabbed a finger in Elphaba's direction. "I'm not an idiot, green girl. The last three days of bombing were meant for you: either the Empress was hoping you were still in town, or she was taking revenge by proxy. And where the hell were you when the first wave of Vigilant Eyes swept in? Living it up in the capital while we burned to death, and all because you chipped a nail or two getting rid of the Empress's pet, or because you couldn't stand killing the Purified – god only knows how many stories I've heard about you crying over that bastard's stinking corpse-"

In that moment, something at the back of Elphaba's mind snapped. Suddenly oblivious to everything but the all-consuming sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears, she found herself only dimly aware of what happened next, watching from somewhere outside her body as her right fist slammed into Marchfly's jaw, toppling him. Recovering with impressive speed, the militia chief clambered to his feet with a bellow of rage and launched himself her, cannonballing headfirst into her stomach with the force of a charging bull. Winded and suddenly back in her body once again, Elphaba crashed backward into the row of soldiers gathering behind her, one of Marchfly's pudgy fists hammering into her left ear as she staggered upright; he was readying another haymaker when Elphaba replied with one of her own, neatly flattening his nose in the process. And by now, her rage had cooled just enough for her to remember her magic, almost forgotten in the explosion of her temper: she had just enough presence of mind to refrain from simply incinerating him, but little else; so, as her magic flared outwards and the familiar nimbus of luminous green energy surrounded her, she readied enough kinetic energy to-

Hands clamped down on her shoulders, hauling her away from the fist-fight and back to reality; Kiln had appeared at her left arm, Vara at her right, and for some reason, the jade-masked witch was here too, gloved hands on Elphaba's shoulders in an attempt to calm her down. Meanwhile, Marchfly was being held back by as many members of the mayoral entourage as possible, including the Mayor himself.

"Let me at her," the militia boss was shouting, "I haven't finished with her, not with all the times she's tried to-"

"Would the two of you kindly stop it?" the Mayor shouted. "There've been more than enough arguments between the two of you, not to mention far too many fist-fights between the militia and the Irredeemables, and we don't need any more of either. Now, I've spent the past three days cowering in a cellar and watching my dignity slowly spiral down the tubes, but as long as I still have some semblance of democratically-permitted control over this town, I will not have its defenders fighting among themselves. So, for the love of God, would you please let bygones be bygones?"

As the Mayor paused for breath, there was a muffled chuckling from somewhere just above their heads, and all of them found themselves suddenly engulfed in shadows as a familiar figure stepped into view, his towering bulk shaking with laughter. It was Branderstove, in full armour and flanked by two heavily-armed bodyguards.

"If I were you," said the Leviathan, "I'd listen to him. Humble pie might be a difficult dish to swallow, but it's far easier to live with than spending the next three days in the stockades." He smiled, tentacles idly playing along the barrel of his cannonade. "Unless you actually like prison food, of course…"

Fuming silently, Elphaba and Marchfly reluctantly shook hands, muttered a few perfunctory apologies, and then slunk away to lick their wounds, still grumbling like exhausted thunderstorms.

"Good to see that common sense prevails," Branderstove remarked blithely. "Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, I'd like to borrow Miss Thropp for a moment if nobody has any objections."

"Go right ahead," Marchfly fumed silently. "It's not as if we had any use for her anyway."

"And a bit of privacy, if you please, Dr Kiln. No escorts until our business is concluded."

Sighing, Elphaba followed the Leviathan and his bodyguards off the road and into a secluded patch of hillside just below the eastern flank of the wall, too distant for any eavesdroppers among the wall patrols to listen in. Whatever Branderstove intended to do, he obviously didn't want any witnesses – at least, none that could hear what was said: even at this distance, she could already see green-coated snipers lining up on the gangway, the jade-masked witch readying her wand in case the mercenary paymaster tried anything untoward.

"How have things been?" he asked, as they left earshot.

"I've been on suicide watch for the last few days. How have you been?"

"Oh, getting better. Suffice to say, my men are in a much better mood now that the Empress has given something for them to shoot at; we haven't found the enemy beachhead yet, but these little artillery zones have done their part in keeping the troops occupied. Oh, speaking of which, this is Arkady, and this is Gerhardt. The Terror Twins, we call them."

The two bodyguards shook her hand (sandpapery palms instantly rasping Elphaba's knuckles raw) and muttered greetings in unfamiliar languages, though she had to assume "Guten Tag" meant something vaguely positive. Both of them were bald and heavily tattooed, and while it was clear that they weren't actually twins, they did look eerily similar except for the eyepatch covering the ruins of Gerhardt's left eye.

"I'd introduce Santino," Branderstove continued, "but he's currently watching this conversation through a sniper scope."

"Charming. Where's Colonel Gloss?"

"He's in the forests north of the wall; I thought it'd be best if I kept him as busy as possible with the business of shock and awe, and he's having a whale of a time. Scavenged three new medals since he set off this morning, or so the radio reports go. I'm afraid you'll have to wait if you want a meeting with him: he's not due back for another eight hours or so."

The walk seemed to take hours, the time distended by Elphaba's bad mood – not to mention the throbbing pain in her ear – but eventually, the two of them ground to a halt in the shade of the wall. In the silence that followed, Branderstove drew a cigar from the depths of his armour and lit up; for a moment, he savoured the smoke, puffing languidly as the moments trickled by.

"It seems I misjudged you," he said at last. "I didn't expect you'd be inclined to use your fists; you don't strike me as the type, if you take my meaning."

Elphaba smiled mirthlessly, absently massaging her bloodied knuckles as she did so; punching Marchfly in the jaw hadn't been the smartest idea of the day, and Gerhardt's cheesegrater grip hadn't helped the results. "What can I say? Anger has a wonderful way of broadening your horizons, making you think outside the box; revenge doubly so."

The Leviathan considered this for a moment. "You and I have a lot in common," he continued. "More than I previously imagined."

"In what way?"

"Well, to begin with, it seems we're both victims of the Empress's little trap."

"Sorry?"

"Three nights ago, when the Empress lured you out of the city with the fake portal, while my fleet was off chasing airships on the mountains. Those ships were illusions as well, obviously Her Radiance's attempt at driving off anyone who might be able to help you before the trap closed…" He trailed off, expression flickering between anger and disappointment. "I don't like playing into the enemy's hands, the Empress least of all, but there it is."

"It's not the trap that bothers me," Elphaba snapped. "And as for being playing into someone's hand, I've been doing that for about half my life. Morrible, the Wizard, the Mentor, the Empress – everything I do seems to have been part of somebody's gameplan."

The Leviathan shrugged mountainously. "That's just politics, Elphaba. Politics and war: no matter what you do, you always end up as someone's pawn. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You should know: you've agreed to work for the Mentor in exchange for a shot at revenge, just like me."

Elphaba could only blink in surprise for a moment or two; then, her temper flared. "And just how do you know that, exactly?" she hissed furiously.

"Oh, Colonel Gloss is a voyeur to the end: the moment he caught the radio conversation between you and the Empress, he brought the recording directly to me, along with all the other findings my men gathered from the palace."

"In case you hadn't realized, I don't like being spied on."

"Neither do I. But as I said, the two of us have a lot in common: we've both tried to build something glorious, to carve something magnificent from a world of dross and mediocrity… and we've both seen it fall apart before it was completed: my industrial empire, your Animal utopia, both stillborn thanks to the Empress and her ilk. Yes, we've both been wronged by Unbridled Radiance, we've both lost loved ones to its excesses, we've both sworn revenge against the Empress and all that she stands for… and neither of us want anyone interfering. Imagine my surprise when I heard you threaten the Mentor – just as I'd threatened you a few days ago. I'd never have dreamed you'd have that depth of hatred in your soul, but you certainly proved me wrong."

Branderstove sighed, a hurricane in action. "When I first met you, I honestly thought you'd try to stop me when the time came. I mean, you're so different from her, from your other self: so passionate, so fiery, so very naïve. When you started objecting to the torture, I thought you'd proved me right at long last… but then I heard you lose your temper, and I knew I'd misjudged you." He offered a tentative smile. "Perhaps we don't need to stay out of each other's way when the time comes," he mused aloud. "We both want the Empress's blood on our hands; perhaps there's enough to share."

"Are you suggesting another alliance?"

"A collaboration, if you like. Revenge isn't always a solitary road: sometimes, you need help taking the first step. I should know; I'd probably still be at the bottom of that lake if it hadn't been for my new friends. They helped me take the first steps, both figuratively and literally: it was only because of the exoskeleton they made that I was able to walk at all. Later, they gave me work when no other employer would, gave me shelter when countless others would have turned me away… until their own brilliance destroyed them, of course, but that's another story for another day. The point is, we can work together: with your magic and my army, we might just be able to wear the Empress down… and then, once she's weak and incapacitated, we can take our time with her, savouring every minute of suffering until the end. How's that sound?"

Elphaba hesitated. She wasn't sure how to respond to this, or even if she could bring herself to answer yes or no: true, she wanted revenge, but did she really want to risk working with the Strangling Coils after the events at the guardhouse?

"Just think about it," Branderstove cajoled. "That's all I ask. You don't have to make up your mind now, but think it over. In the meantime, you might want to keep this around just in case…" He held out a tiny silver oblong not much bigger than a cigarette-lighter. "It's for signalling and receiving," he explained. "One press of that button, and it'll pinpoint your exact location with a thaumaturgical signal visible only to me; the same goes if I send you a signal – all you have to do is follow the glowing red trail. That way, if one of us ends up cornering the Empress on the battlefield, neither of us have to miss out; we'll have the chance to share her."

He paused, belatedly realizing that his cigar was finally spent. Tossing it away, he plucked another one from the depths of his armour and jammed it between his teeth, his other tentacles busily searching his pockets for his lighter. Elphaba just rolled her eyes and clicked her fingers, igniting the end of Branderstove's cigar with a spark of magic.

"We have a deal," she said at last.

"Excellent! Oh, one other thing before I leave you to the day's errands..." He turned to his bodyguards, and offered a single meaningful nod: in near-perfect unison, Arkady and Gerhardt doffed their equipment packs, opened the two canisters with almost ritualistic care, and held out two rather distinctive looking objects.

"When I heard you'd returned from the forest without your hat and broomstick, I knew they couldn't remain lost," said Branderstove. "I mean, you without flight or that distinctive silhouette? It doesn't bear thinking about."

Very slowly, Elphaba reached down and plucked the hat from Gerhardt's hands, letting her hands play over its worn fabric and distinctive textures; other than a few dents on the brim, it had survived the fall and the last few days. Sliding it down over her head, Elphaba felt an almost indescribable surge of relief; the hat had been such an integral part of her apparel in the years since she'd started wearing it, it's absence had made her feel exposed and unsettlingly defenceless. Then the broomstick returned to her hands, and once again, Elphaba felt its signature enchantments swirling across its surface, just waiting to defy gravity once again; this time, the relief was almost overshadowed by the sense of triumph she felt.

"Thanks," she said, almost lost for words.

Branderstove just smiled. "Best not lose them again," he whispered cryptically. "Something tells me you might need them soon…"

---

Fiyero's eyes creaked open, and he found himself once again staring up at the ceiling of his cell, listening to the sound of marching feet rumbling down the road towards him; for a time, he lay there, at peace with the world as he basked in the afternoon sun pouring through the crack in the wall.

… Crack in the wall?

Sitting up in bed, he saw that an enormous fissure had been torn from floor to ceiling through the wall of his cell; perhaps four or five inches wide, it wasn't quite large enough for a human being to squeeze through, but it was definitely enough to discourage the jailers, for the other cells were empty. Whatever the case, Fiyero knew for a fact that this crack in the wall hadn't been there when he'd last been conscious.

What could have done such damage to the wall without waking him up? How long had he been asleep? Come to think of it, why had he been asleep in the first place? Since he'd become a scarecrow he'd only fallen asleep once, and that had been under the Hellion's influence; given the distinct absence of screams and carnage from outside, he had to assume that the Hellion hadn't decided to pay him a visit, so what could have knocked him out?

Racking his memory for information, he found that his last clear memory had been of his jailer taking Toto for a walk in the aftermath of the pitchapping incident; Fiyero had sat back down, wondering when he'd be able to contact Elphaba again… and then, perhaps an hour later, he'd felt an intense pain in his head and blacked out. What could have caused this?

A quick look around his cell revealed no clues: no doctor's notes, no messages from the jailers, no details that could explain what had happened. However, Toto was back in his cell, albeit collared and chained to the bars of the cell to keep him from escaping through the ruined wall (not to mention extremely grumpy-looking even in sleep).

And then, just as he was beginning to ask one of the legendarily clueless guards for information, he felt something pulse under his feet. It was subtle, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sensation that only just registered to his distorted sense of touch, but he felt it; something in the floor, rippling through the stone, waking up Toto and eliciting a loud growl.

Then, he felt it again, and this time there could be no mistaking it:

The ground beneath his feet was beginning to shake…

---

As soon as Elphaba had finished with her official obligations, she'd left the hotel/barracks and made a beeline for the jailhouse; she didn't know what the Mistress of Mirrors wanted her to see there or why, but it was time she dealt with it – ideally before her schedule got any busier. Of course, getting there was easier said than done: with so many houses ruined by enemy bombardments or undergoing repairs, the streets had become a maze of wreckage and construction sites, the few clear paths often interrupted by militia patrols, visiting soldiers and Irredeemables, and of course, off-duty mercenaries – most of whom were drunk and determined to a make a nuisance of themselves, usually heralding Elphaba's arrival with a screeching chorus of catcalls and wolf-whistles. A rare and especially disgusting few had leeringly asked if her skin really was green all over, and peppered her with an increasingly disturbing array of questions about the colour of her breasts (among other things) until Elphaba had roared at them to keep their questions to themselves – before Kiln and the other bodyguards had swept in from nowhere to usher her away.

The bodyguards were another oddity: for almost every step of the journey through the streets, Kiln all but begged her to remain calm, wheedling and pleading with her to relax whenever the taunting got too much for her. Vara, once again playing the team mother, soothed her nerves as often as possible, offering every possible reassurance under the sun regardless of the circumstances. And strangest of all, the jade-masked witch had tagged along, watching silently, her wand at the ready – an enigmatic presence, but hardly an ominous one. After all, truly ominous presences generally didn't trip over as often as this particular sorceress.

After many twists and turns, the four of them finally arrived at the front of the tumbledown building that, in eons past, had once been a police station: from the looks of things, the place had lost most of its staff and guests in the aftermath of the pitchcapping, either due to the scrutiny of the Mentor's forces or due to the simple fact that nobody in their right mind would feel comfortable in a former torture chamber; in the days since, aerial bombardment had cracked and cratered the stout little guardhouse almost out of commission. From what the local guides told her, the militia had just about given up on the place as a barracks, and now used it only as stockades for criminals among their ranks – leaving it a jailhouse for the second time in three days.

Elphaba was striding down the street towards the jailhouse, brimful of confidence and eager to learn what was waiting for her here, when she felt it.

A tremor in the earth – subtle at first, barely enough to register on any meaningful level, but slowly growing just powerful enough to send ripples across the puddles in the road. Kneeling down, Elphaba reached out and pressed her hand flat against the cobblestones, feeling the ground rumbling beneath her palm… and as she did so, she felt something else-

Something below you…

She blinked, vivid green light flashing behind her eyes.

Something's down there…

Elphaba's senses reeled as spectral images seared themselves onto her brain. She was experiencing another vision, maybe the strongest she'd felt yet.

Two gods clash for the heart of Loamlark, and their followers rally to their side as monsters and madwomen delight in the carnage…

What?

Below you.

Elphaba shot to her feet, tottering wildly as she struggled to recover her balance – and promptly crashed into the Mayor.

"Oh – sorry!"

"No problem, no problem," the Mayor soothed. "Erm, what brings you to this part of town?"

"I was looking for something I left here a few nights ago. What about you?"

"Believe it or not, I was actually looking for you: I was hoping to apologise for Billiam's-" He coughed loudly, and hastily corrected himself: "Excuse me, for Chief Marchfly's behaviour. He's been under a great deal of stress lately – lost a lot of friends and family in the last few days, you see."

"You don't have to make any excuses for him, Mr Mayor. I mean, you said yourself that you didn't have much control over your constituents."

The Mayor offered a miserable-looking grin. "The pitchcapping incident certainly proved that well enough. Still, I'd hoped my constituents would have been able to remain law-abiding citizens, but it seems that was too much to hope for. Ah well, I suppose it was naïve of me to put my trust in people, eh?"

"And what do you put your trust in?"

"Well, the trustworthiness of money fluctuates from day to day, political power's barely worth considering, my skills aren't much to speak of, luck is a non-existent factor, and as you've probably seen by now, people are stupid, violent, cruel and thoroughly unpleasant, especially when the chips are down. So, I suppose that leaves my faith in God." He offered a bemused smile. "And what about you?"

"Well, I've never been much of a believer, truth be told," she admitted. "Between my father's belief in the One God and the rest of Oz's belief in the Wizard, I haven't had a great many positive experiences with religion."

"What about the Irredeemables?"

"Well, that's philosophy of rebellion; from what the Mentor told me, we can retain our beliefs so long as they don't contradict the tenets of the Irredeemables."

"Fair enough."

"Actually, I meant to ask… what is the local religion? I mean, from what I've seen of the Deviant Nations so far, beliefs and traditions seem to vary from city to city; so what beliefs does Loamlark hold scared? If you don't mind me asking, of course."

"Not at all: we follow the Faith of the Lost God."

Seeing Elphaba's blank expression, the Mayor chuckled. "Yes, He's not widely known outside Loamlark. You see, up until we settled here decades ago, the Lost God was alone and forgotten, trapped in the endless tangle of caverns beneath the mountains. Even once we found His great idol and started worshipping him, He remained lost beneath the earth just as His name remained lost to the ages – one of the many things forgotten in the wake of the Empress's great spell of memory, I shouldn't wonder. So, we call Him the Lost God, the Lonely One, the Nameless Traveller, the Eternal Wanderer, The God Entombed."

There was a pious edge to his voice, a tone in the bedraggled politician's muttered speech that Elphaba had never heard before; even the familiar bemused sarcasm was gone from his voice as he continued: "The Lost God doesn't often intervene in the fate of mortals, given that He's still trying to find a path that can lead him back to the surface, but when He does… well, it's His blessing that's allowed us to prosper and thrive, and it's His protection that's allowed us to survive the bandits who've prowled the borders since Loamlark was built... and, as some priests have said, He even granted you safe passage into the city. In return for his blessings, we pray to Him, hoping the sound of our voices can lead Him back into the light."

There was a pause, as Elphaba slowly digested this information.

"And that's only become more relevant in times like this," the Mayor continued. "In the last couple of days, most of our churches and temples have been repurposed as shelters for the townsfolk; ever since the bombardment started, we've all been getting closer to God."

"They're underground churches, then?"

"Mostly, sure. There's actually one just a little ways from here, believe it or not."

He led Elphaba to the edge of the road, where an embankment overlooked a distinctly sunken area of the town: there, a small building stood, lower than all the other buildings on the street. A squat pyramid of red brick and mortar surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, it looked more like a small hillock than anything Elphaba would have recognized as a place of worship. But as she peered over the embankment and through the lenses of her spyglass spell, she realized that the church was actually built at the bottom of a pit at least three stories deep, and the "pyramid" was just the roof of the building – the only part of the structure tall enough to rise above the cobblestones. Past the fence, she could just about discern a flight of steps leading down into the pit, spiralling along the walls of the chasm towards the church's entrance.

"That's where we keep the first and greatest of His Idols," the Mayor explained. "It's also a gateway to the Mourning Hall, this consecrated cavern beneath the northern road – though it's more of a refugee shelter now; not that the priests haven't accepted this state of affairs. After all, He won't mind if our voices are a little nearer to him than usual."

Below you.

Elphaba blinked rapidly, trying to force the vision from her brain. "How far down is this Mourning Hall?"

"Oh, maybe six hundred feet below street level, plus a mile-long hike under the forest. Why do you ask?"

The earth is rent from within, a madness below your feet.

And even with her curiosity screaming to know what the Mistress of Mirrors had left for her in the jailhouse, Elphaba knew she couldn't afford to let this opportunity go to waste: the last time she'd ignored her visions, she'd gotten Harker killed and ended up sentencing the Champion to a death she could have prevented if only she'd known the truth; and the time before that, Nessarose and Fiyero had paid the price for her laxity. So, with her mind still awash with glimpses of the future and her curiosity still clamouring to be heard, Elphaba found herself asking, "Do you think I could see the Mourning Hall? Just to make sure it's safe for the townsfolk, of course."

"Oh, structural engineers have checked the place from top to bottom: it's probably the safest place in all of Loamlark. Even so, you're more than welcome to join us if you want to see it for yourself."

Elphaba nodded her assent.

So they set off down the street towards the church; it was only a fifteen-minute walk, but by the time they arrived, Marchfly was already standing guard at the gate, and from the look on his face, the man was almost volcanic with rage by now. "If you think I'm just going to let you inside and make a mockery of our traditions," he thundered, "You obviously haven't lost nearly enough of your teeth-"

"Billiam, could you please just calm down for minute? She wants to make sure it's safe down there, that's all: she's not here on some one-witch mission of religious iconoclasm – she's just doing her job."

"Yes, now that she's actually in the mood to do her job. Let me guess, she'll be there just long enough to see if there's a cave-in: if it's safe, she'll stay; if it's not, she'll run for the hills like a coward-"

Elphaba almost lost her temper again. But in the last second before her anger erupted, something made her hesitate; it took her a moment to realize that she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye: her bodyguards were still tailing her down the street with the jade-masked witch in the lead, and something about the her gaze – masked though it was – instantly froze her anger in mid-explosion. So instead, she simply held up a hand and waited for Marchfly to go silent.

"How many friends and family have you lost to this invasion?" she asked quietly.

Something like grief flickered across the police commissioner's face. "Too many."

"Do you think I haven't lost anyone?"

There was a dangerous pause.

"Do you think the soldiers we've got garrisoned here haven't lost friends and loved ones to Unbridled Radiance? Do you really think they'd run if they got a chance at revenge? Or to put it another way, do you think that if I had the chance to ruin the Empress's plans for this town, to stop her from killing and Purifying everyone in Loamlark, do you really think I'd run?"

Marchfly's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you'd do, Thropp. You're crazier than half the Irredeemables I've met and crazier than most of the Purified, too."

"Then let me put it plain: I'm not leaving. I want the Empress dead, and before she dies, I want her to see everything she's created lying in ruins: I want her to know she's failed and that everything she stands for has failed, and I want her to spend the last moments of her life alone and eaten alive by her own despair. So, this city will not be taken, and Unbridled Radiance's beachhead will be annihilated; I'm not leaving until every last trace of the enemy's presence here is gone and dead. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

There was a pause, and then Marchfly nodded reluctantly.

"Oh, and Billiam?"

"Yeah?"

"Call me a coward again, and I will see to it that you spend the rest of your days as one very angry limbless eunuch. Do I make myself clear?"

In spite of himself, the diminutive commissioner smiled. "See what I mean? You're crazy. I can practically hear the cuckoos circling your goddamned skull."

"Good to know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to pay my respects."

With that, the Mayor led Elphaba through the wrought-iron gate and down the narrow flight of stairs that led to the front door of the church, with Marchfly, Kiln, Vara, and the masked witch bringing up the rear. As they descended, the afternoon sunlight – already diffused by a dozen buildings up on the street – slowly retreated from view, to be replaced by the gentle glow of lanterns set into the staircase's iron bannisters. It was thanks to these lanterns that Elphaba found herself noticing the inscriptions carved into the walls of the chasm around them, dozens upon dozens of meticulously-chiselled sentences following the staircase into the gloom of the churchyard:

"He grants us his protection, and in return, we light his path home," they proclaimed. "We delve deep so that He may rise high. We descend so that He may ascend. We entomb ourselves so that He may be freed. Through our labours, He will find the light once more."

"Leftovers from the days when Loamlark was a mining town," the Mayor explained, "Long before the most valuable ore deposits dried up and us refugees reinvented ourselves as a trader's stopoff."

"Is that why the smugglers have so many tunnels?"

"Exactly. Of course, they don't control all the old mineshafts: this church leads directly into one of the few shafts left under our control, essentially our little highway to the Holy Site. Once a year, the priests host a very special service down below for a few hundred lucky citizens, all of them united in prayer in the deepest chasm of the earth, hoping to bring the Lost God a little closer to home."

"I take it you've been part of the congregation in one of these underground services?"

"Oh, as Mayor, I'm required to attend. Truth be told, it's one of the few ceremonial duties I enjoy – probably because I've always felt safer underground than I ever have in daylight, but that's just me, I suppose. Ah, here we are."

They were now standing at the very bottom of the pit, the church's spire and the walls of the chasm rising high above their heads. Before them stood a set of heavy oaken double doors, meticulously carved with a bas-relief scene featuring dozens upon dozens of elegantly-sculptured figures slowly tunnelling a path beneath the earth; and, a few feet beneath their excavation, another figure – taller and more imposing than the others – wandered a different tunnel altogether, a lantern clutched in his hand, his face contorted with grief and loneliness. There was something oddly familiar about that face, something Elphaba couldn't quite put her finger on…

"As I said, you're perfectly welcome," the Mayor whispered, as he swung the doors open. "All I ask is that you keep your voice down once we're inside; echoes travel a great distance in here, and I don't think the churchgoers will appreciate being interrupted – especially at a time like this."

There was a pause, as Elphaba took in the vast interior of the church, the enormous columned hall, the high-vaulted ceiling, the hundreds of granite pews crowded with gloomy-looking worshippers, the bare walls and uncarpeted floors. For the oldest temple in Loamlark, the place was surprisingly austere: there were no decorations other than the Idol– which Elphaba couldn't see thanks to the two acolytes standing in front of her.

In fact, the most distinctive thing about this place was the unusual shape of its interior: the hall was built on a sharp incline sloping downwards from the doors on, with the altar at the very lowest point in the church – almost like an amphitheatre, except much narrower. Once again, the architecture seemed specifically designed to bring the worshippers as far underground as possible, even before the subterranean mass of the feastday – and certainly long before the refugee gatherings of today.

And there were a great many worshippers here this afternoon: some were townsfolk making their way to the safety of the Mourning Hall, while others were off-duty militiamen spending their free hours seated at the pews, but all of them were softly chanting along with the priest: "Lost God, hear our voice. Lost God, hear our prayer. Hear our guidance, and we will hear yours. Lost God, hear our voice. Lost God, hear our prayer…"

Then, the acolytes finally moved, and Elphaba got her first good look at the Idol.

At first, she couldn't even process what it was; shock had left her mind almost blank. Then, the features of the idol slowly began trickling into her mind:

It was pitted with scars and weathered by age and corrosion, its control panels ripped away, its internal mechanisms left clearly immobile after years of neglect; its rust-stained features were dented almost out of shape, and several components of the distinctive figure were missing – most prominently the tiny throne beneath it. Even the townsfolk's attempts at repair hadn't done much to restore it, the layers of polished brass added to the idol only altering its shape further.

But even in its current condition, there was no mistaking the Wizard's giant mechanical face.

And at long last, Elphaba realized why the representation of the Lost God she'd seen outside had looked so familiar – it was a recreation of the idol, this relic of the Wizard's long-forgotten reign.

These people are worshipping the Wizard, she thought, mind reeling. These people are worshipping the Wizard and they don't even know it.

Suddenly, the Mentor's contempt for Loamlark made perfect sense.

"May our voices grant you solace in the shadows," the priest intoned.

"Hear our voice," the congregation replied.

"May our prayer lead you to the surface."

"Hear our prayer."

"May our words usher into the sunlight."

"Hear our words."

"May your blessings reach us when the shadows gather, and know that we are forever thankful."

"Hear our thanks."

"May the Wanderer find his way home," both priest and congregation proclaimed in unison.

In that moment, Elphaba wanted to explode. She wanted to burn the church to the ground and scream at the congregation for half an hour, then melt down the remains of the idol for ammunition in the next battle. She wanted to rage and scream and claw out eyeballs. She wanted to walk right up to the idol and scream insults at it until she was dragged away in a straightjacket.

But she didn't. The vision – and the desperate need to prevent it from coming true – was too palpable to resist.

So she walked onwards, down the stairs and past the pews, towards the corridor that would take them down into the Mourning Hall. Like a sleepwalker, she drifted through the church, quieter than she'd ever been in her entire life – silently, in fact, except for the ferocious buzzing inside her head.

---

Just down the corridor from the main hall, the church walls gave way to bare rock, the hallway slowly dissolving into a tunnel cut into the very stone of Loamlark. This place still bore the hallmarks of a mining operation, even decades after being repurposed: the walls were still scarred by the pickaxes used before the burrowing machines took over; tiny mining lanterns hung on hooks at regular intervals, providing just enough light to guide the steps of the worshippers who'd replaced the miners; the tunnels were supported by the same mechanisms that had served the previous inhabitants of this place, though they bore the signs of regular repair, fortunately; even the shape of the passage itself hadn't changed that much since the mining days – as Elphaba discovered when the low ceiling knocked her hat off.

And, of course, the elevator that would take them down to the Mourning Hall was a corroded relic left over by the previous tenants, a colossal generator-powered cargo-hauler that stank of ozone and sweat. Nonetheless, the six of them piled aboard, along with several dozen other citizens returning to their refuge; a moment later, their descent began in earnest – and because the noise of the elevator's motor drowned out all but the loudest sounds, conversation was immediately rendered impossible, leaving the passengers with nothing to do but think.

And Elphaba had a lot on her mind…

Bet you're laughing now, aren't you, father? she thought furiously. After all the years I spent trying to destroy you and your fraudulent little kingdom, I end up protecting your last band of worshippers, holding my tongue while they sing your praises. You're laughing at me, aren't you, you old bastard? One last little joke at my expense, is that it? Wherever you are, which ever version of you I'm talking to, whether you're in my home dimension or imprisoned in Paragon's personality bank or just in hell where you belong, you're laughing at me. You've been laughing at me all my life, haven't you? That's all I ever was to you, a joke: my conception was just a bit of amusement, your way of passing the time on a boring evening, my mother just a whore you didn't need to pay. And I bet Frexspar gave you a big laugh, didn't he? That must have been the biggest thrill of that night, a travelling salesman and con-artist getting the chance to cuckold the governor of Munchkinland, getting the chance to soil his outwardly perfect life with your greasy fingerprints. And if you'd known I was yours, if you'd known that it was your little elixir that made me a freak, you'd have laughed. You'd have sat back on your throne and laughed. I bet you must have chuckled even harder when I took up arms against you: you must have thought it was like a toddler kicking a brick wall and expecting it to crumble, every failure another belly-laugh in your long-running joke. And now, we're at the punchline: here you are, your godhood assured by the people I'm trying to save, and here I am, with no reasonable way of waking these people from their delusions, with an obligation to preserve their way of life if only because dismantling it means dismantling Loamlark and the only bulwark between the beachhead and the Deviant Nations.

Maybe I should tell them I'm your daughter after all. Maybe that would help: the daughter of God calls for the destruction of the Lost God! People of Loamlark, tear the idol apart and worship him no more. Maybe they would. Maybe they would tear you apart – your idol, at least. I'd want to tear you apart on my own terms.

Father, if you were here in the flesh, I would tear your eyeballs out, I swear to all the gods and demiurges. I would ram my fingernails into your eyesockets and savour every minute of your death. Can jokes kill their comedians? Would that be a joke good enough for the Wizard?

For what felt like a millennia or two, Elphaba's silent diatribe went on, until at long last the elevator clunked to a halt at the bottom of the shaft – over six hundred feet underground. And from then on, it was a mile-long walk, just as the Mayor had promised: over a mile of gloomy passageways honeycombing the rocky depths beneath the city, lit only by the feeble glow of antique lanterns – and on occasion, Elphaba's own spectral luminescence.

And then, just as the visitors were starting to wonder if they'd gotten lost somewhere at the last fork, the passage suddenly opened up, and Elphaba found herself standing on the threshold of what could only be the Mourning Hall.

A hundred feet from floor to ceiling and Oz only knew how many miles across, lit only by the pale glow of phosphorescent rock, the Hall might have very well been the largest cavern Elphaba had ever set foot in: this was more than just a cave, really – this was an underground cathedral, a stadium-sized monument sculpted from the living rock by a combination of natural erosion and determined miners. This chamber was clearly a natural formation, a hollow in the earth that had remained secret until the miners had uncovered it by mistake; that much was visible all around them. Even before the Mayor had begun explaining things, Elphaba could recognize the parts of the cavern that had been shaped through countless eons of time alone: the clusters of stalagmites bordering the Hall like trees, the vast lake dominating the chamber, the unearthly glow from overheard, and the distant shapes of tunnels too random and inconsistent to be manmade. But the miners had left their mark, too: one wall of the cavern was dominated by a vast stone face, almost identical to that of the Idol upstairs, flanked by several dozen robed statues – all of them evidently carved out by dozens upon dozens of worshippers armed only with pickaxes and chisels. Though naturally rough-hewn and basic, it was a surprisingly artful affair: much like the bas-reliefs upstairs, the Lost God's face was contorted with misery, as were the faces of the robed worshippers accompanying it, and as Elphaba stepped closer, she realized that the corners of the statue's eyes were studded with dozens of tiny crystals that shone liquidly in the phosphorescence of the cavern, giving every impression that the great icon was actually weeping.

And if the icon wept, then the tears had nowhere to go but into the lightless depths of the lake, a colossal black mirror set into the centre of the Hall, its waters still and eerily lifeless. But that lifelessness extended only as far as its shoreline, for the land was crowded with people: here, the people of Loamlark had gathered in their thousands, all seeking refuge beneath the earth. Children played in the stalagmite forests; stoic watchmen patrolled the clearing, preventing any squabbles from spiralling out of control; families huddled around meagre campfires, desperately seeking warmth amidst the unearthly chill of the cavern; vast congregations surrounded the local priests as they gave their sermons atop boulders, uttering the same chant Elphaba had heard above. And on the shores of the lake, gazing sorrowfully into its unfathomable depths, were the mourners of the crowd; all those who had lost friends and family were gathered there in their hundreds, with lighted candles in hand, paying their respects.

For some reason, the noise of the crowd seemed muffled; the acoustics of this otherworldly place seemed to smother the noise that such a gathering would normally produce. Instead, as Elphaba drew closer to the lake, she became aware of a strange sound floating over its still waters, a sound almost like singing: a wordless melody of a thousand sourceless voices echoing across the lake, silencing all other noises in its path. At a distance, among the refugee camp, it seemed oddly soothing; but as Elphaba approached, the song took on a mournful tone, growing steadily sadder with every step she took. By the time she reached the edge of the lake, the song had become a funeral dirge, and the sense of sorrow was so intense that Elphaba had to stop for a moment and take it in.

"What's that sound?" she asked softly. "Where's it coming from?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," the Mayor replied. "Some people think it's an acoustic effect of the air flowing through passageways above us; some of the faithful believe it's the Lost God, singing of His sorrows and loneliness. Perhaps it's true: people certainly feel driven to share in His sorrows when they hear that song."

"What do you mean?"

"Give it a while: don't be ashamed to cry, if you have to. Everyone who approaches the lake does so to mourn."

Elphaba was about to inquire further when she happened to glance over her shoulder, and it was then that she noticed something rather odd: Colonel Gloss was standing in the crowd less than twenty feet away, his clerkish smile wider than ever; more worryingly, he was staring directly at her.

"What's he doing down here?" she whispered.

"Gloss? Oh, he got down here hours ago, believe it or not, supposedly checking for structural faults just like you. Truth be told, the only reason the priests let him down here was because they were too scared not to admit him. Thankfully, he's been on his best behaviour."

Elphaba's heart gave a somersault in her chest. "How long ago?" she asked.

"Maybe two or three hours before your ship arrived. Why do you ask?"

She didn't answer – couldn't, in fact. Her mind was too busy racing: Branderstove had told her that Gloss was north of the wall, hunting through the forests for enemy artillery camps – and yet, here he was. Unless Gloss had somehow found a cave entrance in the forest that had led him into the Mourning Hall, there was no way he could have gotten down here except through the church, which was logically impossible unless Branderstove was misinformed and Gloss had returned home three hours ago.

And what was he doing down here? Was Gloss secretly religious? Did the smirking sadist have hidden depths, or...

Where were the extra medals?

According to Branderstove, Gloss had added three new medals to his collection; once again assuming that the Leviathan hadn't been misinformed, and assuming that Elphaba's split-second vision of Gloss's grisly habit hadn't been her imagination, the Colonel should have three new medals pinned to his uniform. Where were they?

And what about that peculiar tic, his habit of tossing his dagger from hand to hand? No dagger in sight – not even on his belt.

Conclusion: the real Colonel Gloss was still out in the forest, hunting for the beachhead.

This wasn't Gloss.

But if that was true, then who the hell was this?

And then, just as Elphaba was opening her mouth to raise the alarm, a tremendous roar of shattering rock split the air, ending in the noise of tumbling rocks. Instantly, the song of the Mourning Hall stopped, leaving only a terrible ringing silence.

In that silence, a voice spoke – a whisper amplified until nobody could possibly mishear it, a voice that seemed to paralyse its audience, forcing even Elphaba to freeze in place: "For eons beyond counting did the old cities labour in the shadows," the voice proclaimed. "Darkness ruled their streets unchallenged, and Corruption, Decadence, Ugliness and Ignorance were crowned as monarchs to rule alongside it. The people, not knowing that a better world was possible, suffered without knowing that they suffered; from the lowliest serf to the highest king, they suffered, and all the festivals and fashion they garbed themselves in could not hide their misery. Imprisoned in lives of imperfection and sin, they could not see that they were captives, nor could they see the path to their release, for darkness hid both prison and escape. Animals were persecuted, innocents were brutalized, falsehoods accepted as truth, stupidity held as virtue, and many a false god worshipped. Until…"

Then, on the far side of the lake, a light flared, growing brighter and brighter until everyone in the Hall was forced to shade their eyes or risk blindness.

"At last, pale dawn did shred the darkest night, and Unbridled Radiance blossomed across the land. The people fled in terror at first, not recognizing the world in which they now stood. But the light was the illumination of understanding, and the sun was the bringer of perfection: she who was born to slay the darkness, to topple the false gods of the past age and dethrone the once-great kings of Ignorance, Ugliness, Decadence and Corruption. Her light is the light of perfection and can never be dimmed or extinguished, for her world is one without imperfection."

A figure was approaching them from the light, striding across the still waters without sinking or stirring so much as a ripple: tall and slender, her graceful form cloaked in robes of dazzling white, her hair dark, her eyes vivid emerald, her skin smooth and unblemished by age and nature. On her head, she wore a crown: a circlet of silver, plain and unadorned, and yet conveying a power almost beyond description, for it was merely a reflection of the figure's own power, one that permeated the air around her in a halo of dazzling energies.

The Empress looked down at the paralysed refugees and smiled. "Rejoice, my children," she proclaimed, "For I am the Light and the Way. Kneel before the One True God."

---

A/N: You saw me. I know you saw me. Don't try to pretend otherwise. You saw my eyes in the darkness. You've seen the messages I've left. You'll let me out - you, Elphaba, Dorothy, whoever else got my message. I will find a way out. Even if it takes me the rest of eternity, even if I have to wait until entropy consumes every last universe of the multiverse's infinite expanse, I will find a way.

I WILL FIND A WAY.