OK, I'm apologizing from the lack of clarity in the last chapter, but if you've ever tried to write about a character watching herself in some sort of crystal ball in the first person you'll know what I'm getting at. And I'd like to apologize in advance for the lack of plot in this chapter, but please bear with me; there will be more plot quite soon, I promise ;) ::grins conspiratorially::
Chapter 27
"You're going to have to make your way back on your own." the Tiger said weakly, "As the restraining magic tightens its hold on me it drains away what strength I have to move and speak. It's a straight path back to the cave, if you remember. Just keep a hand on the right wall - there aren't any alcoves or passages leading off from there."
"Thank you," I said, "I'll do my best to See. Don't strain yourself by trying to get back to me too soon after today. If you eventually do try to get back to me you'll either find me at Kiamo Ko, or a sorry excuse for a hovel in the Emerald City. But if I'm not at the fortress, it'd probably be best for all of us if you didn't show yourself in the City."
"Understandable. Now go; your Fiyero probably thinks I've eaten you by now. Warn him I'll be back so he knows what to expect." The Tiger winked once, a hint of a smile playing over his mouth, then laid his head wearily on his paws, sighed, and closed his eyes; I'd been dismissed.
I snatched up the glass sphere before turning and letting myself out; If I was ever to figure out what it was, exactly, that I needed to See it wouldn't do me much good to forget the thing. Compared to the dim light in the Tiger's room the tunnel leading to and from it seemed thrown into impenetrable darkness. I made my way slowly down the corridor, running my fingers over the right hand wall just for my own peace of mind. I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding when a little pinprick of light showed its face, indicating where the passageway opened up into the cave. The closer I came the easier it was to hear and make out the shape of Fiyero pacing around outside the mouth of the tunnel, talking to either himself or the monkey.
"She's been gone almost an hour; what could've - why did I - Chistery, get off me!" I heard when I was almost at the end of the passage. I laughed to myself as I stepped into the light once more, shielding my eyes against the glare and watching him pace back and forth. I stood there for a few moments, casually leaning against the stone wall and shaking my head at him before it finally dawned on him that I was standing there.
"Fabala, I - why did you - what took you so long?" he asked breathlessly, capturing my hands in his. My skin began to burn softly under his touch.
"Let me go, love. You're all clammy and damp. Go dry your hands off before you touch me again, will you?" I said, my eyes laughing as I slipped my fingers from his grip and handed him the edge of my skirt for him to wipe his hands off with.
"Sorry, I was worried about you. Now, to put my mind at ease, what did that - that thing - want from you?"
"It's a long story. Can we get out of here now please before it gets too dark to travel?"
"It's not even noon yet."
"I'll tell you everything if we can leave now. The sooner I get to Kiamo Ko, find what I need and get back to the City the better."
Enticed by the prospect of information, Fiyero agreed and we left within the next ten minutes. I'd made sure the glass sphere was painstakingly protected within the bag of our things before going. Chistery, who'd been flitting around exercising his wings outside the cave, threw himself at me the moment I showed my face out in the light of day.
"Where were you?" he asked, crashing headlong into my shoulder and scuffling to get his balance and scramble up to sit on it.
"I was speaking to a nice Tiger."
"Tiger? What Tiger?" He put his hands on his hips, wrapping his tail around the back of my neck for balance. "I don't know a Tiger."
"Yes, Elphaba, you promised me information." Fiyero said as he led the way farther into the Kells.
I inhaled deeply and plunged into relaying the story to him. It took far longer to tell than I expected, what with Fiyero's incessant questioning and asking if the Tiger had done anything to me that he shouldn't have after every three sentences I got out. By the time I was finished we'd been traveling for a good two hours and had progressed quite deeply into the Kells.
"But if all you were 'Seeing' in that sphere was the Wizard's arrival, what good'll that do you now? The man's already dead."
"You've got to open your ears a good deal more, love. I told you, the images broke apart before I could focus on the second vision my little self was Seeing. That's what I need to be able to call to the forefront of the globe."
"What's so important about the one image?"
"I don't know, but the way the Tiger said 'The Sight came easily to you as a small child; I hope for the sake of both you and your lover that it returns just as easily' doesn't bode well in my mind. Heaven knows what it could indicate for us."
"You're more than likely right. I guess there's no reason for me to try to get you to not try to See whatever it was that was lost to you before. I didn't quite like the sound of when your child self said whatever she did about blood and wet aside from having to deal with the Tiger. That was almost definitely concerning you. I just don't like where this whole affair with the Sight is going. What is it getting at? It all seems eerie, like something we weren't meant to know."
"I know what you mean, but if it in any way might indicate what 'horrors' the future might throw at us, we may be able to find a way to deter it. It could be a good thing after all. Let me try."
He nodded, and reached out to take my hand. "I know you have to do this, but I can't help but worry about you. That's what people do when they're in love. That's why I followed you the night I was almost killed, that's why I let you go ahead with your Wizard-eliminating scheme, that's why -" He noticed that I'd looked away and was staring fixedly at the ground as I walked. All he was succeeding in doing was reminding me of past failures.
"I'm sorry, I never meant to bring those back up. You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
We walked on for a while in strained silence before I spoke again.
"Where, exactly, are we?"
"In the Kells; where'd you think we were?"
"No really, Captain Obvious? I hadn't noticed." I replied, over-exaggerated sarcasm finding its way into my voice. "I'm serious, how far do you think we are from Kiamo Ko?"
"Maybe another two days or so of a walk left before we'll be clear of this place. We should be able to camp out tonight and the next in whatever caves there are along the way; the Kells are pretty much run through with them. From there it'll be smooth sailing to the fortress."
"I hope you're right, unlike last time. Oh, 'we've got a good few hours before the rain'. I think not!" I said, playfully punching his arm.
"That was a freak incident! More often than not I'm right about things like that!"
"Whatever you say." I said, rolling my eyes.
The next two days passed in a fairly unremarkable fashion, we'd wake, shove something by way of food down our throats, walk for most of the day, find a satisfactory cave in which to spend the night, and sleep. Towards noon on our third day in the Kells we emerged from among the dismal rock landscape and emerged into grassland, the sight of Kiamo Ko about a half mile or so off in the distance.
"I told you I could get you there within a week." Fiyero said matter-of-factly.
"I never doubted that you could. It's just your inner meteorologist that needs the practice." I laughed, beckoning him to pick up the pace. "Let's go; we can probably get there in less than a half hour you decide to move a little!"
"Excuse me!" he cried, taking off, "Now who's the one going slow?"
I sprinted after him, a competitive grin spreading across my mouth. Chistery yelled for me to slow down, as he was sitting on my shoulder and losing his balance further with each of my footfalls, but I paid him no heed, and he took to the air, scolding me and grumbling under his breath as he flew alongside us.
Sure enough, we found ourselves staring at the heavy wooden door of the fortress all too soon.
"I never thought I'd be back here." Fiyero muttered, inhaling deeply and setting his shoulder against the wood, heaving the door open. It creaked ominously as it swung inward, propelled by its own momentum. I closed my eyes for a moment, steeling myself against the memories, then entered.
I glanced around the entrance hall, still as familiar as ever. Nothing had been disturbed since I'd left, and there was a heavy coat of dust covering everything. I had no desire to stay on the first floor; I left Fiyero to gawp at the sight of his former home and took to the hallway leading to my tower stairs. I wasn't sure if I could still call it 'my tower', but as long as my things were still inhabiting it the place was as good as mine. The stairs creaked ominously as I climbed them; at least this time I didn't have to worry about my legs giving out from under me, just the old wood. When I reached the top I held my breath as I entered the small circular room once more.
Everything was exactly as I left it, just slightly dustier. I set to work ruffling through all the books and papers littering the place, hoping to find something I could use for research. After a few hours or so I had a moderately large pile of unsorted leaves of parchment containing usable information all jumbled together with various usable books and other papers with little or no relevance to it whatsoever. I was slightly disheartened by the task at hand, and groaned when I thought of the prospect of all the work there was to come; there was just so much to sift through for what could be valuable to the "Chistery Project" as Fiyero so charmingly called it, but first I knew there was more research material to uncover from amid the other things littering my little corner of the fortress. I went back to work pulling books off the shelf and rifling through old notebooks of mine.
After a while I was torn from my driven state by a rather soft rapping at the trapdoor and stopped to listen to who it may be. I highly doubted it could be anyone but Fiyero, but I couldn't shake the feeling that at any time some Gale Forcer would come crashing through the place and kill who- and whatever he found alive.
I relaxed at the sound of a little voice calling "Open up!" through the wood. Chistery I could deal with; I tugged the trapdoor open for him.
"What do you want, you little menace?"
"Come downstairs!"
"What for?
"For Fiyero."
"Is he alright?" I asked, ushering the monkey through the door and following him.
"Not really." Chistery scampered down the stairwell, leading the way.
I walked behind the monkey, winding down a good number of familiar hallways to a room I'd only been in very few times before. Chistery stopped and looked up at me, his eyes wide and questioning as if to ask ::You can make him feel better, right?:: before he turned and took off, skiddering back the way we'd come.
Fiyero was leaning heavily against the doorframe, his face buried in his arm, his shoulders shaking violently. I'd never seen him so stricken before. I laid a hand on his shoulder and he stilled some, yet still shivered like a frightened rabbit under my touch.
"What's wrong, love? Let me know what's on your mind." I said softly, moving beside him and slipping my arms around his waist. It was then that I got a good look at the inside of the room he was gazing into. It had pale pink walls and a girl-sized bed pushed up against the wall, littered with dolls and other toys; Nor's room.
"It's so hard to accept that they're gone. No father should have to live while his children lie dead." Fiyero murmured, turning his head to meet my gaze; the raw emotion in his voice was heart rending. His eyes sparkled with moisture, and his cheeks were streaked with bitter tears.
"Oh, Fiyero..." I sighed, pulling him close. He pressed his closed eyes to my shoulder and wept, letting out his grief.
"I'm sorry, I'm-" he tried to speak, but his voice broke.
"Don't be." I said for lack of a way to articulate my sympathy. The depth of his brokenheartedness was far beyond that which any word of comfort I could give him could ease. All I could do was rub his back and let him cry; the silence in itself was comforting in a way, giving him the solace I wasn't able to. I paid no heed to the tears beginning to seep through the fabric of my sleeve; a little physical pain was nothing compared to how much of his hurt I was feeling as well.
After a while his trembling shoulders stilled and the racking sobs quieted, yet his grip on me tightened. I brought a hand up to his face and lifted his chin with a finger, gingerly brushing a few loose strands of hair away from his eyes.
"No, don't touch me, I'm all wet." he said, his voice still shaky as he wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand. He gazed back into Nor's room through reddened, bloodshot eyes, staring for a good long moment before speaking.
"I loved them so much, Elphaba." he said hollowly, "I may have been no more than a friend to Sarima, but Irji, Manek and Nor, the three of them were my first real loves in life. My children may not have been conceived through love, but once they were born I tried to make up for that. And now...being back here, I can't help but think about what might've happened if I'd had the courage to return to them and not hole myself up in the City like I did; I can't help but wonder if I might've been able to forestall their fates."
Guilt took it's icy hold once more over my heart. I'd as good as let them all die.
"Tell me what happened to my children, Elphie." he said abruptly.
"Fiyero, no-" I said, not wanting to cause him any more pain, but he cut me off.
"I'm serious, I - I need to know. I know it'll only hurt more but I need to know what happened to them." he said, his face set and braced against what he wanted me to tell him.
I took a deep breath; I didn't want to be the one to let him know. He was in enough pain already.
"Elphaba, please, tell me." he said after I hesitated to speak.
"Manek died in a freak incident a winter or two before the spring I almost did. Irji, along with Sarima and her sisters, met his end at the hands of the Gale Force. Nor was taken by the Wizard as a slave; I don't know what happened to her after that. Liir-" I abruptly cut myself off; I couldn't let that slip, I couldn't tell him about the boy, not that...
"Who's Liir?"
"No one, just a boy I knew while staying here with your family."
"I don't recall anyone by that name ever living near this place, and you were never one to have much tolerance for children in the first place."
"I came across him - by accident, you might say. You really don't need to know the circumstances."
"What are you hiding from me?" he asked, catching my face in his hand and forcing me to meet his gaze. "You avoid answering my questions only when you're keeping something from me."
"I'm not hiding anything from you." I said too quickly to mask the lie, averting my eyes.
"Look at me, Elphaba. Who was he?"
"He was only a boy that followed me here - I don't know why he chose me to hassle but he did, and tagged along after your children once he got to know them. I'm guessing he left with that Dorothy girl after she arrived here; I think because everyone believed me dead, and he was never too fond of me to begin with, but then again, no one ever was." I replied; I couldn't have been farther from the truth, at least with the bit about Liir, anyway.
"Why did you let him follow you here?" Fiyero asked, trying to squeeze more information out of me.
"He more often than not stayed out of my way, but kept insisting he belonged with me. I couldn't shake him. He kept away from me mostly; everyone did. He was with your children more often than not."
"How long was he here?"
"As long as I was."
Fiyero gave me a look that said he wasn't sure whether to believe me or not, but mercifully didn't press me further. I was afraid another slip like that would only drive him away from me. He let go of my waist and stepped into Nor's room, sitting on her bed and picking up one of her dolls, fingering the toy's red curls.
"Elphie, would you mind terribly if I asked you to leave me alone for a while? I - I have some things to sort out with myself before I can come to terms with - all this, and I need some time to say goodbye to them."
I walked over and kissed his forehead briefly. "Not at all. Take as long as you need, love. If you need me, I'll be in the tower."
I left the room, stopping at the door and taking a last look back at him; he had pressed the fingers of one hand to his eyes, the little cloth doll held tight to his body.
"I wish I could do something for you. I'm so sorry." I whispered, and made my way back upstairs to face the daunting task of contending with whatever information could be used for research dealing with Chistery.