Chapter 30
We rode until the sky had deepened from light blue to the dusky purple always left over after a brilliant sunset. Unfortunately, I was too furious at Cherrystone, not to mention afraid for our lives and heartsore for Fiyero, to pay much attention to it. Fiyero had pressed his eyes shut and leaned forward a little in the saddle, resting his cheek against my back shortly after I'd refused to fight with Cherrystone any longer. He had not yet moved from that position, a good three hours or more later, still seeking the comfort I wished I could give him. He still hadn't recovered from the deaths of his children, and my fighting with Cherrystone over their deaths hadn't done much to ease his pain. I wanted to turn and tell him I was sorry, sorry for bringing the subject to head, sorry for not trying to befriend his family more while I had the chance, sorry for not being there to help them when I could've; if only I'd known. If it had been anyone else's family I wouldn't have cared so much, but the fact that it was Fiyero's and I'd known them as well as I had, coupled with how there was nothing I could do to help him get over his losses I felt intense hostility toward the one who'd snuffed them all out. I wanted more than anything for there to be something I could say, something I could do for him, but I didn't want to say something that might accidentally make things worse, or push our luck with Cherrystone any more by speaking. Heaven knows I'd already done enough to jeopardize the situation.
The stars were clear overhead when Cherrystone circled his horse around the group, shouting for his soldiers to dismount and set up a sort of a camp for the night.
"Why are we stopping? The base isn't far from here." asked one soldier.
"Be that as it may, I know from experience that it's not safe to ride out in the Vinkus at night. If you've never done so, it'd be best if you never contemplate such a thing. There's no telling what manner of beast may be lurking around out here." the commander said, his voice dangerously low. The soldier he was addressing shivered and turned to do as he was bid, thoroughly spooked. I could tell by the way he spoke that Cherrystone was still smarting from our "conversation" earlier, and I wasn't sure whether or not to get some small sense of satisfaction from it, or to make sure to keep myself in check and to start to pay more attention to whom I set off.
"Someone deal with the two of them." Cherrystone called once the rest of them had dismounted and begun setting up a makeshift camp, gesturing to Fiyero and I, still atop the horse. A young, orange-haired soldier who didn't look as if he could have been more than twenty-five or so, one I didn't remember seeing at all, came up and got the horse to kneel, then untied the rope fastening our bound wrists to the saddle ring. We were able to climb off then, and Fiyero managed to lift his face from my back, shaking his head; he hadn't yet opened his eyes, and his expression was, if possible, more pained than before.
I stared blankly at the expressionless face of the young soldier, some familiar essence I wasn't able to place telling me I knew this man, that he was in some way connected with me.
Taking the extra rope as if it were a leash, the soldier tugged on it lightly to get us to follow him.
"This is where I've been told to put you." he said as he tied the "leashes" to a pole that had been pounded into the ground a short way away from where the rest of them had made camp. "I wouldn't be doing this to you if I didn't have to." he muttered under his breath, and I wasn't sure whether that meant he was of a more kindly disposition than the rest of the soldiers, or if that meant he would've liked to be doing much worse to us. Still, there was that nagging feeling telling me I knew him, trying to tell me to do something about it. Once he made sure we wouldn't be going anywhere, he trotted off to join the rest of his company, scrounging something by way of food out of their saddlebags.
As I stood there, watching the rest of them through hollow eyes, I felt my knees threaten to give out from under me; I was sore from sitting on a horse all day, and the trials of the day were beginning to take their toll on me. I lowered myself until I was sitting on the dry ground, my legs folded beneath me. Fiyero sat beside me, staring straight ahead, focusing on nothing. As I tried to loosen the tension that my muscles had accumulated during the day, I was suddenly aware of every place on my body that was twinging with the slightest pain, amplified tenfold. My legs ached from being stuck on a horse for twelve hours or more. I felt a bruise forming on the back of my head from when I'd hit the floor this morning, and another on the small of my back from being kicked by Cherrystone's steel-toed boot early this morning. My wrists were raw from the rope rubbing against them all day and my back was seized up from trying to be as still as possible for the three or more hours Fiyero had lain his cheek there. I wanted to sleep and let the rest ease whatever pain had come flooding to me, but given the current situation that was virtually impossible. In trying to get myself to ease my stressed muscles I only succeeded in causing them to knot more severely from anxiety. I exhaled heavily, my face contorting as I desperately tried to think of a way out of this. I bit my lip so hard it drew blood, and I hissed when I felt the scarlet liquid blossom over my skin.
"Are you alright?" Fiyero asked, which was the first I'd heard him speak all day.
"Yes, it's only a little blood. I can deal with that." I licked my lip to try to get the blood off, but my tongue only added to the moisture and it burned more fiercely.
"Here, press your mouth to my sleeve for a while. It should stop the blood after a bit."
I nodded and touched my lips to his shoulder, keeping them there until I felt the burning subside. When I pulled my face away there was a small dark circle where the blood had seeped through the fabric of his shirt.
"Better?"
"Mmmhmmn. How about you?"
"I - I don't know. Emotional pain dulls after a while; it's still there, make no mistake, maybe even more than before, but it's taken a backseat for the time being. I'd rather not think about it. There are other more prominent things to have the mind dwell upon, like how in hell we're going to get ourselves out of this mess."
"I'm s-"
"Don't be sorry."
"But-"
"Hush."
"Fiyero, look what I've done-"
"None of this was your doing."
"Both of you, shut up! Your senseless banter is irritating. I doesn't matter which of you takes the blame; there's nothing you can do about it now." Cherrystone said, coming up behind us. "You're lucky I don't just lose my head and shoot you now, witch, like I should've done to that son of yours a few years ago along with the rest of those Winkies living in that godsforsaken fortress, that annoying boy you tried to keep away from me. What was his name, Liir, I think?" His mouth twisted into a sickening grin and his eyes glittered with malice; he knew he'd succeeded in gaining even more of an advantage over me than he already had. I heard Fiyero inhale sharply, the air hissing as he drew it into his lungs, and my throat felt as if someone's hand had closed around it, cutting off my air for a short while. As I struggled to force myself to breathe again, Cherrystone chuckled to himself before walking back to the rest of the soldiers, throwing a last glance over his shoulder to see my reaction. The sight of him made me want to retch. I closed my eyes tightly against his face, so many thoughts roiling through my head I felt as though if I didn't manage to reign them into some sort of order they would force their way out through my weakened defenses and overtake me.
I'd managed to keep the truth about the boy to myself for so long, and now, despite all my efforts to protect Fiyero from it, they were all torn to shreds. The fragile shield I'd created for him against that sort of pain turned on both of us and shattered with Cherrystone's words; what I meant to defend turned out to do naught more than betray.
I sat there, stunned into a lack of feeling, cut beyond depths any knife, whatever its length, could reach. Hours had passed since Cherrystone said what he had about Liir, and still I sat unmoving, my eyes staring hollowly out onto the darkness, drinking in the light of the stars as if it could somehow cleanse away my entire past and all the mistakes I'd made. Glancing from the stars fixed up in the black velvet of the sky to the soldiers around their campfire and then back up to the stars, I thought bitterly that while there would always be beautiful things to love in the world, there would always be just so much to hate for scorning what little there was that might somehow have the potential for beauty. Absorbed as I was in the flase sparkling of the stars, I took no notice of the nighttime activity flurrying through the camp, the lookouts being changed, the lanterns being extinguished, the soldiers tossing in their sleep, or the horses grazing on the dry grass not too far from where I sat, nor the orange-haired soldier who'd fixed his gaze on me. Silence echoed through the night, broken only by the occasional snore once the soldiers fell asleep or the whicker of a half-asleep horse.
::How did he...How could I...What have I done to us by holding back the truth?::
I'd begun to descend into the numbing sense of nothingness I'd not felt since the night the Wizard was murdered; it was too much for me to handle all at once, so I tried in vain to push it away. I hadn't yet gotten the chance to fall very deep into that unfeeling state when I was startled back to reality once Fiyero spoke.
"Elphaba, was he - Liir - ours?" His voice was soft, strained, like he didn't want to ask but still needed to know, despite how he knew the truth would hurt.
I looked at him and nodded once, focusing my empty eyes beyond his.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"It hurt too much to admit to myself; it hurts even more now to have to admit it to you. I kept it to myself to try to keep you from any more pain. I've screwed up too many times. I don't know how much more I can take before...before I push you too far."
"Push me too far?" he asked, quizzical, as if he couldn't guess at what I meant.
"I don't want what I've done or failed to do to push you away, but how much more of me - of this - will you be willing to take? Look how far I've already pushed you; if it gets much worse it'll destroy you, just like it's done to everything else I've ever cared for, or to anything that made the mistake of caring for me."
"How many times have I told you, I don't care what mistakes you've made. I know you better than I think you know yourself, and I love the woman I've come to know. I won't let myself be pushed away unless you truly want me gone. Do you want me gone?" he asked,
"No, never." I replied haltingly, the emotion returning to my eyes.
"Then I won't go." he said, "I'll never go. My one request is that you try to leave your past behind you. What's done is done and can't be helped. If you don't it'll tear you to shreds. I've asked this of you before. Can you listen to me this time?"
"I can, but it's just so damn hard." I said despairingly.
"I know it's not the sort of thing you can let go of overnight, but just try, for your own sake."
I laid my head on his shoulder and we kept silent for a few moments, staring at the stars.
"How old would he be?" Fiyero asked.
"Hmm?"
"Liir - how old would he have been?"
"Maybe a year or two younger than Nor; it depends on how old she was the year after I'd thought you'd died."
"By now that'd be about twelve, thirteen, right?"
"I believe so."
"D'you have any idea what happened to him?"
"He was smitten with that Dorothy girl when she came. He might've gone with her back to wherever it was she came from, or he might've stayed here, I don't know. I do know that there wasn't a trace of him in Kiamo Ko when I woke after my dousing. Maybe he's better off that way, without me, I mean. I...was never exactly what you'd call a - a good mother - in any sense of the word."
"D'you...think there could be any chance of...maybe, seeing him again?"
"I don't know." I sighed, staring up at the sky, wishing I could somehow give him the "yes" he wanted to hear.
He looked away, out toward the horses, his eyes following the twitching of their tails. He wanted so badly to see this boy, to maybe get the chance to meet him. He'd lost three children already, and I could see that the possibility of getting to see his last surviving son, bastard or no, for the first time could quite possibly begin to have a healing effect on his wounded heart. I hoped that someday he'd get the chance meet Liir to if we ever managed to escape from the Gale Force with our lives. He'd be the father the boy never had, and possibly I'd be able to fade from Liir's life, not to be taunted by everything I'd previously done - or hadn't done - for the boy.
I spent a short part of the night dozing in a state of half-sleep, my head resting on Fiyero's shoulder, his head laid against mine, until I felt the soft fur of something rub against my arm, startling me awake. When I woke so did Fiyero, who bit back a cry when he found himself staring into the face of the Tiger. I was about to reach up to stroke his furry face, but then remembered my hands were tied together at the wrists, which were in turn tied to the pole Fiyero was leaning his back upon.
"Here, we must be quick, before it's time for a new lookout wake and go to replace me." the Tiger began, his teeth snapping through the rope around my and Fiyero's wrists respectively in two sharp bites. I looked back to the camp, wondering what the Tiger meant, and I saw that there was no one on guard duty. Then the Tiger trotted a little ways away, said, "Both of you, move, we have to get out of here!" He picked up something in his mouth and ventured farther away from the camp. I rubbed my chafed wrists, trying to restore circulation in my hands, as I stood to follow, Fiyero and I hurrying to keep up with the Tiger's swift, loping strides as quietly as possible.
"This way." he said softly around whatever was in his mouth, leading us into a fringe of trees a good distance from the camp. "There's a system of caves around here that no one's ever fully explored. The humans that live out here only explored a fraction of them, but we're going deeper, much deeper than that. Here!" he said, turning abruptly and pushing aside a large branch obscuring the entrance. We followed him inside, and once we were maybe a few hundred feet or so into darkness tiny lights flared up around us; the Tiger had conjured them, and whatever spell he used caused the little lights to follow us as we walked, growing brighter as the cave grew dimmer. I lost track of time as we ventured deeper into the caves, but after what felt like forever to my anxious, deeply disquieted mind, the Tiger called for halt.
"This is where you'll be laying low for a while, at least until the Gale Force moves on in search of you. You'll have to get out of the Vinkus sooner or later, or at least into the Thousand Year Grasslands if not. Maybe even go back to the City if you're brave enough for that, but after winter's run its course and moved on. It's not safe to go far in times like this, especially not in a state of affairs the likes of yours. Sit and get used to this place; you'll be seeing a lot of it." Once we'd settled ourselves against the wall, the Tiger called the globes of light to come down closer to us and he dropped what he'd been carrying, the glass sphere, into my lap.
"How did you -" I began.
"I came to the fortress this morning to see how you've been progressing, and when I found you gone I saw that you'd left all your things there, including this. When I began to investigate your disappearance I caught the scents of other men in the room, people I didn't recognize. I knew something had happened, and I've been following you at quite a distance all day, until I'd gotten the chance to change my shape unnoticed to that of a soldier and could finally come into contact with you. This has been the first chance I've gotten to speak freely with you. Apparently you weren't able to see far enough to prevent this, and it's infinitely important that you get farther than that now or worse things may come to pass. Try as hard and as quickly as you can to call up the Sight."
I did as I was told, surprising myself when I was able to cut straight to the visions in the young girl's globe. The piece about the Gale Force progressed through to show them in the tower, then here at the camp with Cherrystone's jibe about Liir. The next series of images was much more disturbing. I saw Fiyero crumpled on the ground in a place I couldn't recognize, his hand clutching his right arm, blood profusely seeping out from between his fingers; someone had reopened the recently-healed gash on his arm. The scene changed to show me in a different room, with four other men within it, Cherrystone included, two of them holding me still by the upper arms while a third cut tiny slits in my skin with a dagger as Cherrystone looked on, amused with his new form of gruesome entertainment. Blood flowed in many tiny streams over my skin, and I hissed with the pain, but didn't try to move to wipe them away. The most sickening part of it was that I didn't fight them or try to at all, or maybe I'd given up and lost the will to. I was disgusted by what I saw, blind fear twisting my stomach. I watched and heard my vision-self gasp and flinch from the tiny bursts of drawn-out pain, searing tears collecting in her eyes as she clenched her teeth against the burning. My eyes widened in shock when the scope of the scene broadened to include the entire room, and what I noticed made my heart lurch up into my throat; I was pregnant at least six months.
I heard my younger self murmuring "No, no, no more blood, no more wet-" right before the vision-Tiger snarled, and everything was lost into the haze of silver smoke.