Chapter Seven
Letting Go

"You see what happens when you get involved with me? You're lucky you're still alive."

--Klaus, to Dorian (From Eroica with Love: Love in Greece)

"Dorian's pulse is weakening," Glinda cried, wringing her hands and rising from her chair beside the bed, only to whirl around so quickly it made Klaus dizzy to watch her. She dropped to the small wooden chair again, jamming a fist against her mouth to keep from crying. "Oh by the Unnamed God, Elphie—"

"Oh hush, Glinda," the Witch snapped, "you're dramatics aren't going to help anybody."

The Major himself was standing pressed against the back wall of the tiny room which was, at present, filled with far more people than it was probably ever intended. At least the fortress the witches referred to as 'Kiamo Ko' had no shortage of rooms. It was something of a cross between a castle and a surprisingly well designed fortress, perched against the staggering jagged peaks of the mountains and protected on the other side by the small but loyal militia the Witch called 'the Winkie tribesmen.' It met with his approval, for the moment. Of course, it would be much more tolerable without all the damn winged monkeys that shuffled around squawking at him and pulling at his unfamiliar legs and trench-coat with their strange pawing hands.

One of the winged monkeys shuffled back and forth beside Eroica's bed, occasionally pausing to tug at the Witch's long black skirt. "Not now, Chistrey," she told it firmly, swatting it away with the end of her broom. "Liir!" she said suddenly, her head snapping up. She turned to the sullen pre-adolescent boy who sat on a chair in the corner, legs swinging back and forth, obviously bored.

"What?"

"Do the soldiers at Red Windmill coat the blades of their weapons with poison?"

He blinked at her dumbly for a moment, although Klaus could not tell if it was a matter of not understanding the question, or just being surprised that she had asked him at all. "I…"

"Well? Answer!" she snapped, "the man's life is at stake!"

Glinda made a small distressed noise, and Nanny placed her gnarled, ancient hands on the blonde woman's shoulders comfortingly. "Now, now, dearie, it wouldn't be the first time old Nanny had to save someone's life in this nasty old place—at least this one didn't go falling down the old fishing well."

The Major fumbled for a cigarette, wondering how much time was passing in the real world, and if he could even get back to the real world, if he needed to. On the bed, Eroica's face had turned a horrible chalky-white, almost grey in some places, and sweat seeped onto the blankets beneath him. It wasn't right.

Bloody hell, he'd never wanted the idiot to die. When the KGB had forced Eroica's red Maserati over the cliff in Greece he had watched with a terrible sort of sadness because, even if Eroica was an idiot for getting in the way of his missions, and a constantly infuriating headache with his perverted advances, and a selfish, unmanageable, sneaky, underhanded…

It's not like he never helped you, a voice in his head chided, and he shut his eyes in a grimace just as the Witch took a damp cloth from the one they called Nanny and began pressing it against Eroica's face. The Earl was breathing in ragged gasps and, though he showed no signs of consciousness, his eyes rolled wildly beneath closed lids.

The Major could not stop the flashes of memory that sped through his mind. So recently, the thief had suffered a beating at the hands of a KGB operative to get back the microfilm that he had lost. The first truly selfless act the Major had known Eroica capable of. He hadn't been able to summon his usual anger at the other man after that. Hell, he'd almost…

"Damn it!" Elphaba cursed, stamping her foot on the ground with surprising force. "What is this poison? It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Glinda, think! Did you learn anything about this in your sorcery lectures at Shiz?"

The blonde sorceress looked up at her tearfully, trembling all over. "I-I don't know, Elphie, that was all so long ago! It's been twelve years since then. A—and I don't really use what I've learned—signing one hundred party invitations in one go, travelling by bubble, you know—that sort of thing is all I do."

The Witch snorted derisively. "Lot of good that does us," she strode towards the doorway, pausing to look back at the strange lot huddled in the tiny room. "I have a book that might help us. In the mean time, I would suggest trying to jog Liir's memory. He's the one who heads the 'Commander Cherrystone fan club' around here, after all."

The heavy wooden door slammed closed after her, and slowly all eyes in the room fell to the boy Liir, who looked rather helpless. The Major inhaled deeply and was extraordinarily grateful for the cigarette. What the Earl needed was a doctor, not an old book, or a so-called 'magic' incantation.

"We need to get back to Earth," he said evenly, as evenly as he could since the idea that they really weren't on Earth still hadn't quite settled with him. But if this was some—truly bizarre—elaborate hoax, he doubted the Countess of Gloria would look quite so terrified as she did.

"But—But I don't know how, Klaus," she said. "the mirror—"

"Major," he growled, mostly out of habit from dealing with the Earl.

She put her hands on her hips, and pivoted around in her chair, looking up at him huffily. "Is that how you address your future mother-in-law!"

He nearly swallowed his cigarette, coughed furiously, staring at her in horror and disbelief. "Is everyone in this stupid world an insane-bloody-pervert!"

Without even thinking about it, Major Eberbach found himself storming towards the door, only to be stopped by Liir's annoyingly trepid voice. "Umm…Major Eberbach…Sir…I think I've remembered something about the poison. Commander Cherrystone mentioned it once, sort of off-handed-like. I didn't think they were planning to use it. Something about waiting for approval from the Emerald City."

Klaus turned back from the door, fighting admirably to keep from yelling. "What?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"W—well," Liir hesitated uneasily, irritating him further. If only it were one of his agents, he could have sent him to Alaska by now! "They mentioned the scarlet poppies that grow along the Munchkin River, around Bright Lettins and Old Pastoria, I think. Anyways, they said the scent of the poppies was poisonous, and there was also a way to make other sorts of poisons from the flower. Poisons to make a person sleep forever."

The Major snorted. "That sounds like something out of a children's story!"

"Nevertheless, it is true…Major," the Countess of Gloria said, standing slowly, her enormous skirts rustling around her. "I've heard of those flowers…I studied them at Shiz. They induce something like—well, I guess you might call it a 'coma' on Earth. But I'd never heard of them being used to actually make a poison before. Nothing like this."

She turned and looked at her son worriedly, again wringing her hands. She sat back down, and looked as though she would start weeping again. The Major backed away, a pained grimace on his face.

Hysterical women. Great. That's all I need. On top of being sucked into another universe through a cursed mirror, and ending up responsible for a civilian thief whom I loathe and is now deathly ill with no hope of finding a doctor, and with alien soldiers out to kill us.

The door reopened, and the Witch returned, a heavy book clutched in her grasp. The cover was leather, and extraordinarily gaudy. He regarded it with disdain, though was unable to stop thinking that it was clearly some sort of antique thing that Eroica would have loved to steal.

Would have…

The Major swallowed, displeased by the pang of discomfort that gave him. "The boy said that the soldiers spoke of making an experimental poison from scarlet poppies that grow along something called 'Munchkin River,'" he scowled darkly at the silliness of the name.

Elphaba frowned, opening the heavy tome. "I'll see what I can do, but…" her eyes squinted and she blinked, shaking her head. "The Grimmerie is…difficult to use. I'm not entirely certain of anything it says."

"You mean you can't trust it?" the Major asked, stamping out his cigarette on the floor and lighting another.

"No," she replied, turning a crumbling page. "I mean I can't read it. The words are blurred—twisted."

Glinda rose from her chair again and peered over Elphaba's shoulder at the book, then looked quickly away. "That makes me seasick," she groaned, staggering back to her chair. "Oh, Lurline, we can't do anything. Dorian's going to go into a coma, and never wake up, and then he's going to die, and it will all be my fault, and no one will know what's happened to him, and—"

"Would you shut up?" Klaus snapped. He turned back to the Witch and took the book from her. She stared in surprise, but said nothing, merely arching one black eyebrow. "I don't see what the problem is. I can read this fine," he said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"It's in English," he said, frowning. He realized that not everyone, particularly civilians, were fluent in seven languages, but considering that the Witch had been speaking to them in English since they had met he found it odd that she couldn't read it.

"Oh, I know what it is," the Countess said suddenly, "I could never read anything written on Earth. The letters all swirled around and gave me frightful headaches. Elphie, give him something to read that was written on Oz."

The Witch glared at her, seemingly annoyed by the nickname, but turned and left the room, returning a moment later with another old, though quiet a bit more battered, book. "It was one of Sarima's sisters' things, I think," she said, handing it to Klaus. "A classic. The Oziad."

He stared at the pages in confusion. The letters blurred and swam before his eyes, twisting and shivering so that he had to struggle in vain to make out the foggiest bits of jibberish! "What—"

"See?" Glinda said, taking the book from him. "Just get him to read the spells to you, Elphie."

"It's not that simple, we don't even know what to try…" Elphaba started, when a groan from the man on the bed silenced them all.

Glinda ran back to the bedside, clasping Dorian's hands. "Dori—" she abruptly stopped in a sort of stifled gasp. "E—Elphie," she choked. "He doesn't—Dorian doesn't have a pulse!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Once Nanny and Elphaba had established that Dorian did indeed have a pulse, just an incredibly faint one, far too faint for the Countess in her panicked state to have felt, things began to quiet.

The Earl's pulse had dropped—horribly—but it had shown no sign of decreasing further, although how a bunch of self-proclaimed 'witches' could possibly know that Klaus had no idea. Nevertheless, they had slowly begun to disperse, first the boy and the monkey, then the tired old crone, and finally the one called Elphaba had simply risen without a word and disappeared from the small room as silently as a shadow.

The Countess of Red Gloria showed no signs of leaving, however. She had fallen asleep, half on her chair, and hair over the bed, still clutching Eroica's hand tightly. He had no idea why he was still there, watching them. He had no idea why he felt so horribly sickened at the idea that the Earl might really die lost out in this strange place.

He was nearing the last of his first package of cigarettes, and very thankful that he had brought another, when he heard the Countess murmuring quietly. At first he thought she was talking in her sleep, but as the whispered pleas slowly reached his ears he realized that she was awake.

"Dorian…please wake up. I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I'm sorry I left you all alone for so long. I'm sorry I didn't protect you from Price, or from Chuffery's skewed values. I really messed up. Maybe I wasn't old enough to have children. Maybe I was still the childish, self-centred Galinda inside. I…I just want…"

It made him uncomfortable to listen to something so personal, so he made his way to the doorway as quietly as he could, silently thankful that the Witch had left it part-way open when she had left. As he slipped from the darkened room, the last tearful murmurs he heard were "please, Dorian…please wake up."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Glinda met Elphaba late at night, in the grungiest, darkest, most forlorn of all the fortress' towers. "You have the whole place to choose from, and you live in a place like this," she said quietly, eyeing the cluttered work tables, and shelves of decaying volumes bound in leather. Papers were strewn everywhere, and the wax from candles dripped messily over their bronze holders and into the long thick cracks in the old tables.

The Witch Elphie had become did not turn from the small circular window that she stood at, as rigid and purposeful as a sentinel. "It would hardly have been decent to take one of Sarima's rooms, after…"

"Of course," the blonde agreed quickly. "I do apologise. But—" she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. It was ridiculous how the girl she had been roommates with at Shiz, the girl whom she had spent so much time laughing about with Shenshen and Pfannee, the girl she had eventually struck up a tentative friendship with, could cause her to be so excited and so nervous now.

"What is it, Glinda?"

She was silent for a long time, fighting to gain sufficient self-control before she spoke, but her voice still came out in a fragile-sounding waver. "Is my son going to die, Elphie? Is there anything you can do to reverse this poison?"

Her green friend from so many years ago looked at her from beneath the wide brim of her tall black hat. Her expression belied nothing. "I don't know. I thought you were supposed to be the good witch, Glinda. You're the one who had the formal education for this type of thing, after all."

"But—but—" she felt like an idiot. She couldn't look at Elphaba. She wasn't even sure what she was trying, and failing, to articulate. "Well, you have the Grimmerie."

"That old book is hardly a help," the Witch replied. "It is powerful, yes, but surprisingly unhelpful in my experience."

"Well, maybe with Klaus being able to read it—"

"Glinda, do you have a point?"

She couldn't help the hurt that she knew lay naked on her face. She couldn't keep up the false cheery smiles any longer. "You sound like you don't even care! You accused me of not caring for others—but listen to you! I may have been a snob, I admit that now, but you, Elphie, you've become a callous bitch!"

"You don't need to end every sentence with an exclamation mark, Glinda, I can hear you perfectly," the emerald face remained impassive, and unperturbed. "I've been witness to so much death by now…how do you expect me to react to one more passing, and that of a stranger, no less?"

"Damn you, Elphaba Thropp that's my child!" the words erupted out of her tightened throat in a strangled cry that was far louder than she had intended, and things scurried and shuffled in the shadows. She felt her anger swell. "You just isolate yourself out here in the Vinkus, with your wolves and your winged monkeys. Why winged monkeys, Elphaba? I know you were always the atheistic one, but now it seems as though you've decided to make yourself God. Are you trying to find a soul for yourself in all these winged monsters?"

"I never wanted a soul, Glinda," the Witch replied, though her tone had hardened, the words sounding sharp. "Never had one. Never wanted one. Besides, this isn't about me. This is your own guilt talking—isn't it?" she asked, calming down slightly, and finally moving away from the window.

By now Glinda was trembling all over. She couldn't stop, even when the freezing, claw-like hands dug into her shoulders fiercely and shook her. "That's it, right? You've spent too much time hanging around Nessarose, and maybe even my father, when I was gone, and now you're worried about your soul, or something like it." The Witch suddenly seemed amused. "My, Glinda, I didn't know you put that much thought into such things. I thought you prayed 'not particularly genuinely,' that's how I seem to remember you putting it."

Glinda, however, did not find it amusing. She wrenched herself out of Elphaba's grip, violently shoving the other woman back, and stumbled against the cold stone wall for support. "No…I mean I did end up taking care of Nessa after you left. But that isn't…" she covered her eyes with her hand, ashamed to feel cold tears. "You don't understand. I thought I had paid for my mistakes with the loss of my husband. Why is this happening?"

"You're asking me?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow, but she no longer looked amused. "I've never understood how the universe is supposed to work. Look at my life…look at all the people who suffered just because I was trying to help."

The Witch sighed deeply. "You…you were always working so hard to deserve all of the privileges you've had. Almost as though you felt…Oh. Oh, Glinda, my pretty, you don't feel guilty do you? For always having it a bit better than everyone else?"

Glinda's head was swimming, and she was overcome with grief and exhaustion, the tears sliding slowly down her cheeks. She must have been hearing things, because Elphaba hadn't used that old nickname in over a decade. And that tone, sounding so kind, so…sorry. That couldn't be Elphaba, it was impossible, she thought drowsily, as she slid down the cold stone wall and crumpled to a heap on the floor.

"Glinda? Glinda?"

She did not hear the worried calls, or feel the strong green hands that shook her.

"Oh Glinda, you traitor…you're not supposed to make me feel sorry for you. Well, I won't do it. Besides, everyone else I've promised to help has ended up worse off for my interference."

But the good witch of the North did not hear that, either. Somewhere, somehow, she was sitting in the back of a carriage deep in the Emerald City, waiting, and waiting, and waiting for a friend she had fallen in love with, who was not going to return.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The morning was grey and dismal. The Winkie militia marched with their primitive spears and pikes outside the fortress walls. Klaus could see some of them through the narrow window of his room. They would not be adequate protection against the slightly more modern-looking Gale Force soldiers stationed at the town of Red Windmill. If so many people really did want the Witch dead, he wasn't certain why she had not been killed already. He didn't like not knowing things, and here, in this strange mirror-world, he did not know anything.

The Major paced around the small room, and checked it for electronic surveillance, the presence of which was extremely unlikely, but he nevertheless berated himself for not checking the night before. He felt uncomfortable in the alien place, and doubled his morning exercise routine, trying to take his mind off the agitation. The worry.

God damn it, I'm not supposed to be worried about Eroica! he thought up several curses until he'd finished his exercises and sighed, running a hand through his hair. It was his own fault, for showing up uninvited at my wedding! He should have known something like this would happen!

Not entirely satisfied with that way of reasoning, the Major straightened his uniform and placed a hand on the door…wondering what to expect from his second day in the madhouse of Kiamo Ko.

The great hall had a long table, probably capable of seating twenty or more, but the only ones sitting at it were Nanny and Liir. They were nibbling at bread and cheese in perfect silence. As he approached the boy looked up, but the old woman appeared not to notice.

"Uh Major…" the boy began hesitantly.

He was irritated, but at the same time relieved that this boy, unlike the creepy children he'd met in Tehran, only seemed to be looking for strong role-model. "'Major' will do," he snapped.

"Oh great," came Glinda's high-pitched voice, and the click of her shoes over the stone floors. "So we have the Witch, the Major, and the Nanny. It's like no one wants to use their real names around here!"

"No kidding, Galinda," Elphaba's rather bemused voice responded, from the opposite end of the hallway, as both women entered the dining hall at the same time. Their eyes met across the long table, and even Klaus could feel the tension boiling between them.

The blonde witch turned away, walking towards Nanny and Liir. "You were about to ask the Major something, dear? Don't let us interrupt," she said in a falsely cheerful voice that grated on Klaus' nerves.

Even Liir looked uncomfortable, as Elphaba also walked over, and the two witches continued their glaring match over his head.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Countess remained with Eroica for the rest of the day, while Elphaba studied her books, presumably looking for a cure. Nanny sat in a chair by the window wrapped in a shawl and mumbling about how she was too old and too busy enjoying her senility to do anything for anybody else. The Major, in turn, ended up spending most of the day exploring the vast stone fortress, mapping out each hallway and corridor in his mind for future reference.

Liir followed him, and the Major showed considerably restraint (he thought) at not loosing his temper with the boy, but after four hours he couldn't answer any more of the questions (most of which didn't make a lot of sense to him anyways, since he had never been to anything called 'the Emerald City' or met anyone called 'the Wizard.') He left the boy to care for the old woman and began up the stairs towards the room where they had placed Eroica.

He heard shouting before he reached the top.

"I can't! I can't look at him anymore, Elphie! Not like this!"

The Countess stood with the Witch a few feet from the Earl's room, clearly exhausted, and in tears. "I can't sit there and talk to him like he's listening when he doesn't even know I'm there! I can't do it!" she turned away from Elphaba, running away from the Witch.

A door slammed shut somewhere, and Klaus turned to the green skinned woman who merely shrugged. "She's just being melodramatic. She'll calm down after a few hours of sleep," she said sensibly. "I've found something, but it'll take time to make the antidote, and if it will work or not is anybody's guess."

"I'll watch the Earl," he told her.

"If you want," she said absently, turning away. But she paused in mid-step, turning her head slightly to glance over her shoulder at him. "Thank you for tolerating Liir today."

He said nothing, since he wasn't sure he had tolerated the boy all that well.

"He may come off as rather…peculiar," she admitted. "But he can't help it. He's never had anything like a father…" she seemed to be deliberating whether or not to say more, but then stopped, and left him with that.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

It was dark. Very dark, and the darkness had layers to it, as though he was sinking in water. Sinking in water. Yes, that's what it felt like. Sinking in water without any air. He was suffocated, drowning, falling away from the light.

The pressure against his chest was so incredibly heavy that he had stopped feeling any pain, but a sort of numb heaviness. He couldn't even think. He couldn't remember his name, or what he was doing in this strange bottomless ocean, sinking towards the black, black depths.

Isn't there…something I'm supposed to do?

Wake up…somehow?

Why…?

The shadows had become a heavy blanket, and he no longer felt anything else, but the slight pull of drifting downwards, and the very comforting dark.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach stared at the perfectly still figure on the bed. He seemed like an entirely different person. Surely, Eroica could not be this still and quiet, even in death…

Death…

He took a deep drag off his cigarette and banished those unwelcome thoughts from his mind. It was horrible, though, to sit in that tiny, grey room for hours, with nothing at all to distract him from Eroica's near-lifeless form. He felt all sorts of unpleasant twinges of worry and regret, and fought to transform them into feelings of irritation and anger.

How dare that useless wanker just lie there like that!

"Wake up," he told the inert figure in a harsh, irritable voice, for not the first time that evening. "End this—this silly little melodrama!"

Not even a twitch.

The Major clenched his hands tightly. "I said wake up, you idiot! Faggot! Thief! Degenerate! Wake up so I can yell at you for ruining my wedding! Do you hear me you limey pervert? Wake up!"

He fell back to the hard wooden chair, hanging his head. There was no movement from the man in the bed, who was scarcely even breathing. God, what's wrong with me? Yelling at someone in a coma! He finished his cigarette, then turned and paced around the small room several times.

"Major?" Glinda's voice called from the doorway. He turned to see the Countess standing there, looking weak and sick. "Liir says Elphie's coming…he says she thinks she's got the antidote."

"Good," he nodded, feeling more relief then he cared to admit.

"But…it might not work," even as she spoke, the Witch pushed the door open behind her, holding a vial of something smouldering and murky.

Elphaba wrinkled her nose at the stench. "I'm not making any promises. I've never had any luck saving anyone else's life."

The Countess looked as though she was going to say something, but stopped, and went back to wringing her hands and staring worriedly at the floor. The Major moved out of the way, and allowed the Witch to reach Eroica.

He felt a stab of anxiety deep in his chest and fought it angrily away. This may not work. You have to be prepared. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides as Elphaba poured the alien medicine down the Earl's throat, and waited.

The Witch's expression changed, her brows drew closer together, her eyes flickered over Eroica's still body. She grabbed the Earl's wrist in a fast, frantic movement, and the Major found himself reaching a hand to feel for a pulse on Lord Gloria's neck.

The skin felt unnaturally cold against his hand, and Eroica lay still. Too still. He felt a coldness wash through him, a dark sinister emptiness. "No…it can't be," he looked down at the still form, and Elphaba looked up and met his gaze, her face no longer a mask of stoicism, but twisted with grief.

"This isn't happening…It can't be…"

To be Continued in Chapter Eight: Stranger Things Have Happened