(AN: As far as I'm concerned, Elphaba from the book is truly evil. She is "an unholy curse from the Beast we call 'the Desolate One', 'the First of the Fallen', 'the Spoiler of Virgins' and 'the Master of Abortions!'" Lol, that was just a quote from Clerks 2 because I felt like it. So, yeah, I doubt I'm going to do much when it comes to the book of Wicked.)
(The musical, however, I'm still gaga about, even though it's been almost three years! Next month I'll be celebrating my third, annual Wicked Day with something special!)
(The name of this chapter, of course, is influenced by another 'The Road to...' chapter I posted in another story.)
The Road to Munchkinland
The two creatures - the dwarf-unicorn Bfan and Nessa the horse - galloped hard through the deep drifts of snow. It mattered not that their riders knew not where they were going, they just knew that they had to get as far away from Shiz as they could. The cold did not bother them, for they were dressed warmly in the cloaks that they had been given before.
There was no sun, just gray, mirthless clouds overhead that threatened to bring down a blizzard. They had little with which to guide them. The rumblings from Shiz echoed behind them, getting more and more faint with every yard they overtook. They dared not even look behind them: the look on Elphaba's face while she spoke of whatever horrors sent her running from it for her life was enough to unnerve them and keep them running until they were certain of some sort of safety.
But safety was far from them.
They continued riding, the snow flying up in white clouds about the hooves of their animals. Suddenly, Nessa gave a loud cry and fell to the ground. Fiyero and Glinda were thrown off her back and into the white, powdery snow about them. Elphaba called for Bfan to stop and almost jumped off its back.
"See?" Daisy commented. "Old Nanny Fromica knows what she's talking about! Give a sturdy old mare the duty of bearing a pregnant mother, not a wild thing who'll throw you off at the first sign of danger."
"Glinda? Yero?" Elphaba cried, running over to her lover first and then to Glinda. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Fiyero groaned. "I just hit the snow. It's surprisingly soft. Good thing yo..."
Elphaba immediately threw her arms over Fiyero's mouth. She then checked herself, making sure that she was completely covered and that no snow was upon her. She had to keep up the illusion that she was deathly allergic to water in any form, even snow.
But she had another concern on her mind.
"Nessa!" she ran over to the horse, lying on its side and neighing furiously. "Shh! Nessa, what's wrong?"
"What happened?" Glinda asked, pulling herself up out of the snow.
"The wild thing is tired." Daisy said, joining them. "We were fleeing quite quickly through the high drifts of snow." She looked at the horse's legs. "It's a wonder she hasn't broken any bones."
Fiyero was not convinced. He had seen Nessa gallop for a whole day on the journey from Worms to the Glittering Heath, only stopping for rest when they themselves slept for the night. Something else made Nessa this weak, some outside force. It had to be the answer, for she never wearied this easily in their memory.
He got up and began examining their tracks. There had to be something that caused this. So far, there were no signs that appeared through the snow. If there was anything that caused her to suddenly fail them, it had to be right beneath the snow.
Just then, he saw something that took his breath away. There was a small patch of snow that looked black, like it had been burned with fire. But that made no sense. Four months in this Oz had proven that snow melted when it came around fire. So how could snow burn and yet remain whole and unmelted? He inched a bit closer and reached one wary hand out to the blackened snow.
From where they sat, Elphaba heard a loud groan of pain coming from Fiyero.
"Yero!" she shouted. "What's wrong?" She ran over to where she heard the noise, and found Fiyero lying in the snow, his face bloodied and bruised. Her hands were shaking: there was no sign of an attacker, and anyone who had suddenly attacked them would have been heard. This was some kind of magic, a dark, fel magic that could create wounds without swords or guns.
"What's happening to him?" Glinda queried, her voice rising in fear.
"I don't know!" Elphaba returned. She was kneeling at Fiyero's side, her hands frozen with the cold of the wind and with fear.
"Here, let me." Glinda said. "I know a little healing magic." She knelt down at Fiyero's side and began muttering beneath her breath, waving her hands over Fiyero's body. Suddenly, she gave a cry.
"What's wrong, Glinda?"
"I-I don't know, Elphie!" she cried. "I can't do it!"
"What do you mean you can't do it?"
"I can't feel the magic."
"Here, let me." Elphaba pushed Glinda aside and tried to recall some of the healing spells she had used on herself during her days as a fugitive when medical help was nonexistent. Glinda was still new to this whole magic thing, and it might be beyond her skill.
Elphaba gasped, looking down at her hands in fear. There was no magic. It was not choking her out, within reach or just beyond her grasp: it was not there. The empty hole that she felt deep beneath Ozma Towers was now emanating from...
She wrapped her hands in the sleeves of her jacket and began pawing at the patch of black snow. Though she did not hold with 'when something goes wrong, start with what's out of place', since that was often used by the people of Oz as a proverb against her, the unassuming black snow sent chills down her spine. As she cleared it out, she suddenly felt something hard against her finger-tips. Brushing the last bits of snow aside, she found a small, innocuous-looking crystal gazing up at her. It was black.
With another cry, she stumbled back, crawling away from the crystal as fast as she could.
"What-What's wrong, Aelphaba?" Daisy queried. "It's just a little bit of cryst..."
"Get away!" Elphaba shouted. "Get as far away from that thing as you can."
"What's the matter, Elphie?" Glinda sobbed.
"Just go!" Elphaba shouted. She then reached over and began dragging Fiyero away from the crystal. It was hard work, for he was a strong young man and she, Elphaba, was thin and encumbered by her large stomach. Daisy ran back to Bfan and led her as far away from the crystal as she deemed was safe. She then walked over to Nessa and came to a halt. There were no reins to be pulled upon.
Glinda, meanwhile, would not leave Fiyero and her friend to whatever evil that crystal brought forth. She knelt down by Elphaba's side and what little strength she had to help her pull Fiyero away from the crystal. Maybe it was the amount of tears in her eyes, or maybe the lack of sunlight was finally getting to her, but Glinda could swear that she saw the crystal slowly growing, getting taller and wider.
"Hurry!" she insisted. But they were going too slowly, especially because of Elphaba's condition. "Here, Elphie! Let me!" She picked up Fiyero's arms, both in each hand, and began dragging him back away from the crystal as fast as she could. "Take his feet!" Elphaba walked over to Fiyero's legs and picked his feet up under each arm-pit. She dare not carry them in front of her and, in the event of Fiyero suddenly waking, have him suddenly kick her in the stomach.
"You two!" Daisy shouted. "How the twig do you lead this wild thing without a harness or bridle?"
"Nessa doesn't need a harness!" Elphaba returned. "Now hurry! We have to get out of here!"
At Daisy's insistence, Fiyero was placed with Elphaba atop Bfan, while the old Munchkin-woman braved riding atop Nessa, who was now back on her feet, with Glinda. Once they were mounted, they rode off again, fear closing in on them from all sides as they fled the north-lands as quickly as possible.
That night, they made camp somewhere in the frozen wasteland of Gilikin. Nessa and Bfan were idling at the edges of the camp-fire. Elphaba, desirous to know if they had gone far enough from that damnable black crystal, offered to start the fire with magic. But Daisy insisted that she start it 'the proper way' and without any magicking from 'the green girl.' It was still quite annoying, the way this middle-aged Munchkin kept referring to her by her skin, but Elphaba tried to keep herself from bursting out emotionally.
She was also too busy with Glinda, seeing to Fiyero. To say that he looked very badly injured would be a grievous understatement. Bruises and cuts covered his face and, once the two ladies had removed his coat and shirt, discovered that these injuries went down his body as well: Glinda also noted a very ugly gash that had reopened in his chest. Red blood fell upon the blue-diamond tattoos in a very morbid and macabre camaraderie.
"Oh, Elphie!" Glinda sobbed. "What are we gonna do?"
Elphaba kept silent. She didn't know how to help him. She was no physician, and the memory of the sudden loss of magic that occurred when they were around the black crystal was burned into her mind.
Just then, Daisy ran over to the edge of their camp.
"Who's there?" she shouted. "Whoever you are, come out with your hands up."
To Elphaba's shock and surprise, a voice answered back.
"We mean you no harm!"
It was a woman's voice. Turning around, she saw Koiyo walking through the snow towards them, looking very disheveled.
"May a friend sit at your fire and warm herself?" she asked.
"It depends, missy." Daisy returned. "I'm not exactly sure if you're a friend or not."
"Shut up, you Munchkin hag!" Koiyo shot at the little old woman. "My business isn't with you." Without another word, she walked over to the fire and sat herself down across from Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero.
"What brings you out here?" Elphaba asked. "I thought this was what you wanted."
"That earthquake?" she returned, scoffing. "That was none of my doing. At first I thought the Elements had risen up against Ozma, but my contacts in the Elemental Circle have told me that they themselves are under attack."
"By whom?" Glinda queried.
"Why do you want to know, mistress of propaganda?"
"Ex-propagandist," Elphaba stated. "And she happens to be my friend."
Koiyo scoffed. "You make friends with silly, empty-headed little riff-raff girls like her? Maybe you're not as wise as I thought." Glinda pouted at being called 'riff-raff'.
"Just tell me already!" Elphaba snapped. "Why in Oz's name do you have to beat around the bush with every little thing?"
Koiyo smiled. "I'd forgotten how temperamental child-bearing women can be. One of the reasons I swore never to marry, or degrade myself by bearing children."
"I'll show you temperamental!" Elphaba threatened, moving herself toward the smug-looking Koiyo.
"Elphie, please!"
"Elphie?" Koiyo mocked. "Now your little friend has a nick-name for you? Shouldn't it be Aelphie?"
"It-It...It goes either way." Glinda stated, coming up with the explanation on the spot.
Koiyo snorted. "Childish."
"Just tell us what caused that earthquake already!" Elphaba groaned in frustration.
"You were there, 'Aelphie'." Koiyo said in a haughty, mocking tone. "You saw it happen, or have you already forgotten?"
Elphaba's mind went back to the events of this afternoon, trying to recall what she had forced out through fear. She did not want to go back, since it was still so near and the thought of that crystal made it even worse.
"Just say it already!" Elphaba sighed.
"Say what?" Glinda asked.
We still have our pact of silence! a voice spoke in Elphaba's mind. Looking around, she noticed that Koiyo held her in her gaze. Maybe she could speak into her mind? What if she found out about where she was from, and who she really was?
There's no secrets between me and my friends! Elphaba thought, though it was more of her magic forcing her thoughts into words to be projected at Koiyo. Elphaba smiled to find herself back in control. Either you tell them, or whatever you want to do, count me out.
"You're so damn stubborn, Aelphaba!" Koiyo retorted. "Can't just accept things on face value and leave it at that, can you? Have to explore every thing to the utmost!"
"Sorry," Elphaba returned. "But last time I 'believed' in anyone, he turned out to be a fraud."
Koiyo sighed, her eyes rolling back into her thick eye-lids. This green woman was being such a nuisance, and few things ever got under Koiyo's skin the way she did.
"You know something, don't you?" Koiyo asked. "Something you're trying to forget. Speak your mind at once! Whatever dangers, however horrible it may be, I swear to you, in Kumbricia's sacred name, that they are nowhere as horrible as what is about to happen."
Glinda let out a little yelp of fright, which made Koiyo smile mischievously. She obviously reveled in the power she had to inflict fright on 'riff-raff' without even as much as an ounce of magic.
Elphaba sighed, her eyes turning to the one source of light: the fire. In its dancing waves, she saw once again the flames that erupted from her hand as she threatened the Scarecrow, her lover Fiyero, with fire from atop a woodman's house. She saw the burning end of her broomstick as she tried to burn him again in Kiamo Ko. Suddenly the fire was waving about, dispelling beings made of shadows, before turning into a huge winged shadow of flame, and then a single eye with a slit that looked like a hole into the abyss.
She relayed to them all what happened in the cavern beneath the tomb of the Ozmas, and how the Chancellor had transformed. She could not fend him off with magic, so she ran for her life. Even as she was telling this, she began to shiver and Glinda sat down at her side and placed her arm around the green woman's shoulder. Daisy, meanwhile, was trying to tend to Fiyero as best she could.
"As I was running," Elphaba said. "I saw...images. Terrible images! Things out of my past, horrors I...I can't even force myself to speak of them! Just the memory is enough to make my blood run cold and...and..."
"Drain you of all hope?" Koiyo finished.
Elphaba turned to the young woman, a look of restrained surprise on her face.
"Yes."
"It is as I feared." Koiyo sighed.
"What is?" Elphaba queried.
"Ever since your arrival," Koiyo began. "There have been reports going abroad of armies far and away mobilizing, of giant black crystals and a name whispered about in secrecy and fear."
"Wait," Glinda interjected. "Giant black crystals?"
"Yes, weren't you listening?"
"I was," Glinda stated. "It's just that we've seen one."
"What?" Koiyo almost shouted, a look of panic across her face.
"This afternoon," Glinda added. "It was just a little one!"
Her dark eyes turned fiercely towards Elphaba.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"You wanted to know what happened in the cave," Elphaba returned. "Not while we were escaping!"
"Why does it even matter?" Glinda asked, a look of fear growing across her face as her voice rose. "It was just a little one!"
"Just a little one?" Koiyo mocked. "Have you heard nothing of the rumors?"
"No," Glinda said. "Ozma doesn't listen to rumors from abroad."
"Damn her!" Koiyo shouted. "Damn her and her stubbornness! She has doomed us all!"
"Why?" Elphaba asked. "What's going to happen?"
"Those black crystals have appeared before," Koiyo said. "In the other lands beyond the Deadly Desert these past four months. Rumors said that wherever these black crystals appeared, the land slowly rotted away, choking out all life and draining all magic from the land, while they, in mockery, grew taller and larger. Don't you see? They're here in Oz! There's no stopping him now!"
"Him? Who?"
"The Chancellor," Koiyo returned. "I fear he's gone rogue." She too looked into the fire as she continued to speak. "I looked inside his mind at the last moment. I thought he was one of us, seeking to overthrow Ozma for the greater good of Oz, but he's been twisted, corrupted. He's disenchanted with Ozma and all forms of order: all he wants now is to destroy her and use his powers to reshape Oz the way he sees fit."
Glinda gasped, Daisy said a prayer to Lurline, and Elphaba merely looked aghast. She had heard such stories, and had even supposed it to be such, when she saw the Chancellor with the Golden Mirror and while he was wasting away. But now here was the proof, as undeniable as ever.
"Is that kind of power...even possible?" she queried.
"I said once that there are many powers in this world, Aelphaba." Koiyo returned. "Well, the Chancellor himself was a great sorcerer in his own right and no greater swordsman there has ever been in Oz! And now he has the Wonders, and now he's creating black crystals across Oz, leeching its life and magic - and for what? To gorge himself on it. Soon he will be invincible, omnipotent...maybe even immortal."
The way Koiyo whispered the last words were almost out of a kind of fearful respect, or maybe an acute sense of envy.
"But what about Ozma?" Elphaba queried.
"She'll be of no use to us." Koiyo returned. "The magic of those crystals leech the very life force and magical essence from all that is around them. Very soon, Oz will know sickness, suffering and death in a very personal way, thanks to the Chancellor."
"How do we stop him?" Glinda asked.
Koiyo scoffed. "You really are stupid, aren't you?"
"You're mean!" Glinda pouted.
"Like I care what a stupid little girl thinks about me." Koiyo returned.
"Leave Glinda out of this, if you're going to insult her!" Elphaba bit back through clenched teeth. Koiyo simply rolled her eyes.
"There's no stopping him now," she said. "If he has all the Wonders, nothing will be able to stop him...not that anything could stop him, if enough crystals grow here."
"What are the Wonders?" Elphaba asked.
"You saw the Mirror," Koiyo began. "That's just the lesser of them. With that alone, he can see you coming from the other side of Oz. The Cap grants three wishes as well as a binding spell. The Helmet can make him invisible at will - you won't be able to see him coming after you. The Cloak makes you move faster than the wind, he'll be on you before you can even notice it. The breastplate protects him from harm, so anything you might do will be useless, and who needs skill when you have the strongest, sharpest sword in all the land? It can cut through anything!"
"There's got to be something!" Elphaba insisted. "A-A weakness that he hasn't thought about that we can exploit."
"It's no use, there's nothing!" Koiyo returned. "Believe me, I've looked."
"You seem to know a lot yourself." Elphaba said suspiciously.
"Well," Koiyo answered. "Unlike you, I don't have a big fat belly to keep me trapped indoors all day. I've been all about Oz and the other lands, investigating these recent events. What I've gathered is what I've told you: black crystals rising about the lands, armies chanting the name of 'the Master' and the Golden Wonders."
"Who's 'the Master'?" Elphaba queried.
"Oh, I can't say it." Koiyo returned. "It's been enchanted. The Chancellor was clever enough to give himself a new name, one that would increase his own power every time it was spoken aloud."
"Can you write it?" Glinda asked.
Koiyo sighed with annoyance, then waved her hand in front of the fire. Four tongues of brilliant flame floated up out of the fire and formed the letters O-K-L-I in mid-air above the fire, for all to see. Then with another wave of Koiyo's hand, the words rearranged themselves. Elphaba looked in shock as she saw the new name that was written, the name that Chancellor Okli had created for himself, the one that, even nine hundred years later, Ozians did not dare speak aloud...
I-K-O-L
"With each chant his armies speak," Koiyo stated. "He grows more powerful. Every time Ozma's foolish advisers speak his name, he grows more powerful. Now with the Wonders on his side and the black crystals leeching Oz of its virtue, there's no chance of escape. All we have to do is decide when to make our final stand." She sighed, speaking now to herself rather than to the four people around her. "For some, it will be sooner rather than later."
To her enraptured and frightened audience, Koiyo spoke again.
"If I were you," she said. "I'd get as far away from Gilikin as I could. Things are about to get deadly up here, and the weak have no place in a battle of the strong - enough people are going to die already."
With a dramatic wave of her cloak, Koiyo had vanished.
"She's right," Daisy spoke at last, after a long pause that followed her vanishing. "Let's go east, lay low in Munchkinland. Who knows, we're small enough that we'll go unnoticed in the wars of these big Gilikinese blundering buffoons."
Elphaba simply stared at the fire. Ever since she was a little girl, growing up in Rush Margins, she knew the legends of the Nameless Traitor. Now she knew why he was a traitor: he had betrayed his race, betrayed his ruler and even betrayed his co-conspirators. Now he spread his influence across Oz like a plague, leeching the life and health out of Oz like some verminous fiend. Of all the dangers she had faced, this seemed to be the most deadly.
If you go off to fight this Ikol, Elphaba thought. You'll die. You cannot be so selfish to throw away your life and the life of your child. Think of Glinda, think of Fiyero and think of your child! Are you not better than your father, to be there for your child? This is not your time, and therefore this is not your war!
She nodded. It was the sanest excuse and the wisest decision.
But she still felt that she was betraying Oz and her friends...again.
(AN: There you go! The cat is out of the bag.)
(I let this much get out because I felt the story is going on too slowly and needed to be quickened. Have only a few more chapters before we close up this journey of the Ozian Adventures series [more may come, though, in the future], so leave your ideas if you have any!)
(Any other thoughts? Please, do not be shy!)