A Lion Among Men Part 20

"What about him?"

"If he is her son, and if he is still alive, and if he has no sisters from Elphaba, then he is next in line to inherit the position of Eminent Thropp. He would be the de facto governor of Munchkinland. His claim would trump that of the Holy Emperor of Oz, Sh.e.l.l Thropp. Elphaba's brother."

"I know who Sh.e.l.l is, and I know about Liir, too."

"Can you confirm he is Elphaba's son? Or if he is alive? He was here, it seems-some years ago."

She had no interest in giving the Lion any sc.r.a.p of information that might help the EC thugs locate Liir. She spoke cautiously and shared only what she thought was redundant or immaterial. "Yes. He has been here three times in his life. Once as a young child-perhaps even an infant-when Elphaba wasn't yet the Wicked Witch of the West. She set out from here to the castle in the west-"

"Kiamo Ko."

"Yes, yes, whatever it's called. She repaired there for reasons of her own. She took the child with her, though where he came from originally-if he was really her issue-I don't know."

"Don't you know through your inner vision? Can't you figure it out?"

"Even if I did know, what proof would you have? Only my word. I might as well say he was the result of a broomstick handle poking itself hot and jolly in the vortex of a tall black hat. What difference would it make? Just because I have had visions doesn't mean they're true."

Though she had never said that to herself before.

He grunted. "Didn't sleep well, did we."

She glared at him as well as a blind person can manage. He continued in a more neutral tone. "Whatever you say goes on record. Let someone else decide if it is true or not. When was the other time you saw Liir?"

"It was after he'd been attacked in the air by the Emperor's dragons, as I understand it. He was left for dead in the Disappointments a little to the south. Some do-gooder hauled his carca.s.s here for the maunts to tend. Then a young Quadling woman named Candle, a novice, brought him back to health and life, through devices and schemes of her own."

"You had nothing to do with it?"

She paused.

"Don't lie to me, don't lie lie to me," he roared. "Why bother? The whole world lies! Don't you do it, too!" to me," he roared. "Why bother? The whole world lies! Don't you do it, too!"

"I helped her a little," said Yackle. How odd to feel capable of being shaken. Maybe she was dying! Her spirits lifted at once. "Yes, I helped her, why not? I didn't know if Liir was Elphaba's son, but he might have been; I could see that. I remembered him from childhood. So I introduced a little romance into the therapeutic situation. Oh, Candle, that weird duck: She was a honey, but a mystery, too."

"As who isn't," he said.

"As who isn't," she agreed. "So I took it upon myself to stand guard upon the tower room where she was helping him cling to life, in all the ways that a young woman can and will."

"Ways?" The Lion was all ears. His whiskers trembled.

"Don't be prurient, you old goat."

"You said it. You mean it, too; I can tell."

She had said it; it had slipped out. Time for damage control. "Yes," she continued. "I had never enjoyed the benefit of a good leg-over. I thought she might. I thought he might. He looked rather scathingly virginal to me. Call it, what term do they use-call it transference. Call it divine sublimation. Call it a metaphor. I locked them in together and let their natures run their course."

"And what happened?"

"I am a cupid of sorts," she said, "but I'm not a peeping lecher. History will decide what happened, not you or I."

"But what did happen? I mean, whether they screwed around or not-what happened next?"

"What happened is they left the mauntery under cover of dark. As you would have been wise to do yourself last night."

"Where did they go?"

She paused a while and then said, "This is all old business. I suppose it can't hurt anyone to say."

"Who are you protecting," he rushed in, "and why?"

Ah, but that was it, wasn't it? She admired him for catching her drift. She answered his earlier question, though. "The maunts had once kept a little printing press off the grounds. A sideline to the religious life: producing pamphlets that opposed the warmongering of the Emperor. Rather by accident, the press had been discovered by the Emperor's men, who more or less destroyed it. But they never traced the sedition to here. The press was housed some little distance, a day's journey or so from here. I loaded the couple up on a donkey-poor Liir was just barely alive-and I sent them on their way without confiding in my sisters. I thought that was the end of them."

"You did." He said it flatly, intending to be as neutral as plaster. Keep going, old lady.

"Yes, but then some short time later-weeks, I think, a few months at the most-Liir returned to the mauntery a final time. He and a soldier of the EC, a minor Menacier named Trism bon Cavalish, had torched the stables of the flying dragons and fled from the Emerald City. It was a case of political action-espionage-I don't know what you'd call it. But a force of the Emerald City under a Commander Cherrystone gave hot pursuit, and arrived at these walls just shortly after the lads did. This was before I went blind-oh, nine years ago, perhaps? And Liir therefore was perhaps twenty, his companion several years older."

"Was Liir caught?"

"You know he wasn't." Of this she was sure. "Don't waste your time, Sir Brrr; there isn't that much of it left. If he had been caught, it would be in the records. And you wouldn't be here asking about him."

"You're right," he admitted. "But what happened to them?"

"Liir took the Witch's broom and he left the mauntery from the rooftops. It happened that Lady Glinda was in residence-she was a kind of patroness of the order, don't you know; years ago she changed her own name from Galinda to the more stylish Glinda. To honor the popular saint, to bury her rural origins, some other reason. Who knows. Anyway, she made an effort to get Trism out as one of her retinue, and it seemed to work at first. The team that was hunting the lads didn't dare accuse Lady Glinda of treason-not without some kind of proof. She had after all been on the Throne of Oz for a time. She still enjoyed a cherished position in the hearts of her people, though the political climate had changed so much, and for the worse."

"Naturally. Some of us get accused of treason for no reason. Others who deserve it waft free as a bubble on the breeze. Go figure."

"Shhh. Listen. When Glinda thought they were safely free of scrutiny, she dismissed bon Cavalish to his own campaigns. She didn't know that she was being trailed, and that the EC thugs would continue after Trism. They set upon him and beat him up. Brutalized him pretty badly, I heard, before letting him escape. They were sure that he would lead them to the place where he and Liir would meet. There was a romance between them, see."

"I thought you had arranged for Liir a romance with Candle."

"Oh, la, romance will find its own outlets, don't you think?"

He wasn't about to comment. "So they tracked Trism to the farm."

"See," she said, "you know about this already."

He purred a dangerous sound. The gla.s.s cat looked around, alarmed, as if it had discovered a thorn in its own throat.

"I never called it a farm," she pointed out.

"I have done my research," he admitted. "Aren't I allowed that?"

"We choose our own bosses," she agreed. "Except those who work as slaves. Now in fact, Trism somehow gave those soldiers the slip for a couple of days. Not for long-they had bloodhounds on the job, can you believe it-but for a precious couple of days. Trism introduced himself to Candle, it seems, and what happened between those two-well, that I can't can't say." say."

"You can't or you won't?"

"As good as the same thing, my dear."

"But we're at the nub of it now. Was Trism jealous of Candle? Or vice versa? They shared a lover, after all. Did they go at each other like wildcats?"

"Is this germane to your investigation, or do I detect a particular interest in s.e.xual jealousy? An uptick in your circulation? Some shallow breathing?"

"f.u.c.k you."

"If I'd only been so lucky."

Shadowpuppet seemed to catch the tension. It paused in its morning ablutions and studied a spot on the wall as if embarra.s.sed at the decline of civility.

Brrr governed himself. Don't lose it now. You're closing in on things.

"Candle and Trism. Did their mutual attraction to Liir translate somehow into an attraction to each other? With Liir off rambling on some obligation or other-out of the farm-away from prying eyes-what happened?"

Or were Candle and Trism just using each other, somehow? As he and old Yackle were doing just now?

"There are some things even oracles can't determine," admitted Yackle. "What I do know is that by the time Liir returned, Trism had already left. Maybe he wanted to avoid Liir. Maybe he had persuaded Candle to join him later in some safe harbor, far from the attentions of a novice magician."

"Magician!"

"Well, if Liir were Elphaba's son, he'd be a witch of sorts, wouldn't he? Or have the potential, anyway? That's what this is all about, isn't it? Now don't you you lie to lie to me, me," she snapped. "Have I ferreted out from you what your real aim is? Are you looking for Liir? You want to get at him through any avenue possible-through either of his lovers, Candle or Trism, or..."

Still, she paused; she couldn't say it.

"Or what?" Brrr hoped that she would tell him what he wanted to know-the Grimmerie, Brrr hoped that she would tell him what he wanted to know-the Grimmerie, the Grimmerie! the Grimmerie!-instead of what she needed to share. She kept on.

"So Commander Cherrystone circles Apple Press Farm, but Trism has already left. Cherrystone lies in wait for Liir to return. Then, just before dawn one morning, Candle leaves with a bundle under her arm. Hoping it might be the Grimmerie, Cherrystone throws all his efforts into following her. It turns out though that she has swifted away a bundle of rags, nothing more. She is deemed to have no importance-perhaps she acted the simpleton-and she is released."

"What happened to them all?"

"Up in smoke," she said. "They all went up in smoke, each in a separate puff."

They both contemplated the convenience of a private exit.

"How do you know so much?" he pressed.

"Cherrystone returned here when all his other trails went cold. He conducted an interview with the old Superior Maunt. I'm sorry to say she died a few hours later. Either from shock or due to a stronger talent at self-preservation than I have been able to manage."

"And he interviewed you," said Brrr.

"You know it," she replied.

"You have told me more than you told him," he said, "and I didn't go the length to put out your eyes the way he did."

"The blind see history in a different way than the sighted. Besides"-she sighed as she spoke-"back then I had no idea I was going to prove so hopeless at dying a natural death. All that blood, all that mess-"

"Please," he said. "Please. I did have some breakfast."

"It's ancient history," she said. "This was nine years ago. Where are they all now? How did they disappear so thoroughly? If they are still alive, Liir would be twenty-eight or-nine-Candle likewise-Trism thirty-two-and...And..."

And, she thought, the child, the child; the child whom Candle had borne? But still she could not speak.

Brrr sat very still.

She sat up straight. "I have given you as much as I know. The truth is, once I went blind, I began to doubt my own oracular capacity. Perhaps Commander Cherrystone's terrible attack on me was exactly the thing. I can smell a person," she said, "I can smell a lie, but I can no longer see the truth right in front of my face."

"You've corroborated a lot," he agreed. "Still, how did you know so much about the movements of Trism and Candle?"

"Candle came back, for one night," said Yackle. "She came back to thank me for...for everything. Sensibly, she wouldn't tell me where she was going; this meant I could not have it forced out of me. She was a week or so ahead of Cherrystone."

She appeared to look out the window. "I think of her often," she said. "I liked the young girl. She was braver than most.

"Braver than you," she continued.

"That's not saying much," said Brrr.

"I can smell a lie," she said, "and I believe that you still haven't told me why you're here."

"I have," he said. "We're looking for Liir, don't you know? To make sure the Munchkinlanders don't rally behind him as the proper Eminence. To make sure that Sh.e.l.l's claim to the breadbasket of Oz isn't challenged-"

"There is no more time to lie," she told him, rather peacefully. If she could have found his huge paw and patted it for comfort, she would have. "You haven't really come here to find out about Liir and Trism and Candle and all. You knew most of that already. You knew about Liir and how he would suffer, thinking that Trism and Candle had fallen in love. Fine for him to love two-not so fine for him to watch two others loving in turn."

"I take a lot of notes," said Brrr, "but I don't pay attention to that aspect of people's lives."

"You don't want to," she noted, "because it is too close to home, I suspect."

"None of your business," he growled. "If you are so ornery and right all the time, then how am I lying? What have have I come for that you haven't yet told me? Tell it to me now and we'll have done with this interview. I can smell death frying up in the skillet alongside the lunchtime bacon. Let's finish up." I come for that you haven't yet told me? Tell it to me now and we'll have done with this interview. I can smell death frying up in the skillet alongside the lunchtime bacon. Let's finish up."

She stood and with unerring accuracy she pointed a bony finger right along the seam of his nose. "You want to find out the location of the Grimmerie," she said. "You want the great book of magic. Sure you'd be glad enough to learn where Liir is, and his little circle of oddities. But Liir isn't the firebrand that Elphaba was; he's nothing without that encyclopedia of spells. The Emperor has dispatched you here to see if I can tell you where the book is. Elphaba's magic book, and someone else's magic book before it was hers. You've been lying all along. Liir is only part of it. You want the book."

He sat very still for a long long time. The gla.s.s cat watched with an unblinking eye.

"If you've known that all along," he said softly, "then you must also know where it is."

"Ah, no, not that," she said. "Your comrade-at-war, then a mere commander, blinded me, and I have lost what powers I had. Tell General Cherrystone to come back and rip out my heart and fry it alongside your lunchtime bacon, and then we'll see if I can lose the rest of my powers-like breathing, and thinking, and remembering, and hating. I should be glad to let go of some of these functions."

"Let go of the drama, why don't we. Tell me why you can't just have a vision and find out where the Grimmerie is. That's all I want. To get out of here with some hard information. We're counting in hours now, not days, before this place becomes a militarized zone. Madame Morrible's notes suggested you were Elphaba's sentry angel. No one has a better chance of knowing where the book went but you."

"An angel!" She began to laugh. It was a hideous sight, her eyes rolling about in her skull. She clutched her ribs and bent over. "Oh, that's rich! An atheistic angel."

He had to wait for her wheezing to peter out. "Please," he said. "What must I promise you in exchange for the location of the Grimmerie?"

"It's hopeless," she said, her voice giddy now, as if having abandoned all hope. "One doesn't have visions on demand. And even if I knew, dear Brrr, how could I tell you? We're at cross-purposes. The EC would use it against-"

But she went from breezy hopelessness to a sudden frenzy; her face contorted.

"Are you all right?" he said. She shook her head. It wasn't a pang of death-nothing as useful to her as that-but a grief mortal enough to carry away anyone less immortal than she continued to be.

"Stop," he said. "It's not that bad. It can't be."

"What will you do if you can't locate the Grimmerie?" she asked at last. "Who is your next witness?"