A Lion Among Men Part 25

"On the other hand," she continued, "a different choice. A lot less fruitful for you, perhaps. Nothing certain about the outcome."

But that was the whole point. There is never anything certain about the outcome of a child's life. She was reminding him about the child of Liir and Candle. Elphaba's granddaughter, just possibly.

"You think you came up from the crypt to tell me about-" But in the presence of either the dwarf or the tiktok oracle, Brrr kept himself from saying the child the child. Yackle saw that he wasn't going to give their secret away, at least not yet, and she grinned at him like a saucy schoolgirl. "But," he continued, "you didn't come to tell me anything. You were sensing the approach of the Grimmerie, that's all. That's what you were doing."

"Never mind about why I jumped out of my sarcophagus. That's ancient history now!" she said gaily. "Anyway, whoever insisted that two things can't be true at once?" She put her old pale hand on the kinky hair of his chest where a medal for courage might have hung, did he still own one. "Make the right choice, Sir Brrr, when your time to choose arrives," she said. "Oh, liberty at last!" Hiking her white sheets to her shoulder, she tottered forward with the tentative steps of the truly elderly. It was as if the return of her eyesight had reminded her how very infirm she must be. Ilianora moved beside her, ready to catch her by the elbow should she fall, but Yackle managed to keep her balance for the five steps left to her, from the crowd of Ozians to the threshold of the Grimmerie.

"Don't you dare touch that book," said Mr. Boss, the buzz of a fly, no more.

Brrr watched as Yackle reached out for the cover. It was made of a material he couldn't identify, something that had properties of leather and cloth both-the slick coolness of leather, the cross-grain of cloth. The color of the binding suggested light on water, as if the warm color was emanating from a depth inside the book.

The spine was set with jewels arranged in an arabesque-every color but emerald-and an iron lock to clasp the secrets tight. But the pin was freed from the staple, and the hasp lay back upon its hinges.

Yackle lifted the cover and turned it over. The book didn't allow any page to slide open; it turned itself to one page, a third of the way from the front, as if, for right now, the book consisted only of that page, and the other pages were glued shut.

"Do you know what you're looking for?" asked Brrr.

"No one knows quite the shape of their death," said Yackle, "but I daresay I will recognize it when I see it."

The paper had a purple aspect at first, and the writing thereupon was silver. As they looked-they were all looking by now, even Shadowpuppet leaning forward, even Mr. Boss, craning from where he lay pinned on the ground-the color subsided to a taciturn peach, not unlike the tanned hide of a pig. The ink seemed less silver and more black. Almost as if the book were trying to resemble other books, as much as it could.

"Ah," said Brrr. "Look, can you see that? A watermark."

"What is a watermark?" asked Ilianora.

"Something I learned about in my years as a trader of etchings and drawings. A watermark is a kind of a ghost coin imprinted when the page is made by the artisan. A trademark. The emblem is an embossing done when the paper hasn't fully set; it presses the fiber tighter there, so when the page is held up to light, the image emerges. I never knew a watermark you could see without a light behind it, though."

"This book has its own light," said Yackle.

Brrr rested his chin on her old shoulder; she was strong enough to take it. Absentmindedly with one hand, while trying to read, she reached up and scratched just below his lips, exactly where he would have liked it best had anyone ever done this before.

Most of the text on the page shrank and moved off to one side, like dancers in the wings awaiting their next entrance. The watermark grew a little larger, as if to be seen all the better. Brrr could make out a form, though not the foreign alphabet that spelled a single foreign word beneath the watermark.

"Is that a symbol we're likely to recognize?" asked Ilianora.

"Is it lightning?" suggested one of the boys looking on.

"A crow with the legs of a stork," offered Brrr.

"That's a pretty good description of Elphaba," said Yackle.

"Is this her story?" asked Brrr. "Or is it her book?"

"It was her book for a time," said Mr. Boss. The dragon claw had let him sit up, at least. "Or in her keep, I should say; the Grimmerie was no more hers than it is mine. The book belongs to a magician from some distant land, the one who brought it to Oz for safekeeping."

"Who do you mean?" asked Brrr. "Do you mean the Wizard of Oz?"

"Please," replied Mr. Boss. "Don't insult my intelligence."

"The Wizard of Oz had no power, power," snapped Shadowpuppet. "That's common knowledge by now. No, Our Glorious Wizard came came to Oz looking for this book, don't you know? And ever since Elphaba died and the book disappeared, everyone else has been looking for it." to Oz looking for this book, don't you know? And ever since Elphaba died and the book disappeared, everyone else has been looking for it."

"You, too," said Brrr, surmising. "Your directive was to keep an eye on me in case I actually found out something and decided not to report it."

"Oh, you'd never do that, that," said Shadowpuppet mockingly. "Not Sir Brrr, the most reliable agent we have in the field. Sir Brrr of such famously lofty principles principles. Heaven forfend. Besides, I'd never betray you. You've been such entertainment. Such a lark."

Yackle laid her hands on the paper, palms down, as if reading the heat on the page.

"How long have you been here, guarding the book?" asked Brrr.

"You still taking notes?" replied Mr. Boss. "Oh, on and off, oh, eighty years maybe? You lose track when it's such a gas."

"Even before the Wizard of Oz first arrived in the Emerald City? But why?"

The dwarf replied, "That's a tale for another time, my comings and goings. I thought you were curious about the history of Our Miss Yackle. Which is all in the Grimmerie. Haven't you seen it now?"

"Put it together for me."

"The Clock told it to you. You saw the story of the birth of Yackle-from the pages of this magic book. She was drawn out of here to do a job: to be vigilant over Elphaba's life. Not to interfere, not to intervene: to be a witness. That was enough."

"That's all I did," said Yackle, talking as much to herself as to them. They had to strain to make it out. "All I ever did. I was a handmaiden. Rather long in the tooth to be a maiden, but it takes all kinds to make a world. I did give Elphaba the broom; I'll accept that much credit. But I didn't know what she could do with it. Nor did I know why she was the watermark in my life: the deep hidden thing around which my weird existence revolved. I only knew what I was compelled to do. And I know what I'm compelled to do now."

"You take a lot upon yourself to guard this book," said Brrr to the sergeant-at-hand. "If the Emerald City gets hold of you, you're history."

The dwarf shrugged. "I have a job and I do it: I protect the book. The Clock of the Time Dragon was magicked up as a kind of reliquary for the Grimmerie when it's needed. I don't ask questions. Elphaba seemed to be the one most capable of reading it correctly. Given her bloodlines, maybe, her natural talents. And she found the book where the magician left it, and used it, and showed the Wizard of Oz a page of it. He hunted for it ever after, but when Elphaba disappeared and the Wizard abdicated, the book ended up with her erstwhile friend Galinda. Sorry: Glinda, onetime Throne Minister of Oz. Our Miss Glinda returned the Grimmerie to me when I was pa.s.sing by her country estate, Mockbeggar Hall, some years ago. It's been safe here ever since, until today, when the Clock determined it was time to reveal its treasure to you bozos."

"Yackle," said Ilianora. "Yackle, what are you doing?" and Brrr realized he had been watching the dwarf, and clutching the Cat, keeping the troublesome elements under control, his back turned from Yackle and the Grimmerie.

She had slipped her winding robe off her shoulders like a shawl.

While she had been speaking, the watermark had returned to fill both pages of the open volume, and the page had gone from ivory to pale spring green. It looked more like Elphaba than ever, with her sharp nose and slightly crooked hat, and her zigzaggy bony form at the ready for flight, for battle against some treachery they couldn't see just off the margins of the page.

The lines of the watermark glowed a yellower, fiery green, and the shape of the Witch contorted, as if working out a kink in her lower back.

Then the watermark rose off the page. It did not flesh out, like a suddenly luminous puppet or like a radioactive green parrot, but retained its drawn outline, its crude symbolic origin. It reared, it rose in a sweep of cape, it lifted like a green flower from a bed of words and red roses on a black fringed background. It was not Elphaba; she was not here; her time was over and done. It was the mark of Elphaba, though, vivid as ever. Their eyes stung, to see her again, or for the first time.

"Of course," said Yackle, turning for a moment and glowing at Ilianora. "You have a brother. Of course you must go on! Because history can't be vexed by small players; don't you know?" She looked at Ilianora, at the dwarf, at Brrr, with an expression too complex, too pungent to understand. "Don't you understand? She's coming back-"

Brrr thought, for an instant-but what does she mean? In her weird seeingness, can Yackle picture Muhlama H'aekeem? Or does she mean the lost Ozma, or Elphaba, who melted away, or the fairy G.o.ddess Lurline, or the k.u.mbric Witch, or even Dorothy the interloper?

In any case, Yackle let her shroud slip to the floor, and from her naked, poxy back unfurled two capacious sails of feather and strut and papery light. Unused these dozens of years, they had lost none of their power to elevate. Yackle rose in the air in the courtyard of the House of Saint Glinda, her calloused heels showing the dirt and detritus of the cobbles, the skin around her shanks and b.u.t.tocks sagging, bruised, vivid with ancient life. She said nothing more, but as the watermark of Elphaba began to sink back again to flatness on its page, Yackle followed it. She disappeared into the Grimmerie like a diver entering the deepest parts of a magic pool: slow-motion, full of grace, the toes in the gleam; casting off wretchedness, casting off the shroud. She folded magically into the Grimmerie, her third and fourth dimensions laddering accordion-like into the secret unnamed dimensions of a page. They all leaned over the great book to watch.

But she wasn't fully done. Just before her arms and wing tips and head lost their material shapeliness, her hands twisted in the air. Brrr, who had met Yackle only twenty-four hours earlier, knew her well enough to guess what she intended. He reached over the book as one will lean over a precipice. Shadowpuppet-Malky began to squirm and yowl, but Ilianora grabbed its rear paws. Together she and Brrr delivered the gla.s.s Cat to Yackle's hands. Only a vowel-less snarl was left behind as Yackle's wing tips and wrists and tendrils of hair and the glimmer of hostage Cat disappeared into the pages of the Grimmerie.

"I've sworn off taking sides," said Ilianora fiercely, "but good riddance to bad rubbish. I hope it finds itself in some sort of a pit of hounds in there."

"That hissy little piece of work won't do any more damage while penned in that book," said Brrr. "Just hope it doesn't try to claw its way out from the inside."

They peered to see if Shadowpuppet was pictured on the page, or even if Yackle was, but the letters had come crowding back. They'd enlarged, and begun to superimpose themselves yeastily, one upon the other, so that only the s.p.a.ces between the loops of printed letters showed like dwindling dots of light. Then the words darkened entirely and screened the paper with darkness. In the sea of black remained the watermark, faintly, vernally. No other image, no Yackle, no Shadowpuppet. No prophecies about Liir and Candle and their daughter.

The Grimmerie shut itself; the Clock withdrew the book into a hidden chamber, the dragon up top sighed and clanked rather noisily to a finish-Show's over, folks-and they were out of the realm of mystery, and back in the realm of war.

- 5 -

THOUGH THEY all stood for a minute, in between moments, as a light wind pushed into the courtyard, and a smell of smoke and greenery strengthened. It whisked their spirits in silence; they felt upbraided by possibility; they felt taunted by the aesthetic appeal of justice. They felt hungry, and several of them felt h.o.r.n.y, and the light flickered as a flock of birds coursed against the sun-too high to be identified, too high to be heard, but not too high to be influential. all stood for a minute, in between moments, as a light wind pushed into the courtyard, and a smell of smoke and greenery strengthened. It whisked their spirits in silence; they felt upbraided by possibility; they felt taunted by the aesthetic appeal of justice. They felt hungry, and several of them felt h.o.r.n.y, and the light flickered as a flock of birds coursed against the sun-too high to be identified, too high to be heard, but not too high to be influential.

- 6 -

WHILE B BRRR was halted among this latest grab bag of companions, he was alone in the anointment of a quickly stinging grief. A hollow feeling, before forgetfulness rushed in to blanket and anaesthetise. Yackle had not been his antagonist after all. He'd learned this just well enough to feel the ache of her departure. Even the thorn in the paw makes sense while it stabs, and she was both thorn and balm. was halted among this latest grab bag of companions, he was alone in the anointment of a quickly stinging grief. A hollow feeling, before forgetfulness rushed in to blanket and anaesthetise. Yackle had not been his antagonist after all. He'd learned this just well enough to feel the ache of her departure. Even the thorn in the paw makes sense while it stabs, and she was both thorn and balm.

His reverie was broken by the sound of footsteps. The Lion looked up to see Sister Apothecaire stumping along a rampart. She brandished a ring of keys and was blathering nearly incoherently.

"Slow down," called Brrr. "Take a breath. You'll pop a b.u.t.ton or burst a spleen."

"They're advancing, oh sweet Lurline," said Sister Apothecaire, in her panic reverting to pagan sensibilities, for Lurline had come from history and gone into myth long before faith in the Unnamed G.o.d had called maunts to live in community and service. So long ago that no one could ascertain the chronology of it.

"While we were in Council, and we left you locked up-oh-you're out"-she noticed-"the Munchkinlanders have come up with a startling crew of backup patriots! Lord bless 'em! But they're converging from the east, and it looks as if a battle will indeed be joined right here, on the very skirts of our precincts. And the good sisters at last have fled, that toady Sister Doctor leading the gallop! I said I would hurry back to release you, once we had remembered about you, and no one protested. Who wants a blot like that in our copybooks? So here I am. Consider yourself released. Shoo." She waved her hands. "Where's Mother Yackle?"

"Safe," said Brrr.

"You're a brave woman, good Sister," said Ilianora, starting to help the dwarf strap up doors, slotting the stages like drawers back into the bureau of clockwork.

"Brave or good, coward or bad, I don't know and I don't care," she said. "Get out while you can. I have the keys and there is no governing Council or Superior Maunt to stop me. I'm going to open the doors to the Munchkinlanders and give them a fighting chance. Unless you want to be caught in here with them, take to your heels, at once!"

"Which way should we go?" asked the dwarf. "We have precious cargo."

Do we? wondered Brrr. He supposed that Mr. Boss was referring to the Clock of the Time Dragon and the Grimmerie. All the rest of them-Ilianora among them, even the dwarf himself-were more or less dispensable.

Sister Apothecaire replied, "I don't know which army would trouble you least. It's your choice. Munchkinlanders are sweeping up in a shallow curve from the eastern edges of the oakhair forest. It's a counterattack in advance of the arrival of the Emperor's armies. We maunts evacuated to the northwest-deeper into Gillikin, whether I like it or not. The pincers are closing exactly upon this troubled house: It stands precisely where the East and the West will meet and have their bloodshed, and in a matter of quarter hours, not days. I have sung my alarum to you, now fly if you will; be it on your own heads if you won't. I must be at the ready. I will offer flame and pitch from the ramparts to any EC soldiers, or sanctuary should the Munchkinlanders get here first."

"You can't rely on virtue and vice being so evenly distributed," said Ilianora.

"I am not talking about vice. I'm talking about clan."

A pride of maunts, thought Brrr, is rather a self-made thing, isn't it? And temporary, if it could dissolve under pressure of war into the clans from which its members originated. Still, there is no law that says all decent things must be permanent. Perhaps family itself, like beauty, is temporary, and no discredit need attach to impermanence.

Having delivered her ultimatum, Sister Apothecaire turned, but she was moving so fast that she couldn't stop herself. Her foot twisted on a crack between the stones of the staircase, and she tumbled nine or ten feet to the ground, and there she lay still.

"She won't be dead," said Ilianora, but Brrr thought her statement more hope than prognosis.

The dwarf wouldn't wait for a report. "Leave the little old fussbody for her countrymen to tend. We'll be off and away with the fairies, as advised." He barked orders to the acolytes to withdraw the bars from the main gate, and then to position themselves for flight.

Four boys put themselves between the shafts of the cart, and the others went behind to push. But Ilianora said, "Mr. Boss, we can't be sure the Munchkinlanders will arrive first. If the Emerald City Messiars beat them to it, this maunt may be in danger. Lay her on the coachman's seat, and we'll study her situation when we can pause for a moment to breathe. Brrr, help me."

"Oh, my Lady Lovely, are you planning to leave us? Are you nominating a successor? Or are we abducting a goodwife for me in my ripe old age? Such a cranky one! And won't she be surprised when she wakes up. Sure, take her along."

Brrr and Ilianora lifted Sister Apothecaire, who was heavy for one so small, and they settled her in a supine position. Her eyes were closed but, as far as Brrr could tell, she appeared to be breathing.

"Well?" said the dwarf, scrambling onto the buckboard, "you're coming with us, Cowardly Lion?"

"Is that an invitation or a prophecy?"

"I came to get you, didn't I? That's what the Clock told me to do."

"You came and found me, true, but maybe my use to you was only as bait. To draw the Grimmerie to Yackle so she could take her leave. And where are you going anyway? Are you converted to Elphaba's old cause, to see her rise like that before us?"

"Elphaba's dead and gone," said the dwarf equably enough. "We stay neutral, we keep our nosey noses clean, we take no sides, and we watch our backs. So linger here and stew about it as long as you like. Send us a postcard from whichever military prison you end up in. Whee-up, gee-up, knees-up, boys."

Brrr was stuck with the conundrum. His job was done. He had been ordered to find out what had happened to the Grimmerie, and he had done far more than that: He had located the very book itself. Why let it escape? He might as well go with them, keep them in range. When the time was right he could choose to turn them over to the Emperor's army. Once he felt ready to make that decision. The proper number of the dwarf's slurs and indignities having mounted up to legitimize it.

Think of the glories that might accrue to Sir Brrr if he arrived back at the Emerald City with the Clock of the Time Dragon, and the Grimmerie safely interred within.

Think of the possibilities if he did not. He could fall in with the company of the Clock now, and perhaps-if they escaped to the West, along the banks of foul Kellswater-he could trip the brakes on the dreadful apparatus and drown the tiktok dragon and its bullying prophecies in the deadening water. Then no one could ever again use the Grimmerie to learn how to attack another soul.

"Make up your mind, and on your own head," said the dwarf as the Clock of the Time Dragon began its slow creaky exodus into its future.

Ilianora turned to him and held out her hand. "Don't be bashful. You would make a good companion for the company of the Clock. You know as much as anyone does, now, about where it came from and why we tend it."

"I don't know why you tend it," said Brrr, but he flipped his notepad closed and pocketed it. "That's beyond my brief to care about, Ilianora, so don't spend your breath. Let's get out of here."

They pa.s.sed under the portcullis. The broad stretch of the Shale Shallows lay to the west and south, wheat fields to the northwest. On the horizon they could see emerald green pennants of the advancing army, though from this distance the wind masked the sound of their snapping. Had the EC battalions paused to reconnoiter? Load their cannons? Was some general busily braying a rallying oration?

"Why did that otherworldly magician bring forth Yackle to oversee Elphaba?" Brrr asked Ilianora. "If his goal was merely to hide the Grimmerie, he didn't need to use it to meddle in the affairs of this world. Look at the harm it's done."

"All my thoughts about history are sifted through my own warped fate. I have no conclusions," she replied. "I can't imagine why Elphaba deserved an angel to hover on her sidelines, even a paper angel, when the rest of us have to deal on our own with what prison and torture befalls us."

"Prison and torture?"

"I'll tell you one day. But not while you're on the payroll of the Emerald City, no thank you. Not when the EC has supervised the extermination of my kin."

"They're not all dead," said the Lion. "Liir may not be dead. And he went looking for you, all the way into Southstairs, I'm told."

"There is that," she said.

"We could leave the dwarf to his misadventures," said the Lion. "We could try to find Liir." So was he signing on to Yackle's hopes? Was he being seduced by her wily trust in him? Or perhaps he was remembering Dorothy's long-ago request of him, that he remain a companion to Liir. "I'm not looking for much," he continued, shrugging. "Not for romance, believe me. You and I are well matched in our hesitations. But romance isn't the only thing that draws two individuals together."

They walked more quickly, almost trotting, to catch up to the Clock of the Time Dragon, but still they hung back far enough to speak privately for another moment or two. The steep walls of the Cloister of Saint Glinda fell behind them, a stone cloak they were escaping. As the armies drew within earshot of each other, the doors of this holy keep would be opened to all.

"I don't want your company while you are in the employ of the Emerald City," she said at last. "Not when they were behind the stationing of your Cat as a spy. Not when they were behind the deaths of my father and my mother and all my siblings. Everyone."

"Everyone but Liir," he said again, trying to convince her of something. "Liir waits for you somewhere. We can find him."