Gregory Maguire_Wicked Years_02

by Son of a Witch

  The weather was with them, at least. Day after day the sky was peerless blue, if pinion-quaking cold. Under snow squalls or rain clouds the Conference would have fumbled. But they always had the chance to move on: this kept the smaller birds brave.

  They came at last to the highland valleys and white wastes of the Arjiki stronghold of Kiamo Ko. Liir did not care to alight there, but the nights were drawing in earlier and earlier, and he had no choice but to see it as a blessing.

  His rump sore, and almost unable to uncurl his spine from the arched position in which he flew, he landed on the cobbles of the courtyard with 220 of the smaller Birds, while the larger ones waited formally outside for an invitation. The monkeys shrieked, though whether it was out of terror or welcome, Liir couldn’t tell. Chistery met him at the top of the steps to the main hall.

  “I suppose you’ve asked me, for old time’s sake, to join you,” he said. “I’d come if I could. But I don’t think my wings are up to it.”

  “You can’t have had news of our intentions,” said Liir.

  “You’re a message, that’s all,” said Chistery. “No one can watch you raveling and unraveling up the columns of mountain air without knowing you intend to be seen. I’ll tell you, my heart was in my throat though, as you came nearer. I thought to myself, It’s Elphaba herself.”

  “No, it’s only me,” said Liir. “How’s Nanny?”

  “Past her prime. For the fourth decade in a row, I’d say. She’s having a sandwich of egg and dried garmot. Do you want to go up?”

  “I suppose I’d better. May we stay here?”

  “You needn’t ask,” said Chistery, slightly hurt. “Until someone else comes to claim it, the house is yours.”

  Nanny sat up in bed, looking gently at her bread crusts. When she saw Liir, she smiled and patted the bedclothes. “Don’t worry, I won’t wet,” she said. “I’ve already gone.”

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Liir.

  “Ought I?” She didn’t sound worried about it. “Is it Shell?”

  “Decidedly not.”

  “Good. I didn’t like Shell very much.” She held out the pieces of bread. “I saw the Birds coming, and I saved them something from my lunch.”

  “That’s nice of you.”

  “Actually, the bread was a bit stale. But maybe they won’t notice. It’s nice to see you again, whoever you are. Just like old times.” She patted his hand. “I never could tell what was going on then, either, but now I don’t mind so much.”

  “Nanny?”

  “Hmmmm?” She was beginning to drift off to sleep.

  “Did you ever hear of someone named Yackle?”

  One eyelid of Nanny’s cocked open. “Might have done,” she said warily. “Who wants to know?”

  “Only me.”

  “Days a lifetime ago are clearer to me than today. I don’t even know what sex I am anymore, and I can remember what I got in my Lurlinemas basket when I was ten. A tin cannikin full of colored beads—”

  “Nanny. Yackle.”

  “I met someone named Yackle once,” said Nanny. “I always remembered it because her name reminded me of jackal. Like the jackal moon, you know.”

  “Where?”

  “She had a little commercial enterprise, if you call it that, in the Emerald City. The Lower Quarter, downslope of Southstairs, if you know where that is.”

  “I do.”

  “I went in to have my tea leaves read and to ask a question about Melena. Your grandmother.”

  Liir didn’t bother to correct her.

  “Yackle was an old crone without much time left, I’d guess. But she still had talent. She gave me a few words of advice, read me the riot act about my petty filching, and told me Elphaba would have a history. Can you believe it!”

  “How did she know about Elphaba?”

  “Silly. I told her, of course. I told her Melena had given birth to a green daughter. I bought whatever Yackle could provide as a corrective agent to ensure the second child didn’t come out green. And she didn’t, did Nessarose. Neither did Shell. Only our Elphie. A history! Can you believe that?”

  “Must be a common name.”

  “Yackle, you mean? Don’t know about that. Never heard it again. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you think Elphaba will have a history?”

  “She does already, ninnykins! I just saw her flying up the valley as large as a cloud. Her cape went out behind her, a thousand bits in flight. Nearly touched the peaks to the left and the right. If that’s not a history, what is?”

  CHISTERY SAW HIM OUT. “You’re welcome here anytime,” he said. “This is your house.”

  “She always loved you best, you know,” said Liir, grinning as he laced the braces at the clasp of the Witch’s cape.

  “Considering what she was like, is that a compliment or an insult?” replied the Snow Monkey. “Fly well.”

  BY THE TIME THEY NEARED the Emerald City, half a month later, the Conference of the Birds was six thousand strong. They’d had to slow down as they grew larger, for fear of midair accidents, but east of the Kells the winds were less harsh. As the Conference crossed the Gillikin River, coming into sight of the smart little villages and spruce knolls and brick factories and millhouses of the rolling Gillikin tableland, its shadow grew more definite by the day.

  Liir had no intention of attacking the Emerald City. The Birds were not warriors, and the Conference, or Witch Nation, wasn’t military in makeup. Liir didn’t want to see Shell, nor the Lady Glinda, assuming she had returned to take up residence in her Mennipin Square town house for the winter season.

  He only wanted that they should be seen.

  It was nearing evening when they approached the walls of the City from the north. The sun was sagging against a few distant scraggly clouds, heading pinkly for its rest, and then it disappeared behind the horizon. The western sky would remain glassy bright for a half hour yet.

  As workers clocked off at the Palace, as the boulevards were thronged with people heading for supper, and as the indigent went to their own work of begging for coin against starvation, the Conference wheeled into place. Anyone looking north at the display of Birds, from the inn called Welcome Arms on the banks of the Gillikin, say, would read only cloud: an invasion, a plague, a disaster. The same impression struck those looking, from the northwest of the city, at the Birds swimming like an ocean away from them.

  From the Emerald City, though, from every west-facing window of the Palace, the intention was unmistakable. The Conference of Birds had rehearsed to perfection. They flew in formation for viewing from the east. They were the Witch, hat and cape, skirt and broom, shadowy face tucked down against the wind, but beady-eyed bright. Liir, on his broom, followed General Kynot, whose superior navigational system gave him his location. Liir on his broom played the keen black eye of the Witch.

  Was Shell there, wondered Liir, knuckles on some marble windowsill, Lord High Apostle Muscle himself, Shell Go-to-hell Thropp, First Spear, Emperor of Oz, Personal Shell of the Unnamed God? Did he lean forward and squint at the holy ghost of his remonstrating sister, and rub his eyes?

  Six thousand strong, they cried in unison, hoping that the echo of their message would be heard in the darkest, most cloistered cell in Southstairs as well as the highest office in the Palace of the Emperor. “Elphaba lives! Elphaba lives! Elphaba lives!”

  Raising Voices

  1

  THE CONFERENCE HAD GROWN too large for a single speaker to address it. On the morning it disbanded, therefore, two delegates from each species met with General Kynot and his loose affiliation of ministers, which included the Wren, the Dodo, and the most aggrandizing of the Grey Geese, a gander who had appointed himself.

  Liir was invited, too. He asked the birds to keep an eye out for Nor. “You go everywhere, you see everything,” he said.

  “We stay clear of humans when we can,” replied the Grey Goose, “present company accepted. Pro tem.”

  “It’s probably futile,”
Liir agreed. “Still.” He walked about with the drawing of Nor by Fiyero. “She used to look like this. She’s older by now, of course.”

  “All people look alike to me,” murmured a Vleckmarsh.

  “She’s simply beautiful,” said the blind Heron.

  “Well, thanks just the same,” said Liir, tucking the paper away.

  The General gave a rambling address that confused everyone, including himself. “To conclude,” he conceded, “we go on to new work. The Birds run a risk of reverting to behaviors less than helpful. Now, I don’t mean to besmirch the fine Ostriches from the Sour Sands, who because they don’t fly were not part of our Conference. But we all know what Ostriches are rumored to do when faced with a crisis. We must not retreat into our claques and clans. Wary of human settlements—yes, who wouldn’t be? Let’s not be stupid about humans. But wary of one another? A little less so, if we can manage.”

  “And a little more chatter amongst us,” added Dosey the Wren. “In ways we are only beginning to understand, we are the eyes of Oz.”

  “When can Witch Nation have a reunion?” asked the Dodo. “This was fun.”

  “The boy-broomist must go and make his own nest. And I?—off and away to my family,” said the General. “The wife, you know, and there was a new clutch of eggs last spring. But there are the families of those Birds who were heinously trapped and slain by the Yunamata. Those families should be contacted, if we can figure out how.”

  “I’ll take care of that, sir,” said Dosey.

  “You take care of yourself, missie.”

  “Should this be an annual event?” asked the Dodo. “Ought I be taking notes? I mean mental notes, at least?” But the General had lifted himself onto the hump of a sudden, warmer breeze, and whatever he answered over his shoulder could not be heard in the cheer that went up to bid him good-bye.

  2

  LIIR DIDN’T ASK THE GREY GOOSE for company, but the Goose followed along behind. It was a problem. The Goose was too regal to be servile, and too beautiful; he made Liir feel like a chimney sweep who hadn’t seen a bath in a month. The Goose called himself Iskinaary.

  They flew from the southern edge of the Emerald City and headed straight out across Restwater, keeping east of the isthmus between the lakes. If the mauntery of Saint Glinda had been torched, Liir didn’t want to know about it yet.

  Where the Vinkus River seeped along flat-bouldered steps into Restwater, they stopped to get their breath, and they surprised a fox out of a clump of wrestlebush. The fox dove at Iskinaary and wrenched his wing, but Liir clobbered the fox with the broom, and the fox let go. His wing drenched in blood, Iskinaary shed unashamed tears at his disfigurement. Closer examination proved that the damage was, indeed, slight. Nonetheless, if they were to proceed together, they’d need to go on foot.

  “I don’t mind a chance to give my legs some exercise,” said Liir.

  “That’s the most disingenuous thing I’ve ever heard,” said Iskinaary. “And it’s not as if you have particularly handsome legs.”

  “They walk faster than yours do, I’ve noticed.”

  “If you want to walk faster, you’ll have to carry me.”

  Iskinaary was heavy to carry, and for all his beauty he still smelled very much like a Goose. Still, Liir didn’t mind that the trip would take a little longer. So much had happened. A chance for reflection was welcome.

  He was returning now, having accomplished something at last—a set of dragon murders, regrettable, but there you go. He was eager to know how his accomplishment would fit in the house. What he and Candle would be like together now. He had no experience of a happy return, ever. He would hardly know what to say, where to smile. He hoped that not knowing might seem wonderful.

  He knew more about human warmth, too, from Trism. How that knowledge would translate in the presence of Candle was a puzzle to anticipate with excitement.

  When they reached the Disappointments south of the Vinkus River, it was sunset, and the cold dusk made them shiver. But there was evidence of the tiny flower known as Shatter Ice—four little bluets in a nest of the tiniest emerald leaves—which meant the hump of the winter had been passed, and spring, however long it took to arrive, had started on its way.

  ISKINAARY’S WING HAD MENDED a bit—not much—by the time they approached the series of wooded knolls in which Apple Press Farm was hidden.

  “You’re not planning on staying and becoming domesticated, I assume,” said Liir. “I mean, it’d be fine to see you, umm, swanning about our meadows, but I can’t expect that would give you anything approaching professional satisfaction.”

  “I have my own ambitions,” said Iskinaary. “I’m intelligent as well as gorgeous, you know. Leave it to me.”

  “To be more specific,” said Liir gingerly, “I’m not necessarily inviting you to take up residence with us permanently. No hard feelings.”

  Iskinaary shrugged, as much as a Grey Goose could shrug. “Makes no difference to me what you say,” he replied. “I wasn’t waiting for an engraved invitation. I’ll follow my own instincts. We Animals still have instincts, you know.”

  “Touché. And your instinct is?”

  “To keep my own counsel.”

  They entered the woods, slopping through mushy hillocks of drifted snow. “And, being instinct rich, Iskinaary, have you any opinion what my instincts are?”

  “You’re not untalented,” said Iskinaary, overlooking the slight sarcasm in Liir’s tone. “You’re even rather smart. For a human. You keep excellent company.”

  “Yourself.”

  “Exactly. Furthermore, from what I’ve observed, you have a talent for reading the past.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Iskinaary honked. “What it sounds. There are very few who can read the future. And you’ve mentioned this Candle of yours can read the present. But reading the past is a skill in and of itself. It’s not just knowing the past. It’s feeling it. It’s deriving new strength and knowledge from it—learning from it all the time. It’s my own guess that this was intended to be the great strength of human beings, when the Unnamed God came up with the notion of you. Sadly, like so many good ideas, it hasn’t quite worked out in practice.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “No insult intended.”

  “I didn’t know you believed in the Unnamed God.”

  “I was speaking metaphorically. I assumed you’d get that. Is this the place you’re looking for?”

  It was. The low roofs of the dependences, and the main structure of the house itself, and the big barn room in which the broken press presumably still stood. Perhaps it could be made to work again.

  They came the long way around, to approach from the open meadow by the front door. There they found that Liir’s invitation had been accepted. Nine tents were erected in the meadow, as perfectly aligned as the casual ramble of the fences would allow. Eight subordinate tents made a square, and the Princess Nastoya’s tent stood centrally.

  With her canny ways, and for all the advance warning of this contingent of Scrow, Candle ought to have known he was coming. Nonetheless, she seemed surprised. Surprised, and flustered, large and slow, even redder of face than her natural coloring suggested was possible. Perhaps blood pressure problems? Or had she been experimenting with native rouges?

  He approached her cautiously—as if she were a young novice, not a farm bride. He took her hands and held them, and found out that even now he didn’t know how he felt. “I’ve flown the world,” he said.

  “Welcome home from the world.” Her face was tucked down, as if she were shy. A new shyness.

  “Candle,” he said, “has the fellow called Trism come here?”

  She looked up at him from under a wrinkled brow. “He said you’d ask for him. I couldn’t be sure of him; he seemed a soldier of some sort. Well, now you’ve asked, and right off. Though I’d have thought you’d enquire if I was all right first! All these guests, and me in this state!”

  “Of cour
se—of course. But I can see you’re all right. And I don’t know if Trism survived.”

  “Well, he did,” she said, summarily. “Oh, Liir,” she continued, her voice now sounding as if he’d only been gone an hour, and she’d missed him for sixty full minutes, “look what’s happened, and I wanted to greet you on our own.” She spread her hands at the meadow.

  “I know,” he said. “I invited them.”

  “I’m glad you finally arrived to greet them, then. They’ve been here a week, and my careful larder is just about bare. The one older fellow speaks a rude sort of Qua’ati, but I can’t make out a thing from the others.”

  The Scrow were trying to brew a kind of tea out of the bark of apple trees and such sap as was running in the maples. They wrinkled their noses at it and hardly seemed to notice Liir’s arrival.

  “In the family way, I note,” said Iskinaary pointedly, slipping into Qua’ati effortlessly, “or are you just big-boned, my dear?”

  Indicating the Goose, Liir said to Candle, “This is my…” He paused; the word friend seemed inappropriate.

  “Familiar,” supplied the Goose.

  “Oh, please!” said Liir. “Is that what you’re on about?”

  “Don’t mind me, I’ll just settle here with the stupid hens,” snapped Iskinaary.

  “I’m not a witch, nothing near!” said Liir. “You’re going on the grossest sort of hearsay.”

  “Get on with your task, and I’ll be the judge,” said the Goose. He shifted about three inches to one side and turned elegantly still, which gave him the effect of being statuesque while allowing him to eavesdrop with impunity.

  Liir picked up Candle’s hands again. He wanted more from her, he willed it so. She let him thumb her palms for a moment, then she pulled her own hands away.

  “So Trism got here unharmed?” he said.

  “The dragon master? He did,” she said, her face turned away again.

  “Where is he?”

  “He couldn’t stay.”

  Cautious. Gentle step, here. “Why not? Candle?”