A Lion Among Men Part 22

"You are are involved," said Yackle. "You wouldn't have come here if you didn't have business in the neighborhood. Don't waste my time!" involved," said Yackle. "You wouldn't have come here if you didn't have business in the neighborhood. Don't waste my time!"

"Why not? You've got plenty to waste," he answered. "You may not be getting any younger, but you're not getting any deader, either. No, I had reason to think I was looking for a Lion who might join us-but not this liverish lump. I must be off my game."

"Your weird equipment knows where it wants to go, and when it wants to rest," said Yackle. "So it wanted to come here, eh? It can look like a tiktok extravaganza, all gears and sequins and powdery flashes of light. Traveling theater. But what it knows, and what it shows! How do you account for that? Do you send your accomplices ahead of you as advance scouts, to sniff out the local gossip, to read the local tea leaves, so when you pull into the village you know what is on everyone's mind?"

"Them? Hah," said the dwarf. He plugged one nostril and mimed shooting a plug of mucus out of the other one. "Haven't the brains among them to come in out of the rain."

"Then it's a charm-I've always guessed it. Some sledgehammer of a charm, that can read the world's secrets correctly decade after decade."

"Ninety-nine point ninety-seven percent accuracy," said Ilianora. "That's what the advertising panel says, anyway."

"Hush, daughter," said the dwarf, in a more kindly tone than before. "Pour me some water, will you?"

"Whose spell is as strong as that?" asked the Lion, becoming interested despite himself. "Whose spell could teach a puppet machine to spill secrets like that?"

"One whose name I don't give out, as I don't give out my own," said the dwarf. "Ooh, this water is good. I've always wondered why the grand viziers of magic in the Emerald City-that is, if there are any-didn't just get to work devising a spell to purify the whole of Kellswater. Reduce Loyal Oz's dependence on foreign water. That lake is nearly as large as Rest.w.a.ter and if made potable could irrigate all of Loyal Oz. That would liberate the EC from its obsession with truculent Munchkinlanders, who, as I hear it told, never never shall be slaves."

"One of the folktales I heard in my youth," said Ilianora, "held that the ancient old demon-witch, k.u.mbricia herself, lives in the depths of Kellswater, or died there, perhaps, despoiling the supply for all time."

"You and your tales," said the dwarf. "One of the folktales I heard in my youth is that folktales are idiotic. Anyway, the cause is beside the point."

"Sniff out the cause, and you conceive the solution," said Yackle. "But who knows. Mr. Boss, Mr. Boss, if you won't show Sir Brrr where in Oz the Grimmerie might be hidden-for that's really what he is here to learn-then do some good for me, your old partner and nemesis on the hems of Elphaba's life. Show me how I might die. I've told to this Lion all that I know. Let me reap some small benefit in return."

"The Lion works for the Emerald City," said the dwarf. "I should reward you for dealing him information that the EC might find useful? I've no opposition to the Emperor of Oz per se, but I've no affection either. Live and let seethe, that's my motto."

"The Clock is off-limits, anyway; we're locked in," remarked Ilianora, arranging a trio of white ribbons in her white hair. "This is probably the safest site in central Oz right now."

"A sanctuary or a trap," said the Lion. "I'll bark the door down if I want to. As I said. But Mister Boss-man, why are you on the 'hems' of Elphaba's life, as Mother Yackle puts it?"

"You're here to interrogate the old brickbat, not me," said the dwarf. "En't that right? Give me that chair, you, so that I can look out the window and see if the armies are in sight." He scrabbled up on the seat and raised himself on his toes.

The Lion could have told the dwarf what was visible: a low bolster of smoke to the southwest. The smoke must be heavy. Tendrils of it lifted up, like the heads of dark swans, then ducked down again. There was no acridity in the air, though. The wind must still be from the north or northeast.

"They're burning the oakhair forest," said the dwarf. "Pushing the Munchkinlanders farther south, away from the lake, I guess."

"Unless the wind swings around," said Ilianora, standing beside him. "Then it might smoke the Munchkinlanders out into the open. They'd be mowed down like wheat by a scythe."

"We don't take sides," the dwarf reminded her. "Not in our brief."

"We can take the side of mercy without being compromised," she replied. "Surely?"

"If it don't compromise our mission, why not?" He munched his sandwich with gusto. "Knock yourself out with mercy, honey."

"Mr. Boss," she said. "The Messiars may have gotten their idea of a smoke-out from the dragon. Their fellow infantrymen were blinded by smoke from our Clock-and driven into the obsolete lake."

"It appears Fate may have caught up with those who advertise as Fate's voice," said Yackle, not, Brrr thought, without a touch of satisfaction. Even smugness. Professional jealousy among oracles!

"Ha," replied the dwarf, grousing. "Fate. Some call it fate. Some call it lunch."

"You fault your own profession?" Yackle seemed to be enjoying this. "Shame on you."

"Fate brought you here," said the Lion. "You must admit that."

"Listen," said the dwarf, "consider a pack of nursery children on a church picnic. They are about to mount a gra.s.sy hilltop. Clouds gather while one of them stops below to tie the laces of a lisping junior. Then lightning strikes at the crown of the hill. Say it strikes the meanest child, the one who wouldn't pause to help and so has forged on ahead. Or say the cruel child has already pa.s.sed to safety, so lightning kills the kindly laggard child, who is second up the slope. Or say, even, that both who act, either in churlishness or charity, cross the upland meadow safely, so it is the innocent toddler who is killed. Any of those three deaths are possible without a moral being drawn. Do you think that lightning has chosen its victim on the strength of character?"

"Then where does fate come in?" asked the Lion. "Wouldn't this Clock of yours have been able to name what was to happen? Or any blind old oracle worth her salt?"

"Fate is only fate once it has happened. Even our own deaths are only theoretical until we croak."

Ilianora pursed her lips as if trying to decide whether to join the conversation. She did. "There is a fourth child at the base of the hill who can read the weather enough to know that lightning is likely. The child can rush forward to chase all the others off the mound, and she risks being killed in the process. If that brave child is slain by lightning, it is sullen fate at work. But the other children's lives have been altered. History has been vexed by the intercession of a bit player. It is what we hope for, and what we dread, too. Isn't it?"

The dwarf replied, "I dread nothing but garlic m.u.f.fins. Listen, the child who can read the portents of weather may well have hurried the others back down the slope into the jaws of a manticore, itself sensible about lightning and waiting out the storm in the down-slope shrubs."

"Not to act is to act, too," insisted Ilianora.

The dwarf seemed to agree with this, or perhaps he was tired of the discussion. "Couldn't be truer, sweet-cakes, but we haven't time to keep nattering like this. I haven't been stepping sideways for half a century just to be caught, by fate or accident, in some WC in a mauntery, of all G.o.dforsaken places. Break down that door, Lion, and we can all get out, and leave these holy women to their immolation. Might be lively entertainment for a maunt, to be violated and then martyred, but I can't subject my Ilianora to the danger. Lion, the door."

Brrr had little inclination to snap to the dwarf's commands, but he had no inclination at all to stay put. "Always with the doors," he said. "When I broke through at the Witch's castle, I was in better nick." He took off his weskit and folded it neatly as the boys surrendered their cards and collected their ivory quad-ribbed pieces. The little gla.s.s cat blinked, obedient and even docile, but it seemed ready to quit the company of oracles and acolytes.

Ilianora, with a placidity that under the circ.u.mstances suggested a mild mental incompetence, straightened the margins of her veil and stood up. "After you," she said to the Lion, indicating the door.

For the Lion, staying in fighting trim had never been a daily ambition. He did several deep-knee bends and sprang back and forth across the room to get his blood going. Turning to Yackle, he asked, "Are you coming with us? Or is this what you've been waiting for? Death by an army sharpshooter? I shouldn't hang around any longer than necessary-"

Yackle appeared to have pa.s.sed out.

"The sight of me taking any exercise, I know: a taxation to credulity," said Brrr.

"She's ill," said Ilianora. She moved without apparent urgency to the old woman's side, but her voice betrayed some fretfulness at last. The ancient oracle had sloped sideways to the floor and-oh, not a pretty thing to witness-her eyes had actually rolled back in her skull, just as oracles were said to be able to do, so the blind eyes looked inward. Only a glaucous white showed between the remaining shreds of ancient eyelashes.

Ilianora took Yackle onto her lap, like a mother to a child, but reversed.

"She's shamming," said the Lion without conviction.

"Oooh, that's revolting," said one of the boys. "Those eyes."

"She's trying to hold us here," said the dwarf as Yackle began to shake. "She is in cahoots with the powers that be. Pay her no mind. Lion, bust down that door before I bust your chops." He stumped across the floor and showed the Lion a laughable little fist, so close that the pig-bristle hairs growing out of the knuckles went all blurry, and the Lion had to pull back to get them in focus.

"Can we do something to help?" asked Ilianora. Yackle had torn her robes open, and Ilianora tried to close them again. Her attempts were rebuffed by the ancient maunt's thrashing limbs. The sound unreeling from her mouth was a taper of protest; it hummed against-he could hear it now himself, Brrr could-the groan of the oakhair trees as their harp strings swung in the smoke, and shimmered atonally, and then snapped. All this he could hear, and more besides: The room had fallen so very still as everyone watched Yackle in the throes of some condition, as if in the maw of some invisible beast.

"Water for her," murmured Ilianora, and one of the boys brought forward a tumbler of water. But Yackle's mouth wouldn't stay still enough to cup the liquid, and it drained off her face to stain her robe.

Brrr watched as old Shadowpuppet, who had kept its tail tightly wound about its furled legs, now stretched with effort and scrabbled, you'd have to say, across the floor. It put out a paw tentatively against the heavy cross-laid door, and walked its front legs stiffly up the panels till it was leaning against the door like a fragile gla.s.s b.u.t.tress. The cat meowed. Brrr had heard purrs from Shadowpuppet before, but in all these weeks, nothing more expressive than a glottal hum. This complaint was vicious, like the voice of a tomcat being crossed, and reminded him, just for a second, of Muhlama's high-flown irritability.

"Let's go. We're all agreed," said the dwarf. "Even your shattery cat can tell that it's time."

Brrr flipped his notebook closed. Was Yackle shamming? He wouldn't put it past her. But why would she want to hold them there? Not to do him him harm-the EC Messiars wouldn't lay a finger on Brrr, not with his letter of introduction from the EC on his person. Did Yackle know something more about the dwarf than she was letting on? harm-the EC Messiars wouldn't lay a finger on Brrr, not with his letter of introduction from the EC on his person. Did Yackle know something more about the dwarf than she was letting on?

But who cared? He'd gotten a good deal of what he had come for. The old bag of bones could suffer and crumple if she wanted. That was was what she had wanted. And anyway, wasn't bolting from a crisis his special skill and trademark? what she had wanted. And anyway, wasn't bolting from a crisis his special skill and trademark?

He turned back to stalking up and down a few more times. It moved the blood, loosened the joints, bulked up the muscles. It had been a long time since he had had to throw his weight around. Humiliating if he couldn't actually defeat a door in a mauntery, but he tried not to think about that yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dwarf rooting through the pocket of the Lion's own weskit.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing-"

Too late. The dwarf had folded the piece of official vellum into a chevron, and was aiming- "You don't dare!"

The paper soared out the window before the Lion could s.n.a.t.c.h at it. "Now we're all in the same boat," said the dwarf affably. "No one is supplied with special defenses against being aggrieved by the Messiars, or whichever army gets here first. So stop stalling, Lion. Get us out of here before the soldiers arrive."

Brrr could have sprung on the dwarf, swiped him sideways out the window. Mashed him to an ugly organic patty, internal organs extruded like sausage meat through a grinder. Good-bye to Mr. Boss's unblinking unretreating stance, his outthrust bearded chin and agate eyes. His belligerence. His confidence. In one so small: so concentrated. Like Sakkala Oafish. Where did it come from?

Was the dwarf a Glikkun-avenging the Traum Ma.s.sacre, after all this time?

No: That was his own nerves attacking him, a case of the humors. Or, as some called it, paranoia. As much to shake himself up as anything else, Brrr roared. The boys started. The dwarf did not.

The Lion tensed and sprung, rolling his spine forward and sideways, to take the brunt of the impact on his shoulder rather than his skull.

There was a gratifying thud, a shriek of splitting wood, and an echo, but the door did not split. The old oaken planks ran in two depths on the bias, they were laid tongue-and-groove and reinforced by iron braces. And the doorjamb was stone.

"Good one," said the dwarf. "Very nice, that. Expected no less."

"In words of one syllable or less," said the Lion, "first: ow. Next: shut up. You want to take a turn, be my guest."

Ilianora came up to Brrr to press her hands on his shoulder muscles. "Your old auntie needs help," she said. "Wasn't that Munchkinlander maunt who locked us in here a healer? An apothecaire? We must find her."

"You don't understand. If Yackle is failing at last, the last thing she wants is help," said the Lion, shaking Ilianora off. "But I'll try again."

Three, four times at the door.

"Who's in a hurry?" said the dwarf. "Not me. I can't see the army approaching through that high window. I'm too short. So I'm totally unconcerned. I think I'll sit here and teach myself to count in a foreign language. One, two, three, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, six, seven, eight, nine, f.u.c.k."

"Mr. Boss," said Ilianora.

"Hey, look at the see-through p.u.s.s.y," said one of the boys. "She having the genuine hissy fit?"

"Hair ball, more likely," said another.

"Gla.s.s hair ball? Ouch."

Brrr thought: It's as if Shadowpuppet is as alarmed by the loss of the writ as I am. Attuned to my jitters. Some sweet, small consolation.

In protection of Shadowpuppet, if no one else, the Lion made another half-dozen lunges at the door. Eventually the wood split along the grain, and the iron doork.n.o.b and lock hung at a drunken angle. It appeared that Sister Apothecaire had left the key in the keyhole. They had some job reorienting the lock to line up, but eventually they managed, and opened the remains of the door.

"Are you coming?" said the dwarf.

"She's not in a condition to be moved," said Ilianora. "You go, get things in order. We'll follow as soon as we can."

They pelted away. Their footsteps retreating down the stone stairs made an isolating sound. The mauntery echoed like a mausoleum.

Still Yackle twitched, like a blind fish unable to see the string coming out of its mouth or the fisherman overhead, but responsive to every tug. Ilianora kept one hand on Yackle's shoulder or at her wrist.

"You have a talent for comforting the sick?" said Brrr.

"None," she replied. "Why don't you go with them? Nothing is holding you here."

He had no answer so he offered none. "What's your answer to that same question?" he said.

"By long habit," she replied, "I don't answer questions."

"Could we get her on my back?" said Brrr. "Maybe I could carry her down the stairs?"

"She's too brittle, and she's still being bothered by a spell of something."

"Maybe she'll wake up and find herself an infant this time," said Brrr, almost to himself. "With a cowardly Lion and a whatever-you-are for parents. What are you?"

"I'm the handmaiden of the Clock, I suppose," said Ilianora.

"That tells me less than I want to know."

"Are you taking notes?"

"No," he said, "and that's a promise."

She drew her knees up to her chin. She looked like a small Ice Monkey, almost, in her white veil. With Yackle in her white, too, they might be Granny Ice Monkey with Granddaughter. Two weird characters in their matching shrouds.

"Are you Mr. Boss's daughter, or are you married to him?" asked Brrr. "I can't see why anyone would commit herself to a clockwork oracle, unless it was the family business."

"I am not married, and will not be so," said Ilianora. "I'm no longer fit for bearing children."

"You have white hair, but you aren't that old..."

"I had myself closed," she said, "after having heard enough of human iniquity to despair of the species. Closed. So I tread the world lightly, lightly as possible, and I bring no infants forward to suffer as I have done. I worked with the underground vigilantes who struggle against the tyrant on the throne of the Emerald City-our Emperor Apostle-until I learned that in the service of their honorable goal they are capable of actions as dishonorable as the Emperor's-then I gave myself up for lost. I wandered without aim or ambition, a sad folly of a way to spend one's life."

"I wouldn't know, being drenched in accomplishment each time I open a new door-"

She laughed at him; a bell-like sound so devoid of malice that it made his ears ring. Brrr pressed her to continue, not just for the story but because he was blushing. "And the Clock found you and took you hostage?"

"You could say that," she said, "if you believe in oracles. Since I don't believe in fate, it can't hurt me. Its capacity to predict my days is nil. I have apprenticed myself to the Clock's company, and I serve as a kind of watchdog of its prophecies. The dwarf is unscrupulous, just doing his job; he doesn't care what mayhem is rucked up by the Clock. The boys who cycle through the company for months or even years at a time join because they are young and scared of the possibilities of life. A belief in preordained history is consoling to those with few prospects, and the boys generally come from the families of blue-coal miners or serfs. They see a little of Oz, watch the Clock tell its predictions and stir up trouble, and do the dwarf's bidding. I suppose they think it is a way to secure a brighter future."

"Perhaps the boys know more than you do," said Brrr. "Maybe believing in the Clock is its own reward. You've never seen it tell your future for you?"

"I have no future. It wouldn't dare."

"You sound very cynical."

"You've seen enough of life to suggest I should be otherwise?" she asked.

"As I said, a bed of roses and a walk in the park, that's my life story. But look, here comes Yackle blinking back to life. She is an oracle without a bevy of spies or a clockwork instrument. She's the real goods. What might she say to you, if you asked her?"

"I wouldn't listen to it, and anyway I wouldn't ask her," said Ilianora. "Regularly I ask blank paper, and in all my life I've never known magic writing to appear on its blank surface."