Oz Reimagined Part 16

"He imbued her diadem with a sleeping spell," Flashgleam continued.

I allowed myself a raised brow. "That part isn't common knowledge."

"I'm not a common woman."

She leaned toward me, placing her hands on my desk. Her eye loomed giant in my jeweler's loupe, an aristocratic shade of deep river-green.

"I think you're more like him than you let on," Flashgleam said. "Am I right?"

When I said nothing, she reached into the purse hung on her sash and pulled out a handful of sparkling green chips.

"I can offer incentive," she said.

As I looked into her palm, I struggled to maintain my equanimity.

"They're genuine," she said, answering my unspoken question. "Lurline emeralds."

Lurline emeralds were the most valuable gem in all of Oz. They'd been created when Lurline made fairyland, and they were imbued with her magic. My grandfather had worked with them when he was a jeweler for the court. None were supposed to exist outside of the Ozmas' treasury.

Exercising my steeliest will, I waved my hand in refusal. "If I help you, I will do it out of conviction. Not avarice."

The rest of our conversation is easy to imagine, but I'll add one corroborating detail: When Flashgleam Sparkle left my shop that afternoon wearing her woolen traveling cloak, neither I nor anyone else in the City saw her for several days. It wasn't long after she returned that all the globes in the City lit up with those sparkling emerald serifs.

WISH.

There are many people in the Emerald City who are discontented with the Wizard.

Some are Ozma purists, waiting for the return of Ozma XVII. Others note his fascistic tendencies: public punishments, harsh curfews, a large and well-armored imperial guard.

Where the Ozmas had always delegated policy-making to the Witches of the Realms, the Wizard insisted on deciding all matters without regard for local hierarchies. Against his advisors' warnings, he'd implemented the embargo against the Wicked Witch of the West, ostensibly motivated by concern for the Winkie people, but it was well-known that the actual dispute was about the Wizard's attempts to control the provinces.

Flashgleam Sparkle dislikes the Wizard because, unlike the Ozmas, he declines to be controlled by the n.o.bility. She finds herself cut loose from the power she'd always a.s.sumed would be hers by right of inheritance.

I myself dislike the Wizard for much the same reason that I expect my grandfather disliked Ozma XVI. My family has served monarchs as their jewelers for generations. We've always paid attention to their flaws. The Wizard doesn't really care about the people. Ozma XVI didn't either.

Maybe Flashgleam Sparkle will.

"I'm a bit different from the others," the Tin Man told Glinda when it was his turn with her. "The Scarecrow never had a brain. The Lion never had any courage. I used to have a heart."

He rapped his knuckles against the side of his head. The sound echoed in his empty skull. "I don't have a brain anymore either, but what I miss is my heart."

The illusion of emotion clouded his eyes, something complicated and delicate like wistfulness or regret.

"I don't have blood anymore, so I won't need my heart to pump," he said. "All I need to do is feel. More deeply and more complexly than I ever did. Every minute. Every hour. I want to understand what it feels like to hate and love and laugh at something at the same time. I want to feel the poignant pain of looking at something beautiful and knowing it's going to die. I want to feel everything. Everything."

His fingers grasped the air, trying to hold on to something that wasn't there, a gesture that could easily have been mistaken for pa.s.sion.

His hand drifted back to his side.

"If I win, of course," he added softly.

Last night's poppy challenge was a bit silly. Make the best bouquet you can in ten minutes. But oops, there's a twist. The bouquet was only a decoy. The real challenge was to get out of the poppy field before falling asleep.

The Tin Man and the Scarecrow, having no circulatory systems, were immune to poppy pollen, which everyone agreed was unfair. They carried Dorothy out of the poppy field when she fell asleep, but the Lion was too heavy for them to bring along.

It looked as though the Lion was out until the Tin Man accidentally rescued the Queen of the Field Mice, earning a challenge advantage. The Queen of the Field Mice promised him a favor, which he immediately spent by asking her tiny, squeaking subjects to drag the Lion out of the poppy field.

A lady sitting near me gestured angrily at her emerald globe. "That doesn't even make sense!"

Her hat was wide-brimmed with dense feathers, and her anger had caused her to gesture with such pa.s.sion that she was in danger of losing her headgear to the water.

"It does seem a bit silly," agreed a friend of hers who was wearing a rather more sensible cloche.

"Deus ex mus!" shouted a mustachioed gentleman.

"Stupid strategy," someone else muttered. "They should have ditched Dorothy and the Lion and taken a ticket to the top two."

"But they made a pact!" cried the lady again. "You wouldn't leave behind a sweet girl like that, would you?"

"Bread and circuses, my dear fellows, bread and circuses," said a man near the middle of the pool. He wore a homburg and a stern expression, reminding us that, as intellectuals, we were there to a.n.a.lyze, not involve ourselves in drama.

In our globes we saw the field mice returning. Squeaking, they emerged from the field of flowers, each harnessed with fine thread to a wagon.

Atop the wagon, the Cowardly Lion lay, drowsing, an upturned scarlet poppy capping his nose. He woke with a sneeze that sent the poppy tumbling.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "What happened? Is there a monster? Don't let it eat me!"

His eyes were so round with fear that even the man in the homburg laughed.

After watching my fellow Emerald intellectuals discuss the poppy challenge, I learned two things. First, that I am strangely rea.s.sured to find that even the most jaded of my fellow Citizens can still feel tenderly for a lost child. Second, that the contestants had finally made their way to the emerald gates, and whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon.

I learned to cut gems while sittinga"as the saying goesa"at my grandfather's knee. Literally on his knee, in my case; I needed the boost so I could see his worktable. I watched his face as often as I watched his hands. He squinted while he worked. His nostrils flared with concentration.

He was an unmade man by then, cast down from courtly heights to the small corner where my shop still resides. His days of working with Lurline emeralds were long past, but his unmatched work brought many aristocrats to him anyway, toting their unset sapphires and their rubies of unknown provenance.

Ozma herself had spared his life. With a yawn and a tinkling laugh, she'd said, "Oz must preserve beautiful things!"

Still, she let her witches weave chains around my grandfather's ankles so that he could not leave his allotted rooms.

When customers came in, he'd sweep me off his knee and hand me a spare loupe. He'd push the loupe against my eye and then lean down, speaking quietly, so that no one could hear him. "Watch for the imperfections. There are imperfections everywhere. Never trust anyone who pretends to be flawless."

Glinda finds the Scarecrow in the chamber on the outskirts of the royal sector that he's been given for the night. He trips over the loose straw in his feet as he escorts her in and lands with a thump on the floor.

A concerned expression flashes across Glinda's face. The Scarecrow waves it away.

"If I had a fit every time I did something stupid, I'd spend all day stomping around."

He's a good-natured fellow, the Scarecrow, quick to mock himself, which I'd guess he'd have to be with those guilelessly painted eyes and that swaying, straw-stuffed gait.

Glinda asks him why he wishes he had a brain. "That's a good question!" he exclaims. "I don't know why I think I want to think since I don't have a brain to think I want to think with. But I'd like to think anyway. At least I think so. You think?"

He sits on the bed and leans against the emerald headboard. At his feet, there's a pair of complimentary emerald-encrusted slippers, which must be awful to wear.

"I was only born the day before yesterday," the Scarecrow says, "so maybe my opinion doesn't count. But it's awfully pretty, isn't it?"

Glinda turns to see what he's looking at. It's sunset blazing through the window, reds and golds and violets refracting through the City's crystalline towers.

The Scarecrow's voice is lower when he continues. "I want a brain, but I think if I get one, I'll be sad that my friends couldn't get what they want, too. Is that what thinking gets you? Understanding that a sweet thing can be bitter, too?"

He looks sadly at Glinda.

"Maybe that's not right. You'd know better than I do. You have a brain."

Tonight. Whatever is going to happen will happen tonight.

Everyone in Flashgleam's rebellion wears a watch that I have calibrated. When the tick tells me to, I depart the bathhousea"where everyone is still watching Glinda and the Scarecrowa"and head into the corridor.

The City is a labyrinthine place, built as a single creation. It's not like the towns out in Gillikin Country, where one house is distinct from the next. In the City, towers share walls and are connected by archways. Central towers look down on courtyards; those on the outskirts look out over Oz. The royal spire rises above all others, gazing imperially downward.

I work my way along jeweled corridors. Few people are out; most of the population is congregated in bathhouses and parlors. Those that aren't walk swiftly, hunched over handheld globes.

I wear my grandfather's cloak anyway. For disguise. For confidence.

The corridors grow increasingly ornate as I near the royal sector. Gold embellishes the archways. Statues of the Ozmas (their nameplates removed by the new regime) pose gracefully in niches. The hundred pa.s.sages that wind through the City's outskirts converge into a few main arteries.

From behind me I hear a page trumpeting. Footsteps echo. Bad luck for me. The royal pages have chosen to escort the contestants down this corridor.

I shrink against the wall. It's best they don't see me. I don't want to be delayed.

Still, I admit, I'm fascinated to watch the finalists pa.s.s. The Tin Man walks first, each movement clanking. The Scarecrow follows, his straw fingers wrapped around those of the little girl. The Tin Man and Scarecrow look more wary than hopeful. Perhaps they are concerned that there will be another challenge waiting, or perhaps they are wondering whether everything that's happened is a trick. The Tin Man tightens his fingers around his axe, and the Scarecrow clutches the little girl's hand, both of them protecting her as best they know how.

Dorothy dances delightedly down the hall, exclaiming over the jewels and statues, without a hint of fright in her eyes.

The Cowardly Lion slinks after them, belly low to the ground.

How cruel it seems that none of them will get their wish.

What would I wish for?

What would I tell Glinda if she were sitting beside me, the fabric of her gown pooling around her knees?

I'd tell her, I think, that I wish everyone had a jeweler's loupe.

I wish that everyone would try to see things as they really are.

I wish that everyone would understand that glamour is often deceit.

I wish that everyone would realize that when you know a flaw is there, you can figure out how to work with it, how to cut around it, how to make the gem glow despite the cracks. Everyone should know how to make the most beautiful objects they can out of things that aren't perfect.

Because nothing is perfect.

Eight anterooms branch off of the Wizard's audience chamber. We meet in the one Flashgleam described. Today she's more suitably attired, wearing a high-waisted gown with a narrow skirt draped in tiers. Her head is bare except for a single peac.o.c.k feather pinned over one ear.

She's deep in conversation with the other conspirators. There are perhaps half a dozen; it's difficult for me to distinguish one from the next, as they are all cloaked and in the shadows.

I stand quietly aside until Flashgleam notices my presence. She claps me familiarly on the shoulder. She means to compliment, I think, but her touch is uncomfortable.

From within her cloak, she withdraws an enormous emerald that's been carved into a spike. The wickedly sharp tip glints even in this dark room. She offers it, blunt end first.

"Symbols," she says, "It's all about symbols. The City itself is purging him. The emeralds themselves are rising up."

The spike is cool in my palm. A real emerald would be too fragile to wield as a weapona"this one must be enchanted. It must be a Lurline emerald, purloined from Ozma's treasury. To think that anyone could steal such an enormous jewel is startling, but if anyone can, it's Lady Sparkle.

"You're the perfect one to do this." Her voice is soft and charismatic and urgent. "The avatar of emerald."

Perhaps it's the magic of the emerald in my palm that blunts my tongue. "And this way no one n.o.ble has to dirty their hands."

"No, of course that's not why," she a.s.sures me rapidly. Despite her shocked tone, we both know she's lying.

I wish I had my jeweler's loupe today, but all I have are my eyes. Lady Sparkle's skin is smooth. Her lips are beautifully rounded. There's not a blemish on her cheek, not a discoloration on her costume, not a barbule out of place in the peac.o.c.k feather behind her ear.

At normal magnification she's flawless.

Jewelers are trained to cut gems, not break them, but in training for the first, one must inevitably learn the second.

A chisel, misplaced, will transform a jewel that was once worth Ozma's ransom into something worthless and fractured.

You can crack a gem in two. You can shatter it. You can do many things that a jeweler ought not to.

A jeweler understands the vulnerability of stone.

The other conspirators rush around at whatever business Flashgleam has a.s.signed them. They pay me no attention.

I recognize one of them now that she's thrown off her cloak. It's Glinda, wearing a white robe with a starched collar. She stands at the entrance to the audience chamber, holding back the velvet curtain that separates us from where the Wizard is receiving Dorothy and her fellows. She only holds it open a fraction, but it still seems a silly risk to me.

Not, apparently, to Flashgleam, who moves to join her. She peers over Glinda's shoulder and gestures to me.

A risk it may be, but I might as well. If the Wizard finds us now, it will make little difference whether I'm at the forefront or standing back.

"There it is," Flashgleam whispers to me, pointing. "The throne with the screen on it. Do you see?"

"He's a clever old b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Glinda says. Surprisingly, despite her harsh words, her voice is as honeydew as ever.

"Shh," says Flashgleam.

She points again, this time indicating the contestants who are entering the chamber. The Tin Man stands at the forefront, axe in hand, protecting the other three.

Lights flash through the audience chamber. Flashgleam points to the spots on the ceiling where concealed bulbs are shining down magenta and cerulean.