Page 176 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

To Call the Lost Forward

I.

Avaric, Margreave of Tenmeadows, was waiting in front of the Bureau of National History to meet La Mombey’s conveyance. The Emperor had given him the dirty job of emcee at the armistice negotiations. At first he wore the sneer of a playground monitor. Well, the place was a shambles. No one had taken a broom to the city yet. The piazza was littered with fragments of marble Ozmas. The sound of trumpeteen and brass-flummery, though shrill, inadequately masked the muttering of the mingy crowd.

It’s a loser’s job to broker the conference, thought Brrr, who peered from behind a toppled column. How surprising that they didn’t offer it to me.

The Lion was looking out for signs of Liir, on Rain’s behalf as well as his own, but the Lion wasn’t eager to be recognized by Avaric. Later, Brrr would hold his tongue when people said of the Margreave that through the truce negotiations he had comported himself with a deference to the Eminence of Munchkinland that seemed little short of concupiscent. Such is the shame of the lawyer. Avaric, they whispered, had never managed to be that fawning even before His very Sacredness, the divine Emperor of Oz.

Which comment, true or not, attached itself to Avaric for the rest of his life and made public dining at the Oak Parlor in the Florinthwaite Club a bloody pain in the arse.

La Mombey alighted in uncinched bell-curves of pure white linen dropping from the shoulder. The mob of spider-things clustered about her with the devotion of bloodhounds until she clicked her fingers, and then they rolled themselves up into bobbins and an assistant swept them into a casket. Once they were gone everyone breathed a bit more easily.

The Lion watched carefully. He’d always possessed a decent eye for detail. He saw how Hiri Furkenstael might have treated the pomp of the occasion. How a student of the School of Bertius might have handled La Mombey’s bib, freely suggesting its pale mink tippets and its appliquéd off-white lozenges inscribed with sigils like letters in a foreign script.

He was memorizing the moment so he could tell his companions about it. How the pale beautiful woman appeared as a smudgy blankness, almost, among the colored leaves of those ornamental shrubs and trees that hadn’t been blasted by shrapnel. Something about her so—so lambent and concealed at once. Floating amid the blur of dissolving Ozmists, or was that sentiment clouding his eye? How to put it?

But so often, before words can rise to the mind to imply the ineffable, the ineffable has effed off. From his place near the ruined Hall of Approval, the Cowardly Lion watched the impossible happen: Loyal Oz falling to the upstart Free State of Munchkinland. Words would fail him, later on.

La Mombey paused so Avaric could approach her. In rounded public tones she summoned the Emperor of Oz to join her for a discussion of the terms of peace. Then her voice dropped, and Brrr couldn’t hear w

hat else was said. After she retreated to her sledge, Avaric stood nodding and bobbing till it slid away. He turned almost at once to where Brrr was hunched behind broken stone. Apparently not hidden well enough, then.

“Sir Brrr, Namory of Oz,” called Avaric. Naturally, thought Brrr, the only time my title is used in public is after the throne that conferred it has collapsed. Figures. “I see you there. I need your advice.”

Brrr prowled up to the man who, once upon a time, had arranged the Lion’s plea bargain and brought him into service of the Emperor’s secret agencies hunting for the Grimmerie.

Avaric spoke as if they’d just fallen in step somewhere in Oz Deer Park or along the Shiz Road. “A propitious time to return to the capital. Now that the army of Animals can lay down its—teeth. But I see you didn’t personally drag in the sledge of La Mombey.”

“I’ve done enough menial toil in my day. That foursome of Tsebras managed an elegant enough job of it without me. Oh, are you implying I’ve arrived as part of a conquering army? Me? How droll. As if I was ever on the winning side. Really, you flatter me.”

Brrr was glad the crowd had melted away with La Mombey’s departure. No one was close by to hear Avaric reply, “You were assigned to discover the whereabouts of the Grimmerie and you never returned. It’s not for me to prosecute you, but I’ll remind you that you jumped probation as set by the magistrates of the Law Courts—”

“One might wonder if those resolutions have been nullified. Given that there’s about to be a new administration in Oz. Anyway, the Law Courts are in recess just now. I passed what was left of them on my way here.”

“Exactly so,” said Avaric. “Leaving other matters aside, I need your help. I can tell by your bedraggled state that you’ve been out and about on the streets of the city. Tell me what you know. What building left standing might be large and dignified enough to house the teams that will work out the conditions for a ceasefire? The Palace is intact, or most of it is, but it might seem ungracious to invite La Mombey in for tea only to have the central dome collapse upon her.”

The Lion thought for a moment. “Well. The People’s Academy of Art and Mechanics is closed for business. That’s out. The Lord Chuffrey Exposition Hall, which had such beautiful light, now has beautiful shadows. But I think the Lady’s Mystique, that small theater on the edge of Goldhaven, is still standing. And what luck—I’ll bet the afternoon matinee has been canceled.”

“Too small, and too—theatrical. The Emperor will need room to be at some distance from La Mombey. Space around His Sacredness.”

The Lion eventually suggested the Aestheticum, a circular brick coliseum of sorts, long ago roofed over for trade shows. A place where antiques vendors displayed their wares—fine art, and the more collectable of historic furniture. He had once cut something of a figure among the great and the good who ran the Aestheticum, back when he had fancied himself a connoisseur. In exchange for any lingering obligation to the Throne Minister of Oz, current or future, to the extent that the Margreave could plead his case, the Lion agreed to make arrangements. “Deal?” asked Avaric.

“Deal,” said Brrr. “Though I suppose it would be overmuch to request an elevation of my title?”

“To Brrr bon Coward, Lord Level of Cowardly Custard and Environs?” Avaric hadn’t lost his capacity to sneer. Brrr realized he’d gone too far.

“Well, tell me this then, because everyone’s asking,” he countered, as much to change the subject as to hear the reply. “Shell Thropp has shown little love for the people he ruled all these years, the people he’s driven into war and ruined. Why is he yielding to Mombey’s aerial attack? It can’t be concern for massive civilian death or the destruction of the Emerald City. Can he really have begun to fear for his own life? Isn’t he immortal?”

“He’s the sort of immortal who will live eternally after his corruptible human sleeve—his shell, as it were—succumbs.” Avaric could talk political theology as smoothly as if he were discussing the point spread in a wager over the gooseball playoffs. “I suppose you know that his real name, the name given him by his unionist minister father, is Sheltergod?”

“And my real name is Birthdaysuit—” the Lion began, but Avaric cut him off.

“The name reflects a sentiment that some spark of the Unnamed God burns within us all. His Sacredness may have determined that he received the lion’s share—”

“Well, he sure got mine, because I harbor no god within me. It sounds like worms. One would need castor oil, or dipping.”

“—but in the panic of La Mombey’s attack, and in sure and certain fear of an insurrection by his own followers, he has been called to yield.”

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