Page 181 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

He pressed his fingers against her temples, pressed a forefinger to his lips to hush her, and sidled away. But the expression on his face said wait, the expression on his face said later; it said soon.

He went to his post behind the dais to which La Mombey would be escorted. With a new military bearing he stood, his polished boots just a little apart, his arms folded behind his back in that gesture that signifies no need for quick access to weaponry. His hair had been cut shorter. Someone had nicked the back of his neck with a razor. After all the blood and death Rain had seen, she wanted to weep over that nick as she hadn’t yet wept.

The Emperor arrived with such a lack of fanfare that at first Rain didn’t even notice. Shell was more hunched than she remembered. He wore a gown of gilded brocade that made a columnar sweep from his narrow pointed beard to his bare toes. Something in his bearing made Rain feel he was naked underneath the robe. Naked and proud. But his eyes looked glazed in a different way, as if perhaps he hadn’t been taking proper nourishment for some days running.

He sat at his schoolboy bench for a few moments. When the air became even grander with the puffery of incense, he removed himself to his knees. Someone hurried over with a cushion but he waved it away, and stayed on his knees, eyes closed, as La Mombey entered at last.

Rain had heard Brrr’s descriptions of the Eminence of Munchkinland—the various guises—and she remembered Tip’s story about how Mombey had come by the skill of transformations. La Mombey looked like—what was it? Yes—she had it—like one of those figureheads on the boats that were dragged across the lawns at Mockbeggar Hall. She might have been carved of ancient oak. Her brow was broad and her wide-set eyes the color of overripe plum. Her hair was not so much blond or carrot as a kind of livid gold, shining with metallic highlights, just as her full skirts and bodice did. She was taller than anyone else in the room.

La Mombey approached her station and curtseyed to the Emperor of Oz and bade him rise. He did. The formal statements began in a humdrum tone, low to the ground, that Rain

didn’t strain to interpret. She merely watched the attitudes of the two leaders, the Emperor’s form sagging, nearly listing, Mombey’s body cantilevered forward with unnatural strength.

Once the proceedings were under way, a steady stream of interpreters, legislators, orators, and reconciliators moved into place, speaking in the vernacular of ceremony. Men and women moved pieces of paper from ledgers to lecterns and back again. Other men and women brought tea. Someone welcomed, late, an emissary of the Nome King of Ev. Someone petitioned that the proceedings be halted until a Quadling representative arrived. Someone else petitioned that that previous petition be reproved. Then the Quadling emissary stood up and said he was already present, thank you very much. It was Heart-of-Mushroom, identifying himself as the Supreme Glaxony of Quadling Country. He wore the same loincloth he’d worn in the jungle, and nothing else.

Eventually the proceedings became humdrum enough that Tip could back up and stand down from the dais, turn to consult an honor guard posted underneath a vulgar plaster cast approximating the famous Ozma Lexitrice statue near the Law Courts Bridge. Tip then circulated the perimeter of the hall, choosing his moments carefully, until he’d returned to the edge of the nook where Rain waited for him.

All eyes were on Mombey and the Emperor. No one looked at Tip, no one saw Rain in the shadows. Even Tay seemed glued to the proceedings. Tip stepped back into the carrel, among the boxy secretaries and bureaus, the carvings, the wardrobes and linen presses. It was no longer like Lady Glinda’s salon. Now it was like the crowded basement shop in Shiz. BROKEN THINGS OF NO USE TO ANYONE BUT YOU.

They didn’t speak, but they mouthed words, and read each other’s lips. Read the language of relief on each other’s faces.

You’re all right.

You’re all right?

Yes, I’m all right. Now.

How did we manage?

How will we manage.

I love—

I love—

There they stuck for a moment, words failing them, until Tip leaned forward. He put his arms around her, cradling her bottom, lifted her till his face was between her breasts. Silently he stepped forward and sat her down on the statue of the knight, on the broad flat blade of the stone sword. We mustn’t, he said. No. It can’t be.

He climbed upon the memorial, clenching her hips with his knees. He cradled the crown of her head with his large soft capable hand; he pressed her backward so her head rested against the pommel and quillion of the marble weapon. Upon a marble homage to a forgotten soldier died in a forgotten battle at a forgotten time for a forgotten cause, he rested his form against hers. No, he said. We shouldn’t.

Tay looked away.

Rain reached up her hand to her neckline. She hooked a finger around the chain and pulled at it until the locket that Nor had given her appeared. She palmed it and then slipped it into her mouth and rolled it on her tongue.

She felt for the skin at the back of his neck, where his scalp had been cut too close. No, mouthed his words, we mustn’t, but his face disagreed, coming nearer to hers. He put his lips upon hers, just lightly grazing. She opened her mouth and gave him her heart.

5.

The prosecution of the surrender was being managed reasonably, with courtesy and even courtliness. The only sticking point emerged when Avaric reminded the ascending Throne Minister of Oz, La Mombey, of the Emperor’s private request. “His Sacredness requires the right to bury the corpse of his nephew, Liir Thropp, who has been taken prisoner by the Munchkinlanders and whose corpse has been brought, it is understood, to the EC from Colwen Grounds.”

“Oh, the bodily husk is of little use,” said La Mombey, at this point barreling through the negotiations herself, because she was getting bored with the high language of deference, and wanted elevation to the throne. “When the time comes, it’ll slough off soon enough.”

“The Emperor agrees about the insignificance of the human body,” countered Avaric, “but in deference to his family he has promised them a proper disposition of the corpse. So the formal grieving can begin.”

“Oh,” said La Mombey, dismissing the matter with her hand once she had understood. “The body of Liir! I see. But he’s not dead. Not essentially. Whoever said he was dead? Yes, I had him drugged and enchanted, to bring him to Munchkinland, and he proved sullen and torpid as a prisoner of war. Refused to help the cause, et cetera. It’s not my fault he’s made no effort to reject his disguise as a Black Elephant. It’s his own lack of will that causes the form to cling to him. The form will kill him if he won’t slough it off. I can’t help that. Hah!—more of a mouse than a man, even. In my opinion he’s not man enough to deserve to be an Elephant. He can’t carry it off. But I thought that was the corpse to which you were referring. True, he refused to come here with us to supervise the handover, either, so I had him drugged again, to spirit him away from my dragonmaster. Liir is not very well; he wasn’t meant to harbor so long in that form, and suffering it may be the death of him, in time. But for now he’s relatively alive in that shroud of an Elephant body, I’m afraid. I thought you wanted to demand his release. Wasn’t that it? I got up too early, I’m not focusing.”

At this Shell spoke for the first time, giving his final directive as Emperor. “He is, nonetheless, a relative, even if I never recognized him as such the few times our paths crossed. Sever him from his disguise, so I may honor my word to his kin and mine.”

“A condition of the surrender agreement,” intoned Avaric.

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