Page 173 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

Rain felt cornered by sacredness.

She knew her great-grandfather had been a unionist missionary to the Quadlings, trying to convert them. She knew her great-aunt Nessarose had inherited his convictions and institutionalized them in Munchkinland, a theocracy overturned only when Dorothy arrived the first time. She knew her great-uncle Shell was divine, or divine enough.

On the other hand, of her grandmother Elphaba’s convictions she knew nothing. And while Liir had expressed admiration for the courage of independent establishments of outspoken maunts like the place Little Daffy had come from, he had perpetrated in Nether How no ritual of prayer, no theological discussion. And Candle’s faith was limited to herbs and intuition.

So Rain had avoided the questions of devotion, mostly. The concept of an Unnamed God was too much for her. If you’re abandoned by your parents, do you hunt them down to love them more deeply, or do you learn to do without? If the Unnamed God has gone to ground leaving no forwarding address, why bother to pester him?

Still. Rain had had just enough schooling at St. Prowd’s to be able to think for herself. It would take a pretty talented godhead to infuse itself in a single person as the living essence of the land—the very Ozness that made it be Oz. If this were really true, then what would happen to Oz if Shell Thropp, Emperor, happened to get a splinter in his naked heel? And die a week later of a rude infection that refused to acknowledge the divinity of the foot it blistered?

“You are too great for me to know who you really are,” she admitted. “But I know something of who I am. I am the daughter of Liir. I’m told that I’m the granddaughter of Elphaba. I’m your great-niece. My name is Rain.”

“She’s also the rightful daughter of Munchkinland,” Dorothy interrupted. “If I’ve got the line of succession straight, and I’ve been keeping track, the Eminenceship of Munchkinland descends through the female line. So the nearest female relative of the last ruling Eminence has preference. That would be my friend Rain here.”

“I don’t care about that,” said Rain. “I only want to know if you have taken my father. Your nephew, Liir. Someone kidnapped him and made off with the Grimmerie. We have come to secure his release.” She rephrased that to be more docile. “I mean, to beg for his release. Humbly.”

The divine Emperor looked just a little annoyed. “I don’t barter with human lives.”

“You attacked Munchkinland when I was eight,” said Rain. “Human lives tend to be involved in military attacks.”

“His Sacredness has consternation in his heart. Go away.”

Dorothy drew herself up. “Look, you. I know what I’ve done and not done. I have no need of your certificate of forgiveness unless I ever meet up with Toto and in all the excitement he has an accident. He’s not a puppy. A convenient roll of testimonial parchment could come in handy just then.”

“His Sacredness has a headache. Do go away.”

“You’ll have more than a headache when I get through. When I arrived first time I came in a house that smashed your first sister. Before I left I threw a bucket that splashed your second sister. Is it time for me to take care of you, too? As I was preparing for my encore, I brought down a good deal of San Francisco with me. I arrived from heaven in a gilded elevator cage right down the side of a mountain. I’m getting pretty good at this. I can bring upon your holy kingdom an entire downtown district of hearty commercial buildings. Just try me.”

A pretty bold bluff, Rain thought, but it may not work on someone like Shell, who has lived in power for so long he doesn’t remember what it’s like to be powerless.

Dorothy clasped her hands together and prepared to break her promise not to sing. Rain motioned to her, don’t, don’t. Dorothy filled her lungs with air and, consumed with trust in the conviction of sweet melody, fixed upon her countenance an expression of mighty choral readiness. La Belle Dame sans Merci.

Great-uncle Shell, you’re not the only one who’s become deranged by power, thought Rain.

As the tiktok characters ran for cover, the door of the magnificent salon opened up, and Avaric bon Tenmeadows rushed in. “What is the meaning of this?” he cried.

Dorothy opened her mouth and began to sing about rainbow highways and raindrops and storms. Awful lot of rain in there, thought Rain. The thunderclouds broke overhead at the same instant, a tympanic accompaniment to the sound of Dorothy’s voice. When she reached the end of her musical preamble and paused for breath before launching into the melody proper, the thunder roll was deteriorating and another mounding behind it to take its place. They realized that it wasn’t only thunder overhead.

I4.

The autumn clouds covering central Oz had screened the approach from the east of the dragons trained by Trism bon Cavalish. Maybe their arrival over the Emerald City had kindled the lightning and signaled the thunder. Or maybe it was only the meanness of the Unnamed God, allowing fire and destruction to rain upon the capital under the guise, initially, of an ordinary cloudburst.

In the sudden darknes

s, Rain and Dorothy ran for cover. They followed the tiktok acolytes until, one by one, the tiktokery exploded their glass gaskets due to barometric anomalies, spinning out on the marble floors, knocking over the plinths of fresh flowers. The girls didn’t know if Shell was behind them, but they could hear the man named Avaric calling to someone, so perhaps he was leading the Emperor to safety.

“Don’t go outside,” they heard Avaric’s voice yell, but Dorothy was freaked by the sound of collapsing buildings. “We’ll be crushed in this damn place, a mausoleum in the making,” she yelled at Rain, and grabbed her hand. “It’s this way, I’m sure. I’m pretty good at directions.”

“How do you get out of Oz, then?” screamed Rain, with a touch of hysteria of her own. Was her father here in this roar of tumbling stone, or was he safe somewhere else? Or, anyway, safer?

Dorothy’s sense of the architecture of the palace wasn’t quite what she advertised. They ran through a long, slightly bowed corridor of steep arches, like the hollowed-out chambers of a lake nautilus built on a scale for giants, and they came across Avaric approaching from the other direction. He was leading Shell by the hand. A contingent of palace apparatchiks and staff huddled behind them.

“The city is under attack,” Avaric told them.

“And I’m just warming up,” said Dorothy, assuming a performance pose.

“Don’t!” cried Shell.

“Where is Liir?” demanded Dorothy, going up to the Emperor. “Where’s that damn book? Tell us, or I’ll go into a reprise.”

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