Page 75 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“A stage name for a commanding officer,” said the Lion. “It’s all stage stuff now, isn’t it?”

“Get me my wrap, I don’t need the second act,” she replied.

The dwarf and the Munchkinlander retired on the other side of the Clock. Rain and Tay crept in among the earthquake ruins, and no one stopped them. Muhlama and Brrr stayed awake, side by side, looking not at each other but at the horizon to the east, where creatures with names like Mombey and Jinjuria were providing some background static to the story of the Cats’ rendezvous.

22.

Under stars at first, then under a waterstain of vaporous cloud, high up. They didn’t talk anymore, not till morning.

Ilianora gave the Tiger ample distance, and offered her no coffee.

“I’m no threat to you, Brrr. I’m joining no mission,” said Muhlama. “I’m bringing you out to your counterparts where they wait, and then going my own way. Ever was a rogue Tigress. But I confess to a little curiosity about that Matter of Dorothy. When I heard you were involved, I admit I was surprised. You didn’t seem to have it in you to get so deep into a mess like that.”

“Yes, well, life, it does broaden you. It was just after I left you.”

“I left you,” she reminded him. “But let’s not monkey with nuance. Tell me about that creature. The things that are said about her! A holy fool, say some. A saint. A termagant. A pawn of someone’s larger campaign. She brought down the Wicked Witch of the West, for all her clumsiness—maybe through her clumsiness, for all I know. You were there. What happened?”

“I was nearby,” said the Lion. “I wasn’t present, no matter what the papers said. No one was there but Dorothy and the Witch. No one saw what happened. Liir and I were locked in the scullery, and I had managed to break through the door…”

“My hero,” she purred, meanly.

“But I didn’t get up to the parapet on time. The Witch was gone, and Dorothy descended, blasted and incoherent about what had happened. She was never coherent about very much, come to think of it.”

“Spoken like someone trying to distance himself from the inconvenience of a prior sympathy. But I never understood about the shoes. Magic shoes. Shoes, of all things? Why not magic braces? Or underwear?”

“I didn’t write the script. Don’t ask me.”

“The Witch’s reputation is ripe for a comeback,” said Muhlama. “At least in Munchkinland it is. That peculiar creature, Elphaba Thropp, had positioned herself in opposition to the stony faith that ran in her family. Her minister father, her totalitarian sister—and now her brother is god himself! Never underestimate the mood swings of the crowd. Dorothy’s gone from being thought a heroine to being tagged as an assassin, and Elphaba from Wicked Witch to martyred champion. At least in some circles.”

“The pendulum will swing.”

“Ah, but is there such a thing as a pendulum anymore?” They looked at the collapsed Clock, which Mr. Boss continued to try to clean and organize as if by dint of polish and spit he could persuade it to revive. But it was the preparing of a corpse, no more than that. Everyone could see it.

“You haven’t said to whom we’re headed,” said Brrr. “Is it Lady Glinda? Is she released from house arrest?”

“I don’t follow the columns,” said Muhlama. “Anyway, I’m not talking.” She glanced over at Tay, the rice otter, who lay unrepentantly greenly in Rain’s arms. “You never know who is a squealer.”

Brrr had to agree. “So enough is enough,” said Muhlama. “I’ve done my work, I need to get on.”

“But get on where?” he asked her, as they righted the husk of the Clock. The broken dragon head cantilevered forward, eyeless and insensate.

“Where are you going? And alone? Or is there a companion?”

“You’re so coy.”

“Stay with me, now,” said Ilianora to Rain. “Keep close.” But the girl paid her no more attention than she ever had.

“I’m causing trouble,” said Muhlama to Brrr, tossing her head toward Ilianora. “Pity.”

“Only so much I can do,” replied the Lion, equivocating.

That night Brrr asked of the companions, “Are we going our separate ways?” Muhlama, having said she would deliver them to their party in the morning, had taken herself off for a hike, to give the companions privacy to confer. “I mean, there can be no company of the Clock of the Time Dragon anymore, can there, if there is no Clock?”

“It’s resting. It’s called Time Out,” said the dwarf, back to his old belligerence.

“The Lion has a point. Your primary charge was security for the Grimmerie, wasn’t it?” said Little Daffy to her husband. “To hear you tell it, the Clock was invented as a wheeled cabinet for safekeeping. Distraction to the masses on the one hand, a magic vault on the other. No one would fault us if we ditched the scabby thing now. We sure could move ahead faster without it. The book is still intact.”

“You don’t need me to carry a book,” continued Brrr. “I was a helpful donkey in the shafts of the cart, sure, but I’m not a house pet.”

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