Part 24 (1/2)
The dwarf didn't answer. He seemed just as captivated as they.
The embrace was brief and, if you could credit such a thing between figures of painted wood and cloth, pa.s.sionate. Then Elphaba whipped away offstage, and the lights went half down. They were beginning to come up elsewhere, on a lower section, a grid of iron behind which something was beginning to happen: a huge golden fish, a carp or something, floating.... But Brrr's eye was caught by a flash of movement on the darkened deck, and he whistled. ”Something else up there-look!”
The puppet of the Winkie prince had gone into a slump, perhaps a kind of postcoital doze, when a figure up on top of the wardrobe appeared. It was a funny little white pincus.h.i.+on sewn over with small mirrors that caught the limited light.
Brrr said, ”A little star up there? A small overweight star spying from the wardrobe?” But the bright lumpy thing leaped down with an undeniably feline agility, and stalked on stiff little furry legs to the sleeping lover. The creature sniffed the man up and down, from his soft breathing nostrils to his groin.
Brrr found himself holding his breath.
As if to protect Shadowpuppet, he reached down and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gla.s.s cat, turning its head from the entertainment. But no cat, gla.s.s or otherwise, yields to this sort of command, and it squirmed its neck about so its gla.s.sy eyes could follow the movements on the stage.
”Powerful entertainment. My little critter's rapt,” he said, as much to himself as to the others.
The white cat in the tableau ran to a doorway at the rear of the stage, and mewed-three harsh mews, cut off, more like words. Not so much ”meow” as ”now-now-now!”
Several bits of shadow, with masks and cudgels, shaped themselves into more or less human form, and they surged forward, four, five of them-the sleeping man woke, and cried out twice-and then the cudgels were upon him. The toy blood realistically sprayed the stage. The puppet cat watched, and then licked the blood off its mirrors.
The gla.s.s cat in Brrr's arms began to squirm. Brrr held it more tightly. It protested with meows like insults.
”Now, settle down, you,” said Brrr. ”Don't want you running away and hiding just when we're getting ready to fold up shop here and skedaddle. Can't imagine either army would treat you as well as I do.”
”You oaf,” cried Shadowpuppet. ”I can't breathe.”
”What in tarnation's corner!” Brrr thrust Shadowpuppet away, as if it were possessed, but caught himself from das.h.i.+ng it to the ground. He barked at the dwarf, ”My only comfort, my pet, and you paint it a small villain? Is this how you catch your audiences, sowing discord and suspicion among them?”
”Don't look at me,” said the sergeant-at-hand. ”I'm staff, not management.”
”And you-” Brrr winced at the wriggling thing. ”You suddenly borrow enough language to lodge a complaint mightier than a meow? Have you been enchanted by this, this puppet play-or are you smoked out by it?”
”You!” said Ilianora. ”You were an informer on Elphaba and-and-” She nearly couldn't say his name. ”And Fiyero? You? You?” She grabbed Shadowpuppet from Brrr and squeezed it so hard its tail broke off, and splintered upon the cobbles.
The gla.s.s cat-was it a it a Cat Cat?-reared and shot its claws. Ilianora, weeping, flinched away and flung the Cat on the ground. It didn't shatter, but a front leg bent laterally in an unnatural way, as if the Cat had taught its forearm how to cast a shuttle across a loom. It sat there and just managed to crane around enough to lick the blood from the stump of the severed tail. The blood was thin and brown, like s.h.i.+t water.
”Shadowpuppet! Were you spying on the Witch? Were you in the Wizard's employ? How could you-how you could-a traitor-a turncoat-”
”The word you want,” said the dwarf, ”is fink. Or, if you're being fancy, collaborationist.”
Brrr felt he suddenly understood what it might mean if he said I am beside myself! I am beside myself! The world contorting again, long after he had thought it possible to learn anything new. It was like being back in the Great Gillikin Forest, suddenly recognizing that the musical repertoire of humans that he was overhearing was in fact language, implying meaning, implying a secret world he might uncover. The bone-icing creepiness of realizing that an Animal can masquerade as an animal! He hadn't known it possible. The world contorting again, long after he had thought it possible to learn anything new. It was like being back in the Great Gillikin Forest, suddenly recognizing that the musical repertoire of humans that he was overhearing was in fact language, implying meaning, implying a secret world he might uncover. The bone-icing creepiness of realizing that an Animal can masquerade as an animal! He hadn't known it possible.
”Oh, we all have our disguises,” said Shadowpuppet irritably. ”You think only a big Cat can practice sedition?”
The Cat hissed at them all. The dwarf continued, ”No need to get so worked up over it, Mister Lion. The episode depicted by the Clock didn't involve you, far as I could see.”
”No, it didn't,” said Brrr. ”But I took on Shadowpuppet as my pet-”
”Hah,” said the Cat. ”No, sir, I took on you you as an a.s.signment. To end my long career in a last bout of usefulness, and look-I've all but been thrown out on my a.s.s.” as an a.s.signment. To end my long career in a last bout of usefulness, and look-I've all but been thrown out on my a.s.s.”
”a.s.signment for whom?” asked Brrr.
”The regimes change, the posts are filled and vacated and refilled. I can hardly remember the current personnel. Think you'll take my my deposition? Think again. Anyway, as if I owe deposition? Think again. Anyway, as if I owe you you an explanation?” an explanation?”
”You do,” said Ilianora. ”If you informed against the Witch, you were an agent in the death of Fiyero Tigelaar. And he was my father.”
”Was he now,” said the Cat. ”Pity, that.”
”Nor?” said Yackle, turning her head toward Ilianora. ”Nor Tigelaar? Fiyero's daughter?”
”Nor was a girl, and that girl is dead,” said Ilianora. ”That girl died in Southstairs Prison...I go by the name of Ilianora now.” She dropped her veil back from her forehead. ”If a Cat can skulk around disguised as a cat, a girl can certainly disguise herself as a woman.” Her tone was cool and not particularly flummoxed.
Brrr had never known Fiyero, but long ago he had traveled to the Emerald City with the boy sometimes thought to be Fiyero's illegitimate son. ”Ilianora, listen: The Witch's boy-Elphaba's charge-was looking for you some years back. Did he ever find you?”
”Liir?” said Ilianora. ”Liir, you mean? Is he still alive?”
”Twenty years ago he was,” said Brrr.
”Ten years ago he was still alive,” said Yackle. ”He'd be, oh, twenty-nine or thirty by now. Excuse me for hurrying this along, but why don't you ask the Clock?” years ago he was still alive,” said Yackle. ”He'd be, oh, twenty-nine or thirty by now. Excuse me for hurrying this along, but why don't you ask the Clock?”
”It does no good to ask the Clock,” said the dwarf curtly. ”The clock only reveals what it will.”
They all turned to look at it again.
”You'd be thirty-five then,” said Brrr. ”Or so. You were older than Liir, right?”
She didn't answer. Her face was in her hands. The news that someone had once hunted for her seemed to be seeping in.
”You have someone who cares for you,” said Brrr. ”Somewhere. You don't need to languish in thrall to a dwarf. You don't owe him anything.”
”Don't mind me,” said the sergeant-at-hand. ”I didn't snitch on any Winkie prince. I don't take sides. I mind my own business. Little me and my own ten toes, each more blameless than the one next door.”
- 3 -
YACKLE WAVED her hands loosely in the air, as if casting spells or shooing chickens. She began to get excited. ”Open your trove, Mister Boss, and let me at it.” her hands loosely in the air, as if casting spells or shooing chickens. She began to get excited. ”Open your trove, Mister Boss, and let me at it.”
”You're off your rocker,” began the dwarf.
”Don't deny me my last moment.” Yackle rubbed her eyes with her fists, impatiently. Brrr thought: She'd force her eyes to focus one last time, if she could.
”Show's over,” growled the dwarf. ”You've agitated my virgin missus. En't that enough trouble for one day?” He began to slap up the hinged stages and secure the shutters. ”We gave it a chance, and it's paid us with a sc.r.a.p of useless history. Who cares if that friable Cat once worked for ye olde Wizard of Oz? He's long gone, and it's Emperor Sh.e.l.l on the throne now. All that bunk of espionage and a.s.sault is ancient history and does no one any good, least of all the Cat, with its fragmented tail.”
The Clock disobeyed the dwarf and clattered its central stage open again.
”Huffy, are we?” said the dwarf. ”Feeling our oats, eh? This is a strange turn of affairs.” But he backed off a little, nonplussed.
”Look,” said Brrr.
”Easy for you to say,” replied Yackle, tapping one dead eyelid with her fingernail.