A Dark Descent, Page 2

  “That was a statue,” Glinda corrected, doubling her pace. “This time I need to find her for real. You heard what my mother said before she ran off on that yellow brick road. ‘Find Mythra.’ And that is exactly what I’m going to do!”

  “Glinda,” began Miss Gage, who, along with Clumsy Bear, struggled to keep up with Glinda’s speed.

  But Glinda had already climbed over a stone wall and leaped across a narrow creek, marching faster and more furiously as she went. Ben, Shade, and Locasta stayed close at her heels, while Feathertop soared just overhead, causing Glinda’s coppery hair to flutter in the breeze of his broad wings.

  “I’m still not entirely clear about who Mythra is,” Locasta panted. “Besides being a hero of Oz, that is.” She glanced at Shade. “Have you heard anything?”

  “Only a whispered mention here and there,” Shade replied. “It’s said she was the king’s Mystic, the one who ushered him to his place as rightful ruler. And because no one was more knowledgeable in the ways of Magic, it was she who trained the Regents Valiant to lead the four countries of Oz while Oz himself ruled from the Centerlands.”

  Glinda listened to Shade’s insights and kept her eyes trained on the armory in the distance. The village was not far off, and in the center of it was Madam Mentir’s Academy for Girls. As she hurried on, a plan began to form in her mind. She would commandeer the school as a base for the Foursworn Rebellion, and from there she would begin her search for Mythra, the Priestess Mysterious.

  “Shade, please go to the academy,” she instructed. “Find Madam Mentir, Misty Clarence, and any other faculty member who remains loyal to the Wicked regime. Until we can decide what to do with them, we’ll hold them in the school’s cellar.”

  “Like a dungeon?” Locasta let out a chuckle. “Impressive.”

  “Feathertop and I will help with that,” Ben offered, and the three of them rushed ahead, disappearing into the falling twilight.

  “Clumsy,” she called, “go into the forest, and apprehend any Wicked sympathizer who might be attempting to flee.”

  The bear gave an affirmative wuffle-snuff, tripped over his front paws, then righted himself and loped off toward the trees.

  “Glinda!” Miss Gage shouted. “Please, wait . . . there’s something you should know.” Catching up at last, she clamped her hand around Glinda’s arm and dragged her to a stop. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but no matter how hard you try, you will never find Mythra.”

  “Of course I will,” said Glinda.

  “No, you won’t. You can’t find her, Glinda. No one can.”

  Glinda’s stomach clenched as the words sank in. “Why is that?”

  “Because,” the teacher whispered, lowering her eyes. “Mythra . . . is dead!”

  2

  TRUTH . . . ABOVE ALL

  Dead.

  The word was like a spell designed to strike Glinda senseless. Mythra was dead.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gage. “But the powerful Priestess Mysterious died the same night King Oz was defeated.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Glinda, recalling how Shade had listened to the stained-glass windows in King Oz’s Reliquary to recount the events of that awful night. At the hands of the Wicked Witches, the Regents Valiant had been lost, and the king himself destroyed. But there had been no mention of a Mystic named Mythra falling victim to their attack. “The last thing my mother said before she left to follow the Road of Yellow Brick was ‘Find Mythra.’ ”

  “Maybe she was confused,” ventured Locasta.

  “My mother is a Grand Adept of the Foursworn,” Glinda hissed. “She doesn’t get confused!”

  Locasta gave a little snort and planted her hands on her hips. “Parents aren’t infallible, Glinda! Sometimes they let you down. Sometimes, like Tilda, they just disappear and never come ba—”

  With a roar, Glinda yanked the sword from her sash and held the lethal tip to Locasta’s throat.

  Miss Gage gasped.

  But Locasta simply grinned and whispered, “Go ahead, Protector. I dare you.”

  Glinda gripped the handle until her arm shook—she was holding a blade an inch from her best friend’s throat, and the realization was so shameful she could barely breathe. But that didn’t change the fact that Locasta was wrong. She had to be wrong!

  Without removing her eyes from Locasta’s, Glinda rasped, “Miss Gage . . . are you certain? The Mystic is dead?”

  “I’m as certain as I can be,” Gage answered glumly. “There hasn’t been a sign of her in ages. If she had survived the Witches’ attack, I’m sure she would have shown herself by now.”

  “But . . .” Glinda’s mouth went dry; her sword arm trembled so terribly that ripples of cold light flashed under Locasta’s chin. “Why would my mother tell me to find someone who couldn’t be found?”

  “She probably just made a mistake,” said Locasta. “After all, it’s been a rather hectic few days.” Her tone was uncharacteristically reasonable, likely owing to the fact that there was a Magical sword poised against her neck. “Did you ever wonder why I’m always humming that little counting song?”

  Glinda shook her head.

  “Sometimes my father, Thruff, and I would get separated from one another in the mines. And believe me, you don’t know ‘scary’ until you find yourself alone in some deep, dark gash in the world. But Papa said that as long we could hear one another humming, we’d each know that the others were all right. And you know what? I believed him. I actually believed that some silly jumble of notes he’d put together in no particular key could keep us safe. But one day Papa’s song went silent. Just like that. He was gone. He’d said the humming would keep us safe . . . but he was mistaken.” Locasta placed her fingertip gingerly on Illumina’s point, and slowly, carefully pushed the weapon away until Glinda’s arm hung limp at her side. “Parents fail sometimes, Glin. They let you down. They don’t mean to, but they do. Tilda was just wrong to tell you to find Mythra, and the sooner you accept that, the better.”

  Glinda returned the blade to her sash with a trembling hand. “Locasta, I’m so sorry. About your father, about . . .” She trailed off, too ashamed to even say the words.

  “The sword?” Locasta shrugged as if having a weapon aimed at her throat was an everyday occurrence. “You were upset. And besides, even if you wanted to hurt me—which you didn’t—I think we both know Illumina would never have allowed it.”

  Glinda nodded. “But my mother told me to—what was it she said?—to ensure that the momentum of the rebellion was not lost. Surely she thought that finding Mythra had something to do with that. If she’s dead, I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “You’ll think of something,” Locasta assured her, draping an arm over Glinda’s shoulder. “I mean, you figured out how to release Ember by sticking that stone in your sword. I’m sure you’ll—”

  Glinda’s eyes widened and her heart fluttered in her chest. “Locasta, that’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “I vanquished one Witch, I can vanquish the others. All I have to do is find the Elemental Fairies and unleash them on the Witches of the North, East, and West! How’s that for momentum?” Beaming, she started walking again, charging toward town with a spring in her step.

  “Uh . . .” Locasta’s eyebrows shot upward. “Were you and I not on the same quest? Because the way I remember it, just finding Ember was an extremely difficult thing to do . . . and you’d been living in the same house with him for the last thirteen years!”

  “Locasta’s right,” said Gage. “The secret of the Elemental Fairies is the most heavily guarded secret in Oz.”

  “I realize that,” said Glinda. “But this time, all we have to do is ask a Grand Adept, three of whom we just met on the Road of Red Cobble. That little Munchkin lady, for instance, or the rugged gentleman from Gillikin with the purple beard. Or that dapper fellow from Winkie—you know, with the funny suit and the fancy pocket hankie—he seemed eager to help.”

&
nbsp; “Good plan,” said Locasta. “Too bad you didn’t come up with it before they all followed the red road out of Quadling.”

  “It might not have even mattered if she had,” Gage noted with a heavy sigh. “When I said that only the Grand Adepts knew where the Fairies were hiding, I did not mean to imply that every Grand Adept was privy to such knowledge. In fact, only a select few were entrusted with it, and since Dally and the others might very well not be among that number, I fear that traveling to meet with them now would be too great a risk. You heard the Witches say they were doubling their border guards.”

  “But the Road of Red Cobble—” Glinda began.

  “Is quirky,” was Locasta’s stern reminder. “You can’t risk having it bottom out on you at the Munchkin border, or disappearing halfway through Winkie.”

  Much as Glinda wished she could argue with that, Locasta had a point.

  “What about Magic? Miss Gage, can we use your scrying mirror? Or cast a summoning spell?”

  “Under other circumstances, maybe,” said Gage. “Though with so little to go on, it would be difficult to know where to start.”

  “But we have to try!”

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Locasta, planting her hands on her hips. “You’re proposing that we try to find the hidden Elemental Fairies, who—let’s face it—could be anywhere in the entire Land of Oz . . . but before we can even begin to look for them, we have to track down one of a very small handful of Grand Adepts who actually know where the Fairies are, and who, by the way, could also be anywhere, and who—just sayin’—have successfully managed to keep their Foursworn status a complete and total secret not only from the Wickeds but from just about everybody else in Oz as well, since the night the king was defeated.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like the worst game of hide-and-seek ever.”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . . ,” Glinda muttered, and trudged on.

  They walked in silence until they reached the town square, where they saw several Quadling citizens huddled in groups, discussing the fall of Aphidina. Some looked hopeful, others wary, as they tried to process their great change in circumstance.

  At the apothecary shop, a crowd had gathered—storekeepers who’d been about on the day Master Squillicoat was removed from his shop. Under the illusion of Aphidina’s rule, no one had found it the least bit alarming to see soldiers guiding an innocent tradesman away from his place of business. This is Quadling and all is well, they’d told themselves. Little had anyone known that the good chemist was being hauled off to be sewn into a Wicked tapestry as an enemy of the Witch.

  One of the merchants, the chandler, waved Glinda over and invited her to say a few words about their absent comrade. Still reeling from the grim news about Mythra and the Elemental Fairies, she climbed the steps to the shop’s front door to deliver an impromputu tribute to her fallen friend, who had given his life back in Maud’s cottage.

  “Abrahavel Squillicoat understood that Magic is in the air we breathe,” she began. “The tears we cry, the thoughts we think. It’s in the footsteps that carry us across the solid ground of Quadling Country. Aphidina told us a lie that made us forget that; she stole our right to Magic. But nonuse of rights does not destroy them! It’s time for all of us to learn the long-forgotten secrets of Magic—” She stopped short, her eyes going wide, her heart racing at the unexpected wisdom of her own words. “To the secrets of Magic!” she cried.

  Pushing past the cheering spectators, Locasta sidled up to Glinda and gave her a stern look. “Okay, what’re you thinking? I can practically see the wheels turning in your head.”

  Glinda’s reply was to shout to the crowd, “Let’s begin by opening Squillicoat’s shop!”

  A carpenter clapped his hands and touched his nose; the boards that had been nailed over Squillicoat’s windows turned to glittering kites and lifted away on a Quadling breeze. He was both surprised and delighted by his accomplishment. “It’s most enjoyable, isn’t it? To be who one is!”

  “Indeed it is,” said Glinda.

  Next a seamstress stepped forward to place her hand upon the door handle. “Magic brings Magic to find and explore . . . unlock, unlatch, unbolt this door!”

  There was a click and a clatter, and sure enough, the door swung open.

  Now Glinda nodded to the chandler. “I will be in need of some candlelight within, sir, if you please.”

  Beaming, the chandler strode through the open door and snapped his fingers; suddenly fresh tapers appeared in every empty, wax-dribbled candlestick Squillicoat had left scattered around the shop. A wave of the chandler’s hand brought flames to each wick. “Hah!” he laughed. “Never did that before!”

  “Thank you,” said Glinda, dipping a curtsy to the candle maker as he and the rest of the onlookers took their leave. “Thank you in most generous amounts!” Then she rushed into the tiny shop.

  Navigating the maze of tables and towering shelves that sagged under the weight of the apothecary’s wares, she went first to Squillicoat’s battered desk in the corner. How many times had she seen the friendly chemist seated there, working out his recipes and formulas, never dreaming he would turn out to be a prominent member of a Magical rebel faction. Pulling open the top drawer, she began to rummage through it.

  “What are we doing in here?” Locasta asked, picking up a small jar of glistening salve and sniffing its contents. “Have you suddenly developed a rash?”

  “I’ve suddenly developed an idea,” Glinda retorted. “Squillicoat was the one who told us about the Gifts of Oz, remember? Through the steam of the teakettle in Maud’s cottage.”

  “Of course I remember.” Locasta gave a droll little snort. “It was right before you nearly got yourself smoked into oblivion.”

  Glinda ignored the gibe and moved from the desk to an open cupboard filled with dusty bottles, flagons, and crockery pots. “Miss Gage, when the Wickeds took over, what became of . . . well, everything? Everything that had to do with Oz’s reign—official documents, public records, works of art and literature—anything that pertained to King Oz’s rule?”

  “I’d always just assumed Aphidina destroyed those things,” Gage replied with a dainty shrug. “Her goal was complete and total illusion, so anything that might have reminded her subjects of Oz’s reign would have threatened her power.”

  Glinda considered this, her mind turning over the many possibilities. “All right . . . so what if Abrahavel managed to gather up the secrets of Oz’s past before Aphidina did and create a kind of archive of Ozian history?” Glinda’s eyes shone. “He wasn’t a Grand Adept, but he did know of the king’s Gifts. Maybe he knew because he had access to that secret and others like it in the form of records, writings, artifacts. . . .”

  “But he only knew the Gifts existed,” Locasta pointed out. “He didn’t know where the Gifts were, and he wasn’t aware that the Fairies had saved them.”

  “That doesn’t mean the information wasn’t recorded somewhere,” Glinda countered. “It just means he hadn’t come upon it yet.”

  “Seems far-fetched to me,” Locasta huffed. “And even if a guy who brews wart remover and pinkeye potion for a living did have the foresight to gather up all evidence of Oz’s true history, do you really think he’d just leave it lying around in his workshop?”

  “Of course not,” said Glinda. “He would have created an illusion of his own.” Glancing around the messy shop, she knit her brow. “Which means what we’re looking for could be anywhere, in any form.”

  She plucked a squat jar with a glass stopper from the shelf. Inside, slender tremors of light flickered and flashed, emitting a crackling glow. There was a label tied to the neck that read QUISH.

  “As in Baloonda?” she murmured. A mere three days ago Glinda had watched poor Baloonda Quish declare improperly, only to be violently Youngified at the hands of Misty Clarence, the Dean of Disastrous Decisions. And, she suddenly recalled, although Squillicoat himself had
been apprehended before the Declaration ceremony, his apprentice Wally Huntz had attended the festivities—despite the fact that Huntz did not have a daughter, or even a niece, graduating from Mentir’s Academy. But as intriguing as this realization was, it brought Glinda no closer to finding the Elementals.

  Nerves prickling, she continued to search the cluttered shop. Every inch of the place was brimming with chemist’s tools and medical journals. She peered at scales and spoons, searching for encoded engravings that might hint at what she wished to learn; she dug through leather trunks and a sprawling chest with a hundred tiny drawers. But she found nothing that spoke of Oz in days gone by—no ancient records, no dusty tomes, no painted portraits celebrating the rightful king, or the rightful queen before him. Just a jumble of flasks and scales, shriveling plants and manuals for mixing medicines. When Glinda discovered a half-empty vial labeled FOR RELIEF FROM THE INSIDIOUS SPLOTCHES, TO BE TAKEN TWICE A DAY WITH MEALS, she was overcome with lonesomeness for her friend Ursie.

  “Where would someone hide eons and eons’ worth of Ozian truth?” Locasta grumbled. “I mean, that’s what we’re looking for, isn’t it? The truth.”

  “Yes,” Gage agreed. “Truth.”

  “Truth,” Glinda repeated, then, out of habit, added, “Above All.”

  The familiar phrase struck all three of them at once, and three pairs of eyes were suddenly cast upward to the ceiling, where a scuttle hole had been cut out, presumably to allow the apothecary access to his attic.

  “Above All!” they chorused.

  “Maybe?” said Glinda.

  “Possibly,” Gage allowed.

  “I still don’t think you’re going to find anything,” Locasta huffed, but she was already piling wooden crates on a rickety chair to construct a makeshift ladder. Seconds later the two girls had clambered up to the attic to crouch beneath the rafters, blinking as their eyes adjusted to the dimness.

  “Any luck?” Gage called from below. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing,” Locasta announced smugly.