Authors: Danielle Paige
“Where else am I going to smoke?” he asked, deliberately blowing a smoke ring into her face. Instead of getting angry, she giggled and batted her eyelashes again. For a second, I was worried they were going to start making out again.
Instead, Polychrome sat down on the pillow next to him, tucking her legs underneath her body and gesturing for me and Nox to sit, too.
She tossed another wasp into the air, watched in amusement as it buzzed around trying to evade her, and then snapped her head forward to catch the bug in her mouth, looking quite pleased with herself. “So,” she said. “Tell me about
you.
”
“Please,” I said. “We need your help.”
“All in good time. First, introduce yourselves.”
“I’m Amy,” I said. “This is Nox. That’s Ozma over there.”
“Oh, I know the princess, of course. Or the queen, I suppose. Everyone was always so vague when it came to her title.”
She cast a pitying look toward Ozma, who was still occupying herself by looking at the view. “So tragic what happened to her, isn’t it?” Polychrome said. “Before her troubles, we were the best of friends. Sure, she was always a little too serious—constantly worrying about tariffs and labor regulations and the dullest things like that, never seemed to have
any
time to
rip
off our clothes and go for a fully nude romp in the clouds, just us girls—but nevertheless, I adored her.”
Polychrome saw the skeptical look I was giving her. “You land dwellers never understand,” she said. “It’s very important for fairy princesses to commune with nature. In the nude, the way fairies were intended to be. Anyway, forget about Ozma: the poor thing is a lost cause. Amy, Nox, it’s lovely to meet you.” A sudden thought swept across her face. “Oh!” she said excitedly. “Would you like to meet my pet unicorn?”
I groaned inwardly, wondering if we’d really come all this way to make small talk over thimbles full of dew. But I could also see that I was going to get nowhere unless I at least tried to humor her. “You have a unicorn?” I asked politely.
“I’m the Daughter of the Rainbow,” she said in a voice that indicated she was beginning to think I was a bit of an idiot. “Of course I have a unicorn. You simply
must
see him. I guarantee he’ll enchant you.” She snapped her fingers in summons. “Unicorn!” she singsonged. “Unicorn, unicorn!”
When there was no response whatsoever, she rolled her eyes,
shook her head, and screeched at the top of her lungs. “Heathcliff!”
That did the job. In the distance, I heard the patter of feet, and a large, snow-white creature came bounding from the stairway and settled into a dignified crouch at Polychrome’s side.
She smiled and patted it behind the ears. It was not a unicorn. In fact, it was a huge cat—a panther, maybe?—with a long, sharp horn fastened around its head with a pink ribbon tied in a bow under its chin.
“Interesting unicorn,” Nox said. “Never seen that particular species before.”
“Look, I always wanted a unicorn,” Polychrome said. “A fairy princess should have a unicorn, don’t you agree? The problem is, purebred unicorns don’t take to being made into pets. It’s one of their biggest failings. Of which they have many, I might add. Ugh, they’re awful creatures in the end. So haughty and headstrong, impossible to train, always making a mess in the house. They’re very judgmental, too—always setting perfectly
ridiculous
rules about who gets to ride them and who can’t. But the Daughter of the Rainbow should have a unicorn. And I am, above all things, a fairy of can-do spirit. So, you see, I had to fashion myself a unicorn of my own. And anyway, Heathcliff is so much better than another unicorn would be. He’s very dear, he lets me pet him, and he can devour an entire human in just three bites if I need him to. So why should I have any regrets?”
She turned to the beast, who pawed at the ground looking, frankly, a bit humiliated at the charade he was being forced to
enact. “And you love being my little unicorn, don’t you? You’re such a pretty, noble little loveykins, aren’t you?”
Heathcliff gave a placating rumble of a purr as Polychrome ran her fingers through his fur.
“Does he grant wishes?” Nox asked. “Like a real unicorn?”
The fairy stiffened, and she sat up very straight. “He’s extremely sensitive about that. I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention the subject in his presence again. Or mine. Now, please, let’s move on.”
“He doesn’t grant wishes,” Bright said, blowing a smoke ring and looking amused.
“Shut up, consort,” Polychrome shot back at him. “I’ll remind you that you are allowed to stay here at my pleasure. Now”—she turned back to us—“what in the world has brought you to my kingdom? You’re not the conquering types, are you? I would hate to have to fling you off the side of the Sunset Balustrade. I’m
so
not in the mood for a conquering today.”
“We’re not here to conquer. At least, we’re not here to conquer
you.
We’re with the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked,” Nox said. “Mombi sent us. She thought you might be able to help.”
“So you said. I wish I could be of more help—I do
so
love that old hag. Such a wit she has about her! I hope she’s doing well. But as I’ve told you, I have been utterly alone up here, save for my sprites, for quite some time now. If Mombi thought her revolutionary friends would seek refuge here, she was mistaken.”
I looked from Nox to Ozma to Bright, who seemed extremely bored by the whole conversation, and then back to Polychrome.
“Maybe I could speak to you alone,” I said.
Nox gave me a sharp look, and I shrugged apologetically. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. At this point, of course I trusted him. It was just that there were still a few things I wanted to keep to myself as much as possible.
“Fine,” Polychrome said. “Bright, show the others to the parlor.”
Bright stood, looking disgruntled. “The work of a Royal Consort is never over,” he said.
When they were gone, Polychrome walked to the bar and sat down on a high, glossy stool. “Now I’m intrigued,” she said, patting the stool next to her for me to sit. “Mombi wouldn’t have sent you to all the trouble of coming here if she didn’t have good reason. What news can you give me of the world below?”
“Oz is at war,” I said simply.
Polychrome sighed and ate another wasp.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” she admitted. “It’s been a terrible time for us. These last few turns of the sun, I’ve often wondered if the Rainbow Falls would survive at all. The wild unicorns all took off for god knows where; the sprites seem antsy. Several of my handmaidens have developed very destructive habits; I’ve had to let a few of them go.”
I nodded.
“When Dorothy came back, you could just feel the color draining from this whole place. We’ve been hanging on, but
black and white isn’t a good look for anyone here at Rainbow Falls, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“It’s Dorothy,” I said. “She and Glinda have been draining Oz’s magic.”
“Precisely,” Polychrome said. “Or, at least, she
was.
But is she still? I’m Ozma’s distant cousin, you know—fairy genealogy gets complicated considering that none of us have parents, but we
are
cousins of a sort. We share the royal blood of Oz, and as the mistress of the falls, I am
intimately
attuned with Oz’s mystical rhythms. It’s easy to see that there have been recent changes afoot. The magic is returning; the falls are suddenly looking healthier than they have in ages. Dare I hope that Dorothy has been defeated?”
I shook my head. “No. But she’s been driven out of the Emerald City. And I think there’s something going on between her and Glinda. I’m not sure if they’re quite the bosom buddies they were before.”
“Well, that’s an interesting development,” she mused. “There have long been complicated political forces at work here in Oz, and Glinda has usually been at the center of them. With the witches of the East and South killed, it became easier for a while, but other factions have developed. Both Glinda and the Wizard have always been wild cards. No one has ever been able to tell quite where their loyalties lie, or what their goals are. And Dorothy
is
a problem. She’s quite mad, you know.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m going to kill her. Things will be a lot simpler when she’s dead.”
Polychrome scanned me carefully.
“You’re from the Other Place, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I see. Who brought you here?”
A change had come over her. She was no longer the airy, slightly dippy fairy who had greeted us at the door. Now she seemed older, more thoughtful. Her caftan had taken on a darker tone, and there was a glare in her eyes that was honestly a little frightening. I wondered if that earlier version had been an act. Maybe there was a steeliness to Polychrome that I was only beginning to see.
Heathcliff was pacing the room, and I could see that he was different, too. His white fur was glowing with an electrical sheen, and his horn was glittering. It looked like it was an actual part of him rather than just a stupid hat.
“I was brought here on a cyclone,” I said. Before she could comment on the obvious, I said it myself: “From Kansas. Like Dorothy.”
The new shift in Polychrome made me nervous. Suddenly I wondered how much I wanted to tell her. “Mombi thought I might find other members of the Order here,” I said, choosing to go with the easiest part first. “Have you heard any word of Glamora?”
Polychrome shook her head. “In the past months, my scrying pools have been clouded. I’ve been able to see very little of the goings-on in the rest of Oz. All I know is what I feel. And while I feel great changes are afoot, you know better than I as to what has brought those changes about.”
“I know some,” I said. “But not everything.”
I made a decision. I picked up my bag and emptied it onto the bar, displaying the trophies of my battles.
The Tin Woodman’s heart. The Lion’s tail.
“Where did you get these?” Polychrome asked, her voice quiet and surprised.
“I took them,” I said. “From their owners. I know they’re important, but Mombi thought you might be able to tell me more about them, and what they do.”
The Daughter of the Rainbow was already on her feet. “Come,” she said. “I need to examine these further in my Lumatorium.”
Polychrome’s so-called Lumatorium was a dim, windowless chamber hidden deep in the castle’s interior behind a revolving bookshelf. It was crowded with mysterious, vaguely scientific-looking instruments, long laboratory tables and beakers and flasks full of colorful liquids and powders.
Looking around the room, I was struck by how many different types of magic there were in Oz, and how many different ways there were of practicing it. For some people, like Mombi—and me, come to think of it—magic was something you just kind of
did
. It was all instinct, a power that came directly from within. For other people, it was a practice closer to science.
The first style seemed a lot more convenient to me, but, on the other hand, Mombi had sent me here because she thought Polychrome would uncover things that
she
hadn’t been able to. So I guess there was something to all this junk.
Polychrome moved around the room efficiently, gathering up
her materials, while Heathcliff curled up in the corner, observing her lazily. When she had everything she deemed necessary, she gestured for me to empty my bag again.
“Let’s take a look at those,” Polychrome said, and I set the objects I’d taken from the Lion and the Tin Woodman on a table. Polychrome in turn placed each of them on either end of an old-fashioned scale, which indicated, improbably, that they were perfectly balanced with each other.
The metal heart thumped robotically; the tail continued to twitch as if attached to an invisible owner. Polychrome sprinkled them with a dusting of acrid-smelling powder, causing them to halt in their motion. She fastened a thick, old-fashioned set of goggles to her face and knelt to examine them.
“Just as I suspected,” she said after a bit. She lit a candle and then, after some consideration, picked up a long, hollow glass rod tipped with a tiny, red orb. She touched the orb gently to the Tin Woodman’s heart and held it there. The rod began to change colors, filling with a sort of pink liquid, which she emptied into a beaker before repeating the same process with the tail.
She held the beaker over the candle and we both watched as it began to heat up and bubble.
“What are you doing to it?” I asked.
“Just running a few magical tests,” she said. “My methods are somewhat different from those used by the witches. I’m isolating the mystic elements of the objects to determine their origin, as well as—hopefully—to divine their purpose. It seems strange, of course, that they have any enchantment on them at all; when
the Wizard granted them to their owners, he had no facility with magic to speak of. So one wonders that they should now be imbued with such energies. But indeed they are. Is it something that Dorothy did? Or is there another explanation?”
The liquid in the beaker boiled quickly over the flame, until all that was left of it was a thick, red syrup resembling blood. Polychrome selected a wide, shallow silver bowl from a shelf, placed it next to the scale, and poured the strange substance into it. She crouched and peered at it carefully through her goggles, swirling it around a little with her finger.
Next, she waved her palm across the surface and mumbled a few quick words that I didn’t understand.
The liquid began to change color until it was transparent. Polychrome nodded to herself. “Look,” she said, and when I gazed into the bowl with her, I saw that there was now an image in it.
In the bowl, as clear as if I was looking out through a window, was a flat, dusty prairie under a gray sky, tall grass blowing in the wind.
I recognized it immediately—maybe not the exact, specific location, but the idea of it. Back home, the prairie was everywhere. Even when you were standing in a strip mall, or walking along a busy highway, it was always still there, just out of sight. The flat, flat everything, the gray, dusty nothing seeping into your pores. So I had no doubt of exactly what I was looking at.