A Dark Descent Read online

The sloping space stretched out around them, containing nothing but a few cobwebs and a thick coating of dust. But as Glinda gazed into the emptiness, it occurred to her how strange it was that the apothecary would have hindered himself with such an untidy work space when he had so much attic space available to clutter up instead.

  “What aren’t I seeing?” she wondered aloud. “What is it that eludes my vision?”

  As she posed the question, the blade at her hip gave off a soft pulse of light; for the scantest of seconds, Illumina cast a shining pool on the splintery floorboards under Glinda’s knees. At the same moment, she felt a phrase tickling the tip of her tongue and she heard herself whisper into the gloom, “Blade of brilliance forged of vision . . .”

  Vision!

  Heart racing, she drew her sword and let the unbidden words form Magically upon her lips:

  “ True light of this sword I invite you to glow,

  So I may see the unseen, and the unknown I may know.”

  Illumina’s blade burst into a brilliant column of light, a Magical gleam that touched every corner of the attic. In its glow, the pitched roof dissolved into nothingness and was replaced by an unimaginable expanse of space. Contained in the vastness were countless leather-bound volumes, and forgotten scrolls, shelves filled with jars and vials bubbling with colorful potions and tinctures. Glinda saw sculptures and artifacts, objects and implements, all of which were examples and evidence of an Oz that once was.

  And any of which might lead her to the Elemental Fairies.

  “Incredible,” said Locasta, running a finger gently along the spine of a book entitled The Nomes of the Underlands: A Complete Genealogy.

  “Miss Gage,” Glinda called down through the scuttle hole. “Please summon the chandler, and the carpenter and the baker as well! Tell them to come quickly and bring their carts and barrows.”

  “May I tell them what for?”

  “Tell them we’re bringing the truth back to Mentir’s Academy,” said Glinda, smiling. “And we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  As Miss Gage hurried off to enlist the aid of the townsfolk, Glinda quickly collected items that looked the most promising. Then she made her way carefully down the makeshift ladder and through the clutter of the shop’s first floor. Halfway to the door, she remembered something and retraced her steps to the shelf where the jar marked QUISH sat. Not that she imagined the sparkles of lightning it contained would help her find the Elemental Fairies. But it was possible that the apothecary had come up with an antidote to Youngification. If he did, and if she ever saw Baloonda again, she might be able to return her childhood to her.

  But for now, that would have to wait.

  Because she was sure that somewhere in the Magical boundlessness of Squillicoat’s attic collection was the answer to the mystery of the hidden Fairies.

  All Glinda had to do was find it.

  * * *

  Eager to assist, the merchants filled their wheelbarrows and wagons near to overflowing. Other villagers arrived to offer a hand, taking as much as they could carry, balancing armloads of books atop ivory chests bound in chains. They toted gilt-framed paintings, and etchings on frayed canvases; they filled their pockets with medals, talismans, and amulets of all shapes and sizes. What a peculiar caravan they made, marching to Madam Mentir’s Academy for Girls, where they deposited Squillicoat’s treasures in the library. When the long, polished study tables began to creak under the weight of the apothecary’s carefully curated collection, Glinda directed her helpers to bring the rest to the academy’s opulent dining hall.

  When Ben, Shade, and Feathertop appeared, blinking in amazement at such a vast array of historical writings, records, and artifacts scattered around the library, Glinda quickly told them her plan to find the Elementals.

  “Wait a minute,” said Ben, cocking his head. “I thought you were supposed to be looking for Mythra. What happened to her?”

  “She stopped being alive, that’s what happened,” Locasta informed him. “We’re looking for the Fairies now.” She rolled her eyes. “C’mon on, Earth boy. Try to keep up.”

  “We’re hoping we’ll find some clue to their whereabouts in the artifacts the apothecary was hiding,” Glinda clarified.

  Ben let out a long whistle. “It must have been a colossal, not to mention dangerous, undertaking to preserve so much of Oz’s history. Let’s hope it wasn’t all for naught.”

  Glinda was about to agree when a cheerful and familiar voice rang out from the library doorway. “Well, if it isn’t Glinda Gavaria, Protector of Oz!”

  Glinda turned in the direction of the greeting, and her eyes lit as she ran to throw her arms around Ursie Blauf.

  “I owe you my deepest thanks, Ursie,” said Glinda. “Luring that soldier away from my house was so brave. I had no idea you were a Revo.”

  “Well, I wasn’t officially until you and the Grand Adept disappeared,” Ursie explained. “Before that, Master Squillicoat and Miss Gage had been cautiously ‘recruiting’ me. The apothecary said he saw my potential when we first met—back when I came down with those Insidious Splotches. I’m heartsick over his demise, but thanks to his example, many are now willing to take up the cause.” A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Ursie’s mouth. “In fact, some of them might surprise you.”

  The sound of giggling—and a hiccup—came from across the library, and the next thing Glinda knew, she was caught in an exuberant hug between Trebly Nox and D’Lorp Twipple.

  “Ursie told us what a nasty Blingle turned out to be,” Trebly grumbled. “I feel silly that we ever wished to be friends with her!”

  “So silly!” D’Lorp hiccuped emphatically.

  Glinda quickly introduced her old friends to her new ones. She had to mention Shade’s name three times before Ursie, D’Lorp, and Trebly even noticed she was there.

  “We so verily wish to be of assistance to the Foursworn,” Trebly vowed.

  D’Lorp concurred. “We serve—hic-hic-hic—at your command!”

  Glinda thanked them and sent them off to help unload the three additional carts that were rumbling up to the front door. Then she settled into a chair and examined the wealth of Magical materials before her.

  “I’ll stay here,” Ursie offered. “And help with”—she eyed the sprawling collection of artifacts—“with whatever this is.”

  “This,” said Feathertop, “is your old school chum attempting to unravel the best-kept secret in Ozian history.”

  “Ooh! Sounds like fun!” said Ursie, plopping herself into the chair next to Glinda. Ben and Shade sat across from them, while Miss Gage glided from table to table, inspecting a chapbook here, a piece of sculpture there.

  With a deep breath, Glinda reached for the largest book she could find—an ancient-looking tome entitled The Compendium of Archaic Ozian Legendencia, written by a historian named Gabriel Gale. But just as she made to open it, Locasta lunged across the table and swatted her hand away.

  “Wait! Don’t open that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I just thought of something! Don’t you remember what happened with the Makewright’s zoetrope, and Maud’s teakettle? Every time you came upon some new lesson, we were attacked by that disgusting black cloud.”

  “Yes,” whispered Shade. “It was almost as though it were spying on us.”

  Glinda went cold, remembering how those glowing red eyes had glared at her from the smoke that cut short the zoetrope’s tale, then again from the steam of the teapot. They’d appeared to her once more in the Reliquary window. With a stab of horror, she realized who those hideous eyes belonged to. “The fifth Witch,” she said. “From my mother’s vision!”

  Miss Gage looked up from a collection of old coins, her face suddenly pale. “Did you say ‘fifth’ Witch?”

  Glinda nodded. “The one to whom the others answer.”

  “But . . . that’s not . . . possible,” Gage stammered, swaying on her feet. “I’ve never heard of a fifth Witch!” />
  “Don’t feel bad,” said Glinda. “My mother didn’t know of her either. But it occurs to me now that this fifth Witch can sense when I’m learning something new. Not just any little thing, but profound things about Ozian history.”

  “Which is why this all goes back to the apothecary’s,” Locasta declared, slamming her hand down on the dusty book. “Now! We are not risking another visit from that Wicked fog.”

  “But I can’t just stop learning,” Glinda argued. “I’m a Sorceress. Sorceresses create Magic through intellect. How else am I going to vanquish the Witches?”

  “You’ll have to find another way,” said Locasta, pinning Glinda with a look of pure purple warning.

  Glinda knew Locasta was right, but that didn’t stop her from feeling sick about it. All this information spread out before her . . . but thanks to Wickedness, she was powerless to access a word of it. It was like being a student at Madam Mentir’s all over again.

  Miss Gage came over to smooth a stray lock of red hair from Glinda’s forehead. “It has been an exceedingly long and tiring day,” she said softly. “We’ll be much more likely to solve the problem of the smoke after a good night’s sleep.”

  Glinda was ready to argue, but thought better of it when she saw that Ben was in the middle of an enormous yawn, Shade’s eyelids were drooping, and Locasta looked ready to drop. Even Feathertop seemed to be fighting the urge to tuck his head under his wing and go to sleep. And no wonder, she realized. Today they’d made the long trek back from the Centerlands to Quadling, found an Elemental Fairy hidden in a stone in the Gavarias’ plundered home, fooled Leef Dashingwood into escorting them to the Wicked Harvester’s palace, suffered an attack by the world’s most violent trees, vanquished Aphidina with the help of Ember and Nick Chopper (a boy made partially of tin), then rescued Tilda and Clumsy Bear from the belly of the castle, released King Oz’s final thought, endured a much-too-close-for-comfort encounter with three more Wicked Witches, and ultimately discovered an intellectual treasure trove in the apothecary’s attic.

  No wonder they looked exhausted! “All right,” she said, pushing The Compendium of Archaic Ozian Legendencia away. “Let’s get some rest.”

  “There are couches in the Grand Drawing Room,” said Gage. “You should all be comfortable there.”

  Moments later, they were curled up on various pieces of furniture in the room where Glinda had, just three days before, been the first student in academy history to receive a blank scroll. Feathertop claimed the ceremonial urn as his nest for the night; snuggling into his feathers, he promptly began to snore.

  “Sleep tight,” said Ben.

  “Don’t let the woggle-bugs bite,” giggled Ursie.

  Shade did not chime in, but Glinda was too preoccupied to wonder why. And although she was sure she would spend the next several hours fending off nightmares about missing Fairies, dead Mystics, and Wicked smoke, she wished the others a sincere, “Pleasant dreams.”

  “Can we all just shut up and go to sleep!”

  “Good night to you, too, Locasta,” Glinda murmured. But when she closed her eyes, her mind was filled with the urgent echo of her mother’s voice: You must find Mythra.

  If only she could.

  3

  ON THE ROAD OF YELLOW BRICK

  The Road of Yellow Brick wound out of the Woebegone Wilderness to the Quadling border at Munchkin Country.

  Tilda and Nick Chopper crept cautiously out of the newly freed land and into a blue-tinted meadow, only to spy a platoon of Ava’s insect soldiers patrolling the borderline.

  “I’d give my right arm for a flyswatter right now,” Nick quipped.

  “It seems my little girl has frightened the Wickeds enough so that they are increasing their protection.” Tilda chuckled, her eyes shining with pride. “Looks like we’ll be resting here for the night.”

  Nick eyed the yellow bricks of the road beneath his tin feet. “Couldn’t we utilize the Magic of the Road of Red Cobble to get past these buggy brutes?”

  “We could,” said Tilda, “but for this quest, I’m afraid we must put ourselves on a collision course with the thing we hope to uncover. The safety of the red road leads Good fairyfolk to their destinations, but the protection it provides can prevent them from finding unexpected insight along the way. Unfortunately, insight is often a by-product of trouble.”

  Nick frowned. “So you’re hoping to discover trouble?”

  “Sometimes that is where the answers are,” Tilda explained. “As a general rule, I don’t recommend looking for danger, but my Magic is strong enough that in most instances, I am able to make trouble for the trouble.”

  “But only sometimes,” Nick qualified with a gulp.

  “That is the nature of discovery, and it is why the Road of Yellow Brick is not for everyone.” She placed a motherly hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I will happily deliver you to your home in Munchkin if—”

  “No!” Nick interrupted firmly, punching his tin fist into his real one. “The yellow brick road is most definitely for me! As I told you before we left Quadling, I have a stout heart!”

  “Yes, my friend, you do,” Tilda agreed. “But even stout hearts need their rest, and it has been a very tiring journey; a journey that is far from over. So let’s gather some firewood and settle in for the night.”

  They set up camp in a dense copse of towering blue spruce trees. The needles that fell in a Magical sprinkle when Tilda had whispered, “Comfort, come here,” were swept into two narrow piles to create a pair of passably cozy beds on which the travelers reclined gratefully beneath the starry sky.

  “Is it my imagination, or is this fire brighter than any I’ve ever seen before?” asked Nick.

  “You are not imagining it,” Tilda assured him. “It is because Ember has come out of hiding at last. From now on, the fires in Oz will all be as bright as this one.”

  “A marked improvement,” said Nick, noting how the flickering flames seemed to turn his tin to molten gold. Even the heat of the fire went beyond the mere sensation of warmth; it seemed to contain sparks of compassion, kindness, even love.

  “Truly, it’s a bit of a miracle that we had flames at all during those ages the Fire Fairy spent in hiding,” Tilda remarked. “I daresay our world would not have been much of a world without cozy firesides to warm ourselves by.”

  “I hope you won’t think me coldhearted if I say that before I met you and Glinda, I used to wonder if it was much of a world.” Nick’s heavy eyelids fluttered sleepily. “What with the Wickeds in charge and me turning to tin and all.

  “I’m poor, you see. And poor is not what the girl wants.”

  “The girl?”

  “Nimmie Amee is her name, and she says she can only love a lad with coins jangling in his pockets. A lad who can afford to build her a house.”

  “And you cannot?”

  “Not anymore. We Choppers have always done very well for ourselves, thanks to our talent with an ax. But when Ava Munch saw how our coffers overflowed, she became greedy and placed a tax on all blade-sharpening services throughout Munchkin Country. The Ax Tax, it was called, though it applied to anything sharp—scissors, shaving implements, kitchen cutlery. There was even talk of taxing those who were said to possess a ‘razor-sharp tongue’ or a ‘rapier wit.’ Because of the Ax Tax, my father died penniless, leaving me only this ax.” Nick yawned and curled deeper into his pine needles, clanking as he did. “Then, of course, the Witch went and cursed it at the request of Nimmie Amee’s employer. And you’ve seen how that’s turned out for me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Tilda whispered, wishing her Good Magic could undo the hex, but knowing that to even try might result in graver problems.

  “It’s not ideal, you understand, to have an ax that cuts off one’s own limbs whenever one hacks into a tree branch,” Nick mused, “but I look at it this way. Most folks rarely get to prove themselves, but I get to test my mettle—and my metal—every day. I’m just lucky Ku-Klip the tinsmith ca
n fashion new parts for me whenever I require them.”

  “Lucky,” Tilda agreed, though her heart broke to say it.

  They fell silent for a moment, and the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the not-so-far-off drone of Ava Munch’s insect soldiers buzzing watchfully at their posts. Tilda was beginning to think her young companion had dozed off, when he spoke again—softly, in a voice filled with longing.

  “Mistress Gavaria, there is something about stout hearts that you might not know.”

  “What is that?”

  “They can break.”

  Tilda looked at his somber face through the fire and waited for him to continue.

  “You invited me to join you on this yellow road because you thought I had much still to discover, and I believe you are quite correct in that. I think perhaps it is time for me to discover whether or not this stout heart of mine can be mended.”

  “Perhaps it is,” Tilda concurred.

  “And since we now find ourselves in Munchkin Country, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if we went together, you and I, to pay a brief visit to Miss Amee at her place of employment so that I may discover once and for all if she is willing to love a boy of tin.”

  Tilda gave the idea some thought. “If that is what you wish, Nick Chopper,” she said at last, “then I think it is exactly what you must do.”

  Across the flickering tips of the flames she saw him smile, his sleepy blue eyes dancing with hope. A moment later, the brokenhearted boy was fast asleep.

  Confident that Nick Chopper would be safe, hidden there among the trees, Tilda decided she would spend these midnight hours making careful inquiries—dangerous ones, to be sure—regarding the fifth Witch and the ceremony she and Glinda had witnessed in Elucida’s vision. Daylight, she knew, lent itself to certain kinds of knowledge, but as she’d once told her daughter . . . some answers could only be found in the shadows.

  Throwing a few more twigs onto the fire, Tilda Gavaria, Grand Adept of the Foursworn, hitched up her skirts and crept silently away from the camp.

  In search of knowledge.