“And if I don’t please?” said the Wizard.
“Oh really, how like a child,” said Glinda under her breath. “Elphie, come on, I can’t say why we’re here!”
But the banal comment of the Wizard’s seemed to snap Elphaba out of her terror. Staying where she was at the edge of the room, gripping Glinda’s hand for support, Elphaba said, “We’re students of Madame Morrible at Crage Hall in Shiz, Your Highness, and we’re in possession of some vital information.”
“We are?” said Glinda. “Thanks for telling me.”
The small rain seemed to let up a bit, though the room stayed dark as an eclipse. “Madame Morrible, that paragon of paradoxes,” said the Wizard. “Vital information of her, I wonder?”
“No,” said Elphaba. “That is, it is not for us to interpret what we hear. Gossip is unreliable. But—”
“Gossip is instructive,” said the Wizard. “It tells which way the wind is blowing.” The wind then blew in the direction of the girls, and Elphaba danced back to avoid being spattered. “Go ahead, girls, gossip.”
“No,” said Elphaba. “We’re here on more important business.”
“Elphie!” said Glinda. “Do you want to get us thrown in prison?”
“Who are you to decide what is important business?” roared the Wizard.
“I keep my eyes open,” said Elphaba. “You didn’t call us here to ask for our gossip; we came with our own agenda.”
“How do you know I didn’t call you here?”
Well, they didn’t know, especially after whatever it was had happened to them at tea with Madame Morrible. “Scale down, Elphie,” whispered Glinda, “you’re making him mad.”
“So what?” Elphaba said. “I’m mad.” She spoke up again. “I have news of the murder of a great scientist and a great thinker, Your Highness. I have news of important discoveries that he was making, and their suppression. I have every interest in the pursuit of justice and I know you do too, so that the amazing revelations of Doctor Dillamond will help you to reverse your recent judgments on the rights of Animals—”
“Doctor Dillamond?” said the Wizard. “Is that all this is about?”
“It is about an entire population of Animals systematically deprived of their—”
“I know of Doctor Dillamond and I know of his work,” said the glowing bones of the Wizard, snorting. “Derivative, unauthenticated, specious garbage. What you’d expect of an academic Animal. Predicated on shaky political notions. Empiricism, quackery, tomfoolery. Cant, rant, and rhetoric. Were you taken in perhaps by his enthusiasm? His Animal passion?” The skeleton danced a jig, or perhaps it was a twitch of disgust. “I know of his interests and his findings. I know little of what you call his murder and I care less.”
“I am not a slave to emotions,” Elphaba said sternly. She was pulling papers from her sleeve, where she had apparently rolled them up around her arm. “This is not propaganda, Your Highness. This is a well-argued Theory of Consciousness Inclination, is what he calls it. And you will be amazed to learn of his discoveries! No right-thinking ruler can afford to ignore the implica—”
“That you presume me to be right-thinking is touching,” said the Wizard. “You may drop the things where you stand. Unless you prefer to approach?” The lightning-marionette grinned and stretched out its arms. “My pet?”
Elphaba dropped the papers. “Good, my Lord,” she said in a piercing, pretentious voice, “I shall take you to be right-thinking, for did I not, I should be obliged to join an army against you.”
“Oh hell, Elphie,” said Glinda, then more loudly, “she doesn’t speak for the both of us, Your Highness, I’m an independent person here.”
“Please,” said Elphaba, at once hard and soft, proud and pleading. Glinda realized she had never before witnessed Elphaba wanting anything. “Please, sir. The hardship on the Animals is more than can be borne. It isn’t just the murder of Doctor Dillamond. It’s this forced repatriation, this—this chattelizing of free Beasts. You must get out and see the sorrow. There is talk of—there is worry that the next step will be slaughter and cannibalism. This isn’t merely youthful outrage. Please, sir. This is not untrammeled emotion. What’s happening is immoral—”
“I do not listen when anyone uses the word immoral,” said the Wizard. “In the young it is ridiculous, in the old it is sententious and reactionary and an early warning sign of apoplexy. In the middle-aged, who love and fear the idea of moral life the most, it is hypocritical.”
“If not immoral, then what word can I use to imply wrong?” said Elphaba.
“Try mysterious and then relax a little. The thing is, my green girlie, it is not for a girl, or a student, or a citizen to assess what is wrong. This is the job of leaders, and why we exist.”
“But then nothing would keep me from assassinating you, did I not know what wrong was.”
“I don’t believe in assassination, I don’t even know what it means,” Glinda called. “Yoo hoo. I’m going to take my leave now while I’m still alive.”
“Wait,” said the Wizard. “I have something to ask you.”
They stood still. They stood for minutes. The skeleton fingered its ribs, played them like the brittle strings of a harp. Music like stones turning over in a streambed. The skeleton collected its lighted teeth from its jaws and juggled them. Then it tossed them at the seat of the throne, where they exploded in candy-colored flashes. The rain was running down a drain in the floor, Glinda noticed.
“Madame Morrible,” said the Wizard. “Agent provocateur and gossip, crony and companion, teacher and minister. Tell me why she sent you here.”
