And as for his promise to keep an eye on Liir-well, Liir had his own history to follow. He had disappeared into the crowds of the Emerald City. Just another urchin on the make, a feckless little whippet cast aside by the powerful. Let him dodge his own fate as best he might; he was not the Lion’s cub, after all. Brrr had his own hide to protect.

Back to the wilds, once again, where the knowledge of his demotion by way of low promotion could prove less bitter, less public. He’d have to avoid the Ghullim, of course. If Muhlama H’aekeem had lived, she might be the Chieftainess now. And if the networking of the Ghullim was as keen as they boasted, they’d have heard that their runaway Lion had been marginalized by the indignity of petty honors. And tarred with the worst taunt of all. Collaborationist.

No, he’d avoid the Ghullim. Avoid them all. Avoid the whole damned mess of his whole damned life up to now.

6

A FTER DOROTHY.

Brrr entertained the notion that he might go back and take up again with that pride of tuft-chinned Lions in the western Madeleines. As far as he knew, he was the first Lion with a title. Maybe the pride lived far enough from the EC to have missed the curse of “Collaborationist!” Maybe it would decide to be impressed. Reconsidering their early dismissal of him, they might conclude that they had been too provincial to recognize his merits first time around. Why not?

But these years on, the Lions had scattered. The outback of Gillikin hadn’t proved hospitable to Animals, even to those who had never forsaken their natural habitats in the wild. From smaller Animals who still lingered, reluctant to give up the old neighborhood, Brrr learned that the tuft-chinned Lions had migrated east into Munchkinland. “Though I’m told,” continued an opinionated Squirrel with a cleft palate, which made his words hard to grasp, “that times have been no easier for the Animals in the Free State of Munchkinland than they are in Loyal Oz. The Great Drought is blind to national borders. Larger Animals have had to withdraw into less salubrious quarters.”

“Like?”

“The more hardscrabble reaches south of the Yellow Brick Road. Nest Hardings, Wend Hardings, and the ghost hamlets on the banks of Illswater.”

“Ghost hamlets.” Not Ozmists, for sure; they maintained their haunts in the Great Gillikin Forest. Or had the Cloud Swamp been affected by the drought, and had the ghosts migrated, too?

“I mean the old farming villages in southeast Munchkinland-the last sorry bit before Munchkinland peters out into the uncrossable desert. Those desolate places that even humans have no more use for. Or that humans abandoned once the Animals began to move in.”

“I’ll head that way.”

“I’ll come with,” said the Squirrel succulently.

“Not if you value your nuts. Forget about it.” Brrr was done with finding mates on the road.

He headed east, learning to nurse his grievances like so many fond memories. To take them out in his drowsy hours, in his dreams. To fasten upon them in the doldrums of insomnia. He remembered how the frowzy Miss Piarsody Scallop had tended to her mysterious ailments with all the devotion of a postulant. He dedicated the same zeal to his rash of insults, kept them raw by constant attention.