The Forest Monster of Oz

by Robert J. Evans

  CHAPTER 13

  THE COWARDLY LION AND THE FOREST MONSTER OF OZ

  The Cowardly Lion ran and ran. He had no idea just how long or how farhe had gone when he stopped to catch his breath.

  "This sort of cowardice is sure to make me old before my time," he saidto himself.

  As he settled down in a pile of leaves for a short rest, he heardsomething rustling in the bushes nearby. "Wha--" he said. "What's that?Who's there?"

  "D-don't hurt me, Mr. Lion," came a voice.

  "W-who are you?" shivered the Lion.

  By way of an answer, a small brown monkey with shaggy fur walked slowlyout of the brush. "P-please don't eat me, Mr. Lion," he said fearfully.

  "Don't worry," replied the Cowardly Lion. "I had no intention of doingso. What were you doing in the bushes?"

  "I heard you coming, and I was afraid," explained the simian.

  "I can identify with that," said the Lion with a smile.

  "I was afraid that you might be one of those awful spider-creatures thatsaps away the energy from everyone else," continued the monkey. "But Ican see that you are not. You are a much nicer fellow than that. I thinkI've seen a portrait of you somewhere, in fact. You are ... My oh my!Can it be true? You're him, aren't you?"

  "Who?" asked the big cat.

  "You are the great Lion that defeated the Forest Monster before!" saidthe monkey. "I'm sure of it! What other lion in Oz is so big? Aren't youthe one who is called the Cowardly Lion of Oz?"

  "Yeah," said the Lion, not especially proud of the title, but happy thathe was so famous with even this small monkey that he had never seenbefore. "That's right. I am the Cowardly Lion of Oz. It is a title thatis far more honest than flattering. And who might you be?"

  "I am Cubby," said the monkey. "I live in the Lunechien Forest of Oz."

  "Lunechien Forest?" echoed the Lion. I'm not sure just where that is. Isit far from here?"

  "Pretty far," sighed Cubby. "I was running away."

  "Running away?" replied the Lion, whose advice-giving nature wasbeginning to surface. "Now, dear little Cubby, my lad. Whatever problemsyou may be having at home are no reason to run away. You can't run awayfrom your problems. You should go back and try to talk it out. Why, Ican..."

  "You don't understand," said Cubby. "I wasn't running away like a childwho has had a disagreement with his parents over a cookie or something.I was running for my life."

  "Oh," replied the Cowardly Lion. "Well then, that's a whole differentball of wax. If you were ... Huh? What? You were running for your life?What do you mean?"

  "The Forest Monster has been sucking the energy out of all of theanimals of the Lunechien Forest, and I know he was coming for me next! Iwas so afraid, I just wanted to get away from there as swiftly as Icould. Then, when I heard your heavy breathing, I thought it was theForest Monster coming for me. I thought for sure I was a goner."

  "The Forest Monster?" echoed the Lion. "But I don't understand. I had arun-in with him once myself. I knocked his head off while he wassleeping. I know it was hardly sporting to do it that way, and I am alittle ashamed that I didn't even give him a sporting chance, but I haveto think of the innocent beasts whose lives were at stake."

  Cowardly Lion and Cubby]

  "I think there may be more than one," said Cubby. "Unless the one youfought somehow got himself repaired."

  "I suspect that would h-have to be the case," stammered the CowardlyLion. "I d-don't think there could be more than one of those creatures.I had assumed it was created by magic, sort of like a green elephant orsomething. But if it is alive again, it will probably find out who itwas that defeated it before. It will be looking for me."

  "I'm afraid it already knows who you are," spoke Cubby. "And it hasfound a way to take the energy from other beings and use it for itself.It is already so powerful that I doubt anyone could stand against it."He paused. "Oh, except for you, of course. I know you could defeat it.You did it before."

  "Er, yeah," said the Lion, his eyes growing to several times theirnormal size. "I g-guess I d-did. B-but he was so much easier to tacklewhen he was asleep. Now that he has multiplied his power, I'm n-notsure I c-could do it again."

  "Oh, but you can! You must," said the monkey encouragingly. "You can'tlet him keep getting stronger and stronger! Sooner or later, he willfind you. And he probably won't stop at that. He may cross the desertand go into the mortal lands. He might start attacking Ix or Mo or evenMerryland! And then he may infiltrate the mortal lands like America,where your friend Dorothy lives!"

  "D-Dorothy?" said the Lion, suddenly looking more angry than afraid."She's just a little kid! He wouldn't do that to a child?"

  "He did it to several of the small and helpless beasts in the LunechienForest," said the simian. "Even insects are not safe from him."

  "Well, he is a spider, as far as that goes," replied the Cowardly Lion."Insects are a normal diet for him. But small children are not! How darehe even think of hurting little Dorothy? What a wicked creature hereally is! Where is he? Let me have a talk with this nasty arachnid!"

  "That's the spirit!" cheered Cubby. "Come on, let's go!"

  The Lion had already forgotten about his exhausted condition. Thethought of Dorothy being in danger had taken precedence over all otherthoughts in his head. He followed Cubby closely until he felt he had torest. They traveled and rested for as long as it took before at lastthey reached the border of the Lunechien Forest of Oz.

  "I sure hope we can find him in his sleep again," whispered the Lion tohimself.

  "Come on," said Cubby. "I know where his lair is. If he hasn't moved onto more densely populated territory, that is."

  "W-wouldn't it be rude to just b-barge in on him?" said the Lion, hiscowardly nature suddenly returning.

  "I don't think so," replied Cubby. "I think we need to stop his wickeddeeds as soon as we possibly can. We can't let him get to Dorothy, youknow. Nor the Scarecrow or the Tin Woodman or the Woggle-Bug. No one issafe as long as the Forest Monster is at large."

  "You're right!" said the Cowardly Lion dutifully. "We are the only oneswho can stop him. Where is this overgrown daddy long legs?"

  Cubby led the huge animal through the forest to the lair of the giganticspider. When they got there, they were met with a most unexpected sight.There was a pack of Land Sharks. They looked frightful and hungry, andthey surrounded Ozma, Tweaty, Nibbles, Lisa, Hootsey and Elephant."Those are some of my friends who live in this forest," explained Cubby."Except for the little girl. I don't know who she is. Is that Dorothy?"

  "No," said the Lion, his voice sounding hollow. "What is she doing here?Why are your friends here? They should have followed your act and fled."

  "It iss dinnah time!" shouted one of the Land Sharks. "I believe veshall bekin vith ze big gray helefantt!"

  "No!" said Cubby. "Don't let them do it!"

  The Cowardly Lion trembled with fear as he watched the huge Land Sharkturn to face the little monkey. When the Shark moved toward Cubby withits jagged teeth exposed, he pounced on it.

  "Get ziss kitty offa my back!" screamed the Land Shark. "It hass sharpclawss, und zay are hurtin' me!"

  The Lion jumped off, and the impact of his jump knocked the Land Sharkover. To tell the truth, the Land Shark's legs were rather thin, and hisbalance was not very good to begin with. This displayed to the othersthe Land Sharks' main weakness. Thinking quickly on his feet, Elephantraced toward another of the Sharks and knocked it over on its face. TheShark's front teeth were dislodged, and it ran behind its fellows.Without its teeth, the Land Shark was much more vulnerable than it hadbeen previously. Seeing that the other Land Sharks were distracted bythe Lion and Elephant, the Forest Monster took its opportunity tostrike. Within moments, the Land Shark was no longer a threat to anyone,having been drained of all of its life force. The added burst of energygave the Forest Monster more ability to take out more of the LandSharks. But he was so preoccupied that he failed to notice Watts and hisfour companions surround him with their ferocious
teeth bared. Thiscaused the Forest Monster to hesitate while he sized up the situation.Here he was, the bad guy, trying to get bigger and stronger at theexpense of the Land Sharks, yet at the same time inadvertently savingOzma and her friends, and now Ozma's forces were bearing down on himwhile his back was turned. "Hey! This is grossly unfair," he said,almost crying. Just then, a group of Droffs, accompanied by severalSniffers and Stinkfoots, arrived. The confusion allowed Ozma to use hersilver wand to cast a spell. Between the Forest Monster, Elephant, theStinkfoots, Sniffers and the Cowardly Lion, the Land Sharks weredisabled within a matter of forty-five minutes. Those who had not beendeenergized by the Forest Monster or otherwise rendered harmless by oneof the others had fallen to their spindly knees and were pleading formercy. One was staring directly into the foot of one of the newcomersand crying hysterically. All the while, Ozma had been using her wand toturn the Sharks into tiny snails, which Cubby picked up and put into anearby pond.

  "It is finished," said the Cowardly Lion. He pushed his aching body tothe ground and licked one of his wounds. "The Land Sharks are subdued. Idon't think they will have the same cruel spirits now that they aresnails."

  "Indeed not," said the Forest Monster. Turning to the Cowardly Lion, headded, "You fought bravely. For one who is called Cowardly, youcertainly didn't show any signs of having earned that title in thisbattle."

  "But I felt them," sighed the Lion. "I was only acting brave because Isaw my friends in danger. To tell you the truth, I was scared out of mywits the whole time."

  "Your friends?" echoed the Forest Monster. "You call us your friends?Even me? Do you not remember who I am, and what you once did to me whileI was sleeping?"

  The Lion did a double take. "Oh, yeah! I was so caught up in the battlewith the Land Sharks that I forgot what I had come here for."

  "I was, too!" agreed Cubby. "But the Cowardly Lion was coming here tohave a talk with you," he added, remembering the words that the Lion hadspoken to him earlier. "He said that he was ashamed of what he did toyou without giving you a sporting chance." These last words on Cubby'spart were intended only as an observation. He had no idea that theywould have any effect on the Forest Monster at all.

  "Is that so?" wondered the huge spider. "You mean to say that you camehere to apologize to me? And you even counted me among your friends. Howwrong I have been in my assessment of your character. You are not socowardly after all. In fact, I feel proud to have fought alongside ofyou. I would like to start over and get to know you for what you reallyare."

  The Lion was taken aback. "You would?" he said. He had no idea what elseto say. He had come to the Lunechien Forest thinking that he was to facethe greatest enemy he had ever known, and that enemy was speaking to himas if they were old friends who had just met after a long period ofseparation.

  "Of course I would," said the spider. "I see now that I was wrong tohate you so badly when I didn't even know what sort of fellow you reallywere. And seeing how I felt when we were attacked by those Land Sharkswithout having any way to fight them off showed me how grossly unfair Iwas for having taken the energy from helpless insects and animals. I wasas bad as them, and I don't ever want to be like that again! It's muchtoo frightful. I'd rather have a solid group of friends than have allthe power in the world."

  "I think I am guilty of the same thing," sighed the Lion, still a littlespooked by the abruptness of the Monster's turnabout in nature. "Iknocked your head off as you slept, but I didn't know what you werelike, either. All I knew was what I was told: that you were eating allof the lions and the other animals, and that they wanted to make metheir king if I stopped you."

  "So you are their king now," said the Forest Monster. "I do not begrudgeyou the position any more. You are welcome to it. I suddenly feel like Idon't care for any position of power any more. When I was gaining thepower I now possess, I was allowing myself to be blind to anything butmy ever-growing hatred of you. Now that I see how unfounded that hatredreally was, I feel that it was I who was the true coward. I was sappingthe life energy from countless helpless creatures. I did not give themany sporting chance, either. Nor did I have any excuse to justify what Iwas doing except that I wanted revenge. It is I who should feel ashamedof himself, not you. Now I have all of this power and strength that wasbrought about by my hate, and it is no longer of any value to me. All ithas done was to make me all the more angry and heartless. If this is theprice of strength, I think I'd rather be weak. It is far better to besmall and have friends than to have all the strength in the universe butbe so full of anger and resentment that you can't even enjoy it."

  "So now that you have become a mountain of power," replied the Lion,"you no longer care to be powerful?"

  "Exactly," sighed the Forest Monster. "If there were a way to reversetime and put things back as they should be, before I ever hurt anyone, Iwould do it. I wish I could apologize to all of the poor animals that Isapped. If their spirits are still in the vicinity, I hope they see howutterly foolish I feel for having taken such unfair advantage of them."

  "It is very sad that so many of our friends and families had to bedestroyed in order for you to have learned this lesson," said Elephant,thinking sadly of the loss to the forest and its denizens. "But I hopethat you will try to reverse your reputation now by putting yourstrength to good use. It is hard to forget what you did, but I thinkthat, in time, we will all be able to accept you as a neighbor. Atleast, if you act like one."

  "Oh, that I will do," said the spider gratefully. "I will do all that Ican to make up for my past misbehaving."

  "Then it seems we are no longer needed," said one of the Sniffers. "Wemet the Droffs on our way here, and they have agreed to help us plow ourfields. If our job here is done, I think we should like to go home andget started."

  "Me wants to plow fields," said the Droff who stood beside him.

  "Then something positive did come of all this tragedy," said Hootsey."Not only have the Sniffers and the Stinkfoots made friends with theDroffs, but the Forest Monster has had a major-league change of heart.But can we at least find the empty shells of our families and give thema proper burial?"

  "That would be right," agreed the Forest Monster.

  "Wait a minute," said Ozma. "You mean to say that the bodies are stillaround? You didn't devour them entirely?"

  "No," explained the Monster. "I only drained them of their energy. Inever actually hurt their physical bodies. Only their internal energy."

  "And their energies are still inside of you," observed Lisa, catching onto what Ozma was getting at. "So you never actually _killed_ them! Theirbodies are still alive, but dormant because they have no life energy.That means that, if we could reverse the process, we could put all oftheir energy back into their bodies again!"

  "It would," agreed Ozma, "if the Forest Monster would agree to dothis." She turned to the tremendous arachnid. "It will probably meanthat you will have to allow yourself to become small again. I don't meanas small as you were when the Cowardly Lion first met you, either. Imean that you will again be reduced to the size of a regular, normalspider in order to restore all that you have wronged to their formerliveliness."

  "Oh, yes!" said the Forest Monster. "This I will gladly do! I am happyto go back to that small size. It allows me to maintain a lower profile,and I would like the opportunity to practice spinning my webs inprivate. I'll bet that, in time, I will be able to spin the mostgorgeous webs you can imagine! If that comes to pass, I would considerit a great honor if one of my masterpieces could be coated in silver andgold, I should like to give it to Your Majesty as a gift."

  "I would be delighted to receive it, I'm sure," said Ozma kindly, thoughshe was not sure what she would actually do with such a treasure. "But Ithink it is now time to restore the Lunechien beasts."

  "I agree," said the Cowardly Lion. "And, as everything seems to havecome out well, I think it is time I head home to the Forest where I amnow king. I've already been away too long as it is."

  "Of course," said Ozma, taking his paw in
her hand. "Thank you for allyour help."

  "Think nothing of it, my Queen," he said. Then he lumbered off towardLion Country.

  "And now," continued Ozma, "back to the job at hand." She put herfingertips to her temples and concentrated. The Forest Monster felt aslight tingling sensation in his heart, but nothing else happened.

  "Maybe you need to use your wand," suggested Lisa. "Or say anincantation?"

  "Or make some kind of magical motions?" put in Tweaty.

  "No," sighed Ozma. "This operation is not as basic as all that. TheForest Monster has grown so vast that my untrained abilities are notgoing to work. It may be weeks before I will be up to this challenge.I'm afraid I'm just not used to being a fairy yet. But I think I coulddo it if I had an Anmars."

  "A what?" asked Elephant. "I've never heard of an Anmars before."

  "It's a standard magical tool that most wizards or witches would have.But I don't think there are any more witches in the area. Allidap andher evil sister were both destroyed by Dorothy, and the Witch of theDeep South got rid of most of her old implements, saying that theyreminded her of a time she'd prefer to forget."

  "How about Glinda?" suggested Tweaty, who was still in the form of asmall orange pachyderm. "She's a Good Witch, you know. Wouldn't she haveone of those Mars things?"

  "An Anmars," corrected Ozma. "Yes, I'm sure she would. But the last Iheard from her, she was going to visit some place that was having adrought and try to correct it. A place called Yoraitia. I do not knowwhere it is."

  "Yoraitia?" echoed Tweaty. "I flew by there once! I know where it is,and it isn't very far from here. But there was a dark and shadowy placeon the way. I didn't land there, as I thought it looked scary anddangerous. But I can lead you there, if you want me to."

  "Then we are saved!" said Elephant with a loud trumpet blast. "Even ifthat shadowy dark place is dangerous, no one can stand up to ourformidable Forest Monster!"

  "Er," pouted the Monster, "I'd rather not be thought of that way anymore. Like your Witch of the Deep South, there are things that remind meof a past that I'd rather forget."

  "Of course," said Lisa. "I'm sure Elephant didn't mean to imply that youwere mean any more."

  "Certainly not," replied the pachyderm. "So can we be on our way? I sowant to be reunited with Tiger and Pinky and the others."

  "Of course," replied the Forest Monster (and it is actually getting hardto keep referring to him by that title in light of his abrupt change ofheart. I have to wonder, was he ever really all that monstrous?). "Whydon't you ride on my back. I have very long legs, and it will make thegoing much faster."

  They all agreed to this plan, and were off to find Yoraitia.