Shadows of the Emerald City

by J. W. Schnarr

  Suddenly the windless air broke with screams. Someone sobbed. Another begged. The voices were high and young. Girls.

  Ozymandias returned, dragging one by the arm and the other by long black hair.

  “Little Father, meet Easter and Westerly. Recent orphans whose parents died quite tragically.”

  “LET THEM GO!” the Munchkin bellowed, writhing against the ground, trying to break the bonds on his wrist. “DON’T YOU TOUCH THEM!”

  “Ah, so the cat didn’t quite catch all your tongue? Good.” Ozymandias turned and knelt near the girls. “My daughters were very naughty,” he said, stroking one of their faces tenderly and leaving a shiny trail of rot where his fingers touched. “They had me killed. And I can’t have that, can I? No. I need new ones. Wouldn’t you like that? Wouldn’t you like to be my new daughters?”

  A fresh torrent of tears erupted from them both.

  He frowned. Speaking in a tone that would have been soothing except for the horror of his words, he said:

  “Did I scare you when I stole you out of your beds and you saw your parents all in pieces on the ground? When you’re my daughters you don’t have to be scared ever again. You’ll be the ones to scare. You’ll be the monsters beneath the bed. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

  They wailed and collapsed into each other’s arms.

  Ozymandias stiffened.

  “You’re just children,” he snapped, “it doesn’t matter what you want. You would have learned that if you’d have had a chance to grow up.” Then a dagger flashed. Crimson flowed from one girl’s throat, splattering the ground. The knife flashed again, this time rose-red, and sank into the other’s heart. The girls’ eyes were a canvas painted with ever colder colors until they faded into dark. Death rattled from their throats before they even knew that they were dead.

  “There’s a serpent in every garden, my mother used to say.” He slipped the knife, still dripping, back inside his coat. “She was a good woman. Her name was Emily.” He laid a hand on each of their foreheads and mouthed a word.

  “I’ll kill you,” Trewis snarled, panting from the strain of screaming, “I’ll kill you and cut you up and burn them in a pit.”

  The green man grinned so wide the skin split at the corners of his mouth.

  “We all have our dreams. Oh, and don’t mourn them overmuch. Their little souls are floating off into the heaven of my mother. Think of it as more of an eviction than a murder. Now I just fill their vacant brains up with thoughts of my choosing…and voila,” he threw out his hands. “Vastly more fascinating than the originals.”

  In sick rhythm their bodies convulsed. “Ha, you see? Aren’t they little miracles?” Froth gurgled from their mouths and their muscles jerked and contracted until they rose to their knees. Soon they were standing, swaying, their faces more pale than glacier ice. But how long, until they’re as green as their slayer? Trewis wondered, How long until they’re just rotting skin stretched over dirty bones?

  “Go, darling daughters, carve me out a kingdom. Prepare the world for my coming.”

  Suddenly they were gone, the only evidence they were ever there were rivers of blood creeping wider, flowing through rough channels made of paving stones. The witchling whistled an old bar tune, shrill and gusty, and ripped open the Ticktock’s chest plate. He fiddled with the wires that hung bundled together inside.

  “I knew this little beauty would do nicely as an incendiary device. Just switch a few wires and…”

  The Tin Soldier’s cast iron jaw wagged open.

  “WARNING… 5 minutes until detonation… WARNING…”

  “There now. A little self-destruction makes the world go round, don’t you think? But don’t worry, it’s just enough of an explosion to give me a sneak peek through the Door, like a little key hole. It’s too bad Munchkins and mortals are so flammable, eh Trewis?” But I’ll tell you this: your darling wife begged for you so prettily that I’ll let you live if you escape.”

  Ozymandias took two steps and with the third melted into the air.

  “What do we do?” Trewis’ frantic voice carried across the plaza.

  “Give up,” a tiny voice whispered. “Just give up. All these years, such a waste.” The delicate voice was so soft it took a moment to find. The China Princess—old, careworn, chipped and cracked, turned her head away.

  “You can’t mean that,” he stuttered. “You’ve seen what he is, what he can do. Think of your people. Think of the…”

  “He’s broken them. Every last one but for me” She covered her face like a mother in grief. “He ground them down to powder so fine they fell like sand through my fingers. A gust of wind and they were gone.” Her voice grew furious. “What will striving do for me now? I am the last. The ruler of a crushed city. An empty empire. What’s the use?”

  “The use?” Trewis asked, the fire inside him roaring. “The use? I’ll tell you. Revenge. Or Justice. Or mercy for all the thousands he’ll kill when he comes into his kingdom. All the millions he’ll enslave. Is that enough to at least keep trying to fight?”

  The Princess bent double with sobs too violent for words. He gave up any hope that words he had the power to speak could pierce her fine etched ears.

  “My children!” she wailed, “Oh my children! If only I could have stopped him before… before…”

  She never finished the sentence. She raised her right hand high and brought her arm against the edge of the concrete- once, twice, three times. Suddenly it snapped and rolled away, jagged at the shoulder. “Take it,” she gasped, “Avenge my people.”

  The words were coffin nails driven into his soul. His lips wrung out a strangled cry,

  “How many lives fill your ledger, wicked king? How many debts to repay?” He worked the sharp piece of china between his fingers and snapped the cords, then leapt free and ran to the mechanical man.

  “What do I do? How can I stop it?”

  “Self-destruct has been initiated. It is not within the realm of possibility to stop. Escape is necessary.”

  “But the others…”

  “Death is inevitable if you do not exit the blast zone immediately.” Its voice was a rough melody. “Trewis, if you don’t leave now, if you don’t abandon us, you’ll die and the Tyrant will win.”

  The Munchkin’s legs were unsteady beneath him.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He scrambled down the Ticktock’s dismembered body and away through the plaza and through a winding street. A roar turned the world to chaos. A gust of singed wind made the ends of his jacket dance. He glimpsed behind him and saw the sky had filled with fire. Chunks of brick fell clattering to the ground and he dodged behind an obsidian crypt, waiting for the sound of smashing stones to silence.

  When the air was clear he headed back, this time slow and stalking, moving from one shadow to the next. His only hope was to take the witchling unaware, find a weapon and stab true. Or bash his head in with a brick.

  He grit his teeth; never in all his life had he wished more for a gun.

  Everything around him lay coated in ruble and dust. There was nothing there he could use. He almost lost hope, but he saw it then- a glimmering silhouette against the shadows- a clock hand from the Ticktock’s heartworks, sharp and slender, trails of heat still oiling off it. His hand tingled as he wrapped his fingers around it and pulled it from the ground.

  He crept on to the hazy square. The smoke from the explosion breezed lazily away like a dirty curtain, revealing destruction at its center.

  And there stood Ozymandias, peering over the side.

  Twenty yards separated them. Twenty yards and Ozymandias was dead. The thought clamored in his brain like a battle. He braced himself to charge and then…

  “You do have dozen tricks, don’t you Little Father? Thou art more wily than I gave thee credit. And to leave your friends like that…almost something I would do.”

  The Munchkin scowled.

  “I’m nothing like you.”

  “That’s right,” Ozymandi
as replied, “You keep a Code written in lists you didn’t know were burning. And how could you? You hardly know you’re burning either. You’re only a dream, after all.”

  “If I’m a dream, you’re going to die in your sleep.”

  The green man laughed.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, sweeping his arms wide in both directions “You really are a dream. I’ve been dreaming you—this place, the world, and all that’s in it— every night since I was young. And quite frankly, I’m surprised as anyone that I’m here. When they strapped me down in that electric chair I could already smell the brimstone I was going roast in for an eternity or two. But when the guard flipped the switch, here I was, smack dab in the land of my fancy. I am favored above all my fellows, aren’t I? So, now you see why I am thy Liege and Sovereign?”

  A snarl erupted from Trewis’ throat.

  “We were fine before you came, and real enough. Kingship we had until you killed him. Ozymandias Usurper—that’s who you are! The Pretender, the Fake, the Lunatic Who Ruled A Moment. They’ll write mocking songs about you to make children laugh, until the blessed day when you’re forgotten altogether.”

  The witchling turned his head, his expression full of a carnivore’s merciless joy. “Do you think Easter and Westerly were amused? Or that they’ll ever forget the bliss of their adoption?”

  Every muscle in the Munchkin’s body tensed. His head swam with the of lust of the righteous to recompense evil eye for eye; somewhere in the depths of him a thousand murdered souls demanded him do justice. No more waiting, he told himself, No more choking on the ash of the fires this monster sets.

  The battle cry of his youth soared like a comet on his lips. In moments he flitted across the distance as fast as if his tiny feet had been graced with wings. He swung his makeshift sword, but Ozymandias twisted away, his body a blur of unnatural speed. The blade struck against the cobblestones, ringing with the brutal clang of a falling bell. Sparks exploded up in haze of dust, a thundercloud in embryo, as if it was in violence that storms were born.

  “You can’t kill what’s already dead,” Ozymandias whispered as he rose up from behind. His voice was filled with last breaths and the smell of dank things decaying. He snatched Trewis by the neck and leaned him over the edge. “Behold the blessing of Onyx, Little Father. Let me give you a little sneak peek through the Door. See what every monarch in the march of war desires—power illimitable, strength unmastered. And now I am the Lord of it, the Lord of all I see.”

  It was brilliant beyond speech. Vertigo sucked a gasp from the Munchkin’s mouth. Below them, stars blinked thicker than any midnight sky Trewis had ever seen, each dancing with mysterious geometry, each one blazing, conflagring, lapping the void around them with a million flaring tongues.

  How do I stop him? the Munchkin asked himself, racking his brain, How do I stop him before he becomes too powerful to stop?

  As if in response, the scene below them shifted, rippled like his thoughts had gone out and stirred it up like a riverbed. The stars dissolved, and the darkness reassembled slowly into a grey brick wall of a depression era church.

  The pews were ripped out and replaced by planks nailed to the tops of apple crates. Farmers filled them end to end, surrounded by wives in faded dresses cradling sleepy children. Eyes unused to crying shed tears that washed their field dirty cheeks white. But none wept more than the man that faced them, dressed for mourning, his head haloed by a clock soon to strike the hour.

  “In a few minutes the Penal System of Wichita, Kansas will force Osborn Mantis to pay for his crimes with his life. As a minister, I pray he finds salvation. As a father…As a…” He paused, choking on the words. He was ragged, worked so hard by grief he stood like an old house about to fall. He pulled a thread-worn cloth from his pocket and wiped his brow. “As a father, I wish he’d died years ago, before he became the monster that took my daughter.” The far away look of a martyr crossed his eyes, a bittersweet glance that utterly submits to horrors. “Sometimes lambs die…are sacrificed, laying down their lives to break against the waves. And it is this complete and total sacrifice made for the benefit of others that evil can never understand, nor ever overcome…”

  Suddenly the clock chimed. Stars flamed again, passing swiftly below them as if there was a race to win.

  “What’s this now?” Ozymandias asked, his fingers clamping hard enough around Trewis’ neck to squeeze bruises into his the skin. “Tell me, how did you do that? How did you summon that old fool out of nothing? Tell me quick or I’ll pluck out your heart.”

  But Trewis was beyond pain, beyond fear. In the deepest chamber of his heart he knew the minister was right. Fate had made him for this moment. He was a razor, a dissecting scalpel, a knife sharpened to cut malignance from the world.

  He jabbed backward with the heartworks sword, driving through Ozymandias’ sternum, through the cavity of his chest, piercing the jacket on the other side. He twisted the blade, anchoring it into bone, sending a sludge of marrow and dark blood sluicing from the wound. With all his strength he swung the sword forward.

  The surprised witchling let out a strangled cry before sliding down the rocky edge of the chasm. He scrambled for a handhold, but the explosion had turned everything a chalky ash, and he fell like sands in Fate’s hourglass. He screamed. He wailed. He cursed until his vocal cords snapped, leaving a dry, crusty groan to fill the air before he disappeared into the darkness below.

  Trewis sighed the weight of worlds and collapsed, his wounds too much for an old body to bear. A tear slid down the contour of his cheek.

  “O Celizabeth,” he mouthed silently, “Will I meet you again somewhere between the stars?”

  He closed his eyes. The Land spread out before his mind as it had been- as it would be. War and peace rose up like the peaks and valleys of a mountain range, long but not endless. Rivers ran with joys and sorrows. Fields grew with feast and famine. And in all the tiny homes and great castles his name was forgotten, and war he’d fought a distant memory.

  And he was glad.

  Then somewhere in another world, a distant place where the winds sing songs to wake the day…he built a cottage, and waited for the coming of his Love.

  The End.

  The Utility of Love

  by David Steffen

  The house landed with a crunch and a crash, and a moment later the recoiling bedsprings threw Dorothy halfway to the ceiling. Toto, who had been curled up at her side, awoke in mid fall and landed in her arms snarling and snapping. She tried to grab him, but he was just a writhing ball of fur and teeth.

  “Toto, ouch!”

  In his panic he tore open a gash on her arm and she let go. He charged out of the bedroom. She jumped up from the bed and ran after him.

  The hallway was a wreck. Floorboards were torn up in a huge circle to make way for a giant metal statue, as if it had been standing on the ground where the house had landed. Only its head and shoulders extended above the floorboards, but even that was taller than Uncle Henry. Its bucket-shaped head was ringed all around with little black nubs. If they were all eyes, the thing would be able to look in every direction at once. It had no other facial features.

  She rubbed her eyes, looked again. Itwas still there. What in the world was this thing? A statue?

  Toto dashed back and forth, throwing himself against every bit of the giant within its reach, snarling like a mad dog all the while.

  “Toto, no!” she shouted. “Toto, stop it! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

  Toto didn’t even pause.

  The statue moved. Dorothy screamed as it scooped Toto up between its hands and peered at him between its fingers. The long, slender digits encased Toto like a cage.

  Her fear for Toto’s safety gave her the courage to shout.

  “Let him go! He doesn’t mean to be mean, he’s just scared.”

  The metal man turned its head toward her.

  “Did the animal injure you?” the giant asked in a deep voice.<
br />
  She couldn’t stop herself from imagining that metal hand contracting, spraying blood everywhere.

  “Yes, but he didn’t mean to. He’s very gentle.”

  The giant raised Toto up to head level as Toto continued to hurl himself against his confinements.

  “This is gentle?”

  “He’s normally very gentle. He was just scared by the fall.”

  The giant said nothing, merely watching the dog silently.

  “Will you put Toto down, please?”

  The giant complied and Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief. Toto began to hurl himself at the giant’s chest again. Dorothy wanted to pick him up but she was afraid he would bite her again. In any case, he wasn’t doing any damage and the giant was ignoring him now.

  “I’m Dorothy.”

  The giant stood immobile. Dorothy, who’d been raised to be polite, tried to keep from bursting with questions. She pressed her dress against the dog bite until it stopped bleeding. She waited as long as she could, until the curiosity overwhelmed her politeness.

  “What are you? You look like you’re made of tin. What’s your name? What are you doing here?”

  “My outer shell is made of a titanium alloy. I have no name, but you may call me Tin Man if you wish. Tell me, what is the purpose of Toto?”

  “Purpose? He’s my friend. I love him and he loves me.”

  “Violence without provocation. This is love?”

  “He’s afraid you want to hurt me, so he’s trying to protect me.”

  “Love: an urge that drives the need for sexual intercourse in humans, in order to produce offspring. Interspecies copulation cannot produce offspring, and you are sexually immature.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The Tin Man paused for a long moment, his clockwork whirring.

  “Making babies.”

  Her ears burned. She knew about baby-making. She’d heard all about it from Susie Parker who had walked in on her dad making a baby with Miss Morris, the school librarian. But she wasn’t sure what love had to do with baby recipes.