Shadows of the Emerald City

by J. W. Schnarr

  The Munchkins began to murmur. “We don’t want to do that for the rest of our lives,” said a Munchkin.

  The witch grinned.

  “That’s too bad for you. You already made your bed when you signed the contract. You’re stuck. I own all the land around you, the local law enforcement, and every business in the area. You have nowhere to go and no one to turn to. As long as I am making silver there is nothing you can do and no one to stop me.”

  “There has to be a way to stop you.”

  She cackled then added, “Nothing short of a major housing crash can stop me.”

  The wicked witch saw all the Munchkins look up with wide eyes and open mouths. She twisted her head up in time to see the two-story farmhouse, just before it crashed on top of her.

  Leninida and the Munchkins waved to the strange girl.

  “Goodbye! Goodbye!”

  The little girl started to skip, her newly acquired slippers sparkling in the sun. Leninida resisted the urge to take them for herself. Their magic was strong, which is why the Wicked Witch of the West wanted them so bad. Adhering them to the naïve girls feet insured the west witch would be distracted. Anyway the slippers weren’t the prize to have in the east witches empire, they were only the icing on the cake. Leninida wanted to have that cake and eat it too, and was willing to sacrifice the icing to get it. Giving them to the girl and throwing her in the wizards lap was genius, one more person to distract while she seized on a once in a millennium opportunity.

  Her smile widened as she thought on how fortunate she was the opportunity had come. Thanks to the east witch, who blew her far up into the sky, Leninida happened to see the house getting tossed in the twister. With quick acting magic, she managed to hold the house together and directed it to the top of the wicked witch’s head. Discovering the peasant girl alive in the structure was a bonus. She then had a scapegoat; an unwilling accomplice to seize upon a hastily conceived phase-two of a plan.

  Leninida marveled how she didn’t feel bad for the strange girl. Perhaps she would later but, at the moment, she was nothing more than a pawn in a game that Leninida finally got a good seat to play. It was also fortunate that she was there when the girl first emerged out of the house or the Munchkins would have ding-donged her ass. That girl could also thank the east witch for ruling this side of Oz so ruthlessly. Say what you want, but that crusty witch’s tactics eliminated crime. She didn’t know how far the pig-tailed girl would make it, but caring about her wasn’t on her agenda.

  “Ding-dong the witch is dead. Evil wicked witch is dead. Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead!”

  Leninida cringed when she looked back to see the Munchkins pulling her dead cousin out. She waved her wand to form a bubble around her. I think I’ll let them have their fun for an hour or two.

  The Good Witch of the North descended in her bubble and stepped out once she landed in the square. The Munchkins were all laying on the their sides and patting their bellies. Leninida took note of the pile of bones next to a heap of black clothes. They smiled and waved instead of jumping up and down as they usually did.

  “Tsk, tsk. You were all told that ding-dong is not a good thing,” she said waving her finger at them. “Now to time rise and get to work. You are all behind schedule. Chop, chop.”

  The Munchkins groaned. “You said we would only have to work as hard as we needed to once the wicked witch was gone,” said one.

  “I said you would work according to your needs, and at the moment you are needed to fill the shelves of the new store in Emerald City. Now be all good workers and hop to it. And remember,” she pointed her wand over her shoulder to encase the Munchkin, sneaking up behind her holding a club and a rope, in a bubble, “that eating other people is something you should never do again.” The Munchkin in the bubble yelled to be let free as it rose in the air. “We have an image to repair if the amusement park and resort is to open on time.”

  She pointed the wand over her shoulder again. The Munchkin screamed as he fell. He landed with a sickening thud in the middle of the square. The rest of the Munchkins took a good long hard stare at his broken body then raised their heads to look at Leninida.

  The Good Witch of the North smiled warmly.

  “You were all told that the candy you ate needs to be replaced. The People would not improve. You do not want to be seen as workers that are not doing their part for the State.”

  “I thought once the wicked witch was gone the candy was ours to do with as we wished,” said a Munchkin.

  “I said the fruit of your labors would belong to The People. The People make up the State. Every person must do their part for the greater good of The People. Now be good little workers and do your part.”

  “You sound just like the wicked witch,” remarked another Munchkin.

  Leninida approached the Munchkin. She maintained her bright smile but had flames shooting out of her eyes. She pointed her wand at him and raised it. The Munchkin left his feet. The witch waved him toward the farmhouse that still sat in the square. She jerked the wand as if swinging a hammer. The Munchkin slammed into the house with each swing.

  “I am not like the wicked witch. She exploited you, while I only want to see after you and the rest of The Peoples needs.”

  The Munchkins broken body fell.

  “But not to worry, little ones,” she said in a sweet voice. Five pink bubbles descended from the sky. “I have brought others to help.”

  The Munchkins let out a collective gasp when mountain trolls stepped out of the bubbles. They eyed the Munchkins as if they owed them silver.

  “Do trolls know how to make candy?” asked one Munchkin.

  Leninida chuckled.

  “No, I wouldn’t dream of having them attempt your magic. They are here to make sure quotas are met and that all workers are good workers. And don’t think of them as trolls but rather as Knights of the Good Benefactors. You have no reason to fear them.”

  The Munchkins scrunched together and began to chatter quietly to themselves. Leninida waited patiently.

  One stepped forward.

  “We think we don’t need the troll…, um, knight’s help. We believe we can provide for ourselves and do not need to be part of a People’s State.”

  The trolls grunted.

  “Is that what you all think?” asked Leninida.

  The Munchkins stayed silent while eyeing the trolls.

  “Come now. There will be no repercussions for speaking your minds. We are all equal parts of the State,” said Leninida. “All that feel that way raise your hands.”

  The trolls took another step forward while clenching their fist. Five Munchkins slid a reluctant hand up.

  “I see,” said Leninida. She nodded to the trolls. They herded the five Munchkins out of the crowd. Two trolls shoved them up the road.

  “I thought you said they wouldn’t get in trouble?” one Munchkin said.

  “Oh, they’re not in trouble. They have been brain washed by capitalist propaganda. They are only being taken to be re-educated. Once that is completed they will be back.” She nodded at the three remaining trolls. They stepped toward the rest of the Munchkins while cracking their knuckles.

  Leninida formed a bubble around herself.

  “Goodbye my friends,” she said to their down faces.

  The Good Witch of the North grinned. The Wicked Witch of the East had plenty more workers in her empire. They would be pleased to know that Good had liberated them. If not, there was always an extra troll to convince them otherwise.

  The End.

  A Chopper’s Tale

  by Jason Rubis

  It woke to life in slow bursts of sensation: a baffling storm of sounds that gradually faded, only to erupt again moments later; a colourless, weirdly-angled vision that likewise came and went. Later it would associate memories of that first moment with droplets of rainwater gleaming, then going dull on the oiled blade of its head.

  There were two women in attendance on it as it woke; one was ver
y old, and muttered to herself incessantly. It was she who actually woke it, muttering in time with the painful, exultant eruptions of consciousness. The other was smaller in stature than the crone, and not as old, though she seemed every bit as hunched and wrinkled. The mutterer’s was the first voice the axe heard, but the other woman exposed it to actual language.

  “Is it working? Will it do the job?”

  The muttering went on—hurried now, exasperated, and the axe’s broken consciousness set suddenly, gelling into a painful clarity. It did not know what it was or why it was; one thing only it understood, and that was a hunger deep inside it. It wanted to do the thing it had been made to do, longed to do it.

  Feet shuffled on an earthen floor; there was a wet gulp overhead as the mutterer drank deeply from a flagon of water. Then:

  “You’re impatient, Nola Amee. And impertinent. My sisters would not have tolerated you for such measly wages as you offer.”

  “You took the cow quickly enough,” the other woman snapped. The axe saw her suddenly, stooped over it, her sour face glaring with pursed, liverish lips. It was being appraised, judged—and found wanting.

  “I see no life here. Your precious powder is a sham.”

  “Idiot,” the older woman sneered. “You’d have it writhe like a python and chop your foot off? The powder of life doesn’t work that way. It operates on the principle of Like Effect—not that you’d understand such. Had I used it on that table yonder, it’d be gamboling like a spring calf, being four-footed in its way. A statue sprinkled thus would move quicker than your old bones. An axe reproduces no living shape, thus cannot move once the powder gives it life.”

  “But it could move as a serpent…you said yourself…”

  “Ever seen a serpent with a head so huge? Fah. You suspect my honesty? Want proof? Here, then.”

  The axe, having no choice, watched. The muttering woman lurched briefly into its line of vision; she was bent, and so thin as to be nearly skeletal. She glanced once at it in passing, giving it a satisfied but wholly unpleasant grin. Her eyes were piercing and intelligent but somehow wild-looking.

  She carried a leather bag in one bony hand. She reached inside and sprinkled a pinch of something on a footstool near the blazing hearth. A moment later the stool was clattering about the flagstones like a huge beetle. The woman called Nola Amee shrieked as it made for her. The older woman laughed heartily, then seized the stool up in one hand and threw it onto the fire. It landed on its cushioned back, and—too heavy to extricate itself—twisted and burned and eventually died.

  “I’ll have another chicken, to reimburse me for that stool. They’re not cheap, you know.”

  “You’ve convinced me. But without movement, how will it kill Nick?”

  “It has its ways. My spells have seen to that. This man you hate so much is a woodcutter, yes? He will suspect nothing so little as his own tool. Trust me, the deed will be done before you know it.”

  “But hear me, Nola Amee: once your woodman is dead meat and that poor girl is forever bound to you, get rid of that axe. Bring it back to me if you like, or throw it in a river if you don’t trust me. On no account let it find a name. Now it’s little but an animal. A vicious, unnatural child. But it will learn quicker than any youngling, sopping up knowledge as a rag takes spilled wine. Its power of influence is bound by my spells to Chopper only, at least for the moment. But if it happens on a name for itself, let all this wretched country beware; there’s no telling what it will do.”

  The axe was lifted and thrust into Nola Amee’s flinching hands. Its hunger surged; it saw exactly how it could accomplish its purpose with this greedy, stupid woman. But something frustrated it. It could not find a way into her. Her desires and thoughts formed a tangle it could not penetrate or grasp. Had it a mouth it would have cried out in rage.

  It would have to wait. Allow itself to be carried towards an unknown destiny. As Nola Amee left the hut and hobbled along, the axe caught a final glimpse behind them of the older woman’s cottage.

  Crush her, it thought ferociously at the cabin. Fall on the old bitch, smash her bones to paste. A house, yes. Someone should drop a house on her one day.

  The woodman was a fool to begin with, and love made him a moron, so perfectly suited to the axe’s purpose that its wooden heart sang with the first curl of his idiot fingers round its haft. Nola Amee had left it in its accustomed place the previous night, leaning on the outer wall of Nick Chopper’s poor hut. Come morning, he had picked it up, shouldered it, and went whistling off to work, as he had thousands of mornings before.

  This was true joy. Nick Chopper’s every thought, every idle fantasy presented itself for the axe’s delectation. Which of these mental hiccups would provide it the entry it needed to do its work? Any of them might do: memories of the bread and cheese Nick had enjoyed for breakfast, vague worries about inconsequential aches and pains, obscenely detailed reminiscences of that morning’s bowel movements, the girl…

  The girl. Yes. Nimmie Amee. And their wedding, of course, the prime cause of his present stupor. Why waste time on other trivialities? Nick Chopper’s daydreams of the girl would provide the perfect entry-point. The axe got to work as the woodman swung it against a fine tall oak.

  “My sweet Nimmie. She loves me so.”

  Does she? She has no other lover? She’s never looked at any of the other young bucks in the village? Never once?

  The woodman’s mind accepted the axe’s insinuations as thoughts of his own. The rhythm of his strokes against the tree helped them sink deeper, unnoticed, as he met them with hidden doubts that till now had been kept smothered.

  “The butcher’s lad. She’s turned an eye to him more than once…”

  The butcher’s lad, yes. A fine brawny specimen. You’re a good-enough looking man, but you’ve some years on you, eh? And chopping wood doesn’t build the muscles that hefting sides of beef does.

  Nick swung the axe harder, biting more fiercely into the white wound it had chewed into the tree. Sweat began to flow. His blood quickened.

  Chop.

  He was confused.

  Chop.

  He was angry.

  Chop.

  And how much coin does a woodcutter make? Any fool can gather a few twigs for the fire, but who these days cares to bloody their hands slaughtering their own pig?

  “Nobody…”

  Nobody. She’ll tire of you eventually. After all, what can a clodhopper like you give her? A hut in the woods is all very well for romantic fantasies, but women are practical, Nick. Love? They harp endlessly on the subject, yet it means nothing to them. Not really. Men are toys to them. She laughs at you, this girl of yours.

  It took the axe less than an hour to get the woodman to turn its hungry head on his leg; it needn’t have taken even that long. He was a very faulty vessel, this Nick Chopper, full of hidden rages and embarrassing flaws. Once he began listening to the axe in earnest, leading him to that final red moment was no work at all.

  Even so, the axe was somewhat disappointed. it had its heart set on something a bit tastier than splintered femur and a ruby-glistening mess of thigh-meat. In reviewing Nick’s fantasies of the marriage bed, it had formulated a delightful idea involving Nick laying his shrunken manhood on a stump. Then, holding the axe’s blade in both hands, chopping it off. Perhaps it had taken too much pleasure in its own plans; perhaps Nick had somehow gotten a whiff of them and at the last moment chose a less insulting blow.

  Still, it was done now, and done well; the idiot was howling like a madman, clutching his ruined leg with a luscious, betrayed expression. Already a couple of other bumpkins—a pair of fools come calling from the village—were running to him.

  Nick?

  Nick!

  Oh, Nick, what did you do?

  Nick suffered himself to be seized and carried clumsily into his hut. The axe lay in a spreading pool of gore, waiting patiently for one of the clods to seize it up and take it inside as well.

  Because it
wouldn’t do to leave the man’s tool behind. It was his livelihood, after all, and more than that, the measure of his character.

  The village tinsmith, Ku Klip, was one of those half-wise idiots who have always been plentiful in any country or age; apparently not content with an honest trade in metalworking he had to venture down the shadowy paths of scientism and philosophy. And why should he not? The axe, hungry for new information, had taken advantage of the pious sheep gathered around Nick’s bed, its mind grabbing hungrily at theirs. It caught glimpses of absurdities it could hardly believe. Apparently some decrepit old goat from foreign lands was kinging it in the Green City, having seized the throne with nothing but gall. There were talking beasts roaming unchecked in the countryside, and shoemakers turned sorcerer. Why not a tin-smith turned savant then?

  Yet this Ku Klip was an irritating bastard; just canny enough to guard his thoughts, not discreet enough to keep them out of his mouth. As he carefully manipulated the grotesque, shining limb he had grafted onto the woodman’s hip, he droned on. He loved an audience.

  “I sense some fell influence at work here,” he said. “You say the axe slipped?” The question was directed at Nick, but before his patient could so much as open his mouth the tinsmith went on. “Unlikely. This entire matter reeks of an arcane significance. There are patterns in the earth, laid there long ago for who knows what purpose? They can have an influence. The witches…”

  That remark caught the axe’s attention, but it was distracted the next moment by a sudden commotion: a girl had appeared and was fighting her way through the crowd to Nick’s side. This, then, was the adored Nimmie Amee. She was certainly limber-looking enough.

  She seized her man’s arm, cooing and whining. Nick smiled tightly at first, and nodded, then looked away, as though anything in the room was more interesting than the face of his beloved. This was plainly not the welcome the girl had expected. Her pretty face fell and she pouted. The axe watched carefully.