Ardie is grumbling again, which means he’s about to lose it—he’s been ready to pop for days now.
“One of us needs to admit we have lost our way!” he snaps. “And unless we find it again in time to reach the Emerald City, I shall never get my cure for zombiism because I will self-immolate if I must spend another day in flowers! Flowers! Ugh! If I never see another flower again as long as I exist it will be too soon!” he shouts and trips over a rock, falling face first into a bed of carmine begonias. As I help him to his feet, he lets out a frustrated humph. Poor Ardie. With so many flowers hovering over the ground, he can’t see what’s before him. He already drags and falls more than the average living human, but out here he falls more in one day than he did our entire journey from Munchkin to Emerald.
“I don’t have the courage to keep trekking through fields of flowers forever, getting nowhere at all. Even if they are pretty,” Werelion says and whimpers.
With our group losing heart, I sit on a patch of grass because where are we rushing to anyhow? Toto wastes no time and lies down at my side, and for the first time in Toto’s life, he’s too tired to chase a butterfly that flies right past his head. Werelion does the same, sprawling out on the small hill. Nick sits behind me, wraps me in his arms, and I curl into him as Ardie plops down at my other side. Toto puts out his tongue and pants and looks at me as if to ask what we should do next.
“Suppose we call the Wererats,” I suggest. “They could tell us the way to the Emerald City.”
“They could!” cries Ardie. “Why didn’t we think of that before?”
“Beats me,” I say and turn to Nick who reluctantly takes out the little whistle he’s had around his neck since the Queen of the Wererats gave it to him, and he blows.
“Soon we’ll find out if she can hear us all the way out here—wherever here is,” I say.
After a while, we take out our lunches and eat, drink some water, and right before we are about to continue on in an endless trek through the lands of Oz, we hear the pattering of tiny feet.
“It’s them!” Ardie gasps, thrilled to find a way out of here or at least some directions.
Many small gray wererats run up to us. Among them is the Queen herself, who asks in her squeaky little voice, “What can I do for you, my friends?”
“We’ve lost our way,” I say. “Can you tell us where the City of Emeralds is? We could use some directions.”
“Yes,” the Queen says, “but it is a great way off, for you have had it at your backs all this time. This is Quadling Country.”
“The red flowers! How did I not see it?” Ardie says and groans as he smacks his forehead with the heel of his hand. “You know, there is some use to hunting birds for their brains. I could always see where I was from above thanks to their memories, but I have been eating sow brains we packed for the trip instead. Stupid!” Ardie says, admonishing himself.
“What is that there?” the Wererat Queen asks as she looks to my open bag and points to the Vampire Witch’s Golden Cap.
“The golden cap of the Witch of the West,” Nick tells her.
“That is what I thought. Why don’t you use the charm of the cap and call the Vampire Bat Monkeys to you? They will carry you to the City of Emeralds in no time.”
“There’s a charm in the cap?” I ask in surprise. “Where is it?”
“Inside the cap,” she says, “but if you will call the Vampire Bat Monkeys we must run, for they are predators of our kind.”
“Won’t they hurt us too? Bite us and turn us to vampires?” I ask. Isn’t it obvious why that’s a bad idea?
“Oh, no, they are not vampires the way the others are—they are Vampire Bat Monkeys. With them, it is their species rather than an epidemic,” she explains. “On them, it is not contagious, but they feed on the blood of rodents and wererodents alike, and we cannot be here when they arrive, or they will make us their lunch.”
“Thank you. I hope they can help us,” I say, and she smiles.
“They must obey the wearer of the cap, so when they arrive you may command them to do as you wish. The Slayer Witch of the North has made it so. You should tell them to fly you right to the Emerald City. You will be there in no time at all. We shall leave so you may call them. Goodbye, friends,” and she scampers out of sight with all the Wererats hurrying after her.
When I look inside the Golden Cap, I see some words written upon the lining. These must be the charm she spoke of.
“There are directions!” I exclaim, relieved. “Here goes.”
After reading the directions, I put the cap upon my head.
“Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!” I shout, unsure if volume matters, as I stand on my left foot.
“What?” asks Nick, laughing at me.
“Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!” I continue, standing this time on my right foot. “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” I finish, now standing on both feet, and I take off the cap as Nick laughs.
“Right, well, I will not expect that to work,” Nick says when we hear chattering and flapping wings as the band of Vampire Bat Monkeys flies to us.
The Vampire Bat Monkeys land, their King at the front wearing armor and regalia across his chest and a crown of petrified wood atop his bat-monkey head. The King bows low before me, and asks, “What is your command?”
“We wish to go to the Emerald City,” I say, “and we have lost our way.”
“Fine, we will carry you,” says the King, and sweeps me off my feet in a blink.
Another Vampire Bat Monkey joins him, and they catch me up in their arms and fly away with me. The others take Nick, Ardie, and Werelion, while one seizes Toto and flies after us as Toto tries hard to bite him. The rest carry our bags, and soon we are high above Oz, speeding toward the end of our long journey. Red blooms blanket the ground for miles in every direction, the varying red shades from field to field creating an ombre effect, from the hottest coral-red to the darkest garnet.
As I take in the magnificent scene, I notice Werelion trembling, frightened—he must remember what the Vampire Bat Monkeys did to him before, but he sees soon enough that they’re not planning on hurting him. And Ardie seems relieved not to have to continue to trudge on for days upon days trying to find our way. I ride between two of the biggest Vampire Bat Monkeys, one of them the King himself. They have me sitting in a chair made of their hands and are careful not to hurt me, which I appreciate.
“Why do you have to obey the charm of the Golden Cap?” I ask, very curious how this works.
“That is a long story,” says the King, “but as we have a long journey before us, I will pass the time by telling you about it, if you wish.”
“I’d be glad to hear it.”
“Parts of this story I can tell you are true for I saw it happen with my own eyes, but other parts are not much more than chit-chat and tittle-tattle. I will tell you though, I believe every word,” he says and raises only one of his brows as his beady eye crinkles. Then his eyes gleam, like he’s about to tell me some juicy gossip, and it makes me smile.
“Once, we were living free in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, feeding on the forest animals and calling nobody master. Perhaps some of us were rather too full of mischief flying down to pull the tails of the animals for fun, chasing birds, and throwing nuts at the people who walked in the forest. We were careless and happy and full of fun and we enjoyed every minute of the day.
“Back then, there lived away at the North a beautiful queen who was also a powerful sorceress named Gayelette, and she lived in a handsome palace built from great diamonds. Almost everything a witch could want she had, and everyone loved her, but her greatest sorrow was that she could find no one to love.
“Since all the men were much too stupid and ugly to mate with one so beautiful and wise, she sought the great love of her life with a spell, but she soon found she did not have enough power to bring her love to her for he was very far away. So, she went to steal the silver shoes you wear from the Witch of the South, Glinda. Glinda was
her friend, and Gayelette went to her under the guise of friendship and stole the shoes from her wardrobe.
“Again, she performed the spell and when it was complete, she found herself in another land altogether—a land of eternal darkness with glittering crimson skies and rivers of blood—and standing before her was a beautiful boy only fifteen years of age with burgundy eyes and hair the color of tawny wine. When he smiled at her, he captured her heart, and the fangs he revealed did not matter to her. She asked him his name, and he said it was Quelala. When they spoke, she found he was wise beyond his years, and they fell in love straightaway. Quelala was a prince, but the youngest of his name with no claim to the throne. Gayelette was a queen, and a powerful sorceress, and she could give him all he desired—the title of King, a grand castle, and a kingdom to rule—so she brought him back to her diamond palace in the North, but the North was not what Quelala expected.
“The sun disturbed him, so she darkened the skies. Without rivers of blood, he had to feed on the blood of animals to survive, and Gayelette forbid him to feed on any human. Oz weakened him, but Gayelette used all her magic powers to make him as strong and good and lovely as any woman could wish, and he was happy again. At last, however, when Quelala grew to manhood, his manly beauty was so great that Gayelette loved him very much, and she decided to make him her husband. And she hastened to make everything ready for the wedding.
“My father was the King of the Winged Monkeys then. The old fellow loved a joke better than a fat rabbit for dinner. One day, just before the wedding, my father was flying out with his band when he saw Quelala walking beside the river. Quelala wore a rich costume of pink silk and purple velvet stars, and my father found him ridiculous with his frilly ribbons and fancy ruffles and curls, so he thought he would have some fun with him.
“At his word, the band flew down and seized Quelala, carried him in their arms until they were over the middle of the river, and then dropped him into the water. ‘Oh my, oh me,’ cried my father, ‘has the water has spotted your ruffles?’ Quelala laughed when he rose to the top of the water and swam in to shore, but when Gayelette came running out to him and found his silks and velvet ruined by the river, she grew angry and she knew who did it.
“At once, she ordered all the Vampire Bat Monkeys to appear before her. At first she said that she should tie their wings and drop them in the river, but my father pleaded, for he knew they would drown with their wings tied. When Quelala said a kind word for them, Gayelette spared them on the condition that my kind should ever after do three times the bidding of the owner of the Golden Cap.
“Gaylette had this cap made for a wedding present to Quelala. They say it cost her half her kingdom. She sold it to her cousin, the Witch of the East, for the money to acquire the enchanted relic. At once my father and all the others agreed to the condition, and that is how we are three times the slaves of the owner of the Golden Cap, whosoever he or she may be.”
“How did Quelala end up with the Witch of the West if he’s married to Gayelette?” I ask, fascinated.
“Ah, well, this is where it gets interesting. At the wedding of Quelala and Gayelette, he met her cousins—Ozmirinda and Ezdalina, the Sister Witches. Both sisters were beautiful, just like Gayelette, and Quelala’s beauty entranced them both. Neither of them had ever seen a creature so beautiful, and they too struggled to find love. Intrigued and a touch envious, they asked Gayelette where she found such a beautiful husband, and she told them of Glinda’s shoes, the spell she cast, and that she has been waiting until he was of age to marry him.
“Soon after they were married, while Gayelette was happy and her kingdom was happy, Quelala found he was not happy. He expected to rule as a king would, but Gayelette was the ruler of her kingdom and she would not hand over her reign to her husband. Although Quelala was wise, he was far younger than Gayelette and she was far wiser. Quelala was impetuous while Gayelette cared for her people and would not allow her husband to treat them as slaves.
“Quelala, being the first owner of the Golden Cap, was the first to lay his wishes upon us. As his bride could not bear the sight of us, he called us all to him in the forest and asked us to bring the Vampire Witch of the East to him.
“When we brought her, he asked her what it would take to get her to give him the other half of the kingdom Gayelette had sold her. At first she refused, so he promised her immortality, not just a long life. She laughed and said she did not believe he could do it and by the time she would learn it was a lie it would be too late. So, he performed some invisible magic on her and soon after she submitted to him. But Ozmirinda required an additional price—Gayelette’s silver shoes. With a dark laugh, he agreed and asked us all to wait for him while he got the shoes, and so we did.
“When he returned, he gave her the same shoes you wear on your feet now, and then he turned her. That is a sight I can never un-see. I was young still, just a boy, and I stood and watched as this vampire human fed on the witch, drinking her blood from her neck as he took her on the forest floor, and when he drank all her blood, he finished, cut his own wrist, and poured his blood into her mouth. A moment later, her eyes shot open glowing red. Drained of all her blood, her torn gray flesh healed in a matter of seconds.
“The first words she spoke as a vampire were, ‘I need blood.’ So, he ran at a speed I had never seen and returned a moment later with a maimed deer, presented it to her, and she drank it dry. When she drank all she could, he asked her when he could claim his half of the kingdom, and she told him if he wanted to live in her palace, he must live in it with her. Then he grew furious and used his compulsion to send her to her knees.”
“Compulsion?” I ask, riveted by this story.
“The vampire that turns another vampire can control them, bend them to their will, compel them to do as they wish. Quelala sent her to her knees and commanded she serves him alone from then on. He said she was his now, and because she was his, he would allow her to stay in the palace in the West, his kingdom, and when he was there, she would be his slave. She said yes and called him her master. When he released her from his hold, she used her magic to put the shoes onto her feet, kissed his boot, and flew away.
“When Ozmirinda first turned, she went into Munchkin and fed on hundreds of them, captured many more to keep for snacks, killed any who tried to combat her. She turned almost everyone she fed on and made them her slaves the way Quelala had done to her. Then those vampires began to feed and turn more vampires, then those vampires began to feed and turn more vampires, and so began the plague.”
“Wow, so Quelala was with Gayelette, then he turned the Witch of the East and somehow he ended up with the Witch of the West?”
“Well, Quelala returned to Gayelette and told her he possessed half the kingdom, so she had no choice but to share. When Gayelette asked him how he got Ozmirinda to hand over her half, he told her he exchanged it for the silver shoes. It upset Gayelette, as one would expect, but he reminded her she stole them too. With that, she could not argue, but she could steal them back, so she went to Ozmirinda’s castle and discovered Quelala had turned her. Enraged, but still wise, she went to Ozmirinda’s wardrobe to take the shoes back, but they were not there, and when Ozmirinda found her there, Gayelette saw the silver shoes on Ozmirinda’s feet. Ozmirinda attacked her, but Gayelette fought her off, returned to her castle, and sent Quelala away never to return to her kingdom.
“Banished by his wife, he went to Ozmirinda to claim his title as King of the East, which is not a true title, but he still took it, and they began turning as many people as they encountered. They took entire towns in minutes, so Gayelette and Ezdalina came together to combat them. Ezdalina was powerful, but so was Ozmirinda. And when Ezdalina who loved her sister and remembered who she once was went to Ozmirinda’s castle and begged her to stop, instead of listening to Ezdalina’s plea, Ozmirinda tried to attack her, but her shoes would not let her harm her own sister. That is when Quelala intervened and performed the same invisible magic on E
zdalina, took her there, and turned her.”
“When you say took her, do you mean…?”
“Yes, he took her right there just as he did to Ozmirinda in the forest, and he controlled them both until their end.”
“But he was with Ezdalina as more than just her General after he turned her.”
“He was with them both. If what they say about you is true, you killed both his lovers and drove him out of his castle. If I were you, I would watch out for him.”
“Thanks for the tip. So how did Ezdalina get the cap?”
“Quelala used us two more times to do his bidding, then the Witch of the East took it and three more times they used us to do Quelala’s bidding. Then she gave the cap to Ezdalina who three more times used us to do Quelala’s bidding. And now the cap is yours and you have two more times to call upon us. With Quelala so upset with you for killing the Sister Witches and putting him out of his palace, if you encounter him, I ask that you dispose of the cap for we do not wish to serve him ever again.”
“No problem, but don’t worry, I already ripped his heart out once. Next time, I’ll figure out how to kill him for good.”
“The only way is with a rare commodity called holy water. It is his only weakness.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
“If the Axeman will return to Winkie Land to rule, Quelala will come after him soon enough, for he sees Winkie Land as his kingdom and the people as his subjects. Quelala does not have the powers of the Vampire Witch though. Invisible magic only seems to work on one person at a time or he would have compelled all of Oz by now. Since he cannot cast spells to force them to do his bidding, I imagine he is gathering a great army of vampires to take over the Land of the West by force, then he will try to take over many of the lands throughout this realm.”
Dorothy In the Land of Monsters Page 38
