He laughed, looking down at me. I’m not small, but he could. “And what does Ozma mean?”
I raised my nose in the air. “Oz means ‘Great and Good,’ you peasant. Nearly every reigning king and queen of Lurline’s line since Ozma the First has taken a derivative reign name. Ozmund, Ozanus, Ozi. And you won’t use it here.” I pointed a finger at him, waved it. “Pennigal.”
He grabbed my finger, my whole hand disappearing into his. “Who are you, and what have you done with she-who-will-not-be-named?”
“We’re on an adventure. Come on.”
We could have descended the precipitous switchbacks to the floor of the falls, where the roaring water filled the great pool and descended to the underground rivers that watered the springs and aquifers of Quadling Country, but instead we climbed. We needed to go up, up, up, above the falls and north, to the cascades that fed it from Green Lake and the central lands ruled directly by the Emerald City.
Brian could have put me on top of the pack and sprinted up the switchbacks, but even trolls weren’t supposed to be that strong and my legs started to burn long before we’d reached the top.
“So why are we going to see the Wizard again?” Brian asked about halfway up. “Didn’t he sort of, kidnap you as a child or something?”
“The Wizard came to Oz after my father was already dead and I’d disappeared,” I explained as we climbed. “But there were rumors that he did away with me, spread to undermine his rule of the Emerald City. Of course when I was found the rumors changed to say that he’d given me to Mombi. There was no truth in them, she kidnapped me herself and turned me into Tip.”
“And why are you having so much fun?”
I’d have laughed if I’d had breath from the climb. “I liked being Tip, after I got away from Mombi. I liked adventures. No protocol, no courtiers, no responsibility for anything except my friends—I don’t care what Baum wrote, ruling Oz took a lot more work than a freaking hour or two a day.”
“Freaking?”
I turned around. “I won’t say the real f-word! My language is cleaner than Hope’s. One hundred years of habit, by golly. As Tip, I swore like a sailor. Mombi was a terrible role model.”
Below me, Grendel looked stunned. “That didn’t get into the books.”
“It wouldn’t, would it?”
He was quiet for another two switchbacks.
“So, they did it to you again?”
“When they conquered Oz? Oh, yes. They can’t kill me because I have no heirs and the magic of Oz is tied to the fairy blood of the royal family, so this time I was Kip. Kip Nelson, a boy in foster care until the Magic Belt found me and woke me. I liked being Kip, too. Foster care was nowhere near as bad as Mombi.”
All I’d had to worry about as Kip was schoolwork, chores, and the occasional bully foster kid. I hadn’t been a big boy.
We stopped talking again, though I was very conscious of him stomping along behind me. With all the noise he was making, my boots made no sound as I dug into the trail.
I supposed that Brian had never really taken it all seriously. The real world that Mombi had exiled me to was full of superhuman breakthroughs who often made big claims about themselves and the sources of their powers. In Hillwood Academy we’d known a couple of avatars and demigods, and Brian was nominally Christian so he hadn’t exactly believed them. But now we were in Oz, and either I was really Ozma or I’d created the whole place from breakthrough-fueled delusions. Poor baby… I hoped this didn’t make him take me more seriously as a princess and empress; he was my dearest friend, not a soldier or courtier.
And he wasn’t going to be just a soldier or courtier when I sat on the Emerald Throne again either. I didn’t look back. “Benagain? I have not seen Kindrake recently. Are the two of you still stepping out together?”
The stomping stopped, resumed. “She’s busy. And dating in LA.”
He couldn’t see my smile.
The switchbacks ended atop the cliff, and we finally stood on flat ground beside the terminal end of the Great River.
“Now that’s a big waterfall.”
“Larger than Niagara Falls,” I said proudly. “And much higher. We’ve got an easy walk now—there are a lot of them, but the Cascades aren’t very high.” I turned away from the beautiful view to look north. “But we may have a fight now. Put down the pack, dear. Remember, do not change. Trolls don’t do that.”
The pack of silver wolves raced down upon us almost silently. The smallest of them outweighed me, and they bared silver teeth and let loose their barking howls when they saw us turn to stand ready. The closest wolf gathered itself and leapt, Brian’s iron staff cutting through the air with a vibrating hum to batter it aside. My willow wand out, I shouted “Lim Tin Tak!” and the two lunging for me yipped as their bodies lifted and drifted, suddenly as light as leaves on the breeze which blew them out over the cliff edge.
Brian stepped in front of me before the others reached us and simply roared at the remaining four. They weren’t talking animals, with sapient wisdom, but they were smart enough to see that he was too tough for lunch and their barks turned to yipping howls as they fled.
I took a few breaths before my heart stopped racing and I trusted myself to be steady. Stepping to the edge, I looked down to see the two silver wolves I had charmed bobbing and bouncing lightly down the rocks below us; they would arrive at the bottom before the magic wore off and they’d be able to stand against the wind blowing them about. Brian laughed at the sight, and I could imagine how it might look to anyone below as two very confused wolves drifted down like half-deflated balloons.
“Easier than turning them into hats, right?”
“Changing their mass is much easier than changing their form.” I gripped my willow wand and gave Brian a tight smile. They shouldn’t have been here at all. During my nearly centenary reign, the reunited lands of Oz had rendered a wolf attack as likely here as a wolf attack in England. Silver wolves roaming this close to the City Lands, the territory under the direct administration of the Emerald City, was a bad sign indeed. Straightening, I returned my wand to its sheath at my hip. “Well, let us be off. We can reach the first cascade before sunset.”
Something was upsetting her witchy majesty. She’d been chatty, even exuberant, on the way to the top of the falls. The attack? Maybe. She wasn’t a fighting cape, really, and most of her work was support or civil emergency, but the wolves hadn’t shaken her so what was going on? I adjusted the pack, watching her stride along. The girl never looked less than sure of herself, ever. I figured that was from being Dictator for Life of Oz but I’d learned her tells; when she was unsure she got on her best imperial behavior. More proper than proper. She also liked to stand practically right on top of me, and right now we were practically shoulder to shoulder as we followed the river upstream. She was worrying.
So talk about something. “So the Tick-Tock Works sounds important, right? Why would it be clear out here, in Quadling Country?”
“Factory works are waterwheel driven.” She didn’t look up. “With its sequence of falls, the Cascades are the best source of water power in Oz. Also, Quadling Country’s most valuable resource is radium. It’s a vital piece of clockwork magic, used in the winding springs to multiply motivational power.”
“The thing you took apart was radioactive? What the fu—”
She patted my arm. “No, Brian. Radium in Oz isn’t like radium on Earth. It’s not radioactive. You’ve seen it. The Travel Sphere we used to get here is made of it. It magnifies anentropic forces to— It enhances magic. Many believe it has healthful properties and wear amulets of it on necklaces or bracelets. You know, the way some people swear by the powers of magnets. My crown and scepter is made of it, and radium thread is woven into my Magic Belt. Wizards and witches love the stuff.” She laughed. “It’s fortunate that the Quadlings were not a scholarly people, before unification. They were militarily aggressive enough that had they known how to use it they might have conquered Oz.”
“So instead you guys did?”
“We did, but not with radium.”
“Why?” That was something I’d never been able to figure out, and it had always seemed sort of a touchy subject.
She was willing to talk about it now. “The Emerald City is surrounded, and the crossroads to everywhere in Oz. Emerils eventually tired of being attacked by everyone else. If it wasn’t the Kingdom of Quada in alliance with the Kingdom of Munch, it was Quada and Wink. To be fair, they fought each other more often than they fought us, but the final straw was the Quadruple Alliance, when even Gilli joined in to take their share of the City Lands.”
“Holy—cow. How did you survive?”
“Thick city walls and deep granaries. They couldn’t break the walls and couldn’t out starve us. Also the Quadling king died, and when his children started fighting for the throne the Quadling army had to go home. After that, Ozamund the First launched the Unification Wars. We conquered and incorporated Gilli first, then Munch and Winki, and by the time Ozamund’s daughter invaded Quada it wasn’t a contest since we had the armies of all the others with us. We united the lands into the Imperial Realm of Oz, spread Emeril learning and law, and made everyone Ozian.”
She waved at the low hills around us. “Even the names of the old kingdoms are gone, and now it’s just the City Lands, Gillikin Country, Winkie Country, Munchkin Country, and Quadling Country, all equally represented and administered under the Emerald Throne. Or it used to be. It fell apart for a while under the Witches, and now, well now it looks like it might all be gone again. These were tame lands.” She glared at the grass and flower covered hills like they’d personally offended her.
Gotcha. Ozma was scared. Not by the wolves but what they meant. The girl had sat on that throne for nearly a hundred years (and now I was getting the idea she hadn’t always liked it), worked hard to patch everything up, and now it was all broken again? So she was worrying herself into a mess.
We couldn’t have that, right?
“So…” I poked the girl’s shoulder, making her stumble. “The Emerald City is like, what, Rome? Marching legions, burning cities, all that stuff? Did you have gladiators? Dynastic struggles? Assassinations? Riots? Wild animal fights?”
“No!” she laughed. “You watch too much cable, Brian.” She put her nose in the air and put some distance between us, but she started humming. Probably some Oz composer, because I sure didn’t recognize it. I didn’t complain—Ozma had a sweet voice and whatever it was she stayed on key. Her steps bounced her red hair (she’d magically dyed it for our adventure), and all was right with the world.
At least it was until we saw the first cascade.
Ozma said it wasn’t a fort. Its walls were brick and too low, its gate too wide and unprotected. Tall smokestacks and tiles roofs of big blocky buildings rose above the walls, and the tops of the walls looked like they were covered by their own peaked roofs, with peaked towers at each corner. The cascade thundered over rocks within a hundred feet of its western wall.
“It’s the Tick-Tock Works,” she decided. “We are close to the northern radium mines, and not far downriver from Southford.” We found the dirt road that led from the hills to the gates, and trudged on. The guards at the gate carried ax-bladed pikes, and dressed in dirty green uniforms with lots of brass buttons under breastplates that looked like they hadn’t been polished in years.
“Halt! Stand in the name of the Crowns!” The more active of the three guards had waited until we were practically standing in the gate. Now he leveled his pike at my chest. I stopped, no problem.
“State your business!”
I glanced down at Ozma, who didn’t look at all impressed. She pointed to her hat. “We are on our way to Southford, and decided to see if there was any need of my simples and cures at the works.”
“And why do you travel on this side of the river?”
She shrugged inelegantly. “We come from the mines, and Southford is on this side of the river. Here.” Fishing in her vest, she brought out a bundle of folded papers, handed them to the guard. I tried not to look curious as he opened them. They were blank.
He studied the blank papers carefully, handed them back with a sneer. “Everything is in order, perhaps the nursery can use you.” Fishing in his own pocket, he tossed each of us a chip. “Don’t lose them, and return to this gate tomorrow.” He looked up at me. “Leave the pole.”
I let go and he scrambled to grab it before it fell to the ground, straining to juggle it with his pike. “Careful, troll. You may be more useful than your woman around here.”
He didn’t like my smile, but they let us pass. The wall wasn’t thick at all, just enough to support a wooden walkway under the eaves around the top, and the inner yard was dirt and badly laid stones, full of wagons. We could see all of the buildings now, the big block buildings with their chimneys and rows of long low buildings beside them. Obvious guardhouses hugged the inside of the walls and I was starting to get a bad feeling about this place.
It wasn’t the smoke or the rhythmic ground shaking thumps and clangs, it was everyone I saw. The sloppy guards were the best-dressed people in the works; everyone else wore close to rags, and nobody not in a uniform looked at a guard as they went wherever they were going. There were a lot of guards, and they weren’t guarding the walls.
Nobody in the yard seemed at all curious about us until a white-haired man spotted Ozma’s pointy hat and hustled over to bow. His clothes weren’t as ragged as the others.
“Excuse me, mistress…”
Ozma nodded. “Mistress Pennigal, sir. And this is my husband. We have been directed to the nursery?”
“Well that is most splendid! Your pardon, I am Diomedus and I can take you there directly. There is a fever in the works, and with the poor diet here… We are most happy to see you.” He led us quickly to the long low building closest to the east wall. This one had its own guardhouse, and they didn’t let me pass. Instead, Ozma had me put my pack down against the wall and sit with it while she took several packets from our gear and went inside.
I watched the guards in the prison yard, because the Tick Tock Works was a prison. A whistle blew and I saw a work-party transfer, a file of workers marched out of the closest factory building under guard and into one of the long ones. They weren’t in chains but all of them were ragged and thin, and none looked up from their feet as they marched.
Ozma stayed in the nursery for an hour, and when she emerged past the guards and sat down beside me her eyes were red. Her fingers moved and she whispered a rhyme I couldn’t catch, before looking at me.
“It’s a prison camp for rebels, Brian.” She kept her voice low, but didn’t look at the guards. They were lazy, but close enough to hear us so she must have witched them somehow. Or witched us. “When someone is taken for rebellion they take his family too. The children are held hostage in the nursery.” Her voice shook. “It’s awful in there, but I’m told it’s not as bad as the rest of the camp.”
“Is the Wizard here?”
“They say he is, under lock and key in the factory where he directs production and crafts the finer gears and pieces they need. They’re building a tick-tock army.”
“Got it. What do we do?”
“We are going to break the works, Brian. The Army of Oz will march and not one brick will stand on another brick before we are through. Wait here and be ready.” She rose and took more packets inside. I didn’t see what they were; I was busy counting guards.
The sun set, more work parties leaving the factory before Ozma came out again, so I was pretending to doze when she touched my shoulder.
“Brain. The factory is yours. Tear it down. There will only be guards inside it now, except for the Wizard, and I know my Wizard. He will be ready.”
I shook myself and stood. “Okay. And where will you start?”
“Here. I will start here. LUX!”
The explosion of lighted blinded me, and then Ozma stood tall in her white sh
eath and gown, silver crown on her head, Magic Belt at her waist, and scepter in her hand. She glowed and the light was a wind, sweeping between the buildings and sparking flares off every pike and lamp.
“I am Ozma! Daughter of King Pastoria, Princess of the Emerald City and Empress of Oz the Great and the Good! For crimes against my subjects your lives are forfeit, your names forgotten, your lineages cursed! All within these walls are mine by right of ancient law!”
Shouts and cries of alarm filled the works. Ozma shown bright while behind her vines sprang out of the nursery gate to choke the entry and climb its walls as white blossoms opened to bathe in her light. I laughed and charged, my boots bursting as I bulked while I ran. Halfway across the yard, I felt a push at my back as power poured into me and fire lit my skin to sink to my bones. I’d burst if I tried to hold it in, but that wasn’t what she wanted at all and I grew, bigger than I’d ever been. When I hit the factory doors they shattered and I had to bend to enter. Dark cavernous halls lit by only a few lamps stretched the length of the building, full of belts and forges and tanks and machinery I didn’t even try to identify.
It would all be wreckage anyway, and the few night guards scattered and ran as I got to work.
Half-finished tick-tocks made handy projectiles, support beams made great clubs, and banked forges made great fire-starters. I punctuated swings and stomps with roars of “Magician! Magician!” Halfway through the hall I found him waiting by an open cell, an old man with thinning hair and sagging skin on a face that used to be fuller.
He bowed, smiling savagely. “I am the Wizard, and it is a pleasure. Shall we be off? Ozma is here?”
“She’s outside, and I’m bringing it all down.”
“Right-oh, then. Don’t take too long, young man, and may I suggest lighting more fires and then breaking the pillars? Burst the water pumps at the back when you’re through, and you can flood out what doesn’t burn.” He practically skipped for the doors, carrying a dusty tool bag with him and moving a lot faster than I’d have thought possible for his age.
Wearing the Cape 6: Team-Ups and Crossovers Page 11
