Complete Works of L. Frank Baum

by L. Frank Baum

  The Rout of the Royal Army of Ix

  The next day was a busy one in the city of Nole. The ten-foot lord high general marched his seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven men out of the city gates and formed them in line of battle on the brow of a hill. Then he asked Aunt Rivette to fly over the top of the mountain and see where the enemy was located. The old woman gladly undertook the mission. She had by this time become an expert flier, and being proud to resemble a bird, she dressed herself in flowing robes of as many colors as a poll-parrot could boast. When she mounted into the air, streamers of green and yellow silk floated behind her in quite a beautiful and interesting fashion, and she was admired by all beholders. Aunt Rivette flew high above the mountaintop, and there she saw the great army of Queen Zixi climbing up the slope on the other side. The army also saw her and stopped short in amazement at seeing a woman fly like a bird. They had before this thought their queen sure of victory because she was a witch and possessed many wonderful arts; but now they saw that the people of Noland could also do wonderful things, and it speedily disheartened them. Zixi ordered them to shoot a thousand arrows at Aunt Rivette, but quickly countermanded the order as the old woman was too high to be injured, and the arrows would have been wasted. When the army of Ix had climbed the mountain and was marching down again toward Nole, the lord high steward sent his dog Ruffles to them to make more mischief. Ruffles trotted soberly among the soldiers of Ix, and once in a while he would pause and say in a loud voice, “The army of Noland will conquer you.” Then all the soldiers would look around to see who had spoken these fearful words, but could see nothing but a little dog, and Ruffles would pretend to be scratching his nose with his left hind foot and would look so innocent that they never for a moment suspected he could speak. “We are surrounded by invisible foes!” cried the soldiers, and they would have fled even then had not Queen Zixi called them cowards and stubbornly declared they only fancied they had heard the voices speak. Some of them believed her, and some did not, but they decided to remain and fight since they had come so far to do so. Then they formed in line of battle again and marched boldly toward the army of Noland. While they were still a good way off and the generals were riding in front of their soldiers, the lord high executioner suddenly stretched out his long arm and pulled another general of Ix from his horse as he had done the day before, dragging him swiftly over the ground between the opposing armies until he was seized by the men of Nole and tightly bound with cords. The soldiers of Ix uttered murmurs of horror at this sight and stopped again. Immediately the long arm shot out and pulled another general from their ranks and made him prisoner. Queen Zixi raved and stormed with anger, but the lord high executioner, who was enjoying himself immensely, continued to grab officer after officer and make them prisoners, and so far there had been no sign of battle; not an arrow had been fired nor an ax swung. Then, to complete the amazement of the enemy, the gigantic ten-foot general of the army of Nole stepped in front of his men and waved around his head a flashing sword six feet in length while he shouted in a voice like a roar of thunder that made the army of Ix tremble, “Forward, soldiers of Noland, forward! Destroy the enemy and let none escape!” It was more than the army of Ix could bear. Filled with terror, the soldiers threw down their arms and fled in a great panic, racing over the mountaintop and down the other side and then scattering in every direction, each man for himself and as if he feared the entire army of Noland was at his heels. But it wasn’t. Not a soldier of Nole had moved in pursuit. Every one was delighted at the easy victory, and King Bud was so amused at the sight of the flying foe that he rolled on the ground in laughter, and even the fierce-looking General Tollydob grinned in sympathy. Then, with bands playing and banners flying, the entire army marched back into the city, and the war between Noland and Ix was over.

  The Theft of the Magic Cloak

  When the soldiers of Queen Zixi ran away, they fled in so many different directions that the bewildered queen could not keep track of them. Her horse, taking fright, dashed up the mountainside and tossed Zixi into a lilac bush, after which he ran off and left her. One would think such a chain of misfortunes could not fail to daunt the bravest. But Zixi had lived too many years to allow such trifles as defeat and flight to ruin her nerves; so she calmly disentangled herself from the lilac bush and looked around to see where she was. It was very quiet and peaceful on this part of the mountainside. Her glittering army had disappeared to the last man. In the far distance she could see the spires and turreted palaces of the city of Nole, and behind her was a thick grove of lilac trees bearing flowers in full bloom. This lilac grove gave Zixi an idea. She pushed aside some of the branches and entered the cool, shadowy avenues between the trees. The air was heavy with the scent of the violet flowers, and tiny hummingbirds were darting here and there to thrust their long bills into the blossoms and draw out the honey for food. Butterflies there were, too, and a few chipmunks perched high among the branches. But Zixi walked on through the trees in deep thought, and presently she had laid new plans. For since the magic cloak was so hard to get, she wanted it more than ever. By and by she gathered some bits of the lilac bush and dug some roots from the ground. Next she caught six spotted butterflies, from the wings of which she brushed off all the round, purple spots. Then she wandered on until she came upon a little spring of water bubbling from the ground, and filling a cup-shaped leaf of the tatti-plant from the spring, she mixed her bark and roots and butterfly-spots in the liquid and boiled it carefully over a fire of twigs; for tatti-leaves will not burn so long as there is water inside them. When her magical compound was ready, Zixi muttered an incantation and drank it in a single draught. A few moments later, the witch-queen had disappeared, and in her place stood the likeness of a pretty young girl dressed in a simple white gown with pink ribbons at the shoulders and a pink sash around her waist. Her light-brown hair was gathered into two long braids that hung down her back, and she had two big, blue eyes that looked very innocent and sweet. Besides these changes, both the nose and the mouth of the girl differed in shape from those of Zixi; so that no one would have seen the slightest resemblance between the two people, or between Miss Trust and the girl who stood in the lilac grove. The transformed witch-queen gave a sweet, rippling laugh and glanced at her reflection in the still waters of the spring. And then the girlish face frowned, for the image staring up at her was that of a wrinkled, toothless, old hag. “I really must have that cloak,” sighed the girl, and then she turned and walked out of the lilac grove and down the mountainside toward the city of Nole. The Princess Fluff was playing tennis with her maids in a courtyard of the royal palace when Jikki came to say that a girl wished to speak with her Highness. “Send her here,” said Fluff. So the witch-queen came to her in the guise of the fair young girl, and bowing in a humble manner before the princess she said, “Please, your Highness, may I be one of your maids?” “Why, I have eight already!” answered Fluff, laughing. “But my father and mother are both dead, and I have come all the way from my castle to beg you to let me wait upon you,” said the girl, looking at the little princess with a pleading expression in her blue eyes. “Who are you?” asked Fluff. “I am daughter of the Lord Hurrydole, and my name is Adlena,” replied the girl, which was not altogether falsehood, because one of her ancestors had borne the name Hurrydole, and Adlena was one of her own names. “Then, Adlena,” said Fluff brightly, “you shall certainly be one of my maids, for there is plenty of room in the palace, and the more girls I have around me, the happier I shall be.” So Queen Zixi, under the name of Adlena, became an inmate of the king’s palace, and it was not many days before she learned where the magic cloak was kept. But the princess gave her a key to a drawer and told her to get from it a blue silk scarf she wished to wear, and directly under the scarf lay the fairy garment. Adlena would have seized it at that moment had she dared, but Fluff was in the same room, so she only said, “Please, princess, may I look at that pretty cloak?” “Of course,” answered Fluff, “but handle it
carefully, for it was given me by the fairies.” So Adlena unfolded the cloak and looked at it very carefully, noting exactly the manner in which it was woven. Then she folded it again, arranged it in the drawer, and turned the key, which the princess immediately attached to a chain which she always wore around her neck. That night, when the witch-queen was safely locked in her own room and could not be disturbed, she called about her a great many of those invisible imps that serve the most skillful witches, commanding them to weave for her a cloak in the exact likeness of the one given Princess Fluff by the fairies. Of course the imps had never seen the magic cloak, but Zixi described it to them accurately, and before morning they had woven a garment so closely resembling the original that the imitation was likely to deceive anyone. Only one thing was missing, and that was the golden thread woven by Queen Lulea herself, and which gave the cloak its magic powers. Of course the imps of Zixi could not get this golden thread, nor could they give any magical properties to the garment they had made at the witch’s command, but they managed to give the cloak all of the many brilliant colors of the original, and Zixi was quite satisfied. The next day Adlena wore this cloak while she walked in the garden. Very soon Princess Fluff saw her and ran after the girl, crying indignantly, “See here! What do you mean by wearing my cloak? Take it off instantly!” “It isn’t your cloak. It is one of my own,” replied the girl calmly. “Nonsense! There can’t be two such cloaks in the world,” retorted Fluff. “But there are,” persisted Adlena. “How could I get the one in your drawer when the key is around your own neck?” “I’m sure I don’t know,” admitted the princess, beginning to be puzzled. “But come with me into my rooms. If my fairy cloak is indeed in the drawer, then I will believe you.” So they went to the drawer, and of course found the magic cloak, as the cunning Zixi had planned. Fluff pulled it out and held the two up together to compare them, and they seemed to be exactly alike. “I think yours is a little the longer,” said Adlena, and threw it over the shoulders of the princess. “No, I think mine is the longer,” she continued, and removing the magic cloak, put her own upon Fluff. They seemed to be about the same length, but Adlena kept putting first one and then the other upon the princess until they were completely mixed, and the child could not have told one from the other. “Which is mine?” she finally asked in a startled voice. “This, of course,” answered Adlena, folding up the imitation cloak which the imps had made and putting it away in the drawer. Fluff never suspected the trick, so Zixi carried away the magic cloak she had thus cleverly stolen, and she was so delighted with the success of her stratagem that she could have screamed aloud for pure joy. As soon as she was alone and unobserved, the witch-queen slipped out of the palace, and carrying the magic cloak in a bundle under her arm, ran down the streets of Nole and out through the gate in the wall and away toward the mountain where the lilac grove lay. “At last!” she kept saying to herself. “At last I shall see my own beautiful reflection in a mirror, instead of that horrid old hag!” When she was safe in the grove, she succeeded by means of her witchcraft in transforming the girl Adlena back into the beautiful woman known throughout the kingdom of Ix as Queen Zixi. And then she lost no time in throwing the magic cloak over her shoulders. “I wish,” she cried in a loud voice, “that my reflection in every mirror will hereafter show the same face and form as that in which I appear to exist in the sight of all mortals!” Then she threw off the cloak and ran to the crystal spring, saying, “Now, indeed, I shall at last see the lovely Queen Zixi!” But as she bent over the spring, she gave a sudden shriek of disappointed rage, for glaring up at her from the glassy surface of the water was the same fearful hag she had always seen as the reflection of her likeness! The magic cloak would grant no wish to a person who had stolen it. Zixi, more wretched than she had ever been before in her life, threw herself down upon her face in the lilac grove and wept for more than an hour, which is an exceedingly long time for tears to run from one’s eyes. And when she finally arose, two tiny brooks flowed from the spot and wound through the lilac trees, one to the right and one to the left. Then, leaving the magic cloak--to possess which she had struggled so hard and sinfully--lying unheeded upon the ground, the disappointed witch-queen walked slowly away and finally reached the bank of the great river. Here she found a rugged old alligator who lay upon the bank, weeping with such bitterness that the sight reminded Zixi of her own recent outburst of sorrow. “Why do you weep, friend?” she asked, for her experience as a witch had long since taught her the language of the beasts and birds and reptiles. “Because I cannot climb a tree,” answered the alligator. “But why do you wish to climb a tree?” she questioned, surprised. “Because I can’t,” returned the alligator, squeezing two more tears from his eyes. “But that is very foolish!” exclaimed the witch-queen scornfully. “Oh, I don’t know,” said the alligator. “It doesn’t strike me that it’s much more foolish than the fancies some other people have.” “Perhaps not,” replied Zixi more gently, and walked away in deep thought. While she followed the river bank to find a ferry across, the dusk fell, and presently a gray owl came out of a hollow in a tall tree and sat upon a limb, wailing dismally. Zixi stopped and looked at the bird. “Why do you wail so loudly?” she asked. “Because I cannot swim in the river like a fish,” answered the owl, and it screeched so sadly that it made the queen shiver. “Why do you wish to swim?” she inquired. “Because I can’t,” said the owl, and buried its head under its wing with a groan. “But that is absurd!” cried Zixi with impatience. The owl had an ear out and heard her. So it withdrew its head long enough to retort, “I don’t think it’s any more absurd than the longings of some other folks.” “Perhaps you are right,” said the queen, and hung her head as she walked on. By and by she found a ferryman with a boat, and he agreed to row her across the river. In one end of the boat crouched a little girl, the ferryman’s daughter, and she sobbed continually, so that the sound of the child’s grief finally attracted Zixi’s attention. “Why do you sob?” questioned the queen. “Because I want to be a man,” replied the child, trying to stifle her sobs. “Why do you want to be a man?” asked Zixi curiously. “Because I’m a little girl,” was the reply. This made Zixi angry. “You’re a little fool!” she exclaimed loudly. “There are other fools in the world,” said the child, and renewed her sobs. Zixi did not reply, but she thought to herself, “We are all alike--the alligator, the owl, the girl, and the powerful Queen of Ix. We long for what we cannot have, yet desire it not so much because it would benefit us as because it is beyond our reach. If I call the others fools, I must also call myself a fool for wishing to see the reflection of a beautiful girl in my mirror when I know it is impossible. So hereafter I shall strive to be contented with my lot.” This was a wise resolution, and the witch-queen abided by it for many years. She was not very bad, this Zixi, for it must be admitted that few have the courage to acknowledge their faults and strive to correct them as she did.

  The Plain Above the Clouds

  I have already mentioned how high the mountains were between Noland and the land of Ix, but at the north of the city of Nole were mountains much higher--so high, indeed, that they seemed to pierce the clouds, and it was said the moon often stopped on the highest peak to rest. It was not one single slope up from the lowlands, but first there was a high mountain with a level plain at the top, and then another high mountain rising from the level and capped with a second plain, and then another mountain, and so on; which made them somewhat resemble a pair of stairs. So that the people of Nole, who looked upon the North Mountains with much pride, used to point them out as “The Giant’s Stairway,” forgetting that no giant was ever big enough to use such an immense flight of stairs. Many people had climbed the first mountain, and upon the plain at its top flocks of sheep were fed; and two or three people boasted they had climbed the second steep; but beyond that the mountains were all unknown to the dwellers in the valley of Noland. As a matter of fact, no one lived upon them; they were inhabited only by a few small animals and an occasi
onal vulture or eagle which nested in some rugged crag. But at the top of all was an enormous plain that lay far above the clouds, and here the Roly-Rogues dwelt in great numbers. I must describe these Roly-Rogues to you, for they were unlike any other people in all the world. Their bodies were as round as a ball--if you can imagine a ball fully four feet in thickness at the middle. And their muscles were as tough and elastic as india rubber. They had heads and arms resembling our own, and very short legs, and all these they could withdraw into their ball-like bodies whenever they wished, very much as a turtle withdraws its legs and head into its shell. The Roly-Rogues lived all by themselves in their country among the clouds, and there were thousands and thousands of them. They were quarrelsome by nature, but could seldom hurt one another because if they fought they could withdraw their arms and legs and heads into their bodies and roll themselves at one another with much fierceness. But when they collided, they would bounce apart again, and little harm was done. In spite of their savage disposition, the Roly-Rogues had as yet done no harm to anyone but themselves, as they lived so high above the world that other people knew nothing of their existence. Nor did they themselves know, because of the clouds that floated between, of the valleys which lay below them. But as ill luck would have it, a few days after King Bud’s army had defeated the army of Ix, one of the Roly-Rogues, while fighting with another, rolled too near the edge of the plain whereon they dwelt, and bounded down the mountainside that faced Noland. Wind had scattered the clouds, so his fellows immediately rolled themselves to the edge and watched the luckless Roly-Rogue fly down the mountain, bounce across the plain and thence speed down the next mountain. By and by he became a dot to their eyes and then a mere speck, but as the clouds had just rolled away for a few moments, the Roly-Rogues could see, by straining their eyes, the city of Nole lying in the valley far below. It seemed from that distance merely a toy city, but they knew it must be a big place to show so far away, and since they had no cities of their own, they became curious to visit the one they had just discovered. The ruler of the Roly-Rogues, who was more quarrelsome than any of the rest, had a talk with his chief men about visiting the unknown city. “We can roll down the mountain just as our brother did,” he argued. “But how in the world could we ever get back again?” said one of the chiefs, sticking his head up to look with astonishment at the other. “We don’t want to get back,” said the other excitedly. “Someone has built many houses and palaces at the foot of the mountains, and we can live in those if they are big enough and if there are enough of them.” “Perhaps the people won’t let us,” suggested another chief who was not in favor of the expedition. “We will fight them and destroy them,” retorted the ruler, scowling at the chief as if he would make him ashamed of his cowardice. “Then we must all go together,” said a third chief, “for if only a few go, we may find ourselves many times outnumbered and at last be overcome.” “Every Roly-Rogue in the country shall go!” declared the ruler, who brooked no opposition when once he had made up his mind to a thing. On the plain grew a grove of big thorn trees bearing thorns as long and sharp as swords, so the ruler commanded each of his people to cut two of the thorns, one for each hand, with which to attack whatever foes they might meet when they reached the unknown valley. Then, on a certain day, all the hundreds and thousands of Roly-Rogues that were in existence assembled upon the edge of their plain and, at the word of their ruler, hurled themselves down the mountain with terrible cries and went bounding away toward the peaceful city of Nole.