Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond

by Unknown

  That put a smile on Nyla’s face.

  “Now,” said Mr. Bucklebelt, “let’s talk about traveling shoes. Exactly what kind of traveling shoes are you looking for? Because there are traveling shoes, and then there are traveling shoes. Some will get you home, and some will get you far, far from home. Some will take you places that you want to go, and others will take you to places that you need to go—even if you don’t know that that’s where you need to be.”

  Nyla settled herself on a soft roll of yarn, pulling her bag around so that it rested on her lap. She took a moment to compose her thoughts, and then said, “I want traveling shoes that will take me to places I don’t even know about.”

  “Ah,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “You want magic shoes.”

  “But…aren’t all traveling shoes magical?”

  “Oh no,” he said. “Not at all. Most traveling shoes are very civilized and proper, and as you know, when you’re too civilized then there’s no magic at all.”

  “How can those kinds of shoes take you to wonderful places?” she asked, confused.

  He took a moment before he answered that. “Well, it’s because there are different kinds of magic. In the most civilized places—in gray places where everything is normal—then shoes will protect your feet from ordinary things like stones in the road or nettles in the grass. They’ll keep your feet from burning on the hot sand or from freezing in the snow. And when you’re walking in mud, they won’t let squishy worms wriggle between your toes.”

  “I don’t mind worms,” said Nyla, but she said it to herself.

  Mr. Bucklebelt said, “That kind of traveling shoes will help you run indoors when there’s lightning or help you run fast to catch a boat that’s about to sail. They won’t squeak when you sneak, and they won’t flop when you hop. A good pair of traveling shoes—even the non magical kind that people wear here in Oz and everywhere where people have feet—will be a comfort on a long journey. And—maybe there’s just the tiniest spark of magic in them, because when you put on any pair of traveling shoes, your feet just want to go find somewhere new to walk.”

  “Then what about shoes with real magic?”

  “Ah,” he said sagely, touching his finger to the side of his nose, “that’s another thing entirely. There are very few genuinely magical traveling shoes. In my whole career as a cobbler, I’ve seen only three pairs.”

  “Three?”

  “One was a pair of stalking boots worn by the Huntsman of Hungry Hall. When he put those boots on, he never needed horse nor even hounds to find a stag or a wild boar for the village roast. Those boots always found the trail and kept him on it until his prey was within easy bowshot. No one in all the district ever went hungry because of the Huntsman’s stalking boots.”

  “Wow!”

  “Then there are the dancing slippers of the Ash Princess. The shoes looked like ordinary slippers on anyone else’s feet, but on her feet, they transformed into the second most elegant shoes in all the world, and even though they were as soft as calfskin leather, they were as clear as polished crystal.” He leaned in close and whispered. “Made from the leather of dragon’s wings. With those shoes, the Ash Princess and her Prince danced on moonbeams and starlight, high above the heads of everyone else at their wedding.”

  “Wait…you said they were the second most elegant shoes in the world. What are the first?”

  Mr. Bucklebelt sighed very softly, and when he spoke, his voice was hushed. “Ah, now…that brings us to the third pair of traveling shoes. The dragon-scale walking shoes. Now there is a pair of shoes, my girl. The finest craftsmanship in all the world. I’m only a humble cobbler—I repair shoes—but those were made by the finest cordwainer, the finest shoemaker in all the land. Do you know the story? No? Shall I tell you?”

  Nyla nodded, her eyes alight with excitement.

  “Then tell you I shall, for it is a tale anyone looking for traveling shoes really should know.” He settled himself more comfortably on his stool. “This is a very old story because it happened a very long time ago. Back in an age when there were griffins and dragons and herds of unicorns. Back when fish with scales of true gold swam in rivers that flowed to a great sea called Shallasa. Ah, but that was so long ago that most people don’t believe it’s anything but an old story. I know, though, that Shallasa is neither a made-up story nor myth, nor even a dream. And yet all we have left of that sea are its bones.”

  “The bones of a sea?” asked Nyla. “How can a sea have bones?”

  “They don’t look like bones as you and I know them, but everything has a part of itself that remains even when all of this is gone.” He gave her arm a gentle pinch. “When a sea dies, it leaves behind a great waste of salt and sand.”

  “The Deadly Desert!” cried Nyla in horror.

  “Yes indeed. That cruel waste that no one can cross,” he said, nodding gravely. “It stretches beyond our knowing and surrounds all of Oz. No one can cross it and live, and we know this because many have tried. So many. Even heroes and fast horses, even scorpions in their armor and birds on their wings. Nothing that lives can traverse the Deadly Desert. And what a sadness that is, because even though the dragon-scale walking shoes were made in what is now Munchkin Country, the materials—the key materials, mind you—came from a land far beyond the Sea of Shallasa. A land not even remembered in fairytales and old songs, more’s the pity. It was a land of tall castles and deep valleys, a place where jewel-birds flitted among the trees and the mountains sang old songs every night at the setting of the sun. It was there, in a place in whose very soil the soul of magic thrived. That is the only place where the silver sequins that were used to cover the shoes can be found.”

  “But…can’t someone make silver sequins? There is plenty of silver around and—”

  “Ah,” said Bucklebelt, shaking his head, “like traveling shoes, there is silver and then there is silver. The silver I’m talking about isn’t a cold metal chopped from a mine. No, this is living silver, and there is only one source for it. Just one in all the world.”

  “What is it?” asked Nyla in a wondering little voice.

  He bent down closer, and his whisper was hushed and secret. “Dragon’s tears,” he said.

  Her eyes went as wide as eyes could go. “D-dragon’s tears?”

  “Oh yes. When Shallasa was still a shining sea, there were dragons in those far-off lands. Only a few, mind you, because even way back then, dragons were becoming scarce. But they were there. And there were different kinds of dragons. There were puffer dragons whose exhalations could chase the clouds through the sky and blow rainstorms away into other lands. There were soot dragons that ate fire and slept in the mouths of volcanoes. And, of course, there were silver dragons. Great, gleaming beasts made of living metal.”

  “Oh my,” said Nyla. “Were they friendly dragons?”

  Bucklebelt laughed. “Friendly? Whoever heard of a friendly dragon?”

  “I read about talking dragons in stories,” said Nyla. “Sometimes they’re nice.”

  “Those are stories, little one,” said the cobbler. “Stories are made up except when they’re not.”

  Nyla blinked. “But…but…” Her face wrinkled with confusion as she tried to understand what Mr. Bucklebelt just said.

  He chuckled. “I suppose some dragons have been civil, but I don’t know if any of them have ever been nice. At least not to edible, crunchable folks like you and me. Long, long ago, though, there were people who found a way to talk to those dragons. Not all of them…but the less grouchy ones. There are old songs—songs so old that half the words aren’t even words to us anymore—about people talking to dragons. High on a cliff or under a mountain or deep in the darkest woods.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “About sad things,” said Mr. Bucklebelt, and he felt sad to say it. “The dragons were the last of their kind. Each of them, be it shadow dragon or red-clay dragon or corn dragon, they were the last of their kind.”


  “What happened to all the others? To their mommas and daddas and all their sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins?”

  “Dead,” said the cobbler. “All dead. Just as most of those dragons are probably dead now. Bones and dust, like Shallasa the sea is salt and sand. Nothing lives forever. Not even dragons.”

  Nyla looked sad. “That’s terrible. Dragons are immortal; they’re forever.”

  “Even mountains don’t last forever and ever.” The cobbler took a breath and shook his head as if shaking off sad thoughts. He got up and tottered over to a big chest that had been placed on painted sawhorses. Mr. Bucklebelt fished inside his shirt and produced a golden key that hung from a silver chain. He looked forlornly at the key, then inserted it in the chest and opened the lock. The cobbler raised the lid and removed several items that he carefully set aside. Then he removed a parcel that was wrapped in the very finest silk. He brought this over to the counter and placed it with great reverence in front of Nyla. The cobbler licked his lips nervously and then peeled back the corners of the silk wrapping to reveal the ugliest pair of shoes the little Monkey had ever seen.

  They were tiny and battered, with holes in each sole and many signs of damage and wear. And though there were sequins sewn onto them, each sequin was as pale as ash and devoid of luster.

  Nyla gave Bucklebelt a puzzled expression. “What shoes are these?”

  “Why,” he cried, “these are the dragon-scale traveling shoes!”

  “But…they aren’t magical shoes at all. These are just a pair of dirty old shoes.” Tears sprang into the Monkey’s eyes. “You’re trying to fool me. You’re making fun of me like everyone else does. I thought you might be different, but you’re just as cruel.”

  The cobbler leaned back and laughed. And yet it was not a mocking laugh, or a cruel laugh, or even an embarrassed laugh of someone whose prank has been found out. No, this was a hearty laugh filled with jolly merriment.

  “But my girl, these are the dragon-scale shoes, make no mistake.”

  “How can they be? They’re so old and ugly and small.”

  Bucklebelt shook his head. “Don’t be so quick to judge. These shoes have walked more miles than there are stars in the summer sky. They were made for a little princess who wanted to see the whole world before she ascended to her throne to become a queen. She wanted to walk on every street, dance at every ball, and play with every child. She wanted to walk behind the ploughman and stroll the streets with the flower sellers and climb the watchtower steps with the sentinels. This little princess wanted to know everything about her kingdom so that she could rule with knowledge and understanding.”

  “That must have taken a long, long time.”

  “The observing took time but not the traveling,” he said. “For with these shoes, she could run from Gillikin Country to Quadling Country and back twice in an afternoon. To anyone else that’s a journey of weeks upon weeks. And run she did, because it was important to her to know everything she needed to know before she wore the crown.”

  “She must have been a very great princess.”

  “A great princess she was…but a great queen she did not become.”

  “Why not? If the shoes could take her everywhere…”

  The cobbler looked left and right to make sure no one stood near his market stall. Then he leaned in close again. “Because the Wizard of Oz came and destroyed all her dreams.”

  “I don’t understand…the Wizard is the savior of Oz.”

  “Is he? Is that what they teach in schools these days? Oh, sad times. Oz, the Great and Terrible, came from far away and with his magic, he overthrew the kingdom and set himself up as the Wizard King of the Emerald City.” He sighed. “It is treason to say this much, but I must because it is part of the story of the dragon-scale traveling shoes.”

  “Oh dear, what happened?” cried Nyla, clutching her leather bag to her chest.

  “What happened indeed,” Bucklebelt mused, and he had to fight to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “When the princess returned here after all her journeys, she was prepared to be empress of all the land, and a fair and just empress she would have been. All the lands, all the people would have been one under her rule, and with the dragon-scale shoes she could have walked abroad over her entire reign to see that justice was done and that everyone lived according to her laws. We would have had a golden age.”

  “Surely she could not have worn these shoes when she was a queen. They are so—”

  “Dirty and damaged?” He shook his head. “With the magic broken, they simply show the wear of all those miles she walked.”

  “No, I mean that they are so small. If she wore them as a little girl, she could not have worn them as an adult.”

  “Ah, now,” he said, grinning, “that’s part of their magic. When they were working properly, they grew with her and changed with her. They would have become the shoes of a young woman and then a full-grown woman. And if she left them to a daughter or heir, those shoes would change to perfectly fit the feet of whoever had the right to wear them. But that is all broken, as the shoes are broken. The magic in them sleeps.”

  Nyla looked confused and sad, and she hung her head.

  “Can nothing be done? You’re a cobbler; you repair shoes. Can’t you fix them? Can’t you awaken the magic?”

  “Well,” he said, “I have done much to repair these shoes. I’ve tightened every sequin, and I’ve done what else could be done. However, there is only one way to fix these shoes, to make the magic within come alive again.”

  “How? Oh, tell me please.”

  “If I tell you, will you promise to help me fix them?”

  “I will!” she said, clasping her tiny hands together. “I will…I will.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “Even if it means going on an adventure?”

  Nyla’s eyes went wide. “Would it be a dangerous adventure?”

  “Now, what kind of question is that from a girl who came here looking for traveling shoes? There are dangers in your own garden. There are dangers climbing to the tree house where you live…after all, if you fell, your wings could not save you.”

  She thought about it and nodded.

  The cobbler smiled. “The only way to repair these shoes—the most wonderful traveling shoes ever made—is to replace the missing scales.”

  “How?”

  “The only way to replace the missing sales is by finding new scales.”

  “But there are no more dragons.”

  “Are there not? How can you be so sure?”

  “How can there be? No one ever sees a dragon. People would talk about it if they did. Everyone would say if they saw a dragon. They’d tell us that in school.”

  “School tells you about everything that happens in Oz—that much I know. Schools are great that way,” said the cobbler. “But…they don’t tell you about anything that happens outside of Oz.”

  “Outside?”

  “The dragons never lived in Oz,” he said. “Never ever. Dragons only ever lived in one place.”

  “But…but…that’s all the way over the sea. I mean…where the sea used to be. On the far, far side of the Deadly Desert.”

  He gave the tip of her nose a tiny little touch. “You are so very correct, my girl. Across the bones of the Sea of Shallasa in the land where dragons once lived there is a single dragon living still.” He raised his eyebrows. “And can you guess what kind of dragon still lives there?”

  “A…a…silver dragon?”

  “Yes, indeed. A great and vastly old silver dragon. The very dragon, in fact, whose scales were used to make this pair of shoes.”

  -3-

  “Oh my!” gasped Nyla. “But the dragon is on the other side of the Deadly Desert. No one can cross it and live.”

  “That is very nearly true,” agreed the cobbler, “but it is not absolutely unreservedly true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pointed to the shoes. “These are magical shoes as we b
oth know. Magic traveling shoes covered in the scales of a dragon. Such shoes can take the wearer anywhere. Across the whole Land of Oz, up and down the tallest mountain, and even across the burning sand of the deadliest of Deadly Deserts.”

  “But…how?”

  “That’s the right question. The dragon-scale shoes let the wearer travel so fast that nothing can catch up—not heat or cold or anything that troubles the foot or troubles the wearer. Remember, the princess for whom these were made traveled the whole length and breadth of Oz. She went everywhere and anywhere, and she did it quick as a wink.”

  “But the shoes are broken. The magic is asleep.”

  “The magic sleeps,” he said. “However, when the right person puts on the shoes, it will wake the magic from its slumber. Not all the magic—oh, no. Unfortunately much of the magic of the shoes was lost when the scales fell off. But even a little magic is still magic, and to cross the sand in shoes like these, you only need a little magic.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone else used the shoes to find the dragon scales?”

  “They won’t fit anyone else,” said the cobbler sadly. “Until they’ve been restored to their full glory, these shoes will remain as small and as ugly as they have been since the Wizard of Oz stole the Land from the princess.”

  She shook her head, unable to understand that.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the cobbler. “What matters is that the right person could wear the shoes and awaken enough magic to cross the Desert. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because in these shoes, the journey—even across the Deadly Desert—will take only a few seconds. Your feet will move so fast that the Desert won’t even know you’re there.”

  “My feet?” Nyla raised one leg to show him her foot. “The shoes were made for girl feet and I have Monkey feet. Will they fit?”

  Bucklebelt shrugged. He touched the bunched silk and pushed the shoes toward Nyla.

  “Why don’t you try them and we’ll both find out?”

  Nyla stared at him for a moment and then looked at the shoes. They really did look bad. There were at least a dozen scales missing from each shoe, and the soles looked very thin. It was hard to imagine that those shoes had once adorned the feet of a great princess.