by S. D. Stuart
The Woodsman lowered his chainsaws. If an automaton could look dejected, he did.
Mara spoke up. “My mother wishes to apologize for making you think she was abandoning you.”
Dorothy smiled down at Mara. “Tell your mother I am grateful for everything she did for me. I hope someday I can repay her.”
Mara ran off and Dorothy looked at Jasper.
“How long before we can get to this casino of yours?”
He smiled. “We can be there in a couple hours.”
Chapter 12
Dorothy followed Jasper as he took them through various enclaves where people gathered for protection. She felt like she had stepped back in time to feudal Europe where people walled themselves inside castles to protect them from their neighbors.
These people had so little compared to what she was used to, even in the farming community of New Kansas. Yet they fought hard to protect what they had.
She could not blame them. The prerequisite for living here was that you could not live peacefully in civilized society.
At least that was supposed to be the prerequisite. Now family groups were forming and children were being born. OZ was becoming an organized society whether the politicians in the outside world liked it or not.
When she got out of here, she would find a way to tell the world what she found. OZ was no longer the prison everyone believed it to be.
Jasper paused at the top of a hill. She caught up to him and stared into the valley below. She gawked in amazement. She wasn’t in feudal Europe anymore. She had just stepped back even farther to the height of the Roman Empire.
Spread out before her was a sprawling metropolis of Greek architecture. Every building and structure was carved from white marble. After seeing the multi-colored patchwork of Munch’s place, the colorful decorations of Carnival, even the blending of supposedly conflicting styles in Chambers, it was odd to see all color absent from the scenery. Every building was a blank white canvas.
“What is all this?”
Jasper pointed down to the largest building with hundred foot columns all around it supporting the roof. “That is the casino. The city grew up around it and followed the same style.”
“Why Greek?”
“It was the inspiration for the arena.”
“What arena?”
Jasper pointed to the other side of the valley at an exact replica of the Roman Colosseum. At least it looked like an exact replica. Dorothy barely remembered the time before she ended up on the farm. And to be honest, she never made it successfully out of New Kansas until the fateful airship crash. She never traveled the world to see anything left behind by past civilizations. But she had seen the scratchy and overexposed photographs taken by her father on his adventures when he was younger.
“Is that the place where they can program Scarecrow?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s get him down there, train him and then head for the Wizard.”
“Yes ma’am. I’ll let him know you are coming.” Jasper ran off.
“Let who know?”
Jasper was already running full speed down the hillside and most likely never heard her. If he had, he didn’t bother to stop and answer.
She turned toward Scarecrow. “Scarecrow, come with me. Woodsman, you stay here and …”
“Negative. As long as there is a credible threat on your life, I will stay by your side.”
She sighed heavily and started down the hill. “Come on then. And try to blend in.”
Scarecrow looked up at the nine and a half foot tall death machine and said, “Would you like to borrow my hat?”
Dorothy walked through the center of the whitewashed city. It felt strange to see a city in OZ that wasn’t covered under a layer of dirt and grime. Beyond that, the city didn’t look like it had evolved gradually in stages like the other places she had walked through. This city looked planned.
It shattered every preconceived notion she ever had of the Outcast Zone.
Her next thought hit like a thunderbolt. The only difference between those inside OZ and those outside was one group was forced to live where they were, and the other had no choice.
How was she any different from those here in OZ?
There was one way she was different.
She didn’t belong here.
She let the press of people move around her as she entered the main street that led to the massive casino.
Booths were scattered on both sides of the street where the owners promoted their wares, shoving whatever it was they were selling right into her face.
“Fresh fish for five. Three for ten.”
She winced. “Doesn’t smell very fresh.”
“Well excuse me, your highness. It doesn’t get any fresher than …”
The Woodsman had stopped right behind Dorothy. The fish monger stared up at him and then back to Dorothy. “You must be a gladiator. I wondered about the leather outfit. You will need something to keep your strength up.” He shoved the fish into her face again.
“No thanks.”
The man frowned. “Then move along. Your toy is scaring away my real customers.”
Dorothy noticed that as soon as the Woodsman got closer to her, the constant press of bodies she waded through in the street market dissipated. Nobody wanted to get too close to those chainsaw blades, spinning or not. She didn’t blame them. She often found herself looking at them and wondering whether the reddish stains between the teeth of the blades were rust or blood.
A large man with a rifle strapped to his back stepped right in front of her. “Are you the East Marshal?”
The Woodsman noted the rifle, moved in front of Dorothy, and raised his chainsaws. Dorothy placed a hand on the Woodsman’s arm. “Hold up.” She pulled her cloak to one side, exposing the star pinned to her chest. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”
The man looked the Woodsman up and down before proceeding. “I am under orders to take you and your automatons to the casino.”
“I think we can find it on our own.”
“It was not a request.”
“It’s the largest building at the end of this street. I can see it clearly from here.”
“I must insist.”
She stared into his eyes and saw nothing but empty blackness. “If I refuse?”
Several more men with rifles stepped out of the crowd and surrounded them. The Woodsman spun up his chainsaws and prepared to defend her, despite being surrounded.
Dorothy did not try to stop the Woodsman this time and looked at the man. “I don’t think shooting me is in keeping with the spirit of your orders.”
After a short pause, he lowered his rifle. The rest of the men followed his lead and lowered their rifles as well.
The attempt of a smile spread across his pockmarked face. “Will you … please … come with me?”
Dorothy smiled. “Since you asked so politely.”
The Woodsman lowered his arms and shut down the chainsaws.
The man walked ahead and the crowd parted out of his way without him saying a word.
The white marble casino towered overhead as she got closer. Dorothy’s mind spun back to when the West Marshal called her an insignificant little dot.
Never before had she felt so small. She had traveled to large cities with Uncle Henry a few times and gawked at the massive structures like every hick from the county did.
But this was entirely different.
This single building put everything she had ever seen before to shame.
And it was inside the Outcast Zone.
Inside a prison.
“Keep moving ma’am.”
She looked at the guard. “What’s the hurry?”
The guard stared straight ahead as he walked. “Just following orders ma’am.”
“Can we follow them a little more slowly?”
She slowed down, fell along side Scarecrow and whispered to him. “What do you make of all this Scarecrow?”
He whispe
red back. “I don’t make anything of it.”
“You’ve been observing quietly for quite some time now. Surely, you noticed something.”
“I have no frame of reference to base my observations on.”
“So, as far as you are concerned, everything is normal.”
“I have no preconceived basis for normal.”
“I am supposed to be the East Marshal. The person in charge around here. But every time I turn around, someone else is telling me what to do.”
“Maybe if you were a little more assertive people would respect your authority.”
She let a wry smile form on her lips. “How is it that someone with two very capable automatons protecting her can’t seem to do what she wants?”
“Without programming, I am not as capable as you think. And every time the Woodsman tries to protect you, you stop him.”
“So, you have been observing?”
“And learning. Currently I know how to walk all day, how to stop the Woodsman from cutting people in half, and how to get into trouble with just about everyone we meet.”
She smiled. “You’ve also learned how to be a smart ass.”
Far above Dorothy, Scarecrow, and the Woodsman, in a tall marble tower overlooking the city that he built around his casino, stood Nero.
That wasn’t his given name at birth. Nobody inside OZ knew his birth name; and he planned to keep it that way.
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was a psychopath and had made many mistakes when he was Emperor over Rome nearly 2,000 years prior. Nero was not a psychopath and would not make the same mistakes when he united all of OZ. He would not sit idly by and watch his city burn like his namesake.
A faint chime sounded above the only door to the room. “Come.”
He turned away from the window as the door opened to his private study.
A woman dressed in a black flowing cloak brushed past Caleb, his personal bodyguard, and strode in as if she owned the place.
He decided to forgive her arrogance and smiled at her. “Amanda. It is nice to finally meet you face to face. Your mother says great things about you. Caleb, offer the young lady a glass of water.”
She looked him in the eye and did not smile back. “I’m not thirsty. Tell me you have her.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise but decided to let her think she was in charge. At least for a little while.
He needed her.
More to the point, he needed access to her mother.
Her mother had not ventured out of her fortress in over a decade for fear that someone would attempt to assassinate her. Not an entirely unfounded fear, he reminded himself. Yet, she had left the safety of her empire and ventured in to the Eastern Territories to make direct contact with the girl who had taken over as the new East Marshal.
Why was she not afraid of the girl who had killed her sister?
She had returned to her fortress in the West before news traveled throughout OZ that she had even left. News travels fast in Oz, if it was any indication of how quick her trip must have been.
Now she was sending out her daughter to finish what she started.
She obviously decided the new East Marshal was of no threat to her. Moreover, this little tidbit of information was extremely useful to him.
Amanda placed balled fists on her hips and did her best to stare him down. “Well?!”
“She is in custody and being brought to me.”
“You were instructed to deliver her straight to me.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Don’t toy with me, Nero.”
“I’m not toying with you, my dear.”
“Then why haven’t you done as you were commanded?”
“Because there are some things you have no control over. When you step foot in my casino, I am the law. I am everything.”
“This is not …”
He held a hand up and silenced her. “You will get what you came for. You will get it when I say. I need to make sure that she’s not a threat.”
“She’s not a threat to you or to anybody.”
“Then why do you want her so bad?”
“I want to present her to my mother.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“You promised to turn her over to me!”
“I promised her to your mother. And your mother will have her when she arrives.”
“My mother is coming here?”
He smiled. “Your mother’s about to become the most powerful marshal in all of OZ. I should think your time would be better spent finding out her travel itinerary rather than harassing me.”
Amanda spun around and stormed out of the room. Caleb closed the doors behind her.
Nero stared at the closed doors for a moment and then looked at his bodyguard.
“What do you think about her, Caleb?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Oh come now, you were created from spliced lion and human DNA. You have the best of both worlds. If your intellect doesn’t tell you anything, what does your instinct have to say?”
“She appears to have her own agenda. That might put her loyalty into question, sir.”
“That is the impression I got. But then again, nobody will ever be as loyal to me as you.”
“You saved me from the fate of my people.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” His eyes glazed over as he focused on the past. “The outsiders dumped your entire freak show into OZ. The locals decided you were too much animal and not enough human. By the time I heard what was happening …” His face contorted from the memory. “I was too late. When I arrived with my troops … I ordered them to fire on the bastard who was beating a woman to death while she protected a tiny baby in her arms. She lived long enough to make me promise to care for him as if he were my own son.”
He looked at the lion-like characteristics of his personal bodyguard. “Now you are all grown up and protecting me.”
Caleb bowed his furry head. “I would die for you Father.”
He smiled. “You are all too human, Caleb.”
Caleb’s teeth glistened when he smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
Dorothy stared up at the massive door that stood over twenty feet tall and loomed above her head like a doorway for giants. Who could afford this kind of extravagance in OZ?
The doors stood permanently open and people traveled in a constant stream in and out of the casino lobby, like ants entering and exiting an ant colony. Everyone rushed about not worrying about what anyone else was doing.
Each doing the bidding of the queen of the colony.
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Scarecrow shiver. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this too.”
The guard stopped under the open archway and turned back toward her. He looked past her and nodded. She followed his gaze and turned around as the other guards withdrew long poles from under their cloaks.
The poles crackled with electricity as they touched them to Scarecrow and the Woodsman. Both automatons instantly shut down. Scarecrow landed on his back with a heavy thud while the Woodsman remained standing, but did not move.
She spun back around to the guard who now held a pole of his own.
“What the …”
Dorothy never had the chance to finish her statement before the end of the pole jabbed into her stomach and a surge of electricity coursed through her body. Her mouth filled with the sour metallic flavor of blood and everything went black.
Dorothy slowly became aware of the soft bed that supported her and the warm covers that swaddled her. She also became aware of the tender spot on her tongue that she bit when they electrocuted her.
Her eyes fluttered open and slammed shut against the sudden rush of light.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
She opened them slower this time and focused on the young girl who stood at the foot of the bed. Had she been standing there the whole time waiti
ng for Dorothy to wake up?
She looked at the girl who could not be any more than 10 or 11 years old. Her porcelain skin practically glowed and her braided hair fell half way down her back in golden strands. A stark contrast from the grungy and unkempt hair of the other children she had met the past couple of days in OZ.
When Dorothy got out, she would do something about the conditions these children were forced to live in. They were not in OZ because of anything they had done. No one outside of the Outcast Zone even mentioned that children were being born here.
She looked around her. The room was richly decorated, but she wasn’t looking for anything materialistic. She was looking for a whom.
She turned back to the young girl. “Where’s Jasper?”
The girl looked puzzled for a moment and then answered. “Oh. The boy who heralded your arrival. He received his reward and departed.”
“Reward? Reward for what?”
There was that blank stare again for a moment before the girl responded. “He supplied two new automatons for the games.”
“Two automatons? He didn’t have any …”
It suddenly dawned on her that Jasper had betrayed her. She silently cursed herself for not seeing it sooner. But then again what could she expect from someone who was born and raised in a prison?
Dorothy shot up in bed and instantly regretted it. Her stomach cramped where the electric baton had zapped her.
The girl was instantly at the side of the bed. “You have to stay in bed. You must rest.”
She winced and pulled away the covers of the bed. “I don’t have to do anything.”
She tried to stand up but the girl placed a hand on her chest and pushed her back onto the bed. The girl slowly forced her into a prone position and held her effortlessly against the bed with one hand as she pulled up the covers with the other.
The girl wasn’t hurting her, but Dorothy couldn’t move.
“What are you?”
“I am your chambermaid.”
“You’re not … human.”
The girl cocked her head in a human-like gesture. “Do I need to be?”
“Where am I?”
The doors opened up and a man, dressed in a white tuxedo with pink bow tie, strode into the room. He smiled at Dorothy. “Welcome to Casino Roma. The best casino in all of OZ.”
