by Tarl Telford
Kally looked over the chasm and the vista from their location on Mount Munch. "I told you this was a scar. It is a landmark--a remembrance. Destruction has its own beauty, and its own cost. To achieve the goal, you must pay the cost. It separates the true strength from the imposters."
HH2: Chapter 16. Stones and Shadows
After nightfall they reached the small round laboratory of Professor Nikidik. A stone garden surrounded his house. Statues and colored stones of every shape and variety filled the garden. Kally looked carefully at the lifelike statues. Were they carved? Doubtful. This was the displayed triumphs of an alchemist that did not like to be disturbed. The statues were probably all alive at one time. She would be careful. Kally turned to Oscar and gestured grandly. "This is it."
"We are on the far side of the mountain, and it feels like we climbed halfway back down."
"It's just your imagination."
"No. Those shadows pulling off the trees and dancing are my imagination. They've been following us, singing songs and chuckling at jokes to which only they know the punch lines. I am starting to feel left out."
"I assure you, Wizard, you know what you need to know."
In the garden, a statue yawned and shifted its elbow to rest on the other leg.
"I'm tired." Oscar said.
"You've been complaining this entire time."
Stone crackled and shifted beneath them. The gravel in the garden rattled and rolled to a stop. "The mountain is moving." Oscar said.
"The door is right here. I'm knocking. You stay awake." Kally ordered.
"The shadows are smiling at me like they know the answer to a riddle I can't quite pronounce inside my head. The rocks are beating a rhythm to the stars dancing on my bed. Glamour and slammer, and flibbery jab. This broom is my joust. I'll grieve for the hag."
Kally rolled her eyes. "There's no answer. Wizard, you sit by the door--with your back against it. Keep the broom standing up straight. If I remember correctly, that is one of the tests that the Professor requires to gain access to his lair."
"Lair? Is he some predatory beast that he needs a lair?" Oscar asked, sitting down with the broom standing upright.
"He is what he is. You will find out soon enough." Kally said, seating herself on a bench. She did not need sleep, so she settled herself to watch the Wizard dream.
He did not disappoint.
The statues in the garden danced a wild waltz. The stones whirled above their heads in clattering crescendos. The avalanche of gravel rained over their heads and sparked into stone fireflies, lighting the night into a menagerie of stone philosophies, each with their own jeweled shadow. Pillars arose and arches fell. The shadows declared war on the jeweled counterfeits, shattering them into scintillating tears ground underfoot by the stone watchmakers. The granite maidens paraded solemnly beneath a flapping gravel flag and shook their fists at the night sky until the stars bade them farewell. All that had faces removed themselves and settled back into position. The actors without faces piled haphazardly like rumpled sheets on the stone floor of the garden.
Kally amused herself by magically standing the broom on the end of Oscar's toe. The sun rose at her back, casting the brooms shadow over Oscar's face. The door at his back creaked open. Oscar fell backwards into the doorway.
A tall thin man stepped over the sprawled Wizard to see the broom balancing on his toe. "Clever trick, that, but it takes more than parlor tricks to win attention, wee one."
"I have brought a gift." Kally said. "He's waking up."
Oscar yawned and rolled stiffly to his feet. He stretched and yawned again and slapped his legs to get the feeling back in them. He moved stiffly about as the pins and needles jabbed at him. He complained loudly.
"The pins and needles prove the pain is the cost. You must endure the pain to control your life again, Wizard." Kally rose to her feet and curled her fingers around the floating broomstick.
"Thinking thoughts too deep for your desolate mind." The Professor muttered to Kally.
"This is the Wizard." Kally introduced Oscar to Professor Nikidik. "This is Professor Pipton Nikidik. He offered me some assistance when I was in need."
Nikidik walked out and surveyed his stone garden. "You did this?" He asked the Wizard.
"We arrived and no one welcomed us. Not that I'm surprised. So far away from reality, you don't seem to share many manners with normal life."
"Hmm. You know, those statues have not moved since I created them. They have gotten more comfortable. I thank you, Wizard. Perhaps you can do the same for my wife."
Oscar shrugged. "I don't know what you are talking about. I barely slept last night. No dreams at all. It couldn't have been me. It's probably your inventions, Professor."
"Perhaps." Nikidik led them into the laboratory and through a swinging gate. "It keeps the cats out." He explained.
Oscar stopped cold.
In the center of the laboratory, next to a large table that served as both workbench and breakfast nook, a statue waved at him. Or, it was mostly a statue. The eyes could blink and the hand could wave, but the rest appeared to be made of marble. Those moving parts were very much flesh and bone. The statue waved and the eyes smiled at the visitors.
"Margolotte, this is the Wizard. He shook our mountain last night."
"The statue is waving at me." Oscar's eyes widened.
"Yes. This is my wife."
"She is a statue."
"Yes. Petrefaction. An unfortunate effect of not reading signs that warn 'Keep Out'. I very nearly have the unguent perfected. It will bring the unliving to life. Or the previously living to life, provided they have a physical form to animate. It's all quite fascinating, really. Life wants to live. As you can see with Margolotte, I have turned flesh to stone, and some stone back to flesh."
"We have come about the army." Oscar said.
"The army..." Nikidik paused, searching the Wizard's face.
"You have an army that needs no sleep or rest. They obey orders perfectly. They were part of your process of creating the unguent." Kally prompted.
"Army...yes. Yes, I have the army. Downstairs. Follow me, please. Margolotte, be good. No more cookies for you."
The fleshy finger shook at the retreating Professor, but the eyes were laughing.
Oscar shivered and turned to follow.
Behind him, the shadows melted off the walls and followed alongside. The statue's eyes widened in terror and the hand spasm'd and flailed. But nobody was there to see it. A stone mouth cannot scream. The shadow turned back to the statue and hoarsely laughed--a whispering wind in the now empty laboratory. The shadows recognized their link to the Wizard. They saw that they were seen by eyes that were once human, but now as unliving as they were, and it amused them.
* * * * *
Oscar and Kally followed Professor Nikidik down the deep stairs into the veined blue and red heart of Mount Munch. Winding across the walls and ceilings, veins of ruby and emerald twined and separated. They glowed with magical power at regular intervals.
"It's beating, like a heart." Oscar observed.
"T'would be a pity if the beating heart of Oz ever stopped." Nikidik glanced back at the Wizard to gauge his reaction, if there was one. "The magic never stops. It just changes forms."
"How? How does it change form?" Oscar asked.
Nikidik paused before he continued on with his explanation, pointedly ignoring the Wizard's irrelevant question. "The heart will never stop. The great weapon drained the magic from this part of the land, but the heart never stopped."
"A weapon that devastated the traitors and drowned their cities in the deserts...is what I heard." Kally said.
Oscar cleared his throat to insert himself back into the conversation. "Weapons of that magnitude should not be used. If there is to be war, let it be a war where a man sees his enemy's eyes. Let them decide with their armies who will win and who will lose."
"That is a far cry from the liberty you profess. What you are saying is the mob ru
les--the larger army wins power and keeps power. You are finally beginning to sound sane."
"Armies do not have to be large to be powerful." Nikidik smiled. "Which brings me to the purpose of your visit. I have an army."
"I have money." Oscar began.
"No. He's very sweet." She turned and glared at Oscar. "This is mine. I have the agreed-upon price."
"Show me." Nikidik said.
Kally poured the six pearls from the pouch into Nikidik's outstretched hand. "Yes, yes. Good. All good quality. Excellent. Six pearls. Their mass is larger than the pearl paid to Gayelette."
Kally looked at the pearls and then at Nikidik's face. She shook her head slowly as realization began to form a shivering idea in her mind. "No."
Nikidik nodded. "Yes. Where she stopped time, I will reverse it."
He crossed quickly to a carved ruby pestle and placed all six pearls inside. Then he lowered a great emerald mortar down over the top to crush the pearls.
"Don't do this. Those pearls can buy--"
"An army." Professor Nikidik finished for her. "And they have. Your army is ready." He pulled a lever and the mortar crunched down on the pearls.
Kally gasped as if in pain. She cried out then quickly clapped her hands over her mouth. Her amber eyes showed the utter horror she felt.
"What are you doing? Why is this hurting her?" Oscar said, stepping past Kally.
"Pearls are very valuable in Oz." Professor Nikidik said.
"Yes. I've heard. No seas, and all that."
The mortar and pestle crunched away, grinding the pearls into powder. Kally gasped with each crunch, as if the sound caused her physical pain and made her ill. Her face showed pallid disgust.
"More than that, Wizard. The pearls have power. They take a thing and make it physical. They take a speck and make it into something precious. They can aid the magician in turning that which is not solid into that which is solid. The skilled magician can make that which is not seen real."
"Like dreams." Oscar offered.
Nikidik froze. Then he turned his head up slowly, smiling at the Wizard. "Dreams, you say? Yes. Like dreams."
The mortar and pestle stopped. Nikidik raised the lever. He leaned over the ruby pestle and grunted in approval.
Oscar watched the shadows step off the walls in the ruby light of the laboratory and walk around. They shook themselves like large dogs.
"You charlatan." Kally said sourly to Professor Nikidik.
He meticulously transferred the grains of pearl from the ruby pestle to a small crystal vial. "Gayelette was no charlatan. She understood power. She knew what this meant. You think that you got the better end of the deal when you got Munchkin Country? Did you think you were buying an alliance? Good favor? Remember before--the way your family ruled? It should have been yours already. Yet you were scheming and lusting for the power. It blinded you. How well, Kalinya, have the last thirty years turned out for you?"
In the distance, Oscar watched the shadows dance and howl. The mountain was breathing. A thrumming sounded below his feet. He was transfixed by the strange changes as the ruby flowed around the walls. He did not hear the conversation between Nikidik and Kally.
Kally glanced back at Oscar, but he wasn't paying any attention to them.
"So he doesn't know." Nikidik stated.
"He is mine, not yours."
"The army is yours. The Wizard can make his own choices. You thought you were so rich and proud because you became queen of the Munchkins? You sold your greatest treasure for what--lands, servants, a title? You wasted your treasure. But I should not expect much from a Munchkin girl who hates her own blood."
Kally threw her hand out toward machinery behind Nikidik and crumpled it.
"You hated Gayelette because she controlled power greater than yours. You hated her because she did not fear your power." Nikidik smiled. "Your power is great, Witch, but it falls beneath the magic of sorcery. You still don't know the power of dreams."
"I know the Wizard can create an entire city and change it night after night. I know that he has power beyond you--beyond all of us. He can destroy everything in his anger, and rebuild it again in his mercy."
Oscar shook his head slowly as the echoing shots sounded again and again. He clapped his hands over his ears as he heard the heavy mocking laughter. The pressure behind his eyes became too great and he screamed out, "NO!"
The boiler near the ruby lake exploded. All around the shadows, stalactites of ruby dropped from the ceiling to pierce the floor. The shadows were trapped in the jeweled cages.
Kally jumped backwards in surprise. Nikidik stood and smiled. "Fascinating."
Oscar turned to look at them. His pale face shone with sweat. He saw the crumpled machinery. "Did I do that?"
Kally took him by the arm, nodding. "I am afraid you did. Were you dreaming?"
Oscar rubbed his eyes and then rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and on the back of his head. "I'm tired. I'm not seeing straight. Are there shadows in the cages? Those cages were not there before, were they?"
"Wizard, this is a place of magic. What you see is more than what you brought with you. Worry not about the damage. I make and remake many things in this laboratory. It is constantly changing."
"Like the Emerald City--always changing."
"Yes. Like that."
Kally stepped between the Wizard and the Professor. "You have destroyed the pearls. You are not getting any more--ever. Where is my army?"
"Gayelette created the Golden Cap. She sold half of her kingdom to create it. Do you know what that half-kingdom bought, Wizard?"
Oscar shrugged. "With all this talk, I'm guessing the answer is a pearl. I think Kally told me that story."
"Oh. So she has not kept you completely ignorant."
"I'm the Wizard. I see all."
"Of course you do."
Kally glared at Nikidik. She lifted her hand to throw him against the ceiling.
"Follow me." He led them down past the bubbling ruby pool to another cavern. "Gayelette sold half of her kingdom for the price of a large pearl. It was nearly the size of her fist. Do you know what she did with it?"
Kally glared.
"She crushed it to powder. The Golden Cap is meant for far more than you can imagine."
"I can imagine a lot." Oscar replied.
"So I've heard, Wizard. So I've heard. Gayelette created the Golden Cap to give form to that which was not flesh. She halted time in her own flesh, but she could not turn back time to give flesh to that which was no longer."
Kally perked up. Her eyes showed curiosity. This did not go unnoticed by Nikidik.
"Something interesting, Witch? You didn't know that about Gayelette's experiments? She was very close to discovering the secret...but it destroyed the Ruby Palace. Pity. I wanted that red-haired monster to grovel and mew beneath my glorious triumph. But she is gone, and with her, the Golden Cap. There is no bringing either her or the Golden Cap back from beyond the night'd realms."
Kally held her tongue. She glanced at Oscar and shook her head slightly as he opened his mouth to speak.
"With the disappearance of the Golden Cap, I forever lost my chance to compare Gayelette's handiwork to my own." He stopped in front of a pedestal and pulled the velvet robe away, revealing an exquisite crown and mask. "The Crown of the Dreamer. All I lacked was the infusion of pearl to activate the power."
"And the army?" Kally asked, but her eyes were on the crown.
Professor Nikidik followed her eyes. "The army? Are you certain you want to leave so soon?" He picked up the crown from off the pedestal to display his workmanship. "How I would have enjoyed watching Gayelette squirm as I displayed the power of this lovely."
"How do you know it will work?"
"You wound me, deceitful maiden. I am a magician, after all. My craft is not paltry rock-tossing or deflection spells. I create. I will turn back time and give face and voice to that which cannot walk in Oz."
Oscar wandered awa
y to look at the line of automatons standing along the wall. They were of all shapes and sizes. Some were of humanoid shape, but others were tall, stilt-legged constructs. Some had wheels. They looked like the Wheelers, but there was something different about them. None of the automatons had faces. Even though they did not move, there was nothing in them that would have given them any impression or inkling of life. A face can be a powerful thing, but these lifeless things did not haven have that. These constructs had no life as yet.
Oscar tapped on the head of one. Mostly hollow. The knocking echoed through the cavern.
"I see you have discovered the army." Nikidik approached the Wizard.
"So this is the great hope for the Emerald City. It rings hollow."
Professor Nikidik smiled sardonically. "These do not need sleep as you do, Wizard. They are suitable for their purpose. They do not question, for they have neither past nor future. They have only the present, and they obey this moment. Can you say the same of even yourself?"
"Lead them, Wizard, down the brick road. It will lead outside." Kally said. She eyed the crown and mask. A scheme and a matching hunger shone in the her golden eyes. She licked her lips and gestured for Oscar to go. He did not. Not yet.
"Are these like the Wheelers, that they can only work on the Brick Roads?" Oscar asked.
"Binding myself to such limitations would not advance the cause of knowledge. These have life of themselves. They move, they act, they obey. They are perfect." Nikidik puffed out his chest.
"Do they think?" Oscar countered.
"No. They have no need to think. They obey."
Kally walked among the rank and file of the walkers. "They are not Wheelers?"
"If you would bother to notice, Witch, there are wheels only on six of the sixteen. However, as the Wizard so cleverly observed, they are not limited to brick roads alone. They have life. Also, this composes only a small part of the army."
"Where are the rest?"
"Not here. South. At the laboratory of Smith & Tinker."
"Oh." Oscar said. He noticed the bricks on the floor leading down the cavern and disappeared around the distant bend. "You have a brick road in here."
