by Tarl Telford
Both Kally and Oscar turned toward the sound. Oscar knew what he would see. Kally felt with her magic, and she lashed out, shattering branches. All she knew was that she was spied on. That was unacceptable at best and a grave threat at worst. Then she spied the small boy.
"You! Child!" Kally hissed.
Boq ran.
The child ran until the echoes of the Witch's screams no longer nipped at his heels. The shadows grew long. The forest grew strange and quiet. Eyes stared out at him from behind every branch and bush. He was lost.
In the last shining remnants of sunlight, Boq saw a glint of metal through the trees. He followed the orange glints of sunset, climbing over logs and wading through a stream. He climbed up the leaf-strewn embankment and brushed off the knees of his trousers. There it was. It was covered in vines, but he knew what it was, even though he had been just little when he saw it last.
It was his brother's sword.
When the Witch threw the monster far away, the sword had been stuck in its chest. The sword was lost, but Boq knew that it would always be found. He knew that someday he would be the one to find it. He knew because he knew his brother, and his brother, Tabulo was dead now. He was with the fairies. He left his sword for Boq to find.
Boq cleaned away the vines encircling the blade and climbing up the hilt. He pulled the sword from its setting in the rotten wood. The perfect blade was free from rust and canker. No damage had come to it during its long sleep.
In the last rays of the fading red sunset, Boq lifted the sword above his head and shouted as loud as his voice could shout. "I will fight you, Witch! I'm not afraid of you!"
HH3: Dark Wind in Oz (Book Three)
The Orphan Sorceress of Oz, first book in the Hidden History of Oz series,
introduced the ambitious witches and their plan to conquer the Land of Oz
during the Witch Wars. Scarcely had the furor ceased when Dark Dreams in Oz
hurled the entire land into the violent throes of death, as the Wizard's dark
dreams write and rewrite the laws of reality.
Magic and mayhem, dreams and defiance, secrets and sacrifice,
all define this new age in the Land of Oz.
THE WIZARD'S HEART IS HERS. DEATH ITSELF DARE NOT STOP HER.
Time draws short, with the fate of the land inextricably linked to the fading
heartbeat of the Wizard. Challenging the unstoppable forces of time, nature,
and death, young sorceress Glinda joins her sworn enemy, Kalinya, the Wicked
Witch of the East, to save the man they both love.
Their impossible quest drives them through the waking nightmares of the
wizard, across the land of Oz, and to the source of magic itself. With destruction
riding the wind, enemies at her side, and friends standing in her way, nothing
will temper the fury of a woman scorned.
HH3: Chapter 26. Missing Wizard
Glinda, Kally, Promethus, and Mombi skipped through the grasslands and into the rolling hills. They travelled as quickly as possible, detouring around the storms so that they avoided the rain. Soon, they arrived at the forest of the Guardian Trees where they had deposited Oscar's body. Promethus sat down heavily on the ground. His face was sunken and sallow. His breath came in rattling gasps.
Mombi knelt next to the old man. "Is this worth it? You may die before the Wizard breathes again."
"I am the Guardian. It's who I am. You know that." Promethus wheezed. Mombi squeezed his hand gently.
Nearby, Glinda and Kally approached the trees. The Fighting Trees had grown from saplings to mighty guardians--they were much larger now. Their limbs shook angrily as Kally came near. The trees remembered, and every leaf felt the Wicked Witch draw closer. The trees shook and trembled in fury.
"I can't see him." Glinda said, peering from a safe distance.
"They really don't like me, do they? The feeling is quite mutual." Kally lifted her hands to pull the nearest tree out of the ground. The tree shook in pain as the ground trembled beneath it. Roots gripped the earth more tightly as they felt their hold slipping away. The tree rose two feet out of the ground, soil rising up beneath it in a mound of tangled roots and water.
Kally gasped and dropped the tree. "It's fighting me."
The tree lurched out toward Kally, walking on its roots. It nearly fell, but its branches caught those of its neighbors, and it steadied itself as it swayed forward toward the Witch. The branches reached out to grasp Kally. She backed away, waving her hands, pushing the branches backwards. The roots plowed through the earth with shuffling steps.
Kally chopped her hand downward, and the largest branch cracked and splintered, falling loose against the trunk. A howling, like the wind through the branches on a stormy night, sounded as the pain racked the entire walking tree. All of the trees joined the breathy howl as they reached out toward the vengeful Witch.
Glinda tried to step around the melee, but the branches lashed out at her also. In their anger, the trees did not remember the sorceress that gave them life and purpose.
Mombi slipped into shadow form and leaped from shadow to shadow on the ground and entered the forest unscathed. She searched around, but here was no sign of the Wizard or his body. There were signs of a fight, and some fallen branches from the Guardian Trees, but no Wizard.
She jumped back outside the forest and relayed the message to Glinda.
"He's gone? Where? How?" All of the blood drained from Glinda's face as she turned three shades of pale. "It is done. There is no more hope." She sat heavily on the ground and turned her face up to the sky. "Why?"
"There is another way." Promethus crackled on his ancient joints as he walked slowly toward Glinda. "If he is not here, then we simply need to look for him."
"But where?"
"In the picture. It shows everything. Come. We need to go back home."
Kally glanced over her shoulder to see Promethus reaching out for her. The tree pushed against her magic, but it was time to leave. She shoved the tree backwards with magic. The trunk bent like rubber as the roots struggled to hold fast to the root-tilled soil. It could not hold, and it slid back into its place in the line of Guardian trees. The tree shook itself and reached out again toward the Witch, but she was gone.
* * * * *
Kally leaped the group through the gaps in the forested plain. On the top of one hill she stopped to give them a breath of air. Below them stretched a porcelain-strewn field of battle. Shattered china and porcelain remnants were everywhere.
In an instant, they were surrounded by armless warriors with flat heads. Kally swept them away with a wave of her hands. One, two, three steps, and they left the hilltop and landed in the center of the porcelain battlefield. Far behind them, two Hammer-Heads launched themselves at the place where the intruders had stood a fraction of an instant before. Their flat heads cracked together with an echo that reverberated over the valley.
Glinda looked around at the small porcelain dolls broken in pieces. Several of the porcelain people gathered up pieces that might be mended. Glinda called out to one, who jumped away in fright. The porcelain maid screamed a tiny scream and dropped her armload of pieces of broken kinsfolk and held her hands up to protect herself from the red-haired giant.
Glinda knelt next to the maid, who was only about as tall as Glinda's knee.
"Don't smash me!" the maid cried.
"I am not going to hurt you." The sorceress said. "What happened here?"
The maid explained the process of her people crawling from the earth and battling the flat-headed Hammer-Heads. The ground would not stay still. Not even the dragons could stop the Hammer-Heads from breaking everything they could get their heads on.
The maid pointed to the king, who supervised the gathering of his people. Porcelain parts were piled deep in a great pit. Glinda approached the king and hailed him cautiously.
"Speak, stranger. I have seen my people crushed this day. We have the
work of mending to begin once the bodies are gathered."
"I saw your people crawling from the earth in my dream." Glinda said.
"We are not dreams. We are real." The king said. "Just because we are empty inside does not make us the creation of another. We talk, we move, we break, we are crushed into powder. The same emptiness inside can be told of your kind, who would not help us in our hour of need."
"Who of my kind was here?" Glinda asked.
"We must go, Glinda. Too much time has wasted." Promethus called.
"The one who brought fire and the one with green hair. Their armies would not aid our cause against the Hammer-Heads. We will rebuild our people. We will create a wall, higher than five men, thicker than any wall before. That will protect us. If I never see you or your kind again, it will be too soon." The king did not even dismiss her with a wave of his hand. He simply turned back to his work.
Glinda looked north, back the way they had come. Wickrie-Kells and her army were back there, but where was Omby-Amby now? She turned her gaze south toward home. Answers awaited in the Magic Painting.
* * * * *
In the deeper dreamlands, Oscar stood on the shore of a great sea. A shadow fell around him, shielding him from the burning sands on either side. Oscar looked up toward the sky, but there was no sun. The roiling clouds churned the sky in rivers of green and black among the gray. High into the sky reached the Twisted Lighthouse. Its powerful beam sizzled through the clouds wherever it sliced. Yet it was not enough to combat the brutal onslaught of nebulous congeries that swelled the shores of Oz.
"Unwise power in mortal hands. Eternal scars bound to the land." A melancholy voice said. Oscar was not surprised to see a Faerie Queen standing on the nearby island in the shadow of the Twisted Lighthouse. He half-expected it to be the Queen of Dreams, but instead it was her blue-haired sister, Collodine. Though they were far apart, Oscar heard her voice as clearly as if she had spoken over his shoulder.
"The shores are blasted with heat, yet the clouds show rain. What is happening?" Oscar asked.
The Faerie Queen stared out into the harsh wind. Her blue hair whipped around her. Still she watched for the ship with black sails. Her words hung on the wind, like notes on a scale, as the clouds stabbed the hurting sea.
Yon thund'rous billows filled with eyes,
Brazen teeth that cleave the sky.
What angels, saints, or demons sense
List'ning, laugh at thine expense.
"You quote from the ancient books, but you offer no meaning to your words. I know the deep dreams. I know of the two trees in every world. I know the flood, and I know the tower. What did you do in this world?"
"They brought an eidolon--a ghost filled with power, projected into another world--to rule Oz. While my sister slept, they drew forth the Destroyer. Their lust for power urged them into further eldritch exploration before they reached the shores." She pointed out toward the sea, and suddenly Oscar and the blue-haired Faerie, Collodine, were standing atop the Twisted Lighthouse.
Oscar looked out to the far reaches of the sea and beheld a great barge with scaffoldings, lowering a massive sarcophagus into a strange void in the center of the site. The void was strange because, even in the middle of the sea, it showed a noted absence of water. A ship detatched itself from the fleet and headed far away from the king's barge. "Those are not the Witches on the barge. I see a king. He fears that the Witches will find what he is burying. He fears that his kingdom is already lost."
"Yes, but look further. For that, they destroyed the seas, and very nearly destroyed the skies." Collodine answered.
Oscar then stood on the dock as the king's barge returned. Events happened around him, but he could not judge the passage of time clearly. He watched the ship with black sails approach the harbor. Even far away, the seas boiled around the ship. Evil mists arose and choked the crew. The ship crashed headlong into the harbor, splintering the ancient pillars. The seas grew thick and sluggish and the stink overwhelmed the land. The Witches hurried from the ship, turning their backs on the beckoning eidolon of Ereline, the Queen of Dreams. They pushed past the unseen Wizard standing on the dock and hurried inland to disappear.
"The ships out there," Oscar asked, "They don't make it, do they?"
In response, the sickly gelatinous sea pulled away from shore, leaving a stinking, oily sand behind. The ships, both in the harbor and further out, sunk to the sand. All that was wood slowly turned to sand. The terrified screams of the doomed sailors ended with a husky exhalation into the bruised wind as their lungs turned to sand. Oscar stepped backwards off the wooden dock onto the solid land as the wood disintegrated and fell away before him. Now he was on the edge of a great cliff overlooking the desert he had seen before in the waking world.
"All died. Yet for these, even their ghosts have been forgotten."
Dark winds howled across the desert, seeking those who had usurped power, but they were not to be found. "To hide in the shadows, they simply stopped using the power." Collodine said. "It was that easy for them to disappear."
Oscar watched from high above Oz as the First Witch War played out. Inhuman armies marched through the land, battling the armies of King Oz the Eighth. After the destruction of the seas, the Witches disappeared. The King's armies hunted down the Witch armies and punished them according to the law. Now that the deserts surrounded the land, there was nowhere else to escape. However, the Witches were never found. They kept their knowledge in secret and survived the generations.
"Not so easy for me." Oscar said.
"No, Wizard. Not so easy for you."
"I had hoped the shadows of the past would not find me."
"The shadows always know where to find the light. It can never hide."
"Am I, then, the light?"
The sands of the Deadly Desert rose up in a great puppet show before the Wizard. He saw his father and mother, and his brothers and sisters all look to him and reach out. The shadows covered them, and they sank into the sand. He saw the two pistols with the emerald inlaid in the grips--those were the inheritance given him by his father. They were destined for his fallen eldest brothers, but their deaths on a far away battlefield haunted the family. Oscar was the one chosen to bear the burden of inheritance. The pistols fired again and again into the storm. Shadows fell all around. Oscar shook as tears rolled down his cheeks. He saw the coins he had traded for his inheritance. He did not want blood on his hands, but the coins became bloody as another man fell and lost his life blood to the emerald pistols. Then the circus rose and the tents fell. He heard the forced laughter from the distant balloon high above the screaming circus.
The balloon disappeared in the storm. It crashed into a new land. Oscar knew where this was going.
"Stop it. I don't want to see it. I know my history. I know the shadows that cling to me with each step."
"Yes. The shadows you brought to Oz became a plague that destroyed the order and balance we had set up over centuries. You, Wizard, have destroyed more of Oz than all of the wars with the Witches and Nomes combined."
"I am sorry."
"Do you know your greatest sin, Wizard? How you sinned against an entire world? Your stories have power. The people believe you. They follow you into dream and you make them wonder. They do not follow the old orders anymore. The forbidden fruit you brought has tempted and now infected others. You are not the only one in Oz who sees dreams. Now royal eyes see, and they will continue to see and lead the people away from their beaten path. Your bricks have built a road to destruction."
HH3: Chapter 27. Magic Picture
Wickrie-Kells hurried through the Grimmpill Graveyard. The blisters on her arms stung and itched. The clutched treasure in her arms chilled her to the core. Even the whispering flames swirling around her hands could not warm her icy fingers.
Ahead of her she saw a large-bellied man and a pretty, middle-aged woman carrying boxes into a nearby tomb. She knew them.
"Mom?" Wickrie asked, stunned
.
Donya stopped in place. The dark-haired young woman walking toward her was not the lighter-haired daughter that she remembered from just a few days ago. "Wickrie? What are you doing?" Then she saw the precious package that her daughter clutched. "No, no, no, you can't have that."
Tjorn, Wickie's father, peeked out of the tomb they were filling with rescued treasures. "What is it?"
"Glinda said it was the Crown Sarcophagus."
"I know what it is. Why do you have it? The magic was to keep it hidden." Donya said.
"It was supposed to stay hidden." Tjorn said sternly. "The charm attached is a terrible cost."
"We need it to save the Wizard--to save Oscar--to save Oz." Wickrie answered.
"Your hair is dark." Donya looked into her daughter's eyes and saw the fire and pain swirling and mixing behind the Emerald Spectacles. She could not see the magic, but a mother does not need to see magic to read the pain in her child's eyes. "Your eyes, oh, Wickrie, what have you done?"
"Omby left me. He's got some other little vixen now." Another lock of Wickrie's hair grew darker. Her mother noticed the change. "He tried to keep the dowry from me." Another lock darkened.
Wickrie-Kells wanted to shout her independence to her parents, to declare in no uncertain terms that she was not theirs to give. Neither Wickrie, nor the dowry, should be simply handed over, like a business agreement. But she knew in her heart that her wishes would not make it so. She resolved on a different tactic--she would blame her parents.
"It was his to keep." Tjorn said. "The dowry and your hand, I gave both to him."
"There are things on here that I needed to know. It's mine." Wickrie-Kells declared. "These treasures are my birthright. I can't believe you kept them from me."
