An Introduction to Oz Before Dorothy

by Tarl Telford

  * * * * *

  From atop a tall, silver-lined tree in the garden, a child watched the goat cart drive away. The child scampered down the tree and declared the news. "She's gone."

  Three other children emerged from the grove to join Arturio the Gardener and Adi, his invisible wife. The children had no problem finding their mother. The youngest wrapped herself around her mother's leg.

  "Some secrets are best left unspoken." The invisible mother said. "I was her secret for too long. Now, at least, I am my own secret--and yours."

  "Yes. We have the garden, safety, and purpose. But I wonder about those out there. Do they have their purpose? It seems an awful thing to never know what each day will bring." Arturio said. He lifted his oldest son, seven years old, into his arms. "What do you think? Do you think mother has the best of everything?"

  He nodded.

  "I am the luckiest woman in the world." Adi said. "I have a husband who loves me for who I am, four wonderful children that never see me coming, voices in this land that empower me, and a world that can neither see me nor remember me. No expectations. I am truly free."

  * * * * *

  From high in the sky above the borderlands of the West, Docket, King of the Winged Monkeys, watched as the blemished dark cloud pushed across land and sky toward the center of the land. It moved faster than a horse could run or a bird could fly. Beyond the darkness was blue sky. The stain came from somewhere near the desert. Docket had seen this before. A much smaller version of this dark wind happened every night. From across the desert it came, always watching and peering in the windows of every hut and house in the West. Now the stain had set its sights on a deeper target in Oz.

  Docket dove down to the waiting monkeys of his tribe. "The Dark Wind heads to the center of the land. You have seen and felt the land trembling and heaving. I have heard the voice of the Lost Heart of the Forest. She cries to end the new magic. It sickens the land."

  The small Winged Monkey returned to his king. Docket heard the Witch's commands to begone and stay out of her sight. That was all the permission he needed to lead his tribe into battle.

  "The sickness comes from the Wizard. That alien wind that blows against the darkness hunts the Wizard. They have wings and cleave the sky, like us. They are physical. I go to pay a debt to the Soldier with Green Hair. Fly with me to battle, to war, or to mischief--I care not what your reasons. The Lost Heart of the Forest will see your doings and smile."

  The strongest of the Winged Monkeys, forty-four by count, flew north with all speed toward the Emerald City. Behind them came the remainder of the Winged Monkeys, flying slower, but louder, as they raised the cry to all of the birds and flying things in Oz. The growing flock became a cloud itself in the darkened sky, winging on a collision course with the raging Dark Wind from across the desert.

  * * * * *

  In the Onyx Labyrinth, Omby-Amby wrestled a shadow that had reached out to grab Eyve. The shadow matched him blow for blow, just like a reflection. Beyond that shadow, he saw his reflection slyly stepping away from a strike and allowing the girl to fall. It would be so easy. All he had to do was step away. The shadows would take care of everything.

  Eyve pulled her sword and mirrored Omby-Amby's movements. As she matched his practiced defenses and attacks, the opening came, and she thrust in her sword at the shadow. She timed her strike so that Omby would not be in the way, whether or not she struck. All around her, shadowy claws reached out and pulled at Eyve's arms and legs.

  Omby pulled his rifle and butted the reaching shadow in the face. In that startled moment, Omby whipped the rifle around and pulled the trigger. The shadow warrior shattered, and the bullet fractured the onyx wall behind.

  "Move. Now." Omby ordered. He sighted another errant shadow in his rifle sights. Thunder echoed through the hard stone, urging them ever forward. It would not be hard...just step away.

  The group picked up the Wizard and pushed deeper into the darkening labyrinth. The song brightened the dark reflections briefly, but then a deeper shadow behind the reflections echoed in guttural triumph.

  Eyve watched Omby's head shake slowly, probably from disappointment, as they carried the Wizard. Eyve saw the reflection of Omby-Amby turn away from her and go into the darkness. He did not even say goodbye. She let go of the litter, causing her corner to drop to the floor. "You didn't tell me anything. I am yours, Omby. I followed you. I trusted you. I fought for you. I have done everything, and you ignore me and worse. You leave me in the shadows. What has she got that I don't have?"

  "The shadows, Eyve. The shadows." Omby's reflection mimicked the soldier's warning, but Eyve was only listening to the reflection.

  "Shadows? You want a girl with issues? You think that I don't have shadows? I had to run away from my home so that we wouldn't die! I'll show you! I'll show you that I'm the only one you'll ever need!" Eyve pulled her sword. Her eyes flashed wild in the purple light against the shining steel.

  Wary, Omby put a hand on his sword.

  "I'll prove it to you!" Tears poured down Eyve's cheeks. "Me!" Eyve turned and ran back the way they came.

  "That escalated quickly." Toro said.

  "She is too young for this. Rala, take Eyve's place. I'll carry the front." Omby ordered.

  They hurried deeper into the labyrinth. The echoes ahead of them grew larger as the space expanded around them. The labyrinth split apart into multiple levels. Stairs and bridges branched and branched, crossing and overlaying the deeper layers. A fiery glow lined the deeper walls with tendrils of magic.

  Omby sang. Both Toro and Rala joined their voices to his. They had lost Eyve to the labyrinth, and time was running out.

  * * * * *

  Eyve pushed into the darkness. The shadows leered out at her from every turn. She felt their coal eyes on her back. When she whipped her sword around, she bit into nothing but laughing air. Then the darkness fell completely.

  Cocooned in her crawling skin, Eyve quickly realized she was lost.

  She knelt, feeling the weight of thirteen years of life fracturing into screaming filaments. Each burrowing filament drew out shadows and screams and tears she had forgotten. Her throat burned from gasping for impossible air against the screams. Her eyes saw nothing except inside the spectres of a life unlived and the monsters that still hid in the corners and closets. She was very much a child living in an adult world that did not want her. Yet here she was, blade drawn in the crushing darkness of both destiny and despair. There were two choices--scream like a child, or speak in adult words and say everything that needed to be said.

  Then Eyve remembered the words of the Song of the Kings. The notes and words grew and swelled within her, folding around the screams and making them a part of the music inside. The fear turned into something different. It was still loud. It still filled her, but it was now part of the music that worked its way through her entire being. Fear was just one part of the music, and it quieted with every passing moment.

  Eyve thrilled as she remembered the music. The Song of the Kings transformed her from the screaming child into heart, mind, courage, and belief. She felt the song singing in her heart, and flowing through her blood. She opened her mouth let the words spring from her lips. They resonated against the shadows, parting her way and clearing the path. She had purpose. She knew what she needed to do. To bring Omby-Amby back, she had to remove all obstacles for his love. She had to stop Wickrie-Kells permanently.

  HH3: Chapter 29. Light to See

  The sky above Emerald City darkened as the eclipse began. Perilous Eddy shielded his eyes as he looked up to the stormy sky. He climbed a stone staircase to get a clearer view of the sky. This was more than angry clouds--the sunlight behind the clouds was darkening in the wake of the eclipse. He climbed higher and looked beyond the walls of the city. The prairie was burning. And then from beyond the smoke, flowing from the South came a hungry dark cloud that ripped and clawed at the earth. This darkness was coming to Emerald City to feast in the shadow of t
he moon.

  Eddy looked down to the streets far below. People went about their business as usual. The upheavals were part and parcel for daily life in the Emerald City. Living with a Wizard at their center had made the people accustomed to changes. A sickly, darkish feeling grew within Eddy. It started at the base of his skull and crept dreadfully downward along his spine, settling just below his stomach. This was a different change than he had felt before. This was everything, not just the buildings in the Emerald City. Everything changed here and now. If tomorrow even came at all--which fact he questioned in this moment--nothing would ever be the same.

  * * * * *

  Within her chest, Wickrie-Kells' heart pounded angrily. Her throat burned from the smoke and flame all around her. The Emerald City rose brilliant and sparkling on the hill against the darkness of the sky, but all she could see were shadows. Even with the clouds, the light faded. The whispers sang of the sun dying and the moon's shadow holding sway over Oz. The gates were opening and old magic was flooding Oz with the clustered wind.

  The Emerald Spectacles prevented her from wiping behind the lenses. Her eyes stung from all of the accumulated grime, soot, and ash. Not even tears and perspiration could wash it away. She pushed forward, hurling fire out of her way, wrestling with the flames like a sheet in the wind.

  The blisters on her arms ached, and the magic lines hissed where they twisted into the frost-burned flesh. Then the magic within screamed to be unleashed, but the only enemy she had was the ordinary fire twisting all around her. The Crown Sarcophagus cast a sphere of cold all around. She felt lightning strike close by and smelled the ozone as it filled the air. Then the gates of Emerald City were in front of her.

  She pounded and pounded, and the gates opened just enough. Wickrie-Kells slipped through into the clean green marble and stone coolness of Emerald City.

  * * * * *

  In the deeper dreamlands, Oscar found himself walking through an emerald-green meadow. The ground shuddered beneath his feet. Sand pushed up from beneath the grass, piling on itself like an anthill. The sand poured out of the top and flowed down the sides of the hill, flooding the meadow. Oscar stood in the center as the sand rushed past him. Only on the edges now was the pristine meadow visible. The sand stretched nearly horizon to horizon.

  An explosion from the sky turned the sand to glass. The air burned around Oscar. The glass bubbled and boiled with fervent heat. In the sea of molten glass beneath his feet, Oscar saw a city ringed with seven walls. Dragons sat on the thrones as they had for countless generations. The dragons created gates and passed through. They sent fire before them to cleanse the worlds. Yet in their time, generations lived and died of other species. The Faeries fought the dragons. The war spilled through the gates and to other worlds.

  Emerald fire rained down from the sky and cleansed the land of all contagious life. The Faeries delved deep into the rock of this new land and uncovered the fire of rubies. This weapon drove the dragons back from the skies into the world beneath. Deep in the caves beneath the new world, the dragons rested on their treasures. Their emerald eyes glittered from the darkness, warily watching any errant dreamer who might discover their troves.

  The molten glass formed buildings and people. New colors of molten people stepped through gates into the cities. First came emerald, then came sapphire, ruby, and then diamond. A great city of emerald rose up with seven walls, like the fabled city of old. Just as quickly it fell under the massed armies from another part of the land. Cities rose and fell. The colors of the land changed as nations changed and civilizations were forgotten.

  Then the Emerald City rose on the former foundations. It warped and changed as the dreams created and rewrote the towers and bridges, granting new life to statues and forgotten corners. Then a ruby girl rose up. Oscar knew her face. Glinda looked for him from the tallest tower. She called out to him, but each word only reflected light, not sound.

  Then came the monsters. The sea of molten glass and all of its creations were separated from the dreaming Oscar as he walked around and viewed the cities. The monsters, however, came from the darkness beneath the sea of glass. They attacked the dreamer and drove him away from the city. Oscar ran, but the hounds quickly flanked him and cornered him against a tall mountain. As one, they leaped at him. Oscar braced for the inevitable pain of sharp teeth tearing at his flesh, but it never came.

  The hounds disappeared into the gate within Oscar's chest.

  From high on the mountain behind Oscar, a voice spoke words that chilled him to the core. As the last hound passed through him, the rebuke came swift and sharp. "You should not have eaten. What was unfit to eat has now become unfit for Oz. You are the gate. Dreamers must not be gates." Collodine stepped down to stand next to Oscar. Her star-tipped pearl wand came down to rest an inch over the gate in his chest. "They have passed through the dreamlands to the waking world. Your shadows bleed through at every level."

  "I did what was in front of me." Oscar tried to justify his actions. "I will stop them. Who commands the hounds? Where did they go?"

  "You bleed shadows, Wizard. The history you carry with you has bled through the walls in your mind. The hounds follow the scent of magic. For a dreamer like yourself, that magic is your mind, yet you have shown them a greater feast." Collodine tapped the wand on Oscar's chest. "There is no hope. Unlike the Witches, you can not simply refuse to use the magic. Your dreams come without end."

  "So there is there nothing I can do. I don't believe that."

  "Dalos built the hounds of tin and gave them life to hunt through the spheres. You are trapped with the shadows you bleed for pleasure." Collodine tapped Oscar's chest again and the gate swallowed him once more. "Go back to where your pain started. Learn and hurt, Wizard. Hurt and cry so that the land may heal."

  In an instant, he found himself alone in primal darkness. The smell of wood and soiled laundry fouled the air. He felt the rough wood of the walls as his awkward and uncoordinated hands flailed about. The walls were all around him. The darkness clung to every pore of his skin, pressing down and sound like thunder echoed in the distance, pushing against all of his senses. He was utterly and completely alone.

  His screams resounded off the walls again and again. For an eternity Oscar cried out, yet no one came. His flailing arms hit his face and eyes, causing pain, yet the mocking darkness provided nothing to see. The ache in his heart grew with every passing breath between screams. A thought drew him back further and further and he heard through adult ears the screams that were his primal childhood. The tears came unbidden as the grown Wizard joined the terrified and forgotten infant in the same trapped body and screamed for an eternity, and still nobody came.

  * * * * *

  The door to the Emerald Engine was guarded by a twisted shadow. Twining shadows and fire stretched across the floor and burrowed their way in and out of the wall, like glowing stitches. Omby-Amby stopped as the prickles on the back of his neck jabbed again and again. They set the Wizard's litter gently down on the ground. Omby pressed his fingers to the side of the Wizard's neck. The pulse was very weak, fluttering like a wounded bird.

  The soldier pulled the rifle off his shoulder. Eyes glared at him from the wall. The shadows were back, except this time it was worse--they brought the hounds.

  Omby-Amby fired again and again at the raging shadow hounds. With each booming thunder of the rifle, Oscar's body shuddered and trembled.

  Then the hounds heard something in the shadows beyond. They jumped back into the darkness and raced along the walls toward the entrance. Omby squeezed off one more precious shot from the rifle. He did not have many bullets left to protect the Wizard.

  Oscar's body shuddered one last time, and then it lay still.

  * * * * *

  Eyve kept her sword between herself and the shadow hounds. She nicked out her blade and cut one of the beasts. She felt the resistance on her blade, but the monster did not slow. She stepped backwards, drawing the beast away from the wall. The more
it came into air, the more solid it became. When it lost contact with the wall, Eyve attacked and pierced the creature of darkness through. It fell in two pieces. "I got one." She laughed in relief. Then her eyes saw movement in the onyx. More hounds came. She heard the howling just before they leaped from the stone into the air. She held her blade bravely in front of herself, tightening her grip, and preparing for the overpowering wave of death.

  The hounds avoided her and raced up the twisting corridors toward the entrance of the labyrinth.

  Eyve looked back the way she had come. Omby-Amby and the Wizard were deeper in the stone maze. The monsters were heading toward the entrance. That could only mean that others had entered the labyrinth. She would prove that she was a worthy match for the Soldier with Green Whiskers. She would prove in blood that she was a worthy woman for Omby-Amby. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she followed the shadow hounds toward their prey.

  * * * * *

  Glinda held the Silver Lantern high, letting its pure light shine over all of them. The City Guards that accompanied them held their swords at the ready. Glinda led the way deeper into the Onyx Labyrinth.

  Mombi heard the alien sounds first. "Look to the shadows."

  A hound jumped from the shadows and knocked a straggling soldier backwards. Others quickly followed from the walls. Locasta spun her Quicksilver-capped stick around and bludgeoned the shadow hounds, driving them backwards. But it was too late for the fallen soldier. Though he breathed, his eyes showed that he would not walk any further with them.

  "Stay in the light. These things are from the places of shadow. They may be dreams of the Wizard, but I think they are meant to hunt down those dreams that do not fully wake." Mombi said.

  Promethus coughed and wheezed as he tried to keep pace with the young sorceress. She asked if he would make it.