dorothy must die 00.4 - heart of tin (6 page)

BOOK: dorothy must die 00.4 - heart of tin
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SIX

The next morning dawned clear and sunny. I polished my arms and legs and torso until the metal gleamed like mercury in the morning sun. I got my crown out of the Winkie-size wardrobe in one corner of my room and polished that, too, setting it on top of my head when it glowed as brightly as my tin skin. I finished my preparations just as Norbert knocked softly at my door, announcing that my subjects were assembled in the courtyard as I had requested. His suspenders, I noticed, were new, and his suit jacket had been ironed sometime since last night. Even his shoes were buffed. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, for some reason, and I almost asked him what had gotten into everybody.

The Winkies were gathered in a noisy, chattering group in the large courtyard in front of the palace’s main door, but they fell silent as soon as I came out of the palace, eyeing one another. Norbert bobbed obsequiously at my side, wiping his furry brow with a spotted handkerchief. I surveyed them, my heart sinking
a little. They really were sort of—well, unimpressive. And there weren’t that many of them either. But Oz was not exactly a land noted for its martial power, and Winkies could be as courageous as anybody if they were given the chance. I noted with approval that they were standing carefully so as not to trample the lovingly cultivated flower beds. They might be silly and undisciplined, but that was at least a start. What mattered most was that Dorothy would see how much I cared, how much I was thinking about her.

“My most devoted subjects,” I began, gazing out over their upturned faces. “It has been a great honor to be your ruler, and I am proud to have done such an excellent job overseeing your welfare. I have gathered you here today to alert you to a number of important changes that are taking place in Oz.” Their faces were blank. Undaunted, I continued. “I am afraid I have some disheartening news about the Princess Ozma. Though we believed her to be a good and kind ruler, she has in fact betrayed us.” At this, the Winkies exchanged startled glances. “I have learned that she has been stealing the magic of Oz for her own purposes. But all will soon be well, for something wondrous has happened.” My cloth heart soared in my chest. There was something about saying it out loud that made it seem really true. “The beloved Dorothy Gale has returned to Oz to help us!”

A murmur of astonishment rippled through the little crowd. “Dorothy the Witchslayer?” piped up a young Winkie in the back, who was quickly hushed by his fellows. But I didn’t mind the interruption.

“The one and the same,” I said proudly. “When Oz was in need before, she came to us, and now that Oz needs her again, she has returned to us.” The Winkies didn’t need to know that I still hoped in my heart of hearts she’d come for
me
. “She came to convince Ozma to return the magic she had stolen to the land, but Ozma refused. In the ensuing battle, Ozma cast a terrible spell that erased her own memory. Dorothy, in her generosity and selflessness, has agreed to govern Oz temporarily until a new ruler can be found. In the meantime, she will need an army to protect her. That army, my dear subjects, shall be you.”

The Winkies were staring at me openmouthed. I frowned slightly. I had expected them to be more excited. Maybe I just hadn’t made myself clear. “We will leave for the Emerald City tomorrow,” I added. “Prepare yourselves. I do not know when we will return to this country. Our duty is to Dorothy, and we will serve her as long as she needs us.”

The Winkie who’d spoken before was waving his hand furiously, and I nodded in his direction. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said, less politely than I thought was appropriate. “You said all of us? Are leaving for the Emerald City? Tomorrow?”

“That is correct,” I said.

“But I don’t want to go to the Emerald City,” he said. To my astonishment, several other Winkies nodded in agreement.

“But of course you want to go to the Emerald City,” I replied. “This is Dorothy we’re talking about. Dorothy Gale, who killed the wicked witches, who’s given everything for Oz. It’s our responsibility to keep her safe after everything she’s done for
us.”

“Your responsibility, maybe,” the Winkie said. “Why should it be ours?”

“Because I am your king,” I said, but muttering had spread through the crowd, and now more Winkies were raising their hands to speak.

“I don’t know any Dorothy!” one of them shouted, and was shushed by her fellows, but more and more of them were grumbling. I raised my voice in an effort to speak over them.

“It is not a request!” I shouted. “It is an order! You will all be heroes! I demand it!”

“How do we even know this is true about Ozma?” snapped the original dissenter. “Ozma is a fairy! Maybe she just knows better than us what the magic of Oz should be used for!”

“Hear, hear!” someone else shouted. As more and more of them protested, my disbelief turned to anger. Here I was, offering them the opportunity of a lifetime, and they were worried about technicalities? I was their king! Even if they didn’t want to help Dorothy, as impossible as that was to believe, I was in charge, not some whining Winkie teenager.

“Silence!” I bellowed, but now they were ignoring me completely, and some of them were even heading for the palace gates as though to return home. How
dare
they? After everything I’d given up for them? Dorothy had killed the Wicked Witch of the West and freed the enslaved Winkies when she had first come to Oz. I’d been at her side, obviously, and in fact she wouldn’t have been able to defeat the witch without my help. Not at all.
But her act of bravery had left the Winkies without a ruler, and so the Wizard had appointed me their king all those years ago. He didn’t ask me what I wanted. Nobody ever did, as a matter of fact. Not even Dorothy, if I was being
completely
honest. But I was like Dorothy. I cared more about the good of Oz than my own personal needs.

I had a perfectly good heart, one the Wizard had given me, and while it naturally belonged to Dorothy, all the years after she’d left Oz I’d assumed I would never see her again. But instead of doing the things other people did—falling in love, having adventures, seeing the world—I’d stayed here, in this backwater little palace. I could have gone anywhere, done anything. I could have found—well, I’d never have found a replacement for Dorothy, but maybe I could have found someone I’d love almost as much. I could have had a life. Instead, I’d given up everything for the Winkies, for these ungrateful, foolish, nasty little trolls.

At my side, Norbert cleared his throat, adjusting his pince-nez. “Well, sir,” he said quietly. “I suppose that will be all, then?”

“No,” I said. “That will not be all.” I could feel my outrage transforming into something bigger, and stronger, and meaner. A sudden breeze sprang up, bringing with it a tiny cyclone of pink strawberry-scented glitter, and for a moment I could almost see Glinda hovering above the Winkies’ heads and smiling at me. “I will lend you the power to control them, brave Woodman,” her voice whispered in my ear. “You will show them the glory and the might of Oz.” The glitter swirled around me, whirling
around my arms and my hands. The metal of my fingers began to glow red-hot, as though I’d left them in a fire, and started to melt and change shape. To my astonishment my fingers began to transform before my very eyes. They sprouted long, thin needles and short-bladed knives, all sharp and wicked-looking. As soon as the transformation was complete, the metal cooled again, gleaming dangerously in the morning sun.

For just a moment, my heart pulsed with doubt. “But these are weapons,” I said out loud.

Glinda
tsk
-
tsk
ed in my ear. I turned around, expecting to see her, but there was no one there. “What we do, we do for the good of Oz, my noble friend,” she whispered. “What will Dorothy do if you cannot protect her? Who will she turn to, if you are not at her side? I will choose another protector, if you are not man enough for the task.”

Jealousy sparked up in me like a forest fire. There would be no question of Glinda’s choosing someone else! I would be at Dorothy’s side for always. I would show these filthy Winkies how powerful I was if they did not obey me out of duty.

“Stand where you are!” I snarled to the Winkies, who were by now pouring toward the palace gates. Something in my voice stopped them in their tracks. “Bring me the Winkies among you who have dared to defy me,” I said, and even to my own ears my voice was terrible. Glinda’s cyclone of magic darted over the crowd, dusting them with some kind of enchantment. As if in a trance the Winkies seized the traitors and dragged them toward my podium. Only the first Winkie who’d spoken, the
one who’d said he didn’t want to go to the Emerald City, was trying to resist, struggling furiously and even biting at the arms of his captors. I would deal with him first. I gestured for them to bring him before me.

“This is
my
kingdom,” I said in a low voice that I knew was strong enough to carry to the far edges of the crowd. “I have allowed you to forget it. I will not make that mistake again.” I wrapped my fingers around his neck and looked up at the assembled crowd. “Tomorrow, we march to the Emerald City,” I said. “From now on, this is how I will deal with traitors.” The knives that had replaced my fingers cut into his flesh, and blood poured down his yellow fur and pooled at his dangling feet. He gurgled frantically as my fingers cut and cut, all the way to the bone. Red light blazed around me, the red of Dorothy’s shoes, pouring in through my open mouth and filling my entire body with a blinding, all-powerful rage. With a single gesture, I tore his head from his body and hurled it into the crowd, striking one of them square in the chest with a grisly smack. The Winkies stared at me, and I saw in grim satisfaction that their eyes were filled with utter horror and fear. Some of the Winkies were crying, but most of them were in such terrified shock that they just trembled where they stood and gaped up at me.

“I knew you were the right choice,” Glinda’s disembodied voice whispered next to me. “I knew you were brave enough, Woodman.” I looked down at my hands. They were still the strange new hands Glinda had given me. Covered in blood, they looked even more menacing. More evil, I thought, and then
shook my head. No. This wasn’t evil. This was necessary.
What we do, we do for the good of Oz.
She had been right. This was a new time. I couldn’t back down. Dorothy needed me.

Almost without thinking, I moved toward the next traitor in line with my hands outstretched when Norbert gave a little cry. “What is it?” I snarled.

“Sir,” Norbert said desperately, “what are you doing? Why are you harming us? We’ll obey you, sir, we understand how important Dorothy’s army is now. Please don’t hurt anyone else.” I blinked and suddenly the red mist that had filled me poured out of my eyes and mouth, rising up into the clear blue sky and taking with it the intense rage that had possessed me. Glinda’s voice was gone. I looked around. There was blood everywhere. The headless body of a Winkie lay on the ground, and a line of Winkies crouched before me, shaking in terror.

“Did I—did I do that?” I asked Norbert, confused.

He looked at me in astonishment. “Yes sir,” he said quietly.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, sir. You said—you said you needed an army.”

The army! Of course. Dorothy’s army. I wasn’t entirely certain what had just happened, but if it meant I had an army to bring to my princess, it was surely for the best. I’d bring her an army, and then tell her how I truly felt at last. How could she say no, when she saw the evidence of my devotion?

“We march for the Emerald City at dawn,” I told the blood-spattered masses trembling at my feet. “Shirkers and deserters will be executed.” I turned my back on them and walked into
the palace.

SEVEN

The Winkies who gathered again in the courtyard the next morning were a far cry from the nattering, cheerful crowd who had assembled the day before. Some of them, I was certain, hadn’t moved from their spots since I had executed the traitor in front of them the preceding morning. They were silent, their heads bowed, their pathetic possessions gathered on their backs or hastily stuffed into small carts they towed behind them. A flash of doubt ran through me. They didn’t look like an army, they looked like a few dozen refugees. None of them had weapons, let alone armor. None of them had ever fought a battle in their lives. But I shook my head, dismissing the thought. We would all rise to the occasion. Even the humblest among us. Dorothy needed them almost as much as she needed me if she was to be safe in the Emerald City. I would turn them into an army if it was the last thing I did.

It took my ramshackle army a long time to find the Road of
Yellow Brick, and when we did finally find it the bricks looked old and crumbly and were stained with a faint red hue—not the color of Dorothy’s shoes, but the color of blood. I remembered my vision in the palace the morning Dorothy had met with us and told us that Ozma had betrayed the country. I remembered the way Glinda had looked at me. Had she known what I would have to do? Had she been trying to warn me? I frowned, unwilling to allow any more uncomfortable thoughts. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but it had been necessary. There’d be no reason to have to do anything like it again. I avoided looking at my inexplicably transformed hands. Maybe Dorothy could help me change them back to the way they’d been before. After all, she was the one with magic.

The Road of Yellow Brick led us miles out of the way, almost as if it were trying to keep us away from the Emerald City. We walked for a long time through the Forest of Fear, the trees shrieking terrifying things at the Winkies, who flinched and wept and then, looking back at me fearfully, trudged onward. Some of them stuffed up their ears with cloth. Others held hands. I let their cowardice slide. There would be plenty of time for discipline once we reached the city. I wasn’t a monster.

Finally, after hours of doubling back and leading us astray, the road seemed to realize it couldn’t stop me from reaching the palace and straightened itself out. The bricks grew solid and polished again, and the hedges lining the road were neatly trimmed and bursting with flowers that periodically caroled us in trilling, high-pitched voices as we passed. The Winkies were still
subdued, but their mood seemed to improve a little, and some of them perked up enough to look around them as we walked. A few of them dug cheese-and-marmalade sandwiches out of their bags—the Winkies were fanatical about cheese-and-marmalade sandwiches for some reason, and I had never known one of my subjects to travel anywhere without a ready supply—and munched as we marched. At last, I could see the green spires of the Emerald City on the horizon.

BOOK: dorothy must die 00.4 - heart of tin
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