Shadows of the Emerald City (13 page)

“
It’s time for me to go,” he said once he’d caught his breath. He placed a wild rose he’d found growing nearby upon the grave. “Farewell my love.”

Before long Robin was marching along the Yellow Brick Road again, toward the only person in all the Land of Oz who could help him rescue his daughter.

Under any other circumstances, the Emerald City would have awed Robin Plumly with its sheer size and beauty. The city was gigantic by Munchkin standards, and every stone glowed a beautiful green. A high wall surrounded the city beyond which Robin could make out the emerald tower where the Wizard of Oz held court.

Robin slowed as he approached the city’s gate. A crooked man in black robes stood beside the door. A long, white wizard’s beard poured from the mouth of the cloak. He leaned heavily on a wooden cart, and though the man’s face was cast in shadow, Robin had the distinct feeling that this stranger was a dangerous man. They passed each other on the road a dozen paces from the city gate. Robin kept his eyes averted, not wanting to become distracted from his task.

“
I’d turn back if I were you,” the crooked man hissed.

Robin paused in spite of himself. “Excuse me?”

“
Do you seek counsel with the Wizard of Oz?” The kept speaking before Robin could even answer. “He won’t see you, I can promise you that.”

“
How do you know?”

“
He’s a humbug. A liar. Nothing but an
illusionist
.” The crooked man spoke the last word with utter contempt.

“
What do you mean?” Robin demanded. His every hope rested on the Wizard’s magic. The Munchkin took a step nearer the crooked man.

“
The Wizard of Oz rarely sees anyone,” he explained, “but he knew me as a powerful wizard, so he was willing to meet with me.”

“
So?”

“
So
… he appeared as a giant, floating head. That’s the oldest trick in the book. My dog could do that trick. And while he was ranting and raving, begging me to slay the Wicked Witches, I realized that he had less magic than an ordinary laying hen.”

“
The Wizard…” Robin shook his head. “No, that can’t be.”

“
It is, lad.” The Crooked Wizard gestured over his shoulder toward the city. “If you’re looking for a wizard, don’t bother going to the Emerald City.”

Without another word he began walking once more, headed in the direction from which Robin had come.

The Munchkin took several steps toward the city, and as he drew near he noticed that the Emerald City wasn’t made of emeralds at all. It shone brilliantly from a distance, but up close, he could clearly see that the walls were only cinder blocks painted with green sparkle paint.

“
It can’t be,” Robin said aloud. He reached toward the button that would summon the Guardian of the Gate, but hesitated. What if the Crooked Wizard was right? Dot was running out of time, and Robin might waste days inside the Emerald City.

“
Wait!
” Robin shouted. He turned around and ran back the way he had come. The Crooked Wizard was a hundred yards away now, moving along at a surprising pace, with his beard waving from side to side. He paused at the sound of Robin’s call and began to fiddle with a long pipe that he produced from a pocket of his robes.

“
Can you help me, sir?” Robin said as he drew near the wizard.

“
That depends,” said the Crooked Wizard, his back still turned to Robin. A puff of smoke drifted over shoulder. “What sort of help do you require?”

Robin took a deep breath, trying to maintain his composure. This man was Dot’s only hope, and if he refused to help, he had no one else to turn to.

“
My daughter has been taken hostage by the Wicked Witch of the East,” Robin explained. “The witch murdered my wife.”

He felt the tears burning in his eyes, but he refused to give in to weakness. He didn’t have time for weakness. He should have taken Cordelia and Dot and fled Munchkin country as soon as their name was drawn out of the hat. Instead he turned to diplomacy. He tried to argue that his people should rise up against their oppressor, but the Munchkins refused. They were all cowards, and Robin considered himself the worst of the lot.

“
That is most unfortunate,” said the Crooked Wizard.

“
Why does she do it?” Robin demanded. “Every year she comes to Munchkinland and steals one female child from each village.”

The Crooked Wizard nodded. “It is an ancient spell,” he explained. “She uses the life force of the children to keep her young and beautiful. Have you seen Orpah? She is beautiful, is she not?”

“
In a way,” Robin admitted. In truth, the Wicked Witch of the East was quite beautiful, but hers was a haunting, vacant beauty. Not like his Cordelia, whose smile could light up a room. When he thought of Orpah, Robin’s blood burned. She was a sensual, gothic creature, the kind of woman Robin’s mother had warned him about.

“
Orpah is the oldest of all the witches in Oz,” the Crooked Wizard said. “They’re all sisters, did you know that? Glinda, who rules the Quadling Country of the south, Denslow, who is called the Wicked Witch of the West, Locasta, the Good Witch of the North, Mombi, who
has
no country, and Orpah, the Wicked Witch of the East.”

“
Five sisters,” Robin said.

“
Five sisters,” said the Crooked Wizard, “and every one of them is a bitch. I used to have a thing with Orpah once upon a time, but she left me for another man. When we broke up, her sisters cursed me. Well, Denslow and Mombi did anyway, but the others didn’t do anything to stop it. They made me the broken old man you see before you.”

“
I’m sorry…” Robin began, but the wizard cut him off again.

“
Keep your words, they mean nothing to me. You want me to help you get your daughter back?” The Crooked Wizard took a shaky step toward Robin.

“
Yes.”

“
It’ll cost you. Are you willing to pay?”

“
I don’t have much gold,” Robin said. “But I’ll give you everything…”

“
I don’t want your money.” A cruel smile formed inside the Crooked Wizards hood. “But there is something else.”

“
I’ll pay anything,” Robin said.

The Crooked Wizard removed his pipe and blew a smoke ring into the air. It drifted lazily back toward the Emerald City, finally catching on the point of the wizard’s tower and dissipating.

“
When the witches left me, they stole my heart. I’m not talking figuratively either. The Crooked Wizard pulled open his robes, revealing the pale skin of his chest. There was a purple scar over his left breast. They cut it right out, used it in one of Mombi’s nasty spells. I haven’t felt anything since that day. If you ever want to see your daughter again, laddie, then the price you must pay is your heart.”

Robin’s hand went instinctively to his own chest. He could feel his heart thumping below the skin. He had known nothing but sorrow since the day his daughter’s name was drawn in the Munchkin lottery. Every dream he and Cordelia had ever dreamt had turned into a nightmare. There was no future he could envision besides one of pain. It would, in truth, be a blessing to relinquish his heart to this old wizard.

And what of the future? What of his life with Dot once she was returned to him?
If I don’t do it
, Robin thought,
then Dot will never have a future. There is no choice. I must do this.

“
Fine,” Robin said. “I will give you my heart.”

“
Fine
,” the Crooked Wizard said. “I will help you rescue your daughter.”

The Crooked Wizard lived in a cave in the Gillikin Country, and it was to this cave that he and Robin traveled once their arrangement was struck. By the time they reached the cave, the Crooked Wizard had arrived at a plan for rescuing Dot.

“
Let’s hear it,” Robin said.

“
There’s no possible way we can defeat the witch in her castle,” the Crooked Wizard said. “She is far too powerful. Even for me.”

“
What can we do then?”

The wizard grinned wickedly.

“
This is the brilliant part.
We lure
her
out of the castle
.”

Robin thought about it.

“
If she’s so powerful,” he asked after a few minutes, “won’t she be able to win no matter where we battle her?”

The Crooked Wizard glared at Robin.

“
Of course, don’t be an imbecile. We have no hope of defeating the witch, what we’re really trying to do is buy time so that you can free your daughter. That is what you bargained for, correct?”

Robin nodded slowly.

“
Well then, listen carefully and try not to say anything stupid.” The Crooked Wizard mumbled something under his breath that sounded like a curse. “We’ll lure the witch out of her castle by writing her a nasty letter from the Mayor of Munchkinville. We’ll call her a
cunt
, women hate that. She’ll come with all her giants, ready to squash those little bastards. Meanwhile, you can sneak into her castle, rescue your daughter, and then do whatever it is fathers and daughters do.”

Robin stopped in the middle of the road.

“
It’ll never work,” he said.

“
What’s that?”

“
The witch and her cronies will overrun the town in minutes. I won’t have enough time to rescue Dot.”

The Crooked Wizard turned back, staring at him incredulously.

“
You’re not worried about the Munchkins, are you?”

Robin shook his head. “They sacrificed my wife and daughter to protect themselves. As far as I’m concerned, they can all burn in hell.”

The Crooked Wizard smiled.

“
Very well,” he said. He reached into his pockets and removed a glass jar full of white powder. “This is the Powder of Life. With it, I can bring to life anything I desire.” He gave the jar a gentle shake.

“
I don’t understand…”

“
I told you,” snapped the wizard, “if you have nothing intelligent to say, then keep your mouth shut. We will go through with my plan, but in order to buy you some more time, we will build an army to distract the witch.”

“
Build an army?” Robin asked. “From what.”

The Crooked Wizard thought about it for a minute, and then his eyes sparkled.

“
From straw.” He began to laugh, a wild, psychotic laugh that made Robin’s hair stand on end. This man was dangerous, perhaps as dangerous as the Wicked Witch of the East herself, but Robin had to trust him.

Finally, they came to the black mouth of the cave.

“
This is it,” said the old man. He pointed to an opening that was draped in hairy vines that might have been poison ivy.

Robin closed his eyes, his thoughts tracing back to the little cottage he had shared with Dot and Cordelia. How long ago those days seemed, and in truth, only a matter of days had passed.

They stepped inside the cave. It was a terrible place–dank and wet and reeking of bat guano. The chamber was piled high with books and crates full of spell components. Animal cages covered nearly every surface–
was that a pig?
–and the stench inside the cavern was unbearable. Several dusty shelves lined the walls, and upon these Robin observed what appeared to be human body parts floating in cloudy yellow liquid. A small, rusted cage rested upon a desk in the center of the chamber. Within the cage was a large black crow that cawed demonically when the Crooked Wizard entered the room.

“
Abra,” the old man said with something like tenderness in his voice. He produced a large insect from a pocket of his robes. The creature’s legs raced as the Crooked Wizard dangled it over the bars of the cage. The crow flapped its wings and squawked until its master dropped the writhing insect into its mouth.

“
Come on,” said the Crooked Wizard. “We have a lot of work to do.”

The scarecrow stared at Robin with vacant, unblinking eyes. It had a puzzled expression on its burlap face–an expression better suited for a jester than a soldier. The first of the twenty scarecrows Robin had assembled wore a veteran’s scowl, but as the days wore on, Robin’s attention to detail waivered. And, quite frankly, he wasn’t much of an artist to begin with.

Now his task was almost complete. Nineteen scarecrows lay scattered all about the tiny cave, and this one, dressed in a suit of blue clothes, lay atop a wooden table. Robin dipped his paintbrush into a can of black and finished painting the eyes.

“
It’s done,” he said. “That’s the last of them.”

The Crooked Wizard, who was sitting behind his desk, looked up from a spell book. His pointed nose and prominent forehead gave him the look of a bird of prey. He wore small, round spectacles perched on the end of his nose. “Took you long enough,” he said.

“
It would have been easier if you would have helped,” Robin mumbled.

“
I
heard
that,” said the Crooked Wizard. “And you must remember, we each have our own role to play. I’ve been preparing the spells that will bring our army to life.”

“
I thought that powder was going to do that.” Robin lifted the scarecrow from the table and leaned it against one wall of the cave. His back was to the wizard.