Shadows of the Emerald City (21 page)

“
Pearl of Protection. Down to six charges. It’s pissing her off.”

“
Why does she want you dead?”

“
Emerald City is choking itself to death. Ozma needs to expand so she’s set her eyes on Munchkinland. Come on, everyone knows we Munchkinlanders don’t put up much of a fight. Our biggest militia is the Lollypop Guild. They might be scrappy but that’s about it.”

“
The Imp told me there were others—attacking the Munchkinlanders.”

“
There are. A whole guerilla unit made up Frogmen, Scoodlers, and that goat-fucking cowardly lion.”

It wasn’t making sense. Glinda released the Imp to go after Ozma. The Mayor’s story made it sound like Ozma was up to the same dirty plans as Glinda, but for what purpose?

“
How does Glinda fit into this?”

“
Glinda was next in line to be Queen of Oz but the powers that be put Ozma in charge. Civil war is brewing in Oz, Jo Guard. Glinda is preparing to battle her sister for ultimate control.”

“
Ozma and Glinda are sisters?’

From somewhere in the valley came a loud screech. The Mayor looked to the skies.

“
I can’t make it any clearer than that, Jo Guard. I have to go.”

“
Wait. How do I get out of here?”

“
There’s a circus balloon inside the cave. You’ll have to wait until morning to inflate it. It’s a small balloon but it’ll get you back to Oz. I have to go!” And like that, the Mayor disappeared
.

The screeching in the valley sounded closer. I rolled the torches into the dirt, snuffing them. The night wrapped its cold arms around me. I slipped into the cave, moved back as far as I could. It was still cool inside but I didn’t risk making a fire for warmth. I pulled the canvas of the circus balloon over top of me.

I lay there thinking about Ozma and all the nights we had stolen away to places like this to enjoy each other’s flesh. I remembered her tear drop breasts and how soft they felt in my hands, how her back would arch as she straddled me and I let my tongue roll over her rock hard nipples. She would grind her hips with my girth deep inside her before falling down on top of me, her breasts against my chest. I always loved the feeling of being inside her and her breasts squashed between us.

It had been so good for us until Security Prime found out what was going on. If he hadn’t wielded so much power I’d still be with Ozma and she might have been there with me. Glinda could have all of Oz for all I cared. Ozma would have been much happier without it. I was.

Then it hit me with such clarity it made me smile.

The Mayor had said ‘
the powers that be
’ and even the Imp would have known who he meant. He meant Security Prime and the six trustees. For a group that was supposed to protect the Queen, it was doing a better job of
controlling
her. It made her appear weak and insecure. What better way to show her subjects she was a leader than to invade a neighboring country?

But the Mayor had said there was a civil war coming between two sisters, one of which was one of the greatest guardians in all of Oz: Glinda the Good. She was beyond wanting to be queen. And she loved the Half-as-Talls. They were like the children she never bore. It didn’t ring true with me but I didn’t have the Mayor there to ask him how he knew Glinda wanted the crown.

If I wanted to know, I was going to have to ask her.

“
Glinda.” I said into the night. I closed my eyes and called out to her with my thoughts. I did this for over an hour before I heard the tinkling of bells. In between my silent calls, my mind wandered to thoughts of flying monkeys in cahoots with teleporting mayors. I was on the verge of making a connection between the two when the golden glow announcing Glinda’s arrival brightened behind my eyelids.

“
Jo Guard.” Her voice was flower petals falling around my ears.

I opened my eyes. I saw her shimmering in her white body glove, the yellow diamonds scattered over the fishnet weave twinkling like the night stars. Her long blonde hair hung down over her shoulders. Her smile invited me.

“
Glinda.” I said. I held out my hand and she floated over to it, took it in her own creamy hand. I helped her down under the balloon canvas. “I’m sorry. I wish had something more comfortable.”

In a blink we were in a bed of pillows, warm beneath furs. She hummed sweetly.

“
Is this better?” She asked. Her fingers stroked my naked chest. Her breasts hung loosely along my side.

“
Always.”

“
It’s been so long, Jo Guard.”

“
I know. I apologize.”

“
You don’t need to apologize. I know all about what has happened.”

“
It’s why I summoned you.”

She kissed me. It caught me by surprise. Tiny vibrations awakened my lips and my lust for her.

“
I had hoped you brought me here for reasons you use to bring me to you.”

“
Tonight I have another reason.”

“
What is it you want to know?” Her voice sang. It was a series of pleasing bells, not heavy, not light.

“
Mayor Gerrld of Munchkinland says you released the Imp to kill Queen Ozma.”

“
It wasn’t me who released the Imp.” She kissed me again.

“
Only you and Ozma have the power to do that.” I said.

“
Then it was her.”

“
She knows the Imp wants her dead.”

Glinda laid her head on my shoulder. Her hand tickled my chest, her fingernail traced a line down below my belly.

“
Doesn’t mean she didn’t do it. And, as long as my charm lasts—.”

“
So you haven’t removed it?”

She looked up at me with her probing brown eyes. They danced in the natural glow of her skin.

“
Of course not. Why would I?”

“
The Mayor said you were getting ready to go to war with Ozma over the rights to the crown and that you both want to invade Munchkinland. He said you’ve sent carnivorous mercenaries in to slaughter the Half-as-Talls.”

Lightning flashed all around the entrance to the cave. The rocks of the cave rumbled and reigned down around us. Glinda sat up next to me in bed, her hair billowing out behind her. Fire raged in her eyes. I had heard it wasn’t good to piss her off, that someone so gentle had a tempest raging beneath her calm demeanor.

“
I control the balance of this world. Without me all of Oz crumbles and falls away. If I wanted to control it, I already would have.”

The tempest evaporated. I lay there, raised up on my elbows. Glinda smiled warmly at me.

“
I get it.” I said. “So who is causing all of this to happen?”

“
You already know that, don’t you?”

I nodded and lay back down.

“
Security Prime. Maybe some or all of the Security Trustees. Could Prime or one of them make Ozma do something like release the Imp?”

“
Who better than they to get Ozma out of the way?” Her voice carried off in a singsong way.

“
It would make more sense than you.” I kissed her cheek. She turned and kissed me. Her hands went up over my chest and she pressed me down into the pillow bed. My hands traced along her ass, held her hips as she pressed into me and kissed me. I wanted her but I knew I just couldn’t have her any more.

“
Glinda,” I said between rapid breaths. Her touch moved me in the right directions. My body tingled to the point I was ready to pass on, leave it entirely. “Glinda, I can’t.”

She sat up. There was hurt in her eyes.

“
Because of last time?”

“
You almost killed me.” True. Her orgasm had been so intense the bed ignited. I had burns on my groin for months.

“
You’re back with Ozma, aren’t you?” She was looking for my weak spot.

“
I’m not back with anyone. If you want to know, in the last year there hasn’t been anyone serious.”

“
I waited for you to call out to me, to just think of me. When I heard you in my thoughts tonight I hoped that—.”

“
I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

The warm golden glow of the room faded. The furs dried up beneath me. For a moment, my bare ass sat on the cold slab floor of the cave. Then my clothes reappeared on me. I sat on top of the canvas circus balloon and watched the light recede outside of the cave and then she was gone and I was alone.

In the morning I was stiff. Sleeping in a damp, cold cave with nothing but a canvas circus balloon over top of you doesn’t offer much in the ways of comfort or protection.

I woke to the whistling of the northeast winds. At least they would be pushing me in the direction I needed to go. It was a bit of a struggle, building the fire to heat the tanks to inflate the balloon. Two hours after waking up and fighting against hunger and nature, I got the balloon filled and cut off the restraining ropes with a hand axe in the bottom of the basket.

The winds were strong and I was prepared for the sudden jerk of the balloon and the swing of the basket beneath it. I smashed the blade of the axe into the lip of the basket and held the handle with both hands. I knocked around inside the basket as it swung like the balls of an elephant on a hot day. Eventually I got carried into a calmer stream and the basket stopped swinging. It didn’t lessen the fact that I just simply hated my feet not being on solid ground. In the last rotation of the clock hands I’d gone over Oz on a burnt up carpet, a flying monkey’s paws, and an uncontrollable circus balloon.

The winds slowed once I was out of the dark valley. I settled down on the floor of the cramped basket, my knees up around my chin. It gave me time to think about the errand Ozma had sent me on. This wasn’t the first time there were rumors of war or usurpation in the Emerald City. Last time it came from the Oogaboo. A weak attempt by the weak queen of an even weaker army. She had tried amassing troops of some of the more eccentric citizens of the land. They marched on the Emerald City only to cower in the green shadows of the tall, glistening and glittering gem walls.

What made this war different was it sounded like it was coming from the inside out. According to Mayor Gerrld it was Ozma hoping to expand the borders, a move that seemed highly unlike her and more along the lines of the Security Council. Gerrld also believed Glinda the Good was trying to fight back by forming a band of mercenaries whose inherent carnivorous tendencies had apparently gotten the better of them and were feeding wantonly on the weak.

But Glinda said that was bunk, which meant Prime and the Security Council were spinning it to make the Munchkinlanders think they had lost their greatest weapon of protection: Glinda the Good. Which meant that somehow Security Prime or a member of the Security Council had tricked Ozma into releasing the Imp in the first place, and then told Ozma that Glinda was moving against her.

Nothing like being in the middle of a couple of sisters a guy used to screw.

My legs were cramping. I hoisted myself up on the lip of the basket and peered out. Ahead I saw the first twinkling of yellowish-green sparkles off of the topmost towers of Emerald Castle. I could also see the faint wisps of smoke rising up from around the base of the walls. The closer I got, the clearer it became that during the night something grand and horrible had happened in the Emerald City. Fires burned around the parameters of the castle. Bodies, both Tall and Half-as-Tall, lay strewn in poses only created by the last ditch efforts of warring. The aroma of warm and burnt flesh filled the skies and I hovered in the thick of it, retching at the stench.

There were shouts beneath me. A long emerald tip bolt held taught in a crossbow was leveled at me. I stood up to wave them off, holding up the breast of my captain’s jacket. The guard, still frenzied from the all night battle, fired the bolt. If I hadn’t ducked it would have split my skull in two. As it was, it passed through the balloon canvas like a twig through a paper wrapper.

The basket became an anchor to the flapping dead ball above me. The tower came closer and closer and for the third time in a day I found myself plummeting. This time I had no carpet to carry me away; no flying monkey to catch me. The guards readied their bows. Tiny flecks of green glinted off their arrowheads in the morning sunlight. I braced myself against the far side of the basket just as the first arrowheads popped through the weaving in front of me. Two broke all the way through. One embedded itself in my shoulder.

The basket hit one of the parapets. I spun around and tipped forward before slamming backwards. It rocked me. Dazed me. The bouncing and jarring intensified the pain from the arrow. I saw flashes both bright and dark and my head dropped. I remember spinning left and right until at last the world rocked me into blackness.

I woke up once. I was in a cool, dark green room. A bald man bent over me. He wore glasses. A series of telescoping magnifying lenses stretched out from his face to mine. He struggled with something I couldn’t see but I could feel in my chest. Sweat beaded on his crowning scalp. He grunted and tugged and as he did so, I felt a rush of warm liquid spill over me. Green bolts of electricity shot around my eyes. Then blackness returned.

The next time I awoke I was in a room with an open window. White lace curtains billowed in a breeze. Ozma sat on the windowsill looking out at the streaming sunlight. I attempted to sit up in bed. A heavy white bandage was wrapped around my shoulder from where the arrow had pierced it. My scooching to sit up aggravated the wound and I winced. Ozma turned to look at me. Her smile trembled.