Shadows of the Emerald City (55 page)

As suddenly as it started, the wind died.

Kansas lowered her arms and looked around.

It didn’t seem like the wind had done much damage. The room looked the same, save the lack of dust coating the jars.

Kansas opened her mouth in a silent scream.

Row upon endless row, thousands of sightless eyes glared at her. Mouths sneered and decaying faces accused her without words. Bits of green cloth floated in the thick liquid.

She recognized the doorman’s head floating in a jar on the second shelf; the wizard’s old assistant housed next to him. And the woman who had first tended her flayed back after she’d returned from the Witch, broom in tow.

Kansas’ stomach churned as she identified face after face; remembered every slight or kindness these people had once shown her.

The number of dead overwhelmed her.

Exhaustion pricked the corners of her eyes. She lifted a hand to rub them.

Nothing happened.

She looked down. Her hands were gone. Kansas’ arms trailed off into two wispy shadows.

Panic seized her heart.

That flickering shape she’d seen in the room of voices crawled towards her, a black, pulsing, formless blob. It latched onto her shadowy stumps and sucked like a leech nursing from its victim.

Her wrists disappeared, then her elbows. She jerked away, but the thing followed her.

Kansas felt nothing—no weight, no limbs, not anything she could use to remind herself that she was solid or real.

She felt a terrifying urge to just lie there and let it happen; fade into silhouette and smoke and let the shadows consume her.

But Scarecrow…

He was…he’d
been
a survivor; had endured worse tortures than this and come out staggering, but undefeated where it mattered the most.

His mind. His heart. His courage.

The shadow plague devoured her shoulders.

What the hell could she do to fight a shadow?

Fighting the urge to hyper-ventilate, her eyes darted around the room. There had to be something…

Jars, dead faces, rotting shelves, more jars, the floor sconces…

Light.

Like an inchworm, she crawled toward the nearest lamp. Both her feet had disappeared, and the shadow plague now crept up her legs. With her fading stumps, she kicked the iron stand. It teetered, but didn’t fall.

“
Damn it!” She struck it again and again, until finally the torch wobbled and fell to the floor.

Rolling like a Tumbler, she angled her wraithlike limbs over the flickering flame.

The shadow blob hissed. It released her, then jerked and twisted away. The thing lurked just out of reach of the torch’s light, waiting for either the moment Kansas moved, or the fire went out.

Only one thing to do, then.

She glared at the shadow creature, just waiting to reattach itself to her fading limbs.

“
Oh, I don’t think so.”

Kansas lifted her hips toward the fire. Her shredded robe ignited. Now the thing had no shadow to cling to.

She heard a thin wail as the shadow creature writhed, devoured like a burning piece of parchment, and vanished.

Kansas’ body came back. Even the missing bones and muscles in her left foot reformed with only a pinch of pain. She rolled back and forth across the floor, damping the flame before it could burn her too badly.

Then, she stood.

She was whole again.

Kansas ran to the emerald-colored door across the chamber and jerked it open.

Green marble gleamed everywhere. The room was full of silvery light and the floor beneath her crunched softly, like frost. Covering the floor was a layer of broken emeralds. In the center of the room was a high-backed throne, carved with gold-white images of dragons, Kansas-red blood dripping from their fierce fangs. The room smelled like burnt wood and charred flesh.

A massive four-legged monster burst into the chamber, leathery gray wings spread wide. The creature crashed to a halt in front of her, snarling—a statue of stone and metal, shunted together with strips of tough, gristly flesh. Bowed legs were attached to its square-ish metallic body with cogs and bolts. Its eyes flared wide and red, brighter than a field of poppy flowers; brighter than blood. An antique clock studded with gold and emeralds was embedded in its chest.

It
had
to be Tik Tok, the Time Dragon. No other creature could be so terrible and beautiful at the same time.

The dragon stepped toward her; blunt, toeless feet clacking a steady staccato across the floor. Large jagged teeth gleamed, made of silver or steel.

Tik Tok threw his head back and laughed, the sound like breaking icebergs and canon fire.

“
I know you. And I know why you are here.”

No way was this…this…overgrown lizard going to mock her. Not after everything she’d been through just to get here.

“
Yeah? Do tell.”

The dragon’s mechanical joints gleamed in the dim light.

“
You came here for yourself, because you wanted a different life. You don’t care about the people of Oz, or
making things better
. Not unless it somehow benefits
you
.”

His voice thundered.

“
You came here convinced of nothing but your own right to be free from the pain of the miserable existence you carved out for yourself.”

Kansas crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

“
I didn’t do anything.”

The Time Dragon made a noise between a snort and a sigh.

“
You misunderstand. Not that that’s new. You have misunderstood my purposes since you arrived here.”

That self-righteous wind-up toy is getting on my nerves.

“
Oh?”

Tik Tok bared his metallic teeth.

“
I’ll put this in simple terms so that your puny little mind can comprehend. It’s all coming from within
you
.”

What?

Kansas shuddered, cold and sick and weak.

“
Y…you’re lying! That’s impossible.”

A horrendous roar erupted from the Time Dragon’s metallic jaws.

“
You think you’re in a place where laws matter?”

Her head hurt. She was so confused. She’d never wanted anything like this to happen. Hell, she’d never given the tin men or animals or any of them a second thought. So how could she be responsible for any of this?

“
Now, now,
Dorothy
,” Tik Tok said, metallic jaw squealing. “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you can figure this out.”

Kansas had been played with all her life, and fuck it all if she’d let the Time Dragon do the same.

“
Sorry, but no.”

“
Stupid bipedals.” Tik Tok shook his cog-filled head. “Creatures like you need suffering and pain. Crave it. But you cannot distance yourself from it. You retreat into silence, or break completely. So you hurt others to protect yourself, then sit back to observe.”

“
No! I’m not like that!”

“
Think again,
Dorothy
. Every horror, every nightmare you walked through to get here, came from your own twisted mind. An unexpected side effect of you being the only human in this wonderland. Just as your dreams created this place, here your emotions became real; your fears came to life in a physical manifestation. Your anger and hatred. Your hopelessness. Each self-loathing thought you’ve ever had in that pretty little head of yours came to life and destroyed the Oz you constructed when you first came here. The idealistic fool you once were had
hopes
and
beliefs
and
goals
. And as they died, so did Oz.”

Bile rose in her throat.

“
The swamp, and the Munchkinlanders, the forest…you’re saying that was
me
?”

“
Got it in one. In a way, you walked through
yourself
to get here.”

Kansas lost the battle with her stomach. She retched, vomit blending perfectly with the emerald floor.

All those deaths, all those horrors. All her fault.

It was true.

Kansas had wanted something to hurt as much as she hurt; wanted someone to suffer even worse than her.

Something broke within her. Everything that she’d once been—everything she’d become—shattered on the cracked marble floor.

Tik Tok laughed.

“
Fool. Make the request you came here for or leave. I have no time for your self pity.”

Time…

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“
Make it all go away. Send me back to the beginning.”
Let me make different choices.

“
Ah. Escapism through denial. How predictable.”

She climbed to her feet, shaking. From what, she didn’t know.

“
If you’re going to help me, then get on with it.”

The Time Dragon growled. “Insolent whelp. Remember,
you
are the one who controls the fate of Oz. Try not to ruin it this time, yes?”

Without warning, glittering teeth locked on Kansas’ arm and pulled. Kansas fell to her knees, screaming. Her skin ripped away from her body, unraveling like thread from a spool. She thrashed, tried to call for help, but was so far beyond pain that it paralyzed her. She couldn’t make a sound.

She was nothing. No name. No past.

Not Kansas, not Dorothy.

Nothing.

She huddled on the floor, naked, no more than a mass of blood and muscle and tendon. Not even pain could reach her, she was so far gone. Slick, shining flesh, seamed with veins and arteries, dangled from the Time Dragon’s jaws.

A bark of laughter.

Then, light.

There was nothing around her, above or below or behind. She floated in the still, dead air. She was pure light—formless, shapeless, nameless light.

Splinters, fragments of memory drifted around her. They scampered about like tadpoles with small flicking tails. Flashes of blue-black lightning and ghostly landscapes filled her mind.

What had her name been? Did light have a name? Or
need
one? And yet…there was
something
. She drifted toward it; felt it grasping for her.

Gold bricks, solid and heavy. Cheering voices, singing with joy. Fresh air perfumed with the scent of fresh baked breads and pulled taffy.

Eyes opened.

She lay on bright green grass underneath a wide, blue sky, sun warm and soft. Her heart leapt like she’d run a race. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the simple comfort of a spring day until right this very moment.

Laughter, high and manic. A voice, accusing her of murder, laced with grief.

She sat up. The green angular face was as familiar to her as her own. A decade worth of nightmares; a lifetime of regrets.

Standing, she wiped her hands on her lacy apron, picking a blade of grass off her blue plaid skirt. She felt young. She felt
fourteen
. A wicker basket sat at her feet, its small gray occupant yipping with sounds she’d never expected to hear again.

She picked up the basket and held it close. Just beyond the horizon were a scarecrow that needed rescuing, a tin man to divert, and a lion to neuter.

She took a deep breath, then rose and walked past the throngs of cowering Munchkins until she stood before the Wicked Witch of the West.

No alternatives. No holding back. No more second chances.

She extended a hand.

“
I’m here to help. Call me Dorothy.”

The End.

by Martin Rose

Oh, how she loved the fire.

Blue into yellow, into orange and red. Her temperature ran cold like her blood, but the flame gave life, parted her lips and drew her breath in fast, hitching with anticipation. In the burn ward, she continued to play with fire, and in the haze, David Gale flinched and repelled at the sound.

Click, click.

The steady
click-click
of a hand-held lighter permeated his dreams, his nightmares; he smelled lighter fluid, saw the flame between small, feline fingers, a wide, gray eye watching him beneath her bandages.

He woke up long enough to ask her if he was dying. She laughed and pressed her soft hand on his unburnt arm. The touch reassured, soothed, and awakened ancient memories of his mother with Scarecrow in the field.

He slept without rest or satisfaction, skin like crispy fried chicken, pulled taut over his muscles and organs. He breathed in the steady rhythm that reflected his pain, breathe in,
throb
, breathe out,
throb
. He hit the morphine button, a fresh stream of opiates entered his blood, and he fell into dissatisfied sleep once more.

He dreamt of the burning house, trapped with the black-haired woman, his fire fighter uniform ablaze, until only ashes remained.