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    Her hair was long and shimmery-soft, which you could see from across the room. Her face and fgure were simple perfection. Her eyes, though blue, were warm and wise. As she glided toward me in her fowing Robe of State, her feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground; and I thought to myself, with a surprising twinge of pettiness, yep. She's a princess, alright.

    But it was true. She was a princess: the very model upon which all our childhood dreams were based. And in my extra-spooky skeleton suit, it was like the most embarrassing Halloween ever. Compared to her, I felt clunky and dumb; I felt, in fact, like pulling a Nick and chopping my own stupid head off.

    Before I could even begin to snivel, however, Ozma took my hand and said, "Aurora Jones. Welcome. It's wonderful to meet you." And then, as almost an afterthought, "You look so amazing!"

    And the weird thing is that I totally believed her; that is, I believed that she meant what she said. There was a purity to her, an easy intimacy—not firty, but exuberant—that was utterly disarming. After Enchantra, it was like going from rotting spam to lobster tail. She made Enchantra look like Rhea Perlman playing a cheesy Cruella De Ville.

    I started to stammer some dopey thing, unable to hold her gaze. She shushed me gently and said, "Come. Glinda's waiting, and we haven't much time."

    At which point Glinda the Good Sorceress appeared: blinking out of the ether like she'd been standing beside us the whole time. Evidently, she could do things like that.

    "Yaugh!" I said; no improvement on "Erk!," but I couldn't help myself. Glinda laughed, and Ozma as well. It appeared to be with, not at.

    Glinda was tall, at eye level with me. Her beauty was mature, and overwhelmingly powerful. Her gray eyes refected the green of the city, and a depth of wisdom virtually unfathomable to me. When she smiled, eons whispered from the delicate lines in her face: a face that easily could have belonged to Bette Davis in her early thirties.

    "We hear that you are planning a journey," she said. I told her that this was true.

     "That is very brave," said Ozma. "And we want to assist you, however we can. To that end, I will be loaning you Sawhorse."

    "But the two of you will have to go alone," added Glinda. "And you will have to do so at once."

    This was better and worse news than I had imagined, and I told them exactly that. They laughed, understanding, and then Glinda showed me a very large book that she suddenly held in her hands.

    "Oh, no way!" I exclaimed, watching her fip it open. It was, in case you hadn't guessed, Glinda's Book of Everything That Has To Do With Oz: everything that's ever happened in Oz, is happening now, or is set up as a future possibility. She fipped, as I expected, toward the back of the book, where the present was being written down exactly as it happened.

    "It seems," she said, "that your friends are en route to Bhjennigh's castle, taking the main road straight to his gate. They are disguised as ogres; and evidently, they look extremely silly.

    "If you ride all night without pause or cease, you will catch them by dawn; and there's a good chance that you will reach them before they come within view of the gate. I've instructed Sawhorse on the way to go, and I advise you not to confuse him with alternate suggestions. He is stubborn, so he'll ignore you, but he won't like it; and when he's moving at top speed, it's inadvisable to distract him."

    I nodded, listening intently, while simultaneously trying to get a glimpse over her shoulder at the page. I just wanted a taste of its style, the favor of its omnipresent voice. I wanted to see what it said about Gene in his ogre-suit, which sounded hilarious to me. Maybe glean a little more insight into what I was to do.

    Maybe even fnd out (gahh!!!) what it had to say about me.

    Glinda would have none of it. She subtly shifted the print out

of view, continued as if I were not so rude. "The approach you have taken is admirable," she said. "Your intentions are good, your execution consistent. If your goal is to rescue your young friend Gene from a battle that is inevitably going to happen, then the odds are that you'll do well. But if you hope to keep the battle from happening at all—or if you think that, by staying and fghting, you can help to win the day—then I fear for you, and suspect that you will not be pleased with the result."

    This was a bitter pill to swallow. I took a second to think about it, tucked it in one cheek, and tried to focus on the next important question.

    "But why is Nick attacking the castle? What does that have to do with the death of…Guttierez?" It seemed so weird and fnal to put it that way. Such a distancing thing, to call him by his last name.

    "These matters," interjected Ozma, "are too involved. Upon your return, we will discuss them at length. It is enough to say that there is war upon the wind; and things that do not seem apparent will be clear before too long."

    "Okay," I said. "Then I guess I should go."

    And something went bing behind my eyes.

    I felt strangely vertiginous but utterly centered, like a tree that survives in a hurricane's eye. It was a head rush, a riptide; but the moment it struck, I felt anchored in a way I know I've never felt before.

    Some people don't believe in destiny. They believe in random chance. Then they wind up believing in nothing at all, which is as random as you can get.

    I've always believed that life was fraught with meaning, which is a huge part of why I came to Oz in the frst place. It's a mecca for magick, just like L.A. is a mecca for penile suckage and other popular Entertainment Events.

    If I were to try and nail the moment in 25 words or less, I'd say:
in that moment, I truly understood that my destiny was about to come
clear.

    But even now, in retrospect, I still don't know what it means.

    And away we went.

    Then it was nothing but the night and the Emerald City: the latter overwhelming, then receding into distance as the former took over and ensheathed me in its folds. Nothing but the steady, stunning rhythm of the Sawhorse, indefatigably speeding down the Yellow Brick Road.

    We did not speak; I'd taken Glinda's caution to heart. And at over a hundred miles per hour, the important thing is to feel. As we blasted deep into the dark northeast, I must have hit the big O roughly a trillion times. (What the fuck: I wasn't driving.) In that way, hours go by like magick (ever wonder what happened to make Dali's clocks?). And by the time the trees themselves had grown black and mean, I'd tried out every seated position I could possibly stand.

    So the last hour or so was spent in deepening vigilance, always hoping for those dopey ogres to appear over that next hill. There was a road that fanked the Munchkin River, and I was pleased that we encountered no ruffans there. Jacked up on endorphins, I was ready to fght, but I wanted to save it for the money scene.

    It was from this perspective, in the dawn's earliest light, that I found myself entering into the battle that will doubtlessly alter the rest of my life.

Roughly ten miles from the Hollow Man's castle, we came up from under the Hook Nose Cliffs, and I caught my frst glimpse of the castle itself.

    It is a terrifying structure, designed to strike terror in anyone who surveys its mass. If you have any doubts about the existence of Evil, take a look at this fucker and then tell me what you think. I'm a big fan of black, and have been from way back—long ago, I learned that bad guys often favor white horses and hats—but this guy had gone way beyond goth concerts, Giger, Anne Rice, s&m games, or Johnny Cash.

    This was Evil: and if you didn't know enough to recognize it, then you didn't know dick. This was evil you could feel down to the whorls of your toeprints; evil that could crisp your innocence from

nearly a mile away.

    At the center was the Tower. You could feel its awful power. You could feel it radiate chaos like a poison in a vein. It was blackblackblack adorned with white that looked like screaming faces. They were faces so huge that, even at this distance, you could feel their astounding pain.

    To either side of the Tower were enormous sprawling wings: four stories apiece, each the length of a big city block. Lot of room for launching mayhem in there. Plenty of offce space for the architects of doom. The whole thing, taken together, looked like a blunt missile poised for liftoff, and you just know that the bastard can steer. It'll chase you all the way to the ends of the earth, feint when you feint, turn around and bear down.

    The wings, as well, bore screaming faces.

    I sucked on that bitter pill.

    And still, the road wound upward: deeper north, at the outlands of east. And still, I saw no trace of Nick's army, seeming less comical now than poised at the brink of tragedy. I found myself wondering if I could adhere to the cautionary strictures laid out by Glinda. If Nick was getting his ass kicked, wouldn't I try to help?

    More and more, the old terror returned. I took to deep breathing. It did what it could.

     And then, as the sun rose enough to cast long shadows, I came upon a crest that clearly overlooked the castle. The ominous shadows it cast were almost suffcient to smother the road. But there—perhaps three hundred yards and closing—was a tiny ragtag army.

    Moving toward the castle.

    "YAH!" I screamed; and, believe it or not, the faithful Sawhorse increased its speed. As if it had been waiting for just that signal. As if I had somehow been holding it back. "YAH!!!" I repeated, and forward we thundered, my lips peeling back in g-force extremity.

    Two hundred yards and closing, the last of them fnally began to turn. It sent a ripple through the troops, who slowed at once and turned to see. It occurred to me that they didn't know who I was, and that this might not be good.

    "IT'S AURORA!" I screamed, feeling vaguely ostentatious. "IT'S AURORA! YOUR FRIEND!"

    Ferociously hoping they could hear.

    And at that moment, I saw the gates of the Hollow Man's castle

open. A drawbridge going down. And beyond it, the hordes. I could see them coming, despite the still-deep darkness. Like an amorphous black that pours out of a thinner darkness, suddenly alerting you to just how truly dark dark can be.

    The drawbridge dropped, and the hordes spread out in nearliquid waves, to either side. They spanned the wings to either side and then promptly redoubled, densifying by tiers. By my speedblinkered calculations, they already had Nick's gang outnumbered by roughly a dozen to one. That number seemed to triple in the next thirty seconds.

    And then Nick's army let out a cheer.

    At frst, I thought why are they cheering for me? I mean, I had an axe and everything, but that seemed like meagre inspiration indeed. Then I realized that they were staring over my head, at something apparently above and behind me.

     I hazarded a nervous glance over my shoulder.

    
They blackened the back of the brightening sky, like a swarm of
locusts descending. In their hands were the glistening swords and
shields of an army in full advance. Fast as I was going, they gained
with a vengeance, cutting into my lead with every microsecond
spent
.

    
The Winged Monkeys had fnally come.

    
I thought to myself: wow, Enchantra came through! But the dis
tance was closing swiftly. One hundred yards and closing, with the
faces of the ogre-hoaxsters maddeningly enshrouded still. I looked
for Gene, had no idea, every second moving closer
.

    
Then the Hollow Man's hordes attacked.

    
And instinct took over entirely.

    From the moment that they broke rank, I was hellbent for blood and leather: war-whoop howled and great axe brandished, breakneck into the fray. Sawhorse seemed to be surfng my wave: not a speck of hesitation, just full-throttle forward thrust. I closed in on my compatriates, gave a wave, blew past them maybe thirty yards. The frst grim monster crossed my path. I sliced his ass in thirds.

    And then the aerial assault descended: swords fashing, meat spraying, monkey chant overwhelming the screams. I saw wings sever and ribs split in half, friends and enemies merge in wet carnographic display. A swing at my head was countered, fung wide, returned as a blow that split shoulder from torso. Ogre blood hit my

face, and it tasted like shit.

    Glinda's words rung suddenly huge in my head. This was not why I had come. Another enemy presented himself; I took the top of his head off, left the rest to howl dismay. "SAWHORSE!" I screamed. "We gotta fnd my friend Gene!"

    "I KNOW!" replied Sawhorse; it was the frst time he had spoken since we met. Seeing him slow, in the burgeoning light, I was stunned by the stubbiness of his little wooden legs. Then somebody else tried to kill me some more, and I extended their butt-crack through the crown of their head.

    It's a terrible thing to see a tongue cut in half, waggling to either side of a suddenly-exposed esophagal tract. It made me glad that Sawhorse was turning, though the process was diffcult for him. I watched our backs, saw that we'd bought a second, did a quick gymnastic fip off the side. Then I picked him up, spun him the rest of the way, and hopped back on, facing backwards.

    The monster that suddenly confronted me was—how shall I say it—bad. It had three feet on me, easily, and a couple of arms as well. Worse than that was the blistering carrion reek that wafted off its naked skin. The thing had clearly been wallowing in month-old organ meats when it got the call to battle; this was evidenced by the grisly stringers still affxed to its jaws and teets.