CHAPTER 5
The Magic Stairway
The flat mountain looked much nearer in the clear light of the morningsun, but Dorothy and Ozma knew there was a long tramp before them,even yet. They finished dressing only to find a warm, deliciousbreakfast awaiting them, and having eaten they left the tent andstarted toward the mountain which was their first goal. After going alittle way Dorothy looked back and found that the fairy tent hadentirely disappeared. She was not surprised, for she knew this wouldhappen.
"Can't your magic give us a horse an' wagon, or an automobile?"inquired Dorothy.
"No, dear; I'm sorry that such magic is beyond my power," confessedher fairy friend.
"Perhaps Glinda could," said Dorothy thoughtfully.
"Glinda has a stork chariot that carries her through the air," saidOzma, "but even our great Sorceress cannot conjure up other modes oftravel. Don't forget what I told you last night, that no one ispowerful enough to do everything."
"Well, I s'pose I ought to know that, having lived so long in the Landof Oz," replied Dorothy; "but _I_ can't do any magic at all, an' so Ican't figure out e'zactly how you an' Glinda an' the Wizard do it."
"Don't try," laughed Ozma. "But you have at least one magical art,Dorothy: you know the trick of winning all hearts."
"No, I don't," said Dorothy earnestly. "If I really can do it, Ozma,I am sure I don't know _how_ I do it."
It took them a good two hours to reach the foot of the round, flatmountain, and then they found the sides so steep that they were likethe wall of a house.
"Even my purple kitten couldn't climb 'em," remarked Dorothy, gazingupward.
"But there is some way for the Flatheads to get down and up again,"declared Ozma; "otherwise they couldn't make war with the Skeezers, oreven meet them and quarrel with them."
"That's so, Ozma. Let's walk around a ways; perhaps we'll find aladder or something."
They walked quite a distance, for it was a big mountain, and as theycircled around it and came to the side that faced the palm trees, theysuddenly discovered an entrance way cut out of the rock wall. Thisentrance was arched overhead and not very deep because it merely ledto a short flight of stone stairs.
"Oh, we've found a way to the top at last," announced Ozma, and thetwo girls turned and walked straight toward the entrance. Suddenlythey bumped against something and stood still, unable to proceedfarther.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Dorothy, rubbing her nose, which had strucksomething hard, although she could not see what it was; "this isn'tas easy as it looks. What has stopped us, Ozma? Is it magic of somesort?"
Ozma was feeling around, her hands outstretched before her.
"Yes, dear, it is magic," she replied. "The Flatheads had to have away from their mountain top from the plain below, but to preventenemies from rushing up the stairs to conquer them, they have built,at a small distance before the entrance a wall of solid stone, thestones being held in place by cement, and then they made the wallinvisible."
"I wonder why they did that?" mused Dorothy. "A wall would keep folksout anyhow, whether it could be seen or not, so there wasn't any usemaking it invisible. Seems to me it would have been better to haveleft it solid, for then no one would have seen the entrance behind it.Now anybody can see the entrance, as we did. And prob'bly anybody thattries to go up the stairs gets bumped, as we did."
Ozma made no reply at once. Her face was grave and thoughtful.
"I think I know the reason for making the wall invisible," she saidafter a while. "The Flatheads use the stairs for coming down and goingup. If there was a solid stone wall to keep them from reaching theplain they would themselves be imprisoned by the wall. So they had toleave some place to get around the wall, and, if the wall was visible,all strangers or enemies would find the place to go around it and thenthe wall would be useless. So the Flatheads cunningly made their wallinvisible, believing that everyone who saw the entrance to themountain would walk straight toward it, as we did, and find itimpossible to go any farther. I suppose the wall is really high andthick, and can't be broken through, so those who find it in their wayare obliged to go away again."
"Well," said Dorothy, "if there's a way around the wall, where is it?"
"We must find it," returned Ozma, and began feeling her way along thewall. Dorothy followed and began to get discouraged when Ozma hadwalked nearly a quarter of a mile away from the entrance. But now theinvisible wall curved in toward the side of the mountain and suddenlyended, leaving just space enough between the wall and the mountain foran ordinary person to pass through.
The girls went in, single file, and Ozma explained that they were nowbehind the barrier and could go back to the entrance. They met nofurther obstructions.
"Most people, Ozma, wouldn't have figured this thing out the way youdid," remarked Dorothy. "If I'd been alone the invisible wall surelywould have stumped me."
Reaching the entrance they began to mount the stone stairs. They wentup ten stairs and then down five stairs, following a passage cut fromthe rock. The stairs were just wide enough for the two girls to walkabreast, arm in arm. At the bottom of the five stairs the passageturned to the right, and they ascended ten more stairs, only to findat the top of the flight five stairs leading straight down again.Again the passage turned abruptly, this time to the left, and ten morestairs led upward.
The passage was now quite dark, for they were in the heart of themountain and all daylight had been shut out by the turns of thepassage. However, Ozma drew her silver wand from her bosom and thegreat jewel at its end gave out a lustrous, green-tinted light whichlighted the place well enough for them to see their way plainly.
Ten steps up, five steps down, and a turn, this way or that. That wasthe program, and Dorothy figured that they were only gaining fivestairs upward each trip that they made.
"Those Flatheads must be funny people," she said to Ozma. "They don'tseem to do anything in a bold, straightforward manner. In making thispassage they forced everyone to walk three times as far as isnecessary. And of course this trip is just as tiresome to theFlatheads as it is to other folks."
"That is true," answered Ozma; "yet it is a clever arrangement toprevent their being surprised by intruders. Every time we reach thetenth step of a flight, the pressure of our feet on the stone makes abell ring on top of the mountain, to warn the Flatheads of ourcoming."
"How do you know that?" demanded Dorothy, astonished.
"I've heard the bell ever since we started," Ozma told her. "You couldnot hear it, I know, but when I am holding my wand in my hand I canhear sounds a great distance off."
"Do you hear anything on top of the mountain 'cept the bell?" inquiredDorothy.
"Yes. The people are calling to one another in alarm and manyfootsteps are approaching the place where we will reach the flat topof the mountain."
This made Dorothy feel somewhat anxious.
"I'd thought we were going to visit just common, ordinary people,"she remarked, "but they're pretty clever, it seems, and they know somekinds of magic, too. They may be dangerous, Ozma. P'raps we'd betterstayed at home."
Finally the upstairs-and-downstairs passage seemed coming to an end,for daylight again appeared ahead of the two girls and Ozma replacedher wand in the bosom of her gown. The last ten steps brought them tothe surface, where they found themselves surrounded by such a throngof queer people that for a time they halted, speechless, and staredinto the faces that confronted them.
Dorothy knew at once why these mountain people were called Flatheads.Their heads were really flat on top, as if they had been cut off justabove the eyes and ears. Also the heads were bald, with no hair on topat all, and the ears were big and stuck straight out, and the noseswere small and stubby, while the mouths of the Flatheads were wellshaped and not unusual. Their eyes were perhaps their best feature,being large and bright and a deep violet in color.
The costumes of the Flatheads were all made of metals dug from theirmountain. Small gold, silver, tin and iron discs, about the size ofpe
nnies, and very thin, were cleverly wired together and made to formknee trousers and jackets for the men and skirts and waists for thewomen. The colored metals were skillfully mixed to form stripes andchecks of various sorts, so that the costumes were quite gorgeous andreminded Dorothy of pictures she had seen of Knights of old clothed inarmor.
Aside from their flat heads, these people were not really bad looking.The men were armed with bows and arrows and had small axes of steelstuck in their metal belts. They wore no hats nor ornaments.
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