Shadows of the Emerald City

by J. W. Schnarr

  He should resign, but he knew he wouldn’t. He was the fourth Munchkin King since the death of the Witch of the East. All the others had resigned when they grew tired of the job. Gob Ghab would not resign though. He thought it better to be a laughingstock and king than just a laughingstock. It was either this or join the collection of freaks at Ozma’s palace. If he was to be useless, hanging around all the time being laughed at, he’d rather do it in his own palace.

  The End.

  Emerald City Confidential

  by Jack Bates

  Keep me out of the Emerald City.

  A light green rain splashed on the windshield of my mono-dragon chariot. The gyros and the wheels squeaked from the splash. It was a warm rain, the kind where a little bubble of sunshine bobbed in each drop. Most folks found the rain refreshing but I felt crushed under all of that heavy green optimism. Ahead of me I could see the great green castle shimmering in the rain and I felt the weight of all that optimism pushing down on me even more.

  Queen Ozma had summoned me out of my semi-forced retirement back to the castle to meet with her and the Security Council. She knew what it would do to me to be back there, but I knew she couldn’t be seen slumming around my digs where I now lived in Winkie Country. I also knew why she wouldn’t travel to see me.

  For about a week the Emerald City Gem had been running stories about the mysterious and violent deaths of Half-of-Talls from Munchkinland. Someone or something was eating them up. Literally. Reports had been coming from outlying farm areas where first it had been small livestock. Later there was the badly mauled body of a reclusive Half-as-Taller. Then villagers reported horrifying screeches in the night, and wild, lonely screams. Then the severity of the attacks intensified. Half-as-Tallers were fleeing from Munchkinland City in droves and many were finding the road dangerous. What started with the supposed attack of a feral animal wanting a quick meal became a life and death struggle for the fleeing Half-as-Tallers. One victim was said to have been found stretched out to three times his size, frozen in a death crawl, his entrails unraveled like a ball of twine covered in slime between his two halves.

  Whatever was happening was enough to make the city elders want me back.

  “You’re looking good, Captain Jo Guard.” Queen Ozma’s words echoed around me, bouncing off the cool green walls of solid emerald. Ozma was looking good as well. Her reddish hair was longer and done up, a few pin curls dangling on either side of her smooth ivory face. Her hips and breasts were rounder and fuller, but not overly so. A dusting a sparkling green glitter covered the rolls of her cleavage and her green silk gown hugged tight along her hips. She had grown up from a princess to a queen before all of Oz.

  She held out her hand for me and I took it, kneeling before her. I kissed the back of it. Ozma turned her hand over and cupped my cheek, lifting my eyes to see her smiling down at me. I stared into those dark brown eyes knowing nothing had changed in the year we had been apart.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said. Even in a whisper her words echoed around us. I brought her hand back to my lips, ran my tongue along the insides of her fingers, rolled it around down between the soft of two of them. I heard her tiny gasp followed by a slight moan.

  I didn’t want her to know I was glad to be back in the Emerald City, if just to see her. At one time I was her Senior Captain Jo Guard of Security. At least until our bodies got the better of us. We fucked nearly every night until the Security Council caught on and I was demoted and reassigned. Eventually they forced me out and I became constable in Winkie Country.

  That’s why calling me back meant that not only was Ozma scared, so was the Emerald City Security Council.

  Behind me a great door closed. It was followed by the shuffling of slipper covered feet along the polished checkerboard floor. Ozma pulled her hand away. I stood up and turned to find the Security Council gathering around us.

  “Captain Jo Guard,” Security Prime said to me. He voice was whispers caught on cobwebs.

  “Not anymore, Security Prime.” I said.

  He smiled a wrinkled smile at me and raised eyebrows that hung like sandbags

  “Nevertheless, the Security Council is pleased you have returned.” The six Security Trustees whispered a murmur of approval. It echoed like the hiss of snakes.

  “Your welcoming makes me think the Security Council is doubly worried as Queen Ozma.” I said. We hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

  Security Prime pushed his agenda along.

  “You have no doubt seen the papers. Farm livestock decimated. Half-as-Tallers attacked and murdered. Munchkinland is in total disarray.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “At first we thought there was a logical explanation. Perhaps a group of rogue Scoodlers looking to increase its food supply.”

  “Scoodlers? I thought all their heads were at the bottom of a pit.”

  “Which is why, as the attacks increased, we began to ponder other theories.”

  “Such as?”

  Security Prime turned from me and looked at the six trustees. Their heads nodded. They encouraged Prime to tell me.

  “Two nights ago Mayor Gerrld of Munchkinland City disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? How do you mean?”

  “One minute he was there, the next he wasn’t.”

  “No, Prime. I mean—was he using a Teleporting Cloak of Invisibility?”

  Prime narrowed his eyes.

  “It would be difficult to determine,” he said. “As it would be invisible.”

  I let it go. It wasn’t the time to get into a pissing match with the old man.

  “Any ransom?” I asked.

  “Just this.” He handed me a note. We have the Mayor was all it said.

  “Any reason to think the Half-as-Tallers are the target of something the mayor knew about and he split on his own?”

  “That’s what we were hoping you could find out, Jo Guard.” Ozma said. The concern in her voice softened me. I gave her a reassuring smile and she returned the gratitude. The energy between us seemed to echo as loudly as her words.

  Prime cleared his throat. I turned around to the suspicious glares of the Security Council. I tried flashing the same charming smile I shared with Ozma but they weren’t having anything to do with it. After an awkward moment, Prime reached into one of the deep pockets of his robe and withdrew a small mahogany box.

  “Do you recognize this, Captain Jo Guard?” Prime asked.

  I took the box and held it.

  “Sure do. The Great Mahogany Box. It holds the Lead Button.” I shook it. My face fell at the silence. I looked at Ozma. Fear filled those dark brown eyes of hers. “The Imp?” I asked.

  “Gone.” Security Prime said.

  “He apologized? After all this time?”

  Ozma shook her head, the pin curls bobbing around her narrow face. Her beautiful, narrow face.

  “No.” she said. “I didn’t release him.”

  Escape was supposed to be impossible for the Imp. The Impertinent Imp had been Oz’s public enemy number one. When it was finally caught, it was changed into a lead button and was to remain that way until it apologized for its crimes. When it did, the button would change to aluminum and Ozma or Glinda the Good Witch would be able to rejuvenate the creature.

  “Then how did the Imp—?”

  “I don’t know.” Ozma said. Her voice was heavy with panic. “I picked up the box one day and noticed it felt different. I thought perhaps the lead had changed to aluminum but when I opened it, the button was gone.” Ozma threw herself against me. “Oh, Jo Guard. You have to help me. I’m so afraid of the Imp. You know it wants to eat my heart.” Her face fell against my chest. I felt her sobs and beneath those I felt her breasts pressing against my chest through the heavy wool of my old uniform. Her soft auburn hair lay beneath my nose and I drew the musk of roses mixed gently with spring water and orange melons. I pulled her closer, a familiar strength and firmness growing between my legs. Ozma put her arms around
my neck, pressed her hips against me. Our eyes met. “Please.” she begged.

  “Of course,” I said softly. “Of course.”

  How could I refuse? She had saved my life when the Security Council wanted to feed me to the Scoodlers’ heads in the deep, deep pit. Those hideous, two-faced heads: One side black face with white hair, the other yellow face with purple hair but always those razor sharp teeth chomping.

  “Then perhaps you should be on your way, Captain Jo Guard.”

  Ozma and I turned our faces. Prime and the council stared objectionably at us. It didn’t matter. When I finished this assignment; when I saved her from the Imp; when I returned with the answers Ozma would take me back and this time it would be for good. Regardless of what Prime and the council decided.

  Before I left, I asked the trustees for access to the Storage Room where I procured a few necessary artifacts, one of which was the Magic Carpet. Prime accompanied me. He stayed quiet for most of my rummaging. When it looked like I had everything I wanted, he spoke to me.

  “Jo Guard.” he said. His lips were closed and tight making his smile all the more disturbing. “While I don’t approve of the behavior you and our queen exhibited, I am glad you are going on this mission for us.”

  “For her.” I said. His smiled became a straight line.

  “Something dark is happening in Oz.” he said. “Darker than has ever settled here before. I don’t quite know for certain what it is. Be careful, Jo Guard. Trust no one.”

  “Not even you, Prime?”

  I knew there was only one place the Imp would want to go upon being released. Someplace dark and vile. Someplace that would make the Green Skins squeamish. Someplace deep in the heart of the Oogaboo.

  The Oogaboo.

  The outhouse hole of Oz. All sorts of sewage flows through its streets. Nobody wants to live there. There’s an old maxim about the place: All roads lead out of the Oogaboo. Even if I wanted to take my mono-dragon chariot, it would be days on the road and I was pretty sure the sands of the desert would gum up the gyros and sprockets of the mechanical dragon. A Teleportation Cloak of Invisibility would have gotten me there in a blink but no one could find it in the Storage Room.

  Most people like to sit upright, legs criss-crossed, while riding on the Magic Carpet. Me? I have to lie on my belly clutching the two front corners of the rug. Even then I still feel vulnerable. The sag in the thick weave gives me the impression I’ll slide right off the back end. I know that won’t happen because the carpet won’t let it happen but that doesn’t stop me from thinking it could. I roll the corner tips around my wrists and hold tight.

  Besides, falling off the carpet was the least of my worries. Flying monkeys, walls of solid air as thick and hard as emerald walls, or even rounds of grapeshot fired from the musket-trees provided more danger than riding on a flying carpet. Even if the carpet flew at ten thousand feet and faster than a zephyr. More disconcerting than any of it, though, were ivory bone underbellies hanging over the Oogaboo.

  I let the carpet know it was time to descend and where I wanted to go. I was looking for a little Outlander-run dive called Dorothy’s; a B-girl joint that opened shortly after Miss Gale’s untimely departure from the wonderful world of Oz. Seems a lot of the Green-Skins had a thing for the Kansas virgin, and not because she murdered two of their own. They found her tenacity and spunkiness alluring. Now a Green-Skin could rent his or her very own by the hour or for the night. Word on the street was that a group was thinking up ways to lure Kansas girls into Oz.

  I hovered over a narrow street thinking it was an alley. Then I remembered all of Oogaboo was nothing more than a series of alleys. Dark, narrow alleys that stank of spoiled eggs and mechanical oils. A flying monkey perched on the roof of a seedy looking office building. It puffed on a smoker, keeping its eyes on me. A flying monkey this deep in the Oogaboo meant only one thing: It was a rogue off on its own.

  A couple of Green-Skin tramps looked up at me. One of them held open her top, flashing me her double nipple titties. The other had her red and white gingham dress over the head of a Half-as-Taller enjoying the pleasures between her green thighs. I could see his stubby little fingers poking out from under the hem, clutching at her ass.

  “Hey, look up there, Detrita.” The titty flasher said. “We got us a law-like official keeping an eye on us.”

  Detrita took a drag off a smoldering brown roll of tree bark and poppies. She exhaled towards the Half-as-Taller giggling between her legs. Detrita’s hips rocked.

  “What you think he wants with us, Archetta?”

  “Maybe he wants to have a little fun. He a long way way from home.” Archetta said. They cackled. “Or maybe he wants a little cut of our action.”

  “He ain’t getting no cut of my pie.” Detrita took another drag on her smoker. Her eyes slid closed and then she exhaled at me. “And I don’t mean the pie my little man down there is gobbling up.” They cackled again.

  The hidden Half-as-Tall slapped Detrita’s ass and she yelped.

  “Feisty one.” The cackling was wicked. Detrita’s eyes narrow and she grimaced. She straightened her arms and placed her palms against the brick of Dorothy’s.

  I stood on the carpet as it lowered me to street level. Once down I bent over and picked it up by the corner. It was thinner and easier to fold down now, into a small square I tucked inside my jacket.

  Detrita’s head shook and she moaned. Archetta came over and took my arm. She winked at me and whispered in my ear.

  “Must need a little relaxing after that long ride.” Archetta said. She moved in closer and whispered in my ear. “’Sides, honey. I think Detrita needs a little alone time with her man, you dig?”

  “I dig.” I said.

  “Take me in, Captain Flyboy. Buy me a drink?”

  “Make you a deal,” I said. I held open the door. “I give you something, you give me something.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “I’m giving you the wrong impression. What I need is information.”

  “You Flyboys are all business, aren’t you?”

  “Not at all.” I said and slipped my hand under the black leather straps and belts covering her round green ass. I cupped the fleshy area between her legs, a little taken back by the coolness of it. I wiggled a finger up into her and pulled her closer to me. Her hands were up behind my neck and our lips fell against each other.

  “We going in for a room or ain’t we?”

  “What’s wrong with right here? Detrita is enjoying it.”

  “I ain’t an exhibitionist like Detrita is. Come on.”

  “All right.” We went inside Dorothy’s.

  It was pretty much how I imagined it would be. Dark. Smoky. Blue and white and ruby and green lights cut through the haze, pulsed to the disharmony of the pipe music. A Green-Skin in a Dorothy costume clutched a crystal pole and raised her self up on it, her legs extended and spread apart, revealing a tangle of black hair between them. She swung out over the heads of some Half-as-Tallers and a couple of sailors. As she passed by, a puff of green-gray juice sprayed out at the men. At first they grimaced, then laughed, then seemed to settle into some weird sexual funk.

  “Can you do that?” I asked Archetta.

  She laughed, nowhere near a cackle.

  “Takes some practice. But we can certainly give it a try.” Archetta slid her hand along the outside of my coat. Her fingers tried to undo the buttons. I took her wrist and pressed her hand against my erection.

  “You want in somewhere,” I said. “Get in here.”

  Archetta licked my lips and smiled at me, her dark eyes sliding almost closed.

  “We ain’t talked price yet.”

  “I think I’ve got something you can use,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small pink ball. I held my palm open. Archetta put her finger on it and rolled it along my skin. Little shocks poked at my palm as she did it.

  “What is it?” She asked.

  “It’s called a Pearl
of Protection. Protects you from danger. Loaded with ten charges. When the tenth one is used, the pearl crumbles into dust.”

  “What I gotta do for that?”

  “Just tell me something.”

  “I’d rather blow you, Flyboy.”

  I laughed. “You might get to yet.”

  “Whatcha wanta know?”

  “Did the Impertinent Imp come in here tonight?”

  “Imp?” Archetta lifted the pearl between her long green finger and her narrow thumb. She rolled it between the two. “It tingles.”

  I took the pearl back.

  “The Imp,” I said again. Archetta looked at me, but clutched the pearl. “Short guy. Ugly, narrow eyes a kind of piss yellow. Razor sharp teeth. Big nose like a tulip bulb. Dirty fingers he can pop claws out of.” Archetta gave me a blank look. “Oh. And he has wings on his back like a dragon fly’s.”

  “Oh. Him? He’s the guy outside with Detrita.”

  I stuck my fist into my jacket pocket and dropped the pearl inside it. I went back outside the club, stepping into a puddle that hadn’t been there when we went in. Detrita’s body was face-first against the black bricks of Dorothy’s, the apparent source of the oily green-black blood covering my boots.

  The Imp hadn’t been feisty; it had been hungry, and it ate Detrita from the outside in.

  The wails and cries of the Imp made my skin ripple with gooseflesh. A heavy wet thud struck the black bricks behind my head. Sliding down along them was the green mush that had once been Detrita’s heart. I looked up and saw it, silhouetted against the near full moon. The Imp hovered, its wings buzzing, while it chewed on some other internals taken from Detrita.

  I shook out the carpet and jumped on it, taking off after the Imp. The little demon thought it was a joke. Its laugh a death rattle and it trailed over the night sky above the Oogaboo. The Imp flew higher, its double set of insect wings humming and buzzing and helping it to dart in sharp angles.

  “Imp!’ I yelled. “Hold up!” I knelt on the carpet, clutched my two favorite corners and held the front half of the rug up in front of me. This maneuver severely shrank the area beneath me. I clutched it tighter and rose higher. The carpet knew my every thought; it knew I wanted to overtake the Imp so it pushed itself further and faster, to the point where I could hear the unsettling rip of the fabric. “Imp! I command you to halt!”