The Wizard of OZ

by S. D. Stuart

  They both smiled at the thought of eating the luxurious foods they had heard were served in the casino.

  The two men left shaking his hand and thanking him gratefully for his offer. As soon as they left the room, he shut the door. He walked over to a marble bust of the original Nero of Rome and shoved it off its pedestal. It shattered into a several large pieces, a plume of dust emanating up from the chunks of marble.

  Who did the West Marshal think she was?

  Before he had arrived in OZ, the marshals had been unsuccessful in their attempt to overthrow the quasi-government of this prison-nation from the man everyone called the Wizard.

  Not long after Nero’s arrival, all of that started to change.

  It had taken nearly seven years to break the Wizard’s grip over OZ. Now, thanks to his tireless campaign, the Wizard had very little influence over anything outside the walls of Central City.

  He stared at his reflection in the ornately carved mirror hanging on the wall.

  Everything that happened up until now was because of him.

  His work.

  His plan.

  The West Marshal was nearsighted. She could not see the bigger picture. Fortunately, for her, she hired Nero to handle the details, and he knew exactly what needed to happen next.

  The first thing Dorothy thought of as she slowly emerged from a deep sleep was not remembering falling asleep. She remembered looking at the food spread out on the table before her and realized that, in a place like this, she wouldn’t get another chance to eat this well. The last thing she remembered was feeling lightheaded and staring down at her plate wondering if eating too much could make you pass out.

  The next thing she noticed was the dripping sound that echoed in the darkness.

  The last thing she noticed was that it was dark because her eyes were still closed.

  She fluttered them open and found herself staring at a simple stone ceiling rather than the ornately painted fresco in her room.

  She rolled over to her side and saw thick steel bars made up the walls that contained her within a six-foot by six-foot area.

  Someone spoke from only a few feet away. “Oh great. Looks like the princess finally decided to wake up.”

  She rolled over to her other side and saw Jasper staring at her from inside his own cage.

  “Jasper? What are you doing here?”

  “Probably the same thing you’re doing here. Our automatons have been entered into the games and it’s our job to fix them between battles.”

  She sat up quickly and suddenly wished she hadn’t when the room spun. She winced and squinted at Jasper. “What do you mean our automatons?”

  “Well, I couldn’t collect the reward if I didn’t say they were mine.”

  She shook her head and laughed sarcastically. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”

  “I was going to share.”

  She looked passed Jasper at the massive underground cave. As far she could tell, they were the only two people inside cages. The rest of the people milling about seem to be repairing automatons or digging through piles of debris looking for parts.

  None of this made any sense. The last thing Nero said to her was that he was going to help her. What he seemed to have actually done was lock her up in a cage under his coliseum.

  Certainly not the kind of help she had expected. But then again, she reminded herself, she was still in the world’s largest prison and truth was a commodity that was obviously scarce.

  She stood up slowly allowing the room to stabilize before walking over and gripping the bars of her cage. Jasper watched her pull and push at the bars.

  “Those are made from wootz steel. Ain’t nothin’ gonna bend those bars.”

  She ran a hand up and down one of the bars and inspected it closely. “It’s not the bars that are the weak point. It’s the man with the key.”

  She hollered out trying to get the attention of two men working on an automaton nearby. One of them started to glance in her direction but the older man immediately scolded him. When the older men returned to banging on the automaton with a crude hammer, the younger man quickly looked at her, smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, I’d like to help but I can’t.

  Jasper watched her with interest and spoke up again. “I already tried that, but it looks like nobody’s allowed to talk to us.”

  Suddenly, the constant droning sound that she had been unable to place increased in volume as massive doors on one side of the large underground cavern opened up. She quickly realized that the noise was the cheering crowds of the coliseum. There must be games going on right now.

  The massive doors closed as soon as a man entered pushing a large cart filled with automaton parts. The cheering was muted again, but still audible as background noise.

  The man noticed her watching him and called out. “Hey. You the one that brought the scarecrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  The man pushed the cart over to her. “Do you think you can tell me if any of these might still be serviceable as spare parts?”

  She looked into the cart and saw what remained of Scarecrow. He had been chopped apart at every joint and bend. Copper wires poked out the ends of every piece like bits of straw.

  She looked up at the man. “What happened?”

  “That had to have been one of the funniest show I’ve ever seen. The thing just stood there while the Woodsman hacked away at it. It almost looked like he fell to pieces at the Woodsman’s feet.”

  She reached between the bars and started grabbing pieces of Scarecrow out of the cart and pulled them into her cage.

  “You can’t have any part of him.”

  The man watched as she removed every piece of Scarecrow out of the cart. Before she could grab the head, he snatched it out of the cart. “Don’t hog all the good stuff.”

  She stared hard at the man. “Give me the head.”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to be the one to explain to Nero that I couldn’t repair his newest automaton because you wouldn’t give me every piece?”

  The man nodded at all the parts piled around her feet. “Those things are destroyed. Look at them. There’s no way you’re getting that thing back together.”

  She held her hand out between the bars. “Not without the head I’m not.”

  Reluctantly, he slowly handed her Scarecrow’s head.

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  The man grabbed the cart and waddled off, muttering to himself.

  Jasper pressed himself against the bars of his own cage. “You really think you can fix that?”

  She sat down on the hard dirt floor and started at all the parts. “No. But I couldn’t see him being melted down for scrap.”

  Things were not going well for her. First her airship crashed, killing the only people who knew how to find her father. Then she lost the emerald that could help her find her father. Now she lost both automatons that were going to help her get to the Wizard, so she could get out of OZ and wait for her father to contact his group again.

  She was locked in a steel cage in the middle of the world’s largest prison and there was nothing she could do to change her fate.

  She heard a faint raspy voice. She looked up at Jasper. “What?”

  Jasper looked back at her. “I didn’t say nothin’.”

  She heard the faint voice again and looked around her, but there was nobody else close by.

  Oh great, she thought. Now I am going crazy. Maybe the stress of everything that had been happening over the past three days was finally catching up to her.

  “Put … Together …”

  Okay, she thought as she looked around. She definitely heard something that time. She looked back at Jasper. “Not funny Jasper.”

  “What’s not funny?”

  “Stop pretending to talk like a ghost.”

  “I’m not. What’s your problem?”

  She shot him a sharp look. “Just stop it, okay.”

  “Sheesh, you re
ally are losing it.”

  She sat there staring at the parts and heard the raspy voice again. “Put … Together …”

  She spun around and yelled at Jasper. “I said stop it!”

  He held his hands up to show her they were empty. “I’m not doing anything!”

  “Well then who’s saying that?”

  “Saying what?”

  “Somebody’s saying something. And you’re the only one here.”

  “Maybe it’s your stupid robot talking to you.”

  She looked down at the head in her hands and saw the eyes still had a faint glow to them. The lips moved slightly and said, “Put … Together …”

  She screamed and dropped the head.

  Jasper laughed. “I swear sometimes, you are such a girl.”

  She picked Scarecrow’s head back up and look at it. “Are you still alive?”

  The lips moved again and he said in a faint raspy voice, “Put … Together …”

  Dorothy stood up and arranged all the parts to scarecrow on the floor in the proper order. Jasper strained against the bars of his cage. “What are you doing?”

  She dismissively waved her hand in the air as she stared down at the broken parts. “Shh.”

  The copper wires sticking out of every part started to vibrate. They suddenly came alive and wrapped themselves like snakes around the copper wires sticking out of the other parts nearest to them.

  They coiled tighter and all the different parts pulled together and reformed into the arms legs torso and head of Scarecrow. His eyes lit up brightly and he sat up suddenly. It was as if he had never even been torn apart in the first place.

  He looked up at Dorothy and said, “That was most unpleasant.”

  Jasper pressed against the bars of his cage. “How did you do that?”

  Dorothy gawked at the fully repaired scarecrow. “I don’t know.”

  Scarecrow stood up and faced Dorothy. “It is part of my design function. To eliminate permanent injury, I can dismantle into component parts and reassemble myself.”

  Jasper started laughing. “He’s our ticket out of here.”

  Dorothy looked at him unsure of what he was talking about.

  He pointed to a set of keys hanging from a hook on the wall not too far away. “Tear Scarecrow apart, toss him through the bars of the cage and let him reassemble himself out there. Then he can just get the keys and let us out.”

  She looked at Scarecrow. He looked back at her, no expression evident on his robotic face.

  “I can’t force you to go through that again. But it’s an excellent idea.”

  “My purpose is to serve you. There is a lever in my lower back that will force my parts to disassemble quickly.”

  He turned around and pointed to his back. “Push right there.”

  She stepped up behind him, placed her fingers on his lower back where he had indicated and paused. “Does it hurt?”

  “Just push it quickly.”

  She pushed on his back and heard a faint click as the lever depressed. Scarecrow instantly crumpled to the ground in several pieces, his head rolling toward the bars of her cage.

  Jasper pointed as he cried out. “Dorothy! The head!”

  She drove after the rolling head, smacking her own head against the bars just as it rolled between the bars, out of the cage, and out of reach.

  She ignored the sudden flash of pain and pressed herself against the bars, reaching first with one arm, and then the next. The head wasn’t just out of reach, it was several feet beyond her reach.

  She sat back on her heels and rubbed at the forming bump on her head. “I can’t believe it! I am such a dullard.”

  “Marshal,” Jasper hissed just above a whisper.

  She turned to face him. “Now what?”

  He pointed furiously behind her. Her eyes followed where he pointed and saw a man in a hooded cloak approach Scarecrow’s head. He was dressed entirely in black, from black leather boots to black leather gloves. In the semi-darkness of the underground cavern, the hood successfully hid the man’s face.

  He bent down and picked up Scarecrow’s head. He spotted the keys hanging from the hook on the wall and walked over. He curled his fingers around the entire ring of keys with his gloved hand to muffle the noise as he lifted them from the hook and walked swiftly over to the door of her cage.

  He pulled back his hood enough to show her the golden fur of his face. It had to be the same boy, otherwise he wouldn’t be here now. She rushed to the bars with a smile. “Are you getting us out of here?

  Caleb smiled, his sharp teeth still glistened, even in the dim light. “You saved my life once. I could never forgive myself if I didn’t return the favor.”

  “Does Nero know you’re doing this?”

  He inserted keys one at a time into the lock and tried to turn them. Some refused to turn while others refused to fit in the lock it all.

  “I can get you out of the casino,” he said, as he looked her deeply in the eyes. “But promise to never tell anyone I was the one who helped you.”

  She looked just as deeply back into his eyes. “I will take the secret to my grave.”

  Jasper gripped the bars in his own cage. “Are you going to let us both out?”

  Caleb glanced over at him and looked back at Dorothy. “Friend of yours?”

  She grimaced. “Sort of.”

  Jasper’s sweaty palms slipped on the bars of his cage. “I won’t tell anyone you helped either.”

  Caleb struggled with the ring of keys, trying each one. He was running out of choices and not one key had unlocked the door yet.

  There was a sudden loud clanking noise under her feet. She looked down and, for the first time, realized that the floor of her cage, including a walkway that bordered the entire circumference outside the bars, was made entirely of wood. Her stomach somersaulted as the whole cage lifted up quickly.

  Caleb gripped the bars as he rode up with her through the ceiling and right into the center of the coliseum.

  The cage jerked to a stop and she grabbed the bars to keep from falling over. Off to her left, a second cage rose up into view through the floor. Jasper’s terrified eyes locked on to hers as his cage jerked to a stop.

  The crowd went wild.

  There was not a single empty seat in the entire coliseum.

  It looked like the entire population of OZ was in attendance. It certainly sounded like it.

  Several guards descended on Caleb and grabbed him as he tried to run.

  They forced him to his knees as Nero walked up and regarded him with a disgusted look on his face.

  Nero raised his arms and, in a matter of seconds, the entire crowd fell deathly silent. It was unnerving how 80,000 people could suddenly go quiet and collectively hold their breath.

  Even though he addressed Caleb directly, he raised his voice loud enough for everyone in the coliseum to hear him. “When you were nothing but a helpless infant I took you in and raised you as my own son. You have disappointed me more than anyone else ever could.”

  Caleb struggled against the guards who held him down on his knees before Nero. “She saved my life. I owed her.”

  “And to repay this debt, you were willing to risk everything?”

  “You taught me that honor and loyalty are commodities not easily ignored. “

  “Since you’re so eager to share in the fate of your new friends, then I have no other choice but to let you.”

  Nero walked up to Dorothy’s cage. She could sense the audience in the top rows leaning forward in their seats as they strained to hear what he would say to her.

  She pressed herself to the bars of the cage and whispered, “You said you would help me.”

  He gave her a small wink and a sly smile before he turned around dramatically to address the audience. “I give you one chance to surrender the East Marshal star to me before I take it from your lifeless corpse.”

  What is he doing? It certainly didn’t look like he was helping. Privately, he ha
d promised to help. Publicly, he was demanding she relinquish the star to him or he would kill her.

  Why would he do that?

  Unless somebody was watching him.

  That was it!

  He had told her to trust him and that he couldn’t make it look like he was helping her.

  He was just making a good show of it.

  Moreover, she had to help him make it a good show.

  She lifted her chin defiantly and yelled, “I will never give you the East Marshal star.”

  He spun around and looked at her with a huge grin. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

  The crowd went hysterical.

  He held his hands up and quieted the crowd once again. “Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time ever we will have intelligent prey in the theater. For this special occasion, I have outfitted a Woodsman with a radio-controlled receiver. I will personally be operating the automaton and will thus be eligible to take credit for killing the East Marshal.”

  Dorothy’s ears rang from the drone of the rabid spectators yelling and pounding their feet in anticipation of the spilling of her blood.

  Nero held his arms high as he exited the coliseum floor to the adoration of his fans. As soon as he left, the soldiers shoved Caleb face down in the dirt and laughed as they departed and locked the exit to the coliseum battle arena behind them.

  Dorothy and Jasper’s cage doors unlatched and swung open on their own.

  She ran out to Caleb and helped him back up to his feet.

  He waved her off. “I’m okay.”

  Jasper ran up to them and pointed to the opposite end of the coliseum. “I don’t think any of us are okay.”

  They watched as the Woodsman was raised up on a platform, much like they had been raised up from underneath in their cages. The platform jerked to a stop once it became level with the floor and the Woodsman shifted slightly from the change in momentum.

  The speaker on the front of the Woodsman automaton crackled to life allowing Nero’s modulated voice to be heard over the screaming crowds.

  “Let the games begin!”

  The roar of the crowd drowned out the whine of the chainsaws as they spun up to a blur.