The Wizard of OZ

by S. D. Stuart

  Even after the airship disappeared from sight, he stood there silently for over an hour until he saw the carriage enter through the front gates of his castle. He looked out over Center City, an oasis in the midst of the cracked and brittle earth that stretched out to the horizon on all sides.

  Soon he would control more than his eyes could see.

  Soon he would control more than half of OZ.

  All he had to do was promise Nero that he would keep looking for that which Nero sought.

  One of the Wizard’s many servants, dressed in a muted gray suit, opened the double doors and stepped out onto the balcony. “They have arrived.” When the Wizard did not respond, the man bowed as he backed out through the doors and closed them again leaving the Wizard alone on the balcony with his thoughts.

  As soon as he had both Marshal stars, he would have the resources to break free from Nero once and for all. He never needed Nero. It was just more convenient to let that sniveling fool think he could pull the strings from behind the scenes.

  It had been so easy to manipulate Nero and use him get two of the four Marshal stars.

  When he controlled half of OZ, he would send Nero back to his little gambling house and take over from there. Nero thought he held all the power, but staying behind the scenes only meant it would be easier to get rid of him.

  The Wizard chuckled to himself as he contemplated the alliance that was nearly complete with the North Marshal. Moreover, with the Southern Marshal locked behind her impenetrable wall, the Wizard would control everything that mattered and Nero would no longer be needed.

  But first, he would need to take care of the girl and her pet.

  The Wizard strode through his royal chamber and locked the doors behind him as he left.

  He strode into the front hall and frowned. He had expected to meet with Dorothy and Caleb, but not like this. Caleb had Dorothy bound in chains with a burlap sack over her head. He yanked roughly on her chains and made her stumble as they came up the steps into the front hall.

  Caleb saw him approach and held out the two Marshal stars in the palm of his hand. “On behalf of Nero, I present to you sovereignty over the Eastern and Western territories.”

  The Wizard took the Marshal stars and nodded his head at Dorothy. “Why is she bound and hooded?”

  Caleb tugged on the chains as he spoke forcing her down to one knee. “She didn’t wish to relinquish her star willingly. She needed to be reminded who was in charge.”

  The Wizard narrowed his eyes to slits and regarded the little girl with a new sense of respect. If she was still willing to stand up to Nero after everything, maybe she had not outlived her usefulness after all. “Leave her with me.”

  Caleb glanced sideways at his captive for a moment. “Nero has other plans for the former East Marshal.”

  “Nero is not here now. As ruler of OZ, I command you to leave her.”

  Caleb took a step back. “Do not forget who’s really in charge.”

  “I have not forgotten. It is you who do not realize whose castle you are in.”

  Caleb took another step back and pulled on the chains, taking Dorothy backward with him. “I must be going. Nero is expecting us back.”

  Caleb reached the door when the Wizard pointed at them. “Seize them both.”

  Guards descended on Caleb and Dorothy from all directions and grabbed them.

  Caleb struggled against the guards who held him. “Nero kept his half of the bargain. He will be very upset you are not keeping yours.”

  The Wizard walked up to Dorothy and turned to look at Caleb. “Let him.”

  He returned his attention back to Dorothy and yanked the burlap sack off her head.

  Only, it was not Dorothy.

  He held the burlap sack his hand and waved it at Caleb. “What is this?”

  Caleb only responded with a smile.

  The Wizard moved in close. “Where is she?”

  Dorothy counted silently to ten after she heard the Wizard leave and lock the doors. She pushed on the pressure plate that would make the wall slide sideways and let her enter the same royal chamber the Wizard had just left.

  Jetharo told her where he hid the clockwork key. It was in a hollow stone only twenty feet to the left of the secret entrance.

  She would be able to sneak in, open the hollow stone, retrieve the clockwork key and get out within the space of a minute. By the time the Wizard discovered the woman with Caleb was not Dorothy, she would be back outside the castle walls. The Wizard would not dare harm Caleb for fear of Nero’s retaliation.

  Her heart beat softly as she waited for the wall to slide open.

  Several long seconds passed while nothing happened.

  She pushed on the pressure plate again and heard the same click she had heard before.

  Still nothing happened.

  Her heartbeat grew louder and stronger.

  She looked back and forth along the narrow passageway. She was exactly where Jetharo said she should be.

  Maybe the mechanism was old and stiff from disuse.

  She pressed her shoulder against the plate and pushed with all her might.

  It clicked louder this time and she heard the grating sound of stone on stone as the wall slid away.

  Light from the royal chamber spilled into the secret passageway and she breathed a sigh relief. All she had to do was find the hiding stone, get the key and get out.

  She counted out the twenty paces on the stone floor visually with her eyes and looked up. She found herself staring at a massive oak bookcase covering the entire length of the wall.

  Not a single wall stone was exposed for twenty feet on either side.

  Chapter 31

  Dorothy stared at the massive bookshelves that covered the entire wall from floor to ceiling. Every shelf bowed slightly from the weight of heavy books.

  She walked the twenty paces and stood right in front of the bookcase. Jetharo said that the stone was scratched on one corner so she could quickly find it, but failed to tell her where on the wall it was.

  I guess he assumed the wall would still be exposed, and not blocked off, she thought.

  Was it closer to the floor?

  She looked down.

  Or closer to the ceiling?

  She looked up.

  Whichever choice she made, if she chose wrong she ran the risk of someone, most likely the Wizard himself, discovering her before she found the key.

  Might as well split the difference and start in the middle, she said to herself.

  She began sliding dusty tomes off the shelf in front of her and laying them in a stack on the floor.

  The Wizard’s hot breath reeked of stale milk. This was not something Caleb wanted his keen senses to be subjected to for much longer.

  He had hoped the threat of Nero’s wrath would keep the Wizard from detaining him.

  But he was wrong and the Wizard apparently had plans of his own that did not include Nero. His first instinct was to find some way to warn Nero, but then he remembered that he and Dorothy were going after Nero themselves.

  The only thing he had to do right now was figure out a way to escape from the Wizard.

  The Wizard leaned in closer until his face was mere inches from Caleb’s. “Where is she?”

  Caleb’s eyes flicked upward for only a moment, but that was all the Wizard needed. He leaned back and tilted his head to the side, a surprised look on his face. “He told you about the key.”

  The Wizard walked around in a circle and then came back to face Caleb. “Did he tell you where it was?”

  Caleb struggled against the guards who held him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I brought you the two Marshal stars but I was not about to give you Dorothy. That is why I brought in a decoy. Nero wants her and I didn’t want to give you the opportunity to take her first.”

  The Wizard stamped his foot. “You’re lying!”

  The Wizard stared into his eyes and the features on his face shifted as if suddenly real
izing something. The Wizard looked up at the ceiling in the direction of the tallest castle spire and then back at him. “She’s already inside, isn’t she?”

  Caleb dropped lower, putting most of his weight onto the guards who were beginning to struggle to support him. As soon as his legs bent halfway, he sprang up and threw the guards off balance.

  Caleb moved swiftly and recovered his own balance as the guards flew to the ground on either side of him.

  The Wizard was faster and darted forward, kicking Caleb in the neck with an outstretched foot.

  Caleb went down, gasping for air and clutching at his throbbing neck.

  The guards clambered back to their feet and yanked Caleb to his knees.

  The Wizard placed his hands behind his back and leaned in, his sour milk breath assaulting Caleb’s keen sense of smell again.

  “There’s more where that came from. But I think I’ll give your little girlfriend her share first.”

  He stood back up and nodded his head at the guards. “Lock him in the dungeon. I am going to my royal chamber. I do not wish to be disturbed.”

  Stacks of dusty old books stood in leaning towers all around Dorothy’s feet. She stared at every stone that made up the wall behind the cleared out shelves.

  None of them had a scratch on a corner to signify it was the hiding stone.

  Time was running out.

  She had to look faster if she hoped to find it before the Wizard returned.

  She no longer had time to be careful and methodical.

  She ran in front of the shelves sweeping her arm across them, spilling books onto the floor in haphazard piles.

  As she unceremoniously cleared each shelf, she took a moment to inspect the newly exposed section of wall.

  Nothing.

  She clamored up onto the growing pile of books to reach the next shelf and started tossing books over her shoulder.

  A big chunk of stone missing from the wall caught her eye.

  She pushed more books out of her way and stared at the stone with a scratch in its corner that had widened out into a missing chunk of stone.

  She had found it!

  She dug her fingers in the crevice around the stone and felt it move slightly.

  She wedged her fingers further into the crevice and slowly slid the stone out of the wall inch-by-inch.

  As soon as the stone was free, her heart skipped a beat and a huge smile spread across her face.

  She turned the hollow stone around and stared into an empty container carved from the stone.

  The hollow stone was hollow.

  And very much empty.

  Someone cleared his throat behind her. She yelped in surprise and nearly fell down the shifting pile of books. By the chamber door, the Wizard held up a polished brass key by a silver chain that hung around his neck.

  “Looking for this?”

  She stared at him from the top of the book pile and tried to judge the distance while compensating for the unbalanced weight of the hollowed out stone.

  His eyes flickered to the stone for a brief moment. “We both know you’re not going to throw that at me.”

  She released her grip on the stone and let it tumble down the mountain of books. It broke apart into several pieces when it hit the floor.

  He looked at the key in his hand. “Nero put me here for the sole purpose of finding this. I spent months searching the castle for it but to no avail. Surprisingly, a worker discovered it while installing my bookshelves. He tried to keep this discovery from me and paid the ultimate price.”

  He tucked the key back into the folds of his robe. “Whatever is behind the door that this key unlocks, Nero wants it desperately. Just in case the key wasn’t discovered, he hired your father to build a weapon powerful enough to get through that door. He gave the Professor a unique power source that would make it the most powerful weapon in the world. And do you know what he did with it?”

  Dorothy shook her head.

  The Wizard laughed. “He took that power source and carved it into two heart-shaped pendants. When Nero heard about that, he was furious and sent men to collect your father and the emerald hearts; but he was too late. Your father had already given one of them away and, due to the carelessness of the collection team, he no longer had any leverage to get the Professor to tell him where it was.”

  Her heart beat wildly in her chest. “Carelessness!? They killed my mother!”

  “And then lost you. Needless to say, the Professor wasn’t talking. And without a power source the weapon was useless, so the pressure was back on me to find the key. I made a good show of using his men to help me tear up whole sections of the castle in a desperate attempt to find a key we never would. I had all the time in the world to build up enough influence to make a stand against Nero until you showed up.”

  He pointed at her as he continued. “You brought the second emerald heart into OZ. I am sure you took the one the West Marshal had and you’re probably wearing them right now.”

  She instinctively reached to where they hung just out of sight beneath her leather corset.

  The Wizard smiled knowingly. “Of course you are.”

  He studied her face for a long time before speaking again. “Who are you?”

  She shifted her weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other on the stack of books. “I’m nobody.”

  The Wizard waggled a finger at her. “You are not as insignificant as you would like me to believe. Let us not forget, you conquered two of the four territories in OZ. Not bad for someone who only arrived here a few days ago. I can’t give you your father, I don’t know where he is, but I can give you the chance to walk away from all of this. You give me both pendants and I will put you on an airship pointed in any direction you wish. I won’t bother you ever again and Nero won’t bother you.”

  “Even if I take you at your word, how do you know Nero will leave me alone?”

  “Because you won’t have anything he needs.”

  She pulled the two emerald hearts out from under her corset. They glowed brightly in her hand. “If I give you these, you will let me go?”

  “Of course.”

  “And Caleb?”

  “Not Caleb.”

  “I’m not leaving here without Caleb.”

  “My offer expires in thirty seconds.”

  She had been studying his movements while they talked. He was stiff and sporadic and, she noted when he stumbled on a couple of the books on the floor, slightly clumsy.

  While he was not old, he was certainly past the prime of youth. She immediately knew how she could get what she wanted and not give up everything. “I have a counter offer for you.”

  She slipped the necklaces over her head and placed them on the empty bookshelf next to her.

  “We fight for it. You win; you get the emerald hearts, the key, Caleb, and me. I win; I get the emerald hearts, the key, Caleb, and that airship you promised.”

  He studied her for a long silent minute and then slipped the silver necklace over his head and placed the key on the other end of the empty bookshelf by the door.

  He tilted his head from side to side, loosening up his neck muscles. He stripped off the long flowing Wizard robes leaving only pants that hugged the muscles of his strong legs.

  His legs and arms flowed quickly and smoothly through several practiced and perfected martial arts forms before he half crouched in a fighting position and grinned at her fiendishly. “Winner takes all.”

  Chapter 32

  Dorothy realized her error as she stared at the physique of her muscular opponent. The Wizard lacked even an ounce of fat. Her eyes darted to the key on the shelf. All she really needed was that key. If she could get him to circle around to the other side of the room, she could grab the key and make a run for the secret hallway.

  She half slid, half fell down the stack of loose books until she was on solid ground. There was no way she was going to try to mount an attack, or properly defend herself, standing on loose books.


  She started to circle around the edge of the room expecting him to mirror her movements. But he was not cooperating. Instead of circling away from her around the room, he approached her causing her to stop and retrace her steps until they were both back in the same positions they started.

  He regarded her with a smirk. “I’m not letting you near that key.”

  She crouched slightly to keep her center of gravity low. “I won’t make the first move.”

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing. Tell you what, why don’t we flip for it?”

  Without taking his eyes off her, he took two steps over to his cloak crumpled on the floor, bent down and fished through the pockets.

  He stood up and showed her an OZ Schilling. “Heads I attack you first, tails you attack me. Agreed?”

  She nodded her head slightly.

  He tossed the coin in the air and, as his eyes tracked it so he could catch it again, she sprang forward. She swept her arm in a knifing motion to deal a debilitating blow to his neck. She did not want to kill him. Just knock him down, grab the key and get out while giving herself enough time to get away before he recovered.

  Without taking his eyes off the spinning coin, he grabbed her right wrist with his left hand before she made contact with him and effortlessly threw her to the ground. He held onto her wrist and twisted her shoulder as she went down.

  Pain shot through her arm like a thousand needles.

  He caught the coin in the palm of his right hand while twisting her arm even further. She writhed on the floor trying to find a position that did not hurt more than the one she was in.

  She tried to stand up but he kicked her feet out from under her. Her arm would have snapped in half if he had not crouched as she fell back onto her side.

  He slapped the coin on the floor in front of her and took his hand away.

  “Will you look at that? You little fortuneteller, you. It’s tails.”

  Gritting through the pain, she pulled on the arm he held in his iron grip, pulling him forward and slightly off balance. As soon as he shifted his feet to regain his balance, she shot forward and clamped her teeth down on the hand that held her wrist. Instead of letting go, like she had expected, he forced his hand further into her mouth stretching her jaw back open.