I didn’t want to think about the last time I’d seen her or the way she’d looked—almost resigned, as if she knew this might be her last fight. She had not given up—she was a fighter. And she had thrown herself into the fray to give me and Nox a chance to escape. But if the Nome King could take out Mombi, the witch with the most Wickedness, that didn’t say much for my chances of defeating Ev’s most sinister senior citizen on his own turf.
I was pretty sure she’d never said anything about any Princess Langwidere, though. I wished I could ask Nox more about who she was, but I didn’t want the Wheelers to overhear our conversation. Instead, I closed my eyes, concentrating on finding the magic within myself. Magic was the only weapon I had left. We had no idea what we were going to be up against with this Langwidere person. I had to be able to use my powers in case I needed them to help save us.
But trying to find my magic felt the same way it had on the road: I could almost feel it, but it was as if I was trying to reach through a wall. My boots throbbed again, but this time it felt like a warning. As if they were telling me to be careful. As if they were letting me know they might not be able to protect me.
“Look,” Madison said in a low voice, jerking me out of my thoughts. On the horizon I saw a black smudge that I thought at first was a heat-induced mirage over the shimmering desert. But as we slowly wheeled closer the smudge got bigger and bigger, looming over the landscape like a bad dream.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Princess! Princess!” screamed one of the Wheelers in delight. “Princess soon! Princess treat guests so well!”
They exploded into their awful laughter again and some of them broke off from the group to speed around us in circles, taunting us. “Flesh-feet think they’re too good for Wheelers! Wait until Princess cuts off your heads! Then you won’t be so smarty-smart! Little witches get Wheeler stitches!”
The Wheeler carrying me grunted and kicked out with one leg at the others. I grabbed his back, afraid of sliding off. I had no doubt that whatever the princess’s orders the others wouldn’t hesitate to run me over with their spiked wheels if I fell to the ground.
“They’re joking, right?” Madison said.
Nox cleared his throat. “That’s, um, sort of what she’s known for,” he said. “Her head collection.” Madison’s eyes got wide. I wasn’t sure I looked any better myself.
Princess Langwidere’s palace was close enough that I could make out its details. I liked it a lot better when it was far enough away that I couldn’t see the specifics.
It was big, for one thing. Really, really big. But that part wasn’t scary at all. What was scary was how it looked: as if the vampire Lestat had barfed up a gaudy cathedral. A forest of spiky turrets and towers bristled out of a massive, hulking body of black stone dotted with thousands of tiny black windows that seemed to suck up the sunlight rather than reflect it. The towers were carved with hundreds of heads and faces, misshapen and deformed. Some of them looked like they were screaming in pain or fear. Others were grinning evilly. One tower flowed into the next like a massive pile of candle drippings.
But the palace wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was definitely the road.
As if in twisted mockery of the Road of Yellow Brick, the road to Princess Langwidere’s palace was made of crumbling black stone that split into fissures so wide the Wheelers had to creak around them. The road was lined with dozens of spikes. And on every single one was impaled a rotting head.
Madison looked like she was going to throw up. I couldn’t decide whether I was more scared or more grossed out. The heads were in varying stages of decomposition. Some of them looked fresh, and others were just skulls with a few dried scraps of flesh and hair still clinging to them.
But as we passed them I sensed something strange. The faint, unmistakable, electric buzz of magic. Maybe I couldn’t use it here, but I could sense it. Where was it coming from?
And then I realized: the heads weren’t real. They were a glamour—a powerful one, if they were there all the time, but an illusion all the same. Why would someone go to so much gory trouble to line a road nobody seemed to use? Why would she send her scary minions to collect us if they weren’t going to hurt us? None of this made any sense. Who was this chick?
I glanced over at Nox, and he met my eyes. He’d noticed it, too. And from the look on his face, he was wondering the same thing.
I didn’t have any more time to think about it—we were approaching the castle gate. Like the rest of the palace, it was jagged and misshapen and carved with howling, grimacing faces. Whatever Princess Langwidere’s deal, she had a real thing for heads. I hoped that didn’t mean ours were on the line.
The gates swung open with a horrible screech as the Wheelers approached. In front of us was a courtyard paved with the same cracked black stone as the road to Langwidere’s palace. Walls surrounded us on all sides, pockmarked with windows that stared down at us like lidless eyes. The skin on the back of my neck prickled. It felt like the castle itself was watching us.
The Wheelers dumped us unceremoniously on the hard ground and circled us again, leering and throwing insults. “Say hi-hi to Princess!” the leader shrieked, happy. “We go now to burn and burn!”
“Burn! Burn! Burn!” the others chanted, wheeling back and forth ecstatically. And then, with one final rotation, they were gone, speeding out of the gate in a racket of clattering wheels and screams. The doors slammed behind them. We were alone.
And now we were trapped.
FIVE
DOROTHY
I awoke in the caverns underneath the Emerald Palace. It was all a dream, I thought. I’m dead. I’m underground, and I’m dead. I blinked sleep away, my vision clearing. Being dead felt pretty much the same as being alive. Actually, being dead felt a lot better than being alive had felt ever since that god-awful bitch Amy showed up in Oz. In fact, it was downright comfortable.
Because I was lying in a bed, I realized. A big bed. The kind of bed I’d always liked best—satin sheets (black with red trim, very goth, a little tacky, but obviously expensive), a rich velvet coverlet (more black), high enough off the ground to need a little stool to get in and out (also black, filigree, studded with rubies).
Was I in Hell? Was that the reason for the black sheets? Aunt Em and Uncle Henry had always told me I’d end up there if I didn’t say my prayers or feed the chickens on time or milk Bessie or follow any of the ten thousand other orders they gave me every single day, but they’d turned out to be wrong about a lot of things. They weren’t even my parents. I’d never even known my parents. It’s really a wonder I turned out so well.
I sat up in the giant bed and looked around. I was in a cave, true, but it was looking less and less like the caverns underneath the Emerald City and more and more like somebody’s very weird idea of high luxury. It looked like something out of one of those creepy paintings that had hung up in the church Aunt Em used to take me to back in Kansas. You know the kind I mean: devils tormenting sinners with pitchforks, rivers of blood, lots of gore and dismemberment and serpents? Well, imagine if one of those painters began decorating homes, and you’d start to get an idea of the room I was in.
No windows, of course—it was a cave, after all. Lots of velvet drapes and sinister artwork with people engaged in activities that looked either very unpleasant or very indecent. The rest of the furniture in the room matched the four-poster bed and the stool, all of it carved with creepy elf-looking creatures that had to be the Nome King’s various ancestors. If my family was that ugly, I certainly wouldn’t have commemorated it in stone, but to each their own. Everything was studded with more rubies, and I do mean everything.
And then I looked up and suddenly the Nome King was looming over me. I made a very undignified noise of fright as everything that had just happened came rushing back to me all at once.
Thankfully, it wasn’t actually him, and no one was in the room to witness my embarrassment. It was a huge, somber oil portrait, large
r than life-size. His pale eyes seemed to be staring right at me in a way that gave me the shivers, but otherwise he looked very handsome. He was wearing his iron crown and regal robes of black velvet. One hand rested on a staff topped with a massive ruby. Serpents, tongues of fire trailing from their fanged mouths, coiled at his feet, looking up at him with what I can only describe as loving expressions.
So I wasn’t dead. Score one for Dorothy the Witchslayer: survived Armageddon. (With help.) (But still.) I was obviously in the Nome King’s guest bedroom—at least, I could only hope I wasn’t in his actual bedroom.
Some fresh air would’ve been nice, but the whole “windowless underground lair” situation suggested I’d have to pass on that particular luxury. And I had to admit, although the Nome King’s style was not entirely to my taste, the place was beautiful. Crystals spiked downward from the ceiling, a black fountain burbled black water in one corner, and now I noticed that a huge black wardrobe was tantalizingly half open, revealing a delectable selection of—you guessed it—black-and-red dresses. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I matched. I looked down. Someone—I could only hope not the Nome King himself, because that would be a little forward of him—had gently bathed the dust from my skin and dressed me in a scanty negligee made of black lace and silk. A matching robe lay across the end of the bed and I threw it over my shoulders, feeling suddenly vulnerable. I wanted to wear something else, something of my own choosing, so I snapped my fingers to summon a nightgown with a little more coverage.
Nothing happened. I must still be tired from my giant ordeal and the shock of losing my crown. I snapped my fingers again and waited for the answering feeling of magic to flare up within me.
Instead I got what felt like faint, magical heartburn. I tried again. And again. Each time, the response was stronger. But it was nowhere near strong enough.
Was it possible Ev was interfering with my magic? That I was going to have to outwit the Nome King without my power to help me?
Ooooookay. That was a problem. And it was a problem I was going to have to solve very, very soon.
I threw off the covers, staring down at my glittering red heels. Was it something to do with the shoes themselves? That dimwit Amy Gumm had tried to imply that the shoes might be bad for me, but that couldn’t possibly be the case. The shoes were what had brought me back to Oz. The shoes were a gift from—
Glinda. Who, as it turned out, might not have entirely had my best interests at heart. It’s not as though I hadn’t had my suspicions at times. After all, she was still a witch underneath all that pink and glitter.
But I didn’t care. I wanted the shoes working again the way they were supposed to. The way you wanted to keep drowning in the poppy field after the first time you’d passed out there. The way you kept craving more and more power once you’d had your first taste of it. The way some things just got under your skin. Without them I was nothing. Without them I was just little Dorothy Gale, farm girl, eyes on the horizon and up to her ankles in cow shit. I never wanted to be that girl again. And I wasn’t going to be.
What was wrong with my magic? And did it have anything to do with the Nome King?
I needed some food and a manicure before I could do any serious thinking. At least, for the time being, I seemed to be safe. Even if I was no closer to figuring out what the Nome King’s plan was for me.
I wondered briefly if the Nome King had a handy Jellia Jamb type around; he didn’t seem like the kind of fellow who’d be much use in that department. Oh, Jellia. Do you know, after everything she did to me, I sometimes almost miss her? Nobody could apply a topcoat like Jellia. If only she hadn’t betrayed me. If only I hadn’t had to punish her. I sighed. It’s so hard to get good help these days.
So here I was, in the bowels of the Nome King’s underground lair. No magic. No way back to Oz. Not even a throne. I was Dorothy Gale, Witchslayer. I had an endless supply of gumption. I could survive this. But how?
And then a soft rap sounded at my door. I brightened. Hopefully, this was breakfast. I was starving. I sat up expectantly and called, “Yes?”
The door swung open soundlessly to reveal the Nome King.
“You’re awake,” he said in that smooth, sinister voice. It wasn’t entirely his fault that everything he said came out of his mouth sounding like he was trying to summon a demon from the far reaches of Hell.
From behind him scuttled a stooped, wrinkled servant in a shapeless, sack-like dress that hid everything about her except her earthworm-pale, nearly bald head. She looked like a Munchkin, sort of; the world’s saddest, shabbiest Munchkin, anyway. In Oz, the Munchkins were always very chipper. Perhaps the Munchkins of Ev were a different breed.
She was holding a silver tray covered with an assortment of cups and plates and steaming dishes. She placed the tray on the bedside table and scooted back into a corner, where she kept her eyes on the intricate red carpet that covered the stone floor. The Nome King beamed downward at me.
“You slept well, I trust? I know it was a difficult journey.”
“Great,” I said briskly, eyeballing the food. I was starving. And I definitely wasn’t going up against Ev’s biggest evil on an empty stomach.
“Please, help yourself,” he purred.
I was hoping for a singing pastry or two, but Ev’s typical fare was not quite up to Oz’s standards. There was an inky black soup, a little loaf of bread that was distinctly on the dry side, and a big plate of what looked suspiciously like mushrooms. But I was determined to be on my best behavior until I figured out what was going on. Like, for example, whether or not I was an honored guest—or a well-treated prisoner. I nibbled daintily on the loaf of bread, trying not to tear into it the way I wanted to.
“I have left you a servant, as is, I believe, the custom among your kind.” He pointed to the scrubby, bald little thing who still waited patiently in the corner, not looking at either of us. “She is a Munchkin,” he added. “I thought you might like a touch of home while you stayed with us.”
On the one hand, I was touched.
On the other—well, if he wanted me to feel at home, that didn’t suggest he had any intention of letting me go anytime soon. I didn’t want to be at home in Ev. I wanted to go back to Oz. He’d said he could help me. But so far, he hadn’t done anything except give me breakfast and a few things to think about.
“That’s not a Munchkin,” I said before I could stop myself. If I knew anything about Munchkins, it was that they had round, dimpled faces that I alternately wanted to pinch or slap depending on my mood. This creature’s face was thin and gaunt. She certainly did not look like she was about to break into song, as Munchkins were annoyingly known to do.
“I assure you she is. I obtained her myself many years ago from Munchkin Country.” The Nome King glanced pointedly at the Munchkin, who curtsied several times in a rather frantic manner.
If he was kidnapping Munchkins and rescuing me from crumbling palaces, he could go back and forth between Oz and Ev. Which meant he was the key to my getting home. Or perhaps—even better—the little Munchkin was. If she knew how he’d done it . . .
“What a lovely and thoughtful gift,” I said.
“Really, it’s nothing. I shall be honored if you will join me this evening for a banquet.” He smiled broadly, his silver eyes glittering dangerously. “I simply won’t take no for an answer. And I have some information that might be of interest to you, dear Dorothy. I imagine you’re having a bit of trouble with your magic shoes?”
“Nonsense,” I said briskly.
“My dear, I’m quite aware that you’re lying.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. It was almost . . . unfriendly. Besides, how could he possibly tell? I quickly calculated my options. There was no point in lying. Maybe if I played along I could figure out what he was really up to.
I sighed. “Well, I suppose there might be a few tiny issues. How did you know?”
“Because I made them.” His smile was alm
ost oily.
“You . . . made them?” As far as I’d known, Glinda had made the shoes. Certainly she’d been the one to give them to me. How was it possible that he even knew about them? Where had they come from?
“In a sense,” he said, with a sharp look, as though he’d just revealed something he hadn’t meant to. He seemed to be considering whether to tell me more. “Their original material is from the kingdom of Ev,” he said finally.
This was something Glinda had never bothered to mention. If there is a mine full of what my shoes are made of, imagine what I could do with all that magic! How very, very interesting, I thought. How very interesting, indeed. There was more to the Nome King—and Ev—than met the eye.
“Hmmmm,” I said. “I do use them rather a lot, you know.”
He smiled. “I’m aware of that, Dorothy. But we have a bargain now. And it’s good for you to remember just how much you have to lose if you fail to keep your end of it.”
Well. I didn’t like that at all. He might be good-looking, but I’ve never been one for the authoritative kind. Other than myself, obviously.
“I didn’t agree to anything,” I said, my voice clipped. He raised a hairless eyebrow, and I carefully moderated my tone. “I mean, my lord—you must forgive me, my palace falling down on my head has put me out of sorts—that I don’t recall the exact terms of our, um, deal. Something about me helping you in exchange for support regaining the throne? But I feel certain I’d remember if we’d discussed the details.”
He smiled at me in amusement, and for the briefest second, I felt like a mouse pinned by a cat. But magic or no, I wasn’t Dorothy Gale for nothing, and I wasn’t going to let some creepily hot cave dweller put me off my game. I stared him down—and saw a flicker of respect in his eyes.