Ruler of Beasts (6 page)

The Nome King yawned loudly. One of his warriors hurried to bring him a silver stool. He settled onto it, stretching ostentatiously and yawning again. “Hurry up, house cat,” he said, examining his silver nails. “We haven't got all day down here.”

The Nome King wasn't just an evil tyrant hell-bent on taking over Oz, the Lion thought irritably. He was also incredibly annoying, and he was clearly pretty powerful. But for whatever reason, Ozma had thought this was a good idea, and now it was up to him to save her and the entire Land of Oz.

The Lion bent down to sniff at the silver figurines. Each miniature Ozma was slightly different. Some of the Ozmas were smiling, and others looked like they were about to cry. A few seemed angry. Some of the tiny Ozmas had tiny accessories: one was holding a miniature scepter, and another was carrying a giant cake. They all had one thing in common, however: each one looked exactly like the queen. The Lion almost groaned
aloud. How was he supposed to tell which one was the real Ozma?

“Do I get a hint?” he asked, stalling for time. The Nome King only snorted, not bothering to reply.

The Lion didn't have magic and he knew deep down he wasn't particularly smart. But Ozma had seemed to know what she was doing. Why had she thought he'd be able to solve this puzzle? What did he have to help him? Courage wasn't going to do him much good.

“I'm
waiting
,” the Nome King said.

“Oh, calm down,” the Lion snapped, and the Nome King looked momentarily surprised. He obviously wasn't used to anyone talking back to him. Was that what set the Lion apart? He paced the cavern floor, examining each of the dozens of tiny Ozmas until he found one that seemed to have an extra bit of difference. Its face was just a teensy bit more realistic than the others, and something about the silver folds of its dress looked familiar. “That one,” he said, pointing with his paw. With a pop, the silver figurine exploded into confetti.

The Nome King giggled. “Not even close,” he said. “You're really bad at this, aren't you? What was Ozma thinking, putting you in a position of responsibility? In
my
kingdom, only
qualified
people get to be in charge.”

“I wish you'd stop talking,” the Lion muttered under his breath, trying not to panic. He still had two more guesses. There was still a chance to save Ozma—and Oz. But the Nome King was getting restless. His warriors shifted where they stood, their
armor clanking.

“Maybe I should just kill you,” he said thoughtfully.

“You can't,” the Lion said quickly. “You made a bargain. Ozma sealed it.”

“The deal was that if you recognized Ozma I'd let you both go,” the Nome King said. “I didn't say anything about not killing you.”

“I can't recognize Ozma if I'm dead,” the Lion pointed out. “So technically you
did
agree to keep me alive.”

“An unfortunate technicality,” the Nome King said peevishly, sinking back onto his stool. The Lion was proud of himself. That line of argument had been worthy of the Scarecrow's brain. Maybe he wasn't so stupid after all. Maybe that was the secret to finding the real Ozma: using his brain. What would set enchanted Ozma apart from the rest of the silver figurines? She was the Queen of Oz, obviously. Her magic was green. She was young, but somehow also ageless. The Lion was thinking so hard he could practically feel gears turning in his brain. Was this what it felt like to be the Scarecrow? Thinking was exhausting work. He looked up. The Nome King's soldiers had surrounded him. “You can't kill me,” he said again, his heart pounding.

“I suppose
I
can't,” the Nome King said. “But if
they
do it . . .” He didn't have to finish.

“That one!” the Lion yelped in a panic, pointing to another statuette. It disappeared in a flash of silver smoke, and the Nome King leapt to his feet, clapping.

“Never mind!” he exclaimed. “This is rather fun! You're
doing my work for me, you stupid cat. Watching you suffer is almost making up for how boring this whole afternoon has been.” He waved at his soldiers, and they advanced toward the Lion in a terrifying ring.

The Lion's fear turned to anger. He was still the King of the Beasts of Oz, and he did not appreciate being bullied by this creepy king. The Lion reared back on his hind legs, roaring fiercely. To his satisfaction, the soldiers took a step backward. It was impossible to read their expressions behind the black helmets, but he imagined they looked impressed and a little afraid. “That's more like it,” he said.

“Oh, whatever,” said the Nome King. “You've only got one guess left, anyway, and I'm sure you'll botch that one, too.” He sat back down, looking sulky.

The Lion's mind raced. This was it. If he chose wrong, both Oz and its queen were toast. His stomach rumbled loudly. He hadn't eaten since he and Ozma had had their little snack. He was starving. If he screwed up now, he wouldn't even get the benefit of a last meal.

Suddenly, he got a whiff of something delicious. His nostrils flared. The Nome King and his army smelled flat and metallic, like hot iron being quenched in water. This was the smell of something living, flesh and bone and blood and
edible
.

And then in a flash he knew why Ozma had trusted him to choose correctly. Ozma wasn't human, and she wasn't mortal, but she
was
flesh and blood. Under other circumstances, he might have eaten her. Obviously he wouldn't dream of snacking
on the Queen of Oz—and his friend—but that didn't mean she wouldn't smell like something delicious, especially if he was hungry. He closed his eyes, letting his hunger overwhelm him. His stomach growled again. He let everything else fall away—the king, the warriors, the cavern, the impossible task at hand. He was back in the Forest of the Beasts, hunting for his prey. He crouched low, lashing his tail, his nose to the ground. There it was again: the faintest scent of breathing, living flesh.

“What do you think you're doing?” shrieked the Nome King, but the Lion ignored him. He was on the prowl in the forest, ears tuned to the slightest rustle, all his senses on full alert, placing his paws carefully and noiselessly. There, in the bushes ahead, was his target. He gathered his strength, his muscles coiling like springs, and pounced.

He landed with a clatter of pebbles and opened his eyes. He'd dislodged a tarnished silver figurine from the floor of the cavern, where it was mostly hidden by a pile of gravel. It was duller than the other statuettes, and the rough silver face looked nothing like Ozma. He knew without question that this was the one.

“You weren't supposed to
hide
her,” he said to the Nome King. “That's cheating.” He nudged the figurine with his paw. The Nome King leapt to his feet, his white face purple with rage.

“I won't have this!” he shrieked. “I won't tolerate you, you fleabag!” But he was too late. At the Lion's feet, the figurine grew rapidly until it was life-size. The dull silver metal turned iridescent, like oil on the surface of a pond. The multitude of colors swirled together and turned green before dripping away,
revealing the queen. She smiled up at the Lion.

“I knew it would work,” she said, flinging her arms around his neck and burying her face in his mane. “I
knew
. My brave, wonderful Lion!” But she was almost sobbing, and the Lion guessed that she'd been nowhere near as certain she would survive as she insisted. His heart leapt with sympathy and fondness for the brave, beautiful queen. She'd trusted him with her life, and she'd had enough faith in him to believe he could rescue her. Her crazy gamble had paid off—because of him. He felt tremendously close to the queen in that moment. He knew he'd be as willing to risk his life for her as she had for her kingdom.

The Nome King was sputtering like a teakettle, impotent with fury. Ozma rolled her eyes. “He always was a bad loser,” she said, and snapped her fingers. His warriors exploded silently into columns of silver smoke. The clanking noise of his digging machine ground to a halt and its fire went out. The huge cavern immediately cooled to a comfortable temperature. The Nome King stood alone in front of them, speechless with rage and brandishing his fists. Ozma snapped her fingers again and he froze into place, pinned by her magic.

“You have something that belongs to Oz,” Ozma said cheerfully, skipping over to him and lifting the ruby necklace over his head. “I'll take this back now, thanks.” His eyes blazed with fury but his power wasn't enough to break Ozma's spell. This whole quest had been proof that Ozma's power was far greater than the Lion had realized.

Ozma fastened the necklace around the Lion's neck. Somehow
it expanded without his seeing it change, so that by the time she fastened the clasp it was big enough to fit him. The cool stones rested on his chest like a breastplate. He stared down at them, lost in their entrancing sparkle.

“Careful,” Ozma warned, snapping him out of his reverie. “That's old, old magic, dear Lion. It'll trap you if you're not careful.” She turned to face the Nome King. “Even you can't break the bargain we made,” Ozma said, her voice clear and authoritative. “You'll abandon this ridiculous plan of invading Oz, and you'll go back to your own country and stay there. I don't
ever
want to see you again. Is that clear?”

Slowly the Nome King nodded. Ozma released him just enough so that he could speak.

“My bargain was with you, little princess,” he hissed. “But it lasts only as long as you are the ruler of Oz. Don't think you've seen the last of me.” The air around him began to glow with a silver light that grew brighter and brighter until the Lion was forced to cover his eyes. The light brightened still further and then vanished. When the Lion opened his eyes again, he and Ozma were alone in the abandoned cavern.

“Phew,” she sighed in relief. “I wasn't totally sure that was going to work.”

“What do you mean, you weren't sure that was going to work?” the Lion demanded. Ozma shrugged.

“All the legends about the Nome King say he's obsessed with riddles and gambling, and he loves turning people into furniture and tchotchkes and that sort of thing. I knew there was no way we could actually talk him out of invading Oz, and we're certainly not strong enough to fight him. I was hoping he'd pull something like this, but I couldn't be sure.” The Lion stared at her, speechless. Ozma had bet the farm on a handful of legends about a king no one else knew existed and the might of his stomach?

“It worked, didn't it?” she said, as if she could read his mind.

The Lion had no response to that, so he decided to think about something else. “But what will happen to the people of Ev? If the Nome King was invading Oz to help them—”

“Oh,
that
,” Ozma said dismissively. “That was a load of
hooey. Ev is incredibly rich. If the people are suffering, it's his fault—his and the Princess Langwidere's. There's nothing I can do about that from here, although once I'm sure Oz is stable, I might look into deposing them both.”

“The princess who?”

“Langwidere,” Ozma said. “She's horrible beyond belief. She has as many heads as there are days in the month and she exchanges them at will. Pray you never meet her—or the Wheelers.” The Lion thought of the strange, patchworked creatures he'd seen in the Nome King's vision and shuddered.

“Anyway, we won!” Ozma exclaimed happily. “And we got the Wizard's necklace back, too!”

Should he tell Ozma that Glinda was just as eager to find the necklace as she was? He decided against it. He'd figure out a way out of his deal with Glinda on his own. There was no way to tell Ozma about Glinda's desire for the necklace without confessing she was the one who'd sent him to the Emerald City in the first place. All this intrigue was making his head hurt, especially after the stress of saving Oz from the clutches of the Nome King and rescuing Ozma from certain doom.

“We shouldn't rest here any longer,” Ozma warned. His heart sank. He'd been hoping for a nap. But he knew the queen was right. They were practically in the Land of Ev, after all, and he'd seen all he wanted of the Nome King. “He has to obey the bargain we made, but if I know anything about the Nome King, he'll already be trying to find a way around it,” she added. “We should go back to the Emerald Palace before he tries to return
this way.”

Ozma didn't sound too worried about the possibility that the Nome King might persist in his attempt to invade Oz after all. Was she brave, or just foolhardy? Whatever the case, he had no interest in sticking around either. “Can you teleport us back to the Emerald Palace?” he asked hopefully.

“Through a mile of solid rock?” Ozma laughed. “I'm powerful, Lion, but no one is
that
powerful. Magic doesn't work like that. We could step into the Darklands and travel that way, but I'd worry about losing you.” Her gaze turned thoughtful. “Although,” she mused, “the Wizard's necklace wants to return to the palace; I can feel it. Maybe that's not such a bad idea after all. The necklace will make sure you get there, even if I can't.”

At last, he could ask about the necklace without arousing her suspicions. “What is this necklace?”

“No one really knows. It's much older than the Wizard, of course, and how he came by it—well, I'm just not sure. It's possible it's from the Other Place, and he used its power to get here somehow. But now it's bound up in the Deep Magic of Oz, and it will always try to go home.”

“To the Emerald City?”

“Exactly. Its magic is incredibly strong, but no one really knows what it's
for
.”

Glinda does,
the Lion thought, remembering her eager face as she showed him the vision of the ruby necklace. She knew, and she had a plan for it. Of that he had no doubt.

“Everyone thought the necklace was lost when the Wizard
disappeared,” Ozma continued. “It's possible he had it with him when he left Oz in his hot air balloon, and somehow lost it over the Land of Ev. I don't know how else the Nome King could have gotten hold of it. He was probably using it to guide his tunneling to the Emerald City. That would explain how he was able to get so close so quickly.”

She fell into a thoughtful silence. The necklace seemed to throb slightly against his chest, as if it knew they were talking about it. But that wasn't possible. It was just a bunch of gold and rubies; even magic objects couldn't eavesdrop on people's conversations. Could they?

Ozma roused herself. “The Darklands is too risky,” she said decidedly. “It'll take much longer, of course, but we'll have to go back the way we came.”

The Lion almost groaned aloud. He was so tired, and the thought of the return journey was almost unbearable. Still, a risky magical journey through a place he'd never heard of where a ruby necklace was his only link to safety sounded even worse. He stood and stretched. Ozma rested one hand on his back. “Are you ready?”

He nodded agreement, and Ozma raised her other hand. The cavern wall in front of them began to glow again. But this time, the lines of Ozma's magic ran in feeble rivulets down the wall, refusing to form a door. “Being turned into a statue really wore me out,” she gasped. “We're going to have to do this the hard way.” Without waiting for his reply, she grabbed his mane and dragged him toward the wall. He opened his mouth to protest,
but before he could say a word they were plowing into solid stone. And it hurt. Somehow, Ozma was dragging them both through the wall. It was like forcing his way through liquid concrete. Stone filled his ears and mouth, and for a long moment he thought he'd be stuck there, trapped inside the wall forever. But with one last, insistent tug, Ozma pulled him through to the other side. They collapsed on the tunnel floor.

“Sorry about that,” Ozma wheezed. “Close call. It's a good thing I didn't have to actually fight the Nome King.”

The journey back up through the tunnels to the Emerald Palace seemed to take even longer than the journey down. Both the Lion and Ozma were exhausted, but neither of them wanted to rest in the creepy, dark warren of tunnels. Ozma was so tired that several times she lost the way, and they had to backtrack. But finally the steep upward slant of the tunnel floor evened out, and the side tunnels came to an end. The Lion was so relieved to see the first of the torches that marked the corridor down from the Emerald Palace that he nearly cheered aloud, and Ozma perked up visibly.

“Not sure I've got much more in me,” she panted. “I'm glad we're almost home.”

It was odd seeing her weakened like this. And even more than that, hearing her admit it. He had never once seen Glinda drained of her power. He himself had never let his guard down in front of his subjects, or even Cornelius. Ozma shared her vulnerability with him freely. He felt honored and at the same time, he wanted to warn her that it wasn't the best idea. Someone else,
someone other than himself, could pounce when you show your soft underbelly.

At last, the rough-hewn rock of the tunnel walls gave way to the cut stone of the Emerald Palace's corridors. The Lion almost wept in relief. Ozma pulled up her hood in an attempt to conceal herself if they encountered any of the palace servants, but the halls were empty. “That's strange,” she said, frowning. “I couldn't begin to guess what time it is, but at least a few of the servants are up at all hours. I don't know where everyone is.” With a snap of her fingers, she exchanged her plain dress for a regal ball gown of emerald-green satin embroidered with a pattern in gold thread that echoed the delicate gold veins of her wings. Invisible hands piled her disordered curls into an elegant updo secured with jeweled golden combs, and dazzling emerald earrings appeared in her ears. Not to be outdone, the Lion quickly licked down his mane. The ruby necklace was hidden in his thick fur.

Ozma gave him an approving nod. “We don't look like we've been mucking around in nasty old tunnels and defeating an evil king!” she declared. “No one will ever be the wiser. The fact that we just saved Oz will remain between the two of us.” She winked, and the Lion felt an answering surge of pride. They
had
just saved Oz—if you got right down to it,
he
had just saved Oz, more or less by himself. If Scare and Tin could see him now! He might not have done so impressively in the battle against Jinjur, but there was no doubting the courage he'd shown while facing the Nome King.

“Your Majesty!” Both he and Ozma jumped at the sudden cry. One of the palace servants was hurrying toward them—Jellia, the Lion remembered. She was the queen's handmaid; that was why he'd memorized her name. “Thank goodness you're here! Where on
earth
have you been? We've been looking all over for you—your guest is here!”

Ozma looked puzzled. “My guest?”

“Oh yes, and she's in an absolute
state
, the girls are running themselves ragged—please, Your Majesty, you really must come at once!” Without waiting for them to reply, the maid took off in the other direction. Ozma raised her eyebrows at the Lion, shrugging, and followed, with the Lion close on her heels. “I guess we'll have to wait just a bit before we rest,” she said ruefully. “I know I didn't invite anyone to the palace. I wonder who's here.”

Jellia led them to Ozma's throne room and threw open the doors, curtsying deeply. “Her Majesty, Queen Ozma of Oz!” she announced breathlessly, staying in her curtsy with her eyes cast down as if unwilling to face whoever awaited them. Ozma swept past her, her bearing regal. Beyond her, the Lion could see a figure silhouetted against the throne room's huge picture windows. At first, he thought she was just incredibly tall. And then he realized she was hovering several inches off the ground.

“My goodness,” she said in a syrupy-sweet, all-too-familiar voice, turning to face them. “Look what the cat dragged in.” She giggled, and something about the sound was infinitely more terrifying than any of the Nome King's threats. “Welcome back,
dearest Ozma. And of course, Your Highness,” she added, bowing to the Lion in a gesture that was subtly mocking. “I think you have something of mine. I've come to get it back.”