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    "Ahhhh," I groaned. She was right, of course, but I was still pissed-off.

    "I am really sorry," she said, and meant it. "I know how you are."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," I said, attempting to drop it. "So now what?"

"So now I keep the food from burning. Hey, Ralph? You hungry?"

    Ralph said nothing, so I turned to look. He was up now, in his military boxer shorts, sort of blearily getting his bearings. Aurora slapped my ass and turned back to her cooking. I took my cue and headed back toward Ralph.

    Right about that time, I heard the gonging of the world's biggest gong. Imagine if ships had giant gongs instead of foghorns. That's what I'm talking about. I glanced toward the windows, caught myself in the mirror, quick decided to spot-check the bandage on my head. I wanted to see if I even needed it anymore. And sure enough, the wound on my head had healed miraculously quickly. Not that I was too surprised at that.

    What really surprised me was the gorgeous young girl in the beautiful-fairy-princess dress. She was standing in front of me in the mirror. Like, in the mirror. Itself.

    "Good morning, Gene," the little princess said. "And good morning, Mr. Dudley. I'll need you to come to the palace as soon as you can. But please, have your breakfast frst; no doubt you'll need the energy."

    "Ummm," I said, and then stopped. I was wrapped up in a blanket. Ralph was in his underwear.

    "I'm so looking forward to meeting you both in person," she said, and then faded, as if we were waking from a dream. I heard from about a half a dozen people later that they'd had the same visit from her, at about the same time. This would account for why Ozma sounded so "canned"—She had some sort of magic voice mail or something.

    Right about then, the second gong gonged. I turned toward Aurora, who said, "I know. I talked to her earlier. Everybody's gonna be heading for the palace soon, if they aren't already. You might want to freshen up."

    Yeah, the palace was evidently the place to be, and everybody seemed to know that. I could hear increased activity in the street. People were fling out of their buildings like they were in the world's biggest fre drill, all headed for the center of town.

    We ate our food—quickly—and it was good. Between bites of egg and toast, I apologised to Aurora for criticizing her choice of cuisine. She waved it off and shoveled some more home fries onto my plate.

    Ralph didn't say anything much, he just ate. I think he was more than a little bit embarrassed about being there, or at least about what had lead up to being there.

    After everybody was done, I took the dishes over to the kitchen sink. As I dropped them in and looked for some sort of faucet to rinse them off with, wet sudsy tentacles, like big, yellow soapy tongues, came out of the sides of the sink and began licking the plates. I backed away slowly, and returned to the living room, where Ralph had begun some strenuous-looking yoga poses. He claimed it was the only way he could cure a hangover. I like B-vitamins and Mexican food myself.

    Aurora had disappeared for a few minutes, and when she came back, she had her skeleton suit on. I almost laughed, but then I remembered that that's what she puts on to fght.

    She started talking to me almost like you would talk to a little kid. "Gene, look, you don't know how sorry I am I got you into this, and I don't know what's gonna happen today, but I do know it's not gonna be good. I think you'd better put on that ogre suit I found you in."

    "What?"

    "We're probably going to have to fght to secure the city. I don't know what's coming at us yet besides that cloud, but those are combat clothes. They'll most likely stop a spear, maybe even slow down an arrow. This is defnitely not a T-shirt and jeans day today."

    Ralph was out of the yoga, and into the Tai-Chi by then.

    This whole situation had gotten way too freaky way too fast, and I just wanted to stop the ride. But there was no way off. None.

It wasn't until I got outside that I realized how huge that cloud really was. It smothered the whole of the northeastern sky, back as far as the eye could see, and seemed to fan out for miles to either side. As if its intent were to cut the sky in half.

    But I knew that I was understating the case.

    It wanted to swallow it all.

    The leading edge of the cloud—its prow, so to speak—was less than fve miles away and closing. Its approach was not so much fast as implacable, all the more troubling for its terrible confdent slowness.

    And according to Owl, who'd been patrolling the skies, the bad news didn't quite end there. On the dark ground below, moving perfectly apace, was the Hollow Man's army. Also in full advance.

    "Oh boy," said Ralph, staring up at the cloud. He looked profoundly sober, and none too happy about it.

    I wanted to taunt him cruelly, say hey, look! Your FRIENDS ar
e
coming! or something equally pointed and cheesy. I refrained, no
t so much out of mercy but because I hate petty snippery more than almost anything, and it felt really important at that moment to keep my emotions clear. If I wanted to be one of the good guys, I had to act like one. Even if I didn't particularly feel like it.

    So instead, I just led the boys through the gathering throngs, toward the magnifcent courtyard where, above it all, Ozma was patiently awaiting our arrival.

fore. The Pixie Olympics were quite a spectacle. Nobody wants to miss out on the Bunnybury Precision Drill Team. And, of course, I've been there for GoomerFest, every single time.

    But there were, like, maybe three thousand people heading through the palace gates. Most likely even more. And when you think about how sparsely populated Oz is—how pared-down it is from that population bomb that we call Earth—it started to seem like every single person in Oz had showed up for this thing.

    Then again, it was a command performance.

    And the cloud was coming closer.

    I muscled politely through a crowd of Gurkins, large pleasuredotted fellows with a rich garlic scent. They were from the northern country, up above Tattypoo, and rarely showed up around here. They looked sweaty and tense, which was only natural; the cloud had most certainly swept over their land. And besides, they have a vinegar base, which I'd think would make anyone edgy.

    Beyond them was a bevy of Flutterbudgets, loudly moaning and wringing their hands. I rolled my eyes, hustled Gene and Ralph past them; that kind of negativity was not what those boys needed to hear.

    The Flutterbudgets are a species of chronic complainers that live just southwest of the city. Long-limbed and droopy-faced, they are largely contained to a single village, because they are, frankly, the most annoying species in Oz. At least so far as I know.

    In the best of times—which is most of the time—they are beset with ceaseless, utterly unsubstantiated dread. Nothing you can say will assuage their fears. Nothing you can do could possibly pose a real solution. It's like every speck of paranoid psychosis in Oz got naturally selected into these people: like they're the liver in the astral body, the psychic repository for everyone's toxic loser vibes.

    On the one hand, that might help account for why everyone else is so nice. On the other hand...jeez! What a bunch of whiners!

    It struck me that, this time, maybe they had something to whine about. They hadn't been affected yet; but if Emerald City fell, they were among the next in line. It was a short jump over Lake Quad, and the few Quadling villages in between, to their home.

    And, honestly, it was hard to imagine any Evil Force being merciful when it came to dealing with Flutterbudgets. I was half-tempted to smack them myself.

    So, of course, the primary verbal motif was, "AUGHH! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" I could see that it was getting to Gene.

    "They're not oracles, are they?" he asked me in earnest.

    "No, they're assholes," I countered. "Come on!"

    Next, we ran into the gang from Utensia: King Kleaver; Captain Dipp of the Spoon Brigade; a whole army of walking cutlery, looking sharp and shiny. Their attitude was a whole lot more positive. In fact, they were downright gung ho. Not real smart, but it didn't matter. I was really glad to have them on our side.

    Of course, seeing himself refected in an enormous walking butter knife didn't make Gene feel much better. The memory of his battlefeld adventure from the other day was obviously still too fresh. I held two fngers up behind his head, gave him wiggly devil horns, and he didn't even laugh.

    "We're almost there," I said.

    We waded our way through the China People: a bit dirty from their journey, but exquisite nonetheless. Innumerable gillikins, munchkins, winkies and quadlings milled about, their reactions pretty equally spread between optimism and worry. Miss Cuttenclip's Paper Soldiers stood at the ready, but rippled in the faint breeze as we passed. Gobs of others were there, far too numerous to mention.

    And then I saw Mikio, hurrying toward us, a handful of his posse in close pursuit. I listed to the right, keeping my fellers in tow, snuck past some Dilly-Dallyers, and arrived at intercept point.

    "Hi!' he said. "You look amazing!" I blushed (I bet) and responded in kind. He hugged me hard. I hugged him back. Then he looked at me, and I looked at him.

    "This is fucking intense!" he said, and I laughed.

    "No arguing with that."

    "So what are we going to do?" he asked.

    "I guess we're about to fnd out."

    "I had a dream last night," he said. "It was one of those Nicola Tesla-type things. You know, where you see a device in your dreams. You see all its working parts. And you know that if you built it just like that, it would work exactly the way you want it to?"

    "Yeah," I said. "Actually, I do."

    "But I'm missing a piece," he said. "And I don't where to fnd it. I'm just trusting that I wouldn't get a vision like this if I wasn't supposed to pull it off..."

    Just then, the gong sounded again: so loud now that I felt my fllings rattle.

    We stood maybe ffteen yards from the gate to the palace, where Tik Tok and his brethren acted as doormen for the throngs. I looked up, and saw clearly the balcony from which Ozma would no doubt address us. It hung two stories up, ornately ballustrated, offering a clear view to all.

    Jellia Jamb—Ozma's personal maid and constant companion— emerged onto the balcony. She had a large feather-duster which she used to dust off the balcony's rail. A roar went through the crowd— the kind you'd hear when they tested the drum mics just before a Metallica concert—and Jellia waved, her sweet smile a benediction on the crowd.

    "I better head up to the front," I said to Mikio, casting a glance back at Gene and Ralph. "Ozma wants to see the three of us. How 'bout you?"

    Mikio shrugged. "Not so I know."

    I wanted to kiss him so bad in that moment. I don't know what it is with me. I see someone I love, and I want to merge faces, to communicate with tactile tongue what I can't get across with words.

    But the gong was still bonging, and I'm just so goddam shy. So instead, I gave him a big shrug back.

    "See you later," I said.

    And then he was gone, as I pushed through the crowd, heading up to the gate itself.

Once again, Tik Tok greeted me frst. "Miss Aurora," he said. "You look frightening again."

    "And you look even shinier! These are my friends, Gene and Ralph."

    "Gene and Ralph are welcome. Let me escort you to your place."

    In that moment, I took stock of my companions. They did not look well. Gene was doing what I fgured he'd be doing. It was Ralph I was worried about. While Gene absorbed the strangeness— waggling somewhere between astonishment, sarcasm, and fear— Ralph looked like he was ready to bolt any minute.

    Of course, the question was: where could he run? Back out of Emerald, straight into the hordes? Perhaps they'd accept him. But could he accept them? For all his crappy allegiences, he struck me as a pretty all-right guy. Could he really just march back in and attack us? I doubted it sincerely.

    On the other hand, there was the escape hatch back to Kansas. No doubt, he could force his way back to that. Unless I stopped him. Which would be easier said than done. Short of whacking his head off, it would be hand-to-hand struggle, with none of the closure that comes with simple death. Assuming he didn't kick my ass—a defnite possibility—I'd be his prison guard then. I'd be a fucking cop.

    "Ralph?" I said to him. "You coming?"

    He looked me in the eyes then, and what I saw was: no exit. Whatever might be waiting for him on the other side of the interdimensional door, it sure as hell wasn't escape. I thought about that, tried to imagine how deeply my old world was trying to interpenetrate here. Meaty Meat. CIA.

    It gave me the willies.

    Pretty clearly, it gave Ralph the willies, too. He took a deep breath before he answered.

    "Uh huh," he said.

    Then the three of us—four, counting Tik Tok—were trundling down the Emerald Carpet, shown our places at the front of the in-fltering throng. Lion and Tiger were already there, as was Scarecrow. It was great, once again, to see them.

    Ralph looked embarrassed, amidst their company—actually, ashamed is more to the point—but they all greeted him with great warmth and openness, which I'm quite sure made him feel even worse.