Authors: Danielle Paige
“Do not humble yourself before me, Wizard,” the fairy said. It sounded a lot like the fairy was making fun of him. “We are practically—well, I wouldn’t say
equals
, but my people are the rightful rulers of Oz, and you, once upon a time, usurped the throne—so we have a certain degree of experience in common, do we not?” The mockery in his voice was now unmistakable. Hex felt stupid and small. Pete had said he hadn’t been much of a wizard, but he’d just been dragged through all kinds of trials, and the last thing he needed was some stupid creep in a weird getup making him feel small.
“You know I don’t remember anything,” he said angrily. “I’m here because Pete said you could help me if I passed your stupid test. Is that true, or should I just leave?”
The fairy laughed, and this time his laughter seemed genuine rather than malicious. Hex almost rolled his eyes in frustration. What was the deal with these people? Were they just toying with him? Did they even mean to help him at all? He’d had no reason to trust Pete to begin with, and now he was beginning to wonder if Pete had had some ulterior motive all along.
“I can give you back your memories, Wizard,” the fairy said.
“But a choice lies in front of you; a crossroads of a kind. You must choose your path before we can give you back what you have lost.”
“A choice?”
So this is it
, Hex thought.
This is the final test.
The monkeys had tested his Wisdom—and he had failed. The Lion had tested his Courage—and he had passed. What was left? What happened if he failed? Would they really kill him, like Pete said?
“What do you think is left, Wizard?” the fairy king said. “Wisdom, Courage—what other virtue before you remains but Love?” He said the word “love” with a tone of such contempt that Hex nearly flinched. “Do you accept my challenge? Am I so much more frightening than the Lion, that you cannot trust the test I lay before you?”
That was not exactly reassuring. Hex raised an eyebrow. “What happens if I fail?”
The fairy sat up in his chair, and looked at Hex with a gaze that pinned him like an insect. “Then you are of no more use to us,” he said, “and people who are of no use to the fairies do not last long in Oz.”
“I thought Ozma was supposed to be good!” Hex protested.
“Ozma,” the king snorted, and a titter ran through the assembled crowd. “Ozma has her uses, but she is the least of all of us. Wizard, I grow impatient. Will you begin the test, or keep yapping all day?”
Hex stared at the fairy king, who blew a set of lazy smoke rings at the ceiling. “Take off your clothes,” the king said flatly,
“and enter the pool. And then, Wizard, we will see what stuff you are made of.”
“Here?” Hex asked, bewildered.
“Where else?” It all seemed like some elaborate practical joke. Hex would take off his clothes, and they’d all laugh at him, and that would be the end of it; he’d be humiliated, they’d have had their fun. Suddenly, he found that he didn’t care. He was tired of cryptic pronouncements, inexplicable quests, mysterious allusions to a past he knew nothing about. If this was his chance to find out who he was and end it, he was willing to take it. And if not? If they killed him? So be it. It couldn’t be worse than the Lion, whatever they did. At least, it didn’t
seem
like it could be worse than the Lion. He stripped off his jacket and trousers and undergarments; the fairy king raised one eyebrow, but said nothing, and Hex sensed that he was almost impressed.
He didn’t think I could do it.
He stood before the fairies with his back straight, naked as the day he was born. “I accept your test,” he said, and then he walked to the pool and jumped in.
The water was as thick and viscous as oil, and he sank like a stone, realizing belatedly that he had not thought to ask how deep the pool was—and it seemed that the person he had once been had no idea how to swim. Without thinking, he opened his mouth to shout in terror, and the black liquid poured down his throat and entered his body, turning his limbs heavy and his thoughts slow and strange. He was drifting through darkness—he found, to his surprise, that he could breathe, although the air was heavy and close and scented with something unfamiliar but
not unpleasant. Faintly sweet, like a delicate wildflower.
“Welcome, Wizard,” said a gentle voice. It came from everywhere and nowhere, surrounding him like the water itself; it was kind, but underneath the kindness was steel.
“Who are you?” he asked, and found that he could speak as easily as he could breathe—where was he? What kind of pool was this?
“You are in a place between places,” the voice said. “A place between times. Between what has come before, and what is yet to pass. The pool of the fairies is a very old and very powerful thing. It is here that you must make your final choice. But first, I have something to show you.”
“Who are you?” he asked again, and the voice laughed.
“I am Ozma,” it said, “and Lurline before her, and all the fairy queens who have ruled this country. I am made out of the magic of Oz itself. I
am
Oz, Wizard. Now pay attention.” The darkness around him swirled into an image of what he knew must be Oz, but not the Oz he had traveled through: this vision was a terrible one. Dark factories scarred the once-verdant landscape, belching black smoke into the toxic air. Munchkins in chains toiled miserably in the fields, drawing magic out of the earth with terrible machines as a glittering pink witch floated over them, her mouth drawn into a horrible grin. The Lion tore through a village, leaving a pile of corpses in his wake, his mouth and hands red with blood as he laughed mercilessly. The clanking armies of the Tin Woodman marched endlessly across the barren plains where flowers had once bloomed, crops had once grown. Iris,
her wrists bound, wept piteously as a soldier dragged her behind him toward the Emerald Palace.
And then Hex saw himself and knew somehow that he was in the Other Place. He was in a huge room—a study or a library—filled with rich, expensive furniture. Bookcases stuffed with leather-bound books and curios lined one wall, and framed posters featuring his picture plastered another. His side table was crowded with flowers and cards; baskets of fan mail were piled beneath them. He was reading a book about magic, seated at an impressive oak desk covered in ornate carvings, while a butler brought him a glass of whiskey in a crystal highball glass on a little silver tray, bowing deeply.
“You can leave Oz,” the voice said. “You can return to the Other Place. This is the life that awaits you there—the life of a conjurer, a stage magician of great renown. You will be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams; you will perform for presidents and kings. Your magic will not be real, not the magic of Oz, but it will not matter—because audiences around the world will believe it is. You will live a long, illustrious life, and die a very old and very respected man.”
“But Oz . . . ,” he said.
“But Oz will become what you have seen. There will be no stopping the tide of Dorothy’s dark magic. Oz will fall.”
“And if I stay?”
“There are no certain things,” the voice said. “There is no way to see the end of this story until we are upon it. You have magic here, real magic. You have been transformed. If Oz is to
have a chance, it will be because you stay. But there are no guarantees.”
“I could give up everything and still fail?”
“You could.”
“The fairies mocked you.”
“Our line is . . . different from our kindred,” said the voice, and now it seemed impossibly sad. “The burdens of ruling Oz alone have changed us. Lurline’s descendants are true to Oz, but the other fairies have become corrupt and weak. They see only themselves. If you choose Oz, Wizard, you must be wary of them.”
He drifted through the dark water, confused and lost. “What about Pete?”
He could almost hear the voice smile. “What do you think of Pete?”
“I think he’s a jerk.”
Now the voice was definitely laughing. “Do not be so quick to judge, Wizard. Pete has his own burdens to carry, and his own secrets. All will be revealed to you in time—if you choose the people of Oz. If you do not . . .”
“If I don’t, the fairies will kill me.”
“The fairies are malicious, but not evil. Whatever they told you, they will not kill you. You will be returned safely to your own time, your own home. All of this will be behind you.” The voice grew sad again. “You will forget your time here, even as Oz ceases to exist. But you must know what you were, before you can choose what you will become. I give you your memories,
Wizard.”
The terrible vision of Oz, of Iris with her bound and bleeding wrists, vanished. And suddenly, his memory—the memory of who he had been, what he had done, his days in the palace and in the Other Place, the entire long, tangled ribbon of his life, spilled back into his head like wine pouring from a jar, until he was dizzy with it. The petty tricks he had played on the people as soon as he had arrived in Oz, the deceit—forcing them to build him the Emerald City, betraying the monkeys, avoiding the witches like the plague lest he be exposed as the fraud he so essentially was. His entire time in Oz had been marked with his craven cowardice and chicanery. He had made the worst possible choice at every turn. No wonder the monkeys had cursed him; no wonder Pete had treated him with such contempt. He was filled with an overwhelming shame. How could he face the people of Oz after what he had done? How could he possibly stay here? The only answer was to go somewhere no one knew him and start over.
It hardly seemed like a choice at all. “I choose—” He opened his mouth to ask her to send him back, send him home at last—but something stopped him at the last minute. What would happen to him if he returned to the Other Place? If he left behind what it was he had found here—the possibility that he was something far more than an ordinary man? He had felt the power of Oz’s magic running through him like a drug in his veins. To abandon that forever, once he had tasted it—what would that do to him? All the money and fame in the world could never come
close to that elation, that exhilarating moment in the clearing when he had felt the full power of Oz coursing through him, when almost anything had seemed possible. What if that power was the chance to redeem himself? What if it would make him a better man than he had been? If he left now, if he went back to the Other Place, he would live with the regret of his loss for all the rest of his years. He would lose the chance of undoing the terrible things he had done, and never be able to forgive himself for it. And more than anything else, even if he went back to riches and fame, he would never use magic—real magic—again. Never know what it was like to summon the power of Oz. Never find out what he was truly capable of, now that he could tap into Oz’s magic. And he knew, deep down, that regret would undo him, like a cancer in his heart.
“I choose Oz,” he said. All around him, he could hear the fairies crying out—in joy, in exhilaration, in triumph, he could not say. “I am the Wizard!” he cried aloud, and then all at once he had the sensation of flying through the air at a tremendous speed until he landed with a sudden, ungainly thump on the carpet at the fairy king’s feet, stark naked and dripping wet.
The fairy king sneered down at him. “So you have chosen us after all, Wizard,” he said, and beckoned to one of the fairies behind him. “Bring our Wizard a towel,” he added, laughing mockingly. “If you are truly to be the savior of Oz, Wizard, you might want to start by putting on some clothes.”
The fairies bustled about, wrapping him up in soft robes, rubbing dry his hair until he batted their hands away with irritation. They tried to dress him, but he turned his back to them and put his clothes on with as much dignity as he could muster. He was acutely conscious of the king’s amused gaze. A fairy brought him a mirror and a comb, and as he tidied his hair as best he could he saw that the face in the mirror was his own, his real face; Pete’s disguise had melted painlessly away. Another fairy offered him a glass of something hot and steaming. The surface of the liquid appeared to be glowing from within. “What
is
that?” he asked, eyeing it dubiously.
“Sunfruit Schnapps!” the fairy said cheerfully. The Wizard took a cautious sip and the fiery liquid slipped down his throat, setting him to coughing furiously. But soon a warm glow filled his stomach, and he found he didn’t mind the burn nearly as much after another few sips. The fairies tittered as he chugged
down the rest of the liquor and waved his cup around, which magically refilled itself.
“You have made your choice,” the fairy king said, and the excited buzz of the fairies fell silent at once.
“I have,” the Wizard said.
The fairy king smiled, a smile that did not reach his eyes. “We do not give, Wizard, without asking something in return. We have given you back yourself; we have offered you the power of Oz itself. And now, we will ask of you a tiny favor before you devote yourself to the glory of Oz.” Again, it was almost as though the fairy was making fun of him, the Wizard thought, his mind racing. Pete had been infuriating, but the Wizard had never doubted how much he cared about Oz. The fairies seemed different, though. The voice in the pool had said they were corrupt and weak. Was it possible they were trying to trick him? Was Pete working for them—or being used by them?
The Wizard narrowed his eyes. “Describe this . . . favor.”
“Long ago, you gave three gifts to three children of Oz—all of whom asked you for something they lacked. This much, I assume, you remember now?”
“The Cowardly Lion,” the Wizard said slowly. “The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman—but that was nothing. Those gifts weren’t even real. I had no power then.”
“Indeed, you thought nothing of answering their pleas, knowing that the magic they believed you had was nothing but an illusion. But what if I told you the illusion itself was a lie?”
“I don’t understand,” the Wizard said helplessly. “I was
never—I never had magic, before now. I don’t even know what happened back there with the Lion. It’s out of my control.”
“The journey from the Other Place transforms your kind in ways we do not yet understand,” the fairy king said. “In the crossing, you become something more—and perhaps something less—than what you once were. Like Dorothy, you had no magic in your world; like Dorothy, Oz has altered you. You have had the power of Oz at your disposal all this time, Wizard. When you created the three gifts—the Lion’s courage, the Tin Woodman’s heart, the Scarecrow’s brain—you thought you were only offering them a kind of panacea. But there was real magic, Old Magic, in those gifts—and when those from the Other Place make that discovery it often leads them down a path of perversion and abuse.