“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.”
TWELVE
“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.”