Ruler of Beasts (Dorothy Must Die, #0.6)(9)
But Ozma was often busy with royal duties. Not all of the Emerald City had recovered from Jinjur’s brief, catastrophic rule, and Ozma was occupied with overseeing reconstruction of areas that had been destroyed. Ozma always invited him to attend her various meetings and conferences with her, but the Lion was easily bored by the endless talking and planning. As the King of the Beasts, he had never had to do much administration. The Lion waited patiently for a good moment to search for Glinda’s necklace, but someone was always around—if not Ozma, one of the many courtiers who advised her.
At last, his chance came. Ozma called an important meeting and everyone from her most trusted counselors to the least important state undersecretary shut themselves up in the banquet hall. He was alone and could start the search Glinda had compelled him to perform.
The occupied parts of the palace seemed like an unlikely place to find it; surely someone would have noticed something as unusual as a ruby necklace. Instead, he began his search in the wine cellars, where huge barrels of wine lay in a thick coat of dust. The Lion idly poked his paw into the cracks between barrels, feeling almost silly. What could Glinda possibly want with some silly old piece of jewelry, anyway, even if he was able to find it? His search dislodged an avalanche of dust and debris, and he sneezed violently.
“Hello?” called an anxious voice from the stairwell. The Lion looked around for a hiding place, but the gaps between the wine casks were too narrow. The wine steward, a short, fat Munchkin with an enormous beard that obscured most of his face, came down the stairs and stopped short at the sight of the Lion.
“Your Highness,” he said suspiciously. “What are you doing down here, sir?”
The Lion had to stifle a laugh when he realized the steward thought he was trying to steal a drink. “Just, er, checking to make sure everything looks all right down here,” he said. “You know how Her Majesty worries.”
The steward’s eyes narrowed. “It’s my job to make sure the cellars are in order.”
“And an excellent job you’re doing, too,” the Lion said loftily, sweeping past him and bounding up the stairs. “Keep up the good work.”
He tried again a few days later after dinner, ducking out of the banquet hall just as dessert was being served. (He didn’t care for ambleberry custard, which had a habit of walking away from the person trying to eat it.) But he’d barely gotten away from the busiest part of the palace before he heard Ozma’s anxious voice behind him. “Lion! Dear Lion, I was hoping you might have tea with me in my chambers.” The loneliness in the queen’s voice was unmistakable.
“Of course, Your Highness,” he said. He wasn’t sorry to turn away from his task. It had seemed so important, so burning, when Glinda had left him. But as the days passed in the palace her request seemed less and less important. It was as if the palace itself—or perhaps the continual hum of Ozma’s magic—was insulating him from Glinda’s will.
After his second attempt, he more or less gave up searching for Glinda’s necklace. He must have imagined the threat in her tone when she’d visited him in the Kingdom of the Beasts. As the days turned into weeks, the Lion happily ate his way through the palace stores and spent time with Ozma whenever he could. He forgot the joys of running through the forest with the wind in his fur and the satisfaction of hunting his own prey. He grew lazier and lazier, soon reluctant even to accompany Ozma on her walks. He could have stayed at Ozma’s side in the Emerald Palace indefinitely—and he would have, if Ozma hadn’t decided it was time to save Oz.
SEVEN
The Lion had gotten into the habit of sleeping in every morning and ordering a late breakfast in his room, but that morning Ozma summoned him just after dawn. She did not seem to have slept, and her face was worried and exhausted. She sent a servant to fetch them breakfast and then turned to face the Lion. “I’ve been thinking all night,” she began, skipping any formalities. “I think it’s for the best you’ve come to the palace now. My dear Lion, I’m afraid I need your courage—and your counsel. No one else knows yet, but Oz is on the brink of war.”
The Lion stared at her. “War? Again? With who?”
She sighed wearily and rubbed her forehead with the heel of one hand, looking far more vulnerable than he had ever seen her. “Do you know of the Land of Ev?”
“Ev? But that’s just a legend, isn’t it?” The Lion had heard stories of the fabled country beyond the Deadly Desert, but he’d always assumed they were just children’s fairy stories. “There’s nothing past the Deadly Desert but the Other Place.”
“I wish that were true. But Ev is another country just like Oz, though the fairies didn’t have any hand in founding it. And just like Oz, it has its own counties and rulers. My ancestors traveled through Ev to reach the place where they created Oz, and brought with them stories of their journey. Ev is a far less kind place than Oz is, peopled with strange, cruel creatures who do not love peace the way we do. Many of them have searched for years for a way through the desert to Oz, and now one of their most evil tyrants has found one.”
“Who?” the Lion breathed.
“The Nome King,” Ozma said. The Lion had never heard of such a person, but something about the way Ozma said the name sent a chill through him. “He lives in an underground palace, and rules over a people who are the distant kin of fairies. He is evil, through and through; he thrives on the pain and suffering of others, and all but the most powerful of his people live like slaves. He forces them to mine the earth for precious metals and jewels, and in addition to being powerful, he’s incredibly rich. He’s like the fairies in that he can’t die—he’s hundreds of years old, maybe even older. For a long time he’s been building a network of tunnels under the Deadly Desert, and he’s finally reached his goal. He’ll be at the Emerald City in a matter of days. His magic is so strong that I can sense him coming. I can even sense his plans. He’s not trying to hide; he knows how vulnerable we are here.”