“You’re weird, moron,” said Gnick finally.
“Good job not getting killed,” said General Gnarly. “Lily, we need to talk, now!”
The pair of them moved away, leaving Gnick and Robert wondering what had just happened.
As Lily followed General Gnarly farther into the forest to escape earshot, she was surprised by the emergence of a feeling. She felt a sudden wave of admiration for Robert Darkly. She wasn’t used to feelings and she wondered what it could mean.
Chapter Eleven
Niggle
The concept of having a City of Oz that resided in the province of Oz was completely lost on many residents of Thiside. When the Emerald City had been left in ruins almost three hundred years ago, the best architects in all of Thiside were commissioned by the Wizards of Oz to build a new city. The architects charged an extortionate amount of money but no one batted an eyelid as they were, after all, the best. Despite many residents of the ruined Emerald City being homeless and living in overcrowded camps, the architects took almost a year to design and release their first plans for the new city, but this was completely understandable because they were the best.
Once the plans were released, most people had to look twice out of sheer disbelief. Upon review, the Wizards of Oz became severely confused. Instead of carefully laid out plans for an entire city, there were several large sheets of paper with some of the nicest finger-painting seen anywhere in Thiside or Othaside. The architects explained that they were the best at what they do and that drawing up plans was beneath them and that if the wizards wanted something more coherent than their highly detailed finger painting they should have said so. The architects were promptly fired.
The second group of architects to be hired had to be brought out of retirement as they were once the best but had since retired to a nice cottage on the Fairy Islands. They were Humanimals with the heads of pigs and the bodies of humans and there were three of them. They had built a great many houses in their time but had retired when an economic downturn, in the form of a particularly mean dragon, stole a large store of gold from the Seven Dwarves Mining Company, caused the bottom of the housing market to drop out entirely.
As construction of the city was already a year behind schedule, the Wizards of Oz agreed to use magic to help move the construction of the City of Oz along quickly. The three architects drew up plans, masonry was shipped in, the Wizards garnered the necessary magic, and construction of the city was completed in just under two weeks. The River Oz separated the city itself into two halves. It was a sad fact that, although steeped in magic, the Wizards of Oz had the creative capacity of a brick. When it came to naming the city, its landmarks, and other important elements, all the names ended up having Oz in the title somewhere. On the north side of the river lived the downtown and industrial areas and the south comprised the residential end of the city. The roads were all cobblestoned and narrow to maintain the look and feel of the old Emerald City. The buildings were tightly packed and stacked high and the High Castle of Oz that housed the City Guard and the Council of Wizards was built out of emerald stone quarried from the ruins of the Emerald City.
It was the tall green towers, sparkling despite the overcast sky, which Rumpelstiltskin observed from his hiding spot in a nearby alleyway. He needed to talk to someone in those towers, one wizard in particular; an old acquaintance. The Dwarf guessed that the wizard probably wasn’t going to be happy to see him but Rumpelstiltskin needed a favor; a favor that only a wizard could do.
He pulled on the ragged cloak he’d found in the alleyway and kicked the old man he’d found wearing it as he groaned on the alley floor. The Dwarf slipped from the alley, quickly crossed the street, and scrambled up and over the emerald wall, then dropped heavily into the Castle gardens.
The gardens were created by a colour-blind wizard horticulturist by the name of Eric. He didn’t want to be a wizard; he just wanted to grow pretty flowers. It’d been Eric’s parents who had forced him into wizardry, although really no one was forced into wizardry, it just naturally found them. No one really understood how, but it had something to do with magic accidentally penetrating the womb not long after conception. The wizarding community experimented with forcing magic into the wombs of several pregnant women, but the result was a group of children who came in a variety of interesting and unique shades of purple. Magic accidentally had to intrude upon the foetus for it to produce a wizard, concluding with a certain amount of finality that even magic likes to have a little fun now and then.
Eric was found to have the wizard’s gift at a young age when he blew up his aunty Flo’s pet borogove. His love of gardening always intruded upon his magical training but he was overjoyed to find that he could blend his necessity for magic with his love of horticulture by creating and growing fabulously strange plants and shrubs. The other wizards avoided the Castle Gardens at all costs, as they often failed to perceive the beauty that Eric saw in his beloved creations.
It was these horrifically multi-coloured creations that now stared at the Dwarf with looks ranging from bewilderment that someone was actually in their garden to anger that someone had the audacity to intrude upon their garden. A horrible side effect of creating plants using magic was that they were often not only self-aware, but also aware of everything that was going on around them. Many of them also had the capacity to move and in some cases to talk, although not always in an understandable language. Magic being an ancient force, it was sometimes associated with the language of the Jabberwockies which was simply called Jabberwocky. Some believed it to be a grand language full of wisdom and the hidden meaning of the creation of all things. Others believed it to be a load of crap.
“What you doin’ ere ya lil blanderskite?” said a particularly offensive orange and purple fern.
Rumpelstiltskin had heard of the garden and understood the best thing to do was ignore the plants altogether.
“Wargen you baraganth mankdweller?” intruded a group of tulips who were a sharp shade of grey.
“You,” began a giant pink-leaved grassy sort of bush, “are intruding on private property. I suggest you leave.”
Rumpelstiltskin waved a dismissive hand toward the grassy bush and walked on.
The grass whipped out a long tendril and wrapped itself around the Dwarf’s wrist.
“It’s very rude not to answer when you’re being spoken to,” said the bush.
“Kigan landagger dagga doo,” said the tulips.
“Feed him to the bandersnooter!” shouted the fern.
“Get off me, you damned plants!” said Rumpelstiltskin.
“Ahh, so you can talk,” said the bush.
“Bandersnooter!” shouted the fern again.
“Easy, my orange friend. Let’s hear what he’s doing here. Maybe he’s simply come to converse with us.”
“No one ever talks with us, yer manky little shrub!” shouted the fern.
“Do you see what I have to deal with?” said the bush to the Dwarf. “Any company is good company when you’re rooted to the spot but they’re all such Neanderthals that a fresh conversation is always welcome. So how about it? Care to stay a while?” The bush nonchalantly wrapped a few more tendrils around Rumpelstiltskin’s mid-section.
The hatchet he’d stolen from the settlement hung at his side under his cloak.
“Well, I suppose if you’d care to loosen your grip, I could stay for a little while,” smiled the Dwarf.