The Oz Series

Chapter 52

Part of the Ozma of Oz: The Land of Ev and the Nome King arc.

This encyclopedia covers chapters 1 to 100 of the story and shows the world as it stands at chapter 100, so it contains spoilers up to that point. To read it spoiler free, one chapter at a time, open the interactive codex.

What happens

After roughly an hour, most of the band of Wheelers rolls back into the forest, leaving only three of their number to guard the hill; these three curl up like big dogs and pretend to sleep on the sands. Neither Dorothy nor Billina is fooled by the ruse, so they remain among the rocks and ignore their cunning enemies. Billina, fluttering over the mound, discovers a smooth path cut between the rocks that winds around the mound from top to bottom like a cork-screw, always remaining level and easy to walk upon. Dorothy climbs to Billina and follows the path; at its foot she finds that several big pieces of rock have been placed across the end, hiding the path from outside view and preventing the Wheelers from climbing up.

Dorothy walks back up the path to the very top of the hill, where a solitary round rock, bigger than the others, stands. The path ends beside this great rock. Billina, whose sharp round eyes see everything, points out a crack in the rock that runs up one side, down the other, and across the top and bottom, resembling a door, and Dorothy identifies a round, deep hole at one side as a key-hole. Dorothy recalls the golden key she picked up on the shore, finds it in her dress pocket, inserts it into the hole, and turns it. A sharp snap sounds, then a solemn creak, and the face of the rock falls outward like a door on hinges, revealing a small dark chamber.

Inside the narrow chamber stands the form of a man, only about as tall as Dorothy, with a body round as a ball and made of burnished copper, his head and limbs also copper and jointed to his body with metal caps over the joints like a knight's armor. Billina reassures the frightened Dorothy that the figure is not alive, being only made of copper like the old kettle in the barn-yard at home. Dorothy compares it to Nick Chopper, the tin woodman she once knew who was born a real man and gained his tin body a piece at a time after axe accidents; but she notes this copper man is not alive at all and wonders why it was made and locked up.

Stepping inside to view the copper man's back, Dorothy discovers a printed card suspended from a small copper peg at the back of his neck. She unfastens it, returns to the path, and reads it aloud. The card identifies the figure as SMITH & TINKER'S Patent Double-Action, Extra-Responsive, Thought-Creating, Perfect-Talking MECHANICAL MAN, fitted with a Special Clock-Work Attachment that thinks, speaks, acts, and does everything but live, manufactured only at their Works at Evna, Land of Ev, with a warning that all infringements will be prosecuted. A second card gives DIRECTIONS FOR USING: wind under the left arm (No. 1) for thinking, under the right arm (No. 2) for speaking, and in the middle of the back (No. 3) for walking and action, with a note that the mechanism is guaranteed to work perfectly for a thousand years.

Deciding to wind him up, Dorothy takes the clock key from the peg where she found the card. On Billina's advice she winds Number One first, which sets him thinking, though no outward change is visible. She then winds Number Two, and the clock-work man speaks in a hoarse, creaky, monotonous voice, greeting the little girl and Mrs. Hen and thanking them for rescuing him. He explains his history: he was purchased from Smith & Tinker by a cruel King of Ev named Evoldo, who beat his servants until they died but could not kill the machine because it was never alive. This cruel king had a lovely wife and ten beautiful children (five boys and five girls) whom, in a fit of anger, he sold to the Nome King; the Nome King changed them all into other forms and placed them in his underground palace as ornaments. Afterward the King of Ev regretted his action, tried unsuccessfully to recover his family, and in despair locked the copper man in the rock, threw the key into the ocean, and jumped in after it and drowned.

The machine relates that after being imprisoned he shouted until his voice ran down, walked until his action ran down, and thought until his thoughts ran down, remembering nothing until Dorothy wound him. Dorothy explains she found the key washed up on the shore. She winds Number Three, and the copper man walks stiffly out of the cavern, removes his copper hat, bows, and kneels, declaring himself her obedient servant so long as she keeps him wound. He gives his name as Tiktok, so called by his former master because his clock-work ticks when wound. He assures Dorothy he does not strike and has no alarm, but can tell time by speaking and, never sleeping, can wake her at any hour. Billina offers that Dorothy can sleep until the hen lays her egg around eight o'clock, after which Billina's cackle will signal Tiktok to waken her.

Who is in play

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