The Oz Series
Chapter 64
Part of the Ozma of Oz: The Land of Ev and the Nome King arc.
What happens
The yellow hen Billina walks importantly through the splendid rooms of the Nome King's underground palace. Billina alone shares the Nome King's secret and knows how to distinguish transformed objects from those never alive, so she is confident her guesses will be correct, but first she surveys the palace's magnificence. As she goes through the rooms she counts the purple ornaments, finding all ten scattered about, though she does not bother counting the green ones, trusting she can find them when needed. Returning to a room with a large purple footstool, she places a claw on it and says 'Ev,' and it vanishes to reveal the tall, slender, richly robed Queen of Ev, who cannot remember her transformation. Billina identifies herself, explains she has freed the Queen from the Nome King, and reassures the anxious mother that her children are enchanted but safe.
Billina leads the Queen into the next room. Passing a low table she pounces on a small green grasshopper and snaps it into her bill, but finds it hard and lifeless and drops it, realizing it is one of the King's transformations since live grasshoppers cannot exist where there is no grass; this grasshopper is in fact the transformed Ozma of Oz, who narrowly escapes being swallowed. Billina then disenchants a purple ornament into a golden-haired girl, Evanna, whom the Queen embraces, and proceeds to restore the rest of the royal family: the Princesses Evanna, Evrose, Evella, Evirene and Evedna, and the Princes Evrob, Evington, Evardo and Evroland. Evardo is the eldest and will inherit the throne and be crowned King of Ev when he returns to his country, being a grave and quiet youth expected to rule wisely.
Having restored all nine royal children plus the Queen, Billina next selects the green ornaments, which are the transformations of the people of Oz, freeing all twenty-six officers and the private, so that thirty-seven living people now fill the palace, all grateful to the clever hen. Billina then searches for Ozma, who as an Oz native would be green; the search yields nothing until the Queen suggests the grasshopper Billina had seen. Billina returns to the grasshopper and disenchants it, and Ozma of Oz appears and greets the Queen of Ev as one princess greets another. Ozma asks after the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman.
Billina locates the Scarecrow and Tiktok, both solid gold ornaments, and restores them, but no funny ornament matching the transformed Tin Woodman can be found. Ozma decides they must return to the Nome King and compel him to reveal what became of their friend, condemning the King for entrapping them under a mask of fairness. Tiktok blames Smith & Tinker for his misjudgment of the King's honesty, and Ozma kindly defends his makers. The group starts for the entrance in procession, led by Ozma, then the Queen and her children, Tiktok, and the Scarecrow with Billina on his shoulder, followed by the officers and private. As the doors open, they stop in dismay: the domed cavern is filled with ranks of the Nome King's mail-clad warriors with gleaming electric lights on their brows and poised battle-axes, standing motionless, while the little King sits on his rock throne, his face distorted with rage.
Who is in play
- Dorothy
- Ozma
- Tin Woodman
- Billina
- Scarecrow
- Tiktok
- Evring
- ozma_rescue_expedition
- Queen of Ev
- Nome King's Palace
- nome_army
- royal_family_of_ev
- Evardo
- the Nome King
- the twenty-seven soldiers
- Evanna