The Oz Series

Chapter 82

Part of the Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz: The Underground World arc.

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What happens

With their eight wings the friends maintain their head start, flying as fast as the pursuing Gargoyles all the way to the great rock; when Jim alights at the mouth of the cavern the pursuers are still some distance behind. Fearing the Gargoyles will catch up, the Wizard resolves to stop them: he and Zeb tear off the now-useless wooden wings, and the Wizard piles them just outside the cavern entrance, pours over them all the kerosene oil remaining in his oil-can, and lights the pile. The flames leap up smoking, roaring, and crackling just as the great army of Gargoyles arrives; the creatures draw back in fear and horror, having never known fire in their wooden land. Zeb and the Wizard lift several wooden doors from their hinges inside the archway and toss them on the flames, creating a lasting barrier and possibly setting fire to the whole wooden country, which the Wizard says would be small loss. He urges the children onward to escape the cavern, which is growing oven-hot.

To their disappointment there is no regular flight of steps to the surface within this mountain, only an inclined tunnel leading upward over rough, steep floor. A sudden turn brings them to a narrow gallery the buggy cannot pass, delaying them since they do not wish to abandon the buggy that carries their baggage and has served them so long. Zeb and the Wizard remove the wheels and top, set the buggy edgewise, and with the patient cab-horse's aid drag it through the narrow part, then reassemble it beyond and proceed more comfortably. But the road is only a series of rifts and cracks going zig-zag, slanting up and down, leaving them unsure whether they are any nearer the top of the earth than hours before. Dorothy takes comfort in having escaped the Gargoyles; the Wizard believes the Gargoyles are still fighting the fire and could scarcely fly amongst the rocks anyway, so they need fear them no longer.

They occasionally cross deep cracks in the floor, dangerous but jumpable, with enough lantern oil to light the way, and climb over heaps of loose rock where Jim can barely drag the buggy, with Dorothy, Zeb, and the Wizard pushing behind and lifting the wheels. Weary and discouraged, they round a sharp corner into a vast circular cave arching high overhead with a smooth level floor. Around its edge near the ground appear groups of dull yellow lights, always two side by side, at first motionless, then flickering brighter and swaying side to side and up and down. Eureka, arching her back with hair on end, snarls that it is a den of alligators or crocodiles and points out their terrible eyes; being able to see better in the dark, she describes creatures with eyes like pie-plates and mouths like coal-scuttles but bodies not very big, set in little pockets around the cavern edge, uglier than the Gargoyles.

A rasping voice nearby chides Eureka for criticizing neighbors, claiming its mother said they were the loveliest and prettiest things in the world. The Wizard floods one pocket with lantern light and exclaims it is a dragon; the owner of the big yellow eyes corrects him, saying they are only dragonettes, young dragons not yet allowed to call themselves real dragons until full-grown. The dragonette explains its mother has gone to the top of the earth to hunt dinner and may bring an elephant, a brace of rhinoceri, or a few dozen people, since the dragonettes eat people when available but have lately made do with elephants or buffaloes because people are scarce. It states it is quite young, having been sixty-six years old the day before yesterday, along with its brothers and sisters, and that their mother is about two thousand years old but lost track and skipped several hundred years, being a fussy widow still in her prime and afraid of growing old.

Dorothy asks whether they are friends or enemies and whether the dragonettes will be good or eat them; the dragonette answers they would love to eat the party but their mother has tied all their tails around the rocks at the backs of their individual caves so they cannot crawl out, meaning the friends are safe unless they come near. All the dragonettes sigh dismally with regret. The mother tied them because she is sometimes gone for weeks and would otherwise find them fighting and getting into mischief; she usually knows what she is about but erred this time, since the travelers will escape unless they come too close. Dorothy declines to be eaten by such awful beasts, and the dragonette complains she is impolite to call them names when they cannot resent it, boasting of a beautiful appearance and an excellent family with a pedigree extending back about twenty thousand years to the famous Green Dragon of Atlantis, who lived before humans were created. Dorothy replies she was born on a farm in Kansas, which she considers just as respectable.

Reassured the creatures cannot reach them, the children and Wizard examine the dragonettes closely: their heads are as big as barrels, covered with hard greenish scales glittering under the lanterns, their front legs (growing just behind their heads) strong and big, but their bodies smaller around than their heads, dwindling to tails as slim as shoe-strings. Dorothy reckons that if sixty-six years produced this size, a full hundred more years must pass before they can call themselves dragons. The Wizard decides they ought to leave before the mother dragon returns; a dragonette invites them to stay and meet her, but the Wizard declines and asks which way the mother went to reach the earth's surface. The dragonettes refuse to answer, reasoning that a true answer would let the party escape while a false one would make them naughty and deserving of punishment. Dorothy concludes they must find their own way out. Circling the cavern at a safe distance from the blinking eyes, they discover two paths leading from the wall opposite their entrance, select one at a venture, and hurry along it as fast as they can, anxious to avoid meeting the mother dragon.

Who is in play

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