Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond (45 page)

“What did they talk about?”

“About sad things,” said Mr. Bucklebelt, and he felt sad to say it. “The dragons were the last of their kind. Each of them, be it shadow dragon or red-clay dragon or corn dragon, they were the last of their kind.”

“What happened to all the others? To their mommas and daddas and all their sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins?”

“Dead,” said the cobbler. “All dead. Just as most of those dragons are probably dead now. Bones and dust, like Shallasa the sea is salt and sand. Nothing lives forever. Not even dragons.”

Nyla looked sad. “That’s terrible. Dragons are immortal; they’re forever.”

“Even mountains don’t last forever and ever.” The cobbler took a breath and shook his head as if shaking off sad thoughts. He got up and tottered over to a big chest that had been placed on painted sawhorses. Mr. Bucklebelt fished inside his shirt and produced a golden key that hung from a silver chain. He looked forlornly at the key, then inserted it in the chest and opened the lock. The cobbler raised the lid and removed several items that he carefully set aside. Then he removed a parcel that was wrapped in the very finest silk. He brought this over to the counter and placed it with great reverence in front of Nyla. The cobbler licked his lips nervously and then peeled back the corners of the silk wrapping to reveal the ugliest pair of shoes the little Monkey had ever seen.

They were tiny and battered, with holes in each sole and many signs of damage and wear. And though there were sequins sewn onto them, each sequin was as pale as ash and devoid of luster.

Nyla gave Bucklebelt a puzzled expression. “What shoes are these?”

“Why,” he cried, “these are the dragon-scale traveling shoes!”

“But…they aren’t magical shoes at all. These are just a pair of dirty old shoes.” Tears sprang into the Monkey’s eyes. “You’re trying to fool me. You’re making fun of me like everyone else does. I thought you might be different, but you’re just as cruel.”

The cobbler leaned back and laughed. And yet it was not a mocking laugh, or a cruel laugh, or even an embarrassed laugh of someone whose prank has been found out. No, this was a hearty laugh filled with jolly merriment.

“But my girl, these
are
the dragon-scale shoes, make no mistake.”

“How can they be? They’re so old and ugly and small.”

Bucklebelt shook his head. “Don’t be so quick to judge. These shoes have walked more miles than there are stars in the summer sky. They were made for a little princess who wanted to see the whole world before she ascended to her throne to become a queen. She wanted to walk on every street, dance at every ball, and play with every child. She wanted to walk behind the ploughman and stroll the streets with the flower sellers and climb the watchtower steps with the sentinels. This little princess wanted to know everything about her kingdom so that she could rule with knowledge and understanding.”

“That must have taken a long, long time.”

“The observing took time but not the traveling,” he said. “For with these shoes, she could run from Gillikin Country to Quadling Country and back twice in an afternoon. To anyone else that’s a journey of weeks upon weeks. And run she did, because it was important to her to know everything she needed to know before she wore the crown.”

“She must have been a very great princess.”

“A great princess she was…but a great queen she did not become.”

“Why not? If the shoes could take her everywhere…”

The cobbler looked left and right to make sure no one stood near his market stall. Then he leaned in close again. “Because the Wizard of Oz came and destroyed all her dreams.”

“I don’t understand…the Wizard is the savior of Oz.”

“Is he? Is that what they teach in schools these days? Oh, sad times. Oz, the Great and Terrible, came from far away and with his magic, he overthrew the kingdom and set himself up as the Wizard King of the Emerald City.” He sighed.
“It is treason to say this much, but I must because it is part of the story of the dragon-scale traveling shoes.”

“Oh dear, what happened?” cried Nyla, clutching her leather bag to her chest.

“What happened indeed,” Bucklebelt mused, and he had to fight to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “When the princess returned here after all her journeys, she was prepared to be empress of all the land, and a fair and just empress she would have been. All the lands, all the people would have been one under her rule, and with the dragon-scale shoes she could have walked abroad over her entire reign to see that justice was done and that everyone lived according to her laws. We would have had a golden age.”

“Surely she could not have worn these shoes when she was a queen. They are so—”

“Dirty and damaged?” He shook his head. “With the magic broken, they simply show the wear of all those miles she walked.”

“No, I mean that they are so small. If she wore them as a little girl, she could not have worn them as an adult.”

“Ah, now,” he said, grinning, “that’s part of their magic. When they were working properly, they grew with her and changed with her. They would have become the shoes of a young woman and then a full-grown woman. And if she left them to a daughter or heir, those shoes would change to perfectly fit the feet of whoever had the right to wear them. But that is all broken, as the shoes are broken. The magic in them sleeps.”

Nyla looked confused and sad, and she hung her head.

“Can nothing be done? You’re a cobbler; you repair shoes. Can’t you fix them? Can’t you awaken the magic?”

“Well,” he said, “I have done much to repair these shoes. I’ve tightened every sequin, and I’ve done what else could be done. However, there is only one way to fix these shoes, to make the magic within come alive again.”

“How? Oh, tell me please.”

“If I tell you, will you promise to help me fix them?”

“I will!” she said, clasping her tiny hands together. “I will…I
will.
”

He nodded, satisfied. “Even if it means going on an adventure?”

Nyla’s eyes went wide. “Would it be a dangerous adventure?”

“Now, what kind of question is that from a girl who came here looking for traveling shoes? There are dangers in your own garden. There are dangers climbing to the tree house where you live…after all, if you fell, your wings could not save you.”

She thought about it and nodded.

The cobbler smiled. “The only way to repair these shoes—the most wonderful traveling shoes ever made—is to replace the missing scales.”

“How?”

“The only way to replace the missing sales is by finding
new
scales.”

“But there are no more dragons.”

“Are there not? How can you be so sure?”

“How can there be? No one ever sees a dragon. People would talk about it if they did. Everyone would say if they saw a dragon. They’d tell us that in school.”

“School tells you about everything that happens in Oz—that much I know. Schools are great that way,” said the cobbler. “But…they don’t tell you about anything that happens
outside
of Oz.”

“Outside?”

“The dragons never lived in Oz,” he said. “Never ever. Dragons only ever lived in one place.”

“But…but…that’s all the way over the sea. I mean…where the sea used to be. On the far, far side of the Deadly Desert.”

He gave the tip of her nose a tiny little touch. “You are so very correct, my girl. Across the bones of the Sea of Shallasa in the land where dragons once lived there is a single dragon living still.” He raised his eyebrows. “And can you guess what kind of dragon still lives there?”

“A…a…
silver
dragon?”

“Yes, indeed. A great and vastly old silver dragon. The very dragon, in fact, whose scales were used to make this pair of shoes.”

-3-

“Oh my!” gasped Nyla. “But the dragon is on the other side of the Deadly Desert. No one can cross it and live.”

“That is very nearly true,” agreed the cobbler, “but it is not absolutely unreservedly true.”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed to the shoes. “These are magical shoes as we both know. Magic
traveling
shoes covered in the scales of a dragon. Such shoes can take the wearer anywhere. Across the whole Land of Oz, up and down the tallest mountain, and even across the burning sand of the deadliest of Deadly Deserts.”

“But…how?”

“That’s the right question. The dragon-scale shoes let the wearer travel so fast that nothing can catch up—not heat or cold or anything that troubles the foot or troubles the wearer. Remember, the princess for whom these were made traveled the whole length and breadth of Oz. She
went everywhere and anywhere, and she did it quick as a wink.”

“But the shoes are broken. The magic is asleep.”

“The magic sleeps,” he said. “However, when the right person puts on the shoes, it will wake the magic from its slumber. Not all the magic—oh, no. Unfortunately much of the magic of the shoes was lost when the scales fell off. But even a little magic is still magic, and to cross the sand in shoes like these, you only need a little magic.”

“Why hasn’t anyone else used the shoes to find the dragon scales?”

“They won’t fit anyone else,” said the cobbler sadly. “Until they’ve been restored to their full glory, these shoes will remain as small and as ugly as they have been since the Wizard of Oz stole the Land from the princess.”

She shook her head, unable to understand that.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the cobbler. “What matters is that the
right
person could wear the shoes and awaken enough magic to cross the Desert. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Because in these shoes, the journey—even across the Deadly Desert—will take only a few seconds. Your feet will move so fast that the Desert won’t even know you’re there.”

“My feet?” Nyla raised one leg to show him her foot. “The shoes were made for girl feet and I have Monkey feet. Will they fit?”

Bucklebelt shrugged. He touched the bunched silk and pushed the shoes toward Nyla.

“Why don’t you try them and we’ll both find out?”

Nyla stared at him for a moment and then looked at the shoes. They really did look bad. There were at least a dozen scales missing from each shoe, and the soles looked
very thin. It was hard to imagine that those shoes had once adorned the feet of a great princess.

“Go on,” urged the cobbler. “Try them on.”

Nyla chewed her lower lip for a moment. Then she reached out to take one of the shoes from where it nestled in the silk. She gave a soft cry at what happened when her fingers touched the shoe. It was like touching something warm and alive. The shoe seemed to shudder under her fingers, and Nyla almost dropped the shoe. But the feeling was not unpleasant. Not at all. In fact it was as comforting as picking up her pet hamster. The shoe seemed to
want
her to pick it up.

Is that was magic was like? Was it that way for everyone?

Nyla held the shoe, turning it this way and that. At close range the shoe did not seem to be that badly damaged. The holes in the sole no longer seemed to go all the way through. The heel wasn’t ground down quite as much as she thought. And not as many of the stitches were frayed as had initially seemed apparent. How strange.

“Try it on,” coaxed Bucklebelt.

Nyla did so, and to her surprise and delight, the shoe fit perfectly. Even though it had been crafted for a human princess, it seemed perfectly suited to her Monkey foot. She eagerly reached for the other one and put it on as well. Like the first, it was less weathered and battered than she thought, and it fit like a dream.

“Let me help you down,” said the cobbler, and he lifted Nyla to the floor. “Now, try walking in them. But be careful…the magic may wake up at any time.”

Nyla took a single step, and suddenly the cobbler and his stall and the whole market was gone. She yipped in fear and surprise as she turned and looked around to see that she stood by the east gate of the Emerald City.

“But I…” She backed away from the grim-faced guards who stood at the gate. But as she took that backward step, suddenly she was in a meadow of wildflowers that grew inside the west gate. It was impossible. A single backward step had taken her all the way across the Emerald City.

She turned her head but was very careful to keep her feet where they were.

She was close to the yellow road that curved and snaked its way back into the heart of the City. That road ended at the market square. Nyla knew that she had to go back to Mr. Bucklebelt’s stall, but how to get there if every step took her too far?

In her consternation she took a half-step, and suddenly she stood in front of the cobbler’s stall. He still sat on his stool, and he wore a great grin, which stretched from ear to ear.

“Ah-ha,” he said with a chuckle, “and is that a great princess I see before me wearing dragon-scale traveling shoes?”

“I—I—I…”

“That’s exactly what I
thought
you would say.”

“These are
amazing
!”

“Now,” he said with bright eyes glowing in his face, “do you see how a person wearing these shoes could go anywhere? Even all the way across the Deadly Desert?”

“Yes,” said Nyla, almost hopping with delight and wonder. “Oh, yes!”

Then she stopped, and her smile faded.

“But…even if I could cross the Desert, how would I ever find the last silver dragon?”

The cobbler chuckled again and went once more to the chest. He rummaged around until he found a scroll tied with silver cord. He undid the knot and carefully opened the scroll to show that it was a map of such great age that it
crackled and seemed on the verge of falling apart. It showed a map of the Land of Oz, with the Emerald City in the center.

“This map was made by the great-great-great-great-great-ten-more-times-great-grandson of the cordwainer who made the dragon-scale shoes. See here? That dot is the town square right here in the Emerald City with the four major countries around it. All around Oz was the broad gray waste. To the Gillikins of the north, it was the Impassable Desert; in Munchkin Country to the west, it was the Shifting Sands; the Quadlings of the south called it the Great Sandy Waste; and to the Winkies of the east, it was the Deadly Desert, which is also what it is generally called here in the Emerald City.”