The Magic of Oz Page 6

  Conspirators

  CHAPTER 4

  Kiki Aru didn't know much about Oz and didn't know much about the beastswho lived there, but the old Nome's plan seemed to him to be quitereasonable. He had a faint suspicion that Ruggedo meant to get the bestof him in some way, and he resolved to keep a close watch on hisfellow-conspirator. As long as he kept to himself the secret word of thetransformations, Ruggedo would not dare to harm him, and he promisedhimself that as soon as they had conquered Oz, he would transform theold Nome into a marble statue and keep him in that form forever.

  Ruggedo, on his part, decided that he could, by careful watching andlistening, surprise the boy's secret, and when he had learned the magicword he would transform Kiki Aru into a bundle of faggots and burn himup and so be rid of him.

  This is always the way with wicked people. They cannot be trusted evenby one another. Ruggedo thought he was fooling Kiki, and Kiki thought hewas fooling Ruggedo; so both were pleased.

  "It's a long way across the Desert," remarked the boy, "and the sandsare hot and send up poisonous vapors. Let us wait until evening and thenfly across in the night when it will be cooler."

  The former Nome King agreed to this, and the two spent the rest of thatday in talking over their plans. When evening came they paid theinn-keeper and walked out to a little grove of trees that stood near by.

  "Remain here for a few minutes and I'll soon be back," said Kiki, andwalking swiftly away, he left the Nome standing in the grove. Ruggedowondered where he had gone, but stood quietly in his place until, all ofa sudden, his form changed to that of a great eagle, and he uttered apiercing cry of astonishment and flapped his wings in a sort of panic.At once his eagle cry was answered from beyond the grove, and anothereagle, even larger and more powerful than the transformed Ruggedo, camesailing through the trees and alighted beside him.

  "Now we are ready for the start," said the voice of Kiki, coming fromthe eagle.

  Ruggedo realized that this time he had been outwitted. He had thoughtKiki would utter the magic word in his presence, and so he would learnwhat it was, but the boy had been too shrewd for that.

  As the two eagles mounted high into the air and began their flightacross the great Desert that separates the Land of Oz from all the restof the world, the Nome said:

  "When I was king of the Nomes I had a magic way of workingtransformations that I thought was good, but it could not compare withyour secret word. I had to have certain tools and make passes and say alot of mystic words before I could transform anybody."

  "What became of your magic tools?" inquired Kiki.

 

  "The Oz people took them all away from me--that horrid girl, Dorothy,and that terrible fairy, Ozma, the Ruler of Oz--at the time they tookaway my underground kingdom and kicked me upstairs into the cold,heartless world."

  "Why did you let them do that?" asked the boy.

 

  "Well," said Ruggedo, "I couldn't help it. They rolled eggs atme--_eggs_--dreadful eggs!--and if an egg even touches a Nome, he isruined for life."

  "Is any kind of an egg dangerous to a Nome?"

  "Any kind and every kind. An egg is the only thing I'm afraid of."