Dark Tales Of Lost Civilizations by Eric J. Guignard (Editor) Page B

destined for greater infamy. In my mind’s eye, my end came only at his hands; only the Wizard was wild enough to destroy me. But only at the end of a terrible battle, and only at some great, Pyrrhic cost. I may finally be defeated, but I would make sure all of Oz would live to regret it.
    I saw that final battle every night in my dreams; every night when I lay down on my straw-filled mat, my soul swam with images of the carnage and destruction I would wrought. My flying monkeys and Winkie army would descend upon the Emerald City like a horde of black locusts, destroying and devouring everything in their path. They had been trained for this moment, to think of nothing save devastation, to care not for their own lives but only for the glorious rancor of annihilation. And there, in the midst of broken wings and oozing pustules of green, rent flesh being torn and tasted by crows, stood he, the Wizard, half-walking, half-floating through the carnage, calling me out by name. Finally I would have broken through that placid demeanor, pierced the mask of civility, to the true man underneath! His anguish fed the recess of my soul which, until that very moment, had always hungered, always pained for such rich nourishment. How I loved the clarity of his rage, the sweet tenderness of his fury! Crying, he would call me forth, summon me from my lurking shadow, and I would appear, all in black save the few drips of spent blood that splattered my misshapen face. I would smile, and bow, not forgetting the old courtesies before a wizard’s duel. And our match—legends would be writ of it for centuries to come! Songs would be sung, stories told, a stone monument built to the devastation we would cause! I would face him, and in the pit of my stomach, I would feel a new sensation, something I had never known before. A quivering in the pit of my belly, a quavering, a new sensation, something entirely foreign to me—
    Fear.
    For the first time, for the only time, fear. I would tremble, shake, and relish the moment, this moment, my last moment on this earth. Then the duel would begin. My greatest magics I would call upon—dark spells that I had preserved for this very instance. Each of us would rise to new heights of power, our conflict a lover’s dance, intimate, he and I, side by side, face to face, as we parried and thrust, as we wounded and bled. I know I would ultimately lose—I must, he is the Wizard of Oz—but my story would be ended that day, ended as it should be, as all evil must be ended. In glorious, savage defeat. He would emerge bloodied, hardened, victorious, but lamenting his costly victory. He would curse my name, scorch the very earth where I now lay crumpled with his vast powers. He would be exalted for all time; and I, reviled. But we would be remembered, the two us, forever locked in combat, forever locked in a bloody, awful embrace.
    In the moment I awoke every night from this dream, this beautiful dream, I would gasp, then catch my breath with surprise that I was indeed still alive, still whole. Then I would remember that it was, still, just a dream—that it had not yet come to pass. I slept well on those dreams, relishing my continuing nightmare. In those minutes after I woke, as I lay in my bed feeling the coolness of the rock beneath the straw that supported my body, I wondered what he would do with my broken, bent corpse. Would he avenge himself further? Use his powers to blast me from all recognition? Or would he prefer a more visceral revenge? Would he take a woodsman’s axe and tear my arms and legs from me, scattering bone and flesh and sinew, ordering that each vile limb be taken to some remote corner of Oz, the locations never to be revealed, lest some dark magic revive my bones and return me to this plane of existence? Or would he, in his infinite power and sagacity, mourn me, bow his head over my body in sympathy for what might have been, for what might have become of me—of us—had I chosen to use my