Kiki turned around and saw a queer old man standing near. He didn’t
stand straight, for he was crooked. He had a fat body and thin legs and
arms. He had a big, round face with bushy, white whiskers that came to a
point below his waist, and white hair that came to a point on top of his
head. He wore dull-gray clothes that were tight fitting, and his pockets
were all bunched out as if stuffed full of something.
“I didn’t know you were here,” said Kiki.
“I didn’t come until after you did,” said the queer old man.
“Who are you?” asked Kiki.
“My name’s Ruggedo. I used to be the Nome King; but I got kicked out of
my country, and now I’m a wanderer.”
“What made them kick you out?” inquired the Hyup boy.
“Well, it’s the fashion to kick kings nowadays. I was a pretty good
King—to myself—but those dreadful Oz people wouldn’t let me alone. So I
had to abdicate.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means to be kicked out. But let’s talk about something pleasant. Who
are you and where did you come from?”
“I’m called Kiki Aru. I used to live on Mount Munch in the Land of Oz,
but now I’m a wanderer like yourself.”
The Nome King gave him a shrewd look.
“I heard that bird say that you transformed yourself into a magpie and
back again. Is that true?”
Kiki hesitated, but saw no reason to deny it. He felt that it would make
him appear more important.
“Well—yes,” he said.
“Then you’re a wizard?”
“No; I only understand transformations,” he admitted.
“Well, that’s pretty good magic, anyhow,” declared old Ruggedo. “I used
to have some very fine magic, myself, but my enemies took it all away
from me. Where are you going now?”
“I’m going into the inn, to get some supper and a bed,” said Kiki.
“Have you the money to pay for it?” asked the Nome.
“I have one gold piece.”
“Which you stole. Very good. And you’re glad that you’re wicked. Better
yet. I like you, young man, and I’ll go to the inn with you if you’ll
promise not to eat eggs for supper.”
“Don’t you like eggs?” asked Kiki.
“I’m afraid of ’em; they’re dangerous!” said Ruggedo, with a shudder.
“All right,” agreed Kiki; “I won’t ask for eggs.”
“Then come along,” said the Nome.
When they entered the inn, the landlord scowled at Kiki and said:
“I told you I would not feed you unless you had money.”
Kiki showed him the gold piece.
“And how about you?” asked the landlord, turning to Ruggedo. “Have you
money?”
“I’ve something better,” answered the old Nome, and taking a bag from
one of his pockets he poured from it upon the table a mass of glittering
gems—diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
The landlord was very polite to the strangers after that. He served them
an excellent supper, and while they ate it, the Hyup boy asked his
companion:
“Where did you get so many jewels?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” answered the Nome. “When those Oz people took my
kingdom away from me—just because it was my kingdom and I wanted to run
it to suit myself—they said I could take as many precious stones as I
could carry. So I had a lot of pockets made in my clothes and loaded
them all up. Jewels are fine things to have with you when you travel;
you can trade them for anything.”
“Are they better than gold pieces?” asked Kiki.
“The smallest of these jewels is worth a hundred gold pieces such as you
stole from the old man.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” begged Kiki, uneasily. “Some one else might hear
what you are saying.”
After supper they took a walk together, and the former Nome King said:
“Do you know the Shaggy Man, and the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, and
Dorothy, and Ozma and all the other Oz people?”
“No,” replied the boy, “I have never been away from Mount Munch until I
flew over the Deadly Desert the other day in the shape of a hawk.”
“Then you’ve never seen the Emerald City of Oz?”
“Never.”
“Well,” said the Nome, “I knew all the Oz people, and you can guess I do
not love them. All during my wanderings I have brooded on how I can be
revenged on them. Now that I’ve met you I can see a way to conquer the
Land of Oz and be King there myself, which is better than being King of
the Nomes.”
“How can you do that?” inquired Kiki Aru, wonderingly.
“Never mind how. In the first place, I’ll make a bargain with you. Tell
me the secret of how to perform transformations and I will give you a
pocketful of jewels, the biggest and finest that I possess.”
“No,” said Kiki, who realized that to share his power with another would
be dangerous to himself.
“I’ll give you _two_ pocketsful of jewels,” said the Nome.
“No;” answered Kiki.
“I’ll give you every jewel I possess.”
“No, no, no!” said Kiki, who was beginning to be frightened.
“Then,” said the Nome, with a wicked look at the boy, “I’ll tell the
inn-keeper that you stole that gold piece and he will have you put in
prison.”
Kiki laughed at the threat.
“Before he can do that,” said he, “I will transform myself into a lion
and tear him to pieces, or into a bear and eat him up, or into a fly and
fly away where he could not find me.”
“Can you really do such wonderful transformations?” asked the old Nome,
looking at him curiously.
“Of course,” declared Kiki. “I can transform you into a stick of wood,
in a flash, or into a stone, and leave you here by the roadside.”
The wicked Nome shivered a little when he heard that, but it made him
long more than ever to possess the great secret. After a while he said:
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you will help me to conquer Oz and to
transform the Oz people, who are my enemies, into sticks or stones, by
telling me your secret, I’ll agree to make _you_ the Ruler of all Oz,
and I will be your Prime Minister and see that your orders are obeyed.”
“I’ll help do that,” said Kiki, “but I won’t tell you my secret.”
The Nome was so furious at this refusal that he jumped up and down with
rage and spluttered and choked for a long time before he could control
his passion. But the boy was not at all frightened. He laughed at the
wicked old Nome, which made him more furious than ever.
“Let’s give up the idea,” he proposed, when Ruggedo had quieted
somewhat. “I don’t know the Oz people you mention and so they are not my
enemies. If they’ve kicked you out of your kingdom, that’s your
affair—not mine.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be king of that splendid fairyland?” asked
Ruggedo.
“Yes, I would,” replied Kiki Aru; “but you want to be king yourself, and
we would quarrel over it.”
“No,” said the Nome, trying to deceive him. “I don’t care to be king of
Oz, come to think it over. I don’t even care to live in that country.
What I want first is revenge. If we can conquer Oz, I’ll get enough
magic then to conquer my own kingdom of the Nomes, and I’ll go back and
live in my underground caverns, which are more home-like than the top of
the earth. So here’s my proposition: Help me conquer Oz and get revenge,
and help me get the magic away from Glinda and the Wizard, and I’ll let
you be King of Oz forever afterward.”
[Illustration]
“I’ll think it over,” answered Kiki, and that is all he would say that
evening.
In the night when all in the Inn were asleep but himself, old Ruggedo
the Nome, rose softly from his couch and went into the room of Kiki Aru
the Hyup, and searched everywhere for the magic tool that performed his
transformations. Of course, there was no such tool, and although Ruggedo
searched in all the boy’s pockets, he found nothing magical whatever. So
he went back to his bed and began to doubt that Kiki could perform
transformations.
Next morning he said:
“Which way do you travel to-day?”
“I think I shall visit the Rose Kingdom,” answered the boy.
“That is a long journey,” declared the Nome.
“I shall transform myself into a bird,” said Kiki, “and so fly to the
Rose Kingdom in an hour.”
“Then transform me, also, into a bird, and I will go with you,”
suggested Ruggedo. “But, in that case, let us fly together to the Land
of Oz, and see what it looks like.”
Kiki thought this over. Pleasant as were the countries he had visited,
he heard everywhere that the Land of Oz was more beautiful and
delightful. The Land of Oz was his own country, too, and if there was
any possibility of his becoming its King, he must know something about
it.
While Kiki the Hyup thought, Ruggedo the Nome was also thinking. This
boy possessed a marvelous power, and although very simple in some ways,
he was determined not to part with his secret. However, if Ruggedo could
get him to transport the wily old Nome to Oz, which he could reach in no
other way, he might then induce the boy to follow his advice and enter
into the plot for revenge, which he had already planned in his wicked
heart.
“There are wizards and magicians in Oz,” remarked Kiki, after a time.
“They might discover us, in spite of our transformations.”
“Not if we are careful,” Ruggedo assured him. “Ozma has a Magic Picture,
in which she can see whatever she wishes to see; but Ozma will know
nothing of our going to Oz, and so she will not command her Magic
Picture to show where we are or what we are doing. Glinda the Good has a
Great Book called the Book of Records, in which is magically written
everything that people do in the Land of Oz, just the instant they do
it.”
“Then,” said Kiki, “there is no use our attempting to conquer the
country, for Glinda would read in her book all that we do, and as her
magic is greater than mine, she would soon put a stop to our plans.”
“I said ‘people,’ didn’t I?” retorted the Nome. “The book doesn’t make a
record of what birds do, or beasts. It only tells the doings of people.
So, if we fly into the country as birds, Glinda won’t know anything
about it.”
[Illustration]
“Two birds couldn’t conquer the Land of Oz,” asserted the boy,
scornfully.
“No; that’s true,” admitted Ruggedo, and then he rubbed his forehead and
stroked his long pointed beard and thought some more.
“Ah, now I have the idea!” he declared. “I suppose you can transform us
into beasts as well as birds?”
“Of course.”
“And can you make a bird a beast, and a beast a bird again, without
taking a human form in between?”
“Certainly,” said Kiki. “I can transform myself or others into anything
that can talk. There’s a magic word that must be spoken in connection
with the transformations, and as beasts and birds and dragons and fishes
can talk in Oz, we may become any of these we desire to. However, if I
transformed myself into a tree, I would always remain a tree, because
then I could not utter the magic word to change the transformation.”
“I see; I see,” said Ruggedo, nodding his bushy, white head until the
point of his hair waved back and forth like a pendulum. “That fits in
with my idea, exactly. Now, listen, and I’ll explain to you my plan.
We’ll fly to Oz as birds and settle in one of the thick forests in the
Gillikin Country. There you will transform us into powerful beasts, and
as Glinda doesn’t keep any track of the doings of beasts we can act
without being discovered.”
“But how can two beasts raise an army to conquer the powerful people of
Oz?” inquired Kiki.
“That’s easy. But not an army of _people_, mind you. That would be
quickly discovered. And while we are in Oz you and I will never resume
our human forms until we’ve conquered the country and destroyed Glinda,
and Ozma, and the Wizard, and Dorothy, and all the rest, and so have
nothing more to fear from them.”
“It is impossible to kill anyone in the Land of Oz,” declared Kiki.
“It isn’t necessary to kill the Oz people,” rejoined Ruggedo.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” objected the boy. “What will happen
to the Oz people, and what sort of an army could we get together, except
of people?”
“I’ll tell you. The forests of Oz are full of beasts. Some of them, in
the far-away places, are savage and cruel, and would gladly follow a
leader as savage as themselves. They have never troubled the Oz people
much, because they had no leader to urge them on, but we will tell them
to help us conquer Oz and as a reward we will transform all the beasts
into men and women, and let them live in the houses and enjoy all the
good things; and we will transform all the people of Oz into beasts of
various sorts, and send them to live in the forests and the jungles.
That is a splendid idea, you must admit, and it’s so easy that we won’t
have any trouble at all to carry it through to success.”
“Will the beasts consent, do you think?” asked the boy.
“To be sure they will. We can get every beast in Oz on our side—except a
few who live in Ozma’s palace, and they won’t count.”
[Illustration]
Conspirators