Alchymical Romance [Baum-bastic Wizard mix]

 
by Matthew Lowe

 

The metal man raised his fist to knock, but the front door swung on its own.

 

“Hello?”

 

The room was empty.The four travellers stepped into the darkened hallway and the door slammed behind them, sounding supernaturally loud in the dead air.

 

“Back so soon?” said a Voice. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. “I knew it would be you!”

 

He laughed a sound like the clearing of pipes.

 

“Please, sir,” said the girl, “We have come for our reward.”

 

“What of the woman with skin the colour of bronze?” he said, with a sigh of expelled steam.

 

“Transformed to liquid.”

 

“How? I don’t… Why do you seek me?” he said, after a small interval.

 

The Animal raised his head, brought his breathing under control. Although he was scared he realised: it didn’t matter. None of it did. Whatever happened, he would not be alone. Whatever happened, she would be beside him, and if not her, then someone else. And for that small fact, that one small fact, he would risk the answer to any question.

 

“Please, sir,” he said, “What about your promise?”

 

“Yes,” said the man of straw, “I want…”

 

“- I don’t care about want,” shouted the Voice, “Nobody bothers me as you do! I am Oz, the Great and Terrible! Not some lunatic’s dream catcher.”

 

The travellers leaned into each other as an explosion of steam ran past them.The metal man fell to his knees.

 

“What now?” he cried, disparingly.

 

He still would not love.

 

 

There was something wrong, something the traveller’s could not quite put a finger on. They stayed that way for several minutes, staring at each other across a gulf of space and understanding. From the far corner of the room, there was the sudden sound of a barking dog. At the far end of the hall, light framed a door. A lumpen figure stood in the light. A dim smudge fighting the curtains. He let go a shout of surprise.

 

“No,” he said “It’s not-”

 

With no better alternative, the man opened the curtains and stepped out. The animal grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him into the light. There he was, in his shirt and trousers, a look of shame taped to his face.

 

 

 

 

 

“Problems, problems, problems. You all come. I don’t know,” Oz walked to the window, and stared at the sky, “No matter. I will find what you need. One more time to capture your dreams,” said the Wizard. “One more time to bring them to life.”

 

The Wizard stalked over to the metal man, began to prod him about the torso. He raised a hand to his neck and ran fingertips along the network of tiny puncture marks criss-crossing the skin at the base of his jaw.

 

“You don’t feel? Not a thing?”

 

He peered into his ear, up his nose. “No love? Nothing penetrates?”

 

“No.” the metal man gazed steadily ahead.

 

“Pish. Too much trouble. Love is for amateurs.”

 

The metal man turned his mechanical gaze upon him.

 

“But you want to.” The Wizard shrugged. “This is going to hurt.”

 

He indicated a chair in the darkest recess of the room. The metal man sat. Metal plates covered his body, his skin smoothed out and neatly tucked behind them. Assemblages of rods and pistons surrounded his knee and hip joints, and everything was connected to a small engine that hissed whenever he moved. He stared at Oz expectantly.

 

Oz, bent and peered closely. He curled his fingers over the top flap and pulled. It was soft and warm, sticky, not at all the cold, smooth metal he had expected. He reached inside, cleared a space, carefully inserted a flat box, perhaps four inches thick. Then carefully he withdrew his arm without a word.

 

There was the whirr and click of clockwork. The metal man stood gently. .

 

 

A spark of something tickled him inside. Slowly, slowly, the first, boiling rush of emotion thickened, settled. Suddenly, just like that, a bolt of heat struck the centre of his chest, tearing the stean from his pistons. It was hot as blood, and it stung, and the emptiness inside drank and drank until the void was full and alchymical waves lapped at the core of him.

 

“Oh, God,” he said to the girl  “Is this what it feels like? Oh, God. Do I love you?”

 

The Baum-bastic Wizard Remix by Matthew Lowe is licensed under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence. It is a derivative work of Lee Battersby’s CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licensed story. The original is available at http://www.remixmylit.com/storiesremixes/alchymical-romance-by-lee-battersby/. For details on how you can reuse the original and this remix see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/au/.