الفصل الفصل 5 · The Magic Stairway

. The Magic Stairway

The flat mountain looked much nearer in the clear light of the morning

sun, but Dorothy and Ozma knew there was a long tramp before them, even

yet. They finished dressing only to find a warm, delicious breakfast

awaiting them, and having eaten they left the tent and started toward

the mountain which was their first goal. After going a little way

Dorothy looked back and found that the fairy tent had entirely

disappeared. She was not surprised, for she knew this would happen.

"Can't your magic give us a horse an' wagon, or an automobile?"

inquired Dorothy.

"No, dear; I'm sorry that such magic is beyond my power," confessed her

fairy friend.

"Perhaps Glinda could," said Dorothy thoughtfully.

"Glinda has a stork chariot that carries her through the air," said

Ozma, "but even our great Sorceress cannot conjure up other modes of

travel. Don't forget what I told you last night, that no one is

powerful enough to do everything."

"Well, I s'pose I ought to know that, having lived so long in the Land

of Oz," replied Dorothy; "but I can't do any magic at all, an' so I

can't figure out e'zactly how you an' Glinda an' the Wizard do it."

"Don't try," laughed Ozma. "But you have at least one magical art,

Dorothy: you know the trick of winning all hearts."

"No, I don't," said Dorothy earnestly. "If I really can do it, Ozma, I

am sure I don't know how I do it."

It took them a good two hours to reach the foot of the round, flat

mountain, and then they found the sides so steep that they were like

the wall of a house.

"Even my purple kitten couldn't climb 'em," remarked Dorothy, gazing

upward.

"But there is some way for the Flatheads to get down and up again,"

declared Ozma; "otherwise they couldn't make war with the Skeezers, or

even meet them and quarrel with them."

"That's so, Ozma. Let's walk around a ways; perhaps we'll find a ladder

or something."

They walked quite a distance, for it was a big mountain, and as they

circled around it and came to the side that faced the palm trees, they

suddenly discovered an entrance way cut out of the rock wall. This

entrance was arched overhead and not very deep because it merely led to

a short flight of stone stairs.

"Oh, we've found a way to the top at last," announced Ozma, and the two

girls turned and walked straight toward the entrance. Suddenly they

bumped against something and stood still, unable to proceed farther.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Dorothy, rubbing her nose, which had struck

something hard, although she could not see what it was; "this isn't as

easy as it looks. What has stopped us, Ozma? Is it magic of some sort?"

Ozma was feeling around, her bands outstretched before her.

"Yes, dear, it is magic," she replied. "The Flatheads had to have a way

from their mountain top from the plain below, but to prevent enemies

from rushing up the stairs to conquer them, they have built, at a small

distance before the entrance a wall of solid stone, the stones being

held in place by cement, and then they made the wall invisible."

"I wonder why they did that?" mused Dorothy. "A wall would keep folks

out anyhow, whether it could be seen or not, so there wasn't any use

making it invisible. Seems to me it would have been better to have left

it solid, for then no one would have seen the entrance behind it. Now

anybody can see the entrance, as we did. And prob'bly anybody that

tries to go up the stairs gets bumped, as we did."

Ozma made no reply at once. Her face was grave and thoughtful.

"I think I know the reason for making the wall invisible," she said

after a while. "The Flatheads use the stairs for coming down and going

up. If there was a solid stone wall to keep them from reaching the

plain they would themselves be imprisoned by the wall. So they had to

leave some place to get around the wall, and, if the wall was visible,

all strangers or enemies would find the place to go around it and then

the wall would be useless. So the Flatheads cunningly made their wall

invisible, believing that everyone who saw the entrance to the mountain

would walk straight toward it, as we did, and find it impossible to go

any farther. I suppose the wall is really high and thick, and can't be

broken through, so those who find it in their way are obliged to go

away again."

"Well," said Dorothy, "if there's a way around the wall, where is it?"

"We must find it," returned Ozma, and began feeling her way along the

wall. Dorothy followed and began to get discouraged when Ozma had

walked nearly a quarter of a mile away from the entrance. But now the

invisible wall curved in toward the side of the mountain and suddenly

ended, leaving just space enough between the wall and the mountain for

an ordinary person to pass through.

The girls went in, single file, and Ozma explained that they were now

behind the barrier and could go back to the entrance. They met no

further obstructions.

"Most people, Ozma, wouldn't have figured this thing out the way you

did," remarked Dorothy. "If I'd been alone the invisible wall surely

would have stumped me."

Reaching the entrance they began to mount the stone stairs. They went

up ten stairs and then down five stairs, following a passage cut from

the rock. The stairs were just wide enough for the two girls to walk

abreast, arm in arm. At the bottom of the five stairs the passage

turned to the right, and they ascended ten more stairs, only to find at

the top of the flight five stairs leading straight down again. Again

the passage turned abruptly, this time to the left, and ten more stairs

led upward.

The passage was now quite dark, for they were in the heart of the

mountain and all daylight had been shut out by the turns of the

passage. However, Ozma drew her silver wand from her bosom and the

great jewel at its end gave out a lustrous, green-tinted light which

lighted the place well enough for them to see their way plainly.

Ten steps up, five steps down, and a turn, this way or that. That was

the program, and Dorothy figured that they were only gaining five

stairs upward each trip that they made.

"Those Flatheads must be funny people," she said to Ozma. "They don't

seem to do anything in a bold straightforward manner. In making this

passage they forced everyone to walk three times as far as is

necessary. And of course this trip is just as tiresome to the Flatheads

as it is to other folks."

"That is true," answered Ozma; "yet it is a clever arrangement to

prevent their being surprised by intruders. Every time we reach the

tenth step of a flight, the pressure of our feet on the stone makes a

bell ring on top of the mountain, to warn the Flatheads of our coming."

"How do you know that?" demanded Dorothy, astonished.

"I've heard the bell ever since we started," Ozma told her. "You could

not hear it, I know, but when I am holding my wand in my hand I can

hear sounds a great distance off."

"Do you hear anything on top of the mountain 'cept the bell?" inquired

Dorothy.

"Yes. The people are calling to one another in alarm and many footsteps

are approaching the place where we will reach the flat top of the

mountain."

This made Dorothy feel somewhat anxious. "I'd thought we were going to

visit just common, ordinary people," she remarked, "but they're pretty

clever, it seems, and they know some kinds of magic, too. They may be

dangerous, Ozma. P'raps we'd better stayed at home."

Finally the upstairs-and-downstairs passage seemed coming to an end,

for daylight again appeared ahead of the two girls and Ozma replaced

her wand in the bosom of her gown. The last ten steps brought them to

the surface, where they found themselves surrounded by such a throng of

queer people that for a time they halted, speechless, and stared into

the faces that confronted them.

Dorothy knew at once why these mountain people were called Flatheads.

Their heads were really flat on top, as if they had been cut off just

above the eyes and ears. Also the heads were bald, with no hair on top

at all, and the ears were big and stuck straight out, and the noses

were small and stubby, while the mouths of the Flatheads were well

shaped and not unusual. Their eyes were perhaps their best feature,

being large and bright and a deep violet in color.

The costumes of the Flatheads were all made of metals dug from their

mountain. Small gold, silver, tin and iron discs, about the size of

pennies, and very thin, were cleverly wired together and made to form

knee trousers and jackets for the men and skirts and waists for the

women. The colored metals were skillfully mixed to form stripes and

checks of various sorts, so that the costumes were quite gorgeous and

reminded Dorothy of pictures she had seen of Knights of old clothed

armor.

Aside from their flat heads, these people were not really bad looking.

The men were armed with bows and arrows and had small axes of steel

stuck in their metal belts. They wore no hats nor ornaments.