Chapter 15: The Treacherous Mountain

It was just a hill. Just your ordinary, rocky, steep hill. But it reminded Jack strongly of his unpleasant experiences climbing Mount Fatoum. And it was the next obstacle in his path.

"Do you see any way around the mountain?" he asked his friends.

"No, Laddie," the Lion called back. "On this side is a pretty sharp cliff."

"And on this side is another, even more difficult mountain," the Scarecrow said.

"Very well. Let us climb this mountain."

Jack reached out for the first stone when someone yelled, "Hey, you! Get off our mountain!"

They strained their eyes to see a strange man standing on the mountain. He was short, but he had a huge head with a flat top and a thick, wrinkly neck. His face was full of scars, and he reminded Jack of one of the bounty hunters he had faced. Then Jack noticed he had no arms and did not feel as threatened.

"Forgive me!" Jack called up. "We must cross this mountain in order to reach the Good Witch Glinda!"

"Well, you won't!" the man called down. "No one is allowed to climb our mountain! It belongs to us!"

"We will climb over whether you like it or not!" Jack yelled. He started his climb, but then the man's head shot off his neck and struck Jack down to the foot of the hill.

As the head returned to the man's body, he laughed and said. "See? It's not that easy!" As he continued to laugh, several other of these strange hammerhead men came into view, each appearing as all the bounty hunters Jack had challenged.

Jack screamed a battle cry and drew his sword. Several heads shot at him, and he tried to strike at him. Their skins were as tough as rhinoceros skin, and his sword almost broke trying to penetrate. Jack kept trying. So did the others, but each time they were hit down by at least one head. The heads laughed cruelly at their pain.

Jack, all bruised and tired, stayed down the last time he fell. He looked at all those cruel heads and the obstacles on either side, and painfully whispered the three words he concluded when he last tried to climb a mountain.

"It is impossible."

Nick shook his head. "Nothing is impossible, especially in this land. There must be another way."

"Don't you still have the Golden Cap?" the Scarecrow asked.

Jack pulled it out. He remembered Jellia's warning, how they would meet territorial people and that they would probably need the Golden Cap's magic again. "You are right! Good thinking!" He stood and preformed the spell. The Winged Monkeys were standing before them in no time.

"What do you wish for us to do now?" their leader asked.

"Please, carry us over this mountain, high above those hammerhead people."

"All right. We'll do it." The monkeys carried the heroes the same way they had before. The hammerheads didn't like it and shot their heads up into the air, but the Monkeys went higher so they wouldn't hit. The clouds covered the top of the mountain, so Jack couldn't see what the strange people had worked so hard to protect.

"Why are those people so strict about having no one climb their hill?" Jack asked.

"No one really knows. I guess they just have some kind of animal genes in them. Anyway, have you figured out how to free us yet?"

"No, I'm sorry. But we are going to see the Good Witch Glinda. Maybe she'll--"

But the lead monkey nearly dropped Jack when she heard that name. "No, she won't help. She is the daughter of that princess I described to you. If we go before her, she will surely destroy us."

"She has been called a good sorceress. Perhaps she will." But then Jack remember everyone called the Wizard of Oz good, and he certainly wasn't. Jack was starting to doubt this whole thing.

The monkeys set them down gently on the other side and disappeared back into the sky. Just a few miles down, Jack could see red houses and bridges. The houses had red roses, red tulips, and red apples growing out in their fields. He wondered how they could all grow in the same season, but then he remembered that this was a magic land. Things like this must happen all the time.

"The Quadlings like red the most," the Scarecrow explained. "This must mean we're getting close to civilization."

"Yea," the Lion said unenthusiastically.

"And to our goal," Nick reminded him.

Finally, they reached a large, red castle decorated with rubies, real rubies this time. Marching in front of the castle was a parade of very pretty girl soldiers. Jack was afraid with such a heavy guard they would not allow them in. But as they came slow toward the castle, something curious happened.

The captain of the guard ordered, "Halt!" She gave a couple of sharp orders, and the girls formed two straight lines and provided a path to the front steps, where the captain stood before the door. "Present arms!" the captain ordered. The girls held their guns out in a safe manner.

"It seems they are saying it is safe to cross," the Scarecrow said. So Jack walked out first. Right as he stepped between the first two girls, the captain shouted another order. The girls put their guns down to their side, clicked their heals together, and saluted. Every pair of girls did the same the second Jack came between them.

Finally, he walked up the steps to the captain. She was a lovely girl with long, curly, red hair and deep green eyes. Jack bowed before her, and she saluted him as the other girls had done. "Welcome, Samurai Jack. Welcome, Scarecrow. Welcome, Nicholas Chopper. Welcome, Cowardly Lion." Jack opened his mouth to request permission to see Glinda, but the captain smiled. "Glinda is expecting you. Follow me."