5: Flume and Flare
Their journey north was extremely uncomfortable, and Lion made sure that they were all acutely aware of this fact. He told them about how the damp air now carried a threatening sort of chill; he told them all about the foreboding nature of the trees, which hung above them like corpses, shackled and forgotten in a vast stockyard; he reported to them every time he thought he saw an undead stalking towards them, which was approximately all the time; he made an especial fuss about the rocky, sharp terrain over which they traversed, which seemed the sort of terrain that never, ever dried out; he carped loudly about the ceaseless roar of the river to their right, the noise of which he concluded was driving him inexorably towards insanity; and finally, once he'd grown weary of pointing out the same details over and over, he began to fret that he would surely keel over and die of starvation before they ever found a good place to cross.
To Scarecrow, Lion's incessant stream of updates, alerts, and complaints was welcome. His friend was right about everything, and was also not alone when it came to being affected by the sound of the water; the rush and roar was omnipresent, pushing into Scarecrow's ears and making his head feel claustrophobic. If Lion ever fell silent, Scarecrow was more than prepared to take up Lion's duty of creating an auditory distraction.
The farther they traveled, the more difficult it became to move quickly. The rocks jutted up like tombstones, and dead vines as thick around as Scarecrow's arm hung from the branches of ancient trees. Lion remarked that he could judge the increasing difficulty of their path by how many times per minute Scarecrow stumbled; this was logic that Scarecrow couldn't argue with.
"The sun won't be up for much longer," remarked Tin Man, during one of Lion's brief pauses. "Maybe three, four hours at most." He gazed back the way they'd come, trying to judge how much daylight they had left. They all knew it wasn't so much a matter of having enough light to see by, since Dorothy was really the only one whose vision required significant light; it was that they had no idea what sorts of things happened in this forest at night, and what sorts of creatures chose the moonlight hours to make their prowl.
"The land seems to be really rough here, next to the river," said Dorothy loudly, in order to be heard over the water. "What if we move away a little, so we can travel faster?"
"I think we should stay close by the gorge," replied Tin Man, shaking his head. "We can't chance missing a good place to cross." As Tin Man and Lion went over to the near edge of the gorge to point at the rocks below and talk about possible ways across, Scarecrow watched Dorothy pass a hand over her eyes and stare dazedly at the ground. Knowing he'd be absolutely no help when it came to puzzling out a way to cross, he stepped over to stand next to Dorothy. She looked up at him and smiled.
"You don't fool me with your smile," he said. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong?"
"Yeah, you look… like something's wrong."
"Oh, I suppose I'm just a bit hungry. It's been a day or so."
"Golly, you're right! You must be starving too!"
"I'm fine, really."
Scarecrow regarded her.
"If I were anywhere near to starving," she continued, "I would hardly be able to traverse such rough terrain. I'm sure I'll find something soon." She sounded none too sure of herself, but Scarecrow had discovered during his past few days with Dorothy that she was one person he simply could not argue with, no matter how much he thought he was right.
Tin Man and Lion determined that there was no safe way to cross here, and so the little party kept up with their northerly course. Scarecrow could now hear Lion's stomach grumbling loudly, and he hoped Dorothy wasn't as hungry as Lion sounded. He wondered how far into the forest they'd traveled so far – had they only made it a fraction of the way towards its center? Were they nearing the center now? Were they already in the very heart of it all? If this was the heart of the forest, it wasn't nearly as bad as Scarecrow had been fearing. No undead, no flares, and not as cold as the temperature of the water had led him to believe it would be. He was heartened to notice several slippery-looking amphibians slipping out of their path now; the first animal life he'd seen in a while.
He bumped into Dorothy, who had stopped suddenly in front of him. He opened his mouth to apologize but saw that she was staring intently, with a look not unlike alarmed terror, out into the depths of the forest ahead. Lion and Tin Man, noticing that she'd stopped, followed her stare. For a moment, nobody spoke. Lion couldn't quite contain his anxiety though, and was first to break the spell.
"What? What is it? What did you see?" he demanded.
"I… I can't be sure," she said.
"What did you think you saw? Oh for the love of paws, tell us already!"
"Well, I may have seen a… a light…"
"What kind of light?" Lion pressed. "Like a bonfire? Or a torch? Someone carrying a lantern? Oh no, did it look like glowing eyes?"
"I don't know," said Dorothy. "I'm not even sure I saw anything. If I did, it was very brief, and not very close."
Despite her casual dismissal of the maybe-light, they all stood staring off into the woods for several long moments, waiting for the waver of a lantern, the flash of a watching eye, or a so-called flare, whatever that was. Eventually Tin Man shook his head as if to clear it.
"We can't waste time," he said. "Let's keep walking."
They listened and started walking again, though now they packed together so tightly that Scarecrow found it much less likely that he would fall flat, because someone was sure to be in the way. The only sounds that came from Lion now were the enthusiastic complains of his stomach, and Scarecrow no longer had the force of will to let out a steady stream of chatter. At this point it was all he could do to keep his teeth from chattering. The shadows grew longer and the air grew colder and the trees grew grander and farther apart. Tin Man noted that there were no saplings to be seen and Scarecrow wasn't sure what the significance of that observation could be but it probably wasn't good, if it was in accordance with the theme of the evening.
The shadows had lengthened considerably and Scarecrow was just beginning to lose hope that they'd ever find a place to cross this maddening river when Tin Man paused in his tracks, effectively stopping everyone else, who had all chosen him to be at the forefront of their tightly-knit advance. He stared down into the gorge with a smoldering intensity before straightening up and facing them.
"I believe," he said, "that we've found our crossing spot." He turned and proceeded to explain himself. To Scarecrow, crossing at this point in the river looked to be just as suicidal as crossing at any other point they'd seen so far, but as Tin Man spoke, some sense began to surface. They had come to a very steep grade in the land, and the water was swift and white. The gorge was deep and the way down would be treacherous in itself. The crossing was as narrow as they had seen so far – perhaps three armspans long. Boulders jutted up from the onslaught of the river, causing fans of white water to burst over their crowns. The rocks would be slippery. They were not too far apart, but they were none too close. After having pointed all this out, Tin Man gestured downstream a ways, to where a huge spruce trunk had lodged itself between the two gorge walls. There was no way to get down to this tree and use it to cross, but if any of them were to fall and be swept downstream, at least they could try to catch themselves on this trunk.
Lastly, Tin Man pointed out that on their side of the crossing, a singular tree stump sat down in the gorge, rooted into the rock. They would be able to tie a length of vine around the stump, and stretch it across to the other side, where presumably someone would be able to hold on to it. The others would then have a safety line to cling to during their crossing.
"I don't like it," said Lion. "But that goes without saying."
"I'm not looking forward to it either," said Tin Man. "Let's complain about it once we're on the other side."
Scarecrow was so eager to be across and away from the voice of the river, and to be traveling south again, that he took to the woods looking for a long, sturdy vine, nearly forgetting to be frightened of disembodied lights. He found a good vine rather quickly, and Lion came over to gnaw through it, lamenting the loss of Tin Man's axe. Getting down into the gorge was the challenge they'd been expecting; Tin Man obtained several long abrasions from slipping across the rocks, Scarecrow managed to free a few more tufts of straw from a new rip in one of his side-seams, and Lion lost quite a bit of fur along the way. Dorothy almost made it down without incident, but had her hands full with Toto and her basket. At the last moment she slipped and scraped up both elbows and may have plunged straight into the water had Lion not been there to stop her. She took a whiff of the river and wrinkled her nose.
The stump was more rotten than it had looked from up above, but Tin Man deemed it safe enough, and fastened the vine around its girth.
"Well," he said, "let's get this over with." There was a pause, and everybody looked at everybody else. "We'll tie the other end of the rope around whoever goes first so we can pull them back in if they were to fall. Who goes first?" he asked.
"You should," said Lion to Tin Man. "You know what you're doing. Show us how it's done."
"Me? I need the vine to get across. If I fall in I'll freeze in three seconds flat and then I'd be useless. I wouldn't catch the spruce pole downstream. Scarecrow, you should go first. If you fall in you won't be injured and you'll be able to catch yourself on the spruce pole."
"But the object of going across first," said Scarecrow, "is to take the other end of the vine over and hold it there so that the others can cross. We all know I'd fall in, and besides, I'm not heavy enough to act as an anchor. What would be the use?"
"Hmm," said Tin Man. "Unexpectedly logical point. Lion, you're a cat. You've got balance on your side. You're tough, you'd make it fine if you fell in. And you'd make a good anchor to hold the vine steady."
Lion looked faint at the prospect of going first.
"Oh, let me go first," said Dorothy. "I have fair balance. I can swim. I may not be heavy enough to hold the rope well but I can tie it to a boulder."
Dorothy's suggestion was met with a vehement No! from all three of her Ozite companions.
"What if you hit a rock in the river?" asked Tin Man.
"You've got no fur! If you fell in you'd turn into a peoplesicle!" said Lion.
"If you went in and missed catching the trunk, we'd never see you again!" yelped Scarecrow, scaring himself badly by saying the words out loud. The others nodded in agreement.
"Well that's silly," Dorothy said. "I have as much of a chance of catching the spruce pole as any of you. And more of a chance than Tin Man."
"But…" Scarecrow started, then fell silent. Everyone looked at Dorothy, wishing for her to understand something that they couldn't explain. Yes, it would be incredibly sad if any of them were swept away, but Scarecrow knew that if Dorothy were to be lost, the rest of them had a very slim chance of ever being truly happy again, even if they made it to Emerald City and were given the things they most desired.
"Oh my," said Dorothy. "You all look so dreadfully depressed." Nobody replied.
"Oh, oh oh oh," fretted Lion. "I can't believe I'm about to say this… I'll go first. It makes the most sense. I can swim. I'm a cat. I'll be fine. I've got fur."
"There you go," said Tin Man, relieved, giving Lion a hearty pat on the back. "You'll be fine. We're right here." Tin Man gave Lion the coil of vine and looped it around the big cat's shoulders, and then everybody gathered round to watch the spectacle of their Cowardly Lion willing himself to take the first step out onto the slick rocks.
"Remember," said Tin Man. "Don't let go of the vine. When you…. I mean, if you fall in, which you won't, we'll just pull you back in. Alright?"
"Right," said Lion, weakly.
"And don't get stuck in the middle," said Scarecrow. "I'm not coming out to save you this time."
Lion grumbled at that, and took his first step out onto the rocks. Because his paw pads were rough and furry, he had better traction than any of them had been expecting. He looked remarkably steady, if one didn't pay attention to how much his limbs were shaking. Dorothy called out encouragements as he made his way across, telling him of his progress so that he wouldn't have to look up to note it himself. At one point Lion yelled back to them that the water smelled absolutely dreadful, and his voice, though he probably hadn't meant for it to happen, trilled with a beautiful vibrato. Lion briefly lost his balance near the far side, but his muscular tail whipped about and allowed him to put his center of gravity back where it belonged. When he got to the last boulder in the river he slipped and fell forward, but stumbled upright on solid ground. He turned around and thrust his paw into the air and yelled something celebratory, but Scarecrow couldn't hear a word he was saying; the roar of the river swallowed everything.
They watched as Lion wound the vine around his paws and planted his feet, ready for the next person to cross.
"Well that didn't look so bad," said Dorothy, clutching Toto tightly to her chest.
"I'll go next," said Tin Man, "to ensure that the vine doesn't have any weak spots before you two cross."
"Oh, your ankles are going to seize up right away," said Dorothy. "Take your oil can with you, I think you'll need it straightaway on the other side."
"Here, I'll just take your basket. You'll have your hands full with Toto, and you'll still need to hold onto the rope." Dorothy handed Tin Man her basket, and without further ado he stepped out onto the rocks. His tin feet had significantly less traction than Lion's paws had, and though the water crashing against the rocks immediately soaked him from the shin down, he was forced to move more slowly. From their side of the gorge, Scarecrow and Dorothy watched helplessly as Tin Man slipped and slid and clung to the vine, never once losing his grip on Dorothy's basket. They let out a tandem sigh of relief when he finally set foot on the other side, though they could see that all joints up to and including his knees had become rather stiff.
Dorothy's turn was next, and as Scarecrow watched her scoop up her dog and step towards the river, he felt a twinge in the straw of his chest.
"Dorothy!" he said, and she turned. "Don't fall in, okay?" At this, she smirked.
"You didn't tell me not to fall when we crossed The Crevasse of Despair."
"That's probably because we were being chased by a dinosaurus."
"I am as eager to get this crossing over with as I was about that one. The sooner we get out of this dreadful forest the better…" With that, she turned, grasped the vine with one hand, and stepped down onto the first rock. A gush of water immediately leapt up and covered her ruby slippers, eliciting a yelp of surprise. Apparently the water here was no warmer than the water in the brook.
Dorothy hadn't lied when she'd made the claim of having good balance. Though one of her arms was completely occupied with keeping an anxious dog from struggling away, and though the wind thrashed against her dress as if to push her over, and though she was forced to walk over slick stones in shoes with heels, she never once lost her balance, and fairly hopped up onto the opposite side. In a rare moment of reflection, Scarecrow wondered if it hadn't, in fact, been the ruby slippers themselves that had allowed her such safe passage.
If this were the case, Scarecrow would not have refused a pair of slippers as he stepped down to make his crossing. Like the others, his feet became waterlogged immediately after having taken two steps out. The vine wobbled in his hands and the roar of the water was positively overpowering; not nearly as terrifying as the crevasse had been, but an upsetting position to be in all the same. He kept his center of balance low and, as he made his way, told himself that it wouldn't be all bad when he inevitably fell in. At least if they encountered any flares or flames he wouldn't catch fire so easily, being soaked. That was, of course, assuming that his friends would be able to pull him out, which probably wouldn't be so hard. A scarecrow would float and it would be easy for him to catch himself on the spruce trunk.
Quite at once he found himself grabbing Dorothy's outstretched hand and stepping out onto the other side of the bank, somehow having kept his balance, more or less. Which was just as well, because the more he dwelt upon the whole situation, the less sure he was that a man made of straw wouldn't simply sink down and be dashed to bits along the boulders beneath the river.
"We made it! Good job, everyone!" cried Dorothy, clearly relieved to have gotten past that particular challenge. "Now we can – "
FOOF!
Dorothy was interrupted by what Scarecrow would call the most terrifying sound on the face of the earth or the sky, and it came along with the most terrifying sight to behold; a plume of flame the size of a large man had erupted violently out of a divot in the rock not four armspans from where the group stood. Scarecrow was beyond startled by the sudden appearance of fire, and leapt backwards, unmindful of the river behind him, and it was only Tin Man's quick reflexes that kept him from going over the edge. Lion jumped, Dorothy shrieked, and Toto was so alarmed that he burst from Dorothy's arms and, instead of landing squarely upon his paws, hit the rocky ledge between land and water, overbalanced, and plunged straight into the torrent.
To everybody's everlasting surprise, Lion dove in after him.
At this moment, Scarecrow was very much torn; the flare still danced and reached and spat sparks, and this had gripped his mind with absolute terror, but Toto was being swept away and was too small to catch the spruce trunk, Lion was being swept away as well, Dorothy looked as if she were about to follow, and Tin Man was yelling and trying to do something helpful but it took Scarecrow a moment to comprehend exactly what that was, and then another moment to register whether or not he had any wits left with which to help his friends. He discovered that, yes, he did have a battered shred of wit remaining, and he used this to snatch Dorothy away from the edge.
"Don't jump in!" he shouted, pulling her farther from both water and the livid flare.
"But Toto – "
"Just don't," he pleaded, and chanced a look downriver. Apparently they had missed witnessing a miracle; Lion had somehow caught up with Toto, snagged the little dog out of the water, and now Lion had both arms wrapped around the trunk of the jammed spruce. Toto had clambered up to stand, shivering and terrified, upon the pole next to where Lion clung.
"Scarecrow!" Tin Man yelled, and Scarecrow stumbled over to Tin Man. His friend was tugging with all his might upon the vine, trying to yank it from where it was tied around the stump on the other side of the river. Scarecrow grabbed hold of the vine and put all his strength into it, and Dorothy appeared behind him a second later to help. They tugged once, twice, thrice, and then the stump collapsed and the vine was free and all three of them flew backwards into the rocky slope to land in a confused pile. They were up at once; Tin Man wrapped one end of the vine around his middle and threw the other end into the water. The vine became lost amid the waves and whitecaps, and for a moment Scarecrow felt faint with dread; were the three of them strong enough to pull a full-grown, waterlogged lion upriver, or would they all end up getting swept away?
"Everybody sit!" shouted Tin Man, and Dorothy and Scarecrow immediately dropped to their knees. "We can do this if we just keep low!" From this position they watched Lion catch at the vine with a back leg and draw it up to his front paws. He snatched Toto from the trunk, closed his eyes, and let out a high-pitched wail before letting go of the tree.
The sudden weight tugged at the vine with surprising violence, and the trio on shore yelled in surprise. They braced as well as they could to keep from slipping any more towards the water. They hauled hard; Scarecrow noticed that parts of the vine were beginning to split. It had soaked up the water and now as they pulled, the tension wrung water out all over Tin Man, and Dorothy's dress soon became sodden. Somehow Scarecrow, the only one of them who would have preferred to be drenched at the moment, so as to prevent flare-induced combustion, stayed dry.
Within moments, they had hauled Lion and Toto up close to the rocky shore, but now remembered that the water here ran too swiftly to have created any sort of beach. There was no way for Lion to touch bottom on this side, and no way for him to clamber out to safety. As he clung to the vine, the onrush of water battered against his body – the current was such that it sent a frigid net of water to leap up over Lion's head. He grabbed Toto by the scruff of the neck and, squinting against the spray, reached the dog up into the haven of Dorothy's waiting arms. Dorothy, for her part, became soaked to the shoulders just stretching down for her dog.
"Now what?" yelled Scarecrow. He and Tin Man hauled on the vine, but the angle was wrong and they could not lift Lion's bulk from the frigid water. Scarecrow inched to the edge of the rock and began to reach his arms down to Lion in a good-hearted but no doubt ill-fated effort to help Lion out, but he felt himself being hauled bodily away from the water by Tin Man.
"You have to stay dry!" Tin Man yelled.
"But – "
"Don't argue!" Tin Man bellowed in Scarecrow's face, with more severity than Scarecrow had ever heard come from his friend. Scarecrow backed away from the water and meekly waited to assist Tin Man with whatever his plan was. It turned out that Tin Man hadn't much of a plan; he handed the vine to Scarecrow, who wished fervently that he weren't such a lightweight. Dorothy, with Toto held fast in one arm, used her other to help keep tension on the vine. Then Tin Man reached down to Lion and began to help Lion climb out. It was a very awkward procedure, with much slipping and gasping and near-disasters, but eventually Lion stood before them, dripping and shivering.
Dorothy dropped the vine, rushed over to Lion, and, heedless of his drenched state, gave him a fierce hug.
Every straw of Scarecrow's being was trembling. He turned to discover that the flare that had sent Toto into the flume had burnt itself out at some point during the chaos; what remained was a thin ribbon of smoke curling up out of a blackened patch.
With one thought in mind, the group climbed up the steep slope of the river-carved gorge to escape the danger of the water and the noise of the river. Tin Man moved more slowly with each step he took, and Lion, by the way he was dragging himself, could have convinced anyone else that he himself was one of the fabled undead. Dorothy wasn't far behind on that front. Once they came finally to the top of the gorge and could once again see into the depths of the forest, Tin Man immediately set to work oiling his joints and Dorothy did her best to dry Toto off with the hem of her dress. Lion shook himself thoroughly to get the worst of the water out of his fur. Scarecrow's mind was going round and round in circles over the matter of the flare down in the gorge. Gerty had said the flares, meaning there were more than one. Is that what flares were? Random explosions of flames that shot without warning out of solid rock? If this was the case, there was little to be done about avoiding them, and bringing up the matter would be completely senseless. Having very little sense himself, Scarecrow's mind skipped along on the very edge of a full-blown anxiety attack.
"I don't care what you claim," said Dorothy to Lion as she examined Toto's ears. "You have a veritable well of courage within you, Lion, and anybody with or without a brain would agree with me."
Tin Man and Scarecrow took their respective cues and agreed with her.
"How can you say I'm fearless?" Lion shivered. "I haven't been that frightened since… since the crevasse. I thought I was doomed. I was lamenting the fact that it's been weeks since I've updated my will."
"I didn't say you were fearless," said Dorothy. "Fearlessness implies immense amounts of stupidity. I said you had courage."
Lion continued to wring his fur of water, and Scarecrow thought he could just make out a hint of a smile on Lion's face, though it was being smothered by a chill-induced grimace. Lion assured them that his coat was thick enough that he'd warm up in due time, miserable as the wait would be.
"What now?" Tin Man asked wearily, once he'd finished oiling all of his joints. Toto sat shivering in Dorothy's lap, now mostly dry. Dorothy herself looked none too dry and so none too warm.
"Head back towards the crevasse?" said Scarecrow, who was still engaged in an epic inner battle between reasonable worry and flat-out panic, somehow managing to keep the matter hidden.
"The noise of this river," said Dorothy, "is driving me absolutely batty. Let's travel southeast; we'll move away from this gorge and towards the crevasse and Emerald City. We can't get lost, as long as our path doesn't start drifting north."
"The sun," said Tin Man, and pointed back west across the gorge. They all followed his gesture and saw that the sun itself had settled beyond the horizon, leaving a swiftly-dying afterglow in the sky. "Like I said before, I don't think we should travel at night. Who knows what we'd bump into… Plus, it's our only compass. The canopy is too thick here to make out the stars. We can't risk traveling anywhere when we can't be sure where we're going. Especially if we aren't following a landmark like this river."
They agreed with Tin Man that it would be wise to stop once all evidence of the sun had disappeared, and they agreed with Dorothy that they should at least get out of earshot of the river's maddening voice. Dorothy and Toto and Lion could rest, Tin Man could keep watch, and Scarecrow would have plenty of time to become petrified with fright over the thought of the flares. It seemed a sound enough plan. They struggled to their feet and started southeast, Lion leaving sodden paw prints upon already-damp ground. In the distance to the east and north, Scarecrow noticed sudden bright lights appearing and disappearing; more flares. If the others noticed, they didn't make mention of it.
