Ugu the Shoemaker had committed one rather serious error in his otherwise magnificent career as a villain.
He had collected Ozma.
At first he had been very pleased about it.
There she stood among the treasures in his great chamber: the Magic Picture, the enchanted tools, books whose letters crawled politely into new arrangements when nobody was looking, rings, dishes, mirrors, powders, wands, boxes, bottles, and objects whose purposes even Ugu had not yet determined.
And in the middle of them all stood Ozma of Oz.
Ugu walked around her twice.
"Magnificent," he murmured.
Ozma raised one eyebrow.
"Am I?"
"Undoubtedly. The most valuable magical object in the Land of Oz."
"Object?"
"Certainly."
Ozma folded her hands.
She had been imprisoned, kidnapped, magically inconvenienced, and subjected to tedious speeches by ambitious men before. She therefore possessed one of the most useful accomplishments a ruler could have:
the ability to remain perfectly polite while deciding how best to dismantle somebody's entire worldview.
"I see," she said.
Ugu beamed.
This was his second mistake.
By supper, Ozma had learned nearly everything necessary about him.
Ugu liked strong tea.
He disliked people touching his books.
He could discuss enchantment theory for three hours without breathing.
He had spent most of his life alone.
And, perhaps most importantly, nobody had apparently asked him a personal question in twenty years.
"So," Ozma said as Ugu adjusted an enchanted astrolabe, "what do you do when you're not stealing things?"
Ugu froze.
"Stealing?"
"Acquiring."
"Ah."
He considered this.
"I study."
"With whom?"
"Nobody."
"Who helps you?"
"Nobody."
"Who argues with you?"
"Nobody."
"Who tells you when you've become ridiculous?"
Ugu looked offended.
"Why would I require such a person?"
Ozma smiled.
"Everyone does."
For some reason this answer bothered him enormously.
That evening he tried to read.
He managed three pages.
Then he found himself staring across the chamber at Ozma.
She was reading one of his books.
"You have it upside down," he said.
"No, I haven't."
Ugu hurried over.
Indeed she had not.
"Hmph."
Ozma turned a page.
"This annotation is yours?"
"Yes."
"It's clever."
Ugu blinked.
"Oh."
"But wrong."
"What?"
And thus began their first argument.
It lasted until two in the morning.
Ugu went to bed furious.
He had never been happier.
Meanwhile Dorothy was coming.
Dorothy was coming in the particular manner in which Dorothy Gale tended to come when somebody had taken Ozma.
Which was to say:
with friends,
with determination,
with a Wizard,
and with the general atmospheric quality of an approaching constitutional crisis.
"You think Ozma's all right?" Dorothy asked for perhaps the seventeenth time.
The Wizard adjusted his hat.
"Dorothy, Ozma has faced Nome Kings, transformations, wicked enchantments, invasions and politicians."
"I know."
"And she's cleverer than Ugu."
"I know."
"And enormously powerful."
"I KNOW."
The Wizard glanced sideways at her.
Dorothy kicked a pebble.
"I just miss her."
The Wizard's expression softened.
"Ah."
Dorothy narrowed her eyes.
"Don't 'ah' me."
"I didn't say anything."
"You said it with your eyebrows."
The Wizard prudently ceased having eyebrows for several minutes.
By the third day, Ugu had begun bringing Ozma tea without being asked.
By the fourth, he had provided her with a chair.
By the fifth, he had ceased locking the door.
On the sixth morning Ozma wandered into his laboratory carrying breakfast.
Ugu nearly dropped a wand.
"You can leave the chamber?"
"Of course."
"But the spell—"
"I solved it yesterday."
Ugu stared.
"And you did not escape?"
Ozma put down the tray.
"I haven't finished our discussion concerning sympathetic enchantment."
Ugu sat down very slowly.
"Oh."
Something very strange happened in his chest.
He suspected magic.
Naturally, he spent the afternoon attempting to diagnose it.
No hex.
No charm.
No potion.
No enchanted dust.
Just Ozma.
This was extremely alarming.
That evening he finally asked her.
"Why aren't you angry?"
"I was."
"You don't seem angry."
"I've had time to think."
Ozma closed the enormous green book in her lap.
"You wanted every important magical thing in Oz."
"Yes."
"And why?"
"Power."
"No."
Ugu frowned.
"Knowledge."
"No."
"Prestige?"
Ozma waited.
Ugu's shoulders slowly lowered.
His eyes drifted toward the shelves surrounding them.
Hundreds of books.
Thousands of instruments.
No chairs except his own until Ozma came.
No second teacup until three days ago.
"No one could take them away from me," he said.
Ozma's voice became very gentle.
"Ah."
He looked sharply at her.
"Don't 'ah' me."
Ozma smiled.
Ugu discovered, with some irritation, that he wanted her to keep smiling.
"You know," she said, "people aren't objects."
"I have gathered that."
"You cannot possess them."
"Yes."
"They stay because they choose to."
This concept seemed to Ugu both obvious and absolutely terrifying.
"What if they don't?"
"Then you must let them go."
He looked at her.
"And if they do?"
Ozma's expression softened.
"Then perhaps you aren't alone anymore."
Ugu swallowed.
It was the most dangerous magic he had ever encountered.
Dorothy arrived the following afternoon.
The doors burst open.
"UGU!"
Ugu jumped approximately three feet.
Dorothy marched into the chamber with the Wizard beside her and several companions immediately behind.
She stopped.
Everyone stopped.
Ozma was sitting comfortably in a chair beside Ugu.
They were sharing a book.
There were two teacups on the table.
Dorothy stared.
Ozma brightened.
"Dorothy!"
Dorothy crossed the room so quickly that Ugu had barely enough time to move the tea.
Ozma rose and Dorothy threw both arms around her.
Ozma hugged her back.
For several long seconds neither said anything.
Then Dorothy pulled away just enough to examine her.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Bewitched?"
"No."
"Transformed?"
"No."
"Kidnapped?"
Ozma considered.
"Technically."
Dorothy turned toward Ugu.
Ugu immediately decided that stealing magical artifacts had been less frightening than Dorothy Gale.
But Ozma touched Dorothy's hand.
"It's all right."
Dorothy looked from Ozma to Ugu.
Then to the two teacups.
Then to the book.
Then back to Ozma.
Her eyes narrowed.
Ozma's mouth twitched.
Dorothy's eyebrows rose.
Ozma gave her the tiniest possible smile.
There passed between them one of those mysterious conversations conducted entirely by women who have known one another for years.
The Wizard watched it happen.
"So," he said brightly, "perhaps we should discuss the stolen magical property."
Ugu cleared his throat.
"Yes."
He stood.
"I intend to return everything."
Everyone stared.
"Everything?" Dorothy asked.
"Everything."
"The Magic Picture?"
"Yes."
"The enchanted instruments?"
"Yes."
"The royal treasures?"
"Yes."
"The—"
"Yes, Miss Gale. All of it."
Dorothy glanced at Ozma.
Ozma looked unbearably pleased.
"And Ozma?" Dorothy asked.
Ugu became very still.
"No," he said.
Dorothy's eyes widened dangerously.
Ugu hurried on.
"Because I cannot return Ozma."
Silence.
Ozma watched him.
Ugu's voice became quieter.
"She was never mine."
Dorothy's expression changed.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Then she grinned.
"Well."
Ugu looked at Ozma.
"If she wishes to go home, she goes home."
Ozma stood.
"I do."
Something fell in Ugu's face.
Only for a moment.
Then Ozma added:
"And you are coming with me."
Ugu stared.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You have several thousand books that the Royal Library does not possess."
"Yes."
"You understand forms of magic even the Wizard has not studied."
The Wizard nodded enthusiastically.
"Absolutely! I've been peeking at those shelves for ten minutes."
Ugu instinctively stepped between him and the books.
Ozma continued.
"You require colleagues."
"I do not."
"You require friends."
"I certainly do not."
"You require someone who tells you when you're being ridiculous."
Dorothy raised her hand.
"I can do that."
The Wizard raised his.
"So can I."
Several others raised theirs.
Ugu looked horrified.
Ozma smiled.
"And I require a magician who understands obscure enchantments, impossible books, ancient devices, and catastrophically antisocial scholars."
Ugu stared at her.
"You have the Wizard."
The Wizard coughed delicately.
"My specialties are rather more theatrical."
"And," Ozma said, "there is no law saying Oz may have only one court magician."
Ugu looked around his laboratory.
For the first time, it seemed empty rather than complete.
"Would I have rooms?"
"Of course."
"A laboratory?"
"Yes."
"My books?"
"All of them."
"Private shelves?"
"Absolutely."
"No one touches the black volumes on the west wall."
"Without permission."
"And the instruments—"
"Ugu."
He stopped.
Ozma held out her hand.
"Come home."
Nobody had ever said that to him.
Ugu looked at her hand for a very long time.
Then he took it.
The question of his title caused considerably more trouble.
"Royal Magician," suggested the Wizard.
"Taken," said Ugu.
"Second Royal Magician," Dorothy offered.
"Absolutely not."
"Keeper of Mysteries?" Ozma suggested.
Ugu considered.
"Acceptable, but vague."
"Treasurer of Enchantments?"
"I am attempting to move beyond the collecting phase of my life."
Dorothy, who was sprawled sideways in a chair in Ozma's private sitting room, grinned wickedly.
"What about Ozma's Special Friend?"
Ozma turned pink.
Ugu nearly inhaled his tea.
The Wizard became fascinated by a curtain.
"Dorothy!"
"What? He's special. He's your friend."
"You know perfectly well what that sounds like."
"Do I?"
Ozma gave her a look.
Dorothy smiled with the serene confidence of a person whose position in Ozma's affections was not remotely threatened.
Indeed, Dorothy had discovered something rather amusing about the situation.
Ugu adored Ozma.
Not as Dorothy adored her.
Not quite.
But certainly not merely as a sovereign.
And Ozma, who had spent much of her life surrounded by people who treated her as a symbol, found Ugu's argumentative devotion refreshing.
He disagreed with her.
He challenged her.
He occasionally forgot she was ruler of Oz entirely and told her that her interpretation of a spell was "utter nonsense."
Ozma loved that.
Dorothy loved watching Ozma love that.
Mostly.
There were limits.
Eventually the title was found in an ancient book of palace offices.
Ozma read it aloud.
"'Privy Thaumaturge to Her Majesty.'"
Ugu blinked.
Dorothy sat upright.
The Wizard coughed.
Ozma looked innocently at them all.
"It means a magician admitted to the ruler's private confidence."
"I know what it means," said Dorothy.
Her grin grew enormous.
Ugu turned scarlet.
"It is historically respectable."
"Oh, extremely respectable," Dorothy said.
"Dorothy."
"I'm agreeing!"
Ozma inspected the page.
"The Privy Thaumaturge is granted unrestricted access to the royal magical archives, private laboratories, and the sovereign's person whenever magical consultation is required."
Dorothy made a tiny choking noise.
Ugu stared very hard at the ceiling.
Ozma's cheeks became pink.
"This is an official court appointment."
"Of course," Dorothy said solemnly.
The Wizard suddenly found it necessary to leave the room.
Dorothy followed him shortly thereafter, laughing so hard she had to hold the doorframe.
Thus Ugu the Shoemaker, once the loneliest magician in Oz, became Ugu, Privy Thaumaturge to Ozma.
He received three rooms in the Emerald Palace.
Then five.
Then seven, because books reproduce mysteriously whenever scholars are permitted sufficient shelf space.
He and the Wizard became ferocious collaborators and equally ferocious rivals. Their arguments shook windows.
Dorothy frequently wandered into Ugu's laboratory, stole his biscuits, and demanded explanations of whatever dangerous device he was working on.
"You mustn't touch that."
"Why?"
"It could turn you into a goose."
Dorothy withdrew her hand.
"Useful information."
And Ozma visited almost every evening.
Sometimes officially.
Sometimes not.
Sometimes they studied ancient enchantments.
Sometimes they argued.
Sometimes Ozma sat silently beside him while he worked.
And occasionally, late at night, Dorothy would wander past Ugu's door and find Ozma still there, laughing over some incomprehensible magical joke.
Dorothy never begrudged him those hours.
Because Dorothy understood something Ugu had taken rather longer to learn.
Love was not a treasure that became smaller when shared.
Ozma could be Dorothy's dearest person in all the world and still have rooms in her enormous heart that belonged to others.
And Ugu?
Ugu had once tried to possess every magical treasure in Oz.
Instead, he eventually discovered the one treasure he had never thought to seek:
a place where people noticed when he did not come to supper.
A chair waiting for him beside the fire.
Friends who irritated him.
A Wizard who borrowed his books.
Dorothy stealing his biscuits.
And a beautiful fairy ruler who occasionally appeared at his laboratory door after midnight, holding some impossible manuscript and saying:
"Ugu? Are you awake?"
He always was.
For his sovereign.
For his friend.
For his favorite former "object."
And—although the official histories of Oz remain exquisitely discreet concerning the exact duties of a Privy Thaumaturge—
for Ozma.
