Free Shadows of the Emerald City by Jw Schnarr

Wizard said that if the defects were brought here due to physical deformities, they may still be, um, alive . But the majority of you were brought here because you were simply overworked and broke down.”
    They were on the warehouse floor now, having descended the pile of tin bodies. Nick took a moment to look back to them and he felt that old tremor in his chest, the faint stirring of what was left of his heart.
    “ There are so many,” he said. ‘My God, how long have we been here?”
    The woman looked away from him and headed towards the door. She cocked her hat slightly on her head, reached beneath her robe and withdrew a broom.
    “ I’m not sure you want to know the answer to that.”
    He took a few clunking steps towards her. Tin or not, he still felt as if he had muscles and those muscles had not been flexed in a while.
    “ I do. Tell me.”
    The woman sighed and began plucking the bristles on the end of her broom. “Well, records vary, but it’s been somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and sixty years . ”
    What little of his heart was left sunk within his chest. That crystal ball had put him to sleep for that long? How much longer would he have slept if this woman had not come looking for help? He peered back to the heap of useless tin bodies and wanted to collapse to the floor. Seeing them heaped together like that, discarded and of no use, made him think of the Woodkin village.
    “ Why has this happened?” he asked the woman. He knew that he could not cry, but he tried his best.
    “ I don’t know. But looking at you right now, I think I know why you were brought here—why you were of no use.”
    “ It’s because I still think like a man,” he said. “After the Woodkin village, I…I don’t know. It affected me and I don’t think it was supposed to.”
    “ Come here,” she said, beckoning him forward.
    He was walking towards her before he realized it. There was a pull to her, a magnetism that he didn’t understand. But he assumed, from her wardrobe and the broom, that she might be a witch. They were pretty scarce when he had been human, little more than legends. But that was almost two hundred years ago. There was no telling how much had changed in Oz since then.
    As he came to her, she placed a hand on his shoulder and ran her other palm along his frame. She started at his brow and made her way down his cheeks, his neck, his chest. Her touch was cold but there was still something nearly sensual about the examination.
    “ Ah ha,” she said as she neared his chest. “Your heart still beats. As I understand it, the transformation into a Tin Man should have removed it.”
    He thought of the Woodkin village and of the wife that had left him in his other life.
    “ I wish it had,” he said softly.
    “ You know, dear,” the witch said lightly, bringing her sharp face closer to his. “I can fix that if you want. Come with me— work for me—and I can fix it. And then, without a heart, you can live a very long time. There are Tin Men that worked on the Road with you that are still alive today and making very good lives for themselves. They show no signs of aging, no signs of guilt, remorse or regret. Many people actually envy them.”
    “ They remained in Oz when the Yellow Brick Road was finished?” he asked.
    “ Oh yes. The Road is legendary now. Those that helped build it are held in high regard. You could be among them. All you have to do is let me take your heart.”
    He didn’t have to think long. He felt it within him even as she mentioned it. It felt foreign. Part of him knew that it no longer belonged to him. The moment he stepped into that Woodkin village with his axe raised he had forfeited his heart and anything else human that remained within him.
    “ I’ll come with you if you’ll just take it away.”
    When she smiled at him he once again found himself wanting to be rid of his heart. Her smile chilled him; a chill that seemed to pierce the wretched muscle that