The Looking Glass Wars (20 page)

Jack of Diamonds chortled, smug and dismissive. ―Gentlemen, I don‘t wish to fight. I have great respect for Mr. Anders‘ accomplishments on the field of battle, but he knows nothing about politics. He is, as I‘m sure you‘ll agree, too apt to use his sword when he might better employ his tongue.‖

―And you are too apt to powder that wig instead of fighting alongside us when it counts.‖

Jack waved him off. ―Let Mr. Anders believe what he wants. My only concern is Alyss. There‘s no doubt in my mind that she is our lost princess, but I don‘t think her mentally or physically capable of leading a charge against Redd.‖

―It will take time,‖ Bibwit concurred.

―It will take the Looking Glass Maze,‖ said Hatter.

―And that,‖ Bibwit agreed.

Jack of Diamonds slapped his forehead in disbelief. ―Not that old bunk. The Looking Glass Maze was proven pointless long ago. Redd herself never went through any maze.‖

―All the more reason why she can be defeated,‖ said Bibwit.

―General, I urge you…let us agree to the summit and stop this idiocy before it goes any further.

An opportunity such as the one Redd is offering won‘t come again.‖

―No queen can reach her full strength and power without passing through the maze,‖ said Bibwit.

Jack of Diamonds lost all patience. ―Yes, by all means, let‘s run along to the maze! Hurry, hurry, to the all-important Looking Glass Maze while our future survival hangs in the balance!‖

―We can‘t simply ‗run along,‘ as you say,‖ instructed Bibwit Harte. ―Only the caterpillars know the location of the maze. Alyss must meet with the caterpillars.‖

―But they haven‘t left the Valley of Mushrooms since Redd became queen,‖ said the white knight.

―Then she will have to go to them.‖

―She‘ll need a military escort,‖ Dodge said.

Jack of Diamonds pulled his wig down over his face and spoke into its thick, powdered curls.

Though muffled, his voice was audible: ―If you want to force her into a confrontation she‘s ill-equipped to handle, all I can say is, May the spirit of Issa help anyone who should fall under your people‘s care. You‘d march them off to their deaths.‖

―Why are you so eager for us to compromise with Redd, I wonder?‖

The question came from Dodge. But Jack only buried his face deeper into his wig and groaned.

―Bibwit,‖ the general said, ―shouldn‘t you be getting back to Mount Isolation in case Redd suspects something?‖

―I‘m not going back. The Cat has seen me with Alyss. My place is here now, with her.‖

It would have been nice to maintain a spy in Redd‘s court, but the general understood. ―Well, we‘re glad to have full use of you, at any rate.‖

Bibwit‘s ears twitched and a moment later they all heard it: someone quickly approaching. Hatter stood, hand at the brim of his top hat, and Dodge jumped up, ready to fight. But it was only the rook, battered and bruised from his skirmish with The Cat in the Whispering Woods.

―You made it,‖ he said, smiling at Dodge.

―You made it. I‘ll get the surgeon.‖

The rook shrugged him off. ―I‘m all right. Surface wounds only. We lost four-fifths of our men, though. Didn‘t even take one of The Cat‘s lives. But the princess is safe?‖

Dodge nodded.

―That counts for something.‖ The rook lowered himself into a vacant chair. ―So what‘d I miss?‖

―Well,‖ said General Doppelgänger, ―most here believe that Alyss must pass through the Looking Glass Maze if she is to successfully challenge Redd. But I haven‘t yet voiced my opinion.‖

Jack of Diamonds peeked out from his wig, hopeful.

―I think we should give Alyss the opportunity of meeting with the caterpillars in the Valley of Mushrooms,‖ said General Doppelgänger. ―Let her try the maze, if she is able.‖

―Nooo,‖ Jack said and again buried his face in his wig.

―But in the meantime…‖ The general yanked Jack of Diamonds‘ wig off his face. ―Inform Redd that we‘d be pleased to attend her summit, if she‘s still willing to have it in light of Alyss‘

return.‖ To the others, he said, ―Responsibility to the cause requires we have alternate plans should the princess fail.‖

―She won‘t fail,‖ Dodge said. ―I won‘t let her.‖

CHAPTER 34

R EDD MOON had risen. Its bloody light burned down on the Chessboard Desert through a cloud-clotted sky, toxic vapors burping continuously out of the factory engaged in manufacturing Redd‘s war machines.

The Cat skulked through the halls of the Mount Isolation fortress, his own unease dwarfed by the violence of the sky over the steaming desert—a sky that became visible to him only as he entered the spiral-shaped hall leading to the Observation Dome, where Redd waited for proof that her niece was no longer among the living.

This was not a briefing The Cat longed to make. He entered the Observation Dome and found his queen staring out of a telescopic panel at Wondertropolis, the walrus-butler busy polishing the other panels with a cloth.

Redd‘s back was to him. Without turning around, she said, ―I see you but I don‘t see my niece‘s head,‖ and before he could utter a syllable, her scepter speared him.

The walrus gave a little jump and started for the exit. ―Oh! I‘d better check on—‖

―Stay where you are!‖ Redd shouted.

―Yes, I still have plenty of work to do here, Your Imperial Viciousness.‖ Back to polishing the telescopic panels went the walrus-butler.

The Cat stood unsteadily on two legs, Redd‘s scepter jutting out of him. In theory, he was fortunate to have had nine lives. But each death was painful. The Cat sometimes wished for only one life.

He fell to the floor, dead.

Redd stalked back and forth next to his lifeless body. She took hold of her scepter. The Cat‘s eyes flickered open and the wound in his chest healed. He slowly got to his feet, licking himself clean.

―Tell me how you managed to fail this time,‖ Redd demanded.

―The Alyssians reached her first. We chased them back through the Pool of Tears but—‖

―Alyss in Wonderland? Unacceptable!‖ Redd screeched, and again The Cat felt the stinging, mortal blow of her scepter.

The walrus blubbered and dropped his polishing cloth, bent to pick it up, and bumped his head against a telescopic panel.

Redd tried to pinpoint Alyss‘ location in her imagination‘s eye, saw a confusion of foliage and trees. A forest of some kind. But there were many forests in the queendom.

―Where is Bibwit Harte? I want the royal secretary here, now.‖

―I‘m sorry, Your Imperial Viciousness,‖ said the walrus, rubbing his head, ―truly very sorry, but Bibwit Harte is not here. No one‘s seen him since—‖

―He‘s with the Alyssians now.‖ The Cat had regained consciousness and lay on the floor watching his wound heal.

―No more unwelcome news out of you, my feline friend,‖ Redd threatened. She motioned with her fingers and The Cat found himself standing upright. ―Come with me.‖

She swooped out of the room, her heels click-clacking on the polished floor. Casting a last, squinty-eyed glance at the walrus, The Cat followed Redd down the spiraling hall, through dim rooms of questionable purpose to the vacuum shaft that shot them into the bowels of the fortress.

They entered an enormous room in which an army of Glass Eyes stood in columns, waiting for orders. As Redd opened her mouth to speak, she projected her holographic, anger-gnarled face onto Wondertropolis‘ billboards and government-sponsored poster-crystals, Wonderlanders pausing amid their various jobs and activities to listen to her spew the words she spoke to the Glass Eyes at Mount Isolation.

―Loyal subjects, there is a pretender to the throne in our midst. She calls herself Alyss Heart.

Your assistance in her capture—in her death—is hereby commanded. She is in one of our forests. Find her by the time my moon sets or I will burn every forest in Wonderland. Whoever accomplishes this will be rewarded with the knowledge that she or he has earned my eternal favor.‖

Redd‘s face vanished from the city‘s billboards and posters, replaced by the usual advertisements for Redd‘s Hotel & Casino, Redd Apartments, jabberwocky matches, and reward offers for reporting followers of White Imagination. Wonderlanders went back about their business—

though, to be sure, there were some who considered Redd‘s eternal favor worth having and would do what they could to find Alyss Heart.

Back at Mount Isolation, the last of the Glass Eyes streamed out of the fortress into the desert.

Redd turned to The Cat, her voice echoing through the empty room. ―Tell Jack of Diamonds it‘s time he proved his loyalty once and for all.‖

CHAPTER 35

S HE HADN‘T really intended to sleep, had just wanted to be alone to think things over. How long since I was standing beside Leopold in Westminster Abbey? It seemed so long ago, such a terribly long time ago. What‘s become of him? And the Liddells? What do they think has happened to me? What are they doing this very moment? She had grown to love them, perhaps as a kidnapped person grows to love those who hold her captive, but it was love. Alyss knew that now.

All of this thinking solved nothing and it was a relief when Bibwit entered the tent carrying a small, neatly folded stack of clothes.

―Please put these on, Alyss,‖ he said. ―I‘ll wait for you outside.‖

It was an Alyssian uniform, makeshift as all things Alyssian had to be in the Redd-controlled queendom. The shirt and trousers didn‘t match in color. Their particular weave of nanofibers was coarse by Wonderland standards, and yet, rubbing the hem of the shirt between her index finger and thumb, Alyss knew it to be smoother and softer than the finest silk in England. Yes, they were plain garments, as plain as anything worn by the poor in Genevieve‘s time, but with one difference: the faded badge of a white heart on the end of the right shirtsleeve.

Alyss stripped out of her wedding gown and, torn as it was, carefully laid it on the general‘s cot.

She dressed herself in the Alyssian outfit and wanted to know what sort of figure she made in the unfamiliar clothes, but there were no looking glasses in the tent.

Nothing left to do. Must face the future, whatever it holds.

With a decided breath and a firming up of the shoulders, she stepped out of the tent. Bibwit came forward with beaming countenance and took both her hands in his. He looked her up and down, approving of what he saw.

―Were you to wear one, Alyss, you could make the saddle blanket of a spirit-dane look regal.‖

―Thank you, Bibwit, but—‖

―Ah, ah, no buts. You‘ve just returned to us and it is too soon to express whatever doubts you undoubtedly have with that most cowardly of words, that qualifier of qualifiers, but.‖

Alyss smiled—more a matter of facial muscles than of feeling. ―It‘s good to see you‘re still the same old Bibwit Harte,‖ she said. ―After our recent clash with The Cat, I thought you might have become a man of heroic action and no longer cared for the subtleties of the intellect.‖

―I, a man of heroic action? Tut tut. I leave such things to others. But of course I am the same old Bibwit Harte, Alyss; I am the same precisely because I am old. I tutored your great-grandmother‘s grandmother, and—‖

―Yes, I remember.‖

―—I‘ve seen enough political upheavals to fill countless heads. Nothing has changed me yet. I admit that this Redd business is the worst I‘ve experienced, but I‘m much too old to change.

Now enough about me, though I am a fascinating subject. Come.‖

He led her to an arrangement of weathered, empty ammunition containers that served as a seating area. Lowering himself onto a container that had once held orb generators fresh from Redd‘s factory, Bibwit‘s expansive, brown robe puddled around him. He looked like a small brown volcano with a white head. Tea was brought by a young girl wearing a homburg hat and cracked leather overcoat, so timid in Alyss‘ presence that she didn‘t dare raise her eyes to look at the princess.

―She‘s a shy one,‖ Alyss said after the girl had hurried off. ―Not usually. It‘s you that makes her so. She was born here, in this very camp. Do you know what they call themselves, all of these people?‖

Alyss shook her head. How could she know?

―Alyssians.‖ Bibwit spelled it out.

Her heart gave a little jump. Alyssians? They ask too much of me. ―I don‘t think I‘m ready for all of this,‖ she said.

Bibwit studied her a moment. His ears twitching and swiveling in response to every passing sound, he described the changes that Wonderland had suffered in the past thirteen years, and though his wisdom covered many subjects, there were things even he didn‘t understand, most of which concerned her. So then it was her turn to talk, to try to explain what felt inexplicable.

―I had to turn my back on all my Wonderland memories,‖ she said. ―I had to shut my mind to them in order to survive in a world that didn‘t believe. I resisted for a long time, but it became…‖

―So that‘s why you were to be married?‖

Alyss nodded. ―I will always belong partly to that other world now.‖

―Wisely put. You can‘t spend so much time in a place and not carry a bit of it inside you. But this is your rightful home, Alyss. This is where you belong.‖

―Is it?‖ She looked around. How can they call themselves Alyssians when I hardly feel Alyssian myself? It‘s too much. They ask too much. ―It seems to me that I no longer quite belong anywhere. And what about the family I left behind? What about Leopold, the man I was to marry?‖

―We will provide for the people who nurtured you as their own, if we have the luxury to do so in the future. As to this Leopold character, we have more important things to consider than one man‘s love, be he of this world or any other.‖

Alyss caught sight of Dodge staring at them from behind a tent. She raised a hand to wave, but he ducked out of sight and didn‘t show his face again.

―You have a powerful imagination, Alyss,‖ said Bibwit Harte. ―The Alyssians will need it, and the fate of the queendom depends on it. In what little time we have, my job is to educate you in its uses and limitations, according to the precepts of White Imagination.‖

―It‘s gone.‖