by Frank Beddor
So they did, dispersing to explore their new home and to idle away the hours with petty scams and abuses, eager for what Redd had promised would be the most unwholesome adventure of their lives—their attack on Wonderland, when whatever cruel talents each possessed were to be indulged to their fullest. They were still spilling out of the palace’s Italian court when Vollrath offered himself up to his pupil.
“It isn’t clear that your Earth clothes have helped in our recruitment process, Your Imperial Viciousness,” the tutor said. “Therefore, I’m ready for whatever death you have in mind for me. Whether mercifully quick or agonizingly slow and torturous, I readily give myself up to it, as I said I would.”
Redd stared at the bald head bent down before her. How refreshing Vollrath’s sacrifice was. He didn’t beg for his life. He didn’t embarrass himself with groveling or sniveling, or appeals to her nonexistent mercy. Thinking that he might still be helpful in finding her Looking Glass Maze, she said, “I’m feeling generous today. You get to live.”
“I thank you for your leniency, Your Imperial Viciousness.”
“Leniency is for the weak-minded. Do not goad me with leniency.”
Vollrath bowed. “I apologize, Your Imperial Viciousness. But if I may overstep my bounds and impose further on your by no means lenient generosity: Since you are going to let me live, could you perhaps imagine for me…oh, let’s say a fistful of money, with which I and a few others can celebrate?”
“You’ll find it in your pockets. Now leave me to my brooding.”
The recruitment search had taken Redd across the European continent—to Africa, Asia, Russia, and back to Europe, Vollrath and Sacrenoir serving as her constant companions, her guides and recruitment officers. And just as had happened with Hatter Madigan during his thirteen-year search for the exiled Alyss Heart, wherever Redd went, stories began to circulate that in time would become legend, myth. Redd passed through Germany and tales of a kobold resembling her description were whispered. In Scandinavia, she was turned into a trollkonor with a bit of the huldra about her, and like every trollkonor, she was said to have a tail. In Spain, she became an evil temptress of Moors. In Constantinople, she was transformed into one of the most powerful alkiris ever heard of, immune to steel and particularly spiteful in her killing of newborn babies and their mothers. In Egypt, she was said to be a female demon, a devourer of souls. In Hong Kong, a new goddess cursed her way into the immortal pantheon, to be trusted less than Lei-zi, the goddess of thunder, and to be feared as much as Chu Jiang, king of the hell reserved for thieves and murderers. But as these stories passed from lips to lips, imprinting themselves on the public consciousness of various cultures, so too through derelict districts and select upper-class salons did the truth become known: Redd Heart, displaced evil Queen of Wonderland, wanted soldiers to fight with her for her queendom.
“P-Potential recruits seem more than w-willing to come to you, Your Imperial Viciousness,” Vollrath had noted, shivering on a street corner in Saint Petersburg. “All you n-n-need do is choose somewhere to r-reside until we return to W-Wonderland so that would-be s-s-s-soldiers will know where to f-find you.”
Redd, unlike her followers, was immune to the cold, the stinging wind. “Then we will live in the same city where my niece once lived,” she had said, “to sour whatever lingering effects of White Imagination her presence might have had on the place.”
So Vollrath and Sacrenoir had carried Redd to Oxford, England, where they escorted her around the provincial streets, the quads of Oxford University. It hadn’t taken long for Her Imperial Viciousness to see that she couldn’t live there.
“I’m nauseous from all of these picturesque lanes and quaint shops,” Redd had announced. “It suits my niece perfectly. She can have it.”
Soon thereafter, Redd had arrived on the streets of England’s capital city. A haughty-faced woman with cottony edges, a purring cat riding on her shoulders, and over one hundred international rogues massed behind her, Londoners had gaped and gawked as she called Vollrath and Sacrenoir to her side in Trafalgar Square to discuss where to live.
“There’s always Buckingham Palace.”
“Beneath me,” Redd had scorned. “I won’t acknowledge their ‘queen’ by taking over her hovel.”
“Then you’ll no doubt find the mansions of their dukes and duchesses beneath you.”
“No doubt.”
“There is another possibility,” Vollrath had said. “It’s an enormous structure, predominantly of iron and glass, the size of which suggests to many the strength of a mighty empire as well as boundless imagination. They say it houses the marvels of the age, from steam hammers, hydraulic presses, firearms, furniture, pianos, pottery, perfumes, diving suits, fabrics, and—”
“Enough!” Redd had commanded. “I expect nothing great from Earth imaginations, but to shut you up, I will suffer you to take me there.”
The Crystal Palace was located on Sydenham Hill in the south of London, an Erector set of elaborate ironwork and 350,000 square yards of glass panels. But its palatial courts—examples of technological progress and human ingenuity—were almost overshadowed by its painstakingly landscaped parks, their terraces and gardens complete with waterfalls and man-made lakes in the center of which jets of water shot twenty feet into the air.
“What do you think?” Vollrath had asked as they stood by the Lower Lakes whose grounds were home to statues of actual-sized dinosaurs.
“Eh,” Redd had grunted. “I suppose it’ll have to do.”
It was Sunday, the Crystal Palace closed to the public. Much to the disappointment of Redd’s soldiers, aside from a few broken windows and a scuffle or two with lonely security guards, they had commandeered the palace without incident. And it was now, as Her Imperial Viciousness was passing through the Italian Court, that she glimpsed her reflection in a bit of decorative glass—a charismatic and (she thought) crystal-genic leader stuffed into an unflattering Earth dress. With a dismissive sweep of her arm, thread became rose vines, the weave of silk became rose vines, frills of lace became rose blossoms whose petal-mouths opened and closed, clacking their teeth.
The Cat sprang off Redd’s shoulder and morphed into a humanoid assassin, which caused a murmur of awe to pass among those recruits who’d never seen him at his most dangerous.
“Earth’s high society will have to contend with us in earnest now,” Redd said.
“Good,” purred The Cat.
Redd might have declared her entrance to Earth society official on Sunday, but it wasn’t until Monday that Earth society learned of it. Palace employees—cashiers, ticket takers, tour guides, and security guards—showed up for work that morning as usual, but instead of the customary church-like quiet, they found Redd’s soldiers roaming about amidst shattered glass, broken statues, smashed furnishings, and decimated art. The sight of Redd’s horde was enough to make even the most courageous ticket taker go whey-faced and run, but when Redd and The Cat themselves appeared, attracted by the sound of troops terrorizing fresh victims, the more fragile among them took one look at the queen’s ghastly visage and the assassin’s glinting claws and fainted where they cowered. A fleet of bobbies arrived. But sighting the motley trespassers, none of the officers charged forth with the bravery they might have displayed against a more recognizable enemy.
“Who are these foolish-looking men with their round hats?” Redd smirked. “They’ve nothing but clubs for weapons.”
To exercise her imagination more than anything else, she flicked her fingers at them. Thimp, thimp thimp thimp! The bobbies felt the sting of scatter shot through their uniforms, against their flesh; not the usual scatter shot of steel or metal balls, but pennies. Paper money began to rain down from the ceiling. The bobbies stuffed their pockets as fast as they could and ran from the palace. The authorities were powerless; Redd and her followers would not be dislodged from their new abode.
Men from the press soon ventured to Sydenham Hill, risking their lives to interview th
e woman who could conjure storms of money at will.
“Yes, let them inform the pathetic public that Redd Heart has come,” Her Imperial Viciousness said when Vollrath explained what they wanted. “I have allowed myself to wallow in anonymity long enough.”
Whenever a new article was printed in the newspapers, Redd took her pet assassin out for a stroll, amusing herself with the chaos she and The Cat caused—Londoners fleeing in every direction at the sight of them.
She organized her troops along conventional hierarchical lines, the least talented divided into companies of fifty-two, each company captained by a recruit with greater imaginative gifts than those beneath her. The captains reported to battalion commanders more gifted than they. Each commander had five captains reporting to her while they themselves reported to the most gifted recruits, those who reported directly to Redd. Among this last, powerful rank was Baroness Dvonna, who had a talent for draining imagination from young and inexperienced Earth children not yet in full control of their abilities, leaving them forever lethargic, withered, glum. How this talent might fare against Wonderlanders was unclear, but Redd enjoyed the fact that the woman had littered Earth with a generation of sourpuss children. Plus, the baroness had a great many of these children under her control and, if nothing else, they could be thrown on the front line against Alyss’ forces.
Redd’s top military rank also included Alistaire Poole, a self-taught surgeon-cum-undertaker with a penchant for performing autopsies on people not in the least dead. His weapons of choice were scalpel and bone saw. There was Siren Hecht, an ex-Wonderlander whose imaginative gift lay in her ability to imagine her voice into such shrill, piercing registers that bank managers would fall to the ground, writhing with pain, while she helped herself to their vaults. And rounding out Redd’s crew of direct reports: the Marquis and Marquise X from the Basque region of Spain who, unfortunately for the local goatherds, were adept in hypnosis and occult spells; Mr. Van de Skülle, a slave trader originally from the Dutch West Indies who’d made a menace of himself during America’s civil war and was particularly skilled with a spike-tipped whip; and, of course, Sacrenoir.
Whereas this crowd of elite Black Imaginationists had been wooed into Redd’s service by Vollrath, those who made up the lower ranks—foot soldiers, grunts—traveled from all over the world for an opportunity to line up before Her Imperial Viciousness, subjecting themselves to her inspection and interrogation. Twice a week, Redd enlisted new recruits from this mass of hopefuls, passing before each of them while Vollrath related his or her particular talents.
“As you know, Your Imperial Viciousness,” the tutor explained one night, “most imaginationists are good at a single thing only, as an ordinary Wonderlander might be gifted in math but not poetry. Take this one here.” Redd and the tutor were standing before a sunken-chested man whose tattered clothes and unruly beard made him look as if he’d just been rescued from a deserted isle. “This former Wonderlander can do nothing but shoot pellets from his elbows.”
“His elbows?” Redd frowned. “Show me.”
The man bent his arms and, after a moment of concentration, tiny disks zipped out from his bony elbows and plunked against the wall.
“Tsst,” Redd said, unmoved. She made her choices. The perimeter of the room was suddenly lined with soldiers and, with Vollrath and her commanders at her heels, she started for the exit, calling out, “As for the rest of you…good-bye!” By the time she convened with The Cat in the hall, the rejects—including the elbow shooter—had been summarily dispatched.
Redd’s feline assassin had just returned from one of his late-night forays into the city. Where he went on these excursions, or what he did, not even Her Imperial Viciousness knew. But he inevitably returned with a load of bird carcasses, which he would drop at his mistress’s feet. Amid the carcasses tonight, however, there was also a book.
“Think you’re posh, do you?” Redd fumed when she saw it. “Want to improve yourself with reading?”
“Look at the title,” said The Cat.
The book flew up to her hand. Alice in Wonderland.
“A-L-I-C-E?” Redd said.
“It’s about your niece,” said The Cat. “It’s filled with idiotic lies about Wonderland, but it’s famous here.”
“Someone wrote a book about my niece?” Redd turned on her tutor. “Did you know about this?”
“I swear I didn’t,” Vollrath lied.
She let the book fall open in her hand. She riffled through its pages from first to last with her imagination. To think that Alyss had been immortalized by some Earth scribbler! She slammed the book shut. She tapped a long finger against its cover, under the author’s name. “Find this Lewis Carroll and bring him here!”
The Cat hurried off. Sacrenoir and the rest of the commanders loped away to discipline their troops.
Redd scowled in the direction of the palace’s Renaissance Court, where her rejected recruits lay dead on the cold hard floor. “At this rate, it will take a lifetime to amass even half the soldiers I’ll need.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Vollrath, his ears genuflecting, “a few of us should return to Wonderland to search for your maze while Sacrenoir and others continue to gather an army here?”
Redd knew, despite her many displays of imaginative strength, that her powers had weakened. She would never have admitted it—she was still a hundred times stronger than anyone around—but she was too far from the Heart Crystal. She had to get close to it again, to feel a fresh influx of its energy, and sooner rather than later…
CHAPTER 29
IN HEART Palace’s memorial wing, Alyss was sitting on an exact replica of her mother’s favorite settee, gazing expectantly into a looking glass as if hoping to find the wisdom of the ages in its quicksilver.
So many rulers become tyrants, partaking more of Black Imagination than White. Is it because being a queen or king makes you selfish? When everyone around you does as you tell them, never speaks their true minds for fear of upsetting you…How can a ruler not grow increasingly less tolerant of anyone or anything that frustrates her? But mother wasn’t like that…was she?
“Queen Alyss.”
She hadn’t noticed Bibwit and General Doppelgänger enter the room. How long had they been standing there?
“A curious thing has been discovered,” Bibwit said.
“I’m almost afraid to ask what you mean by ‘curious.’”
“And I’m almost afraid to tell you, my dear Alyss. But it appears that imaginationists who were in the continuum at the time of Molly’s—what shall I call it?—her mishap, yes, well…it seems that these imaginationists have found themselves unable to perform. We’ve had reports of conjurers unable to conjure, writers unable to write, musicians unable to play their instruments or compose, and inventors unable to invent. Just as the mysterious NRG that Homburg Molly unwittingly released has rendered the Crystal Continuum unusable, so too has it rendered the abilities of imaginationists.”
“The NRG does seem to be dissipating with time,” General Doppelgänger offered. “Whenever one of my soldiers tries to enter a looking glass portal, the NRG knocks him back, but not as forcefully as it once did. The continuum should shortly be available to citizens. We do hope that some remnant of the weapon that caused all of this will be found once the continuum is viable again, but we’re not counting on it.”
Alyss remained silent, staring into the looking glass. Bibwit motioned with an ear and the general took the hint.
“Queen Alyss, if you will excuse me, I must tend to…something. Please accept my congratulations.”
Alyss was startled. “For what?”
But the general’s footfalls were already echoing down the hall. Bibwit swiveled his ears away from the door, the better to focus them on his immediate surroundings. He peeked into the looking glass that had so held Alyss’ attention. He saw nothing but the room’s reflection.
“Have you located him?” he asked.
Hatter. Alyss had, i
n her imagination’s eye, spotted the Milliner less than half a lunar hour ago, but it had been exactly the same as all the other times: Instead of finding him deep in negotiations with Arch to secure Molly’s release, he was tagging along with the king as one of his attendants—at banquets, speeches, gaming events, military exercises. Hatter’s behavior was, in the worst sense of the word, curious.
“No,” she lied. “I still haven’t found him.”
The Milliner’s disobedience had necessitated a change in strategy: She’d had to direct the knight and rook, already on their way to rendezvous with Arch at the Sin Bin Gaming Club, to arrest the Lord and Lady of Diamonds instead, leaving Hatter to try and secure Molly’s release as he thought best. Nothing else seemed feasible. Whether or not the Milliner would face consequences for his disobedience depended, to some degree, on what happened with Molly, as well as his attitude when—if—he and his daughter returned.
“I’ve also been searching for Molly,” she said. “In Boarderton and the Ganmede province…”
Bibwit sat down beside her on the tufted bench. “But you don’t see her either?”
“No.”
She’d been contacted by Arch soon after Hatter’s arrival in Boarderland. “Queen Heart,” the king had boomed, “I am thankful—for Homburg Molly’s sake—that you’ve sent the Milliner to negotiate on her behalf, as the Ganmedes requested. Mr. Madigan is a keen negotiator and I have every confidence that he and the Ganmedes will shortly agree to terms assuring Homburg Molly’s release. But why hear it from me when you can hear it from Hatter himself?”
The Milliner had then come online, Alyss hoping for a clue to help interpret his behavior. But looking as blank as a fresh sheet of papyrus, Hatter only corroborated what Arch had already told her—he was negotiating for Molly’s release; there was cause for optimism.
He must have known she would look for him with her imagination’s eye; which meant he must have known that she had seen him gallivanting about with Arch; which in turn meant he knew that Alyss knew that he was lying about his negotiations. And yet he had lied anyway. Why? Even if Arch had been eavesdropping, with a timely dip of the head or shift of the eyes Hatter could have communicated the precariousness of the role he’d assumed. With a patterned blinking of eyelids, he could have reassured her that all she’d seen him doing, he had done for Molly and the queendom. Had his love for Molly made a deserter of him?