by Frank Beddor
“Alyss.”
She shot a glance at the looking glass on the wall behind her: nothing but the expected reflections. Nothing but the usual reflections too in the looking glass above the water basin.
“You must be mistaken,” a male voice said. “I don’t see her.”
“I’m not mistaken. She’s here.”
The voices—her parents’ voices—seemed to be coming from a compact lying open on a side table.
“Once children have grown,” Nolan mused, “they want as little to do with their parents as possible. Woe are we whose only daughter finds us an embarrassing spectacle.”
Alyss approached the side table and saw her mother’s face occupying the whole of the compact’s palm-sized mirror. “I don’t think you’re an embarrassing spectacle,” she said.
Nolan thrust his face into view. “Alyss!”
“Father. I miss you both every day. I’ve been staring at my own reflection for so long, hoping to see you, that I’m beginning to hate the way I look.”
“Impossible!” Nolan exclaimed. “You’re beautiful. And I understand that a dashing guardsman thinks the same.”
Alyss glanced at her skirts, bashful.
“You look tired,” Genevieve said.
“I’m fine.”
“Even in times of crisis, you must rest. And you’ve been crying.”
“I’m fine, mother.”
Nolan was squeezed out of view. Genevieve’s face again filled the compact’s glass, her voice tender. “Alyss, I am sorry you’ve had these tremendous responsibilities thrust upon you.”
“It’s not your fault, mother. You were murdered.”
“But perhaps I should have been better fortified against Redd’s coming. There are moments when I wish you’d been born with no extraordinary ability, into an average Wonderland family. It’s a weakness in me, I know. To wish for a past that can never be. What would have become of Wonderland if you were not who you are?”
“I have more weaknesses than you know, mother. Lately, I’ve been thinking that my sacrifices—all of our sacrifices—haven’t been worth it.”
“You cannot ignore the gifts with which you were born. Your duty is to the queendom, above all else.”
“To secure the greatest good for the greatest number,” Nolan added, crowding his face into view. “You can’t put Wonderland at risk to save a single citizen, not even your favorite guardsman.”
“Since when has wearing the crown meant being told what I can’t do?” Alyss muttered. But when her mother looked on the verge of a lecture, she quickly added: “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a larger glass? Maybe the one by the floating chairs?”
Genevieve shook her head, knocking temples with her husband. “We’re all right.”
“Perfectly comfortable,” Nolan agreed. “Smell.” His nostrils expanded to take in the sweet, earthy fragrance that had drifted into the room.
“That means it’s time for us to go,” Genevieve sighed.
Turning from Alyss, the couple walked hand in hand into the far reaches of the glass, shrinking in the distance until they were gone from view altogether. The smell had grown pungent. A funnel cloud of blue smoke was coming from the bedroom, where Alyss found the blue caterpillar curled snugly around his hookah at the end of her bed.
“Blue,” Alyss said. “I’m honored to have your company and wish only to have it more, that I might not interpret your coming as an ill omen.”
“Ahem hem hem,” Blue burbled, exhaling a cloud that formed the words Oh well. He puffed on his hookah for a time, the soft peh peh peh of his lips the only sound in the room. “I, an unnaturally large caterpillar, will reveal to you that of yourself which yet you know not,” he said at length. He exhaled a cloud, which briefly took on the shape of a butterfly before transforming into a jumble of scenes: Redd, struggling with a crystal in the shape of a locksmith’s key, with Bibwit at her side—or no, it was just a member of the tutor species; King Arch tugging on the whisker of a colorless caterpillar; Redd taking hold of a dusty, time-ravaged scepter. The cloud then resumed the form of a butterfly, which folded its wings and—
Alyss awoke. Only a faint hint of sweetness in the air. Blue was gone, Dodge sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
He nodded. “A caterpillar was here.”
Alyss sat up, annoyed. “If Blue has something to tell me, why can’t he just come out and say it? Why does he have to bother with all of his inexplicable scenes and symbols? No wonder so many Wonderlanders think the oracles are useless.”
“But you don’t, Alyss. What did he show you?”
Despite her parents’ warnings, despite agreeing with Dodge about the impossibility of protecting him from his own worst impulses—
I don’t want to tell him. No, because, at the very least, the caterpillar’s warning meant that Redd would soon return to Wonderland. Or that she already had.
“He said he would reveal myself to me and then I saw King Arch trying to pull a whisker off a caterpillar.” She sought Redd with her imagination’s eye, but since she didn’t know where to look, it was like knocking on any random door in Wondertropolis and hoping her aunt would answer it.
“That’s all?” Dodge asked.
“Yes.”
“We should inform Bibwit and the general,” he said, standing. But on his way out, he paused in the doorway and delivered the news that had originally brought him to the suite: “None of the card soldiers at the Pool of Tears has checked in with Central Command. Not one is answering his crystal communicator. The knight and rook have been sent to the pool and will soon report back.”
Redd. So Dodge knew she’d been lying, was already preparing himself for a confrontation. She wanted to explain—explain what, exactly?—but words wouldn’t come, and her lie hung heavy between them like a fog.
CHAPTER 34
THE ENCAMPMENT was as rowdy as ever when it happened: the air rent by a scream of such pitch and intensity that every Doomsine fell to the ground in pain and slapped hands, paws, or hoofs over their ears. Wives, soldiers, servants, animals, tailors and tavern keepers, everyone devoted to serving Boarderland’s king collapsed as if punched. And no matter how desperately they tried to stop up their ears, still the unending scream penetrated their skulls.
Having conjured earplugs of appropriate density, Redd Heart walked unperturbed along the encampment’s temporary streets, accompanied by the equally unperturbed Vollrath, Cat, Alistaire Poole, and Siren Hecht. The group might have passed for a wicked ex-queen and friends out for a bit of sightseeing if not for Siren, whose mouth was open to twice its normal size, her vocal cords issuing forth their life-paralyzing vibrations.
Redd sighted Arch’s tent in her imagination and paraded her troops to it. Outside of the tent, two figures were bent to the ground in wincing agony, one of them in elbow-length gloves.
“Knock, knock,” Redd said at the entrance.
Inside, Arch and his intel ministers were foundering on the floor, holding anything within reach to their ears—pillows, decorative crystals, coats. Redd flashed Siren a look; the assassin shut her mouth and the hideous shrieking stopped. Slowly, the intel ministers raised their heads. Arch was squinty-eyed with doubt when he saw his visitor.
“Redd?”
“I realize it’s been a while, Arch, but did I mean so little to you that you don’t even recognize me?”
The king reached a hand out to touch her. “No. But you seem…out of focus.”
She was about to slap his ring-laden hand away when Ripkins and Blister stormed in, Ripkins with sword drawn and Blister stretching his bare hands toward The Cat and Alistaire Poole. Without turning from Arch, Redd imagined the handle of Ripkins’ weapon too hot to touch—“Ah!” he cried, and dropped it—and she hurtled both bodyguards backward, out of the tent and across the street, through a wives’ tent, across a second street, through a shoemaker’s tent, across a third street and into a glassblower’s hut
ch. They crashed through the hutch’s back wall, the whole structure collapsed, and they landed hard in the rubble of an alley, prevented from getting up by the heavy, iron-like slabs Redd had conjured on top of their limbs and torsos.
Back in Arch’s tent, Her Imperial Viciousness pushed out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “The way you avoided me after mother thought she’d stop me from being queen,” she whined to Arch, “it makes an heiress suspect you’d only been interested in her power and influence.”
“You know that’s not true, Redd,” Arch said, struggling to his feet. “I was as unimpressed with your parents and their government as you were. While you were in line to succeed your mother, they assumed our gallivanting was not-altogether-harmless fun you would outgrow, and I could be as rowdy with you as I liked. But for me to have contact with you after they removed you from succession…” He shook his head. “They were my most powerful neighbors. For reasons of diplomacy and national stability, I couldn’t do it.”
“And what of my hateful time on Mount Isolation and the thirteen years I ruled Wonderland? What are your excuses for not seeing me then?”
“I should ask about your excuse for not seeing me. I think we’ve been equally guilty in neglecting our relationship—or equally innocent, whichever you prefer.”
Redd grunted, unconvinced. Arch’s intel ministers were still recovering from Siren’s screams, fingers at their ears to try and clear the ringing out of them, but the king himself had taken on his usual aplomb, acting as if he’d never suffered at all.
“You’ve returned at an opportune time,” he smirked. “Alyss has been facing difficulties, Wonderland having recently defended itself against an attack of…Glass Eyes.”
Redd looked painfully gaseous all of a sudden, her face taut in an expression of pleasure. “If anyone else had dared to copy my inventions…” she said. “I see you’ve taken advantage of my absence.”
“Would you care for me if I didn’t? Don’t think I presumed to tamper much with your creations, Redd. Of the Glass Eyes produced here, the only difference was in whose voice they recognized as their authority. But in honor of seeing you again, and in lieu of a fruit basket, allow me to offer you what is left of the manufacturing facility that Lord and Lady Diamond were overseeing in Boarderland.”
Redd cackled. “Arch, it’s impossible to stay angry at you when you’re so devious. But what makes you think I need my old Glass Eyes? I have a formidable army on Earth already assembled—you’re acquainted with the talents of some of my soldiers.” She indicated Siren Hecht. “And I shortly intend to navigate my Looking Glass Maze, which I should have done long ago. It will make me the strongest Heart in history, and I will then reduce my young niece to an irksome memory. So you and I will again be neighbors. I trust your masculinity isn’t too offended?”
“Wherever a female must be in power, Redd,” Arch smiled, “you are, and have always been, my only choice. For how long can I expect to have the current displeasure of your company?”
Again, Redd laughed. “Not another minute. I’m off to the Valley of Mushrooms.”
“Well then,” Arch said, “let me provide you with an escort to the border, both military and pleasurable, consisting as it will of soldiers and chefs. You don’t need the military help, I know, but it pleases me to offer it.”
One of the intel ministers hurried from the tent to assemble the escort.
Adopting a more intimate tone, Arch stepped closer to Redd and said, “I have Boarderland more thoroughly under control than I once did. After you are again ruling your nation, I hope we can see more of each other.”
“Oh, Archy warchy,” Redd said in a grotesque approximation of tenderness, “we will see more of each other, I swear it.”
Redd and her assassins had been escorted out of the Doomsine encampment, and though Ripkins and Blister were still several blocks away, trying to wrestle out from under Redd’s iron weights, the intel ministers had reconvened in Arch’s tent.
“Is it really wise,” a minister asked, “to try and befriend such a one as Redd?”
“I lose nothing by pretending it,” Arch said, “whereas I risk everything if I don’t. As long as she lives, Redd will cause serious trouble for whoever possesses the Heart Crystal.”
Unseen by the king or his ministers, a shadow flitted past the tent’s entrance, a shadow belonging to someone about to enter but who stopped suddenly when Arch asked, “Homburg Molly is secure?”
“As ever, my liege.”
Moments ticked away as Arch schemed in silence. Then—
“If I had to bet,” he said, “I’d bet that Redd may yet turn out to be stronger than her niece.”
“But even her strength,” one of the ministers offered, “maze or no maze, is nothing compared to WILMA.”
Arch nodded. “It’s sooner than I’d like to put Hatter to my purpose. I wanted to string him along awhile, make him desperate for Molly’s life and weaken whatever rebellious resolves he has in his head. But Redd makes it necessary to take action now.”
The shadow at the tent’s entrance disappeared, the eavesdropper secreting away.
“Bring Hatter Madigan to me,” Arch ordered. “It’s time he met WILMA.”
CHAPTER 35
PRETENDING TO be out for a stroll, Hatter passed through bazaars, promenades, and food courts, well-to-do and not so well-to-do neighborhoods, scanning the various scenes with a trained eye and hoping for some evidence of Molly’s whereabouts. He made these excursions whenever possible, sometimes with Weaver at his side, though she thought they were simply a means for him to better familiarize himself with life in Boarderland.
An intel minister whose duty was to keep Hatter under constant surveillance approached. “The king requires your presence,” he said.
Hatter fell in step with the Doomsine and was soon seated in the royal tent, Arch pacing back and forth before his usual pack of intel ministers.
“As Queen Alyss’ bodyguard—” the king began.
“Homburg Molly is the queen’s bodyguard, Your Majesty,” Hatter said.
Arch smiled. “Yes, I forgot. You’re with us now. As the former bodyguard then, of both Queen Genevieve and Queen Alyss, you have privileged access to every gwormmy-length of the queendom—more privileged perhaps than anyone except Bibwit Harte or Alyss herself—and you can travel anywhere within Wonderland’s borders without attracting suspicion. For obvious reasons, I could not have recruited Alyss for the task I’m about to assign you, and Bibwit Harte is not physically capable of performing it. You are the only Wonderlander with both the access my task requires and the Millinery skill to accomplish it.” To his ministers, he commanded, “Give it to him.”
Hatter was handed a skein of thread wrapped in cloth.
“What you now hold,” Arch said, “is silk from Wonderland’s green caterpillar-oracle, in total weight equal to that of a gwynook’s wing. You are to return to Heart Palace with it. Once there, you are to scale the palace’s tallest spire. At the top, you won’t fail to recognize my Weapon of Inconceivable Loss and Massive Annihilation. You are to weave the entirety of green silk onto the weapon in this pattern.” Arch handed the Milliner a pocket holo-crystal, which showed what looked like the center of an Earth spider’s web. “You must follow the pattern exactly. If, for any reason, you fail in what I ask of you, if you tell anyone what you’re about, neither you, Weaver, nor anybody else will ever see Homburg Molly alive again. Once the mission is complete, you’re to contact me immediately. But there is a time limit. If I have not heard from you after two revolutions of the Thurmite moon, you will never afterwards hear from your daughter.” Arch glanced at his wrist, on which there was no timepiece. “Now, Mr. Madigan, I suggest you get going.”
Suspecting that he’d be under surveillance so long as he remained within Arch’s borders, Hatter passed into Wonderland before giving over all pretense of carrying out the king’s mission, hiding in the brittle scrub of Outerwilderbeastia and waiting until the last
traveler had proceeded through the official crossing. As soon as the card soldiers were alone, he shrugged daggers from his backpack and flung them at one of the demarcation barrier’s pylons.
Clank! Clunk clang!
The soldiers whirled, at the ready. Hatter sprinted up behind them and, with his bare hands, rendered them unconscious before a single one glimpsed him. On the Boarderland side of the barrier: five guards.
Fthap!
Hatter’s top hat was flattened into spinning blades and he was about to eliminate the guards when he realized: A disturbance might alert Arch. Better to leave as little trace of his reentry into Boarderland as possible.
Remaining on the Wonderland side of the demarcation barrier, Hatter walked two hundred paces in the direction of the Valley of Mushrooms, then activated the blades on his right wrist and pushed them into the ground. Dirt and clay and pebbles churned loose. He pushed the rotating blades deeper and deeper into the ground, using his left hand to clear away the debris until he had tunneled under the demarcation barrier and emerged on the Boarderland side. He made the fastest time he could back to Arch’s camp, approaching from the direction of the setting suns so that he would be unrecognizable, a silhouette, to any Boarderlander who happened to spot him. Within a hectare of the camp, he took his top hat from his head, flattened it with a jerk of the wrist, and folded the blades into a compact stack, which he secured in the inside pocket of his coat. He then slipped off his coat and buried it with his backpack, marking the site with a melon-sized rock scarred by a spin of his wrist-blades.
Hatter glanced up at the sky. Already half a revolution of the Thurmite moon had passed and he wasn’t even back where he’d started. But he proved lucky. Entering the Doomsine encampment, he came across a load of washing on a clothesline and made away with the loose-fitting pants, many-pocketed blouse, and hooded coat favored by day laborers: necessary camouflage, because if anyone recognized him, he and his daughter were dead.