by Frank Beddor
Alyss nodded, conjured hooded cloaks for herself and the others, and the Alyssians crossed the alley and entered the tavern. They paused in the doorway to let their eyes adjust to the gloom, giving the bartender and a toothless old smuggler at the counter an opportunity to size them up. The rest of the patrons were too absorbed in their drink to notice the newcomers, slumped half-conscious on their
tattered bar stools or passed out altogether.
“We don’t have to put ourselves on display, do we?” Dodge said. “Let’s sit down.”
They had hardly settled around the nearest table when the bartender jerked his head toward a corner of the tavern, and out of the vacuous dark stepped a girl wearing a homburg hat and a long overcoat not unlike Hatter’s. She approached the Alyssians to take their order.
The shy girl I saw at camp, who brought tea when I had my first talk with Bibwit. “You?” Bibwit said, surprised.
“Me,” the girl confirmed. “But…how did…I don’t…”
It was the first time any of them had seen Bibwit Harte at a loss for words.
“My child,” he said, recovering himself, “I don’t know how you survived the raid on our camp, and of course it’s pleasing to discover you, as it would be pleasing to find any of us alive, but…what are you doing here? You’re too young to be working in a place like this.”
“I’m thirteen. Old enough, I think. And lucky to be working at all.”
Alyss glanced at Dodge, and the questioning, slightly perturbed expression on his face told her that they were thinking the same thing. Is this who we’re supposed to meet? It must be. It’s too much of a coincidence. But the girl was so young-not at all what Alyss had been expecting.
“How well do you know the city?” General Doppelganger asked. The girl shrugged. “Better than most.”
Hatter caught sight of a vein in the shape of an h below her left ear. His face hardened. “She’s a halfer. Civilian and Millinery spawn. Not to be trusted.”
“Hatter-” Bibwit began.
“I don’t need your trust,” the girl said. “I serve the princess…if she’ll let me.” With a bow too subtle for those around them to notice, she directly addressed Alyss for the first time: “Homburg Molly, at your service, Princess.”
Alyss dipped her head in response. “We are looking for a certain puzzle shop. Do you know of it?” “I think I do.”
“How can we be sure you won’t lead us into a trap?” The question came from Hatter. “You can’t.”
“Hatter, I don’t think we need fear the girl,” said Bibwit Harte. “And judging by the looks we’re getting from the other patrons, we could use a friend in this place.”
The longer the Alyssians remained in the tavern, the more the regulars woke from their alcohol dreams and squinted menacingly at them. Alyssians were not welcome. The toothless smuggler heaved himself away from the bar and hurried out, glaring at them.
“I wonder where he could be going,” Dodge said, sarcastic. “If you’re afraid,” Molly said to Hatter, “you can stay here.” “Afraid?”
“It happens to everyone.”
“Keep it lively, you!” the bartender shouted. “You better order something,” Molly said.
“Bring us whatever will keep you out of trouble,” Bibwit said.
Molly went to fetch the order and received an earful of abuse from the bartender for her so-called laziness-he filling five cracked mugs with frothy, steaming brew all the while.
Bibwit shook his head. “What sort of world is it when a youngster must become a barmaid in a place like this to survive?”
“She’s a halfer,” Hatter repeated, as if the fact in itself was enough to ward them off the girl.
“We had halfers at the Alyssian headquarters, Hatter,” said General Doppelganger. “After the Millinery went down, several members lived with us for a time. Many halfers were born under our care. They’re not as disloyal as you suppose.”
“Their only duty is to their own self-interest.”
“She says she knows the puzzle shop,” Alyss said, and the table fell silent. “She’s the only one the caterpillar could have meant. Look around. There is no one else.”
“Assuming this is the place the caterpillar meant for us to be,” Dodge said.
But Alyss had made up her mind. This was the place. Homburg Molly was the one. “It is,” she said. Molly returned with their drinks and began setting them on the table.
“You see that poster over there, Princess? The one for Redd’s Hotel and Casino?” “Yes.”
“It’s a false wall. Behind it is a way out. We use it whenever we’re raided. The Cut is already on its way.”
“Thanks to our friend with no teeth,” Dodge said.
Indeed, a division of The Cut was at that moment rounding the corner into the alley, led by the toothless smuggler. The unmistakable rasping of the card soldiers’ marching, steel-like legs echoed off the buildings. By the time it was heard inside the tavern, it was almost too late. The Cut burst in and the suddenly sober patrons overturned tables and trampled one another in their efforts to flee. Fighting broke out. Dodge, Bibwit, General Doppelganger and Hatter formed a circle around Alyss-the first three with their swords drawn, Hatter with his wrist-blades spinning. Homburg Molly steered them through the
brawling soldiers and patrons, ducking to avoid the reach of pummeling fists, her homburg flattened into a razor-edged disk to shield her from the soldiers’ swords. Dink! Clank! Pong! In close formation, the thirteen-year-old guided the Alyssians to the false wall, down a dank tunnel, and safely outside.
The street was quiet, no hint of the violence from which they had just escaped. It could have been an ordinary night in Wondertropolis. Molly kept walking, calmly continued down the street, knowing exactly where she was going. The Alyssians stood watching her until the girl stopped and turned to them.
“Well? Come on if you’re coming.”
CHAPTER 47
E MERALD DRIVE was one of the oldest streets in the capital. In Genevieve’s time and before, it had been a grand thoroughfare of upscale shops and restaurants, but the wealthy and privileged gradually moved elsewhere as the surrounding streets became havens for looter gangs, imagination-stimulant manufacturers, and Wonderlanders engaged in other illicit but profitable employment. The squalor had at last reached its fingers into Emerald Drive itself, and the once-celebrated promenade was now indistinguishable from the scum-heavy streets around it.
At scattered points along the drive’s ruined glory, the homeless warmed themselves around pits glowing with fire crystals, their mumbled conversations brought to a pause by the sight of a strange array of Wonderlanders approaching a shop that hadn’t been open for business in many lunar cycles.
“ZZLES ” was all that remained of the sign that had once declared the shop’s wares. Its massive front door, through which two spirit-danes could have easily passed side by side, was locked. The single front window was covered with dust and revealed nothing. Dodge pounded on the door.
“I doubt anyone’s in,” General Doppelganger said.
Bibwit’s ears twitched. “I hear trouble.” Paler than usual, the tutor removed a sword from beneath his robe and gripped it with two hands.
It wasn’t long before they all heard it. The dark sky turned darker as Redd’s moon was eclipsed by a screaming swarm of seekers.
The homeless Wonderlanders scattered as kreeeeech!-the seekers attacked. Dodge, Alyss, Bibwit, and the general slashed at the creatures with their swords while Hatter sent his top-hat blades into the thick of them. Thimp thimp thimp! Thimp thimp thimp! The blades sliced through the flock, wounding and killing several, and returned to him. Molly flicked her own hat flat and used it as both shield and offensive weapon, digging its sharpened edges into the alien creatures when they shot toward her out of the sky with their hungry insect mouths.
“Aah!”
One of them swiped Dodge on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground and sending his sword clanking out
of reach. The seeker circled, was coming in for the kill with its talons drawn when someone kicked Dodge’s sword back to him.
“Seek this!” Dodge hissed through clenched jaw, stabbing the beast. He rolled away from the creature as it writhed in its death throes, saw the rook and white knight battling alongside him, together with a small platoon of surviving chessmen.
“Hope you don’t mind us always showing up unannounced like this,” the rook said. “We followed the seekers,” explained the white knight.
Next to each other now, standing, Dodge and the rook whirled, aiming their swords skyward just in time
for an attacking seeker to impale itself on them and perish with a hideous howl. A division of Redd’s Cut appeared at the end of Emerald Drive. A few of the card soldiers were armed with AD52s-automatic dealers capable of shooting razor-sharp projectiles the size and shape of ordinary playing cards at the rate of fifty-two per second. Hardly had the soldiers rounded the corner and spotted the Alyssians when a Four Card let loose with a spray of razor-cards.
“Incoming!” General Doppelganger shouted.
The Alyssians dropped facedown in the street, all except Alyss and Homburg Molly, who flattened themselves against the front of the puzzle shop as the first of the razor-cards sliced past. Hatter jumped in front of them and, with his wrist-blades activated and his arms moving in a blur, knocked the rest of the razor-cards to the ground.
Another round of AD52 fire quickly followed, but this time Alyss closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and the deadly cards passed overhead and to either side. The Alyssians were in an invisible, protective bubble courtesy of Alyss’ imagination. Zipping overhead, the razor-cards cut into many of the seekers, the beasts’ lifeless bodies raining down around the Alyssians and landing with a splat on the pavement.
With Redd’s Cut closing in, Hatter hurled his top-hat blades at the puzzle shop window. Hitting the glass, the blades rotated and cut a hole large enough for Alyss to fit through.
“Go!” he shouted.
General Doppelganger split into Generals Doppel and Ganger, swords held at the ready.
Dodge glared at the advancing card soldiers, his words directed at Alyss: “We’ll keep them busy. You just find the maze.”
But there are too many. Even with the chessmen, we’re outnumbered. Homburg Molly tugged at her sleeve.
No choice. No choice but to go.
Before Alyss followed Molly into the shop, she imagined the AD52s plugged up, useless, and could only hope her imagining had been successful, because she didn’t wait around to find out. She dived through the window into the shop.
As was perhaps appropriate for any shop specializing in the sale of puzzles and games, this one was itself built in the shape of a puzzle. Hand-crafted bookshelves were arranged to form a simple maze. Alyss and Homburg Molly ran up and down the narrow passages but found nothing. Every shelf was bare. They began toppling bookcases, opening every cabinet, trapdoor, and dummy window they came across.
“What are we looking for?” Molly yelled.
Alyss could barely hear her over the battle noise from outside. “I don’t know!” But then a bluish twinkle, a wink of colored light, caught her eye. She looked up and saw it: on the edge of the tallest bookcase in the shop, a glowing crystal cube.
“Up there!” “I’ll get it!”
Molly didn’t climb more than halfway up the bookcase before it tilted, started to fall. She jumped to the ground, scurrying out of harm’s way, but the crystal cube was in the air, falling hard and fast.
“Nooooo!” Alyss screamed.
The princess leaped, arms outstretched, as the bookcase crashed to the ground and splintered apart. But she’d caught it; the crystal cube was safe. Alyss turned it over in her hands, looking for a clue as to how
it worked. What am I supposed to-? Kabooooooorrrchk!
The shop door imploded and, still holding on to the radiant cube, Alyss fell back through a looking glass painted to appear like part of a wall. The fighting had spilled into the shop. But floating weightless inside the looking glass, Wonderland’s rightful princess saw the battle scene freeze, stopped in time. There was Dodge with his sword raised, attacking a Two Card. There was Hatter in midair, the saber blades of his belt open to fight three card soldiers at once (a pair of Fours and a Two). There were the generals, come to help Bibwit, who had somehow lost hold of his sword. And there was Homburg Molly, staring
wide-eyed at the spot where the princess had fallen through the looking glass. Alyss saw it all as if through a watery film, and despite the mortal threat she and the Alyssians were facing, despite the uncertainty of everything, she felt almost serene as she drifted down into the Looking Glass Maze.
CHAPTER 48
S HE LANDED gently on her feet in the middle of what appeared to be a prison-a looking glass prison. On every side of her were looking glasses as tall as forever, and no matter what direction she turned, she saw her reflection infinitely repeating into the mirrored distance.
“This is a maze?” she said aloud, but instead of hearing just her voice, she heard a chorus of voices, all of them hers.
Something was wrong-besides that she wasn’t in a maze. I must have found the wrong key but…Odd, that looks like me and yet it doesn’t. The reflection directly in front of Alyss was off somehow, inexact. She reached out toward the looking glass and-Ah!-the reflection grabbed her and pulled her into it.
“We have to hurry,” the reflection said. “Lots to do and many people to see. So little time.” “But…” Alyss couldn’t think what to say.
The reflection wouldn’t let go of her wrist and pulled her at a fast clip past looking glass halls that branched and snaked into the distance, past mirrored alcoves and dead ends. Even the floor was made of looking glass. Being led first one way and then another, Alyss felt sure her reflection was taking this complex route only to confuse her. Better not have to find my way back. Because there was no chance of that; Alyss had lost all sense of direction.
The reflection brought her to a stop in what appeared to be a rest area, a mirrored room wider than the corridors along which they’d passed. “Wait here,” the reflection said. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
“Don’t leave me!” But Alyss was already alone. Or was she? Her likeness looked back at her from every surface.
“Hello?” she said, and again a chorus of voices said it with her-the voices of her reflections. She lifted her hand toward the one closest to her, to take hold of it, but her fingers couldn’t penetrate the looking
glass and stubbed themselves against its cold quicksilver surface.
Maybe I was supposed to follow her? But Alyss could no longer be sure in which direction the reflection had gone. Imagine a way out. That must be what I’m supposed to do. It’s a test. Alyss gathered herself tight for the effort her imaginings required, but between the flicker of her eyelids she saw someone approaching from the distance of a looking glass. Closer and closer the person came, and even before Alyss could make out the woman’s face, she recognized the clothes.
“Mother!” she and her reflections gasped.
Genevieve was dressed as her daughter had last seen her but without the crown. She came right up to the other side of the looking glass.
“Alyss,” Genevieve said, and the wistful, proud smile that formed on the dead queen’s face caused tears to well up in her daughter’s eyes.
“She’s become as beautiful as I imagined,” said a man’s voice.
Alyss turned to see her father, Nolan, beaming at her from one of the looking glasses in place of her reflection.
“Dad!” she said, running to embrace him, wanting to feel the touch of her long-gone father. I don’t care about any maze or about Redd or the Heart Crystal! I want us all to be together again! I want my family back! I WANT MY FAMILY BACK! But Alyss couldn’t pass through the looking glass. “What is this?” she cried. “Where are you?”
“We’re in you, dear,” Nolan said.
/> Genevieve gave a little sigh. “If we are successful against Redd, no one can say that our success has been without sacrifice. But I sometimes wonder if it has required too much of us.”
“Of all involved who fight for White Imagination,” said Nolan.
“Yes, of course,” said Genevieve. “The path to a victory of this magnitude is doomed to be littered with defeats and failures.”
With a soft look of sympathy, Nolan walked from one looking glass to another to stand next to his wife. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the forehead, which seemed to raise her spirits.
“Alyss,” Genevieve said, “it is good that you have taken it upon yourself to exercise your imagination. You are well on your way to reaching your potential of imaginative power and control. But all you have experienced and discovered about yourself is not enough. Not yet.”