by Frank Beddor
IT WAS developing into a habit as firm as his chattiness had been previously—the royal tutor barely returning the greetings of the sunflowers, tulips, and hollizaleas he passed as he hurried along a path on palace grounds, not even murmuring to himself as he approached a hedge indistinguishable from those around it. His bald head glistening like a second moon in the evening’s light, his ears pivoting as if to catch any sound made by nearby foes, Bibwit stepped into the thickest part of the hedge, his weight causing its roots to shift and a hatchway to open. A hand grabbed him and pulled him roughly back on to the path.
“Can’t go down.”
The king’s bodyguards: Ripkins and Blister. Where had they come from? How had he not heard them?
“I can’t . . . go down?” Bibwit repeated. “But . . .” What could he say? He had no official reason for being in the Heart Chamber. He’d been overcome with a need to check on the Crystal, to confirm that its recovery from WILMA was continuing unabated, that he and Alyss, Wonderland and White Imaginationists everywhere, still had a chance.
“No one is to go down,” Ripkins said. “King’s orders.”
“Yes,” the tutor’s ears belied surprise with a not-so-subtle flick, “the king is down there. I have business with the king.” He struggled to think what that business might be, because once he descended the bronzite steps, Arch would demand to know the meaning of his intrusion.
“You’re not going down,” Blister said.
“Your business with the king will wait until he ascends,” said Ripkins.
Unable to walk away without arousing distrust, Bibwit smiled weakly at the inexpressive bodyguards and resigned himself to waiting.
Arch didn’t care how the green caterpillar did it—whether he lied to the other oracles to get them to give up their silk or somehow, despite their alleged omniscience, stole it from them without a word. Why should he care? The caterpillar had given him what he required. And if the story of the creature’s boredom, of his need to test the extent of his power, were a lie, he’d discover it in time. For now, he would press forward with his scheme. He would figure out the rest as facts became known.
On the floor of the Heart Chamber, the waist-high spools of purple, blue, yellow, red, orange, and green caterpillar silk were immediately before him, his intel ministers and their assistants working on what looked to be an enormous sock. The ministers consulted diagrams similar to the one Hatter Madigan was supposed to have followed when weaving WILMA’s final thread into place over Heart Palace. Purple and yellow in a butterfly stitch here, the ministers instructed, more orange entwining the green there. The assistants wove the silks together accordingly, adding to the length and girth of the giant sock, and the repeated pattern made by the combined threads proved to be the exact one Hatter had purposely failed to weave into WILMA.
Arch reached down and teased out a bit of green silk from its spool. The caterpillar, plotting toward an end he had yet to fathom, might not have provided enough.
“You’re positive the cocoon’s measurements are correct,” the king asked a minister.
“We re-check constantly to be sure, Your Highness.”
The Heart Crystal, irksomely bright, pulsed like a vital organ. The effects of WILMA would soon belong completely to the past.
“Get more men to help you,” Arch said. “I want it ready as soon as possible. The Crystal’s not to have its former power for longer than is absolutely necessary.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“There’s been no word?”
“None that you would wish to hear, my liege. Wherever Alyss and Redd are hiding, they continue to avoid discovery.”
There was something unsettled in the minister’s tone.
“But?”
“But—my apologies, Your Majesty—a score of Gnobi were recently found dead in the Volcanic Plains. From the manner in which they were killed, we believe Redd is responsible. Warriors have scoured the area but discovered no further sign of her.”
It had to be Redd. It was not Alyss’ style to leave twenty dead lying around for him to find. It wouldn’t have been her style even if she’d known the Gnobi tribe was under orders to kill her and she’d exterminated them in self-defense. But she hadn’t known. Arch had been careful not to divulge those orders to Bibwit or General Doppelgänger, in case they maintained secret contact with their former queen.
“Neither Alyss nor Redd can hope to wrest the Crystal from me and remain in hiding,” he said. “As soon as they’re convinced imagination has returned to them just as powerfully as ever, they’ll make a push for it—one or the other, both if I’m lucky. And that’s when . . .” Arch let his voice trail off, nodded at the cocoon.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Get more men to help you,” he ordered.
Taking the bronzite steps two at a time, the king ascended to ground level, passed through the hatchway into open air, and emerged from the hedge. The royal tutor, trying not to look discomfited, was standing on the path, flanked by Ripkins and Blister.
“Mr. Harte. Just the Wonderlander I wanted to consult. Walk with me.”
Ripkins and Blister started to follow.
“No,” the king said to them. “Stay and make note of every assistant the ministers employ, in case anything goes wrong.”
The bodyguards returned to their inconspicuous posts near the hedge.
“You were coming to see me?” Arch asked Bibwit, strolling along at a leisurely pace—so leisurely that the tutor, at his side, had to be careful not to get ahead of him.
“I was . . . out for a bit of air, my liege,” the tutor answered.
The king looked unconvinced. They turned on to a path that led through hollizaleas and sunflowers, which bowed and greeted the king—some, Bibwit thought, more respectfully than others.
“You have everything you want?” the king asked. “You’re comfortable?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“No less comfortable than when Alyss was queen?”
Bibwit preferred not to admit the truth. But perhaps, since he was so inept at lying, he should avoid it when he could. “No less,” he said.
“Good. I can understand how the transition might be difficult for you, having tried to shape those fickle female minds for so many years and now you suddenly have to answer to a king. We wouldn’t want lack of physical comfort to be an added strain.”
“There’s another comfort I’d humbly request, Your Highness, if you’d deign to provide it.” And taking the king’s silence as invitation to proceed, he asked, “The Heart Crystal, how is it?”
“It’s improving, Mr. Harte. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that it’s greatly improved from what it was.”
Bibwit sifted through what he knew of Arch’s connection to WILMA: The king had never directly taken responsibility for the weapon and, if not for Hatter, Alyss would not know of his guilt; to have actually produced a weapon of WILMA’s power Arch had needed a wealth of caterpillar silk; only a few lunar hours before, Alyss had envisioned the king in talks with the green oracle.
“Does it not—forgive me for asking, my liege—but doesn’t it bother you that the Crystal’s improving?”
“Why should it bother me, Mr. Harte? Because I think Wonderland has for too long overestimated the Crystal’s worth? I intend to change the citizenry’s beliefs on that front. Or do you think I should be bothered for fear of Redd?”
“The latter, Your Highness. As to the Crystal’s worth, I will humbly endeavor to change your mind.”
Arch cleared his throat, doubtful. “I remind you, Mr. Harte: Redd and her pittance of a following are on the run, she has no home and no military, nor can she get close to the Crystal to maximize her imaginative abilities. I’d say the odds are in my favor.”
The upper corners of Bibwit’s ears folded once, then straightened—the tutor’s version of a nod.
“And as for your dear Alyss, nothing convinces me more of her cowardice than her continuing failure to show herself.”
Bibwit, his eyes on the path, knew the king was watching him. He tried to slow his breathing and the throb of blood through his veins. He tried to give nothing away, to adopt the open expression of suspended judgment, as if he were reading a philosophical treatise and was still neither convinced nor unconvinced by its argument.
“Have you ever thought, Mr. Harte, that Alyss might view my ascendance as an opportunity to unburden herself of regal authority? It seems to me the girl realized what the House of Hearts before her did not, that the throne is no place for a female.”
“I choose to believe, Your Highness, that Alyss’ prolonged absence is caused by something else.”
“And what would that be?”
Bibwit shrugged, shook his head, weighed the air in his hands, shrugged again.
“Is this the tutor’s infamous tongue?” Arch laughed. “For your sake, I hope you’re left speechless by the sudden benefits of residing within a kingdom after years in a queendom, because otherwise . . .” He shook his head, unimpressed. “But speaking of years, for at least a score of them, I’ve been hearing of Wonderland’s six oracles. The caterpillar council, I believe they’re called?”
“They are,” Bibwit answered.
“Living as long as you have, I assume you and these oracles have had extensive dealings?”
“No one has had extensive dealings with them, Your Highness. They aren’t sociable creatures. I would classify my dealings with them as occasional.”
“Hm.”
“A great many influential Wonderlanders believe them to be useless, a tiresome reminder of less developed times. Your friends the Clubs are among them.”
“But not you.”
Bibwit didn’t answer.
“I want you to tutor me, Mr. Harte.”
“You strike me as well-schooled, Your Highness. Particularly in the ways of people.”
“It’s wise of you to flatter me, but I mean to study the oracles, not people.”
Bibwit had assumed they were following an aimless course through palace grounds, but as they rounded a stand of gobbygrape trees, the king stopped outside the royal library; this had apparently been their destination all along.
“I’d like you to gather every scroll,” Arch said to him, “every document and encyclopedia crystal we have concerning the oracles, no matter how ancient the material. Bring these to me, I’ll look them over, and then I’ll no doubt come to you with questions.”
“That is what I’m here for, Your Highness,” Bibwit bowed, hoping that through such tutelage he might learn the nature of Arch’s relationship with the green caterpillar.
It was nearly dawn, the sky still dark and star-filled as the tutor made his way along a path, gliding on silent feet past sleeping flowers and shrubs. He made no sound audible even to his super-sensitive ears, and this time no hand pulled him roughly from the hedge. He stepped in amid its branches and, without waiting for its roots to fully unlock, descended through the opening hatchway into the Heart Chamber.
Something was wrong.
Not that Ripkins and Blister hadn’t been standing guard outside, nor that the chamber was deserted, with none of the customary ministers scuttling about. Not that the light wasn’t as bright as it should have been, nor that the platform halfway to the floor seemed unmoored and the walls farther apart than usual. It was none of these, yet explained them all: The Heart Crystal was gone.
CHAPTER 29
ALYSS GAZED out over the Morgavian hinterlands—the thin, cone-shaped trees dusted with snow, the scattered ponds that, from her hilltop vantage, looked like artfully placed cobblestones in the gently thawing fields. She had never been to Morgavia before and would have preferred her first visit to the region to have a more pleasurable purpose.
“It’s right for us to meet like this, without any attendants,” Redd sighed, the thorny vines of her dress slithering close to her body. “If not for the strength of our imaginations, and that this picturesque view is making me nauseous, I could almost believe we were a common aunt and niece spending long-overdue quality time together.”
“If not for what you’ve wrought with your imagination, you mean,” Alyss said, and had to stop herself from adding “murderer.”
Redd’s permanent frown became more pronounced, the parentheses-like folds in her cheeks deepening, filling with shadow. “I’m not going to attack you. You don’t need your shield.” Her scepter feinted toward the nimbus of deflective energy Alyss had conjured around herself for protection. “Did you tell anyone you were coming to meet me?”
The question rankled—as if Alyss should have told Dodge she’d agreed to meet the woman responsible for Sir Justice’s death, for her own mother’s death and her father’s rapid decline into doddering imbecility. It was true that she’d thought of confiding in him, but every time she was about to, the sight of him demagnetizing the ammo bay of an AD52, or brainstorming via crystal communicator with General Doppelgänger and ruling out any suggestion he deemed too risky to her safety—these had stopped her. He would have tried to talk her out of it. But the communication from Redd—dropped at her feet one night by a seeker with silent, outspread wings—had been unlike any she’d ever received from her aunt: urgent, solicitous, mentioning in roundabout, embarrassed fashion the need for once unthinkable alliances if imagination was to be saved. And she and her advisers had yet to decide on a course of action against Arch—a king who, it might be said, united aunt and niece by being their common enemy. Not that any of this would have mattered to Dodge. He would have called Redd’s interview request a ruse, a setup, perhaps even a plot to kidnap her and deliver her to Arch. He would have thought it his duty no less than his inclination to dissuade her from going. But Alyss hadn’t wanted to be dissuaded. If she couldn’t protect the entire queendom from Redd, she could still protect herself. She was not afraid. And it wasn’t a question of forgiveness. She would never forgive Redd for what she’d done to her family, her life. But contending with imagination’s possible extinction, she was facing a concern so much larger than herself. The principles of White Imagination that had become so much a part of her—love, justice, duty—demanded that she explore all options.
Thoroughly scouting Morgavia’s hinterlands in her imagination’s eye, she’d seen no assassins lying in wait for her—just Redd, alone, on a wind-scourged hilltop. And since she couldn’t have asked Bibwit for advice without alerting Dodge, she had told no one of her assignation with her aunt.
“We heard from Arch you were dead,” she said.
“He wishes!” The vines of Redd’s dress serpentined out and the rose blossoms clacked their teeth. Redd took on what was supposed to be a calm expression, but it only made her look like a glaze-eyed corpse. “I apologize for losing my temper,” she said, the vines of her dress recoiling. “Notice that I can control myself when I must. But I swear to you, niece: Between me and Arch, he will be the first to die.”
“Then why have you not attacked him?”
“For the same reason that you, with your imagination, have done nothing. I suspect a trap.”
“Why else would he let our powers return,” Alyss nodded.
“I see you’re not as dumb as Wonderlanders claim.” Turning her back on the view, Redd spoke with face uplifted and eyes nearly closed, as if her words caused her pain. “Arch cannot be secure in his reign until we’re both dead. Let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that you somehow amass enough of a military to clash with the self-proclaimed king of Wonderland.”
Enough of a military? “The Heart soldiers and chessmen remain loyal to me,” Alyss said.
“How nice for you,” Redd glowered. “Let us suppose, then, that you command this loyal military of yours against Arch’s tribal forces, and with the benefit of your imaginative powers you’re about to successfully knock Arch from the throne, but that’s exactly when your imagination deserts you. Because Arch, having control of the Crystal, makes sure of it. So there you are, powerless and exposed, your soldiers outnumbere
d. What do you think will happen then?”
“My troops would be doomed. I would be doomed.”
“To put it mildly. And I’d bet The Cat’s last life I would suffer the same fate. If I showed myself during an attack, Arch would devise it so that I lost imagination when I needed it most, and that would be the end of me.”
“But he could do that even if—”
“We joined together and attacked him with what support we can muster? Yes. But neither of us can rule without the Heart Crystal.” Redd yawned. “I don’t intend to start liking you, nor do I expect you to stop hating me. We both know Wonderland’s crown is mine by right of succcession—”
Alyss tried to interrupt.
“Hold! As I say, we know the crown belongs to me, but so long as Arch controls the Crystal, he’s a danger to us both equally. Worse, he’s a danger to imagination. You and I don’t agree on how best to use our gifts, but much as I loathe to admit, I think we can agree that a world with imagination is better than a world without it.”
Alyss eyed her aunt: the straw-and-wire hair, the stretched sinews and sickly skin of her neck. This was Genevieve’s sister, the closest living reminder—however sullied in flesh and psyche—of her mother. “What are you suggesting we do?” she asked.
“First, niece, we agree on what not to do. We remain out of sight. Neither of us, with or without our followers, makes a move against Arch until we’re sure of toppling him or better—killing him. We vow to keep our imaginations as long as possible, preferably for the rest of our lives. Which, in my case, will be awhile.”
Alyss nodded: They were agreed, aligned in purpose. But I won’t forget who I’m negotiating with. Can’t forget. You will betray me as soon as it benefits you to do it.
“As for what comes next,” Redd said, “I haven’t the faintest idea, but I think our chances better if we work together instead of on our own.”
“And if we survive and Arch is dealt with,” Alyss asked, “then what?”
Redd sniggered. “Then, my too-sweet niece, things can revert to the way they used to be, with me taking what’s mine while you try to keep me from taking it.” Her Imperial Viciousness was about to leave, stood picking at the ground with the pointed end of her scepter. “You know, I can’t see you without being reminded of my sister. You have that same wounded look of naïve honesty.”