Red Queen (4 page)

“How did you do that, Alice?”

A little girl's voice. Dor's voice. It was full of wonder and, Alice knew now but had not known then, jealousy.

“I don't know!” Alice said as they both peered at the little blue jewels that had appeared on Alice's palm.

She had been holding a blue forget-me-not, plucked illicitly from her mother's carefully tended garden, and thinking that the petals were like little jewels in the sun, and suddenly they
were
jewels.

Not very useful,
Alice thought,
making jewels out of flowers.
Too bad she had never made bread out of dirt. She might have a better clue how to fill their bellies then.

Alice had spent the majority of the last ten years feeling hungry, but it had never bothered her so much in the hospital. Mostly that was because they kept her drugged all day, so that everything seemed to drift around her like a dream.

Since they'd escaped she'd been aware of an almost constant low-level gnawing in her belly, a feeling that she might never be full enough, and that feeling was only exacerbated by the constant threat they'd been under—threat of capture, torture, death.

What Alice really wanted was to sit right down and have a nice meal, and then a long sleep, and she also wanted to take a really good bath, a proper bath in a copper tub with hot water poured from kettles and sweet-smelling bubbles everywhere. The closest thing she'd had to a bath in recent days was when she'd swum through the lake in the center of Cheshire's maze to save Hatcher from . . . whatever that creature had been.

There had been quite a lot more blood and fighting and scrabbling through the dirt since then, and Alice was uncomfortably aware of the scent of her own body after these exertions.

The sun went down, and the moon came up, and the wasteland around them seemed suddenly alive with things that skittered and crawled and shifted through the sand, shadows that made Alice creep closer to Hatcher.

Hatcher's grey eyes shone in the moonlight like a cat's, and so did the blade of his axe. This was Hatcher's time, his element, the place where he could show the hunters that he was not to be hunted.

Alice took out her own knife, ashamed of her fear. She'd faced down men and animals more dangerous than any small scuttling thing that might be out here. All these creatures were small, barely recognizable as live things and not simply tricks of the eye. They couldn't possibly pose the same threat as, say, the Walrus.

Then suddenly the sky was filled with a bursting light so bright that it seemed the sun had risen again and launched straight to the top of the sky, impatient with the moon's stay.
Alice fancied that it was the flare of a torch, for it flickered like fire, though no fire she'd ever known could be so large.

Save the fire that burned this land, you nit,
she thought.

The light revealed what the darkness had concealed. Dozens of small creatures dotted the landscape around Alice and Hatcher, their eyes gleaming in the flare of yellow that illuminated the night. At first Alice thought they were stoats, but a closer look told her that the animals weren't quite right. No stoat Alice had ever seen had long curving fangs like that, or mad red eyes.

“Alice,” Hatcher said, and his voice was very calm as he stared into the distance, at the place where the light emerged from the horizon. “What if Jenny hates me?”

This was the reason for all the brooding, then, although Alice felt it would have been better if Hatcher had waited until they were not in potentially mortal danger to discuss it.

“She likely will,” Alice said, inching around behind Hatcher so that they stood back-to-back. She felt it was best not to lie generally, and found she was incapable of lying to Hatcher in any case. “Little girls think their fathers can do anything, save them from any danger. Your father is the strongest person in the world.”

Alice remembered the wonder she'd felt when she'd learned her father had killed a rat that had gotten into the house when she was young. She'd thought her papa was the greatest hero who ever lived.

Alice was sure that Jenny had cried every night for her father. And when he didn't come she would have learned to despise him for not saving her.

“That's what I would have done, if I could have remembered her,” Hatcher said as the light began to fade. “I would have killed anyone who ever touched her, ever harmed her. I would have mangled them to pieces like I slaughtered the men who killed her mother. But I don't expect that intentions will count for much now.”

“No,” Alice said. “I don't expect that they will.”

The stoats, or whatever they were, moved closer. They made low hissing noises in the backs of their throats. It was not the sibilant song of a snake, but a rough, threatening sound that was harsh in the silence.

Alice had a brief vision of being swarmed, overwhelmed by these tiny vicious animals, her flesh stripped from her bones even as she screamed out her death wail.

“No,” she said.

The animals stopped. She could barely see their faces now as the blaze of light faded to a faint glow. Their heads tipped to one side in unison, suddenly doglike, curious.

“No,” she repeated, and this time she put force behind it, and the air shimmered with magic. “Let us pass.”

The last droplet of light disappeared, leaving them in a dark that seemed closer than before. But Alice did not need her eyes.

There was still so much about magic Alice did not understand. There was power in her words, and the creatures responded to it, though she did not know why. The night was as it should be again, dark and full of stars.

All about them the stoat-like animals kept still as Alice and Hatcher passed, their silence somehow respectful.

Hatcher sighed, and Alice felt rather than saw the relaxing of his axe at his side. He was disappointed, she knew. In his heart Hatcher was a killer, and he longed to exercise his best skill, to feel the crunch of bone and muscle beneath the blade, to be baptized by the hot splatter of blood. He would regret any missed opportunity for wild death and mayhem.

Alice knew all this, knew that his heart wanted this release. She also knew that, somewhat inexplicably, he was a good man, and that the latter impulse kept Hatcher's murderous tendencies in check—mostly.

She did not know how far they walked that first night, but the notion of sleep never entered her mind. The thought of placing her body against that slippery ash, vulnerable and insensate to all around her, did not seem even a little bit wise. Just because the stoats did not attack now didn't mean they wouldn't take their chance if it were offered.

A persistent worry troubled her too, keeping her thoughts so busy she couldn't imagine quieting them to sleep. She'd been convinced (somewhat naïvely, it now seemed) that if they left the City they would also leave the City's influence. The strange flying machines and their mysterious mission seemed to indicate that would not be the case, that the City's tentacles stretched away from its bloated body like a living monster. How far could those tentacles reach?

Alice wished to shed her life in the City as a snake shed its skin. She feared being snatched back into that life, plucked from her freedom. And she wished to be as far as possible from Cheshire. He might decide that she was too valuable to let escape.

She must have dozed off, for one moment she watched the slightly darker shadows that were her feet moving against the black ash, and the next moment the sun was shining and she was tucked against Hatcher's chest like a child.

He moved steadily through the strange desert, seemingly untroubled by her weight in his arms. Alice blinked in the glare and noticed several large birds circling overhead.

“Best put me down, Hatch,” Alice said. “Those birds are looking for a meal.”

“They are, but not us,” Hatcher said, placing her on her feet. He ran his hand over her short hair and down over her cheek, lingering for a moment. Then he pointed straight ahead. “Whatever they're after is up there.”

There were several black shapes disfiguring the flat landscape ahead. It was difficult to tell, owing to the utter sameness in all directions, how far away those shapes might be.

Alice didn't want to see what was there. It couldn't be anything good, and she'd had enough of what wasn't good. But they were heading east, and the dark shapes were right in their path.

When they reached the place where the vultures collected, Hatcher spent a few enjoyable moments chasing the birds away with his axe. Alice stared at the bodies in confusion. They were
all piled together in a charred heap, and there was barely enough flesh remaining for the scavengers to bother with.

“What caused the burning?” Alice wondered aloud, approaching the corpses. Then she stopped, her heart in her throat, choking her.

“Whatever's burned these fields to nothing, I expect,” Hatcher said. “The same something that made the sky light up last night.”

Hatcher hefted his axe from one hand to the other and eyed a truculent vulture who'd refused to leave with the rest of his fellows.

“Hatcher,” Alice said.

He appeared not to hear her as he stalked toward the bird. It had its back turned to Hatcher and was busily grooming one wing.

“Hatcher,” she repeated, and this time she pierced the fog.

“What is it?” he asked, straightening.

The vulture glanced behind, noted Hatcher's proximity and flew away.

“Pipkin,” she said, and pointed.

Now that she knew what was there, Alice could make out the charred shape of a rabbit's ear, a blackened shoe, the delicate rib cage of a girl.

“This wasn't how it was supposed to end for them,” Alice said. Her grief threatened to bubble over, to explode out into the desert, to cover the corpses of those who were supposed to have
found a better life. “They were supposed to be happy in green fields.”

It had all been for nothing,
Alice thought. Their suffering, their escape. She didn't feel, suddenly, that there was much hope for her or Hatcher.

“The world gobbles us and chews us and swallows us,” Hatcher said, in that uncanny way he had of reading her thoughts. “I think happy endings must be accidents.”

“But we hope for them all the same,” Alice said. She looked sadly at the remains of those hopeful faces.
Above all, we hope not to die in terror.

They walked on, leaving the remains of the giant rabbit and the girls behind them, as they must. Alice tried to leave her sadness behind, but it clung to her heart like a wraith.

By the dawn of the third day Alice was heartily sick of the desert, for that was what this surely was, whether created by man or nature. It was hot and dry and the sun was unrelenting. She would have been thrilled beyond imagining to see a ray of sunshine in the Old City; now she wished for even a single cloud to relieve the constant glare.

They slept each afternoon, when the sun was at its zenith and any creature with sense hid from it. The long-fanged stoats did not trouble them, although a few occasionally followed Alice and Hatcher's footsteps, sniffing curiously.

Each night Alice observed the same flare of light from the sky, although it came from a different direction each time. As they moved farther east the light tended behind them. The mysterious
men on flying machines did not reappear. Alice wondered if they were the cause of the strange light in the sky, or if they were seeking it.

Alice crested a rise, one of the few they'd encountered, and stopped beside Hatcher.

He gestured in front of them at what he obviously thought might be a hallucination.

“Is that real?” he asked.

Alice blinked, and when she looked the hallucination was still there.

The rise they stood upon overlooked a little valley. About halfway down the slope, the fields of ash abruptly terminated, as if stopped by an invisible wall. Beyond were green grass, and fragrant pines, and an expanse of rolling hills that gradually stretched into snowcapped mountains, far in the distance.

A silver-blue stream wound through the little valley, and beside it was a series of small neat buildings, almost like a doll's village. Smoke wisped from chimneys, carrying the scent of breakfast cooking.

“Do you see it?” Hatcher asked.

“Yes,” Alice said, and relief broke over her.

She'd half thought they would never see water again or sleep without a cradle of ash. She'd forgotten what it was like to see without grit clogging her eyes or to breathe without inhaling fine particles of dust. She was too exhausted and hungry to run down the hill—and she would likely fall flat on her face if she tried—but her pace quickened as much as she was able.

Hatcher scampered ahead, as always seemingly unaffected by fatigue and lack of food. When he reached the stream he dropped his pack on the bank and waded right in, dipping his head beneath the water and splashing like a happy dog.

Alice was uncomfortably aware of just how dirty she was, but at the same time she glanced uneasily at the little village just a short distance away. Its citizens might not appreciate two strangers swimming in their local waters.

She knelt by the bank and cupped her hand in the stream, drawing it to her mouth. It was clear and cool and delicious. Alice had never tasted water like this before, not even when she lived in the New City. It was like melted snow and sweet honey and summer flowers and an autumn breeze all in one, and she was so thirsty. She wanted to gobble it all down, plunge her face into the stream and drink until she was a spider bloated with the juice of too many flies.

But Alice knew that would give her a stomachache, especially after so many days without proper food or drink. So she contented herself with a few careful sips, enough to relieve the parched withering feeling in her throat. Then she washed her face and hands and neck and splashed a little water in her hair, and hoped that her scent would not offend any villagers they met.