Seeing Redd (10 page)

I
F THE ever-wise Bibwit Harte had been with Hatter on Talon's Point, he would have bent his ears in sympathy, sensitive to the news divulged by Weaver's image.

“The diary has left you with more questions than it has answered, Hatter,” he might have said, “but you shouldn't be surprised. The most important questions are always answered with yet more questions.”

Which wisdom would have comforted the Milliner not at all.

If Weaver had given birth at the Alyssian camp within the Everlasting Forest, why had she left the safety of the camp? Why had she abandoned her daughter? Merely to place the diary at Talon's Point in case he returned? It hardly seemed worth it. There must have been another reason, but…Here Hatter was overcome with a peculiar feeling. He'd been having peculiar feelings for a while now, but this one was
really
peculiar. He was feeling
paternal
. How old had Molly been when Weaver left? What did she remember of her mother? Had she been told anything of
him
? Hatter thought back to the time he had spent with the girl—the battles they had fought against Redd and her forces. He'd been impressed with her fidelity to Alyss, her courage and fortitude in helping the princess recover Wonderland's throne, and he hoped he had said as much when he recommended her to be Alyss' bodyguard. But he could recall nothing that definitively told him she knew who he was. Her sass and occasional disregard for his opinions could have been either the lashing out of a bitter daughter or the antagonism of a teen determined to elbow a space for herself in the adult world.

He repeated the fact to convince himself of its reality:
Homburg Molly is my daughter, Homburg Molly is my daughter
. How could he act the recluse, pining away on a mountaintop for a woman who would never return, while her daughter—their daughter—lived?
Because it's in Molly that Weaver most lives
. Yes, and for Weaver's sake, for his and Molly's sake, he had to return to Wondertropolis. He got to his feet, would prepare immediately.

Blooooachchch! Kablooooomshkkrkkkrk!

He'd been hearing explosions outside the cave for some time, he realized. He stepped out onto the ridge and saw, on the nearby mountain below, the comet streaks of orb generators, the fiery blossoms of exploded barracks and munitions caches; a Wonderland military post was under attack.

In an instant, he returned to the depths of the cave. From the dust-covered pile of Millinery gear, and with the skill of a footballer chipping the ball into the goal, he kicked up his top hat, sent it flipping onto his head.

 

Shoulder to shoulder and ankle to ankle, the card soldiers locked themselves together to form a shield around the communications bunker. How many of their deck were still alive they had no way of knowing. Perhaps only the pair of Ten Cards inside the bunker. And themselves. It had been a while since they'd sighted anyone else. Yet they would defend the bunker so long as they had breath left in them. Not a single soldier harbored any illusions: The attack had caught the base unprepared; they were outnumbered; they would not survive.

Too much smoke in the air to see the enemy, but suddenly—

A series of whishing sounds like something repeatedly cutting the air, then a lull, the quiet that inevitably precedes the wind-shriek of an incoming orb generator. The card soldiers braced themselves for impact, but instead of the expected explosion—

Thump. Thump thump. Thump thump thump
.

“What the…?” one of the soldiers said.

The limbs of Glass Eyes clomped down around them. Arms chopped off at the shoulder joint, legs ending at the top of the thigh, hands and feet and torsos, all with a spaghetti of wires and lab-grown veins spilling from holes where no holes should have been.

From the direction the card soldiers had expected their death to come, the silhouette of a Wonderlander appeared out of the smoke—a Wonderlander they would have recognized anywhere. The hat, the dramatic swing of the coat, the spinning blades on his wrists: Hatter Madigan.

F
OR A manufactured species with questionable brain power, the Glass Eyes were fighting with surprising intelligence. Rather than face Wonderland forces in the open of wide avenues, squares and parks, they used the cityscape to their advantage, as defensive cover. They moved purposefully from building to building, sheltered position to sheltered position, battling card soldiers as they converged on Genevieve Square.

The moment Alyss had been located, the knowledge of it spread to every Glass Eye in the city—or so it seemed to Bibwit Harte, who, with the walrus-butler, was watching the invasion on the holographic viewing screens in the palace's briefing room. Wonderland's queen had been sighted, there followed the slightest hesitation in the Glass Eyes' movements, and they all began to fight their way toward her.

“Oh, oh, I can't watch,” grieved the walrus. He tried to cover his eyes, but his flippers were too short to reach and he waddled around the room in even greater consternation. “I'm not watching, I'm not watching!” He turned his eyes anywhere but at the holo-screens. “What's happening, Mr. Bibwit? No, don't tell me! Oh, why can't Queen Alyss simply defeat those horrid things with the strength of her imagination? Please tell me that something good is—”

Clicketyclacketyclicketyclicket! Clacketyclicketyclack!

“What. Are. Thooooooose?” the walrus moaned.

On the holo-screen airing the happenings in Genevieve Square, a swarm of scorpspitters released by the Glass Eyes was scuttling toward Alyss and the others. Never before had a Wonderlander seen these scorpion-like contraptions that could shoot bullets of deadly poison from their “tails”—not even Bibwit, who assumed they were the latest in a long line of armaments invented by Redd. But before a single scorpspitter curled its tail into a C to take aim at the queen, she imagined into existence a horde of disembodied boots with steel-plated soles, which hovered momentarily in the air, then—

With a slight nod, she brought them down hard, stomping the scorpspitters flat, squishing their armor-carapaces and making abstract art of their wiry guts.

“Ooh, now why can't Queen Alyss do
that
to the Glass Eyes?” the walrus-butler cried.

“Because Alyss cannot, even in her imagination, be in all places at once,” Bibwit explained, “not with the intensity required to defeat a scattered enemy. Whether she produces a construct with enough reality to deceive the eyes or she brings into existence an actual weapon or boot, imaginings require tremendous precision of thought and attention to detail. She could perhaps mount a successful defense in two locations simultaneously; she has the strength for that. But to imagine herself in every Wondertropolis neighborhood, battling all the invading packs of Glass Eyes simultaneously, would spread her gift too thin and she would fail.”

Waddling laps around the room, alternately looking at the ceiling and the floor—anywhere but at the holo-screens—the walrus-butler heard none of this. Bibwit himself was hardly aware of what he'd said. In times of great stress, the pale scholar became more verbose than usual.

“At least the palace has been locked down,” he observed, hoping to calm the walrus as, on the walls around them, the uncontrollable nightmare of battle raged in Wondertropolis' streets. “So we are safe.”

But even the walrus-butler wasn't naïve enough to believe this. They were safe only so long as Queen Alyss Heart remained so, and right now—the animal cast a fretful eye at the nearest holo-screen—things looked very bad indeed.

 

They were surrounded. Directly ahead, cannonball spiders rocketed closer and closer while, on their left, a cannonade of orb generators eclipsed all but death. On their right, umpteen decks of razor-cards cut through the distance toward them and, at their backs, spikejack tumblers churned air in prelude to churning their flesh.

The Glass Eyes were trying to overwhelm the queen, to catch her imagination off guard.

I won't let it happen
.

Alyss flicked out her fingers and a cannonball spider shot out from each of them, hatched in midair, and clashed with those shot by the enemy. Halfway between Wonderland's queen and the Glass Eyes, the mechanical spiders fought, dismembering one another as heartily as they would have dismembered any Wonderlander, while—

Thrusting her scepter skyward, Alyss veered the incoming orb generators away from her and the others, imagined them streaming out high over Wondertropolis to land in the Volcanic Plains, home of the jabberwocky.

Can't let it happen
.

Dodge, the chessmen, and generals were standing with swords raised in the futile hope that they might deflect enough razor-cards away from themselves to survive. The missiles were nearly close enough to shave the hair off their arms when—

Fith, fith, fith! Fith, fith, fith, fith, fith, fith, fith!

—Alyss imagined them into neatly stacked decks, grounded and harmless. Immediately, she whirled around to face the spikejack tumblers and sent them crashing into one another. Their spikes latched, holding the tumblers together to form a sort of worrisome jungle gym that hit the ground and skidded toward them, scraping and gouging the pavement.

“When I give the go ahead, go ahead,” Alyss said, the spikes of a jungle gym having come to a stop less than a gwormmy-length from her face.

“What?” the four General Doppels cried at once.

“Run when I say so.”

Dodge frowned.

“We have to get out of this square,” she said. “Find a better vantage from which to fight.”

“Wondronia's just up Brillig Way,” the knight offered. “We'll have the most number of options there.”

“To Wondronia Grounds then,” Alyss said. “But first, you'd all better duck.”

They barely had time to drop to the pavement before she spun, her scepter held horizontally above her head with both hands, sparks of imagination spewing from its ends, shooting out in all directions and—
peewthungk! peewthungk!
—laying low the surrounding Glass Eyes with heat-seeking accuracy.

“Now!”

The chessmen and generals took off, razor-cards ripping from their AD52s, cover fire issuing from their crystal shooters. Running behind them, Dodge kept close to Alyss.

“You should get back to the palace,” he urged.

She guffawed. “I understand. You were preoccupied and didn't notice that I just saved your life?”

“The queendom needs you safe,” he said. “
I
need you safe.”

“But I'm the only one who can defeat Redd.”

“For Issa's sake, Alyss!”

Ahead of them, the chessmen and generals were battling their way into the elaborate complex of buildings that made up Wondronia Grounds.

“You want me to return to the palace,” Alyss said, “then you have to come with me. The Cat nearly killed you once, Dodge. If you insist on fighting him again, I won't let you do it alone.”

A few more strides and Wonderland's queen and the leader of her palace guard would have caught up with the chessmen, just a few more steps and—

A Glass Eye leaped out from behind a parked smail-transport, blocked their way. “Did you drop something?” Dodge asked the assassin. “'Cause I think I see your…” he unsheathed his sword and swung, decapitating the Glass Eye in one blow, “…head over there.”

Hand in hand, Dodge and Alyss ran, their feet a blur on the pavement, explosions all around them, and then—

Relative quiet. They were in Wondronia Grounds, stood catching their breath with the chessmen and generals in the enormous promenade.

“Spooky,” the rook said.

It was: to see a place dedicated to entertaining thousands of Wonderlanders at any given time empty of the usual families, strolling couples, retirees, and cliques of teenagers. All vacationers had been evacuated, all amusements abandoned; unfinished meals sat on restaurant tables; the massaging cloaks and hairstyle helmets of the salons buzzed and clicked as if clients were still relaxing beneath them. Nothing but water coursed down the quartz water slides at the far end of the lobby while, closer to Alyss, carnival rides such as the Whipsnake Coaster and the Spinning T-Cups were completely still.

Chkkchchkkchchchrshshshkkkk!

A dozen Glass Eyes burst through Wondronia's locked front doors. The knight, rook, four Doppels, and four Gängers surged forward to engage them. Dodge grabbed Alyss' hand and pulled her into the closest shelter—the Total ImmEx unit, where, as Hatter Madigan, visitors could do battle against various enemies. By the time a trio of Glass Eyes chased after them, the Total ImmEx unit was in operation—Dodge, with Hatter's coat and weaponry superimposed on him, twisting and leaping in his fight against the Glass Eyes it manufactured, the real Glass Eyes momentarily confused by the sight of their false selves until—

Simultaneously, they turned their heads, quick and jerky as tuttle-birds sensing prey, and sighted Alyss Heart on their right flank. But she was on their left flank too. There were three Alysses in total. Only one of them could be Wonderland's real queen. The Glass Eyes would do away with them all.

“Hagh!”

Dodge somersaulted over two of them—sword in one hand, Hand of Tyman in the other—and sent them to the nothingness of their afterlife. The remaining assassin, ducking and swiveling to avoid the crystal shot of its unreal brethren, was about to spray the place with its AD52 when Dodge snatched a circular blade from his Millinery backpack and threw it. The Glass Eye, not knowing that weapons produced by Total ImmEx couldn't cause harm, moved to knock it away with the muzzle of the AD52. The opening was all Dodge needed. He lurched forward, his sword extended out in front him, and he thrust it into the assassin as far as its hilt.

Dodge and Alyss—the real Alyss, the decoys she'd imagined gone now—found each other, safe amid the scything and eager trigger-pulls of the Total ImmEx Glass Eyes.

“All right?” Alyss was breathless.

“No problem.”

They ran out to the lobby, where the white knight and generals were surrounded by an ever-growing number of Glass Eyes. And the rook, where was…? There, on the Spinning T-Cup ride, in a replica single-seater fighter craft shaped like a capital T, its guns parallel to the cockpit and located at the end of each wing. The rook was slashing at the assassins trying to climb up and put an end to him.

With blades swinging, Dodge offered what support he could to the generals and knight, but Alyss remained where she was, a pillar of calm amid the turmoil of battle as she employed the weapon of her imagination. The Spinning T-Cups kicked into operation. The ride's fighter craft began to rotate, increasing in speed until the Glass Eyes climbing up to challenge the rook blade to blade were flung off like so many—

Crack!

The rook's fighter craft was free of the ride altogether, independent, flying under the distant ceiling of Wondronia's lobby.

“Yeeeeah!” the chessman shouted, piloting in low over Dodge, the knight and generals, and firing his craft's guns into the Glass Eyes, annihilating half of them. A second flyby finished off the enemy and, with no small skill, he landed the fighter so that it blockaded Wondronia's exposed front door.

“If you imagine every entrance and exit blocked, we'll have time to defeat whatever Glass Eyes are still inside,” the four General Gängers said to Alyss.

“No. I want as many of them as possible to come in.”

“You want what?!”

She didn't need Bibwit to tell her that, being unable to imagine herself at every skirmish simultaneously, she couldn't annihilate every Glass Eye in the city with a single strike of her imagination. She knew her limits all too well.

I have to kill off as many as can be brought together in one place
.

“What's the largest room here?” she asked.

“Penniken Fields on the second floor.”

“Take us there.”

Clicketclacketclacketyclick!

Scorpspitters, released by the Glass Eyes outside, skittered through small gaps not blocked by the rook's fighter. Out the forked ends of their curled tails shot bullets of black liquid. Dodge, the chessmen, and generals tried to shield themselves with their weapons, but—

Splat! Sploink! Splish!

The liquid bullets imploded in midair, hung in their splattered state as against the windshield of a smail-transport. Alyss had, by the power of her imagination, cocooned herself and the others in a protective NRG shield and the bullets had smacked against it. A good thing too, because the few that had zipped past them hit the trunk of a guppy tree planted in the lobby, the poison causing its fish-faced leaves to audibly suffocate and its bark to fall off in colorless strips.

“Penniken Fields,” Alyss said again.

They stayed close together, the better to remain within the protection of the NRG shield. The Glass Eyes were now entering Wondronia by the smail-loads, having gotten the better of the rook's T-Cup, and they fired orb generators, crystal shot, and razor-cards at the Alyssians while the scorpspitters let fly with round after round of their poison bullets. The bullets splatted against the NRG shield; the crystal shot and razor-cards bounced off of it, visiting damage upon the lobby's restaurants and theaters and shops.