Blue and Green chuckled. Green chucked a raspberry-blast tart into Blue’s eager maw, Blue tossed a dingy-pear tart into Green’s. They chewed and swallowed.
“Homburg Molly is in place,” Blue noted between bites of his five-decker. “But time grows short for getting Alyss to where Everqueen requires her to be.”
“Earth,” Green said knowingly.
The red caterpillar was now holding sixteen tarty tarts in the sixteen feet closest to his mouth, taking a bite of each in turn. “You know what I’m going to say,” he announced, too busy attacking his baked goods to utter more.
“I know the many things you might say,” Blue prompted him. “To which do you refer?”
“The third one.”
Purple lifted his head from the tarty tart caldron, his front legs wagging in the air, his eyes wide and turned to the sky. “Wait! I’m having a vision! Yes, I see . . . I see . . . that Arch must be the one to lure Alyss to Earth!”
“I see it too!” Red cried, lifting his sixteen tarty tarts heavenward. “It will not accomplish what must be acccomplished to establish Everqueen if Blue directs Alyss to Earth without involving the king!”
Tipping the last of his tarty tart sandwich down his gullet, Blue addressed the council, “Do we not see the past and all possible futures at every given moment?”
“I’m blind!” Yellow shouted; having removed his face from the pile of tarty tarts, gobs of the stuff were covering his eyes.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Green, plucking the gobs free and popping them into his mouth.
“Do we not,” Blue continued, “alter all possible futures every time we intervene with lesser beings who vie for the Heart Crystal?”
“The possible futures of all beings change constantly,” Green pointed out.
“Every gwormmy-blink of every lunar minute,” added the red caterpillar, “every time a lesser being takes the slightest action. I find the role of an oracle exhausting even without this flux. Having to be aware of all the possible futures of every moment as well as the possible futures of those possible futures and—”
“It’s enough to make my head hurt,” said Yellow.
“Tell me about it,” Purple agreed with a roll of his eyes.
Blue took a long pull of his hookah, grumbled: “Ahum hem. If we again intervene, we create possibilities that will not exist otherwise. The most important of these, as we can see, represents the gravest risk to the Crystal and to ourselves.”
“He is, yes,” Green said.
“Who is, what?” asked Blue, as Yellow, Red, Orange, and Purple looked to him for guidance.
“That is the answer to your next question. Yes, Arch is clever enough to discern the course of action that poses awful risk to us, but which Everqueen demands.”
“Yum,” Red said, gazing adoringly into the tarty tart caldron.
“Don’t we know that we must intervene?” Yellow quizzed the council. “Do we not all see that? If we do not intervene, none of the possible futures for ourselves currently foreseen is, um . . . good?”
“It is decided then,” said Blue. “Green shall prod the king and I will do what must be done with regards to Alyss Heart.”
Red wiped his brow with a flugelberry cream tart as one wipes away sweat after much exertion. “This reminds me of the time we were deciding whether to intervene when the Lady of Clubs tried to steal the Heart Crystal.”
“That’s next month,” Yellow said.
“That was next month,” corrected Purple, “now that you-know-who’s done you-know-what.”
“Right!”
“Ugh. Now?” Green said, wrinkling his nose at Blue.
Blue exhaled a puff of hookah smoke that formed the sentence, “Yes, now.”
“OK then, all right. Rush me, why don’t you?” Green frantically tucked tarty tarts into the crevices between his annular muscles—horizontal crevices that acted like little pockets up and down his caterpillar belly. “Let me just . . . I must have sustenance to fortify me on my journey. All right, off I go!”
Laden with his favorite foodstuff, Green stepped on to a carpet of hookah smoke and floated off through the valley to instigate events in which everything that mattered to Wonderland’s oracles could be lost.
CHAPTER 33
IN HEART Palace’s royal library, Bibwit Harte pulled scrolls from drawers and encyclopedia crystals from shelves, a charred codex and diaries of long-gone tutors from a glass display case in the center of the room. With its numerous floor-to-ceiling shelves, its reading nooks and desks for study, the library was as accommodating as any place could be for the accumulation of knowledge, yet it didn’t contain a tenth the number of volumes there had been in the former palace—so much of Wonderland’s history, documented nowhere else, stolen by looters in the weeks following Queen Genevieve’s downfall, or destroyed in the Redd-imagined collapse that ultimately rendered Genevieve’s seat a mound of rubble.
“Oof!” the walrus-butler exclaimed, blowing on a scroll to clean it of dust and getting the dust all over his cheeks and whiskers. “I’ll have to make sure these are cleaned more frequently. Yes, they do need a good . . . a thorough cleaning and airing out, don’t they, Mr. Bibwit?”
Mr. Bibwit would have preferred the volumes to remain as they’d been, collecting dust, rather than surrender them to Arch. He hadn’t opened a single one of them since Queen Genevieve’s last tutorial, but as he laid a milk white hand upon each, he saw their contents as clearly as if he and Genevieve were sitting down to a lesson. A Ten Card’s chronicle of the early wars incited by discovery of the Heart Crystal; official transcripts of negotiations among the suit families prior to Wonderland’s formation; the diary of a tutor Bibwit knew in his youth: These texts contained miscellaneous anecdotes relating to the oracles—a cryptic utterance by Blue (“Where did we come from? We have always been here. Waiting”); a vague reference to a Looking Glass Maze as the means to imaginative maturity for “those gifted with imitation of the Heart Crystal’s power.” What was known of the caterpillars had been culled from these and other volumes, distilled into brief entries found in the encyclopedia crystals.
“Despite the lunar hours of reading and viewing these volumes represent,” Bibwit said to the walrus, “His Majesty isn’t likely to come away with more knowledge of the oracles than he already possesses.”
“Ouff, goodness, this dust! How is that possible, Mr. Bibwit?”
Bibwit’s ears softened. “Gentle friend, I sometimes forget that although you and I are frequently together, you have little experience with the oracles.”
“None at all, Mr. Bibwit, and I wish to . . . I do prefer to keep it that way. But if the oracles help Queen Alyss, our beloved distraught queen, why, I will be extraordinarily grateful to them from afar.”
“I’m afraid the caterpillars’ concern lies solely, as it always has, with the Heart Crystal as the generative force in the cosmos,” said Bibwit. “They bother with kings and queens only to the extent that these impact the Crystal’s welfare, and I have no evidence the oracles favor Alyss any more than they do, say, King Arch.”
The walrus’s whiskers trembled, his tusks gnawed his lower lip. To think he might have to serve King Arch for the remainder of his days!
“But as I was saying,” Bibwit went on, “these volumes contain no great information about the oracles. Many of the most reliable and informative—direct accounts recorded by others of my species—have been lost or destroyed. Even In Queendom Speramus has not yet been re-collated. What King Arch will find here are unrelated quotes and rumors that span generations, the impression of which, taken together, present the oracles as frustrating, exasperating, often inexplicable, and rarely or never easily intelligible. Just as they are in life. Excuse me.”
Bibwit abruptly reached under the sleeve of his scholar’s robe and tapped the receiver node on his crystal communicator’s keypad—before, to the walrus-butler’s ear, the device even sounded. Projecting as if from the tutor’s navel on t
o the air: an image of General Doppelgänger in the war room.
“Mr. Harte,” the general whispered, “I hope you aren’t presently indisposed?”
“Since Arch has given me this assignment on the oracles, General, his spies have relaxed their guard somewhat—which is to say, a tad. I suspect Arch’s belief in the inferiority of females is causing him to underestimate our queen and any who’d plot on her behalf.”
Doppelgänger looked dubious and whispered, “Spies haven’t lessened their watch of me. But I’ve received a communication requesting our immediate attention.”
The general made some adjustments on the knobby slab of equipment before him and the vid nozzle of Bibwit’s communicator shot forth a second projection: Alyss and Dodge in Outerwilderbeastia.
Alyss wasted no time with pleasantries. “General, Bibwit, what I’m about to tell you is likely to be a shock, but in light of the extreme hardships we currently face, I believe we have more to gain from this new connection than to lose.”
“An assassin!” General Doppelgänger cried, splitting into the twin figures of Generals Doppel and Gänger as Mr. Van de Skülle passed into view behind the queen.
“Yes, General,” Alyss said without turning around, “that’s Mr. Van de Skülle. He’s here to help. Redd and I have agreed to work together against Arch.”
Flabbergasted, Generals Doppel and Gänger each split in two: a pair of Doppels and the like number of Gängers stared, loose-jawed, at Dodge. Bibwit, no less stunned, also stared openmouthed at the guardsman.
“Why is everyone looking at me?” Dodge asked. “I think cooperating with Redd is brilliant—hard to wrap the mind around at first, sure, but Arch won’t expect it. And except for Alyss, I probably have the most reason to resent this affiliation, but I know my father wouldn’t want me to sabotage our chances of winning back the queendom by insisting on revenge against The Cat.”
He felt Alyss looking at him, turned and steadily returned her gaze.
“But certainly you don’t—” the Doppels began to ask Alyss.
“—trust Redd?” the Gängers finished.
“I do not,” said the displaced queen. “Nor do I believe she trusts me, which is as it should be. The moment it is beneficial to her, she will betray me, and I’m prepared to betray her as soon as our strategy permits. But until then . . .”
“Allow me to query, my dear,” Bibwit’s ears crimped and uncrimped worriedly, “to what specific purpose is this alliance to be put? What do we gain that we don’t already have on our own?”
“To my mind, Bibwit, it’s less an alliance than an acknowledgment that, so far as imagination is concerned, what hurts me or Redd hurts us both equally, and remembering this we will consult each other when determining how to proceed against Arch.”
The four generals shook their heads, rubbed sweaty palms down the front of their uniforms, then became two generals, then one—a singular Doppelgänger, apprehensive but resigned. “If you think it best, my queen,” he bowed.
Bibwit also bowed, albeit with wincing reluctance.
“General,” Alyss said, “in the past you’ve mentioned a certain scientist employed at the munitions factory in the flatlands outside Wondertropolis’ Creedite Quadrant. I believe you’ve said he exhibits rare devotion to White Imagination?”
“Taegel,” said Doppelgänger. “He was with the Alyssians during Redd’s reign. It was he who devised the Wall of Deflection that hid our headquarters in the Everlasting Forest.”
“Do you think we might still consider him a friend, even if he hasn’t suffered under Arch’s rule?”
“As long as you live, my queen, I’m convinced he would claim loyalty to you above all others.”
“Good. I want you to contact him and tell him to expect me and Dodge. Forward his communication codes to us and we’ll make arrangements with him once we’re near the factory. Obviously, he can tell no one.”
Bibwit still wore his wincing, pained expression.
“We have to go where we can find food and shelter,” Alyss said as if answering his concerns. “The munitions factory is close enough to Heart Palace to provide me with a better offensive position against Arch, and increased power from proximity to the Crystal, but it’s not so close as to be suicidal.”
“And we’ll benefit from whatever weapons Taegel can procure for the cause,” Dodge added.
“But my queen,” said General Doppelgänger, “to get to the factory, you’ll have to pass close to the Creedite Quadrant, where there is a greater risk of your being discovered.”
“If anyone has a better suggestion, I’m prepared to hear it. But whatever I do will have its dangers.”
Bibwit finally spoke. “Excuse me, my dear, but there is something else you should know. Arch has removed the Heart Crystal from its chamber and has not informed me of its location.”
“Nor me,” General Doppelgänger interrupted.
“Therefore,” said Bibwit, “I assume he means to keep it hidden—whether because of extreme prudence or, what is perhaps more likely, because he suspects that you and I are in contact and I am thus untrustworthy.”
“How could he move it without anyone seeing?” Dodge asked.
“Your point,” Alyss said to Bibwit, “is that if Arch has moved the Crystal out of Wondertropolis altogether, my journeying to the munitions factory is an unnecessary risk and the factory’s location of doubtful benefit to our cause?”
Bibwit’s ears flapped once, in concert with his shuttering eyelids: This was indeed his point. “You needn’t attack Arch if you have the Crystal or know where it is,” he said. “The Crystal is everything.”
“So Arch had a huge glowing gemstone of world-creating power moved without anyone seeing it?” Dodge asked. “Didn’t anyone hear it? Bibwit?”
Paying no attention to the tutor’s answer, Alyss sought the Crystal with her imagination’s eye, scanning the ballrooms of Heart Palace, its gardens and parks, Wondronia Grounds, the Aplu Theater and every Wondertropolis landmark large enough to house the Crystal. She scanned what she knew of Boarderland. But wherever she focused her imaginative eye: no Heart Crystal.
At length, she said, “I have to believe the munitions factory is our best option for now.” The projection of her and Dodge was already flickering to nothing when she signed off: “General, Bibwit, if you soon hear reports of me leading an army against Arch’s forces, I trust you’ll know it’s a decoy.”
The air of Heart Palace, from the war room to the library, transmitted perplexity, General Doppelgänger and Bibwit looking mutely at each other until the general murmured what neither of them was sure they’d heard:
“Decoys?”
CHAPTER 34
I’M NOT abandoning you. The words rattled in Hatter’s head as he walked briskly from Molly into the bustle of High Street. He hadn’t wanted to leave Wonderland but now it required all of his mental strength to leave Oxford; he didn’t trust himself to turn around for one more glance. Ready to give his life in service to his queen though no less intent on returning to claim his daughter, he might not have been abandoning Molly, but it felt as if he were.
He turned off High Street, passed Radcliffe Square and rounded a corner on to Brasenose Lane, was in front of Lincoln College before he sighted one: a puddle where no puddle should be, in the middle of sun-warmed pavement. He took his top hat from his head, flicked it into a stack of blades that he secured in an inner coat pocket and, without any change in stride, not caring if anyone noticed, he stepped into the puddle and—
Whoosh!
Sucked down and down and down, he struggled to keep his eyes open, to see what—if anything—there was to see, but the speed of his descent made everything a blur, the world outside his head a darkly shadowed blue murk. His pace slackened. He floated in the depths and then felt the upward tug, the reverse pull toward the Pool of Tears. He grabbed the ends of his Millinery coat and held them out wide, letting the garment act as a sort of inverted parachute, working against t
he water and slowing his ascent so that—
Perklop!
His head broke the water’s surface long enough for him to take in breath. Dropping completely back underwater, he swam toward the crystal barrier and crawled over it on to dry land in less time than it required his wrist-blades to revolve. He didn’t see any tribal guards, but that didn’t mean they weren’t somewhere, watching. ScorpSpitter-like, he moved to the lee side of the cliff overlooking the Pool and then along the rough, chalky rock until he reached foliage enough to provide cover.
He stopped to rest, to think.
He was without a crystal communicator, at least half a lunar hour away from the nearest hiker’s cabin, from which he could send a transmission to Bibwit. He had to contact the tutor, but half a lunar hour’s trek over land infiltrated by the enemy, where a confrontation with even the lowliest tribal warrior would alert Arch of his whereabouts and effectively end his chance of aiding Queen Alyss? It wasn’t worth it. He might as well take the same risk and penetrate into Wondertropolis, cut and dice his way into Heart Palace where, if he was to lose his life, he would lose it while ensuring the end of King Arch.
He made it through the Everlasting Forest without being sighted and was about to step from the last cover its trees afforded. He had no way of knowing whether, under Arch’s sovereignty, Milliners were branded as traitors or officially trusted and employed by the state, and the homes within view might have been commandeered to serve as monitoring stations by Arch’s military. Which was why he kept his top hat in his coat pocket; on his head, it would make him conspicuous. But his coat too might make a target of him, so he slipped it off, balling it up to carry under an arm when—
He felt something. A watchful presence.
A patrol of two white pawns and five Catabrac warriors had fanned out along the street nearest the forest. They were combing the neighborhood, passing up and back between the homes. One of the pawns, happening to glance at the forest, had spotted him and now they stared at each other, Hatter as still as any scuttling woodland creature in frozen alarm, his hand poised to snatch a blade from his backpack. If the pawn alerted his colleagues, Hatter would do what he had to do—grab and snatch at his backpack’s array and put an end to the entire patrol. But the pawn didn’t signal the others. He had recognized the famed Milliner. Discreetly, he removed a crystal shooter from its holster and unstrapped his communicator, dropped both behind a parked hover-cycle and continued on his rounds. Hatter waited until he was sure the patrol had moved on, then sprinted to the hov ercycle, took up the shooter and crystal communicator and, racing back to the forest, punched the code into the communicator’s keypad that would put him in direct contact with Bibwit Harte.