“You don’t think the overriding need for our citizens is peace and security?” Alyss asked. “And perhaps for a—”
“The threat of total annihilation faced by those who’d attack us is a deterrent that provides Boarderland with all the security it needs. But I wonder, Miss Majesty, how aware you can be of Morgavia’s military stockpiling if you question the need for such potent weapons.”
“Aware enough,” she said, though it was the first she had heard of it.
“Then perhaps you don’t have the latest intelligence regarding the failed negotiations between Unterlan and its breakaway province, Ganmede, because if you did, surely you wouldn’t doubt the need for whatever weaponry our scientists can devise.”
Failed negotiations? “I have been briefed on the latest intelligence,” Alyss lied. “But I wonder if there isn’t a way to secure Boarderland without the threat of severe destruction or the loss of innocent lives or—”
“Innocent lives?! Oh, wise queen, is anyone really as ‘innocent’ as you suppose? If I weren’t dealing with threats from outside Boarderland, I would yet be forever stamping out the ones from within. After your battles with Redd, I can hardly believe it, but you seem to retain a touch of naiveté. Citizens are not innocent, Your Highness. If the reins of government are not manfully applied, their aggressive, self-seeking nature will always upset peace and security. True peace is only possible through the absolute power of a single sovereign.”
“And what if this absolute ruler were as self-seeking and aggressive as the most restless citizen, out for his own glory instead of the common good?”
“And what if women devoted themselves to domestic chores as they should?”
She would not allow herself to get angry, especially in front of Molly, whom she could feel bristling beside her. The difference between Redd and King Arch might only be one of degree. She would have to be more circumspect around him.
“I apologize,” said Arch. “You are my host as Wonderland’s queen and I should behave accordingly.”
Alyss stood. “It’s time I returned to my party, Arch. You’re welcome to join the festivities or not, as you choose, but I thank you for offering your respects.”
Alyss and Homburg Molly started for the door.
“You know that I was one of the last people to see your father alive?” Arch asked.
Alyss paused, not turning to face him.
“I’ve never met a finer king than Nolan,” Arch went on. “He was a brilliant politician and a brave soldier. The loss of such a king is itself cause to mourn. But when I consider that he and I were on the verge of securing greater cooperation between our nations, to create a united front against the unknown threats of the future, ah well…”
Even if Alyss had been looking directly at Arch, she couldn’t have known that he was lying, that he had in fact thought Nolan a weak and ineffective king who was forever at his wife’s skirts, and that he’d sooner have had his head lopped off than ever entangle his government with Wonderland’s. She swept out of the room, Molly following, careful not to step on the train of her dress.
A minister approached the Boarderland ruler. “Will we be joining the celebrations, my liege?”
Arch bent down, picked up a cracked button that had fallen unnoticed off Molly’s coat. “I think not,” he said. “I’ve found what I needed.”
CHAPTER 4
THE GROUND became increasingly less fertile as the Everlasting Forest approached the gorge that separated it from the Volcanic Plains—the full heat and lava streams of which were visible to the card soldiers patrolling Wonderland’s most isolated military outpost.
“How am I supposed to prove myself in battle if we never get into one?” the Two Card complained.
“If you had been in a battle,” answered the Four Card, “you wouldn’t wish for one.”
The Four Card knew what he was talking about, having been shuffled here after most of his former deck had been annihilated in skirmishes with Redd’s forces. He had spent the lunar cycles of Alyss’ exile deep within the Everlasting Forest, guarding the camp that had once served as headquarters for the Alyssian rebellion.
The Two Card glanced toward the parched, scanty trees that made up this part of the forest—which, from this vantage point, didn’t seem so everlasting. He looked off toward the plains with its shimmers of heat, its bright, slow-moving lava flows, and its occasional burst of the stuff from underground, as if the planet were nauseous and coughing up what it couldn’t digest.
“Who would ever attack us from here? It makes no strategic sense. We’re near nothing of vital importance to the queendom. Our enemies would have to use most of their strength just getting through the plains to reach us. Plus, they wouldn’t exactly be leaving themselves an easy route of retreat. There’s only one way to go, and that’s back into the Volcanic Plains.”
The Four Card had to admit this was all true. After Alyss’ ascension to the throne, General Doppelgänger had established these far-flung military bases throughout Wonderland to serve as an early warning system: The first sign of anything unusual was to be immediately relayed to the bases closest to the trouble, as well as to Central Command. It was not possible to be too vigilant, the general preached. Decks of card soldiers had thus been deployed to the distant jungles of Outerwilderbeastia, with its brambles and wildlife, and to the outermost quadrants of the Chessboard Desert, with its alternating squares of ice and black rock. Only the Valley of Mushrooms and the Volcanic Plains had been spared an influx of military personnel. General Doppelgänger had ordered bases to be erected around the valley, on various peaks of the Snark Mountains, so that the caterpillar-oracles’ habitat could enter a period of new growth after being cleared of the mushrooms hacked to virtual mush by Redd’s forces. As for the Volcanic Plains, the belching heat of the place was so inhospitable to all life save jabberwocky that General Doppelgänger considered it a buffer zone or no-man’s-land between the queendom and any opposing force.
But, thought the Four Card, even supposing that enemies did attack this outpost and somehow managed to fight their way into the thick of the Everlasting Forest, they would still be confronted with the Wall of Deflection—a series of looking glasses unconnected to the Crystal Continuum that spanned the entire breadth of the forest. Just as the glasses around the rebel Alyssian headquarters used to overlap one another at countless angles, these were aligned in such a way that, as you approached them, you saw not your reflection but what looked like dense, impassable arborage and so were deflected away from Wondertropolis.
“To attack the queendom from here would be suicide,” muttered the Two Card.
Funny, but what the Two Card most despised about life on this post was precisely what the Four Card appreciated. It was the least likely ever to be attacked. He had seen enough of battle and death.
“I wish you’d stop that humming,” said the Two Card.
The Four Card was about to explain that he wasn’t humming when all at once the forest trees began to whisper—troubled, hoarse whispering. Then he heard it too, a steady hum, approaching fast and growing into a great swell of—
“Incoming!”
He dove to the ground as a cannonball spider smashed into the wall behind him.
The Two Card fumbled with his weapon, unable to get off a single shot before the giant arachnid pricked him with its pincers and he crumpled to the ground, dead.
Not about to become food for some artificial spider, the Four Card scrabbled to his feet and ran, spraying razor-cards from his AD52 in the direction of incoming fire. Whoever his attackers were, they had begun to launch whipsnake grenades; electric coils crackled, hissed, slithered all around him. In the frenzy of the eye-burning explosions and ear-stabbing squeaks of cannonball spiders, he saw the enemy rise up out of the gorge with amazing agility—ordinary-looking Wonderlanders except for the colorless crystal embedded in their eye sockets.
“How’s it possible?”
The Glass Eyes, a breed of f
ighters manufactured by the maliciously inventive Redd Heart, were supposed to have been destroyed. Their return could mean only one thing: Redd had survived the Heart Crystal and was back in Wonderland.
“I fought her armies once and survived. I’ll do it again,” the Four Card vowed.
He emptied his AD52 at the Glass Eyes. Thwip thwip thwip, thwip thwip thwip thwip. Razor-cards shot out into the fireworks of battle, slicing through the enemy, dealing death. He dropped behind a bulwark to reload, was slamming home his last projectile deck into the AD52’s ammo bay, about to take aim, his finger on the trigger, when—
The Glass Eyes swarmed him.
CHAPTER 5
HEART PALACE’S inaugural gala had drawn to a close and the verdict was unanimous: The event had been a success, a sparkling gemstone in the crown of a queen still new to the complexities of party planning. Alyss herself, however, was not pleased, too prickled by her meeting with King Arch to have enjoyed the festivities as thoroughly as her guests.
Why did he have to mention my father?
Indeed, she had never heard her father mention him. But then, why would Nolan have troubled a seven-year-old with matters of state involving an unlikable neighbor-king?
The sudden loss of her father was like living with a wound that would never heal, yet her memories of him were fading more and more every day. She’d been so young when she last saw him—in person, that is, because she had seen him twice since his death: once in the Looking Glass Maze, and once in a glass at Mount Isolation’s Observation Dome shortly after Redd’s defeat. But it wasn’t only on Nolan’s account that she was agitated. She had recently realized that any mention of a father caused her to think not only of him, but also of her other father, the one from her thirteen years on Earth—Reverend Liddell of Christ Church College, Oxford University. Her memories of the Liddells were so much more vivid than anything she remembered of Nolan and Genevieve. But then, she had spent more time with the Liddells than she had with the king and queen whose blood throbbed in her veins.
More than half my life.
Alone in one of the palace’s seven state rooms, Alyss tried to recollect times spent with her beloved parents. But she was unable to concentrate. In her imagination’s eye she watched the walrus-butler supervise the sweeping and hosing of garden paths, the spritzing of sunflowers that had sung their voices ragged, the distribution of leftover wondercrumpets, tarty tarts, and other treats throughout the capital city. She gazed at these things, thinking not of her mother or father, nor of the Liddells, her loving adoptive parents; she thought of Bibwit.
Why didn’t he tell me Morgavia is stockpiling weapons? Or of Unterlan’s troubles with the Ganmede province?
She had felt like an idiot lying to King Arch and feared her ignorance of these matters had showed on her face. Bibwit’s keeping intelligence from her—he wasn’t up to anything diabolical, she knew; only trying to prevent her from being overwhelmed by the responsibilities that fell to her as queen. The politicking within the queendom was enough to deal with without being burdened by inter-realm squabbles, but…
From now on Bibwit must inform me of everything, every scrap of intelligence, no matter how small or apparently meaningless.
Her imagination’s eye fell on what had once been the Five Spires of Redd construction site. The monstrous edifice had been torn down before its completion, its mottled crystal recycled in the urban renewal projects of the neighborhoods most blighted by Redd’s tyranny. The grime and soot of Wondertropolis had been scraped off a layer at a time until the once radiant surfaces emerged and could be buffed to a sheen. Spangles of luminescent blues again mingled with vibrant reds and dusky golds on office towers; spires of sunburst hues rose gleaming and incandescent above the rooftops of various government buildings and hotels. The city’s landscape designers had removed all weeds and dead vegetation from the curbside gardens, replanting the same assortment of amaryllis, daisies, and aromatic, blossoming shrubs that had thrived before Redd had sprayed them with Naturcide.
What if Arch is right? What if the entire world should be under the command of a single, absolute ruler and the only way to establish a lasting peace among nations is to make them one nation?
Because there were limits to what she could accomplish with her gift, though who had set these limits even Bibwit couldn’t say. Imaginationwise, she was still learning what she could and couldn’t do.
And probably will be forever.
Alyss’ imaginative eye focused on the new urban resort, Wondronia Grounds, formerly known as Redd’s Hotel & Casino. Wondronia offered families a vacation destination without their having to leave the city. For adults there were spa treatments, massages, elegant restaurants, nature hikes through indoor parks so vast and lush you never would’ve known you were indoors. For children there were smooth quartz water slides, treasure hunts, and Total ImmEX game-play, where boys and girls could inhabit the persona of Hatter Madigan and perform an impressive repertoire of his acrobatic, blade-spinning maneuvers.
Think of mother and father…
But her imagination’s eye, as if independent of her, skipped over Wondertropolis’ holographic billboards, which in Redd’s time had announced nothing but crackdowns on suspected Alyssians and White Imagination practitioners, punishments of avowed dissenters, and incentives for turning in a neighbor or relative as a traitor to government. These same billboards now streamed the latest traffic reports, aired advertisements for White Imagination starter kits and safaris in Outerwilderbeastia. Gone from the streets were the Reddisms that had emanated from overhead speakers. In Redd we trust. The Redd way is the right way. Better Redd than dead. Gone were the speakers themselves. Gone from street corners were the gwormmy-kabob carts and crystal smugglers hawking contraband. Gone were most of the pawn shops and money lenders.
Think of mother. And father. Mother and father…
“Have I really found you alone,” asked a voice behind her, “without faithful Molly attached at your hip?”
It was Dodge. He stepped up beside her.
Alyss smiled. “I made her take the rest of the night off.”
“Nice view.”
She hadn’t noticed. She was standing before a window of telescopic glass that looked out over the lights of the capital city. “Yes, it is.”
“All I’ve got for a view is the back of the royal kitchen. The treatment of a palace guardsman these days, I tell you.”
A joke. He only told jokes when he was feeling awkward.
This is the part where he puts his arm around me, pulls me close, and says that no matter how many Looking Glass Mazes I pass through, no matter how many crowns I wear, I’ll always be his Alyss, the same little girl who used to run through the palace halls with him when we were younger…
“What good is my imagination if it can’t bring happiness to every Wonderlander?” she asked, biting her lip to stop herself from adding “myself included.”
“I wouldn’t think I’d have to answer that. We’re here, aren’t we? Redd and The Cat are not.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Redd’s more public works might have been dismantled or renovated into oblivion, but her influence on Wonderland’s culture was still noticeable. Redd had rewarded the worst in them. Their narrow-mindedness, selfishness, and pessimism had flourished at the expense of kindness, generosity, and goodwill toward others—the fundamental principles of White Imagination. General Doppelgänger insisted on retaining peace-keeping contingents throughout the city, and at least once between every rising of the world’s twin suns, a Wonderlander would approach one of these to report a parent or neighbor for treason.
Arch was right about one thing. Never mind contending with forces outside one’s borders, there will always be enough trouble dealing with disruptive elements from within.
“It’s just…peace really isn’t so peaceful,” Alyss sighed.
Whether Dodge was annoyed by her conversation or the plea for sympathy in her tone, she d
idn’t know; he changed the subject.
“How’s Molly working out?”
“Fine.”
He twisted his features into a doubtful expression.
“What? She’s better than fine. Great, really. We all know how skilled and courageous—”
“It’s not her skills and courage I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s her maturity.”
Alyss almost laughed. Here she was, twenty years old, having passed through the Looking Glass Maze and defeated her evil aunt so as to govern the queendom in the name of White Imagination, yet she hardly felt more mature than when she used to play harmless pranks on Bibwit—turning his food into a plate of gwormmies or imagining a thick bushel of hair on his powdered head. Sure, she was more powerful than she used to be. Her strength came easily and she could feel it tingling every nerve. But maturity? What was that?
“It gives Molly confidence to hold the position,” she said. “Besides, I know what it’s like to exist in two worlds as a halfer does, being neither wholly one thing nor another. And most of the time, I like to have her around.”
Dodge bowed. “Then I must trust Molly to keep the most beautiful of queens safe.”
Alyss looked at him. He’d never been so direct with his affections before. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“So-so,” he joked. “I know of this other queen a few nations over…”
She slapped him playfully on the arm. Tell him you love him, that his being the son of a palace guardsman doesn’t matter if he still loves you as you hope. But when Alyss found her voice, she was surprised at what came out.
“Do you think Hatter might have gone to Earth?”
The moment for confessions of the heart had passed. Wonderland’s queen and the leader of her palace guard stared out over Wondertropolis, their feelings for each other too big for utterance, neither of them knowing that wherever Hatter had gone, they would need him soon.