“And you are too apt to powder that wig instead of fighting alongside us when it counts.”
Jack waved him off. “Let Mr. Anders believe what he wants. My only concern is Alyss. There’s no doubt in my mind that she is our lost princess, but I don’t think her mentally or physically capable of leading a charge against Redd.”
“It will take time,” Bibwit concurred.
“It will take the Looking Glass Maze,” said Hatter. “And that,” Bibwit agreed.
Jack of Diamonds slapped his forehead in disbelief. “Not that old bunk. The Looking Glass Maze was proven pointless long ago. Redd herself never went through any maze.”
“All the more reason why she can be defeated,” said Bibwit.
“General, I urge you…let us agree to the summit and stop this idiocy before it goes any further. An opportunity such as the one Redd is offering won’t come again.”
“No queen can reach her full strength and power without passing through the maze,” said Bibwit.
Jack of Diamonds lost all patience. “Yes, by all means, let’s run along to the maze! Hurry, hurry, to the all-important Looking Glass Maze while our future survival hangs in the balance!”
“We can’t simply ‘run along,’ as you say,” instructed Bibwit Harte. “Only the caterpillars know the location of the maze. Alyss must meet with the caterpillars.”
“But they haven’t left the Valley of Mushrooms since Redd became queen,” said the white knight. “Then she will have to go to them.”
“She’ll need a military escort,” Dodge said.
Jack of Diamonds pulled his wig down over his face and spoke into its thick, powdered curls. Though muffled, his voice was audible: “If you want to force her into a confrontation she’s ill-equipped to handle, all I can say is, May the spirit of Issa help anyone who should fall under your people’s care. You’d
march them off to their deaths.”
“Why are you so eager for us to compromise with Redd, I wonder?”
The question came from Dodge. But Jack only buried his face deeper into his wig and groaned. “Bibwit,” the general said, “shouldn’t you be getting back to Mount Isolation in case Redd suspects
something?”
“I’m not going back. The Cat has seen me with Alyss. My place is here now, with her.”
It would have been nice to maintain a spy in Redd’s court, but the general understood. “Well, we’re glad to have full use of you, at any rate.”
Bibwit’s ears twitched and a moment later they all heard it: someone quickly approaching. Hatter stood, hand at the brim of his top hat, and Dodge jumped up, ready to fight. But it was only the rook, battered and bruised from his skirmish with The Cat in the Whispering Woods.
“You made it,” he said, smiling at Dodge.
“You made it. I’ll get the surgeon.”
The rook shrugged him off. “I’m all right. Surface wounds only. We lost four-fifths of our men, though. Didn’t even take one of The Cat’s lives. But the princess is safe?”
Dodge nodded.
“That counts for something.” The rook lowered himself into a vacant chair. “So what’d I miss?”
“Well,” said General Doppelganger, “most here believe that Alyss must pass through the Looking Glass
Maze if she is to successfully challenge Redd. But I haven’t yet voiced my opinion.” Jack of Diamonds peeked out from his wig, hopeful.
“I think we should give Alyss the opportunity of meeting with the caterpillars in the Valley of
Mushrooms,” said General Doppelganger. “Let her try the maze, if she is able.” “Nooo,” Jack said and again buried his face in his wig.
“But in the meantime…” The general yanked Jack of Diamonds’ wig off his face. “Inform Redd that we’d be pleased to attend her summit, if she’s still willing to have it in light of Alyss’ return.” To the others, he said, “Responsibility to the cause requires we have alternate plans should the princess fail.”
“She won’t fail,” Dodge said. “I won’t let her.”
CHAPTER 34
R EDD MOON had risen. Its bloody light burned down on the Chessboard Desert through a
cloud-clotted sky, toxic vapors burping continuously out of the factory engaged in manufacturing Redd’s war machines.
The Cat skulked through the halls of the Mount Isolation fortress, his own unease dwarfed by the violence of the sky over the steaming desert-a sky that became visible to him only as he entered the spiral-shaped hall leading to the Observation Dome, where Redd waited for proof that her niece was no longer among the living.
This was not a briefing The Cat longed to make. He entered the Observation Dome and found his queen staring out of a telescopic panel at Wondertropolis, the walrus-butler busy polishing the other panels with a cloth.
Redd’s back was to him. Without turning around, she said, “I see you but I don’t see my niece’s head,”
and before he could utter a syllable, her scepter speared him.
The walrus gave a little jump and started for the exit. “Oh! I’d better check on-” “Stay where you are!” Redd shouted.
“Yes, I still have plenty of work to do here, Your Imperial Viciousness.” Back to polishing the telescopic panels went the walrus-butler.
The Cat stood unsteadily on two legs, Redd’s scepter jutting out of him. In theory, he was fortunate to have had nine lives. But each death was painful. The Cat sometimes wished for only one life.
He fell to the floor, dead.
Redd stalked back and forth next to his lifeless body. She took hold of her scepter. The Cat’s eyes flickered open and the wound in his chest healed. He slowly got to his feet, licking himself clean.
“Tell me how you managed to fail this time,” Redd demanded.
“The Alyssians reached her first. We chased them back through the Pool of Tears but-”
“Alyss in Wonderland? Unacceptable!” Redd screeched, and again The Cat felt the stinging, mortal blow of her scepter.
The walrus blubbered and dropped his polishing cloth, bent to pick it up, and bumped his head against a telescopic panel.
Redd tried to pinpoint Alyss’ location in her imagination’s eye, saw a confusion of foliage and trees. A
forest of some kind. But there were many forests in the queendom. “Where is Bibwit Harte? I want the royal secretary here, now.”
“I’m sorry, Your Imperial Viciousness,” said the walrus, rubbing his head, “truly very sorry, but Bibwit
Harte is not here. No one’s seen him since-”
“He’s with the Alyssians now.” The Cat had regained consciousness and lay on the floor watching his wound heal.
“No more unwelcome news out of you, my feline friend,” Redd threatened. She motioned with her fingers and The Cat found himself standing upright. “Come with me.”
She swooped out of the room, her heels click-clacking on the polished floor. Casting a last, squinty-eyed glance at the walrus, The Cat followed Redd down the spiraling hall, through dim rooms of questionable purpose to the vacuum shaft that shot them into the bowels of the fortress. They entered an enormous room in which an army of Glass Eyes stood in columns, waiting for orders. As Redd opened her mouth
to speak, she projected her holographic, anger-gnarled face onto Wondertropolis’ billboards and government-sponsored poster-crystals, Wonderlanders pausing amid their various jobs and activities to listen to her spew the words she spoke to the Glass Eyes at Mount Isolation.
“Loyal subjects, there is a pretender to the throne in our midst. She calls herself Alyss Heart. Your assistance in her capture-in her death-is hereby commanded. She is in one of our forests. Find her by the time my moon sets or I will burn every forest in Wonderland. Whoever accomplishes this will be rewarded with the knowledge that she or he has earned my eternal favor.”