“Aaaah!”
She ran at Redd, fury in her heart. But the way to Redd became long, and suddenly the
twenty-three-year-old Dodge was running alongside her, saying in a voice tight with rage, “Hate makes you strong. Forget restoring White Imagination to power and Wonderland to its past glory. There’s no justice except the justice of revenge. The only way to defeat Redd is to embrace your anger.”
The Cat jumped in front of them and Dodge plunged his sword into the beast again and again. But he seemed no less angry for it, as if his anger would remain no matter how many times he killed Redd’s vicious henchman.
Alyss was almost within striking distance of Redd when her mother’s head, lying in a corner where it had rolled, opened its eyes and spoke.
“Black Imagination feeds on anger, Alyss. Give in to your anger and you merely become a pawn of
Black Imagination, which may triumph for a time but never for eternity.” “But look at what happened to you!” Alyss said.
“Yes, look at me. It should tell you a lot that I’m the one saying this.”
But the pressure of hate in Alyss’ skull was too great. “It tells me that you were weak and that’s why you lost!” she screamed, snatching Redd’s scepter and cutting off her aunt’s head with a single swing, just as she had killed Genevieve.
Redd and the roses faded into the floor and Alyss discovered herself standing in a circular room with walls of telescopic glass that allowed her to see the Chessboard Desert and Wondertropolis in their entirety.
Bibwit rushed into the room with an open book in his hands, reading from it with great urgency, wanting her to understand. “Fleg lubra messingpla gree bono plam,” the tutor read. “Tyjk grrspleenuff rosh ingo.”
“Bibwit?”
“Zixwaquit! Zergl grgl! Fffghurgl grgl!”
The tutor continued spouting gibberish, growing more and more agitated with Alyss’ lack of understanding, which was when she glimpsed herself in a looking glass. Instead of her usual features, she saw Redd looking back at her. She had become Redd.
“No!”
She smashed the glass, and her entire surroundings-the circular room, the nonsensical Bibwit-showered down around her in fragments, leaving her standing before the entrance glass in the maze; on the other side of the glass, the clash between Alyssians and Redd’s soldiers was stopped in
time.
“Why am I here? What does this mean?” “Ahem hum.”
A stream of smoke crossed her vision. She turned and saw the blue caterpillar puffing at his hookah. “It means you failed, Princess.”
“I-?” Can’t fail. The maze is intended for me. “But-”
“You were unable to navigate the maze. It is unfortunate for all of us, but nothing can be done. You must leave through the glass and re-enter the battle.”
Failure’s not an option. She would rather have been anywhere else, but she couldn’t leave yet. Not as a failure. “Unacceptable,” she said. “I don’t accept it.”
And before Blue could blow smoke into her face, she ran deep into the maze. She was quickly lost, but all was not lost so long as she remained here. She could still succeed. She would succeed, other wise what would become of-
A figure strode into the corridor up ahead. “Hatter!”
Oh, she was glad to see him. But the Milliner said nothing, raised a sword and rushed at her. “Wait! What are you-?”
She had to do something quick. She imagined a sword in her hand and, almost before she realized it, she and Hatter were fighting-he the aggressor, she surprising herself with a defense that relied on mirroring his moves.
Hatter at last lowered his weapon and stepped away, approving. “Good.”
So he was assessing her, Alyss understood, developing her warrior skills-or rather, he was training her imagination in the service of her warrior skills. Still, when a second Hatter Madigan appeared…
I have to fight two of them?
In addition to the sword, Alyss armed herself with a Hand of Tyman. She parried with the two Hatters. Clangk! Shwink-ding-shlank! Whenever one of them made a move she had never seen before, she quickly appropriated it-imagined it as part of her own repertoire. But merely conjuring herself into a better swords woman wasn’t going to be enough; she had to employ her imagination in other ways, because a third and fourth Hatter appeared, then a fifth and a sixth. Clashing weapons with one Hatter, she imagined that the others felt it. But this proved insufficient as more Hatters stepped forward, so she conjured her numberless reflections to her aid. They jumped from their looking glasses, swords in hand, and for every Hatter Madigan there was now an Alyss Heart to battle him.
“Excellent,” one of the Hatters said, and at his signal the Milliners gave up their swords and activated their wrist-blades, employed their boomeranging top hats.
Alyss imagined razor-cards shooting from the sleeves of her uniform, but the Hatters batted them down easily enough. Never had she wielded her imaginative powers so precisely, so intensely, or for so long a
time.
Getting tired, not sure how much longer I can…
Sensing her own defeat, she shot wads of a thick, gummy substance from the sleeves of her uniform. The wads hit the Hatters’ weapons and stopped up their rotary workings and, in the same instant, Alyss took a deep breath and exhaled, causing such a wind that the Hatters were blown off their feet, lay sprawled on the floor throughout the combat arena.
The fighting was over. Alyss was alone among the defeated Hatters, her reflections back in their looking glasses.
“Control and power aren’t everything,” one of the Hatters said. “Allow yourself to be the agent by which a cause greater than any single individual triumphs. Then perhaps you’ll be worthy of the Heart Crystal.”
The Hatters picked themselves up, bowed, and backed away down the maze’s various corridors. After a short rest, Alyss felt infused with power and health, better than she had before running into the Hatters.
Better than I have felt in a long, long time-maybe ever.
It was a lot like she used to feel before her seventh birthday, when she thought herself capable of anything and the world was a beautiful place.