The Looking Glass Wars (29 page)

Dodge feinted left and, as The Cat moved right to avoid him, he spun and stabbed the beast with the knuckle-blade on his free hand—an ancient Wonderland weapon, the tops of its ring holes sharpened to a blade that spanned the width of four fingers.

A patch of The Cat‘s fur matted with blood, but it wasn‘t a fatal wound. The Cat lunged—a balletic move, landing on his front paws and kicking Dodge with his hind ones, the claws making shallow puncture marks in Dodge‘s chest and sending him stumbling to the floor.

Seeing that the doorway was clear, Jack of Diamonds and the walrus ran out of the room, each hurrying on his own way in search of a new hiding place.

Alyss was fast approaching the spiral hall, sandwiched between Hatter and Molly for protection, but she paused.

―What is it, Princess Alyss?‖ Molly asked.

In her imagination‘s eye she saw The Cat pounce. She saw Dodge roll clear and get to his feet, ready to face whatever might come next, battered and bleeding but as determined as ever.

―It‘s Dodge,‖ she said. ―He‘s—‖

But just then a patrol of card soldiers spotted her and rushed forward. In a wall to her right, Alyss imagined a doorway opening into one of the fortress‘ many unused rooms, and just as she, Molly, Hatter, and the others passed through it, with all of the card soldiers but one a few steps behind them, and that one—a Three Card—in the doorway itself, she imagined it gone. The doorway vanished, leaving the Three Card half sealed in the wall and the rest of the card soldiers stranded on the other side of it without their quarry.

Dodge. She focused her imagination‘s eye on him, saw him punching The Cat in the face with the handle of his sword. I won‘t risk losing him a second time. She created another Dodge.

―I‘ll do this myself!‖ he screamed when he saw his double.

He slashed at his conjured self, which gave The Cat a chance to shove him away and gain some room. The double disappeared and The Cat went at Dodge with his front paws poised to strike.

Bad move. Dodge used the paws as targets; with his sword in one hand and the knuckle-blade on the other, he stabbed them both simultaneously, and before The Cat could retreat, he sunk his sword deep and hard through the beast‘s rib cage. The Cat crumpled to the floor, lifeless.

―Get up!‖ Dodge shouted. ―Get up, get up, get up!‖

It felt as if he waited nine lifetimes for The Cat to regain consciousness. He saw the beast‘s eyelids tremble and again sank his sword into that furry chest. He didn‘t know that Genevieve and Hatter had each already taken one of The Cat‘s lives and that Redd herself had taken three more. Now that he‘d begun it, now that he‘d tasted the revenge for which he‘d waited so long, he was in a frenzy of rage and impatience for it to be over.

―Come on! Get up!‖

Dodge understood that a soldier‘s reflexes were fastest when he was relaxed, but his emotions were getting the better of his training and he failed to anticipate The Cat‘s cleverness. He stood over the creature, watching for the slightest movement. But upon again regaining life, The Cat held himself as still as death, so that his first move wasn‘t a flicker of eye muscle but the swipe of a claw across Dodge‘s thigh, inflicting the deepest wound yet.

―Aaaagh!‖

Dodge fell back. Blood pumped through his shredded trousers and down his leg.

Slowly, almost leisurely, The Cat stood. His wounds were healed and he grinned. He appeared revived, stronger than ever, while Dodge‘s injuries were beginning to make themselves felt—his reactions slower, his shoulder and leg and chest pulsing with pain. The Cat stepped toward him and, for the first time in the fight, Dodge moved backwards, a whisper of defeat in his head, as—

Alyss at last came upon the ballroom where Redd waited. I send you wishes and hope for survival, Dodge, since you won‘t let me send anything else. Please try not to let your darkest urges overtake what‘s good in you. She was about to enter the ballroom when a horde of Glass Eyes ambushed her soldiers, and suddenly Hatter, Molly, the knight, and chessmen were fighting for their lives all around her. Redd wants me to face her alone.

Clangk! Skrich-onk!

The way Hatter and Molly fought, the particular manner in which they spun, kicked, twirled, punched, and used their Millinery weapons, was very similar. She fights more like a full-fledged member of the Millinery than a halfer. But the thought was as fleeting as thoughts can be, and as Alyss entered the ballroom, she left the Alyssians to fight for themselves, her entire being focused on her aunt, with whom she was about to come face-to-face for only the second time ever.

CHAPTER 53

R EDD HAD watched her niece‘s progress through the fortress with mounting intolerance. The interloper—for that‘s all Alyss was to her, just a once-coddled brat playing at a sovereign‘s game—had some nerve. How could Alyss possibly believe herself the crown‘s heir? By what twisted reasoning had she convinced herself? If Genevieve should never have assumed the throne in the first place, then how could the daughter be queen? No, thought Redd. She herself was and had always been the rightful monarch and on this day she would prove it for all time!

Alyss stepped into the ballroom. Finally: Alyss Heart in the flesh. The problem was, there were eight of her, eight Alyss Hearts. Which was the real one?

―Do you think your little games will save you?‖ Redd spat, and from her scepter a bouquet of flesh-eating roses on a long vine shot toward one of the Alysses. It passed through her without effect. A second vine of roses, their toothy mouths gnawing the air, flew at another Alyss—but again, no harm done.

The real Alyss stood third from the left in the row of Alysses, thinking it lucky that she‘d conjured her doubles, because she found herself momentarily paralyzed, unexpectedly affected by the sight of Redd. I can‘t be angry. Won‘t be. I conquered my anger in the maze. Must control myself. But the heat of her temper was rising, the old feelings of abandonment after her parents‘

deaths, the unfairness of just about everything.

―I don‘t have time to dillydally,‖ Redd said. ―Let the real Alyss Heart step forward.‖

The queen sent enough bouquets of thorny-vined roses to attack all eight Alysses at once. The roses passed through seven of them without effect. The real Alyss tilted her head in a certain way and the attacking bouquet wadded up, strangled itself, withered, and died.

―We‘re family,‖ Alyss said.

Redd snorted. ―Is that supposed to mean something?‖

―Family,‖ Alyss said again, trying to convince herself more than Redd.

―Don‘t talk to me about family! You were never disowned by your parents!‖

―I‘d rather have been disowned by them than seen them murdered.‖

―Goody for you!‖

Redd opened her mouth and exhaled a jet of flame, out of which stomped two jabberwocky, breathing shoots of fire directly at Alyss. The princess diverted the flames to either side of her and, wielding the white crystal scepter, scattered the jabberwocky into countless particles of energy. As the particles were floating and eddying in the air, fading from sight, Alyss fired a series of orb generators at Redd, who was not yet committing too much of her power to defending herself in order to draw Alyss out and discover her strengths and weaknesses. With the attitude of a grouchy governess extinguishing candle flames, she snuffed out the orb generators before they reached her, repeatedly pinching her thumb and forefinger together in the air. Each time—zzz!—an orb fizzled into nonexistence.

Alyss could feel the Heart Crystal‘s energy radiating out to her, infusing her. It‘s behind the far wall. Redd, by staying close to it to realize her full strength, had ensured that Alyss‘ powers would also be increased.

Alyss shot two orb generators at the quartz and agate mosaic and—kerboosh!—it fractured apart.

The red glow of the Heart Crystal filled the room.

Redd shed caution like an outgrown skin. ―It‘s mine!‖ she shouted. ―The crystal‘s mine!‖

She sent X-shaped blades cartwheeling toward Alyss, and it was all the princess could do to avoid getting sliced or run over by them; she darted left and right and back again, but as soon as she safely avoided one batch of X-blades, more came at her: an army of weapons not needing soldiers to man them. She conjured a cocoon of White Imagination around her as protection. An X-blade cartwheeled into her and knocked her to the floor. She tried blunting the blades‘ edges, but that didn‘t stop them from cartwheeling toward her.

Have to get on the offensive.

Still dodging the X-blades, she dealt decks of razor-cards from her sleeves, and a couple of cannonball spiders, but she was too taken up with defending herself to see if they had any effect.

She made a fist with one hand and brought it down in the palm of her other. The cartwheeling blades fell flat on the floor, harmless. But now she had another problem because the room was alive with enormous, heavy, black, spike-covered wheels rolling rampant. Alyss wasn‘t so slow this time. She imagined the nightmarish wheels turned into squares and they locked in place, anchored by their floor-gouging spikes.

Can‘t let Redd bombard me. Must do more than retaliate.

She conjured a curious bomb—one that didn‘t destroy but create. It burst at Redd‘s feet and a shimmering cage of White Imagination–enforced alloy built itself around the queen.

―You think you can contain me?‖ Redd laughed and stepped out of the mini-prison as if it weren‘t there. Behind her, the Heart Crystal no longer glowed uniformly red but changed color constantly, from pink to white to red to a marbled red and white.

Aunt and niece stood in a cyclone of Black and White Imagination, the winds of both scudding around them, popping and sizzling with electrical charges and lightning fragments shooting every which way.

Give me strength, Heart Crystal. Give me…

One of Alyss‘ cannonball spiders must have completely missed its target, because Dodge and The Cat were visible through a large, jagged hole in the wall to her right. She hardly took her eyes off Redd for a millisecond, but when she turned back, a large orb was coming toward her.

She conjured one of her own and the two orbs collided.

Wuuumpf!

The impact sent shockwaves of displaced air reverberating throughout the room. Redd stood her ground but Alyss was thrown back and slammed to the floor. How had things gotten so turned around? One moment she was on her feet, holding her own against her aunt; the next she was laid out, looking the picture of defeat. One moment Dodge was fighting The Cat as an equal; the next The Cat was rearing back to lance him with a claw through the gut, Dodge defiantly facing his demise as—

―Dodge!‖ Alyss shouted, and in a reflex, she conjured an AD52 into his hand, just as something knocked her on the head. A black shroud fell over her vision and she lost consciousness, giving Redd the only advantage she needed to put an end to the upstart princess.

CHAPTER 54

A LICE AWOKE in her bed, cold and sweating. Prince Leopold, Mrs. Liddell, and the dean were looking down on her with expressions of mingled concern and relief.

―What is this?‖ Alice asked, befuddled.

―This,‖ said Mrs. Liddell, ―is your bed. You‘re at home, dear.‖

―You‘ve given us quite a scare, my love,‖ said Prince Leopold. ―Do you remember anything of what‘s happened?‖

Do I remember? She was afraid to answer.

―You fainted in church and have been in some sort of delirium ever since.‖

No! Impossible! ―I‘ve been in Wonderland,‖ she said.

Mrs. Liddell‘s face tightened. Dean Liddell cleared his throat.

―Like in Carroll‘s book?‖ Leopold asked good-naturedly.

―It‘s nothing like the book!‖

Her vehemence frightened them. She wasn‘t well. She was too weak to be upsetting herself so.

―Alice,‖ Mrs. Liddell said, ―you‘ve been very ill. Perhaps we‘ll let you rest.‖

―I‘ll check on you shortly,‖ the prince said.

Leopold and the Liddells turned for the door. But they can‘t leave. Not yet. Not when she was so confused, so—she had to admit it to herself—disappointed. None of it real? The grown-up Dodge, my consultation with the blue caterpillar, the Looking Glass Maze? She sat upright in bed.

―But…‖

―What is it?‖ asked the dean.

―Have I really been here this whole time?‖

―Of course.‖

Can it all have been a fever-dream? She fell back against her pillows. It was so vivid. How can it not have happened?

―It‘s a trick, Alyss!‖ Dodge shouted, appearing through the wall armed with an AD52.

―Whatever you‘re seeing, it‘s a construct! It isn‘t real!‖

He was gone as suddenly as he‘d come—back through the wall. Neither the Liddells nor Leopold had noticed the intrusion. Alyss studied them more closely and now that she knew to look for them, she could see the energy bits of which they consisted. She felt something in her hand: the white heart scepter. So Dodge is all right. He survived The Cat. Indeed, facing imminent death, Dodge had not hesitated to use the AD52 when it materialized in his hand. Instead of losing his own life, he took another of The Cat‘s, leaving the beast with only one.

Alyss swept the construct away. The bed and furniture, the Liddells, Prince Leopold—all vanished and she found herself on the ballroom floor at Mount Isolation. Redd stood over her, swinging her scepter down to cut off her head.

I‘m not mad, I‘m not, I‘m not mad, yes I am!

With Redd‘s scepter only a few Wonderland inches from her lovely neck, she blew hard at the evil Queen, sending her flying backwards, and then jumped to her feet. Redd was still in the air when Alyss released a bolt of energy from her index finger. It latched on to Redd and, wagging her finger back and forth, Alyss smashed the queen against the ballroom‘s two remaining walls.

Disorientated, Redd‘s imaginings fizzled and faded, less and less of a threat to Alyss, whose abilities seemed to be increasing in direct proportion to her confidence.

Unrealistic not to be angry, to never get angry or upset. It‘s a matter of degree.

Alyss‘ anger informed her, but it didn‘t rule her, although she seemed willing to beat Redd against the walls until the malicious woman died—a rather brutal death had it come to pass, but Redd managed to free herself from the energy-spear that held her, severing it with the pointed end of her scepter and dropping to the floor.