The Looking Glass Wars

by Frank Beddor

  “Let it go,” Alyss said. “We don’t need it anymore.”

  She could hear the seekers disperse through the sky, heading back to Mount Isolation. Now for the rest of the card soldiers. Alyss banged her scepter on the floor and it splintered into many smaller, identical scepters. With a sweep of her hand, the miniature replicas launched themselves into the vulnerable spot of every single card soldier, each of which folded, no longer a menace. The Alyssians stood in sudden peace with the dead members of The Cut scattered about them.

  Dodge, General Doppelganger, the chessmen-all turned to their princess. The vaguely luminescent quality she’d had as a child was now unclouded by immaturity, uncertainty, or reluctance. She stood like a sun among them, radiant with newfound strength, and any lingering doubt in the Alyssians’ minds about her ability to lead them vanished at the sight of her.

  “I’d say she’s ready, wouldn’t you?” the rook said.

  The Alyssians cheered, all except for Dodge, whose opportunity for revenge had never been so close. Alyss’ luminescence faded to a steady glow as she studied her childhood friend. Her experience in the maze had made her more wary of his behavior. She would have to keep an eye on him, as she would on anyone who stoked their potential for Black Imagination with the tinder of hatred.

  “More of The Cut will be coming,” General Doppelganger warned. “Let them come,” Alyss said.

  She left the puzzle shop and the Alyssians followed. She walked out into the middle of Emerald Drive and gazed up at the rotted buildings and towers of the surrounding neighborhood, as if able to feel the pain of these inanimate structures, the toll exacted by Redd’s rule on her beloved Wondertropolis. Then she turned her imagination to the holographic billboards around the city. Without so much as a wince of effort, she imagined her own face in place of their usual advertisements and reward offers.

  “I’ve finished running from you, Redd. It’s time for you to run.”

  As Alyss spoke the words in Emerald Drive, her holographic images voiced them on every street. Wonderlanders paused amid lawful and unlawful pursuits to stare at the beautiful woman speaking from signs on which, until now, they had only ever seen Redd. More than a few wanted the mistress of Black Imagination to remain in power, knowing how to profit in a world such as hers, but most, though not yet daring to cheer aloud, celebrated Alyss’ rise in their hearts.

  CHAPTE R 50

  “I, RUN?” Redd guffawed. She squinted out the Observation Dome as Alyss’ transmission ended. “Alyss Heart’s misplaced confidence will be the death of her.”

  “Today, Wonderland will be rid of Alyss Heart for good!” Jack of Diamonds asserted with a puffing out of his already puffed-out belly. He was perhaps too eager to please, because Redd flicked an annoyed glance at the Wig-Beast. “I…I beg your pardon for speaking, Your Imperial Viciousness,” he said.

  “Beg all you want, you powdered and pampered idiot. If I don’t get into the Looking Glass Maze soon, it will make no difference to your fate.”

  The Cat grinned and smoothed his whiskers. The Lord and Lady of Diamonds, the Lord and Lady of Clubs, and the Lord and Lady of Spades-who together made up Redd’s Cabinet of Military Oversight-shuffled their feet, cleared their throats, and in general enacted every nervous tic available to people unsure of how to ingratiate themselves with their moody, unpredictable leader.

  “Your Imperial Viciousness?” the Lady of Clubs ventured. “With all due respect, even if Alyss is not a threat, we think you should move the Heart Crystal to a more secure location.”

  Redd thought this funny, in a pathetic sort of way, since neither the Lady of Clubs nor any of the other cabinet members knew where the Heart Crystal was.

  “‘We’?” protested the Lady of Diamonds. “The Lady of Clubs speaks for herself, Your Imperial

  Viciousness.”

  “Absolutely speaks for herself,” seconded the Lord of Spades.

  And Redd, raising an eyebrow, asked the Lady of Clubs, “Did you just tell me what I should do?” “I apologize, Your Imperial Viciousness. I spoke out of-”

  “You think my strength is not protection enough for the Heart Crystal? Do you, in fact, suppose that my reign is in danger?”

  “No, of course not. What I meant-”

  The Lady of Clubs was fortunate that the strangled-baby cries of homecoming seekers interrupted them. The Cat bounded out of the dome and returned in less time than it took Redd to grow impatient. In his paw he carried the glowing cube, key to the Looking Glass Maze. Redd held out her hand and it flew to her.

  “In any case,” she said, pressing each of the cube’s sides, squeezing it all over, turning it this way and that, “none of you need worry about the Heart Crystal. It’s not here at the fortress. Why can’t I get this to work?”

  Jack of Diamonds stepped forward. “Allow me, Your Imperial Viciousness.”

  Jack took the cube. He pressed each of its sides, squeezed it all over, turned it this way and that. He began shaking it close to his ear, listening for loose parts inside, while Redd addressed her cabinet.

  “I refuse to leave this fortress. It would look cowardly when I have nothing to fear. If Alyss wants to fight me, so much the better. I’ll put an end to her. But let no one say that Queen Redd is insensitive. If I have no power, you people have even less than I let you believe. Alyss wouldn’t spoil you as I do. If it will make you all feel better, order The Cut to prepare a defense. The Cat will see to the Glass Eyes.”

  “Your Imperial Viciousness?” The Cat said, and drew Redd’s attention with a nod to Jack of Diamonds, who was still tinkering with the glass cube.

  “What?” Jack said. “It’s not broken. It takes a minute to decipher the code, but I’ll have it soon enough. It’s not broken, I say.”

  “It had better not be,” Redd warned through thin, bloodless lips.

  She swooped out of the dome, down the spiraling hall, and across the open expanse of a ballroom that had never been used. The far wall of the ballroom was decorated with a huge quartz and agate mosaic of the queen’s face and, as Redd approached it, the portrait’s mouth opened and she entered a secret passage known only to herself and The Cat. The passage led to a balcony overlooking the hollowed-out heart of the fortress. It was here, in the secret heart of the fortress, girded about by supports, that the Heart Crystal burned a dark crimson, as it had since Redd’s assumption to power. She leaned over the balcony’s edge and placed her hands on the crystal, its power surging through her, strengthening her for

  the coming battle.

  CHAPTER 51

  P RINCESS ALYSS Heart was spotted ordering a mug of cider in a brewhouse near the city center. She was seen nibbling a gwynook-kabob in Tyman Street and skulking along the avenue outside the Redd Apartments complex. She was glimpsed entering a tube station at Redd Square, on a safari in Outerwilderbeastia, and at various other locations engaged in a variety of activities. But the Glass Eyes and card soldiers dispatched to destroy these Alysses found nothing because these Alysses were specters, reflections come to life, conjurings from the real princess’ imagination that she had dispersed throughout the queendom to confuse Redd’s all-seeing eye.

  While Redd’s forces were occupied with the decoys, Alyss and her companions made it to the outskirts of the Chessboard Desert. The checkered land stretched before them, the promontory of Mount Isolation visible in the middle distance. The white knight and rook were tending to their men, bandaging wounds suffered in the Emerald Drive skirmish, instructing them to double-check all ammunition supplies

  and be sure weapons were functioning properly. Dodge kept to himself, studying the sword in his lap as if to ensure that it would be able to do what he’d set his mind to: taking The Cat’s lives. Alyss should have been entirely focused on developing a sound military strategy, but she couldn’t help glancing at Dodge every now and again, her attention divided.

  Revenge cannot possibly purge him of hate, but he won’t listen to me, won’t listen to anyone. “Alys
s?”

  “Yes?”

  From the expressions of Bibwit Harte, Hatter Madigan, Homburg Molly, and General Doppelganger, it was clear that she had missed something.

  “There is a lot of desert still to cross,” Bibwit said, indicating the distance to the fortress.

  “And the problem of storming Mount Isolation, so ideally suited for defense,” added the general. “We’ll need an army greater than Redd’s.”

  “Our objective is to remove Redd from power,” Alyss said, loud enough for Dodge to hear. “Our objective is the Heart Crystal, not vengeance.”

  Dodge didn’t look up from his sword. He heard me. I know he heard me.

  “Where Redd is, that’s where we’ll find the Heart Crystal,” said Bibwit. “She’ll want to remain close to it to maximize her strength.”

  “But can you conjure a force of the size we’ll need, Princess?” asked General Doppelganger. “I don’t know.” To conjure several doubles of herself was one thing, but an entire army? “You must try,” Bibwit said.

  She looked to the others. Hatter made a silent, respectful bow. Molly nodded, eager. The chessmen watched, waited. Even Dodge was watching. To conjure an army she would need to be extremely focused and precise. The millions of details of dress and weaponry-if a single one weren’t imagined

  vividly enough, it would compromise the whole and her imagining would fail. She may have felt stronger than ever, but strong enough for this?

  Her scepter, once again whole, showed the intensity of her effort. The white crystal heart at its top glowed brighter and brighter, flashed and zapped as it became a cloud of electrical charges with lightning-like bolts of energy sprouting out of it, encircling Alyss. When these fireworks stopped and

  Alyss again focused her sight on her surroundings rather than her internal visions, she beheld an enormous army of Alyssian soldiers standing in formation and fanned out behind her. The soldiers were a short distance off and she couldn’t even see to the end of them, there were so many.

  I did it. I-

  Someone was laughing. Alyss turned.

  “I’m sorry, Princess Alyss,” Homburg Molly said, slapping a hand to her mouth but unable to keep from laughing.

  What had come over the girl? Bibwit, never one to take appearances for granted, approached Alyss’

  conjured army for a closer inspection. “Ah.”

  The army consisted of toy soldiers, figurines no larger than the tutor’s ears.

  “The princess is too far from the Heart Crystal,” he said. “She cannot defeat Redd from here.”

  General Doppelganger split into the twin figures of General Doppel and General Ganger and the two of them paced, in perfect step with each other.

  “Well, we have to get to her somehow!” General Doppel said.

  “But without an army of soldiers that are of a more normal size,” said General Ganger, “our cause is lost.”

  It was Alyss’ turn to approach the soldiers. To her, they had looked suitable enough. She picked up one of the toy soldiers and imagined it marching back and forth in her hand. “I have an idea,” she said.

  CHAPTER 52

  T HE FORTRESS was surrounded. Regiments of The Cut had been amassed from across the queendom and stood ready to defend Redd’s stronghold. Their ranks formed the front line and, behind them, as the second line of defense, were platoon after platoon of Glass Eyes. Both the card soldiers and Glass Eyes were armed with the full array of weaponry available to them in Redd’s Wonderland-orb generators, whipsnake grenades, crystal shooters, cannonball spiders, AD52s, all manner of knives and swords.

  As the suns rose on a new day, Redd was breakfasting on spicy, crunchy tuttle-bird legs in the Observation Dome. The Cat and the members of her cabinet, none of whom had eaten since the previous midday, looked on with hungry eyes but said nothing. Jack of Diamonds had wisely excused

  himself from the dome, but more because he feared Redd watching him toy unsuccessfully with the key to the Looking Glass Maze than because of his stomach’s grumbling.

  Redd’s teeth crunched down on the only remaining tuttle-bird leg, the last scrap of night’s shadow faded with the day, and they all saw it at once. Gazing out through the telescopic glass, it would have been

  impossible to miss: An Alyssian army, seeming to rival the population of the queendom itself, massed a short distance off and waiting to attack. Like Redd’s forces, the Alyssians were armed with orb generators, whipsnake grenades, cannonball spiders, AD52s.

  “How has Alyss gathered such an immense army?” the Lady of Spades asked. “They’ll just have a larger body count,” Redd fumed.

  Sitting astride a spirit-dane at the head of the soldiers, Alyss raised her arm and held it above her head a moment before bringing it down in a quick motion. The Alyssians charged toward the fortress.

  “Deal the first hand,” Redd ordered.

  Outside, The Cut launched orb generators and cannonball spiders at the advancing Alyssians-direct hits many of them, which should have taken out entire columns of the enemy. The card soldiers followed up the barrage by charging into the smoke and flame. Confident, Redd eyed the scene from her perch in the dome, but when the smoke cleared she saw her soldiers surrounded by tiny Alyssians. Her weapons had had zero effect and the miniature army continued to push toward the fortress.

  Redd’s face contorted with a sudden realization. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  The Cat was trying to decide if this were a rhetorical question when she roared, “It’s a construct!” With a dismissive swing of Redd’s arm, Alyss and her army began to shimmer, the billion points of

  energy that formed them momentarily visible before exploding apart into nothing. Redd scoped the queendom with her imagination’s eye. “Where are you, Alyss? Where is my dear little niece?”

  Alyss and the others could hear the explosions and the rasping, metallic sounds of The Cut racing toward the conjured army as they came upon the fortress from the opposite side. Until now, their approach had been covert; they’d traveled only over the desert’s black squares of tar and volcanic rock to camouflage themselves from Redd’s lookouts. But to enter the fortress they would have no choice but to show themselves in open warfare.

  Under cover of the black rock, Hatter flicked his top hat into blades and winged them at the card

  soldiers and Glass Eyes guarding the fortress’ entrance. While the weapon was still in the air, he activated his wrist-blades and charged. Molly flattened her homburg into its slicing shield and took up his left flank with Dodge, while Generals Doppel and Ganger took up his right, and the chessmen followed.

  “We must be getting close to the Heart Crystal,” Alyss said to Bibwit. The tutor looked at her, his ears bent in a questioning manner.

  “I feel…I don’t know how to explain it.”

  The princess reached out both arms and extended her ten fingers toward the fighting in front of her.

  Star-bright branches of energy shot out of her fingers, forking and attaching themselves to card soldiers and Glass Eyes until every single one of them was caught on an end while the other ends were, ultimately, still attached to Alyss’ fingers. The princess then raised her arms above her head and the card soldiers

  and Glass Eyes lifted into the air, helpless. She sent them reeling through the sky. Somewhere in the

  Chessboard Desert it was raining card soldiers and Glass Eyes.

  The sound of orb generators exploding on Alyss’ conjured army still assaulted the Alyssians’ ears, but it

  stopped almost as soon as they entered the fortress. Silence could mean only one thing. “She knows,” Alyss said.

  “Can you see her?” asked Bibwit.

  Alyss felt that she was close to the Heart Crystal. Remote viewing wasn’t something she’d been able to do before, but Redd was now clearly visible in her imagination’s eye, standing in a large, open room at the foot of a spiral hall, beckoning Alyss with a cold smile on her lips. The steady pulse of the Heart Cr
ystal was behind the queen, obscured somehow.

  “She’s waiting for me,” Alyss said.

  “We should split into factions for safety,” General Doppel urged.

  “Two targets may be harder to combat,” agreed General Ganger, “and we can surround Redd if it comes to that. Bibwit, Rook, Molly, you come with us.”

  “I’m staying with Princess Alyss,” Molly said.

  Exchanged glances all around. The girl looked quite adamant and this was no time for argument. “Let her come with me,” Alyss said.

  The generals dipped their heads; whatever the princess wished.

  “Knight, Hatter, and Dodge will also accompany you,” said General Doppel, which was when they noticed that Dodge was no longer among them.

  “Where did he go?” asked General Ganger.

  To find The Cat. Alyss sighted him in her imagination’s eye, cautiously picking his way down a hall. If he crosses paths with Redd, he’ll try to engage with her. She cast her worried eyes toward Bibwit. He too knew why Dodge had left them. And Dodge’s selfish desire for retribution might compromise the Alyssians’ chance for victory.