Wonderland (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 1)

by Robert McKay

  The Bandersnatch tumbled the other direction, smashing the foliage flat and flinging blood into the air. It let out an unearthly howl that normally would have had Alice covering her ears if she weren't so busy trying to pull air into her lungs. After several long seconds that felt like minutes, her stomach stopped convulsing and let her pull in a ragged breath.

  Once she had air going to her brain again, she remembered she was in terrible danger. She canvased the area for the vorpal sword. It wasn't anywhere to be seen. The only spot she couldn't see was under the writhing Bandersnatch. It was rubbing its wounded shoulder into the dirt and yowling uncontrollably. For such a large, fearsome creature, it sure did cry a lot.

  "Hey, ugly, over here!" called Alice as loud as she could manage with her still diminished lung capacity.

  The Bandersnatch snarled and lunged at her, one giant paw swiping inches from her head when she dove to her right. She rolled and came up on her feet, her eyes searching the trampled ground where the Bandersnatch had rolled. Snicker-snack was right in the middle.

  At a run, Alice snatched the hilt of the sword and brought it up in time to whirl around and swipe it at the beast's open maw. The blade let out a vicious snapping sound and lopped off one of the beast's huge upper fangs. The fang dropped to the ground and the Bandersnatch howled again in pain.

  This time instead of lunging, it withdrew, limping heavily on its wounded front leg. It didn't seem to have any trouble with its rear leg or its hearing. Alice added impossibly quick healing to the creature's list of strengths.

  Alice stood with her sword at the ready, waiting for the Bandersnatch to attack again. It pulled back further, favoring its front leg and glancing down at its tooth on the ground. Then it turned its gaze to Alice and licked the stub where the fang had been cut off, and whined. There was something very canine about the way it behaved.

  "Finish it, Alice," called Lyla from an invisible position in the brush to her left.

  Snicker-snack agreed and really, there was no reason to argue. The monster had been trying to kill her and had seriously injured Dee's arm the previous night. With Snicker-snack the end would be quick and nearly painless.

  She raised the sword for a quick downward stroke to the creature's head. If it weren't for the vorpal sword’s extraordinary ability to cut through bone like butter, her strength would never be enough.

  The Bandersnatch watched her warily, its eyes darting back and forth from the sword to her face. It didn't try to flee, nor did it seem ready for an attack. It just waited.

  Alice spared a quick glance up at the sky, cursing the queen for leaving her no choice, and then lunged. The vorpal sword arced through the air, making its trademark snicker-snack sound. A guttural cry escaped her lips. The Bandersnatch flinched backward, an instinctive reaction to avoid watching the blow that would end its life. Snicker-snack fed a quick correction to Alice to ensure that the blow would cleave the beast’s skull. In that split second she made a decision. Instead of correcting, she deliberately altered the path of the blade in the other direction.

  The sword hit the ground with a dull thud. The Bandersnatch let out a puff of breath that would have been called a sigh if it were human. It looked up at Alice with one brow raised.

  "What are you doing?" complained Lyla. "Kill it before it gets its senses back and eats you whole."

  Alice looked the Bandersnatch in the eyes. There didn't seem to be any malice, only pain and defeat. "I can't kill it."

  "If you need me to do it, I can. I know it's hard to kill for the first time, especially when you're so young." Lyla stepped out of the tangle of undergrowth, her sword held in front of her.

  "No, that's not it," said Alice. "I don't think it really wants to kill us. At least not any more."

  "That's all a Bandersnatch does, Alice."

  "Well, if that's true, then why is it sitting there and licking its wound instead of eating my face off?"

  The Bandersnatch was now completely ignoring them, absorbed in licking the wound on its shoulder and leg. The only way it could have seemed more docile was if it had rolled over on its back and whined to have its belly rubbed.

  "What in the world?" asked Lyla. She lowered her sword and scratched her head. "This has to be some sort of trick."

  "Yeah, it's so smart that its leaving itself wide open to a death blow in order to lick us to death when we're least expecting it."

  Lyla shrugged. The sarcasm seemed completely lost on her. "Everything I've ever heard about them says they kill indiscriminately. They're one of the few wild beasts that kills for sport, rather than just to protect itself or for food."

  While they stood there and talked, the wound on its shoulder had actually knitted itself back together. In a few more minutes, it seemed likely that it would disappear completely. It continued to ignore them, its tongue making loud smacking sounds.

  "Didn't the twins say something about them being extinct, though?" asked Alice.

  "Yeah, they were all supposed to have been gone for several years. I'd never actually seen one in person until yesterday." Lyla frowned and looked up at Alice. "Why?"

  "What if this isn't a Bandersnatch at all?" asked Alice.

  "That doesn't make any sense, Alice. I may not have seen one in person, but I've seen hundreds of pictures and read about them. This thing is a Bandersnatch." Lyla slid her sword into the scabbard on her back and crossed her arms.

  "A Bandersnatch that understood that it had lost a fight and allowed me to swing a sword at its head without trying to stop me?"

  Lyla nodded a few times and then switched to shaking her head. "This isn't adding up, you're right."

  "I think the queen has somehow made a beast that looks like a Bandersnatch so that she can scare people with it. This thing seems to be more like a dog than anything else." Alice looked at the Bandersnatch and gave it her biggest smile. “Who’s a good boy?”

  The Bandersnatch cocked its head to the the side, its tongue lolling out.

  “Who’s a good boy?” repeated Alice, roughening her tone in that way that all dogs seemed to enjoy.

  The Bandersnatch wagged its massive tale and stepped forward, only hobbling slightly on its quickly healing leg. Once it was within arm’s reach, it laid down on the ground and pushed its broad head up beneath Alice’s hand. Lyla stood off to the side and watched, her jaw dropped in amazement while Alice rubbed the beast’s ear.

  From over head came the howl of engines and a gust of wind. In between one blink and another the jungle around them disappeared, leaving only a flat grassy field. The ship that had dropped Alice on the Imagisphere settled to the ground and out poured several dozen card guards, each holding a buzzing club in their hands.

  The Bandersnatch licked Alice’s arm when she stopped rubbing his ears and whined. Alice ignored him and raised her sword with a grin. “I guess I’ve annoyed the queen enough for one evening?” she guessed.

  “You are to drop your weapon so that you can be returned to your cell until the queen has need for you again,” said a guard wearing the number ten.

  “And if she doesn’t?” asked Lyla, her own sword pointed and at the ready.

  The guard looked around in confusion for the source of the voice and, not seeing Lyla, looked to Alice and answered. “Then we are authorized to use force to make you submit.”

  “I didn’t hear the word lethal in there,” said Alice. “Judging by that and the fact that none of you have your swords out, I’d say it’s going to be a rough time for you.” She swished the sword in front of her and it issued forth a snick-snick-snack.

  The Bandersnatch heaved its bulk to its feet and turned to face the guards. It looked from them, to Alice and back. The hackles on the back of its neck raised and a low growl rumbled in its throat.

  “And it looks like Ugly here isn’t too happy with you for interrupting petting time, either,” said Alice. The lower ranked guards looked uncertain and more than a few started to lower their clubs and glance back at their ship.
>
  The vorpal sword sang loudly in Alice’s mind, pointing her toward the weaker targets and prompting her to completely disable or kill any enemy as fast as she could. This time she didn’t disagree. The more of them she got rid of, the better her odds would be to make an escape later. She had no illusions that this would be her chance. She was outnumbered dozens to one. Eventually one of them would hit her with a club and the pain would take her down, but not before she took a bunch of them out.

  Number Ten just glared at her, not bothering to argue. “Guards, capture her,” he shouted, and charged forward.

  Snicker-snack kicked her song into overdrive, singing a fast-paced tune Alice remembered from one of her most demanding ballet recitals. Automatically, her feet moved to the music. A jump here to avoid a club aimed at her knees, followed by an artful wave of her hand that bit into another guard’s neck, sending a spray of blood across her side. Snicker-snack altered her dance moves just enough to make every one either a lethal blow or an artful dodge.

  A pair of guards charged at her in unison, one from the front and one from the rear. Alice waited for them to come and then dropped into the splits just before their blows made contact. They ended up striking each other instead. While they stood there shaking from the pain of their clubs, Alice slashed at their guts and disemboweled them before rolling to the side and coming to her feet.

  Lyla passed through the guards mostly unnoticed, unless she was slashing a throat. Then a guard would begin clubbing his fallen comrade who was still dying from blood loss in a sad attempt to get the dormouse.

  The Bandersnatch wasn’t nearly as subtle. He barreled through the guards, grabbing them in snapping jaws and tossing them to the side crumpled and broken. Jolts from their clubs barely seemed to slow him down.

  Still, despite their victories, the guards continued to fill in around them. One pirouette from Alice with her sword arm extended took out six guards who were immediately replaced by just as many, this time half of them keeping low to the ground and striking at her knees. There was no way to take them all out. One swipe took off the club arm of a guard in front of her and he toppled into his neighbor, leaving an opening in the enclosing circle.

  Alice dove for it and tucked herself into a ball. Snicker-snack pressed into her side, but the cold metal did her no harm. Then a searing pain lit her leg on fire. A guard had managed to get the slightest blow to land on her calf as she pulled herself back to her feet. She crumbled back to the ground in a graceless heap, her left leg completely useless.

  Her brain told her this was the end. Any second another blow would come to knock her completely senseless. Her body wasn't ready to quit though. Her arms burned with exertion and her eyes were almost crusted shut with other people's blood. Even though she knew they weren't going to kill her, this was still a fight for survival. She would give it all that she had.

  Snicker-snack sang her agreement. The battle wasn't done until you weren't able to continue or until the last enemy was slain. Together they worked out a floor routine that cut the legs out from under several more guards.

  Lyla could be heard shouting a battle cry that moved ever closer to Alice's position and Bandy, as she'd dubbed him, was still howling and snarling, though much more hoarsely.

  Just one more, she kept telling herself. They aren't endless. Eventually you will have killed them all and you'll have to figure out how to fly the ship with only a rodent and a mutated dog for crew. That thought brought about a wild fit of laughter which scared off a few of the lower ranking cards. Nobody could blame them; a girl sitting on the ground, covered in blood and dicing up enemy after enemy while howling with laughter was a disturbing sight.

  Then one of her enemies toppled before she had a chance to cut him down and Lyla appeared next to his head when he hit the ground. Together the two of them stemmed the tide of card guards for another couple of minutes while Bandy continued his rampage within earshot.

  Guard after guard threw himself at Alice and Lyla, only to join his comrades on the mounting pile of bodies around them. To their left, Bandy let out a horrible cry and then went silent. Apparently he'd fallen, because a new influx of guards hit them from that side.

  The pain in her leg had subsided enough that Alice managed to stand. It was a mistake. No sooner had she reached her full height than a guard pushed over the pile of bodies and tangled her feet. They took full advantage of her momentary loss of balance and several blows rained down on her at once. Each one was like being stabbed with an electrified red hot poker. Every muscle in her body spasmed and then went so taut that she couldn't even fall to the ground. Sparks and red blotches filled her vision and then, still on her feet, she lost consciousness.

  She slipped in and out of awareness while they carried her onto the ship. She didn't want to be awake. Every time she would drift off she would startle and her eyes would pop open. Something was missing. She had to get it. No, that wasn't right. She knew Snicker-snack would be taken, she wasn't important. Someone! Someone was missing. Lyla. She had to find Lyla.

  "Shhh, I'm here, Alice. Don't fret. Go back to sleep. No need to call out," said a small husky voice.

  She wasn't calling out. The only thing she could hear was a frantic muling sound, probably poor Bandy. She tried to argue with Lyla and found that her mouth was already in use. Her throat was raw. Then she realized that muling sound was actually her.

  "All is well Alice," said Lyla. "I won't let them hurt you any more."

  That time Alice realized that Lyla was actually curled up under the edge of her shirt on her shoulder. She wasn't lost, so Alice let darkness claim her again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Turbulence shook Alice awake, just as they were circling The Red Palace to come in for a landing. Her muscles ached from all the clenching, and she had a terrible headache, but otherwise she seemed to be intact.

  She was slumped into a seat near a window with two guards staring down at her nervously. "Boo!" she said, and they jumped back, nearly dropping their clubs. Alice couldn't help laughing, even though it caused her immediate muscle pain.

  Outside her window loomed the digital billboard that rested atop the palace. It showed a picture of a card guard standing next to the queen with his sword held in a fighting pose. "Join the palace guard today! Immediate openings in a number of prestigious positions!" it proclaimed.

  "If they televised what just happened, I'm not sure those positions are going to be so easy to fill," said Alice.

  "Shut your mouth," grumped one of the guards. "I lost a lot of friends hauling your arse back in here."

  "Then you might want to blame the queen for that. She's the one that only gave you those short little clubs to bring in someone wielding a sword that cuts through metal as well as air," said Alice smugly. "I bet there are any number of high tech guns she could have given you that could have knocked me out at a hundred meters."

  "It's not for us to question the queen's orders," said the other guard in the seat across from her. His chest was painted with the number four.

  "Good job, Number Four. Said like a good little soldier who will get himself killed in just the way his queen wants."

  The other guard reached over with his club and jabbed her in the ribs, sinking her back into oblivion.

  When she woke the next time, she’d been returned to her cell. They hadn't bothered to put her on her cot. The floor was cold and hard, pressing against her aching body in a hundred unpleasant ways. "Aaaaugh," she groaned.

  "Oh, Alice," said Dee excitedly. "You put on such a great show. There was blood everywhere. If they'd had just a few less guards, I think you could have won the day."

  "Blech," responded Alice. Her tongue tasted like she'd spent the night licking dirty ashtrays while holding a mouth full of pennies.

  "Leave her alone, Dee," Dum chided. "She's bound to be in plenty of pain. The jerks didn't even bother to put her on her cot."

  Alice found a glass of water next to her cot and took a drink. "Can't bl
ame them," she said. "I did just kill a good deal of them." Her mind swam with the images of blood and other less pleasant things. She could barely believe it was her that had done such violence. She wouldn't change anything though. If she had to kill a thousand of them to have a chance at saving her friends, she'd do it. That's when she remembered that Seamus and March were in the jail as well. Five of her friends' lives were depending on her.

  “You really did give them a good stomping,” said Dee. He seemed really and truly proud.

  Alice took another sip of her water and smiled at Dee. “You would have done better.”

  “D’aw,” said Dee, his cheeks turning red. “You’ve barely even seen me fight, and your puppy nearly took off my arm.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Alice. She looked around the room in confusion. “How did you guys see me fight?”

  “Turns out these walls are a lot more high tech than they look.” Dum tapped the cell wall. “When they dumped you off in the Imagisphere, every cell in here had a huge screen to watch you on.”

  “What about Lyla and Bandy?” asked Alice. “Are they all right?”

  “Bandy?” asked Dum. “Oh, the Bandersnatch. They didn’t kill it. Nice job turning it to your side, by the way. Nobody could have predicted that one.”

  “Ugggh,” groaned Lyla from a shadow underneath Alice’s cot. “Hurt everywhere.”

  Alice scooted along the floor to Lyla, every muscle screaming in protest. Her skin itched where dried blood coated it and cracked. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, no thanks to you,” groaned the dormouse. She stretched and yawned, showing her tiny teeth in the cutest way.

  Alice tried not to smile, and failed. “Thanks to me? What ever did I do?”

  “The next time you feel the urge to taunt the guards and get hit with one of those nasty clubs, make sure I’m far away.” She scowled up at Alice who smiled even wider.

  “Oh, Lyla, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize it would go through me and hit you too.”

  “Well, it did,” groused the dormouse. “But I think you might have opened their eyes a bit to the fact that the queen doesn’t really care about their lives.”