Seeing Redd (7 page)

Bolts of NRG shot toward her—
thip thip! thip thip!
—from the muzzle of a Five Card's crystal shooter. Molly whipped the homburg from her head, used it as a trap, hands moving at the speed of a thousand hurrying caterpillar feet as she caught each of the bolts in the hat's underside.
Fwiss!

She sidestepped the swing of a Six Card's lance, but only to leap twistingly into the air, barely avoiding an orb generator shot by a Seven Card. She slammed her homburg flat and spun it around and around over her head as if she were a cowgirl from the American West working her lasso. The NRG bolts she'd caught streaked out from its edges, shooting into a Four Card's kill spot.

The soldier folded up, inanimate.

Her next victim didn't present himself so readily. It would have been difficult enough fighting so many card soldiers even if they hadn't been well armed. But armed as they were, with whipsnake grenade and orb generator…

Time and again she unleashed her homburg, which rattled and jarred and dented the soldiers without inflicting serious harm. Her wrist-blades in perpetual motion, her belt sabers whistling through the air, whining to make contact with the enemy, she at last pierced the Six Card's kill spot with a sword from her backpack's never-diminishing supply of blades.

Three more to go.

The Five and Seven Cards fired their AD52s. One hundred and four razor-edged cards ripped through the air, clanged against her centrifugal-spewing wrist-blades and skittered away from her. An Eight Card took aim at her with an orb cannon. The blades of one bracelet activated to deflect the incoming razor-cards, Molly used her free hand to whip her homburg at the Eight Card and then cartwheeled toward him.

The homburg knocked the cannon from the soldier's grip and—

Still cartwheeling, she caught it before it hit the ground, fired.

The orb generator's explosion engulfed all three rogue soldiers. In the blast's aftermath, they lay twitching in the street, outer steel scorched, inner circuitry in need of rebooting. Working her way from the Eight Card to the Five, Homburg Molly—halfer, orphan, supposedly untrustworthy bodyguard to a queen who didn't need one—thrust a blade into their kill spots, quieting them for all time.

She stood for a moment, catching her breath, not quite believing what she'd accomplished. Level Z. She had completed what no one else…

But then she saw what she should've seen sooner: a puddle where no puddle should have been, surrounded as it was by dry pavement on a sunny day. Concentric ripples expanded outward from the puddle's roiling center, and in a sudden froth of water—

A Glass Eye launched into the air.

Several more Glass Eyes leaped from nearby puddles. In the whorl of action, it was hard to tell exactly how many there were—more than Molly could defeat with just her Millinery weapons, that was for sure. So she ran. The Glass Eyes fired their weapons, cannonballs searing toward her, hatching open to become giant spiders.

She ran straight for the brick outer wall of the nearest building—the Hotel Burberry. She looked as if she were going to slam right into it, but at the last possible moment she dived to her right. Too late for the spiders to change course. They latched on to the hotel and began to crawl up floor after floor, on the hunt for prey. Food was food to a cannonball spider, whether Alyssian, Londoner or tourist.

Dink!
With her homburg shield, Molly swatted away a spikejack tumbler, that nightmare missile consisting of six flesh-grating spikes that stabbed out in all directions from a common center.

She had to take a risk. The unnatural puddles dotting the street, maybe she could…

Another spikejack was tumbling toward her. No choice. She gripped her homburg firmly in her hand and took a running jump into the nearest puddle, plunged under the surface, pulled ever deeper by the portal's gravity until she slowed, reversed directions and was pushed up, up and—

Whoosh!

She came twisting out in a spray of water, her belt sabers slicing into a Glass Eye that had the misfortune to be standing nearby. Time had seemed to slow down while she was underwater, but her disappearance and reappearance above the surface were nearly simultaneous. She again dove into the puddle, came leaping out of another, plucked a dagger from her backpack, and speared a Glass Eye that was still facing the spot she'd occupied half a moment before.

If she had truly been in London, these puddles would have served as return portals to Wonderland's Pool of Tears, once thought to be a watery black hole for Wonderlanders unlucky enough to have fallen in, a vortex that carried them to another world. For generations, nobody who'd fallen into the pool had ever returned to report of this other world, and so their loved ones had been left to gather at an overhanging cliff, letting their tears fall into the water and thus giving the pool its name. Not until Hatter Madigan and Princess Alyss Heart had returned through it—thirteen years after jumping in, feared dead—was the truth discovered.

But the universes created by the HATBOX had their limits. Puddle portals that would have carried Homburg Molly back to Wonderland in the real world here only connected to other portals. And she made the most of it—jumping into one, splashing out of another, using them to serially ambush the Glass Eyes until she emerged from an inkblot-shaped splotch of dirty water, on the verge of adding to her body count, flicking her homburg at whoever would be her next casualty, but—

The unmoving bodies of her enemies littered the street. She had killed them all.

“You forgot this.”

Shwink!
Every weapon activated, Molly saw an ordinary-looking woman approach with something cupped in her palm. She retracted her weapons when she realized what it was: a luminous paperweight in the shape of a top hat. She touched it and the London scene dissolved into darkness, all black as pitch save a life-sized hologram of Hatter Madigan, who smiled approvingly at her.

“Today you've shown the courage, skill, and intellect required to be a first-rate Milliner,” he said. “Let's see how you fare tomorrow.”

For two blinks of a spirit-dane's eye she thought it was really Hatter, that he'd returned. But the image faded and the lights came on.

“Impressive,” a voice echoed.

Molly turned to see the Lady of Diamonds emerge from the control booth. No one but Milliners were allowed in the BOX. “You're not supposed to be here,” she said. “How'd you get in?”

“When will you learn, child, that as a member of a ranking family, I can find a means to do whatever I wish?”

“When will people stop calling me a child?” Molly shouted.

The Lady of Diamonds looked quizzically at the girl. “I didn't realize you were so sensitive. Don't you want to dry off? You could catch cold.”

“I'm fine.”

“You should at least have those tended to.”

What was the Lady of Diamonds talking about? Have
those
tended to? Have
what
—

“You're bleeding.” The lady gestured at Molly's torso, right shoulder, and left thigh.

She had a few cuts, scrapes. Who cared? They were just superficial wounds. “I'm all right,” Molly said.

The Lady of Diamonds sighed like one used to having her advice go unheeded. She held up the ornately carved chest King Arch had entrusted to her husband. “I came to give this to Queen Alyss. I've been told she's here with you.”

“She's not.”

“No?” Worried wrinkles crowded the Lady of Diamond's brow. “That's odd. I could've sworn…I guess I'll have to leave it with Bibwit Harte or Dodge Anders then. It's too important to leave with anyone else.” She turned to go.

“I can take it,” Molly said.

“You?”

Molly nodded. “I
am
the queen's bodyguard.”

The Lady of Diamonds pretended to consider it. “Well, I suppose if she trusts you with her life, I can trust you with this. Be sure to tell her that it was given to me by her mother, Queen Genevieve, just before her death, and that, as her mother requested, I have faithfully kept it safe from Redd.”

“Uh-huh,” Molly said, suspicious, “and why're you only giving it to Queen Alyss now? I mean, why'd you wait?”

The Lady of Diamonds adopted a sweet, kindly expression. “Because, clever girl, Genevieve left strict instructions that if Alyss ever returned to rule the queendom, it should be given to her after the sixth lunar cycle of her reign had passed. Obviously it contains something of great value to the queendom that requires Alyss to have occupied the throne for a time—intelligence or instructions, I assume. I've been curious about what's inside, but…” the Lady of Diamonds grew sheepish, “…I haven't been able to open it.”

“I'll present it to the queen with all possible speed,” Molly said, bowing, acting every bit the professional Milliner and bodyguard that she was.

With a great show of reverence, the Lady of Diamonds surrendered the chest to the girl's care. “Will you be returning to the palace through the Crystal Continuum?” she asked.

“It's the fastest way.”

“That it is,” agreed the lady, “although I can't be seen taking public transportation myself, being of high rank as I am. I'm sure you understand.”

Molly didn't understand but kept her mouth shut, not wanting to spend any more time with this snob than was necessary.

“Tell the queen I said hello,” the Lady of Diamonds cooed, and before Molly could respond, she was alone in the massive open space of the BOX, the pneumatic hiss of the door lingering after the exit of Wonderland's most self-important lady.

She gazed around at the empty room, its blank walls and faraway ceiling, all void of evidence from her recent battles against jabberwocky, card soldiers, Glass Eyes. It was just a big impersonal room. What had felt like a tremendous accomplishment only a short time before—her completion of level Z—now felt small.

Without bothering to dry herself off or bandage her wounds, Molly hurried out of the Millinery to the looking glass portal located outside a sandwich shop on Bandersnatch Avenue. She entered the glass and zoomed headfirst through the kaleidoscopic, tubular-shaped passage until it linked up with another, larger one—the Crystal Continuum's main conduit. She was adept enough at continuum travel to focus on her destination while mulling over her interview with the Lady of Diamonds. Queen Genevieve had trusted
her
? No way. From everything Molly knew, the Hearts and Diamonds had never been on great terms. The whole story sounded like a lie. The pretty little chest she was carrying to Alyss could be part of a trap. The Lady of Diamonds might be trying to ensnare the queen in a scheme designed to cost her the respect of government officials and the general population. It was easy to believe: the Lady of Diamonds conniving to gain advantage over Alyss in political dealings that a needless bodyguard was not allowed to know anything about.

And if it
were
a trap? Well then, she might be able to prevent it, because what was so hard about opening the chest as the Lady of Diamonds had claimed? It had a single clasp and…there, she unlocked it. Now all she had to do was lift the lid. If she could protect Alyss from the Lady of Diamonds' intrigue, whatever it was, she would thus ensure the still fragile stability of the queendom. Then Alyss would
have
to let her take a more active part in military and other important meetings. She would have proven beyond all doubt that, halfer or not, she deserved the most the queen could grant in the way of responsibility and honor.

Impatient, careening past commuters toward Heart Palace, the continuum's prismatic surfaces a smear of twinkling colors, she lifted the lid of King Arch's weapon no more than a vein's breadth and—

Whoomp!

A
TOP THE second-highest peak in the Snark Mountains, at a military base overlooking the Valley of Mushrooms, card soldiers armed themselves with AD52 projectile-decks, fortified the grounds with orb cannons and whipsnake grenade launchers. The latest communication from Doppelgänger's headquarters had informed them that there was no discernible pattern to the attacks on other outposts, no strategic principle by which the general could deduce which base would next come under siege.

Seven other outposts had already been destroyed; the card soldiers had no intention of becoming the eighth. They cautiously walked patrols, stood their lines. Yet there was no sign of Glass Eyes or anyone else, no sign of life whatsoever unless they counted the wind, the scudding clouds. They were remote enough from civilization that, if not for the shadow cast over them by Talon's Point to remind them where they were, they might have supposed themselves the lone community in the world, isolate in the vast, unpopulated upper reaches of the sky.

Talon's Point was the highest peak in the queendom and thought to be unreachable by ordinary means, the winds too fierce even for the two-person crafts operated by Wondertropolis sightseeing firms. But unbeknownst to the nearby card soldiers, it was here, on the only upsurge of land closer to the heavens than they, that an extraordinary Wonderlander had taken up residence, one who had wanted to utterly remove himself from his responsibilities, to wallow in the fact that he was not first and foremost a Milliner, but a man. He had fought against this for so long, struggled to subordinate every impulse, every desire, to the dictates of Millinery duty. It had been futile to try. He knew that now.

He had helped Princess Alyss ascend to her rightful place on Wonderland's throne and been granted leave. Packing only enough provisions to last the journey, planning to forage for food on the lower parts of the mountain as needed, he came to Talon's Point, wanting time and space and solitude to mourn the loss of Weaver, a woman he loved more than he had realized. Completely severed from his responsibilities for the first time in his life, he unburdened himself of his Millinery backpack, took off the long, battle-scarred coat that had been his uniform for as long as he could remember. He unhooked his Millinery belt and unlocked the cuffs that held his wrist-blades in place. He removed his top hat last, sensing its reluctance in the suction-like hold that made it slightly more difficult to lift from his head. He arranged all of his Millinery gear in a neat pile and set it aside, doubtful he would use any of it again.

Far from the bustlings of Heart Palace yet within easy sight of Alyss' imaginative powers if she but knew where to direct them, the legendary Hatter Madigan—unflinching in combat, role model of the duty-bound stoic for all those born to the Millinery, was allowing himself to
feel
.

 

Long before, he had chosen Talon's Point for his intermittent rendezvous with Weaver
because
it was presumed to be unreachable. Untrodden by Wonderlander and Boarderlander alike, it would be safe from trespassers.

He'd made the first visit alone—by means of blades pulled from his backpack, scaled the sheer cliff that towered up to the summit of Talon's Point, where he discovered a ridge wide enough to support a smail-transport and, in an outcropping of ice-glazed rock, a cave that could comfortably accommodate two. Weaver, the Millinery's sole civilian employee, would never be able to scale the cliff, he knew, so over the course of several following visits, he'd used his wrist-blades to bore an upsloping tunnel from the cliff's base to the cave at the summit, pressing his whirring blades into the mountain, his entire body vibrating with the friction as they churned bedrock to pebbles and flinty dust.

He had brought Weaver after the tunnel was complete, showed her by what flora to recognize its entrance and where he stowed the fire crystals she could use to light her way up to the cave. They had never been able to spend as much time at their refuge as they might have liked, Hatter being too busy with his duties to Queen Genevieve, and Weaver with her lab work. But what days they had carved out for themselves on Talon's Point were all the more treasured for being infrequent: welcome hours of respite from the daily tussle and wear of living; rare moments of relaxation for Hatter, the only time another living being had seen him slough off the cloak of stoicism his position forced him to wear.

But now Weaver was dead, murdered by Redd's assassins, as had been every member of the former Millinery. What better place to indulge his mournful reminiscences than at the hideaway that most reminded him of her? Because in a way, the pain of her absence, the loss of her, was a living thing. It had a life inside him that he wanted to coddle, to nurture. Weaver's dying was her final physical act, the last thing she'd ever do that would impact him; he wanted to make it last as long as possible.

In the farthest recess of the cave he found a leather satchel blanketed with dust, half buried in drifts of dirt formed by the wind. Weaver's satchel. Had she brought it on one of their earlier visits or left it for him, a clue to how she had spent her last days? But if she'd left it for him, troubling questions came to mind. Why would she have abandoned Talon's Point, since it was where she'd had the best chance of avoiding Redd's assassins? Or what if she
hadn't
abandoned the Point, but instead had been ambushed by Redd's assassins while gathering food lower down on the mountain and—

He couldn't tolerate thinking about it. To mourn the loss of Weaver was one thing; to envision the actual event that had forever wrenched her from his life was another. Plus, the satchel might only contain clothes and other provisions she had needed to survive. It might not have been left for him at all.

He spent entire afternoons staring at the bag or avoiding it altogether. He who feared no enemy was afraid to open it. But enough time had finally passed. He thought himself ready. He took the satchel in hand, brushed it clean of dust and dirt. He removed one item at a time, letting each conjure what memories it would…

A trio of old notebooks tied together with flugelberry vine. Weaver had carried them everywhere. They contained the esoteric formulas of her art. Hatter untied the vine and opened one of them, wondering if the indecipherable symbols on the page in front of him were responsible for the scarf she had once give him…or at least the timing of the gift. “For your birthday, whenever it might be,” she had said, because Milliners were not supposed to know or celebrate their birthdays, such personal trifles falling outside their duty to protect the queendom. Hatter's birthday wasn't listed in his official file, but he had always suspected that Weaver, by means of some concoction or other, might have discovered it and this had been her way of telling him.

He took a carton of jollyjellies from the satchel. Even in his grief, he had to smile. Weaver had been addicted to sweets: frosted cakes with lollipop sprinkles, chocolate biscuits with swirls of vanilla batter at their center. It was just like her, so lovably willful, to accommodate her cravings while hiding out from Redd and her minions, on the run for her life.

Next out of the satchel came a first-aid kit, complete with cauterizer, skin grafter and the U-shaped sleeve of interconnected NRG nodes that a surgeon had once used to fuse Hatter's shattered shoulder back together. But also inside the kit, smashed as if with a rock or other blunt object: Weaver's Millinery ID chip. She must have removed it from under the skin of her forearm to aid in her survival, destroyed it to prevent Redd from tracking her. It was a tiny thing, roughly the same size as the mole Weaver had had on the nape of her neck, but one of the chip's circuits wasn't adequately destroyed. It had probably been enough to betray her location to Redd's assassins.

He should have trusted his instincts. Originally against the idea, put forward by the Millinery's board, of hiring a carefully vetted civilian to handle the facility's alchemistic needs, he had changed his mind only after he considered: better to have every Milliner out in the field than in a lab. Besides, none had Weaver's gift, her ability to discover and exploit the hidden properties of things; she could take some secret mixture of liquid metals, combine it with a beaker full of who knew what, and produce the strongest, most responsive of Millinery blades. Weaver was no ordinary civilian. But he should
not
have let her work there. He might never have known her, never have fallen in love with her or even known that he was capable of such love—he'd have lost these things, but she'd still be alive, filling her civilian days with civilian concerns.

He thoroughly crushed the ID chip against a rock, returned it to the first-aid kit. He upended the satchel and let the lone item it still contained drop into his palm. As slim and compact as a playing card, it resembled a typical book from Earth in every detail except size: Weaver's diary. What he'd hoped and feared to find.

Mustering his courage, Hatter pressed the sides of the diminutive book, the covers sprang open and—

More than three lunar cycles after arriving here, the man who had fought too many battles to remember, who had faced a thousand different deaths and come away from all of them more or less intact, suffered the blow of his life when the 3-D image of Weaver materialized and he heard the sound of her voice.

“Hatter, my love, we never got a chance to say good-bye.”