Seeing Redd (9 page)

T
HE FIRE crystals in the shallow pit cast a modest heat as Hatter sat staring at Weaver's stilled image. He had paused the diary, wondering if something were wrong with its inner workings, because his beloved appeared blurry, as if seen through a veil of water. But then he felt the wet on his cheeks. It wasn't the diary; he was crying.

She was dressed in the Alyssian uniform: rough-fibered and nondescript except for the emblem of a white heart on the cuff of the right shirtsleeve.

His hand twitched. The diary began to play.

“If you're viewing this,” Weaver said, “then you have proved wrong all those who currently believe you and the princess are dead…although it also means that
I'm
most likely dead.”

She smiled sadly at the space between them. Hatter nearly slammed the diary shut. He'd been wrong; he wasn't ready for this. But to relegate Weaver's image back inside the book…No, he couldn't do that either. It would be too much like shutting her away in a tomb. And so he sat there, watching her recorded image, listening to her every word.

“This diary is for me as much as it is you, Hatter. I hope I'll be able to tell you what I have to say in person, but circumstances here are dangerous. Just because I'm alive today is no guarantee that I'll be so tomorrow. You probably already know that Redd has destroyed the Millinery. Her goal is genocide, to wipe the Milliner breed from existence. It's believed that she salvaged the ID tracking system from the Millinery and is using it for this purpose, after which she'll destroy it. You often told me that one born a Milliner still needs the proper training to make the most of his or her natural gifts, but Redd puts more credence in the birth than in the training. As soon as the first Milliner was ambushed by Redd, I hid out here, not sure if I'd be targeted too. There
are
rumors that a few Milliners have so far managed to escape their assassins and are hiding undercover somewhere. If the rumors are true, I hope they will continue to evade their would-be murderers so that once the rebellion succeeds—and I believe it must—they will come out of hiding and you can lead them in a new Millinery.”

Hatter felt a twinge; reestablishing the Millinery was the last thing he felt like doing.

“I understand that our relationship was difficult for you, Hatter,” Weaver went on. “I know that despite how thoughtful and loving you always were to me, a part of you was angry with yourself for succumbing to your feelings for anyone, let alone a civilian. A master of self-control as all of Wonderland believes you to be, you shouldn't have been consorting with me. You thought your feelings a mark against you, an indication of weakness.”

“I no longer think so,” he said aloud.

“I always knew your duties could call you away,” Weaver continued. “It was wrong of me not to tell you when I first found out, but…Hatter, my love…I'm sorry.” She wiped her eyes. “I should've told you before you left…I was pregnant.”

Hatter remained perfectly still. Pregnant? With
his
child? So long did he remain unmoving that, when he again became conscious of his surroundings, he thought he had paused the diary. But then he saw Weaver's chest rise and fall, rise and fall; she was breathing, struggling with her own emotions.

“I know how you feel about halfers,” she said at last, “and I was never sure how you'd react to hearing that you had fathered one. Every time I thought to tell you of my joy—of
our
joy—I found an excuse not to. I
did
plan to tell you the next time we'd be on Talon's Point together. But as you know, there was no next time.”

Too preoccupied with the vision before him, Hatter didn't hear the pop that sounded—either the bursting of an air bubble in one of the fire crystals or an explosion from outside the cave.

“I couldn't give birth alone, so I risked an overland journey to the Alyssian camp in the Everlasting Forest. Doctors there delivered me of a beautiful baby girl.” With the saddest smile Hatter had ever seen, the smile of one who had long ago resigned herself to a life incomplete and unsatisfactory, Weaver said, “It's time you knew your daughter's name, Hatter.”

But just then, as if surprised by an intruder, she looked off at someone or something not recorded by the diary, and the pop that Hatter had failed to hear a moment before proved to be the opening salvo in a battle raging on the nearby mountain, which Hatter now heard without hearing, his whole being fixed on Weaver's image, already fizzling to nothing as she whispered, “Molly.”

“W
HAT DO you mean you can't locate an enemy to fight?” the general cried, indicating the havoc surrounding them in Genevieve Square, then splitting into the twin figures of Doppel and Gänger so as to worry twice as much, both of the generals pacing and rubbing their brows.

The white knight and rook exchanged an uneasy glance.

“My chessmen have canvassed the vicinity and found no one,” explained the knight. “We have a great many injured among the civilian population, but no casualties as of yet.”

“Let's keep it that way,” said Doppel.

“Yes, let's,” said Gänger. “But someone caused this!”

“Or something,” offered the rook. “Whoever or whatever it was, it's made the continuum impenetrable.”

As if to prove the point, a panicked Wonderlander with blood-matted hair sprinted past. “Must get home to my family,” he was saying. “Must make sure they're safe.”

The chessmen and generals watched as the traumatized fellow ran straight for the nearest looking glass portal and was knocked back, repelled, when he tried to enter it. The generals called for a nurse, who led the victim off to a triage center located in a tailor's shop on the corner.

“That's what happens whenever anyone tries to enter the continuum from any portal whatsoever,” the rook said. “It's impossible to gain access and we've no idea if the condition is temporary or permanent.”

“Not good,” fretted Doppel.

“Not good at all,” agreed Gänger.

“Sir!” A young pawn approached, accompanied by a pair of Wonderlanders. “These men were in the continuum when that, uh…thing happened. I thought their experiences might be able to give us some insight into what we're dealing with.”

“Let's hope so,” said the knight.

At a nod from the pawn, one of the men offered what he could: “I don't know exactly how to describe it, really. It was like a feeling, like I was a piece of junk being carried along on a tidal wave or—”

“Not for me, it wasn't,” said the other. “I'm not sure if this will make any sense, but a bright nothingness came up and knocked the breath out of me. I don't remember anything after that, except that once I could see and breathe again, I wasn't in the continuum. I was stranded high in the branches of an unappreciative tree, and my wife—we'd been returning home from a barbecue at her cousin Laura's, she makes the best barbecued dormouse you'll ever taste in your lives, so tender that the meat slips off the bone, and she seasons it with a scrumptious glaze just the right amount of sweet and tart and spicy, oh and her corn relish!”

The knight cleared his throat.

“Right. So anyway, I landed in a tree and my wife was half a block away, sprawled on top of a citizen who—the nerve of him—complained that she'd landed on him purposely.”

The pawn waited, eager to learn how helpful his civilians had been. The generals resumed their pacing and the rook blinked at the men with something like disbelief. Only the knight remembered himself.

“You've done the queendom a great service, providing such a smorgasbord of helpful information,” he said. And to the pawn: “See that these gentlemen are examined by a physician before you release them.”

“Yessir.”

The pawn saluted and led the Wonderlanders off.

“We'll have to station guards at all the portals,” said Doppel.

“And see if we can't analyze whatever's contaminated the continuum,” said Gänger. “What is that bleeping?”

It was coming from the rook's ammo belt, which looped over his battlements and crossed in an X on his chest. “It's the latest model crystal communicator, Generals,” he said. “I press this button here…” the chessman pressed a button on the miniature keypad strapped to his forearm, “…the incoming message alert stops sounding, and then this little hole here…” he pointed to a nozzle-like opening on his ammo belt, “…shoots out a visual of the transmission that all of us can view equally well.”

A screen formed in the air before him, on which appeared a frantic pawn patrolling Wondertropolis' Obsidian Park neighborhood.

“Glass Eyes are in the city!” the pawn shouted. “Repeat: Glass Eyes have infiltrated Wondertropolis!
Alot
of them!”

Behind the pawn, fleet-footed Glass Eyes could be seen rampaging through the streets, overpowering one chessman and card soldier after another.

“Unable to locate their point of entry!” the pawn shouted. “They seem to be coming from
everywhere!
”

A Glass Eye was rocketing up fast behind him, getting closer and closer—

“Look out!” the rook cried.

The transmission went dead.

The generals were already barking commands into their flip-screen, older model crystal communicators:

“All available decks deploy to Obsidian Park!”

“For White Imagination's sake, get civilians off the streets!”

But neither the generals nor the chessmen voiced what all knew to be true: They were not equipped to counter a major attack on the capital city, not with the continuum rendered useless, and the numerous decks that had been dispatched to military outposts stranded along the edges of the queendom.

“The queen must be informed,” the knight said.

“There's no need.”

They all turned to see Alyss Heart, gifted with the most powerful imagination ever to legally occupy Wonderland's throne, walking toward the middle of the square with scepter in hand. The sight of her, so matter-of-factly confident, might have been enough to give even the walrus-butler courage, but the chessmen and generals weren't the walrus-butler. Their courage didn't need bolstering. They would not whine about the Glass Eyes' superior numbers. They would not disappoint their queen. The rook unholstered his AD52, checked the supply of projectile decks in its ammo bay. The knight unsheathed his sword and stood at the ready. Generals Doppel and Gänger each split in two, and the four generals each divided again, forming eight generals in all—four Doppels and four Gängers. The more bodies to aid in Wonderland's defense, the better.

“There!” the knight said.

Alyss had already seen them: a contingent of Glass Eyes bearing down from Slithy Avenue, keeping close to the buildings, darting from vestibule to vestibule. The rook started forward, not one to wait for trouble if he could help it.

“No,” Alyss said. “Let them come.”

“It'll be the last thing they ever do.”

Alyss spun to her left and—

There stood Dodge, sword in one hand, crystal shooter in the other. They held each other's gaze.
What's he doing here? I told Bibwit—

“Shouldn't you be guarding the palace?” the rook asked with a knowing smirk.

Dodge shrugged, didn't take his eyes off Alyss. “First they're in Wondertropolis, next thing you know they're marching through the palace halls.” He looked at the rook and winked. “Besides, I have to make sure you do the job right, don't I?”

The Glass Eyes were letting civilians climb out of ground-floor windows, burst from doorways, and escape into the distance. Unconcerned with ordinary Wonderlanders now that they'd located the queen, they holed up in the suddenly abandoned shops and office towers, took aim with their AD52s, crystal shooters, spikejack tumblers, and orb cannons.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch!

They strafed the square, orb generators burning a path through the air toward Wonderland's queen. Even before Dodge, the knight, the rook, and eight generals could dive for cover—

Alyss used the power of her imagination to hurl the missiles back upon the enemy. At the slightest dip of her scepter, the orb generators reversed directions and broke into smaller orbs, each of them homing in on a Glass Eye.

Bloosh! Kabloosh! Bloosh-bloosh! Bloosh!

A rapid series of blasts as Glass Eyes exploded into millions of Glass Eye bits. Not one of the enemy was left functioning, alive.

“A second wave,” Alyss breathed, because more Glass Eyes were streaking in from Slithy Avenue's horizon.

“They're on Whiffling Heights,” called the rook.

“And Gimble Lane,” said Dodge.

“And Brillig,” said the knight and generals.

Not the most life-affirming news: Glass Eyes storming Genevieve Square from every available street. Alyss and Dodge, the chessmen and generals—they were surrounded.