Bargain price

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A FTER THIRTEEN years, morale among the Alyssians was low. They languished in conditions hardly fit for mud-grubbing gwormmies. Every day brought defections and security breaches. The unspoken consensus was that a meaningful victory like the one at Blaxik would never be theirs again. Driving Redd out of Wonderland had once been a realistic vision, but the Alyssians were now reduced to a handful of splinter groups striking at insignificant targets in remote regions-an outpost monitoring jabberwocky movement in the Volcanic Plains or a weighing station for corpse-laden smail-transports at the edge of the Chessboard Desert.

Redd had made it known that she would reward those who turned traitor to the Alyssian cause. One and two at a time, Alyssians surrendered to members of The Cut and divulged the location of Alyssian

camps. The camps would be bombarded with cannonball spiders and glowing orb generators, or flattened to dust by Redd’s rose rollers-onyx tank-like vehicles with treads of black, toothy roses. Defectors were never heard from again, but Alyssians with their own thoughts of defecting chose to believe that their former comrades were too drunk on the pleasures of Redd’s reward to send word. The truth was, surrendering Alyssians were bound hand and foot, their limbs and chests slashed to spur the appetites of the flesh-eating roses, and thrown into pits where the roses ate them alive.

At the oldest of all Alyssian camps, deep within the Everlasting Forest, General Doppelganger had called together a meeting of advisers. The camp was protected by a Stonehenge of massive, intricately balanced mirrors reflecting the sky and forest, an unending vista of foliage and clouds to confuse the

not-quite-all-seeing eye of Redd’s imagination, as well as any of The Cut who happened to be dealt through the forest. The mirrors were not connected to the Crystal Continuum and had been scavenged from labor camps raided in the first year of Alyssian activity. Guards patrolled the perimeter, and a mirror keeper was responsible for maintaining the mirrors’ delicate balance, shifting them here and there according to changes in light, cloud movement, and the bloom and rot of the seasons. To the untrained eye, and unless you were directly in front of a mirror and glimpsed your own reflection-a thing not so likely, considering the complicated overlap of mirrors at myriad angles, the fragmented nature of their reflections-the camp was invisible.

“She’s offering a small portion of Wonderland, probably in Outerwilderbeastia but still to be decided, in exchange for a cessation of all rebel activity,” said a plump fellow wedged into a chair and wearing the long mantle common among young men of suit families. “We will be free to govern ourselves unmolested, but we must give up the name of Alyssians. We won’t have to swear our loyalty to Redd or the ways of Black Imagination, but we won’t be able to practice White Imagination either. She has proposed a summit to work out the details of the agreement.”

“Why’d she pick you to deliver the message?” asked the rook. If he’d been face-to-face with Redd, he would have known how to take advantage of it. Redd would have found the Alyssian response to her offer at the point of his sword.

The plump gentleman adjusted his white powdered wig. He was none other than Jack of Diamonds, now grown into this flabby, overfed man. His prominent rear ballooned out from both sides of his chair, tussocks of flesh swelling from between the armrests and seat cushion.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was powdering my wig when her image appeared in my looking glass. She must have thought I’d know sense when I heard it, since I come from a ranking family.”

“It sounds suspicious,” the knight said. “Are you sure one of Redd’s seekers didn’t follow you here?” “Please. I’m not new to the ways of subterfuge and secrecy, you know.”

The rook grunted. “It’s a trick, in any case.”

Jack of Diamonds had doubled his family’s fortune since Redd’s accession to the throne. His powers of observation had served him well in a society where only the shrewdest, most opportunistic, most selfish, and least loyal to friends flourished. As a boy, he had frequently accompanied the Lady of Diamonds to Redd’s fortress on Mount Isolation. It was the best education he could have received: watching his mother flatter the queen and paying rare crystals to get whatever small concessions she wanted; studying Redd’s negotiations with arms dealers and entertainment impresarios who wanted licenses to poach jabberwocky from the Volcanic Plains and pit them against one another in Wondertroplis’ amphitheater.

Strictly speaking, he was not an Alyssian-more a “Jackian,” only concerned with his own well-being and profit. With Redd’s permission, he procured food for the Alyssians; in exchange, he provided her with intelligence on their military maneuvers-intelligence from which he left out important details, for if the Alyssians were decimated, he would not be quite so rich. His methods were indirect and labyrinthine, but they brought him twice the profit of simpler business arrangements. He would learn when a shipment of cannonball spiders was leaving a factory, and then, using a reprogrammed Glass Eye as intermediary

to protect his identity, he would sell this information to certain unsavory individuals. Once the theft had been carried out, his Glass Eye would inform on the criminals to Redd’s authorities, but by the time the authorities interrogated the criminals and discovered where the cache of cannonball spiders was hidden, Jack would have already removed it and sold it to the Alyssians.

“You think we should agree to the summit?” General Doppelganger asked him. “I don’t see what choice we have.”

“Knight, what do you say?”

“She is not to be trusted. But I will follow your orders, whatever they may be.”

General Doppelganger sighed and-much as a drop of water might divide in half to form two identical droplets-split in two. Generals Doppel and Ganger paced the floor.

There were others who should have been at this meeting. The royal secretary, Bibwit Harte, had been unable to attend; it wasn’t often that he could safely get away from Redd. And Dodge Anders…nobody knew where he was. He frequently went off by himself, no one knew where and no one had ever felt it right to ask. He was such a brooding, private man.

“General Doppel?”

“Yes, General Ganger?”

The generals stood looking at each other for a moment, nodded; they had reached a conclusion. General

Doppel spoke.

“Obviously, we don’t trust Redd either, but we agree with Jack of Diamonds. Our forces are weakening. Before long, Redd won’t have to bother with the pretense of making any deal with us.”

“Then I’ll arrange it,” said Jack of Diamonds, attempting to wrench himself free of his chair. “I look forward to the day when I can sit with you all on some decent furniture. Now if someone…would…help me.”

The generals didn’t mention their contingency plan, to smuggle key Alyssians into Boarderland and make an under-the-table agreement with King Arch to overthrow Redd: receiving soldiers and weapons in exchange for the promise of a male ruler. For now, they decided to keep this plan a secret even from their advisers, hoping necessity wouldn’t demand its implementation.