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PART THREE CHAPTER 31

B IBWIT HARTE, blue-green veins pulsing anxiously beneath the translucent skin of his learned head, waited on the shore of the Pool of Tears with two spirit-danes hobbled at his side. It hadn’t been easy for him to get here. Since learning of Hatter Madigan’s return, Redd had become more of a tyrant than ever and demanded that he spend hours every day rewriting In Queendom Speramus, glaring over his shoulder to make sure he scribbled down her venomous words exactly as she spat them at him. He had been forced to cross out entire pages of the ancient text and replace them with Reddisms, as if Her Imperial Viciousness believed that, by excising passages in which Queen Genevieve had once found strength and comfort, she might be able to destroy Princess Alyss herself.

“You don’t feel well?” Redd had screeched, hearing his excuse to forgo his secretarial duties that day. “What do I care if you don’t feel well? I’ll show you what it means not to feel well!”

“But my hand is terribly cramped and would welcome a small respite from its daily exertions,” Bibwit had corrected. “With utmost respect, I suggest…couldn’t Her Imperial Viciousness imagine the newly written pages instead of having me write them for her?”

Redd had laughed, showing her black, pointy teeth. “Bibwit Harte, you are not as cowardly as I thought. If I didn’t let you live on the off chance of benefiting from all that lore you’ve crammed inside that pale, bald head of yours, I would almost be sorry to see you die. You have until the Redd Moon rises to meet me in the Observation Dome.”

And so he had hurried to the Pool of Tears, knowing the risks: all Redd had to do was envision him in a flash of imagination’s eye and that’d be it. But this was too important; he had to come.

Ripples appeared on the surface of the pool: a disturbance down below.

“For the sake of White Imagination, let’s hope that Dodge has met with success,” said the learned tutor, and one of the spirit-danes whinnied in response.

The ripples on the pool grew in size and number, expanding outward from a bubbling center. Dodge burst through, gasping for air. He was alone, looked wildly about him.

“Is she here?” “No. I thought-”

Something bobbed to the surface: the body of Princess Alyss, limp and lifeless. The tutor rushed to the water’s edge and helped Dodge carry the princess onto land, laying her out on the shore.

“What’s wrong with her?” Dodge asked.

Bibwit put a large, sensitive ear to Alyss’ slack mouth. “She’s swallowed some water. I can hear it sloshing inside her.”

As befitted a royal tutor, Bibwit kept many instruments of learning hidden in the folds of his robe. From an inner pocket he removed a soft flex tube, placed one end of it a short way down Alyss’ throat, and sucked mightily from the other end. Four times he filled the straw with water and spat it onto the ground. Alyss convulsed, breathed, vomited water, and coughed her way back into full consciousness. Seeing her eyes open, a bed of nearby lilies broke into a giddy song of welcome. Dazed and bewildered, Alyss sat up, chest muscles aching from her rib-cage-rattling coughs.

“Bibwit Harte,” she whispered.

The tutor’s ears twitched with pleasure. “At your service, Princess.”

She turned to her childhood friend and a faint, wary smile played about her eyes and lips. “Dodge

Anders.”

Dodge stiffened. Hearing Alyss say his name…it was like being reminded of a forgotten wound.

“Where is the music coming from?” she asked. The lilies sang louder and she saw them, swaying happily on their stems, petals opening and closing in song. “But flowers have no larynxes.”

“What’s a larynx?” the flowers said, and laughed.

It was as if she’d entered a comforting dream and for another moment she luxuriated in it, but then her features hardened with determination and she braced herself against the rich, almost palpable colors around her. “This isn’t real,” she said. “I shouldn’t remember so vividly what’s not supposed to exist. And you-all of this-can’t exist.”

Bibwit crinkled his brow in concern. “Why not?”

“Because.” Not a very good answer, she knew. “No one can possibly understa-” “We have to hurry,” Dodge said.

Someone was coming; fresh ripples had appeared on the surface of the pool.

Dodge and Bibwit quickly lifted Alyss to her feet and onto a spirit-dane-a little too quickly perhaps, because she almost fell off, half-tumbled over the animal’s flank. She regained her balance and settled on its back, facing in the wrong direction.

Dodge and Bibwit exchanged a look: This is supposed to be our warrior queen?

“You want to face the other way,” Dodge said.

The ripples in the pool were larger now, foaming. Dodge and Bibwit helped Alyss turn around properly on the spirit-dane. Dodge hopped up in front of her and took the reins while Bibwit climbed onto the other animal, and just as the sound of breaking water echoed off the cliff, they galloped into the woods. Alyss glanced back to see The Cat and his assassin force chasing after them. Perhaps she could still

return to London and marry Leopold, to be the loving daughter of Dean and Mrs. Liddell and lose herself in that orderly and controlled life she had worked so hard to establish. Here, things were obviously in a

bit of a tumult. But who was she trying to convince? It was pure fantasy, the idea that she could return to relatively innocent days in England. The Pool of Tears, Redd, and The Cat: She would be hunted down no matter where she was.

The whispers of the surrounding trees and shrubs became fainter, the sound of cracking branches and paw-crushed leaves closer, louder, even over the heavy footfalls of the spirit-danes. They would not be able to outrun The Cat. Alyss was sure of it and gripped Dodge tighter around the waist.

“They’re faster than we are,” she said.

“Good! Then we’ll have to fight!” Dodge spun the animal around and hardly had time to raise his sword before he was locked in combat with two of the card assassins.

Alyss lost her balance and fell to the ground. “Alyss!” cried Bibwit.

But The Cat was upon her. “How you’ve grown,” he hissed. “The last time I saw you, you were only this high.” He held a paw level with his waist and grinned, baring his fangs.

She tried to run, but he batted her back in front of him. His tail puffed up and he spat. Again, she tried to run and again he swatted her back, toying with her as a kitten toys with a cockroach before killing it. She knew what she should do-imagine something, conjure a defense, but it had been so long since she’d been able to use her imaginative muscle that…Try anyway. Have to…She did try, shaking and frowning with the effort. But it was no use. Nothing happened.

The Cat raised his paw to strike. Alyss took in what she supposed would be the last things she ever saw: Dodge jabbing his sword into a card assassin, which folded to the ground, dead; the remaining assassins attacking him with increased fury; Bibwit hurrying toward her, saying, “I’m a scholar, not a warrior. In a battle of wits perhaps I could…” as he thrust himself between her and The Cat.

“Redd will not like such behavior from her secretary,” The Cat hissed, claws glinting.

Bibwit squeezed his eyes shut. “A nano orb at rest tends to stay at rest and a nano orb in motion tends to stay in motion so long as neither is acted upon by an external force,” he whispered, as if he might indeed combat The Cat’s physical strength with the superior strength of his mind. He went on to recite a host of learned titbits that he was amazed he had time to utter considering the usual efficiency and speed of The Cat when piercing some poor soul to the quick.

Alyss was just as amazed as Bibwit, though for different reasons. Her eyes were wide open and, just as The Cat was bringing his paw down on the tutor, five white pawns dropped from the trees, two of them taking the blow meant for Bibwit. A battery of white chessmen jumped from the brush, and a camouflaged pack of Redd’s Cut dealt themselves out with the sound of rapidly opening and closing scissor blades. The Skirmish of the Whispering Woods was in full blood.

Alyss tugged at Bibwit’s sleeve.

“Oh,” he said, opening his eyes to the scene.

“Leave here!” a rook shouted at them. “We’ll keep them at bay! But go! Now!” Though engaged in a deadly contest with a Three Card, the rook managed a bow to Alyss. “Princess,” he said.

Dodge came galloping up on a spirit-dane, lifted Alyss into the saddle behind him. Bibwit clambered up after her, and the three of them sped off as the clashings of steel on steel, the guttural grunts and hoarse cries of combat faded into the distance. Alyss turned for a last look at the raging Cat, at the brave chessmen who had put themselves in mortal danger for her sake.

“Most of them won’t make it,” Dodge said, urging their spirit-dane toward Wondertropolis, where they would skirt major thoroughfares on their way to The Everlasting Forest. “But you’re safe. For now.”