Bargain price

CHAPTER 34

R EDD MOON had risen. Its bloody light burned down on the Chessboard Desert through a

cloud-clotted sky, toxic vapors burping continuously out of the factory engaged in manufacturing Redd’s war machines.

The Cat skulked through the halls of the Mount Isolation fortress, his own unease dwarfed by the violence of the sky over the steaming desert-a sky that became visible to him only as he entered the spiral-shaped hall leading to the Observation Dome, where Redd waited for proof that her niece was no longer among the living.

This was not a briefing The Cat longed to make. He entered the Observation Dome and found his queen staring out of a telescopic panel at Wondertropolis, the walrus-butler busy polishing the other panels with a cloth.

Redd’s back was to him. Without turning around, she said, “I see you but I don’t see my niece’s head,”

and before he could utter a syllable, her scepter speared him.

The walrus gave a little jump and started for the exit. “Oh! I’d better check on-” “Stay where you are!” Redd shouted.

“Yes, I still have plenty of work to do here, Your Imperial Viciousness.” Back to polishing the telescopic panels went the walrus-butler.

The Cat stood unsteadily on two legs, Redd’s scepter jutting out of him. In theory, he was fortunate to have had nine lives. But each death was painful. The Cat sometimes wished for only one life.

He fell to the floor, dead.

Redd stalked back and forth next to his lifeless body. She took hold of her scepter. The Cat’s eyes flickered open and the wound in his chest healed. He slowly got to his feet, licking himself clean.

“Tell me how you managed to fail this time,” Redd demanded.

“The Alyssians reached her first. We chased them back through the Pool of Tears but-”

“Alyss in Wonderland? Unacceptable!” Redd screeched, and again The Cat felt the stinging, mortal blow of her scepter.

The walrus blubbered and dropped his polishing cloth, bent to pick it up, and bumped his head against a telescopic panel.

Redd tried to pinpoint Alyss’ location in her imagination’s eye, saw a confusion of foliage and trees. A

forest of some kind. But there were many forests in the queendom. “Where is Bibwit Harte? I want the royal secretary here, now.”

“I’m sorry, Your Imperial Viciousness,” said the walrus, rubbing his head, “truly very sorry, but Bibwit

Harte is not here. No one’s seen him since-”

“He’s with the Alyssians now.” The Cat had regained consciousness and lay on the floor watching his wound heal.

“No more unwelcome news out of you, my feline friend,” Redd threatened. She motioned with her fingers and The Cat found himself standing upright. “Come with me.”

She swooped out of the room, her heels click-clacking on the polished floor. Casting a last, squinty-eyed glance at the walrus, The Cat followed Redd down the spiraling hall, through dim rooms of questionable purpose to the vacuum shaft that shot them into the bowels of the fortress. They entered an enormous room in which an army of Glass Eyes stood in columns, waiting for orders. As Redd opened her mouth

to speak, she projected her holographic, anger-gnarled face onto Wondertropolis’ billboards and government-sponsored poster-crystals, Wonderlanders pausing amid their various jobs and activities to listen to her spew the words she spoke to the Glass Eyes at Mount Isolation.

“Loyal subjects, there is a pretender to the throne in our midst. She calls herself Alyss Heart. Your assistance in her capture-in her death-is hereby commanded. She is in one of our forests. Find her by the time my moon sets or I will burn every forest in Wonderland. Whoever accomplishes this will be rewarded with the knowledge that she or he has earned my eternal favor.”

Redd’s face vanished from the city’s billboards and posters, replaced by the usual advertisements for Redd’s Hotel Casino, Redd Apartments, jabberwocky matches, and reward offers for reporting followers of White Imagination. Wonderlanders went back about their business-though, to be sure, there were some who considered Redd’s eternal favor worth having and would do what they could to find Alyss Heart.

Back at Mount Isolation, the last of the Glass Eyes streamed out of the fortress into the desert.

Redd turned to The Cat, her voice echoing through the empty room. “Tell Jack of Diamonds it’s time he proved his loyalty once and for all.”