Bargain price

CHAPTER 36

J ACK OF Diamonds tramped through the Everlasting Forest carrying a case the size and shape of a bread box.

“Prove my loyalty? Haven’t I proved it time and time again? Haven’t I turned in traitors who dared to steal her weapons? Haven’t I kept her informed of Alyssian activities? If just once she didn’t let herself be governed by her temper…A summit-that’s how I would’ve dealt with it. Pretend to grant the Alyssians statehood, lull them into complacency. I would marry the princess while remaining loyal to Queen Redd and she’d control the Alyssians through me. That’s the way to handle things. But all anybody around here wants to do is fight.”

A kitten the color of burnished gold poked its head out of the top of the case.

“No, you don’t,” Jack said to the animal. “You’d better stay out of sight altogether.”

He put a fat palm on the kitten’s head and tried to push it back into the case, but the kitten hissed, openmouthed, and scratched him with a nimble paw.

“Ow!”

Jack tossed the case to the ground, sucked at his wounded hand. The surrounding trees twittered. Jack could see the kitten’s tail whisking back and forth out the top of the case, but the animal made no sound. Wasn’t he in a favorable position here? He had his archrival stuffed in a bag! He could easily do away with a little kitten. Yes, yes. Then Redd would have to rely on him and him alone for counsel, and he’d convince her to enact plans of which he could take better advantage. But what of the task at hand-the ambush? And what if Redd were watching him right now in her imagination’s eye? No, he’d better wait. To get rid of the kitten was too risky at present. But at the first opportunity…

He picked up the case and continued on through the forest. The kitten’s tail, still snaking up out the top of the case, brushed against his hand. He paused and looked around. Now, where was the Alyssian headquarters? He always had trouble finding it. To the left maybe? Yes, definitely to the left. But after going a couple hundred paces, he decided it must have been the other way. But four hundred or so paces in the opposite direction seemed to bring him no closer. He was lost. The kitten growled. But then a wink of sunlight on a crystal shooter caught Jack of Diamonds’ eye: two Alyssian guards patrolling the perimeter of the headquarters. Aha! He knew it had been close. But perhaps, now that violence was

near, it would have been better to stay lost?

He approached the guards with a cautious tread, the color draining from his face, making it almost as pale as his beloved wig. “We must increase security now that Alyss is here,” he said, coming upon them. “I have requisitioned more perimeter guards.”

“If you believe it necessary, Lord Diamond.” “Obviously I do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is…the mirror keeper about?”

“Not at present, sir.” “Ah, well.”

Jack shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He had started to sweat; his scalp itched horribly. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh.” He felt the kitten moving inside the case, impatient. “I, ah…I have something for him.” The guards said nothing.

“Maybe one of you should take a look at it?”

If the guard who volunteered had had the time, he might have noticed that Jack of Diamonds was trembling. But as soon as the unfortunate fellow held his face over the opening of the case to see what was inside, out came the two manly arms of The Cat. Jack stumbled backwards, dropping the case. But before it hit the ground, while the guard was screaming, The Cat morphed into full assassin and did away with both guards. A wave of alarm passed through the trees and shrubs of the forest.

The Cat turned to Jack, his claws dripping blood. “Summon The Cut.”

Jack reached into a pocket with bumbling fingers. He raised a marbled crystal bubble to his lips and blew into it. Nothing. It was a sound for The Cut alone. He heard them coming, the scissor-sound of their stalking limbs: three decks in all, 156 soldiers.

“I, ah…think I should wait out here,” Jack of Diamonds managed. “I don’t want my position with Redd to be compromised, which it will be if I’m seen by General Doppelganger or any of the others.”

The Cat knew better. But it was all right; the cowardly Jack of Diamonds would only get in his way. “Do what you want,” he spat, and accompanied by the high cards of The Cut, he pounced into the Alyssian headquarters while the lower numbers began smashing its perimeter mirrors.