Bargain price

CHAPTER 54

A LICE AWOKE in her bed, cold and sweating. Prince Leopold, Mrs. Liddell, and the dean were looking down on her with expressions of mingled concern and relief.

“What is this?” Alice asked, befuddled.

“This,” said Mrs. Liddell, “is your bed. You’re at home, dear.”

“You’ve given us quite a scare, my love,” said Prince Leopold. “Do you remember anything of what’s happened?”

Do I remember? She was afraid to answer.

“You fainted in church and have been in some sort of delirium ever since.” No! Impossible! “I’ve been in Wonderland,” she said.

Mrs. Liddell’s face tightened. Dean Liddell cleared his throat. “Like in Carroll’s book?” Leopold asked good-naturedly. “It’s nothing like the book!”

Her vehemence frightened them. She wasn’t well. She was too weak to be upsetting herself so. “Alice,” Mrs. Liddell said, “you’ve been very ill. Perhaps we’ll let you rest.”

“I’ll check on you shortly,” the prince said.

Leopold and the Liddells turned for the door. But they can’t leave. Not yet. Not when she was so confused, so-she had to admit it to herself-disappointed. None of it real? The grown-up Dodge, my consultation with the blue caterpillar, the Looking Glass Maze? She sat upright in bed.

“But…”

“What is it?” asked the dean.

“Have I really been here this whole time?” “Of course.”

Can it all have been a fever-dream? She fell back against her pillows. It was so vivid. How can it not have happened?

“It’s a trick, Alyss!” Dodge shouted, appearing through the wall armed with an AD52. “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s a construct! It isn’t real!”

He was gone as suddenly as he’d come-back through the wall. Neither the Liddells nor Leopold had noticed the intrusion. Alyss studied them more closely and now that she knew to look for them, she could see the energy bits of which they consisted. She felt something in her hand: the white heart scepter. So Dodge is all right. He survived The Cat. Indeed, facing imminent death, Dodge had not hesitated to use the AD52 when it materialized in his hand. Instead of losing his own life, he took another of The Cat’s, leaving the beast with only one.

Alyss swept the construct away. The bed and furniture, the Liddells, Prince Leopold-all vanished and she found herself on the ballroom floor at Mount Isolation. Redd stood over her, swinging her scepter down to cut off her head.

I’m not mad, I’m not, I’m not mad, yes I am!

With Redd’s scepter only a few Wonderland inches from her lovely neck, she blew hard at the evil Queen, sending her flying backwards, and then jumped to her feet. Redd was still in the air when Alyss released a bolt of energy from her index finger. It latched on to Redd and, wagging her finger back and forth, Alyss smashed the queen against the ballroom’s two remaining walls. Disorientated, Redd’s imaginings fizzled and faded, less and less of a threat to Alyss, whose abilities seemed to be increasing in direct proportion to her confidence.

Unrealistic not to be angry, to never get angry or upset. It’s a matter of degree.

Alyss’ anger informed her, but it didn’t rule her, although she seemed willing to beat Redd against the walls until the malicious woman died-a rather brutal death had it come to pass, but Redd managed to free herself from the energy-spear that held her, severing it with the pointed end of her scepter and dropping to the floor.

It was Alyss’ turn to put her aunt on the defensive. She sent deck after deck of razor-cards at Redd. She conjured exploding cannonball spiders, the giant arachnids taking up all her aunt’s attention. The black, hungry roses that Redd sent snaking toward the princess were easily squashed, the orbs and unmanned, airborne blades effortlessly waved off, and the spears of black energy (Alyss was flattered, her aunt borrowing this idea from her) pinned motionless to the air by Alyss’ own white spears with no trouble.

Both Alyss and Redd may have been strengthened by their proximity to the Heart Crystal, but Alyss could see that she was the stronger of the two. It must have dawned on Redd too because, frustrated and annoyed beyond all measure, she gave up on her fancy imaginings and ran at Alyss with scepter raised.

They brandished their scepters like swords, two powerful warriors engaged in good old-fashioned

hand-to-hand combat. The space above and around them glittered and popped and sizzled and smoked with the thunderstorm of their imaginative powers. Then, with the speed of a gwynook’s flapping wing, Alyss hooked the white heart of her scepter in a gnarled crook of Redd’s scepter and yanked the latter to the floor, where she exploded it with a jolt of white hot imaginative energy.

Do I kill or…but what’s to be done with her if I don’t? She’ll pose a threat as long as she lives. Redd balled her hands into fists, making fleshy clubs of them.

“I’m stronger than you are, Redd.”

“You will not defeat me!” Redd screamed.

Alyss braced herself for another attack, realizing only too late what was happening. She watched with disbelieving eyes as Redd launched herself into the Heart Crystal.

Krrrrrkkkkchsss! Hissszzzzll! Krrrch! Zzzzssszz!

The crystal crackled and smoldered. It began to vibrate, to emit a low, steady hum that deepened and grew in volume.

Cornered by an AD52-armed Dodge, and with only one life remaining to him, The Cat saw which way the imaginative energy was flowing. He hissed, and sprinted for the crystal. Dodge shot a spray of

razor-cards at him, but the beast was too fast and leaped into the crystal, its violent internal motions causing the entire Mount Isolation fortress to shake ominously, threatening collapse, when-

The noise stopped. All was still. The Heart Crystal glowed a steady white.

The faction of Alyssians headed by Generals Doppel and Ganger had converged on the scene and, together with Hatter, Molly, and the others, had defeated The Glass Eyes. All stood dumbstruck in the silence that inevitably follows great and unexpected events. For in the queendom’s long history, no one had ever jumped into the Heart Crystal and no one knew what it augured for the future.