Frank Beddor - Seeing Redd

As the blistered fellow was taken into the fold of the other ministers, Molly reached for her hat, which was vibrating in anticipation of action. She would show Ripkins, Blister, and their smug king who the prodigy was.

“Molly!” Alyss warned.

It required all the discipline the girl had to restrain herself. Did the queen doubt that her bodyguard’s

abilities would impress these men?

“It’s been brought to my attention, Arch,” Alyss said, troubled by the groans coming from the intel ministers’ huddle, “that you’re developing a weapon capable of destroying not only all of Wonderland but Boarderland as well.”

“How do you know that?”

Alyss shrugged. “My people hear things.”

“Bibwit Harte hears things, you mean,” said Arch, impressed. “But so what if I’m building such a weapon? Surely you believe in scientific progress?”

“I see no ‘progress’ in creating a weapon capable of producing massive devastation.” “Don’t you? I’m sure a man would.”

Alyss sighed. On the viewing screen behind him, Genevieve Square was the picture of activity. Merchants who’d chosen to keep their shops open instead of attending the gala stood outside their groceries, gemstone ateliers, bakeries, and clothing stores, greeting passersby. Not long ago, as Redd Square, the area would have been nearly deserted, a slum of abandoned apartment buildings and boarded-up storefronts that even her card soldiers had been reluctant to patrol.

“You don’t think the overriding need for our citizens is peace and security?” Alyss asked. “And perhaps for a-”

“The threat of total annihilation faced by those who’d attack us is a deterrent that provides Boarderland with all the security it needs. But I wonder, Miss Majesty, how aware you can be of Morgavia’s military stockpiling if you question the need for such potent weapons.”

“Aware enough,” she said, though it was the first she had heard of it.

“Then perhaps you don’t have the latest intelligence regarding the failed negotiations between Unterlan and its breakaway province, Ganmede, because if you did, surely you wouldn’t doubt the need for whatever weaponry our scientists can devise.”

Failed negotiations? “I have been briefed on the latest intelligence,” Alyss lied. “But I wonder if there isn’t a way to secure Boarderland without the threat of severe destruction or the loss of innocent lives or-”

“Innocent lives?! Oh, wise queen, is anyone really as ‘innocent’ as you suppose? If I weren’t dealing with threats from outside Boarderland, I would yet be forever stamping out the ones from within. After your battles with Redd, I can hardly believe it, but you seem to retain a touch of naivete. Citizens are not innocent, Your Highness. If the reins of government are not manfully applied, their aggressive,

self-seeking nature will always upset peace and security. True peace is only possible through the absolute power of a single sovereign.”

“And what if this absolute ruler were as self-seeking and aggressive as the most restless citizen, out for his own glory instead of the common good?”

“And what if women devoted themselves to domestic chores as they should?”

She would not allow herself to get angry, especially in front of Molly, whom she could feel bristling beside her. The difference between Redd and King Arch might only be one of degree. She would have to be more circumspect around him.

“I apologize,” said Arch. “You are my host as Wonderland’s queen and I should behave accordingly.”

Alyss stood. “It’s time I returned to my party, Arch. You’re welcome to join the festivities or not, as you choose, but I thank you for offering your respects.”

Alyss and Homburg Molly started for the door.

“You know that I was one of the last people to see your father alive?” Arch asked. Alyss paused, not turning to face him.

“I’ve never met a finer king than Nolan,” Arch went on. “He was a brilliant politician and a brave soldier. The loss of such a king is itself cause to mourn. But when I consider that he and I were on the verge of securing greater cooperation between our nations, to create a united front against the unknown threats of the future, ah well…”

Even if Alyss had been looking directly at Arch, she couldn’t have known that he was lying, that he had in fact thought Nolan a weak and ineffective king who was forever at his wife’s skirts, and that he’d sooner have had his head lopped off than ever entangle his government with Wonderland’s. She swept out of the room, Molly following, careful not to step on the train of her dress.

A minister approached the Boarderland ruler. “Will we be joining the celebrations, my liege?”

Arch bent down, picked up a cracked button that had fallen unnoticed off Molly’s coat. “I think not,” he said. “I’ve found what I needed.”

T HE GROUND became increasingly less fertile as the Everlasting Forest approached the gorge that separated it from the Volcanic Plains-the full heat and lava streams of which were visible to the card soldiers patrolling Wonderland’s most isolated military outpost.

“How am I supposed to prove myself in battle if we never get into one?” the Two Card complained. “If you had been in a battle,” answered the Four Card, “you wouldn’t wish for one.”

The Four Card knew what he was talking about, having been shuffled here after most of his former deck had been annihilated in skirmishes with Redd’s forces. He had spent the lunar cycles of Alyss’ exile deep within the Everlasting Forest, guarding the camp that had once served as headquarters for the Alyssian rebellion.

The Two Card glanced toward the parched, scanty trees that made up this part of the forest-which, from this vantage point, didn’t seem so everlasting. He looked off toward the plains with its shimmers of heat, its bright, slow-moving lava flows, and its occasional burst of the stuff from underground, as if the planet were nauseous and coughing up what it couldn’t digest.

“Who would ever attack us from here? It makes no strategic sense. We’re near nothing of vital importance to the queendom. Our enemies would have to use most of their strength just getting through the plains to reach us. Plus, they wouldn’t exactly be leaving themselves an easy route of retreat. There’s only one way to go, and that’s back into the Volcanic Plains.”

The Four Card had to admit this was all true. After Alyss’ ascension to the throne, General Doppelganger had established these far-flung military bases throughout Wonderland to serve as an early warning system: The first sign of anything unusual was to be immediately relayed to the bases closest to

the trouble, as well as to Central Command. It was not possible to be too vigilant, the general preached. Decks of card soldiers had thus been deployed to the distant jungles of Outerwilderbeastia, with its brambles and wildlife, and to the outermost quadrants of the Chessboard Desert, with its alternating squares of ice and black rock. Only the Valley of Mushrooms and the Volcanic Plains had been spared an influx of military personnel. General Doppelganger had ordered bases to be erected around the valley, on various peaks of the Snark Mountains, so that the caterpillar-oracles’ habitat could enter a period of new growth after being cleared of the mushrooms hacked to virtual mush by Redd’s forces. As for the Volcanic Plains, the belching heat of the place was so inhospitable to all life save jabberwocky that General Doppelganger considered it a buffer zone or no-man’s-land between the queendom and any opposing force.

But, thought the Four Card, even supposing that enemies did attack this outpost and somehow managed to fight their way into the thick of the Everlasting Forest, they would still be confronted with the Wall of Deflection-a series of looking glasses unconnected to the Crystal Continuum that spanned the entire breadth of the forest. Just as the glasses around the rebel Alyssian headquarters used to overlap one another at countless angles, these were aligned in such a way that, as you approached them, you saw not your reflection but what looked like dense, impassable arborage and so were deflected away from Wondertropolis.