Ripkins lurched forward, his right arm extended, and a pair of kill-quills arrowed toward Hatter. Flangk!
Hatter snapped open his wrist-blades and stepped aside, but the move was anticipated by Ripkins, who had already yanked on the cords attached to the kill-quill’s tail ends. The weapons were tumbling back to him as-fip fip fip fip-he fired off half a deck of razor-cards and-
Moving to avoid the kill-quills, Hatter stepped directly into the path of incoming cards. Wrist-blades or no wrist-blades, he would have been sliced to death if he hadn’t fallen flat to the ground with twice the speed of gravity.
Ripkins leaped for him, was in the air about to come down when- Shwink!
Hatter punched his belt buckle and his belt sabers sprung open. Ripkins changed direction in midair and somersaulted clear, which gave Hatter time to jump to his feet and shrug open his backpack, its corkscrews and daggers at the ready. Shielding himself with the coptering wrist-blades of one hand, he launched his backpack’s weapons at Ripkins.
“Yah! Yah! Yah!”
But Ripkins’ hands were creating a cyclone in front of him, invisible with speed, shredding air. And whether it was their centrifugal force alone or he was actually catching the incoming blades and flinging them back at Hatter, every blade and corkscrew that threatened him went hurtling back toward the mythic Milliner, who more and more found himself on the defensive until it was all Hatter could do to twirl, spin, duck, and jump to avoid being hit.
“Aaah!”
Hatter charged at Ripkins, his wrist-blades pushed out in front of him. Arch’s bodyguard jerked his shoulder as if to adjust the hang of his coat: A pointed stick the length of a writing crystal slid out the end of his sleeve and into his hand. Pressing his thumb against its nub end, Ripkins extended the stick to the length of a spirit-dane. Hatter, closing the gap between them, recognized the weapon: a telescoping javelin.
“Hngh!”
Holding the javelin horizontally, gripping it with both hands near its midpoint, Ripkins pushed it into
Hatter’s wrist-blades and- Krchkkkrchk!
Both sets of blades jammed to a halt, the ends of the javelin caught within their spin. Hatter’s hands were effectively pinned to the ends of the javelin, and Ripkins held a fistful of kill-quills poised at his jugular.
Hatter nodded, impressed. Then- “Nguh!”
He shrugged hard, flapping both arms down and away as if he were shaking off water. Ripkins went staggering backward and the javelin clattered to the floor. His wrist-blades gearing back to full speed, Hatter sent his top hat flying into the hookah haze gathered thick over patrons’ heads.
Clink! Clangk! Clonk!
He and Ripkins went at each other, Ripkins starting to have trouble when-
The top hat blades came boomeranging out of the haze, spinning toward Arch’s bodyguard from behind, veering up at the last moment.
Smack!
The flat sides of the blades knocked Ripkins in the back of the head and he tumbled to the ground. Hatter caught hold of his weapon and slammed it down, two of its blades embedding in the dirt on either side of Ripkins’ neck like a pair of open scissors, pinning the bodyguard on his back.
Ripkins grunted, impressed.
Hatter clicked shut his bracelets, took up his top hat blades and, with a flick of the wrist, transformed them back into innocent headware. Ripkins stood, pocketed his weapons, and brushed himself off.
“Where’s Homburg Molly?” Hatter demanded.
Ripkins jutted his chin: Look behind you. Hatter half turned, saw another Fel Creel in elbow-length
gloves standing with his hands clasped in front of him, waiting politely. Ripkins slipped back in among the customers at the bar while Blister peeled off his gloves, held up his bare hands, both front and back, for Hatter to see. Like a magician about to perform a magic trick, he showed Hatter the inside of his shirtsleeves-Nothing up my sleeves. Without further preliminary, he pressed a finger against the neck of an unsuspecting Onu.
“Aahaahaahaaaagh!”
The Onu writhed and squirmed. Blister kept the finger pressed against the bubbling flesh of his neck. “Aaaaaahaaaaaaghrgh!”
Blister at last pulled his finger away, the Onu sopping with sweat and exhausted from pain. He flicked open a knife, lowering its point toward the balloon-skin of the Onu’s swollen neck. Pop! Pus poured out of the wound and the Onu collapsed.
Blister grinned. “For me,” he said to Hatter, “weapons like yours are unnecessary. Although I’m no mediocrity when it comes to using them.”
Hatter again had recourse to his entire arsenal. Top hat blades, wrist-blades, belt sabers, backpack weaponry-all clashed against Blister’s pikes, pickets, and swords. But after an extended combination of slashing and twisting, Hatter found himself on the ground, cornered against an overturned table, Blister’s deadly index finger a chest hair’s length from his exposed heart.
Hatter raised a respectful eyebrow. Then- Flink!
Out sliced his belt sabers. Blister jumped back, laughing even though his finger was bleeding from a deep cut.
“What do I care if you chop it off? I have thirteen others.”
Again they sparred, Blister sometimes reverting to the more traditional weapons of swords and shooters to fend off Hatter’s aggression, other times relying solely on the threat of his touch.
“Ungh! Ungh!”
Hatter sent two C-shaped blades coptering toward him. The blades caught Blister’s hands, pinioned them to two poles supporting the tent. Hatter let two more blades fly and Blister’s feet were suddenly pinioned, his four limbs extended in the form of an X like a volunteer who has risked his life as the target of a knife thrower.
“Pretty good,” the bodyguard mumbled, as effusive as he’d ever be regarding the skill of another.
Hatter flung his top hat blades. Dink, dink, dink, dink! They ricocheted off Blister’s restraints, knocking them loose, and boomeranged back to him. Blister rubbed his wrists and shoved his hands into their long gloves. His finger was still bleeding.
Ripkins stepped out of the crowd at the bar. “Come with us if you want to save your daughter’s life,” he said.
CHAPTER 26
I N HER tent at Boarderland’s most exclusive retreat, the Lady of Diamonds was flexing her imagination under the guidance of a trainer, or enabler.
“You can’t imagine yourself able to fly and then-poof!-you’re flying,” the enabler was explaining. “But you can imagine wings on your body and, if they’re large enough, you’ll be able to fly by virtue of their motion. Like everything in our universe, imagination has its laws.”
Eyeing the modest swirl of imagination energy before her, the Lady of Diamonds didn’t seem to be listening. She was trying hard not to blink.
“Imagination’s laws have been gleaned from the study of the strongest, most talented imaginationists throughout history. A talented imaginationist can transform an inanimate object into a simple life form, such as a gwormmy. But for more complex creatures, such as doggerels of war or jabberwocky, even
the most talented can only create an illusion of them, not the actual life forms themselves. Therefore, when
I speak of conjurings, I am referring mainly to inanimate objects, to successfully complete which, you must first envision your chosen object in intricate detail. And this…” the enabler turned a doubtful eye on the Lady of Diamond’s hovering amoeba of imaginative energy, “…is what you should be doing now. First construct the object in your mind. The better you understand the object, the more knowledge you have of it, the more successful you’ll be. Which is why I wanted you to choose something you know well.”