“There’s always Buckingham Palace.”
“Beneath me,” Redd had scorned. “I won’t acknowledge their ‘queen’ by taking over her hovel.” “Then you’ll no doubt find the mansions of their dukes and duchesses beneath you.”
“No doubt.”
“There is another possibility,” Vollrath had said. “It’s an enormous structure, predominantly of iron and glass, the size of which suggests to many the strength of a mighty empire as well as boundless imagination. They say it houses the marvels of the age, from steam hammers, hydraulic presses, firearms, furniture, pianos, pottery, perfumes, diving suits, fabrics, and-”
“Enough!” Redd had commanded. “I expect nothing great from Earth imaginations, but to shut you up, I
will suffer you to take me there.”
The Crystal Palace was located on Sydenham Hill in the south of London, an Erector set of elaborate ironwork and 350,000 square yards of glass panels. But its palatial courts-examples of technological progress and human ingenuity-were almost overshadowed by its painstakingly landscaped parks, their terraces and gardens complete with waterfalls and man-made lakes in the center of which jets of water shot twenty feet into the air.
“What do you think?” Vollrath had asked as they stood by the Lower Lakes whose grounds were home to statues of actual-sized dinosaurs.
“Eh,” Redd had grunted. “I suppose it’ll have to do.”
It was Sunday, the Crystal Palace closed to the public. Much to the disappointment of Redd’s soldiers, aside from a few broken windows and a scuffle or two with lonely security guards, they had commandeered the palace without incident. And it was now, as Her Imperial Viciousness was passing through the Italian Court, that she glimpsed her reflection in a bit of decorative glass-a charismatic and (she thought) crystal-genic leader stuffed into an unflattering Earth dress. With a dismissive sweep of her arm, thread became rose vines, the weave of silk became rose vines, frills of lace became rose blossoms whose petal-mouths opened and closed, clacking their teeth.
The Cat sprang off Redd’s shoulder and morphed into a humanoid assassin, which caused a murmur of awe to pass among those recruits who’d never seen him at his most dangerous.
“Earth’s high society will have to contend with us in earnest now,” Redd said. “Good,” purred The Cat.
Redd might have declared her entrance to Earth society official on Sunday, but it wasn’t until Monday that Earth society learned of it. Palace employees-cashiers, ticket takers, tour guides, and security
guards-showed up for work that morning as usual, but instead of the customary church-like quiet, they found Redd’s soldiers roaming about amidst shattered glass, broken statues, smashed furnishings, and decimated art. The sight of Redd’s horde was enough to make even the most courageous ticket taker go whey-faced and run, but when Redd and The Cat themselves appeared, attracted by the sound of troops terrorizing fresh victims, the more fragile among them took one look at the queen’s ghastly visage and the assassin’s glinting claws and fainted where they cowered. A fleet of bobbies arrived. But sighting the motley trespassers, none of the officers charged forth with the bravery they might have displayed against
a more recognizable enemy.
“Who are these foolish-looking men with their round hats?” Redd smirked. “They’ve nothing but clubs for weapons.”
To exercise her imagination more than anything else, she flicked her fingers at them. Thimp, thimp thimp thimp! The bobbies felt the sting of scatter shot through their uniforms, against their flesh; not the usual scatter shot of steel or metal balls, but pennies. Paper money began to rain down from the ceiling. The bobbies stuffed their pockets as fast as they could and ran from the palace. The authorities were powerless; Redd and her followers would not be dislodged from their new abode.
Men from the press soon ventured to Sydenham Hill, risking their lives to interview the woman who could conjure storms of money at will.
“Yes, let them inform the pathetic public that Redd Heart has come,” Her Imperial Viciousness said when
Vollrath explained what they wanted. “I have allowed myself to wallow in anonymity long enough.”
Whenever a new article was printed in the newspapers, Redd took her pet assassin out for a stroll, amusing herself with the chaos she and The Cat caused-Londoners fleeing in every direction at the sight of them.
She organized her troops along conventional hierarchical lines, the least talented divided into companies of fifty-two, each company captained by a recruit with greater imaginative gifts than those beneath her. The captains reported to battalion commanders more gifted than they. Each commander had five captains reporting to her while they themselves reported to the most gifted recruits, those who reported directly to Redd. Among this last, powerful rank was Baroness Dvonna, who had a talent for draining imagination from young and inexperienced Earth children not yet in full control of their abilities, leaving them forever lethargic, withered, glum. How this talent might fare against Wonderlanders was unclear, but Redd enjoyed the fact that the woman had littered Earth with a generation of sourpuss children. Plus, the baroness had a great many of these children under her control and, if nothing else, they could be thrown on the front line against Alyss’ forces.
Redd’s top military rank also included Alistaire Poole, a self-taught surgeon-cum-undertaker with a penchant for performing autopsies on people not in the least dead. His weapons of choice were scalpel and bone saw. There was Siren Hecht, an ex-Wonderlander whose imaginative gift lay in her ability to imagine her voice into such shrill, piercing registers that bank managers would fall to the ground, writhing with pain, while she helped herself to their vaults. And rounding out Redd’s crew of direct reports: the Marquis and Marquise X from the Basque region of Spain who, unfortunately for the local goatherds, were adept in hypnosis and occult spells; Mr. Van de Skulle, a slave trader originally from the Dutch
West Indies who’d made a menace of himself during America’s civil war and was particularly skilled with a spike-tipped whip; and, of course, Sacrenoir.
Whereas this crowd of elite Black Imaginationists had been wooed into Redd’s service by Vollrath, those who made up the lower ranks-foot soldiers, grunts-traveled from all over the world for an opportunity to line up before Her Imperial Viciousness, subjecting themselves to her inspection and
interrogation. Twice a week, Redd enlisted new recruits from this mass of hopefuls, passing before each of them while Vollrath related his or her particular talents.
“As you know, Your Imperial Viciousness,” the tutor explained one night, “most imaginationists are good at a single thing only, as an ordinary Wonderlander might be gifted in math but not poetry. Take this one here.” Redd and the tutor were standing before a sunken-chested man whose tattered clothes and unruly beard made him look as if he’d just been rescued from a deserted isle. “This former Wonderlander can do nothing but shoot pellets from his elbows.”
“His elbows?” Redd frowned. “Show me.”
The man bent his arms and, after a moment of concentration, tiny disks zipped out from his bony elbows and plunked against the wall.
“Tsst,” Redd said, unmoved. She made her choices. The perimeter of the room was suddenly lined with soldiers and, with Vollrath and her commanders at her heels, she started for the exit, calling out, “As for the rest of you…good-bye!” By the time she convened with The Cat in the hall, the rejects-including the elbow shooter-had been summarily dispatched.