Without riches, he could not help his parents escape the Crystal Mines, nor could he avoid the authorities for long. Not knowing what else to do, Jack of Diamonds sulked his way to the Whispering Woods and stood peering out at the card soldiers who patrolled the cliff overlooking the Pool of Tears.
“Why, why, whyeeee!” he moaned. “Why’d Arch have to ruin my life? What’d I ever do to him?” After a considerable time spent pulling his hair in disbelief over his reduced state, he sighed, “Here goes,” and made a break for it, running as fast as his flabby legs could carry him toward the cliff’s edge.
Strange. Here he was, a high-ranking escaped convict, and not only were the soldiers not trying to stop him, they didn’t even notice him, too intent on staring down at the Pool of Tears with their crystal shooters and AD52s at the ready. Jack slowed to a jog. Still no one noticed him. When he reached the edge of the cliff, he stopped. Together with the soldiers, he looked down at the bubbling, roiling water. Whirlpools were forming-first one, then another and another.
Someone was coming.
R EDD WAS in the Medieval Court at the Crystal Palace, reclining on a stone bench and flipping idly through the pages of Alice in Wonderland while she exercised her imagination; all around her translucent Redd Hearts performed knee bends, toe touches and hamstring stretches, but they were shooed into nonexistence when The Cat bounded in with a large burlap sack over his shoulder. Without so much as a meow, the feline assassin untied the sack and dumped its contents at his mistress’s feet. A man tumbled out, glancing wildly every which way and cowering as if he expected to be hit. At the sight of Redd, he hugged his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible, and began mumbling in constant
prayer.
“Are you Lewis Carroll?” Redd asked him. “I-I-I am Charles D-D-Dodgson.”
Redd’s eye twitched-a precursor to violence, as The Cat well knew. He pawed Dodgson in the back of the head. “Explain,” he ordered.
The Don of Mathematics at Christ Church college rubbed his head and spoke in a pout. “I am
Ch-Charles D-Dodgson, also known as L-L-L-Lewis C-Carroll, author of the volume y-you hold…in your hand.”
“So you can’t tell the truth even when it comes to your own name?” Redd said. “How perfect.” Circling him, studying him as if to be certain the timid creature before her could really be responsible for immortalizing her niece on Earth, she asked, “Do you know who I am?”
“A somewhat blurry woman w-wearing a desp-p-picable costume?”
Taking this as a compliment, Redd trounced about like a dame at her ball. “Yes, it’s horrendous, isn’t it?” Several roses snaked out from the thicket of the dress and directed their mouthy blooms at Dodgson. “I am Redd Heart. Did my niece ever mention me?”
“I have never met your n-niece.”
Redd laughed. “Mr. Dodgson, I think we have established that you are a gifted liar, both in person
and…” she thumped Alice in Wonderland, “…in print. Your talent is the reason I brought you here. Your talent and your ill-advised decision to write a book about Alyss Heart, which, doubly unfortunate for you, became popular in this bland world. But do not lie to me, you inconsequential man. You have met my niece and I will not allow myself to be eclipsed by her in Wonderland, on Earth, or anywhere else. You are going to write a book about me, Mr. Dodgson. You will immortalize me, just as you have immortalized Alyss. And my book had better sell more copies than that drivel you scribbled about her.”
“B-B-B-But I know nothing about you.”
“You will start by writing down anything my niece told you about her dear old aunt Redd. As for the rest…make it up.” Redd then turned to her lieutenants, who were lined up against a wall, waiting for when she might find them useful. “Mr. Van de Skulle, take my biographer here to the Greek Court, where he is to live until his manuscript meets with my approval. You’ll find the necessary writing instruments waiting for you,” she said to Dodgson. “You might notice that once you enter the court, thick bars will form on the doors and windows. But don’t worry yourself. They’re only there to prevent you from escaping.”
Shortly after Van de Skulle shoved Reverend Dodgson from the room-
“I’ve found one, Your Imperial Viciousness,” Vollrath said, breathlessly entering the court. “It’s not far from here, on Cockspur Street.”
Redd turned to her lieutenants. “Sacrenoir, you’re in charge until we return. As for recruits, I expect you to enlist only the worst of the worst-which, for my purposes, are the best. Alistaire, Siren, come with us.”
Out on Cockspur Street, pedestrians scattered like nervous rats as Redd marched at the head of
Vollrath, The Cat, Alistaire Poole, and Siren Hecht.
“There!” Vollrath said, pointing to a puddle where no puddle should have been-in the window display of a stationer’s shop.
Without slowing or hesitation, Redd shattered the window, stepped into the stationer’s display and dropped into the puddle.
Sfoosh!
She was sucked down and out of sight. Vollrath, The Cat, Alistaire, and Siren quickly followed. If the eardrum-popping descent through the multidimensional waters had any effect on Redd, she showed no sign of it. Her face was firm, expressionless, and she kept her eyes wide open as she torpedoed deeper and deeper…
Then came the brief suspension in the lightless depths, and the portal’s reverse gravity began to take effect, drawing Redd and her underlings up with increasing speed until-
Sploosh! Fablash! Splashaaa!
They exploded out of the Pool of Tears into the open air. Instantly, razor-cards were slicing down around them, muzzlefuls of crystal shot whizzing past their heads. Before Redd splashed back into the water, she was spinning, her arms held out to either side, orb generators spraying out from the tips of her fingers.
Waboooshkkktsh! Ba-ba-booozzzztshchkshkchtt!
The last of the enemy’s crystal shot whistled past. The card soldiers patrolling the Pool of Tears were no more.
“They’ll know we’re coming,” Vollrath said, bobbing in the water.
“No, they won’t.” Redd had, by the power of her imagination, routed to the void every warning the soldiers had tried to send to General Doppelganger on their crystal communicators.
On dry land, The Cat hissed at the pool and shook the detestable wet from his fur. Redd, being in the same dimension as the Heart Crystal, felt stronger than she had in a long time. She gestured violently, and the not-so-distant white noise Alistaire and Siren had been hearing ceased.
“The Whispering Woods,” The Cat said.
“There’ll be no whispering about me,” Redd declared. “Alyss is not to know of my return until I pass through my Looking Glass Maze, by which time Sacrenoir better have amassed the Earth army I’ll need to battle her forces, or he’ll wind up as a midnight snack for his skeletons.”
“But they’ll know we’ve come,” Vollrath said again.
Redd looked at him as if she might rip the tongue from his head.
“The caterpillars,” the scholar clarified. “Being able to see into the past and the future, they’ll know we’ve come and why.”
The Cat brushed at his whiskers. “Back when Her Imperial Viciousness was last in power,” he remembered, “she ordered us to destroy those outdated worms, but every time we tried, they saw us coming and slithered off to wherever outdated worms go when they want to be safe.”