Again, Redd laughed. “Not another minute. I’m off to the Valley of Mushrooms.”
“Well then,” Arch said, “let me provide you with an escort to the border, both military and pleasurable, consisting as it will of soldiers and chefs. You don’t need the military help, I know, but it pleases me to offer it.”
One of the intel ministers hurried from the tent to assemble the escort.
Adopting a more intimate tone, Arch stepped closer to Redd and said, “I have Boarderland more thoroughly under control than I once did. After you are again ruling your nation, I hope we can see more of each other.”
“Oh, Archy warchy,” Redd said in a grotesque approximation of tenderness, “we will see more of each other, I swear it.”
Redd and her assassins had been escorted out of the Doomsine encampment, and though Ripkins and Blister were still several blocks away, trying to wrestle out from under Redd’s iron weights, the intel ministers had reconvened in Arch’s tent.
“Is it really wise,” a minister asked, “to try and befriend such a one as Redd?”
“I lose nothing by pretending it,” Arch said, “whereas I risk everything if I don’t. As long as she lives, Redd will cause serious trouble for whoever possesses the Heart Crystal.”
Unseen by the king or his ministers, a shadow flitted past the tent’s entrance, a shadow belonging to someone about to enter but who stopped suddenly when Arch asked, “Homburg Molly is secure?”
“As ever, my liege.”
Moments ticked away as Arch schemed in silence. Then-
“If I had to bet,” he said, “I’d bet that Redd may yet turn out to be stronger than her niece.” “But even her strength,” one of the ministers offered, “maze or no maze, is nothing compared to
WILMA.”
Arch nodded. “It’s sooner than I’d like to put Hatter to my purpose. I wanted to string him along awhile, make him desperate for Molly’s life and weaken whatever rebellious resolves he has in his head. But Redd makes it necessary to take action now.”
The shadow at the tent’s entrance disappeared, the eavesdropper secreting away. “Bring Hatter Madigan to me,” Arch ordered. “It’s time he met WILMA.”
CHAPTER 35
P RETENDING TO be out for a stroll, Hatter passed through bazaars, promenades, and food courts, well-to-do and not so well-to-do neighborhoods, scanning the various scenes with a trained eye and hoping for some evidence of Molly’s whereabouts. He made these excursions whenever possible, sometimes with Weaver at his side, though she thought they were simply a means for him to better familiarize himself with life in Boarderland.
An intel minister whose duty was to keep Hatter under constant surveillance approached. “The king requires your presence,” he said.
Hatter fell in step with the Doomsine and was soon seated in the royal tent, Arch pacing back and forth before his usual pack of intel ministers.
“As Queen Alyss’ bodyguard-” the king began.
“Homburg Molly is the queen’s bodyguard, Your Majesty,” Hatter said.
Arch smiled. “Yes, I forgot. You’re with us now. As the former bodyguard then, of both Queen Genevieve and Queen Alyss, you have privileged access to every gwormmy-length of the queendom-more privileged perhaps than anyone except Bibwit Harte or Alyss herself-and you can
travel anywhere within Wonderland’s borders without attracting suspicion. For obvious reasons, I could not have recruited Alyss for the task I’m about to assign you, and Bibwit Harte is not physically capable of performing it. You are the only Wonderlander with both the access my task requires and the Millinery skill to accomplish it.” To his ministers, he commanded, “Give it to him.”
Hatter was handed a skein of thread wrapped in cloth.
“What you now hold,” Arch said, “is silk from Wonderland’s green caterpillar-oracle, in total weight equal to that of a gwynook’s wing. You are to return to Heart Palace with it. Once there, you are to
scale the palace’s tallest spire. At the top, you won’t fail to recognize my Weapon of Inconceivable Loss and Massive Annihilation. You are to weave the entirety of green silk onto the weapon in this pattern.” Arch handed the Milliner a pocket holo-crystal, which showed what looked like the center of an Earth spider’s web. “You must follow the pattern exactly. If, for any reason, you fail in what I ask of you, if you tell anyone what you’re about, neither you, Weaver, nor anybody else will ever see Homburg Molly alive again. Once the mission is complete, you’re to contact me immediately. But there is a time limit. If I have not heard from you after two revolutions of the Thurmite moon, you will never afterwards hear from your daughter.” Arch glanced at his wrist, on which there was no timepiece. “Now, Mr. Madigan, I suggest you get going.”
Suspecting that he’d be under surveillance so long as he remained within Arch’s borders, Hatter passed into Wonderland before giving over all pretense of carrying out the king’s mission, hiding in the brittle scrub of Outerwilderbeastia and waiting until the last traveler had proceeded through the official crossing. As soon as the card soldiers were alone, he shrugged daggers from his backpack and flung them at one of the demarcation barrier’s pylons.
Clank! Clunk clang!
The soldiers whirled, at the ready. Hatter sprinted up behind them and, with his bare hands, rendered them unconscious before a single one glimpsed him. On the Boarderland side of the barrier: five guards.
Fthap!
Hatter’s top hat was flattened into spinning blades and he was about to eliminate the guards when he realized: A disturbance might alert Arch. Better to leave as little trace of his reentry into Boarderland as possible.
Remaining on the Wonderland side of the demarcation barrier, Hatter walked two hundred paces in the direction of the Valley of Mushrooms, then activated the blades on his right wrist and pushed them into the ground. Dirt and clay and pebbles churned loose. He pushed the rotating blades deeper and deeper into the ground, using his left hand to clear away the debris until he had tunneled under the demarcation barrier and emerged on the Boarderland side. He made the fastest time he could back to Arch’s camp, approaching from the direction of the setting suns so that he would be unrecognizable, a silhouette, to any Boarderlander who happened to spot him. Within a hectare of the camp, he took his top hat from his
head, flattened it with a jerk of the wrist, and folded the blades into a compact stack, which he secured in the inside pocket of his coat. He then slipped off his coat and buried it with his backpack, marking the
site with a melon-sized rock scarred by a spin of his wrist-blades.
Hatter glanced up at the sky. Already half a revolution of the Thurmite moon had passed and he wasn’t even back where he’d started. But he proved lucky. Entering the Doomsine encampment, he came across a load of washing on a clothesline and made away with the loose-fitting pants, many-pocketed blouse, and hooded coat favored by day laborers: necessary camouflage, because if anyone recognized
him, he and his daughter were dead.
CHAPTER 36
W HEREAS OTHERS would have stood gazing down upon the valley in silent awe at the gigantic, multicolored mushrooms and remarked that even the quality of the valley’s light seemed more vibrant than it did anywhere else, Redd started the final descent into the caterpillars’ habitat without pause or murmur. Vollrath, The Cat, Siren, and Alistaire tramped after her-Siren and Alistaire muting their
amazement at a vista unlike any they had ever seen, The Cat stewing in worry because the valley had fully recovered from the devastation his mistress had ordered in her first months as Wonderland’s queen. It wasn’t supposed to have recovered and Redd might punish him.