Bargain price

CHAPTER 47

E MERALD DRIVE was one of the oldest streets in the capital. In Genevieve’s time and before, it had been a grand thoroughfare of upscale shops and restaurants, but the wealthy and privileged gradually moved elsewhere as the surrounding streets became havens for looter gangs, imagination-stimulant manufacturers, and Wonderlanders engaged in other illicit but profitable employment. The squalor had at last reached its fingers into Emerald Drive itself, and the once-celebrated promenade was now indistinguishable from the scum-heavy streets around it.

At scattered points along the drive’s ruined glory, the homeless warmed themselves around pits glowing with fire crystals, their mumbled conversations brought to a pause by the sight of a strange array of Wonderlanders approaching a shop that hadn’t been open for business in many lunar cycles.

“ZZLES ” was all that remained of the sign that had once declared the shop’s wares. Its massive front door, through which two spirit-danes could have easily passed side by side, was locked. The single front window was covered with dust and revealed nothing. Dodge pounded on the door.

“I doubt anyone’s in,” General Doppelganger said.

Bibwit’s ears twitched. “I hear trouble.” Paler than usual, the tutor removed a sword from beneath his robe and gripped it with two hands.

It wasn’t long before they all heard it. The dark sky turned darker as Redd’s moon was eclipsed by a screaming swarm of seekers.

The homeless Wonderlanders scattered as kreeeeech!-the seekers attacked. Dodge, Alyss, Bibwit, and the general slashed at the creatures with their swords while Hatter sent his top-hat blades into the thick of them. Thimp thimp thimp! Thimp thimp thimp! The blades sliced through the flock, wounding and killing several, and returned to him. Molly flicked her own hat flat and used it as both shield and offensive weapon, digging its sharpened edges into the alien creatures when they shot toward her out of the sky with their hungry insect mouths.

“Aah!”

One of them swiped Dodge on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground and sending his sword clanking out of reach. The seeker circled, was coming in for the kill with its talons drawn when someone kicked Dodge’s sword back to him.

“Seek this!” Dodge hissed through clenched jaw, stabbing the beast. He rolled away from the creature as it writhed in its death throes, saw the rook and white knight battling alongside him, together with a small platoon of surviving chessmen.

“Hope you don’t mind us always showing up unannounced like this,” the rook said. “We followed the seekers,” explained the white knight.

Next to each other now, standing, Dodge and the rook whirled, aiming their swords skyward just in time

for an attacking seeker to impale itself on them and perish with a hideous howl. A division of Redd’s Cut appeared at the end of Emerald Drive. A few of the card soldiers were armed with AD52s-automatic dealers capable of shooting razor-sharp projectiles the size and shape of ordinary playing cards at the rate of fifty-two per second. Hardly had the soldiers rounded the corner and spotted the Alyssians when a Four Card let loose with a spray of razor-cards.

“Incoming!” General Doppelganger shouted.

The Alyssians dropped facedown in the street, all except Alyss and Homburg Molly, who flattened themselves against the front of the puzzle shop as the first of the razor-cards sliced past. Hatter jumped in front of them and, with his wrist-blades activated and his arms moving in a blur, knocked the rest of the razor-cards to the ground.

Another round of AD52 fire quickly followed, but this time Alyss closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and the deadly cards passed overhead and to either side. The Alyssians were in an invisible, protective bubble courtesy of Alyss’ imagination. Zipping overhead, the razor-cards cut into many of the seekers, the beasts’ lifeless bodies raining down around the Alyssians and landing with a splat on the pavement.

With Redd’s Cut closing in, Hatter hurled his top-hat blades at the puzzle shop window. Hitting the glass, the blades rotated and cut a hole large enough for Alyss to fit through.

“Go!” he shouted.

General Doppelganger split into Generals Doppel and Ganger, swords held at the ready.

Dodge glared at the advancing card soldiers, his words directed at Alyss: “We’ll keep them busy. You just find the maze.”

But there are too many. Even with the chessmen, we’re outnumbered. Homburg Molly tugged at her sleeve.

No choice. No choice but to go.

Before Alyss followed Molly into the shop, she imagined the AD52s plugged up, useless, and could only hope her imagining had been successful, because she didn’t wait around to find out. She dived through the window into the shop.

As was perhaps appropriate for any shop specializing in the sale of puzzles and games, this one was itself built in the shape of a puzzle. Hand-crafted bookshelves were arranged to form a simple maze. Alyss and Homburg Molly ran up and down the narrow passages but found nothing. Every shelf was bare. They began toppling bookcases, opening every cabinet, trapdoor, and dummy window they came across.

“What are we looking for?” Molly yelled.

Alyss could barely hear her over the battle noise from outside. “I don’t know!” But then a bluish twinkle, a wink of colored light, caught her eye. She looked up and saw it: on the edge of the tallest bookcase in the shop, a glowing crystal cube.

“Up there!” “I’ll get it!”

Molly didn’t climb more than halfway up the bookcase before it tilted, started to fall. She jumped to the ground, scurrying out of harm’s way, but the crystal cube was in the air, falling hard and fast.

“Nooooo!” Alyss screamed.

The princess leaped, arms outstretched, as the bookcase crashed to the ground and splintered apart. But she’d caught it; the crystal cube was safe. Alyss turned it over in her hands, looking for a clue as to how

it worked. What am I supposed to-? Kabooooooorrrchk!

The shop door imploded and, still holding on to the radiant cube, Alyss fell back through a looking glass painted to appear like part of a wall. The fighting had spilled into the shop. But floating weightless inside the looking glass, Wonderland’s rightful princess saw the battle scene freeze, stopped in time. There was Dodge with his sword raised, attacking a Two Card. There was Hatter in midair, the saber blades of his belt open to fight three card soldiers at once (a pair of Fours and a Two). There were the generals, come to help Bibwit, who had somehow lost hold of his sword. And there was Homburg Molly, staring

wide-eyed at the spot where the princess had fallen through the looking glass. Alyss saw it all as if through a watery film, and despite the mortal threat she and the Alyssians were facing, despite the uncertainty of everything, she felt almost serene as she drifted down into the Looking Glass Maze.