Bargain price

CHAPTER 55

G ENERAL DOPPEL was the first to recover himself. He saw Dodge sitting on the floor, panting, covered in blood-his own and The Cat’s. “Call a surgeon!”

“Not necessary, sir. Oh no. I’m here and I have just the thing.” The walrus-butler stepped over dead Glass Eyes and waddled across the room carrying a kit that contained a glowing rod to clean wounds and stop their bleeding, a sleeve of interconnected NRG nodes and fusing cores, and a spool of

lab-grown skin with laser cauterizer. The walrus bowed to Alyss, pleased that fate had granted him the occasion. “I welcome your return most heartily, Queen Alyss,” he said.

That brought Alyss around. No one had ever called her “Queen” before.

The walrus began ministering to Dodge’s wounds. Expressionless, Dodge stared at the Heart Crystal. Impossible to know what he’s thinking. Has vengeance been served or-

There came a sudden disturbance at the ballroom’s entrance as the Lord and Lady of Diamonds, the Lord and Lady of Clubs, and the Lord and Lady of Spades pushed their way through the gathered chessmen and hurried up to Alyss with looks of great relief.

“We heard such a commotion,” said the Lady of Diamonds, “and when it stopped, we came as fast as we could, hardly daring to hope-”

“Your victory fulfills our deepest hopes for the queendom,” finished the Lord of Spades.

“Yes,” the Lady of Diamonds went on, “absolutely. It has been horrid-the tyranny we’ve suffered at the hands of that woman!”

“Redd has kept us hostage, Queen Alyss,” offered the Lady of Clubs. “Is that so?” Alyss said with a doubting look at Bibwit.

“Well, our bodies weren’t held hostage so much as our minds,” said the Lady of Clubs. “If we didn’t obey Redd as every Wonderlander had to, we would have been sent to the Crystal Mines.”

“And I’m ashamed to say,” said the Lady of Diamonds, “that we Diamonds, a titled family dating back to the earliest epochs, were treated the most poorly by the former queen.”

“You?!” guffawed the Lord of Clubs. “My wife and I certainly suffered more than any of your clan, and I

daresay-”

“Say nothing but the truth, why don’t you?” interrupted the Lady of Spades. “If anyone can claim the title of the most abused under Redd, I think it is my husband and I.”

The lords and ladies began talking all at once, arguing about who had been the worst off under Redd’s rule, until Alyss put a finger to her lips-shhh-and they fell silent.

“As soon as circumstances allow, a tribunal will be established to determine whether you behaved honorably during Redd’s reign or whether you are, in fact, guilty of war crimes,” Alyss said.

“War crimes?” spluttered the Lady of Spades.

The white knight and his pawns surrounded the suit families.

“But the one who is perhaps most guilty is not here,” said Bibwit Harte.

“You mean this fellow?” It was the rook. All heads turned to see him leading Jack of Diamonds into the room. “I found him holed up in a wardrobe, avoiding all the fun.”

“Unhand me, you…you chessman!” Jack shook himself free of the rook, straightened his waistcoat with a tug, patted his wig, and bowed to Alyss. “Queen Alyss, I have done nothing but try to serve you to the best of my ability. I risked my life to infiltrate this fortress on your behalf. Long reign White Imagination!”

The walrus had by this time finished tending to Dodge, who limped up to Jack of Diamonds. Without a word, he removed the key to the Looking Glass Maze from the portly man’s pocket.

“How’d that get there?” Jack asked falteringly.

“How could you, Jack?” the Lady of Diamonds gasped. “Shame! Oh, shame!”

“What deceit from our only son!” the Lord of Diamonds lamented, although he and his wife had both known about Jack’s activities.

Alyss pointed at Jack’s feet and a building bomb exploded there, erecting a mini-prison around him. In the thrust and parry of battle, Redd’s crown had fallen on the floor. Bibwit picked it up.

“Walrus, if you please-” “Oh, I do!” said the walrus.

“-polish this and make it ready for Alyss’ coronation.”

The tutor then turned to the young queen. There was little he could teach Alyss Heart that life-experience hadn’t already taught her. She was gazing thoughtfully at the Heart Crystal.

“Alyss?”

“What will happen? Should we send someone after them?”

Bibwit considered his answer for a long time before speaking. “Redd as we knew her may no longer exist. But just as when an invention passes into the crystal to inspire imaginations on other worlds, so her spirit will certainly pass down and remain for all time an animating force. Jumping into the crystal has

made her immortal. As to what forms she may take in the future, I can’t presume to say. But I do fear for the universe.”

Alyss said nothing, lost in thought.

“Now…for the family that nurtured you in that other world.” “Yes?”

“Something tells me that they are worried about their missing daughter.” Bibwit’s ears twitched mischievously. “Understand that I’m just an extremely learned albino and you needn’t listen to me, but I suggest you conjure an Alice Liddell of genuine flesh and blood and personality. Birth your twin with the fertility of your imagination and send her to live out the life that is no longer yours.”

“But how? Am I…capable?”

Bibwit smiled. Perhaps there were things he could still teach Alyss after all. “Look around you,” he said. “Look at what you’ve accomplished. I would have thought you’d learned by now that you’re capable of anything.”

At his instruction, Alyss placed her hands on the crystal and- Pop! Zzzz!

– a burst of white light, everyone covered their eyes, and standing at the center of it, locked in a synergic hug with the crystal, Alyss imagined the billions of life-giving particles that made up Alice Liddell-the cells of her blood, the pores of her skin-until somewhere outside Oxford, England, a grown woman leaped from what appeared to be an ordinary puddle, surprising a thirsty goose.

After weeks of residing in London at Prince Leopold’s expense, the Liddells had arrived back in Oxford. They were sitting down to supper when Alice let herself in the front door. To a background of gasps and exclamations of relief, amazement, joy, and every other positive emotion that Alice’s miraculous return could give rise to, she told of how she had escaped from her captors (a gang of Scottish stevedores looking to blackmail the royal family, she claimed), a feat which she herself pooh-poohed as nothing very astonishing.

In Alice’s absence, and having convinced himself that he would never see her again, Prince Leopold had fallen in love with another-Princess Helen of Waldeck. Alice proved less upset than her mother by Leopold’s new love. In a matter of years, she would marry a man better suited to her station in life-Reginald Hargreaves, treasurer at her father’s college. Prince Leopold and Princess Helen would wed soon afterwards.

For as long as they lived, Alice and the prince harbored an affection for each other. And perhaps in memory of their near union, Alice named her firstborn child Leopold, and the prince named his firstborn daughter Alice. All involved lived contentedly ever after, except perhaps Mrs. Liddell, who liked Reginald Hargreaves decently enough, but oh, how splendid it would have been if only Alice had married a prince!