The Looking Glass Wars Read Free Page B

willing to forgive.
    Alyss was young, she needed to be taught. She might remind him of Redd in certain things, but he was confident that she wouldn‘t grow up to be like her. He wouldn‘t let it happen. Besides, he couldn‘t blame Alyss for needing to occupy herself somehow. There were hardly any children her age at the palace.
    He cast a last gaze about the gardens. The blue caterpillar had slithered off somewhere. Frog, the palace‘s internal messenger, was hopping about in his finest clothes, no doubt longing for some guest to entrust him with a message for another guest. Generals Doppel and Gänger were again in one body and they, or rather he, General Doppelgänger, was conversing with Sir Justice Anders, head of the palace guardsmen. Hatter Madigan, following the queen like a protective shadow, remained as unexpressive as ever.
    Bibwit retired to the library, where picture books from Alyss‘ earliest youth sat on shelves next to a ten-volume chronicle of the civil war, written from various points of view—the card soldiers who‘d fought on the front lines; members of the chessmen militia; General Doppelgänger and his sergeants; even Queen Genevieve herself. It came complete with lists of those killed in each of the battles and explanations of the strategies that had called for the sacrifice of Wonderlander lives. Bibwit took down the first volume of the chronicle and set it with the other books and papers he‘d collected for Alyss‘ lessons. The book contained a catalog of atrocities committed by Redd—torture, the slaughtering of prisoners, mass graves. The tutor had always viewed Redd‘s fall into the diabolical as his fault, a failure in her education.
    ―It‘s never too soon for a future queen to become familiar with the uglier contingencies of ruling a land,‖ he said to himself.

CHAPTER 4
    K ING NOLAN and his men left Outerwilderbeastia behind. They passed through a narrow stretch of the Everlasting Forest and were stampeding through the eastern edge of Wondertropolis, the most rural area of the capital, home to farmers and those favoring the quiet country life, when their spirit-danes stopped and reared up on their hind legs, agitated. Speckled across the tranquil landscape, looking harmless, and partly camouflaged by the day‘s lengthening shadows, were Redd‘s undealt card soldiers, lying flat one on top of another, each deck fifty-two soldiers thick, awaiting orders.
    ―Redd‘s decks are stacked.‖
    So whatever King Arch decided, it would no longer matter; Wonderland didn‘t have the luxury of waiting for his answer.
    ―We have to warn the palace,‖ said King Nolan.
    One of his men removed a looking glass communicator from his saddlebag and began tapping out a coded message on its keyboard. If the soldier had had time to hit the Send button, his message would have appeared on a crystal viewer in the Security Oversight Room of Heart Palace. But with a sound akin to the metal blades of scissors rapidly opening and closing, an unseen deck hidden in nearby underbrush fanned out and surrounded the king and his men. The air filled with adrenaline-induced war cries from Redd‘s soldiers, agony-infused moans from the throats of King Nolan‘s men. The looking glass communicator fell against a rock and shattered, its owner dead before the device hit the ground.
    The Wonderlanders were outnumbered five to one. At the center of the skirmish, slashing his sword this way and that, was King Nolan, still atop his trusted spirit-dane when a figure in a scarlet cloak passed through the fighting, untouched, and stabbed him through the heart with her pointed scepter.
    ―My queen…‖ he moaned, slumping into death, blood leaking from the corners of his mouth.
    ―My queen…‖

CHAPTER 5
    G OT HIM, I got him, I got him! A laughing Alyss left Bibwit Harte frowning at the half-eaten gwormmies in his hand and ran into the palace‘s Issa Room, where (finally!) she found Dodge Anders standing to attention,