Wonderland’s culture was still noticeable. Redd had rewarded the worst in them. Their
narrow-mindedness, selfishness, and pessimism had flourished at the expense of kindness, generosity, and goodwill toward others-the fundamental principles of White Imagination. General Doppelganger insisted on retaining peace-keeping contingents throughout the city, and at least once between every rising of the world’s twin suns, a Wonderlander would approach one of these to report a parent or neighbor for treason.
Arch was right about one thing. Never mind contending with forces outside one’s borders, there will always be enough trouble dealing with disruptive elements from within.
“It’s just…peace really isn’t so peaceful,” Alyss sighed.
Whether Dodge was annoyed by her conversation or the plea for sympathy in her tone, she didn’t know;
he changed the subject. “How’s Molly working out?” “Fine.”
He twisted his features into a doubtful expression.
“What? She’s better than fine. Great, really. We all know how skilled and courageous-” “It’s not her skills and courage I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s her maturity.”
Alyss almost laughed. Here she was, twenty years old, having passed through the Looking Glass Maze and defeated her evil aunt so as to govern the queendom in the name of White Imagination, yet she hardly felt more mature than when she used to play harmless pranks on Bibwit-turning his food into a plate of gwormmies or imagining a thick bushel of hair on his powdered head. Sure, she was more powerful than she used to be. Her strength came easily and she could feel it tingling every nerve. But maturity? What
was that?
“It gives Molly confidence to hold the position,” she said. “Besides, I know what it’s like to exist in two worlds as a halfer does, being neither wholly one thing nor another. And most of the time, I like to have her around.”
Dodge bowed. “Then I must trust Molly to keep the most beautiful of queens safe.”
Alyss looked at him. He’d never been so direct with his affections before. “You think I’m beautiful?” “So-so,” he joked. “I know of this other queen a few nations over…”
She slapped him playfully on the arm. Tell him you love him, that his being the son of a palace guardsman doesn’t matter if he still loves you as you hope. But when Alyss found her voice, she was surprised at what came out.
“Do you think Hatter might have gone to Earth?”
The moment for confessions of the heart had passed. Wonderland’s queen and the leader of her palace guard stared out over Wondertropolis, their feelings for each other too big for utterance, neither of them knowing that wherever Hatter had gone, they would need him soon.
CHAPTER 6
B OARDERLAND: WHERE women could be given away by their husbands to pay debts, and young, rowdy gallants from Wonderland, fresh from the rigors of formal education, came to indulge themselves in roving pleasure tents; where maps were useless because the nation consisted wholly of nomadic
camps, settlements, towns and cities, and a visitor might find the country’s capital, Boarderton, situated in the cool shadows of the Glyph Cliffs one day but spread out along Fortune Bay the next.
King Arch’s domain was a sprawling place with large tracts of unpopulated land to traverse between nomadic settlements. Often, it happened that after an evening of revelry a visiting Wonderlander would fall into a heavy, wine-induced sleep and fail to be roused by the packing up of tents and equipages, the folding up of street signs and storefront displays, the snorting of laden spirit-danes. When he woke, he’d find himself alone and unsheltered in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the tents of the settlement in which he’d caroused the previous night would be visible on the horizon, but no matter how quickly he traveled toward them, they would remain forever on the horizon, an oasis. For further Boarderland companionship, he could only hope that another settlement would cross his path in its ceaseless wandering.
It was a tribal land, and except for clashes, every tribe kept to itself-self-contained and, as King Arch would inform certain of his guests, to a small extent, self-governing.
“I let them do what they wish in trivial matters such as healing rituals and marriage ceremonies,” he would explain. “I even let them choose their own leaders. But only so long as they acknowledge me as their king. And only so long as they abide by my edicts in several other important matters.”
To prevent the Astacans, Awr, and other Boarderland tribes from forgetting these edicts, Arch had had them carved, blasted, scorched, chiseled, and branded into the landscape.
Carved in a great slab of rock alongside the Bookie River: Boarderland men do not cry when watching sentimental crystal-vision programs with their wives. Boarderland men do not watch sentimental
crystal-vision programs with their wives.
Blasted into the otherwise smooth face of a Glyph Cliff: Boarderland men can take as many wives as they’re pleased to enjoy, being more intelligent than women of every nation, country, world, and universe known or unknown.
Chiseled into the jetty in Fortune Bay: Boarderland men do not talk about their feelings. Boarderland men do not whine or complain. Boarderland men never show weakness or vulnerability, nor admit to having either.
Branded on sun-bleached rocks amid the undulant sands of Duneraria: Boarderland men are fixed in their convictions, from which no feminine argument can sway them. If a Boarderland man changes his convictions, he does so at his whim, not by the consideration of a wife’s views.
With row after row of military tent-barracks, open-air markets and restaurants, promenades of
dry-goods stalls, avenues of housing for intel ministers and other officials, countless servant canopies and its own pleasure-tent district, Arch’s royal entourage was a city unto itself. His palace, always positioned at the center of his encampment, consisted of fifteen interconnected, pastel-colored tents whose billowy
walls were made of materials more plush and smooth than any velvet, silk, or velour found on Earth. Having snaked its way across the wind-sculpted dunes of Duneraria toward the Bookie River, then through the Swampy Woods of Chance, Arch’s convoy had made camp within sight of RollingDoubles Mound. And if not for the edict he’d ordered scorched into the side of the mound in letters twice his own height, and which was visible to him now-Boarderland men eat their food with passion and with an urgency that signifies their virility-Arch would have doubted that one of his present guests was a man.
“Delicious,” Jack of Diamonds said through a mouthful of crunchy gryphon wing.
Freshly bathed and dressed, emitting a scent too flowery to be called manly, the scion of the Diamond clan sat between his parents, shoveling food into his mouth with the eagerness of two men.
A servant girl entered carrying a platter of conical-shaped treats, with what looked like tiny antennas poking out of them, their pointed ends charred.