warriors yanked hard on the coils
extending from the quills’ butt ends, and down came the wall.
The
Wonderlanders let loose with all the firepower they had, but the Gnobi rolled a death-ball into the storehouse. The rook and card soldiers had no defense against the melon-sized weapon. If they moved, it would sense them, and the holes on every gwormmy-length of its surface would spray out crystal buckshot with such speed and force that they’d be killed. Too bad then that a Three Card breathed a little too heavily. The death-ball fired off its rounds. The rook closed his eyes, expecting death, but the projectiles altered course, flying toward the Maldoids and Gnobi as if preferring the heat and breath of Boarderland bodies…
Haze was emanating from the Heart Crystal, fogging Alyss’ vision. She tried to fan it away. Then she sniffed and realized: smoke. The blue caterpillar was at her side, toking on his hookah and basking in the crystal’s glow as if to tan himself.
“Extraordinary,” Bibwit gasped. “Unprecedented. A caterpillar showing itself now?” “You will lose unless you court loss,” Blue said to Alyss. “Courting loss, though you still will not win, you may prevent victory.”
“What?!”
But Blue said no more, swallowed by a thick puff of hookah smoke. Projected on the smoke as on a screen, she saw Hatter unspooling luminescent thread for King Arch, who was sewing a web that held herself, Genevieve, and Theodora—three generations of Heart queens struggling fruitlessly to free themselves. Then Arch dissolved and Hatter was sewing the web, except that his intricate maneuverings of needle and thread produced holes, gaps that enabled Alyss, her mother, and grandmother to step clear of their bonds, morph into white butterflies, and flit away. “What’s it mean?” Bibwit asked when the images were gone, the hookah smoke drifting loosely toward the ceiling.
If he doesn’t know, how am I supposed to— Voices screeched from the speakers on the control desk and Bibwit consulted its viewing screens. “She’s set the doggerels loose,” he said But Alyss’ attention had been drawn to the palace gate where Dodge, impatient to engage The Cat, was leaving his men, venturing out alone into Wondertropolis toward the demarcation barrier. No, Dodge, no.
The doggerels were galloping into the densest part of the Everlasting Forest, disappearing from view. “They’ll soon be gnashing at the guardsmen around the palace.” Which just proves that even a tutor as learned as Bibwit could, at the worst possible times, not have a clue.
Wonderlanders let loose with all the firepower they had, but the Gnobi rolled a death-ball into the storehouse. The rook and card soldiers had no defense against the melon-sized weapon. If they moved, it would sense them, and the holes on every gwormmy-length of its surface would spray out crystal buckshot with such speed and force that they’d be killed. Too bad then that a Three Card breathed a little too heavily. The death-ball fired off its rounds. The rook closed his eyes, expecting death, but the projectiles altered course, flying toward the Maldoids and Gnobi as if preferring the heat and breath of Boarderland bodies…
Haze was emanating from the Heart Crystal, fogging Alyss’ vision. She tried to fan it away. Then she sniffed and realized: smoke. The blue caterpillar was at her side, toking on his hookah and basking in the crystal’s glow as if to tan himself.
“Extraordinary,” Bibwit gasped. “Unprecedented. A caterpillar showing itself now?” “You will lose unless you court loss,” Blue said to Alyss. “Courting loss, though you still will not win, you may prevent victory.”
“What?!”
But Blue said no more, swallowed by a thick puff of hookah smoke. Projected on the smoke as on a screen, she saw Hatter unspooling luminescent thread for King Arch, who was sewing a web that held herself, Genevieve, and Theodora—three generations of Heart queens struggling fruitlessly to free themselves. Then Arch dissolved and Hatter was sewing the web, except that his intricate maneuverings of needle and thread produced holes, gaps that enabled Alyss, her mother, and grandmother to step clear of their bonds, morph into white butterflies, and flit away. “What’s it mean?” Bibwit asked when the images were gone, the hookah smoke drifting loosely toward the ceiling.
If he doesn’t know, how am I supposed to— Voices screeched from the speakers on the control desk and Bibwit consulted its viewing screens. “She’s set the doggerels loose,” he said But Alyss’ attention had been drawn to the palace gate where Dodge, impatient to engage The Cat, was leaving his men, venturing out alone into Wondertropolis toward the demarcation barrier. No, Dodge, no.
The doggerels were galloping into the densest part of the Everlasting Forest, disappearing from view. “They’ll soon be gnashing at the guardsmen around the palace.” Which just proves that even a tutor as learned as Bibwit could, at the worst possible times, not have a clue.
The Glass Eyes had been programmed and were massed on the Boarderland side of the demarcation barrier, their ranks extending nearly the length of Outerwilderbeastia, when Redd came trundling up, riding high in her three-wheeled vehicle. Arch, Vollrath, and The Cat were onboard, seated beneath her. Alistaire and Siren marched behind with the tribes.