Alice In Chains by Adriana Arden Read Free Book Online

signal when you meet and you will then wait for me to join you. Together we will gain the Crown before the Alabastrines can counter my move.’
    ‘Excuse me, Mistress, but I thought you could not move about the Boardland any more.’
    A brief flicker of doubt passed across the Queen’s face. ‘It will not be easy,’ she admitted, ‘and will require a great expenditure of power. But the journey will be made easier if I have a pawn in place to guide me. You have the ability to pass between worlds. It should enable you to move freely between the game squares as the natives do. But that gift will be most valuable in helping me penetrate the last and most obstinate barrier surrounding the Crown, one which I understand even the natives cannot cross. Remember, if you help win me the Crown, I will cure your affliction.’
    ‘Thank you, Mistress,’ Alice said.
    She was not sure how far she could trust the Queen, but at the moment it was the best chance she had. And even if the quest failed she would be down in the Boardland where she might be able find a more conventional remedy.
    ‘Speed of travel is not as essential as secrecy,’ the Queen warned her. ‘The enemy must not learn of your mission. But most important of all, beware the White Queen! She is a dangerous and powerful witch! Now there is the path down to the Boardland,’ she said, pointing to what was hardly more than a narrow furrow that zigzagged down the hillside. ‘Go, knowing my hand and eye will always be upon you!’
    And for a queen you’re pretty witchy yourself, Alice thought as she began to make her way carefully down the hill. That was not a blessing but a warning. But how had she come by the power to use sympathetic magic on the voodoo doll principle? Perhaps it was the myth and fairytale influence on Underland. Queens in those stories often started dabbling in magic. As the regimented order of the chess game faded perhaps another more flexible force took its place. And queens always were the most powerful pieces on the board.
    Alice was near the bottom of the hill when something that had been niggling at her subconscious mind finally surfaced.
    The chessboard in the Queen’s tent. She had seen it in passing several times last night and that morning, and there had been something odd about it. Now she knew what it was, but it made nonsense out of the game. There were no kings left in play.

Three
    AS THE SLOPE at the bottom of the hill flattened into level ground, Alice came upon the first edge barrier. It was a shimmering wall that rose up out of the centre line of a small moat or ditch to reach high up into the sky. The perspective was eye-watering as it marched away in a perfectly straight line in both directions seemingly to infinity. The wall was about as translucent as frosted glass, so it was impossible to see what lay beyond.
    Alice climbed down into the ditch, which was barely waist deep, and touched the barrier. She felt nothing more sinister than a slight tingle. Taking a deep breath she stepped through and climbed up the bank on the far side.
    Before her was a belt of scrub and low trees. Apart from a few twittering birds nothing moved. Pushing cautiously forward, Alice found the belt was not wide and petered out into a half-overgrown path that ran the length of a field which was freshly ploughed almost to its edge.
    Beyond this several other fields and orchards were visible, separated by fences or bushy hedgerows and interrupted by the occasional tall oak or ash. On her right a narrow lane wound its way towards a straggling line of red-tiled rooftops that peeked over the distant trees, suggesting the presence of a hamlet or small village. Taken in all it was quite similar to the landscape she had encountered during her first adventure, being a slice of gently rolling English countryside that hardly existed in the real world any more. Well, Underland was largely a distorted reflection of nineteenth-century rural life, Alice recalled, so