Chapter Ten: The Light at the End (2)
Love.
Love is a place and it is Here.
He breathes in Peace and exhales Happiness.
The warmth of his Fa and his Mam, his aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and every Hightopp who ever lived and died, embraces him. Welcomes him.
He is home.
He only wishes he could share it all with Alice.
They like her, his wife. His family whispers into his mind: She is good to ye and to Underland, they say. We love her as our daughter.
Do ye forgive me for not saving ye? he eventually asks them, when his awe has turned to wonderment and then acceptance: he is with them again - he has found those he had lost so many years ago!
And they reply, Ye could not save us and we have forgiven the ones who hurt us.
He understands; it would be a waste, indeed, to pollute this beauty with such rancid and fetid emotions as hate and hostility.
And they whisper, Come with us, son...
And he wants to. But he feels something dragging him back, something that makes it more difficult than it ought to be to follow that beacon of infinity.
Thrice a-Vowed, his Mam murmurs and he feels her warmth against him. She will come soon and ye twine will travel to our Iplam here.
Then I will wait, he decides.
’Tis dangerous, his Fa warns.
And Tarrant replies, rhymes, Danger is no stranger to me.
Aye, I know.
We will wait with ye, the voices of his cousins insist and he feels the ancestors he has never met in life surround him in a protective circle. And they Share. They Share all that the Hightopps had lived. The memories are not his, but he shares in the triumphs and joys that they reveal. And as one recollection after another tickles his mind and his being - whatever he is here! - Tarrant comes to realize that he has no notion or feeling of time passing here.
Of course, a saganistute voice answers his wordless wondering. That sort of thing is for the living.
So there is no way to know how much time has passed for the ones left behind?
Ye could check...
But we do not advise it.
Aye, should ye find them in pain or sorrow, ye will not be able to soothe them.
’Tis best to let them heal.
And join us when it is their time to do so.
The thought of Alice, in pain and enduring it for the sake of Underland and their son, disturbs him and his worry ripples out into the Everything. His family replies with waves of reassurance.
Pain be naught but a transitory thing, lad, a voice that sounds very much like his Inner Self counsels him and Tarrant is unsure if he should thank that contributor, or if the words had truly come from himself and he is still mad here...
Not mad, my son, his Mam insists gently in that mam-ish way of hers that he had sometimes heard from Alice when she had spoken to their son. Never mad.
Aye, his Fa tells him. Ye had no need of my warnings.
Ye’re of the wily Hightopps.
And those given to passion.
Genius often seems a mite strange, e’en to the thinker.
The praise is unexpected and makes him feel oddly off balance, makes him long for home and Alice-smiles and Alice-whispers. “Perhaps I’m mad,” he would have said. “All the best people are,” she would have answered.
And she’ll say so again, someone Tarrant does not know very well (yet) replies.
And then, without warning, an awareness swims through the moment, touching and moving through everyone, although Tarrant - still new and unsure here - does not feel it himself and he asks, What is it?
A Call.
Do ye hear it?
Tarrant concentrates, stretches his being further than he has tried since arriving here, reaches out into the Great Beyond and listens...
“... like a writing desk?”
He gasps, moves closer to that voice, that latter half of so familiar a riddle. A riddle that their son is the consummate solution to.
Silence resonates and then the voice - a woman’s voice, an Alice voice - comes again:
“Have I made a rhyme?”
ALICE!! He rushes toward her, his family following, guarding him.
Take care, lad.
Aye, if ye can hear the Call, then so can the others.
The others? he spares a thought to ask.
As one, the ancestors reply: Those that thirst for life.
His Mam says, She is Calling ye back to Life, my son.
But ye do not have to follow, his Fa continues. If ye do, ye’ll remember naught of this place or us.
We can protect her from the others until she departs.
We’ll not let anyone claim yer body and yer name, yer home and yer son, lad.
Yer Alice has our protection until she finds the end of the path.
Won’t be long now...
Ye could stay, his Fa invites gently.
Tarrant does not slow his rush toward her, his wife and her Call. For a moment, he can barely comprehend that she is truly Here, that she has come for him, that she can do the very thing that she seems to be doing...
Son? his Fa asks, awaits his answer.
Of course I’ll follow her, Fa. She’s my Alice.
Then we will help ye.
But heed us well: ye must not try to touch or speak to her. She is yet of the living and, as such, she must know nothing of this place or here she must remain.
And leave young Tamial Hightopp alone.
And none of us want that, lad.
Tarrant struggles to understand. A half-formed, dark and disturbing notion whispers to him... a thought that he does not want to have, to contemplate. Hesitantly, he dares only: Alice...?
Mayhap it would be better if ye didn’t look now, lad.
Aye, she’s come through the light at the end of the tunnel...
But he ignores the vague warnings and his own unease. Suddenly, he is There, only a breath away from his wife... and he knows she is his wife because he can see her mouth move and hear her voice Call, “Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?”
Oh, he does! He does! And he struggles not to answer, to maintain the silence his family had counseled him to keep. And only when his overwhelming emotions manage to fizzle and burn and abate does he notice...
He notices ...!
Alice, his Alice, looks nothing like the woman he had wed, in a ceremony for just the twine of them, on a blanket in the restored fields of Iplam. She moves through the Beyond, following a path that is of her own making, and yet she does not seem to feel her own progress. He studies her form and for a moment, he doesn’t understand why she is treading through the realm of Death with no clothing whatsoever. Nor does he understand why her skin is shiny and smooth, her head bald of hair and her eyelids fused shut and her ears... He gawks at the small, twisted bumps of flesh. They look more like blisters than anything else and... He glances down her left arm and stares at the remains of her heart line. It is a twisted, muted, dark line along her too-smooth skin, looking like so much spilled wax from a gray, tapered candle...
She came through the light, lad.
The light, Tarrant thinks.
And then he Understands.
Alice, his Alice, has done the impossible. She has ensured that she cannot hear, see, or feel the Beyond... by passing through light, through fire and flame, and allowing it to burn away her nerves, to melt her very flesh over her eardrums and eyes...
“I’m considering things that begin with the letter M,” she says in her perfectly preserved Alice-voice.
The sound of it, so pure and true, coming from this ruined and mutilated body, makes him want to weep.
Hush, my son. She will heal when her journey is finished.
How much longer? he asks his Mam.
Soon, his Fa replies. But the others are coming.
Draw your sword, Tarrant, son of the Clan Hightopp, Laird of Iplam, an ancient voice commands and, unthinking and uncaring of the fact that he is dead and composed of only spirit, Tarrant obeys... and finds himself clutching a frightfully bright claymore. The last time he had held one of these, he had stood upon a battlefield, next to a young woman who had already won his heart and had been destined to win Underland back for the White Queen.
And then the enemy arrives.
The others, he discovers, are Many.
His family pulls close to him, to Alice as she continues, one mindless step at a time, to move through the realm she cannot yet know. Tarrant is beside her, around her, behind her, beneath her, above her, swinging his blade with precision that comes from the clarity of his mind, the sharpness of his intent, the sureness of his purpose:
These booly-gebbing, ghoulish fiends would follow his Alice back to Iplam, back to their house, back to their bed and into his body and-!
Focus now, lad.
He does.
The Hightopps pull in close against the desperate, seething rabble and Tarrant is reminded of that battlefield again, of the Hightopp colors he had clothed himself in as he’d taken up the mantle that the Gray Lady - his Alice, his widow - had offered him so long ago. The spirits of his clan become those colors now, weaving themselves into a tight defense as they speed around him in the windless silence.
We can keep the hordes back.
But beware, lad. If one of these creatures knows yer Alice...
It will be up to me, he acknowledges grimly, not letting down his guard. His Alice has made enemies, he knows. He waits. They will hear her Call and they will come...
“What is impossible for two champions of Underland to accomplish together?” she asks and her voice rings out like the pealing of silver bells.
Nothing, my Alice, he wishes he could say. There is nothing we cannot accomplish together.
Tamial is proof of that. The new Hightopp Village is proof of that. The continuing peace in Underland is proof of that.
And when he awakes beside her in their bed in Iplam, both of them healthy and whole and alive...
Yes, there is nothing they cannot do, no enemy they cannot defeat... together.
Brace yourself, lad!
We cannot stop this one!
Stang!
And another! Orgal!
Tarrant moves as swiftly as he can, careful not to touch her, to jar her, to awaken Alice to this world of which she must not become a citizen. Not yet!
The claymore slashes and gleams as a pair of dark shapes approach, retreat, circle.
Move aside, Hightopp. Your time with Alice is over.
Never, Knave. ’Tis ye who have no place here! Be gone!
Tarrant keeps his attention on Stayne and also on the silent, cunning figure that he somehow knows is the former Viscount Valereth even though the creature has yet to speak. He keeps his sword at the ready, focuses on each of his adversaries as they move this way and that, testing his defense.
Soon, son. Very soon now.
But it may not be soon enough. He needs Alice’s help to keep both of these villains back and they know it!
You can’t stop both of us, Stayne remarks. I promise I’ll not harm your spawn nor your piddly little village. I’ll be a good husband to your lovely wife, even if I must do so from within your wretched body. You know Valereth over there won ’ t make the same vow.
True or not , Tarrant growls, not taking his attention off of Valereth despite his reply to Stayne, I’ll not let either of you cross over!
Still mad, Stayne responds with a sigh.
“All the best people are,” Alice says at precisely that moment, causing an eerie chill to shimmer through Tarrant.
Stayne draws his long-sword.
Valereth presents a rapier.
Tarrant renews his grip on the claymore...
Hold steady, lad!
Two more!
Two?! Tarrant despairs. How-ever will he defend his Alice against four ghouls when he fears he cannot manage these two?
They come as twin streaks of black... They come, but they do not approach either he or Alice. They slam into the poised forms of Stayne and Valereth, knocking them back through the swirling tartan of the Hightopp Clan and into a very far and wide Great Beyond.
Scum! the first creature shrieks after the Knave, and Tarrant gapes. He knows that screech. It had threatened to take off his head at least once...!
Iracebeth of Crims, he marvels even as the second creature coalesces slowly on his right. Why...?
True, she admits with such haughty authority that Tarrant can almost feel the cold weight of irons locked around his wrists and ankles and his bruised knees throbbing against the stone steps of her royal dais. I hold no love for either you or that Alice, but I have even less for that wretch!
And with that, she speeds away. Presumably in pursuit of her prey.
Tarrant turns swiftly to the man now eyeing his wife and Tarrant’s claymore appraisingly.
I can’t say I’m not tempted, the once-was Lord Oshtyer admits, but the two of you avenged me. Consider this a token of my... appreciation.
We shall, Tarrant replies as the creature spins and soars off.
Nearly there, son, his Mam assures him.
Don’t lower that claymore!
Aye! Thrice more!
What? Why? Who else had Alice angered enough to prompt this kind of attack?
He tries not to panic and waits for what is coming...
And come it does, but it is not an attack.
Tarrant, a woman’s voice calls to him and he finds himself lowering his weapon.
Madam Kingsleigh!
Oh, honestly. How often do I have to tell you to call me Helen ?
Too many, I’m sure, he admits with delight. He turns to yet another familiar presence. Lord Ascot!
Hello, again, lad. Done rather well for yourselves, haven’t you?
Before Tarrant can fight back the emotion that clogs his throat at the man’s obvious pride, a third being moves forward.
A pleasure to finally meet you, Lord Hightopp. Charles Kingsleigh.
The pleasure is mine, sir. He reaches out to clasp the man’s hand. I’m sorry I never had the chance to ask you personally for your blessing... for Alice and myself...
The man chuckles warmly. Oh, gracious, Topps. I gave it to you the moment you made up a seat for my little girl at your tea table.
And to that, Tarrant has no answer. Nothing except, It is an honor to meet you. I regret, very deeply, that I will not recall doing so upon my return with Alice...
Ah, but that is what dreams are for! The specter grins and winks. Oh, what marvelous dreams the living may have... and who knows what will come to you in one of them!
Tarrant is in unabashed awe of the man. Your daughter has your masterful logic, sir. And your know-how, Lord Ascot. And your muchness, madam.
I should think so! Ascot agrees happily.
And we could not be more proud of her for that, Helen says.
Nor could we possibly love her more, Charles adds.
Should I dream your words one night, madam, sirs, I will tell her you said so, he promises.
You do that, she remarks kindly. Now off with you. It’s time.
Tarrant startles. Mam? Fa?
One more step, luvie, his Mam says.
We’ll be here when ye’re ready to join us, his Fa says.
We love ye.
Ye’ve made us proud.
Long live the Clan Hightopp , the ancient voices intone.
And then Alice takes that one more step and the world before her parts, like a curtain of water, revealing a room and a bed - a scene - that he recognizes. There is no time for farewells, but, then again, once upon a time, an old Gray Lady had advised him to avoid them as much as possible.
So he does.
He steps with her, follows her home, and knows that he will be forgiven his abrupt departure. Still, he will apologize - later, much later! - when he returns to the Beyond, after all of his and Alice’s journeys have been ventured... and gained.
*~*~*~*
Notes:
1. What is Tarrant’s father talking about when he says his son had no need of his warnings about the madness? Well, he’s talking about insanity - true madness. He is referring to a condition that is chronic and erupts at the slightest provocation. Yes, Tarrant is mad... but he never went off for no reason at all. His father had warned him of a madness that would consume him, a madness that he would be a slave to. But even before Tarrant and Alice started the Thrice a-Vow, I always felt he was very in-control of himself (precarious as that seemed at times). In the novels and in the film, I felt he was more of a genius than a madman... but, as Tarrant’s family points out, sometimes craftiness and passion and genius can seem, well, mad.
2. I have received second-degree burns before and OW. OK? OW. Third-degree burns actually kill the nerves and don’t leave you in as excruciating pain as the second-degree variety. (Thank you, doctor, for explaining my agony as the “perfect” balance between hurting one’s self Too Much and Not Enough.) Alice becomes numbed when she passes through the light. She is also healed because otherwise... eugh. You know? Burn sores weeping fluids... Just eugh. So, she is - for all intents and purposes - a victim of third-degree burns who has been healed super-fast and is scarred pretty much everywhere. This is not a major plot point. As we’ll see in the next chapter, Tarrant’s mother is correct - there are no traces of the burns on Alice when she returns to Underland. Still, it took some guts to go through with that - walk through fire, I mean - in first place.
3. When Charles says he gave Tarrant and Alice his blessing the moment Tarrant made up a seat for his “little girl” at the tea table, he is referring to a 19-year-old Alice. The Hatter never welcomes or makes up a seat for Alice in Lewis Carroll’s books... that I recall.
4. Alice’s journey here might sound somewhat familiar (especially to those of you who are fans of Greek mythology) as this is a variation of Orpheus’ tale. Orpheus, a musician, strikes a bargain with Hades (I think? Not sure. Too lazy to check.): Orpheus may fetch his dead lover from the depths of the Underworld but he must trust her to follow him back to the land of the living and not look back once. While that story ends tragically (Orpheus looks back despite the warning and... yeah), this story, thankfully, does not end like that.
5. What is the Great Beyond? Well, I don’t describe it as a physical place because, honestly, it isn’t. I mention Tarrant shaking hands with Charles, but that isn’t really what happens. There is a gesture that is like shaking hands that they do but as neither of them have actual, physical hands... or bodies... Well, you get the idea. If they had had hands, they would have shaken. So there.