White Rabbit Chapter 45

45.

In the Underworld… 


            Delores opened her eyes. A curious crowd of bears, wolves, and woodchucks (Woodrow among them), were standing around gawking at her. She was in the black dress and she clung to the sword. She felt alive again. It was dark and Howard the Moon was full and looking curiously down from the sky. Purplish clouds sailed in front of him now and then. Sometimes they made it appear as though he was wearing a veil and sometimes it looked as though he wore a blindfold. Delores smiled, glad she was back again. This was the last time she would return, she knew. “Did you get the flag? The sempstress, the mannequins and the machines?”

“He did better than that, Delores,” Woodrow interjected. He helped Delores sit up and she could see the troops around her. Dozens of wolves, bears, all the mannequins she remembered seeing, the sewing machines, cats, the Sempstress on a dark red horse and a league of black unicorns as far as the eye could see. There was an entire field of them. An army! Delores hurried to her feet, sword in hand, and mounted her horse. She felt dizzy and a bit confused but she wouldn’t let anything stop her now. Torches were lit in the castle and the same owls that spied on her and Hugo Finch the day she sailed the Torgan Sea flew overhead with large yellow bright eyes peering down. She knew they knew she was coming. It didn’t matter.

She rode proudly in front of her troops who stood in the back of the field. It was a half-mile stretch to get to the castle. They all held torches that were yet to be lit by Delores’ order. “Woodrow!” she yelled. “You are with me. The rest of you will follow. Today, you will follow me and we will take our independence from the Torgans!”

There was a loud overwhelming cheer. A mad ravenous cheer filled with adrenaline and anticipation. “Sons and daughters of Ethereal, do not be afraid that they hear you!” Delores yelled. “Let them here you! Let them know that you are coming and their wicked rule is ending! They will tremble, hearing the sound of your steady feet on our land! And they will lament the day they thought themselves worthy of possessing you like slaves! Spare the White Queen for me and kill anyone who faces you! No mercy. No quarter! Not today.” With that Delores rode Cleopatra toward the castle picking up speed. She had never ridden her so hard. Cleopatra exhaled angry breaths that were visible. Snot sprayed forward. The abortion was fresh in Delores’ mind, the loss of Alex De Wolfe, perfectly understood. Cleopatra’s hooves beat the earth mercilessly. Drums pounded from a band of beavers in the back and from the rear there appeared at least ten thousand white rabbits that raced ahead. It was an army to be feared, if by numbers alone, armed with makeshift weapons, snarling teeth, fangs, claws whatever they had to instill fear and terror in their enemy.

Delores slowed up as she got close to the castle. “At the castle, light your torches. Archers arch your arrows over the walls. Falcons dump your oil buckets in the castle. Burn it!” The falcons carried small buckets of lantern oil and did as Delores directed.  Arrows shot up from the castle to oppose them but hit nothing. The rabbits that charged ahead grew into monstrous forms and became fierce warriors that obliterated the Torgans' first line of defense, the warthogs. And, at last, Delores saw the dreaded Torgans. They are hard to explain but look very much like Danny DeVito Penguins...

It was a brutal war down to the ants and termites, mice and rats, guinea pigs and ferrets. The former of which in each pair, all for Ethereal, the latter, for the Empire of Torga, as it was known. Body parts, limbs, heads, blood, spilled, splattered and fell violently across the dark ground which was soaked and strewn with parts in a matter of minutes. They breached the castle wall with the bears successfully shattering the iron castle gate with a giant log that was one of those brave oaks who gave his life selflessly for the cause of liberty. Delores must have killed a dozen trolls with her sword and Cleopatra a dozen more by trampling them, shattering their bones with her heavy violent hooves. They had little defense. Neither did the weasels. Vampires were slayed with well-timed swings of her sword but they devastated the Ethereal troops with their ability to fly and swoop down picking up soldiers with their giant clawed hands and dropping them back to earth lifeless, their throats ripped apart. Delores yelled for Howard to make it light so they could be more easily seen. He complied and faded to silver. The Torgans were slaughtered easily, ignorant and incapable of escaping quickly. But on both sides there was great loss.

“There!” Woodrow shouted suddenly pointing, “After her! I will free the prisoners in the dungeon.” He was pointing at the White Queen on her white horse and Delores headed after her without hesitation. She was inside the castle walls slaying rabbits and sewing machines with swift and skillful precision. Delores got to her quickly and they exchanged a look before they began ruthlessly swinging their swords at each other. Sparks flew from the violent contact. The White Queen smiled deviously as though she had an advantage. They dismounted amid fire and death. Blood from nearby battles sprayed their way without breaking their concentration.

“Foolish girl!” the White Queen laughed. “You haven’t what it takes to conquer me. I am wiser than you, more skillful and logical. Such a brash bitch as you does not deserve this kingdom. Let it go, Delores. This is mine!”

“You’re wrong!” Delores cried swinging the heavy sword back and forth, countering moves and reacting to attacks defensively yet aggressive. “This is my world and I will not let myself become you.”

“So you have it figured. Good for you!” Pause for swings, clashing steel with the familiar clang and ching. “Just one life isn’t what anyone leads. When did you figure it all out? The elusive secret...” She didn’t wait for a reply. “We are not the same and in one life we live many, become many different people. Old selves die in our sleep. All kept together by the lie of one constitution, one body. Very good, Delores. I didn’t think you to be that bright.”

“You’ve misjudged me! I assure you.” Delores had no idea what she was talking about. Delores took a sudden devastating blow to the side which winded her and set her reeling. She gasped for breath. Blood warmed her and flowed down to her hip quickly. She continued. “You have underestimated me which will be your death!” They fought away from the others working their way through another door and into a dining hall with a fireplace as big as a dragon. The White Queen leaped to a table avoiding a swing of Delores’ sword that would have likely cut her in half. Delores followed her leaping up onto the table and they exchanged blows up and down the neutrality of the boards, sparks flying from the metal. The sound of the war raging from outside of the room began to dwindle. Creatures cried in agony pleading for their mothers or for help of some sort. You never know who you are until you lay dying. Woodrow appeared in the doorway along with Alex. Delores was distracted and took another shot, but this one she blocked with her arm. Half severed, it bled freely. Cut to the bone rendering it useless. The sword was too heavy to swing with her left arm but she tried. The White Queen knocked her back with a sharp kick to the chest. Woodrow removed an arrow and put it in his bow but Alex put his hand up to stop him. 
"It's up to her," he said. The White Queen raised her sword dramatically for the final blow but with whatever strength Delores had left she gripped her sword and quickly drove it up into the bowels of her enemy who slumped over on her breathing her last breaths. Delores let out an agonizing moan and with what strength she had left shoved the White Queen off her and onto the stone floor where she landed with a decisive thud. Her blood pooled into the shape of the United States but no one seemed to notice.

Delores’ blood dripped from the table. Her arm hung limp over the side and blood pooled in her palm until it discovered gravity streaming with a steady flow until, at last, it slowed to a drip. She could hear every drop. She lied back and bit her bottom lip in pain. Alex and Woodrow rushed over. The war outside of the room was won as well and apart for some groans and the business of dying or healing, all was reasonably calm. Woodrow left Alex and Delores alone to seek the Sempstress and maybe a doctor. He heard of a gopher who practiced medicine but wasn’t quite sure if he did so on humans.

Alex picked Delores up and carried her to the fireside. She began to shiver from shock. “You did it, Delores. Now you must say the words and return. Your wounds here are mortal.” He took off a gray cotton scarf and pressed it to her arm wound which was more severe than the gash in her side.

She shook her head. “I mustn’t. I do not want to leave you.”

          “I am there, too. Here there is nothing left for us. This is all you have written. This is the last chapter. At least, for now.”

          “I can write more...”

“There, yes. Here you will die. These wounds will kill you. There is no mending them.”

“I can’t risk losing you again.”

“You are dying, Delores. It's all that you wrote.” Alex took the key that was on the black ribbon around her neck and placed it in her hand. “This will get you somewhere,” he smiled. “Trust me, please…”

“Say them with me,” she asked him. The pain was excruciating and her teeth chattered from the shock.

“Okay,” he smiled.

In unison, slowly, “white rabbit...”

A blood red flag with a white rabbit flew over the castle ushering in the reign of Queen Delores of Ethereal, who would recover from her wounds and live to never age, being forever 6:30. Her face was printed on coins that would never suffer inflationary devaluation and would never be spent unwisely or banked by the populace. Asked by Woodrow and a slew of others what is the meaning behind the white rabbit on the flag and on the tales side of the coins and in the phrase stating that Ethereal was “The Kingdom of the White Rabbit,” Delores said they seemed to be a reoccurring animal in her life, with meaning she had long struggled to understand herself. The meaning of one being vulnerable, ensnared if unwise, shot if not careful, butchered if unlucky, eaten, worn, made into a trinket, a key chain, tested upon, but beautiful and capable of much more if able to navigate through the terror of living.