Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “Dear oh dear, Privet, we’re too old for this. This is a young mole’s task.”

  Privet now began to lead him on, and on, on through tunnels that grew deeper and darker, and felt undisturbed by time. Echoes all around, fearful shards of sound, and the armies of long-forgotten moles that roamed the ancient tunnels were all about them, charging down on them, hurrying them along, ranked before them and unpassable. Unaccountably, Pumpkin felt suddenly cheerful, wildly so.

  “Well, we’re still aliv —”

  His voice was snatched from his mouth, his paws turned under him, the dark walls closing.

  “Priv...”

  She held him still, calmed him, let the ghostly moles rush by, but he knew that if she left him now he would be for ever lost.

  “We could turn back,” he said hopefully, dread coming into him.

  But silently she led him on and he began panting and gasping, seeming to have to run to keep up.

  “All right for you, Privet mole. I think you’ve been here before.”

  She had, many times and in many places and knew this for what it was, which was but a noisy beginning to something that would be unexpected. Always that.

  “This is the place I was trying to tell... TELL-TELLTELL...”

  The echoes of the word thundered back at him like talons out of night. In the darkness Pumpkin frowned and stopped.

  “This,” he repeated calmly, challenging the tunnels to answer him, “around here, this is the place where Cluniac and I could not reach before. This is where things are. This is where even Mayweed never came. But here we are and it hasn’t taken long.”

  Privet laughed.

  “You still have a voice, Privet,” he said.

  The Dark Sound was sonorous about them, and he peered at the shadows and forward to the turns, back at the bends, and sideways into chambers, which... the chambers which...

  “Privet! PRIVET!”

  She stopped, turned, came back to him, looked the way he pointed, which was into a side tunnel no different from many they had passed, but that they saw light, and felt fresh air on their faces. The former was a glimmer, subtle and changing, and the latter had the scent of spring.

  Privet led him into the tunnel, which trembled with sound as they entered it, and the light, away ahead of them, caught at the ancient indentations upon the walls they passed.

  “Pri...” whispered Pumpkin, who found it hard to breathe, and had a dread of what they might find ahead, though the air was good.

  “PRI...” rumbled Pumpkin’s voice, then sharpened, then swung viciously and turned back on him, and, to his ears, the sound was as sudden and as sharp as the rake of gleaming talons across his snout. This was a place where a mole did well to keep quiet!

  They went on, close together, Privet herself showing signs of reluctance to go round the next bend, and then the next, and most of all the last – for last it felt to be. Beyond, the tunnel widened to a portal, the sound seemed to shake the walls and floor, the light to fade and then brighten so fast it made them giddy and unsure.

  They reached the portal, entered in, and found themselves stanced still in a chamber that seemed to stretch to their left flank, on and on, and whose soaring walls told them how deep they were in the earth. Roots hung free high above, translucent in the light that came from here and there, and seemed to change, making the distant glimmer they had first seen.

  The walls had recessed arches and were most marvellously delved, though how Pumpkin had no idea. By giant moles perhaps, for whatmole-else could reach so high, and delve a line so delicate as that which ran and soared, and turned, and crossed another, and then a third, to split out into two more which deepened and never seemed to end?

  Pumpkin felt Privet’s paw tighten on him, and trembled, and he looked where she looked, through the light to what had at first seemed the far end of the chamber, but which he now saw was its centre. What lay beyond he had no idea. There, raised a little from the ground, caught in light so bright it was almost lost, was a dais of a kind he thought he knew.

  “Privet,” he whispered – and looked nervously about, for that whisper raced away, grew, and threatened to become something uncontrollable. Why, poor Pumpkin could hardly speak at all, so consuming of him was that almost-sound.

  “Privet,” he said softer still, “I know what this place was. It is like the Main Chamber of our Library, and that... that dais, why there’s one like it all lost and hidden among the stacks and texts. There is! It is an ancient scribing place and this is a chamber where holy moles once worked.”

  There, he had said it and got away with it. The sound did not quite swell again, though it threatened to, before it faded away and died.

  Neither moved, each held on to the other, each stared, and saw that on the dais was a book. Then each grew as still as ice at what they saw nearby.

  As the light glimmered and glistened at the soaring walls and in among the plunging roots above, and back to them again, they saw stanced near the dais, a pawstep or two beyond and to one side of it, reaching towards the dais, ready and waiting, the form of mole who seemed almost alive. His form was black, but what had once been fur was dry; what had once been black talons were pale and caught the light; what had once been eyes were shadows, yet still benign. He might have waited there five hundred years, or he might just then have arrived.

  “Privet...”

  She touched his paw to indicate that he should stay where he was, which he had every intention of doing. This was far enough. But that mole... he knew that ancient, waiting mole. He knew that stance. He knew what – or rather whatmole – that mole was waiting for.

  “Privet mole, he...”

  Privet turned back to him, her eyes full of fear, for she knew too.

  “He was a library aide, he had a task to find a book, and having found it he brought it here as he was told and now...” whispered Pumpkin, filled with awe and apprehension, “the book is there. I have done such a task many times myself. He was waiting for his master to come. But this was no ordinary book, and the mole he has waited for all these centuries through is no ordinary mole.”

  Pumpkin’s eyes widened and the chamber began to swim and soar about him, and the aide-that-was almost seemed to move.

  “Privet,” said Pumpkin, grasping at words to bring himself back to where they were, grasping at duty. As brave a mole as ever was...

  “Privet, let me fetch the Book for you.”

  She shook her head and smiled again, bleakly, afraid, suspecting something he did not. She turned towards the central place, and the mole, and the Book within the light, but this time did not restrain him from following her.

  Slowly, how slowly, they approached the centre of the chamber, pawsteps running and racing all about its edge, which only made the impression all the greater of a silence that should not be disturbed, greater still with each step they took.

  Then into the light went Privet; she mounted the dais, glanced briefly at the aide, as a scholar might who has come to work and nods her thanks for a text fetched from some distant stack, and reached out a paw to touch the Book that had been placed there for her so long ago.

  Pumpkin saw her touch it, he saw her lower her head towards it, he saw her peer, examine, pause and then open it. One folio turning in a great arc of light, and then another, and then a third, and more, faster and faster, the sound louder, the chamber beginning to threaten with sound.

  “Privet mole,” he called out, for whispers would not do. “Privet!”

  “Nooo...!”

  “Privet!”

  “NOOOO... I cannot!” she cried out. “I CAN NOT!”

  And her cry became a scream out of a place that went back before that ancient aide had come, before the Book was brought, before this great chamber was ever delved. Back and back, back into the earth, and from out of it. Hers was the scream primordial, which is the pain of birth. “I CANNOT DO IT, STONE!”

  And then she turned, blinded by an existential fear of what the Sto
ne asked her to do, tumbled into Pumpkin’s paws, broke free of him, turned and looked again at where the Book lay open, her silence broken, the chamber roaring now with sound.

  Pumpkin caught her paw, righted her, held her, and supporting her, began to help her flee.

  “I cannot do it, Pumpkin. I cannot, I cannot...”

  Out of the chamber, away from its light, back through the tunnels, too weak to run, dragging, pulling, shoving, step by step, both desperate, as if the Book was pursuing them.

  “It is, Pumpkin, it is,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said gently, aide-like, for he knew it was and that it would find her and she could not get away from it. But they could try.

  So on they went, away and away and away, knocking into walls, bumping into bends and turns, dust on their fur, bruises on their snouts, until exhausted, trembling and she still whispering, “I cannot, I will not even try, it is too much,” they ran into a wall that lived, and had paws enough to hold them, and voices to reassure them.

  Rooster, Hamble and Frogbit stanced in their path.

  “What was it, Pumpkin? What did she see?” said Hamble.

  While Rooster held her, and let her whisper and mutter out her distress and, again and again, absolute refusal. Frogbit stared at the light that glimmered just ahead, and the portal into the chamber.

  They had come no distance at all. They were still there. It was Rooster and Hamble and Frogbit who had run to them. The Book was waiting still.

  Rooster eased Privet from him and let Hamble take her to his paws. Then, signalling to them all to stay where they were, he went back through the portal and stared and saw what they had seen; and understood.

  “What is it?” asked Hamble, puzzled and perplexed.

  “It’s Privet,” said Rooster. “She knows. Pumpkin knows.”

  Pumpkin sighed and nodded and said, “She’s the one must scribe it. I think that’s it. Privet’s the mole will scribe the Book of Silence.”

  All was still and quiet, the Dark Sound retreating into peace.

  When she was ready, she turned back into the chamber of her own accord, with Pumpkin at her left flank, Rooster to her right, and Hamble and Frogbit just behind. Together they went to the centre of the chamber and into the light, but she alone mounted the dais and took up the Book. It looked new-made, or untouched by time, and when she turned its folios to show them, they saw no scribing there, nothing at all. All to come, it seemed.

  “The lost and last Book,” whispered Hamble.

  “Not lost,” said Pumpkin, “but never scribed.”

  “I cannot,” whispered Privet, but though the Dark Sound mounted about them at the word “cannot” she did not let go the Book, and to her eyes returned the resolution of a mole who has ascended many a mountain, only to find the crest was false and there is more and knows she must go on.

  “Like delving, I expect,” said Frogbit, “hard all the way. Very hard.”

  The Dark Sound grew louder and they began to look concerned, yet Privet dared to smile.

  “Hard as being born,” she said.

  Then she placed the Book on the dais once again and commanded Pumpkin to open it anywhere, which he did, and to hold it so she could scribe.

  “If I don’t begin now I never will.”

  “What will you scribe?” asked Frogbit, genuinely curious.

  She raised her paw to the folio, frowned in thought, smiled, and slowly scribed her name and spoke it out aloud: “‘Privet’,” and that was all.

  “There! That will do for now...” She seemed light-hearted, but then her eyes grew serious. “Help me, Stone,” she whispered, and the Light was on them all as she left the Book in its safe place ready for her to return to and begin.

  Then, together, they all left, close by each other, as if fearful that the rumbling Dark Sound might reach out and snatch one of them away.

  But when they had gone, the Light glimmered on, to shine brighter still upon that unknown, nameless, aide who so long before had brought the Book and with steadfast faith began to wait the long centuries through. Whilst the draught of air was enough to tug at the Book’s folios, and shift them this way and that silently, until they stayed open where Privet had scribed her name, and the Light shone brighter still, soft and white and eternal as the Silence that came all about.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Duncton slowly began to settle to a new life, and new concerns. It must be said at once that moles were disappointed that the Book of Silence was neither lost nor really found, but rather was in the process of being scribed.

  Real Holy Books, the ordinary mole and pilgrim were inclined to feel, were not scribed now so much as then, or at a pinch, at some time yet to come. But now seemed a little dull compared to the nostalgic contemplation of the awesome past, or the hope for a better future, which were ideas a mole could get his imagination into. But now, well...!

  Then again, Privet herself was something of a disappointment, wasn’t she?

  “Come on, be honest, mole, she’s not what we expected...”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.”

  “She’s just a thin and scraggy old female scholar, nothing more nor less. We hardly ever see her down here in Barrow Vale, do we? As for this so-called Book she’s scribing up there in the Ancient System, what use will it be to anymole, when all is said and done? Eh? But whatmole cares? After all, the Newborns are nothing now, nothing at all, and that Quail and his Snyde, they got their come-uppance, and as for Squelch and Skua...”

  Once the initial excitements of the liberation (as it became known) of Duncton were over, it was such conversations as these that were the norm among pilgrims and followers throughout November down in Barrow Vale.

  Quite early on a good many moles, principally those from nearby systems who had answered some call they never did quite articulate to come when they had, began to leave. Then, as December loomed and the weather turned colder and worms were scarcer, more moles from further off began to drift away. They had fought the fight, they had completed their pilgrimage, and though Duncton was all very well, they rather missed their home systems and so thought they’d set off once more.

  In the last few days of November a whole group of moles from the Wolds, who reckoned they could make it home in time for Longest Night, before winter weather set in, departed, and the system seemed suddenly empty, though in fact it was still temporary home to far more moles than it could really sustain, and certainly more than at any time for several decades past. Of these many were hardened campaigners, like Ystwelyn himself, who were not complacent about the “victory” over the Newborns and knew it would be many a moleyear yet before they were completely vanquished throughout moledom. With this Chervil agreed, and he and Thorne and Ystwelyn, all allies now, began to plan a systematic re-education of moledom for the moleyears ahead.

  They would have liked to include Maple in this, but he would have none of it. Of what had happened in Buckland when he killed Sapient, and the talon worms had entered his wound, none of the witnesses to it spoke, though the leaders knew. Loyal Weeth stayed at his flank, and spoke for him when, as he soon did, he chose to return to his old burrows and live quietly for a time.

  The wound he had suffered at Buckland did not fully heal, but festered, and refused all treatment.

  “As for the talon worms,” Weeth said to Ystwelyn, Thorne and Chervil, “I think they don’t trouble him, and I hope that they will die. He is a healthy mole, he...”

  But though Weeth was a consummate liar, he could not fool such moles. Maple was not himself, and might never be again. He had made a supreme effort, he had led the followers not so much to victory as to peace, a far greater thing, and he would be remembered as the mole who rid Duncton of the pestilence that was represented by Quail and Snyde.

  Now, if he needed peace and quiet and time to recover he must have it – and Thorne and Ystwelyn discreetly posted guardmoles on the routes to his tunnels, to gently dissuade the many moles who wanted to visit
him, and praise him. Apart from Weeth, only a few moles were allowed to visit him, and two in particular – Hamble and Fieldfare. The first understood Maple’s malaise, and as a former warrior himself could talk Maple’s language, and share the quiet hour.

  As for Fieldfare, why, she had known Maple since he was a pup, and had stories to tell which he liked to hear, of her adventures at Seven Barrows, of the friends she had made, of heroes like Spurling and Noakes (whom she had regarded almost as a son) and of the journey with the surviving rebels back to Duncton Wood, when they had been among the first to join Maple’s army.

  All this Maple enjoyed, saying little, sleeping much, and submitting patiently to the different treatments and remedies that were offered him to heal his festering wound, and purge him of the talon worms, if that was possible.

  “He’s suffering, Fieldfare, he really is,” confided Weeth one late November day, “and sometimes he grows sharp and irritable with me.”

  Weeth was suffering too, and Fieldfare could see it.

  “What else?” she asked gently.

  “It’s nothing,” said Weeth unconvincingly.

  Fieldfare knew well when to be silent.

  “It’s his fur,” said Weeth eventually, “it’s growing thin about his head and shoulders. I don’t know if he knows it himself but I can see it day by day. Fieldfare, I’m frightened for him. He’s a good mole, a great mole, and though he treats me as his friend I see him also as the master I shall always serve. He led us all, he fought for moledom, and now I shall do my best to fight for him. Except... I don’t know how to fight this fight. Talon worms! Why, they’re what Quail had, but he was evil. They entered Snyde, but he was evil too. But Maple! A worthy mole like him. Why did the Stone allow it? What can I do?”

  “Care for him, mole, as you do already. Seek out remedies, as you also do. Let friends like Hamble and myself visit him.”

  “Perhaps Privet will come.”

  “Privet!” exclaimed Fieldfare, not entirely approvingly. “We barely see her these days she’s that busy scribing. But I’ll have a word with Pumpkin and maybe he’ll get her to come down here to see Maple. Now, there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”