Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  Then the snout came forward again and beneath it a thin paw of weak talons. Tryfan had shrunk back into the wall of the tunnel to take advantage of the great flint’s shadow. Boswell was further back, his already pale and now very dusty coat making him hard to see.

  Then the mole’s head and upper part of his body came into view, a weak-looking thin-looking mole doing his very best to be bold and resolute.

  “Gone they have and good riddance. Up to no good. Bet they were scared.” Sniff sniff. “But it’s good to smell mole. Mmm. Wait! May come back! Gone but may return. Well, old fellow, you’d better do one more.”

  The mole disappeared back around the corner, or at least his front half did, and there was a brief scratching of talons and, to Tryfan’s astonishment, the threatening sound of an army of moles surged up again before suddenly dying away and the mole muttering irritably to himself: “Oh bother, I’ve broken my talon!”

  Tryfan advanced round the corner and saw the mole beside an extraordinary scribing on the wall, down which presumably he had dragged his talons and produced the sound.

  “Greetings!” said Tryfan calmly.

  “Oh!” cried out the mole. “Oh!” And turning round saw Tryfan’s large and menacing form and nearly tripped over himself in his alarm. Tryfan backed respectfully away and to his surprise the mole advanced upon him, crying out as boldly as he could, “And well you might! Retreat! Get away before my many friends, who are very close behind me, come and kill you. Yes!” But Tryfan merely stopped, and immediately the mole did the same.

  “Retreat!” he said again, a command no doubt meant to be threatening but which came out more like a mole choking on a dead worm. He gulped and stared along his thin snout at Tryfan and said, “Whoever you are you’re not coming past me. I’ve got a whole army of moles behind me. I’m their...” He looked down at his unwarlike paws and pale talons. “... er adviser. Take my advice and go away. Don’t push me too hard for I am a killer! Yes indeed!”

  “What is thy name?” asked Boswell from his more distant shadows.

  “Oh!” and then, “oh dear!” exclaimed the mole, turning and tripping over himself at this new threat. “Two of you eh! Two against the many. Brave moles indeed!” He turned and looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Stay back, do not kill them! They are merely foolish wanderers and are retreating.” Then, turning his voice into a conspiratorial hiss, he said, “I suggest you go while you can. The moles behind me are wretched killers, every one. Murderous.”

  Boswell said, “We are both of us well aware that there is nomole behind you. We come in reverence and friendship to the Holy Burrows.”

  “A likely story, but this is as far as you come. Go away now, like the good harmless moles you appear to be.”

  He managed a sickly smile, eyeing appraisingly Tryfan’s huge shoulders and massive talons.

  For reasons of his own Boswell stayed where he was.

  “Well, we’re not going,” said Tryfan, “and we mean you no harm. So answer my friend’s question: what is your name?”

  “Courtesy demands you tell me yours first,” said the mole with as much bold dignity as he could muster, which was not much. And yet Tryfan began to see that there was about him a courage a mole should respect.

  “My name is Tryfan and I am of Duncton Wood.”

  “And whither are you bound?” asked the mole in the traditional way, speaking now less tensely. Tryfan noticed that he had a refined scholarly voice, and though it seemed nervous it was more a habit of speech than real, for the mole fixed him with a steady gaze.

  “To here were we bound.”

  “How long thy travel?”

  “Six years our travel,” said Boswell from behind Tryfan.

  The mole looked at them. “And thy name?”

  But Boswell did not reply, nor appear yet from the shadow he was in.

  “No, thy name, for you have mine,” said Tryfan firmly.

  “Spindle, that’s me,” said the mole. “Yes, Spindle.” Repeating it rather doubtfully as if he did not quite believe in his own identity any more. He looked at Tryfan and settled down on to his paws.

  “There aren’t any moles behind you are there?” said Tryfan, just to make sure.

  “No. Not one. You’re the first moles I’ve seen in three years. Since Longest Night in fact. And a fine time you’ve chosen to come. Could have done with some help in January and February. Bit late now.”

  “Impressive, that sound you made,” observed Tryfan.

  “Yes indeed, those scribemoles knew a thing or two.”

  “Knew?” said Boswell from the shadows.

  “All gone now,” said Spindle. “Gone to the Stone. Not one left. Didn’t you see them? Murdered, everymole. Terrible. Can’t move the bodies myself.”

  “You’ve been moving something,” said Tryfan. “We could see the tracks.”

  “Books,” said Spindle. “Those that are left. To safety. Before the grikes come back. Though whatmole can read them now I know not as all the scribemoles have gone.”

  “No,” said Boswell with sudden authority. “Not all gone. One or two are left.”

  “Not so,” said Spindle firmly. “The last were snouted moleyears back. You can still see their bodies on the pastures.” He added with sudden hope, “Aren’t they the last then?”

  Boswell came slowly out of the shadows and shook himself free of dust and grime. As it cleared they saw that his coat seemed yet whiter, and that there was about him, enhanced perhaps by the great sense of age and history of the burrows in which they stood, a power and holiness which nomole could deny.

  Spindle got to his paws and backed a little in awe.

  “Who art thou?” he asked, again in the old way. “From where hast thou come?”

  “We have come from Duncton, which is one of the Seven Systems,” replied Boswell. “To Uffington have we been bound these many long and troubled years. I am myself of Uffington. I am a scribemole. My name is Boswell and we will do you no harm.”

  Then Spindle simply stared at Boswell, all his feigned aggression gone and replaced by a look on his face of pathetic vulnerability as if, after many years of being brave, he had finally admitted that he was much afraid, and much alone. His mouth trembled and his eyes filled with tears, and then he lowered his snout into his front paws and began to sob with such sadness mingled with joyful relief that tears came to the eyes of Tryfan as well.

  After a while, his face fur now quite wet with tears, Spindle looked up and tried to speak, eventually managing to say in a whispery broken voice, “Are you really Boswell. The Boswell?”

  Boswell nodded and smiled, and went forward and laid his paw on Spindle’s paw, and then briefly caressed his face.

  “I have heard of you many times,” said Spindle, regaining his composure a little. “Oh yes, many, many times. And I have prayed that a mole such as you might still be alive, but I never thought, I never...” and once more his voice broke, and he wept.

  “Well, now thy wait is over, good Spindle, and thy fear can be at an end,” said Boswell gently. “Thy loneliness is no more and it will never return.”

  Tryfan listened in silence, for Boswell spoke with power and respect and the gentleness of one who heals another.

  Poor Spindle, who had been so determined a moment ago to defend the Library against them, now seemed to lack the courage even to look into Boswell’s eyes.

  “This is a mole of very great courage and strength,” Boswell whispered to Tryfan. “We are well met and the Stone’s will is done.” And in that moment, with Boswell’s voice powerful about them, Tryfan knew that somehow the task he was to be given was inextricably bound up with Spindle, and so he too went forward and touched paws with him, as if only by touching might all three affirm that they were really together and well met.

  Spindle finally said, “You see I have waited for your coming, though I did not imagine it would be Boswell himself who would come. I said — “And there was still a slight sob in his voice. �
�� “I said to the Stone after the scribemoles were killed or snouted, ‘I’m asking you to send me help. You promise to do that and I’ll stay and do what I can.’”

  “What did the Stone say?” asked Boswell.

  “Not a lot,” said Spindle so naturally that Tryfan wanted to laugh and cry at the same time in sympathy. “Nothing to tell the truth. Dead silence in fact.”

  “So why did you stay?”

  “Nowhere else to go. I’m a mole from the south side of Uffington and we used to serve the scribemoles. Most of my system perished with the plague and the few who survived that were killed by the grikes. Nomole left to tell me what to do. And anyway...” He looked up for the first time... I knew the Stone was listening though there was silence. I knew somemole would come. I trusted the Stone to do things right,” he said simply. “And here you are! Better late than never!”

  “I think you have much to tell us, Spindle, and there is no better place to tell us than in the ancient Library. So lead us there and on the way show my young friend Tryfan how you made the sound of an army of moles.”

  Spindle rose up again and led them back the way he had come. As he passed a curious carving in the tunnel wall he rasped his talons over its indentations and around them the sound of mole started, an army of moles, paws a-marching.

  “Clever, eh?” he said.

  “Er, yes,” Tryfan had to agree.

  “Scared the living daylights out of me first time I discovered it,” said Spindle shortly. “They call it dark sound. All the moles of old could make such scribing, and we have the classic text on the subject, and that’s survived at least.”

  “Scribed by Scirpus,” said Boswell.

  Spindle nodded quickly and continued down the last part of the passage and passed through a rounded and unimpressive entrance into a great and magnificent burrow which stretched right and left and straight ahead as far as the eye could see. Here and there, with no regularity at all, its chalky roof was supported by great black flints. There were shelves, row on row of them, but they were empty and broken, and on the floor of the burrow, wildly scattered about except in a few areas where Spindle himself had cleared up the mess, were the fragments and parts of broken bark books and records, scrolls and folios. The great Library of the Holy Burrows had been desecrated and destroyed.

  “Not a lot to see,” said Spindle. “The grikes did much damage. Dear me, yes they did.” Then with a sigh walked aimlessly back and forth quite bereft of words.

  Boswell took all this in quickly, touched a few remnants that lay nearby, and then turned to Spindle.

  “You had better tell us what happened,” he said.

  “That’s a tale and a half,” said Spindle.

  “Then there’s no better place to tell it than here and one day, perhaps, Spindle, the words you speak will be scribed in their turn,” he said, looking meaningfully at Tryfan. “So tell of it well and of your part in it, and with truth. Let it run its natural course.”

  “That I will!” said Spindle, responding to Boswell’s instruction. “From my heart to thy heart I tell it, truth by truth as I saw it and may it one day be known to all moles.”

  With which he settled down amidst the debris. Then, with a final look about them as if to confirm that they were indeed alive and he was not alone in the Holy Burrows anymore, he took a deep breath, scratched himself once or twice, peered here and there for inspiration, and then began to tell them of the disaster that had overtaken Uffington of which he, Spindle, who never thought he was much of a mole at all, was the sole living survivor.

  Chapter Three

  “Of Seven Barrows am I, which is one of the systems on the southern side of Uffington and has long provided moles as worm-finders, tunnel-makers and clerics to service the scribemoles,” began Spindle.

  “My mother had to send one of us up to Uffington the June before last Longest Night and, as I was not much of a one for fighting or defence she sent the weakest – me!” He peered at his paws and shrugged his thin shoulders apologetically.

  “I was put into the service of the scribemole Brevis who was new to the Burrows. His only question was whether or not I had faith in the Stone.”

  “And your reply?” asked Boswell.

  “I said I had,” said Spindle quietly, with a look of absolute faith in his eyes, and gentleness, too. “I was born in the shadow of the Holy Burrows and there are many Stones about the downland of Seven Barrows. As a youngster I used to hide from my siblings among them. They protected me and I knew their strength. I know the Stone exists.”

  Spindle spoke these words fervently. Boswell nodded encouragingly and looked at Tryfan, who saw he was well pleased with the answer.

  “My master Brevis had only recently completed his novitiate and been ordained a scribemole, and I was pleased to be put with one of the newer members of the community. Not that he was especially young, however, for he had come to his vocation late in life and had made his own way from Buckland, a system to the north of Uffington. But he soon became a good scribe and scholar, his paw being a fair one, and he was kind enough to teach me a little of scribing so that I might help him in the Library – something other scribemoles rather frowned on. But though I could not read well, nor fully scribe, I could scriven notes for him and find texts as well, and this was to come in useful after the grikes had done their terrible work.

  “So, as well as I could, I did what I was asked to do and though others were better than I he never complained nor harried me. As summer advanced I grew to like my new place and the tasks I was set, which were varied and involved travelling about Uffington on Brevis’ business. Being naturally curious, especially about the way the tunnels were made – for they were much grander than those I was brought up in – I got to know them well. This knowledge, and the fact that of all moles there I was attached to Brevis, later saved my life.”

  Sprindle paused briefly and he sighed. The tale he was telling was clearly burdensome to him and revived memories of a mole whom he had grown to respect and perhaps love – a feeling Tryfan understood from his own time with Boswell – but which he had been able to forget in his long isolation these past moleyears. Then he settled down again and began to tell of how news of the grikes first reached Uffington, and of their subsequent arrival, and the brutal destruction they wrought.

  The earliest rumours of the coming trouble reached Uffington in August, when travelling moles from the systems to the north arrived and confirmed what had followed in the wake of the plagues that had troubled moledom for many years: the coming of a new terror in the shape of grike moles.

  The plagues themselves had caused division in Uffington, some scribemoles saying that their most ancient task was to heal, and that allmole would benefit if the scribemoles were seen to be fearlessly going out to bring help and preach the Stone’s Silence. But others, and they were the more dominant, said the role of the Holy Burrows was to set an example by prayer and learning; the plagues were, surely, a punishment for moledom’s loss of belief and faith in the Stone over the past decades. The scribemoles need do nothing; the Stone would decide the future.

  Spindle’s master Brevis was one of the spokesmoles for the former group and argued for scribemoles going forth and doing healing work – but the final word was with Medlar, the Holy Mole, who had aged in recent moleyears and in that hour of crisis erred to caution and non-action. So, along with the heat of that summer, dissension, uncertainty and a fatal paralysis came to Uffington.

  Then, in August, there began to come to the Holy Burrows ominous stories that missionary moles of the long disregarded Word were rapidly spreading from the north in the wake of the plagues and were now within reach of Uffington itself. Three of the seven Ancient Systems – Caer Caradoc, Stonehenge and Rollright – had already been taken over and the scribemoles in the Burrows began to feel that they were gradually being surrounded.

  These invading moles were called “grikes”, though what the derivation of this name was, none at Uffington, not even
the oldest scholars, was able to establish. All that was known, from the ancient reports, was that the original grikes were dark of fur and snout, clever, lithe of body and strong. They had little humour but much self-confidence, the frightening confidence of moles who know they are right, and were inclined to talk calmly but forcefully. If provoked they did not hesitate for one minute to fight, and to claim as they did so that right must be on their side.

  Grikes, it seemed, were not believers in the Stone and despised those who were. They were, rather, followers of the “Word” and it was their duty to preach the Word, to convert moles to it, and to make Stone-believers see the folly of their ways, however it had to be done.

  The Word was not unknown to Uffington. Although its disciples evidently believed that it was of divine origin, scholars in the Holy Burrows had established decades before that the Word was the work of a corrupt and evil scribemole of early medieval times whose name was Scirpus. From a system in the north had he come, a young, unlettered mole driven by faith in the Stone to make his way alone to Uffington. There had he learned scribing, and become a great scholar whose commentary on the early Treatise of Dark Sound remains a classic of its kind. But his interest in this dark side of the Stone had deepened and become obsessive, and his work had lingered too long in the Stone’s shadows and the darkness that surrounds its light. Scirpus, the records showed, grew impatient and disenchanted with the existing teachings at Uffington, and, claiming revelation and enlightenment he scribed the infamous Book of the Word. This strange, obscure text, which expounded a mixture of dark love and ominous prophecy, was essentially one long blasphemy against the Stone. It claimed that the Word came first and would be last; that the sound of Silence was dark sound; that moles must atone in blood if they are to be saved of the Word; that to deny the Word is to deny Truth and should be punishable; that it is the first duty of moles to teach the Word for the good of moles; that the Word is the Truth.

  His position at the Holy Burrows unfortunately gained considerable credibility by the actions of the eccentric Holy Mole of that period, Dunbar. Until Scirpus’ emergence as the author of his own evil Book, Dunbar had been an exemplary scribemole of great achievement and courage. He had travelled far and wide, but had himself come to Uffington from the north as Scirpus had, and this perhaps gave them a common sympathy.