Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Is that mole going to be taken to the Slopeside?”

  Ragwort hesitated before answering Spindle’s question, his eyes uneasy, and Tryfan knew that he wished he could say “yes” – but the fate of the mole was likely to be swifter and more final than that.

  Before he could answer, however, they were pushed on by moles coming from behind into the rush and crush of moles at the entrance of a great communal tunnel, and it was evident that they had arrived very near the centre of the system, and at a time when something unpleasant was apaw.

  Moments later, still carried along by other moles, they entered the main communal burrow itself, a huge cavernous place in which they suddenly had space as Ragwort led them hurriedly around the back of a mob of moles that faced the east end of the chamber. They saw that the place was supported on one side by the thin shining roots of birch, and shored up on another by honey coloured brecchia stone. The air was clear and well controlled and the acoustics dampening, so despite the large number of moles congregating the place was quiet.

  Ragwort took them round the edge of the chamber, well clear of the main concourse and they had the chance to take it all in. The grikes were obvious enough, being squatter and darker than the others, and carried themselves with confidence and power. They talked in twos and threes, and passed by with a certain bravado, and Tryfan noticed that other moles got out of their way and avoided their gaze.

  “What the hell you staring at? Eh?”

  Tryfan turned quickly and found himself facing a large grike whose right front paw was already on him, the talons sharp.

  “Well?”

  “I was just... looking,” said Tryfan weakly, controlling the anger he felt at this rudeness.

  “Say ‘Sir’,” said the guardmole.

  Tryfan stared at him and received a buffet for his insolence.

  “I was just looking, Sir,” he said.

  “Watch it, mole, or my friend’ll have you,” laughed another guardmole unpleasantly. The first one turned and they all saw Spindle rearing up aggressively, as if ready to come to the aid of Tryfan.

  “Very frightening!” said the guardmole sarcastically, and with a swift lunge winded Spindle who fell sideways. Other guardmoles saw it and laughed.

  Ragwort ran quickly forward.

  “Sorry, Sir,” he said. “They’re new to the system and not even initiate.”

  “Well bugger off and don’t poke your snouts about here again until you are,” said the guardmole, moving away.

  A little shaken by the suddenness and violence of this encounter, the three of them regrouped.

  “Grike guardmoles!” whispered Ragwort. “They’re the worst.”

  They advanced on round the great burrow and were about to turn out of it down another tunnel when Tryfan became aware of a flurry and hush at the far end of the chamber, where roots supported the roof. He paused and turned but could see little because of the many moles between. Ragwort whispered urgently, “Come on, we must get on!” But Spindle had stopped as well.

  “What’s going on over there?” asked Tryfan.

  “It’s the Atoning of that mole, but we mustn’t stop for it,” said Ragwort.

  But Tryfan had come to Buckland to find out what he could of the grikes, and that was what he intended to do. In any case, the attention of everymole there was suddenly taken up by moles arriving at the far end of the chamber; nomole seemed bothered by the three of them, and the bullying grike guardmoles had gone down to get a better view.

  As he watched, two old and dried-up-looking females of severe unsmiling mien entered at the far end of the burrow where the others were waiting expectantly. Other moles seemed respectful of them, falling silent as they came near and casting swift, nervous glances at them as if awed but curious. Tryfan saw one of the guardmoles who had threatened them earlier so aggressively lower his snout in submission as they went past him.

  “They are the eldrenes,” whispered Ragwort nervously.

  The two eldrenes settled down, their backs to the great enshadowed roots behind them, which stretched up into the darkness at the top of the chamber and plunged down behind them into its floor.

  Although there were two of them, the moles there had eyes for only one – the older, greyer, more grizzled of the two. Her mouth was downturned, her eyes narrow and suspicious, her stare chillingly cold. Her paws were strangely angled as if, in puphood, she had suffered some disease that had left her with a minor spasm in each paw. So they were like hooks beneath her, and their talons seemed longer than normal, shiny grey and curved. She seemed to crouch as if in continual pain, a pain that tainted her face with cruelty and a desire to punish others.

  “Whatmole is that?” asked Spindle.

  “Eldrene Fescue, most feared of all the eldrenes in moledom,” whispered Ragwort who, having failed to get his charges to leave, had reluctantly joined them. None of them saw a guardmole watching them carefully from the shadows. “She was in Rollright before but has been sent on down here to get the system in shape before Longest Day. That means snoutings by all accounts.”

  There was a sudden hush in the chamber as Eldrene Fescue began a whispered meditation to herself, the words indistinct.

  “Merciful is the Word,” she said finally looking up at them all, and several moles in the crowd called out, “Aye!” and “Praise the Word!”

  “Merciful is the Word,” repeated Fescue cutting across their voices, her own voice a chilling pained whisper again. And then she signalled to one of the guardmoles, and the wounded, abject mole they had seen earlier being driven down the tunnel was brought into the chamber and paraded in front of the eldrenes.

  As he came in, with a guardmole on either side of him, a low and horrid murmur passed among the moles, the sound of contempt, and anger, and murderous intent. The sound, and the way the eldrenes leaned forward and stared mercilessly at the mole, sent a chill over Tryfan’s fur and he felt he was watching something a long way away, something horrible, something he could not stop: darkness was on him and he sensed that in Fescue’s presence he was the witness of evil; and worse than that, by being there at all and doing nothing he was in some curious way a partner to it.

  Yet though he tried to speak, tried to go forward, he was quite unable to, for cast upon him with the sense of evil was the discovery of fear, deep and jagged in him, impaling him to the very soil where they crouched – terror for himself. Yet he watched, while at his side Spindle, unable to look at the horror that was so clearly about to come, had closed his eyes and was desperately whispering an invocation to the Stone, asking its aid and mercy.

  “What is the mole’s name?” asked Tryfan of Ragwort.

  Ragwort shrugged and shook his head.

  “He was found wandering and talking of the Stone. There are many such. They have lost their minds and are too unfit to become initiate. They are either sent to the Slopeside or, if they are articulate and refuse to acknowledge the Word, then they are snouted.”

  “But what is his name?” asked Tryfan again, for suddenly it seemed important to know. Then Eldrene Fescue began speaking.

  “I do not propose to waste much time on you, mole, for you have told us you will not Atone and you have not been willing to confess of the Word.”

  The mole held his snout low and looked at nomole.

  “It is still not too late, for the Word is merciful. Atone, mole, and thy life will be spared.”

  Then the mole spoke, his voice weak and yet his words very strong.

  “I am of the Stone,” he said. “So was I raised and so will I die. And the Stone will be merciful upon thee!”

  The eldrene’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “Mercy is not thine to give,” said Fescue, “nor thine to invoke, nor ever to have without the Word’s will. Wilt thou Atone?”

  “I am of the Stone,” repeated the mole.

  “Then the Word will give thee one last chance. Thou will be marked among the moles here, witnesses of the Word who desire that you join the
m.”

  “Aye,” muttered the moles in the chamber in a way Tryfan could hardly call welcoming.

  “What is this “marking”?” he asked Ragwort as Spindle continued his prayers, his eyes shut to the proceedings before him.

  “You’ll see,” said Ragwort. “And if he’s brought anywhere near here, whatever you do, mark him. It is punishable not to.”

  As he spoke the mole was taken bodily from behind by two large guardmoles and paraded around the chamber. To his horror Tryfan began to see what a marking was, for each mole that he was led past or proffered to, thrust or stabbed at him, not heavily but enough to hurt and draw blood.

  “Atone!” they cried out as he came to them, and this cry turned into a chant, louder and louder, as the mole was successively marked by them. Until, as he was brought to where Tryfan waited, it was clear that the pain of the markings was great – but more than that, the pain of being so outcast and rejected was great, for the poor mole had begun to cry deeply and terribly as the chant around him grew ever louder: “Atone! Atone! Atone!” and the markings turned his feeble body into a run of blood and wounds and each new touch was torture.

  Spindle suddenly turned from Tryfan’s side and fled out of the chamber, and Ragwort followed, but something kept Tryfan where he was even though the mole was now very near him and would soon be proffered to him and he would have to mark him too.

  “Stone, guide me,” whispered Tryfan. “Help me have courage, show me what to do, Stone...” And then the mole was before him and his tears of loneliness in the agony of his final punishment were on his face, and behind him, staring at Tryfan, were the exultant sadistic eyes of the two guardmoles, shouting and chanting.

  Then Tryfan went forward, reached out a taloned paw and speaking low but clearly so that only the mole himself might hear, while appearing to strike him as well, Tryfan said, “The Stone is with thee, mole, and now thou can hear its Silence, now its Silence is thine, listen mole listen....”

  For a moment the mole went still, then he looked at Tryfan and he saw faith in the Stone in Tryfan’s eyes, and love, and knew he was not alone of the Stone, and as he passed on the guardmoles were astonished to hear him cry out in a voice suddenly strong, “I am of the Stonel” Then as more moles marked him he seemed to feel it not, his voice strong and praising the Stone, his very existence suddenly an affront to all there such that their chant became angry and changed now to, “Kill him! Snout him! Make him die!”

  So the clamour passed from Tryfan and back to the part of the chamber where the eldrenes waited, and as the mole seemed to find ever greater courage in the face of the death that faced him, and feel their blows no more, Tryfan seemed to shake and tremble in agony, as if he was taking the mole’s blows for him.

  Indeed it did seem so for Spindle, watching from a side tunnel, saw Tryfan rear up and his mouth open into a cry of pain, though if he did cry out nomole heard it or noticed it for the chanting and clamour was great now, and all eyes were on the final fate of the mole.

  “Kill him that the Word may show him the mercy in death he could not accept in life,” said Eldrene Fescue.

  Then all was blood and final horror as one guardmole held him and another pulled back his huge paw, extended his sharp talons and plunged them forward into the nameless mole’s snout and eyes. Then, as the grikes roared out their approval and the mole arced into one last spasm of life before death, Tryfan, unnoticed at the back, screamed out, his fur shining with dark sweat and his breath fast and agonised, and his eyes full of tears.

  Hurriedly Spindle and Ragwort came for him, and dragged him away and out of the chamber before others saw him in the terrible state he was in.

  As they took him down the tunnel they heard a final roar, murderous, evil, cruel, as the moles behind them watched the nameless follower of the Stone die, and in the exultant silence that followed, Eldrene Fescue’s voice whispered, “Merciful is the Word!”

  While behind the three hurrying moles a mole came as well as a voice. Elegant she was and female; watching darkly.

  “Follow them,” she whispered to the guardmole who had been watching them throughout.

  “Yes, Sideem Sleekit,” said the guardmole.

  “And watch that mole well,” she hissed coldly, pointing a talon after Tryfan as, hunched and nearly helpless, he was carried away from the communal chamber by Spindle and Ragwort.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time Spindle and Ragwort had got Tryfan through the tunnels to the visitors’ quarters of Buckland he was in an even worse state of collapse than when he had left the central chamber. He seemed deeply troubled, and in pain, his fur sweating profusely and his talons weak. Ragwort was very frightened, as if it were all his fault and he would be punished. He had also become aware that a guardmole was following them and was convinced that he would be killed. Spindle, too, was concerned, for though he understood that Tryfan’s state was to do with the evil they had witnessed in the communal chamber and his touching of the mole, he had no idea how to comfort Tryfan, who seemed to hear nothing that was said to him but, rather, was lost in some suffering beyond them all.

  So, greatly troubled, they arrived at the visitors’ quarters, where Spindle immediately sought out a dry and comfortable place where Tryfan could lie down and sleep. There he led him, gently pushing him down and staying with him as he passed fretfully into slumber.

  It was only then that Spindle was able to look round and observe the communal burrow they were in more closely. It was foul and ill-kempt, and there were two other moles huddled in a far corner watched over by two guardmoles, one on duty near the entrance through which they had come, and the other guarding what appeared to be a surface entrance. The nearer of the guardmoles came over and spoke to Ragwort who, after briefly explaining who they were, and that “Benet” had been taken ill, said a quick goodbye to Spindle, looked worriedly at the stricken Tryfan and left after muttering a final whispered wish that they might meet again.

  The guardmole turned to Spindle in a friendly enough way.

  “You’re to stop here for a night or two and then you’ll be taken to Eldrene Fescue to be given your task. Not the most salubrious of places, this. Punishment duty for us! But feel free to help yourselves to the food, such as it is.” Nearby was a crude larder of decapitated worms, some writhing in the dark, but several already dead and unappetisingly still.

  “You two best rest and keep quiet,” he concluded. “Don’t bother us and we’ll not bother you. If you do need something just give a shout. My name’s Alder and my mate’s called Marram.” Alder was a big mole, and strong, and though his head and flanks were scarred and pitted from fighting, he had a friendly face and cheerful eyes, and he looked at a mole directly. His friend Marram was a little smaller, though still large and strong enough, and looked more concerned with life than Alder did: rather serious, perhaps. Spindle felt that, judging from the other guardmoles they had met, they could have done a lot worse.

  “Can we go up on to the surface?” asked Spindle, indicating the surface entrance Marram was guarding. Marram came over and joined them and said immediately, “No, you can’t do that. You shouldn’t have a need to, and anyway, your friend doesn’t look up to much.”

  “My friend might like some fresh air,” said Spindle.

  “There’s owls about up there, and if they don’t get you the patrols will,” Marram said. “Best stay here.” He looked forceful, and Spindle knew they had no choice but to do as he said.

  As if to take Spindle’s mind off the freedom the surface represented, Alder pointed an indifferent talon at the two moles in the far corner. They seemed miserable and tired, and looked grubby and abject.

  “Don’t mind them, they’re vagrants waiting for instruction or Atonement.” Even from where he was, Spindle could tell from their stance and the subjected lie of their paws and snouts that they were apprehensive, or worse. One of them, a young male, looked briefly over towards them and then away again. The other, a female, appeared we
ak and restless, probably ill.

  The guardmoles returned to their stance and had a quick whispered word with each other, looking over at Spindle and Tryfan, Marram looking worried, but Alder waved a friendly talon in their direction when he saw Spindle watching, as if to reassure him.

  Some hours later, when dusk was creeping over the surface and the burrow was getting dark, Tryfan, whose sleep had been restless, fell still as if, finally, peace had come back to him and his breathing became deep and steady. Spindle continued to watch over him with protective concern, though to anymole else it would have seemed it was the thin and gaunt-looking Spindle who need the protecting, and the young and powerful Tryfan who would have provided it.

  Then suddenly Tryfan stirred and opened his eyes, and stared with affection on Spindle, who immediately went to get him some worms which, despite their poor quality, Tryfan ate hungrily, as if he had not eaten for days.

  “You know, Spindle,” he said eventually, “it was the fact that that mole had no name. No name. Nomole knew who he was, or where he came from. He could have been anymole... anymole.”

  Spindle noticed that Tryfan’s voice had changed, though perhaps the full impact on Tryfan of the torture and death of a mole they had witnessed was not clear yet. But his voice was deeper, older, and there was to his stance the sense that he now accepted a responsibility and purpose he had not been able to before.

  “I shall not forget that mole, not ever in my life,” said Tryfan, “nor the fact that I was afraid to help him.”

  “You could have done nothing, Tryfan, nothing at all except get yourself killed, and me as well. Even as it is we are not exactly what I would call safe!”

  For a time Tryfan was silent, thinking about it all. Then he said, “I know that is true, but I also know that there was something wrong about what we did and something right about what the mole did. He said simply, “I am of the Stone”, and the grikes could not stand that he did so. He had no name... no name. The Stone wants us to know something of that, something very important, but I don’t know what it is. When I touched him I felt the power of the Stone in me and though I could not hear the Silence myself I know that through me he heard it, and in giving him that way to the Stone I took upon my body the pain he had. It was hard, very hard, and I have been somewhere that one day I will have to find the strength to go back to.”