Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Because I’m Mayweed of course!”

  They stared at each other in silence and then he turned away, rather sadly, as if thinking that soon they too would treat him as others did, they would know, and yet, as he went on down the tunnel, Spindle noticed that there was a little more vigour and confidence to his gait, as if, only for a moment in his life, that brief touch of Tryfan’s had given him the sense of what it might be to be accepted.

  Perhaps this thought occurred to Mayweed too, for he stopped suddenly, turned and said quickly, “Good to be touched it is, Sir, kind and generous and brave, Sir, good and very good! Mayweed will not forget. Mayweed never forgets.”

  Then all three progressed on down the tunnel until they came to another chamber, more substantial than the one they had started in.

  “Tell them he’s a tunneller!” said Mayweed urgently, indicating Spindle. “Tell them that or he’ll not last long.” Then before they could say anything more he was gone down a side tunnel, and out of sight.

  Facing them in the chamber were two grikes, a male and a female, both young and strong looking, and both with the humourless clean looks of zealots who know they are right and everymole who does not agree with them must be wrong. They saw that the male had small sores on his flanks, and the female was losing the fur from her face. The Slopeside must be foul indeed that such moles as these became diseased.

  “Word be with thee!” said the female.

  “And thee!” said Spindle hastily, covering for Tryfan.

  The female looked at them appraisingly. “Mayweed led you here, did he?”

  They nodded.

  “Don’t trust him,” she said. “A snivelling oily little mole, that one.”

  “You’re to be with Skint at the North End,” said the male curtly.

  “My friend here,” said Tryfan with as much conviction as he could muster and doing his best despite his weakened state to look as if he had authority, “is a tunneller by birth and training. He —”

  “Shut up,” snapped the male. “Mayweed told you to say that. We’re putting you with Skint, who’ll soon find out what your friend is or isn’t.”

  “Skint?” said Tryfan.

  “Yes. That way.” And they were dismissed northwards up a wide communal tunnel. “And don’t talk or dawdle on the way,” the female shouted after them. “Carry on and you’ll find Skint, or he’ll find you.”

  But no sooner were they round a corner and out of sight of the chamber than a familiar voice said out of the shadows ahead, “Psst! Me, marvellous Sirs. Mayweed your friend and intrepid guide. Follow me and I’ll lead you there, right to Skint himself! Yes I will, for nothing too!”

  Mayweed was as good as his word, though only after a long trek through tunnels of decay and past moles of misery. Yet to the North End they finally came, to find themselves before a mole who had all his fur, even if it was short, wiry and flecked with grey. There was no spare flesh on his body, yet he looked strong, and of all the moles they had so far seen in the Slopeside he looked the healthiest.

  “Well?” he said, taking a confident stance in the burrow where they found him.

  “Two new subordinates for you kind Skint, Sir, to make your life easier! Intelligent moles they are, easy to train, kind too....”

  “Be quiet, Mayweed, and leave.” Skint’s voice was low and commanding, and Mayweed did what he was told.

  “And what,” said Tryfan, by now weary with the travelling, “are we to be trained for?”

  “Clearing,” said Skint.

  “Clearing?” repeated Spindle, who had said little since they had arrived on the Slopeside. “Do you really think we need training for that?”

  “Moles need training for everything,” said Skint uncompromisingly, “especially southern moles. Soft lot the southerners.”

  “Really?” said Spindle.

  Skint gave him a withering look.

  “Now, you’ll not make much of a job of clearing in your present state. So, you can have some food and sleep and we’ll start you slow.”

  He led them some way off to some unused burrows which, though dusty and draughty, were serviceable enough.

  They were immediately joined by Mayweed coming, as usual, from the direction they least expected.

  “Food for them? Nice food?” he said.

  “Half a worm at most,” said Skint, scowling.

  “Yes Sir, half a worm, Sir, immediately, Sir,” said Mayweed, dipping his snout low and generally making obeisance to Skint.

  He came back a moment later carrying a fresh worm in his mouth which he was about to bite into two for them when Skint said, “Not half a worm each, half a worm between them.”

  “Sorry Sir, silly me, utterly ridiculous me, half a worm between them Sir, that’s generous even magnanimous.”

  “It is so,” said Skint shortly, crouching down and looking at the two of them as they shared their tiny ration. “Give moles as weak as this too much and they sicken and die. You can leave Mayweed; now!”

  “Thank you Skint, Sir!” With a brief unctuous smile in their direction Mayweed left.

  “You probably made the mistake of being nice to him,” said Skint, “so he’ll be back. If he is don’t fraternise with him, don’t encourage him, don’t have anything to do with him. He’s a scrounger and a nuisance and he’s trouble, and probably an informer to Eldrene Fescue.”

  “Does that matter?” said Spindle, whose general annoyance and anger with all they had witnessed had made him bold. “If she’s of the Word you’ll wish her to be informed. Aren’t you the same?”

  “Was once. But now? Word, Stone: when you’ve been a clearer as long as I have, and seen the things I’ve seen, it all amounts to the same. Get a job done and move on, that’s the clearers’ motto. Mayweed’s useful because he learns things and can’t keep his trap shut. He also knows his way round this place better than anymole else. Useful that. Now get some rest. If you work hard and don’t try and escape you’ll be as well treated here as anywhere. There’s not more than a few months work left before we move on again, and I daresay the next pitch will be healthier than this place.” With that small hope Skint left them.

  No sooner had he gone than Mayweed reappeared, popping his head around from some unexpected quarter and peering inquisitively at them.

  “Warned you off me did he, splendidly unkempt Sirs? Said I was a bad lot. Well I admit I look a bad lot, but what can a mole do on the Slopeside? Not what you call wholesome, is it? Not exactly a place a mole chooses to go if he wants to be smart, would you say?”

  He was entirely in the burrow now and when Spindle saw him close to, with his bald skin and smelling sores and over-familiar laugh he instinctively drew away in disgust and might have told him to clear out but for a sign from Tryfan.

  Tryfan looked at Mayweed with neither dread nor fear, but, rather, some interest. Mayweed stared back at him and the silence lasted some time.

  “You’re a sly one, Sir, I can see that. Most clever. You know how to make a mole talk, you do, yes,” he said, his former timidity now apparently quite gone and thrusting his snout to within inches of Tryfan’s. “Haven’t you heard you’ll die in days if you so much as touch a mole with scalpskin, Sir?”

  “Scalpskin? What’s that?” asked Tryfan.

  “What I’ve got. This!” and he pointed a talon at his bare head. “And this is what it smells like when you’ve got it so bad you’re bound to die...” And he turned his flank to Tryfan and showed him the suppurating sores on his flank.

  “How long have you been here?” asked Tryfan, not reacting to Mayweed’s sudden exposing of his sores.

  “Longer’n any of them,” said Mayweed, suddenly sulky. “Longer than eternity.”

  “Well then,” said Tryfan, “if you’re not dead, there’s no reason why we should die just yet, is there?”

  “Oh clever, once-again-brainy Sir, very, very cunningly clever. Clever as a fox, very neat. You’ll die presently, healthy Sir, through madness, through s
nouting, through scalpskin, through wasting, through seizure, you’ll die. Sooner than later, Sir, kind though you are.”

  Tryfan regarded him impassively.

  “You haven’t,” he said.

  “I have a reason to live!”

  “What’s that?” asked Tryfan.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know? Not telling. Never told nomole. Never will. Got a reason.”

  “Well we’ve got a reason to live, too,” said Tryfan with a smile.

  “Clever again! Tell Mayweed, Mayweed won’t tell anyone. Tell him now!” He seemed eager as a pup to know.

  “No,” said Tryfan. “And now if you don’t mind I’m going to sleep.”

  “Not fair – tempting a mole and then going to sleep. Not fair. Won’t get worms for you. Won’t help you, not never again.”

  But Tryfan had closed his eyes and before long had fallen into a deep, untroubled sleep.

  Mayweed disappeared back down a tunnel, and Spindle tried to sleep as well, but was restless and fitful, and unable to settle.

  “Hiss! Psst!”

  “Yes?” said Spindle.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Tryfan,” said Spindle.

  “And yours, Sir?”

  “Spindle.”

  “What’s his reason, Sir, you can tell me. Won’t tell a single soul, just want to know.”

  “I expect he’ll tell you,” said Spindle, rather less afraid of the mole and his condition than he had been before, though quite why he did not know. It was to do with Tryfan not being afraid. And this reason! Well, presumably that was the Stone.

  “There’s a worm for him, Sir,” said Mayweed, impulsively producing a worm from his tunnel. “Don’t tell Skint.”

  “Thank you!” said Spindle.

  “What’s his name? Tryfan, is it?”

  Spindle nodded wearily.

  “Where’s he from then?”

  “Duncton Wood,” said Spindle, being careful not to give anything else away.

  “Big system, is it?”

  “One of the Seven.”

  “He’s a Stone follower then.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Tryfan’s a good name. Funny name though. Tryfan!”

  “Ssh!” whispered Spindle. “Don’t wake him.”

  “He wasn’t afraid of my scalpskin.”

  “There aren’t many things Tryfan is afraid of.”

  “Last lot were afraid. Afraid of everything, they were. Went mad, chewing corpse bones and all sorts. Tried to get away and were caught and snouted although I warned them, yes. Still hanging up there. But Tryfan wasn’t afraid.”

  “Why should he be?” said Spindle gently.

  “’Cos it’s catching.”

  Tryfan stirred and opened his eyes.

  “Fear’s catching,” he said.

  “Ha, ha, ha! laughed Mayweed with genuine delight. “Clever that! “Fear’s catching!” Too right, brilliant Sir!”

  Spindle was tired now and his eyes closed, and Tryfan seemed to have fallen asleep again.

  Mayweed looked at them in some wonder, and then gone was the smile, gone the cunning, gone the effort to please. And he looked suddenly very young, and very afraid.

  “Won’t mind if I sleep near, kind Sirs? Not mind, will you? Just near, where I can see you. Like the company. Don’t like being alone and asleep. I like you, Sir. You’re good, Sir, yes you are. You touched me you did and that was....”

  Whatever it was he did not say for he settled down, his snout along his front paws, contemplating Tryfan and his eyes closing as if, after a long time, he had found a measure of safety and wanted to enjoy it.

  Much later, when the burrow was in deep silence, Tryfan awoke and saw him there and was pleased. There were moles around him who were lost, and who suffered; others who knew not where to go; others who waited to find something they did not know they sought. And others, like Mayweed, who were good, deeply good. And such moles a scribemole could love, whatever else they might be.

  Through others, he was beginning to see, if he was only able to survive, he would find his task, if only the Stone would grant him strength and wisdom to fulfil it. He touched the strange lost mole Mayweed, where his sores were, and where his fur had withered and he whispered invocations of the Stone that this mole might know no fear, and might be blessed and find healing.

  For a moment Mayweed stirred, his eyes looking up at Tryfan in apprehension, but Tryfan’s voice was as gentle as his touch, and the mole settled again, dreaming perhaps that a mole protected him, touched him, watched over him, a great mole, a mole beyond his dreams, an ancient mole, kind like Tryfan; and Mayweed found good sleep for a time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tryfan and Spindle quickly discovered that the fear Alder had had for their safety was founded on the grim and frightening reality that the Slopeside was no more nor less than an extensive and complex system of tunnels, separated from all others, into which a mole, once confined, must work until he died. Or, if he survived, until he was moved on to clear another system. Few survived two such terms, none three.

  The first impressions they had, of moles engaged in hard and dangerous tasks in poor conditions, and under threat of instant punishment and snouting, was correct. But there was more to the Slopeside than that, more that was subtle and unseen, more that was evil; and something that was doomed, something that allmole scents in time where there is no hope, purpose or faith. But that it took the two moles a little while longer to find.

  The day following their arrival, and after Skint had berated Mayweed for insinuating his way into their burrows, he began to instruct them. Skint looked rather less friendly in the light of the new day than he had seemed the evening before, but he was obviously a mole to respect. He peered at them from small dark eyes set deep in a sturdy face. His fur was healthy and his manner brisk. He had a wrinkled snout and was lithe and muscular, and rather smaller than they had at first thought. His eyes affected lines of meanness and distrust, as if he felt he should suspect all moles of cheating and robbing him, and yet there was a certain twinkle to them, and grace to his movements, that made a mole think he might not be quite as ill-tempered and untrusting as he made out. His voice was thin and accented similar to Alder’s and he spoke in quick, sharp bursts, as if used to being in charge.

  “The last lot Eldrene Fescue sent were useless as legless fleas so I don’t have much hope for you,” he began. “I get little thanks for training you, so don’t expect much of my time. Words cost effort, and effort requires food, and food is scarce so listen well because I’m not in the habit of saying things twice.”

  They nodded their heads and settled down to listen.

  “First some history. The Slopeside is the worst clearing job we’ve ever had, and the biggest. The original moles must have died like flies here because their bodies are packed three or four high in some seal-ups. Hundreds of corpses, and only the surface to put them on. They died of buble-plague, infectious plague, malodorous murrain, self-cannibalism and swelling starvation. The moles downslope must have been a nice bunch: they abandoned them and sealed them all in and they killed a lot more who tried to break out. They forced others up here who came in panic from other systems, so that today we are left with burrow after burrow of unappealing death. Not nice.

  “We came here from Rollright in January, which is a fair while to be clearing one system, but the WordSpeaker herself has decreed that this is to be the central system of the whole of the south so a lot of accommodation is needed – though not as much as we’ve got here I would have thought. But there you are. Orders! It’s taken longer than we expected because this place generates virulent scalp-skin and —”

  “What exactly is scalpskin?” asked Tryfan.

  “It’s what that mole Mayweed’s got. Most seem to get it in the end. First there’s the itching over the scalp. A mole can’t think of anything else for a while: drives some mad. Then where they itch the fur goes, the skin dries and sores develop. Then
sores develop down the neck and along the belly, sometimes even when a mole doesn’t itch. But itching speeds things up. Once those sores turn bad and smelly, that’s the end. No cure. Mind you, a lot linger on: moles don’t like losing their life, but they go in the end. The end is not nice and not pretty, worse than the plague itself. Eyes go, snout ulcifies, terrible aches. We put such moles out of their misery unless they’ve taken themselves up on to the surface and the guardmoles kill them.”

  “You haven’t caught it.”

  “No,” said Skint, smiling grimly. “Lucky that way. Had itching, but didn’t give into it. Not once. Got discipline. The itch went and no sores, yet. Most get it quickly, a few don’t. Tell you one thing: those zealot grikes who are meant to be in charge of us get it quicker than anymole. Don’t ask me why – unless it’s because they want to die quick for the glory of having their name on the Rock of the Word.

  “Now, back to business: our task. Get rid of the corpses and remake the tunnels by Midsummer, which gives us little more than a few weeks. The worst is over. It was bad here in the first months, very bad; not many survivors from that, I can tell you. I’m one, Smithills, who you’ll meet in time, curse him, is another though he’s got it starting, Munro has done well, no sign of scalpskin at all; Willow’s got it bad, but she’s a mole and a half, she is, and if we can get her out of here she might survive.” Tryfan noted his voice had softened a little at the mention of this mole’s name; and his eyes stayed soft beneath the scowling expression as he added a last name: “Oh, aye, and that Mayweed. He’s survived, but his scalpskin’s getting worse. Don’t give him long.”

  “Now, I’ll let you into a secret. Eldrene Fescue made a promise to Smithills back in Rollright after he did her a favour that when this job was finished he was to be allowed to travel back to his home system. And I’m to be set free after Uffington.”

  “Uffington?” said Tryfan sharply.

  “Not many corpses there now,” said Spindle, regretting immediately he had said it. But Skint did not pick him up on it, saying instead, “We won’t be clearing there.”