Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

“My father? Nothing! He had been warned off it by his father.”

  Alder laughed deeply.

  “It must be frightening indeed that moles who live so near never dare venture there!”

  “It is,” said Caradoc. “And the moles who live there, traitors though some may be, they’re frightening too. It’s the place, see. Shapes a mole strangely. Makes him serious, makes him watchful, makes him wary and quick to take offence. Siabod moles need pawdling.”

  “Pawdling?”

  “Like a touchy mother, needs careful pawdling.”

  “Well, it’s no bad thing to be quick tempered and touchy. They may be just the qualities needed to resist grikes. But whether they’re what’s needed to defeat them, that’s a different matter. Now, is it true they don’t speak mole?”

  “Speak Siabod, don’t they? But don’t you worry, they can speak mole if they want to, or most can but a very few who choose to hide away in the hills and are never seen.”

  They had begun to go downslope across sheep pastures, taking routes that Caradoc seemed to know which made use of the dry stone walls that deface those slopes and confuse a mole who does not know them. But to one who did, like Caradoc, the walls gave safe and lengthy runs.

  There was little life about but for rooks and a few raven squabbling over sheep carrion. Occasionally juvenile herring gulls swooped down to give a dash of white-brown colour to the scene. But as the winds got stronger, even this life stilled as the birds huddled at some low, sheltered promontory, their excrement bold white and purple about them.

  “The purple’s bilberries,” said Caradoc. “Useful to mole on worm-poor ground. Carrion’s useful too if you care to risk the rooks. Burrow from below if you have to. Nerve-racking.”

  Alder looked round at Marram and grinned. Survival in these parts was difficult, and a mole did well to listen to what locals said.

  The skies were still low and grey as they turned across a grubby field and came to as sorry a collection of Stones as Alder and Marram had ever seen on their long journey.

  “Capel Garmon,” said Caradoc shortly. “One of nature’s natural derelictions, though Stones are here so moles must have been in the past. None in residence now, but we vagrant moles of the Stone use it as a safe meeting place.”

  They looked about, huddled against the cold, and stared at the Stones, and then found shelter in a large empty burrow Caradoc seemed to know.

  “I sometimes think a wrong was done in this place and the spirit of the Stone deserted it. Perhaps moles died of plague here alone and forsaken. Whatmole can say? Even the grikes have ignored it since their initial reconnaissance. A few Siabod moles know of it and come here if they want to make contact with the outside world.”

  “Then Siabod’s near?” said Alder, looking westward past the battered and wan-looking Stones to the cloud and mist that obscured all view.

  “Five days or so. Now, I’ll have to get a message out and that’ll take a day or two. And then a mole or moles will come to take you on. That could take a day or two more, so you’ve a bit of a stay. Don’t stray while I’m gone!”

  “You’re joking, mate,” said Marram. “We’ll be glad of the rest.”

  It was five days before Caradoc returned and when he did he had a good few moles with him and all but one as thin and ragged looking as he was. Indeed, they looked as if they had all got cold at birth and never warmed up since. The exception was a large and silent mole who glowered from the back and said nothing.

  “A Siabod mole is coming as soon as he can to guide you on,” said Caradoc, “but meanwhile...” He seemed apologetic. “These moles wanted sight of you. Tell them what you told me.” Then Caradoc added in a whisper, “Don’t worry about the big one at the back. His name’s Troedfach and I’ll tell you of him later.”

  “Can they be trusted?” asked Alder doubtfully, for they were a sorry, unprepossessing bunch.

  “They’ll swear to that!” said Caradoc with feeling. “There’s not one here who’ll not touch the Stone!” With that he nodded to the circle of moles who were staring silently at Alder and Marram, and then one by one they went to the nearest Stone, put a paw to it, and, looking at the rest said, “May this paw wither and this heart die on the day I forswear the Stone. I wait for the coming of the Stone Mole with longing, aye!”

  One by one they said it, and as they spoke, however abject and pitiful they seemed – and it was clear that some had little food to live on and led a vagrant hunted life – they somehow came alive as they spoke, and their eyes lit up not just with faith but pride and passion too. Their final “Aye!” was chorused by the others, so that the swearings became rhythmic and the “Ayes” ever stronger. Then they looked at Alder and Marram expectantly, and Caradoc whispered, “You must do it now, and they’ll know you’re true!”

  So both of them did, staring around at the followers and threatening themselves with withered paws and dying hearts, and invoking the name of the Stone Mole.

  When that was done Alder spoke to them, telling them the recent history of Duncton and its evacuation under the leadership of Tryfan. Many asked questions, and wanted to know of the grikes and Henbane, and a few of Whern. But mostly they wanted to know what Tryfan had said of the Stone Mole.

  “Will he come soon?” asked more than one, with longing in their eyes.

  “To kill the grikes?” asked another. “And lead us back to the vales where once we lived?”

  “Before a full cycle of seasons has passed?” asked a third.

  Alder replied, “I know not when or how or where the Stone Mole may come. I think perhaps all moles of the Stone seek him now and that Tryfan will find guidance in the great Wen to which he has gone and of which I have told you what I know. But allmole is on a quest for him and he will come when the time is right. Meanwhile we must have faith, and courage. I do not think it is the end for Siabod. I know the grikes can be held for I was there at Duncton when we held them, for a time at least. I believe they can be defeated and that first great defeat will be here at Siabod. And you moles of courage, who have fled the vales and hold true to the Stone, your hour will come. Stay close, listen, be patient, trust the future as you trust each other and trust Marram and myself whom you hardly know. Our long winter is here, but if we have not strength to survive it and faith to live it through then why should the Stone Mole help us? This is our time of great testing. He will come to moles worthy of him, and to systems where, however faintly, moles still call out that they might one day hear the Silence that is the Stone’s great gift. This is Tryfan of Duncton’s message to you.”

  After that the moles spoke far into the night to Alder and Marram, telling them of their hopes and fears, and pledging their support for Tryfan and the cause that he was leading. Mole after mole said that though they had little strength or skill for fighting yet they would give their very lives if Tryfan or Alder asked it of them, because they knew that one day – Aye! One day! – the Stone Mole would come.

  This meeting is known now as the Conclave of Capel Garmon and moles speak of it with respect and reverence, and are glad to claim kinship to those brave beleaguered moles who were there with Alder and Marram then. So let us scribe a roll of their names that they are ever known: Caradoc, Clun, Mynydd, Cwmifor, Manod, Stitt of Ratlinghope, Wentnor of Mynd and the Pentre siblings, Gaelri and Lymore; last were three moles from the southern Marches, Blaen-cwm, Dowre and Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw.

  Of these twelve moles one alone would later journey on with Alder. This was Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw whom Alder had noticed when the moles first joined them at Garmon and who loomed as an oak at sunset rises among lesser trees. They noticed that the others deferred to him, though not in any humble way but rather as if he had some strength or purpose beyond even theirs.

  “He trekked from the distant south to come to Siabod,” explained Caradoc, “and though he says little I know that none more than he waits with longing for the coming of the Stone Mole. He speaks seldom, but others like him and trust him and
he has saved more than one life against the grikes.”

  Of all the moles there he was the only one who spoke his avowal of the Stone in a language other than mole: deep and guttural and strange, and he snouted close to the Stone as if he could see little but feel much.

  It was he too who took the lead as they parted by speaking for the others, saying, “Your coming has been awaited for many months and we will await your return from Siabod. There is not one here who would not go with you to that place, but ’tis better that only you two go first. We will be ready when your call comes, aye we will!” And the others joined in his shout.

  With that meeting the great army of moles that Alder dreamed he might one day lead found its birth. Each would play his part, each find and inspire others to play theirs. Each would have patience to live the winter of the Stone through to its bitter end, and have faith that when the last storm broke and light returned to moledom once again they would have strength to fight for it, aye! That was the hopeful shout from Garmon then, as grey dawn came, and those fugitive few went silently away to wait the call that Alder would one day send out.

  A few hours later a solid looking mole with a craggy snout and eyes that seemed permanently screwed up against the wind, even when he was safe aburrow, arrived.

  His name, he said, was Cwm, and he was sorry to keep them waiting but he had insisted on coming himself when he heard they were from Duncton Wood. He was sorry again but would they mind swearing on the Stone as he looked them up and down to see if they weren’t traitorous. Which they did willingly enough.

  “And you now,” said Alder firmly when they had finished.

  Which Cwm also did, swearing his oath in a sing-song way and crying out his “Aye!” as if it was both a curse on the grikes and a celebration of a better world to come.

  “Now you listen, and listen well. I’ve heard your story already from others including some I met on the way this morning and who spent the night up here. Troedfach himself said I could trust you, and that’s good enough for me. I’m taking you now up into Siabod and I’ll warn you it’s a hard journey.”

  “Is it far?” asked Marram.

  “Not as the eye looks on a day not cursed by cloud, no. But as the paws go, as courage goes, as faith goes, it’s too far for most. We’ll see, won’t we? It takes five days normally but we’ll have to do it in three if we’re to avoid the freeze that’s on its way.” He spoke in a terse quick way and eyed them appraisingly as if he doubted they had it in them to make the journey.

  “We’re ready!” said Alder.

  “The route I’ll take you on goes right through the ranks of the grikes and once I say not to talk, I mean it, see? Not a word. But that’s the easy part. Later we’ll be going high and it’ll be cold and you’ll get hungry. I don’t want to know, see? You’ll eat at the end – not a lot, but you’ll eat.”

  With that they said brief farewells to Caradoc who told them that when they needed him he would be ready, waiting either at Garmon or Caer Caradoc for however long it took.

  “The Stone be with you, mole!” said Alder.

  “And with you!” said Caradoc powerfully. The uncertain and timid mole they had met only days before stood proud now and purposeful. Such was Alder’s effect on moles he met and spoke to; such is a great leader’s way.

  Terse and taciturn though Cwm was, they learnt much of Siabod’s recent history from him over the next three days of journeying.

  The grikes had first come nearly a full cycle of seasons before, advancing up the valleys steadily. The first mistake the Siabod moles made was to ignore them completely, so they were able to entrench positions in adjacent valley systems where, apart from an occasional skirmish, they quietly got on with subverting the faith of the indigenous moles, and brutalising those few who resisted them.

  It was only when a few brave vagrants appealed to Siabod for help that those moles came out of the high fastness of their tunnels and attacked the grikes. But it was piecemeal and without co-ordination and though some individual triumphs occurred, no progress was made in dislodging the aliens. Indeed, when summer came and the Siabod moles moved into their high tunnels and left their lower tunnels and the routes to the wormful valley of the Nantgwryd unattended, the grikes methodically took them over. It was this mistake which had now weakened the Siabod moles, for as winter came they had been unable to move back down to wormful soils and were stuck in the worm-poor high tunnels.

  Even then the Siabod moles might have successfully fought back, for the grikes were spread thin and needed reinforcements. But once again, though the attacks were bold, they were sporadic and without co-ordination, so the moment was lost.

  Cwm did not dwell on the disaffection and disarray that followed. Apart from the fact that many young, strong Siabod moles had died in the fighting, old moles died too from undernourishment, while others fled south to grimy Ffestiniog, a place of slate and gloom that saps a mole’s vitality and turns him in upon himself to wither and die young.

  “So the stories we heard in the south of Siabod’s bold resistance were not quite true,” said Alder. “It was more that the grikes did not then have enough moles to risk striking to the very heart of Siabod and its fabled Stones?”

  Cwm agreed that it was so. The summer had given them a brief respite, for they were able to take their young to the higher ground and at least recover some of their strength.

  “But now the winter’s come again and the grikes are even stronger in our lower tunnels than before. Reinforcements have come and food is scarce and many moles among us feel the best course is to yield to the grikes and hope that a time may come when we can recover our pride and strength.”

  “And you, Cwm, what do you feel?”

  “I’ll fight the bastards to the death, see, and beyond that if I have to.”

  “Are there many like you?”

  “Enough.”

  “Who is your leader?”

  “I thought Caradoc would have told you that,” said Cwm. “His name is Glyder*. Don’t you know who he is, moles?”

  *Pronounced “Glidder”.

  Alder and Marram shook their heads, and Cwm seemed surprised.

  “But I thought....”

  “Yes?” said Alder.

  “Let him tell you for himself then!”

  On the third day they dropped down into the valley to their left and crossed the Nantgwryd by a twofoot bridge. Every field they saw held evidence of grike occupation, but they were not observed as they ran silently behind Cwm through the lines of the grikes. To their right the ground rose sharply and Cwm explained that the Siabod mass lay that way.

  “Even if the clouds lifted you’d not see it from here because the valley side rises so steep it obscures it. The main Siabod tunnels start above here, but as they’re occupied by grikes we’ll travel west along the river and take an unfamiliar route at the north end of the main system.”

  The weather was still bad, the clouds persistently low, and the wind sharp and sleet-laced. Yet once they crossed the river and started climbing they were warm enough provided they kept moving, and though the ground was wet, Cwm knew it well and found good temporary burrows for them.

  “It’ll get cold the moment we’re clear of the valley,” said Cwm, “so rest well tonight and eat well too, for there’ll be little enough to find from here on.”

  They resumed their climb at dawn to a grey landscape and a distinctly colder wind, while the sky had that chilling luminescence that heralds snow. Below them the river they had crossed snaked blackly eastward among trees. Northward the cloud was lifting and they saw, for the first time, the heights that separate Siabod from the sea. Grey with the first snows, huge flanks of rock, wind-swept moorland of a kind neither had seen before. A place that is death to mole.

  Here and there a peak rose higher than the rest.

  “They are the Carneddau,” said Cwm, “unlived in by mole.”

  Alder and Marram stared at those heights as the clouds drifted fast across them, rev
ealing a sheer face here, a scree fall there and impassable ridges beyond.

  “You think they’re frightening? You’ve not seen Siabod yet!” said Cwm with a laugh, and he turned to lead them out of the valley and on to the northern slopes of the system he was willing to die for.

  It was the wind that hit them first, sweeping down from the mist-driven slopes above, and then the cold. But then, beyond all that, a sense of awesome imminence, a darkness to the mist as if it was solid and hard and rising to unseen rocky heights that made a mole peer up expectantly, and then up again.

  They travelled through pine woodland, the soil dead and acid, and running with freezing stained water between tussocks of grass and roots. Above their heads the trees shifted in the wind uneasily. It was a place to make a mole shiver and move on. Soon they climbed out of that and went on a way that had the woodland to their left-paw side and a rushing stream to their right. Then the trees seemed to wither and fail and they pressed on upslope over desolate moor.

  “It’s a wormless place for mole,” said Alder, as Marram looked about uncomfortably.

  “There’s food if you know where to go, and tunnels higher up, the like of which you’ll not have seen before.”

  “We said we’d not argue with you, and we won’t. But where’s this Glyder, and the other Siabod moles?”

  “He’ll find us, will Glyder, never you worry about that!”

  Above them the mist thickened and lowered more. To their right, beyond the stream, the ground dropped away and up it came a swirling mist-filled wind. The light was grey and the brightest thing about them was the bracken, golden brown but dead.

  On they went, higher and higher, the wind ever more changeable and carrying flurries of hail or hard snow, though the ground was snowless yet.

  “I’m not happy with this,” muttered Marram, looking about him in the knowledge that they could be attacked from any quarter and not know it until their attacker was upon them.

  “Nor am I,” said Alder, “but we’ve no choice. Stay close and trust that the Stone leads us true.”