Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Oh yes,” she whispered, nuzzling her one. “Especially the pups. Only one is needed, and this is he. One only need I train. So find the others and kill them.”

  Then as some sideem chased down the way Mayweed and Sleekit had fled, and others went back out of the entrance, Henbane commanded those who waited on her, “Bring me food. I shall stay here for some days and then go back to where I am most comfortable. Let all Whern know that the Master is dead and the Mistress is come.”

  “We shall,” they intoned. “Long live the Mistress!” they cried out.

  “She shall,” whispered Henbane, smiling, and triumphant. Then silence fell, but for the drip-drip-dripping of preserving time in the chamber where the old Master lay dead, and the sounds of suckling.

  “Long live the Mistress!” they shouted.

  “Oh yes, she shall!” smiled Henbane.

  “Long live the Mistress and her pup!” they exalted, as over them all the Rock of the Word shimmered with the light of the darkest pool in moledom, and whispered dark comfort to its newest son.

  PART V

  The Coming of the Stone Mole

  Chapter Forty-Two

  December had come, and with it the first drifts of snow swept across the western face of Whern, whitening the lower parts to make the steep rock faces higher up seem as black as night.

  Far below, south of the High Sideem, unconcerned by distant sights of darkness, or premonitions of a bleak winter finally setting in, two pups, youngsters nearly, played with the snow and delighted in its crisp whiteness.

  They touched it in wonder, and they giggled and laughed, and then stared in delight at the way the snow, drifting out of a leaden sky, struck the solitary wind-bent birch that spread its leafless branches to one side of them. Soundlessly the snow buffeted and bumped its way down the trunk and through the branches of the tree to where they waited with outstretched paws within the limestone clefts from which the tree rose up.

  “Energetic younglings, obey Sleekit, come and eat!” said a familiar voice, and they turned and play-tumbled over to him, and touched him and took the food their guardians had found.

  None could see those moles, none guessed they were there hidden in the very midst of Whern. None.

  So now resourceful Mayweed stared at them, and then at Sleekit, whose eyes met his with warmth and trust – and concern as well. Their glance was that of two moles who have come by circumstance and character to trust each other truly, and can guess by such a glance what the other thinks: time now to move, time to risk setting forth, time to flee the coming blizzards and find a better sanctuary than that they had....

  Courage, luck and faith had gone with Mayweed and

  Sleekit that day when they snatched up two of Henbane’s pups and fled the chamber where the Masters crouched in stone. Fast had they run, Mayweed never looking back but trusting that Sleekit could follow him through the tortuous labyrinthine ways of the High Sideem, and then out on to the fell beneath great Whern’s last rise.

  There they turned and took routes Mayweed knew among the peat hags and on downhill towards that spreading surface of cleft limestone, the dangerous Clints.

  Down they ran, chased by pursuers behind, watched by sideem below who, not yet alerted to these miscreants were not as ready for them as they might have been. The two bobbed in and out of moles’ view over that heathered waste until their breath came in gasps and their paws stumbled in the terrible ground.

  “Madam,” said Mayweed, pausing and laying his pink-grey and bleating burden down for a moment, “this mole me has been chased before and will be again. It is a habit in Whern. Humbleness pauses only to say this: trust him and we shall be safe. Our sanctuary will be the confusing Clints, of which Mayweed here has made a tour and decided they will have to do. He doubts that the sideem will follow us in, but if they do they will get lost since he intends to enter by an irregular route. So trust him, follow him close, and all will be well.” Mayweed gave one of his more ghastly smiles and added softly, “He hopes.”

  With this speech, which Mayweed intended to be encouraging and to save argument later when argument might not be possible, he picked up his pup once more and ran on, and headed straight for the knot of curious sideem that waited beneath the small cliff which marked the start of the Clints.

  Behind moles cried out warningly, ahead the sideem stiffened in readiness to bar the way of the approaching moles who carried in their mouths – what? Things Whern very rarely saw: Pups.

  Then Mayweed seemed to hesitate and waver and Sleekit caught him up and stopped. Fooled, the sideem relaxed. With a quick nod to her Mayweed charged straight at an entrance to the Clints and through the outstretched talons of the disbelieving sideem. Left he went, then right, then left and left, then right once more, on and on, as their shouts died down behind to cries of doom that said, “They are lost! They will die! Watch the entrances lest they find a way out by the Word’s grace! Or else they are dead!”

  The Clints closed in upon them and carried further in by Mayweed’s purpose and volition they went on, turning this way and that, coming into cul-de-sacs, whirling about, high walls rising around them and the ferns and moist plants getting in their way.

  Sleekit followed him faithfully, never letting him get too far ahead, until he slowed, peered about, and finally set his burden down. Sleekit did the same.

  “But nomole can know this place!” she gasped, her eyes wide with alarm as she looked up at the inaccessible sky.

  “That’s what Mayweed heard, Madam Miss, but Mayweed entered in and came out again! He did. The whole humble lot of him did, leaving not a limb, not a snout, nothing behind.”

  “But how?” asked Sleekit.

  “With, Madam, very enormous difficulty. Mayweed is not easily daunted but daunted he was, and daunted he is now.”

  “Don’t you know where you are?” she whispered in alarm.

  “Mayweed regrets to say he has no idea. However all is not lost. There is method to his madness. For the moment we are safe. The sideem will hang about and take our nonappearance as evidence of our death. Which Mayweed takes as evidence of their inflexibility of thinking. Never assume a mole is dead until he rots before your eyes.” He came closer to her.

  “Companion in mercy, let me speak to you of food in the Clints. Worms? A few. Snails? Enough. Spiders? Many. Other slithey edibles: a cornucopia. We shall not starve, Madam, though we may wish to be sick. So here we shall stay; you shall take charge of the pups, and humbleness will begin his search for the Southern Passage of the Clints, and so be ready for the day when, these pups more grown so they can hold their own and we, given up for dead, sneak out unseen and make our way to Grassington, old friends, and new tunnels.”

  “But I am pupless. I have never mothered young.”

  “Ah! Yes,” muttered Mayweed, peering reluctantly at the gasping pups before looking in as winning a way at her as his balded face and ravaged body allowed.

  “The good news is that pupless you are no more. The bad news, Madam, is that there are two of them. Mayweed timidly suggests you chew worms fine and spit it down their mouths, a process which he would prefer not to watch. However, if he must he will, or at least demonstrate.”

  It is a testimony to those two pups’ durability that they survived at the paws of two moles as inexperienced in such things as Sleekit and Mayweed were. Rarely can two parents have been as clumsy, impatient, bad-tempered, inflexible, angry, and at times indifferent as they.

  Yet one quality more they had, and it made up for all the rest: loving determination. Each in their way had made a vow to help the parents of these pups: Mayweed to Tryfan, Sleekit to Henbane. So they did, hard though rearing young that were not their own proved to be. Tired, irritable, fed up they both became, but the crucial first weeks were weathered, the pups survived, and the Stone gave them all its protection.

  Until at last the pups could crawl, and then carry themselves properly on their paws, and see, and laugh, and even try to speak... A
nd Sleekit and Mayweed began, for the first time, to relax and know that they had learnt more of each other in that strange parenting than many ever learn.

  “Madam,” Mayweed had said one day then, “one is a he and the other a she and neither has a name.”

  “Harebell and Wharfe,” said Sleekit promptly.

  “Madam! So fast?” exclaimed Mayweed, amazed and delighted at the same time. Sleekit had a speed of mind, and a certainty about some things that he was beginning to appreciate now that December had come and the pups were growing up into youngsters.

  “I have been thinking of those names for a long time,” said Sleekit.

  “Mayweed thinks that perhaps sly Sleekit is mindful of the fact that their parents are respectively named after a flower and a place, though both somewhat redolent of darkness. Your choice is kind, clever and wise.”

  “Harebell I first saw blowing in the wind high on Uffington Hill, and the flower suggested that perhaps there was another way than the Word. This young pup has something of its lightness and delight in her eyes. As for Wharfe, it is a river that flows clear and strong and does not stop, and this male of Henbane’s seems like that. So have their names come to me.”

  “Mayweed thinks that Madam is a poet, Mayweed is impressed.”

  Sleekit sighed and said quietly, “I have done much in my life in the name of the Word of which I am ashamed. Now I have a chance at last to go where the Stone directs. I do not know whether moles of the Stone could ever accept one such as me, trained as I have been in Whern itself, unused as I am to the ways of the Stone. But you seem to accept me....”

  “I, Madam? I accept you? Humbleness was thinking even as you spoke that you accept him! He only hopes that as time goes by Sleekit will see that this scalpskinned body of his hides a heart that is as good as any other mole’s who trusts the Stone and does his best.”

  Each stared at the other, much moved, and might perhaps have said more, and come closer, and touched each other as they then began to desire to, but the pups ran up, their eyes wide, their natures eager.

  “Play?” said Harebell.

  “Me?” said Wharfe.

  Snow drifted down, the air felt good, but the sky above surged with cold.

  “Happy Harebell and bold Wharfe, listen to Mayweed. Yes! Crouch close to Sleekit.”

  The pups did so.

  “Are you brave? You are! Are you bold? You are! Have I told you of the Stone? I have not. Well, I’m not much of one to talk of that, and Sleekit here isn’t either, yet. But there’s a Stone and it will keep you safe, for mole talons, however strong, are not strong enough for that. We two are going to take you there. The snow means winter, and winter in not the time to be in the Clints. So we are going on an adventure!”

  Harebell and Wharfe looked at each other, understanding his concern better than his words. They were going to leave these high walls at last and see the places beyond. They snuggled closer still.

  “Younglings both,” continued Mayweed, “look about this place one last time and remember it. It was your first home but now we must leave. So follow me and know that Sleekit is close behind. Do as we say, trust us, and remember!”

  The youngsters, whose speech had barely begun, nodded dumbly. Harebell cried, which started Wharfe. Both were comforted. Both gulped and took a touching stance that said, “We’ll try to do our very best, we will!”

  Then they followed Mayweed, Sleekit reassuringly just behind, pausing only for a moment during which Wharfe stared back at the tree at whose roots and under whose bent branches they had played; stared and remembered it. Then, as he had seen Mayweed do, he eyed each turn they took carefully, and sought to remember it as a route-finder must.

  While Harebell sighed hugely and followed on, with Sleekit smiling to see it. Her sigh had the touch of Henbane her mother about it, but not that dread Henbane, scourge of moledom. No, it was the female who once spoke in wonder in her den to Sleekit, of the joy of feeling her pups move inside her. Now two of those pups were here, and safe, and Sleekit, trained as a sideem, found herself a mother. But she would not forget that part of these pups’ heritage, and one day would tell it to them honestly. For if a mole is to be himself and tread truly towards his future, he had best tread truly out of his past.

  So Mayweed led them out of the Clints by a southward route, leaving the dark rising of Whern behind them as they dropped down the succession of limestone scars that mark Whern’s western side, and sought to make passage to Grassington.

  And not a moment too soon. Behind them over Whern dark blizzards gathered, the northern wind grew strong, and winter began to cast down its bleak pall.

  By the time those same winds had caught up with Tryfan and Spindle, they had already crossed the Dark Peak and were travelling south over lower ground.

  At first Tryfan’s passage had been painful and slow, for his sight was impaired and his paws wounded and weak. But, gradually, he had regained his health and strength, and though his face was heavily scarred now and his sight still limited, his paws were better and he could move quite fast.

  Spindle had decided to ease his passage by choosing routes along roaring owl ways which, though exposed and full of danger, yet provided a smoother path. The dangers were reduced because they used them at night when the gazes warned them in good time of what was coming and they could scurry to the undergrowth that lined the route.

  Such ways had the advantage, too, of anonymity, for nomole travelled them but they themselves, and their only company was rook and kestrel to whom moles were unappealing prey. Especially moles prepared to use their talons. Owl were the greater danger, and the moles kept close for safety, and were always alert.

  As for roaring owls, they learnt much of them. Their time in the Wen had made them used to the noise and fumes, and they knew to avoid their gaze. They went too fast to be troubled by moles, and seemed to notice them not.

  So by mid-December, when winter set in from the north and the first snows came, Spindle was able to say with confidence, “We’re more than halfway Tryfan, and you’re getting stronger. That’s the power of prayer for you! There’s hope we’ll get you home!”

  Tryfan half grinned, rueful and serious, and said nothing but Spindle was used enough to that. This journey back was very different from the journey out. Then they had met many moles, then Tryfan had spoken of the Stone and moles had flocked to hear him. Now he desired that none knew of their passage, and made Spindle understand that it was a time of thinking and retreat from mole.

  Yet, sometimes when they went off the ways moles did find them, sheltering in some nook of somemole’s tunnels, hiding, and shivering as winter took grip.

  “You look all in, you two do. Vagrants eh? You should burrow down in this weather, friend.” And then, in a lower voice, such moles usually said to Spindle, “Your mate’s a goner by the look of him. Got savaged by fox did he? He’ll not last long... So, whither are you bound?”

  “To find a healer,” Spindle would say, “who is named the Stone Mole.”

  “That’s a joke and a half, mate, but I wouldn’t talk like that if I were you. This system’s of the Word now, moles don’t talk of the Stone....”

  “The Stone Mole’s coming,” Spindle would reply.

  “Maybe, and you’re off to find him are you? Well, he’s the only one who’ll help that mole. As for healers, none of them left these days! The eldrenes tend to a mole’s needs and if illness comes, well, that’s the judgement of the Word!”

  Strangely, such moles never said a thing about their passage through, perhaps because to help a vagrant of the

  Stone was, in some way, to serve a need in themselves they had half forgotten. Often such moles brought them food, and let them rest without further disturbance. And more than one, and sometimes more than that together, came to wish the two moles well, and that they might return home safeguarded.

  While a very few clutched Spindle’s paw, as if in him they saw a faith they could not themselves publicly profess, an
d whispered, “If you find the Stone Mole tell him our name. We helped you for him, aye, that’s what we did! And may your friend find peace!”

  So when they were alone, Spindle could say with confidence, “The Stone is helping us, Tryfan, it sends moles to guide us on. We’ll get home, we will! It will be Longest Night again soon, and maybe we can find a Stone to pray at which you can touch, maybe it will help you then.”

  But Tryfan’s retreat continued as he delved into his own doubts and faith, so deeply indeed that sometimes Spindle caught him stumbling, though whether from his impaired sight, or a more profound darkness was hard to say.

  Longest Night was near, and it seemed almost as if the driving weather wished to kill them before it came and Spindle could say the ritual prayers on Tryfan’s behalf. No mole in living memory had ever seen the weather that came then. North, north the wind, so cold that some days it turned breath to ice on a mole’s mouth, and froze up streams, and began to kill the worms, creeping its freezing talons down through the soil, making even deep tunnels chill.

  Sometimes the branches of trees fell crackling down, sometimes the wind stopped and the landscape was frozen still, and birds that sought to roost died where they were, their bodies torn by fox and rook. Dangerous times, yet still Spindle trusted in the Stone and led them on.

  They travelled on even when the wind renewed, a wild, maddened wind, from which all creatures sought protection except the few, the very few like them driven forward by some impulse that the vagrant has to wander on.

  Those few days before Longest Night Spindle led them on into worsening weather until they could journey no more and had to shelter or die. Food they found in frozen carrion which Spindle dragged into the den they made. There they hid as the freezing blizzards roared, and the surface turned to wind-eroded ice and in the woods to drifted snow. Strange the surface then, because in places the wind had exposed the humus underneath, which was white with frost and made ways for mole between the icy drifts.