Duncton Found

by William Horwood

  While Holm, in those moments he asked for the Stone’s blessings, always found time to request that his Lorren might be reunited with her long-lost and much missed siblings, Starling and Bailey. Now, that would be a day!

  Holm had been right. Rampion was on the surface in the enclave made by the Stoats, not meditating or praying but nervously snouting up at the bright sun, and at the shadows it seemed to cast all about.

  “You!” she exclaimed, with surprise and relief in her eyes.

  He nodded, but said nothing. His presence was sufficient words for her, and in the way they had there was need of no words more to explain why she was there, and why he had come.

  Then he was off, and she following, leaving the familiar routes back to safety behind them as they moved forward across the field that lay between the Stoats and the prohibited Stones. Sunlight lit their way, the same that reached everywhere across moledom that day.

  He took her by a surface route to near the Rollright circle, then underground to what she guessed was the buried base of the Stone that rises at the centre of Rollright’s circle. Light filtered down through cracks in the sheep-worn soil above, and Rampion was surprised to see that the chamber’s floor showed signs of use. A mole had been this way before, and recently.

  “Me,” said Holm, answering the query in her eyes.

  “You!” said Rampion in surprise. “But you never told us. I thought Lorren was the active follower.”

  Holm’s eyes were wide, staring at the wall of stone and then at the cracked roof above.

  “We have different ways, but the same purpose. Best way in a pair. Only way.”

  “Can we burrow to the surface and touch the Stone? We could escape back down this way....”

  “Nearly. Not yet. Too soon.”

  But he took her right up to the wall of Stone, though guarding against either of them touching it, and then, wrinkling his diminutive snout, he gazed at the roof more closely. The light came not just from the cracks there, but shimmered as well in the root tendrils that came down from surface plants, tiny shoots of grass, and the white-green of plantain roots. The roof looked frail and thin, and there was the sense of great light above it, waiting to be let in. Holm touched the trembling soil and it gave a little, letting more light in.

  “Won’t have to wait long. When we thrust out we’ll touch the Stone. Grikes will see. Will chase. But we must do it, Rampion. It will be time to show the Stone Mole that this system knows he lives. All the Seven must try to do it. Holm feels it. Holm was taught by great Mayweed more than just routes.”

  “I’m scared,” said Rampion, for suddenly her world seemed vulnerable, waiting for something that would change everything she knew.

  “He’s scared too,” said Holm quietly. “Needs us now, needs all of us.”

  Then he was silent once more, and in the half darkness of the chamber father and daughter waited for the moment when they must take their courage in their paws and break out into the light and touch the Stone.

  We have but one record of the followers dying near or at the site of one of the ancient Seven that morning, and it is a most strange one and portentous.

  For at Fyfield an incident occurred which was not scribed by moles of the Stone, but scrivened that same day by an eldrene, and one very different from the easy-going eldrene of Rollright.

  Her name was Wort, eldrene of Fyfield, and all we need say of her now is this: had she not lived then many a follower and more would not have died. What Rollright gave way in indulgence and indiscipline Wort made up a hundred times in cruelty and persecution of those of the Stone.

  Thus it was, in pursuance of vile followers (as it seemed to her), that on that June day she found herself with a cohort of guardmoles watching over the Fyfield Stone, and there apprehended three moles who, following that same urge or call we have noted already, had bravely made their way towards the Stone.

  Wort killed them personally. Her talons in their choking throats, she watched their eyes dim and glaze in the bright sun as the sounds they made faded, and they died. Afterwards Wort, ordering her guardmoles to stand off for a time, went to the Stone itself to desecrate it with the blood of miscreants that she carried still on her talons.

  No mole in moledom hated the Stone more, nor saw more easily the dangers to which its temptations exposed moles of the Word. “Seek out and destroy all those of the Stone, for they are evil and their vile faith is infectious” might have been her motto.

  We know that she stanced before the Fyfield Stone alone, we know she reached out her talons to touch it in mockery and contempt. And we know what happened next, in her own scrivened words: “‘Beware!’ I warned myself. ‘For even here, the blood of moles who deserved to die still wet on my talons and fur, the temptations wait. This Stone seems beautiful...’ This was a test! I resolved to wait until I was sure I was not corrupted or belittled by the Stone, but its Mistress, just as the Master of the Word is Master of all. So I waited that morning, that beautiful morning, and felt joy in the testing of my strength, and sighed and wept before the Fyfield Stone as I waited for the moment I would know the test was won and I could touch the Stone with impunity!”

  So scrivened the eldrene Wort, and we shall see how, in its mercy, the Stone dealt with her, and how it was that of all unlikely moles, she was at one of the ancient Seven that special morning.

  Now to Siabod. The mole we meet here has a name we know: Glyder, and we know him to be old indeed, but not stricken with the infirmity that indulgence in a wormful soil brings. His life had been active, and he had led the moles of Siabod through many troubled times and, living as he did in a system of steep tunnels and slatey ways, he had always been fit and well. But lately he had begun to slow, and the talk of younger moles had passed him by for he had heard it all before, too many times.

  We who have followed Duncton’s story to this June morning when Glyder climbs, know that his mother was Rebecca, mole of Duncton, and that through her he was Tryfan’s half-brother. He was the wise mole who commended Alder and Marram to his peers, and from Alder had heard of Tryfan’s existence and his mission. If there was a single disappointment in his life it was that the Stone had never put him and his brothers, Y Wyddfa, Dafydd and Fach, in the way of meeting Tryfan and his kin.

  Well, a mole cannot have everything he desires and in any case the Stone provides more than enough to the mole who has eyes to see it, and a good body to feel it.

  This spring past, as Glyder had begun to drift towards what wise Siabod moles call the heights, all of that had begun to seem past history, old history, and he had lost interest in it. First one brother, Y Wyddfa, had died, then Dafydd and Fach. Their passing left him the last of his generation, and feeling lonely, and he had decided to leave Siabod and live his last few moleyears by himself and contemplate that which he had spent his life guarding, the Stones of Siabod.

  Glyder had prepared his moles as best he could for the future, entrusting their continuing resistance and strategy against the grikes to Alder, and the preservation of the Siabod ways to the many moles, middle-aged and younger, who had travelled with their elders to safety in the Carneddau.

  Then, with gruff farewells to his friends, and final salutations exchanged with Alder, with whom he had achieved so much, Glyder, slower than he once had been, shakier too, and his fur grizzled grey and in places thin, set off down towards the Ogwen Vale, not telling a single mole his true intent. Which was, quite simply, to climb Tryfan and touch the Stones. Of what happened after that he neither thought nor cared, but assumed that one way or another his life would be over.

  It was several days before he reached Ogwen, and two more before he had climbed up the untidy slopes that rise to the west of Llyn Ogwen and across the boulder-strewn levels that run there. He decided to stay for a time until the thaw came and the heights above were at least approachable.

  March had passed into April and then May, and Glyder’s wild retreat had changed from survival to celebration as he breathed the go
od high air and knew at last a freedom he had always sought. The sun began to rise high enough to shaft down into the darker corners of Ogwen, and on the days it did he would gaze at its play across the black mural heights of Y Gribin, of Glyder Fach, and the sheer walls of Tryfan, wondering how he had ever dared to think he could climb to such heights.

  But as the snow and ice on the rock faces above began to melt, Glyder heard and scented twofoots come and go. At first they troubled him, but he soon grew used to them and wondered if he was indeed quite mad, for, lacking mole for company, he began to find a comfort in their presence.

  Early one morning a solitary twofoot came his way, up out of the mist and through dawn light past the rocks where he had his home. He heard its breathing, clinking, clattering passage and, in addition to its normal sweet scent, he scented fear. This was enough to alert him, for he had not thought that twofoots suffered fear. The way the twofoot went was strange as well, for it led into the nameless cwm above Glyder’s tunnels, beyond which, surely, no creature but raven could safely go. Yet to Glyder’s astonishment, the twofoot began to climb, its passage ponderous and slow, its breathing and grunt echoing about the high cwm. Higher it went, and the scent of fear hung unmistakably in that cold air.

  Yet before it Glyder himself did not feel afraid, but, rather, curious and in some awe, and he went up to the very spot where the twofoot had begun to climb, and smelt and observed twofoot things whose colours almost blinded him. Purples, oranges, and greens....

  Then, as the sun got brighter, the twofoot above was silent and still, but for occasional stresses of movement and a gasping, moaning, whispered fear. And suddenly a slip, a jerk at the thing that lay snaked and colourful about the rocks, and a darkening, heavy cry and fall, almost on to where Glyder stanced. And blood and the deep unmistakable sound which all creatures know: the sound of pain.

  For the first and only time in his long life, Glyder found himself within touching distance of twofoot, and its smell sickened him. Yet he stayed where he was and met its gaze, which fluttered, and dimmed, and gazed again. The twofoot was dying.

  It was there and then that Glyder of Siabod had a revelation that perhaps nomole in all of moledom’s history had had before; or if it had it was not recorded until, later, Glyder’s was. It was as simple a thing as ever could be. For watching over that twofoot Glyder understood that after all it was but a creature like himself, with life and death, with light and shadow in its form. Like weasel, like rabbit, like owl. Glyder lost his sense of fear and knew all life was one, all one.

  But the twofoot lay dying, and he prayed for it. Its eyes were on his again, and then they were gone once more. But breath came from it, and life still, and scent.

  He prayed again in Siabod and then turned his snout up beyond the creature towards great Tryfan’s flanks, and knew he must begin to climb. Crevice by crevice, higher and higher, always beyond his questing paws. Night had come, and he had drunk rainwater in a cleft, and eaten the bodies of beetles where worms could never be.

  He had slept, and woken with the dawn, and climbed another day, higher and higher, until suddenly he had found the plant he had often sought, the white and starry idwal lily, so rare that a mole who saw it was much blessed. There Glyder had rested one last day, vowing to start the final climb up to the unreachable Stones above at the very crack of the next dawn if the weather was set fair. By the idwal lily he slept, its scent no more than a wraith of peace on the wind.

  Morning came, that same morning that came to all moledom that day, and Glyder woke in the deep shadow that daily besets the west side of Tryfan and watched as the sky paled, and the sun began to lighten the great heights of Y Garn and dread Twll Du, which rise massive across the Idwal Cwm.

  Then, taking for his only sustenance the pure water he found in the clefts near where the lily grew, he began his climb again in shade, knowing that he would only see the sun that day if he reached the top where the Stones themselves were. As for living afterwards, he doubted that he would, for there would be no food so high, nor for days to come in his descent.

  So, commending himself to the Stone’s care, he climbed, and as he climbed the morning’s light spread itself wondrously across rock, and water, stream and hidden cwm, far far below. And the only sound that accompanied him was the wind’s quiet rush, and from far away the muted sound of roaring owl.

  “For them too, and the twofoot below, I’ll climb this day,” Glyder said to himself, “for the Stone is for all creatures, aye, even for the twofoot.”

  Though the broken, savage rocks beset him, yet still he struggled on in shade as the rocks on the slopes of the Carneddau to his left and the Glyders to his right were warmed and coloured by the clear sunlight.

  Then, his breath all gone, his paws faltering, his mouth dry, the massive rocks seemed to flatten ahead, and he was there where nomole had ever been, unless it be a White Mole or a holy mole, or a giant of legend old.

  As he went forward for the final part, he came into the sun’s great light, and so bright was it that he could see no more of the two Stones than a rising whiteness, glistening and shining into the great sky.

  The wind was quiet, the world spread all about, and the light full in his old paws. He moved a little to one side, to stare up at the Stones without the sun in his eyes and saw their grey sheer rising sides, and then he looked far beyond them to the dark rise of Moel Siabod, the place of his birth.

  He wanted to touch the Stones, but something held him back. He looked down at his sturdy paws, and at his talons worn with age and climbing where nomole had been before. Old Glyder stared up at the Stones and drew his talons back. Time yet to touch them. Time now to go closer still and settle, time to meditate and wait.

  “Aye!” he whispered proudly, feeling his strength and knowing his weakness too. “I’ll not hurry to touch them but be ready for when it’s right. But make it soon, Stone, for a mole could die up here!” The sun rose still, and the air was quiet.

  So Siabod. Now to Beechenhill and four moles resting in the early summer grass, two sets of siblings.

  The eldest pair, Betony and her brother Bramble, were the offspring of Squeezebelly, leader of the Beechenhill moles. These were the two who, as youngsters, found Tryfan near this same spot and led him to the Beechenhill Stone where, for a time never to be forgotten by anymole who heard, he spoke of the tasks of the Stone and how a mole finds courage to fulfil them.

  The second and younger pair were Wharfe and his sister Harebell, two of the three moles born of that fated litter that Tryfan begot by Henbane of Whern. All were autumn moles, born the previous October, and they still had about them a touch of youth. Their third sibling was Lucerne, whom Henbane kept and raised, but his existence and full darkness were not yet known to them.

  Wharfe and Harebell had been brought covertly to Beechenhill by Mayweed and Sleekit, and their care entrusted to Squeezebelly himself, that they might grow up privily, their true origins unsuspected. Nothing indeed was to be said to them until, when Squeezebelly alone adjudged the time was right, they must decide for themselves the path they must follow.

  Betony and Bramble had become their watchers and friends, keeping them close when they were young and enjoying their company now they had grown and were nearly ready for what adulthood would bring. There was about Wharfe and Harebell a natural authority and strength, which had already begun to reveal itself. Harebell had a quality of grace and intelligence that seemed like a shining of light across her fur and in her eyes, and though there was natural cheer in her face and way yet somewhere within her, too, was a watchful sadness as if there were things in life, dark things, that she was preparing herself for.

  Wharfe was bigger than her, and stronger by far, and though he knew it not he had about his limbs that same strength which Tryfan had had when young. But more than that, he had an extra strength, checked for now, which showed only when he was angry, which was rare, and which had the hint of Mandrake of Siabod about it. Perhaps it was in the rough
er edges of his fur, or the purpose of his talons, or the way his great head turned and stared, as Mandrake’s once had, at wild clouds as if in search of something lost. If this was the counterpart of Harebell’s hint of sadness it matched it well, and expressed what these two moles had suffered when, within moments of their birth, they had been taken from their mother’s teat, at her behest, and secreted far from Whern’s harmful influence.

  The sun had risen slowly that morning, and by its brightening light in leaf and dew they had taken their slow leisure. Then settling down near where the streamlet runs, and watching the sparkles in its flow, they talked again of what the future held. Each said they would travel to see the Stones of the Seven Systems, whatever grikes might say, and each agreed that of them all they wished most to see the Duncton Stone from which great Tryfan himself had come. From that way, too, the Stone Mole would surely come one day as well, to all of moledom – and certainly to Beechenhill!

  But then for a moment a chill had come to the air, the kind that Harebell knew made Wharfe uncomfortable, as, for a few seconds, nomole else but she noticed he stirred and looked northward, his eyes bleak and wild, his spirit lost. There a darker cloud moved in the sky, threatening to mar the beauty of the morning, rolling and rising in the sky. He saw it and so did she, but the others, staring and thinking of the south, had eyes only for the light of the sun.

  Wharfe crouched up, grew still, glanced briefly at his sister, and then down towards the south again as if to forget what he could not.

  “What is it, Wharfe?” asked Harebell with concern. The others became concerned as well.

  Wharfe looked at them all and smiled and said, “We are each other’s greatest friends, brother to brother, sister to sister, and wherever we may go we shall be as one. Soon, sooner than we know, we shall be apart. But a day must come when we shall be one again. Then... we shall meet at....”