This statement, too, impressed A-sac. It was a revelation to him at the time that a fox could actually make a choice between hunting and not hunting. Until then he had thought that the instinct to hunt could not be overridden, no matter what the feelings of the fox. He wondered if he himself could ever attain the strength to reject hunting.
Afterwards, when he considered the matter a little deeper, he realised that in fact the moral standpoint of A-gork was no better than that of others, since he still ate the creatures all foxes ate. He just let others do his hunting for him.
Before the rangfar left him, however, A-sac asked, ‘So you think I stand a chance of becoming O-toltol’s assistant?’
The rangfar nodded. ‘Most assuredly. She asked me to be on the lookout for a young healthy fox to fetch-and-carry messages for her, over the marshlands. One that was not afraid to be alone with an old vixen in a strange earth. I should think you’d be fine for the task.’
‘Why “young”?’ asked A-sac.
The rangfar looked at him strangely, and then said, ‘I suppose you need a bit of youth in you, to traverse those wetlands. There’s not a great deal to eat out there. You need something to live on. She doesn’t want a skinny old fox on his last legs – she needs a strong one.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ said A-sac.
Once he was in the marshes, A-sac discovered that his search was going to be more difficult than he had previously imagined. He had hoped that the chamber-tomb island would be visible above all other landmarks, that it would stand high on the skyline. This was not so, and on the saltings there were no highways to follow. He found himself floundering in deep pits of mud and utterly lost. The tide began coming in and the water swirled around the creeks and before long he was marooned on a piece of ground no larger than the spread of a mature oak’s roots. He tried calling, but apart from being mocked by unseen birds that navigated the waterways, received no answer. He settled down amongst the saltwort to spend an uncomfortable night in the open.
Out in the wetlands it was eerie and frightening to a foxcub that had spent most of his life in a scrapyard, surrounded by the face. He listened to Melloon, winding through the reeds, and the very night sky itself seemed to have a voice which spoke to him of the vastness of the world around him. Hundreds of new kinds of scents came to his nostrils, many of them unrecognisable, and he did not know danger from safety. There was not a great deal he could do about it anyway. If some terrible fate was lurking out there amongst the creeks, it would find him unable to run. He was trapped there with his overactive imagination. His mother had told him that fox-spirits were kindly beings, who would not harm him, but that did not prevent him from feeling afraid of them. And what of all the other kind of spirits? If there were ghosts of foxes, then there were ghosts of dogs. What if one of them were to rise up, out of the mud, dripping slime and gore? What if one were to crawl up from the creek now, its eyes blazing with supernatural fire and its mouth full of metal-sharp teeth? He would be helpless before it.
He lay there and shivered, his white coat visible to any creature, whether mortal or otherwise, for miles around. In the distance he could hear an irregular roaring, which was not the wind. He knew this to be the ocean, beyond the salt marshes, but since he had never seen this great expanse of water he had no real pictures in his head and it became a frightening thing, a monster with high white jaws. Its foaming mouth stretched the whole expanse of the land, and sucked at the edge of the solid world, dragging in dirt and stones with every slavering swallow.
With morning came a kind of relief. At first he thought the ocean really was rolling across the land, but it turned out to be a dense, white mist that swept over him leaving him dripping wet. Then the sun came up and the vapour retreated, falling heavily into the now waterless creeks and swilling away.
Once again, A-sac continued his journey, battling through the mud bogs. He stopped and crunched on shellfish when he grew hungry, hating the slimy, salty taste of the molluscs within the shells, but having no choice if he wanted to appease his hunger.
His thirst was another thing. The water was far too brackish to drink and he was almost on his last legs when he came to one of the many rotten hulls of sunken boats, which had retained rainwater in its hollows. He drank the liquid gratefully. Once, he trod on a mud skipper and swallowed the fish whole without even pausing in the shank-high sludge. The gulls often flew over and dived down low, possibly hoping that he was exhausted to the point of dropping, but he snarled at them and they left shrieking harshly at him.
Once, when crossing an island, a shadow crossed his soul and he realised he was on the deathplace of another fox – a sowander – and he left the spirit-stained holy ground with a shiver. It did nothing to help his sense of insecurity and vulnerability to realise that someone else had met his or her death on this forsaken area of land.
Around noon A-sac caught the musty scent of an old fox’s marks and his heart began to lift a little. The urine marks were on gobbets of dried mud that had been piled into cairns. Some of these cairns had been partially washed away by the tides, but others, on higher ground, remained intact. He was disappointed though, since it meant that the stories about O-toltol were not entirely true. She must have left her earth-grave recently in order to freshen the marking posts. Still, no doubt she did this at night and went straight back into the tomb. He entered the area with a great feeling of having accomplished his mission – thus far – and followed his nose to the huge mound that was his destination.
Apart from the cairns, the island was humped in the middle with an eerie-looking dolmen, which if it had not been for the tufted grasses would have been as smooth as an egg. This was no natural mound.
A-sac paused before going up to the earth-grave. The wind lifted his white fur as he studied his surroundings. It was a lonely place, isolated by the creeks full of dark sludge and inlets incised by tidal currents. Around him the sombre cairns testified to an occupation of a kind, but what struck him most of all was the lack of birdlife. Not a living thing moved or sounded. Only the occasional bubble of fetid gas, belched by the mud, interrupted Melloon’s sighs.
At first he could see no opening to the earth, and even when he found it, wondered if it was not the place he had been searching for, since it looked deserted. There was no rubbish, no old bones or shells, no feathers or skins of mammals, outside the forbidding-looking entrance. If she was indeed inside, O-toltol left none of the foxy signs outside her strange earth.
He stuck his head inside and sniffed. Rank smells assailed his nostrils. The murk within was dismaying. He was used to the dark of course, and his fox eyes were aware of shapes in the poorest light, but the black interior of that mound was quite frightening. Anything could be lurking inside, from ghosts to men. It was large enough to hold a man, though there was no scent of human on the stale air within.
For a while he was almost tempted to turn back. He stared over his shoulder at the hazy wastelands behind him, wondering if he would ever see his home again. For the first time in his life he wanted to be with his parents, safe in their earth, with their comforting scent giving him a sense of security. The wetlands seemed to go on forever. The return journey would be just as bad, if not worse, than the walk out there and he was tempted just to sit down and wail.
Then he gathered his spiritual strength together.
‘This is silly,’ he told himself. ‘I came out here to do something, and I shall do it.’
He put his mouth to the entrance and yelled.
‘Hello! Anyone here?’
Silence.
He called again. This time there was an answer from deep within the bowels of the hummock. Still he could not enter that seemingly impenetrable darkness. He waited for a long time. Then a scent began to get stronger – the smell of an old stoad –and finally a narrow head appeared at the hole. The eyes were small, but bright. The muzzle almost devoid of hair. The breath from the mouth was vile and he could see the teeth were worn and cracked.
‘What do you want?’ asked the old fox.
The grating voice alarmed him a little. He took a step back.
‘Are you O-toltol, the mystic vixen?’ said A-sac, finally gathering his courage together and finding his voice.
‘So they tell me,’ came the answer, ‘though I’ve never been sure.’
‘What – that you are a mystic?’
‘No, that I’m a vixen. I’ve forgotten what I am. It doesn’t matter does it?’ The words were sharp and meant to intimidate.
A-sac quaked. ‘No, I suppose not, but your name’s O-toltol …’
‘Bah! Stupid cub. I could call myself Gogamagog, but that wouldn’t make me a human, would it? Then again, it might … I shall try it some day.’
‘You just did,’ said A-sac getting a little braver.
Her eyes narrowed even more, until they were slits.
‘Smart little whitey-fur, aren’t we? Where did you get the coat? Who was your mother? A seagull? Who was your father? A duck? Cark for me, whitey. Or quack. One or the other.’
‘I don’t think …’ he began, indignantly, but she cut him short.
‘Come on in. You’ll want to rest I suppose. Lost your way, eh whitey? Bring those nasty pink eyes into my earth.’
‘I haven’t lost my way. I came looking for you. I heard you needed an assistant. A-gork, a rangfar …’
‘That old charlatan? Come on in, then. We’ll talk about it inside.’
She made way for him and he entered, not without some feelings of misgivings. The darkness was just as dense inside as it had looked from the daylight end of the tunnel.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Once A-sac had entered O-toltol’s earth, his senses of touch and smell became stronger, and he was able to orientate himself. He had never been in an earth in the ground before. His home with his parents had always had light and air coming in through the holes in the scrap. This vixen’s earth, dark and enclosed, was very daunting. A-sac took a pause in the first tunnel, in order to throw off the oppressive feeling of being surrounded by damp-smelling earth and stone. Even the darkness seemed moist and heavy. After a while he found he could sense his surroundings despite the blackness. He did not need his sight to be able to place his position in the earth, and a certain amount of confidence returned to him.
The narrow tunnel into the chamber-tomb was quite short and opened out into a stone-lined passage. This, in turn, widened into an ante-chamber made of solid slabs and finally into the chamber itself. He had the feeling of being pressed on all sides, and from above, by a weight of stone which, along with the musty atmosphere of the chamber, was mentally stifling. Water dripped from the ceiling and walls, and when he brushed against a stone, it felt soft and thick with algae.
He made a coughing sound, and it echoed and caused him to jump nervously.
‘What’s the matter?’ snapped O-toltol.
‘Nothing,’ replied A-sac.
There were many smells in the earth. There was the underlying scent of ancient stone, cold to the touch, and damp lichen. Over this was an odour of old animal bones, the remains of O-toltol’s hunts no doubt, which were probably scattered over the floor. Then there was the deep, dusty smell of something within the stone casket which lay in the middle of the chamber. Finally, overpowering almost every other scent, was the stink of O-toltol herself. Her moulted fur was everywhere and got into A-sac’s nostrils, making him want to sneeze. For the first time in his life he became acutely aware of his own fleas, and began to scratch himself vigorously. They began to take advantage of his nervousness to assert themselves. Their present activity made A-sac realise just how low he was feeling.
There was also another smell in the chamber-tomb – a smell which aroused some primal fear: an instinctive revulsion for something he could not name, but which triggered alarms in his subconscious. A less perceptive fox than A-sac might have suppressed these prickings after a few minutes, when it was apparent that nothing terrible was going to happen immediately, but he kept these signals alive in the back of his brain. He knew he was out of his depth. He was a young, inexperienced dog fox – a juvenile – far from home and in a strange earth. He knew there were many things in the world about which he was totally ignorant, and that some of these unseen faces of life were unpleasant, even horrific. The fact that he was in the earth of an old vixen, and should have little to fear, did nothing to alleviate his tension. He felt it was to his credit that he was aware of his innocence and inexperience, and that he did not mentally swagger through these subliminal thorns. He allowed what was intrinsic to keep pricking his awareness.
‘Well, pinky,’ said O-toltol, ‘what do you think of my earth?’
‘Don’t call me pinky or whitey or any other name,’ he said assertively. ‘My name is A-sac.’
The vixen’s breath hit him full in the face. She had moved very close and was invading his body space. He stayed where he was, thinking she was trying to intimidate him but he was not going to react.
‘So, your name is A-sac? A little dog fox from the edge of the marshes. And A-gork sent you?’
‘He said you needed an assistant, to carry messages. I’m quite strong and I’ll grow even stronger. I know my colouring is against me – I can be seen quite easily – but that should not concern you. There are no humans out here, on the marshes. If I’m seen and chased it will be in the havnot or face, not out here.’
Her fusty breath was almost overwhelming.
‘Isn’t it just a little early for dispersal?’ she said.
‘No one knows I’m here. My parents sent me out to find my own earth. I’m to go back to them when I’ve found a place to live.’ That was not quite true: he had told Camio where he was coming. It would have sounded very adolescent, however, had he told her his parents knew of his whereabouts.
‘Ah …’ she said, in a dreamy kind of voice. She moved back a little, then added. ‘So – you came to me. You must forgive my brusqueness when you first arrived. I have to be careful. It was a kind of … test. I have my enemies, you see. There are those who call me witch, and many other names. They hate me because I’m different from ordinary foxes. Have you heard anything about me? That would cause you to find me – unlikable?’
‘No. I’ve heard you cure diseases with your knowledge of herbs. I think that’s a good thing. They say you have visions, too, which have helped to avoid disasters. They say you have the welfare of all foxes at heart and that your philosophies give foxes hope, when they are in distress …’
They. He had carefully said they, but in fact almost all he knew about her had come from A-gork.
‘True,’ she said. ‘All true. But we mystics are too often misunderstood. We frighten other foxes – you must admit I frighten you a little – and what they don’t understand, they condemn. Well, so you’re here. I like that kind of faith. It shows promise. I think you might well make me a good assistant. Perhaps you might prove your worth, by going out and getting us something good to eat? Did you bring any presents with you, for your future mistress? Food isn’t easy to find out here – you should have brought something with you.’
‘Not with me. But I will go out …’ he said too eagerly. He had already decided that he did not wish to stay. It was not at all like he had imagined it would be. In his daydreams he had seen the vixen’s earth as being a dry, warm place, slightly dusty, with an atmosphere of stored knowledge about the place. He had seen her as being an old but gently spoken female, willing to teach all she knew about the mysteries of life and death. A benign vixen with the welfare of the fox world at heart. He could not think that this harsh-voiced witch, carrying the faint stink of something evil about her, could teach him anything he wanted to know.
‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Yes, you would. Later. Later. For the moment, let’s just lie here and talk. I want to hear all about you. Then perhaps we’ll have a little sleep and then you can hunt? Are you thirsty?’
‘Yes I am – a little.’
‘If yo
u go over to the corner of the chamber, over there, you’ll find a small pool of water in the hollow of the stone. It runs from the walls and collects there. Don’t drink it all. Just slake your thirst. Water is very precious out here.’
He did as he was told, finding the water. It tasted stagnant, but he was in no mood to argue. In any case, he had little choice if he wanted to drink. The coldness of the chamber-tomb was penetrating his bones, making him feel very tired. He realised the journey had taken it out of him, leaving him exhausted in body and spirit.
When he had finished he returned to the middle of the chamber, beside the long stone casket.
‘What exactly is this place?’ he asked her, feeling her eyes on him though he could not see them.
‘This? This is a human sowander. In that stone box is the body of a human pack leader, but so ancient … seasons out of time.’
‘How? How do you know the corpse was a pack leader?’
‘Because humans don’t build elaborate graves like this for ordinary people. She, or he, must have been very important. Perhaps a magician or a priestess? A mystic, like myself? Makes an appropriate earth, don’t you think?’ Her voice went into its dreamy tone again. ‘You see, I feel the power of that corpse. Its waves flow into my own body, my own spirit. I have inherited many of its secrets. I know the dark ways of the human soul. If you think you know evil, and you have not tasted of human ghosts, sipped at the deep waters of their blood-stained history, then you are foolishly ignorant. Those early men were closer to foxes than humans are today. Their instincts, their senses, were almost as sharply primed as our own. They ran the forests under a hunter’s moon, naked, strong – and their gods were the sun, the trees, the stones, the owl, the fox …’
He stared into the blackness, the aroma of something gone beyond the stage of decay drifting from the cracks and crevices in the stones. Around him the hewn rock, worn smooth by constantly running water, closed in, growing tighter around him. Was he already in his own grave?
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