Duncton Wood

by William Horwood

  Chapter Forty-Three

  That same day, Bracken, nearing starvation, found to his surprise that he was dropping rapidly into a valley where the snow was thicker, and he was able to burrow into its silence out of the blizzard. If the soil beneath had been anything else but wormless peat, he might have stayed still and waited for the blizzard to pass. But it was peat, and so on he had to go—sometimes through the snow itself, sometimes out on the surface where its depth was shallow. Until, at last, he was in a river valley where the soil was rich with food under the layer of snow.

  For a whole day he was too tired and shocked to do more than rest and eat and regain his strength. But when he had, the pull from the northwest continued. What called him on? He knew it was no longer the hope of finding Rebecca, for Siabod was now far behind him. He crouched clear of the snow’s edge by the river and looked across it through the continuing wind, sensing more great heights beyond him. His snout travelled the length of the great ridge on the far side of the valley and he began to know that there, where such power seemed to come from, must stand the Stones he had been sent to reach. ‘Castell y Gwynt… Tryfan… Rebecca.’ He whispered the names into the wind, careless of his own life now that Rebecca was gone, and knowing that this was his final trek.

  Even so, he shivered as he looked about the worm-full tunnels he had made by the river, and then up to the wastes from which he had no expectation of ever returning. He remembered something Celyn had said about the final climb to the Stones having to be done fast because the ground was wormless and then, impulsively, he was off—up the river to a bridge, across a way which even the roaring owls seemed to have abandoned to the snow, and then climbing once again with growing despair in his heart. So far to go, so little time.

  Strange thoughts flew at him out of the wind and snow, most of them of Mandrake. It was as if he knew with certainty that this was the way Mandrake had come—up Cwmoer, over Siabod, and then up here. He remembered Mandrake again, his power and despair, but most of all he remembered Mandrake’s last sad cries to Rebecca by the Duncton Stone, which he had not known how to listen to. Now, as he climbed onward and upward into the cold and rocks on the far side of the valley from Siabod, he spurred himself forward by telling himself that he was at last answering Mandrake’s call. Cruel Mandrake, mad Mandrake, but a mole that Rebecca had loved. And if, as he climbed, he fancied he saw in the flurries of snow and the changing shadows of the contorted rocks the shape of a great and lumbering mole, what then? It no longer mattered. Y Wrach had said that Mandrake would come back. ‘So let him come back, here now, to guide me with his knowledge and power to the great Stones, and to the Tryfan Stones themselves,’ he prayed.

  Celyn had been right: these heights were wormless. What worms ever live among acid peats on a surface where only rocks seem in place?

  Steep, steeper, steeply dangerous drops fell beneath his slipping talons, which could hardly hold on to the icy rocks. Falls into black rocks far below, wind racing up sheer faces along whose very edge he had to climb. No place for moles.

  Steeper and steeper, into the sky itself. Then suddenly, quite suddenly, the terrain was rounded and flat and on top of the world. Between blasts of wind he could make out square and random shapes of rocks stretching eerily away on flat ground, and piled like jumbled slates one on top of another, or toppled over on their sides, or rising in a fan like the spines of a dead hedgehog. Blacks and whites, snow and ice, eerie silences around corners of spined, black rock.

  Sudden rushing of winds and ebbs. All in a high land of shattered rock whose edges were sometimes square, sometimes sharp, always changing as a mole approached them, or passed them by, or flying snow hid them. And strange silences.

  Great strength began to surge into Bracken, for he knew that at last he was within reach of Castell y Gwynt. Somewhere in this flat land of waste that was sterile of all life but himself and a few gale-bent tufts of heather, the stones they wrongly called the Stones of Siabod stood. They were beyond Siabod.

  And then, off to his right, as he turned away from a great tower of rocks, he heard through the wind the whistling and howling of more wind which came louder and softer, as varied in its range as only one other thing he had ever known: the sounds in the Chamber of Roots beneath the Duncton Stone. The sound of Castell y Gwynt.

  The ground was now pure loose rock, if rocks a hundred thousand times the size of a mole can ever be called loose. His vision was still obscured by racing, powdered snow, so he clambered blindly on towards the sound, awe and fear growing in his heart as it grew louder and more varied, menacing and sweet. The sound grew louder and was somewhere in the sky above him, the sound of wind among rock, twisting and swirling in and out of the hollows and flutes and rises and falls of rock. Sharp rocks, talons of rocks, a rock mass that rose from out of the snow and now was steep and massive before him, and he stopped in wonder before its great power and raised a paw as if to touch its great talons with his own, his mouth open in wonder. Castell y Gwynt. Castle of the Winds.

  So much suffering to get here. So much struggle. And Rebecca… ‘What of my Rebecca? Are these the Stones I’ve lost you for? And which of you are the Tryfan Stones?’

  As his eyes searched among the rising stones, each of which was four or five times the height of the Duncton Stone and whose tops were obscured again and again: ‘Is the Stone here? What must a mole do to reach up to it? Why so much suffering for this? Why so much suffering at all?’

  But as he stood doubtful before the Stones, what great shape rose behind him among the other stones of the plateau of Gwynt and urged him to trust the Stone? He thought he heard a mole, a massive mole, the sound of life, and turned round to see… but there was nothing but the howling of the wind through the rocks behind him, and those of the Castell y Gwynt above.

  ‘Well,’ he whispered softly to himself, at last, ‘well, what am I anyway, unless I’m part of it, whatever it may be?’ Then Bracken began to pray to the Stone, before the Stones, and say those words that so long before Mandrake, standing in this very spot, might himself have said if only he had had the love of Rebecca then, or had known Boswell, or had been graced to hear the silence of the Duncton Stone. Bracken prayed for the moles of Siabod, he gave thanks for the life within himself, he prayed that the Stone would protect Rebecca wherever it had taken her. He prayed to the memory of Skeat and in honour of the scribemoles of Uffington. He prayed that Boswell would know these prayers had been made. As he prayed, and the cold wind began to die, and he noticed nothing of himself but his silence in the Stone, he brought the worship of the Stone back to Siabod and the black heights beyond it.

  When he thought he had finished, he found he had not. He prayed again for his Rebecca and thanked the Stone for the love that they had seen. And he wondered, curiously, which of the Stones were the Stones of Tryfan.

  Then he was finished and became suddenly cold, so he turned at last from the Stones to find the winds growing lighter and the snow almost finished. Beneath him, only a few moleyards off, he saw a cliff edge at the top of a steep, snow-filled drop into a cwm that went down and down as far as anymole could sense, and further. Beyond it, the swirling snow danced in the wind, growing lighter and weaker as it faded away, and there came slowly through it not light but black darkness that rose before him as the snow cleared in a steepness of more rock. It rose higher and higher as his eyes widened in wonder and awe and the snow finally swirled away, revealing a massive, isolated peak on top of which there stood other Stones he could sense, but not see. The Stones of Tryfan, he knew.

  ‘But it’s impossible, ’ he whispered, ‘impossible for mole—’ for though Tryfan seemed so close across the void between, almost within a talon’s touch, it was impossible to reach. He now gazed at it in wonder as, so long before, Mandrake had gazed at it in fear. And as Mandrake had stepped forward to touch it in contempt, so now Bracken stepped forward, his paw outstretched in wonder, for he saw that a mole can touch the Stone, he can, he can; but as he tried,
he was falling forward and rolling into steep snow, tumbling over, the peak of Tryfan rising higher and higher above him, rising away from his grasp as he fell down into the nameless cwm that had gaped beneath him and now took him. Snow flurried down as he fell, rolling on into an avalanche, carrying him down and down and further down, and faster, snow all around him worse than a blizzard, and a sliding avalanche of silence building up about him as the cwm echoed outside the snow that enveloped him and of which he was a tumbling part. Far, far above him the two Stones of Tryfan stood out in a clearing sky.

  As Bracken fell into white silence, the wind across on Siabod began to die away and the blizzard to stop. But Rebecca knew it had come too late for her; she might still have struggled alone down the slopes, and she might even have managed to carry a single pup. But she looked at the four that lay against her teats but were now no longer able to get milk from them, felt them grow colder and colder against her encompassing belly and knew she could not leave three to die alone.

  Whatever strength it was that had kept her alive for nearly six days through the howling winds was finally failing her now. Her mind had begun to wander, and she found it harder and harder to gather the strength to keep the pups from crawling blindly from her protection into the chill that would kill them.

  She whispered and mumbled to herself, talking to imaginary moles. She had even laughed in the night and with the dawn: she remembered them all, the moles she had loved. Why, Mekkins was there, out in the snow, calling her to him gruffly; and Rose was there, sweet Rose. And Sarah, and Bracken there, near her, and dear Boswell, sweet mole. And Mandrake up near the rocks that she now saw were nearby, he was there in the shadows, his talons trying to protect her from the wind because he loved her, yes he did.

  Only the cold stopped her dreaming, though sometimes it lured her towards sleep—which she fought, and had fought for days, because there is no waking up on a mountain like Moel Siabod, above which the black ravens fly.

  Food. She thought of it as a dream, an impossible thing, and it smelt so good. Remember the worms she had stolen from the elder burrows and how Mandrake was angry, yes he was. Silly thing, he was, never seeing what was at the end of his snout.

  The smell of food in these cold wastes where nothing lived! And Mandrake, the thought of him had given her such strength. ‘Mandrake. Mandrake.’ She whispered his name and mixed it with the hopeless dreams of food and her Bracken as tiredness came towards her like darkness at night and even the strength to tend to the pups she had kept alive, and whose bleatings seemed so far away now, was leaving her.

  ‘Difryd difro Mandrake, difryd difro Mandrake.’ She heard the words from beyond the darkness of sleep into which she was finally sinking, but it was his name that brought her back again, and a strong nuzzling, stronger than the pups could manage, much stronger. As she opened her eyes, she smelt food and saw at her side an ancient mole, female and grey, snouting blindly at her and muttering words she could not understand, except that they meant she was no longer alone up here where poor Mandrake had been born.

  Y Wrach had found her. The worms she carried were the ones that Celyn had brought up through the tunnels the day before, the fifth day of the blizzard. He had found her writhing and cursing and shouting out at the storm and saying that Mandrake was near, he was, and didn’t Celyn know that ‘addewid ni wrieler ni ddiw’? ‘A promise not accomplished is no promise at all!’

  ‘He promised,’ she shouted, ‘he said he would come back. He’s here now, up there, up there.’ So she took the worms and crawled painfully out into the blizzard to find him, refusing to let Celyn go with her. Hadn’t she found Mandrake before with nomole’s help?

  ‘But you were young,’ he said, ‘you were young,’ and she laughed bitterly at her twisted hind paws and said, ‘Just you see!’

  When he asked if he should pray for her, she told him to wait for her in her tunnels, and pray whatever he liked.

  Then she snouted her way blindly out into the storm, almost blown off her paws in the wind, and he waited until the wind began to die and there was no more blizzard. Then he did pray in the old Siabod way, prayers that sounded more like curses than worship. In a hard language. She must be dead.

  But he stayed on to honour his promise, and before his stay could turn into a wake, she had come back off the Siabod slopes, carrying a pup as pink with health as the stem of starry saxifrage.

  ‘Shut up and keep him warm,’ she cursed before she was gone again, and he did, in wonder he did. And then another, and a third. And she was gone again up to where Rebecca lay eating the food this ancient female had brought who now urged her to her paws with no words she understood but, ‘Mandrake! Mandrake!’

  It was darkening towards late afternoon by now, and the wind was freshening again, with touches of sleet in it. Rebecca herself picked up the last pup at the gestured bidding of the old mole and slowly went down the slope, following her clear tracks as the wind grew stronger and stronger at her rear and the blizzard began again. Behind her she heard the mole call out the name ‘Mandrake’ once more, the sound flying in the wind, and she turned with difficulty and saw, or thought she saw, great shadows of moles among the rocks higher up the slopes, that moved and melded into scurrying snow, all white and dark in the evening. And then the old female was gone for ever, lost in the blizzard that had first brought her life. Rebecca turned away back down the old mole’s tracks and entered into huge, slate-lined tunnels where she heard her young mewing for her, and found a scraggy-faced male, who reminded her of nomole so much as Hulver, doing his best to keep them in order as they wandered here and there vainly seeking out their mother’s teats.

  * * *

  Today, in Siabod, Rebecca is legend. They talk still of how Y Wrach grew old and invoked the ancient powers of the Siabod Stones and went out into the blizzard to return with a litter of her own; of how she changed herself into the form of a female whose fur was soft and glossy grey, like no Siabod female’s had ever been, and who claimed her name was Rebecca and said she could not speak Siabod.

  They tell of how Rebecca’s four male pups grew into four moles whose size made them unassailable in fights and whose courage brought back the pride of Siabod. They warn of the eastern slopes of Siabod where Y Wrach’s spirit roams and where, when dusk falls and snow flies thick, her Mandrake may sometimes be seen, his talons raised protectively behind Y Wrach, a smile at last on his great, scarred face.

  They tell how Rebecca brought love and joy back to the system after the plague, and how, when the summer came and her pups were beginning to leave the nest, she would tell tales of Rose, a healer she knew, and a mole called Bracken, who must have been as big as Mandrake because he faced Gelert the Hound and defeated him.

  They love to weave tales on Siabod, and confusing legends that shorten long nights and make the bitter days bearable. They love to sing an old song. But always they tell sadly of how, at last, when her pups were mature and her work was done, she said she must leave before the winter returned.

  Then they love to tell the story of Bran, who accompanied her on her journey away from Siabod when she said she was going back to her own system, though all Siabod knew she was really Y Wrach in disguise.

  ‘What happened to Bran?’ ask the pups when they hear this last tale.

  ‘Now there’s a strange thing,’ they’re told, ‘because he came back, you see. After moleyears and moleyears it was that he came back, but wouldn’t ever speak a word about it. And that was strange, too, because there was never a mole liked to talk so much as Bran—before he left, mind. Journeys change a mole, see, so don’t you go journeying off too far, little one…’

  There’s many an older Siabod mole, too, will claim that more than once, when they’ve been caught in a blizzard, Rebecca’s come for them out of the storm, sometimes like the beautiful mole she was, sometimes looking like Y Wrach had been, but always with the shadow of a great mole that was Mandrake among the rocks nearby to protect her, and she’s shown them th
e way home to safety.

  That’s what they say, in Siabod.

  Part Five

  The Seventh Stillstone

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Few creatures in the world are so well equipped to survive burial in an avalanche as moles, whose very first action at birth is to burrow their way among their siblings and nesting material to find teats for suckling.

  So Bracken burrowed through the depths of snow that finally came to rest in silence far, far beneath the towering cliffs of Tryfan. And he burrowed down, not up, for just as the plants in the cwm into which he had fallen knew that the soil was lime-rich so he knew that he would find food there.

  He stayed on there long after the snow had cleared, through April and May, living in an isolation that, at last, he had learned to be at peace with.