Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  Henbane stirred, looked up at the Stone, briefly touched the scribing she had made and then, with a sigh – a passionate sigh almost – settled down again to her meditation.

  Weed looked at her, and he supposed he lusted after her, though Word forbid she should ever guess that. His pleasure was in finding other males for her and watching her sidelong as she greeted some new young male warmly (Weed knew the type well, and even had the sideem watching out for them: young, large but innocent, and above all fresh and clean) and heard what stumbling words he had to say as she took him into her confidence, flattered him, won his trust and longing, looked at him and his body with a sideways glance (as Weed looked at Henbane now!).

  Then she would ignore the prospective new male utterly for a time, and let him suffer doubt (which is the ingredient that makes lustful longing grow) as she thought of decisions she must make – important strategic decisions for moledom – before she gave her attention again to the smaller, intenser, desires she would fulfil.

  Weed had often seen such males waiting, but envied them not. Their moment came, and then it passed leaving their seed to pulsate, wriggle and die in the sterile desert that Henbane was and surely always would be. She was not born to pup, beautiful though she was.

  Weed the procurer pitied her poor consorts, for afterwards they would be given over to the eldrenes, old shrivelled haggard moles the lot of them, and then those young males were made to die. Dreadful deaths usually, which Henbane liked to watch privily from some dark corner as if this punishment was a final secret lust that she permitted herself.

  Weed shivered and stared at her flanks, and wondered if one day she would decide that he knew her rather too well. Well, it was a risk worth taking, and a challenge to be clever enough to escape her talons and at the right time to fade away into the obscurity from which he had so successfully come to travel at Henbane’s side, trusted and listened to....

  For, of all things, Weed was a realist and knew that finally, when all ended, Henbane was but a mole, and all moles die. The Word? The Stone? The sky? The moon? Weed sneered in the darkness of his heart at all of it as he paid lip service to the Word. Finally, when all was said and all quite done, a mole would die and then there was... nothing. And so, as Henbane meditated, Weed pursed his mouth and sneered not at Henbane but at everymole else who chose to make her great, and did not know – nor could not – that she was but mole, made in a moment’s calculated lust, between two moles whose secret Weed alone knew.

  Henbane of Whern was littered of Rune out of cruel Charlock, two moles whose deeds were dark enough to make night seem day, or sunshine cold as winter twilight.

  Moles who know the first part of Duncton’s history know Rune well enough, and turn in nightmare despair to think of his vile deeds. On his return from the south, and after his ascension as Master of the Sideem, a role he achieved with the connivance and treachery of Charlock, he took her to mate, the bitter selfish painful mating of two whose spirits for good are withered, and whose spirit for evil is greedy. Passionless passion, talons that hurt, teeth sharp to mating’s flank; eyes lustful for the deed not the idea. Rune and Charlock, aye, those two mated: nothing good to come out of them.

  Months later, when Charlock was fat with young and ready for pupping, Rune took her to the most secret of the dark caverns of the High Sideem in Whern, where subterranean waters run and the life is white for lack of sun. Then on to the Rock of the Word itself. There Rune watched over the pupping. With short screams she did it, as if she objected to being so used, and he stared at the pink blind things, caressing them with his powerful paws and talons, holding their veined gasping heads between his talons, sensuous, smiling at their bleats with cold assessment.

  “Not this one,” he said softly, “and nor this, Charlock.”

  “No,” she whispered evilly. Maternity was not her way.

  “Nor this,” he said dismissively of a third, pushing it aside, his talons drawing blood on its frail flank. The pup was feeble and wan.

  Two remained, a male and a female.

  “Only one we need, just one,” he purred, taking the male and holding it up. Blind and trusting, it quested its soft small snout to his cold strength. He looked at it with distaste.

  “I think not, Charlock. No?”

  “No,” she hissed, agreeing. She bit the pup to death.

  “But this one,” he said gently, pointing at the female remaining close to her. “Yes, yes this one must be the one. Yes?”

  “Yes...” purred Charlock contentedly, staring at the tiny grey-pink female and watching her turn weakly from the two of them and seem to wish to go her own way. Some say that then, at that dark hour of that poor female’s birth, even into the fast darkness of the high tunnels made by the sideem of Scirpus, light came, sudden and sharp. Shining in a single white stream from some moving gap in the roof far above, down, down in a shaft into the great pool of blackwater that forever forms at the base of the Rock of the Word. Down came that light, for a moment blinding Charlock and Rune, who started back, while the young female, her eyes not yet open, sensed something more beautiful than she could know and feebly sought it out. Colours there were in that moment in the hidden black-water of the pool, and reflected light, that put forever a beauty into that mole’s face. And more than that it left behind an impulse, however weak, however seemingly lost, that one day, at one moment, just fleetingly, might be manifest in a single act of goodness from one who seemed evil incarnate.

  Then the light was gone and darkness returned and Rune and Charlock were their evil selves again.

  “So, let this one live,” said Rune, “but kill the others too, as you did that other. Let their blood bathe their sibling’s head.”

  Charlock smiled and bit their heads that their blood might stain the body of their only living sibling, and then she carried them out to the surface for owl fodder, leaving the remaining female lone and bleating in the nest. Rune watched her, hunched vilely over her, father to daughter, male to female, horrible and obscene.

  Charlock returned, laughed, called the bleating pathetic female “my pretty”, snouted Rune aside and curled a thin teat to the pup’s mouth.

  “She’s strong,” whispered Rune.

  “Comely she’ll be,” said Charlock.

  “Mine,” said Rune.

  “Yours and mine,” said Charlock.

  “Yours until she’s nearly ripe, then mine,” allowed Rune. Their voices were like the sheenings of the mating of adders in a single shaft of light.

  “Teach her dark things and to trust nomole, teach her strength of purpose... Tell her not that I am her father, but teach her to respect and desire the Master of the Sideem,” said Rune.

  “You?”

  Rune nodded: “She must never know.”

  “I will teach her to love the Master of the Sideem,” agreed Charlock.

  “Not “love” Charlock, desire. She shall desire him and I shall take her, yes?”

  “Thou shalt Rune,” whispered Charlock, eyeing the young female with malevolent pleasure. “She shall desire the Master before all other males. She shall not know he is her father. She shall be worthy.”

  “If she is not, I shall kill her,” said Rune.

  “She will be, Rune.”

  “I think she will.”

  Charlock put a talon to the throat of the chosen pup, and pushed it in until the skin almost broke and the pup made vestigal efforts to escape, the milk of its vile mother on its mouth, the blood and brains of its siblings on its paws.

  “Have no fear Rune, she will.”

  Rune stared at the pup, his eyes bitterly bright, his talons caressing her fragile flanks, his stance strangely lustful, seeing all in that burrow, even the hatred in Charlock’s eyes: of him and his lust, of their daughter. And he laughed.

  “What shall we call you?” he whispered.

  “Henbane is a pretty name,” said Charlock, smiling darkly.

  “Henbane,” repeated Rune, “is good. Oh yes, yes: Henb
ane. Take her from here, let nomole know who she is, least of all the sideem for I will have her WordSpeaker one day and will not have her harmed.”

  “Until she is nearly ripe I’ll keep her.”

  “And then I want her.”

  “Yes, Rune. And I?”

  “You?” said Rune, and shrugged indifferently. “You have played your part for the Word, and pupped the mole who will take the Word into the whole of moledom. I will send two moles I trust to guard you both southwards. They will say nothing, but even so, Charlock... kill them.”

  Charlock’s eyes glittered.

  Then Rune was gone, and soon Charlock left too, taking the pup out of the reach of the dread sideem to a place to the south of Whern, called Rombald’s Moor, where once the great molegiant Rombald lived. There, on that wormless fell where only cripples and idiots eked out a life, Charlock killed Henbane’s two guards, and lived to raise the pup alone, teaching her the dark arts through the moleyears unto her ripening. No friends but her mother had she, and her mother taught her to brook no denial, that she was the best and worthy of the best. And the best she would have, which was in the power and right of the Master of the Sideem.

  When her first spring approached and Charlock saw she was nearly ripe and questioning, Charlock took males to herself, and let Henbane hear her sighs to make her desirous and jealous.

  “I want them too,” said Henbane.

  “No, not yet, my darling. Not for you. Unworthy these. Only the Master of the Sideem for you!” So Henbane learned her place was high, and she had contempt of the males her mother had, and was allowed to see them die. That was where she learnt to lust and kill.

  While Henbane gained in size and beauty in those moleyears of her youth, Rune strengthened his power over the sideem and widened their purpose. While Slithe had still himself been Master he had sent the young Rune south, no doubt hoping he might be lost there, for the plagues were rife then and no grike had ever set off to report on the Seven Systems and returned. But Rune did return and his vision had been widened by what he saw, and he told the sideem that the time to take the Word southwards was coming, and the ways of the sideem in Whern, which were rigid and inward-looking should be over. So he had returned, and that was when he took one of Slithe’s young mates, Charlock, to himself and used her to learn the secrets of Slithe, and pup the mole Henbane.

  But Charlock told this not to Henbane.

  “Thy father loved you not, hated you, despised you, rejected you,” she said, never saying his true name. “But the Master of the Sideem you will love and cherish. One day he will be your guide and your helpmate, and he will teach you the Word.”

  That day came. And Rune, knowing, pondered long on which of the sideem to send southward to Rombald’s Moor to bring back Henbane. Clever he must be, and cunning – for Charlock might not easily say farewell to the child now nearly ripe.

  Rune finally chose not a sideem for this task. But another, one with twisted snout, one very loyal indeed, loyal as decay to a corpse. A young mole called Weed, born of Ilkley, and clever and cunning like all moles from those parts. Loyal to Rune, subservient, efficient, clever at not seeming too clever. Weed it had been who delivered Slithe for snouting; Weed had turned traitor on traitor and made each reveal the other; Weed knew much and kept his mouth shut. Weed could dissemble to anymole and win their cautious trust, and Weed would win Henbane’s and betray her to Rune alone.

  Yes, Weed was the one. He travelled south, found Charlock and Henbane, he told them he was sent by the Master himself and he counselled Henbane before they left. Counselled her so well that Henbane killed her own mother, not ever knowing that her father had a paw in it through Weed. Weed smiled to see surprise in Charlock’s eyes before her sudden death. Charlock had taught Henbane her arts too well.

  “But —” was all Charlock managed to say, but the look of surprise, dismay and betrayal on her face – Rune would enjoy Weed’s description of that.

  So, with her mother’s own blood on her talons, Henbane left with Weed.

  “You are going too fast,” said Henbane.

  “Then faster shall I go,” smiled Weed, and did.

  “There is not enough food here,” said Henbane.

  “Then less shall you have!” smiled Weed, and took what food she had from her.

  “I need more sleep!” said Henbane. To which Weed did not reply, but let her sleep.

  But when she was in the deepest way of sleep he woke her roughly, saying, “Then less shall you have!” And forced her to travel on.

  So Weed prepared Henbane for the rigors of the sideem and in doing so won from her a curious loyalty, as those who are tormented learn to love their tormentor.

  Rune was well pleased at what Weed had done, making him counsellor to Henbane; to prepare the ground for her journey south.

  Of Rune’s vile using of Henbane we shall say little. But he took her as father should never take daughter, and her not knowing who he was and, being trained well by Charlock, she wanted more and more. And sometimes he gave it and sometimes he did not. Dark, dark the glitter in his incestuous sadistic eye; black, black the lust that drove his talons into Henbane’s flanks; bleak, bleak the feeling in Henbane’s heart when Rune said, at last, having taught her the Word, that she must travel south.

  “I do not wish to go,” she said.

  “It is the Word’s will,” he said.

  “I do not wish it.”

  “Nor to be WordSpeaker?” he said. “For Scirpus wrote that a WordSpeaker would come who was female and would take the Word into all of moledom.” Rune smiled to see ambition and power light Henbane’s eyes.

  “But to be WordSpeaker is hard,” said Henbane. For such a mole must learn the Book of the Word from first to last, the only mole who knows it all but for the Master, and he – or she – must repeat a quarter of the book each solstice.

  “It will not be hard for thee,” smiled Rune. Nor was it. For Henbane went into seclusion in the high tunnels and there was taught the Book by the Keepers, the twelve moles who each know a portion of the Book, one for each moleyear of the cycle of seasons. Then Henbane made her recitation in the presence of the twelve and Rune declared her WordSpeaker.

  “What is thy will, Master?” she asked of him afterwards.

  “Southward thou wilt go, with Weed as thy adviser and a mole of thy own choosing as leader of your guardmoles. And you will destroy the followers of the Stone even unto the Holy Burrows themselves. To the Seven Systems you will go and they shall be made desolate of the Stone and the Word will hold sway. Do it now.”

  Desolate was Henbane to leave the Master she loved and who had taken her, but she was WordSpeaker now and holder of Rune’s dream to conquer moledom, and she was the one chosen to bring at last to fruition the great work Scirpus had begun.

  “One more task you will perform. There is a mole, Boswell. Find him and send him to me.”

  So Henbane left Rune and the sideem of Whern, with Weed as her adviser. She made Wrekin leader of the guardmoles and wise was that choice, for nomole in the history of moledom has organised so few to defeat so many. And then, following in the wake of the plagues, she took over the enfeebled systems of the Stone until she reached the Holy Burrows themselves, leaving only Siabod, away to the west, and Duncton Wood, so far untouched....

  “For thee I do it, Master,” whispered Henbane now, staring up at the Blowing Stone with hatred. “Soon now my task will be done and you will allow my return to thy side. Soon now...” and Weed, who had never been a father, could not hear in her voice the entreaty of a pup who desires to be loved.

  Weed only saw her stir, and heard her whisperings. Long had been her meditation, and long his own. She nodded to him and to Wrekin, and then, like the shadows of clouds over a summer field, they made their way back towards the Holy Burrows of Uffington.

  PART II

  Buckland

  Chapter Eight

  Spring is a testing time for travelling moles. Males are allowed to watc
h over their females’ litters only from afar and, resuming their old burrows, incline to be murderous to usurpers of their territory and argumentative with passers-by.

  Females are best left alone where they have littered, for they are jealous of their tunnels and vicious for their pups. A sensible traveller makes a lot of noise so as not to take a mother by surprise and risk attack. He leaves the easier worms alone for mothers to find.

  But the world is delightfully busy, the soil is warm again, and everything is astir. Worm and beetle roam aplenty, easy prey to teeth and talon. But owl are hunting for their young, and fox, and badger too and stoat, so a wise mole keeps his snout low, his talons sharp, and his ears ready for the shish of winged death and the overground rustle of the furred hunter.

  For all that, a confident mole in spring travels with excitement as his friend and adventure as his mate, and traditionally finds welcome enough if his approach is right. For males, though tetchy, like to pass the time of day and grouse, while females are happy to talk with strangers who steer clear of their space and nestlings; and all want to find out what news there may be abroad and establish whither a traveller be bound.

  At least that’s how it used to be in the southern systems before the plagues and the coming of the grikes, when moles were untroubled by doubts and bitter memories of death and loss.

  “But two moles travelling?” declared Tryfan doubtfully one day. “A bit of a problem, Spindle, if we’re to avoid investigation. We’ll need some kind of story to explain what we’re about.” He paused and thought a little before adding, “I suppose I could be a herbalist – even the grikes will have a use for them, and I learnt a lot from my mother Rebecca and my half-brother Comfrey, who is healer still to the Duncton Wood system. You can be my assistant.”