“That day Glyder started to climb Tryfan and touched the Stones. Saw moledom from the top, moledom where the twofoots live! Twofoots where us moles live....”
Glyder seemed unaware of the buzz of surprise and disbelief that went round the moles at his matter-of-fact statement that he had climbed Tryfan. Most seemed very doubtful that he could have meant what he said.
“Right to the top?” called out one of the younger Welsh Marches moles disrespectfully, looking around him with a knowing smile.
“’Tis what he said,” growled Troedfach and the titters died away, though a good few moles still looked dubious.
“Yes, yes,” said Glyder irritably, “but that wasn’t it, see? It was the twofoot.”
Most looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“Needs the Stone, like us. And beetles and slugs and all of us. But the twofoots... it’s where the future is, where the Silence will be found. I knew it when that twofoot’s gaze dimmed; I knew it on top of Tryfan where the wind was still. I know it now. It’s what I’ve come to tell you. It’s why the Stones kept me alive. Listen. There are many paths to Ogwen, all easy to find. But it’s taken me all the moleyears since June to find the way out again and that twofoot never did; so it’s got more to learn than we have. Stop the fighting, moles! Tell yourselves and your enemies the Silence will be found where the twofoots are. Aye, where the roaring owls go. Silence there for mole!”
“Death more like,” said a mole.
“Shush!” said others, for strange though Glyder’s words seemed there was a peaceful certainty about them.
“Listen,” he continued quietly and more slowly as if he had grown impatient with his audience and had little energy or desire to say much more. “A mole’s fortunate if he gets a quarter of what he wants in life, see? Very fortunate. When he reaches the end of his life as I have he’d best not regret a thing. No point in that! So he looks about and sees others making mistakes or making good and he thinks to himself he once went that way as well. He hopes others’ll do better than he did and if he’s a fool he’ll offer advice thinking others will take it. Or maybe he’ll just hope that some of these younger moles will get to do those things he never quite had time for, and good luck to them.”
Some of the moles were getting restless now, for Glyder’s speech had slowed and his mind seemed to be wandering. The old mole had said enough, whatever point he had tried to make he had made for long enough, and surely it was time he shut up and let them get on with more important things... But not all felt that way. Among those listening were those who felt that Glyder’s words were guided by the Stone and these were enough that they kept the others’ restlessness at bay.
“Moles,” he said urgently, “when I saw the twofoot’s gaze dim I heard the beginning of Silence. Turn your gaze towards where you most fear to look and there may be what you most wish to find.”
With this final comment Glyder fell silent as suddenly as he had begun and stared round at the moles about him. As his voice died his body seemed to shrink and grow smaller and Gowre had to stance firm again to hold him up.
“I’ve said enough, Caradoc, I’ve spoken all I know. It was what the Stones wanted me to say I saw in Ogwen: the rest you and I know and I’ll stay silent from now on. Now I’m tired and have need of sleep. And when I’ve slept I’ll have need of help, for now I’ve finished Ogwen calls me back that my spirit may be near the Stones and free again.”
So did Glyder’s speech end, and though he was led away by Gowre and much more was said when he was gone, it marked the true end of the conclave. Some said he was mad, others just old, and a few felt inspired; but none ever forgot his speech, for when a mole opens his heart as he had done then his words stay alive until those who heard them are ready to let them into their own life. There were many such who heard him that day, many more than ever knew.
Later Alder tried to dissuade him from going, but only half heartedly.
“’Tis for the best I leave,” said Glyder. “Let Gowre see me home. I shall tell him what I know of his kin on the way. A mole knows but little if he doesn’t know that.”
Alder nodded his assent, and Gowre was glad enough to go with Glyder. He, too, sensed the conclave was over and felt strangely moved to be taking his uncle from Siabod, as if on the first stage of a new journey.
The following morning, as the other moles who had come to the conclave began to leave to east, north and south, those two moles slipped quietly on to the cold surface of west Siabod and thence, by slow degrees, down towards Capel Curig and the way towards the cwms of Ogwen. Caradoc accompanied them a little of the way, and Gowre let them take their leave of each other privately, stancing a little way off and staring at the hills’ slow rise towards Ogwen.
When he looked again it was Caradoc who had departed first, trekking back through the dewy grass towards Moel Siabod. He did not look back.
“A mole doesn’t need to,” said Glyder, reading Gowre’s mind, “not when he’s so alive in your heart you know the Stone’s a shared blessing, and you’ll see him again one day.”
Glyder chuckled at Gowre’s obvious bewilderment and said, “Now help me back to the peace of Ogwen and I’ll tell you of your father, and your Siabod uncles, and what Alder has told me of Tryfan. We’ve had too little time for kin these moleyears past, too little time for the Stone. Now listen – and support me as we go – and I’ll tell you all I know of how a female from Duncton came to be where she shouldn’t be, which is in the high slopes of Siabod at the wrong time of the year just as she began to pup.
“It was all a long time ago, see, and starts with a mole you’ll not have heard of who was bigger even than your father was....”
“What was his name?” asked Gowre, looking at the long way ahead and thinking ruefully that since Glyder could only move very slowly maybe a tale would pass the time.
“Mandrake,” said Glyder, and even as he spoke the name a shadow seemed to pass across the slopes above them, and Gowre half turned and stanced to protect them. But there was nothing there but exposed rock and a fold in the ground.
“Aye, it might have been him. They say he came back in spirit after he died before the Duncton Stone, and now he watches over his kin across these slopes and sees they come to no harm. Now, where was I?”
“Mandrake...” whispered Gowre softly, looking nervously about and beginning to wonder who was protecting whom.
“Aye,” began Glyder once more. “My kin and your kin, mole, and as true a Siabod mole as ever there was. I’ll tell the tale as a mole should, from my heart to your heart, and one day you pass it on as I do now to your own kin. And tell them to stance proud, and know the Stone is for them. You’ll tell them that?”
“I shall,” said Gowre with sudden feeling. “I shall!”
“Then listen, and I’ll begin.” And Glyder did, as he made his last trek towards the sacred Stones it had been his life’s task to protect.
PART III
Darkness Falls
Chapter Eighteen
Lucerne of Whern, not yet ordained but already undisputed Master of the Word, the lost Henbane’s dread son, perverse and distorted mole whose love of others – whose love of anything – began and ended with himself, was not content.
Which, being so, meant those around him trembled for their lives and feared the tortured deaths his ire could mean. Where Lucerne and his cabal sideem went, there moles were hung to death; where Lucerne smiled nomole laughed; where Lucerne laughed other moles would die. Where Lucerne was, the air seemed dark with threat and doom to those committed to love and truth.
We find him now in a large and elegant burrow delved in the sandy soil in Cannock, a system south-west of the Dark Peak; and before him, trembling yet defiant, their eyes filled with a look of blind faith and adoration of the Stone that sickened him, were three followers found in hiding up on Cannock Chase.
Great though their pathetic faith was, he noticed with contempt that it was not so great that they did not very freq
uently dart fearful glances at the two moles who stanced on either side of them. The Stone, it seemed, could not protect them from reality.
One of the two was the guardmole Drule, huge of paw and pigged of eye, whom Lucerne had found at Kinder Scout on the crusade’s passage through the Dark Peak, committing wanton murder on young female moles of the Word who had been found enjoying their pleasures with followers of the Stone. Today Drule is notorious, then he was unknown, but Lucerne had already seen in him exceptional and obedient zeal to the Word’s will, combined with total loyalty and a useful cunning that might serve him well, and forthwith appointed him his bodyguard. Drule soon became a mole – the kind a leader such as Lucerne will sometimes need – to whom the very darkest deed could be entrusted and word of it would not leak out. Even from Mallice would some of Drule’s secret acts for Lucerne stay concealed, and though she herself was never quite afraid of him yet most moles always were. It was one of Lucerne’s perversities to enjoy the way that cleverer moles than Drule felt obliged to be nice to him, and smile in sympathy with his doltish grins, and laugh uproariously at his cruel and ignorant jokes.
The other mole was sideem Slighe, who looked inoffensive, being small and bland and with a face that bore a vacuous smile, and in all but one thing was inoffensive to a fault. He was a sideem whom Terce had found to help with the organisation of the crusade, rightly judging him to be efficiency incarnate and just what Lucerne might need in the molemonths and years ahead. An active Master of the Word needs a master of detail at his flank. Slighe was he; his constant presence and willingness to carry through the Master’s policies left Lucerne and Terce free to discuss strategy. And more than that, his perverse and analytic intelligence could find possible problems and potential dangers to the Word where others, not even Terce himself, saw no harm at all.
It gives us only pain to expose the true nature of Slighe’s revolting tastes, which were insatiable where young and uncorrupted male pups were concerned. He was among the most perverse and wicked moles attracted to the Word.
Meanwhile, know that these two had responded to Lucerne’s request to bring some such followers of the Stone as these we find him now with, for he had wished to talk with them, saying, “Before we decide our best course it is the Word’s will that we come to understand such moles, what gives them their faith, and what their weaknesses are.”
Terce had disagreed, seeing only danger in such intercourse with Stone followers, and being content that the reports the sideem were daily sending now from all parts of moledom gave all the information they could need.
“But Terce, you cannot defeat moles’ minds without knowing how they work. You taught me that yourself. I have no doubt that we will eradicate all followers we can find, but it will be costly, and by knowing how they think we may find quicker and more thorough ways.”
So Lucerne had overruled Terce’s wish yet Terce did not much mind, for had he not trained Rune’s grandson to think for himself? So he had shrugged, repeated his warnings, and said no more. Lucerne might, after all, be right, he often was... and Terce knew he owed his continuing position to his ability to be flexible.
For several tedious hours Lucerne had discussed the Stone with the three moles during which Terce, at his side, had not spoken a single word. But at last in the past hour, to his relief, he had seen as the others had that Lucerne had become bored and dispirited.
The moles of the Stone did not yield up to Lucerne’s arguments or implied threats, but that might not have mattered had they offered good argument of their own for him to enjoy. Instead, it seemed, they revealed nothing but faith, based merely on their rearing and without any proof of the power of their Stone at all.
“These moles seem not to think,” he said with exasperation, “nor to have been trained in any way. They are ignorant of their faith.” This was said in front of the three followers, who merely smiled at this outburst.
“Master,” Terce said, “I doubt that many of our moles could give a better account of their faith than these followers could of theirs. You have been trained too long, and lived with only sideem too much and so expect too much.”
What seemed most to anger Lucerne was that not only did they not yield to him, but they were unwilling to name any other mole who was a follower, and responded to the suggestion that such names might be tortured out of them by saying – and this is when the sickening faith came to their eyes – that if that were so it would be the Stone’s will and there was nothing they could do about it.
“But you tremble, mole, when Drule comes close to you. You know that but one word from me would have his talons finding out your pain. What is your faith worth that you trust it so little to protect you here?”
Drule clashed his talons together and widened his eyes and chuckled, quite delighted with himself. The three moles smiled thinly, looked at each other, and one of them replied, “We trusted you, Sir. More we cannot do. As for fear, well, we are but mole. If you were us, threatened and powerless, would you not feel fear?”
“I should not,” said Lucerne, disliking the inquisitorial manner of the mole, “for all is of the Word and I should submit to its will.”
Silence fell, and it was then that Lucerne’s discontent began to show. He wanted better argument than faith. He wanted more information than such untrained believers as these could give.
“Shall I kill them, Master?” said Drule, reading Lucerne’s thoughts.
“You said...” began one of the followers, fear in his eyes.
“He jests,” said Lucerne immediately. “I said you would go free, and so you shall, in time.”
He smiled the smile that few moles could resist and the moles relaxed, even the guardmoles in the shadows at the rear of the chamber. Drule looked sulky, Slighe calculating, while only Terce showed no expression at all.
“Take them, feed them, keep them until I give orders they can be free,” Lucerne commanded the guardmoles.
“Thank you!” said one of the followers. “Yes, thank you! The only way forward is what we have said these few hours past – mutual love and understanding – shared responsibility, a willingness to listen to the other side....”
Lucerne raised a paw.
“You have made your point more than once,” he said. “Speak of it again and Drule will pull your tongue out with his teeth. A speciality of his.” Drule bared his teeth and the moles looked shocked and then smiled, and even managed a shaky laugh as several of the guardmoles chuckled. Drule beamed.
“It is but the Master’s joke,” he said, with ghastly irony.
Yet was Lucerne serious? His eyes did not smile, and nor was Drule’s good cheer entirely convincing. There was terrible menace in what Lucerne had said. The mole shut up.
“So... you shall be cared for. Take them.”
The moment they had gone Lucerne said, “Well, and shall we kill them?”
Drule shrugged indifferently. Such decisions were not his to make.
Slighe said, “They have served their purpose, Master. They have no further information to give us, and gave us little anyway.”
“Terce?” said Lucerne. He liked to hear what others said before making judgement on such things.
“I was wrong, Lucerne, and you, as often enough to depress an old mole like me, were right.”
Lucerne smiled faintly but with pleasure at this flattery.
“And so? You have not spoken a word since they came.”
Terce thought for a little and then said, “To me the most important thing was not what they said or did not say, but what they were.”
“What they were?” said Slighe, frowning. He liked facts and clarity, not subtle ambiguity.
“They were grateful,” said Terce, “and gratitude is weakness in a mole and something easy to exploit.”
“Grateful?” mused Lucerne. “Tell us more.”
“They were grateful in two different ways. First, of course, because you spared them. But that is unimportant. Then secondly, by talking to them y
ou gave them legitimacy and for that they were pleased as well as grateful.
“No doubt that could be dangerous, but dealt with right then we could bring many followers out into the open. We could engage them in debate and discourse and so discover for ourselves their numbers and dispositions. Knowing which we could strike where and when it hurt them most. In the name of the Word we could strike, having first proved them to have been dishonourable. We reached out a paw in peace, they talon it, they are in the wrong, and we are seen to be right to punish them.”
Terce shrugged: such was the way of the Word, was it not?
Lucerne understood his meaning and the nature and promise of such strategy.
“This has attractions,” he said, “and I shall think on it. Meanwhile keep those followers close by, treat them well, and when I am ready I shall try to see them one more time. Whether we release them or ask Drule to show them to the dark burrow I do not yet know.”
He smiled at his euphemism for murder, and the others smiled too. Cruel smiles, bleak smiles, smiles of indifference, as fitted their different positions, and all pitiless.
The great crusade had started as Lucerne wished: simply and well. He had had no wish to raise hopes too high too early, for raised hopes create expectations, and unfulfilled expectations in moles make them dissatisfied and harder to command.
The Keepers had led the new sideem south through Grassington and then over the Dark Peak. There had been nothing but welcome for them, though in some systems – especially as they passed through the southern Peak which lies near to Beechenhill – Lucerne could have wished the welcomes had been warmer. But then the systems that failed to enthuse for the Word had been noted down by Slighe. Apathy was punishable.
Inevitably, the new sideem were eager to see punishment for crimes against the Word begin but Lucerne was cautious, especially about creating sympathy for followers of the Stone. What reports he had had by then made clear that the policy of restraint and indoctrination rather than the savage suppression that followed Henbane’s invasion had been slow but sound.
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