Duncton Found

by William Horwood

  Sleekit lives, but only because grubby Holm, grubbier than ever, had the sense to stay close by her, and when she fell and would have been killed, slumped on top of her and stayed there shivering. They live.

  But then a pile of dead. A mass of dead. A field of muddied, bloody dead; and along the wire, contorted silhouettes against the coming dawn, moles hang; of Stone, of Word, whatmole knows?

  Most are dead, yet some are alive, some groan. Beneath them Merrick lies staring at where the Stone Mole hangs, still unwon by either side. Merrick stares, but his eyes are sightless now.

  So he does not see the Stone Mole stir, nor hear his rattling agony, or see where his left paw has pulled still further out, and bone and sinew have ripped apart. One touch of wind, one turn of his body, and he’ll be off that barb.

  Tears are dried now on his worn, hurt face and, as Merrick stares but does not see, Wort stirs, stances up and comes to where the Stone Mole hangs.

  She reaches up, but by herself she cannot lift the Stone Mole off. She looks up and sees Holm there.

  Holm looks at her, and knows her, and is not afraid.

  “Help me,” she says, and he comes.

  He strives to girdle the Stone Mole’s lower half with his paws, and she reaches up and does the same, and then with a heave they lift him sideways off the hook and gently set him down.

  The scene is desolate and slow. The moles are moles of moledom now, nomole knows the Stone, none the Word. Moles groan and stir all across Beechenhill. Sleekit stirs, stares, sees, and stances up. She is the third to reach the Stone Mole, the first to stretch out a paw and touch his face. His eyes are open from their pain and look on she who was there almost from his birth. His eyes smile on her and are sad.

  “Turn me towards the Stone,” he says.

  They help him face that way and he says, “Go to the Stone and touch it, and pray that what I pray the Stone may grant.”

  “Beechen....”

  “Do it, Sleekit.” She goes.

  “Stone Mole....”

  “Do it now for me, good Holm.” And he goes.

  “Mole.

  “Eldrene Wort, I love thee, open up thy heart now to the Stone for all the darkness of the Word is almost gone from thee.”

  “I would have it all gone,” she whispers.

  “Then you must find the courage to face your darkness to its end and see my light beyond it.”

  He reaches a paw to hers, and she looks into his eyes and sees the love that waits there for her.

  “Go now with the others to the Stone, and fear much to look back. But if you do, be not afraid to bear witness for the Stone of what you see.”

  Wort is the last of three to turn towards the Stone.

  Together they hear his voice whisper this last prayer: “Stone, my father, the burden was too great for me. You made me but mole, and I alone cannot turn the world nor touch all moles at once, even with thy love. Thy Silence waits for them to discover for themselves. Show them the way to it.”

  The Stone is silent, the three moles touching it are still, the Stone Mole stirs one last time and says, “The way to Silence for allmole shall be through one, through she who loved me and thee, most of all. Father, I am but mole. The task is too great for me. Wilt thou not lead them there?”

  Silence was at the Stone as Sleekit, Wort and Holm humbly prayed, each with a paw upon the Stone. Such gentle silence, and gentle light, as the dawn sun began to rise on Beechenhill.

  Then trembling and much afraid, the eldrene Wort dared turn and look at where the Stone Mole lay, and to what she saw she whispered out this prayer: “Stone, my mother and my father, forgive me for all that I have done.” Then a light was on her face, great and good, and it shone within her eyes as she saw what mole it was she had persecuted so long, and watched him rise again, and go.

  Then she turned back to the Stone and to her right side Holm reached and touched her, and to her left Sleekit reached out a paw as well, and the eldrene Wort was alone no more.

  Survivors stir across the slopes of Beechenhill; moles call one to another, moles of the Word help moles of the Stone because, for now, fear has gone from out of their hearts, and so the violence has fled their minds.

  The three moles turn from the Stone and see that where the Stone Mole lay, before the sun came up, moles are quietly gathering. His body is not there, yet light and peace are there, and to it the moles have come.

  The moles on Beechenhill look about, puzzled, wondering, hurrying here and there, afeared. Some even venture into the sodden tunnels to search, but nomole is hidden there, nomole nor corpse.

  The mole they fought for, none has won. The mole they killed is gone.

  Then a whisper begins and then a shout, “Ask the eldrene Wort, she will know. She is closest to the Word. She was his persecutor. Ask her.” The shouts are ugly, mocking, and similar in tone to some of the jeering at the Stone Mole as he hung dying.

  “Aye, where is he gone, this Stone Mole?” asks one of the henchmoles aggressively.

  Can fear return so soon? It can.

  The eldrene Wort stances still by the Stone, her fur bedraggled, and by the new light of morning she looks much aged. Yet on her face is a look none who knows her has seen before. It is soft, it has suffered, and now it grieves. Yet beyond that, it is at peace.

  First she turns to Holm and Sleekit: “Go from here,” she says, “bear witness of these hours. Go now, for you should not be taken.”

  “But you...” says Sleekit.

  “He looked on me with love, and took my fear from out of my heart. Go now while it is still safe and these moles are subdued... Lead her, mole.”

  So it was that Holm began to lead Sleekit out of Beechenhill towards the final tasks they both must find.

  Once more a henchmole cried out to Wort, and as Holm and Sleekit left her they heard her reply, “He has gone from here, I saw him go and the Word did not beset him, for he is stronger than the Word. I saw him go among you. I saw him... there!” She pointed to a place just beyond the Stone.

  “Why, mole,” she said to one of her henchmoles, “he stopped by thee... and you, mole, you there, you stanced aside to let him pass.”

  The moles looked at each other in puzzlement as one turned to another and said, “What did you see?”

  “I saw no Stone Mole here. Just an old mole among the crowd, one of the followers I thought.”

  Then a Beechenhill follower said, “I saw him, too. He touched my paw but I thought him one of you.”

  The puzzlement was replaced by slow wonder, for the more they spoke among themselves the more clear it was that a mole had been there.

  One asked, “What did he look like, this mole you saw?” Some said he was young and strong, others that he was old and weak; some were sure that “he” had been female, some claimed he was barely more than a pup.

  The arguing mounted up amongst them until one turned to Wort and said, “You started this, you finish it. What did this mole look like?”

  Wort said softly and with a gentle smile, “Old, so old, his fur more white than grey, and as he went he had a limp where we had hurt him long, long ago and hurt him now. And his eyes were like two suns....”

  Some laughed at her, some whispered she was mad.

  “And where’s he gone, this white old limping mole?” mocked one.

  “To find a mole who shall know him true,” she said. “For we failed him, didn’t we? All of us failed him. But the Stone Mole said it would need only one to see him as he is and that way the rest of us must go to find the Silence.”

  That was the last Holm and Sleekit heard of what the eldrene Wort said of what she saw. The sun had risen, its light red upon the Stone, and they saw coming up the southern slopes some moles.

  Moles of the Word. Assured moles, well-guarded.

  “What moles?” whispered Holm, eyes wide.

  Sleekit looked.

  Terce she knew.

  Other sideem there she knew.

  The dark fem
ale who was with pup she knew not, and she liked not.

  The leader of them all, beautiful to see, fur elegant, she had seen once before. Tiny, wet and slippery with the blood and muck of birth he had been then. Yes, yes, she knew him. Like mother, like son.

  “That is Lucerne, Master of the Word.”

  Holm stared.

  “Lorren. Not believe a word of it,” he said.

  Sleekit smiled.

  “You’ll see more yet, good Holm,” she said. “Come, lead me from here.”

  “Where to?”

  “Harebell,” said Sleekit. “We must try to find her.”

  “Harebell!” said Holm, protesting.

  “You’re a mole who likes watery ways,” said Sleekit. “There’s plenty of those north-west of here around a place called Castern! It was on the far side of there that she was taken, wasn’t it? Use the cover of the flooded tunnels to find her. Nomole could do it better than you.”

  Holm stared at her, opened his mouth to speak, shook his head, looked exasperated, and then turned to the north-west.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Terce liked it not; Mallice liked it not; the sideem and the guardmoles of Lucerne’s entourage liked it not.

  But the Master of the Word revelled in it. There was something right to him about the devastation they discovered at Beechenhill. Visually he thought it was... magnificent. And if that is the way a mole chooses to see a scene of death and dying about the Stone of a system which had resisted the power of the Word for so long then so it must be.

  A scene lit that day by a red rising sun, an effect that began to fade as the morning wore on and the Master inspected the place. But the image lingered on, and seemed even to redden his eyes as he gazed about, content to see that, though his orders had not been obeyed, yet Beechenhill seemed to have been destroyed.

  What was more, and what became plain as he and Terce listened to the guardmoles’ reports, the eldrene Wort had had a paw in it. She had manipulated the whole thing. She had achieved it.

  A pity, really, she was mad, but so she seemed to be for the Stone Mole was all she talked about. If Drule was here there would have been ways....

  “Take her to Ashbourne and let us hope her ravings of the Stone Mole stop,” said Lucerne. “Have her close-guarded, and honour her. She may be unorthodox, but she got results. Even so, I think her time is done.”

  Lucerne smiled round at Terce, but Terce looked bleak. He liked it not, Lucerne knew that. Well, let them hear the reports through first and then they could discuss the implications of it all. Meanwhile he decided that they should inspect the dead more thoroughly.

  “Master mine, I would prefer not.”

  “Mallice, you will come.”

  His voice was sharp and thin with her, and he had deputed two trusted guardmoles to be at her flanks all the time. For her safety, he said.

  “I wish not to see corpses, Lucerne. I am with pup.”

  “Bring her,” he said savagely. Even before they saw anything the sick sweet smell of death made her retch and she protested yet again: “I am near my time and this....”

  “This will hurry it along, my dear,” he said.

  “This is Squeezebelly, Master.”

  Lucerne turned from Mallice and looked down curiously at the slumped corpse. Death is a tedious thing.

  “Master, this is Merrick of Hawe, sideem of Ashbourne.”

  Lucerne stared. Mallice retched and was sick.

  “And these?” said Lucerne, pointing at the corpses on the wires.

  “Moles of the Word and of the Stone. The fighting was at night. Some did not see the wire they ran into, others used their greater strength to force weaker ones on to it.”

  “So moles of the Stone snouted our guardmoles?”

  “It seems so, Master.”

  “For a peace-loving system this was strange behaviour, was it not?” said Lucerne cheerfully. “Let it be known what Beechenhill moles did. Eh, Mallice, eh?” He grinned unpleasantly at her.

  “Master mine...” she said weakly.

  “The sideem Mallice is ill, take her from here. Let me know when her time comes.” His voice was chill – and full of mock concern.

  “You are cruel,” hissed Mallice at him.

  “And you and yours,” he said with menace.

  For the first time Mallice showed him the fear that he had been building in her all along their journey from Cannock.

  He smiled, charm itself.

  “Go slowly now,” he said more gently. “Before, you always liked me to be harsh.”

  He watched her go, and Terce watched him watch her go and saw the contempt he felt.

  He knows, thought Terce. And Terce’s eyes went round the slopes of Beechenhill and he scented the odorous air with distaste. No, no, no, no, he liked it not at all. Something was wrong, very wrong indeed. Something incomplete.

  “Master, forgive me, but I too feel a little faint. May I leave thee and go among those moles further down the slopes?”

  “Do it, Twelfth Keeper, and when you have talked to them, you come back and tell me what it is that troubles you.”

  They smiled coldly at each other, and each was thinking that the other’s time of usefulness was done. Beechenhill was taken, the Word triumphant, and now....

  The Master must die, thought Terce.

  Terce must be made eliminate, thought Lucerne. Drule, I would have had thee with me now; leaving you behind was a mistake.

  “Have Wort sent to me before she goes to Ashbourne,” Terce told a guardmole a little later on.

  He managed a smile when she came, and stanced her down.

  “You have done well,” he said.

  “The Stone has done it all,” Wort said immediately.

  “Ah, yes. And the Stone Mole?”

  “Lucerne won’t find his holy body,” said Wort matter-of-factly.

  “Why don’t you tell me what really happened here?” said Terce. “From the beginning, and taking your time.”

  So Wort did, right from the beginning, the strangest, maddest tale that Terce ever heard, except for one thing. All the evidence supported the truth of it. Moles called in for corroboration after Wort had been taken away described it just the same. And all spoke in awe of the Stone Mole, describing his suffering as if it had been their own. And the strangeness of his parting, or disappearance, or whatever that was...! No corpse, no sudden recovery. Nothing, but images out of the confusion of fighting and a tired dawn of a young mole, an old mole, a White Mole.

  No, Terce liked it even less. It stank of martyrdom and mystery. It stenched of just the kind of nonsense that whatever followers were left could rally round. It was rank with danger to the Word.

  Yet here and soon, in this confusion, in this possible disaster, the Word would guide him. Terce trusted that. Always, always, it had been a risk, but somewhere here in all of it was a way of ending Lucerne’s mortal life and beginning the immortalisation of Rune’s dynasty.

  That would be. For now, his concern was Mallice and her coming pups, of whom he would glory to be grandfather. His task might have been harder if Drule had been here, but he was not. The guardmoles who close-guarded her were moles he knew; they owed him favours. Let her have the pups here, and soon. She would be safe.

  Meanwhile he must listen and learn, and the Word would, as the eldrene Wort might once have said, show him the way.

  The Word did, and very soon.

  “The Master asks for your presence with him,” a messenger said. “He is up near the Stone.”

  He went and found Lucerne looking smug, and a tired and travelled guardmole stanced nearby.

  “Ah, Terce, the day’s good news is not over yet, for there is more. Harebell, sister of Wharfe, sister of another mole you know, is caught. More than caught indeed; she is with pup.”

  “It is the season for pups,” said Terce easily.

  “And mothers too.”

  “Mothers, Master?”

  “Old mothers. Mothers with dr
y teats. Mothers do grow old, Terce, very. Or had you forgotten?”

  Terce was silent, thinking, frowning. Then he let out a little sigh of disbelief.

  “The Mistress Henbane, Master?”

  “This mole’s commander has her with Harebell. And others, too, of rather less interest to the Word.”

  “Then we must see them!” said Terce, almost jubilant. Henbane! The Word had spoken.

  “It is a little way, I fear, for they are half a day from here. They were found hiding and caught napping, literally it seems. And just as well by his account or floods would have drowned them dead, and thus denied us the pleasures yet to come. Think of it, Terce: united once more with Henbane on the very day of our greatest triumph.”

  “There are matters we must....”

  “They can wait,” said Lucerne sharply.

  He turned to the guardmole and dismissed him with more smiles and compliments, but the moment he had gone the smiles faded.

  “I know you, Terce. These matters... they will be to do with something that troubles you, and no doubt you are right to raise them and I am derelict to avoid them. Well, Terce, I like not my mother; I like not the idea of my sister, though her pups may be a very different thing. Yes, they may well be. These are matters I wish to attend to. What is yours that it is more important?”

  “The Stone Mole, Master. The Stone Mole is dead, long live the Stone Mole. I tell, you Master, the Word is in danger now.”

  Then he told Lucerne his fears, powerfully and convincingly, and sought to persuade him to have Henbane brought here.

  “Harebell is too far gone with pup, according to that guardmole. She is imminent and my dear mother naturally wishes to stay with my dear sister, and since for now I wish nothing more than to see them, why, the Master will be the one to move.”

  “As you will, Master.”

  “Yes, as I will.”

  Terce was expressionless and, despite all he said, inwardly pleased. The Word had sent Henbane as guidance to Terce. She was the way. The one mole in moledom who might yet conquer Lucerne.