Duncton Tales (77 page)

The fearful sound swelled, and thundered, so that the chamber they were in seemed to shake and threaten them; but then the thunder became the sound of distraught running paws, and the crying of a mole, a mole in mortal danger, a mole whose cry Privet knew as that of a pup, long before, called Whillan.

A pup who ran back down the south-eastern slopes beyond the wood towards the place of darkness from which Stour had rescued him, a pup whose Dark Sound was the beating rooks’ wings, and the pointing and the tearing of rooks’ beaks and the shadows of a cross-under, where no hope was, where no light could be, where death was when a mother began to die, and a father was not.

Up and up around them the Dark Sound mounted, and somewhere beyond the dark portal, not far but too far for them to reach, Whillan cried out he was lost again, lost as he had seemed to be at birth, lost as, at some time in their lives, some soon, some late, all moles are; lost in the darkness from which they reach out blindly to touch the Stone and know that they are safe to be that part of themselves that lives on still, at peace beyond the dark sound of it all.

Then, threatening, sensing weakness and distress, the Newborns found their courage and, their cries, mounted up the nearby slipway towards the Master’s study cell and so towards where the moles tried to hold on to their Seven Stancing, and see a way, if only for a time, to fill the gap that broke the circle of the great Books of Moledom.

Strength magnificent and courageous — is it only when moles are tried their farthest that their greater selves are found, touched, never quite lost again?

Maple rose through the Dark Sound to turn towards his task, putting out a great paw to pull Chater with him, that together they might go and face the Newborns and stop them, or hold them, or merely slow them for a time, time before which the Dark Sound was taking Whillan into death.

While in the chamber where the Books lay still, and Fieldfare was huddled and mute, and Pumpkin dumb, and Drubbins’ paws could not move themselves … there in the swirl of pain and loss that once was long before, and was now a pup’s nightmare once again, an old mole slowly moved.

Master Stour, Librarian, doubter, scholar, friend, put a brave paw forward into the darkness about them, and then another, and so on until he reached poor Privet’s flank, where she stared at the dark portal, her scribing forgotten, the last folio of the ruined folios incomplete, hearing her Whillan’s dark flounder into death.

“Come,” commanded Stour, “together we shall find the strength.”

Then, as Maple had taken Chater from the Chamber towards the world of day and physical danger, so Stour took Privet through the portal into night and the void of spiritual death, where moles see their own weakness and know not where to go.

Into the Dark Sound they went, down a tunnel of delved carvings and indentations, all ugly and strange, to a mole who floundered now, blinded by sound, deafened by dark light, his paws reaching vainly across the walls in panic and desperation as with his last strength he sought a way back out of the darkness into which his own fear, his own birth, had put him.

Towards him they struggled, each holding the other knowing that if they let go of each other perhaps their last touch on the world beyond themselves would slip away and they too …

“He’s searching for something,” cried out Stour as they neared Whillan’s wild form, though Stour’s cry seemed no more than a whisper.

“Do not lose touch with me, Master Stour,” Privet sobbed, reaching to the walls as Whillan wildly reached, searching amongst their dark delvings as he searched, and then, with a cry, finding what he did not find.

“I cannot keep in touch with you more,” cried Stour as she moved beyond his paw as if she saw the beginning of something high, high up in the deep-delved wall, a line, a hint of light, the merest scratch of a talon in that place that so long before only a Master of the Delve could have made.

As Stour, unable to hold on to her, himself began to fall into the void of Dark Sound, and Whillan uttered his last despairing cry, as he had once before beneath the cross-under beneath the slopes south-east of Duncton Wood, Privet put the talons of her right paw to the beginning that she found, and began to find again the line, gentle and soft, sinuous and subtle, that a Master had made that another mole might find. A line made centuries before for this moment.

With increasing certainty, and with another cry as if to welcome once again the touch of a mole she had loved and lost, Privet began to sound out the delving just as Rooster had so long before showed her against just such a moment as this, and about them all the sound of Silence sounded out again.

Light was there! The void in retreat! The shadows in disarray … and Stour stanced down and staring, not at Whillan who had turned back to them and was safe again; nor at Privet, whose kenning of the delve was nearly done and the sound continuing to swell magically about them, healing and good; oh no, not at them did wise Stour stare.

But beyond further down the tunnel, to where the shadows fled far away, and where too, turning and staring for a moment, was the form of a great mole who once had been and might yet be again: a Master of the Delve. His brow was furrowed, his eyes askew, his head nearly monstrous, and his paws both huge, yet one more huge than the other, whilst his roar, like his tears, was silent. Then, as Stour reached for him, almost it felt to help him, he was gone …

“How did you know?” whispered Stour as, together, the three retraced their steps through the new-found light back through the dark portal. “How did you know where the delve might be?”

“He taught me,” Privet whispered with joy, “Rooster taught me, forced me to learn though I did not want to, because he knew one day, one day … yet, how did Whillan know what to search for?”

“
This
is the beginning of the Book of Silence” said Stour, ignoring her last question. “It is now shown to you that you may have example and faith to rise up from the fear in which you have lived so long, and go and seek the Book that is not yet. That is your task, Privet.”

Very tired, at peace, she nodded and said, “It is begun, Master Librarian, begun already, but not only I, but all of us shall finish it.”

Then they went through the portal and Privet led them to the Books, and touched Pumpkin, and Drubbins and Fieldfare, and called for Maple and Chater to come.

“The Newborns almost entered,” they said when they came back, “but when the Silence began again, they fell back without us having to raise a paw, almost all of them fell back …”

But their words faltered and stopped as Privet turned to the last folio, on which she had only partly scribed, in which the last tale was therefore unfinished, or seemed to be; or was it only just begun? Then, with reverence, but with no difficulty, she took it up and there, where she had failed to put a paw before, where the gap between the Six Books of Moledom waited to be filled, she placed the old, worn, scribed, scored and over-scribed folio down, which was the sum, the total, of so many moles’ lives and tales, and made this holy dedication and offering: ‘In your ending, Keeper Husk, who had faith in all the tales, and sought to honour them, is this beginning to the Book of Silence. We will seek the rest of it out and we shall find it, so that we may bring the last Book home to ground; the seventh lost and last Book …”

Then she placed the solitary ragged folio on the ground and completed the circle, the sound of Silence was all about as, at her command, each one of the moles placed their paw on hers to mark their acceptance of their part in the coming task.

“Come now,” said Maple at last, and boldly. “Come while the Silence protects us and the Newborns are confused …”

“Aye, go now, moles. Go as I have commanded you, for I have strength now to fulfill my task, as you have,” said Stour.

With last embraces, each whispered their farewell to the Master Librarian who had given them, and moledom, all his life. Then each through the portal back towards the Library went, with Whillan at the last. He looked back one last time, as he had up in the clearing, to see where Husk lay. What he saw there he never forgot.

Just an old mole, pale of fur, wizened with age, who looked smaller still for the dark light that engulfed him, and the huge portal that rose above him into the ancient system. Whillan watched as Stour bent down painfully, and with enormous effort he turned towards it and took up the completed Book of Tales and began, step by slow step, breath by panting breath, to seek a place where nomole could find it, and where it would be for ever safe. But that was just the first: how could anymole survive more, let alone carry The Six Books of Moledom?

“Stone, protect him, give him all thy love,” whispered Whillan, as the returning Dark Sound reached out to claw him into itself and a paw reached from the portal at which he had paused and pulled him out of that wild darkness to safety once more.

There at least, and in the study cell beyond, the sound of Silence lingered on, gentle and balmy, safe as summer air.

“Look!” warned Maple, still hidden with the others inside the portal and pointing down the slipway to where, amazed, dumbfounded, nearly frightened, a mass of Newborns stanced uncertain still. At their head and coming up the slipway, was Snyde on the side near the wall, and Bantam on the other, near where the slipway fell sheer to the Library below; leading them was a dark mole, purposeful.

“What mole is that?” asked Privet.

“It’s the one they call Chervil.” whispered Fieldfare.

“Come!” said Privet.

Even as their forms darkened the portal, substantial but not yet identifiable, the Newborns saw them, and seemed to see monsters. For theirs was a cry of alarm, a turning of panicked moles, for after the Dark Sound, after the Silence, came forth moles touched by Silence, and the Newborns were afraid.

Snyde turned first, hiding his face in the indentations made by generations on the slipway and covering his distorted ears; the mass below turned next, on each other, terrified, clawing and stampeding to escape through the Main Chamber and beyond to the Small, and thence, in a thunder of paws, and with books and texts flying all about, up and out into the Wood and downslope away as far as they could get from the Ancient System.

Finally Sister Bantam, in panic, turned into space, reached out a paw for support, and screaming fell down on to the hard ground below, her snout crushing, that scream the last of many that vile mole made through her destructive life, whether of perverse ecstasy, of gloating triumph or, as now, of fear of the dark void which had taken her at last.

Only Chervil did not move in fear, and one other mole, below, watching and still: Keeper Sturne.

“Come!” cried Privet again, and led the seven moles forth from the Master’s cell, down past Senior Brother Chervil without a word, out of the Main Chamber and through the Small Chamber to go out into the Wood.

There, with the great beech trees of the High Wood silent about them, Drubbins and Pumpkin took leave of the other five. Their farewells were brief, for what can moles say who have lived through darkness and heard Silence? Nothing, but wish each other the blessings of the Stone, and the final blessings all moles make when they set off on a quest in the Stone’s name.

“May you return home safeguarded!” said Pumpkin, as cheerfully as he could, running a little after them as they wended their way through the High Wood towards the south-eastern pastures.

“They’ll go down there and then through the cross-under,” said Pumpkin quietly when he had gone back to where Drubbins stanced solidly down staring after their friends.

“Aye, mole.”

“And then their journey will begin, won’t it, Drubbins?”

“It will, mole.”

“I’ll … m … miss them,” said Pumpkin. “Hard times are coming and I’m afraid. But the Master …”

The Master’s safe now, mole, safer than we are! But the Stone will watch out for us all.”

“We better not linger,” said Pumpkin. “Had we?”

Nor did they, though the sound of Silence did, about the High Wood, about them both, too, as they went off to begin their task.

The Silence lingered also, longest of all perhaps, in the Library itself, where Chervil stanced still on the slipway and Snyde, looking up at last, took one final fearful look and crept away.

“Mole,” said Senior Brother Chervil, turning his head and looking down at where Keeper Sturne stanced. “Are you Newborn of the Stone?”

Sturne stared up at the Senior Brother and pondered the question, his face impenetrable.

“I think perhaps I am,” he said without expression, and in view of what he had heard and seen in the hours just past he thought that perhaps he
was
‘new’ born, and he told no lie. He hoped that following the Master’s instructions might continue to prove easy as this first lie!

“Come here then, mole,” said Chervil.

Sturne mounted the slipway and stared into the cold dark eyes of the Senior Brother.

“Was Master Librarian Stour among those who passed me just now and left the Library?”

“‘Just now!’” thought Sturne to himself. “Why, it was an age ago and afternoon has come, and the Brother’s been stanced there utterly bemused. He doesn’t know if it’s day or night. Silence, it seems, does not agree with Newborns!”