Duncton Wood (73 page)

IV

IABOD

   36  

T
HE
following March Bracken and Boswell finally came within a day’s journey of the Blowing Stone, which stood at the foot of Uffington Hill, and more than six long moleyears had passed. They had faced every kind of physical danger moles can face – river, ice, owls and weasels, and marsh – and worse, had seen that system after system had been devastated by the plague. In many only a few. solitary moles survived, turned half mad by the mystery of why they had not died or showing such a fear of strangers that Bracken and Boswell might have been the plague incarnate.

More than once their path crossed that of other wanderers, some looking for moles whom they could not believe were dead, while others were thin and unkempt and ate little, telling of the curse that had fallen on the world and the punishment that still waited each one of them.

These encounters, and the strain of the journey itself, had changed Bracken. His face fur was now lined and he had matured; at the same time he had filled out and become more powerful-looking so that he had something of the solid strength of his father Burrhead, though none of the heaviness. He was not aware of it himself (though Boswell was) but he was now a formidable mole to face, for his four paws were firmly on the ground and his gaze was often clear and direct, as from a settled heart. But recently there had come a weariness of spirit over him especially with the beginning of spring, which only Rebecca would have lifted from him. Days went by when he would talk little, and Boswell understood from the way he looked around and ahead at each turn in their journey that he was searching for the love they had made together.

Boswell had changed, too, though not physically. He was still thin and jerky in movement, his eyes darting this way and that with the great curiosity about life that he had; his coat, shot through with gray as it was, was now fuller and more glossy than when Bracken had first met him in the drainage channel.

But the biggest change was in his spirit, which became ever more simple and laughing, so that a mole who didn’t know him might almost have taken him for a fool. He saw laughter in the simplest things, and often when they were in difficulties it was his good humor that took the frown from Bracken’s face. And often, too. Bracken’s own laughter would never have started had not Boswell been there to show that a heart may be light even when circumstances are grim.

At last, on a gray March morning after days in which the-pull of Uffington had become stronger and stronger, they came within sight of the Blowing Stone. Or rather within sound, for the day was windy and the first signal they had that they had reached Uffington were the low moans of the wind in the crevices and holes of the Stone, all of which carried in vibrating waves down into the vale up which they were traveling.

“Listen!
That’s
the Blowing Stone,” said Boswell.

“So we’re almost there!” said Bracken, unable to believe that their long journey was nearly over.

Their pace quickened and soon the wind carried to them a scent Bracken had almost forgotten – beech trees. They were nearly on chalk again. Soon they came to a clump of beech and as they passed among it, the familiar roots, firm and powerful in the ground, the dry smell of chalk and beech leaf litter brought back to Bracken a memory of Duncton Hill, of the Ancient System and, most of all, of Rebecca. She was suddenly full in his heart again as, passing beyond the last of the beech trees, they came to the great Blowing Stone itself and crouched down thankfully in its presence.

It stood at the edge of a field, overshadowing a hedge that grew near it and had been weathered by wind and rain and sometimes ice into a thousand scoops and hollows, with holes in its upper parts which the moles could not see but which were the source of its moaning and hooting in the wind. It was split vertically along its natural cleavage as well, so that from some points it looked more like three stones than one.

Looming over it was the steep escarpment of Uffington Hill itself, which rose in sheer shadows of nearly vertical, tussocky grass, many hundreds of molefeet high. A mole’s gaze had to tilt higher and higher, and still higher, before he saw the shadows end at the distant top of the hill and the white-gray March sky beyond.

“Over to the west, beyond the top of the hillface, that’s where the Holy Burrows lie,” said Boswell. “It takes half a day for most moles to climb it – a bit longer for me.”

The day was drawing in, gray and cold, and they decided to stay where they were until full light before climbing the hill, eager though both of them were to get to the top. But they were tired and thankful for food and a temporary burrow near the Blowing Stone, falling asleep to the soft vibrations and moans of the Stone.

Because the escarpment faced north, dawn was a long time coming, and even when it came it seemed gloomy and wan. The wind had died and the March grass through which they started their climb was lank and dreary. But it soon became shorter and more wiry and their hearts began to fill with excitement as, step by step, they climbed up toward the goal they had aimed at for so long. At first, Bracken took the lead, but in his eagerness to get to the top, he so outpaced the limping Boswell that finally he stopped and let Boswell set the pace, and it seemed right that Boswell should take the lead.

The hillface grew steeper and steeper and their pace slower, and Bracken began to have the feeling that behind him there was nothing but clear air and a tumbling fall to somewhere far below. At the same time they felt the wind behind them, a wind that blew on even the calmest of days up the scarp face, flattening the grass upward and on toward the top.

Higher and higher they climbed until each step was accompanied by a pant and they could think of nothing but finding a talonhold in the next patch of rough grass ahead and summoning the strength to push themselves and pull themselves yet higher. The grass was tough, more like a set of long pine needles than the soft pasture and meadow grass of the valleys they had grown used to, and was a buff-yellow or brown rather than green, scorched in summer by sun and in winter by wind.

They stopped several times for a rest before Boswell said – or rather breathed: “Halfway. A good way to go yet.”

Bracken looked above him and the scarp face still looked as massive as when they had first started. They felt exposed, for the grass was now quite short and the sky loomed hugely all around them, while the soil, which showed through the grass in places, was dry and stony with flakes of chalk and flint – not easy to burrow into quickly if a kestrel happened along.

They pressed on, the wind coming stronger and colder behind them all the time, blowing across their fur and driving it forward like the grass beneath them. On they went, the wind so battering them from behind that in the final stretch it almost blew them up the hill and they had to lean back a little into it to keep their balance.

Then the grass changed to a short, green pasture grass, and the slope suddenly slackened to a final rolling stretch. Fifteen moleyards, ten, five, and then, as simple as you please, they were there together, on top of Uffington Hill, at the end of their journey.

Bracken turned round, snouted into the shrill wind, and looked out onto a sea of sky, massive above and ahead of him and below, the hazy distance of fields and grasslands, meadows and valley, trees, rivers and farmland. The wind was so strong that it took Bracken’s breath away and made his eyes water, and so noisy that talking was impossible so that Boswell had to cuff him lightly to draw his attention as he indicated that they should retreat a little from the crest of the slope. They did so, and within a matter of ten moleyards the wind dropped to almost nothing and they could see and hear and think again. Boswell turned away from the slope and waved a paw to the west. “Uffington!” he said, excitement and apprehension in his voice. “By the Stone’s grace, and with its strength, I am back. May the stone have preserved the moles I left behind.”

Beyond him the clear grass swept into a tussocky distance. In the foreground it seemed as flat as the slope had been steep, though over a distance it undulated gently, soft, delicate curves that changed subtly whichever way a mole turned and never seemed to stay the same.

“Well, come on then,” said Boswell, winding his way among old molehills flattened by wind and rain in which flakes and chips of flint were mixed with the light soil, until he came to a hill of fresh earth. Burrowing into it, he led Bracken into the Holy Burrows at last.

The tunnels leading to the Holy Burrows were worn smooth with age and venerable use. Generations on generations of scribemoles had trodden their way through the tunnels so that some of the protruding flints were rounded and shiny from the rubbing of flank fur, while the chalky floor was packed hard and shiny in places as well, so that near some of the entrances, the light coming in made the tunnel floor look like dimly lit ice.

“We’re nearly there now,” said Boswell, “though there aren’t many moles about.”

“I haven’t seen
any.
Not a single one. But I can scent them all right. Uffington must have been affected by the plague like every other system,” said Bracken brutally. “Better face the fact, Boswell.”

“Well, well,” said Boswell, “we’ll soon know.”

Boswell led them on down a tunnel whose size was equal to the biggest in the Ancient System but whose sculpting was more aged – very like the simple rounds and squares of the tunnel beyond the Chamber of Roots which led to the buried part of the Stone. It sloped steadily downhill for a while before leveling off, and Bracken sensed that they had entered a deeper and somehow more sacred part of the system. It was a place to move slowly in, and with grace, and one where, if a mole spoke at all, he did so in a low voice that did not disturb” the peace.

“We are very near the libraries,” said Boswell softly. “This is a holy place, Bracken, and it is best that you do not say anything to anymole we may meet. I do not think a mole who is not a scribemole has ever been here before, but nor do I remember anything in the writings or rules that is against it. But stay silent, move gently, and let me talk.”

The tunnel entered a round chamber that was the confluence of three other major tunnels as well as two much smaller ones.

“That one leads to the Holy Burrows themselves,” said Boswell, pointing to one that Bracken estimated ran westward, “while this one leads to the libraries.” He led the way down it slowly. As Bracken followed him out of the chamber and into the tunnel, he could have sworn he saw a mote watching them from where, seconds before, there had been no mole, in the entrance to the tunnel to the Holy Burrows. He thought he saw him clearly, an old mole with a long-lean face and thin fur, but when he really looked, he wasn’t there! Strange! Bracken looked around him, feeling that in this place time did not mean quite what it meant in other systems. But he had seen a mole! He hastened after Boswell, anxious to keep him in sight.

The tunnel steepened suddenly, going down deeper and deeper, until it was cast into semisolid chalk in which fissures and stratum lines were visible. The air was heavy with the slow echoes of their movement but there was no windsound now at all. The tunnel leveled off again, ran to an entrance, and then they were through it and into an enormous chamber whose end was too far off to see. It was too complex and confusing a place to take in all at once, and it was some moments before Bracken could even make out its main features.