Duncton Stone (104 page)

Of what happened next the memories came only slowly back to Whillan later, in flashes of light which gave him only incoherent glimpses of the three of them, chasing upwards, and the cliffs coming nearer, and then the Creeds, and then an ascent into a void that was above them making all seem reversed and upside down.

A torrent; the rush of raven’s wings; slipping down and looking down and turning back; Humlock defying gravity to climb on up and push them on; Glee suddenly screaming out into some gullied place, not from fear but for release, to make the darkness echo, to remind them that they lived.

The Creed (which one Whillan never knew) took them unto itself and it became their vertical, terrifying world, and they its pups, clinging on to its flanks, seeking out its safe depths, fearful when it rose and swung on them; and sometimes looking down, down to the rocks below them, down beyond them to the screes, and beyond even them to the Reap, yellow-white and rushing far from them down into the Clough.

Once they sheltered under a fall of water and found green ferns as beautiful as flowers; another time, upon a ledge, trembling in the winds that never ceased, three white starry saxifrage waited for them, as if summer were still there, and signalled them on. When they looked back the flowers had gone, swept down by rockfall, that way no longer passable.

Time they forgot, and finally fear as well, for this was all their world and to it they cleaved and knew only the never-ending upward push of paw on rock, and pull of broken, blunted talon in the crevice, and the swing of paws across a void to scrabble for a hold in another cleft.

“Hilbert came down this way,” were the only words that Whillan afterwards remembered being spoken, though whether it was he who said them, or Glee, he never knew.

Night came. Day followed. Rain came. Sun shone far from them. Winds blew. Silence reigned. Then noise. Then night, another and another and another before day.

They ate, Whillan remembered that. Red worms. Dead raven. The soft green roots of mantle-flower. And they drank of the chill, clear water of the Creed.

Then one day when they had forgotten about the life that lay behind them, and were too weary to believe that anything could lie ahead, they reached up their paws and the rocks fell away and there was green grass ahead; and light, endless; and an horizon, frighteningly far off.

There, in this new and dangerous world, two old moles, withered by rains and mists, harassed by worry and doubt, stanced waiting for them.

One was Loosestrife, almost as exhausted as they were; the other was Waythorn, sniffing at the drizzle on his snout, staring at the ghosts that finally came alive out of the Charnel Clough.

“She said to wait!” he said. “Privet’s did.”

“And he said to wait, because Rooster’s would,” she echoed.

Then she was in Whillan’s paws, never wanting to let him go, or to forget what it felt like to lose the mole she had only in the days past realized she had come to love.

Whillan had left her on Hilbert’s Top as friend and kin; he returned to her as a mate. All of that, and a future, was in their long embrace.

Nor was Glee unmindful of her own one and only love, who, sensing the strangeness of where he was, and that his life and world would never be the same, and likewise exhausted from the days of climbing, began to hunch up into himself like a huge frightened rock. She touched his face and paws again and again, whispering words of reassurance he could not hear and he began to relax. Then she turned round and stared down through the mists out of which they had climbed, and turning for a moment to the other three said, “Leave us be for a time. Leave us be...”

They did, making a scrape nearby, getting food ready, and saying nothing when the two strange moles came and slept and then went out together again to stance above the world which had been their only life. One day. Two days. Five days, before at last Glee said, “We’ve said farewell. Humlock is confused by the wind and the vibrations which do not come back. He wants to know where this place stops.” She waved a paw across the distance that was moledom.

They tried to explain what moledom was, and where they were, and how they must travel to get anywhere, but none of it made sense to Glee and Humlock. Without the confines of the cliffs, and the roaring of the Reap, they had no place to turn. Nor did tunnels help, not even when – as they always did – they delved to make the place their own.

“Whillan, they seem so lost and sad,” said Loosestrife on the third day after they left the Charnel heights, and rested in Waythorn’s place.

He nodded and went out on to the Moor alone to think, and was gone until nightfall. When he came back he called them to him, including Waythorn, and said, “It’s time we travelled south. We’re going to Duncton Wood. Waythorn, you’ll come with us, for we’ll need your help and skills.”

“But what of the Newborns, and what of —”

“It’s time, that’s all I know,” said Whillan wearily. He turned to Humlock and reached up to his face and touched it, and then said to Glee, “Tell him that this place
will
stop, but when I don’t know.”

She told him and then said, “He wants to know where it stops, not when. He’s afraid of getting lost where there are no cliffs or delvings or Reap to guide him.”

“Tell him,” said Whillan finally, “that this place will stop at Rooster.”

Humlock stilled at Glee’s next touch and then raised his great head and for a moment his white eyes showed. He roared, he seemed to seek the very stars, and then, as gently as a pup, he touched each one of them, and roared again, a strange unearthly Charnel sound.

“Is he weeping?” wondered Whillan.

“No,” said Glee, her white paws to Humlock’s, who grew still again. “That’s Humlock’s laugh.”

Fieldfare’s chamber was hushed as Whillan’s voice stopped, and the dawn light after Longest Night began to fill it.

They were all still, all touched by his tale.

“Rooster’s!” said Rooster finally, buffeting Whillan with a chuckle. Then his face was serious: “Where are they?”

“Near Rollright. We travelled south, we took the high route of the Chilterns but there was Newborn confusion and danger about. We heard a rumour from some pilgrims of Privet’s coming and so I found them a safe place and left Waythorn to watch over them, and came on alone more quickly. I felt I was needed here.”

“What of Loosestrife?” Privet and Chervil looked at each other and smiled, for both had spoken at once.

“Loosestrife is well,” said Whillan carefully. “She... won’t come yet. I sent Hamble and Frogbit here to see that they were safe and they say they are, and they led them on to Cuddesdon, nearby and secure. Loosestrife is not ready to see Duncton or the moles in it. She’s curious, but wary. She’ll come when she’s ready.”

He spoke dispassionately, but it was evident that in some way he agreed with her. It had to do with Privet. Loosestrife, it seemed, was not the only mole who chose to be “wary” – Whillan was as well.

“When they come? Humlock and Glee?” asked Rooster.

“Tomorrow or the next day!” said Frogbit. “Humlock’s big as you, Rooster, and bigger.”

Rooster smiled. “Can delve with them. Can delve things long forgotten. Can delve the grief of years away. And will.”

“And Wort’s Testimony?” said Privet in a strange dry voice.

“Brought it back and gave it into Pumpkin’s care,” said Hamble.

“It waits for you, Privet, near the Book,” said Pumpkin. “It seemed the best place for it.”

The tale was done, but they were not yet a community again. The Book was what separated them all now, or Privet’s distance; and Whillan’s. Which might all be the same thing. There was much to heal and the only comfort was that all of them knew it, and all had faith to wait.

“Come, Pumpkin, dawn is with us and I am tired,” said Privet. “Today we have work to do. Tomorrow, and the day after that: work!”

She said it almost bitterly, nodded to them as if they were not kin and friends at all but passing acquaintances, and left, Pumpkin following her.

“Miss her,” said Rooster, “that mole I knew at Hilbert’s Top. Loved and lost her. But friends come back and she will and then will delve for her again.”

A beautiful smile of peace and patient love came to his face, and, as touching, a look of pride in Whillan.

“Did well, mole,” he said. You knew what to do. Now Glee coming here, and Humlock. Loosestrife will one day for Privet when she’s done. Not before. Will delve cliffs for Humlock and Glee, and the Reap, and they will want to stay.”

They came three days later, on the Night of Rising, which commemorated Pumpkin’s leadership of the rebels into the Ancient System a full cycle of seasons before.

Humlock, Glee and Rooster together by the Stone.

“Never be far apart again but when we die,” said Rooster, and their coming set a tradition that on the Night of Rising, wherever it was commemorated, strangers were made welcome into the system to which they came. Then they celebrated until dawn, a time enjoyed by all but Privet, who was not seen at all.

“Where is she, Pumpkin? Not scribing through the night?”

“She’s not scribed a word since kenning Wort’s Testimony. Maybe I should go and see...”

But he dallied, for the night was convivial and a welcome respite from the winter, which would be upon them soon enough once more. But then he thought he would stretch his paws in the night, and just see that Privet was all right... just see.

The look on his face when he returned told them she was not.

“Why, Pumpkin... mole, what is it?”

It was Hamble who asked, and Sturne who went to him.

“What is it, Pumpkin? What’s wrong? You can tell any one of us, or all...”

“It’s the Book,” Pumpkin whispered, his face expressing puzzlement and shock. “She’s begun to destroy all the scribing that she’s made. It was nearly done, all the folios filled, all there waiting for her to simply say it was done. But now...”

“Now,
what,
mole?”

“She’s scoring out every single word she’s scribed.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

“Place the folio there, Pumpkin,” said Privet, irritably waving a paw at a pile of jumbled folios strewn across the awesome chamber where the Book had been found, and where she now chose to scribe.

“Privet, I think perhaps that
this
folio —”

“Stop fussing, mole.”

“But Privet, I really must insist, I must!”

She stopped her frantic work at the Book, paused, turned to him, and a weary, patient look came across her face. Reluctantly her scribing paw relaxed, though she kept glancing back at the work she was doing, as if it must be done, and now.

“What season is it, Pumpkin?”

“Mid-January, Privet, and it’s cold down here and I really wish —”

She coughed, and for a moment had difficulty drawing breath.

“It is cold, you’re right. I shouldn’t be here. I should be in that snug burrow you and Rooster made for me.”

“You’ve never used it, Privet, and it’s really not that far. There’s moles aplenty will bring you food, and if you want company —”

“Company!” she exclaimed with a dismissive laugh.

“... or peace and quiet —”

“Peace? Quiet?” Her eyes were as sharp as her voice, and as she looked about the draughty echoing place, in which the ever-present wind-sound threatened always to turn dark, a haunted look came into her face.

“I’ll have those things when I have finished this.
Finished
it. The Book... cannot wait.”

Pumpkin stared at the Book, once pristine, now worn and torn, some of its folios already falling out, and its covers stained by what he was quite sure were tears.

“No, no, Pumpkin, I’ll stay here for now. I must, you see. Bring me worms, and later you can help me to the surface for some air. January, you say?”

“Snow has begun to fall. All is quiet across the High Wood.”

“Quiet!” she repeated, the worn smile returning.

Her eyes went to the folio he had brought; which was so scratched and scored that it might as well have long since been thrown away.

“I am... afraid of it, Pumpkin,” she whispered. “Bring it here.”

He went to it and, with evident difficulty, quite out of proportion to the scrappy thing’s seeming weight, he took it up and carried it to her, panting.

“Was it so hard to bring it from the Library?”

“Master Librarian Sturne helped me. It was where it had been left, and Light was there, Privet, and I was so much afraid.”

“Yet you brought it to me?”

“I am your aide and I shall always be, even if I disapprove of how you scourge yourself.”

“‘Scourge’, now there’s a fine old word... ‘Forsoth he scourgith euery sone that he receyeuth’, as the scholar Wyclif once scribed. There, I have not forgotten everything!”

Her eyes wrinkled with some remembered pleasure of study and scholarship when she was young, but looking at her Pumpkin thought she had never looked so old, or so ill. She
was
ill: she coughed, she stared at nothing, she saw nomole but him, not even Rooster, and...

“Look! I’ll scribe it in the Book! There, see, behold!” She scribed the word “scourge”. She laughed, but bitterly and with terrible sadness. “How is my Rooster? Does he miss me? Does he ask after me?”