Duncton Quest (106 page)

“Not a waterfall, mole, a roof fall. Yes, the Master does have his burrows near here, but here too is Boswell confined. No doubt the Master wished to keep an eye on him.”

Weed’s voice was both serious and direct, and Tryfan detected a difference in his attitude to Rune than to Henbane. Of the first he seemed in respectful awe, of the second afraid.

As Tryfan followed on, the sideem all about watching his every step, he felt a strange disquiet about Henbane. It was more than the discomfort a mole might naturally feel to find himself attracted to a mole he had good reason to distrust and hate. Now they were away from her he felt more able to combat her overt intent to charm him. No, it was not that but, rather, a sense of pity that he felt.

He remembered his mother Rebecca telling him once of Mandrake, her father. A murderous, evil mole in everything he did, she said, and yet when she went to Siabod and saw where he had been raised she began to understand why, despite all he had done, she loved him. She loved the pup in him, she loved the mole he might have been deep, deep down, beyond recall, perhaps he
was.

Now, here in Whern, in the very tunnels of the High Sideem, where Henbane lived, surrounded by tunnels too grand and beautiful for ordinary mole, and quite bereft of any homely sense, Tryfan felt pity for her. Pity for a mole who had ordered so many to die! Pity for the enemy of the Stone! Yes, pity.

The ground became wet, their fur was bedabbled with droplets of water, and Tryfan realised they had reached the place where spray rose so strangely from the great chasm in the ground. But before they could see more of it they were led underground into rough-hewn tunnels which reverberated with the roaring of water. After a steep downward run, they emerged into the open almost beneath a great waterfall, which thundered down from somewhere far above their heads and made the very air recoil with its sound.

The rocks at the tunnel exit were wet with its spray and in the cracks between them, and up the broken limestone cliff face above, grew ferns and pennywort. The waterfall formed a turbulent pool at the far end of which, to the left-paw side, was a short stream that flowed into a bigger, deeper, stiller pool whose far end butted against the towering side of the chasm, and was there sucked evilly down into darkness.

Since talking was quite impossible because of the water’s roar, all they could do was stare, and their gaze was drawn inexorably up the black cliffs of the chasm until they had to tilt their heads awkwardly back to see the distant sky.

Although the chasm ended starkly enough with the deep pool to their left, to their right it stretched out a long way until, in the murky distance, a jumbled rock fall and more rising cliffs marked its furthest extremity.

In the central part of this awesome place were huge broken rocks, which had once formed the roof of what must have been a cavern bigger than any they had yet seen.

In places the ground was fiat, or nearly so, and there was grass and heather, and a few stunted trees.

“This is Providence Fall,” shouted Weed against the noise. “In the galleries above us the Master lives, but down here Boswell survives.”

Tryfan looked around the cliffs above and saw a few dark fissures and clefts that must, he supposed, be outlets from Rune’s tunnels. On the floor of the Fall itself, he saw no sign of Boswell or anymole. The place appalled him: it had no entrance but the one they had come down, and no exit either but for the sucking peat-stained waters of the dreadful pool, a place of certain death for mole.

Weed took them some way into the gorge where, behind a rock which gave some shelter from the sound and spray, he spoke briefly to one of the sideem who, pointing at a tree in the distance at a place where thin sunshine came down from the heights above, said, “He’s there, usually. At night he’s in a cleft.”

“And food?” said Tryfan, knowing they were talking of Boswell. “What of that?”

“Oh, there’s worms,” said the sideem, “and dead sheep, too, if you like that sort of thing.” He indicated a vile heap of white wool and yellow bones among the rocks. “They fall,” he said shortly. “The spring thaws take them away if there’s been no flood before.”

“You can go and find your Boswell,” said Weed, “we’ll stay here. Don’t bother with trying to escape, it isn’t possible.” Then, pointing at Spindle, he added, “Not you, though. You’re staying with us!”

So Tryfan set off across the Fall alone, the cliffs towering up all about him, great fallen rocks looming, and the sense of being watched from above, by raven if not by mole.

The roaring of the waterfall receded as he went among the rocks and it was replaced by the sound of his pawsteps echoing all about. But it seemed to him to sound like his pounding heart, for he felt nervous and strange going forth in this dreadful place to see a mole he had once loved as he had loved his parents, and a mole lost so long. Here? Boswell? Mole of Uffington. White Mole?

“Tryfan!”

It seemed as if the rocks themselves had spoken, or that this dreadful place was the mouth of the great earth speaking out his name.

“Tryfan!”

Not shouting it, not calling, not questioning, but stating his name as he was: Tryfan.

“Boswell?”

And there, by the bole of a stunted birch, Boswell crouched. Smiling. Gentle. Beloved.

It seemed to Tryfan that his heart was open to the world, the long years of a journey nothing, and that here, before this old mole who had made his life what it was, he had come home.

“Tryfan,” repeated Boswell, coming slowly forward and with evident pain, “I knew that one day you would come.”

But Tryfan could not speak, nor move, nor barely think. He could only lower his snout before the mole he loved and weep. So it was that Boswell came to him, touched him as he used to do, nuzzled him, and said, “There is no need for tears, mole, not yet anyway! No, no need for those. As for my slow gait, don’t worry about it. Old moles stiffen easily, especially if they meditate too much in the same position. I’m fitter than I look!”

Tryfan dared to look at him and saw that though he was older, and his fur whiter, and his wrinkles deeper, yet truly he had not changed. His eyes were bright, his stance eager, his sense of curiosity as evident as ever.

“Well, and have you lost Spindle? I told him to look after you.”

“He has, Boswell, he’s here. But Weed kept him back. I think otherwise he thought I might find a way for us all to escape.”

“Well, my dear Tryfan, I hope you will! A mole can’t live in a place like this forever! Now tell me... tell me
everything
.”

So then Tryfan told him, of his and Spindle’s journeys and struggles, of the changes that had overtaken moledom, and of the many moles he had met, and of how the followers had dwindled until only a few survived, scattered, leaderless, waiting.

“For what?” asked Boswell finally. “Tell me, Tryfan, what do they wait for?”

“For the Stone Mole’s coming, for the Silence he may bring. For that they wait, Boswell.”

Boswell nodded and reached out and touched Tryfan once more.

“And you, Tryfan. Have you survived?”

“I’m alive but my heart is bleak and sometimes I have lost faith. Since Feverfew...” And Boswell nodded, Tryfan had told him of her. And many others too.

“Feverfew, Comfrey, Alder, Tundry, Skint, Smithills, Thyme, Starling, Mayweed... so many, so very many,” whispered Boswell. He thought for a moment and then said, “This mole, Mayweed. Tell me more of him.”

Which Tryfan did, leaving Boswell in no doubt about how highly he regarded Mayweed, and that, despite his disappearance near the dangerous Clints, he had no doubt that Mayweed was still alive, and somewhere nearby.

“Yes,” said Boswell, “I like the sound of this mole. I like the sound of all of them, Tryfan. I am... well pleased with them.” He seemed suddenly tired, and his eye drifted away to the high and distant prospect of the sky at the far end of the Fall.

“You have done well, Tryfan, you have led them well.”

“I have led them nowhere, Boswell, and I am no nearer the Silence you used to talk about, and nor did I find it in the Wen.”

“You did, my dear, but you could not hear it. But its sound will be heard, soon now, yes, yes it will. But we have not much time. I must leave now, I have things to attend to in that wide world you know only as moledom. I may be fit but I am somewhat in decline, as I have a right to be at my age. One loses the will, you see.” He said this last rather irritably, as if it was a state that had crept up on him unawares, and all too soon.

“You must be the oldest mole alive!” said Tryfan. “But that’s because you’re a White Mole.”

Boswell laughed suddenly, a frail but wheezy kind of laugh.

“Oh I’m sure I’m old, but the oldest? I doubt it.” A look of real alarm came over his face, and he frowned. He glanced up somewhere at the walls about him, as if searching for Rune in the black and dripping fissures where the ravens went.

“You’ve said nothing of yourself, Boswell, but then I didn’t get much out of you about
you
all the time we journeyed from Duncton Wood to Uffington, so I doubt that I’ll get much here and now.”

“I’ve been living simply as a mole should, here where Rune lives. I think he hoped he might learn something from me but I have been a disappointment to him. I have done little but crouch in silence and watch the seasons pass. In Uffington we called it going into the silent burrows, and I did my share of that. Here the sideem call it confinement. But that is only a word, Tryfan, that a mole chooses to use – usually of himself. I have food, I have shelter, I have a safe place and here I have known Silence, but now I have a task for which I need the help you have prepared for me.”

“What help? I’m as much a prisoner as you.”

“Here? In Whern? No, no, the prison is everywhere. It is in moles’ minds. Your help is in readying other moles for what is soon to be. At least I hope it will be! Spindle, Alder, Mayweed, everymole. They’re ready now and I have one last thing to do and then I can do no more.”

“But...” began Tryfan.

“Always ‘but’. But nothing.”

“How will you get out of here?” said Tryfan. “The place is guarded and impregnable, the sideem are all about, and Spindle and I
are
prisoners though you make light of it.”

Boswell held up his paw and said quietly, “You have already done all you need to get me out of here. You can do no more, and if I were you I would stop striving to help me. Believe me, you have. No, Tryfan, from all you have said, from all I know of you, you have laid the foundation for the Stone Mole’s coming, just as I hoped you would. Now you must find Silence, and I fear it will be especially hard. It always is for moles who lead, for they cannot so easily forget themselves. Trust me, Tryfan, and trust the Stone, and know that Spindle will be there when you need him, know that....”

Tryfan felt fear then, for Boswell’s eyes were sad on him, as if he knew more than he said, or at least
feared
more.

“Can’t you guide me, Boswell? Can’t you tell me what I should know?”

Boswell shook his head.

“Did I ever guide you, mole?” he said. “I think I never did. I showed you how a life should be as parents must show their pups. Being is the only way. If I taught you anything at all it was to listen to what your heart tells you, and to trust yourself, and if you have made mistakes, as you have, then others will forgive. Trust your heart in the days ahead, trust that I shall be safe, because without knowing it you have made it so, and when you are ready Spindle will see that you return home safeguarded.

“Now, I am tired, and there are things to do soon. Did I tell you about Henbane? No, no I didn’t. I can’t. Nothing to say. Too late, perhaps. But don’t try to fight Rune, Tryfan. Your talons are not sharp enough. Leave him to her. Go now, go....”

“Boswell, will I see you again?” Even as he asked it, Tryfan knew it as a strange question, but he felt its answer might comfort him in the darkness that lay before him, and of which he was afraid.

Boswell stared at him and seemed to look at him for a long moment not as if he were Tryfan, but as if he were anymole, or allmole. But it was to Tryfan, the Tryfan that he loved, that he replied: “Yes, you’ll see me, and I shall see you, and I shall love you always as I love you now and as your parents loved you. For remember, Tryfan, you were much loved and such a mole shall always be loved to the end of his days. The darkness is not knowing it. Oh yes, you shall see me, by the Stone you shall see me and you shall know at last that your darkness was a passing thing. And in knowing that you shall know how to love me, that moledom shall know such love as well. You are a blessed mole, Tryfan, for Rebecca loved you, and Bracken did, and they put you on the way towards the Silence you may hear, where light is and from where the sound that touches all moles’ hearts comes forth.”

Then Tryfan turned from Boswell, and made his way among the rocks, and the damp moss and ferns, past the roots of old trees and back to the river that surged and was sucked to nothingness. There Weed and the sideem waited, and Spindle too.

None of them spoke, but they turned and left that place, where Boswell waited to depart, and where, unseen but felt, an evil mole watched down.