Duncton Quest (18 page)

A short time later, as the great shouts of searching mole played harshly over the hill, a solitary mole, dark and female, her great shadow a menace to that spring morning, her cold black eyes an enemy of light, reached the Blowing Stone and approached it without fear.

Her talons shone blackly in the morning sun, her fur glittered like coal, her gait was calm and smooth. This was Henbane, dread Henbane of Whern, daughter of Rune. Out of evil cometh evil.

Behind her, to her right side, came a mature male of presence: Wrekin. To her left was a mole of turning snout and cunning eye: Weed of Ilkley, mole of influence.

“The mole Tryfan and that cleric made straight for this Stone fearlessly,” said Weed. “Our guardmoles could not pursue them, and nor, for that matter could I.”

“Boswell’s strength must have been with them,” replied Henbane with soft menace. “Yet are you sure this Tryfan is not a scribe?”

“I am sure as a mole can be,” said Weed, who did not have it in his watchful nature ever to reply “yes” or “no” to a question when ambiguity would do as well. But it was true enough: he was as sure as a mole could be that Tryfan was not a scribemole. Then, by way of explanation, he added, “He was still too young, and anyway there would have been no time or opportunity to ordain him. Now there are no scribemoles left to do it but for Boswell, and he is in our sway now.”

Henbane went forward and saw the scribing Tryfan had made.

“Well, it seems that Boswell must have come this way for he left scribing on the ground.”

She read it, curve by curve, paw touch by touch, eyes alert. Weed watched her for any reaction: his life was service to Henbane, his pleasure was knowing her mind and influencing it, at which he was better than anymole living.

“What is it? What does it say?” he asked. “A curse perhaps?”

“Nothing so dramatic. You should know by now that scribemoles don’t curse! These scribings are but weak dreams and frail hopes.” She laughed, the same laugh Tryfan had heard. Wrekin laughed in dark sympathy with her; and their laughs together were like the menace of nightshade and its shadow, and in their way as deathly beautiful. Weed’s eyes and yellow smile never left Henbane. Wrekin, a heavy mole with lines of anger and purpose to his face, looked out over the Vale of Uffington.

“What have you to say, Wrekin?” asked Henbane.

“I say the mole Tryfan is cursed and that he and his weak friend will be found. They will Atone; the Word’s will be done. I have already deputed guardmoles to send descriptions and warnings out so that, if they escape us here, they will be found when they venture to other systems. I like not to know that moles have been to the very centre of our activity and gone free.”

“It is well, Wrekin. Your thoroughness pleases me. And what of Boswell? What say you now a night is past and torture seems to pain him not?”

“I say you should eliminate Boswell without further delay. Kill him while he is in our power. Living he is something the Stone followers can yearn for, dead he will be forgotten.”

“And you, good Weed, what do you think?” She moved nearer to Weed, her eyes softening a little. It was plain that while she respected Wrekin she liked Weed more.

“That Boswell be kept alive of course,” said Weed promptly. “Turn him from the ways of the Stone, make him Atone, and if my judgement of what a White Mole means to these southern moles is right then you could do nothing to dispirit them more.”

“You’re wrong, Weed,” said Wrekin angrily. “Alive, a mole like Boswell will always be a threat. Dead, he —”

“Will be a martyr,” said Weed dismissively. “You warriors see things too simply in dark and light, in life and death. But let the WordSpeaker decide.”

Henbane turned and looked briefly at him, pleased at the deference to her power. She liked flattery, she glowed before it as quickly as she slid into destructive anger when she was denied. Weed smiled at her, enjoying the sight of her. Despite the evil that she was, Henbane’s dark grace has become legendary among moles, and though by then the fur round the corners of her eyes was creased yet she still had the grace of mature youth, and there was about her, hidden deeply it is true, some touch of a shattered innocence – as if even as an adult, and a malevolent one, some part of her had not quite let go of the good spirit of a mole who was once very young and, if only for a moment, has had a glimpse of good light she could never quite forget.

But as it was, only Wrekin was there, and twisted Weed, who saw other, darker things. For indeed Henbane’s fur had a curious shining darkness to it, as if reflecting the ominous light that fills great storm clouds after their rain has passed and the sun is behind them, trying to break out; when she turned, darkness seemed to turn with her, and imminent murderous storms to be returning again.

At that moment, to loyal Weed, Henbane looked as harmless as she ever did. As she reared up and stared down the slopes towards Uffington Vale, her instinct correctly told her where the fugitives had gone, and said, “We will find this mole Tryfan soon enough. He cannot go far without discovery. He will be a goodly catch who may show us ways of trapping Boswell himself into Atonement so that the Word may be known to all moles.” Then her tone changed into command: “Silence now,” she said, “I wish to scribe the Word.”

Weed backed away, smiling; Wrekin stood respectfully to one side.

For a moment Henbane stared up at the Stone. There was no fear in her eyes, nor a fur’s hair of doubt in her stance. Then she laughed and with one mighty sweep of her talons she scratched down the full length of Tryfan’s words again and again and again, her eyes red with sudden anger, and destroyed them.

Then she looked up fearlessly at the Stone and scribed these words:

Wherever the Stone rises the Word rises higher.

The Word is more powerful than the Stone.

The Word is truth, the Stone was dreams.

The Word is

the Stone was.

The Word will be for evermore.

Then she added one last line:

Henbane scribes it

“Blessed be the Word,” she said.

“Blessed be!” intoned the other two obediently.

But Wrekin was bored: a fanatical believer in the Word, yes, but in the Word as action, not ritual. There was something wild and unruly about these rituals of Henbane, something emotional, something that had no place in the regular routine he followed at sunrise and sunset, of repetition of familiar words of the Word; something that set his mouth in the grim line of unspoken distaste. All the shouting, all the crying, all the bloodied talons and the snouting. Unruly. Inefficient. Unmilitary. The job could have been done as well without all that.

But Weed did not think so. He watched Henbane now, as he so often had in the dramatic moleyears past, and wondered at the dark, destructive energy in her that had driven guardmoles south and all but destroyed faith in the Stone, which had once dominated all of moledom. Of the so-called seven Ancient Systems two only now remained unravished by the agents of the Word. One was Siabod, which was judged to be of no account – judged, that is, by Wrekin and the other fighters who had decided their time was better spent where there were more moles to fight.

The other system was Duncton Wood of which all moles knew, for a great tradition seemed to attach to it, and there were stories of the moles there being chosen of the Stone, to lead and resurrect its glory. Henbane had left that system until last, principally because access to it was difficult since it was surrounded on three sides by the River Thames and on the fourth by a roaring owl way. It was, too, the most easterly of the Seven Systems and until the recent takeover of Avebury and the Holy Burrows, the forces Wrekin led were too dispersed to mount an attack so far to the eastside of moledom.

Nor was there much to conquer beyond it, for there the desert of the Wen lay, whose only interest for grikes was that into its deepest interior the mole Dunbar, a one-time supporter of Scirpus himself, had gone into retreat. For modern grikes there would be nothing there except legends of survivors and a few abject and snivelling ignorant moles of the kind who know no better than the marginal territory they choose to inhabit. The Wen was of the twofoots now, and closed forever to mole; and Dunbar’s descendants, if there had been any, must long since have died, or been dispersed.

So Weed stared at Henbane as she meditated, smug in the privilege he felt to be so close to the mole so many held in awe. Yes, yes, privileged: she had powers and energies more than he had ever had, and, though he could outface her when he needed to, he knew that she must never know – or be certain – of the awe and fear he sometimes felt in her presence. She had a ruthlessness at times that took his breath away – and might one day take his life as well, as it had taken the life of many a mole who had offended her.

Since she had come south, Henbane seemed to be fascinated by these great stones, though he personally felt uneasy in their presence, and just the memory of the sound of the Uffington Blowing Stone – which had confused him the day before – set his teeth on edge and had him worrying now that the wind might start up again. It hadn’t seemed to disturb Wrekin quite so much: no imagination that mole, just a fighter. Well, the fighting time would be over one day and Wrekin would find he had less power when Henbane had less need of him. Yes, yes.

Meanwhile, Weed had been worried by Henbane’s awe of the Stones and had sent word northward by way of the sideem, to great Rune himself. Revered Rune, indestructible Rune: Weed’s real master.

But now, in the presence of this Stone, Weed was thinking that Henbane seemed peaceful and there is something about her... something... But how can a mole as turned and slanted, askew and twisted as Weed hope to see aright the light of the Stone in so dark a mole as Henbane? Weed could not understand the nature of that distant thwarted light in Henbane he only dimly saw; for it was this that gave him unease, and had decided him to send reports North, and to think that the time was surely coming when Henbane must be persuaded North once more. Now they had captured old Boswell, whom Rune had expressly ordered should be brought to Whern alive, there was little enough to hold them back – except the taking of Duncton Wood, and perhaps an assault by some of Wrekin’s more stupid guardmoles upon the distant Siabod.

Henbane stirred, looked up at the Stone, briefly touched the scribing she had made and then, with a sigh – a passionate sigh almost – settled down again to her meditation.

Weed looked at her, and he supposed he lusted after her, though Word forbid she should ever guess that. His pleasure was in finding other males for her and watching her sidelong as she greeted some new young male warmly (Weed knew the type well, and even had the sideem watching out for them: young, large but innocent, and above all fresh and clean) and heard what stumbling words he had to say as she took him into her confidence, flattered him, won his trust and longing, looked at him and his body with a sideways glance (as Weed looked at Henbane now!).

Then she would ignore the prospective new male utterly for a time, and let him suffer doubt (which is the ingredient that makes lustful longing grow) as she thought of decisions she must make – important strategic decisions for moledom – before she gave her attention again to the smaller, intenser, desires she would fulfil.

Weed had often seen such males waiting, but envied them not. Their moment came, and then it passed leaving their seed to pulsate, wriggle and die in the sterile desert that Henbane was and surely always would be. She was not born to pup, beautiful though she was.

Weed the procurer pitied her poor consorts, for afterwards they would be given over to the eldrenes, old shrivelled haggard moles the lot of them, and then those young males were made to die. Dreadful deaths usually, which Henbane liked to watch privily from some dark corner as if this punishment was a final secret lust that she permitted herself.

Weed shivered and stared at her flanks, and wondered if one day she would decide that he knew her rather too well. Well, it was a risk worth taking, and a challenge to be clever enough to escape her talons and at the right time to fade away into the obscurity from which he had so successfully come to travel at Henbane’s side, trusted and listened to....

For, of all things, Weed was a realist and knew that finally, when all ended, Henbane was but a mole, and all moles die. The Word? The Stone? The sky? The moon? Weed sneered in the darkness of his heart at all of it as he paid lip service to the Word. Finally, when all was said and all quite done, a mole would die and then there was... nothing. And so, as Henbane meditated, Weed pursed his mouth and sneered not at Henbane but at everymole else who chose to make her great, and did not know – nor could not – that she was but mole, made in a moment’s calculated lust, between two moles whose secret Weed alone knew.