Duncton Tales (53 page)

Then she began to talk at last of the history of the Charnel moles, a community of moles whose past and present lives were surely as secret, strange and awesome as any in all the annals of mole history; a community to whom Samphire’s and Rooster’s coming brought to an end long centuries of isolation, and ways onward which might in time touch all moles, and bring back to moledom the lost secrets of the delving art, and finally a way towards the Silence for allmole.

It seemed that the settlement that the Ratcher clan disturbed when first they came to the Charnel decades before was far older than they knew or could have guessed, had they been interested in such things. Indeed, its antecedents went back centuries, to the time, well-recorded in ancient texts, when there was a schism in Uffington, and dread Scirpus, creator of the Word, came north to Whern and began that inexorable train of dark events that had so nearly led to the extinction of the Stone in more recent times.

Drumlin told how the Scirpuscun movement began the dissolution of the holiest places of moledom, whose importance had been enhanced by various Masters of the Delve who had created there mysterious and awesome tunnels and chambers, marked out with delved carvings that carried the sounds of Silence.

“Such places gave all who visited more than merely a sense of peace: they put into their very souls the sense of a way of living, and a way of dying, that was of the essence of the Stone. It was the Masters’ art to be able to delve such places, and their mystery that they themselves were not always holy moles, nor even personally awesome, or even close to the Stone.

“No, their gift was of a deep unspoken kind, a gift of touch and feeling, a gift of expression through their paws and talons such that they themselves were often taciturn, ill at ease with words, poor at talking to others or speaking of the Stone whose Silence and whose Light it was the task and the glory of their lives to honour.

“I speak of a ‘gift’, but in truth such art is not easily acquired, but comes only from long years in the service of a Master who teaches what he knows by example, and whose art is learned by experience alone. Some delvers learn more easily than others, but most are able only to learn so much and fall far short of being true Masters of the Delve.

“But such moles are much needed and much loved by the few Masters who emerge and whom they serve, for no single mole could ever have delved all that was needed in the holy places of the Stone without the help of many other trained and expert paws. So each Master must have his Disciples of the Delve, to perform the simpler or more routine tasks and so help construct, carve and delve the basic tunnels and chambers, portals and retreats, which the Masters complete with their own delving.

“Be that as it may — with the coming of Scirpus began the demise of the Masters of the Delve, for he learnt their art and corrupted it, turning all its effort towards the creation of Dark Sound, whose origins had been wholly good and intended only to protect the holy places from those who might destroy them, the enemies of the Stone. It was Scirpus’ evil genius to turn Dark Sound upon itself and, as a consequence, signal the end of the delving arts.

“When he and his followers judged that they had acquired all the skills they needed the order went out that the Masters of the Delve be hunted down and killed by the Scirpuscun moles, and their Disciples dispersed. Many tried to flee and hide, and some succeeded for a time, passing on their knowledge in secret down the generations of their family. But inexorably their numbers dwindled and their art declined until at last only one true Master remained, of a line that had hidden itself in the very shadow of Whern. This Master was finally betrayed and forced to flee, taking with him but a few aged Disciples to help him in his work.

“His colleagues gone, his assistants taken or killed, he fled southward from Whern warning that with his death the delving art would be lost to moledom for all time, and with it the true way to Silence.”

As Drumlin spoke, the day around them grew quiet and the roar of the Reap more muted; but the ground beneath their paws seemed to tremble, and Samphire felt troubled and uncertain in herself.

This last Master was Hilbert of Wharfedale, known as Master Hilbert to ourselves. Harried and chased, his friends dying or killed, he came at last into the Moors and lived for a time within the sanctuary of the blessed Weign Stones over on Bleaklow. But even there he was traced, and was forced back into darkest Saddleworth, and thence to Chieveley Dale. Aye, Samphire, to the very place where you were raised.

“There he found a time of retreat and peace, beloved in that little community of moles, nurturing those few Disciples who remained while he fell into communion with the Stone, having the belief that it would ask of him a final task. Until at last, when he had but two Disciples left, both old and near their time, Hilbert understood that he must, with their help, make a final delving — perhaps the most important that any Master would ever make.

“That much he knew, but what the delving would be, or what its intent, he did not know. Yet having faith, he led his two followers out of Chieveley to the highest place thereabouts, whose name we now know as Hilbert’s Top. And there he began his delving once again.

“Long moleyears he worked, nomole in Chieveley telling others he was there, even when the Scirpuscun moles sent their inquisitors out upon the Moors to track him down.

“‘An old vagrant died here years ago,’ the Chieveley moles lied, ‘perhaps that was the mole you seek. Had we known …’ It is said that the inquisitors, suspicious, tortured Chieveley moles, but none ever confessed.

“Then something worse befell the Dale: virulent murrain, which left the Chieveley numbers low, and the survivors diseased and maimed, their offspring all deformed. Of course, moles of dogmatic faith such as Scirpuscun moles perceive disease and deformity as judgement of the Word, and stricken moles as guilty, fit only to be killed.”

Here Drumlin paused and glanced at Sedum and half raised a paw as if to touch the goitre that so disfigured her, and then pointed at her patched and raddled fur before smiling wryly at Samphire once again.

“It is the lot of moles like us to be rejected by moledom, and to be treated as if we had done something wrong. Dogma makes mole heartless and punitive; but to us, dogma is a worse disfigurement, for it spoils the heart. Such is one of the wisdoms Hilbert taught us.

“That being so, it is not surprising that the Scirpuscuns were reluctant to touch the Chieveley moles with their own paws, lest they become tainted themselves. So they were driven over the Moors, and up into the Charnel — a place where other plagued and deformed moles were already confined until they died forgotten and unloved.

“So it was that Hilbert saw from afar disease afflict the community that had protected him, and then that community herded from the Dale to be condemned to live out their suffering until death in the shadows of the Charnel, and he was powerless to do anything about it. He worked on in the company of his two friends, striving to perform the task he felt he had been set; striving but failing, for despite all his art his delving would not come right. Until at last his friends grew old and died, and he was alone once more.

“We know that it was then he made great dark delvings, delvings that explored his grief and last anger, delvings that delved into the last shadows of his soul; delvings that took him on a journey into darkness that only a Master could have endured. With these he surely made Hilbert’s Top a place to fear, for nomole could approach that place without suffering the Dark Sound that Hilbert created in the tunnels there.”

“It
was
a place we were taught to fear as youngsters,” said Samphire, “and there were many stories of moles venturing there and never coming back, or if they did, they came back mute and mad.”

“Aye,” said Drumlin grimly, “it would be so, it would be so. But Hilbert, his dark journey done, came through that final time of trial, redeemed and made pure, and understanding at last what he must do. Where his friends the Chieveley moles had gone, he must go too, and he who had conquered darkness of the mind, must journey now into darkness of the body.

“We know little of his journey from the Top out on to the Moors again, or how it was he reached the Charnel. We do not even know if he already knew that the Chieveley moles were there with other outcast moles. We think he was chased and harried there, yet one thing we do know, one strange important thing …”

Here Drumlin turned and pointed a talon towards the dark fissures of the Creeds at the head of the valley.

“He came among us by that route. Aye, down one of the three Creeds he came.”

“But that’s impossible!” declared Samphire.

Drumlin shrugged, and said quietly, “We are certain it was so. He was chased to the cliffs above, harried along the Tops, and then somehow tumbled into the void of the Creeds and was presumed dead and gone. Perhaps it was the Stone’s way of giving him the protection from the Scirpuscun moles he needed to complete his final task. Certainly it was not across the Span but down from the valley head, from the direction of the Creeds, that one day he came to our forebears, like a light shining from the Stone itself.

“In his reunion with moles he loved, and his meeting with the strangers here, all deformed or diseased, Hilbert understood at last that his time on Hilbert’s Top was but a trial, and that his final and his truest task was
here
in this place of outcasting and hopelessness.”

“Here?” repeated Samphire, while Rooster and Glee stared with wide-open eyes, with Humlock between them, hunched, unseeing and unhearing, in his eternal silent darkness.

A look of great pride came over Drumlin’s face as she resumed her tale.

“Master Hilbert understood that in all of moledom this was the only place where the delving arts could be preserved until that day when moledom would have need of them again, and that these outcast moles, diseased and forgotten, deformed and reviled, must be his last Disciples, and must be taught all the arts he knew. Aye, to them he brought a great task, and gave them and their pups, and
their
pups after that, down to this very day, a most holy and a most secret trust. For it was then, not far from where we are stanced now, that the Master made his greatest delving, using it to teach our forebears all he knew, and giving them a place and the means to teach others, that the delving arts would not be lost.”

“But I see no delvings, nor any delving moles,” said Samphire incredulously. “I see no portals, nor tunnels, and I see no great chambers.”

“Yet they are near here, my dear, and much more than that, and soon I shall show his great work to you. But I must prepare you a little, for what you shall see nomole from outside the Charnel has ever seen, nor anymole that was not born deformed, or mutated, or in some way imperfect, and so knowing that they are but part of what they might be. But together … we are whole. This is the understanding our condition gives us.”

“But you sacrifice your deformed young, you …’ began Samphire, more angry than she should have been because she felt herself on the brink of a revelation of which she was much afraid, and because it was plain that Drumlin saw Rooster as such a mole, as part of a whole, whereas to her he was quite whole enough.

“My dear, we do not sacrifice our young. We nurture them as best we may, even the blind ones, even the snoutless ones, even those with no limbs, or with gaping backs, or with no hope of independent life. We bear them and we nurture them, as the Master Hilbert bade us do. But when Midsummer comes we seek the Stone’s guidance over their future, knowing that some cannot pass into adulthood and hope to live. These we give up into the Reap. But the others, the ones the Ratcher moles never see when they gape and jeer at our ritual farewell to those we love but cannot help, these are given the task that Hilbert set them so many centuries ago — to learn what delving arts they can, and so maintain that great delving he made to preserve all that the Masters once knew until that day when a new Master will come among us, and moledom has need of him. For you see, Samphire, Hilbert believed that one day a great Master would rise up once more, and that moledom, no longer beset by the Word, would welcome him, and be ready again to learn what a Master of the Delve may teach.”

“But what of the moles I have sometimes seen going up towards the Creeds? And the ones whose bodies have been cast up along the Reap?”

Drumlin nodded gravely. “I told you how the Master came among us from one of the Creeds. We know not which of the three. But he told us that the new Master who comes to moledom will be saved by a journey back up through the Creeds, back to the Tops above, back to moledom. So it is that when our moles feel their task is done, or that their disease and deformity worsens and the Silence draws near, they, in a time of their own choosing, have the right to leave us and try to ascend one or other of the Creeds. In their hearts is the hope that they, after all, might be the Master we await,
they
might have a task far beyond all they have done here.