At first, but for the occasional stir of Sturne in the Main Chamber below, there seemed no sound at all. But then there came to them the distant but awesome wind-sound of the Ancient System, whispering, harsh, a call from distant time, and the occasional warning vibration of Dark Sound.
“’Tis always worse after a storm,” observed Stour.
The portal leading into that almost forgotten place was directly behind him, and it seemed to Privet, and the others too perhaps, that stancing there he looked at once its guardian and its victim, and she did not know whether to feel awe or sympathy.
Each knew that soon now he would turn from them and go into a final retreat to guard the six great Books of Moledom, and to pray that the Seventh might come soon that all moledom might know that its harmony and Silence had returned to ground. None believed that if he ever emerged from his retreat he would be the same mole they saw before them now. But the truth was that Stour was about to remove himself from life, and it was a prospect which each of them there regarded in a different way.
He seemed to sense their sympathy and understanding, for he looked around at them and smiling gently, nodded his head, and half sighed. He seemed about to speak, but something stopped him and he glanced down at his paws, and then round at all of them, as if he knew it was the last time he would see them in the way he now could.
Then, in a silence that deepened with each second that went by, but by the ominous wind-sound that seemed to threaten them all from beyond the chamber, the Master slowly approached them one by one, reached a paw to them and gazed into their eyes in a way that suggested he knew their innermost thoughts at that historic moment. It was to Fieldfare that he turned first.
She, like many others in Duncton, had come to regard Stour as the living symbol of the system’s moral strengths and purpose; but now the Master looked old and lonely, and she began to cry. A part of her world was ending and she felt that this was a sad and incomprehensible way for it to go. Yet as he held her paw she felt her devotion towards him deepen further still, and knew that when he spoke to them all, as it seemed likely he would shortly do, she would abide by all he said, and seek hard to believe that there was sense behind the confusion and terrors of the present change.
At her flank even Chater was forced to clench his mouth and fight back his tears, for though he understood a little more of all that Stour had told them the previous evening, now he saw only a mole alone, who must face things whose terror was beyond imagining. It was not a way
he
would like to go.
For Pumpkin’s part, he could only stare, and wonder at how events could so quickly change his life: that it
was
changed he had no doubt, and that it was to Privet he owed his loyalty and devotion the Stone had made clear to him. As for the Master, Pumpkin understood the inevitability of what he did, and knew enough of scribing and of history to know that where Stour was about to go other great scribes and thinkers had gone in times past.
Even the great and mysterious Boswell, White Mole, had his time of retreat. But
he
had survived it, and Pumpkin had the comfort of that scrap of history to fall back on, and the consolation of knowing moledom’s battles on behalf of the Stone were fought in many ways, and perhaps its greatest warriors were those with the courage
not
to raise their paws in attack, or even defence, nor even to speak, but to take to themselves something of the Stone’s Silence, and by example lead others towards that difficult but greatest of ways.
Already Pumpkin knew, or believed, that the Stone was with them in all of this. When Privet had earlier commanded him to hide the folios discarded by Husk and the cover of the Book of Tales, and when he had seen the last words Husk had scribed, he had felt that it was the Stone that spoke and so he trusted what was happening, and did not feel sad now in the presence of Stour.
Drubbins also understood something of this, and in truth he looked positively benign, comforted perhaps by the private talk he had had with the Master, and made easy with the equanimity that comes to some moles with growing age. His eyes were a little restless, for old though he was he had work to do outside — the Library was not and never had been his place, and he trusted absolutely in Stour’s judgement about what he should do within it.
There were no tears in Whillan’s eyes either, and he too was restless, but the reasons were rather different from Drubbins’. Though he was sensitive enough to the nature of the moment he was witnessing, perhaps more so than anymole there except Privet, he was still too young to make sense of the great tide and current of historic change he had felt massing in the system through these extraordinary hours. He was caught up in a wash of change, and turned and turned again by it with nothing solid in reach of his paws to touch and hold himself still by, while he made sense of it. More than that, he began to realize that what Husk had told him by the Stone as he lay dying, was true,
his
destiny lay beyond Duncton’s familiar system, with moles and in places whose names he did not yet know or guess, where he must fulfill tasks which only the Stone could foresee or understand. For Whillan then, this moment of the Master’s retreat was a farewell to his youth, and the beginning of the necessary acceptance, frightening and hard to believe, that the hour had come when he must turn his snout towards the life of adulthood, for which there was surely no time left for further training or preparation.
Perhaps Maple had similar feelings, though he was a full cycle of seasons older than Whillan. His own conviction of what he wished to be and do had been formed long since and was well known — he was a warrior, and thus far had been a warrior without a cause. But, with Pumpkin’s help, he had learnt enough of scribing to wade through the great military texts of the past, and to live, again and again, the campaigns of ancient and modern times. Now he knew his hour had come, but he was no longer a hot-head, nor likely to be cruel or tyrannical in his discovery of might and power. The system’s inherent good nature, and its Stone-loving moles, with Drubbins and Stour at their head, had prepared him well for the burden that he suspected, and hoped, was soon to come his way. When Stour had paused out on the surface earlier that day, and talked of the past, Maple had felt a great surge of love and faith in the system that had reared him, whose values then, now and for all his life he felt the Stone had given him special strengths and talents to defend. His time had come, and he was ready for it.
Last of all there was Privet, and on her old Stour’s gaze lingered longest and most intently, as hers on him. She understood that where he was going was beyond mole’s help — to that place of Silence where a mole’s only friend is himself, his only strength his own courage, and his only hope in the dark night of his soul must be his faith in the Stone. So she stared at Stour now without tears in her eyes, but with a prayer in her heart for a mole who had nurtured her in her adopted system from the first, but who now had a task before him different from that of watching over and guiding others.
“He is our spiritual father and mother,” she said to herself, “but now he can give us no more. The time for being taught is done, and the time for doing has begun. And he … he is about to begin his final and greatest trial of doubt in the Stone’s power and if he is to survive it in spirit, if not in body, he must know that we are here, always here …”
So Privet understood, and did what none of them had, which was to reach her second paw to the Master’s so that she had his between her own. And Whillan, who was watching all, saw that only before her did the Master’s gaze falter, as if he saw something he could not bear to see; or, perhaps, sensed a strength beyond his own, which all of them, and especially he himself, would need.
“Yes,” Whillan whispered to himself, beginning to articulate those thoughts, “it is Privet who must …”
But then the Master took his paw from Privet’s and went back to his former stance by the portal into the Ancient System, and spoke to them all at last, saying, “My friends, last moles that I shall know, you may be eager to tell me what happened this day out in the wood. To Husk, to Rolls and Rhymes, and to you, Fieldfare and Pumpkin …”
He raised a paw slightly as they all broke into a babble of talk to answer what seemed his questions, and they fell silent again.
“No, no, such matters are your concern now and I trust you to deal with them as you will. My world lies in the darkness of retreat beyond this place and I must let all past history go. Even matters which remain so far unresolved I must let be, trusting that others will find confidence in the Stone to do what they may to help and give support as they must. You, Privet, whose full tale I do not yet know, must find time and faith in the future to tell moles you can trust — your friends here, perhaps — what they will need to know if they are to help you in your tasks, for though you have told us of Rooster, of yourself, and all that happened since you left the Moors, you have said nothing, and hinted at little. Well, mole, you must choose your time and place to tell … but not now, not to me, that history is not mine. You others are its guardians now and it is a task I relinquish for ever, not entirely gladly, for there is much that I would know and shall miss. Yet I leave it with satisfaction, for you shall be abler guardians than I in the time of strife to come.
“Listen now, and remember. I am able now to leave you because you, Pumpkin, found the strength to join us, and make up the seven when I am gone. For seven shall be needed, to match the seven Stillstones, and the seven Books. Seven shall be needed to help recover the last Book, which is of Silence.”
“But Master,” said Chater, ever practical, ever blunt, “what if one of us does not survive until the coming of the last Book?”
“What if the circle is broken?” said Stour softly. “Well, now, the Stone will provide … or, at least, that is what I am meant to say. The Stone, the Stone — you all know my doubts. You all know that I have toiled all my life to believe its Silence and to have faith.”
“We know, Master,” said Privet. “You have become the embodiment of the struggle against doubt across all moledom — your honesty is known.”
Stour nodded with genuine humility and then gave one of his rare and mischievous smiles.
“I have thought about the problem Chater raises, that one of you might not survive, and I have made provision for it. There is another mole —”
“Another?” said Whillan immediately. “Tell us his name.” Or
her
name, Whillan. If you look around you, you will see that males do not have the sole prerogative in such things!”
“Female, then?” said Maple. “It would be helpful to know.”
“The mole or moles concerned, whether male or female, or female or male, will make themselves known when they need to — I hope! If not then you’ll know my doubts were justified. But enough of that; let the Stone sort out its own Seven Stancings. We have little time now before Deputy Master Snyde comes, and I wish to have all done by then, and be gone.
“I have a few short observations to make, and my last instructions as Master — though I prefer that you take them as no more than suggestions, to reject or modify as circumstances dictate. Last night I told you of my concerns about the system and moledom, and Privet informed us of matters of recent history, and of Rooster, Master of the Delve. Only Pumpkin here was not privy to those matters then, but I have asked Drubbins to inform him fully of them. I therefore have no more to say of that, except that I have little doubt that what Privet was moved to tell us of her past, and of the Master of the Delve, shall play its part in the events that are now beginning to unfold.
“Now, I have no doubt that moles who openly resist the Newborn way will soon find their life intolerable here in Duncton Wood, as Fieldfare’s recent experience in the Marsh End shows. For this reason I believe that discretion is the better part of valour now, and that most of you should leave the system for a time. This has been the way of its defenders in the past who, when danger has threatened, have found support and wisdom in traveling out into moledom, and there discovering a way to return and see the system through into the ways of the Stone once more.”
The seven had fallen silent again, very silent, almost as if each awaited the sentence of an elder after some wrongdoing.
“I mentioned your recent experience, Fieldfare, so let me deal with you first —”
“I’m not going to leave my Chater, and that’s flat!” declared Fieldfare. “Not me, not ever again. When I was almost caught by those Newborns and he and Maple here rescued me I decided then and there never ever to leave him, whatever the circumstances! As for leaving the system, a mole like me? At my time of life?”
Stour raised a paw to silence her.
“I was about to say, Fieldfare, that I have no intention of suggesting you and your beloved Chater part company. If the Stone did not already want you to be together I am sure you would see that it did! No; but what I shall ask of you will be hard and difficult, and you will need a mole of experience in journeying at your flank. In short, you will need Chater.”
Fieldfare looked at once relieved and puzzled.
“But certainly you cannot stay here now in safety, and the sooner you go the better. Now, there is a system that long ago provided us with a mole who brought back love and security to Duncton Wood. I speak of Mistle, and her system of Avebury. You’ve taken texts there once before, I believe, Chater …”
“I have Master, and it’s not a hard journey but for the crossing of the Ridge.”
“You could get Fieldfare there in safety?”
“I could,” said Chater with determination, “and will do so gladly if it will make her safe. But there are Newborns there too, Master.”
“Aye, that I know. But I believe that great system’s Stones are likely to be the harbingers of moles who will have the spirit to resist the Newborn threat. They are moles glad to have bred Mistle in decades past, and they will surely know how to protect refugees from Duncton and give support when it is needed in the future. But it is not just to escape that you will go there, Fieldfare. For you, more than any of us except good Pumpkin here, are of the very essence of our system. You know its ways, its lore, its traditions, its character.”