Duncton Quest (75 page)

With September the moles of disease and deformity that Henbane had decreed should be settled in the system began to arrive, and with their arrival most healthy moles there felt the strong urge to leave.

They came in twos and threes, herded along by most reluctant guardmoles, sore-ridden, lame, pathetic. Some seemed struck mute with their disease, others were blind, some worse than blind, for their eyes and snouts were eaten away by that disease for which there was no name, but of which the dread scalpskin had been the precursor.

They were brought into the system by way of the south-eastern cow cross-under, but then hurried, on pain of death (though few seemed able to put up much resistance), along the Eastside, and thence down to the filthy Marsh End.

It was a natural choice for the grikes to make, for, so far as they had formed any notion of where the hidden moles might be who attacked them from time to time, it was at that northern end of the wood where the air was damp and the vegetation foul. So... discard fearsome moles in a feared place.

“What would they have us do here?” the diseased moles asked.

“They want us to stop here,” said the deformed.

Their fear turned to silence, and their silence to laughter when they were told they were to do nothing but live, and die.

“Live?” said one, out of a body so stricken that it was his torment minute by minute.

“Here?” whispered another, who could not see much of the sky above, nor ever again hear the birds sing. But the grike she could see, keeping well clear, signing her to go where she wanted.

So through September they came, the new inhabitants of Duncton Wood, summoned by Henbane’s order: and such moles as these would send a shudder through moledom when it was known they lived in one place, making their own rules, making their own maddened laws, electing their own elders, governed by only one simple grike rule: they must never leave. Here they had come, here they must stay, making whatever hell they liked of a system that had once been venerated and loved.

So little by little, trickle by plague-touched trickle, as all the diseased, disabled, maladjusted, discontented, belligerent, psychotic misfits and miscreants, dissenting, lawless and ailing, queer, wasting, palsied and cancered moles that the grikes could find in adjacent systems were brought to fabled Duncton Wood and set free.

Henbane was well pleased, and Weed and Smaile, who had overseen the settlement, were impressed. Murders were already starting. Gangs forming. Disease spreading.

“Snoutings have had their day, Weed. The punishment by banishment to this new Duncton is a worse thing, and more fearful thing, and will be judged to be so across the whole of moledom once word of it spreads. A banishing to Duncton will be worse than snouting. It will be a living death.”

“How will the word spread?”

Henbane shrugged.

“It will, it always does. But I have sent for Eldrene Beake to make the final arrangements. She will order the sealing off of the system, and appoint guardmoles to patrol. In time patrols will not be needed, except perhaps occasionally if the new Duncton moles become overconfident in their filth and seek to spread forth. Then they will be dealt with. But I believe that here in Duncton will develop a system so foul, so unkempt, so undisciplined that nomole will ever come here, or wish to, but those we choose to punish by sending here.

“And what will moledom say? It will say that the Stone, of which the Duncton Stone is such a great emblem, did not protect its own. It will laugh and it will mock. But most of all it will desire that those moles who are strange, or misfits, or disobedient, or diseased, or sick, or unpleasantly individual... why, it will ask they be sent to Duncton. Yes?”

Weed smiled. Clever, very.

“Rune will be well pleased,” he said.

“Rune...” she sighed. “He will send word soon?”

“He will,” said Weed. He hoped. It seemed so long since he sent word north... and nothing back, nothing at all. Except a false alarm when a mole arrived who proved to be Beake. She was displeased at her new command, but nomole could deny Henbane.

But at last Rune’s messenger came. Up through the cross-under with an entourage of grikes. Original grikes. Dark, strong, expressionless. It would have done Wrekin’s heart good to see them.

“Take me to the WordSpeaker,” their leader said curtly. He had a voice a mole obeyed. Weed, hearing, smiled. He knew him. He had last seen him as a vicious pup. Rune had chosen Henbane’s successor wisely. He hurried to find her.

“They have come,” he said.

“You have spoken to them?” asked Henbane.

“Seen them, heard them, know
him,”
said Weed.

“What mole has Rune sent?”

“He will tell you his own name, Henbane. He will be loyal. He will do as you say and what you order. Rune has chosen wisely for it will need a mole of much ruthlessness and small imagination to succeed you in the south.”

Henbane smiled.

“We will keep him waiting,” she said, impatient though she was to see this mole. The hours passed. She played with Bailey. Laughter was heard. The mole who had travelled so far was furious. Night. Sleep. Restlessness throughout the system.

Morning came.

“Summon him,” said Henbane.

He came, strong, younger than Wrekin, but with talons not yet so astute.

Henbane regarded him silently.

“WordSpeaker,” he intoned, as if he was speaking to a deity. Henbane purred.

“Your name?”

“Wyre,” he said.

“You have a message?”

“Rune would have you home to Whern. Soon. He is well pleased.”

“And you, Wyre, what are you to do?”

“To take your place in the south.”

“Then you will do so.”

Privately – except that Weed was there and Sleekit – Henbane told him what he must know. It took a time, and they ate. He told her of his journey. Moledom was subdued. Plenty of rumours. Recently of Duncton, and how it was outcast and not a place for mole. Tryfan taken, moles knew of that.

“Not so, but good,” said Henbane. “Very good.”

A day later Henbane and her party prepared to leave, to travel north. Beake, reluctant, was to stay at Duncton and see it sealed and guarded. Wyre was to go on west to Buckland.

“I would speak privately with you, Wyre,” Henbane said before they left.

On the surface she did it, in the open, nomole near.

“Weed listens otherwise,” she said by way of explanation.

“His job,” said Wyre.

Henbane smiled, then her eyes went cold.

“How is Rune?” she asked.

“Tired,” said Wyre. “Desiring your return. I will fulfil your expectations, WordSpeaker. It is an honour.”

She waved him to silence. He looked at her.

“You would have me do anything else?” he asked.

She nodded.

“When Wrekin returns to Buckland, Siabod will be subdued. Moledom will be entirely ours. So —”

“Yes, WordSpeaker? My will is yours.” Wyre’s dark eyes glinted. He had the eager stupidity of the earnest young to make their mark. But Henbane had no doubt that he would do so. A good choice for the time being.

“So Wyre... when Wrekin returns, kill him.”

Then Henbane of Whern turned from him, and with Weed nearby and Bailey in her party, and Sleekit too, she and a few select guardmoles made their way down to the cross-under and passed under it. A few deformities of moles were pulled into the shadows by the guardmoles who were bringing them. Their bereft eyes travelled from the awesome female passing by on to the hill before them, and the wood that covered most of it.

“Be happy in your new home, scum,” said one of Henbane’s guardmoles with a laugh, relieved to be leaving.

Henbane passed on by, and then, without one glance back at the system she had destroyed, she turned northward, to start the long trek home to Whern.

PART IV

Journeys Into Silence

Chapter Thirty-One

It was November and nearly six moleyears had passed since Tryfan and the three brave moles with him had set off east from Comfrey’s Stone to journey to the very heart of the Wen. There, they hoped, some mystery of the quest Boswell had sent Tryfan on might be solved, there some guidance found that would illuminate all of moledom with its light....

But whatever hopes and expectations of a quick and easy passage they might have had at starting, were soon modified and then all but abandoned as they made their way into that vast dereliction which is called by mole the Wen. Healers know a wen as a tumour or a goitre, or cancer that sits on flank or face; a wen may be many things, but always it is a disfigurement.

For moles such as those four were, used to woody ways and chalky heights, where roaring owls are but distant things unless a mole chooses to travel, and twofoots are rare if not unknown, the Wen’s noisome dangers and lurid lights were an affront to their minds and bodies, and took time to get used to – so far as they ever did.

Tryfan, seeing this might be so in the first few days of their journey, and taking the advice of Mayweed who had never seen tunnels or ways like those before, wisely decided to proceed with caution. If there was going to be danger they had best get used to its nature, and if there was to be grike pursuit they had best shake if off before attempting to make progress ahead too fast. That way lay discovery or death.

So it was that Tryfan soon turned north and away from the east, to take a route that lay on the periphery of the Wen itself and give them an opportunity to study its nature, and understand its sounds and traps.

More than that, it was a chance for the four to learn to travel as one, for Tryfan had no doubt that in the moleyears ahead times would come when they would need to know each other’s thoughts without speaking, if they were to survive.

So as June passed into July, and July into August, they had travelled here and there, using concrete tunnels such as the Wen is riddled with, finding new sources of food in places they never knew existed, and teaching each other what they could.

Tryfan taught them much of Duncton’s history, and the legends of old mole, beguiling the rest times with his stories and memories of what he had been told. From Mayweed came knowledge of route-finding which, Tryfan was quite sure, would in time help each of them. From Spindle came a curiosity to know what the world about a mole could teach him or her, for there was much of mystery where the Wen was concerned. Perhaps nomoles ever were so close to twofoots for so long, unseen of course, for the twofoots are blind at ground level and rarely see a mole; unscented too, for the twofoots have no snouts though they odour well enough. But dangerous, yes, for they are clumsy and crush whatever may be in their way.

Of that other mystery to mole, roaring owls, they found things out as well. Very dangerous to mole when not asleep, yet when asleep the only creature known to moles that makes no noise at all. Silent as death. Then roar! Bang! Hoot! Howl! – and roaring owl wakes. No stretching, no thinking on the day to come as sensible mole must do, but roar and off! Oh yes, dangerous to mole. But for all their clumsiness twofoots seem to understand the roaring owls and live with them amicably enough, though whether one fed on the other from time to time Spindle was never sure.

The fourth of their party, Starling, reminded rather than taught them. She reminded them of life and growth, and her good spirits and young laughter brought a smile to each of them at times; and her absolute confidence that all would be well was a strength that kept each going.

Yet, by October, when the weather was worsening and a mole thinks of planning to deepen his tunnels and make his winter quarters, a new excitement had settled on Tryfan’s group. They had seen, they had learnt, and now they were eager to get on. Most significantly, and mainly with Mayweed’s guidance and Spindle’s deductions, they had made sense of the new tunnels they had found. Some, like those smaller ones that ran beneath the roaring owl way near Duncton Wood were for drainage of rain, and though they scared a mole at first, once the run of them was understood, and the weather known, a mole was safe enough in them. Others were for drainage too, but were much bigger, deeper, and awash. Here a mole might have to swim, and here too a mole had best be careful, for other creatures use them, especially voles and rats.

A third group of tunnels were deeper still, and evil of nature, for they carried filth and effluent, and the spoor of twofoots, and disease.

Each one of them, in the initial period of their journey had been struck down by illness if not quite disease. Runny snouts, painful eyes, bowels uncontrolled, no appetite, and dizziness. Spindle and Starling had been most hard hit by this. Tryfan had been ill for a time, but not badly, while Mayweed, though he never suffered the fever and runs the others did, cut himself in dirty water and the cut had festered. Starling cleared it by biting and cleaning, brutal, but it worked. After that the moles were careful of wounds, and very careful in the filthels, as they called them.

These tunnels, the filthels, which were bigger than any they had ever seen, were difficult to navigate at first because their sounding qualities were so different from the earth and chalk tunnels they were used to. They echoed, they were filled with strange noises of falling water, metal on stone, distant roaring owl hoots and even what they took to be twofoot shouts. The air currents were confusing too, and often, in the bigger ones, were much stronger than any they had ever known, driving them backwards and tugging their fur almost off their backs and making them shout to be heard. The light was different, and cold, for such places were always wet and much of the light was reflected. Its sources were high above a mole’s head, from apertures that went up into day, or from other tunnels at the side.