Duncton Quest (77 page)

An hour later, as dusk was falling, Tryfan asked where Mayweed was. The coming of dusk meant that in the concrete desolation they were in, yellow lights were beginning to spring into the air and shining at sharp angles and across corrugations to where the moles had taken refuge. But the sky was still light, if vivid Wen violet was ever to be called a daylight sky.

“Exploring,” said Starling. “He went off to see what he could find.”

“Well I wish he had waited,” said Tryfan. “This is uneasy territory.”

But no sooner had he said that than there was a scampering out of the darkness ahead, a scurrying, and then Mayweed’s voice.

“Come!” it said, but not to any of them: “Come
on,
nervous Sir, timid and doubtful mole. Come and meet the friends of humble me!”

But whatever mole was to come was slow doing it for Mayweed approached them backwards, apparently urging a creature towards them until, eventually, they were astonished to see a thin and wiry mole reluctantly following him.

“Well!” declared Tryfan.

“Most brilliant, most clever, most splendid, am I not?” said Mayweed, coming as near as a mole can to patting himself on the back. “This worthy mole found me!” he declared.

The mole stared at them.

“Stainree,” he said, rather loudly, as if they were deaf.

They looked at each other.

“Stainree,” he repeated, yet louder.

“Says only that,” said Mayweed.

“Stainree,” shouted the mole, looking expectantly at each of them in turn.

Then some distant memory, some strange connection, came to life in Tryfan, and as it did something similar came to Spindle, and each of them instinctively went forward as if they knew they had to say something, but knew not quite what.

“
Stainree
!” repeated the mole, shouting so loud that his paws lifted off the ground with the effort of it.

“He’s saying... he’s saying....”

“He’s saying ‘Steyne ree’,” said Tryfan, whispering the words which are the start of a scribemole’s greeting, and which he had last spoken when greeting Brevis at Buckland.

“Yes,” said Spindle, all fatigue from the day’s travel replaced now by fascination. “He is greeting us formally.”

The mole came nearer to them.

“Stainree,” he said yet again.

“Oh yes,’said Tryfan.’Yes. Staye the hoi and seint...” and his voice was deep as he gave the ancient response which, he had thought, only scribemoles knew.

But the mole seemed not to understand and he merely repeated the word, “Stainree”.

“Staye the...
Staithee
!” said Spindle, corrupting the proper response.

Then the mole relaxed, looked at each in turn, and then said, “Follow!”

“We shall!” said Tryfan.

With no more ado the mole led them out across the open scrub, gave a contemptuous glance at some black-headed seagull that came wheeling and squealing out of the bright-dark sky overhead, and then after taking a way that was all surface, and lasted a good half hour, they dropped into tunnels the like of which none of them had ever seen before.

“Rubbish!” said Spindle finally. “Twofoot and roaring owl rubbish! That’s what this is...!”

The tunnels were only occasionally of earth, for the rest they were made up of all those materials which the moles had been discovering all summer and autumn past, but squashed and flattened, turned and torn, jumbled and shoved together so that the tunnels were now walled with glas, now with thinbark, and now with long lines of wood to give them astonishing straightness, now with rusting metaille.

The sounds were extraordinary, all loud and vibrating.

The other moles looked at Spindle and he smiled that smile that moles do when they have solved a problem others have only just started formulating.

“I wondered why so many things were in the tunnels, for surely the creatures that had them must want them. But no, they were discarded. Here we have what a mole might call a place of total discard: rubbish, in short, such as a mole might dispose of outside his burrows when spring comes.”

They had paused briefly while the mole guiding them had gone on ahead. Now he came back, and, shouting above the noise all about them, said, “Come on and meet Corm!”

On they went, round a corner, and there in a chamber defined by angled metaille mesh, with a ceiling high above them, was a fat and dirty mole. His mouth was full when they arrived and his right talon clogged with the food he was eating, much of which was on the floor before him. It looked like oval orange beetles without legs covered in a thick orange juice. It smelt sweet.

He looked up at them from piggy eyes and grinned, his teeth orange with whatever it was he ate.

“Stainree!” he shouted in a friendly way, spitting globs of orange muck on Tryfan and Spindle’s fur.

“Staithee!” said Tryfan, as Spindle fastidiously groomed his fur clean.

“And welcome you are. Damn me, we haven’t seen stranger moles in... how long is it, Murr?” he said to the gaunt mole who had led them there.

“Long enough to make it remarkable,” said Murr, “but not so long that I have forgot! They came by the western pipe bridge.” There were muttered explanations of surprise at this, and Tryfan presumed they were referring to the awkward passage Mayweed had found for them over a waterway that morning, and deduced that Murr must have been watching them for some hours.

“And did they now? Stone me!” said the mole, looking at them with obvious respect. “Well, my name’s Corm, and Murr you’ve met already...” Their voices were so
loud
!
Tryfan looked at the others: perhaps they would start talking loudly when they had been long enough surrounded by such continual noise.

Tryfan introduced himself and the rest of them one by one, and gave a guarded explanation, mentioning grikes only in passing as to why they had come. He was never comfortable telling even a half truth, but felt it best, initially at least, to be careful of what he said. These moles might easily be of the Word for all he knew....

“Grikes? We’ve heard of them, all right!” said Corm. “Pains in the arse they are, from what little we’ve heard. Stoneless aren’t they?”

Tryfan and the others nodded, relaxing.

“Well, you’re safe enough here because they’ll not get through without persistence, like you lot seem to have, or with help, and that they’ll not get... As for us, we don’t go westward out of the Wen. Dangerous out there, what with plagues and fires and grikes and all.”

“If you don’t go out there, how do you know about it then?” asked Spindle reasonably.

“You’re not the only ones daft enough to come avisiting, mate! Especially since the troubles started. There’s easier routes than the one you took. When you leave tomorrow, Murr here’ll show you. Myself, I don’t travel much, and nor do most moles round here.” He patted his ample stomach and grinned.

“We’re... er... not leaving tomorrow,” said Tryfan. “At least, not back westwards. We’re going on.”

“Here we go again, Murr. I told we was about due for some more intrepid explorers.” He raised his eyes with resignation, tucked into some more of his food and then let out a loud and smelly belch. He patted his stomach again, as if to push it into a more comfortable position and made a smaller, softer belch, a gentle echo of the first. Then when he was quite comfortable, and Spindle, a prim mole about such things, had shifted about uneasily, he said, “Don’t tell me, just... don’t... tell... me. You’re searching for the very heart of the Wen. You’re hoping to find moles there who will guide you on to something or other.”

“You know a lot,” said Tryfan.

“I know bugger all, chum,” said Corm, pushing Murr’s paw away from what little remained of the food he had been eating and muttering, “I haven’t finished yet.” He nibbled a bit more, as if to establish his right to the whole lot if he wanted it, turned away, waved magnanimously for Murr to eat what he liked and said, “What I
do
know is that you’ll not find whatever it is you’re looking for. You’ll get yourself killed, and you’ll get these moles killed, and nomole will be any the wiser. Waste of everymole’s time.”

“You’ve tried it?” asked Tryfan.

“Me? Come off it! Only thing I’ve ever taken any risks over is food, but round here... well, you’d be daft not to. Very interesting this place for a mole who likes food.”

“Is it where the twofoots of the Wen bring all their rubbish?” asked Spindle.

“Oh clever, very clever. Took me a
long
time to work that out. But no, it’s not. This place is just
one
of the places, there’s dozens of them, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. The Wen is big, big, which means bloody ginormous. That’s one good reason why you’ll never get to the heart of it. There isn’t one.

“You are looking at a mole who was once thin. This mole you are looking at decided to take a risk and set off as you have for the heart of the Wen. He got here and started eating. He has not stopped eating since. He has travelled no further. He has found happiness.”

“Fat and obese Sir, mole of amplitude, Mayweed, a humble mole but one with curiosity will ask you a question, no?”

Corm’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as Mayweed suddenly spoke. He raised his paw and turned to Tryfan and said, “What’s he on about?”

Tryfan grinned and shrugged.

“Rotund vagrant,” said Mayweed, coming closer and peering into Corm’s eyes, “have you travelled east of here?”

“No,” said Corm, “but I know a mole who has.”

“Magnificent Murr?” asked Mayweed turning to Murr with a wonderful and engaging smile.

“Give over,” said Murr. “I never go east if I can help it. Nasty things happen east.”

“Then who, tubby and ample Corm, is the mole who has travelled east?”

“Comes here to feed up a bit and then goes back again.” Corm yawned. Talking was an effort, and his eyes flicked this way and that as if his mind was beginning to drift back to the subject that occupied most of his waking thoughts: food.

“Yes, comely Corm?” said Mayweed, obviously enjoying himself. Starling was giggling, but only because Corm seemed fascinated by Mayweed’s adjectives and was muttering some of them to himself as his eyes half closed with sleep... “Comely... Obese... what else?”

“Rotund,” repeated Mayweed.

“Mmm,” said Corm patting himself again and smiling. “Yes, rotund.”

“Well, hungry Sir?” nagged Mayweed.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but there is a mole a few miles on, and I mean miles, who has ventured further than any other I know into the Wen and lived to tell the tale. The poor idiot’s name is Rowan.”

“Why...?” began Spindle.

Corm waved a paw impatiently.

“He’ll tell you, tell you everything and be glad too. Ask him. He’ll warn you off, but as I can see you’ll not listen to anything a mole will say I can only suggest that you go and chat to him. Goodbye and good luck. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

“We’ll wait until morning if you don’t mind,” said Tryfan.

“Not if you’re going east, you won’t. I don’t mind, but you will. Go in the morning and the dogs’ll eat you alive, go now and you’ll avoid them. They come out in the morning. Very nasty. Murr, show ’em!”

“But I never go east. Hate it.”