Duncton Stone (7 page)

“Yes, this is Rooster’s delving,” said Privet, her voice hushed as she stared about.

These were no ordinary delvings of the traditional sort, and nor were they the angry, jagged creations such as a mole like Rooster might be expected to make. They were deep and gentle, like dappling light through summer trees, and they seemed to shine and shimmer. The sound they made was soft and whispering, and distantly familiar, like a long-forgotten scent of someone dear, or the fragment of a song or tale caught on the wind.

“Sound the delving!” said Privet suddenly, quite carried away by the beauty that encircled them.

“I have already! I will again. Listen...” Whillan moved to one side, reached out a paw and touched the wall low down where the line of a sinuous soft delve seemed to emerge from the rough soil.

“It’s a mole,” said Whillan, “it’s a mole I feel I know...” and he sounded the delving, now here, now there, and Privet heard the mewings of a pup, and the whisperings of mother-love, and the dark sounds of menace kept at bay from a growing mole, much loved and well-guarded – and by more than a mother. Nomole can be reared without threat and danger – nor should they be, for the experience of fear and the exploration of doubt expand a mole’s perception of himself towards the reality of his life’s path, which will be,
must
be, through light and dark, and dark and light.

So in this extraordinary delving around the chamber’s walls Rooster had hinted at darkness along the way of the young mole whose life he seemed to have created, and Privet was amazed. There were the stumbling joys of first steps taken, and first food found, and the gambolling delights of early explorations beyond the encirclement of a mother’s body, beyond the birth chamber, beyond the first tunnel to the next and beyond all that to the surface... of a wood. Oh yes, the wood was there, sighing above, whispering below, and bit by bit the mole advanced with the months and early years of growth as far and no further as the dark and looming shadows that lurk in wait beyond mother, beyond the birth chamber, beyond on the surface above, and then beyond the furthest tree.

Now Whillan was near the end of his sounding, and nearing the darkest corner of the chamber where the debris lay. Still the young mole journeyed on in Rooster’s imagining and the shadows were more complex and the light brighter in places, fragmented in others; while beyond, in the darkest place – undelved as yet – was the full menace of the world, now looming up, now falling back to voids of fearful darkness.

“No! No!” cried out Privet, sensing the young mole nearing a place from which Rooster’s delvings could not save him. For the delving was unfinished there.

“Listen, listen!” cried out Whillan in reply, for all the delving made
him
see was the light, broken and wonderful, a light alluring which nomole would deny; a light before which even the deepest void seems surmountable.

Then from out of the deep came the thunderous running of a mole, louder and greater and more formidable the nearer it came. So that as Whillan’s paw reached the last of the delvings the mole erupted from the void their journey had reached.

“No!” roared Rooster. “Not here, not see, not sound this delving never, never make it be. Must not make it be.”

It was a cry of despair, the plea of one who is afraid for another he loves, the warning of one who knows he cannot help.

“No!” said Rooster, putting his great paw out to stop Whillan sounding, but too late, too late – all was done. That young mole was gone out into the void, and he was calling for help that could not seem to reach him.

“No,” shouted Rooster again, his face contorting into a pathetic self-loathing as he stared at his paws and talons as if to accuse them, and so himself, for what he had created. Then he raised his great paws and did what Privet had once seen him do all those long years ago at Hilbert’s Top: he began to destroy the delving he had just made.

Never in the time he had known Rooster had Whillan ever confronted him directly, despite all the anger and annoyance he engendered. But now, Privet saw, a confrontation was in the making, for Whillan was plainly outraged by Rooster’s actions.

“You cannot destroy it!” he shouted – or rather roared, for Whillan seemed to be overtaken by a spirit more powerful than his youthful self This was rage, and unequal though he might be to stopping so large and unpredictable a mole as Rooster from doing what he wished it looked as if he intended to have a good try. He rushed over to him and pushed between the flailing paws and the wall they were destroying. Rooster hurled him to one side and continued to rip at the delving, bringing down showers of dust and soil. To Privet, who was on the far side of the chamber, it seemed that the struggle between the two – for no sooner had Whillan recovered himself than he sprang back, only to be hurled aside once more – was conducted in a storm of dust, or the haze of fog: vaguely, and in a seeming slow-motion. All the time Whillan raged, and Rooster roared.

Privet did try to intervene at last, but both turned on her, forgetting their dispute for an instant, and shoved her away again, their eyes seeming to see her not as Privet but rather as a puny irritation that had stumbled across their mutual wish to struggle with each other.

All this time, to add to the confusion, the delving sounded out the dying cries of the mole whose life Rooster had created, and who now retreated, as Whillan did, before Rooster s onslaught, until the cries faded into the terrible darkness of the void. Bruised and battered by Rooster’s buffets, Whillan did not respond with violence, but only stayed his ground as best he could as Rooster beat him back, until he was cornered in the darkest place, and the young mole’s cries faded far behind him into darkness. Rooster, with nothing left to destroy of what he had made, could only stance up hugely, and stay his taloned paws before they struck down on Whillan’s body.

“No more!” And there was command in Whillan’s voice, and a sense of right. “You cannot destroy the delvings —”

“Made them. Can destroy them. No good, no more,” cried out Rooster. “
Have
destroyed them.”

“The delving was beautiful,” said Whillan quietly, “the most beautiful thing I ever saw, or touched. You had no
right
.”

“Made it,” whispered Rooster brokenly.

“Yes, you made it. And you destroyed it. A delving is a thing for ever, or until the Stone decides its day is done. A delving is like kin. Does a father have the right to kill his son?”

“Father? Son?” repeated Rooster wildly, much distressed. He turned to Privet and looked at her with terrible appeal.

Whillan had fallen silent before his own words and all that could be heard was the panting of his breath as he stared at Rooster, mole to mole.

“Anyway,” muttered Rooster, suddenly contrite and reaching out his paws as if to embrace Whillan in the gentlest of ways, “delvings not all destroyed. That was only the beginning. Mole left home. Moles always do. Listen, Whillan, there’s silence after the void of journeying. Didn’t mean to hurt nothing and nomole, never ever. Didn’t know what to say. Don’t know now...”

“No!” cried out Whillan as Rooster drew him closer. “Never...” and he suddenly pushed past Rooster from the dark void he had reached, and past Privet, and ran from the chamber down the tunnel to the surface as if from his worst enemy. The sound of his paws receded from them as if to a place from which they could never return.

“Know what mole he is,” said Rooster. “
You
know,” he added savagely, looking at Privet.

“I know what Weeth
suggested
,” said Privet judiciously.

“
Know
,” said Rooster. “Know it now. Certain now. Not just son in body. In spirit too.”

The chamber hummed with the dark sounds of loss and uncertainty. And suddenly overhead there was the patter of many paws.

“Rooster!” gasped Privet. “There are other moles about.”

“Yes,” growled Rooster, “they have been coming all my life. Found me now.”

“Rooster...”

But there was the sudden running of paws at the entrance, and another mole than Whillan came down.

“Yes,” said Rooster, whose delving had been his way of working out the truth he sensed – that he had discovered his son when it was too late to help him as he entered adulthood. Too late.

The rush of paws approached the chamber.

“It’s Madoc, know her sound,” said Rooster, moving to Privet’s flank.

Madoc came into the chamber, blood on her flank and her eyes full of fear and distress.

“The Newborns have come,” she said urgently. “They’ve got Whillan, and have sent me here to get you.”

“Newborns?” said Privet faintly.

“How many?” said Rooster grimly.

“Too many,” replied Madoc. “You must come now or they say they’ll kill Whillan.”

“We’ll come,” said Rooster quietly, “now we’re ready to come. End is beginning now.” His voice was soft with the relief of it. “End is here so we can live again.”

Chapter Four

The ugly shouts that met Rooster as he emerged from the tunnel with Privet and Madoc up on the east side of Wenlock Edge were accusatory, and very menacing, and the scene was altogether grim. More than ten moles surrounded them, mostly young and powerful, with paws jabbing, and faces sneering and triumphant.

“It’s him! It
is
him! By the righteous Stone, it is the miscreant Rooster!” they cried.

More moles were gathered some way off downslope with Whillan prostrate on the ground between them, bloodied and still.

“Don’t even try,” said an older guardmole with weary authority, as Rooster tried to go to Whillan’s aid, “don’t even think about it.”

Rooster struggled for a moment or two, and more so when one of the moles grabbed Privet and another Madoc – but all were quickly overpowered.

“Very wise. Brother Rooster, very sensible,” said a thin, unpleasant mole, who seemed in command.

He turned to another behind him and said with evident satisfaction, “So you were right; it is the mole we have been searching for in the holy name of Elder Senior Brother Quail and at the command of the Convocation of Caer Caradoc.”

“I
thought
it was. Brother Adviser Fagg,” replied the other in a smug and unctuous voice. “When I saw the party pass over our system four days ago, I said,
‘
They’re
fugitives
they
are and that great ugly one looks like Rooster, the one the worthy brothers have been looking for...’”

“Yes, yes, Brother, you have done well – your name and that of your system will be commended to the Elder Brothers,” said the “Brother Adviser’, a title which Privet and the others had not heard before. “But you said you observed six moles in the party and so far I see only four. You others, search the tunnel below.”

Three guardmoles were about to do Fagg’s bidding, though with some reluctance it seemed, when a forceful-looking mole detached himself from those surrounding Whillan and said, “A moment, if you will!”

The guardmoles stopped obediently, and Fagg looked annoyed.

“I really think, Brother Commander Thorne —”

“I really think, Brother Adviser Fagg, that we should not waste effort or risk lives unnecessarily. I am happy to leave matters spiritual to yourself, but kindly leave matters military to me. Searching burrows that may contain enemies is not always as easy or safe as it looks...”

Thorne nodded to two quite different guardmoles, older than the ones Fagg had deputed for the task. “There are tricks and traps for the unwary,” he said dispassionately. “From what
this
mole says, or does not say, I doubt that there are moles below, but it pays to be careful.”

A respectful hush had fallen over all the moles. Brother Commander Thorne knew how to impose his authority, and Fagg, as was clear from the narrowing of his eyes and the petulance of his mouth, did not like it.

Everymole waited while the search was made. Eventually the two guardmoles re-emerged. “Nothing, sir, nothing at all”

“Humph!” said Thorne, signalling for Whillan to be brought to him. When he came the others saw there was something angry and determined in his eyes which suggested he might not be quite so badly hurt as at first it seemed.

When the Brother Commander said quietly, “Well, Brother, it seems you were telling the truth,” Whillan obliged with an impressive lie.

“As I tried to tell you, they left us two days ago,” he whispered falteringly, “to head for their home system.”

“Which is?”

“Munslow,” he replied promptly, naming a system Hobsley had mentioned which lay to the south.

“Their names?”

“Lakin and Cripps,” he said, almost too quietly.

“Lakin and who? – And don’t
you
reply!” roared Thorne, pointing his paw at Whillan but addressing his question to Madoc.

His eyes glinted darkly and it was plain he was not entirely convinced by Whillan’s willingness to talk. But had Madoc heard the name Whillan had made up clearly enough to maintain the lie?

“Well, Sister, share the name of your other former travelling companion with us.”

“Why should I?” said Madoc stoutly, seemingly playing for time. “I won’t.”

“Oh, you will!” said the Brother Commander grimly. He nodded at the moles holding Whillan, one of whom raised his talons and set them but a thrust away from Whillan’s eyes.

“No!” cried Whillan pitiably as Rooster roared and struggled, and Privet simply stared in horror.

“Well now, I think you had better tell us, or we will assume your friend here was making up the names and trying to be clever.”

“He’s not my friend!” shouted Madoc dramatically. “But Cripps was... oh... I loved him!” It sounded frantic and hysterical, but as Madoc began to weep, apparently for revealing her beloved’s name, the Brother Commander broke into a roar of laughter.

“Well, well. Brother Whillan, it seems you told the truth after all.” The raised talons were lowered and the look of relief on Whillan’s face was genuine. “We will send word for guards to catch up with your friends in due course – there is a Crusade apaw across moledom now from which no follower will escape, nor any blasphemer go unpunished. But, Sister...” he turned suddenly on Madoc again, “... why did
you
not go with the mole you say you loved?”