By the time Mayweed got back to Beechen and the others, dusk was beginning to fall on Longest Night. The wind hissed on the high grass hills around Rollright, and the moon showed low on the horizon beyond thin trees.
The moment Beechen heard from Mayweed that a large and powerful body of grikes had gone through Rollright and on towards Duncton Wood, a striking change came over him.
‘You say the Master-elect was among them?’
‘They said, agitated Beechen, they did,’ said Mayweed. Beechen suddenly shed that youthfulness and lightness Mistle had brought out in him, and seemed to take on once more the burdens of leadership and spiritual resolve. He moved apart from them, and looked somehow bigger, and strangely menacing.
When Mistle tried to speak to him he seemed not to hear. Instead he ignored them and snouted slowly all about as if in search of something. He seemed angry and tense, and as they watched him, they saw he grew distressed as well. Mistle went to him.
‘Mayweed, guide me,’ he whispered. ‘Mistle … and you, Sleekit … and Buckram. Guide me.’
They all went to him, and to their alarm he broke down and wept, though why he would not say. But as they sought to comfort him he finally whispered, ‘Father, guide us, for we are so few, and the light we bear so weak against the darkness that shall fall this night. Stone, help me, for you have made me but mole and I am weak.’ Then he reached out a paw to Mayweed, and snouting south said, ‘Which of the Seven Systems lies there?’
‘Duncton,’ replied Mayweed, ‘and Uffington far beyond. And Avebury to the south-west.’ For a long time
Beechen stared that way. ‘And there?’ he asked, turning north-westward.
‘Caer Caradoc and Siabod, where the holy Stones of Tryfan rise.’
‘Yes, oh yes,’ he said. Then the Stone Mole slowly turned to the north.
‘And there, Mayweed?’
‘Why, bold Beechen, strange Stone Mole, not one of the Ancient Seven lies in that direction.’
‘What is there?’ whispered Beechen.
‘Beechenhill, Stone Mole, proud Beechenhill is there.’
‘Beechenhill,’ whispered Beechen, and it seemed to be spoken like stars across the sky. But then, ‘How dark the northward way seems, how dark,’ he said.
He turned back to face the direction in which he had started, towards Duncton Wood, and Mayweed said, ‘Stone Mole, if the grikes, and the Master-elect Lucerne, and even the eldrene have gone to Duncton Wood then … then what shall we do? I must go there myself, for they shall be defenceless and Tryfan will need me. But you …’
‘Did Bablock and its moles teach you nothing, Mayweed?’ Beechen said fiercely. ‘Tonight is Longest Night, the most holy of nights. You shall not leave us tonight but go as we all must to the Rollright Stones and pray for Silence. It is what all moles should do tonight. Only that, for it is enough.’
He stared the Duncton way some more and then, seeming to gain his strength said, ‘Mistle, Sleekit, Buckram, come now. Mayweed, guide us to the Rollright Stones for we are needed there. Come now.’
The trek was a rough one because Mayweed chose to go by the surface and the last stage was upslope. But if they had wished to prepare themselves reverently for the rituals to come, they could not. Long before they reached the Stones they came upon followers indulging in wild revels and ribaldry, laughing and singing, and playing jokes.
‘Greeting, mateys!’ one shouted to them, though Beechen tried to go on by, serious and forbidding.
‘Oh! Sorry I spoke! Some moles…’ The mole called out again, but he fell silent when Buckram loomed out of the shadows and glowered at him.
More moles were making merry at the Whispering Stoats, that sombre group of three stones that lean into each other a little to the south of the Rollright Stones themselves. Laughter, innuendo, males and females chasing each around, and even, so it seemed, a guardmole giving up trying to control the rabble of moles and joining in their lewd celebration.
‘Look at them lot! Dear, oh dear! Hey, give us a smile then!’
The moles paused and stared as Beechen and the others went by, their quiet order in contrast to all the moles about.
‘The Stones are not far ahead,’ said Mayweed, ‘let me just …’ He went to a group of revellers and asked, ‘Have you seen Holm or Lorren?’
‘Up by the Stones I should think, doing his nut,’ was the immediate reply. ‘He was down here just now trying to lay down the law, the little runt, and we told him to piss off. Which he did! Ha, ha, ha…’
The mole turned away from him, others stared, laughter broke out again, and Mayweed and the others moved unhappily on.
The noise up at the Stones themselves was so great that they heard it from a long way off, and when they reached them they saw a pandemonium of milling moles. Some played games even among the Stones themselves, some sang songs, the odd fight or two had broken out, and some even sought to mate in public.
Appalled, Mayweed stopped at the edge of the circle and simply stared in horror and disgust. In Rollright it seemed the holiest of nights had become the unholiest of feasts.
So busy were the moles enjoying themselves, along with at least three guardmoles they could see, that nomole saw the group in the shadows just outside the circle. None saw
Beechen staring blankly, nor Mistle shocked. None saw Buckram, all protective behind Beechen and muttering fiercely to himself.
There is a place for revelry on that special night which marks the seasons’ greatest change when darkness gives way once more to light. But first let moles be reverent, let them give thanks for what they have had, let them turn to the Stone and be silent for a time. Only then let them make their way graciously with the rest of their community and enjoy what grateful revels they may make.
But not this, not the blasphemy the Stone Mole saw at Rollright. Never that again.
‘Look!’ said Sleekit quietly to Mayweed, pointing through the noisy throng, ‘Oh look, my dear.’ But she could not bear to look more and turned to Mistle and Beechen for comfort.
Yet Mayweed looked, and saw, and knew what he must do.
For there in the midst of that assembly of so-called followers of the Stone, stanced by the greatest Stone of that great circle, was a grubby mole. Small he was, his fur dusty, his talons dirty. He was staring up at the Stone and trying, despite all that went on about him, to say a prayer. Which was hard, for he seemed unable to say anything. Anything at all. And mute tears were on his face, and he was unable to find the words of prayer, and at last he lowered his snout as if he dared not look at the Stone any more.
While at his flank, vainly trying to console him, was a female, grubby too, and though small herself she was bigger than her mate. Her paws were on him as if vainly trying to protect him from the noise all about them, and she was turning this way and that, shouting at the moles to be still and be quiet.
‘’Tis Holm,’ said Mayweed blankly. ‘’Tis Lorren at his side.’
Then telling the others to stay where they were, Mayweed moved into the circle and among the moles, and slowly, resolutely, began to cross towards where his old friends stanced.
Quite when Lorren first saw him would be hard to say, but suddenly her hopeless shouting stopped and she stared across the circle and was still. There was surprise on her face, and then hope, and then, as Mayweed got nearer, incredulous relief.
She turned to Holm, whispered something to him, and he too turned to look.
At first he seemed perplexed, but then his eyes filled with joy, and as swiftly as they did, his face fell with grief and shame and, like a mole gone mad, he shook his head as if to say, ‘Not, not now, this is not how I would meet you again.’ But Holm was never one for words, and so he shook his head, and cried.
As Mayweed went near enough to greet them both, Holm made such a helpless gesture of despair that Sleekit gasped and gulped for the pity of it.
Mayweed reached out to them both, talked with them, and then as the revels went on unabated around them, slowly turned towards where Beechen stanced, still unseen.
Mayweed whispered more, and then a look of disbelief came over Holm’s face, and he reached to hold Lorren close, and his look turned to wonder. For out of the shadows, slowly, mightily, as if one of the Stones themselves was on the move, Beechen came.
There was no gentleness on his face, no kindliness.
Nor did he look at anymole in judgement, but rather in a terrible despair at the great Stone before which Holm and Lorren had been so pathetically stanced.
His eyes seemed to catch the shining lights of stars and moon, his fur to glow with a fearsome light, his talons to shine. Buckram, Mistle and Sleekit came behind him, and as he advanced a hush began to fall. Moles fell back from him, moles who had not seen him and still sang or argued or made a noise were shushed by those who had. Moles crept about to see him better, moles stared at him in awe.
Then as he came closer to Holm and Lorren a light seemed to cast itself across their faces, and then up on to the great Stone.
One of the guardmoles began to remonstrate, joking and wondering what was going on, but a mole who moments before had been laughing and shouting turned on him and he fell silent.
‘There is no shame in joy,’ said Beechen, ‘unless it be the false joy of those that hide a frightened heart, or mask a fear of their own emptiness. Therefore if you be unafraid, and if your life be full, dance, sing, and I shall join you now.’
He looked about him, first at one mole and then another. He reached out his paws, and smiled. But his smile was bleak. Nomole danced, nomole sang.
‘This is moledom’s holiest night,’ said Beechen, so softly that it was no louder than a breeze across the face of a wind-smoothed Stone. ‘It is the night we of the Stone give thanks for what we have, the night we pray for those who need the Stone’s help in the dark winter years ahead, and a night to be reverent of ourselves.’
The moles were utterly still, and one who could not quite see or understand what was going on, muttered, ‘Who is he? What’s he saying?’
Then Beechen said, ‘Your brothers and your sisters in Duncton Wood are enshadowed by the Word tonight. Across all moledom darkness has fallen, yet here in Rollright I hear but one prayer spoken tonight.’
Beechen rested a great paw on Holm’s shoulder.
‘But how can moles pray for others who are not still themselves? This mole is praying that the Stone forgives him for he feels he has failed it. He has not failed it, for the Stone hears well a prayer from a mole whose voice is weak, whose voice is drowned by a thousand who dance and sing when they should pray. Yes, the Stone hears his prayer well.’
‘Who is he?’ muttered a mole again.
‘What’s he on about?’ said another.
‘I am what you shall make me,’ cried out Beechen suddenly. ‘I am the Stone Mole come amongst you. Your weakness is my burden, your faithlessness is as talons on me, the shadows you cast are as black to me as the shadow of the Word. Is it then for you I have come?’
A terrible silence had come to the Rollright Stones, and it seemed to have spread to the Whispering Stoats nearby, for the sounds of revelling had ceased there as well and the hurried pattering of pawsteps told that moles were coming to see what was going on.
‘It is well that you are quiet. For tonight, the holiest of nights, I shall speak the prayers and rituals of our faith as they have been taught us from Balagan’s time. The liturgy was taught me by Tryfan of Duncton, and they were taught him by his parents, and by Boswell of Uffington who is my father. We shall start our vigil now, and cast out from ourselves the noise that is within us, and discover once more the reverence that should be in a mole before the Stone.
‘If there be any here who would not pray with me then let them go in peace.’
There was silence until a mole, an older female, pointed a talon at one of the guardmoles and cried in a strange, half-hysterical voice, ‘What about him then? He’s not one of us, he’s of the Word, he is.’
Others began to shout the same thing, pointing towards the other two guardmoles there, who began suddenly to look very afraid. The follower’s cries grew louder and full of hatred, and some of the stronger ones crowded forward to try to strike the guardmoles, and others jeered.
‘Strike them and you strike me,’ cried out Beechen. ‘Strike me and you strike the Stone.’
He pointed a talon at the great Stone whose light seemed so strong about them.
Then more gently, his voice calming them, he said, ‘The mole that strikes the Stone is like a hunted vole and much afraid. ’ As he said that he quietly moved over to the guardmoles and said, ‘Would you pray with us?’
One of the guardmoles nodded his head, too afraid it seemed to speak.
‘And you, mole, would you pray with us? And you?’
The other guardmoles nodded.
Then Beechen smiled, and to one of those who had been loudest in their shouts said softly, ‘And you?’
And then, softer still, ‘And you?’
In the peace of the night the anger was gone. Then Beechen said, ‘Know that all of us are one in our intent before the Stone, which is to share our sorrow and our joy, to release our fears and find our strengths. Before the Stone it matters not whatmole you are, but only that you truthfully seek to open up your heart. And in that silent place what word is there for “Word”? What word for “Stone”? No words at all but only the wordless cry of blind pups caught up in all the confusing fears and wonders of the life they have begun.
‘Therefore as you would help a pup to grow, help each other now and know that as you help each other you shall help yourself; and as you love each other you shall love yourself, which is the Stone’s great joy. As a parent would see its pups grow whole, so would the Stone see you grow whole. As a parent flinches and feels the hurt of its pups, so does the Stone feel your hurts and, all the more, your hurting of each other.
‘Now, let us begin to rejoice at last, for tonight is most holy …’
So began Beechen’s teaching and rituals before the Rollright Stones, and the moles who heard him knew him to be the Stone Mole come among them, and were glad.
Already for days before Longest Night, Skint and Smithills had warned Tryfan that the long-feared move of the grikes into Duncton Wood was imminent.
The few watchers Skint still had available were old now, and nearly all the few who had been active in the summer years had died in the cold of late November. Nevertheless, thin on the ground though the watchers were, they had succeeded in confirming a strengthening of the patrols at the cross-under as December began.
Sometimes now the guardmoles dared come inside the system, and the watchers would peer out at them and wonder at how young the guardmoles seemed, how strong, how formidable a force to keep such old moles confined.
But the guardmoles had not only become more inquisitive and courageous about entering the system, but more aggressive as well. Where once they mocked and chased the old moles in the wood, now they hurt them if they could, as they had hurt Sorrel. In December a ‘hurting’ led to another death, and Tryfan advised that the watching activity cease.
Yet the guardmole training of Skint and Smithills was too ingrained to let them do nothing at all. A system needs watchers, as a mole needs eyes, they said. But unwilling to embroil other moles with watching they moved their quarters down to the Pasture slopes, and took it in turn to watch the cross-under with only Marram occasionally keeping them company.
Skint said little these days, Smithills was getting slow, but watching was one thing they could do – though what they would do if they saw something threatening neither knew any more.
In truth both hoped, Skint especially, that before their days were done they might one day see the impossible, and a party of grikes come through the cross-under and up the slope to say that the struggle was over now, nomole had won, none lost, the Word was, and the Stone was, be at peace now!
It was old moles’ dreams, no different in quality than the longings they often shared for Grassington, and the River Wharfe, where once they had been pups, and the Word and the Stone were all the same, which meant nothing at all. They had been happy then.
But the truth was very different than the dream, and they knew it. The grikes were massing, the patrols were getting tougher in the way they looked each day. Great trouble was apaw.
Yet concerned though they were for the system, Skint and Smithills were strangely untroubled for themselves by the growing threat. They had begun to tire and to leave fear behind them, and now it was more the anticipation they disliked, rather than any violence yet to come.
Indeed, one said to the other more than once, ‘Well, old friend, if they come I’ll go down fighting. Let’s take some of the bastards with us!’
To which the other replied, ‘My feelings too, but don’t let Tryfan hear you say that!’
But in any case, their warnings of the grike threat did not disturb the growing calm that spread throughout Duncton in the wake of Beechen’s departure. Moles talked to moles, worship at the Stone increased, and comfort was given as best it could be to those who were taken by the November cold. A community, Tryfan had told them, cares for its dying as much as for its living.
There was good spirit in the system, and some said that no sight expressed it better than the way grumbling Dodder, a diehard mole of the Word, followed Madder and Flint up to the Stone from time to time, and crouched outside the clearing, watching his friends say their prayers. Afterwards, very slowly, helping each other along, they would pick their way back down through the wood to the Eastside, and resume their noisy but amicable enmity once more.
Tryfan never went back to the Marsh End after his declaration of the Rule, but stayed close by Feverfew in the southern burrows where they had reared Beechen.
How quiet the system was, how old the moles who were left, and how many counted the days to Longest Night, saying with a touching optimism that if only the Stone would spare them until then, they might see the winter through and struggle into spring. But age had caught them up, the young mole who was their triumph and their glory had safely gone, and their wrinkled, weakening eyes could only peer up at the December skies and wonder where he was, and how he was, and pray that the Stone would give him strength.
December seemed so slow, and Longest Night a lifetime away. Some, indeed, fell then, surprise on their faces. Borage died, quite suddenly, and Heather, so gaunt now, cradled and spoke to him to the end, seeming to think he was the pup she never had.
Teasel weakened, and Feverfew hurried to her. Yet the loving old female pulled round, saying she’d see Longest Night in if it was the last thing she did.
Rain, mist, cold, clear days, and trees leafless: the very wood itself seemed to have grown old.
In the second third of December, with Longest Night near at last and after Skint had come his frail way up from the south-eastern slopes to warn him that the grikes were massing even more and seemed poised for something, Tryfan went to the Stone once more and kept a vigil there.
Others who came heard him say that should moles of the Word come to Duncton, they must be treated with every courtesy, ‘even unto death’. So he said, and those who were not nearly senile themselves said that finally age had caught up with him. Yet none dared say so to his ravaged face, nor look in his poor eyes and say what they really felt. Even now, he carried himself with authority, and though his head shook, and sometimes Feverfew had to reach out a paw to stop his paws from their involuntary trembling, there was greatness in his gait. And in his presence a mole felt he or she might do great things.
When the day of Longest Night finally dawned not a mole woke in Duncton who was not glad to be alive. Such a day, grey though it looked, was one to cherish, knowing that its night was holiest of all, and a mole might give thanks for the past and what was to come, and that he could say a prayer at all.
One by one, those still left from the now distant-seeming day when they had said farewell to Beechen, helping each other as they had done then, old, lame, blind, weak, they made their way up to the Stone.
Most were followers of the Stone, but even those few like Dodder who were not came too. A very few might still be called ‘young’ – though ‘not old’ might have been the best description – Hay for one, and Feverfew was younger than some, Bailey younger than any, and these moles helped where they could. Until by dusk-fall all but Skint and Smithills were gathered at the clearing, and hushed, and glad to be together.
‘My friends Skint and Smithills will soon be here,’ said Tryfan simply, ‘Marram and Bailey have gone to find them and when they come we shall begin. But until then, let us be quiet unto ourselves, let us give thanks for the good things our lives have brought us.’
Then did the moles of Duncton begin their humble and quavering prayers.
Time and again since she had arrived at Duncton’s crossunder, with but a few days to go before Longest Night, the eldrene Wort, accompanied by her personal henchmoles, had gone up a little way on to the south-eastern slopes and stared up at the mysterious wood that rose beyond the Pastures.
She had looked at it often enough from Cumnor, but from this side, it looked more formidable and its slopes awkward. No wonder Henbane’s guardmoles had had trouble taking it in Wrekin’s day.
But she did not worry now about what outcast moles were there – she knew. Her guardmoles had taken one of the Duncton moles prisoner and before they killed him had got information enough to tell them that there was going to be precious little opposition from the moles in the system, since they were now few in number, and most old.
Even so, she would have preferred to invade the system before Longest Night, just to ensure there would be no trouble and nothing untoward happened when the Master-elect Lucerne came for the great ritual ordination, which was designed as a desecration of the Stone and about which all followers would soon know.
But Lucerne had made his wishes absolutely clear, which were that the system was not to be entered properly until he came. But perhaps, Wort smiled to herself, that was as well. What she and her guardmoles had discovered from the tortured mole was that a mole called Tryfan was still alive within it, the very same who had once been to Whern. What joy Wort felt to hear that news; how much more would be her Master’s joy.
What was more, the Duncton mole had told them that Longest Night was one night when all the moles, even the lame and sick, would be conveniently gathered in one place all at once.
How elegant the justice of the Word! For Tryfan was Lucerne’s father, and the Master-elect would be well pleased. Almost as good was this: a mole Feverfew was said to be the mother of Beechen the Stone Mole. Well, well, well. This was evidence to Wort that Beechen was no more than an ordinary mole, however inspired he seemed. All this talk of eastern stars followers made!
Had she permitted herself the vanity of thinking it, she might have reflected on how wise Lucerne had been to elevate her as he had. First among equals she had quickly made herself with Drule and Slighe, of that there was no doubt, and powerful though they were and remained in their respective ways, it was the eldrene Wort who put the fire of zeal into their unholy trinity.
The three of them had come ahead of the Master-elect after waiting impatiently for him at Rollright for several days. Days, however, which Wort had put to good use by reviewing Rollright and finding its eldrene and guardmoles gravely lacking in Word zeal. Indeed in her view the system was more lax than the reporting trinity had made it out to be, but Slighe had prevailed on her to moderate her views that a snouting of the eldrene and senior guardmoles there might do everymole a service. This was not what the Master-elect wished.
‘Humph!’ said Wort. ‘Does not their evil sicken you?’ She asked the question with such fierceness that to say ‘No’ was almost to suggest support for the Stone. Slighe said nothing.
Drule outwardly agreed with Slighe about not killing moles, but he privily suggested that an accident or two to the right senior guardmoles, which is to say a crippling and a disappearance of the most lax and most disliked, might achieve as much as a public snouting. Wort accepted this most sensible compromise, and it was done, and proved its worth, for the rest asked no questions and looked to their devotions more assiduously.
Lucerne had come, visited the Stones with interest, found them miserable things and declared magnanimously that all the guardmoles bar a very few could come to Duncton for his ordination. Wort privately disapproved. ‘They have not earned the right!’ she said, adding, ‘But the Word speaks better through the Master-elect than any of us and we do not always understand it.’
But in truth, Lucerne had arrived in Rollright with only twenty key sideem and the Twelve Keepers for the ordination, and was thinking that more moles should witness his elevation. It was a matter of the glorification of the Word. But then, others would be coming from Buckland and other southern systems, for messengers had gone ahead to summon them.
Now, two days before Longest Night, the area around the cross-under was beginning to get congested with moles, and for this reason if no other Wort would have liked to direct moles into Duncton Wood, but she abided by the Master’s edict.
The last day had gone slowly, then the dawn of Longest Night came and the advance guard arrived soon after from Rollright, with the Master-elect on the way.
It was a dramatic and historic moment, and the eldrene Wort found herself in the unexpected position of organising many moles. Her own Cumnor moles had been summoned, and their discipline, humourlessness, and austerity set a tone to the growing gathering. Moles were quiet, voices low and a sense of coining holiness and worship was all about. While over it all loomed the unknown heights of Duncton Wood, and the knowledge that moles would die tonight, and the Word make judgement of the Stone by desecrating one of its most holy places.
Lucerne came at midday, accompanied by his entourage of Keepers. Few of the guardmoles had ever seen such a thing and a dark, expectant hush settled in the tunnels about the cross-under. Keepers prayed, sideem chanted, and Terce was everywhere, cold as ice.
The eldrene Wort knew her place, and how to keep it, and only when she was summoned did she go to Terce, and brief him of what she had found out.
‘You think Tryfan is here?’
‘I know he is here,’ she said, explaining what they had learnt from the tortured mole.
‘And Beechen, the Stone Mole?’
‘Unlikely. He left the system in September as we know, but our informant told us that there was no intention that he should come back. We also think Feverfew, the Stone Mole’s mother, is still in the system – unless she be dead she cannot have got out.’
‘Beechen got out!’ said Terce acidly.
‘That was before my own moles had taken control of the cross-under, Twelfth Keeper.’
‘It is well. You have done very well, eldrene Wort.’
‘I serve only the Word and the Word’s will, and through it the Master-elect and his agents,’ said Wort archly.
‘I know it, eldrene Wort, I know it well.’
The day was cold, grey and still, but when afternoon came the sky began to clear and the wind to freshen from the north.
Terce disappeared, Lucerne and Mallice were not to be seen, guardmoles on duty shivered and looked at each other and dared speak no word at all. The Word hushed them, the Word awed them, the Word would show its strength tonight.
Gradually, dusk came, colour left the vegetation and the ground, above the place they waited the roaring owls became more plentiful, and as their sound increased and their gazes became brighter the sky darkened.
Short, sharp commands brought more guardmoles into positions preparatory to entering the Duncton system, and Clowder, who had taken overall command, stanced at a point where he could oversee them all.
With nothing left to do now the eldrene Wort stanced to one side of the cross-under, the better to see the advance begin. She peered through to the darkening slopes beyond and her talons fretted. She saw Drule was nearby, and Clowder further off, but Slighe was in attendance on the Master-elect and unseen.
‘Holy Word, my mother and my father, bring peace to thy servant Lucerne, and to all thy servants here; teach us to be humble before thee, teach us all things we need to know to prosecute your glorious way; holy Word, my mother and my father …’So Wort whispered her prayers.
‘He’s coming!’ one guardmole warned the first troop of guardmoles who were going to enter the system. Paws shifted, snouts straightened, eyes alerted.
Wort watched. The movements of the guardmoles, the ritual to come, the glory of the night, was not in her control and she need not fret: she could enjoy all that was so soon to come. She had done her part, and now the entry of the moles of the Word into the system would begin, and lead to its culmination in the first southern ordination of a Master of the Word. She shed tears of gratitude to be where she was at such a moment as this.
‘Holy Word, my mother and my father …’ she said softly, as the order was given for the first troop to advance. ‘Holy Word, now let glory be, and on the pitiful Stone command that thy final darkness fall …’
The dusk all gone, nothing more to do, Smithills was already on his way upslope from the cross-under when Skint’s worst watching nightmare came true.
He could not believe his old eyes, and simply stared as first one, then two, then three lines of guardmole columns emerged out of the cross-under and began to trek up the slopes below, one to his left, one to his far right, and the biggest up the central slope straight towards the High Wood.
Nomole knew better than he, not even Smithills, the import of what he saw. So great were their numbers and so resolute their purpose, that for a few moments he could only stare aghast.
‘Smithills!’ he turned and urgently called, not caring that he was heard. That mattered not, for he knew there was nothing anymole in Duncton, even if their years were halved and their number quadrupled, could do against such a force. On and on they came, and still they came.
‘Smithills!’ he called out again, moving as quickly upslope as his old paws would allow after his friend.
But Smithills was well ahead and seemed not to hear, for Skint had told him not to wait, saying he wanted to be alone for a moment or two and would then come on up after him. Smithills knew that tonight was the last time Skint would ever watch for even if they saw anything, where were the messengers, where the back-up watchers, where the moles that could stance and fight? All gone, all old, all long since dead. Then, ‘Smithills!’
Smithills, almost up to the wood’s edge by then, heard the call and turned, surprised and then alarmed. He could just see his friend in the murk below moving fast across the slope, as if he was cutting a mole off.
‘Smithills!’ came the urgent shout once more.
Smithills turned back at once downslope, moving as quickly as he could, which was not fast, for his great limbs were half lame now. Why, what a couple of failing watchers they made! Well, they weren’t so old they couldn’t head off a couple of guardmoles gallivanting about on Longest Night.
It was only as he approached Skint, that he began to realise that what his friend had seen was more than a couple of guardmoles. Skint was stanced low at the edge of a flatter part of the slope, looking down at something Smithills could not yet see.
‘Look!’ said Skint as the bigger mole arrived.
Then Smithills saw where he pointed far below, and he gasped. The area around the cross-under was black with moles, and they came up in three formations, the main one steadily towards where they themselves were stanced, the others rising faster still in the distance on either side.
‘But ’tis Longest Night!’ said Smithills. ‘’Tis bloody Longest Night. They should be …’
‘Go quickly up to the clearing, warn Tryfan, order him to hide our moles in the Ancient System.’
‘Aye, and what’ll you do, mole? Pass the evening with them?’
Skint turned to him, his eyes fierce. ‘Do it, Smithills, and that’s an order.’
Smithills looked back downslope at where the grikes advanced inexorably up the slope, then back at Skint, and he turned and was gone up into the darkness as fast as he could.
Skint watched him go and then, satisfied, calmly assessed the slopes all about. He knew the ground well, and had already placed himself at a patch of ground where a natural buttress gave him an advantage on those coming from below.
He moved from one side of the patch to the other and calmly waited, one mole against the many.
The moles below him came slowly but steadily, well trained in climbing such slopes, knowing that the best way to leave a mole ready for fighting when he got to the top was to go steady. The formations to Skint’s far right and left were already higher up the slope than he was because the slope there was a little less steep and he had the sense of being surrounded by an army of grikes. Smithills would have to be quick to reach the clearing in time.
Skint had never felt calmer in his life. He waited until the leaders of the middle formation were near enough that they could hear him – so near he could hear the grunting of their breath – and he called out, ‘Halt!’
He knew they could not see his numbers yet, and would have to stop and assess. It was a bluff that would last but moments and already others were spreading out from the middle formation, and gaining ground on either side of him.
‘Halt!’ he cried again.
But they said nothing, dark moles advancing, and he guessed they must know his numbers were nearly nothing.
He heard an order from below.
‘You two, round him off. Do not kill him yet.’
Do not kill him yet …
Anger overwhelmed him for a brief moment, and then his training and his inclination settled him. All thought of Tryfan’s order not to fight left him. He was the mole he had been years before, decades before, the mole that had left Grassington in the name of the Word, his strength and intelligence ready to do what it was commanded. He had been trained to fight.
Do not kill him yet.
‘I’ll take as many of you buggers as I can,’ he said quietly to himself.
The moles below had stopped, but near enough that he could see the shine of night sky in their talons, and the flash of their teeth. Stealthily, their colleagues came up the slopes on either side.
‘There’s just one of them, Sir!’ he heard a mole hiss.
‘You four, take him from either side!’
Skint readied his paws on the ground, settled his snout, and waited to see from which side they came first. He did not mind dying now, but he wished …
He turned sharply as a shadow loomed behind him and even as he saw who it was Smithills’ much loved voice said, ‘You’re a silly bugger, Skint, always have been and always will be. Did you think I could leave you to face them alone?’
‘The others . . began Skint.
‘No good going on above, even if I’d wanted to. There’re outrunners in the wood ahead of me and they’d have cut me off long before the clearing. No, my place is here with you, old friend. I’ll take the right flank, and you the left.’
‘Another’s joined the first one, Sir!’ they heard a grike call out.
‘Stop buggering about,’ an impatient command came back. ‘Deal with them.’
The grikes advanced on them slowly and confidently, for they saw two old moles, their fur grizzled and patchy, their paws withered.
‘Come on, you two, we’ll not hurt you.’
‘Come off it, mate,’ said Smithills, ‘we’ve heard it all before.’
‘Kill them if there’s any delay,’ a senior guardmole barked out from below. ‘We must keep on moving.’
‘Try it,’ muttered Smithills.
Four moles converged on Skint and Smithills simultaneously, two on either side, and all four were unready for what they met.
With a roar Smithills struck the first one down and, using a technique he knew so well, pushed him mightily back into the next advancing mole who, off guard and off balance, made himself vulnerable.
‘Bastard,’ cried out Smithills, and plunged his talons straight into the mole’s belly.
The mole screamed and rolled downslope even as Skint dealt the first who came to him a talon straight in the snout, and throated the second with his paw.
Then as more came at them, back to back they fought, the whole advance slowing before them as moles, uncertain of what was happening, paused, turned and shouted.
All that Skint and Smithills knew then was the rush of moles upon them, the grunt of killing breath, the raised talons, as each protected the other and they both fought stolidly on, using the ground, surprise, anger and the confusion of numbers about them to their advantage.
Each felt the support of the other’s back and haunches, each knew the other was still fighting, and then each felt the first flow of blood across his flank, not knowing if it was himself or his friend that bled.
On they fought, and roared, thrusting out at the enemy with guardmoles falling where they were hit. On and on they struggled until each felt the other weaken, felt the tiredness coming, felt the inexorable approach of his own death by the pause and judder of the other’s haunch.
‘Skint, you’re an old fool!’ gasped Smithills as he raised his talons one last time.
‘Smithills, words have always failed me where you’re concerned!’ rasped Skint. But it was the last thing he said, and Smithills heard his friend grunt in sudden pain, and turning from his adversary with no more thought for himself tried vainly to protect poor Skint from further blows.
On Smithills broad back mortal blows fell, on and on, until he weakened and red darkness came, and he knew no more.
‘Bastards!’ said a grike, wounded and bloody from the fight, as he stared among the bodies at the two moles who had fought to their very last breath.
Another guardmole came up and looked at them.
‘They were brave bastards,’ said the mole Romney.
The second guardmole looked at them and said, ‘They were our own kind that we killed.’
‘And if you’d been first on to them they’d have had you ’cos they knew a thing or two about fighting.’
‘Stop dawdling there! On, on, on!’ a commander shouted and the two turned from that spot on the southeastern Pastures, re-formed, and moved on remorselessly upslope to enter the southern edge of the High Wood.
While below on the slopes bodies lay still and were lost in the gloom, and far beyond them from south to north, from north to south, roaring owls went by endlessly, their gazes cold, their calls an unceasing roar.
For the briefest of moments Tryfan and the others thought it was Skint and Smithills coming through the wood, but the sounds increased beyond what their two friends would make, and moles came from all about, spread wide around the clearing, too wide to flee if any of them had thought of doing so.
But they did not. Instead they stanced closer to each other and Tryfan turned his snout up to the Stone and cried out, ‘Stone, we of Duncton are old and weak and uncertain of ourselves, guide us now. Help us do thy will with all our strength.’
He had no sooner said this than three stolid males came into the clearing and looked about. Then two more on the other side, and then four more. Shouts echoed through the wood, orders to go this way or that and the sense of being possessed, and being impotent.
The Duncton moles, many afraid, some angry and some confused, seemed overwhelmed by the suddenness of the grikes’ coming and instinctively clustered closer around Tryfan and Feverfew at the Stone. Perhaps if the grikes had attacked them physically they might have fought, but the grikes did not.
They mustered about the clearing, young and strong and intimidating in their stares and silence, and the only contact they made with anymole was with Teasel on the edge of the clearing who seemed confused by all the moles and had stayed where she was. Not unkindly, it seemed, a senior guardmole helped her join the others and said, ‘That’s right, my love, you stay there. Now, you lot, if you behave yourselves nomole’s going to get hurt.’
‘Some chance!’ muttered Madder.
‘Who said that?’
The voice came out of the murk beyond the clearing, thick and menacing.
The Duncton moles were silent, none saying who it had been.
‘What do you want with us?’ called out Hay, struggling to break through the moles to the front.
‘Be still, mole,’ said Tryfan, putting a restraining paw on him. ‘Be still.’
In the space of moments the clearing seemed full of guardmoles, several of whom stationed themselves around the beleaguered Duncton moles, and there was no doubt at all that resistance of any kind was useless.
‘Is that the lot?’ a voice called. ‘Well?’
‘None about the place, nor did we see any flee. Could be some in the tunnels, but it seems unlikely. It is Longest Night.’
‘None on the far Pastures either, Sir.’
‘Right. The Keepers will be here soon, so let’s sort these moles out. We know which one we want.’
The voices seemed disembodied, coming sharply from one side of the clearing to the other, as yet more moles crashed unseen about the wood and the guardmoles organised themselves.
‘Found Tryfan yet?’
‘Just about to, Sir.’
The voice came from a group in the gloom behind the Stone.
‘Don’t identify yourself, Tryfan!’ whispered Hay urgently. ‘If you don’t we’ll not say.’
‘He’s right,’ responded Dodder.
‘Speak only the truth, do not fight, love them. This is our only way,’ said Tryfan. Feverfew came close to him, her paws about him.
‘Well, mole, found him?’
The voice was nearer, and deeper, and full of authority.
‘No, Clowder Sir, not yet. He’ll be among that lot by the Stone … Drule’s about to sort them out.’
‘Is he now?’ said Clowder.
These disembodied voices from out of the gloom had been menacing enough, but nothing could have prepared them for the sight of the mole Drule who now emerged into the far side of the clearing, the light of the risen moon and stars on him. He was huge and stared about in a fat, grotesque and disinterested way, before stancing down confidently opposite the Duncton moles. He looked up at the Stone, sucked his teeth, spat, and said, ‘Which one of you is Tryfan?’
His pig eyes stared at them. His gross size, his stubby talons, his moist snub snout, everything about him was unpleasant, and cruel. It was clear that he was not going to waste any time, for after only the briefest of pauses while he waited for an answer he pointed a talon at the nearest female, who was Teasel, since she had been the last to be taken to the group.
‘Bring her here.’
As two hefty guardmoles moved in on her there was a movement among the Duncton moles led by Hay to protect her, but six more guardmoles came on aggressively to stop any possibility of effective resistance.
‘Well, which one’s Tryfan?’ he asked Teasel.
She stared at him blankly.
‘My name’s Teasel,’ she said, ‘and I do not know why you’re here. This is Longest Night.’
Drule nodded to the two guardmoles who brought Teasel within reach of him. He stretched out a great fat taloned paw and grabbed her by the throat and pulled her bodily to him.
The action was so fast and violent that the watching group gasped and stared dumbstruck.
Then he held Teasel out from his side and slowly raised her up, his talons tightening about her throat and her cries muffled and choking. Her old paws struggled pathetically at the air and her mouth opened in pain.
‘She’s not Tryfan,’ said Drule looking away from her and back at the defenceless moles huddled by the Stone, ‘so which one is?’
The group parted and Tryfan came out from among them.
‘Leave her be,’ he said. ‘I am Tryfan of Duncton.’
Slowly, too slowly it seemed, Drule lowered Teasel to the ground. His grip did not slacken.
‘Keep him by the Stone,’ he ordered. ‘Group the others behind me and take no nonsense from any that resist.’
He let go of Teasel and she fell sideways on to the ground, her mouth open to the soil, her left paw trying pathetically to reach up to her throat. The atmosphere was heavy with fear.
‘Let me go to her,’ said Feverfew, trying to struggle past a guardmole.
‘Hold her,’ said Drule. ‘Now separate them off …’
Despite Tryfan’s earlier request, there was some attempt at resistance, led now by Hay and Madder, and there were shouts and struggles as none of them wanted to leave Tryfan, least of all Feverfew.
‘Myn luve, myn luve …’
In the brief and hopeless fray, Hay was taloned unconscious, Madder was viciously mauled, and Feverfew was dragged bodily away, her paws literally pulled out of Tryfan’s as she was taken to the others, and he was surrounded by guardmoles and forced to stance still by the Stone.
Herded at the far end of the clearing in the shadows away from the Stone, some of the old moles wept, but most slumped and stared, and a few tended to those who had been hurt. Then two moles came and dragged the half-conscious form of Teasel back to where the others were.
‘She’s dying!’ cried out one of the moles. ‘You’ve killed her.’
Drule smirked and picked his teeth while outside the clearing Clowder gave quiet orders. ‘Aye, stay there … the Master-elect will come this way … no, the Keepers first … oh, aye, they’ve got the mole Tryfan by the Stone.’
For his part the old scribemole stanced still in the Stone’s shadow, unheeding now of the commotions around him, dignified, gentle.
He looked at Drule and asked, ‘Why do you hurt us and ours?’
There was no answer that Drule could make, but nor did he try to or care. He turned to one of his minions, out of sight beyond the clearing, and said, ‘Tell the Twelfth Keeper we have the mole Tryfan here.’
‘’Tis done, Sir.’
The sense that Tryfan and the others already had – that the events that were overtaking them were quite beyond their control – was now increased by the sound of a deep and guttural chanting that began to come out of the High Wood about them.
Nomole can adequately describe that sound nor the growing horror they felt as it began to be accompanied by the tramp-tramp of paws through the undergrowth, getting ever nearer.
Then suddenly two columns of moles, chanting their processional more loudly, came out into the clearing and began to circle the edge of it, one column on either side. The impact on the Duncton moles was all the worse because they had no idea what they were seeing, or that these moles were sideem and senior guardmoles come to welcome the Master-elect to his place of ordination.
For Tryfan and the others the sounds were so alien to anything they had ever heard, so in opposition to the grace and Silence of the Stone, so freakish among the wintry trees of the High Wood, that the feathers of a raven might have turned red in the sky and its flight left a trail of blood among the clouds and it would have seemed less strange, less ominous.
Deep the chant, incomprehensible the words, as over it a guardmole commanded, ‘Be still for the Keepers there, stop shifting about.’ At this moment the eldrene Wort slipped into the clearing, and took a stance adjacent to the place the moles of the Word were using as an entrance.
‘What’s happening?’ one of the Duncton moles began.
There was a tussle, a sickening thump, a moan, and he was silenced by a guardmole. The rest were mute.
The chant deepened and quickened and into the clearing came the Keepers who, but for Mallice and Clowder, were old and slow, and moved unrhythmically, their very discordance evidence of their seniority and importance. Some looked about, some kept their snouts to the ground, Mallice, eyes alight, gazed up at the Stone and then, whispering to Clowder, pointed at Tryfan.
The Keepers were disposed by Slighe near where Drule had been watching over the proceedings, and he retreated to the side, and near the Stone. Now, except for Tryfan, who remained captive by the Stone, the Duncton moles were barely visible at the back.
As suddenly as it had started the chanting stopped, and a dreadful, awesome silence fell. The summary assault on anymole that spoke seemed to have quietened the Duncton moles, though sometimes one of the confused ones spoke loudly or cried out, and one mole was softly sobbing.
‘Shut the bitch up,’ hissed a guardmole.
‘It’s all right,’ whispered one of the females, herself half crying, ‘she’ll not make another sound.’
‘She won’t if she does!’ growled a guardmole.
Two figures moved in the gloom beyond the clearing in the direction from which the sideem and Keepers had come. But for Tryfan, all the moles looked that way, the Duncton moles too, for as well as fear there was a terrible fascination about the scene. Only Tryfan did not look, but stared at the ground before him, though his posture did not speak of defeat or subjection but, rather, of deep sadness.
Then from out of the gloom came Terce, and just behind him, looking at his most powerful and healthy, came Lucerne, his head up, his eye first on the Stone, than on Tryfan beneath it.
‘Is that the mole Tryfan?’ asked Terce of Wort who was just nearby.
‘It is, Twelfth Keeper. Tryfan of Duncton.’
Lucerne came forward and whispered to Terce who, moving to one side, came forward with him. Any fears the Twelfth Keeper had that the Stone might dominate the moles of the Word in general were proved false. It was the tension between Tryfan and Lucerne which dominated, each facing the other, the younger mole staring at the older arrogantly, the older still and looking at the ground.
‘So,’ said Lucerne, ‘you are Tryfan.’
Slowly Tryfan looked up and stared back. By the pale light that shone down, the scars on his face and about his eyes were impenetrable shadows. Certainly he was sad, but it was hard to judge if he was angry as well.
‘This is a holy night,’ said Tryfan, ‘and we are worshipping. Join us.’
A faint smile came to Lucerne’s face.
‘Do you know whatmole I am?’ he asked. ‘Look at me, Tryfan of Duncton.’
‘I know whatmole you must be,’ said Tryfan.
‘Then look proud when you look at me!’ said Lucerne. Did some hint of recognition come to Tryfan’s face then? Some mixture of alarm, of hope, of surprise, of horror? Whatever he felt he did not betray it, but said icily, ‘I have many failings, mole, but pride in you is not likely to be one of them.’
There was a brief laugh from Hay among the Duncton moles followed by a thump as he was hit, and from Wort there was a sharp intake of breath expressing horror that the Master-elect had been insulted.
‘Release the moles of this system, celebrate Longest Night with us though you be of a different faith, be not afraid of us,’ said Tryfan.
‘I am thy son, Tryfan. I am Lucerne of Whern; I am thy Master-elect come to be ordained. Welcome me in the spirit in which I come.’
The guardmoles maintained their solid silence, Mallice stared with unadulterated glee, Wort half closed her eyes and prayed and only the Duncton moles moved and expressed anything – and it was surprise, confusion, disbelief.
‘His son? Master-elect? Lucerne?’
‘We welcome all moles, Lucerne, whatever moles they are, whatever their faith,’ said Tryfan. ‘We welcome them in the spirit of the Stone.’
A mole watching that scene then would have seen Lucerne stiffen a little before this reply, and two others shift their gaze from Tryfan to Lucerne: Mallice and Terce. They saw anger in Lucerne, and knew it came not from what Tryfan said, but what in Lucerne’s eyes he had not done: he did not respond in any way to Lucerne’s declaration that he was his son. It might have been anymole who had come, anymole Tryfan was welcoming.
‘Renounce thy Stone,’ said Lucerne, his voice suddenly harsh. Never had three words spoken in that hallowed place seemed more threatening or more bleak; but never did a reply sound more final.
‘I cannot.’
Son to father, father to son; Word to Stone, Stone to Word.
‘I shall make thee, mole.’
‘Lucerne, you cannot,’ replied Tryfan, speaking for the first and only time in a voice that sounded like a father to a son, but it was a voice of weary warning, not of love.
Lucerne tried one last time.
‘This holy night, here, now, might be your proudest moment, Tryfan of Duncton. Your son shall be ordained the Master of the Word. In the name of the Word I abjure you to renounce thy Stone that we may rejoice together.’
‘Moule, Tryfan moule shal nat renege upon owre Stane,’ said Feverfew from behind, her voice warm and maternal, as if she spoke to a youngster. ‘He cannat renege upon himself. The Stanejys and namoule may gainsay ytt.’
‘She speaks true,’ said Tryfan, slowly turning from Lucerne to face the Stone. It was a gesture of such final dismissal that some say the two guardmoles at his side were later executed for allowing this insult to the Master-elect to take place. But from that moment on the fate of Tryfan, and perhaps the other moles as well, was sealed.
If Tryfan had intended to speak out a prayer to the Stone he was prevented from doing so, for he was dragged, at Drule’s quick command, to one side, and, shrugging, Lucerne turned to Terce and nodded, and without more ado, or chance of change, the ordination of Lucerne of Whern, Master of the Word, glorious in his faith, learned of the Twelve Cleaves, began.
Terce, Twelfth Keeper and most senior, spoke the first words, saying, ‘A Master is called by the Word to work with his fellow Keepers and with the anointed sideem as servant among the moles to whom he has been sent. It is a holy office and he is successor to great Scirpus, receiver of the Cleave. Hear now …’
What the disbelieving followers heard was a recitation by the Twelve Keepers of what being Master meant, as expounded in the scrivenings of past Masters since the first beginnings of that malevolent office. So long did this go on that they might have been forgiven for thinking that they had no role in the rites they were witnessing.
But then the infamous litany and suffrages of that rite began, when each Keeper in turn cried out to the Word to spare the Master from a succession of sins he might commit …
‘From all evil and mischief; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the Stone; from thy wrath … Spare us, good Word, and accept this the Master’s anointing!’
From the first of these pleas in the litany the waiting followers knew what their terrible role was to be. For as it was uttered Hay was dragged, struggling and angry, from the Duncton group and held helplessly against the Stone as Drule came out and stanced hugely over him.
Then Terce asked him, ‘Do you, mole of the Stone, accept the Word’s rule and this thy Master?’
‘I do not!’ cried out Hay, eyes blazing.
Terce turned to Tryfan and said, ‘Thou hast the power to save the life of this sinning mole: renounce in his name. ’
‘Do not do so,’ said brave Hay as Drule readied his talons for a crushing strike.
‘I cannot speak for anymole but myself,’ said Tryfan.
There was no second chance. Terce nodded grimly to Drule and then was the Word’s way known, then was the power of its way seen. Back went the talons of dread Drule, and with a sudden intake of breath his talons thrust down: foul the crushing life-taking noise as he thrust hard into the snout and face of Hay.
But worse came then and evil was seen before the Stone.
‘Holy Word, my mother and my father …’ As the eldrene Wort whispered her obscene litanies a Keeper came forward, thrust his own talons into the still-living head of Hay and, taking his blood, anointed Lucerne across the brow.
‘By this blood of Atonement thy sins shall flee, by this first sacrifice the Word shall be satisfied in thee as Master. ’
No sooner was this rite complete than another Keeper came forward, another suffrage spoken, and another victim dragged forward to the Stone.
‘From all blindness of mind; from pride and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred and malice; from desire of the flesh, and thy wrath … Spare us, good Word!’
So harmless Thrift, who had once stanced at this spot and saved Tryfan’s life, died. Then another Keeper, another demand for renunication of the Stone, another refusal, another death …
From lustful thought, from wrong fornication, from deceit, from plague of mind and spirit, from thy wrath … Spare us, good Word!’
Teasel, already half dead, had her head crushed by Drule against the Stone. Another Keeper, another victim …
Even the most steadfast mole who heard of that grim time finds that a pall of horror numbs his mind, and he sees the events that now followed with disbelief. Why did not Tryfan speak? Why did not a mole like Hay fight more? Why do such things happen at all?
A mole may be unable to answer such questions, but he cannot turn his back on them. If he is to reach the Silence that the Stone brings he must know that such obstructions to his getting there as evil, or wickedness, or greed, or the desire for power such as Lucerne had, cannot be bypassed. No route exists to Silence, nor tunnel be delved, that does not pass through the shadow of suffering, the mists of moles’ selfish ambition, and the bleak dark of evil.
Tryfan, who had seen and felt so much, now saw and felt much more than anymole should bear.
For constantly, in the hours that followed in the ritual ordination of Lucerne, he was asked, ‘Renounce the Stone, Tryfan, and these moles need not be sacrificed. The Word shall take your renunciation in place of the sacred anointing by their blood, the Word shall be merciful. Renounce.’
On and on they were brought to the base of the great Stone. While between each murder – or sacrifice as the Word liturgists would have us call it – Terce and other of the Keepers proceeded with the arcane and filthy rite of blood anointment which Lucerne chose, and all about, obscene in its growing rhythm, like the mating of two mutant grikes, the sideem on each side of the Master-elect, chanted their blood-lustful chant.
Madder, most pitifully calling out for his friend to forgive him, as if, after so long, Dodder had anything to forgive.
Then Dodder quickly followed.
‘Do you … ?’
‘He is not of the Stone,’ growled Tryfan.
‘He is lax to be with thee,’ hissed the eldrene Wort, the only words she said.
‘I do not renounce, and nor must Tryfan for me,’ said Dodder with dignity.
A nod and Drule killed him, and his warm blood was touched (this time) to Lucerne’s mouth and his sickening whispered prayers underlay the chant.
Flint. Crying. How great the Stone seemed over him, how shining now its face. Flint died.
Feverfew, and whispers.
‘This is the mother of the Stone Mole, Master-elect.’
‘Does she renounce?’ Lucerne’s voice was indifferent to Feverfew and what she was, but driving on towards the climax of the ordination.
The very trees seemed stricken then, the crescent moon to bow its head, the wind to haunt among the roots, and flee.
For the first time Tryfan broke down, his head bowed low, and began to speak to save her life. But Feverfew, unafraid, her eyes filled with love as she looked at him, said, ‘Myn luve, do nat doe so. Wat wee yaf hadde, ytt was ynough, ytt yss far more yan thidde trublit moule Lucerne canne ever hav.’
Terce nodded, Drule thrust, and the very Stone seemed to shudder in the night as Feverfew slumped and died at the very place where she had given birth to the Stone Mole.
So the last anointing was performed and all was still, all chanting done for now.
Then Terce, who had begun the rite, now brought it to its conclusion with the concluding liturgy.
‘Receive the Spirit of the Word here now, Lucerne of Whern, as I Twelfth Keeper place my paw upon thy head in token of the faith that all moles of the Word have in thee. Remember that thou strengthen the weak and faltering spirit which is in us by thy supremacy as exemplar of the power, wrath and purpose of the Word. Teach, exhort, and impose upon us the Word’s holy will by whatever means you choose and we shall be obedient to thy will. Minister discipline, show no mercy to the lax and to the wicked, or to the Word’s enemies. Lead us and we shall follow thee whom now at last, for the first time and forever, we call Master. Master Lucerne, Master of the Word!’
‘Master Lucerne! Master!’ The sideem joyously cried out his name, and the moles milled forward, reaching out to touch him. The guardmoles smiled, the Keepers nodded and looked pleased, and all talked and revelled, and were glad for the Master before the Stone.
But Tryfan, still close-guarded, could only stare blankly at the broken bodies of his friends, blankly at the blood-anointed thing that was his son, and blankly at the Stone. And weep for Feverfew.
The moon turned in the sky, Longest Night was long in its Word revelries by the Stone, until at last, in groups, the guardmoles and the sideem and the Keepers left to go back down through the night to the cross-under, leaving only three moles by the Stone: the new Master, the creature Drule, his talons red with gore, and fated Tryfan.
Lucerne came close to Tryfan, for the old mole seemed half dead.
‘Father, I ask you one last time, renounce the Stone.’ He whispered the words, and there was a pleading in them that only Drule would have been allowed to hear.
Tryfan shook his head, his eyes low.
‘Look at me, mole. I am thy Master now. Thy Stone is dead. Look at me.’
Slowly Tryfan looked at him.
‘I … I …’ Then he struggled in Drule’s great paws to look at the Stone and cried out in anguish, ‘Forgive me, Stone, I cannot love him. He is of me, but love him I cannot. Take the sight of him from out of my eyes, for the burden is too great. Let me die.’
Lucerne stared at him, puzzlement giving way to an anger and hatred all the more horrible for being so controlled.
‘The Stone shall answer your prayer, mole, in the form of Drule it shall do it. But not of death. There is no need for that. But thy Master whom you cannot bear to see, you shall not see again. Drule, blind him, just as my grandfather Rune should have done long ago.’
Then Lucerne turned from his father, turned from the
Stone, turned from the clearing of Duncton Wood and, as Drule’s talons lunged down one last time, the Master left the place of his ordination behind. Then Drule pulled back from where Tryfan lay, his face all blood, looked up at the Stone with a sneer, stared at the blood and bodies that lay about its base, spat on them dismissively, and followed his Master out of Duncton Wood.
Cold, cold that Longest Night. The sky, the stars, the moon uncomforting. How slowly the darkness waned away to dawn. When it did, and light crept to Duncton’s Stone again, the bodies there were all turned white, white with frost.
While before them on the ground lay Tryfan, his breath light steam before him. His face was encrusted with blood, and his back fur thick with rime, his breathing slow.
Dawn light touched the Stone above, but where Tryfan lay was a darkness blacker than the night.