Lucerne of Whern, not yet ordained but already undisputed Master of the Word, the lost Henbane’s dread son, perverse and distorted mole whose love of others – whose love of anything – began and ended with himself, was not content.
Which, being so, meant those around him trembled for their lives and feared the tortured deaths his ire could mean. Where Lucerne and his cabal sideem went, there moles were hung to death; where Lucerne smiled nomole laughed; where Lucerne laughed other moles would die. Where Lucerne was, the air seemed dark with threat and doom to those committed to love and truth.
We find him now in a large and elegant burrow delved in the sandy soil in Cannock, a system south-west of the Dark Peak; and before him, trembling yet defiant, their eyes filled with a look of blind faith and adoration of the Stone that sickened him, were three followers found in hiding up on Cannock Chase.
Great though their pathetic faith was, he noticed with contempt that it was not so great that they did not very frequently dart fearful glances at the two moles who stanced on either side of them. The Stone, it seemed, could not protect them from reality.
One of the two was the guardmole Drule, huge of paw and pigged of eye, whom Lucerne had found at Kinder Scout on the crusade’s passage through the Dark Peak, committing wanton murder on young female moles of the Word who had been found enjoying their pleasures with followers of the Stone. Today Drule is notorious, then he was unknown, but Lucerne had already seen in him exceptional and obedient zeal to the Word’s will, combined with total loyalty and a useful cunning that might serve him well, and forthwith appointed him his bodyguard. Drule soon became a mole – the kind a leader such as Lucerne will sometimes need – to whom the very darkest deed could be entrusted and word of it would not leak out. Even from Mallice would some of Drule’s secret acts for Lucerne stay concealed, and though she herself was never quite afraid of him yet most moles always were. It was one of Lucerne’s perversities to enjoy the way that cleverer moles than Drule felt obliged to be nice to him, and smile in sympathy with his doltish grins, and laugh uproariously at his cruel and ignorant jokes.
The other mole was sideem Slighe, who looked inoffensive, being small and bland and with a face that bore a vacuous smile, and in all but one thing was inoffensive to a fault. He was a sideem whom Terce had found to help with the organisation of the crusade, rightly judging him to be efficiency incarnate and just what Lucerne might need in the molemonths and years ahead. An active Master of the Word needs a master of detail at his flank. Slighe was he; his constant presence and willingness to carry through the Master’s policies left Lucerne and Terce free to discuss strategy. And more than that, his perverse and analytic intelligence could find possible problems and potential dangers to the Word where others, not even Terce himself, saw no harm at all.
It gives us only pain to expose the true nature of Slighe’s revolting tastes, which were insatiable where young and uncorrupted male pups were concerned. He was among the most perverse and wicked moles attracted to the Word.
Meanwhile, know that these two had responded to Lucerne’s request to bring some such followers of the Stone as these we find him now with, for he had wished to talk with them, saying, ‘Before we decide our best course it is the Word’s will that we come to understand such moles, what gives them their faith, and what their weaknesses are.’
Terce had disagreed, seeing only danger in such intercourse with Stone followers, and being content that the reports the sideem were daily sending now from all parts of moledom gave all the information they could need.
‘But Terce, you cannot defeat moles’ minds without knowing how they work. You taught me that yourself. I have no doubt that we will eradicate all followers we can find, but it will be costly, and by knowing how they think we may find quicker and more thorough ways.’
So Lucerne had overruled Terce’s wish yet Terce did not much mind, for had he not trained Rune’s grandson to think for himself? So he had shrugged, repeated his warnings, and said no more. Lucerne might, after all, be right, he often was … and Terce knew he owed his continuing position to his ability to be flexible.
For several tedious hours Lucerne had discussed the Stone with the three moles during which Terce, at his side, had not spoken a single word. But at last in the past hour, to his relief, he had seen as the others had that Lucerne had become bored and dispirited.
The moles of the Stone did not yield up to Lucerne’s arguments or implied threats, but that might not have mattered had they offered good argument of their own for him to enjoy. Instead, it seemed, they revealed nothing but faith, based merely on their rearing and without any proof of the power of their Stone at all.
‘These moles seem not to think,’ he said with exasperation, ‘nor to have been trained in any way. They are ignorant of their faith.’ This was said in front of the three followers, who merely smiled at this outburst.
‘Master,’ Terce said, ‘I doubt that many of our moles could give a better account of their faith than these followers could of theirs. You have been trained too long, and lived with only sideem too much and so expect too much.’
What seemed most to anger Lucerne was that not only did they not yield to him, but they were unwilling to name any other mole who was a follower, and responded to the suggestion that such names might be tortured out of them by saying – and this is when the sickening faith came to their eyes – that if that were so it would be the Stone’s will and there was nothing they could do about it.
‘But you tremble, mole, when Drule comes close to you. You know that but one word from me would have his talons finding out your pain. What is your faith worth that you trust it so little to protect you here?’
Drule clashed his talons together and widened his eyes and chuckled, quite delighted with himself. The three moles smiled thinly, looked at each other, and one of them replied, ‘We trusted you, Sir. More we cannot do. As for fear, well, we are but mole. If you were us, threatened and powerless, would you not feel fear?’
‘I should not,’ said Lucerne, disliking the inquisitorial manner of the mole, ‘for all is of the Word and I should submit to its will.’
Silence fell, and it was then that Lucerne’s discontent began to show. He wanted better argument than faith. He wanted more information than such untrained believers as these could give.
‘Shall I kill them, Master?’ said Drule, reading Lucerne’s thoughts.
‘You said …’ began one of the followers, fear in his eyes.
‘He jests,’ said Lucerne immediately. ‘I said you would go free, and so you shall, in time.’
He smiled the smile that few moles could resist and the moles relaxed, even the guardmoles in the shadows at the rear of the chamber. Drule looked sulky, Slighe calculating, while only Terce showed no expression at all.
‘Take them, feed them, keep them until I give orders they can be free,’ Lucerne commanded the guardmoles.
‘Thank you!’ said one of the followers. ‘Yes, thank you! The only way forward is what we have said these few hours past – mutual love and understanding – shared responsibility, a willingness to listen to the other side …’
Lucerne raised a paw.
‘You have made your point more than once,’ he said. ‘Speak of it again and Drule will pull your tongue out with his teeth. A speciality of his.’ Drule bared his teeth and the moles looked shocked and then smiled, and even managed a shaky laugh as several of the guardmoles chuckled. Drule beamed.
‘It is but the Master’s joke,’ he said, with ghastly irony.
Yet was Lucerne serious? His eyes did not smile, and nor was Drule’s good cheer entirely convincing. There was terrible menace in what Lucerne had said. The mole shut up.
‘So … you shall be cared for. Take them.’
The moment they had gone Lucerne said, ‘Well, and shall we kill them?’
Drule shrugged indifferently. Such decisions were not his to make.
Slighe said, ‘They have served their purpose, Master. They have no further information to give us, and gave us little anyway.’
‘Terce?’ said Lucerne. He liked to hear what others said before making judgement on such things.
‘I was wrong, Lucerne, and you, as often enough to depress an old mole like me, were right.’
Lucerne smiled faintly but with pleasure at this flattery.
‘And so? You have not spoken a word since they came.’
Terce thought for a little and then said, ‘To me the most important thing was not what they said or did not say, but what they were.’
‘What they were?’ said Slighe, frowning. He liked facts and clarity, not subtle ambiguity.
‘They were grateful,’ said Terce, ‘and gratitude is weakness in a mole and something easy to exploit.’
‘Grateful?’ mused Lucerne. ‘Tell us more.’
‘They were grateful in two different ways. First, of course, because you spared them. But that is unimportant. Then secondly, by talking to them you gave them legitimacy and for that they were pleased as well as grateful.
‘No doubt that could be dangerous, but dealt with right then we could bring many followers out into the open. We could engage them in debate and discourse and so discover for ourselves their numbers and dispositions. Knowing which we could strike where and when it hurt them most. In the name of the Word we could strike, having first proved them to have been dishonourable. We reached out a paw in peace, they talon it, they are in the wrong, and we are seen to be right to punish them.’
Terce shrugged: such was the way of the Word, was it not?
Lucerne understood his meaning and the nature and promise of such strategy.
‘This has attractions,’ he said, ‘and I shall think on it. Meanwhile keep those followers close by, treat them well, and when I am ready I shall try to see them one more time. Whether we release them or ask Drule to show them to the dark burrow I do not yet know.’
He smiled at his euphemism for murder, and the others smiled too. Cruel smiles, bleak smiles, smiles of indifference, as fitted their different positions, and all pitiless.
The great crusade had started as Lucerne wished: simply and well. He had had no wish to raise hopes too high too early, for raised hopes create expectations, and unfulfilled expectations in moles make them dissatisfied and harder to command.
The Keepers had led the new sideem south through Grassington and then over the Dark Peak. There had been nothing but welcome for them, though in some systems – especially as they passed through the southern Peak which lies near to Beechenhill – Lucerne could have wished the welcomes had been warmer. But then the systems that failed to enthuse for the Word had been noted down by Slighe. Apathy was punishable.
Inevitably, the new sideem were eager to see punishment for crimes against the Word begin but Lucerne was cautious, especially about creating sympathy for followers of the Stone. What reports he had had by then made clear that the policy of restraint and indoctrination rather than the savage suppression that followed Henbane’s invasion had been slow but sound.
If there was to be punishment it had best be against lax moles of the Word, for that would intimidate other moles of the Word and put new zeal into them while lulling the followers of the Stone into false security.
Nevertheless, Lucerne decided to yield to the demands of the new sideem when they reached Ashbourne, which lay conveniently close to Beechenhill and was to be the place where Mallice left him for her investigation into that system. Winster, the elderly eldrene of Ashbourne, had been proven lax along with some of her guardmoles and they were snouted after a formal hearing by the Keepers.
It had been the first snouting in public Drule had done, and it gave him pleasure. All the new sideem attended, their faces bearing that look of unbearable smugness that righteous moles who suffer from an excess of zeal have when they see others justly punished. Slighe made a fool of himself – not when the guardmoles screamed but when the eldrene was snouted. Females, in pleasure or in pain, he could not bear. Their blood sickened him.
Soon after they left Ashbourne Lucerne sensed that another swift trial and punishment would consolidate his reputation for just ruthlessness that the recent events in Whern followed by the snoutings in Ashbourne had begun to make. The over-fed Fennybor, sideem of Belper, was a suitable victim none would miss and he was force-marched by Drule for three days with the new sideem until he was hung up to die on the wire of a fence that others might see that the Word was harsh on those that abused its trust. Terce spoke the address at Fennybor’s death and suggested it was allmole’s duty to report those that were slack in their prayers and observations, or spoke ill of the Word.
A pall of suspicion and prayer fell on the new sideem after this, and everymole was careful to observe the Word to every last scrivening of its rituals. Not a worm was eaten but that a grace was said over it first; not a new sideem went to sleep but that he spoke the grace of the protection of the Word, and made sure that others knew it; and made even surer that if another lapsed then it was reported.
In such ways did Lucerne begin to assert the Word’s might upon all about him, choosing moles to punish none would miss and avoiding, as yet, too much aggression against the Stone.
The weather was wet and unpleasant for much of September, and the progress, though steady, was slow. But the crusade crossed the southern Peak and into the bland lowland beyond, and there Lucerne followed his instinct and veered south-westerly. It was sometime then that one of several sideem sent out earlier than the main party from Whern located him and was able to report the existence of the largely deserted system of Cannock.
The Cannock system lies to the south of that wild and wormless place that gave it its name, Cannock Chase. The only moles that live there are youngsters from adjacent systems finding their strength, or outcasts no system wants. Or, as in Lucerne’s day, followers of the Stone.
It was here, while making a patrol of the Chase, that guardmoles were later to pick up those three followers Lucerne was to spend time interviewing. But that was yet to come, for when he first arrived he had no time for indulgences, and wanted only to ensure that he had made the right choice and finally he felt he had.
Cannock is a place quite wormful enough for a winter stay, and perfectly suited to Lucerne’s purpose. It lies as near to the centre of moledom as a mole could wish, if his desire is to set in motion an extended campaign against the Stone which could most easily reach its insinuating and destructive talons to even the most secret lost places of moledom where faith in the Stone might still lurk.
Apart from its location, Cannock had little to commend it. The tunnels were intrinsically dull and of no interest compared to the cold and subtle splendours of Whern, but Lucerne was pragmatic enough, too, to see the advantage in living in a place where sideem would not wish to be for long: such places test moles, and bring out the best and expose the weakest; such places do not invite others to take them over or to oust those who control them. What was more it had no Stone, nor evidence of any nearby, and that was to the good. Sideem did not like Stones and Lucerne was glad to pander to their fear, though he himself wished he had time to venture further south and see the great Stones of the Ancient Systems there of which he had heard so much. That perverse pleasure was still to come.
What also attracted him to Cannock was its relative proximity to Beechenhill. He sensed, for reasons he could not articulate, that this was a system of importance in the struggle for the Word, and its destruction would do much to hasten the decline of the Stone. He was already impatient for the report of it that Mallice would bring, and in any case disliked it when she was far from him. But he knew well that her power must not rest on his favour alone and she must win respect with an important task of which she made a success.
Nor was Cannock so far south that Clowder need be long delayed once he had finished matters satisfactorily in Ribblesdale. Indeed, the moment Cannock had been chosen as a base, Lucerne had commanded Slighe to send out messengers to key route points so that returning moles knew where to come and the swiftest ways were discovered and made known.
Soon reports started to come in from the moles Lucerne had sent out from Whern, and they tended to confirm the view that rumours of the Stone Mole’s coming had aroused followers to meetings at Stones up and down moledom, and to other blatant affirmations of their faith. Yet not one single sideem had yet been able to report a specific sighting of this supposed mole, which supported Terce’s belief that the rumour was mere projection of a need followers had for a leader.
In the meantime the news of the Siabod and Welsh moles was more disturbing. Soon after his establishment at Cannock Lucerne had, at last, an eye-witness account of the routing of the guardmoles from the tunnels of high Siabod from a senior guardmole sent by Ginnell himself.
Lucerne heard how the guardmoles had yielded to an extended campaign of Siabod attack in March and, encouraged by that success the revolt had spread through the interior of Wales and even spilled over its borderland with orthodox moledom. Since August and September things had gone quiet, and Ginnell had been planning to come once he was satisfied that the western front was in capable paws.
It was from this same source that Lucerne first heard the name Caradoc, the ‘mad’ mole whose base was the high and desolate stronghold of Caer Caradoc, from which he got his name.
‘Nomole that I know has ever even seen him, though other of the rebel leaders are known to us – Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw Ginnell has seen, and Alder was, in times gone by, a guardmole himself.’
‘I had not been informed of that,’ said Lucerne with a frown. ‘Siabod led by a former guardmole? This is a mole I would like to submit to the Word’s punishment and I have no doubt that in time he shall be.’
‘But Siabod is a terrible place, Master, barely worth the trouble of holding it, which is why Ginnell was willing to retreat east …’
Had Ginnell’s aide known Lucerne better he would not have been so tactless as to talk of ‘retreat’, for Lucerne impatiently cut him short and said, ‘The Word does not care if the paws freeze off mole in Siabod – it is not the place that matters but what it represents. Must I be surrounded by moles who do not understand this?’
He fell into a terrifying silence which the aide had the good sense not to break. Eventually it was Terce who diplomatically moved the subject on: ‘Alder, Troedfach … give us other names, mole, more names. Slighe, scriven them down, scriven them!’
The aide saw a chance of recovering his position and was grateful to Terce for providing it.
‘There’s a clever young mole called Gareg in the south, and another, Gaelri, we know about. There’s Caradoc, of course … prisoners we’ve taken swear by his name and tell us he spreads the belief the Stone Mole will visit him personally one day.’
‘Always the Stone Mole!’ said Lucerne coldly. ‘Always! These prisoners of yours, do they give much away?’
‘Any prisoner will say anything, Master, if he’s asked the right way. But … no. Torture’s not the way to get them to do anything but lie, or curse you by the Stone. And Ginnell’s not one for such means.’
‘Like Wrekin before him,’ said Terce.
‘I wonder if Drule might know how to make such moles talk,’ said Lucerne with a sparse smile. ‘When will Ginnell be here?’
‘A week or two, Master. He is most anxious to come.’
‘Dismissed,’ said Lucerne.
‘Always the Stone Mole!’ exclaimed Lucerne again, when the aide left them. ‘I tell you this, Terce, the first mole who brings me positive evidence that this mole exists, and is alive, will find gratitude and favour from me.’
Slighe said, ‘Is that a decree, Master?’
‘A decree? What … ? Oh, the Stone Mole? Yes. Yes, make it so. Tell all those sideem that leave Cannock for task work now to say that the Master Lucerne will show the Word’s gratitude to he or she who brings credible report of this Stone Mole.’
‘I shall.’
A matter that also recurred to exasperate Lucerne at this difficult time of news-gathering and inactivity was the question of the status of Wyre at Buckland. That he was still alive was not in doubt – indeed, initial reports from that system and systems nearby were good and suggested that the Word and its representatives were generally feared. Lucerne had been relieved to learn that Wyre, acting on his own authority, had ordered a strengthening of guardmole vigilance, and quelled further revolt with brutal and decisive measures against well-chosen systems.
But while that was all well and good, Wyre himself – who had originally been chosen by Rune to replace Henbane when she returned victorious from her southern campaign – seemed to have become a reclusive mole. No report gave an account of meeting him; all was at second paw by moles who had heard this or seen that but knew nothing definite of Wyre himself.
The problem seemed to be that he had been ill with scalpskin, and perhaps he still was.
‘We need something more than hearsay, Terce … if he needs to be replaced then the sooner the better. If he is avoiding contact because his ailments are too serious then that itself is disloyalty and disobedience, and must be punished.’
‘At least two sideem have sent reports from Buckland but because they were unsatisfactory another has been despatched by Slighe.’
‘It may be we shall need an example in the south,’ said Lucerne ominously. ‘A striking example and one nomole shall forget. Wyre must be old now.’
‘Four longest nights,’ said Terce. ‘Almost my age.’
‘Old indeed, Senior Keeper. Old enough to dispense with, don’t you think?’
‘It may be so,’ said Terce, his face a study in inscrutability.
‘Well, we must know soon. See to it. Nomole is indispensable; none irreplaceable.’
‘No, Master,’ agreed Terce.
‘Nor can just enquiries of the Word simply be ignored by moles because it suits their circumstances. Such attitudes weaken us and by this fact alone are blasphemy against the Word …’ Lucerne’s voice rose, his body hunched and he looked dangerous and angry as he did when all was not just so and he was therefore not absolutely in control.
‘It is not what moles do but what they think and feel we must be wary of and seek to change. This we must make our sideem understand, Terce, or else all we do in the field shall be undone in moles’ minds. That aide of Ginnell’s, for example, did not understand that it is not Siabod that is dangerous but the fact of it. It is not Beechenhill I shall destroy but the spirit of rebellion and insubordination which its continuing existence represents. The crusade we shall fight shall seem to be about talons and strength but in reality it shall be about concepts, and the winning of moles’ minds. Do you understand me, Terce? Will they?’
‘I understand you better, Master, every day. If I may say this with no disrespect to your grandfather, the Word speaks more clearly through you today than it once did through the Master Rune.’
Lucerne smiled with pleasure to hear this but then he protested as if for modesty’s sake and said, ‘But without his work, and the work he did through my mother Henbane, our task would be hard today. Your task is to help me be sure that the new sideem understand our intentions. Clowder, Mallice, Slighe and the others will win us physical power under my leadership, but spiritual ascendancy is where, finally, the true task will lie. When allmole knows the power of the Word, and believes it, and feels love for it, only then shall the Stone finally die. This is no easy thing, but am I not right to think that it is the final object of the Twelfth Cleave in which you trained us, and will be its greatest triumph?’
‘You are right, Master,’ whispered Terce soothingly. At times like this Lucerne’s manner became so intense and his eyes so fierce that he trucked no argument or obstruction, and it would have been a brave mole who confronted him. Terce knew well his Master, and his frustrations. He noted, too, the positive reference to Henbane and observed now, as he had in the moleyears since Henbane’s flight from Lucerne’s life, that when Lucerne was at his most serious and intense he invariably mentioned his mother in this way, as if forgetting the contempt and hatred for her which he claimed to feel, and often expressed, and instead revealing the ambiguity of his attitude towards her.
‘The Word always has a solution,’ said Lucerne finally, ‘and through me it shall be found. That is my task. Now tell me, Terce, what do you know of the Rolls of the Systems at Uffington?’ He asked this last question without pause, but Terce knew from his calmer expression that Lucerne had passed the peak of his anger and frustration and was himself once more. In all his experience with Rune, with Henbane, with other Keepers, Terce had never met a mole more capable of clearing his mind and heart of things that a moment before had seemed to overwhelm him, and move on positively to focus on something else.
‘The Rolls?’ repeated Terce, collecting his thoughts and smiling with sudden pleasure to be servant of such a Master.
‘Slighe mentioned them to me,’ said Lucerne impatiently.
‘Our understanding is that in Uffington’s heyday it was every scribemole’s task to go forth into moledom and bring back a report on the systems he visited. These reports came to constitute the great Rolls of the Systems, kept in the libraries of the Holy Burrows. Perhaps unwisely, the library was destroyed by the Mistress Henbane’s henchmoles.’
‘Very unwisely I would say. What were the Rolls used for?’
Terce looked surprised.
‘Control, of course, though the scribemoles would not have called it such. Their existence made it possible for successive generations of scribemoles to know the history and disposition of each system – what mattered to it, what moles had been important to it and so forth – and so be able to judge how best to act when problems arose.’
‘Information we might have used,’ said Lucerne acidly. ‘Should we not now do the same?’
‘In a manner we do. The reports of the sideem are filed and stretch back over the centuries, though until Rune’s day they were but modest things and irregularly kept.’
‘If you mean some of the scrivenings I’ve seen in Whern they were useless, Terce. We can do better, and if we are to consolidate the power that we have and maintain it well we must do better. We cannot rule without knowledge. We shall make a Scrivening of the Systems to match any Rolls ever made. It will inspire travelling sideem to know that their reports are part of something that will last forever.’
‘Where shall it be kept?’
‘Whern. Only in Whern. The mole – the Master – who controls such a scrivening shall hold great power for the Word. It shall give idle sideem something to do, and never-ending tasks on which to employ sideem with whom we are displeased. It shall be most useful to us.’
Terce nodded. ‘Slighe and myself will arrange it,’ he said.
In such ways, through the autumn years of September and early October, was Lucerne’s strategy for the crusade developed and its continuing success ensured. Doing everything with patience and order, and so far with only sufficient violence to consolidate his power among the sideem, Lucerne succeeded in gaining in strength even as he learned about moledom.
By mid-October most of those new sideem who had set forth with specific reporting tasks had come back, and the gist of their reports been made known to Lucerne and the Keepers. Although some key questions had still not been answered, and he had yet to meet with Ginnell, or learn the truth of Wyre, Lucerne seemed to have instinctively felt that the time to give a more specific and uniting task had come. He knew that winter would soon be on them all and that if sideem were to reach the further destinations he would want them to go to, he must lose no time. What was more, the gathering sideem were growing restless for all knew they would be given new tasks and most were impatient for more important ones than they had before.
Lucerne was inclined to act quickly, and it was Terce who urged caution.
‘Wait until we have word from Clowder, wait for Mallice’s return. They were moles anointed with you, they will wish to be involved. And Ginnell … he may feel disregarded if he finds the sideem went forth without due consultation, especially if guardmoles are involved.’
‘You are right,’ said Lucerne suddenly, ‘and I am overtired. I shall give them a little more time. Why is Mallice not yet returned?’
‘You miss her, Master?’ said Terce.
‘I do, Terce. But she is your daughter – do you not fear for her? Her task is a dangerous one.’
‘I trust the Word, Master. I know it will protect her.’
‘I trust it will. But I am tired, and Cannock begins to bore me. Reports, interrogations, planning … I shall leave it for a time. You shall take my place.’
‘But Master …’ began Terce, much alarmed, for Lucerne had never been far from him, and never beyond his control. Nor did Terce enjoy the idea of absolute power.
‘I have need to find the Word again,’ said Lucerne quietly. ‘Now where is Slighe? Guardmole, summon him!’
Slighe, who was never far away, came hurrying in. ‘Master?’ he asked.
‘I am leaving Cannock for a short time …’ Slighe’s face showed the same alarm that Terce’s had and Lucerne laughed aloud. ‘I shall be safe enough! The Word shall care for me! Now listen … our planning is almost done. When I return it will be to set the next stages of the crusade in motion, and once it begins I fear it will have a life of its own and we who lead it shall not get much rest. So, briefly, while I have time, I shall seek my way with the Word.’
‘Surely Master …’ said Slighe unhappily.
‘But …’ tried Terce again.
‘Meanwhile I have a task for you and Slighe which will keep you occupied enough not to worry about me, Tutor Keeper.’ He smiled as he used this old way of addressing Terce. ‘In consultation with the new sideem, but in secrecy of our true intent, you shall together begin to group the sideem and guardmoles into threes. Each group shall be able to act independently and alone, and each must contain the skills of scrivening and of fighting. For this reason one at least shall be sideem, one at least guardmole. The third may be either, or simple helper, according to your judgement. Place all the new sideem in this way. Slighe has already made scrivenings of the different systems according to their loyalty to the Word and the strength of Stone belief within them. The systems must each have a group of three moles nominated to it; begin to match them to each other, though I shall make the final choice on my return. So, that is all. If the Word wills that Clowder, Ginnell and Mallice return while I am gone, then brief them thoroughly. I shall wish not to waste time when I return.’
‘It shall be done,’ said Terce.
Lucerne raised a taloned paw.
‘Do not have me followed, Terce. I would be alone. Not even Drule.’ Terce flicked a glance at Slighe and looked apologetic. Sending a trusted guardmole to follow the Master had been exactly his intent.
‘I mean it, Terce. Whatever mole you send after me I shall kill and that would be a waste,’ said Lucerne at his most charmingly chilling. ‘Like anymole, the Master has need to be alone at times. Now I shall leave.’
‘Master?’
‘Yes, Slighe?’
‘Just for the scrivens … have these groups a name?’
Lucerne paused and thought.
‘Call them trinities. It is a fitting name and the sideem shall like it.’
‘Trinities,’ whispered Slighe, playing with the word.
‘Trinities,’ repeated Lucerne, and with that he left.
So began the trinities, the most hated and feared of all Lucerne’s creations.
So began as well that extraordinary and mysterious interlude in which, briefly, Lucerne was lost to the sight of all the moles of the Word in Cannock, not excepting even Terce himself.
‘Keeper Terce? A question.’
‘Scrivener Slighe?’
‘Where has the Master gone?’
‘The Master seeks a mole I fear he shall not find: his mother Henbane. It is a need he does not know he has. When Mallice is with him he forgets that need, for she ministers to it. Now she is gone that ache has returned. He will not find Henbane, I think, but no doubt he’ll find a female soon enough. Some little slip of nothing who’ll not know the mole who’s come to her.’
‘I do not like not knowing where my Master is,’ said Slighe.
‘Nor I, Slighe, much more nor I. It was a mistake that I let Mallice go so far from him and for so long. I shall not permit it ever again.’
‘But he is Master, he can do as he wills,’ said Slighe.
‘No, Slighe, he is the Word’s servant, and he cannot. Do not forget that. Never forget it. Upon your understanding of that will lie the final fulfilment of your task for which, I may remind you, I preferred you myself.’
Slighe stared at Terce and blinked. His eyes were empty of emotion.
‘We have a task, Senior Keeper,’ he said at last.
‘Scrivener Slighe, we have.’
It was in the few days that Lucerne was gone that first Clowder and then Ginnell came at last to Cannock. Terce briefed them on all that had been happening and made his own record of their news.
‘Tell nomole of this, Clowder,’ he said, when that mole had finished his description of the terrible events for which he had been responsible in Ribblesdale, beside which few massacres in mole history compare except, perhaps, that in Weed and Fescue’s day on the Slopeside of Buckland when the clearers were all killed and Tryfan and other followers barely escaped.
Ginnell, a grizzle-furred mole of spare body and few words, and an impressive grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of moles of the Word and Stone alike, gave detailed reports to Terce as well.
Neither mole could credit that Terce did not know where Lucerne was.
Terce merely sighed and shrugged, saying, ‘He wished to be alone. He is mole as well as Master, Clowder.’
‘Humph!’ said Clowder.
‘Nomole knows where the overall commander is?’ said Ginnell incredulously.
‘He knows where we are,’ said Terce.
‘Well!’ said Ginnell, who expected moles, even Masters, to be where they said they would be.
‘He will soon be back,’ said Terce.
‘Aye!’ chuckled Clowder. ‘He will! The Master, or rather the Keeper Lucerne as he still is, is probably with Mallice, and if not with her then with a wench, and a young one. He likes them so! Eh, Terce?’
‘It is possible,’ said Terce carefully.
‘Well, when he comes back let me know,’ said Ginnell.
‘We will,’ said Clowder. ‘Mole, we will.’
Clowder knew his friend and Master well, but Terce, who had made him what he was, knew him better.
Even so, until now, the truth of Lucerne’s brief disappearance from Cannock that October has not been known. We can only make a surmise from a certain record made much later by a certain mole whose name … whose name is best for now left unspoken.
However it was, however it will be, that mole much later, when the events of this history became but shifting shadows and passing light across forgotten fields, had good reason of his own to venture forth into the moors that lie north-east of Cannock Chase. Good reason to talk to moles along the way, good reason to point his snout upmoor and press on and answer when a mole asked, ‘Greetings, mole, whither are you bound?’
‘To see the Five Clouds. Can you direct me to them?’
‘Aye, mole, you’re not far off. A day to the north-west of here and you’ll find them. Keep to the streams, there’s food along their way.’
It was not mole country, yet that mole pressed on and saw at last five overhangs of millstone grit darkening the skyline above and beyond. In their lee, far under them, he met a mole he had sought for many a molemile past. She might have been as old as the dark grit that overshadowed the isolated but homely tunnels she and her kin had made. Dark though her fur, overhung the place, yet her eyes were bright as speedwell.
He saw her and he saw her kin in the system thereabouts, generations of her making, and his troubled face looked pleased. She saw him, and her peaceful eyes looked troubled.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked her.
‘I can guess who you might be.’
‘Can you guess why I might have come?’
‘I can. How did you know?’
‘He never forgot,’ said the traveller. As the old female’s eyes lightened with pleasure, he asked softly, ‘Will you tell me?’
She stared at him, and when the youngsters who came near stopped to stare as well, she sent them away.
‘Shall you ever speak of it?’
‘It is part of moledom’s history and my own. I may speak of it, I may scribe of it: there is no promise I shall ever make I cannot keep.’
She was silent a long time, and for some of it she turned and gazed at the Five Clouds above.
At last she said, ‘I have never spoken of it. Why must I do so to you?’
‘Look at me, mole, look well.’
She did, and she nodded and she sighed. Then she did speak, and that stranger mole made a record of what she said.
‘I did not know his name. He was young, he was like nomole I had ever seen or ever saw again. The sky was in his fur so bright it was as if it had never been there before. I was afraid of him and asked him whither he was bound. When he made no reply I said, ‘Are you going to Beechenhill?’ In those days that was a system outcasts and followers of the Stone sought out for refuge, and the Five Clouds and the Roaches beyond was a safer route than most. We often saw such vagrant moles pass through.
‘Are you in trouble with the grikes?’
It was then he gave me the only dark look I ever saw upon his face. It made me cry. He asked me if I was of the Stone and I said I did not know what I was. I had gone there to escape such things. But if the Stone was like the Five Clouds then yes, I was of the Stone. And if the Word was of the Five Clouds, then the Word was for me. I was surprised that he asked me what they were and so I took him there. It was October, yet warm and he was male, and I was untouched by mole. Before he came I had felt so young and gay, but the moment he looked at me I felt I had waited for him all my life, and as if my life had been long. I took him upslope a little way to see the Five Clouds better than we could from here and when he saw them he said we must go to them. I said nomole should, and he said he was not ‘nomole’. He took me there, and beyond to the Roaches themselves where the scent of pine makes the rounded rocks and wormless soils seem light and heady. There above the Five Clouds where I thought I could never go, nor have ever been again, we mated. For a time he was everything to me. I never knew there could be such joy with any mole, nor have I ever known it since. His talons were both rough and soft, wild and free, his body strong. Yet sometimes he was like a pup in my paws and even said himself that if I’d been able I should have suckled him. It was but lovers’ talk. Sometimes he seemed but a pup …
I do not know how many days we wandered there. On the last day I pointed east and said, ‘Beechenhill’s there. Was that where you were going?’ He said, ‘I know ’tis there. I know.’ If he had not been so strong, so fierce at times, so assured unto himself, I would have said he was afraid. ‘Promise me you’ll never go there, never.’ I did. I would have promised anything.
We wandered slowly back downslope to here where he left me and where you find me now. I knew he would not come back.’
‘What was his name?’
‘I never asked his name,’ she said, ‘not once. Nor did he ask mine. When we needed a name we took it from the earth or the air or the sky as we made love. He was most beautiful. He made my life.’
‘Did he ever say where he had come from, or whither he was bound?’
She shook her head.
‘Do you know who he was?’
‘He chose not to tell and I not to ask. Why should I change that now?’ She looked around and saw the youngsters born of her own youngsters’ young. They were curious and creeping near once more. She looked very old and yet her eyes were so filled with that short memory they seemed as young as those of the pups that ran to her.
‘What’s he want?’ asked one of them.
‘To talk of the Five Clouds,’ she said.
‘Oh, them! When’s he leaving?’
‘Don’t be so forward, don’t be so rude,’ she said, laughing.
‘He’s going now!’ they said. ‘What did he want?’
She said nothing but watched the mole leave, dark, his fur shining with the sky, and long before he paused to look back and raise a paw and call farewells she had turned from the sight of him and followed the youngsters to play.
Such is the record that mole made, and it remains the only clue to where, that October long ago, when darkness was poised to fall across moledom’s pleasant land, Lucerne, Henbane’s son, might have been.
Lucerne came back to Cannock as secretly as he had left. Now he had been there, then he had been gone, now he was returned as Terce had said he would: full of the fire of crusade, impatient to begin.
‘The sideem are all here, all waiting, all eager, Master,’ said Terce, with Slighe in attendance. ‘The trinities are named; Clowder has returned and Ginnell arrived. All is ready.’
‘All? Is Mallice here?’
‘She is not, Master.’
‘I am displeased.’
‘But your … journey. You … were … satisfied?’
‘Satisfied?’
‘With where you have been.’
Lucerne looked at Terce in such a way that Terce never asked that question again. Nor, when she later heard of it, was Mallice ever fool enough to ask. Nor anymole. What was had been. What would be was what mattered now. ‘Have Clowder and Ginnell reported?’
‘Fully.’
‘Good news?’
‘Excellent.’
‘It is well. You will brief me now before I see them. It will save time. Meanwhile, Slighe, let it be known that tomorrow, early, the whole chapter of sideem shall meet and then I shall make known the nature of the task the trinities will have. After I have spoken with Terce, and talked with Clowder and Ginnell, we three shall meet again and arrange which trinities will go where. It will be a long night, Terce.’
‘But the beginning of a longer night for the followers of the Stone,’ replied the Twelfth Keeper.
‘You are nearer to the truth than you yet know!’ said Lucerne, his eyes bright. ‘Now brief me.’
Of the full horrors and pitiless slaughter that Clowder was responsible for at Mallerstang in Ribblesdale we shall soon know more. It was the first of the new massacres in the name of the Word. Everymole, male or female, old and young, that Clowder and his guardmoles found in that quiet and peaceful place was killed in a rapine orgy of violence. The moles of Horton, judged pure of the Word, were nevertheless forced to see Clowder’s work for themselves, trekking up the bloody slopes of Mallerstang. Lest there be any doubt at all of what a mole’s duty was, the eldrene and the senior guardmoles of Horton were forced as well to snout some moles Clowder ordered to be kept alive for that purpose.
To this day the slopes of Mallerstang seem to hang heavy with that massacre, and in October, when autumn comes, then if the sun shines those desolate slopes seem red. ‘Aye, red with the blood of innocents,’ as the locals say.
‘It is well done,’ said Lucerne. ‘We shall have Clowder tell the full story to the chapter of the sideem tomorrow. It will encourage them and make their duty clear. Mallerstang shall be an example for us all of how the Word made angry wreaks vengeance on the wicked and the sly.’
Early the next day Lucerne spoke to the full chapter of the sideem. There was a change among those who expectantly and eagerly waited for him to speak compared to those who had heard him in Whern at Midsummer after the ousting of Henbane. Now there was a harder and more certain air about them all: some had scars from travels they had made, some seemed older by far. But the most part of the difference was in the confidence and spirit they had. The weak ones had gone and those that were left, or the older sideem who had survived the testing times of interrogation, were resolute and self-disciplined.
Before Lucerne spoke, Terce told the moles about the trinities and Slighe assigned them to one and to a system, so that each knew with whom he would serve his task and where he must go, though none knew yet what the task might be.
There was mounting excitement and curiosity about this when Clowder rose and gave a cold, impartial account of the destruction of Mallerstang. He told how those moles had mocked the Word, and why its judgement had been merciless. Awed silence met the end of his account, and then such cries as a rabble makes when it feels victorious and its evils seem justified. Cries which ask for more and call for death on all those not on their side.
In this atmosphere of brimming violence and hatred, Lucerne at last rose up. Instant silence came. The speech he made was a long and passionate address, though in Terce’s record of it the full power of it is lost, and the passion diluted. But the record shows that all who heard it rejoiced to be so led, and to be given tasks of the Word that would lead inevitably to the destruction of the Stone.
As he spoke on, there came an adoration to the sideems’ faces, and when he smiled they laughed, and when he laughed some were moved to tears.
‘Help him, Word!’ they cried out.
‘Blessed be our Master!’
‘Your Master? Nor yet even Master of the Word. For I am not yet ordained. Nor shall I ever be … no, not ever be.’ He paused and the silence was so great that if a mole had dared breathe it would have been heard.
‘No, my fellow sideem, I am not ordained. And this pledge I give thee as I give it to the Word we serve and which makes us and gives us our life. When the task we begin this day is complete, on that night will I be ordained. By the whispered Word, by the bloodied Stone, by the drift of cloud, by the rasp of just talon; by the shout of triumph in thy hearts shall I be ordained. When that night comes, that dread night for those that fear the judgement of the Word, when that night is here – that night when rejoicing fills the heart of those who have no fear of what they do – then shall the Word judge me Master. But what night shall that be? What shall it be to us?’
‘Tell us when, Master!’ shouted a sideem.
‘Master, tell us what we must do that you shall be ordained.’
‘You must fulfil your tasks,’ he said simply, his voice suddenly calm, his eyes watching for their response as he paused and wiped white spittle from the corner of his mouth.
‘What is our task?’ another said, his voice pleading with Lucerne to say.
‘To go forth obediently in those trinities in which you have been placed. To go to those systems to which you are nominated.’ He stared at them, playing with their terrible desire.
‘But what shall we do?’ one asked at last.
‘Do that which is most hard. You shall … listen. Listen to the followers of the Stone. Listen for the deceit and fraud they call Silence. Listen and scriven the names, the places, the strengths, the weaknesses, the everything of the followers.’
They looked at each other in bewilderment.
‘Is that all?’ a sideem whispered to another.
‘All?’ cried out Lucerne with feigned rage. ‘This “all” shall be the very essence of the Stone’s destruction. The Word would know the strength of its enemy. The Word would know the places where its enemy dwells. The Word will know it all. You shall gain their trust; your trinities will be made welcome; the eldrenes and the guardmoles shall defer to you; you shall use every means at your command to find out the where and the what of the followers, except for this.’
Lucerne raised a paw and extended a single, shining, sharp, curved talon.
‘There shall be no violence. Yet. There shall be no punishment. Yet. If you are mocked, or reviled, or threatened, you shall smile and not respond in kind. Yet. You shall only listen.
‘But as the Word is mighty, as the Word is great, together we shall make such a scrivening of the systems that we shall know where the Stone is, and what it is, and how it shall be destroyed.
‘This is your task. And it shall be done swiftly, for the Word is impatient to give its judgement on those moles that mock it by their belief. Remember this. For every blasphemous word you hear ten Stone followers shall die; for every sideem mocked or threatened shall one hundred followers die; for everymole that dares to turn his back on the Word to face the Stone, his mate, his pups, his kin, all his vile kind shall be judged eliminate, and punished to death.’
‘When shall this be?’ they cried.
‘When?’ whispered Lucerne, his eyes narrowing and black. ‘I wish to tell you when but I dare not for even here, among us now, the Stone lurks. Aye, moles! Here, it stays. You shall know when it is too late for the traitor Stone to turn and warn its spawn. But know this at least.’ The darkness seemed to gather into Lucerne’s face. His talons rasped the ground and a whisper of dark sound encircled them all. He hunched forward and they all moved a little closer, as if what he had to say was the darkest secret yet.
‘By virtue of the tasks your trinities shall now fulfil, the Word will have the darkness of justice and vengeance fall upon the Stone. That shall be the night I am ordained. Then shall we all be celebrants of the Word, then shall we all be ordained in the power of its judgement.’
This was what Lucerne said and it was enough, with the more detailed briefings Terce and Slighe then gave, for Cannock to buzz with excitement and for the sideem to set off across moledom in their sinister trinities, with purpose and intent.
All the day following, moles left Cannock, hastening away to fulfil their tasks. Many came to say their farewells to Lucerne. Others, who knew him less well, lingered for the chance to smile and simper at him in the hope of winning his notice and favour. Ginnell was briefed to hold the western front until Clowder sent new orders, and those would come before too long. Nor were small matters left forgotten. The three followers Drule had been keeping were released. ‘They shall instil trust and confidence,’ said Lucerne, but these were words that Drule did not understand and so he frowned.
‘Worry not, Drule, you shall have more work than you could dream of soon enough.’
Within a day Cannock was emptied of sideem and the infection of the Word began its remorseless progress across moledom once more.
It was in the days following, when Lucerne began to be restless and uneasy once more, that Mallice at last returned from Beechenhill.
‘You have been long gone,’ he said.
Mallice smiled and caressed his flanks.
‘Where I have been are pleasant and surprising things,’ she said.
‘Beechenhill?’
She nodded.
‘Pleasant?’
‘Mmm, my dear. Very, very pleasant. You will be pleased.’
‘Tell me, mole,’ he growled.
‘At length, or briefly and most sweet?’
‘Briefly.’
‘Your kin live there.’
‘My kin? You mean Henbane?’ There was terrible hope and terrible anger in his voice.
Mallice laughed.
‘No, no, my dear, much better than her. Your kin, your lost siblings.’
‘My siblings?’ repeated Lucerne faintly, as if he did not understand the meaning of the word. She nodded slowly, taking her time. As Lucerne could twist a mob about his paw, so could Mallice play with him.
‘Yes, yes, my love. Sweet Harebell and strong Wharfe. Your sister. Your brother.’
‘In Beechenhill?’ he said, aghast.
‘Oh yes, yes it is indeed so. And something more, though since you said I must tell you only briefly …’ Mallice giggled.
‘Tell me,’ he ordered impatiently.
‘You will not be proud of them. They are both, it seems, such worthy followers of the Stone.’
‘If this is true …’
‘It is, Master mine, it is most true. And since it is, what will you do?’ she asked, mouth moist but eyes wide and innocent.
‘Something moledom shall never forget,’ said Lucerne most grimly.
‘Good, oh good,’ purred Mallice. ‘I know it will be good.’