Wort, eldrene of obscure Cumnor, waited two days before she was satisfied that her guardmoles had failed to apprehend Beechen of Duncton, whom she now felt certain was the long-heralded Stone Mole.
Being satisfied, she gave strict instructions that her guardmoles were to stay in Cumnor and on no account leave it until she returned to them.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The Word shall guide me,’ she said enigmatically. But then obscurity was of the essence. Obscurity would, as she had frequently said, be their strength and it was the Word’s will that obscurity should remain the lot of the Cumnor moles for a little while longer.
But surely, her devotees in Cumnor’s Chawley End responded, the Word was displeased with them: they had been presented with a rare, probably unique, opportunity to take this mole Beechen who might be the Stone Mole – ‘who is the Stone Mole,’ she interjected – and the Word had not let them do so.
‘Now is the Word testing our fortitude, and exposing our weak vanities,’ eldrene Wort lectured them. ‘Can you not see that it was meant that the Stone Mole was not caught? Let us gratefully accept that it is so and open ourselves to learning and moving on positively from this “failure”.’
So obsessive and intense was the faith in the Word of this notorious eldrene that anything that happened to her, or the zealot moles attracted by her ruthless devotion to the Word, was interpreted as ‘meant’, ‘inspired’ and an object lesson in ‘providence’. The worse it was, the more to Wort’s twisted and prejudiced mind it seemed to speak of grace. Plague might hit them – well then, smile, for this is the Word’s judgement and retribution on moles who were spiritually weak; she and several of her cronies had been banished from Fyfield to Cumnor by Wyre for overzealousness, then smile again, for this was ‘the Word putting us into obscurity to prepare us still pure in the faith for the rigours of our finest hour soon to come when we shall be the talons of the Word’s final judgement’. And so forth. Dangerous insanity.
Whatever setback came Wort’s way, she survived it, turned it, and gained strength from it. Although thus far her obsessive faith seemed to have served her ill such moles do not give up, least of all Wort. Indeed, she sensed the turning point had come that justified everything that had so far happened to her and she believed that now, if she did the right thing, she would be set fair on the way that would lead her to the great destiny the Word had prepared for her. No wonder then that she was turning the failure to catch the Stone Mole into success.
As always at such moments she resorted to passionate prayer: ‘Holy Word, mother of my mind, father of my body, cleanse me of doubt, cleanse me of despair, cleanse me of sadness, wash from my outer form the dust and filth of the infections and temptations of the Stone; Holy Word, my mother and my father, guide me.’
She spoke the words rapidly and with terrible intensity and they brought tears to the eyes of some of her listeners.
‘Afflict mine enemies with suffering and death, for they are your enemies, Word; teach my mind to know thy justice and help my talons to wield thy punishment on those whose ignorance is an affront to thy great beauty, and whose wilfulness in following the Stone threatens thy great peace.’
She finished and stared at the henchmoles and guardmoles about her. They were a mixture of zealots like herself, male and female, some cruel and loyal henchmoles, and some guardmoles thrown out of more moderate systems locally and now clustered to eldrene Wort and Cumnor as galls to bitter fruit.
The eldrene Wort, whatever else she did, knew how to lead such moles. She gave them discipline and the hope that soon they could openly go forth and prosecute the Word’s will upon allmole, as its most loyal servants. She pandered to their obscene belief that they were right and all others wrong. In this way, since her dismissal as eldrene of Fyfield by Wyre, Wort had quietly given legitimacy in Cumnor to this group of misfits, sadists, outcasts and obsessives of whom she was the archetype. Her faith was obedience to the Word. Disobedience was blasphemy. A blasphemous mole was no longer mole, and whatever was done to him, however it was done, was justified. She, or the Master himself, perhaps, was judge of what was blasphemous. Since she was obedient to the Word and its sworn agent, to doubt her was blasphemy. Such was the closed circle and harmonic evil of Wort’s mind.
In truth, she had a certain dark genius as well. She was the first to recognise Beechen for what he was: the Stone Mole. She had been the first to appreciate that if the persistent rumours were true that he was in Duncton Wood, then the moles who controlled the cross-under outside it had an important part to play – something she had long urged, though with the more pragmatic and less prejudiced Wyre, it fell on deaf ears. Which made him a suspect mole in her twisted gaze. So strongly had she believed in the significance of Duncton’s role as harbinger of the Stone Mole that in September, without seeking permission of Wyre, she had sent some of her own guardmoles to ‘support’ the patrols at Duncton’s crossunder.
But the cross-under was also on the key routeway between north and south, and so it was that through her well-placed guardmoles she was informed when Lucerne’s sideem first came. Better still, the contrast between ‘her’ guardmoles, and the more easy-going ones already there proved favourable, and the sideem gave them promotion. When new guardmoles were sought Cumnor supplied them. By late September, unknown to the sideem, the cross-under was Wort’s.
Therefore, when the trinity led by Heanor first came that way it had been Wort’s moles who had thoughtfully directed them to Cumnor first, and so turned Wyre’s decision to demote her back against him, for she entertained them well, spoke a language of zeal and faith they liked to hear, and was the first mole in those parts to hear that Lucerne would reward that mole well who first brought him news of the ‘Stone Mole’. She had been bemused by their desire to talk to moles of the Stone and relieved that they were to fulfil this part of their task in Fyfield and would not undermine her authority in Cumnor.
She was astute enough to understand the value of the information she had now, and cunning enough not to reveal it. She had thought it likely that the trained and clever Heanor would quickly find out the Stone-fool’s true identity and so had risked a return to Fyfield, and soon afterwards assassinated Heanor – making it seem the work of followers of the Stone. Smock, the eldrene, was killed as well.
Wort justified the evil deed to herself by judging that the Word was offended by Heanor’s failure to deal with the insults towards it Beechen’s appearance in Fyfield had produced. But, with Heanor dead, she was more likely to be the one honoured for discovering the Stone Mole.
Her prayers said, Wort told her devotees what she would do.
‘The Word guides me, the Word tells me that our patience shall be rewarded and our hour is coming. I shall entrust my life to the Word and travel to distant Cannock and there seek the direct intervention of Lucerne, our father in moledom, our beloved Master-to-be. From him I shall gain authority to act against the Stone Mole as I must. Did not corrupted Duncton spawn him? It did! Should not Duncton then be laid waste as the Holy Burrows of Uffington was by the Word? It should, and it shall! This shall be Cumnor’s great task, for this shall it ever be remembered. The Master-elect shall hear us on this. Your eldrene shall return and lead you and others we shall find against Duncton Wood.’
‘But eldrene, the place is outcast and diseased.’
‘Mole, you are right – it must be to have produced the evil that is called Beechen. But do not worry, the Word shall be our guardian and protector against disease!’
She then gave instructions that moles in her system must stay unseen and obscure until her return and, her preparations complete, the still-unknown, unmeasured, eldrene Wort, together with two henchmoles, set off north to Cannock, to seek out her dark and driven destiny.
In the space of the short time Lucerne and his sideem had occupied Cannock, the place had been transformed, and what had once merely been a system of dull tunnels now had the gloss of evil; and by that infection the Word brings wherever it comes, the same dark menace that inhabited the tunnels of Whern now occupied the tunnels, burrows and chambers of Cannock.
Mallice, ever attendant on her Master’s needs, as on her own, controlled the running of the place, and had established the quarters of Lucerne at the central southern end of Cannock, near enough to the community chamber where moles met to see and hear what went on.
She had grown used in Whern to secret ways and tunnels, and to using spying points, and had some delved in Cannock too. There was little that went on she did not know about, and all was passed on to Lucerne, and much to Terce.
And Cannock had its fearsome place as Whern did: somewhere about which moles did not care to speak.
It lay downslope to the east of Cannock where underground water flowed and had made a place of fluted chambers, deep, moist, echoing, uncomfortable. Under the direction of Mallice it had been delved and sealed in such a way that cells existed there in which moles were easily kept. The one thing they did not die of there was thirst, for water dripped and oozed and formed sucking pools and sumps. These last gave it its name – the Sumps, which was a reminder to anymole that heard it that like the Sinks of Whern it was not a place from which a captive mole easily emerged alive.
The Sumps ran to various levels. The lower tunnels were always chill and damp because into these the water flooded sometimes when heavy rains fell outside: an event accompanied by a roaring and racing of water sound. The air was fetid in the deeper cells, and the light all gone. A mole incarcerated in those cells suffered a life of perpetual darkness, in which the only sounds were the menacing roaring of the water, and the occasional drag of paws when a prisoner from a higher level brought down some stinking food.
Some of the higher cells were comfortable enough, and there were those who, confined but briefly in the Sumps, never guessed the horrors and agonies of moles who survived in the murk and blackness deeper down.
The Sumps’ power and organisation was vested in three moles: Mallice, most powerful of all; Drule, who was in charge of the guardmoles who ran it, and was their scourge as well; and Slighe, who kept the records of the prisoners there meticulously, but never visited it for very long himself.
The Sumps served three different uses. One was as a punishment to moles of the Word who had been lax, indolent or blasphemous. A second was as a place of torture of those moles who might have information Lucerne and those who served him needed. A third was as a place of secure confinement for moles, mainly of the Stone, who though not judged and punished might have a use at some time in the future, or be better ‘lost’.
And lost was the word, for only Slighe knew the names and locations of all the moles confined, and if he made a slip – and he did – or lost interest in a mole, that mole was truly lost, and left to die in darkness and unloved.
By November the Sumps was in full use, and its wretched tunnels groaned and echoed to the sound of suffering moles who screamed, or coughed or bled their life away. It was a place that drove moles mad and Drule, the expert on its punishments, had quickly discovered initially to his cost – that confinement in the Lower Sumps drove a mole insane if kept up too long. Twelve days was enough for most, though some had been permanently affected after only eight. Its most efficacious use was as a threat, meted out on those who had been sent down to it before and knew its horrors.
Perpetual darkness, rotten food, the real threat of drowning are enough to make a mole hallucinate and imagine horrors worse by far than any a torturer can inflict.
The Middle Sumps was where most prisoners were kept, eking out their days in crippling dampness, suffering the sadism of the guardmoles, malevolently forced to share cells with moles who hurt or raped them.
The Upper Sumps merely took a mole’s liberty, and was slow to harm him physically. Yet even here was a place, a chamber more than a cell, in which certain moles were taken for bloody questioning – for access to it was comfortable and easy for moles such as Lucerne and Terce who had no desire to sully themselves with the realities below.
In the Upper Sumps as well those most pathetic prisoners of the Word in Cannock, youngsters of adult inmates, were kept since they were not strong enough to survive the rigours of the damper cells. Usually alone, always afraid, and if unwanted then fearfully abused. To these poor creatures Slighe came and, if they were male, he would use them and abuse them unto death itself through his perverted lusts. As for Drule, he had the pick of females there and having had his way would pass them on for guardmoles to use. Few of them survived.
How much of this did Lucerne know? Mallice knew all, or if she did not then she was blind and deaf, for she frequently visited the Upper Sumps, and on occasion the Middle Sumps as well. The reason? One word will be enough: torture. Aye, that was what she liked.
All done, all of it, in the name of the Word. But then it might be said that when a mole was sentenced to the Sumps he or she is no longer mole. Only this explains why guardmoles, who in their quarters elsewhere in Cannock could play happily with their young and be affectionate with their mates would, when their leave or break was done, return and be monsters to mole once more. Yet guilt was alive – for how else does a mole explain the fact that nomole spoke of the Sumps?
We too would like to turn our backs from all awareness of the place, but we cannot. A mole we know, and one we were beginning to learn to love, was confined there.
Betony.
Squeezebelly’s daughter. Sister to Bramble, adoptive sister to Harebell and Wharfe.
Poor Betony. Suffering Betony. By November she was near death.
Aye, it was Mallice and her guardmoles who had snatched Betony from Beechenhill. From the moment she had realised exactly whatmole she had, which was some hours after her encounter with the party of watchers in which Betony had been, Mallice did not linger, but turned her snout towards Ashbourne, and thence to Cannock feeling her task in Beechenhill was now well done.
Betony was already half broken when she reached the Sumps, for on the journey there Mallice had tortured much information out of her.
Being the sideem she was, Mallice revealed the source of her startling revelations about Wharfe and Harebell being Lucerne’s siblings, and living in Beechenhill, only after Lucerne’s appetite had been whetted. . . .
‘Oh, and Master, one more thing. We have a rather special prisoner, my dear. One you will much wish to see.’
‘Then bring him here.’
‘It is best we visit her,’ said Mallice, ‘she is not fit to travel far. She has hurt her paws.’
Then quickly she led Lucerne to a cell in the Upper Sumps, in which Drule and a repulsive female henchmole squatted staring at a mole. Lucerne saw that though the mole had been tortured and was limp, she was still alive. Four talons of one paw had been ripped out, two talons of another.
‘It was necessary,’ said Mallice, nodding at the wardress to leave them be. Drule stayed, smiling.
‘Who is she?’ said Lucerne, staring at the mole, utterly unmoved by the fear in her eyes, and the continual shudder of pain in her paws.
‘She shall tell her name. Won’t she?’ said Mallice, sliding one of her talons gently along Betony’s cut face. ‘She shall tell you everything, won’t you, my poor hurt love? She shall say again all and more than she has said to me. Then I suggest that Drule has his way with her to find out whatever still remains. There is something about Drule that repulses information from female moles.’
‘Whatmole are you?’ asked Lucerne.
‘I am the friend of Wharfe and Harebell, I am their friend,’ intoned Betony, a look of utter despair and hopelessness in her eyes.
‘Who are they?’
The mole darted a frightened look at Mallice. A solitary tear coursed down her face, made ugly by the scars of her first torturing, which had long since congealed.
‘They were Henbane’s pups.’
A look of surprise followed by exaltation crossed Lucerne’s face, but there was barely a pause before he asked the next question.
‘How do you know this?’
‘My father told me.’
‘Who is your father, mole?’
‘Squeezebelly of Beechenhill.’
‘And what is thy name?’
‘Betony, I think,’ she said. Her eyes, though open, seemed for a moment to drift, as if the mention of her own name brought back a place and time and memory forever lost to her. ‘Please don’t hurt me any more, I don’t know anything more to tell.’
‘Oh but you know so much more that you don’t know,’ said Mallice.
‘How came you to know this Wharfe and this Harebell?’ He came closer to her, glaring, and she began to shake with pathetic fear.
‘Please don’t … not again. I told her they were brought to Beechenhill by the moles Mayweed and Sleekit. They were left for my father to rear.’
Lucerne turned to Drule and ordered him away.
‘Sleekit! I know that name,’ he said, for once showing his anger. He turned back to Betony. ‘This mole is cursed of the Stone, but she has value. Great value. Drule shall not have her yet, for once he has done with a mole she is good for nothing more. We must learn all we can of Beechenhill, and she shall be kept alive. Alive, Squeezebelly will still give much up for her; but dead she will add resolution and righteousness to his spirit.’
Mallice nodded.
‘She should have been physically unharmed,’ said Lucerne, still annoyed.
‘She would have been silent if not harmed,’ said Mallice matter of factly. ‘Her will was strong.’
Lucerne stared at Betony.
‘What are they like?’ he asked eventually. Mallice came close to him and tried to draw him away. ‘What are they like?’ he said again, more forcefully.
Betony looked at him, and into his eyes, and at his flanks and paws and snout.
‘They are … they are …’
‘Yes, mole?’
‘But for their eyes they are like you.’
‘Their eyes?’ whispered Lucerne, who seemed for the first time in this terrible interview to be discomfited rather than merely angry.
‘Their eyes are not like yours but like their … like your father’s. Their eyes are Tryfan’s eyes and full of love. Not like yours.’
‘My love,’ purred Mallice with delight, ‘you can make her tell you things she would not tell me.’
Betony’s eyes began to close.
‘She is not so hurt … ?’ began Lucerne.
Mallice smiled and said, ‘Your consort knows her art. This mole shall not die quite yet. But she is tired and the pain dulls, and she must be allowed to sleep.’
‘Be it so. You have done well, better than well. This mole shall be the destruction of Beechenhill. My own siblings there, and of the Stone! Of the mighty Stone! From Henbane they came, of Tryfan were they the spawn. And the Word shall punish them through me, born with Rune’s blood in my veins, true Master of the Word. This delights me, Mallice.’
‘I thought it might,’ she said softly.
He laughed and turned from that burrow, excited and pleased, exclaiming, ‘Thou art mighty, Word, and thy servant glories in thy justice. Thy talons shall make of Beechenhill a desolation that such punishments as that of Mallerstang, and others yet to come, shall seem but pleasant interludes on the way to the Stone’s agony. Blessed be the Word!’
‘Blest be!’ responded Mallice as they swept out of that drear burrow in the Sumps where Betony now lived a living death.
So Betony’s agony in Cannock had begun, and many the time she had wished to die, and would have done so had she had her way. But Drule’s fat mate kept her alive, and when she worsened she was allowed out briefly into fresher air, and as the molemonths dragged by her brain began to dull, her mind to numb, as if something inside of her was protecting her from the terrible reality of her lot. One thing she could not know was that her presence disturbed Lucerne because it stirred that place within his heart which he might have hoped to leave alone, which was curiosity about the siblings he had had at birth. Until Betony came he assumed they must be dead, as Henbane had reassured him they were; but once he knew they lived he was consumed with desire to know about them.
Then too there was the knowledge that Tryfan, his father, had been seen and talked to by this vile female who was now his prisoner. Was he dead? He must be. Even if he survived the journey back to Duncton Wood, the plagues and diseases of that place surely would have killed him by now. So often he found his sleep was disturbed with such unanswered thoughts.
‘Master mine?’
‘Mallice?’
‘Come closer to me. It will help you rest and sleep.’
‘That mole …’
‘Dear Betony?’
‘The same.’
‘What of her?’
‘I would talk with her. I would hear more now of Beechenhill.’
‘Again? She cannot tell you more. And anyway, my love, have we not pups to make?’ She smiled, she shifted her haunches near and invitingly. Pups were her desire now, pups by the Master, to find an heir, to confirm her supreme position as mother of a Master yet to be.
Since Betony’s coming the same thought had consumed Lucerne as well, as if by making young he could in some strange way blot out the void in his life that the loss of Henbane, and then the discovery of siblings he had never known, had created.
He turned back to her, and took her. Oh yes, they mated savagely, and in the way his taloned paws raked Mallice’s back, and his teeth bit at her shoulders, a mole might have learned how near love is to hatred, and hatred is to murder.
‘Am I your mother that you hate me so?’ screamed Mallice with delight.
She was uncomfortably near the truth.
But when they had done, and their energies were spent, then she let him leave her for his long sessions with Betony, during which, it seemed, he did little but stare and ask the same question, again and again.
‘What are they like?’
‘I cannot say more …’ whispered Betony.
‘You must, or I shall send you to the Lower Sumps again in punishment as I did last time. Tell me one new thing and you shall be spared that place.’
‘They …’ And Betony wept, broken, for every secret moment of her life with Wharfe and Harebell this mole who looked like them had ripped from out her heart. But worse, she had begun to hate them for what her knowledge of them made this mole do to her.
‘Blessed art thou by the Word, Betony,’ he said to her, ‘acknowledge me as thy Master, let this be thy Atonement to the Word, let the Word’s power take the shadow of the Stone from off your body.’
‘But … b – ’ She gazed through eyes brimming with tears at the ragged scars where her talons had been, stared at the flattened damp floor, and at the shadowed walls and high fissures where dead light lurked. Somewhere a mole screamed, and Betony dared to say, ‘B-but the Stone is all I’ve got.’
‘There is no Stone.’
Where does a mole find such courage as Betony so long found, where such hope?
‘There is,’ she said, ‘and it shall find you out.’
By mid-November the report-back by the trinities was underway, and every day seemed to bring members of the sideem back to Cannock with news of the followers and the Stone.
Lucerne and the Keepers seemed permanently convened, considering and weighing up the evidence as it came in, and there was an atmosphere of confidence and excitement about the tunnels, and suspense as well.
Although Lucerne and Terce had kept their thinking secret, the sideem talk in the tunnels was accurate enough about its general direction. The Keepers were debating where and when a punitive strike might be made for the crusade, such as Lucerne had all but promised them back in October before they had set off. Where, and when … and how complete?
The answers sideem gave depended on where their own reports had taken them. Those returning from the east had seen widespread abuse of the Word and argued for swift and thorough retribution.
Trinities from the Midlands and west lowlands up to the western front itself, where the Word was strong and followers few and isolated, agreed that a strike was needed, but argued it should be limited to making an example of one area or system.
Between these two extremes were the views of those trinities who had returned from the south-east, the old heartland of Stone belief where the once-powerful Holy Burrows of Uffington were. Strange and sombre news had come from that important quarter, for the trinities deputed to Buckland returned with the news that Wyre had died of murrain and Buckland was leaderless; and, worse, that the trinity led by Heanor of Nidd had been murdered by followers in Fyfield, a system of symbolic significance since it was one of the Ancient Seven of the Stone.
This was especially annoying to Lucerne who had instructed that trinity to enquire of Duncton Wood and whether Tryfan, his father, had ever returned there from Whern as some said he had. If he was alive … But this appealing line of thought was broken by the pressing news that several Buckland trinities had received positive reports of a Stone-fool who followers in those parts were daring to call the Stone Mole, which put the Master-elect in some difficulty …
‘Difficulty, Mallice?’
‘Yes, it’s what the gossips say: that the Word will be debased if you let the murder of Heanor pass without retribution, yet if our guardmoles impose it they may create a martyr if this supposed Stone Mole should be taken and put to death …
‘We need a single devastating strike of the kind I led on Mallerstang,’ said Clowder. ‘Having kicked my talons on the Western Front for so long I no longer believe that that is the place for it. Ginnell argues that we should take Caer Caradoc, also one of the Ancient Seven systems of the Stone, and I agree with him. As I was leaving the Marches it was being reoccupied by followers, and but for your order that there should be no violence yet, we should have taken Caradoc by now. But when the time comes it will not be hard.’ Clowder shrugged and smiled briefly before he continued.
‘I think Beechenhill’s the place now. Our sources have given us all the information we are ever likely to need to successfully invade it. It remains a symbol of resistance to many moles, particularly in parts north of here, and is a living insult to the Word. Let us destroy its blasphemy forever that all moles know such resistance is not the way. It is the kind of gesture we are looking for, and I do not think followers in the south feel sufficiently strongly about it to use it as a rallying cry.’
Lucerne raised a paw to end the discussion.
‘There are still more reports to come. The Word does not desire us to act quite yet. Longest Night is probably right, and we have time to muster our strengths to south or north or west, whichever we finally choose.
‘The strength of the Stone followers does not seem to me as great as we had feared, and if anything our position has become more secure since the trinities went out than before. We shall ponder the matter a little more yet. It hurts nomole and can only benefit the Word if our sideem argue and gossip and grow angry in the tunnels outside this chamber for a little longer.’
‘Well,’ growled Clowder with a grimace, ‘I only ask that it is not too long – at every turn I take a sideem seeks to ask me what the Word shall decide, and to lobby me to tell it what it should do!’
‘I like being lobbied,’ said Mallice, ‘it teaches me so much about the greed of mole …’
It was into this busy, contentious, sanguine scene that the eldrene Wort arrived a day or two after the Keepers’ adjourned debate.
Although the guardmoles who patrolled the approach routes to Cannock were under strict instructions not to allow through moles who were not sideem or members of trinities, Wort made short shrift of any attempt to stop her. She had not journeyed so far so fast to be stopped by a mere guardmole and nor was she impressed one bit by the fact that the successively senior guardmoles who came to get rid of her were unimpressed by her title of eldrene of Cumnor.
The henchmoles who had come with her were utterly exhausted by their journey, but Wort, like all moles who have a mission and know they are right, radiated purpose and energy.
‘Take me to the Master-elect!’ was virtually all she was prepared to say, except for repeating that she was …
‘Yes, “eldrene of Cumnor”, you have said so before,’ said yet another mole summoned to deal with the troublesome arrival.
‘And I shall say so again until you begin to show some sign of action. We are here to serve the Word, and in my view your lethargy comes close to blasphemy. I have important information for the Master-elect, and he shall hear it from me direct.’
The eldrene Wort was aware that it would do her no good to reveal her information to a mole too unimportant to know how to deal with it, apart from the very real risk that another mole might annex it to his advantage.
So she made a nuisance of herself until, eventually, a sideem was summoned, and to him she revealed but one thing: she had seen the Stone Mole.
‘I would talk to the Master-elect about this matter.’
‘Eldrene, do you know how rarely even a sideem gets to talk to the Master?’
‘Master-elect is his correct title, mole. I assume the reason sideem rarely “get to talk to him” is because he knows they have little to say. I have a great deal. Now get off your rump and do something about it.’
‘Mole … !’
‘I’d do it if I were you, mate,’ said one of Wort’s henchmoles wearily, ‘it’ll be easier in the long run.’
So, mole by mole, never daunted, Wort clawed her way up Cannock’s hierarchy until at last she found herself ushered into the presence of an inoffensive and quiet-seeming mole about whom she knew nothing but that his name was Slighe.
After whispering with the sideem who had finally brought her to his chamber, he turned a mild gaze on her and said, ‘Well, and will you talk to me?’
‘In the name of the Word, I shall talk to anymole who serves the Word’s purpose. What is your task?’
‘I organise the place,’ said Slighe blandly.
‘Then, mole, forgive my bluntness, but organise the place so that its Master is informed that there is a mole can tell him of the Stone Mole.’
Slighe smiled faintly and his eyes hardened. The Sumps seemed an inviting place to send this difficult female, and yet there was something about her that impressed. He measured his words carefully, for he knew that sideem Mallice was listening in.
‘Eldrene Wort, I ask you to believe everything I am about to say, everything.’
Wort blinked and stared at the mole. He might look mild but she sensed that at last she had met a mole of power.
‘If you do not tell me enough to decide which mole of several, including myself, might be the best recipient of your information then you shall not leave Cannock for a very long time, during which you shall see neither the sky nor feel the wind at all. If you do tell me but you do not trust me to decide to whom you should speak, then the outcome will be the same. Therefore, mole, speak.’
Wort gave a bleak smile. In Slighe she had met her match.
‘The Stone Mole is one Beechen of Duncton. He is not a Stone-fool or an imposter, or mad. He is the Stone Mole. He has such power over followers as nomole of the Word yet knows. He is evil come to moledom. I have seen him, I have seen his power, and I tell you this, sideem Slighe: if you do not believe me, if you abuse the trust I place in you by failing to tell the right mole the importance of what I have said, then it will not matter if you imprison me forever, for forever shall not come. The Stone Mole shall come and the Word shall be destroyed.’
It was Slighe’s turn to blink. Then a shadow crossed the portal of his chamber and he looked past Wort and her henchmoles and saw Mallice.
Mallice smiled and nodded, and as Wort turned to see who it was had entered Mallice said, ‘I think, Slighe, that our Master-elect will wish to listen to this mole. Please inform him.’
A few moments later Wort was shown into the presence of Lucerne himself. Mallice was with him.
‘My love,’ she said. ‘I think it wise that Keeper Terce is present.’
Lucerne nodded to Slighe to get him while he continued to stare at this strange female.
‘Sideem Slighe has told me briefly what you have said to him,’ said Lucerne pleasantly. ‘Now tell me, is not Cumnor adjacent to Duncton Wood?’
‘It is, Master-elect,’ said Wort, impressed. He was the first mole in Cannock who had heard of it.
‘And I am impressed as well,’ said Lucerne.
Wort was startled. It seemed the Master could read her thoughts.
‘You are not nervous of me. Most moles who meet me are afraid, and not just the first time.’
‘I am in awe of nothing but the great Word which my life serves,’ replied Wort. ‘Before it we are all servants, including you yourself. Insofar as you are its greatest servant, so shall your greatness as Master be judged.’
As she spoke Terce entered, and hearing the last of what she said looked as surprised as Mallice. Lucerne merely smiled, but a dangerous smile, for Wort trod dangerous ground.
‘And the Mistress Henbane, would the eldrene Wort say she was a great Mistress of the Word?’
Whether or not Wort was aware of the danger she was in in giving her opinion of Lucerne’s mother it was hard to tell. Her earnest face betrayed nothing but faith and certainty.
‘The Mistress Henbane was made Mistress by the Word and in the Word’s name, as one day you shall be made Master. She dishonoured the Word by failing to address her task in the south-east for she did not destroy the infection of the Stone and it thrives even where the moles she appointed place their paws. I cannot judge if any could have done better. I know that many would have done worse. Perhaps we all dishonour the Word by failing to be as we should be. I know I do. Yet I try and I trust the mighty Word knows it. Did Mistress Henbane truly try? I understand that you are in a better position to judge than I.’
‘A good reply, Master-elect!’ said Terce with a smile. ‘A clever reply,’ said Mallice.
‘What is it you wish to say to me?’ said Lucerne. ‘Moledom, the very Word itself, faces a greater danger than anymole yet seems to realise. The Stone Mole has come and is among us. He …’
‘Have you seen him, mole?’ said Lucerne.
‘I have seen into his eyes, I have felt his talons on my heart, and if the holy Word, which is my mother and my father, will forgive me, if he had taken me with his body I should not have been closer to him than I have already been. Master-elect, evil is upon us, and it is to warn you of that evil that I have come to you.’
Not a mole said a thing, nor even looked at each other. The mole was either mad or inspired, and whichever she was she put fear even into their hearts. Lucerne nodded his understanding of the seriousness of what she said and with a polite, ‘One moment, eldrene Wort,’ turned to his aide.
‘Slighe, postpone the audience I have this afternoon. I would talk with this mole.’
‘Master-elect,’ said the indefatigable Wort, ‘I have not eaten today, or yesterday.’
‘You look remarkably fit.’
‘The Word has been my sustenance, but what I have to tell you may benefit from food.’ They all smiled broadly, even Terce.
‘So be it. Eat, drink, groom, and then tell me what you must.’
In this way did the eldrene Wort first come before Lucerne at Cannock: purposeful and assured in her service to the Word.
While she was absent Lucerne said, ‘A remarkable mole, Terce.’
‘Frightening,’ said the Twelfth Keeper.
‘Mallice, what do you make of her?’
‘I think,’ she said in a measured way unusual for her, ‘and I hope I may not be wrong, that we have been waiting for a mole like her, and she has been sent to us by the Word.’
By the time Wort came back Clowder had been summoned and Drule as well, for Lucerne sensed that whatever it was the eldrene had to say they all should hear. When she returned Lucerne stanced her comfortably down.
‘Tell us something of thyself, mole, for the words a mole speaks are more easily judged by knowing who she is and where she comes from,’ he said, at his most charming. ‘Take your time, miss nothing out. Slighe shall scriven it, but pay no heed to that.’
This said, the most powerful group of moles in moledom fell silent to hear how it might be that not only they, but even the Word itself, faced the greatest danger it had ever known.
‘I am born of Nuneham, which lies close by Duncton to its south,’ began Wort, adding quickly and with pride, ‘but my father was the guardmole Sedge, born in the north.
‘We were well taught of the Word and I saw its wisdom young and was able to make modest service to it while barely more than a pup, which brought me to the notice of the eldrene’s assistants.3
‘From Nuneham I was sent to Buckland shortly before eldrene Fescue went to serve in Duncton Wood, and after the changes that followed the then worthy Wyre’s coming I was honoured with the appointment as assistant to the eldrene of Fyfield, a system to the south of Duncton.
‘It was not long before the Word called the eldrene to its final service and I assumed command at Fyfield and there rigorously imposed the Word.4 It was my sole purpose to see that the Word was observed at Fyfield, and since those days I have ruthlessly put down anymole who has preached the Stone, or encouraged others to do so. More than that I have felt it my duty before the Word itself to treat as blasphemers anymole, be he grike, guardmole or even sideem who without just cause has been lax of the Word.
‘When the winter years were over we in Fyfield and several of my more reliable colleagues in nearby systems became aware of an upsurgence of interest in the so-called “Stone Mole”, whose coming had been predicted by followers after the showing of a star in the east. I had seen it myself: impressive, but an aberrance in the sky. Deviant moles might be forgiven for thinking it presaged something strange, though we in Fyfield, failing instruction on the matter from Wyre who I believe had become infected by murrain at that time, concluded that the star was a warning from the Word to be vigilant at all times. I trust I was not mistaken in issuing such a command.
‘Interest in this “Stone Mole” now increased and it came to my notice that a number of Fyfield moles who, despite our precautions and efforts had fallen victim to the evil wiles and persuasions of the Stone, had made their way north-eastward towards Duncton saying that he was “coming there”. The guardmoles were warned that such journeys must be stopped, and it became necessary to put two of these moles to death as an example to others. They were snouted by me personally at the Fyfield Stone.
‘I pride myself that no moles from Fyfield thereafter joined that foolhardy march of moles that sought the Stone Mole, which was nothing less than a march to blasphemy, but I heard reports that elsewhere followers persisted in doing so. I strove to warn Wyre of this but he was unavailable even to eldrenes, and I was told he did not believe that suppression was wise or even of the Word, which shocked me.
‘Even though there was for a time an assemblage of followers near and about the sole entry into Duncton Wood so great that it was almost beyond the power of the sideem and guardmoles there to control them, Wyre did nothing. I resolved that if in future the Word should put into my paws the power to control that cross-under of Duncton I would quickly disperse those followers in the name of the Word. It is one of my great prides that I was able to do this.
‘I confess I expected the interest to decline as spring came and brought with it the normal birth of pups and need to concentrate on rearing. So far as Fyfield was concerned, I believe that with a few minor exceptions this was the case. I cannot say that I was then aware of the extent to which interest in the Stone Mole persisted, and that many still believed that he was near and continued to visit Duncton Wood. It is said always to be a goodly place, and stances proud of the river and roaring owl ways that together circumscribe it,’ said Wort. ‘I have not visited it myself but I am told by moles who have that it has a mighty Stone at its highest point and moles go there in trembling and awe. For myself, Master-elect, who have seen several of these Stones, including the one at Fyfield, I do not understand such fears and think them unnecessary and degenerate. The Word protects allmole that has true faith in it. As for the rest of Duncton, it sounds ordinary enough with wormful and worm-poor parts as any system has. It has an area called the Marsh End which is dank and harbours disease. The place has been little visited by mole since the Mistress Henbane made it outcast.’
‘Yet you have said this Beechen is “of Duncton”,’ said Terce. ‘How do you know?’
‘He himself claims it,’ said Wort. Spittle had formed a minute froth at the corners of her mouth, and her talons were tensed angrily as if she expected the arch enemy Beechen himself to appear in the chamber at any moment. There was a look of obsession about her, or perhaps it was merely that related curse of mole, sincerity without softening of humour.
‘In view of the disarray in some other nearby systems, and the seeming laxity of the guardmoles at Duncton Wood itself, I felt it incumbent on me to depute moles I trusted to watch out for developments regarding this so-called Stone Mole. Various stories were heard and rumours went about, and they were sufficiently appealing to followers that three emerged from the slime of their own secret deceit in my own system and attempted to perform some heathen ritual at the Fyfield Stone which was, naturally, out of bounds to all moles in the system but for the patrols.
‘They were caught and I decided to punish them myself before the Stone. It was as they died that I felt for the first time the corrupting temptations of the Stone, and knew I was being tried and tested in my faith to the Word.
‘I ordered the guardmoles away and decided to prove my faith in the Word. Master-elect, no words can adequately express the trial I then went through. For it seemed to me that the Word sent its temptation in the form of a mole of surpassing beauty who I saw as a light. This mole called out to me, and others with him called as well, and they asked me to touch the Stone in that mole’s name as if by doing so we should help him.
‘The light was beautiful, the day like no other I remember. I wept and felt pity for that mole, but always there was a corner in my heart that said, “Thou art of the Word and for the Word and the Word is here to strengthen you!” Only when I felt strong again did I reach forward and touch the Stone, believing that to do so was not to yield to the Stone but to show it and that mole that I could touch it with impunity.’
‘Eldrene Wort, why do you believe that this mole who, in your own words, was no more than light was the Stone Mole?’ asked Mallice.
‘Because I later saw the mole in corporeal form and saw the same light about him, and felt the same presence. I am not in doubt of that and nor shall you be.
‘But before that, and after what I call my vision in June before the Fyfield Stone, I gave certain of the guardmoles strict instructions that if a young charismatic male mole was apprehended or seen I should be informed directly.’
‘I do not fully understand, eldrene Wort. You gave out a description of a mole you had only seen as “light”?’
‘I had the sense of what he might be. I made a guess that he was young and male. The reason I did it was because I believed this mole was sent to test me before the Word, and that in his presence I knew evil disguised as goodness. It seemed imperative that as few other moles as possible knew of his whereabouts before I apprehended him. Forgive me, Master, I …’
Lucerne nodded his head and said, ‘Wort, your testimony is as impressive as any I have heard, the more so for your attempt to try to make clear something that is not clear. Say what you have to fearlessly. The Word shall judge you well for this! You are a credit to the office of eldrene.’
‘Well then,’ she continued, almost falling over her words in her eagerness now to get to the heart of her report and to tell of the experience that had so obviously made such impact on her, and her face darkening.
‘The order I had given came to the ears of Wyre of Buckland as well as the punishment I meted out on those three blasphemous followers. He sent moles to depose me from my office at Fyfield, demoting me to Cumnor, an unknown and empty place north of the system I had grown to love and in the very shadow of infamous Duncton Wood.
‘But since Wyre acted in the name of the Word I was obedient and went without argument. But the Word was merciful and prevailed on Wyre’s representatives to let those few moles who wished to travel with me to Cumnor to do so. This was a further test of my faith in the Word, for I saw that by taking honour and power from me, and giving me but a few moles to direct, I was forced to examine my faith and the way that as an eldrene I gave leadership to a system. I believe that in Cumnor the Word was not disappointed in me, and it was not long before it sent other moles of the Word, disenchanted by the laxities the rule of Wyre at Buckland had encouraged, to serve with me. So it was that there were enough moles in Cumnor for me to send some to the Duncton cross-under and there gain acceptance and finally dominance. In that way the Word was at least well served at that place where, the followers of the Stone believed, the Stone Mole might be known.
‘But in fact it was from other moles who joined me in October that I at last heard of a Stone-fool preaching and healing in the vicinity of Frilford who sounded like the mole I myself had already “seen” at Fyfield. Then one of my informants who pretended to be a follower offered to get me into one of this Stone-fool’s gatherings.
‘Despite the great risks involved – not only of my being recognised by followers, but of my being tempted by the Stone -1 knew it was my duty to go. To lessen the chances of being recognised I went unaccompanied by my guardmoles.’
‘And what did you see?’ asked Mallice impatiently.
‘Evil masquerading as something beautiful!’ exclaimed Wort. ‘Much that was alluring and corrupting!
‘The meeting was held in a high place east of Frilford, windy and wormless. There are few tunnels thereabouts, and those mainly used to avoid the patrols. An eldrene prepared to get her paws dirty learns much. My informant led me well, and although here and there we came upon other moles going the same way, all followers no doubt, we kept to the shadows as they did and did not linger to talk. There is something privy and filthy about Stone followers. They have not the pride of true moles of the Word.
‘However, I reached the chamber where the meeting was held without being challenged or even having the necessity of identifying myself at all. Only later did I realise that this seeming openness is a lure to attract moles of the Word who might otherwise fear to go. So cleverly does the heathen Stone make its converts!
‘I kept out of the way well at the back, but found a good vantage point so that I could view others there and all that took place. I was able to identify two moles I knew to be guardmoles – moles I have yet to bring before the vengeance of the Word, and one or two others who had minor positions in the Fyfield system.
‘I will not dwell at length on the happenings in that burrow prior to the mole Beechen’s appearance, except to say that there was some chanting and songs using old and now forbidden tunes with words full of reverence for the Stone. I noted a number of moles there were evidently crippled, and others I saw were badly diseased. They were a sorry bunch! Nevertheless I stayed and since excitement in the chamber was rising in expectation of the coming of the Stone Mole, whose title was chanted and called out a good deal, nomole was much interested in me.
‘The chamber was rank with the sweat and smell of so many, and the air was getting ever hotter when a sudden silence fell and at the far end of the chamber, by an entrance guarded by two or three larger moles unknown to me, two moles came in. Both were elderly – a scalpskinned male of no consequence and a female of the same age, but healthy.
‘A pity you did not know their names,’ murmured Terce.
‘But I did!’ said Wort, affronted. ‘For emboldened by not being challenged I asked a follower nearby, since my own informant – who confirmed the names later – had stayed clear of me lest I was found out. The moles were Mayweed and Sleekit.’
Terce and Lucerne looked so astonished that Wort paused in her narrative and said, ‘You know those moles?’
‘We have heard of Mayweed,’ said Terce quietly. ‘And Sleekit is a former sideem, assistant to the Mistress Henbane. Well! This is indeed remarkable, Master-elect.’
‘It is, Tutor-Keeper Terce. Continue, Wort.’
‘After those two the one called Stone Mole arrived. There was pause before he came in, in which the excitement mounted even more and I confess I felt faint with heat and the blasphemy of being in such a place, and whispered prayers to the Word to protect me …
‘But then he came. He came alone. Alone into that heaving, noisome, ghastly chamber …’ She paused and her eyes stared behind Lucerne and Terce as if she saw again the sight she had seen then. What was most extraordinary about that pause, which was marked only by the matching pause in the scrivening talon of Slighe, was that Wort’s attitude towards Beechen was plainly ambivalent as if, recalling the moment, she could not even now decide whether to talk of what she saw with alarm, or awe.
The moment lasted long enough for the doubts arising from that ambivalence to be sown in any listening mole’s mind – and then her manner veered towards condemnation and hatred as she said with quiet intensity: ‘The Stone Mole is a young mole, male, handsome, healthy, and has eyes that a mole cannot easily look away from. He looked briefly about him, and as he did I knew him to be the mole I had seen as light before. Then he smiled, and his smile was that of innocence, and he spoke and his voice was soft to the ear. Oh, beware this mole, moles of the Word! Beware the words he speaks, the temptation he brings. Though I have said this to nomole, I fear the power that he holds! Aye, I fear! Evil is in his form, which is good and strong; evil is in his words, which are pleasant and reassuring. Evil is in his ideas, which dwell upon the unthinking mindlessness of a Silence to come. But most of all, evil is in his eyes, which draw a mole as do the gazes of a roaring owl, and blind him, and paralyse him, and lead him to his doom.
‘This was the nature of the evil I saw then, this the allurement of a mole who enthralled all who heard him that night but me, guarded as I was by the Word’s wisdom and truth.
‘But yet I witnessed power. Others will deny it, others will not tell you the truth, for they will fear it, or be seduced by it. But I saw it, and witnessed it and tell of it now. I said that chamber was hot and fetid before the mole Beechen came: yet the moment he entered it was cool and sweet-scented like the grass in June, and moles who had been restless and excited grew calm and easy. Evil! I said there were cripples there, and the diseased. I saw it, and witnessed it: they called him “Master”, and their Master spoke of the Stone. The beset went to him and were touched by him and they were healed. I saw a mole who could only move by dragging himself along aided by others healed by the touch of his Master’s paws. I saw that mole return to his place unaided. I saw a mole blind, his eyes rheumy with murrain, with his sight restored, the filth plucked from his eyes by the talons of that mole. And I saw an idiot mole whose words were an incessant jumble of filth made whole again, and able to speak plain. Evil. All of it evil and vile.
‘But a greater trial for this servant of the Word was yet to come. I will not – I cannot – properly describe the course of that night, except to say that the healings were interspersed with prayers and incantations to the Stone of an ancient pagan kind. Sometimes the mole Beechen spoke them, sometimes moles present uttered them, crying them out, most frightening to see.
‘But it was when the mole Beechen asked that moles touch each other in love that my trial came. I did not feel the Word desired that I join in such a rite and, accordingly, pretended to touch the mole at my side on the flank, though I touched him not.
‘Even at the moment of my pretence the Stone Mole cried out as if in pain and said, “Which mole among you touches me not?” And then again, “Which mole among you loves me not? He who touches another with his heart touches me!” Then for the third time when I did not touch a mole he cried, “I tell you there is one among you who despises me, and who touches me not. The Stone will know her, the Stone will come before her and the Stone shall forgive her, for at the moment of my passing she shall cry out to me as I cry to her now, and she shall touch me when all others fear to. Her name will be reviled but she shall be forgiven. I have known her already and shall know her again. So may it be for all moles who fight against the Stone, that in the end they shall be forgiven!”’
Her voice had changed as she spoke Beechen’s words, or supposed words, becoming soft and chanting as her face adopted a curiously beatific and gentle expression which only succeeded in highlighting its essential inflexible poverty of spirit.
Then her manner changed violently as she denounced, in a rage the more shocking for the calm that had preceded it, all she reported Beechen as having said.
‘Evil, Vile evil! The abyss was before me and I felt the urge to leap forward into its dark depths. I, devout mole of the Word, servant of thee, Master. Strike me! Talon me! Hurt me! For I felt then the temptation to cry aloud, to touch, to know this false Silence of which the Stone followers speak. Even I felt it!’ Her voice, which had started the denunciation in loud anger declined now to a whisper of abject horror as if she felt herself corrupt, and almost corrupting.
But then Wort’s innate self-righteousness emerged once more, and an officious smug look came over her face, quickly masked, though not entirely successfully, by a sickening modesty.
‘But I did not yield. The talons of the Word were about me, and they did comfort and guard me. The moment of temptation passed and I was left stronger and fiercer in my support of the Word and recognition of the subtle and surreptitious nature of the Stone and the mole who is its representative in moledom. I saw he was a mole whose beauty masked a seductive horror greater than moles of the Word yet know. I witnessed it twice more, once in Fyfield where this Beechen took the meeting away from your sideem Heanor, and again outside my own system at Cumnor.
‘Master, as I stance here before you, I would have killed him there and then with my own talons … and I thought of doing so. But the Word chided me and said “Are you to take the law of the Word in your own paws? Are you to judge the punishment? This must be the work of the Master alone. He shall decide. Tell him what you have seen, and he shall judge and he punish.” So seemed the Word to speak to me and this is what I have come to say to you.’
For a long time after she had finished Lucerne continued to stare at her, utterly still. No testimony ever brought before him had ever been so stark or clear, nor its warning more plain.
Then Terce came to Lucerne and whispered to him, and Lucerne nodded, looked at Wort, and nodded again.
‘Master-elect,’ said Wort, seeing this, ‘if I have done wrong then punish me. I did all that I did in the name of the Word.’
‘I know it, mole. Now tell me, what is thy Master to thee?’
‘The source of all truth about the Word.’
‘Would you lie to your Master?’
‘May the Word strike me into eternal suffering if it should be so.’
‘Then answer me this question, eldrene Wort, and answer it truthfully, for if you do not eternal suffering may be yours sooner than you think.’
‘Master-elect?’
‘What do you know of the deaths of Heanor and those in his trinity?’
Wort seemed surprised at the question, less for its implications as for its unimportance.
‘I killed them myself, in the name of the Word. They had abused the Word.’
‘And Wyre?’
‘Not him, he died naturally. But the eldrene Smock I killed.’
Lucerne smiled cruelly.
‘Then, mole, you have robbed us of both a trinity and the eldrene of Fyfield.’
‘It was just, Master-elect, you would have done it yourself had you been there.’
‘Drule, Slighe …’ said Lucerne coldly, ‘take the eldrene Wort outside, watch over her, and await my summons to come back here.’
Wort’s eyes widened in dismay as she saw the dreadful Drule and Slighe bear down on her, but she said nothing when they led her away.
‘Well?’ said Lucerne.
‘A dangerous mole,’ said Terce.
‘Not one I would want to share a burrow with,’ said Clowder.
‘Well!’ declared Mallice, admiration in her voice.
‘I was impressed by her,’ said Lucerne. ‘We have either to punish her for a succession of blasphemies and abuses of power which few moles can have ever exceeded, or we give her a task to suit her many abilities. I favour the latter.’
‘You have a task in mind?’ asked Clowder.
‘Several. She has that quality even a lot of sideem lack: an ability to think for herself and do something about it.’
‘It is a pity she takes herself so seriously,’ said Clowder. ‘Is it? I think not – it may be the very quality we need if such a mole is to fulfil the function which I think the Word intended for her. She is a mole of formidable resource and courage, and she is as loyal to the Word as anymole we are likely to find. We need moles we know can keep a secret, moles strong enough to report only to us.’
‘But she has no experience wider than the one she recounted, and nor is she sideem.’
‘A mole does not have to be sideem to be useful to the Word, and to ourselves. There is something absolute in the faith this mole has and in the rightness of what she sees and does that I like, and which I think will strike fear and respect into the hearts of all those under her.
‘But most of all I like the darkness of her mind, the secrecy in which she prefers to live and work. I have no doubt she does not reveal to her right paw what her left is doing without pondering it first. But she needs others to watch over her, just to be sure she does not decidejyow have blasphemed, Terce, or you, Clowder! Let alone myself, of course! Let’s get her and the others back in here.’
When they came in, Wort looking somewhat subdued for she thought she was to be punished, Lucerne said to Drule and Slighe, ‘Range yourselves by this mole Wort! Aye, so!’
The three moles stared about uncomfortably. Drule glowered, Slighe blinked, Wort looked uncertain of herself.
Lucerne smiled benignly.
‘You have been too long confined in Cannock, Drule.’
‘Master?’
‘And you as well, Slighe.’
‘But I am here to serve you Master-elect.’
‘Quite so. As for you, eldrene Wort, words fail to express the admiration I feel for you. You shall continue to be known as the eldrene Wort of Cumnor though Fyfield shall now be yours to command as well, and the moles within it. But in truth you shall be something more than that, for you shall work for the good of the Word with Drule and Slighe as your comrades in crusade. Aye … no need to protest, Drule, you will do it very well and it will not be for too long. Nor you, Slighe, more action and less scrivening will do your talons good. Yes, you shall all have a very special task, which must be done by moles I trust always to tell me the truth, whatever they may tell other moles.’
‘What shall be our task, Master-elect?’ asked Wort, immediately taking charge of this gruesome trio.
‘To investigate ways and means of seeing that Beechen of Duncton is punished of the Word, and finally made dead with such dishonour that it will cast a pall of shame forever over the faith of which he is supposed to be the greatest son. How you will do it I cannot tell, and you shall report back on that. Meanwhile together, and with those moles you shall now have at your command, eldrene Wort, you shall make a strike that we need and have long debated.’
‘What strike?’ asked Wort.
‘Explain to her, Slighe, now, so we are all agreed what it is we are talking about.’
Wort listened intently to Slighe’s succinct account of the debate that had overtaken the tunnels and conclaves of Cannock in the moleweeks past.
‘I see,’ she said at the end. ‘I see. Yes.’
‘Yes?’ said Lucerne.
‘Oh yes, Master-elect, I understand. Moledom needs to see the power of the Word and be impressed by its great might. What may be obvious to moles like us may not be so to those less thinking or devout. We must begin to curl the talons of the Word about the Stone Mole in readiness for the Word’s just vengeance.’
‘Yes?’ encouraged Lucerne. He liked this mole’s mind. ‘Then we must destroy where the Stone Mole first thrived. As the Holy Burrows were laid waste so must we lay waste Duncton Wood. The place is already feared and outcast, and followers and moles of the Word alike regard it as diseased. We shall purge moledom of it, and the moles who still struggle to live there.’
‘But Tryfan shall not be touched. If he be alive I shall deal with him myself. And I stress we shall not punish the Stone Mole with death, yet,’ said Lucerne. ‘Cut off from his home system, driven from the peripheral tunnels and burrows that give him succour, we shall let him wander pathetically across moledom, growing ever more isolated and weak. It would be most fitting – would it not? – if Duncton Wood were destroyed on Longest Night, for that is the night I shall be ordained Master of the Word.’
‘But that leaves us little time,’ began Slighe. ‘’Tis a long way to travel by then and organise,’ said Drule.
‘The Word shall guide your talons as it guides mine!’ said Wort fervently. ‘Blessed be the Word!’
‘Blest be,’ whispered Lucerne.
‘Master-elect, I would have liked to witness your ordination on Longest Night,’ said Slighe, reluctant to set off quite as soon as the irrepressible Wort.
‘My dear Slighe, you shall. I shall be ordained on Longest Night in the blood of the moles you choose to destroy by Duncton’s Stone. Let our time of rejoicing be as a blasphemy to them, let the Word be so well pleased with us that we can outface the hallowed Stone in its name, in the very place that spawned the Stone Mole. And if the Word has spared my father, why, what pleasure for me, what an honour for him, to see his son ordained.’ Lucerne laughed at his irony and said acidly, ‘It shall be the last thing he sees.’
‘Aye, let it be so!’ they all cried, satisfied with the fitting justice of their intent, all but for Terce. Though he too cried ‘Aye!’ he looked uneasy, and shadowed.
‘To Duncton then!’ said Wort, triumphant.
‘To Duncton it shall be!’
But when all but Terce had gone Lucerne said, ‘Twelfth Keeper, what troubles you?’
But what really troubled Terce he would not say, for beyond his Master now was the sacred destiny of Rune.
‘Be ever wary of the Stone, Terce. Its cunning is more clever than moles know. The way to ascendancy of the Word lies closed indeed to the Stone’s suffocating light.’
‘What troubles me, Master, is the Stone,’ said Terce, who found that the best lies were those nearest to the truth. ‘The Duncton Stone is said to be one of very great power. Even Master Rune respected it. It may belittle thee and thy ordination.’
‘I suppose it may, Terce, but we shall be nothing if we do not try to be everything. I find the eldrene Wort’s reminder of the Stone’s power timely, most timely. Yet it is that very fact that puts me in mind to be ordained in Duncton. Is their water that for anointing?’
‘I think not, Master-elect. The scrivenings describe it as being on a hill.’
‘Then the tears of followers shall be our cleansing and their blood our anointing.’
‘Yes, Master-elect, they shall have to be.’