Duncton Found (38 page)

And Lucerne at such moments? Cold as ice before her need, but ice he knew served only to inflame her more....

And wherefore? For young, of course, for pups. For heirs to the evil that he was. So that divinity would thrive and live on, which, if it proved so, would make Mallice a mother of divinity. All of them corrupt! All vile! Infection! Stain! Have mercy on us, Stone, who face such a gathering storm of evil from the north....

Be sure that others died as well before Lucerne felt that Whern was his. A good few older sideem who had served Henbane rather too loyally for their own good; Terce suggested that they die. Lucerne agreed. Mallice did it, and was no doubt eager once again for Lucerne’s lust.

Yet there were more... four newly anointed novices were killed as well, as having been hostile to Lucerne in the past and not to be trusted with the onerous work that now lay ahead of the sideem and was essential to the grand scheme of things. In the mounting excitement of that summer they would not be missed. So far, such eliminations were discreet, yet the hint of them added to the menace that lay behind the charming face of Lucerne. Discreet and successful, as all else he did seemed to be.

Indeed, in only one regard can Lucerne and Terce be said to have failed, and that concerned Henbane.

So swift had been the Mistress’s exit from the system through the secret way Mayweed had first used that those moles Lucerne sent after her failed utterly to find her.

But later they knew which way she went from the dead and dying that she left behind. The first of it they knew was a scream they heard on the slopes above Dowber Gill, where they found a new sideem taloned out of the way, one who had not been weak at all but more than a match (a mole might have thought) for aging Henbane. Not so.

Later that day, further to the south but higher up the fells, two more were found, one dead, one dying, yet neither showing any sign of struggle. Their eyes were open and fixed on some puzzle they had seemed to see, and across their breasts were what appeared no more than the rough caress of talons.

What had they seen? Did Henbane stop them with her charm, and did she confront them with the real truth of the Word, which was its essential lie, and therein lay their fatal perplexity? We think that in some way she did.

A fourth sideem they found crying at the Providence Fall, surrounded by its towering walls and falls of rock, his cries muted by the roar of the stream nearby. He spoke no sense but the word “Mistress’, nor could they find a clue how he came to be there. But there he was, and nearly mad.

“Where is the bitch?” roared Clowder, for he knew well enough what Lucerne’s final victory needed: Henbane herself, and her punishment; and her dead body seen and witnessed.

Henbane merely disappeared meant doubt, and suspicion that she might return, and even the thought of such a possibility belittled the perceived power of the Master yet to be. Which, if one day he was to be divine, had best seem absolute.

They searched Providence Fall, as they had searched the southern slopes, but found no sign of her at all.

Lucerne and Clowder pondered, but it was Mallice who seemed to know best what to do: “Send messengers to the watchers on the heights, and on the southern and western scars; send messengers northwards. Order them to describe Henbane in all those systems she is likely to come to, do it swiftly and reward her captor well. And let her live.” The eyes of Mallice glittered, and Lucerne nodded, thinking.

Still he stanced, dark as night, eyes narrowed, fur shining, claws curled sharp, snout strong, the very image of a Master, and with that power his mother had: to attract all others’ eyes, and hold them, breathless and afraid as if some force was about to break forth that might consume them all. Even his most ordinary words seemed heavy with portent at that time.

At last he said, “Her flight makes our task easier, for a Mistress should not flee and by this alone, whatever support she might have had will all be lost.” Then he thought some more, and added to the suggestion Mallice made: “The messengers shall say that she is accursed of the Word for craven cowardice. If she is found then at my command alone she must die, at the talons of the mole I shall appoint.”

Here Mallice almost shivered with delight, for Lucerne’s gaze fell on her and she knew who would win that task. What ecstasy that would be, to take the life of her consort’s mother! And why pity the bitch? Had not
she
in her time killed her own mother Charlock? So does evil thrive upon itself.

“If she is not found,” continued Lucerne, “then let all moles know she is accursed to suffer slow disease and painful death. It is the Word’s will; I speak it.”

“The Master speaks a curse on Henbane,” went the whisper throughout Whern and far beyond. “If anymole or system gives her sanctuary, knowingly or unknowingly, then they’ll be cursed as well. Let allmole be on guard and, taking her, bring her back to Whern. The former Mistress Henbane, blasphemer against the Word, is outcast by the Master Lucerne! So ordains the Word!”

To such threats and imprecations we must leave Henbane for now, and to the ordination of the Stone, and wonder if such a mole as she has been would find forgiveness, and guidance, and be given one last chance to redeem a mite of goodness in herself. However hard our hearts may be, however unforgiving, yet we must remember that the Stone is merciful, and trust it more than we can trust ourselves in matters affecting other lives.

Even as the first decree of the Master went out to surrounding grike systems, Lucerne himself, no longer wasting time concerning himself with what for now he could not further influence, turned his attention towards how to harness the new-found energy and excitement that had come to Whern following his success on so auspicious a day as Midsummer itself.

He gained acclamation by resisting all suggestions that his ritual accession could take place that same Midsummer day, sensing instead that it would better serve his purpose if he delayed his accession to a time when other triumphs could be celebrated, and more moles than sideem might see his Mastership conferred. Meanwhile, he continued with the false modesty of preferring others not to call him Master, though his eyes glittered when they did.

He quickly arranged with Terce that the three dead Keepers should be replaced by Mallice and Clowder and himself, and made it known that when he became Master then in deciding which sideem took the Keeper’s place he left vacant he would give favour to that mole that most impressed him with his vigour in pursuit of the Word’s way in the summer years to come.

In such ways did Lucerne often sow the seeds of ambition and doubt, plotting and deception, among those who served him, causing them to watch each other, and be suspicious of each other all the time. He held sway by doubt, and fear, and favour.

And often with promises of a better dawn.

That same night, indeed, keeping the initiative he had gained, Lucerne gathered the sideem in one of the larger chambers of Whern and spoke rousingly to them of the future. He told them that there were many important tasks for those who wished truly to serve the Word. The time had come for sideem to accept the challenge implicit in the original flight of Scirpus from the south, which was that when the day came that the Word was triumphant then its position must be forever consolidated and confirmed
and that its centre must move south once more.

Few then realised how radical this suggestion was. To move the very centre of the Word from north to south! It might, in the end, demote Whern to a secondary place in the Word’s ordinance.

The sideem were aghast, though few but Terce, perhaps, understood that by divorcing the sideem from Whern and leaving his own guardmoles there – which was his intent, and what he did – Lucerne secured all power to himself of the Word’s spiritual home. Powerful indeed would be the mole who controlled which moles might make a pilgrimage back to Whern.

A few sideem dared criticise. Lucerne was too clever to risk killing these, though Mallice noted who they were and marked them down for posts obscure and dangerous where they might easily be eliminated if Lucerne so decreed. Instead, he dazzled them with words which of themselves were but rhetoric, but imbued with the majesty and menace he gave them, they worked for him well enough.

“Must we of Whern be fugitives?” he cried out to them. “Must we always be victims of the Stone’s malevolence? Scirpus led us here from the south that we might survive and know the Word. Here he found the Word, and the Word lived in us and thrived in us. But Scirpus did not ordain that we stay in this high harsh place forever but rather bide our time, as we made ready to turn on the foes of the Word and take back what is rightfully ours; bide our time until the time is right. So our fathers bided, towards a great day to come when the Word is proclaimed for ever more. The time is now. That day is come!

“Now, with thy support, I, Lucerne, grandson of Rune, will lead you back to the wormful place from which our ancestors of the faith were unjustly driven. There we shall go to cleanse the tunnels and burrows so long defiled by followers of the Stone; to make such moles Atone, to bring succour and support to those who, these moleyears past, have shown allegiance to the Word.

“They cry to us from the wilderness of the south and we shall hear them! They cry for our help, and we shall give it. They cry, and we shall succour. This is the will of the Word. This
is
the Word.”

Profane adoration was in the eyes of those who heard, and no face was still, none quiet. Anger, tears, supine love, all the passions of blind faith were there upon the faces of those who heard.

“Great shall our tasks be. To wreak punishment to the undeserving, to bring strength to those who suffer of the Stone, to bring peace at last to moledom. And you who have been anointed this days of days, you who have heard the dark sound of the Word and been blessed by it; you whose fur is still damp of the baptismal waters of the Lake of the Rock – you shall be my example, you shall be the new apostles of the Word, you are its great crusade.”

Hushed were the young sideem, in awe of the image of themselves he presumptuously made, ready even then to rise up and do his bidding.

“My friends, when moles look back upon this great time, and wonder where it was best to be alive, and for what, your deeds in the months and years to come will tell them this: in Whern it was best to be, and for the Word. They shall revere you, they shall remember you, they shall speak your name in awe and say, “He was of Whern, his life was committed to the Word, he saw the challenge before him and did not flinch or falter before it.’”

Then he was silent, sweat shining in his fur, breathing heavily with the effort of his speech, his proud look demanding of loyalty, and commanding of support.

Then among the new sideem there went a rippling chant of excitement and acclaim, ever louder and more rhythmic as they took up what he had said and cried out, “A great crusade! We shall make the crusade of the Word!” And the tunnels of Whern roared and shook with their clamour.

With such words as these did Lucerne win the sideem to his heart and persuaded them that their bright future lay in leaving Whern and crusading south.

Yet having won them to that course he then deliberately made them wait, saying they must show patience and so test their purpose and commitment for the trials to come. Perhaps he sensed that it was yet too soon to commit the moles of Whern to any radical move from the place that they knew as the very centre of their faith. Nor did he himself, who had never yet moved out of the system, know much directly of moledom beyond and, listening perhaps to Terce, he decided to... bide his time.

It had become the expectation in the summer years at Whern that sideem who had been serving in the field – often in far-off systems in the south to which journeys took many a molemonth or even years – returned to Whern and made their reports of what was apaw. Rune himself had been sent on such a venture south, and found trouble too when he returned and strove to persuade Whern to take advantage of the weakness of moledom after the plagues.