Duncton Found (8 page)

March had passed into April and then May, and Glyder’s wild retreat had changed from survival to celebration as he breathed the good high air and knew at last a freedom he had always sought. The sun began to rise high enough to shaft down into the darker corners of Ogwen, and on the days it did he would gaze at its play across the black mural heights of Y Gribin, of Glyder Fach, and the sheer walls of Tryfan, wondering how he had ever dared to think he could climb to such heights.

But as the snow and ice on the rock faces above began to melt, Glyder heard and scented twofoots come and go. At first they troubled him, but he soon grew used to them and wondered if he was indeed quite mad, for, lacking mole for company, he began to find a comfort in their presence.

Early one morning a solitary twofoot came his way, up out of the mist and through dawn light past the rocks where he had his home. He heard its breathing, clinking, clattering passage and, in addition to its normal sweet scent, he scented fear. This was enough to alert him, for he had not thought that twofoots suffered fear. The way the twofoot went was strange as well, for it led into the nameless cwm above Glyder’s tunnels, beyond which, surely, no creature but raven could safely go. Yet to Glyder’s astonishment, the twofoot began to climb, its passage ponderous and slow, its breathing and grunt echoing about the high cwm. Higher it went, and the scent of fear hung unmistakably in that cold air.

Yet before it Glyder himself did not feel afraid, but, rather, curious and in some awe, and he went up to the very spot where the twofoot had begun to climb, and smelt and observed twofoot things whose colours almost blinded him. Purples, oranges, and greens....

Then, as the sun got brighter, the twofoot above was silent and still, but for occasional stresses of movement and a gasping, moaning, whispered fear. And suddenly a slip, a jerk at the thing that lay snaked and colourful about the rocks, and a darkening, heavy cry and fall, almost on to where Glyder stanced. And blood and the deep unmistakable sound which all creatures know: the sound of pain.

For the first and only time in his long life, Glyder found himself within touching distance of twofoot, and its smell sickened him. Yet he stayed where he was and met its gaze, which fluttered, and dimmed, and gazed again. The twofoot was dying.

It was there and then that Glyder of Siabod had a revelation that perhaps nomole in all of moledom’s history had had before; or if it had it was not recorded until, later, Glyder’s was. It was as simple a thing as ever could be. For watching over that twofoot Glyder understood that after all it was but a creature like himself, with life and death, with light and shadow in its form. Like weasel, like rabbit, like owl. Glyder lost his sense of fear and knew all life was one, all one.

But the twofoot lay dying, and he prayed for it. Its eyes were on his again, and then they were gone once more. But breath came from it, and life still, and scent.

He prayed again in Siabod and then turned his snout up beyond the creature towards great Tryfan’s flanks, and knew he must begin to climb. Crevice by crevice, higher and higher, always beyond his questing paws. Night had come, and he had drunk rainwater in a cleft, and eaten the bodies of beetles where worms could never be.

He had slept, and woken with the dawn, and climbed another day, higher and higher, until suddenly he had found the plant he had often sought, the white and starry idwal lily, so rare that a mole who saw it was much blessed. There Glyder had rested one last day, vowing to start the final climb up to the unreachable Stones above at the very crack of the next dawn if the weather was set fair. By the idwal lily he slept, its scent no more than a wraith of peace on the wind.

Morning came, that same morning that came to all moledom that day, and Glyder woke in the deep shadow that daily besets the west side of Tryfan and watched as the sky paled, and the sun began to lighten the great heights of Y Garn and dread Twll Du, which rise massive across the Idwal Cwm.

Then, taking for his only sustenance the pure water he found in the clefts near where the lily grew, he began his climb again in shade, knowing that he would only see the sun that day if he reached the top where the Stones themselves were. As for living afterwards, he doubted that he would, for there would be no food so high, nor for days to come in his descent.

So, commending himself to the Stone’s care, he climbed, and as he climbed the morning’s light spread itself wondrously across rock, and water, stream and hidden cwm, far far below. And the only sound that accompanied him was the wind’s quiet rush, and from far away the muted sound of roaring owl.

“For them too, and the twofoot below, I’ll climb this day,” Glyder said to himself, “for the Stone is for all creatures, aye, even for the twofoot.”

Though the broken, savage rocks beset him, yet still he struggled on in shade as the rocks on the slopes of the Carneddau to his left and the Glyders to his right were warmed and coloured by the clear sunlight.

Then, his breath all gone, his paws faltering, his mouth dry, the massive rocks seemed to flatten ahead, and he was there where nomole had ever been, unless it be a White Mole or a holy mole, or a giant of legend old.

As he went forward for the final part, he came into the sun’s great light, and so bright was it that he could see no more of the two Stones than a rising whiteness, glistening and shining into the great sky.

The wind was quiet, the world spread all about, and the light full in his old paws. He moved a little to one side, to stare up at the Stones without the sun in his eyes and saw their grey sheer rising sides, and then he looked far beyond them to the dark rise of Moel Siabod, the place of his birth.

He wanted to touch the Stones, but something held him back. He looked down at his sturdy paws, and at his talons worn with age and climbing where nomole had been before. Old Glyder stared up at the Stones and drew his talons back. Time yet to touch them. Time now to go closer still and settle, time to meditate and wait.

“Aye!” he whispered proudly, feeling his strength and knowing his weakness too. “I’ll not hurry to touch them but be ready for when it’s right. But make it soon, Stone, for a mole could die up here!” The sun rose still, and the air was quiet.

So Siabod. Now to Beechenhill and four moles resting in the early summer grass, two sets of siblings.

The eldest pair, Betony and her brother Bramble, were the offspring of Squeezebelly, leader of the Beechenhill moles. These were the two who, as youngsters, found Tryfan near this same spot and led him to the Beechenhill Stone where, for a time never to be forgotten by anymole who heard, he spoke of the tasks of the Stone and how a mole finds courage to fulfil them.

The second and younger pair were Wharfe and his sister Harebell, two of the three moles born of that fated litter that Tryfan begot by Henbane of Whern. All were autumn moles, born the previous October, and they still had about them a touch of youth. Their third sibling was Lucerne, whom Henbane kept and raised, but his existence and full darkness were not yet known to them.

Wharfe and Harebell had been brought covertly to Beechenhill by Mayweed and Sleekit, and their care entrusted to Squeezebelly himself, that they might grow up privily, their true origins unsuspected. Nothing indeed was to be said to them until, when Squeezebelly alone adjudged the time was right, they must decide for themselves the path they must follow.

Betony and Bramble had become their watchers and friends, keeping them close when they were young and enjoying their company now they had grown and were nearly ready for what adulthood would bring. There was about Wharfe and Harebell a natural authority and strength, which had already begun to reveal itself. Harebell had a quality of grace and intelligence that seemed like a shining of light across her fur and in her eyes, and though there was natural cheer in her face and way yet somewhere within her, too, was a watchful sadness as if there were things in life, dark things, that she was preparing herself for.

Wharfe was bigger than her, and stronger by far, and though he knew it not he had about his limbs that same strength which Tryfan had had when young. But more than that, he had an extra strength, checked for now, which showed only when he was angry, which was rare, and which had the hint of Mandrake of Siabod about it. Perhaps it was in the rougher edges of his fur, or the purpose of his talons, or the way his great head turned and stared, as Mandrake’s once had, at wild clouds as if in search of something lost. If this was the counterpart of Harebell’s hint of sadness it matched it well, and expressed what these two moles had suffered when, within moments of their birth, they had been taken from their mother’s teat, at her behest, and secreted far from Whern’s harmful influence.

The sun had risen slowly that morning, and by its brightening light in leaf and dew they had taken their slow leisure. Then settling down near where the streamlet runs, and watching the sparkles in its flow, they talked again of what the future held. Each said they would travel to see the Stones of the Seven Systems, whatever grikes might say, and each agreed that of them all they wished most to see the Duncton Stone from which great Tryfan himself had come. From that way, too, the Stone Mole would surely come one day as well, to all of moledom – and certainly to Beechenhill!

But then for a moment a chill had come to the air, the kind that Harebell knew made Wharfe uncomfortable, as, for a few seconds, nomole else but she noticed he stirred and looked northward, his eyes bleak and wild, his spirit lost. There a darker cloud moved in the sky, threatening to mar the beauty of the morning, rolling and rising in the sky. He saw it and so did she, but the others, staring and thinking of the south, had eyes only for the light of the sun.

Wharfe crouched up, grew still, glanced briefly at his sister, and then down towards the south again as if to forget what he could not.

“What is it, Wharfe?” asked Harebell with concern. The others became concerned as well.

Wharfe looked at them all and smiled and said, “We are each other’s greatest friends, brother to brother, sister to sister, and wherever we may go we shall be as one. Soon, sooner than we know, we shall be apart. But a day must come when we shall be one again. Then... we shall meet at....”

He paused and was silent.

“The Duncton Stone!” said Bramble with excitement, liking the dream.

“Here, on this very spot,” said Harebell, smiling.

“I don’t know,” said Betony, capturing Harebell’s deeper concern.

The three turned to Wharfe, for him to decide, but his question asked he seemed to have lost interest and turned back north to gaze at the dark mounting cloud that seemed to be bearing out of nothing towards them, right across the northern sky.

Then he was wild again, staring this way and that, distressed.

“I thought I heard....”

“What did you hear?”

“A note. Deep, like a calling to us all. Didn’t any of you hear it?” He seemed surprised and he looked troubled. The dark of his fur and powerful form was mirrored by the terrible approaching sky behind. Still the sun shone bright, but the day had a shadow across it.

Then quite suddenly there
was
a note, deep and haunting, mournful, quite short, yet in its effect as persistent as a hungry pup’s cry.

“We’re wanted!” cried out Wharfe with certainty. “It’s as it was when one of us called when we were young, and the others knew he was needed and must go quick.”

The others looked at him in alarm, and at the coming clouds, and then reared up in readiness as he himself reared up, turned and said, “I’m needed by the Stone. Now. We’re
all
needed, and I don’t know why. All
moledom’s
needed. Can’t you feel it?”

He turned and began to run back upslope and Bramble, who least understood the terrible urgency of the moment, called after him, “You never said where we would meet to be together again. You never said....”

“At our own Stone, at Beechenhill: there we must go now, and there one day we’ll be needed and we’ll meet again. At the Stone of Beechenhill....”

Then Tryfan’s son by Henbane was gone upslope among the grass, faster than they could follow up the long, long way towards Beechenhill’s Stone.

As he went, quicker and quicker, urgent against the darkening sky, the June sun faltering on his back, the others came after him, and moles they passed watched and wondered what the fuss was about before they too stared up at the forbidding sky, and began to think a storm was on the way for the air was restless, and heavy, and the light now strange indeed.

While on ran Wharfe, leaving his sister and friends further and further behind as he strove to reach the Stone before the darkening sky overcast it with shadow and driving rain. As he went he felt that in some terrible and mysterious way the very future of moledom was in his paws. Yet not just in his own: in
all
their paws, to make or mar as they themselves decreed.