Duncton Quest (15 page)

“But beware of their anger and power, Tryfan. Watch for them and seek to turn the shadows they bring into great shafts of light: for a loving mole learns to turn darkness to light and to turn the misdirections of moles back towards the Stone. Yes, yes, listen for them, for they will come and as your journey to the east will make a legend that moles will not forget, so will their coming out of Siabod and the shadows and light your brothers bring make a legend too, yes, yes....

Spindle listened, eyes wide with wonder, for he thought of himself as but an ordinary mole, and after so many years of being by himself, company was strange, but company that spoke so awesomely – as if a book was in the making – was strange indeed. More than that, it had his talons itching to scribe something of it all, and wishing that he could scribe at all. Just a few scrivenings, and his own name, but he might have made an attempt at “
TRYFAN
” and at “
BOSWELL
White Mole”, for, to Spindle, much more than to Tryfan, there was a power in the scribing itself. And “
TRYFAN
” and “
SPINDLE
” and the memory of the great night sky and the wind in the grass of Uffington Hill would be enough to remind him of this to which he was witness.

The excitement of it all must have made him stir for the other two heard and Boswell stopped speaking and the two of them acknowledged Spindle’s presence. Then Boswell moved closer to Tryfan and said, “So, you have spoken the first five Teachings, but the last two... well, now, mysteries indeed!” Boswell laughed, laughter like a pup’s rose into the night. Somewhere in that Tryfan saw on into the next teaching, and words for it began to form into a feeling so palpable that he tried to reach forward for them. “And the Sixth is – it is – it...” But it slipped away, beyond his reach, and he had a moment’s sense that beyond it, unseen but felt, was something more, a Seventh, a last one, something of the Silence but not the Silence, something he knew, yes, yes, yes, he
knew
and it was there, Seventh and last, last to first, there all the time, embraced within words that Boswell had spoken, embraced within himself, something... and it was lost again and he felt a loss terrible and deep, and shook, and wept, staring at Boswell, tears on his face fur.

“What are the last Teachings?” he whispered. “What is the Seventh?”

“Not yet, mole,” said Boswell gently. “Not yet. But your heart knows them, as it always has, before you knew me. But you have forgotten and those last Teachings I will bring you again in time.”

“You’re going, aren’t you?” said Tryfan, concerned and calm at the same time, knowing now for certain that his training was at an end, though he felt he knew so little, except the grim fact that he had been trained to confront the moments that were coming.

“The Boswell you know is going,” said Boswell, “
must
go, yes, yes, yes,
must
go. Remember the Five Teachings you have uttered, and seek the last ones on your way.”

The Five Teachings? What had he said? Tryfan found he could form no words at all in his mind, nor remember quite what he had said. Instinctively he looked round at Spindle, and Spindle nodded as if to acknowledge that he had heard and between them both they would find them again. At the sight of which friendship Boswell again laughed with delight, and they might have joined in but Boswell’s voice rasped and cracked and he began to cough and splutter.

“Age!” he grumbled. “Old age!” But when he had gathered himself together he said, “So you think you have forgotten already! Wonderful! Perfect!” And Tryfan laughed too, because, after all, such teachings were not of the mind but the heart, waiting there to be drawn out by whatever mole he met was ready for them. That was
obvious,
and for no good reason that was what seemed funny about it. It was all so simple. A mole becomes the teachings and so can never forget them, even if he has difficulty remembering them as words.

“Have you finished?” asked Spindle.

“None of us has finished,” said Boswell.

“Well, if I’m not mistaken the grikes are getting nearer.” And it was true enough, the ground was heavy with their pursuit.

“Yes,” said Boswell, “maybe you’re right. Better get on with it. But we’ll need your help, Spindle.”

“For what?” asked Spindle, looking pleased.

“Vouchsafing,” said Boswell shortly.

While Tryfan looked puzzled at this, Spindle, who clearly knew what Boswell meant, looked alarmed.

“But I’m not... I mean I’m just...” And he looked about him, nervously grooming his face fur and trying, as it seemed, to smarten himself up a bit as if he expected to go before an audience of moles.

Meanwhile Tryfan looked from one to the other, not understanding at all, but before he could say anything Boswell had taken a stance before him and as he raised his good paw it seemed that around them was a light of stars.

“Now listen, Tryfan, and listen well,” said Boswell. “And you, Spindle, be witness to what I will do, for there will be a time when moles will doubt what Tryfan is about to become, a time even that Tryfan himself will doubt; and you alone will remember what happened this night and that Tryfan took on a task which, if the Stone grants its fulfillment and he has faith, will make his name honoured over moledom as long as there are moles to tell stories and remember the truth. So listen, and watch, and do not forget.”

So Spindle, not a scribe, and feeling humble before such learned moles as these, crouched low to listen and watch. “There will not be time to repeat myself,” continued Boswell, turning back to Tryfan, “so remember. Many years ago you asked if you would ever be a scribemole and I replied, ‘One day, perhaps’. You have learnt much with me, you have honoured me, and more than that you have honoured the Stone. You have learnt to read and to scribe, the first mole I know who has done so outside the Holy Burrows. But I have long believed – feared, perhaps – that there was a reason for this and now —” And Boswell looked around as if to see the danger of the grikes they could all sense was so near. “— Now I think I understand the Stone’s purpose. Only I know you can scribe, Tryfan, and Spindle, is a witness and a worthy mole. Yes... yes that’s it... none other knows than us. And for the time being it may be best if no other mole does know. Your life and the Stone’s future in the heart of all moles may depend on it. Yes that’s it:
will
depend on it.”

“But I’m not a scribemole yet Boswell,” said Tryfan puzzled, “and I can never be until I have served my time in the Library and been initiated as anciently proscribed before the Holy Mole and in the presence of the ancient books within the Silence of the Stone. The Library is no more, nor the scribemoles and so I can never be one myself.”

“Let the Stone judge your worthiness,” said Boswell. “Becoming a scribemole in the old way is not your task.”

“My task is to protect you, Boswell.”

“Your task is to serve the Stone which will protect us both,” said Boswell softly. Was it, then, a trick of that strange light in the sky that made Boswell’s fur seem to grow brighter and he himself to grow about them?

“Come closer,” he said, reaching out to Tryfan, “and be not afraid for me or for yourself. Listen now, for the first part of your journey is finally over and you have honoured your task and the Stone. Listen...” and the white light gathered ever more around Boswell as he began to speak the words that Tryfan realised with alarm make the novice who hears them forever a scribe.

Stone, give him thy strength

Stone, give him thy wisdom

“No Boswell, no! I am not worthy,” Tryfan whispered in awe. “Not yet. Not yet.”

Stone, give him courage, give him purpose,

Stone, direct his long journey,

Silence, to hear

Silence, to listen

Silence, to know

Silence, to love

Stone, help him always.

“Do you, Tryfan, vow always to scribe true?”

“Oh Boswell, how can I be worthy?”

“Do you, Tryfan, vow always to scribe true?” repeated Boswell.

After a long pause Tryfan whispered, “I do,” his voice seeming removed from him, as if it was not his own.

“Do you, Tryfan, vow to seek Silence?”

“I do.”

“Do you, Tryfan, son of Rebecca, son of Bracken and sponsored by myself, Boswell of Uffington, vow to follow the hardest way, which is the scribemole’s way: which is to love the unloved, to love where love seems lost, to love where love would have you die, to love yet not possess, to love when love is not returned, to scribe with love what truth you know, and be guided in all these things by the Silence that is of the Stone?”

Tryfan bowed his head and whispered, “I do.”

Then Boswell spoke these ancient words:

Stone, accept Tryfan of Duncton as a worthy mole,

Stone, help him always.

Stone, embrace him with thy Silence.

For a moment the only sounds they heard were the distant running of pursuing pawsteps, and the wind in dry grass, and then even those sounds faded as Silence fell, or seemed to fall upon them, so deep and pure that time itself was banished from that place. Each one there seemed still as the Stone itself, and Tryfan entered the stance of meditation which is what all scribemoles enter upon their ordination. And over them the moon circled and the Solstice came, and the stars shone bright, and the northerly wind, strong for so long, faltered and then was gone.

Until a distant dawn came, and Boswell stirred and stretched and reached out a paw to Spindle, and finally to Tryfan.

He said calmly, “Now, Tryfan, you and Spindle must go —”

“But where do we go?” asked Tryfan miserably. “And from what do we flee?”

“You flee from faith in mole before faith in the Stone; faith in dark before light; a lust to hear the dark sound and not the true Sound of Silence. Like the north wind it has come even to Uffington, turning the hearts of moles bitter and frozen, mean and lost. It is the dark side of the Stone made real and it is on us.” So spoke Boswell.

“Go now to other systems, with Spindle as your companion, listen and watch and speak little. Go to the old places, the places of legend and power where the spirit of the Stone will survive, for now it will be needed. Go to

Nuneham, to Rollright, to Siabod and to the distant northern systems. Follow the way the Stone leads you. Go to south and north, to east and west, go where true moles live and seek out their help.

“Return to Duncton Wood and save its moles for they are chosen to love the Stone. Lead them, Tryfan, to a place where the grikes cannot reach them; to the difficult places, even to the empty quarter in the east which nomole has reached for generations. There, perhaps, this evil will not penetrate and perhaps, perhaps...”

“But I am not trained, not worthy, I am nothing.”

Boswell embraced him. “You are worthy. May the Silence of the Stone be thine.” Then, turning to Spindle, he said, “May thy loyalty be a standfast to Tryfan, may thy good humour be his friend and may thy faith be to him a star which shines when his, for want of strength or faith, grows dim. May the Stone protect thee, Spindle, and guide thee true always.”

Poor Spindle! The words seemed like great cries of light across the dark sky and he was overawed by them.

For a final moment there was once more Silence so deep that Tryfan and Spindle were lost in it, and felt tears well up in their eyes as if, after a long journey, they had come home, and in that place it seemed that Boswell was around them and everywhere, each strand of his fur a shaft of light which sprang from Silence into Silence and mole was one with One, and all was now and evermore.

“Who art thou?” Tryfan asked of Boswell in awe, for surely this was no ordinary mole who gave them love as if he was father and mother of allmole.

“I am what you have made me,” whispered Boswell into the great grey dawn, “and I will be what you may do.” But his voice, his distant travelling voice: was it but wind in the grass? And the light about him but the last of the moon and the first of the rising sun?

Then all changed, and Tryfan’s paws were firmly on Uffington Hill once more with Spindle and old Boswell to protect, and danger was theirs. The grikes began to drum the ground to signal the resumption of their search. Moles were on the hill above them and rustling on the slopes below.

“Listen,” said Boswell urgently. “Listen and obey. Our long journey has been but a preparation and strengthening. You cannot stay in the Holy Burrows as you had hoped. You must flee the danger I must face alone for now, while you protect for us who are old and for you who are young, and your pups, moledom’s faith in the Stone. Take it up in your paws, be its guardian and its saviour.”

Then Tryfan leaned forward, and opened his mouth as if for one last time to protest. But Boswell’s gaze stilled him and he said instead, “I will. With Spindle as my witness and my guide, I will.” As he said this there was a flash of lightning, white and searing, which tore across the dawn sky and was followed immediately by an enormous burst of thunder that shook all of Uffington Hill. And then, even more strange, a flash of darkness, as if, for a moment, the very sun itself was in eclipse.

Then out of that darkness, even as it was gone and dawn on them once again, there came a great shout from the hill above them, of a voice as beautiful as cruel ice caught by a chill winter sun:

“Boswell!”

It seemed to come out of the fingerings of the thunder itself as the shape of mole loomed there, as black as night and as powerful. And whisperings, as of many moles, evil incantations and invocations. “Boswell, I know you are down there in the grey light of morning! My guardmoles will find you!”