The moment passed, and Whillan and Maple showed her and Madoc how the land lay, and where the Convocation was being held. The sloping flat top of Caer Caradoc looked deserted, and its surface was darkly mottled with shadow as the sun began to set.
“Longest Night is beginning,” said Whillan. “Whatmole could have guessed we would be here of all places to see it in!” He looked at Madoc, whose part Privet had not stinted in praising, and said, “Thank you for staying with her.”
Madoc shook her head: “My life changed the moment she made me tell her my true name. I have tasted freedom with her, and want never to taste anything else again!”
“What is it, Privet?” said Maple as the two younger moles talked, for the scribemole had hunched forward suddenly as she stared at the fading light in the west.
“It’s beginning,” she said, her voice trembling, “it’s beginning now.”
“What is, mole?” asked Rolt urgently. Whillan and the others had fallen quiet, hardly daring to breathe.
“Longest Night. This night. Change. What we must do. It’s near, and I... I... Listen, Maple, and listen well. You must not stay here, not you. I know...”
He had begun to protest and she put a paw to his to calm him.
“I know your task has been to protect us, but you cannot do more now. There are going to be savage times soon, most dangerous times, for ruthless though Quail may have been there will be moles who will stance up and resist what he has done and wishes to do.”
“Stow of Bourton for one!” said Maple.
“But they must not!” said Privet passionately.
“But Privet —”
“No mole, they must not, not in the old way. There is another way, a better way, the only way. You must go to them. Start in the High Wolds, for you are known and trusted there. Lead them in a new way towards peace and silence. Teach them the things we have learnt in Duncton.”
“We have been defeated in Duncton without a fight, and have undone what all our forebears did!” said Maple bitterly.
“No, my dear, we have not. We will attend the Convocation and something will come of it to guide us on, and lead others too. I know it, and feel it!”
Brother Arum came hurrying back with another of the allies of Thripp, a middle-aged mole called Boden. These two and Holt quickly conferred, then Rolt turned back to Privet.
“You’ve got to come, but it’ll only just be in time. The Convocation is beginning. The Brothers have been spoken to, they’ve been ritualized. Quail is there. Chervil is brooding, Thripp is watching from the shadows with his few friends gathered round him, so come now with me and let us salvage what we can from all of this!”
The day had grown no lighter, and high above the surrounding countryside as they were, they had the feeling that if they were any longer a part of anything, it was the grey wintry sky above. The dull grass fretted in the cold wind, and such protection as the dark Stones offered was forlorn and bleak. So that as Brother Rolt now indicated to them to follow him, and after a short and silent journey downslope they went below ground, they felt a kind of grim relief to be facing at last the dangers that had loomed so long.
They had not journeyed long down the tunnel before they turned off in a westerly direction, through passages that were large and echoing, making silent progress difficult. Here and there the dry and wormless earth was interrupted by juts of the same sandstone as composed the Caradoc Stones; below ground it was lighter in effect, for the facets of the sand particles glistened in the gloom. The sound they made might have worried them more had not the tunnels carried a general hum of activity, distant but quite noticeable. This was loudest from the downslope tunnels that they passed, and once they even heard a snatch of the rhythmic chant of male voices.
“Good, good!” exclaimed Brother Rolt.
“That means they’re pre-occupied,” said Boden with some satisfaction.
It was only when they finally took a downslope tunnel that Rolt began to betray any real concern for their safety.
“If we meet anymole, say nothing. Leave the talking to me. We almost certainly will meet some, but they won’t be expecting deceit or treachery today!”
Downslope they went, the sounds ahead becoming steadily more distinct; they heard chants, and talk, deep voices and sudden trailings away, as of a gathering crowd of moles assembling in anticipation of the start of a long-awaited ritual.
More than once they saw somemole hurrying out of a side tunnel ahead of them and then turning downslope, the way they were heading. Another time an elderly mole appeared suddenly down-tunnel of them, but as Whillan did his best to look inconspicuous, and Maple readied himself for a dispute, or even a fight, Rolt waved a paw, and the mole said, “Ah, good, you found them! Better late than never. Brother Rolt, better late than never! You know it’s to the left...”
Rolt confirmed he did and they hurried on. The walls of the tunnel had until recently been only earth, but now the sandstone appeared again on the left-paw side, forming an impressive and seemingly impregnable wall.
Just as Whillan was thinking that if they did get spotted they would have nowhere to escape to and hide, they heard a deep chanting behind them, and the inexorable marching of paws. Rolt turned and stopped them and they pressed themselves as best they could into the hard wall as eight brothers, marching steadily and chanting in time to their own steps, came down the tunnel from behind.
“Lower your snouts and mutter respectfully,” said Arum, suddenly decisive, and they did so, the Duncton moles following the lead set by the others. Whillan did not, or could not, work out what it was the moles were chanting, or what its significance might be. As they went past the mole at the rear of the column called back to them, “Find your places quickly. Brothers, for this day of days we brook no delays!”
Rolt followed on after him, but slowly so that soon the column and its powerful chanting went out of sight and hearing. Soon after this Rolt stopped once more and with a quick look up and down the tunnel pointed a talon at a cleft in the wall, barely more than a fissure.
“Boden, you take the lead and I’ll follow behind. The rest of you keep close together as it’s dark in places and easy to get lost.”
For a mole as large as Maple it was a tight squeeze but he managed, following after Privet whom he insisted on keeping within sight. The tunnel was not really a tunnel at all but rather a natural rift in the rock. It was not the kind of route liked by moles conscious of their safety, for they could not turn in it, and quickly escape. A force of two moles – one ahead and one behind – would have kept them all trapped without difficulty. But they pressed on, heaving and panting where fallen rock fragments presented obstacles, until with a pull from the front and a helping shove from behind they reached a spot where the fissure widened into a tunnel once more, a damp one too, for water dribbled in fits and starts down its centre; evidently, on wet days, it served as a temporary drain.
“Not a good place to be if it rained,” muttered Maple, ever the mole to be aware of the dangers of routes from which there were no quick escapes. But with Maple around others always felt safer, and knew that if a crisis arose he would know how to deal with it.
Rolt gathered them together and told them that quiet was essential, and careful movements.
“We’re soon going to be at a vantage-point from which you will be able to watch the Convocation more or less without being seen – but the emphasis is on the more or less... so be careful.”
The tunnels they were in were some of the most peculiar the Duncton moles had ever seen, being no more than cracks and fissures between solid rock which followed the rocks’ grain and fault lines, and ran straight in one direction and then angled abruptly in another, their gloomy overhanging walls towering above. The sound of the gathering nearby was as changeable as the direction they followed, being loud at one moment, soft and sibilant the next, and sometimes fading away altogether. Their route was evidently seldom used, as the soft wet sand underpaw had few prints in it,
and little scent of mole.
Rolt slowed, looking back once more to indicate the need for extreme caution, and led them round another sharp comer, and what they saw took their breath away. Stretching out beneath them was one of the largest chambers any of them had ever seen, and it was filled with what at first seemed a confusion of moles – some chanting, some silent, some hurrying busily about, and other just stanced down and staring around as bemused perhaps as the Duncton moles.
The chamber was a great deal lighter than the tunnel through which they had come, and the high arched gallery in which they now silently took rest. The cavern’s roof was pitted and fissured in places with the roots of vegetation trailing down or twining about the moist rock, pale green and sinewy. Here and there the reddish-black roots of bracken and broom hung, and just off to their right a mass of them ran down the wall and disappeared into the floor below, a living column amongst the subterranean rock.
It took them some time to work out how the mass of Newborn moles below were organized, but when a hush began to fell and moles seemed to find their places and stop moving about, all became clear. There was a raised area off to their left and towards this most of the moles faced. Behind this platform, which they realized was the focus of attention and the scene for the coming activity, some twelve to fifteen important-looking moles ranged themselves, most having a hint of grey fur, and experience scribed on their faces, all self-confident and formidable. Indeed, the closer a mole looked at them, the more so they seemed.
“Inquisitors,” whispered Boden to Whillan and Maple, frowning in disapproval.
“Don’t let them see you, my dear,” said Arum to Madoc, towards whom, since Rolt had intervened by the Stones, he had been showing protective concern, to which she responded with smiles and nods which made the austere old mole’s snout turn pink with pleasure.
“They’re settling down now,” whispered Rolt, “and soon there’ll be liturgical chants intended to prepare the participants for what’s to come. The Elder Senior Brother had originally intended to make the formal proceedings very simple, and concentrate on discussions and debate, perhaps in smaller groups, but since Brother Quail took matters over things have changed.”
“Won’t be much debate!” said Arum.
“Nor any discussion at all!” declared Boden a little too loudly, but a stare from Rolt silenced him.
“There’ll be a lot of chanting, some of the Inquisitors will no doubt speak and Quail will harangue the gathering in his belligerent and unpleasantly powerful way. Not until this evening will Brother Thripp come forward, but by then it may be too late for his words to have any effect. In his younger days he could have matched Quail at such a meeting at this, but the mood has changed; the younger Newborns don’t want to hear about a way to the Stone’s Silence. No, they’re interested in shedding spiritual blood in the name of the true way by eliminating any obstacles in their path. May the Stone help anymole who puts a paw wrong here today, for they’ll be looking for victims.”
Rolt’s voice dropped as the hush in the great chamber deepened, but for an expectant shuffling of paws and the occasional cough. As the moles below waited some stared up from the empty dais facing them to the enshadowed galleries above and the watching moles suddenly felt very vulnerable, and moved not a single hair lest their movement be seen and their dark forms made out.
For what seemed a long time but was probably only a few moments the hush deepened into complete silence of the kind that held all moles in its thrall, fearful that they would be the one to break it. Then in a firm clear voice one of the Inquisitors, whom Boden explained was Skua, the Chief Inquisitor, intoned these words:
“Almighty Stone,
At this holy Convocation,
Accept our entreaties,
Direct our lives to thy commandments,
Elevate our hearts,
Purify our bodies,
Rectify our thoughts,
Cleanse our base desires,
Heart and body,
Mind and spirit,
Thought and desire.
Reprieve us wholly,
At this holy Convocation,
Almighty Stone.”
This was no sooner spoken than a deep chanting of the land they had witnessed earlier came forth from the rear of the chamber. Peering that way, they could see columns of moles emerging from tunnels at the back, and on the far side – and nearside too no doubt, but that was below their line of vision. Their paws moved in time with their song, whose words none of them could at first make out.
Not that Whillan was trying to, for he was so suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed by the power of the chant and the spectacle unfolding beneath him. What songs he had heard in Duncton Wood, what few rituals he had witnessed, were nothing compared to the mounting force of the singing below them. The columns moved slowly and methodically through the assembled moles, meeting and massing in the centre, their voices deep and harmonious. The very roof of the chamber seemed to shake at their power, the very walls to tremble.
Then, unexpected again, the other moles, those assembled, let out a strange, brief, haunting sigh, and thumped their right paws on the ground in front of them; then they were silent as the chant continued, the deep voices joined now by the higher falsetto singing of a solitary voice whose source the Duncton moles could not at first locate. The image and feeling the chant had at first evoked was of a marching forward, ever more urgently, with ever greater resolution. But it was a marching of moles without faces or personality – a body in which the individual was subsumed and lost within the mass in the name of a common purpose.
But now the new voice came, strange and haunting, male yet not male in its falsetto soaring, nor in the sense of vulnerability and loss it conveyed to those who heard it. At first the Duncton moles, least of all Whillan, who was the most immediately and profoundly affected by the extraordinary chants coming from the moles below, could not understand how so gentle a single voice could be allowed to run counter to the basic chant, and they wondered if it could be a protest of some kind. Perhaps some individual who had evaded detection by the Newborns, and now sang his defiant counterpoint to their ruthless and dogmatic chant.
It was Madoc who saw the singer first, pointing him out to Privet and then to Rolt and his colleagues (who nodded without taking their eyes off the astonishing scene). Privet turned to Whillan and Maple, who asked who the mole was.
“Squelch!” whispered Madoc, eyes wide in fear as she uttered his loathsome name, but filled with bewilderment as well, for the song he sang in counterpoint to the deep chanting was beautiful, haunting, and profoundly sad. She took Whillan’s paw and directed his gaze across the chamber to a mole who was stanced clear of the others near one of the Inquisitors.
“That’s Squelch, the son of Brother Quail,” she said again. “He sings as no other mole any of us has ever heard sing, but often it’s over his victims...”
Yet foul as he was, there was no denying how moving the mole’s strange song was. Perhaps all the more so for the sight of him, since he was obscenely fat, with folds of furry flesh at neck and haunch, and great flabby paws poking out from beneath his body, like stubby growths. His head was round and bare, turned up towards the roof with eyes shut, as he sang for some life he had lost, or could not have, and wept.
What Whillan found most disturbing about Squelch’s lament was that in the midst of the inexorable advance of the Newborn chant there was room for so powerful a contradiction to it, and nomole minded. It was surely no simple dogmatic bullying that could produce such subtlety, the like of which he had never experienced in Duncton Wood’s simple, homely rituals.
“What does it mean?” Whillan asked Brother Rolt. “Not just the words, but all of it?”
Rolt stared briefly at him and said, “It means that going forth to fight the fight of faith is not easy, and demands sacrifice. It was the Elder Senior Brother Thripp who made these songs, and he who first encouraged Squelch to sing. He said it might... bring him n
earer the Silence.” Rolt threw a look of distaste at Squelch but Whillan did not notice it for he was thinking, “Thripp? Made this chant and composed this song?” And he was filled with respect and awe. The Convocation had not started as he had imagined it might, and he was beginning to think it would not continue, or even end, in any way he could predict. Thripp had not been what Whillan expected, and now the Newborn ritual was not either, and he felt his world was under an attack he might not be able to resist.
Squelch’s song ended as suddenly as it began and his snout levelled; sniffing and dabbing at his tears with a forepaw, he stared about him, grinning strangely. His sorrow seemed forgotten and only vileness remained in its place.
As the chanting muted down preparatory to its climax. Brother Rolt whispered to them all, “I must leave you now to join my master. The next time you see me it will be a little later today down there. Arum and Boden will see that you don’t stray, and perhaps can find you food...? There will be much chanting as the day progresses, and eventually after various other speeches and harangues and some confessions, Brother Quail will speak. Listen carefully – very carefully – to what he says, and do not be overwhelmed by how he says it. It is the “what” we must fear, for all he has so far said he would do, he has done.
“Watch and listen too, to Brother Chervil. His intervention may be needed and his father was speaking to him about that when I left at dawn, but Chervil was unwilling. We cannot rely on him for he seems more dogmatic after so long away and he may have less use than we think. As for the Elder Senior Brother, I have advised him against speaking; it will be a great strain on him in his present state. But he will do as he is guided and may perhaps be unable to resist the Convocation if by popular acclaim it asks him to speak. Now, I must leave. Be careful, do not let yourself be seen.”