Duncton Tales

  “Humlock?” she said, or gasped, even before she turned to look back along the distant way to where they had left him.

  “Humlock?” she cried, disbelieving what she saw.

  He was no longer by the rocks where Glee had left him, but seemed to have managed to find his way back downslope to where they had been when Drumlin had told them Hilbert’s tale, where Rooster had tried yet again to teach him to delve.

  There he was, staring blindly at the ground, and seeming to reach towards it, though if it had been he who cried out there was no sign of it now. As they watched they saw his right paw touch the ground, and he seemed to hesitate. Then he shifted forward a little even as Rooster, watching as the others did, whispered softly, “Yes, mole, yes!”

  Then, his stance firmer, he pulled back his right paw for himself as Rooster had showed him, and without more ado lunged it powerfully into the ground. For a moment he held it there before, with a mighty delve, he raised it out again, soil and all, high. Then he slowly raised that great hunched head of his as if to look at his delving paw, but instead he snouted at it, scenting at the earth it held. He slowly turned his paw and let its burden pour out all down his snout and lace, down to the ground again.

  Then he shook his great head and did what he had never done,” never once in all the long days that Sedum had raised him. Humlock laughed.

  And if that laugh sounded strange, from a voice that would never be normal, it was because he had never heard another laugh, and never would. But Humlock had delved his first deep delve and discovered in that place his own good laughter was to be found.

  Glee did not pause a moment more before she was running back as fast as her paws could take her to where he was, to hug him, to hold him, to join her laughter to his own.

  While Rooster turned to Drumlin and said gruffly, in a voice that was command rather than question, “He’s coming with us now, always and for ever. Humlock’s with us.”

  And whatmole could doubt that there is a season when the young take up the tasks of older moles, a season that is not defined by wind or rain or temperature, and that this great season came to the Charnel on that day?

  Privet might have journeyed further into what she then knew of the rest of Rooster’s story, had not her weary and stumbling paws pulled her past the last outcrops of dark grit through which she climbed, up on to the grassy undulations of Hilbert’s Top itself.

  Then she could think of nothing else but the fear and unease she felt, as she heard sounds of calling mole across bleak spaces, and saw the ruined portals of ancient tunnels from whence those sounds seemed to come.

  “Dark Sound?” she whispered to herself.

  She shivered; the sky was a slaty grey and the air cold, and she felt more alone than she ever had. Dark Sound without a doubt, and she knew enough to know she must get away. Yet her paws took her forward towards those fearsome tunnels, drawn by a yearning the calling wrought within her heart, and youthful faith as well that somewhere Rooster might be found at last.

  “I’ll go a little way …” she whispered to herself.

  But a little way was far too far once the deep-delved tunnels in which she found herself — immeasurably more awesome than anything she had ever seen in Crowden — took her in. On she went, past portals beyond her imagining, through chambers with dark shining carvings that seemed to echo even her quiet breath, and turn it into the breathing of a frightened mole and one drawn into a darkness too great for her, and a danger that would destroy her very soul.

  Lost, soon lost. Wandering, vagrant, frightened, her pawsteps became the pawsteps of the grikes who chased her, her gasps the screams of moles who died, until she began to run and run, not knowing where she went, but only that she was on the edge of a void of darkness wherein the Stone’s Light was not known, nor its Silence ever heard.

  Turning from it she cried out to the Stone for help, now, “Now!”

  But the grikes in her soul were made manifest, and were running after her and before her and at her flanks and she was unable to escape, whichever way she turned, and the Stone too far to reach, its Light too …

  Its Light. Far in the distance, tiny, a distant portal to the day, ahead where the grikes that seemed to be would not dare to go, ahead was the only way to look, the only way to go.

  Silence; there, beyond the Light. A hint of it at least, an under-echo to all the fearful sounds of calling, fleeing, chasing, screaming moles she heard in those great delvings where she was lost.

  “Silence, Stone, lead me to it.”

  Never had she made so real a prayer as that.

  “Lead me …” and her voice was echoed back to her in waves, some bearable, some not, as the portal of Light grew greater and she ran on and on, feeling the dark carvings, on to the portal, on into its blinding Light, out through its shining arches, to fall and roll and tumble into the void of nightmare sleep beyond, and beyond that still to wake, her limbs aching on warm grass, her snout scenting at good air, and her flank stilling to the touch of a great mole’s paw.

  She half turned, utterly unafraid, her long journey done. She opened her eyes and looked into the great frowning face of a rough-furred mole, his eyes were narrowed in his concern for her, gentle eyes, as gentle as his touch.

  “Mole,” he said, his voice gruff and deep.

  Rooster.

  But she could not speak his name, hard though she tried, her mouth moving but not in her control, her paws struggling but too weak to move, her mind knowing, but too tired to think.

  Rooster.

  So she only stared into his eyes and slowly, a little fearfully perhaps, his eyes smiled into hers and Privet, sinking into peaceful sleep at last, knew that where she had come was where the Stone had wished her most to be.

  “Rooster,” she whispered, as her eyes closed once more.

  “Yes,” he said, at last.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When Privet awoke again, much refreshed, Rooster had gone, and in a way she felt relieved, for it gave her time to … to what? Catch up with herself perhaps. Scent his scent. Look about the place, and orientate herself, for all the Dark Sound had gone and she was herself again, not that beset and fleeing thing she had been before.

  She found that the Top was elevated above the Moors, which stretched brown and bleak to east and south, which was the part she had crossed with Hamble and Sward on her way to the Dale. Hamble and Sward … she thought of them and then forgot them. That was the past and for now she was above all that, and not only literally, and wished to live in the present, and discover what she could of it.

  Chieveley Dale lay westward on her left flank, and from that height, peering over the steep edge of the fissured scarp formed by the millstone grit, it looked like any other dale: flat, green where its stream ran down, broken up by a few outcrops of rock or boulders fallen from the Tops above, and finally inconsequential. Was down there where her life changed? She supposed it was, and looked northward.

  There the undulations of the Top dipped finally away to reveal the blue mists of dim distance, and another rise of higher ground which must lead, she knew, to Whern. Well, that was not for her now, nor ever, she hoped. No no, such future as she had lay here and south of here, yes, to the south where civilized moledom lay. She and Rooster … and already she had started to dream.

  She turned her attention to the Top itself. It was expansive and generally flat, the outcrops highest where she was, which was why the views were good. She realized with a start that in all her journeying so far she had never seen the Moors without their mists until now. She tried to retrace the route by which she had crossed them, but could not and did not try for long. It was a forbidding sight.

  Since the soil seemed more wormful below the outcrop, and there were signs of delving there, she ventured downslope for a while, glad to get out of the wind. She found the soil lay in drifts between the outcrops and scattered boulders of a different rock, and stopped being wormful to the east, where the Top sloped away and cha
nged to hags of peat and heather. There, she supposed, the Moors she knew began. She avoided the portals she saw, remembering the dangers entering them had led her into when she first came on to the Top, though whether that had been by night, or the previous day, she was not now sure. She had no wish to suffer Dark Sound again. Unless Rooster was with her.

  She smiled to herself, feeling suddenly free and light-pawed, “almost skittish!”, as she said to herself, using a word she knew nomole in Crowden would ever have used of staid Privet, assistant librarian.

  With a start she remembered the story her father Sward had told her of Wort’s Testimony and how he had found it on Hilbert’s Top, and left it where he found it. Should she look for it? She doubted it, and the idea drifted from her.

  So Privet wandered, time of no consequence, comforted by the knowledge that Rooster was somewhere about the place, and certain in herself that when the time came he could find her again. It was the most secure and comfortable of feelings. She was meant to be here where Rooster was.

  The grass shuddered with a colder wind, and she snouted about for an entrance below, sensing that she was clear of the ancient delvings now and nearer something more recent and domestic: Rooster’s place. Feeling like a trespasser, she delved away some grass and mud and with a thrust of her back paws, ventured down, glad to escape the cold winds and lowering skies, and what she found took her breath away.

  Broad, strong, superbly arched, the tunnel turned its splendid way; its air cool, its wind-sound subtle, its walls well made, no, beautifully made. But it was a rough beauty, a serviceable beauty and seeing it, and touching it, she felt herself in the presence of a Master of the Delve.

  The tunnel echoed her pawsteps softly, and led her into the first of several chambers —’burrow’ was too mean a word — whose different uses she could not guess. The light filtered in from above, pale and soft, catching the entrances and exits just so, and making their curves and lines harmonious and deep. Then she paused, for there was something familiar about the place, as if she had been there before.

  She ventured on, and found what must be an eating burrow. Yet it was clean, and ordered, and comfortable, unlike so many she had seen in Crowden. Though her own had always been like this! But Hamble’s! She smiled at the sudden and familiar memory of her friend’s tunnels and wondered coolly if she would ever see them, and him again. Of course she would! Back to the present!

  She found nearby a smaller tunnel that led to a sleeping place, simple, peaceful, empty.

  “Rooster’s place,” she said in wonder to herself. “Oh, he can delve.” But it was not its grandness, for it was not that, nor its snugness, for that is too little a word to describe what she experienced; nor its clarity of line, nor its subtlety — its beauty — of sound. It was all of these, and something more, much more. Something she had seen before, and knew …

  In awe and wonder she wandered on, taking one of the several ways she could see back out of the burrows, emerging briefly on the surface again to find, to her astonishment, that she was much further downslope than she had expected. How he had achieved this effect she could not imagine, and so she went back down, exploring on, until, astonished by the cleverness of all the delving, she found herself back at his sleeping place once more.

  Should she? Could she? Dare she?

  Oh, yes she could! If only to stance down and find out what it felt like to be where Rooster had been. With her heart beating faster once more, she advanced into this most private secret place of his so that for a moment she might lie where once he had lain, and listen to how he had made the wind-sound and vibrations of the whole system centre on this spot.

  Never in all her life had she stanced in a place so sensitive to sound, yet quiet in its effect, for all was carried here, and all absorbed here, and a shift to the right brought a whispering wall, and to the left another, and up above a ceiling, rough-hewn, yet, somehow, finished. She listened to the sounds of grass in wind, and trees whose leaves were shedding, and far, far off the roaring owls, all clear, all carried.

  She reached out a paw to touch the wall that he had delved, and stretched out her body where he had lain, and closed her eyes, and knew that the Rooster she had known, that all the system knew, was not a real mole at all. This was Rooster, here was Rooster, and his form was beautiful, and the only thing that was grotesque was that he had been driven from this place, and it was — felt — bereft of him.

  She closed her eyes, she thought of him, she slept, she dreamed.

  “Mole! Mole!”

  She woke quite terrified. Rooster was there and the tunnel was filled with strange bright light. She could not immediately tell what part of the day it was, nor how long she had been asleep. Then she knew. A whole night had passed, and new dawn had come. Time, on Hilbert’s Top, seemed not its normal self.

  “I … I …” she struggled to find words, to take a defensive stance, to, to …

  “I’ll not harm you, mole,” he said loudly, backing off as if it were he who was afraid. “Didn’t know you were here. Wondered where you’d gone. Don’t mind. Anymole who gets this far into Hilbert’s Top’s not a harming mole.”

  “I’m sorry, I —” but she could not speak. Never ever had she been so taken by surprise. Terror gave way to dismayed embarrassment. “I came to ask you —”

  “You from Crowden?” he said. He seemed to glower but perhaps it was his normal look. She noted that his front paws were different sizes, just as she’d heard. She noted too that there was something very solid about Rooster, gentle but solid.

  “I’m Privet,” she said, “of Crowden’s Library.” At such a moment, and feeling vulnerable, she instinctively wanted to give herself the protection of her work.

  He stared unhelpfully, seeming huger by the moment and more strange.

  “I came to ask you a favour.”

  “Favour?” It seemed not a word he knew.

  Then words tumbled out of her, about Crowden, about what had happened at Chieveley Dale, about everything.

  When she had done he made no comment about any of it at all, but said again, “A favour?”

  “I want you to come to Crowden,” she said.

  Slowly he grimaced in what she thought might be a smile.

  “Can’t,” he said. Too late, too dangerous, no good.”

  “The grikes?” she said.

  He shook his great head. “We’d never get across the Moors, not in time. Winter’s come.”

  Winter? She stared at him blankly. But it was only autumn!

  He turned from her and without a word led her uptunnel to an entrance. He led her out and she found herself in the shadow of one of the great boulders and staring at a muted landscape of white snow. Not deep, not even covering all the Top. Beyond, the Moors were as yet untouched, just brown-black and dull.

  “Soon now. Coming from the east. The Moors will be impassable. And anyway … I have delving to do.”

  “Delving?” said Privet faintly.

  He nodded, and peered vaguely about, his paws fretful among the snow on the ground.

  “And I?” she said in sudden alarm.

  He shrugged indifferently. “There’s worms, there’s room, you’ll survive,” he said. “Stone decides all things. Stone brought you here.”

  “Did it?” she asked.

  He nodded gravely.

  “And my friends, did the Stone let them survive?” she said with a sudden bitterness that took her by surprise.

  “Some did,” he said. “Saw them escape. They got away. Some will.”

  She stared at him and suddenly felt tired, and yet relaxed. Stone decides all things, he had said.

  “Rooster,” she said, “do you mind if I stay here?”

  He shook his head and looked away, and still looking away as if he could not meet her gaze, he said, “Was alone too long. Can’t delve well since Samphire went into Silence. Asked the Stone for help. You’ve come.”

  Without saying more he ambled off, and she watched him go, a
s ungainly in his gait as his paw marks were irregular across the thin covering of snow.

  “Rooster …’ she whispered after him, breathing the chill air and staring at the snow-laden sky, and feeling that here and now, so strangely, her adult life had finally begun.

  He turned as if he had heard her.

  “Privet,” he said, speaking her name for the first time. Across the white layer of snow they stared at each other.

  “Will you come back soon?” she asked.

  “Will,” he said firmly.

  “And talk?” she said.

  He grinned lopsidedly. “Want to,” he said.

  “This evening?” she dared ask.

  “Haven’t delved for days and weeks and months,” he said. “Can delve now you’ve come. Then we’ll talk, Privet and Rooster. Talk till ravens sleep. Samphire used to say that. She was my mother.”

  He turned and finally went off, and as Privet watched him go she felt she wanted to run after him, and hold him, and love him. She felt she wanted to cry out his name. She felt she wanted to become him.

  “Rooster,” she whispered again, and for a moment he paused again, as if he heard, which surely he could not, and then was gone to delve.

  It was night when he returned, and his paws and head were grubby with soil, his talons clogged.

  “Have delved,” he said, and began to groom himself. She watched fascinated, almost hungering to help him groom, terrified of the power of what she felt. But she stanced still and staring, and not a single movement of eye or snout, of mouth or paw, of flank or tail, betrayed the passion that she felt as she wallowed in just watching him.

  “Have delved well,” he said at last.

  “Will you show me sometime?” she said, feeling suddenly stupid.