Duncton Quest (130 page)

A hundred thousand shimmers of light were in those young leaves and Spindle climbed towards them now in wonder, yet in pain. He wanted Tryfan near him, close by, for he had shared so much with him and wanted now to share the growing beauty he saw ahead.

For over the Ancient System that light shone brighter yet, and it was a welcome, an honouring, and hard though each step was, yet each brought him nearer and the more he seemed to see.

“I’ll scribe it for allmole,” he whispered, “so they know, so they care, “I’ll —”

“Spindle moule, cum softly, cum and yev me holp.”

Her voice was of the wood’s light and it seemed as he heard it that all his life he had been coming towards this moment, and to help her. Then he went among the trees, and above him their branches rose in greys and greens, and the wood was hushed and beautiful. While before him waited Feverfew, and she was smiling but tired, very tired.

“Whar ys Tryfan?” she said gently. “Yow sem so tired to cum aloon.”

“I sent for him to come to the Stone, Feverfew, and he will, he’ll know he must. So I’ll help you there now myself and be with you until he comes.”

“Cum,” she said, and he went to her and she took his paw and slowly, together, they went through the wood. And he told her of the light he had seen, and of knowing without knowing that he must come here, and that he wished he could scribe it down.

Then as the Stone came into view, rising among the trees, Spindle said, “I wanted to see the Stone Mole, Feverfew, I wanted to see him. He is the end and the beginning. He’ll be your pup, won’t he?”

“He ys nere nu, Spindle moule, so nere,” she said breathing heavily, a paw to her side where her own pains were beginning to come. “But yow shal see hym, for yow he luved as he luved alle moulen. Yow shal. Holp me.”

So then Spindle led her slowly and with great care to the very base of Duncton’s great Stone and there he settled her.

“He’s coming isn’t he, Feverfew? He’ll be here soon. I’ll wait with you.”

“No moule, yow yav done as much as any moule and yt ys enough. Go nu, moule, lev me her for Tryfan myn luv to find me.”

“I wanted to see the Stone Mole, Feverfew, I wanted to scribe of him. I have scribed the rest, as best I could, all that happened.”

“Oon moule aloon cannot mak that,” she said softly.

“I wanted to tell of my coming here today, through the Eastside, up the slopes, the light over the trees, wanted them to know. I felt pain, Feverfew, but he called me to come on, he....”

“He caled yow to holpen me, Spindle moule, to brynng me for the laste. Yow
hav,
moule, nu rest, lat me be, I am moste safe hyre... go nu and see youre sonne Bailey for he ys cumyng. Telle hym wat alle moules sholde knawe, that he ys muche luved.”

Then Spindle understood something of the wonder that was coming and that his task was nearly done. He left Feverfew safe in the protection of the Stone and went back through the woods towards the east, staring beyond the great trees with wonder in his eyes, and then ahead the south eastern pastures lay.

There, on the edge of the wood and staring downslope towards the distant roaring owl way from where he sensed Bailey must be coming home at last, he crouched down low. He whispered his son’s name, and that of Thyme, as above him, very slowly, the sky began to darken and from out of its deepest depth a star began to shine.

His talons fretted a little as if he wished to scribe, but then they were still. He whispered Tryfan’s name and, with difficulty, turned to stare through the gathering dusk to the north where Tryfan must be.

Behind him the High Wood stilled and its trees filled with the light of the brightening star. He had been witness to so much, and now he knew he was witness to the light and the Silence that heralded at last the new beginning that was coming to Duncton, and to all of moledom.

Yet even then it was finally to his friend Tryfan that his mind turned.

“I would see him once more, as I would see my son,” he whispered aloud. “Grant it Stone,” he prayed.

His paws felt cold, and his flanks as well, and where they were the light of that star began to shine.

Then, slowly, a sense of wonder crept as subtly as starlight across all Duncton Wood and to the tunnels where Tryfan scribed restlessly, struggling with the final folio of the
Way of Silence,
a hurrying mole came.

“You must go to the Stone, Spindle says it! You must....”

The mole told him how he had met Spindle, and what he had said, and that he had not had strength to come and get Tryfan himself so sent that mole.

Tryfan went to the surface and saw that the sky was light with a rising star, and dusk had come, and was deepening.

“I shall go to the Stone, now I shall go. Tell Hay, tell others, for surely this night he comes. Now tell me where you saw Spindle...” and as the mole did so, and described how Spindle seemed weak and troubled Tryfan became deathly still and he knew this was the ending and the beginning, and that in this hour he must find his friend and be with him, just as soon he would be with the one whose coming they had waited for so long.

So Tryfan departed to find Spindle as word went out that the Stone Mole was come, and to Duncton Wood, for the star shone a third time, and it was rising above their Stone. All sensed it, all snouted out onto the surface and knew it.

But fast went Tryfan, urgently, knowing in his heart that Spindle had fulfilled his task and that now his time was coming. As Tryfan’s paws raced, so his mind did too...

Feverfew. Yes, yes. Now she would come, as Boswell had told him. He could sense her, a mole he now barely seemed to know. Yet he knew she was here, and had been with Spindle when he, Tryfan, might have been and had touched her as he would have done. Feverfew was of him and he of her, and that had already begun. And the Stone Mole too....

So in wonder and dread for Spindle Tryfan ran, by routes he had learnt as a pup, seeming not to need to see, the wood lightening even as it grew dark, that light which the stars give when prophecies and tasks enter into their moment of fulfilment.

He wanted to go straight to the Stone, but his heart and his paws led him another way, across the High Wood, towards the east until he reached the wood’s edge and there, by the starlight of that great night, he found Spindle.

His friend crouched still, leaning a little to one side as if to ease a pain he felt, and though his snout was low yet his eyes were open, and expectant.

He stirred as Tryfan arrived at his side, and even tried to get to his paws, but his old friend stilled him and settled at his side.

“Bailey’s coming,” said Spindle, looking downslope towards where the gazes of the roaring owl ran. “I can feel him coming back to me, but I have not strength to wait. I wanted to see him once again, not as he was at Whern but as Boswell would have taught him to be. I... will you tell him of me Tryfan?”

“May the Stone grant that you tell him yourself Spindle.”

“Will you?” said Spindle.

Tryfan looked with love at his friend and saw that he was weak, and that words of promise or false hope were not what he wanted nor what he, of all moles, deserved. The truth was Spindle’s only way.

“What will you tell him?”

“I shall tell him that his father was a mole of great courage and great faith, and one whom all moles might have been proud to have at their side. I shall tell him that Spindle was a mole who loved one female alone, and was as true to her as he was to the Stone in all he did. I shall say that this mole was one whose paws, though thin and weaker than some, yet held on more strongly than any other mole I ever knew to two things of which others too easily let go – faith in the Stone and truth to other moles.

“But most of all I shall tell him that Spindle was a mole who gave others strength, and one who through the scribings he has left will give strength and knowledge to moles for generations yet to come.”

The light of the star rose brighter each moment, and it seemed to shine down on Spindle from almost directly above, and in it he seemed to see now more than Tryfan could, for his eyes were alight with joy and pleasure, as if he knew what was to be and that it was good.

“Do you remember when we first met at Uffington?” whispered Spindle.

Tryfan nodded.

“I remember your courage not your nervousness,” he said, “and I remember Bos well saying that you were a mole of faith, I remember so much... so much that we have shared Spindle.”

Their flanks were touching and now they were paw to paw as well.

“I’m not nervous now Tryfan, but...”

“Yes Spindle?”

His voice was weakening and his flank was cold.

“I’m... I’m curious!” he said, and even at that moment Tryfan could have sworn that in his friend’s eyes there was that look that ever there had been, of a mole who with intelligence and humour, purpose and delight, is curious about the world about him, as a pup is.

“Tryfan,” said Spindle after a pause, “I have scribed as much as I could, set it down, stored it away. I have left clues for you to where the texts are and how moles may one day find them. And Mayweed knows many of the sites. I think... I think I never dared tell Mayweed I loved him, but I did. Nor Bailey. But I did. I... was not good with words that way Tryfan... even with Thyme I found that hard. Remember how you and Maundy made us go to Barrow Vale?”

Tryfan nodded.

“Tryfan... I wanted to say to you that I did not follow you as a duty or a task, though it
was
my task. I followed you... because I learned to love you. The Stone is in you and a Silence you cannot always see yourself. I... but now you must go to Feverfew. I left her at the Stone. Go...”

His pain seemed to return, and yet the light in his eyes suddenly brightened, and his gaze turned eastwards and then to the sky, and his eyes were full of wonder as he whispered, “Look! Can you not see him coming Tryfan. Look!” And Spindle’s eyes seemed like stars themselves as his paw slipped from Tryfan’s and his body was still, and over the High Wood of Duncton the star of the Stone Mole shone yet brighter on the moles who came up the slopes to see it.

Then Tryfan, whispering a final avocation of love and the Stone’s blessing, left his friend where he lay, and did as Spindle had finally bid him do which was to go to the Stone and be with Feverfew at last.

As he crossed the wood once more Tryfan saw other moles approaching, but many grew timid the nearer to the Stone they got, and many were in awe and much afraid.

“Tell them all to follow!” he shouted at a group who crouched hesitant, for the night was strange and awed a mole. “Tell them to come to the Stone!” Then they looked at one another and knew it was Tryfan himself who told them, and that they must follow him.

The old, the blind, the slow, the ill, the diseased; unsure moles, frightened ones, despairing and forlorn, they all came, making their trek that night of nights, up towards the Stone. From the Marsh End, from the Eastside, from Barrow Vale and the Westside they came in wonder. They sensed this was a night that would always be, it was the beginning, and the light they saw and let into their hearts was more than a star that shone a single night and then went out. It would be a light lit forever in moles’ hearts, endlessly lit, endlessly there and always waiting for each mole to find the courage to make the trek to find it.