Duncton Quest (80 page)

The final part of their journey to the edge of Siabod was into high, rough country and took them some moleweeks.

“It would have been quicker to go by the river valleys Bracken and Boswell followed when they came to Siabod, but now those parts are grike-controlled and even if you could bluff your way through some of them it’s not worth the risk,” explained Caradoc. “Also it may be best if your coming is not suspected by the grikes or even some of the Siabod moles.”

Alder must have looked surprised at this for Caradoc added cryptically, “Traitors and cowardice. I understand that the grike siege has broken the spirit of many Siabod moles and they are willing to inform on their system in return for a promise of safety. So far the grikes have not accepted that.”

“They wouldn’t,” said Alder shortly. “It is their way to engender so much fear in a system that when they do finally enter it the moles give up without a struggle and fall over themselves to inform on their fellows and serve the Word.”

“Well, that’s how it is at Siabod now, and I’m told the communal tunnels are heavy with suspicion. Nomole trusts another. But we of the Stone have our ways of knowing others who are true, and if I can get you to Garmon then I can put you into the paws of moles you can trust.”

But perhaps “if” was the more important word for now. The weather had worsened, which in North Wales means that it had gone from bad to very bad. The powdery snow that had made the landscape seem chilly but tranquil at Caradoc had given way to bitter winds that carried hail and sleet, and drove into the eyes and snout of an advancing mole to make his vision blurred and his spirit low. They had hoped to catch an early sight of Siabod itself but were disappointed.

“Are we near Siabod yet?” they asked Caradoc from time to time.

“Not far,” said Caradoc. “You may be eager to see it but it’s a sight to shrivel a mole’s hopes. Not a place for normal mole.”

“So when were you last there?” asked Marram.

“Me, mole? I’ve never been there. Never will. Warned off it by my father.”

“What did he know of it?”

“My father? Nothing! He had been warned off it by
his
father.”

Alder laughed deeply.

“It must be frightening indeed that moles who live so near never dare venture there!”

“It is,” said Caradoc. “And the moles who live there, traitors though some may be,
they’re
frightening too. It’s the place, see. Shapes a mole strangely. Makes him serious, makes him watchful, makes him wary and quick to take offence. Siabod moles need pawdling.”

“Pawdling?”

“Like a touchy mother, needs careful pawdling.”

“Well, it’s no bad thing to be quick tempered and touchy. They may be just the qualities needed to resist grikes. But whether they’re what’s needed to defeat them, that’s a different matter. Now, is it true they don’t speak mole?”

“Speak Siabod, don’t they? But don’t you worry, they can speak mole if they want to, or most can but a very few who choose to hide away in the hills and are never seen.”

They had begun to go downslope across sheep pastures, taking routes that Caradoc seemed to know which made use of the dry stone walls that deface those slopes and confuse a mole who does not know them. But to one who did, like Caradoc, the walls gave safe and lengthy runs.

There was little life about but for rooks and a few raven squabbling over sheep carrion. Occasionally juvenile herring gulls swooped down to give a dash of white-brown colour to the scene. But as the winds got stronger, even this life stilled as the birds huddled at some low, sheltered promontory, their excrement bold white and purple about them.

“The purple’s bilberries,” said Caradoc. “Useful to mole on worm-poor ground. Carrion’s useful too if you care to risk the rooks. Burrow from below if you have to. Nerve-racking.”

Alder looked round at Marram and grinned. Survival in these parts was difficult, and a mole did well to listen to what locals said.

The skies were still low and grey as they turned across a grubby field and came to as sorry a collection of Stones as Alder and Marram had ever seen on their long journey.

“Capel Garmon,” said Caradoc shortly. “One of nature’s natural derelictions, though Stones are here so moles must have been in the past. None in residence now, but we vagrant moles of the Stone use it as a safe meeting place.”

They looked about, huddled against the cold, and stared at the Stones, and then found shelter in a large empty burrow Caradoc seemed to know.

“I sometimes think a wrong was done in this place and the spirit of the Stone deserted it. Perhaps moles died of plague here alone and forsaken. Whatmole can say? Even the grikes have ignored it since their initial reconnaissance. A few Siabod moles know of it and come here if they want to make contact with the outside world.”

“Then Siabod’s near?” said Alder, looking westward past the battered and wan-looking Stones to the cloud and mist that obscured all view.

“Five days or so. Now, I’ll have to get a message out and that’ll take a day or two. And then a mole or moles will come to take you on. That could take a day or two more, so you’ve a bit of a stay. Don’t stray while I’m gone!”

“You’re joking, mate,” said Marram. “We’ll be glad of the rest.”

It was five days before Caradoc returned and when he did he had a good few moles with him and all but one as thin and ragged looking as he was. Indeed, they looked as if they had all got cold at birth and never warmed up since. The exception was a large and silent mole who glowered from the back and said nothing.

“A Siabod mole is coming as soon as he can to guide you on,” said Caradoc, “but meanwhile...” He seemed apologetic. “These moles wanted sight of you. Tell them what you told me.” Then Caradoc added in a whisper, “Don’t worry about the big one at the back. His name’s Troedfach and I’ll tell you of him later.”

“Can they be trusted?” asked Alder doubtfully, for they were a sorry, unprepossessing bunch.

“They’ll swear to that!” said Caradoc with feeling. “There’s not one here who’ll not touch the Stone!” With that he nodded to the circle of moles who were staring silently at Alder and Marram, and then one by one they went to the nearest Stone, put a paw to it, and, looking at the rest said, “May this paw wither and this heart die on the day I forswear the Stone. I wait for the coming of the Stone Mole with longing, aye!”

One by one they said it, and as they spoke, however abject and pitiful they seemed – and it was clear that some had little food to live on and led a vagrant hunted life – they somehow came alive as they spoke, and their eyes lit up not just with faith but pride and passion too. Their final “Aye!” was chorused by the others, so that the swearings became rhythmic and the “Ayes” ever stronger. Then they looked at Alder and Marram expectantly, and Caradoc whispered, “You must do it now, and they’ll know you’re true!”

So both of them did, staring around at the followers and threatening themselves with withered paws and dying hearts, and invoking the name of the Stone Mole.

When that was done Alder spoke to them, telling them the recent history of Duncton and its evacuation under the leadership of Tryfan. Many asked questions, and wanted to know of the grikes and Henbane, and a few of Whern. But mostly they wanted to know what Tryfan had said of the Stone Mole.

“Will he come soon?” asked more than one, with longing in their eyes.

“To kill the grikes?” asked another. “And lead us back to the vales where once we lived?”

“Before a full cycle of seasons has passed?” asked a third.

Alder replied, “I know not when or how or where the Stone Mole may come. I think perhaps all moles of the Stone seek him now and that Tryfan will find guidance in the great Wen to which he has gone and of which I have told you what I know. But allmole is on a quest for him and he will come when the time is right. Meanwhile we must have faith, and courage. I do not think it is the end for Siabod. I know the grikes can be held for I was there at Duncton when
we
held them, for a time at least. I believe they can be defeated and that first great defeat will be here at Siabod. And you moles of courage, who have fled the vales and hold true to the Stone, your hour will come. Stay close, listen, be patient, trust the future as you trust each other and trust Marram and myself whom you hardly know. Our long winter is here, but if we have not strength to survive it and faith to live it through then why should the Stone Mole help us? This is our time of great testing. He will come to moles worthy of him, and to systems where, however faintly, moles still call out that they might one day hear the Silence that is the Stone’s great gift. This is Tryfan of Duncton’s message to you.”

After that the moles spoke far into the night to Alder and Marram, telling them of their hopes and fears, and pledging their support for Tryfan and the cause that he was leading. Mole after mole said that though they had little strength or skill for fighting yet they would give their very lives if Tryfan or Alder asked it of them, because they knew that one day – Aye! One day! – the Stone Mole would come.

This meeting is known now as the Conclave of Capel Garmon and moles speak of it with respect and reverence, and are glad to claim kinship to those brave beleaguered moles who were there with Alder and Marram then. So let us scribe a roll of their names that they are ever known: Caradoc, Clun, Mynydd, Cwmifor, Manod, Stitt of Ratlinghope, Wentnor of Mynd and the Pentre siblings, Gaelri and Lymore; last were three moles from the southern Marches, Blaen-cwm, Dowre and Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw.

Of these twelve moles one alone would later journey on with Alder. This was Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw whom Alder had noticed when the moles first joined them at Garmon and who loomed as an oak at sunset rises among lesser trees. They noticed that the others deferred to him, though not in any humble way but rather as if he had some strength or purpose beyond even theirs.

“He trekked from the distant south to come to Siabod,” explained Caradoc, “and though he says little I know that none more than he waits with longing for the coming of the Stone Mole. He speaks seldom, but others like him and trust him and he has saved more than one life against the grikes.”

Of all the moles there he was the only one who spoke his avowal of the Stone in a language other than mole: deep and guttural and strange, and he snouted close to the Stone as if he could see little but feel much.

It was he too who took the lead as they parted by speaking for the others, saying, “Your coming has been awaited for many months and we will await your return from Siabod. There is not one here who would not go with you to that place, but ’tis better that only you two go first. We will be ready when your call comes, aye we will!” And the others joined in his shout.

With that meeting the great army of moles that Alder dreamed he might one day lead found its birth. Each would play his part, each find and inspire others to play theirs. Each would have patience to live the winter of the Stone through to its bitter end, and have faith that when the last storm broke and light returned to moledom once again they would have strength to fight for it, aye! That was the hopeful shout from Garmon then, as grey dawn came, and those fugitive few went silently away to wait the call that Alder would one day send out.

A few hours later a solid looking mole with a craggy snout and eyes that seemed permanently screwed up against the wind, even when he was safe aburrow, arrived.

His name, he said, was Cwm, and he was sorry to keep them waiting but he had insisted on coming himself when he heard they were from Duncton Wood. He was sorry again but would they mind swearing on the Stone as he looked them up and down to see if they weren’t traitorous. Which they did willingly enough.

“And you now,” said Alder firmly when they had finished.

Which Cwm also did, swearing his oath in a sing-song way and crying out his “Aye!” as if it was both a curse on the grikes and a celebration of a better world to come.

“Now you listen, and listen well. I’ve heard your story already from others including some I met on the way this morning and who spent the night up here. Troedfach himself said I could trust you, and that’s good enough for me. I’m taking you now up into Siabod and I’ll warn you it’s a hard journey.”

“Is it far?” asked Marram.

“Not as the eye looks on a day not cursed by cloud, no. But as the paws go, as courage goes, as faith goes, it’s too far for most. We’ll see, won’t we? It takes five days normally but we’ll have to do it in three if we’re to avoid the freeze that’s on its way.” He spoke in a terse quick way and eyed them appraisingly as if he doubted they had it in them to make the journey.

“We’re ready!” said Alder.

“The route I’ll take you on goes right through the ranks of the grikes and once I say not to talk, I mean it, see? Not a word. But that’s the easy part. Later we’ll be going high and it’ll be cold and you’ll get hungry. I don’t want to know, see? You’ll eat at the end – not a lot, but you’ll eat.”

With that they said brief farewells to Caradoc who told them that when they needed him he would be ready, waiting either at Garmon or Caer Caradoc for however long it took.