Duncton Rising (58 page)

“Master,” whispered Pumpkin, going close to him, “Keeper Sturne will have to go soon and that’ll only leave me here with you and this sort of thing really needs a more important kind of mole than me! If I could fulfil the Keeper’s task by the Stone with all those wretched Newborns I would, I really would, but I’m just Pumpkin and they’d laugh. So you must try and take the Book while he’s here so that when you’ve finished, we can... well, then we can... you see...”

“What then, eh mole?” said Stour, looking up bleakly at Pumpkin.

Pumpkin could only stare and look desperately about the place, for he did not knew “What then”. He felt only fear, and an impending loss that seemed echoed by the bleak look in the Master’s eyes. But he knew he was afraid to be left all alone down here, waiting for the Master to come back again, with the sounds of the Ancient System, and that dark portal beyond which ghostly moles seemed to lurk. Oh dear...

“Keeper Sturne.. whispered Stour, turning painfully to him. “You must go. Library Aide Pumpkin has served me well in the past, and he will serve me well now, despite his timidity and fears. He is a stronger mole than he thinks he is. I could wish for no better mole present here when I decide to take up that Book – which I have no wish at all to take up – and venture for a final time into the Chamber of Roots. Therefore go now, Sturne...”

“Master, I do not wish to leave you.”

“But I wish it, mole, I wish it,” said Stour wearily. “My strength is fading quickly now and I have none left to argue with you, or persuade you. I am sure that your task in the Stone dictates that you go up to the surface, and take part in whatever celebrations of Longest Night the Newborns intend to have, so that you are not missed. Leave us, mole. We are protected by the Stone. Leave us now.”

Pumpkin, discreet and tactful mole that he was, moved a little way off so that Sturne and Stour, who had worked together so many moleyears, might say a few words of Longest Night together, and perhaps words of farewell too, for though none of them had said as much, the truth was that Sturne and Pumpkin felt it possible, as perhaps Stour did as well, that he would not return from the Chamber of Roots once he entered it again with the sixth Book.

The two moles touched paws; Stour smiled, Sturne looked most troubled, and then he turned away, patted poor Pumpkin briefly on the shoulder and was gone down the tunnel by which they had entered, his pawsteps fading away. Immediately he had left, a sense of relief seemed to come to Stour, who signalled Pumpkin over to him.

“The Keeper has served me faithfully, just as you have,” he said. “Yet I sometimes feel I failed him. He is not a mole who ever smiled easily, nor seemed to know the meaning of happiness.”

“No, Master,” said Pumpkin with feeling.

“See to it, will you. Pumpkin? When I am long gone, and the Book of Silence is come to ground, and all this business is sorted out...” here he waved a paw about as if to indicate the Newborns, the lost Book and the crisis in moledom all in one go... “as it will be I am sure, if you moles have courage and keep your snouts pointed in the right direction – show Keeper Sturne what happiness is. Will you do that for me?”

“I’ll try. Master. I had thought of it already.”

“Of course you had. Pumpkin, I didn’t really need to mention it. But... well, I’m nervous, you know. I don’t know what I’m going to find. I... don’t... kn...”

To Pumpkin’s alarm and dismay Stour let out a choking cry, pathetic in its weakness, and tears filled his downcast eyes, and coursed down his dry, wrinkled face.

“Master,” said Pumpkin, not sure whether to put his paws round the old mole or not, and finally deciding that he would. “Master, I don’t know why I feel afraid of so many things when you have done so much no other mole could do. It has been the great honour and privilege of my life to serve you. When I was afraid up there of the Newborns, these moleyears of autumn past, it was your example that gave me courage. If you cry tears now, just as I have, well, it only shows what courage you really have.”

Stour nodded, and his weak paw patted Pumpkin’s flank gratefully, and he sniffled a bit before he eventually said, “I better take the Book now. But I want you to promise me something because it will keep me going, so to speak, to know that you have.”

“If I can do it I will, Master Librarian,” said Pumpkin.

“Good, good.”

With new-found vigour, of which it was plain there was not much, Stour stanced up and went to the sixth Book. He took it up and said, “Wait for me, mole, will you promise to do that?”

“Is that all. Master?”

“It will keep me alive,” said Stour; “knowing a mole I trust and like is waiting here will bring me back and I want to pray before the Stone one last time. Things to say, things you must do... wait for me!” With that he was gone into the sixth of the seven entrances of the Chamber of Roots. Pumpkin, fearful of the sounds about him, and the sudden muted Newborn chant of celebration coming from the surface above, stanced down as calmly as he could and began to wait.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Pumpkin! Pumpkin!
Mole!”

A distant voice woke Pumpkin from the deepest of dreamy sleeps, in which moles had chanted by the Stone, night had gathered and advanced, crowds had collected and then dispersed, and a whole Longest Night had been, and now was almost gone.

“Yes?” called out the library aide nervously into the gloom, trying to orientate himself.

“I need your help...”

The voice was Stour’s and Pumpkin was instantly awake, realizing that Longest Night was almost over and a new dawn was coming over moledom, even if the sky up on the surface was still dark. Now his Master Librarian needed him.

“What can he have been doing for so long?” Pumpkin asked himself, as a diversion from the awful fact that if the Master was where he thought he was then he was still in the Chamber of Roots and needed help getting out.

“Which means I’ll have to go in there myself and give him a paw,”
muttered Pumpkin to himself in a miserable way. Aides get all the worst tasks and in a long career this was the worst of all, Pumpkin thought.

He heard a scurrying and heaving, and headed for the nearest portal into the Chamber, which was the seventh, and peering in he called out, “Here I am! Where are you?”

Oh, but he saw Stour at once, and all his fears fled as he saw how old the Master looked now, and how terribly frail; half fallen in his effort to get out from among the confusion of roots, he clutched on to what support he could, his thin fur seeming a strange luminous green, like ancient lichen, in the sub-dawn light that filtered in from above.

“Master!” Pumpkin cried out in horror, rushing in amongst the roots without a further thought for himself

“Almost gone,” muttered Stour grumpily, reaching out a shaking paw to Pumpkin, “almost lost my strength. Help me out of here, mole, for I’ve completed my task and can do no more. The six Books are safe, all safe now...”

“Master, Master Stour!” cried Pumpkin in dismay, for Stour was sobbing, a raspy, dry kind of sob as of a mole who has no tears left. It might have been with relief.

Together the two moles escaped the last few paces from the Chamber of Roots and Stour said, “It was knowing you were there, Pumpkin, knowing you would wait and not desert me or be afraid. That’s what kept me going.”

“I was asleep, Master,” said Pumpkin honestly, “and Longest Night is almost over. As for being afraid, well I was, you see, and I am. This place makes me very much afraid.”

“Yet you stayed.”

“I wouldn’t leave you, Master Librarian, never. Never will.”

“But I think I must leave you now, mole,” said Stour gently. “Help me to the surface and to the Stone. Help me this final time. But something I forgot to say. Should have told Sturne... My journal in... in...”

“In the Chamber of Dark Sound,” said Pumpkin. “I was here when you told him.”

“Yes, yes. For Whillan, there’s a text for him with it. To tell him what his mother said. To tell him...”

“You mean Privet?”

“No, mole, I mean his mother. Tell Sturne to give it him unkenned. It is for his eyes only.”

“I will. Master.”

“Now, we must go to the surface.”

“I better see if there are any Newborns about.”

“There’s nomole about that will hurt us,” said Stour with complete certainty. “There’s just the Stone waiting, as it waits for all of us. Now, I think I can manage this last bit by myself... I certainly want to try... I... yes, yes, that’s right... that’s right...”

And with only an occasional paw from Pumpkin to keep him steady, Stour climbed the last short distance out of the tunnel and up into the High Wood, and from there across the surface to the Stone Clearing.

“Now...” he said, and he turned to Pumpkin with a look of relief and joy: “I was so afraid I would not see the Stone again. So afraid...” He sobbed a little once more, shook his head, grinned in a strange rueful way, reached out a paw and patted Pumpkin’s and with a firm step went towards the Stone.

“Here I found my faith and my destiny,” he said. “Here I saw the path I must take. Here, this coming dawn, I shall know the seasons have turned again and that my task is done. Here my faith has found its resolution and others will lead the followers on.”

“Shall I try to find Sturne?” said Pumpkin, suddenly nervous as he realized the drift Stour’s words were taking.

“He’s near enough, Pumpkin, and anyway it’s you I need, you I must talk to. Not that words mean much now. You’ll know what to do.” He settled on the surface before the Stone.

“Me?” said poor Pumpkin uneasily.

“When the Book of Silence comes, you’ll know how it should be served.”

“But Master, you’re not... there isn’t...”

Stour smiled, suddenly much weaker: “I am, and there will be a Book of Silence. It
is
coming, Pumpkin, or trying to come, and the circle of Books beneath the Stone awaits its coming. Privet, she will find where the Book is, she will bring it back to Duncton Wood. But you, Pumpkin —”

“But I don’t know anything much, Master, and you mustn’t vex yourself thinking I do. Sturne’s the one, he knows about such things. I had really better go and get him.”

But there was no more time. Stour’s breathing had slowed and deepened, and though he smiled still, his eyes were beginning to fade, and Pumpkin knew he could not leave him, not now. But then, harshly, the silence of the Clearing was broken.

“You there! Disperse and go back to your burrows. The proper rituals are over!”

Pumpkin turned and saw three Newborn guardmoles approaching purposefully across the Clearing. His heart thumped in his chest, but he tried to look as bold as he could, and considered what he could do. His Master was dying, and that was a fact. As his aide it was Pumpkin’s task to see that he did so with dignity and in peace – not harried and worried by these great bullies.

The Newborns paused and stared, quite unable to make sense of the scene. One of them knew Pumpkin, but none recognized the elderly mole who lay weakly on the ground ignoring them, as he reached a frail paw out towards the Stone. Their hesitation gave Pumpkin a moment longer to think what to do. He saw that behind them, at the edge of the Clearing, was another Newborn who had under his brutal custody three moles. All young, and, realized Pumpkin, moles who had come to try to celebrate Longest Night in the old way. Good for them! It gave him courage to see it.

“We are doing no harm!” Pumpkin cried out, playing for time. One of the young moles started up, recognizing Pumpkin by his voice alone, for the dawn was still so murky that it was hard to $ee each other plainly across the Clearing.

“Why, that’s Cluniac who works in the Library,” said Pumpkin to himself Yes, of course... the Stone would protect them, it would, if only...

“Mole,” said one of the Newborns, still unwilling to come any nearer to the Stone they feared so much, “come here at once.”

“Cluniac!” cried out Pumpkin. “Listen to me! I have the Master Stour with me, for he has come out of retreat at last to say his final prayers before the Stone. Run now, mole, run as you never have before. Find whatmoles – anymole – brave enough to come back to the Stone Clearing to give him support. Quick mole, now!”

It was well said, and the youngster understood at once what he must do. He turned and buffeted at the Newborn watching over him, and, responding to the situation, the others did the same. The guardmole roared with anger and annoyance and tried to hold on to his youthful charges, but first one and then another struggled out of his grasp and were gone, off through the trees, one after another.

“You go to the Eastside! You to the Westside! I’ll take Barrow Vale!” Pumpkin heard Cluniac command his comrades. Oh yes, the Duncton spirit was not dead yet!

The Newborns looked at each other in alarm, and began to argue.

“What did you let them escape for?”

“Well, you’re no better, messing about —”

“I don’t like this one little bit!”

Pumpkin suddenly felt calm. The Newborns were afraid of coming too close to the Stone, and anyway, he felt its Light and Silence about him.

“Master...” he whispered as he took the Master Librarian’s frail body in his paws and held him with love: “Master Stour, don’t leave us, you are so much loved. Moles are going to come now.
Duncton
is going to come.”

“Don’t let them hurt the guardmoles,” whispered Stour, “they’ll not harm us. One day you’ll truly know the Silence, Pumpkin, and you’ll not be afraid.”

“Oh Master,” sobbed Pumpkin, his tears upon Stour’s old head as moledom’s greatest Librarian began to whisper his prayers to the Stone that rose above them.

While behind them, awed, uncertain, afraid and angry, the four guardmoles discussed in low voices what to do.

“If that’s the Stour I think it is, the Brother Inquisitors will want to know, so I’ll go and report to them,” said one of them, dashing off.

As Stour prayed, Pumpkin turned and faced the remaining three resolutely. If they were going to do anything to his Master, they would have to do it to him first. His worst fears were soon confirmed.