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  “Let me tutor thy son Lucerne,” he said, “and he shall learn more than anymole but you.”

  “He shall be Master when I have done,” she said. And he agreed that Lucerne would. For just as Lathe had no desire to take the place of Terce – his glory being in the shadow of his sponsor’s flank – so Terce had no desire to wrest the Mastership from its Mistress for himself. Though whether he might wrest it from her for Master Lucerne was a very different thing. He would.

  “Wilt show me the pup, Mistress?”

  Which Henbane did, ushering the silent and still timid Lucerne before the intimidating senior Keeper.

  Terce gazed at him and reached out a paw.

  Lucerne did not shudder at his touch, but stared at him, eyes glittering with pride.

  “I would have him learn thy cleave,” said Henbane.

  Terce gazed more. Lucerne did not drop his gaze. Terce smiled and Lucerne returned the smile. Terce was pleased to see the youngster unafraid.

  “He shall learn it well,” said Terce. “I shall teach him all I know.”

  “Do it harshly, as I was taught,” said Henbane. “But let him still see me.”

  “Yield him to me on Longest Night,” said Terce, “and I shall make him ready to be Master of the Word, first among his peers, before everymole but thee.”

  “Let him have companions for his learning, for I had none when I was young... and regret it now.”

  “I shall choose them well. But two only, as tradition dictates. And Mistress...” Terce paused, and seemed hesitant.

  “Keeper, speak plain.”

  “Then Mistress, let him suckle thee beyond his puppish years. It will bind him to thee in ways deeper than words can say, but finally it will make him hate thee too, which hate I shall divert to punishment of the followers of the Stone. In such teachings has the twelfth cleave made me adept.”

  “I am aware of it,” said Henbane, “and had already hesitated to wean him. Now I shall not, and nor does he seem to wish it. Even now he sleeps at my teat. Till Longest Night then, Terce, and after that to thee.”

  As Terce left the Mistress with her pup he heard that vile refrain, “Come suckle me and be my love,” and with what relief he smiled! Of what lay behind that smile, and how before he died Rune laid plans with Terce to see a final glorification of his name, we still must tell. Henbane knew that not. But she was right to sense that in Terce lay evil deep, and blasphemies beyond recall, and plots that entwined back in time even to Scirpus himself. Oh yes, we are not finished with discovery of evil yet. And the force for good might seem poor indeed if, so far as Whern is concerned, its only champion was but the flawed Mistress, Henbane.

  Terce smiled because he saw a plot of Rune’s continue to unfold. A plot that used Henbane more vilely even than she had yet been used. A plot that would elevate her son Lucerne, and so herself, but most of all Rune, Father of them all, beyond even the Mastership, and forever beyond mole’s ability to dethrone. The first place Rune would wish to be; the last that Henbane, touched by a new light it seemed, would surely wish to be.

  So tremble now at Terce’s unseen smile as Henbane talks of suckling. And hope the Stone may yet find champions stronger than we have seen.

  Which brings us back to where we do not wish to go....

  We said before Terce cast his shadow across these Chronicles that, of all the rites, the anointing of the novice sideem was one of the most corrupt.

  The other is that known as the secret rite by which one Keeper succeeds another, and it goes back to the very beginning of the coming of Scirpus when those twelve disciples died in the shadow of Kilnsey Crag. Shudder at what we must tell: even the sideem whisper it among themselves and look here and there in horror. A Keeper eats the body of the mole he follows.

  This was not the only cannibalism of Whern. On Longest Night, to commemorate the revelation of the Word to Scirpus, a sideem – originally one anointed, but now one chosen by the Twelve – was sacrificed before the Rock, his corpse divided into twelve, each Keeper whispering a filthy rubric as he took his bloody portion: “Oh Word, by his body I thee worship; oh Word, by his blood I thee worship; oh Word, by his death our lives renew in thee.”

  Secret and dark that bloody rite became, and fatal was the shadow under which the Twelve lived out their arcane and ritualistic lives, the principal purpose of which was to keep the Word alive and pass it on by rote to novitiate sideem. Their lives dominated by a eucharistic rite in which a mole who has entrusted his life and learning to them must die that the Word might live.

  Keeping this nightmare rite in our unwilling minds, we now come, just as tormented Henbane did, to how Rune took power. Though many are the dark stories told of Rune’s ascent, few are the moles who know that one Longest Night he was the sideem chosen to die. Aye, taken among the Twelve Keepers before the Rock of the Word, and there arraigned before the Master, Slithe.

  There seems no doubt that Rune was chosen to die because they feared him, and most of all Slithe himself, who rightly saw in Rune a mole whose intelligence and purpose was too great for it to be long denied. Every task set him he had fulfilled, everything he had to learn he learnt even as it was told him. As for the notorious trial of the Clints, that maze of surface tunnels carved in limestone which moles must traverse before their anointing, he mastered it despite false instruction, the only mole until then ever so to do.

  A second attempt on his life was with talons, the sound to be drowned by the rushing water they were near, in which, no doubt, his body would be thrown afterwards. The attack was ordered by some of the Keepers themselves. What really happened none but Rune ever knew, and he never told. Eight attacked him, all were drowned. Aye, moles, all were drowned.

  It was after that that the Master sent him into the unknown south to report on the plagues and there, hopefully, to die forgotten. There he nearly died, at the talons of Tryfan’s father Bracken on the high Eastside of Duncton Wood. Nearly but not quite, for moleyears later he reappeared at Whern, his reputation great now among the younger sideem, his knowledge of moledom unique, and his ambition feared.

  The last attempt to have him die was on Longest Night itself when he was summoned to the Rock to be sacrificed.

  Even as the Master spoke out the ordination of the Twelve Keepers – that Rune was “honoured” to be chosen so to die and be the symbol of life to come for other moles – Rune’s black eyes shone and his fur glossed darkly. Under sentence of death, and that imminent, his mind, like his body, thrived.

  The arcane ritual he had guessed, for the generations of young sideem had seen one or other of their colleagues disappear at Longest Night. To be so chosen was an unspoken fear, but for a maddened and idiot few whose belief in the Word was so profound and their need for discipline so strong that a sentence of cruel death in the Word’s name seemed like an honour.

  Rune was too intelligent for that. And now, even as the Master spoke, the Keepers’ eyes narrowed and their tongues flicked across their mouths and their talons fretted at the arid floor of the Chamber of the Rock, he revelled in the challenge of turning terminal disadvantage to lifelong gain, and, narrow though the way, slim though his chance of success, doubtful the outcome, he found his route and took it.

  Its way was words, its authority the Word, its power that which he invested in himself, his strength their weakness, his weapon their own hypocrisy, his method, attack.

  “Blasphemy,” he said quietly, the accusative word whispering about the chamber until it was almost, but not quite, gone, “would be in my death here as sacrifice, great though the honour. Honour for me, moles, yet dishonour for any who took my life.”

  He smiled as if to apologise for the trouble his words might cause them, but what menace was in that smile! He flexed his sharp talons too, as if to remind them that, if pressed, then in pursuit of honouring the Word he would kill before being killed. It was enough to intimidate the older members of the Twelve, and a mole as acute as Rune could see which among them was weak an
d which was not.

  “Blasphemy? Dishonour?” hissed Slithe who, had he been a stronger mole and Rune less strong, would have killed him then and there. But no, he weakened as moles usually did before Rune’s gaze and voice.

  “Yes, dishonour,” said Rune, and before the stir of dismay among the Keepers could turn to attack he firmly reminded them of the origins of the sacrifice, and that it was only in recent decades that the Keepers had devolved the sacrifice to a mole outside their circle not, he said (as was really the case, as well he knew), for fear but rather because none among them would, for modesty, take so great an honour.

  “Whatmole would be so vain as to suggest himself to die?” asked Rune. All the time he watched them closely to find the weakest one, a mole least liked by the others, a mole to whom their dire choice could turn. But before his arguments reached that far he made certain with stares subtle and sinister that each one of them thought that he was the one this clever, strong sideem would manoeuvre the others to kill. So each knew fear, and each felt the power of Rune’s threat.

  Argument set in, fuelled by dismay and fear, an argument among twelve Keepers the consequence of which was one must die. Upon each other others picked, and vote after vote was tied, until at last the Keepers turned to Slithe to make a nomination. So one was chosen and clever Rune was invited to kill him and join in the feast.

  Nor did Rune stop there. Inevitably the remaining Keepers chose him to make up their number and so Rune gained access to ultimate power.

  It did not take him long to depose the Master, Slithe himself, and he began to lay his plans for the expansion into moledom of the Word’s great power based on the experience learnt in his travels south. He did not yet take up the Mastership himself for his power was not consolidated nor the moles he needed quite in place. But some time in that period of upheaval and change he brought in Terce as the youngest Twelfth Keeper for many a cycle.

  It was in that period that Rune broke the sideem rule of chastity, daring to cite Scirpus himself as the precedent, and took to himself a mate called Charlock. She bore Henbane, and raised her privily to darkness in ignorance of who her father was. Charlock taught Henbane that her first and only loyalty was to the Master and that to his lusts she must yield. Which Henbane, having killed her mother, did, not knowing that to the crime of matricide she now added the violation of incest with her father. There was but one consolation among all this filth, which was that Henbane was never made with pup by Rune. Nor indeed by any of the males she subsequently took, of whom there were many, mercy be upon their shadowed souls.

  But for great Tryfan, all who knew the pleasures of her body died, one by one, killed by Henbane after she had suffered them to exhaust their pleasure, then later, when she tired of killing, by the sterile eldrene, Fescue among them, who vented their distorted lusts on those already used by their Mistress. But in that time Henbane learnt the killing arts and it was said that no female ever learned to kill a male more quick than she, and, when she wished, more slow.

  All this was Lucerne’s loathsome heritage, and brooding over it that June Henbane saw clearly and ever more clearly how it had infected her rearing of Lucerne, and was the necessary prelude to the freedoms over him she so fatally gave cold Terce.

  On much else did maddened Henbane dwell and Whern was thrown into disarray as she wandered its tunnels and seemed to see accusation in every face. For June is a busy month when the sideem prepare for the rite of the anointing at Midsummer of those novice sideem who have survived the trial of the Clints.

  All this needed the Mistress’s attention and approval, and in that Henbane held power still, and knew it. For without completion of the Midsummer rite the younger sideem would not be legitimate and any succession Lucerne had plotted for, which depended on such younger moles, would be weakened. Nor had he himself been anointed, though many argued, including Terce, that Lucerne need not submit to the Midsummer test. The risks might be too great.

  For all her seeming madness Henbane understood the power she still held, and that the sideem would not accept Lucerne unless he had been anointed. So they put up with her madness as she wandered, scraping her paws against the sacred walls of the High Sideem and shouting out of dark sound, and incest, and two lost pups, and much more that ate age into her.

  But as Midsummer drew nigh, and certain preparatory rites had been left undone by her, the Keepers sent Lucerne and Terce to talk to her.

  “Mother,” Lucerne began, hypocritical affection dripping from every pore, “you are still Mistress and you have duties to perform, I....”

  “Yes, my son?” she said.

  “I know not why I struck you —” And though there was no apology in the words, he put it in his voice.

  It was Terce she watched as Lucerne spoke these words. Apology? Hypocrisy? Half of one and half of another, that was what she judged. But more than that she saw in Terce’s eyes belief that if not quite mad she was no longer strong. Strong enough, she wondered, for what?

  She smiled because she knew. Not strong enough to exploit what Terce had suggested Lucerne do and did no more, which was to suckle her until he was an adult. “It will bind him to thee in ways deeper than words can say,” Terce had said. But now, guessed Henbane, Terce adjudged that that was what she could no longer exploit: too weak, too dazed, they supposed, no doubt. But Henbane knew she could. Not now, but one day. Aye, one day; Lucerne still longed for the comfort she could give but which his pride and growing status could not allow him to ask for or to take.

  The comfort and potential of that thought would keep her sane, and give her strength and, in some way she could not understand but felt in that remote and tiny part of her that still was whole, would guide her towards something that might take her out of torment yet.

  “I have been ill,” she said at last and to their relief, “yet now the Word does give me strength. For now, with thy help, Terce, and thine, dear son, we shall trust the Word to guide us to the Midsummer rite, and make those preparations we must make.”

  She was glad to see they did not believe she would survive. She was glad because their mistake would be her saving yet. They would use her to legitimise the novices during the rite to come and then... discard her.

  “Come, mother,” said Lucerne, his paw to her flank, “we shall help thee be Mistress once more.”

  “You shall?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  But she knew his hypocrisy better than anymole, for of that art she must now be Mistress indeed, and for the few moleweeks to Midsummer so she must remain.

  Chapter Eight

  Tryfan proved a tolerant teacher of scribing in those first moleweeks of June in the Marsh End, for though he wanted to get on with his own scribing while Beechen worked hard to learn the tasks he was set, he knew as well as anymole the excited restlessness that overcomes young moles at the approach of Midsummer.

  So a few days before the day itself, when the air was warm and the light good and nomole should be stuck in a tunnel with his snout in a text, Tryfan suddenly declared, “Enough! Too much, in fact! We’re going up to the surface to join in the merriment and make a visit or two.”

  Beechen was secretly relieved for on his occasional forays to the surface he had fancied he had heard moles chattering nearby and enjoying the June days, and had wanted to join them.

  “Where shall we go? What moles shall we see?”

  “I have a fancy to show you the burrow where my mother Rebecca raised Comfrey, though whether or not I can find it is another matter. As for which moles to see, well... at Midsummer moles have a habit of going a-visiting, so you never know what moles you’ll meet where except that they’ll be a surprise and in the wrong burrow. Moles gather and talk and have a laugh and then, slowly, their groups growing in number all the time, they make trek to the Stone for the Midsummer rite.”

  It seemed to Beechen that a great change had come to the wood in the short time since they had first ventured underground in the Marsh End.
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  The leaves of the trees were fuller and greener, the undergrowth thicker, the bird song richer, the soil warmer, and evidence of mole – and other creatures, too – greater and more glorious. Emerging into the busy world once more, he felt happier to be alive than he ever had, and ready for whatever the Stone might put their way.

  All around there were delights to the eye and the ear, and had not Tryfan been there Beechen might not have turned any way but round, and round again, uncertain of which way to turn to see the best that was there.

  “’Tis a grand place, the Marsh End as Midsummer approaches,” said Tryfan, breathing in the clear air. “No need to go searching for mole at this time of year; they find each other and enjoy themselves, or used to! As I said before, we’ll see what comes!”

  What came was another mole, and one they both knew.

  “Greetings both, I guessed you might be about on a day like this. Where are you going?” Hay asked them.

  Tryfan explained they were looking for a burrow his half-brother had been raised in and that it lay somewhere off to the east. Not being a Duncton mole originally, Hay had no idea where such a burrow might be, but he seemed eager to join them, and so all three went on together.

  “If we carry on this way,” said Hay eventually, after a pleasant ramble during which Tryfan stopped occasionally in a vain attempt to get a better idea of where Rebecca’s old tunnels might be, “we’re going to come to Borage’s place. He’s all right, but I’m not so sure about Heather... well I mean she’s a bit intense for a summer’s day if you know what I mean. Ever since....”

  With a frown and raised paw Tryfan stopped him saying more.

  “’Tis nearly Midsummer and we must take moles as we find them, just as the Stone does.” Beechen knew that Tryfan never gossiped about other moles.