Then the grass changed to a short, green pasture grass, and the slope suddenly slackened to a final rolling stretch. Fifteen moleyards, ten, five, and then, as simple as you please, they were there together, on top of Uffington Hill, at the end of their journey.
Bracken turned round, snouted into the shrill wind, and looked out on to a sea of sky, massive above and ahead of him, and below, the hazy distance of fields and grasslands, meadows and valley, trees, rivers and farmland. The wind was so strong that it took Bracken’s breath away and made his eyes water, and so noisy that talking was impossible so that Boswell had to cuff him lightly to draw his attention as he indicated that they should retreat a little from the crest of the slope. They did so, and within a matter of ten moleyards the wind dropped to almost nothing and they could see and hear and think again. Boswell turned away from the slope and waved a paw to the west. ‘Uffington!’ he said, excitement and apprehension in his voice. ‘By the Stone’s grace, and with its strength, I am back. May the Stone have preserved the moles I left behind.’
Beyond him the clear grass swept into a tussocky distance. In the foreground it seemed as flat as the slope had been steep, though over a distance it undulated gently, in soft, delicate curves that changed subtly whichever way a mole turned and never seemed to stay the same.
‘Well, come on then,’ said Boswell, winding his way among old molehills flattened by wind and rain in which flakes and chips of flint were mixed with the light soil, until he came to a hill of fresh earth. Burrowing into it, he led Bracken into the Holy Burrows at last.
The tunnels leading to the Holy Burrows were worn smooth with age and venerable use. Generations upon generations of scribemoles had trodden their way through them so that some of the protruding flints were rounded and shiny from the rubbing of flank fur, while the chalky floor was packed hard and shiny in places as well, so that near some of the entrances the light coming in made the tunnel floor look like dimly lit ice.
‘We’re nearly there now,’ said Boswell, ‘though there aren’t many moles about.’
‘I haven’t seen any. Not a single one. But I can scent them all right. Uffington must have been affected by the plague like every other system,’ said Bracken brutally. ‘Better face the fact, Boswell.’
‘Well, well,’ said Boswell, ‘we’ll soon know.’
Boswell led them on down a tunnel whose size was equal to the biggest in the Ancient System but whose sculpting was more aged—very like the simple rounds and squares of the tunnel beyond the Chamber of Roots which led to the buried part of the Stone. It sloped steadily downhill for a while before levelling off, and Bracken sensed that they had entered a deeper and somehow more sacred part of the system. It was a place to move slowly in, and with grace, and one where, if a mole spoke at all, he did so in a low voice that did not disturb the peace.
‘We are very near the libraries,’ said Boswell softly. ‘This is a holy place, Bracken, and it is best that you do not say anything to anymole we may meet. I do not think a mole who is not a scribemole has ever been here before, but nor do I remember anything in the writings or rules that is against it. But stay silent, move gently, and let me talk.’
The tunnel entered a round chamber that was the confluence of three other major tunnels as well as two much smaller ones.
‘That one leads to the Holy Burrows themselves,’ said Boswell, pointing to one that Bracken estimated ran westwards, ‘while this one leads to the libraries.’ He led the way down it slowly. As Bracken followed him out of the chamber and into the tunnel, he could have sworn he saw a mole watching them from where, seconds before, there had been nomole, in the entrance to the tunnel to the Holy Burrows. He thought he saw him clearly, an old mole with a long lean face and thin fur, but when he really looked, he wasn’t there! Strange! Bracken looked around him, feeling that in this place time did not mean quite what it meant in other systems. But he had seen a mole! He hastened after Boswell, anxious to keep him in sight.
The tunnel steepened suddenly, going down deeper and deeper, until it was cast into semisolid chalk in which fissures and stratum lines were visible. The air was heavy with the slow echoes of their movement but there was no windsound now at all. The tunnel levelled off again, ran to an entrance, and then they were through it and into an enormous chamber whose end was too far off to see. It was too complex and confusing a place to take in all at once, and it was some moments before Bracken could even make out its main features.
It was not a simple oval or square but rather appeared to be a series of interconnected chambers with entrances between them big enough to allow a mole to see a lot of the next chamber. There were arches and corners in the chambers, parts darker than others, and set into each of the many walls were surfaces on which were stacked what looked like pieces of bark and sometimes flakes of hard chalk. Above these surfaces were embossments like those in the Chamber of Dark Sound. There were stacks of bark on the floor as well, or piled against walls and, as far as Bracken was able to see into the linked chambers, there were more pieces of bark piled untidily there.
‘Books,’ whispered Boswell. ‘This is the main library.’
He was about to say more, and might have taken one of them down to show Bracken, when he was stopped short by a stirring at the far end of the chamber and a movement as what seemed a shadow changed into what looked like an ancient and grey-furred mole who was in the middle of a long yawn.
‘Well! I don’t know, I’m sure,’ the ancient mole muttered to himself, oblivious of their presence at the other end of the chamber. ‘I don’t know. If I didn’t put it where I should have, which is more than likely, then surely I would have put it here, which it seems I didn’t. How they expect me to do all this by myself I really don’t know. Come on, my beauty, where are you?’ he said, snouting back and forth among some of the books and evidently hoping that one of them, which he had obviously lost, would pop out of its own accord and announce its hiding place.
Boswell signalled to Bracken to move back into the shadows and not say anything as he advanced slowly on the ancient mole. He got nearer and nearer, but the mole did not seem to notice, muttering to himself and peering impatiently here and there among the books, turning over one or two half-heartedly and leaving them where they fell. Eventually Boswell made a discreet scratching noise to announce himself.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the old mole, ‘I’m coming. Can’t do everything, you know. Anyway, is it that important?’
He darted forward to an enormous book and started to pull it down, but its weight was too much for him to take it bodily off the surface. But it slid off on to him all the same and his tottering old paws struggled to keep in under control. Boswell stepped forward and relieved him of the book.
‘There we are!’ said Boswell. The old mole looked at him at last, peering at him with a frown. ‘I know you,’ he said.
‘Boswell,’ said Boswell.
‘Mmm, something like that,’ said the old mole.
Boswell stepped back a little and hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘Is it Quire? Are you Quire?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Quire. ‘Now what’s this?’ he muttered, peering at the book and then running his paw across its surface. He growled and grunted to himself and then stepped back, saying, ‘Here, you tell me. I’m losing my feel. Can’t even read any more. There was a time when I knew every book in the place by position alone, but since they changed it all round and then the plague came, it’s all gone to rack and ruin. I can’t keep it up all by myself.’