In some places the roots seemed to have forced themselves through the floor so powerfully that great fissures and crevices radiated dangerously from them, and when the roots moved dust and sound seemed to fly up from the jagged depths beneath.
Bracken looked on this terrifying scene for a very long time before turning his back on it and returning through the circuitous, echoing tunnels whose labyrinths absorbed the rootsound behind him, back to the outer circular tunnel. He was not yet ready to press on among the roots themselves.
It was at this point that Bracken showed again his special skill and foresight as an explorer. Some instinct, perhaps an awe of the venerable place he was in, told him that he must not leave the route he had found so clearly marked as it now was. And so, after more rest and food, he set himself to memorise it, slowly removing each marking the further his memory took him towards the roots.
Until at last he could run the whole route almost by instinct, navigating the labyrinths all the way to the Chamber of Roots without any need of markers. Only then was he prepared to press on, but still he did not do so. Instead, he began his exploration of another of the entrances, progressing up it the same way, though finding his task much easier now that he had done the same thing already.
In this way Bracken taught himself to find his way among three of the ways into the centre and in doing so discovered, or rather deduced, that the labyrinth of echoes was interconnected right round the perimeter of the Stone, while the Chamber of Roots was really one big chamber, with no walls but those formed by roots. Though what lay beyond them he did not yet know and was a mystery he would need great courage and fortune to solve.
Yet, when the hour came to set off among the roots themselves, his attempt to pass through was a failure, and a curious one. It was not that he was afraid of the roots exactly, though their massive movement and confusing noise was enough to terrify anymole; nor was it that it would not have been possible to find his way into them in much the same way as he had through the labyrinths of echoes. It was subtler than that.
In his first attempt, for example, he got no further than perhaps ten moleyards before his mind began to wander and he began to wonder why he was there and what the point was. He was out of the Chamber of Roots almost before he knew what he was doing, and only two or three hours later wondered why he had not gone on.
Another time he made a more determined effort and indeed got further into a complex of roots from which he could no longer see the entrance to the chamber. But then the roots got denser and more sinewy, even the marks he made just behind him on the ground seemed to start disappearing, and he got the feeling that he was being watched from somewhere to his left. By mole? By beast? He felt panic coming over him and, try as he might to control it, he could not—though it cleared the moment he turned round and started back, stumbling quickly through the noise and heaving roots, afraid for a time that he would not find the way out again.
He tried once more, on a day that must have been calm on the surface, for the roots were whispering quietly, and he did quite well until he suddenly felt a pleasant tiredness coming over him and the roots ahead seemed to open out invitingly for him to lie down… He had to shake himself to keep awake, only realising when he did so that what lay ahead of him was a great crevice, wide and deep, and delving down to a rugged darkness from which slidings and hissings of thin roots seemed to come. Once more he turned back.
Each time he got back to the entrance of the chamber, however, these curious feelings immediately cleared and, looking back at the roots, they seemed their normal massive, threatening selves, but no more than that.
Finally, he decided to take a break—perhaps, after all, the time had come to return to the surface, for he had been involved in this exploration for many days. He had lost his sense of timing, thinking that perhaps only fifteen or twenty days had passed since he had left Rue, yet when he finally reached the surface he was surprised to find it was chilly, even though it was afternoon. The wood was filled with the chill light of the end of October, when most of the leaves have gone and the wind stirs the remainder irritably.
Then he knew that he must have been gone for many moleweeks and wondered what it was about the Ancient System that made a mole seem to lose his sense of time.
Bracken shivered at the cold and felt in need of company. Well, he could visit Rue; she was always glad to see him—and always glad to see him go! He laughed a little as he bustled off down the slopes to see her, thinking that he was getting to know her ways, and how pleasant it was to feel the fresh air in his fur and smell the clear scents of the wood again.
He would laugh even more when he got there, and learn something about a kind of mole he had never had anything to do with—young pups. For Rue had littered just a few days before and, for the time being at least, would be delighted to see Bracken again, provided he didn’t come into her birth-burrow uninvited. He could fetch a few worms now and again, and keep away intruders.
Chapter Twenty
A cold wind blew on the wood’s surface above Rebecca’s burrows where the snout of a brave mole quivered in the shadow of a root. He was the henchmole who had finally refused to let Mekkins enter Rebecca’s tunnels but who had promised to deliver his message and, shocked by what had happened though still fearful for his own safety, had crept back in the depth of the night to see if there was anything he could do—ostensibly to help Rebecca but in truth to rid himself of the uneasiness he felt at being a party, however coerced, to what had happened.
He crept down the deserted tunnels to her burrow, ready to retreat at the slightest danger. He was a tough mole, a henchmole of experience, an aggressive Westsider, but what he saw when he got there made him tremble with a fear greater than any he had ever felt before a fight, or after a close-won victory.
Rebecca lay still as death on the far side of the burrow. The bodies of her five young lay about the burrow, tangled up with nesting material, scattered like leaves. He picked his way with a beating heart among them and it was only when he was close up to her and he heard the soft moaning of her breathing, distant as a falling pulse, that he was sure that she was still alive.
What use his message now? For a moment he wanted none of it, telling himself, ‘I don’t know what the hell this has to do with me. Stone knows what I’m doing here—they’ll kill me if they find out. What a bloody mess this is!’
Then he cuffed her lightly with his paw and said gruffly, ‘Here you—you wake up. Got to get you out of here quick. Wake up! Come on, lass…’
Rebecca stirred and was then awake instantly. She started to scream and he cuffed her again, none too softly.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said, ‘but we’ll both cop it if they find me here, so shut up!’ She fell silent, looking at him fearfully.
‘I know a mole who can help you,’ he said more gently. ‘Name of Mekkins. He tried to see you before… before this bloody thing happened.’