Duncton Quest by William Horwood Read Free Book Online Page B

Treatise of Dark Sound remains a classic of its kind. But his interest in this dark side of the Stone had deepened and become obsessive, and his work had lingered too long in the Stone’s shadows and the darkness that surrounds its light. Scirpus, the records showed, grew impatient and disenchanted with the existing teachings at Uffington, and, claiming revelation and enlightenment he scribed the infamous Book of the Word. This strange, obscure text, which expounded a mixture of dark love and ominous prophecy, was essentially one long blasphemy against the Stone. It claimed that the Word came first and would be last; that the sound of Silence was dark sound; that moles must atone in blood if they are to be saved of the Word; that to deny the Word is to deny Truth and should be punishable; that it is the first duty of moles to teach the Word for the good of moles; that the Word is the Truth.
    His position at the Holy Burrows unfortunately gained considerable credibility by the actions of the eccentric Holy Mole of that period, Dunbar. Until Scirpus’ emergence as the author of his own evil Book, Dunbar had been an exemplary scribemole of great achievement and courage. He had travelled far and wide, but had himself come to Uffington from the north as Scirpus had, and this perhaps gave them a common sympathy.
    In the weeks after Scirpus presented his Book of the Word to the Library and invited other scribemoles to read and comment on it, Dunbar remained silent, despite the storm of anger and acrimony the Book immediately created among other scribes. Contemporary reports make clear that Dunbar never gave his full approval of the Book, but he did not demand that Scirpus be forced to withdraw it, saying only (to quote a historian of that troubled period), “Cum broders, by the pawe him tak, for dirk and drublie hertes need loffe. Yef youe doo nat then so shall I! Fro this youre lackelufingnesse cums alle our trublie now and I will staye namore but traveyle fro hir.” And when, much shocked – for Holy Moles, once appointed, had never left Uffington before, and Dunbar’s unique decision to leave is one of the great mysteries of the Holy Burrows – his colleagues asked him where he would go, he said he would go with Scirpus, to debate more with him, and if he did not prevail on him to change his views he would be “nought and nowhedyr” – be nothing and go nowhere.
    He was as good as his word, and when Scirpus left, the venerable Dunbar went with him, disputing questions of Dark Sound and the Word all the while. Naturally the decision of so revered a Holy Mole to leave encouraged other moles to follow him, and some scribes and many eager young novices went as well.
    Contemporary accounts, based on the reports of a scribemole who had gone with the original party but who later left it and after a number of moleyears returned to the Holy Burrows and did penance, say that they took with them copies of the Book of the Word and the Scirpuscan commentary on the Treatise of Dark Sound. It seems that the party stayed together as far as the Rollright System, which is to the north of Duncton Wood. Scirpus had by then won many of those who had gone with Dunbar over to the way of the Word: there was a dispute, a fight, and only by the loyalty of moles close to Dunbar did the old mole escape. In the confusion the single scribemole who subsequently got back to Uffington escaped as well, but he was soon parted from Dunbar and on his own.
    The mystery of where the Holy Mole and the pawful of moles with him subsequently went was not solved until some centuries later, when more adventurous generations of scribes established from place-name evidence and oral stories that Dunbar, or a mole remarkably similar to him, travelled eastwards, in the direction of what story-telling moles fancifully call the “Empty Quarter”, but whose proper name is the “Wen” which in Old Mole means a malignant growth on the flank of a body, or the side of a