Mandrake grew irrationally angry at this: he did not need Rune to tell him what he could do or could not do. What mole was Rune to say such a thing? Always poking his snout into things. Perhaps he was the one who had told the Stone Mole to take Sarah away, and Rebecca? Wouldn’t have put it past him. Slimy little bastard was Rune. Interfering little hypocrite. Mandrake turned to Rune to strike him with his talons so that he would learn what not to say… But Rune was gone. Rune was not crouching where he had been. There, there were only black shadows where Rune had been, shades of darkness where Runemole Rune had gone. And there would be, for Mandrake was not even facing where Rune had been and still was; Mandrake did not want to put his talons into anymole again; Mandrake was mumbling into a dark corner of his own imagining, mumbling to himself in his loneliness.
He knew the Stone Mole was waiting for him and he was afraid, and he had never felt fear, no not that, not fear. He didn’t like fear, so he would go to that ancient place where the voice in the Midsummer Night was and where the old mole died, never even struggling, no fear in his eyes. Old whatwashisname? Before Sarah, before Rebecca, remember? He had been a pup but he couldn’t remember or could he member, member his talons soft like Rebecca’s had been when she was born, he membered that, no blizzard though. But snow, now. ‘They don’t know the cold. Only Siabod moles know cold. Take them up Cwmoer and the whole bloody lot would freeze. Gelert would have a feast, see? What did Y Wrach used to say? “Crai by mryd rhag lledfryd heno.” Melancholy as hell she was, the old bitch. Call this Duncton snow cold? They should try the ice on Castell y Gwynt.’
Mandrake’s massive body moved uncomfortably in the dark, his own dark, aching with the lifelong effort of seeing beyond the whirling blizzard in his mind and failing, always not quite seeing, but remembering that he might have, with Sarah, who surely could hear him calling when he took her and he tried to say something but his body and the darkness wouldn’t let him. Yes, she heard him calling out of the blizzard, oh Sarah, she heard him out of the Siabod ice. He membered that. Or was it Rebecca? With Rebecca. On and in Rebecca when she heard him… yes, she did! She heard him. ‘Where is she now? Where is she?’
Rune watched the slow tears on Mandrake’s face pitilessly and called them madness. Mandrake had raised his talons to strike the wall and then muttered, and now turned mumbling and with tears wetting his rough old face fur. ‘He’s past it,’ gloated Rune.
‘You must go to the Ancient System and find the Stone Mole,’ said Rune finally and bravely, ‘and you must kill him for us.’
Mandrake looked at his talons, twisted with fighting and killing, and his snout lowered. He was thinking of when they were in Rebecca’s fur, his Rebecca.
‘Yes,’ he said wearily. ‘Will you come with me, Rune?’
‘Yes,’ said Rune, thinking that a lot of henchmoles would not be far behind either.
‘Yes, you come along, Rune, you might help me find Sarah.’ He wasn’t going to mention Rebecca because he didn’t want Rune helping him to find her. No.
How was Rue to know that her youngsters had mischievously burrowed a way into Hulver’s old tunnels? What wisdom could ever have told her that Mandrake and Rune would happen that way? When trouble comes calling, a mole had better not waste time asking such questions else the impossibility of answering them and so finding some reason for tragedy will drive him, or her, mad.
But one day, when the world was quiet because the snow was thick and all the pups had gone off somewhere, Rue was suddenly alert with a mother’s foreknowledge that something is dreadfully wrong. It was Violet who came running, frightened as a pup should never be frightened.
‘What’s happened?’ Rue asked urgently.
‘There’s two big moles and they’ve got Beech and they’re hitting him.’ Rue started to run the way Violet had come, calling out, ‘Show me.’
What Violet had reported was not strictly true. Mandrake and Rune had entered Hulver’s burrows and gone straight to the sealed tunnel that led into the Ancient System. They had not even considered that the tunnels would be occupied, and the lack of sound and smell seemed to prove them right.
Mandrake started without ado to burrow around the flint seal and, quite quickly, made sufficient of a passage to get through to the other side if he wanted. He had sniffed the cold air of the Ancient System, looked into its depths and was working himself up into a rage preparatory to setting off by himself into its silent depths, to root out and kill the Stone Mole.
