Unaware that he had been observed, utterly conquered by the first few notes of the song, Bracken rose into its glory as, line by rhythmic line, its first verse was sung by the older moles. He could not understand its words, which were in the old language, but as it progressed he began to understand its meaning with his deepest being. There was a short pause, a voice of instruction, and then the second verse started, with more moles joining it, doubly as powerful in sound and richness as the first verse. With each line, each word, each syllable, it seemed that the song gained strength, as the moles that sang it gave their whole souls into it, and it marched forward with them as an expression of the power that impels all scribemoles forward, indeed, all moles, towards the Stone from which they come and to which they return.
As the third verse started, and even more of the twenty-four moles joined in, Bracken began to weep in his heart for the joy that the song surged into him. With each glorious word its deep melody seemed to untie the tangles in his heart about the Stone and the things he had done, and the moles he had known, and forge them into a powerful simplicity. He saw that everything he was was of the Stone—everything he had done, and would do, was of the Stone; Mandrake was of the Stone, Rune… Mekkins… Hulver… Duncton… Boswell, beloved Boswell was of the Stone… Rebecca was of the Stone… and their love! Their love only had meaning in the Stone, and he seemed almost to fly with the power of the song for the glory that it brought to his spirit. And then, as the fourth and strongest verse started and all the moles were singing, his own voice seemed to join them and he was singing it, too, and it carried him even further as its sound echoed and re-echoed around the chamber about him and took him finally for a moment into the very silence of the Stone, where a mole is nothing but a part of the glimmers and rays of the silence itself, unseen. As he went there, he understood at last where he had been with Rebecca and why he would always search until he found it with her once more.
Then the song was over as abruptly as it had begun. But for Bracken, as for the scribemoles who had sung it in the chamber below him, its sound continued on as its echoes died away only slowly in the chamber around them, and even more slowly in the higher peaks of the mountains of their spirits. The flint sealstone was rocked back and forth once more, until it rolled back into its resting place and opened up the chamber again, and one by one the chosen moles began to come out of the world into which the song had led them, but back into which there would now always be an entrance in their souls, which was the purpose of the singing of the song.
While high above them, crouched on the edge of the chamber wall, Bracken began to feel the enormous strength of peace and love and purpose which the song had put into him. But as the chamber came into focus before him once more and the slow sounds of the scribemoles below drifted up, he became aware of a commotion behind him, of a running and angry panting and, turning round, he saw Skeat, the Holy Mole, whose eyes were not filled with love and peace but with horror at the presence of Bracken.
From the place the song had taken him to and from which he was only slowly returning, Bracken seemed to see Skeat as if he were shouting against the force of a wind, so that the sound of his voice was lost and mute and his wild gestures bore no meaning.
Then the sound did come through, and the chamber behind him was filled with a terrible sound which caused the scribemoles below to stop and peer up into the dark, from where they heard a voice of terrible power cry:
‘Bracken of Duncton, you are cursed by the Stone, you are cursed of the Stone, you are lost from its wonder, you are cut off from its love, you…’ and they heard the sounds of scuffles and sobbings and terror above.
