‘Well,’ he whispered softly to himself, at last, ‘well, what am I anyway, unless I’m part of it, whatever it may be?’ Then Bracken began to pray to the Stone, before the Stones, and say those words that so long before Mandrake, standing in this very spot, might himself have said if only he had had the love of Rebecca then, or had known Boswell, or had been graced to hear the silence of the Duncton Stone. Bracken prayed for the moles of Siabod, he gave thanks for the life within himself, he prayed that the Stone would protect Rebecca wherever it had taken her. He prayed to the memory of Skeat and in honour of the scribemoles of Uffington. He prayed that Boswell would know these prayers had been made. As he prayed, and the cold wind began to die, and he noticed nothing of himself but his silence in the Stone, he brought the worship of the Stone back to Siabod and the black heights beyond it.
When he thought he had finished, he found he had not. He prayed again for his Rebecca and thanked the Stone for the love that they had seen. And he wondered, curiously, which of the Stones were the Stones of Tryfan.
Then he was finished and became suddenly cold, so he turned at last from the Stones to find the winds growing lighter and the snow almost finished. Beneath him, only a few moleyards off, he saw a cliff edge at the top of a steep, snow-filled drop into a cwm that went down and down as far as anymole could sense, and further. Beyond it, the swirling snow danced in the wind, growing lighter and weaker as it faded away, and there came slowly through it not light but black darkness that rose before him as the snow cleared in a steepness of more rock. It rose higher and higher as his eyes widened in wonder and awe and the snow finally swirled away, revealing a massive, isolated peak on top of which there stood other Stones he could sense, but not see. The Stones of Tryfan, he knew.
‘But it’s impossible, ’ he whispered, ‘impossible for mole—’ for though Tryfan seemed so close across the void between, almost within a talon’s touch, it was impossible to reach. He now gazed at it in wonder as, so long before, Mandrake had gazed at it in fear. And as Mandrake had stepped forward to touch it in contempt, so now Bracken stepped forward, his paw outstretched in wonder, for he saw that a mole can touch the Stone, he can, he can; but as he tried, he was falling forward and rolling into steep snow, tumbling over, the peak of Tryfan rising higher and higher above him, rising away from his grasp as he fell down into the nameless cwm that had gaped beneath him and now took him. Snow flurried down as he fell, rolling on into an avalanche, carrying him down and down and further down, and faster, snow all around him worse than a blizzard, and a sliding avalanche of silence building up about him as the cwm echoed outside the snow that enveloped him and of which he was a tumbling part. Far, far above him the two Stones of Tryfan stood out in a clearing sky.
As Bracken fell into white silence, the wind across on Siabod began to die away and the blizzard to stop. But Rebecca knew it had come too late for her; she might still have struggled alone down the slopes, and she might even have managed to carry a single pup. But she looked at the four that lay against her teats but were now no longer able to get milk from them, felt them grow colder and colder against her encompassing belly and knew she could not leave three to die alone.
Whatever strength it was that had kept her alive for nearly six days through the howling winds was finally failing her now. Her mind had begun to wander, and she found it harder and harder to gather the strength to keep the pups from crawling blindly from her protection into the chill that would kill them.
She whispered and mumbled to herself, talking to imaginary moles. She had even laughed in the night and with the dawn: she remembered them all, the moles she had loved. Why, Mekkins was there, out in the snow, calling her to him gruffly; and Rose was there, sweet Rose. And Sarah, and Bracken there, near her, and dear Boswell, sweet mole. And Mandrake up near the rocks that she now saw were nearby, he was there in the shadows, his talons trying to protect her from the wind because he loved her, yes he did.
Only the cold stopped her dreaming, though sometimes it lured her towards sleep—which she fought, and had fought for days, because there is no waking up on a mountain like Moel Siabod, above which the black ravens fly.
Food. She thought of it as a dream, an impossible thing, and it smelt so good. Remember the worms she had stolen from the elder burrows and how Mandrake was angry, yes he was. Silly thing, he was, never seeing what was at the end of his snout.
