As Boswell took the Stillstone he saw that its light stayed on with Bracken and Rebecca, for it was in them now and shining from them as their love had done, growing stronger and stronger every moment. Above them, the Duncton Stone’s tilted base began to rise and fall, and fall further, and rise and fall further again, and Boswell could only see them vaguely now, in the light of their love where they seemed to be dancing before him, laughing and dancing and singing ‘You have the Book, you have the Book’ as the Stone was pulled at by the tree roots out on the surface, tilting first towards Uffington and then away from it up towards the storm-filled sky, back and forth as the beech tree began to lose its battle with the wind, its roots growing weaker and weaker as the Stone swayed and pulled itself more and more upright, more towards the sky.
But underground Boswell could only see the white light of the Stillstone and feel the joy of holding it as he watched, or felt, the dance in its light of Bracken and Rebecca. Oh, he wanted to join them, to dance with them, to cast off the weight of his old body as they were doing and dance where his crippled paw would not slow him, nor his age, nor the cold, nor the wind that was straightening the Stone and making its base fall blissfully upon them.
Did he want any more to find the seventh Book? Did it matter, when the dance in the light was such joy? As he started forward towards them he saw, from the brightness of where Bracken and Rebecca had been crouched together so peacefully, Rebecca’s smile coming towards him and love and trust for him in her eyes. He heard her voice with Bracken’s as they said, or called, or sang, ‘Not yet, not yet, go back, beloved, for yours is the task of the seventh Stillstone. We give you the Book, Boswell beloved, beloved mole who has loved us, we give you the Book that you may inscribe it, the great Book of Silence, the lost and the last Book, for you who have lived it are its author-protector scribe and creator and the Stillstone will give you the strength for the scribing, beloved Boswell, White Mole of Uffington.’
Boswell reached a paw forward to touch his Rebecca, to feel the fur of Bracken, for he wanted to join them and not take this burden, for who was he before their light or before the Stone? ‘Help me,’ he called out. ‘Help me!’
And the light from the Stillstone travelled into his paw and from there to his body and over his fur until it shone from his eyes so that he had the courage to turn away from their light into the sound of the wind and the cold, and feel again the weight of his frail body. But he knew that their love was within him and that he would scribe the great Book of Silence. The lost and the last Book.
Above him the great mass of the Stone’s base began finally to sink down upon him and behind him upon Bracken and Rebecca, roots breaking about him as it crashed down through them, but holding the Stillstone he ran from under the Stone’s base as his old limbs raced to escape the cracking roots and shattering soil; he heard the thump of the Stone behind him and he began to turn back up the tunnel to the hollow of the tree, which swayed and shook before him as he picked his way around its edge, limping and hobbling with great difficulty because of the Stillstone, trying to get away as the tree began to pull out its roots from beneath the Stone and started to sway and to crash and to fall.
As the tree began its final descent he called out, ‘Tryfan, Tryfan, help me. Now you can help me. Tryfan, yours is the power.’
Mole upon mole had come to the circular chamber around the Chamber of Echoes, from which the fiercest sounds came, drawn by a sense that a great moment of change was taking place in the system, fearful of the sounds and awed by the majesty.
They chattered and stamped their paws with fear, for somemole had said he had seen Bracken and Rebecca go into the Chamber and that Boswell was there as well and all moles could sense that danger and great joy were there together.
‘Should we go in, should we help, can we do anything?’ they whispered and muttered to each other, looking fearfully at the entrances to the Chamber, not one there with the courage to enter in. Some braver moles wandered from entrance to entrance, passing by all seven of them, still unable to find the strength they needed to risk going in. Most just stared.
But all of them agreed afterwards on one strange and mysterious fact. As they watched and trembled they seemed to hear the singing of a sacred song whose words they knew but which they had, until then, forgotten. And all began to sing it, a song of hope and exaltation that spoke of the coming of a White Mole.
