Sam sat at her feet thinking back to his old life with the Urkku and to the early Council Meetings when he used to sneak out of the house to run across the fields and tell the wood of the Urkku plans. He remembered the cold wet evening when he had been shocked out of his peaceful doze by the fire to see Nab standing, wild and frightened, by the foot of the stairs and how he had raced to the wood to organize the escape.
Nab had finished his tale now and they sat without speaking while the earth juddered and shook beneath them. He felt a strange sense of calm and tranquillity as he looked around at the others, all of them lost in their private thoughts. He turned to Brock and saw that the badger, who was sitting at his side, was looking at him. Their memories were the same for their lives had been so intertwined, since that faraway snowy night when Brock had watched the strange couple come walking over the frozen fields carrying their little bundle, that they had shared everything together. They thought of Rufus who had been so suspicious of Nab at first but who had been killed trying to protect him, and of the others, Sterndale, Pictor, Thirkelow, all of them dead. They thought of Zinndy and Sinkka, Brock’s cubs who had left the sett and whom he had never seen again, and they thought of Bruin. Brock could still see the old badger charging at the Urkku with all the strength his tired body could muster and then, as he raced to escape and catch the others up, the way he had been flung in the air by the shot which took his life. And they remembered Tara. How they both wished she could have been here with them now. They thought of her without the sharp pangs of pain that they had felt at first but rather with a numb sense of loss as if a part of them was missing. They remembered all her little ways clearly and could see her vividly in their imagination. Their minds wandered through all the happenings of the past like a series of little pictures appearing in front of their eyes. Nab buried his face in the thick fur around Brock’s neck the way he used to and put his arms around the badger’s shoulders. Then suddenly a gigantic explosion sounded in his ears and looking up he saw the evening sky disappear behind an enormous black mushroom cloud and the world went dark.
‘Come on, old friend,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time we went,’ and he stood up. Then he took Beth’s hand and with Warrigal, Perryfoot, Sam and Brock following, he walked slowly over to the gaping hole in the earth and, without a backward glance, began to lead them down the rough stone steps into the dark void beneath.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This book is the result of an encounter I had some years ago with a strange old man whilst walking in the deep forests near my home. At the time I believed the meeting to be purely accidental but now I am not sure and it may well have been intentional on his part. Why he chose me to tell the story to I do not know. Perhaps it was because I spent many hours walking through the forests and moorland and he had grown accustomed to my face and perhaps also because he could detect my strong sympathies with the animal kingdom and the natural world.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains that, after our first meeting, we met on a number of occasions and he related to me each time a part of the story you have just read. We always met by chance, at least on my part, and there seemed to be no particular area he favoured for our meetings so that we met sometimes in the forest and at other times by a mountain river or somewhere on the moors. Also our meetings were sporadic; sometimes we would meet twice in a week and then two or three months might go by before I would see, quite unexpectedly, his familiar shambling figure coming towards me and we would select a suitably comfortable spot for our conversation. I call it a ‘conversation’ but in reality it was more a one-sided monologue with myself doing little more than listen and interpose the odd question to clarify some matter or other over which I was not clear. However, all my inquiries as to his family, background and home were pushed to one side and remained unanswered; he literally seemed to have ‘come from nowhere’.
After each conversation I returned home and recorded, as faithfully as I could, every detail of what he had told me. I determined early on that I would attempt to put my notes together in the form of a book and to this end it has been necessary to make certain changes in the way the story was told to me. These relate however only to style and format and I trust that I have remained true to the spirit in which it was related. Any errors there may be are of course entirely mine.
From the first I challenged the truth of his story but he simply smiled and told me that whether I believed his tale or not was of no consequence though he would be grateful if I would at least listen. This I did and as the story progressed I grew more and more fascinated and began to look forward to our meetings so that I could hear the next part of the tale. I also became less convinced that it was untrue until towards the end I became almost certain that it was, at the very least, based on fact. This, of course, must be left to the reader to decide for himself; it is not my intention to attempt to prove either way.
Our meetings lasted approximately two years; the first one taking place on a cold January day when I was making my way, in the late afternoon, up a steep path through the forest, and the last two years later in December when the snow was thick on the ground and I was sitting on the moors by a little brook that raced its way along through high banks of snow-covered heather. Since that day when he finished his story, I have not seen him, although I have spent as much, if not more time walking through my old haunts as before. Sometimes, however, I have felt aware of a ‘presence’ as if he was watching me and have been grateful for that knowledge. I am certain that someday I shall meet him again.
When he came to the end of the tale there were a number of very important questions which I wanted to ask him. Firstly I was anxious to learn what had happened to the animals and the Eldron after they had entered the tunnels and caves where the Scyttel had opened up for them.
‘They had not gone down many steps,’ he said, ‘when they seemed to be walking in space as if they were floating through the darkness. Then, without realizing it, they drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep and they slept for many, many moons in the arms of Ashgaroth. They did not grow old for Ashgaroth had frozen the passage of time for them and when, eventually, they awoke they found the sun streaming down upon them where they lay in their resting places in the Scyttel. When they walked out on to the face of the land it was to a new world; a world free of the Urkku, a world of infinite colour and magic.’
I remained intensely curious as to the fate of Nab and Beth and the other animals and still not wholly satisfied by his explanation of this ‘new world’ to which they had gone. ‘Were they happy there?’ I wanted to know. ‘Was it what they had dreamt of and suffered for so much?’
The icy wind blew little flurries of snow through the air which settled on our hair. The sun shone pale and watery in the steel grey winter sky. He looked up at me and smiled and as I gazed deep into his eyes I suddenly realized with a huge shock of amazement that the old man was Nab. My head spun for a second or two and I was unable to think straight but when I collected my wits again a further revelation came to me. If this old man was Nab then the world to which they had come was the same as that from which they had escaped – our world. A great wave of disappointment spread through me.