AUTHOR'S NOTE. The river of knowledge is a concept used in the book's sequel, Tales from Watership Down. Essentially, knowledge flows through a path like a river and a rabbit in its path can receive the knowledge. There was one such river in Efrafa, where it was felt by Vilthuril and, to a lesser extent, Thethuthinnang (another escapee and Bigwig's mate) and Hyzenthlay. While the Efrafan river provided information about a doe called Flyairth, who briefly visited the Down before leaving, it is implied that there are other such rivers throughout the world. END AUTHOR'S NOTE.
Leave something for someone but don't leave someone for something.
-Enid Blyton, Five on a Hike Together
Fiver and Vilthuril were relaxing under the seat. The train stopped slowly as it reached its destination of Richmond, California. The rabbits did not stir. Myrna, however, had already gotten up and was coming back from the washroom. She decided to see how the rabbits were doing and if they had eaten all their flayrah. She panicked when she found the empty carriers, but was relieved when she soon found the rabbits, snuggled together under the seat. She knew they couldn't stay there, so she picked them up and put them back inside the carriers.
While Myrna had several years of experience in handling rabbits, being picked up by a human was an extremely unpleasant experience for the two wild rabbits, especially as they were sleeping just a few seconds before.
-Fiver! Where are you? shouted Vilthuril.
-I'm in the box! replied Fiver just as loudly. Where are you? I can't see you anywhere.
-I'm in the other box. Fiver, are you sure this human really understands us?
-My visions have never been wrong before, so I guess she does.
-Then why are we back inside these boxes?
-She probably has a reason to put us inside, but what exactly, I don't know...
After a while, Myrna finally arrived to her hotel. However, just as the receptionist was about to give her the keys to her room, he told her:
-I'm sorry, Ms. Gilbert, but you can't bring your pets in here.
-What? But I checked on your website and it said that you allowed pets!
-Our website? HEY JOHNNY DO WE HAVE A WEBSITE?
-Yup, came the faint voice of Johnny from another room. It's been there for years, but we never bothered to update it.
-Oh, well that probably explains it. We don't allow rabbits anymore.
-Can't you make an exception, just this once?
-All right, here's what can be done. You can keep the rabbits with you in your room, but they have to be supervised at all times. As a consequence, whenever you leave the room, you must bring them with you. I don't want them to destroy all the wallpaper while you're away.
Myrna was forced to agree, as it was too late for her to choose another hotel. Being forced to bring the rabbits with her everywhere for the next few days was going to be really annoying. She wanted to attend a conference organized by the House Rabbit Society at their international headquarters, and bringing the rabbits with her to the Rabbit Center was going to be problematic...
The next morning, Myrna went to the Rabbit Center to attend the first meetings. She had been forced to bring Fiver and Vilthuril with her and, as she had thought, there was hardly any space for them to stay. A small enclosure was hurriedly set up for them with a few cardboard boxes for them to hide in, and the carriers were opened, allowing them to get out. The smell of rabbits was everywhere.
-Frith-rah, gasped Vilthuril. I've never smelled so many rabbits in one place since Efrafa. But there's something else, and I don't understand it.
-They don't live on the high hills, Vilthuril my dear, they live with humans, explained Fiver. That's why their smell is unusual.
-I know, but there's something else. It feels like...
Vilthuril slowly moved further ahead into the enclosure, and slightly turned her head, before laying down and saying:
-It's a river of knowledge.
-I thought the river was in Efrafa?
-There is another one here. Can you feel it?
Fiver lied down close to his mate, trying to imitate her position to get in the path of the knowledge.
-I feel something, but it's not very clear. It sounds confusing. Is it about Flyairth?
-No, it's not about her. I don't even know if it's about rabbits.
Both rabbits remained motionless for a while, before Vilthuril finally managed to determine what the knowledge was about.
-There are two humans that were caught by the human owsla because they took things that didn't belong to them. They were taken to a place where bad humans are sent, but they escaped and now they are taking more things.
-This is even weirder than when the river told you about Flyairth, but I have a feeling that this information may be of use to us soon. Either way, we should get out of here.
They looked around them. The metal barricade that delimited the enclosure was impossible to chew through. The only way out was through a window, but it was too high to jump to.
-We'll have to jump on other things if we want to make it out, suggested Vilthuril.
They then started to rearrange the various boxes in their enclosure and piling them up near the window, building an unstable tower. Vilthuril used it to jump onto the windowsill, and pressed her nose against the mosquito screen.
-It works, Fiver, she told her mate. It will be very easy to chew a hole in this thin wire-thing.
Fiver, however, seemed preoccupied. He was staring through the barricade at a certain object. It was a camera, that was going to be used to film a lecture that evening. Vilthuril jumped down and looked at it too.
-I don't know what this thing is, admitted Fiver. But I have the feeling it could somehow be useful.
Vilthuril did not understand what it was either. She put her paw through the barricade and clawed at it with the hope of bringing it closer to them, making it easier to examine. Instead, a beep was heard and a small red light appeared.
-By Frith, that's right! said Fiver.
Fiver then pressed his nose through the barricade and said, loudly and while detaching his words:
-We are not human companions. We are going home. Goodbye.
He then dashed towards the tower and jumped onto the windowsill, followed soon afterwards by his mate. Both rabbits were out of the building in no time.
After jumping out the window, they landed in the middle of the shelter's vegetable garden. They had a quick silflay and walked towards the street.
Vilthuril had never seen a road so closely before. Neither had Fiver, apart from the one he had crossed after the escape from Sandleford warren, but this was a large city street, not a small country road. There were too many hrududil for the rabbits to safely cross it. They therefore stayed on the sidewalk.
After a while, Vilthuril asked:
-Who were you talking to, after I touched that human thing?
-To the humans.
-Why? Humans don't speak Lapiné.
-I just didn't want them to worry. They understand rabbits, but they made one mistake: believing we are the type of rabbits they keep as companions. So I told them we're not.
-And that thing I touched...it allowed them to understand you?
-Maybe, maybe not. I have a feeling it did because, you see, we are...
Suddenly, he stopped talking and moving and started to have a vision. As soon as he regained touch with reality, he warned:
-We must get out of here! We can go anywhere, inside that hrududu will be fine!
The hrududu Fiver was referring to was a small car parked next to them, with its door open. Both rabbits quickly jumped inside. Almost immediately afterwards, the ground began to shake.
The earthquake was very weak, but rabbits are more sensitive to vibrations than humans. Vilthuril felt very nervous, as this reminded her of an earthquake a few years before in Efrafa. A burrow in which several of her friends were sleeping had collapsed. They had all suffocated to death because she had been arrested for trying to dig them out, as all digging without council permission was strictly forbidden.
The ground kept shaking for a few seconds when suddenly, a trash can fell over, right where the two rabbits were standing a few seconds before. Had it not been for Fiver's vision, they would have been crushed.
A while later at the Rabbit Center, a volunteer was giving flayrah to the rabbits in the shelter, when she found the empty enclosure. All meetings came to an abrupt halt as everyone went to search the area around the building for the rabbits. While they didn't find Fiver and Vilthuril, they did find two stray rabbits. The recording Fiver had left was also found, and the discovery of talking rabbits made headlines all over the world. While it was quickly dismissed by the scientific community, it became the subject of several conspiracy theories.
