12. Silent Voices.
Under Lady Violet Wildtstripe the forge room that traditionally served rulers of Salamandastron as their personal workshop was rarely used for its main intended purpose. Yes, of course, Lady Violet was a skilled weaponsmith. An intricate full suit of plate armor that now stood its silent vigil just a few steps away from her big table, looking uncannily like a living armored badger in candlelight, was a testimony of her skills. But while she studied the art of the forge diligently, as something which was proper for a true badger ruler, her heart never was in it.
She much preferred quills and inks to hammers and tongs. When still a young maid – well, still young in badger terms – she finished reading through everything readable in the archives of her mountain fortress. Since then she commissioned copies from quite a number of tomes that previously existed only in the library of Redwall, or even in the royal archives of faraway Southsward, and wrote down numerous stories with her own paw. Never mind scribing anew many of the more time-worn books and scrolls. Now she was probably the most knowledgeable ruler of Salamandastron since at least Russano the Wise. Maybe even since before the times of Lord Stonepaw, the first badger ruler about whom any real information beyond the mystic scriptures of the Secret Chamber was recorded. And despite all the knowledge she absorbed, she still had no definitive answers to questions that troubled her in recent seasons. Sometimes she wondered if those questions were meant to be answered, or whether she had approached them in the right way…
Or maybe she had yet to find a right piece of knowledge. Some texts that were preserved in the archives largely out of respect for their antiquity required more deciphering than reading – the really old ones, with bleached inks and crumpling paper, severely damaged by time and various misfortunes, with archaic phrase and barely recognizable pawwriting. For long seasons Lady Violet used much of her spare time recovering and transcribing whatever she could from them. Now she redoubled this effort in the hope of finding at least some hints from the past.
And tonight she worked on a particularly interesting – and difficult – relic. A couple of incredibly old, bleached, frayed, nearly disintegrating paper sheets, left by somebeast within a much newer historical chronicle. Their unknown scribe was clearly more used to wielding heavier things than a quill. And the awful calligraphy of these writings only exacerbated their language which seemed more ancient than that of the oldest attributed books in the archive – and Violet knew that some of those might be four and half thousands of seasons old! It was hard to imagine how old this text was. She had to virtually translate it! Worst of all, the first page was missing entirely.
Now the Badger Lady finally had the whole text, the original version, she copied for reference, and her best understanding of it, both before her on the table, in the bright lamplight. And as she finally placed down her quill and read it from the beginning to end, the words sent a shiver down her spine.
"…mind, those are the words I copied faithfully from the birchback tablet. As you look into them, my reader, do not forget, whose paw wrote them:
"If you read this, whomever you may be, then I am no longer among the living. I, the one who called myself the messenger of Fate, am now walking towards my own fate. Long have I been poison that blighted the land, long have I denied myself any rest, and now I know with certainty – all of that was for naught! Long have I believed that Fate blessed me with a destiny beyond those of my vulgar kin – what a foolish beast I was! Truly, the only blessing I ever had was the chance to reject the destiny I embraced. And I threw that chance away without a thought, just like the shallow creature, to whom I devoted my life, threw away all the chances to avoid our doom!
It might still be possible to run, escape, save my own hide from the disaster that will surely befall us. Yet I keep walking forward. Long seasons ago I decided to follow this path, come rain or shine, and I will follow it to the end. I will challenge our destinies with all the cunning, strength and valor I have left in me! If you read this, whomever you may be, it means that I was a foolish creature to the end.""
Violet clasped her paws, pondering words that reached her through the abyss of time scarcely imaginable for most beasts. With the document incomplete, she could only guess with little degree of certainty who wrote those words, but without doubt that was no goodbeast. And yet she couldn't help but empathize with the forgotten author. She reached for the quill again, paused, turning to look at her armor.
"The chance…" she murmured. "The possibility of escape. Were they there? Truly?"
Unsurprisingly, the great iron form remained silent, as did older armors, belonging to previous badger lords, which lined the wall to the left of it. Turning back to the paper before her, Violet started writing below the restored text, her penmanship neat and simple as always. After recording circumstances, under which the original document was found, Violet added: "Beasts who believe in their destiny and beasts who desire to know their destiny generally possess the same deep-seated, naive conviction that the sun shines only for them. Let this record serve as a warning for those who believe that that their future must be bright."
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Belk the Abbey Warrior of Redwall was a heavy sleeper and a squirrel of steady nerves, not prone to seeing nightmares. Therefore when he literally jumped to wakefulness, throwing a blanket aside, gasping for breath, covered in cold sweat, his wife, Myns Graytuft, felt fear, instead of rightful irritation of a rudely awakened beast.
"What happened?" She touched her husband's shoulder gently. "Is everything all right?"
"No. I mean, yes." Belk shook his head. "I'm not ill, dear. But… Give me a minute."
He slowly got out of the bed. The same western wind, which in this very hour drove dark clouds over Ergaph, brought more of them to blot the skies of Mossflower. Belk didn't mind lack of moonlight, his nightvision being good enough to not get lost in his own room. Embers in the fireplace already died out, but thick walls and the sturdy window kept warmth inside, defying the cold night and the cold wind slowly growing into a storm. It took Belk several attempts to light a candle, so that Myns, who wasn't as comfortable in darkness as her husband, wouldn't feel awkward and worry even more.
Myns was already worrying enough, nervously crumpling the blanket in her paws – she was not slow, and Belk's strange behavior instantly reawakened the old fear she bore ever since deciding to marry the squirrel who already was the Warrior of Redwall back then. In candlelight, her husband suddenly seemed old to her, and that was even more frightening. Well, he indeed reached a respectable age, but normally that was hard to tell from his youngish visage and fit body!
"So?…"
Belk looked at his wife wanting to reassure her then shook his head. "I had… a vision."
"A vision from Martin?"
"Who else? But by seasons, what I saw was… terrible."
"Is the Abbey in danger?" asked Myns with calmness that surprised herself.
"No. Yes." Belk rubbed his brow, trying to put jumbled thoughts into words. "Not yet. Not in our lifetime, perhaps."
"Then, what he did told you?"
Belk clenched his fists. "More like "shown". More like a puzzle, than a riddle. It was future, isn't that what he always warns about? I still can't make heads or tails out of the most of what I've seen. But a few things are clear. A great evil is afoot. Something as dangerous as Cluny or Ferahgo. Maybe even viler. Avalanche of horror. And the worst thing, our daughter is right in its path. She will need help, if she is to see more than one winter. And…"
Belk wasn't the type to be at loss for words, but now there was a lump in his throat, and his wife saw that clearly. That somehow was both touching and hurtful. She wanted to say a lot to her husband, and not all of the things she wanted to say were anywhere near nice, but she said simply, trying to keep her voice calm to the best of her ability. "And now you have to go, without me, because a simple cook like me will only slow you down. Well, I guess we have to inform Mother Abbess, and gather provisions and clothing, so that you can go as soon…"
Belk reached to his wife, placing a paw on her shoulder. Suddenly, he no longer seemed aged and weary to her, again every bit as vigorous as he was in his first seasons as a warrior when creatures of Redwall started to call him Belk the Fair.
"Thanks, dear. Thanks. I swear to you one thing – no matter what happens, no matter who stands in my way, I'll protect our daughter and return her safely to Redwall, I swear that on my honor as a warrior. Just wait, and one day, surely as spring coming after winter, Rowanbloom will come back."