Categories > Books > Redwall > The Wicked Ground
Chapter One
Though the evening sky was clear and bright with watercolor pinks and golds, the air still smelled of rain -- neither impending nor threatening, but rather a warm assurance of previously-fallen water mixed with clay and loam and the naturally-composting forest groundcover rising back up in the lingering chill of early spring. It was a nearly tangible scent, though a welcome one. Its wisps and tendrils seemed to creep deliberately out of the ground in order to alert any creature with open senses that the earth should not be taken as a given and ignored, but rather that it was just as much a breathing entity as anything occupying it, a living being in itself.
Brother Andreas stood on the walltop of Redwall Abbey, leaning lightly against the slant of the Gatehouse roof, allowing and welcoming the earth's good graces to permeate all of his senses. Cool and light breezes rippled through his well-kempt chestnut-brown fur and flirted with the trail of his tie and the hems of his suit coat. His own breathing in of the earth's exhalations left the impression of a taste of newly-opened flowers on his tongue. And his eyes, pupils wide against the bright brown of his irises, both reflected Nature's latest firmamental art show and trailed the path of a narrow column of gray smoke as it lazily tracked northeastward.
Despite his duties as Recorder requiring him to have off-paw knowledge of timetables and routes, despite the diagrams and blueprints kept in the Archives, and despite the certain mechanical understanding that comes with having read these things, Andreas was still leery of the trains. His parents had told him when he was young about these incredible things that came into being in their childhoods, and they spoke in amazement about how these brought distances closer, made the harder-to-reach more attainable, made the whole world more concise and less mysterious. But Andreas was not inclined to agree so easily. He found the straight column of smoke, even in its picturesqueness, to be at odds with Nature's plans for the sky, and he thought of the neat straight lines of track as being painfully inorganic, slicing across the gentle curves and irregular edges of Mossflower Woods and beyond. But mostly, the marten felt that zipping by things on a train meant missing the details and intricacies that were so often worth chronicling. For all the world's advances, this should be the time to look closer, not to pass by. Important things could get lost in the blur out the window.
A low whistled chord toned through the air from the direction of the gray smoke, and Andreas' ears perked forward. The sound itself was the least of his objections, save for the fact that he had never heard a whistle from that particular train from Redwall before. The route that actually brought travelers closest to the old Abbey had an entirely different timetable, and the evening northeast was never more than a visual cue. The marten bit his lower lip in confused concentration, maintaining this silent pose for quite a while before coming to any sort of a conclusion.
The insects were missing, he realized. The usual ambient counterpoint of bees, flies, gnats, and crickets was unexplainably but undoubtedly absent, and Andreas could only furrow his brown in vain in search of a logical reason for the gap. Furthermore, his frustration was compounded by the fact that it had taken him so long to notice those missing voices, no matter how small their sources may be. The loss of natural detail to the manifestation of mechanical science, even in his own mind! The Recorder shook his head, descended slowly from the walltop, and pushed his way past the old wooden door into the Gatehouse.
The oldest records in Redwall's Gatehouse, dating back far enough that one could make a comprehensive linguistic study between them and the most current records, were full of such minute details on flora and fauna, but just as Redwall Abbey itself had changed purpose from being a self-contained center of life in a wide wilderness to the government-and-cultural historical landmark center of a land with towns tucked between its indigenous trees, it was no longer the responsibility of the Recorder to chronicle any but the most major of natural occurrences and discoveries. Words had fallen out of use between the medieval and contemporary records for reasons entirely unrelated to linguistic development, and the definition of important with regards to subject matter had changed drastically. Minutes of council sessions, political debates and decisions, charters for new towns, and future railroad routes had simply superceded the record of circadian rhythms.
Andreas wrote it down anyway, in a neat line of blue ink on the smooth cream paper of a small black book that was his own property rather than that of the state. The age of the Recorder as editorialist had also gone by the wayside several ages ago, though this was one case to which Andreas did not object. When Redwall was a contained entity, the historian's life was naturally part of the small history within, but with expansion, the individual was afforded more privacy.
The marten shut his book and stowed it carefully in the shallow drawer of his desk, exchanging it for a larger cloth-and-cardboard-bound volume taken off the end of the shelf of records. Tucking this under his arm, he abandoned the Gatehouse to head for the main Abbey building. While he had spent many a calm hour blissfully enjoying independent reading time in those ancient spirit-laden halls, the night that was to follow this insect-free evening was not one that could be filled with reading accounts of past arthropod behavior. Rather, it was a night that would soon be filled by quite a different set of sounds, about which Andreas was fully expected to write.
The denizens of Mossflower Country still called it Nameday, though this designation was just as much a relic as the fact that the polite forms of address for appointed and elected officials remained Brother, Sister, Friar, Abbot, and so on. What had started as a genuinely seasonal celebration had evolved into a once-yearly multi-day extravaganza, resplendent with organized events of all sorts ranging from sport tournaments to high art performances to gala balls. The most prominent and affluent gathered in Redwall itself each year for the opening night festivities and were treated to a feast in the finest old tradition, followed by a full night of high-class extravagance.
Food had already been set out, and Andreas, narrow and lanky though he was, chose that time, when all other creatures would be condensed in one room, to make his rooftop ruminations. He savored that last window of quiet, knowing that there would be food to savor later, no matter how many hares might be present at the feast. The quality and quantity of the food could always be taken for granted in the records, but not so the chosen entertainment: Thus, the recorder dutifully brought the latest volume of records along with him. He would have preferred to merely watch and enjoy the production without worrying about duty interfering with art. But, he reminded himself, he also preferred writing about insects and leaves to trains and telegraphs! Chuckling inwardly at his own backwardness, Andreas pushed his way into the Great Hall of Redwall Abbey.
Though the evening sky was clear and bright with watercolor pinks and golds, the air still smelled of rain -- neither impending nor threatening, but rather a warm assurance of previously-fallen water mixed with clay and loam and the naturally-composting forest groundcover rising back up in the lingering chill of early spring. It was a nearly tangible scent, though a welcome one. Its wisps and tendrils seemed to creep deliberately out of the ground in order to alert any creature with open senses that the earth should not be taken as a given and ignored, but rather that it was just as much a breathing entity as anything occupying it, a living being in itself.
Brother Andreas stood on the walltop of Redwall Abbey, leaning lightly against the slant of the Gatehouse roof, allowing and welcoming the earth's good graces to permeate all of his senses. Cool and light breezes rippled through his well-kempt chestnut-brown fur and flirted with the trail of his tie and the hems of his suit coat. His own breathing in of the earth's exhalations left the impression of a taste of newly-opened flowers on his tongue. And his eyes, pupils wide against the bright brown of his irises, both reflected Nature's latest firmamental art show and trailed the path of a narrow column of gray smoke as it lazily tracked northeastward.
Despite his duties as Recorder requiring him to have off-paw knowledge of timetables and routes, despite the diagrams and blueprints kept in the Archives, and despite the certain mechanical understanding that comes with having read these things, Andreas was still leery of the trains. His parents had told him when he was young about these incredible things that came into being in their childhoods, and they spoke in amazement about how these brought distances closer, made the harder-to-reach more attainable, made the whole world more concise and less mysterious. But Andreas was not inclined to agree so easily. He found the straight column of smoke, even in its picturesqueness, to be at odds with Nature's plans for the sky, and he thought of the neat straight lines of track as being painfully inorganic, slicing across the gentle curves and irregular edges of Mossflower Woods and beyond. But mostly, the marten felt that zipping by things on a train meant missing the details and intricacies that were so often worth chronicling. For all the world's advances, this should be the time to look closer, not to pass by. Important things could get lost in the blur out the window.
A low whistled chord toned through the air from the direction of the gray smoke, and Andreas' ears perked forward. The sound itself was the least of his objections, save for the fact that he had never heard a whistle from that particular train from Redwall before. The route that actually brought travelers closest to the old Abbey had an entirely different timetable, and the evening northeast was never more than a visual cue. The marten bit his lower lip in confused concentration, maintaining this silent pose for quite a while before coming to any sort of a conclusion.
The insects were missing, he realized. The usual ambient counterpoint of bees, flies, gnats, and crickets was unexplainably but undoubtedly absent, and Andreas could only furrow his brown in vain in search of a logical reason for the gap. Furthermore, his frustration was compounded by the fact that it had taken him so long to notice those missing voices, no matter how small their sources may be. The loss of natural detail to the manifestation of mechanical science, even in his own mind! The Recorder shook his head, descended slowly from the walltop, and pushed his way past the old wooden door into the Gatehouse.
The oldest records in Redwall's Gatehouse, dating back far enough that one could make a comprehensive linguistic study between them and the most current records, were full of such minute details on flora and fauna, but just as Redwall Abbey itself had changed purpose from being a self-contained center of life in a wide wilderness to the government-and-cultural historical landmark center of a land with towns tucked between its indigenous trees, it was no longer the responsibility of the Recorder to chronicle any but the most major of natural occurrences and discoveries. Words had fallen out of use between the medieval and contemporary records for reasons entirely unrelated to linguistic development, and the definition of important with regards to subject matter had changed drastically. Minutes of council sessions, political debates and decisions, charters for new towns, and future railroad routes had simply superceded the record of circadian rhythms.
Andreas wrote it down anyway, in a neat line of blue ink on the smooth cream paper of a small black book that was his own property rather than that of the state. The age of the Recorder as editorialist had also gone by the wayside several ages ago, though this was one case to which Andreas did not object. When Redwall was a contained entity, the historian's life was naturally part of the small history within, but with expansion, the individual was afforded more privacy.
The marten shut his book and stowed it carefully in the shallow drawer of his desk, exchanging it for a larger cloth-and-cardboard-bound volume taken off the end of the shelf of records. Tucking this under his arm, he abandoned the Gatehouse to head for the main Abbey building. While he had spent many a calm hour blissfully enjoying independent reading time in those ancient spirit-laden halls, the night that was to follow this insect-free evening was not one that could be filled with reading accounts of past arthropod behavior. Rather, it was a night that would soon be filled by quite a different set of sounds, about which Andreas was fully expected to write.
The denizens of Mossflower Country still called it Nameday, though this designation was just as much a relic as the fact that the polite forms of address for appointed and elected officials remained Brother, Sister, Friar, Abbot, and so on. What had started as a genuinely seasonal celebration had evolved into a once-yearly multi-day extravaganza, resplendent with organized events of all sorts ranging from sport tournaments to high art performances to gala balls. The most prominent and affluent gathered in Redwall itself each year for the opening night festivities and were treated to a feast in the finest old tradition, followed by a full night of high-class extravagance.
Food had already been set out, and Andreas, narrow and lanky though he was, chose that time, when all other creatures would be condensed in one room, to make his rooftop ruminations. He savored that last window of quiet, knowing that there would be food to savor later, no matter how many hares might be present at the feast. The quality and quantity of the food could always be taken for granted in the records, but not so the chosen entertainment: Thus, the recorder dutifully brought the latest volume of records along with him. He would have preferred to merely watch and enjoy the production without worrying about duty interfering with art. But, he reminded himself, he also preferred writing about insects and leaves to trains and telegraphs! Chuckling inwardly at his own backwardness, Andreas pushed his way into the Great Hall of Redwall Abbey.
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