FicWad

There are times when setting an alarm serves to wake one up even earlier than the intended time. In knowing that it is not going to be a allowed a proper sleep cycle at any rate, the biological clock becomes attuned to or even wary of the mechanical one and calls a sleeper into the land of the waking in time to grumble at the earliness and then shut off the alarm before it has a chance to ring.

Garlock had not enjoyed being dragged out of much-needed sleep by way of hares that were even sunnier than the sun itself, and thus, when the ferret awoke on the third day of the expedition, he was pleased to note that his biological clock had anticipated this and that Hayward was still stretched out in an ungraceful sprawl several yards away, his narrow chest rising and falling in the slow breaths of slumber. Elsinore lay curled into a little ball several yards further away, a small black velveteen rock against a larger chunk of granite. Garlock's hope of some genuine solitude was dashed when he noted that Andreas was not among the sleepers.

As on the previous morning, the marten had propped his back up against a tree by the fault trace, with his black notebook held against his knees and Lontano's map spread out to his side. His gaze flicked at regular intervals between the map, the page on which he was writing, and at the magnificent folded mountains whose contours stood out brightly in the ascending morning light.

Garlock came up behind Andreas and watched the progression of the marten's pencil markings on the page for several minutes before remarking, "Just so pretty that you had to draw a picture, huh?"

Andreas looked evenly at Garlock. Thus far on the journey, every remark that the marten made about how the land was so amazing or about how he was so excited to have found something had been met with a less-than-agreeable glance from the ferret. His lack of surprise at the inevitable spoken words was obvious. "I'm marking and sketching the features we find to give the clearest representation to the council at Redwall, and to leave the most evidence for us and later scientists to determine how all of this works."

Garlock snorted. "Cut the big words and the impartial talk. You're crazy about this. It's your favorite thing you've ever done. Oh, the ground's opened up and swallowed Darkhill and Redwall and every creature in them alive? Oops, shame on it! Let's go on an adventure in the mountains!"

"You honestly thing that mapping and documenting the dangerous places is skirting around the issue?" Andreas continued to regard Garlock flatly and he moved his forepaws to obscure the markings in his notebook. "By knowing exactly where the danger lies and knowing how different kinds of ground are effected, when we rebuild, this can all be taken into account and Mossflower will emerge as a much safer country. Fewer lives will be lost in the future, and that is all that can be done."

"Rebuild?" the ferret practically spat, then laughed bitterly. "You of all creatures should have noticed how huge this thing is! It's down here and I know it goes up to Darkhill and we're getting further from there at each step. It's the whole country, Andreas. You're too caught up in pretty to see that. If we were a nation of smart beasts, we would have gotten up and left already."

Any response that the marten may have been preparing for Garlock was cut short by an altogether more cheerful voice. "I say, my good companions, if you go about shouting like that before the bally sun's even come all the way awake, how in blazes are you going to have the energy left to walk all day, eh wot?" Hayward, entirely full of energy, traipsed over toward the two mustelids, giving an admonishing wiggle with his ears.

Garlock could only press his lips tightly together at the hare's entrance, and Andreas shot Hayward a sidelong grateful glance. "You have an excellent point," the marten affirmed.

Elsinore, sensible and practiced at minding her own business, had set out an array of rations and fresh greens from the valley, and when the other three travelers snapped out of their debate, the mole offered a smile of weary tolerance. Breakfast progressed in near silence and at a slow pace; it was only the short shudder of a small aftershock that stirred the four back to their footpaws and the uncharted path ahead.

They continued through the mountains, the tall escarpment providing an arrow-straight path down the midline of the narrow valley, a direction marker far clearer than anything any living creature could have made. For all their scalloped edges and momentarily view-obstructing curves, the folded mountains clung to the line as if it were magnetic. In the current setting, the rows of peaks assumed much more of an air of stately guards escorting something in need of extensive protection rather than the raised welts of friction, tearing, and geophysical war centered on the battleline between them that they actually were.

The postures of each of the four travelers were quite distinct in relation to one another. Andreas, at the head of the progression, should have been looking straight ahead, but instead the marten focused his attention on the ground somewhat in front and mostly to the side, mentally noting every detail about the disturbed earth that he came across. Hayward, just behind Andreas and trying hard to clip his long gait to accommodate the others, took it upon himself to look ahead properly, a general direction finder who would occasionally have to warn the marten of upcoming trees. Garlock alternated between staring at his footpaws and staring straight ahead, though his gaze was unreceptive and unfocused within his noncompliant expression. And Elsinore, contrary to what might be expected for a mole, looked up and around, considering the mountains themselves with a curious dark eye.

Thus, Hayward saw the river first and Andreas was the first to notice how the entire streambed made a turn to the right as so many smaller creeks and rivulets did. Garlock paid no particular attention until Elsinore shouted, excitement inherent in the volume of her warm alto voice. "Zurrs, look up over here!"

The mole pointed a digging claw up at the mountains. Perhaps the river was a newer feature than the mountains itself, forming over them and eroding its bank downward. Or perhaps it had been there first, holding its ground and the land swelled up around it. Either way, it cut deeply through the rock, leveling its path and exposing the innards of the mountain in a spectacular display. Great stripes of different-colored rock streaked up the cut, starting straight and remaining roughly parallel to each other even as they were cut off and pinched in by another intrusive slab of stripes. The bands on this larger upper slab folded and twisted in around each other, forming arcs and curls and even irregular spirals of striped pattern on the exposed face. Bands of color-differentiated rock that had started out perfectly aligned crunched in on each other, some compressed into comparatively filigree-wide squiggles of color in the larger formation, others stretched to a point of being marked with fissures and cracks.

Elsinore traced the loop of the bands of rock in the air as Andreas, Garlock, and Hayward looked on. "That comes from pressure in the graound," she said, clearly pleased to be able to put some explanation into this work of natural art - a painting by appearance and a sculpture by method. "When you get a lot of pressure in a toight tunnel, moving durt and scraping against the tunnel walls, they get a little loike that. Only small and not permanent."

"Then that's right well got to be the most pressure on any poor sorry rock that there's ever been, eh wot!" Hayward observed, marveling at the rock face.

Wordlessly, Andreas pulled his black notebook out from his flour sack and opened to a blank page, breaking his habit of recording only at the break of day in order to sketch out the details of this striking feature while it was still before him. He trusted his memory on most things, but this was something that seemed so significant t him that he wasn't going to chance losing detail in waiting when he had the materials to record it right then and there.

Garlock was certain he knew what Andreas was thinking, and Andreas was equally certain of where Garlock's thoughts had gone on this. Thus, the opening lines of conversation were not required here and the ferret opened up with, "Imagine somebeast's tail hanging out of that pretty picture. Just the tail, with the rest stuck inside."

That imagery struck a look of horror across the marten's face, though only for several seconds. "Why must you focus on recalling the negative image when we have seen so much of it already? It was clear enough, and now good needs to be found. Consider the sheer power of nature to create this view - as I have said before, the first and ultimate artist! Here is the finesse in all that raw force! You cannot tell me that you do not find it to be beautiful, or at least incredible."

After a moment of consideration, Garlock realized grudgingly that he could not, in fact, tell Andreas that. The ferret bit down on his already-cracked lower lip in reaction and he stood with a glower alongside Hayward and Elsinore as they waited for Andreas to finish his sketch.

The four eventually chose this site as a good place to stop for lunch, then continued down the valley through the afternoon. This time, as they went further the mountains ahead started to get lower and lower, sinking back down into the ground until they could be called only hills and the horizon was entirely clear and flat. The escarpment along the fault trace began to get smaller as well, the height difference between the two sides becoming less and less significant as afternoon wore on into evening, aiming back toward a nearly level plane with a crack running down it, more evident for the displacement across it than for its own independent manifestation.

Although they had spent the first full day and a half following the trace in this form, having to do so again after tracking something far more obvious was proving ore difficult than any of the four could have expected. The rapidly waning light was not helping the matter, ad after some stumbling, it was decided naturally - perhaps the only agreement between Andreas and Garlock thus far - that the best course of action would be to sleep there and count on the next day's light to further illuminate the path of that terrible break in the ground.