FicWad

Chapter Seventeen

The Council of Mossflower anticipated another long day before that day had even properly begun. Some of the members had not been able to fall asleep easily during the previous night, too occupied with what had been said and sung during the day. Some others awoke earlier than usual, mentally preparing their takes on all that testimony even while they desired more sleep. Others yet tossed and turned the entire night, not quite asleep nor awake, too unsorted to properly consider anything. And Wesley, the new Recorder for the Council's proceedings, was up for most of the night with a pen, a record book, and a lantern. The mouse had not yet developed the speed and conciseness that Andreas had put to his job, and his efficiency was only further interrupted by his repeated turning back to gawk at the earthquake's signature in ink on the previous spread of pages.

Mutual lack of sleep precipitated the silence that hung over the Council once they assembled. The sword and tapestry had been put away; their makeshift table was exposed as bare cold stone, just as the issue of staying versus going was increasingly being stripped down to more a matter of emotions and personal motives than something cloaked in layers of scientific basis. The thought had crossed the minds of several of them that it really should work the other way around -- facts as cold and hard, emotions as soft, flexible, and concealing. The surge of feelings that caused and were caused by the Grand Opera's departure, however, were indication enough of things being otherwise.

The Council's discussion picked up on these thoughts, although it sounded more like a musical analysis than a key political decision. "If we must die so that we may live," Ruta began, "where do we live after we have died?"

Winfield, the General of Salamandastron, had not been one of the more verbal members in the proceeding days' discussions, but the portly old badger spoke clearly now, his voice a distinguished and insistent baritone. "Our ashes are here, and they are hat regenerates. The remains of every Badger Lord since Salamandastron became a stronghold are housed there, and they continue to give it strength."

Rhynn of the Northridge Horde cut back to the male badger. "Life is transient. If nobeast sets out to change things, they are changed by forces beyond sentience. We should take that hint and move on to better places and ideas."

The fox Rakarde seemed, through the course of all the Council proceedings thus far, as if he had appointed himself to contradict or amend each statement that the silver weasel uttered. "Redwall came into being on top of the remains of Kotir and thrived for centuries. If we leave it, who knows what evil could be reinstated there." He looked purposefully at Rhynn, further punctuation to his sentence.

There was a brief pause. The otter Streamrunner drummed his paws against the stone slab, then chimed in. "Who's t' say we ned the final decision right now? Shouldn't we wait t' at least hear back from that expedition, an' shouldn't we at least investigate this Land Across The Water place before we go sendin' our entire populace t' live there?"

It would have been as if everything had been perfectly rehearsed if the group of creatures from the train had come over the crest of the path at just that moment. It would have been out of the realm of coincidence if they had turned up several hours later. But as it was, Garlock came stumbling in from the direction opposite to the one he'd come from after the quake roughly five minutes after Streamrunner's comment, making the whole thing feel like a very badly missed cue. He was followed most immediately by a cluster of the Parkfield squirrels, though they fell back in shock and disbelief at the state of Redwall, allowing Andreas, Hayward, and Elsinore to push through their ranks and catch up to Garlock as he approached the Council.

While being winded and terrified after the quake itself had left Garlock stammering and unable to eloquently express his woes, being winded and frustrated kept the ferret from making any verbal sense at all. He leaned in toward Ruta, syllables barking out of his throat indiscriminately. "Can't ... stay ... he wants to ... not ... we can't ... too many ... listen ..."

Ruta waved a paw stiffly at Garlock, instructing, "Breathe." The ferret, scowling intently, did seem to realize that his speech could hardy be considered as such, and he cut off, gulping viciously at the air instead. THe badger now inclined her head toward Andreas. "We did not expect to see you so soon. What brings you back here so urgently?"

After such a run from the train to the ruins of the abbey, Andreas did not have access to his full breath capacity either, but his steadier pattern of inhalation and exhalation allowed him to make better use of what air he had. "I did not expect to be back so soon either," he admitted. "I knew we would have to double back through here to complete the expedition, but I presumed a different timetable. Perhaps for the better." The marten did not sound entirely convinced of his own last sentence.

"And what have you found, then, to have changed that plan?" Ruta queried.

Even in the sudden stress of the train derailment, Andreas had maintained an instinct for scholarly preservation in addition to the instinct for his own personal survival. Thus, he had recalled to grab the bag containing the two historical recordbooks as well as his own black notebook before fleeing the engine car. He pulled out the black notebook now and opened it to his own map -- the new line standing out clearly over his replication of Lontano's lay of the land. He placed this spread of pages on the makeshift stone table before Ruta, then began to speak, indicating relevant locations with one claw as he went along.

"For the past several days, we have been following a clear and discernible break in the ground. It is unmistakably linear, and always characterized by freshly-broken dirt. In some places, that is the only sign, clear though it is, but there are also areas where the line is more of an escarpment or more of an indentation. We followed it through narrow valleys, between strange mountains, past exposed twisted strata and over pulverized rock.

"In following this line, we crossed many things -- artificial and natural -- that are bisected by it. In each case, be it road, rails, or river, the line appears to have abruptly cut the thing off, with its continuation to be found some distance to the right along the same line. It is like they were sliced, picked up, and moved.

"Something must have caused the land on either side of that line to move relative to itself, though I could not even begin to tell you why or how. I'm just certain that we have found the spot where this came from; the breaking of the land right there caused the quakes.

"We followed it as far south as we could still see it. The point of its disappearance, curiously, is nowhere near the ruins of Loamhedge. I think they must be related somehow, but the disturbed earth did not point there, and the freshet evidence is the most important. We have to double back past Redwall because, based on the refugees that have found their way here, this line must extend much further north from here as well. We will need to continue north to figure out precisely where it lies in order to show the whole picture, really -- and the whole picture is important. Since this has happened once, we need to know how to handle a repeat of this season's events."

Andreas waved a paw at Hosgri and Fialko, who stepped slightly forward at this cue. The marten continued. "These squirrels are from a place that gets many quakes. They each felt several in their lifetimes so far, and their town, which we visited, had only minimal damage. There is clearly something to be learned from how they manage these disasters, and they have agreed to help us get started on managing our own similar problems. If we want our rebuilt cities to not need another rebuilding in the future, I think their advice should be absolutely indispensable and invalua--"

"Andreas!" Hayward interjected loudly.

At the call of his name, the marten looked away from Ruta and toward Hayward, just in time to see the hare throw a chunk of red sandstone directly at him -- and to duck down just before it could hit.

"Aaaaaooough!"

The low scream was just as much surprise as pain, and Andreas bolted back upright to see who had taken the hit instead. Garlock was already trying to push himself off the ground with one of his forepaws; the other one clutched his forehead, a slight tinge of blood visible on the fur below.

"What?" Andreas questioned, eyes narrowing warily.

Hayward stepped forward. His eyes were also narrowed, but in contempt for the ferret on the ground rather than in any form of sympathy. "He was coming at you while you were speaking -- he had a bally shard of glass in his paw, and there was no getting you out of his way any other way, eh wot."

Andreas crouched down by Garlock, his repeated question lower in his voice. "What?"

Garlock hissed at Andreas through his teeth, removing the paw from his forehead and wiping a streak of blood in the alread-red dust of the ground. "You're just setting it up for all of these creatures to die again and again. You couldn't care less."

"Every creature can only die once," Andreas corrected "These victims already have. My aim is to prevent it from happening to other creatures in later centuries. That can only come from carefully-gathered knowledge and understanding."

The trickle of blood from the superficial cut on Garlock's forehead increased the sinister nature of his snarl. "I've been giving you all the knowledge you need the whole time. It's simple. You leave. Nobeast else dies from it."

Andreas' ears pressed back. "And you've been trying to kill me -- if you're the one really concerned with others over yourself, how do you rationalize that?"

Garlock spat, hoisting himself into a more upright seated position. "You say it's about understanding. You don't understand anything, and that puts you in the way. Your wife didn't die in there. It's not even your battle."

"This is much bigger than any one creature and his affairs," Andreas reiterated a point he'd made before on the journey itself. "Do you think your wife would want you to ignore your neighbors, to run and leave her and all of them alone, to not even try to understand why they died?"

Throughout Andreas' last speech, a low growl was welling up in Garlock's throat. When the marten finished speaking, the ferret's rumbling pushed itself into full audibility. Garlock also pushed himself back into a full standing position in one colossal burst, managing to pick up his long shard of broken stained glass as he did so.

Suddenly faced with the threat of unnatural death, Andreas skidded backwards as fast as he could. Garlock grinned wickedly and lunged forward after him. And the earth leapt up to meet them both.

It would not be discovered until much later that, while the number of aftershocks does decrease based on time since the mainshock, the magnitudes of those aftershocks are not quite as easily covered with a formula. Those who were staying still at the time felt the strongest shaking since the day after the first massive tremor. However, Andreas, already moving backwards, was tripped up by the aftershock's onset and tumbled back further, landing hard on his rear and elbows. And Garlock, in the process of lunging forward, also fell in the direction of his previous motion. He did not fall flat, though; his descent was broken by a chunk of red sandstone on the path, driving his jaw toward the back of his skull, and by the shard of glass in his paw, pinned not under but within his abdomen.