Part

Dear Diary,

It’s now the end of our first day on our quest and I’m so glad to be spending it in real bedding. I was not looking forward to “sleeping rough”, although I’m sure that I had better get used to it quicker rather than later. This is not like school at all!

I really hope that Gorden is all right. The last we saw of him he was in the clutches of a deceiving Hawk called Harry. Plessey says that the hawk did let Gorden down, but my eyes weren’t good enough to see over the Emway and Plessey says that he’d been dropped far to the south of our path.
“He’ll catch up,” Plessey said, “He knows roughly where we are going. In any case, if he doesn’t catch-up soon I’ll cast a Finding spell and he’ll be pulled to us.”
I asked why Plessey didn’t cast the spell anyway,
“Because It’s not pleasant to be on the receiving end of a Summons. That’s one reason I wanted to be careful about calling the undertaker. In addition it’s,” he paused for a second, “it’s draining to cast the same spell twice in one day. I’d be unable to Float! Then what would we do? We’d walk at Snail’s pace all day until I built my manna up again.”
He certainly had a number of good reasons why we couldn’t spell Gorden. I didn’t like to think of Gorden all alone and far from friends. I’ve got, used, to Gorden He’s a little arrogant at times, mostly when he’s waving that staff about, but he’s a sweet bunny really.

“Well, Wizard,” David asked Plessey, “How are we supposed to get across the Emway? You may be able to float, but I don’t think I know how, and I get a feeling the Lady Bunny doesn’t.” I find David’s attitude towards me rather strange. He can be quite polite one minute, then funny, but his humour is rather barbed. And it can be very cruel at times.

“If Gorden had been kind enough to wait,” Plessey said, ”I’d have explained that there is a tunnel under the Emway. Especially dug by wizards and their friends to allow us to follow the ley-line.”
“Tunnel.” David said. “Tunnel.” He shook his head. “Is it long and dark by any chance?”
I had to interrupt and point out that David is the only nocturnal, burrowing animal I’ve ever met whom is scared of the dark and being underground. David fixed me with those piggy-little eyes of his and I wished I’d said nothing.
“Don’t worry,” Plessey told him, “I’ll cast the Mage-Light. It won’t be dark at all!”
David mumbled something under his breath but I didn’t catch it.

Plessey took us to the tunnel. I thought it was quite cosy, but it seemed to trigger David’s Claustrophobia – he was nervous the whole time we were under the Emway and didn’t seem to view the Mage-Light from David’s shell as real light. As soon as he saw the light at the end of the tunnel he started to run towards it, whooping with delight.
Suddenly he pulled up short –a figure stood in the light, framed against the sky.

David came back to us and hurried us along.

We got within a foot of the end and the figure struck a strange pose – he was a short animal, well, smaller than me, if a bit bigger than David and appeared to be wearing a long robe. The figure stood side-on towards us, his feet perpendicular to each other. His right arm was stretched out behind and his left arm was stretched towards us – the fingers pointed dead straight at me.
Quick as a flash the animal kicked his legs in different directions and waved his hands about in sharp jabs. He squealed:
“Hi!!!-Yah!!!!!!!!”
And then came to rest in a similar, but different position to his starting one.

We nervously edged nearer.

“Woah!” He said, “From the ‘Flamingo at Rest’ to the ‘Butterfly’s Anger’ through the ‘Crane-Fly’s Lament’! Without tripping over! They’ll never believe me! But I had witnesses! Woooah!” We looked at each other with wide eyes.
“What language do you think he’s speaking?” David asked us.

As we neared the strangely-acting creature we could see it was a mole. His robe was coloured in a yellow that was nearly orange, and he had a broad white belt around his waist.

Plessey seemed then to recognise his garb. “You must be from the Abbey!” He exclaimed. The mole crossed his hands in front of himself and bowed his head.
“’Flamingo at Rest’?” David asked the mole.
“It’s the fighting stance,“ The mole explained. “I’m Curly, by the way.” He said offering his hand to David, who was the nearest.
“They call me the joker, “ David said staring at the offered hand. “Hey, “ he asked, “You’re an intelligent creature yes?” The mole nodded, “So maybe you can tell me the name of this flower here,” David asked, pointing at the ground in front of him.
The mole crouched down and stared at the ground in front of David. “I can’t see any flower?” he said.
David looked at me and Plessey: “Boot to the Head” he said, pulling his right foot back and taking a swing at Curly’s head. David’s foot nearly touched Curly, but his reflexes were faster than any animal I’ve ever seen. With a  quick “Ahh-Tchu!” and a flurry of limbs David was lying on his back and Curly was standing up, one foot on David’s chest.
“You are a funny man!” Curly said removing his foot and turning away “But the way of Tai-Quan-Leep is the way of speed, response, self-defense and trust.”
“I’m Joker” David said through clenched teeth, getting up. Plessey rushed to Curly in case he was angry and introduced us and mentioned our quest and our missing Gorden. Curly has a faint smile on his lips the whole time.
“You must come to the Abbey” He insisted, “You should meet our Abbot – because we may very well have news of your ‘Carrot’”.

We agreed. David thanked him for his offer (in a small voice) and even offered to shake his hand. Curly agreed. I don’t think I would have.

Curly took us to the Abbey. This was an amazing building – it was full of long corridors that felt just like burrows and then had large rooms that put the Central Chamber to shame – they had tapestries on the walls and statues of great moles, past and present.

When we arrived the Moles were all praying in one of the chambers. We had to wait out side and we watched through the open doorway.
About twenty moles in orange robes were on their knees with their hands together mumbling quietly. In front of them stood the largest mole of all, his head bowed, mumbling along with the others. Then he lifted his head up and cleared his throat, raised his arms to the ceiling and recited:

“I did not put you here to suffer,
“I did not put you hear to whine.
“I put you here to love one-another,
“So get out and have a good time!”

At this all the monks sprang up and began to dance around in circles. I couldn’t help but laugh. David mumbled something about “Mad Mole-Monks, just what I needed!”

The largest mole danced through the crowd towards the door and us.

Curly explained our quest and the large monk (He said his name was “Bud”) took us to his chambers.

Curly disappeared and Bud questioned us about the quest and the Golden Carrot. I enjoyed telling him all I knew about the artifact and Plessey talked about the quest so far, and David recanted the last day and bemoaned the loss of Gorden.
Bud agreed with Plessey that we should wait before attempting to magic Gorden here, then he offered to show me their library. I’ve never seen so many books. Before I knew it a bell rang.
“That’s for Dinner” Bud said.
Dinner was a watery stew of mixed vegetables. Ate in silence (apart from David slurping his bowl at the end).
Bud offered to include us in their evening prayers. We all excused ourselves. Curly reappeared to show us to our own rooms.

And here I am writing the first pages in my Quest Diary.

I do hope Gorden’s okay.

End of the first day