Humanization of Lucerene, the “Duncton chronicles” character.



North now, beyond the Dark Peak and into the turbulent shadows that confuse a mole that travels on from there.

Past fair Grassington. Past the crag of Kilnsey and then over the River Wharfe, which marks the edge of Whern and gave Tryfan’s son by Henbane his name, and up the limestone terraces that form Whern’s westward flank.

No sun there now. Its light has gone and June seems all unknown.

Lucerne is abroad.

Lucerne come with his mother to take pleasure in the livid and corrupted sky.

Lucerne, dark one of the three. Henbane’s own, cherished and cosseted by her, reared for fell purpose and darkest of intents, the hope for redemption of generations of moles who chose scrivening and dark sound.

Lucerne, a mirroring of his brother Wharfe, but a reflection seen in the black alluring depths of an evil pool. Eyes and body much the same but biased too well to elegance, his body and limbs making their stance too well to trust. His arrogant beauty abnormal and most sinister.

Just as one forebear, Mandrake, was in Wharfe’s rich veins so another’s blood had seeped like disease into Lucerne’s: Rune’s own.

“What is it, my sweet?” asked Henbane, smiling from the shadows of Whern’s tunnels where she preferred to stay.

“The light I hated has gone out across the fell and darkness is going south from here, as I decreed it should,” whispered Lucerne.