"Well, we've asked you to come here for Vilthuril to tell you about something completely different," said Hazel. "How much have you heard about what's been called the secret river in Efrafa?"
"Practically nothing," replied Flyairth. "I've heard it mentioned once or twice, but not by anyone who claimed to know much about it."
"Well, Vilthuril will tell you now."
Vilthuril recounted again how she came upon the secret river and the extraordinary way in which she, Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang learned about Flyairth and Prake's starting the warren called Thinial, with its Owsla of does. She said as little as possible about Flyairth's preoccupation with the White Blindness, but spoke of Milmown and her litter and how after Milmown's death the young rabbits had been brought into Thinial against Flyairth's will.
"And as you'll remember telling me yourself," she concluded, "you and your young rabbits left Thinial because the Owsla couldn't agreee with you about taking steps to guard against the White Blindness. You were going to Efrafa, but Frith be thanked you came here instead."
For a time Flyairth said nothing, as though unable to take in the extraordinary nature of what Vilthuril had told her about the secret river. At last she said, "Of course what you say must be true, or else you couldn't have known about Thinial and about poor Milmown and the quarrel with my Owsla. And yet--and yet how can it be true? I've never heard of anything like your secret river. It's struck me all of a heap, to tell you the truth."
"Thought transference," said Fiver. "Kehaar knows about it. He told me it's common among birds who live in flocks, like seagulls."
"But to go all that distance--"
"Kehaar told me that men have even more incredible ways of telling news to one another. Hrair miles through the air, he said."
Seeing her still perplexed and also, he thought, a little petulant at not being able, like the other rabbits, to accept the idea of the secret river, Hazel said, "Well, let's not bother about it now. I'm sure I'm as much in the dark as anyone else. There were two questions we wanted to ask you, Flyairth, but I think we already know the answer to one of them. Was anyone in Thinial sending out knowledge, which our rabbits got from the river? The answer to that is, as far as you know, no one. And the second question is: How far away is Thinial? Where is it?"
"It must be a long, long way from here," answered Flyairth, "toward the sunset. My family and I, we took hrair days getting here."
"Neither you nor anyone else could go back there?"
"Oh, no. Much too far."
"Kehaar could probably find it," put in Bigwig.
"But we don't need to know," said Hazel. "All I wanted to kn
ow was whether other rabbits from Thinial might turn up here. The answer is that that's extremely unlikely."
"Hazel-rah," said Flyairth, "why was it that you didn't ask me whether I'd like to join Groundsel and the rabbits he took to the new warren? I'd gladly have gone with them, only I never heard anything about it. Once the thaw began they were gone so quickly."
"Well, I'm afraid it never occurred to me to ask you," answered Hazel. "You see, we already knew which of our rabbits were going, before the frost began. The whole thing was settled and our rabbits would have left here before you'd joined us, if it hadn't been for the frost. When the thaw began, we just took the whole business up where we'd left off."
"So few rabbits went with Groundsel," she said. "If it had been up to me, I'd have taken the whole warren."
"Only you didn't happen to be Chief Rabbit, did you?" said Bigwig.
"I'd gladly have gone with him myself." And then, after a pause, "Hazel-rah, there's something I want to say to your Owsla; something very important. Only, in this warren I can't make out who's in the Owsla and who isn't. I'm confused."
"Well, that's our fault," replied Hazel. "You see, we came here together and went through all sorts of danger together, like beating General Woundwort; and we've never needed an Owsla for giving out orders and that sort of thing. We're all in the Owsla, really. It works, anyway."
"Yes, I know it works," said Flyairth. "You're all so contented and get on with each other so well. No one has any enemies, as far as I can tell."
"Well," said Hazel, "what is your important thing? You can tell us and we'll listen seriously, I promise you."
"I think you already know what it is," replied Flyairth. "The White Blindness. None of you seem to know what it's like, or to realize your dreadful danger. None of you has ever seen a rabbit with the Blindness, or seen the Blindness spread in a warren. It's unbelievably horrible--by far the most horrible of all the things that threaten rabbits. Worse than all the Thousand put together. Rabbits still alive, turned into groping, rotting lumps of misery. I know you think I'm obsessed. So would you be if you'd seen what I've seen. How even men can be so cruel as to give rabbits the Blindness I can't imagine. Everything we plan, everything we do, ought to take into account the Blindness and how to avoid it."
She had spoken so forcefully and passionately that her audience was stunned into silence. At length Hazel said, "Well, what's your advice, then? What do you think we ought to do?"
"You're all in such terrible danger here," said Flyairth. "A warren right beside a path that humans use. I've never seen a warren so much exposed to danger."
"What's the matter, Fiver?" asked Hazel.
"You ought to know," answered Fiver. "You were there. I said almost exactly the same thing, long ago, to the Chief Rabbit of the Sandleford warren, and he wouldn't believe me. And what happened you know."
"So you think Flyairth's right?"