Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (18 page)

At the sound of Miri's voice saying his name, Flame opened his eyes and thumped his tail.

ʺThen maybe,ʺ Jane said drily, ʺyou were right about Peggy and Tamari too.ʺ

Miri knelt beside Flame and began stroking his long extra-ribby side. ʺMaybe I am.ʺ

Flame moaned with pleasure, just like an ordinary dog.

Jane said, ʺTamari's owner rang yesterday. She's got a new show pony. She says it's an angel. In fact that's its name—Angel. She says Greyhaven is the best barn she was ever at and she wants to come back.ʺ

ʺBut there's a catch,ʺ Miri said.

ʺShe's still got Tamari.ʺ

Miri sat back on her heels and laughed. Laughing felt good. ʺTell her we'll have him—at double rates. Because only you and I will be able to do anything around him, even fill his water bucket. Tell her that the extra money will go into the indoor arena fund—we'd be even better than the best barn she's been at if we had an indoor arena.ʺ

ʺMy decisive new business partner,ʺ said Jane. ʺThat's kind of the way my mind was going too. You're two years older and here all the time. We can cope.ʺ

Flame had raised his head and was looking at Miri meaningfully. She started petting him again. ʺAnd you know,ʺ she added, ʺI bet they'll write a big newspaper story about what happened tonight—isn't Leslie's mom dating a journalist?—and they'll get everything wrong because we won't tell them any of what we've been talking about, but we'll tell them about Flame finding Mal and Leslie and then coming back to the barn to tell you he'd found them and to lead you back. And I bet all these people come out to get a look at this weird hero dog with the red eyes. And I bet some of them decide we look like a nice place and they and their kids should take some riding lessons. And when we can put the indoor arena up in two years instead of three, we can call it the Flame Arena.ʺ

Now Jane laughed. It was a nice sound: easy. Happy. ʺOkay. It's a deal. Are you ready to go to bed yet?ʺ

ʺYes,ʺ said Miri. ʺI have to feed the horses in four hours. And I'm going to dream about the Flame Arena.ʺ

PETER DICKINSON

 

T
his was the story Nedli told:

That was the first of Nedli's stories. If you asked her whether it was true, she would tell you, ʺIt is true in the spirit world. My stories are a way of seeing, and a way of saying.ʺ

Tandin knew he was dreaming. The cave he was in wasn't the Home Cave, but some kind of a dream cave. It was pitch dark, but he knew that the Blind Bear was there, though he couldn't see her or smell her or touch her. Dream terror welled up, shuddering through him, forcing him out of his dream.

Just as he was waking, the Blind Bear whispered in his mind.

One word.

And now he was swimming up out of sleep, sleep deeper than he had ever known. Only the Blind Bear's whisper drove him into wakefulness, ordered his eyes to open, forced him up onto his elbow, to stare around the Home Cave. And all seemed well. The fire glowed in the entrance. It glowed through the cave, lighting the overarching rock, glinting off the hairs of the great bear pelt that hung on the back wall, casting shadows among the huddled bodies of the sleepers around him.

There was a strange, sweet reek in the cave, dragging him back into sleep. His body sagged.

What did it mean?

ʺListen to your dreams,ʺ Nedli would say. ʺMostly they are silly, but some are messages from the spirit world. You will know when it is one of those, but they come as riddles, and you must guess their meaning.ʺ

This was one of those, Tandin was drowsily sure. Fireworm? Another of Nedli's stories said that the Great White Owl hated fire, because it came from the sun, and sent the fireworm to take it away. For three winters people tried to fight the fireworm, but in the end they gave up and moved away. That was long ago, among different mountains. Probably it was only a story, a way of seeing, or a way of saying, but the dream had been so strong. . . .

He settled back down, but still the nightmare kept him from sleep. He tried to drive it away by imagining that he was lying with Mennel in his arms, where she slept among the women on the far side of the cave. Bast, her father, had forbidden her to speak to him, but he knew from the way she looked at him—

The Blind Bear's whisper broke through the flimsy dream. Again he eased himself up onto his elbow and stared at the fire. It had burnt down to a heap of embers, with a few ends of branches smouldering round the edges. Why hadn't whoever was on watch been keeping it fed? Above the glowing heap he could see a section of the night sky, hard-starred, with the glittering flank of Bear Mountain cutting it off to one side. In front of that whiteness Barok sat with his back against the wall of the entrance, wrapped in his furs and fast asleep with his head on his knees. That was strange. Barok was a good man. Often he led the hunt. He wouldn't sleep on watch.

The heap of embers seemed to settle a little. The movement continued. Tandin sat right up, then rose swaying to his feet, wrapping his fur round his shoulders. His mother was dead and no one knew his father, so he slept in a place without honour, well away from the fire. He staggered between the sleepers towards it. Twice he stumbled on limbs, but no one woke. Now he could see a hollow forming in the top of the mound, embers slithering down its sides, like the sand in the little traps some ants make in summer. Any prey that steps into them loosens the sand and slithers helplessly down to where the ant waits at the bottom. . . .

Faster and faster. Tandin came wide awake.

ʺFireworm!ʺ he croaked. And louder, ʺFireworm!ʺ again.

No one stirred. He nudged a sleeper with his foot, prodded him hard. Dead? No, in Nedli's story the fireworm put everyone to sleep with his breath. . . .

Yes! That sweet odour . . .

Tandin stumbled to the entrance and into the harsh, clean mountain air. It scoured the sweet stench out of his lungs. His mind cleared, and he remembered how the men in the story had fought the fireworm. He laid his fur on the path, ran back to the cave entrance, grabbed Barok's axe from the rock beside him and started to hack chunks of compacted snow from the piled drift beside the path, heaping them on the fur. He folded the back legs over the pile, forming a bag which he could drag by the legs to the fire.

By now the hollow reached down to the floor of the cave, where it became a fiery pit going on down, with the embers still slithering into it. The pile was already more than half gone. With a huge effort, Tandin swung the bag up over the remaining embers, let go of the back legs and shot the snow pile down into the pit.

From down below came a hooting scream like the sound of a blizzard howling through a rock cleft. The sleepers began to stir.

ʺFireworm!ʺ Tandin yelled, and staggered back gasping to the snow-drift. Before he had half filled his fur, the hunters were stumbling out. As their minds cleared, they remembered Nedli's story. They elbowed Tandin out of the way and finished filling his fur. Two of them dragged it off to the fire while the rest hacked out more snow.

Inside the cave the women used some of the branches stacked ready for burning to rake as many of the embers as they could into a pile well away from the fire, and then fed them with broken branches. As the hunters flung bag after bag of snow into the pit, the howl from below rose to a deafening scream, which then faded away as it sank further and further down into the rock. Long after it had dwindled into silence, the hunters toiled steadily on, while the women swept and swept to clear away the black but still scorching embers that littered the floor.

At last they gave up and settled round their new fire, coughing and spluttering because it was no longer in a place where natural drafts carried the smoke out of the cave. No one slept again. Nedli retold the story of the fight against the fireworm, and they then sat mulling it over in sad and anxious voices, knowing that the monster was no tale-teller's invention to while away an evening, but was a creature of the real world, their ancient enemy. And it had found them again.

Towards dawn the hunters were discussing how to keep themselves awake on nights when the fireworm came. Someone said, ʺIts breath is very strong. All of us slept, even Barok, who was on watch.ʺ

ʺIn the old days they made a snow-hole outside and went out two at a time to keep watch, coming back often to check the fire,ʺ said another voice. Others joined in.

ʺAnd still some could not be woken when it was their turn.ʺ

ʺThe howling woke me.ʺ

ʺAnd me.ʺ

ʺIt couldn't send out its breath when it howled.ʺ

ʺBut Nedli says the fireworm comes in silence. What made it howl? Someone must have thrown snow on it. Who was awake?ʺ

ʺVulka was already at the drift when I came there.ʺ

They turned to Vulka, who shook his head, puzzled.