by Clare Bell
“Could Aree groom my tail?” asked Bira, glancing at the treeling. “I didn’t take care of myself for a while and now I’ve got some wretched burrs that I can’t get out with my teeth.”
“I think Aree wouldn’t mind.” Thakur nosed Aree off his back and Bira spread her tail along the ground. She still looked a bit thin and worn, but the fact she had begun to care about how she looked told Thakur that she was recovering from the shock of learning that her young were witless.
“Are the cubs gone?” she asked suddenly.
Thakur hesitated. “Yes. I helped Ratha take them away.”
“Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know.” Her tail twitched beneath Aree’s paws. “I’ll have another litter next spring. Shongshar will have to go away when the mating season comes again, won’t he?”
“I suppose he will,” the herding teacher answered. Perhaps Shongshar would accompany him on his annual journey away from the clan. The prospect of having a partner during his yearly exile was something he might welcome to help ease the loneliness of being away. However, he reminded himself, his own retreat was self-imposed. Shongshar’s might not be. Ratha certainly didn’t want any more empty-eyed litters born on clan ground.
Bira dug her claws into the dirt and grimaced as Aree pulled hard at a tangle in her tail. The treeling wrapped his own tail around hers, to steady himself. He gave a tremendous yank and the burr came free. Aree held the hair-covered thing up in his paws and Bira sighed with relief.
When the treeling had finished grooming Bira, he climbed back on Thakur and cleaned his own coat. She yawned and then began scuffing dirt on the flickering fire.
“Wait,” said Thakur. “It’s early and I’m still cold. Why don’t you let me keep the Red Tongue for a while?”
Bira looked doubtful. “The ashes should be buried. Fessran said that was important.”
“I’ll bury them when I’ve warmed myself. Look at Aree. He’s shivering too. After all, he did get that burr out of your tail.” He nudged the treeling and Aree responded by giving Bira a mournful look.
“All right. Since the other Firekeepers are gone, I’ll let you have it. But ... don’t let Fessran know. She’s becoming strict with us about the proper care of the fire-creature. She wasn’t that hard on us before, but she is now. I think she’s been listening to Shongshar a lot lately.” Bira wrinkled her nose. “Too much if you ask me.”
Mildly surprised at this, Thakur promised and Bira trotted off, swinging her tail and yawning. He curled up near the fire, which had fallen into embers with a few ragged flames licking charred branches. Aree sat on Thakur’s flank, gazing at the fire. He noticed that the treeling had stopped fidgeting and grown unusually quiet.
All creatures except the Named feared fire and would not come close to it. Even Aree had huddled in Thakur’s fur when he had first brought his new companion near the Red Tongue. Now Thakur wondered if his treeling might have gained some of the same understanding that allowed the Named to tame their fear of the fire. It was ridiculous to suggest that treelings could think as well as the Named did, but Aree had shown surprising cleverness and interest in things other than food and grooming. The treeling also seemed to be aware of Thakur’s feelings; something the herding teacher did not expect from a creature he thought of as an animal Dapplebacks and three-horns were animals too, but they were kept to be eaten. Aree was different.
There was no fear in the treeling’s eyes as he gazed at the fire. Even before Aree moved, Thakur sensed that he was about to do something he had never done before. The herding teacher held himself still, but not stiff as Aree climbed down from him. The treeling crouched in the ash-flecked dirt in front of the fire, staring into the flames with a curious intensity. He lowered his muzzle and blinked against the heat. He reached toward the flame with a paw.
Thakur thought at first that Aree was about to make the same mistake that young cubs often did when they encountered the Red Tongue for the first time. They would try to touch the flame itself, not realizing that the most visible part of the fire-creature was the most insubstantial. He readied himself to snatch Aree away if he should try to grasp the dancing flame. But the treeling’s paw stopped and descended to a stick that was lying with one end in the coals.
Thakur felt his heart jump and begin to race. Now he understood what he had sensed upon finding the injured creature on the trail: the possibility that those clever little paws might serve the Named in the most difficult task the clan had attempted, the mastery of the Red Tongue. He held in his breath as the paw touched the unburned shaft of the stick and closed around it.
Embers broke open, showing their glowing centers as Aree dragged the stick from the fire. As he lifted the branch to his eyes, the tiny flame on the end sank down and died, leaving only the red and orange coals amid the black scale that had been bark. The treeling brought the end to his face and studied it intently. He reached up with its other paw as if to touch the glowing wood, but the heat warned his fingers away.
Softly, carefully, Thakur began to purr. He didn’t know why the treeling had taken the stick from the fire and, at this point, he didn’t care. He only wanted Aree to know that this act had pleased him so that the treeling might be encouraged to do it again. Aree’s eyes brightened when he heard the purr and he ambled over to Thakur on three legs, still holding the stick. The coals had faded to ash.
“Aree?” the treeling said, as if still unsure of whether he had done anything worthy of praise. With licks and nuzzles, Thakur assured his companion that he was very pleased indeed. He made such a fuss over Aree that the treeling tossed his branch aside and rubbed himself against him, curling and uncurling his tail with delight. When some of Aree’s exuberance had worn off, Thakur retrieved the stick and offered it to the treeling.
Aree quickly discovered that accepting the stick earned him more licks and nuzzles. For a while, Thakur played a simple game with his companion, passing the charred branch back and forth between them: from teeth to paws and then back again. When Aree began to tire of that, Thakur decided he was ready to try a simple test to see if the treeling would repeat his previous action.
He took the stick and placed it on the fire, in the same position it had originally been in. He moved slowly, letting Aree follow everything he did. When the stick was in place, he picked it up in his jaws, took it out and replaced it carefully. He did this several times as Aree watched. Once he was sure the treeling understood, he put the stick back in the fire again, but instead of grasping it with his teeth, he used his pawpad.
The wood only rolled under his clumsy swipes. With an impatient chirp, the treeling reached underneath Thakur’s foreleg, seized the stick and pulled it out. With a gesture almost like a flourish, Aree presented him with the stick as if to say, “This isn’t so hard if you have paws like mine. See?”
Thakur licked the treeling until he was damp and rubbed against him until Aree’s coat was thoroughly rumpled. The creature’s ability had surpassed his hopes. The treeling had grown large and strong enough to handle all but the heaviest branches. Thakur knew that with enough time and patience, Aree could be trained to handle the Red Tongue with greater safety and skill than the best Firekeeper among the Named.
Thakur felt the sun’s warmth on his back and realized the mist had burned off. Soon the mothers would be bringing their cubs to the first training session for young herders. Quickly he nosed Aree onto his back and scuffed dirt on the remains of the Red Tongue. He still had to get the teaching herd ready before the cubs arrived.
He kicked a last spray of dirt on the embers and galloped away. Tomorrow he wouldn’t be angry if Aree woke him up early. In fact, he would be the one to wake the treeling. He would probably be able to talk Bira into letting him have the fire again and then he would see what else Aree could do.
Once Aree’s training had begun, Thakur was eager to continue. He thought that, after the first surge of enthusiasm, the treeling might become balky and unwilling to brave the morning chill, but
that never happened. Perhaps Aree had caught the sense of forbidden adventure that Thakur felt each time he left the den in the half-light before dawn.
Aree learned rapidly and was soon responding correctly to Thakur’s directions. He found that the sharp sound he made by clicking his teeth together would command the treeling’s attention faster than would spoken words.
Soon Aree could extract a branch from the fire and walk around on three legs, holding the lighted torch. Once or twice the treeling tried to transfer the branch from his hands to his prehensile tail, but Thakur quickly discouraged that. Aree tended to pay less attention to things he held with his tail than what was in his hands. Once he had nearly scorched his back by letting the torch droop.
Thakur took great care to be sure that Aree didn’t burn or injure himself during the lessons. He didn’t want to wake the fear of the Red Tongue that seemed to lie deep in every creature. The treeling sensed that the fire-creature could hurt if it got too close and Thakur reinforced Aree’s caution with further training.
By early summer, the treeling could ignite a pile of tinder with a torch taken from the guard-fire. That morning Thakur was elated and praised the treeling endlessly. He caught grasshoppers for Aree until the treeling was stuffed and nuzzled his paws, whose dexterity seemed amazing in comparison to Thakur’s clumsy forefeet.
He remembered what Ratha had said to him while Aree was cleaning her fur. “He grooms me the way you would if you had his clever paws.” She had only been half-awake when she spoke those words and hadn’t really known what they meant. He hadn’t either, but now her words brought a half-seen vision of the possibilities of his partnership with the treeling. He stared at Aree as if he had never seen the creature before. A strange feeling prickled up his back from the root of his tail. He suddenly felt afraid, but it wasn’t the kind of fear he knew when facing an enemy, even one unknown. It was a fear closer to the one he got when he looked up into the night sky with its burning stars and felt awe and a strange undefined hunger. It was this hunger, rising from somewhere deep within him, that frightened him.
He gazed down at the treeling, who was crouching between his forepaws, looking up at him with inquisitive eyes. “Teaching you to care for the Red Tongue is only the beginning,” he said softly, and he listened to himself as if someone else was speaking. “There is much more we can do together.”
He watched the black paws deftly combing the fur on the treeling’s tail and sensed the beginning of a freedom he never knew he had been denied. Ratha was right. The skill of those fingers had started to become his own and it was a gift with far more power than he ever expected.
The sun was hot on his back and the sound of cubs squabbling and chasing each other far down the meadow reminded him that he had students to teach. Quickly he quenched the guttering fire and buried the ashes.
The teaching session with the young cubs began and ended late. It was almost dusk when the mothers came to take their litterlings back to their dens. Thakur stayed to care for his small teaching flock until another herder arrived.
“Could you keep my animals separated from the rest?” Thakur asked Cherfan. “It would save me from having to retrieve them from the main herd tomorrow morning.” Absently the big herder agreed, but his attention was on something else. A new fire flickered across the pasture near the sunning rock.
Cherfan stared and wrinkled his forehead. “Looks like the Firekeepers are having a gathering,” he said finally “Oh, don’t worry about your teaching herd. I’ll make sure your animals are grazed apart from the others.”
Thakur felt annoyed with the Firekeepers. He often liked to climb onto the sunning rock at dusk to catch the last warmth of the sun and watch the moon rise from behind the trees. Well, he would have to find another place tonight, or go and rest in his den. Despite his irritation he was curious about the gathering and decided to wander over and investigate.
The fire was large and cast its light far into the twilight spreading across the meadow. Smoke poured over the grass and billowed up into the sky. On his back, Aree sneezed and shook his head. Thakur’s throat stung as he circled upwind, away from the smoke haze. The Firekeepers have built a fire far bigger than they need, he thought crossly.
As he approached, he saw someone pacing back and forth in front of the bonfire, while others sat in a group facing it. Thakur swung back downwind, willing to brave the acrid smoke in order to catch the smells of those assembled in the gathering. He recognized most of the adult Firekeepers, including Fessran, Shongshar and Bira. He also caught the odors of some of the cubs. By now, he knew most of their individual scents. Thakur was not surprised to smell Fessran’s cubs, Chika and Nyang, among others, but he was surprised that her son Khushi’s scent was among them.
Khushi was to be trained as a herder, he thought. The cub had been among the students he taught earlier in the day, although Shongshar had come and fetched him early, saying that Fessran needed him. Thakur was sure it had not been Khushi’s own idea to come to the Firekeeper’s gathering. He did not smell happy.
The herding teacher caught another scent, so mixed with smoke that it only hinted at who it belonged to. Was Ratha here? Thakur wasn’t sure. The darkness, which had now fallen, and the fire’s glare made it hard to recognize anyone by sight. Smoke filled his throat again, making him cough, but the roar of the fire overwhelmed any sound he made. Carefully he made his way to the back of the group and sat close enough to see who was standing in front of the bonfire.
It was Fessran and she had stopped pacing. She faced the group and sat down. Shongshar sat off to the side, with Fessran’s three cubs. He was watching her intently as she began to speak.
“My first words are for the young ones who seek training as Firekeepers. You are at this gathering tonight because you are the best. You have been chosen to come here because you are the strongest and the cleverest of the cubs born in the spring season. You are here because we who serve the Red Tongue will not accept anything less.”
Aree moved restlessly on Thakur’s shoulder. Thakur gave him a nudge to quiet him, and then crept further into the gathering, trying to see the faces of those listening. The Firekeepers sat straight, with bristling whiskers and self-satisfied expressions. Most of the cubs looked awed and excited, their eyes glowing in the firelight. Khushi, sitting between his two siblings, lowered his head and nervously licked a front paw.
“You look at the Red Tongue and it frightens you,” Fessran continued. “Why? Because it is stronger than you are and fiercer and wilder? Yes! It is a creature far greater than any of us. It can live forever if it is kept fed and it can grow larger than any animal. The fire-creature takes, as its prey, not only the beasts of the forest, but the forest itself, and, when it is angered, nothing between ground and sky escapes its rage.”
Fessran’s eyes seemed to have a glint to them that was not her own yellow-amber, but a deeper shade ... almost orange. Something made Thakur look off to the side at Shongshar. He was leaning forward over the cubs, his gaze intent, his eyes narrowed. His jaw moved as if he were speaking the same words to himself and the fire’s glare flashed on his sabers.
Fessran continued, “We may warm ourselves before the Red Tongue and see by its light, but we may do so only as long as we are worthy. And how may we prove our worth? By striving to be as strong and fierce as we can. By thinking not of our paws or our whiskers, but of our duty to the Red Tongue. By refusing to show fear even when it claws at our throats and our bellies. That is what the Red Tongue demands of us.”
Fessran paused and surveyed the group. Khushi looked more miserable than ever. “Not all of you will be chosen to train as Firekeepers,” she said. “I must know which of you are worthy.” Her tail twitched restlessly as she curled it over her feet. “Those cubs who think they are brave enough to carry the Red Tongue, come and stand before me.”
Some youngsters strutted forward, their tails high and their whiskers bristling with confidence. Others, like Khushi, crept forward nervous
ly, unwilling to be shamed by their littermates. They arranged themselves in an uneven row in front of Fessran. The harsh light of the bonfire made them squint and blink. She paced before the cubs, studying each one in turn.
“Good,” she said finally and looked toward Shongshar. “Bring me a torch,” she commanded. He lit a dry branch and brought it to her. The cubs’ eyes widened and they sat still, their gaze fixed on the Firekeeper.
Thakur tensed. What was Fessran doing?
The Firekeeper swung around, the torch clenched in her jaws. The flame fluttered and roared as she swept it across in front of the cubs’ faces.
Several youngsters squealed in terror and fled with their tails between their legs. Others, like Chika, skittered away, turned and faced the flame with ears laid back. A few cubs flinched and crouched, holding their ground. The fur rose along their backs and bristled on their short tails.
Fessran also looked startled, as if she hadn’t expected so many of them to flee. Thakur saw her glance toward Shongshar as if seeking reassurance. Again she passed the torch in front of the remaining youngsters, trying to rout them. All but Nyang backed away, hissing.
It was all Thakur could do not to jump into the midst of the gathering and snatch the brand away from Fessran. He only held back by telling himself that she must have a reason for this, however harsh and cruel it seemed.
She gave the brand back to Shongshar, who replaced it in the fire. “So,” she said, looking out over the Firekeepers and the shaken cubs. “You see that being chosen to serve the Red Tongue isn’t as easy as you thought. Those of you who stayed within the gathering circle have shown you can fight the fear. Return to your places.”
“Firekeeper leader,” said one cub in a high quavering voice. “The ones who ran away haven’t come back yet. Someone should look for them.”
Fessran turned to Bira. “Find the litterlings who fled and take them back to their mothers. None of them are worth training.”
