Prologue
How
did I first come to know of the Fire Dancers? Sadly it wasn't through the
maternal whisperings or the fireside tales that I would like to have laid claim
to. Nor, for the avoidance of doubt, was it something so detached or so
clinical as to be read from some obscure book.
I
met a man on a road as I was heading for home one day and we talked to pass the
time. He was traveling south as I recall: a scholar from one of the cities down
that way. I was returning from one of my sorties into the western lands.
I carried a little more coin than I had started out with some months
before; enough to get the family through the next season before I too headed
off to the south.
I
was cautious of bandits and so understandably was a little apprehensive when
first he called out to me from the shade of an old tree by the side of the
road. It hadn't helped that he was hidden as I approached and my heart leapt a
little when this other human voice called out in what I had taken for solitude.
I must have looked a little fearful as I turned to the sound because he laughed
and repeated his greeting.
I
don't recall his name for I am particularly inept at remembering these things.
Up close - for at a distance everyone looks the same blur to me - I could see
that he had very blue eyes that sparkled with mischief. I guess he was in his
late twenties. I only had my staff for walking and a small knife which I used
for eating with. It was hardly a weapon (unless I wanted to gut a small fish).
He
was younger, larger and fitter. For all I knew he was hiding all sorts of
exotic items about his person. I couldn't run and so I saw no other choice.
With all the voices in my head shouting caution, I walked towards him and
returned the greeting. It was hot and the sun was
high in the sky. He told me that he was resting for a while as was the custom
in his country. He would not take the road again until later in the afternoon
and he wondered at me risking the heat and the sun. I heard the unspoken words
that whispered silently afterwards.
"At your age."
I was a little annoyed, I and my fifty two years of treading this
sweet earth.
"My boy." I replied with as much patronism as I could
muster. I went on to tell him that in these lands, I thought it better to keep
walking until I found somewhere safe to rest.
He smiled and produced a knife suddenly from a sheath on his back.
He proceeded to cut a piece of cured meat with it. The knife was long and sharp
looking with a slight curve to it. I could understand his argument quite
clearly but I wondered that he would choose to use such a fine weapon to make
the point. It was one of those actions or gestures that people tend
to regret making almost the moment that they do it. As I watched him, he made
an elabourate series of cleaning gestures before he replaced the
knife in its sheath. It hardly seemed worth the effort.
I don't
actively seek out the company of others but I do not avoid it when it presents
itself to me. So it was on this occasion and we shared a light meal and some
company under that tree. I had some cheese and a little bread. I offered some
wine and produced two battered leather tumblers from my pack. He took the wine
in the southern style with seven parts water which he poured from a large skin
that lay on the ground beside him. I did the same with my own though it did
seem a bit of a crime. The red was particularly good but I guess that it was
still early in the day and I had a fair way to walk before nightfall.
As we
talked over our impromptu meal he opened out a tale of his travels and of his
journey to the northern town of Trellshiem. He didn't expand on the reason for
his journey but he told me a fair bit about the place and he seemed happy to
talk endlessly. I listened to the words as they washed over me, nodding now and
then and responding at various points. I make a point of trying not to
interrupt a tale when it is in progress but often that it is a bit of a
challenge for me a I do like to talk. After some time he stopped and
then began to ask me a series of questions. What I was doing here on the road?
Where I had been? Where I was going? It being my turn, so to speak, I also
unrolled a tale of my travels and mentioned a little of my purpose.
"Ah,"
he said at one point.
"So you are a bard and a story
teller?"
"No,"
I replied.
"I
am a Collector of Tales."
There was
a pause between us and then after a while, as the flies buzzed around the
cured meat beside him, he spoke once more.
"They
are not the same?"
"No!
They are not the same."
That had
more or less killed the conversation and we moved on to other matters: the
weather past and expected; the nearest habitation and other things like that.
In this manner the afternoon passed by and at last he started to prepare
himself for moving on. He invited me to walk with him and I, having decided
that there had been plenty of time to slit my throat had he so wished, agreed
on the basis that two men walking together are more of a threat and less
of a target than one. Particularly if one is getting on in years.
We walked
for a while in silence partly because he set a cracking pace and I struggled to
keep up with him and, I guess, because we had said enough for now. As we came
to the top of a gradual incline he turned and asked me more about my 'work' as
he called it.
I suppose
it might be called work, or perhaps a vocation, but to me it is just what I do.
I am a hunter of sorts. I seek out tales or stories or legends, call them what
you will. In the older days, yes I might have been called a bard. To those who
have met me I am simply The Collector of Tales.
I told
him how I had traveled far to the south where the sun scorches the sky and
where the great desert stretches out into the lights of oblivion. I shared with
him my crossing of the great sea to the east where I had seen the nations of
people who are not people. As I was speaking I could see him looking at me now
and then and I could tell that he didn't believe all that I was saying. To be
honest I don't blame him but there was a general truth to it.
I wanted
to tell him how in all these lands I had captured tales both in the language of
their tellers and in my own. How that I now had stored these in my mind: all of
them ready for the telling; ready for the passing on. It isn't always easy
and I confessed a level of pride in my work that may more than occasionally
border on arrogance. You see, it isn't just the remembering and recall of the
words in languages that may often be strange to the tongue and to the palate or
uncouth to the ear. It isn't the learning of the sounds or seeking out the
translation of words and ideas and understanding of cultures that may be
unusual or indeed, in some cases, offensive to my own background and beliefs.
It is the
thrill of the collection and the fact of the collection and I guess that is
what does it most for me. The finding, the acquiring, the understanding and the
taking away with me those are the things that do it. Yes of course it would be
nice to think that there was some higher purpose in all this but if there is it
is an unconscious one and I will deliver it unwittingly for I am a
simple man: a hunter and collector. No more and no less.
Yet that
is not what I said. Instead I rattled on as the miles passed beneath our dusty
feet. He listened and when I had finished he thought for a while and then, with
a little hesitation, offered me a tale that he had heard. He apologized in
advance for the quality of the telling but in the event he spoke well and
clearly.
He
told me of a group of people who traveled these lands. They were secretive
and cautious, often avoiding the towns and other centres of habitation unless
need drove them. He referred to them as the un-housed, regarded with suspicion
by many and held in contempt by others. The authorities in many lands saw
them as vagabonds and thieves. They were also called the Illuvaqu’e, the Fire
Dancers, and were from a culture older than most others and steeped in
traditions held close and secret over the countless years.
For some considerable
time he spoke of them: talking at times in an animated manner and at other times in hushed tones that gave me to believe that he held
them in awe or respect, perhaps even in fear. He told me of their rituals: how
they walked into fires and how they communed with the dead. I looked at him in
much the same way that he had looked at me earlier. I didn't believe him.
Though it
was brief, the tale that he told on that day struck a note in me and I decided
that it would warrant investigation when I had the next opportunity.
That was to
come a few months later when I left home once more and instead of turning
right, I turned left and headed north.
