Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

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 threelegs, 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 leftthe 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.