Robin McKinley - Fire - Tales of Elemental Spirits

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

Fireworm.

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—

Fireworm!

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.

ʺNo,ʺ he said. ʺThe howling woke me too. But someone . . . his fur was half filled with snow . . .ʺ

Frowning, he gazed round the shadowed faces. Tandin did nothing to catch his attention, but when their glances met and locked, he rose. A man without honour is no better than a woman. He dared not stay seated when speaking to hunters.

ʺYes,ʺ he said. ʺThe Blind Bear woke me. I dreamed I was in her cave. . . .ʺ

He told them about his dream and what he had done on waking. They stared at him and turned to Nedli. She didn’t only tell stories. She was their Old Woman, who remembered things that had happened before any of them were born, as well as all the lore of long ago, things that generations of Old Women had passed down. She sat among the women, and spoke for them, but spoke as an equal with the hunters. She looked round the circle and then rose.

ʺLet the hunters come with me,ʺ she said, and led them to the back of the cave.

ʺWho knows the name of Tandin’s father?ʺ she said. ʺWas it any of you . . . ? No . . . ? Lay your hands on the pelt of the Amber Bear and swear to me it was not.ʺ

All did as she told them.

ʺPerhaps the fellow’s dead,ʺ said Sordan. ʺOr perhaps he was from another cave.ʺ

ʺPerhaps,ʺ said Nedli. ʺBut the Blind Bear has called Tandin to her and spoken to him in his dream. I think he is a spirit-walker and it was Amber Bear that took human shape and fathered him, as long ago he fathered Tarr and Undarok.ʺ

ʺThose are only stories,ʺ said Vulka.

ʺLast night you thought the fireworm was only a story,ʺ said Barok.

ʺIn that case let Tandin walk the ghost path,ʺ said Bast. ʺLet him ask his father to help us.ʺ

The other hunters ignored him, well aware why he should say that. There were ghost walkers in one or two of the other caves, but most who had tried to take that journey had either died or returned too crazed to live long.