Firelight | A Short Story
We tell stories of the fires of old: brilliant, bright things that leapt high as the stars and were nothing like the pitiful embers we muster now. Ours is a world of ash and dust, and we eke out a living on the fringes. Our subsistence relies on fungi and meat from the blind things that slither along in the dark.
Arra returns from the hunt with one slung over her back, its oily skin staining her tunic. She offers me a weary smile as she lugs it to the storage shed. I am preparing one that another hunter brought back earlier, peeling back the flesh with my stone knife and filleting the slimy meat of what counts for musculature on its slug-like body. My calloused hands ache, as it’s the third I’ve done today, but the hunt has been good and we’ll eat well.
Arra returns to my side and kisses my cheek.
She leans into me and asks, “Have the others returned? Jonna has news.”
I gesture with my hand, pointing to where Jonna is flitting from person to person, telling them to remain gathered when supper is done, as he did with me.
“What has him so excited?” I press my weight into Arra and her arm wraps around my shoulders. “Did he come across some true mammals?”
“He won’t say.”
The other hunters return, and I help to prepare the evening meal. Jonna is full of energy, talking almost the entire time, but not quite saying just what he has discovered. Everyone’s gazes are trained on him long before the bowls are empty, but he waits for full attention.
Standing up, a smile bursting across his features, he says a very simple phrase. “There are lights on the horizon.”
There are immediate sounds of dismissal from the sceptical, but many quickly match Jonna’s energy. Arra beside me is stunned, and I can feel my own heartbeat quicken. Voices all tumble out at once, speaking over each other with their questions before the elder raises a hand and calls for silence.
“Firelight?” Her eyes pierce Jonna, and he nods. “We will investigate before we trip over ourselves in excitement.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by the immediacy of the decision, given the possibility of fire. The elder’s eyes scan the crowd, and rest on Arra.
“Take Jonna and two other hunters to investigate. We need to keep the party small in case this represents danger.”
Arra nods. “Might I request my wife Edra join us? You’ve seen yourself her success in mediating when other tribes have come our way.”
“As you wish, but take care Arra. If someone possesses fire, they may guard it jealously.”
We see the patterns of orange flickering along the dry grasses before we see the lights across the horizon. They’re still a distance away, but it’s firelight, unmistakeable. Arra signals with her hand, and we move together.
Arra looks uncertain, her eyes flicking around the scene. The others are too, so I train my gaze ahead and try to make sense of it. There is fire, that’s for certain, and sure enough there is some form of person gathered around: some seem to sit, others move back and forth. But they’re so indistinct. At this distance, I should be able to make out something of their form, but as I look to bring them into focus something in the perspective shifts. Where something should coalesce before my eyes it blurs once more and retains only vague suggestions of shape. The others seem to be having much the same trouble: Arra tries to focus her gaze with her hands, Moren tilts their head to an angle and Jonna moves his head rapidly back and forth.
“This is wrong,” Arra says as she turns her gaze away, rubbing her temple with one hand.
Moren and Jonna snap their eyes back to us as well, both blinking slowly.
Jonna shakes his head. “Fire, Arra. Can we really walk away?”
There’s silence for some moments after he says it.
My throat is dry, and my voice wavers as I speak, “None of the tribes have had true fire in so long. The brush never lights for long, and our flints are meagre.”
I look at Arra as the words come out, and she bites her lip while I speak.
Jonna speaks again, “Your Edra speaks the truth, Arra, but I shall follow your lead.”
“If there’s danger, it isn’t worth our lives,” Moren says, “But it would be worth a lesser risk.”
Arra, hands now pressed to both temples, surveys us all. She closes her eyes, takes a breath.
“We’ll proceed. But be wary.”
Continuing on towards the flames, the strange shapes become no less easy to look at: my head aches behind my eyes, and I have to focus on the ground to keep moving. Jonna and Moren seem to be doing the same, but Arra has more success keeping focus on our destination (though I half suspect it to be endurance out of stubbornness). What I am able to make out is the site of some sort of camp: the grasses flattened and chunks of stone arranged for seating.
We reach the threshold of the camp, and Arra signals for us to keep back, but it seems impossible to tell whether or not these beings are aware of us already – they shift and blur far too much. The warmth and light of the fire however, is all too clear, I had half thought it was a trick until this moment. My heart soars as high as the orange-yellow flames that lick into the sky, that seem to burn on no visible fuel. Arra grips my arm and squeezes.
There’s a sudden sharp feeling inside my head and I clutch at it, all the colours around me seem to swim and blur into one. There’s a lurching feeling in my stomach, and then everything rushes back into focus. I look up, and before me are five tall beings with pale blue skin. Arra is brandishing her spear, as one steps forwards and extends a long limb towards her. There’s a strange murmuring in my head that sounds like speech, but of no language I recognise. The beings look at each other and there’s another pulse in my mind, another sickening feeling in my stomach. I feel my body shake, and my eyes dart over the others, who seem just as unsteady.
A soft voice echoes, but not aloud, the thought is projected into my head.
We are the Pyrene.
No words come to my lips, as these strange creatures observe us. Moren looks ready to bolt, Jonna is staring in awe, and Arra still holds out her spear.
We mean no harm.
I watch Arra take a slow, measured breath and lower her spear.
She gestures towards the flames. “How did you come to build a blaze so high?”
What passes for confusion ripples among their small faces.
It is an ability among our kind that translates best as ‘kindling’, perhaps. We are able to make the flames appear by force of will.
“Magic,” Jonna whispers under his breath.
If you like.
“There’s little fire in our world.” My voice feels small as the beings turn to me. Arra takes a step towards my side. I swallow down past the knot of fear in my throat and speak plainly. “Can you teach us your kindling?”
Arra’s eyes go wide. “Edra, we don’t know what they want or where they’re from.” She turns to them. “Why disguise yourselves from us?”
A kind of passive defence mechanism. Our home is all but lost, and we must be wary of enemies that seek to wipe us out.
They pause and turn to each other, I assume in non-verbal discussion. Arra mouths we need to be careful. Moren and I nod in agreement but Jonna is gazing on in open awe. The Pyrene turn back to us, and I realise there is little way to distinguish which of them is addressing us.
We believe the kindling can be taught, though it is not a guarantee. We would ask something in return.
“It would need to be discussed with the tribe,” Arra says, her grip on the spear now loosened.
Then we shall await your response.
One of the Pyrene walks past me, a brace of slug-beasts laid out across her arm, and Moren is beside her with another over their shoulder. Moren waves to me and the Pyrene woman projects what I have to understand as the mental equivalent of that. A month they have been with us – the vote we held was near unanimous with even the possibility of true fire on the table. It seems strange now to think how quickly we have adapted. I walk towards the centre of the village and another of the Pyrene meets me along the way, the first to address us and their de-facto leader. We’ve since learned they have no names, because each of them leaves a distinct mental impression that forgoes the need for one.
You are joining us for lessons in kindling today, Edra? She asks me.
I nod. “How is progress?”
Jonna’s son and aunt show promise. She pauses. There is time and I believe others can learn the ability.
Her thought speech exudes warmth, a sensation that is still peculiar to feel but brings a smile to my face nonetheless. Arriving at the stone circle that marks the village’s centre, Arra greets me with a kiss and exchanges pleasantries with the Pyrene leader. Two more of the hunters arrive to join us for the lesson, we greet one another and make small talk before the lesson begins.
We all sit in a row, and the Pyrene leads us calmly through a simple meditation routine. At its end, we remain in silence but I’m aware of the light touch on my mind, and assume the others remain similarly connected.
Start with heat, I’m gently instructed, the sensation of warmth between your palms.
She leaves us to this, and I find my eye wanders: the other hunters have their eyes closed and breathe deeply. Arra’s eyes are open, almost glaring at her hands as she grunts in frustration. Refocusing, I try to bring to mind heat and think of the fires the Pyrene light for us, of how that warmth feels against my hands.
Move slowly onto light, and colour. Picture the flickering flames between your hands. Will them to be.
We stay in contemplation, with the occasional gentle reminder pressed towards us from our instructor. Time drags on, as I stare at my hands, willing the sensations of heat and light to take form. I try to ignore the sounds of frustration coming from the others, though I am acutely aware of Arra fidgeting beside me. I take a long breath in and count to ten, then repeat the same on the exhale. I focus once more on heat, and then add the thought of light coalescing in the colours of flame. To drown away Arra’s feet scraping the dirt below her, I imagine the sounds of the fireside: not only the crackling blaze, but of the turning spit and the low murmur of conversation. The familial warmth of the tribe gathered with our new friends flows through me and my earlier smile returns. I imagine the fire spreading from my fingertips at the start of the evening. And as I do, pinpricks of light fall between my hands: motes of light that shine in yellow and orange. In my excitement, I try to will them into a full flame and few pop and crackle into bigger sparks but ultimately burn away.
Reverie broken I look up to realise the sky has darkened. Arra and the others are looking at me, my wife with a broad grin spread across her face.
Your tribe has its first kindler.