It was a pleasure to walk tall and free with no load on my back; a pleasure to be always in the pale grey light of day; a pleasure, in a strange, exhilarating way, to be in the company of a Chosen and to know that he enjoyed my face.

Ours was an odd relationship. Sometimes we seemed almost equals, both of us in the service of the same high lord; yet at other times there was that great gulf fixed between us because he was Chosen and I was Quelled. He found it almost impossible, I think, to come to terms with me. I guessed he had never spoken to a harsha before, let alone travelled and eaten and slept in one’s company. Sometimes he forgot there was that gulf between us, and he looked in my face, smiling, and listened while I answered him. Those were the times he showed me how to light our fires with the strange flints used by the Chosen, and how to cook his unfamiliar foods. But at other times he seemed confused, remote, and there was a deep conflict in him. Then, he would look past my head when he spoke to me, the way the Chosen always did with the Quelled, and he gave instructions that did not need replies.

In my own confusion and inner conflict, my emotions swung between exultant joy and overwhelming grief. I could not think clearly, and even the simplest tasks the man asked me to do, I managed to bungle. At times he must have wondered if he had made a most appalling mistake. I wondered it myself, many times. Yet he was never impatient with me, never harsh or rude. He was totally unlike the Chosen who supervised our mine.

Towards the end of the second day we came to a small cave high in the mountain. It was almost hidden under a low, overhanging rock, and was similar to the cave in which we had spent the previous night. There were many of these caves, Amasai told me, all used by the Firelord on his journeys between the towns. He travelled all the time, sometimes going great distances to places needing new supplies of firestone, divining in the nearby mountains for the vital fuel. In the towns, the Firelord stayed in the great houses of the Chosen, but out here in the mountains he had his own dwellings.

“It is my task, Elsha, to travel these ways twice a year, bringing a loaded cart, and to replenish his caves.” Amasai waved his hand towards the shelves carved deep into the cave walls. These were packed with blankets, clothes, flints, cooking utensils, dried meat and fruit, and water jars. On the floor near the back of the cave were several baskets filled with firestones.

“He travels with a donkey, as well as his handmaid,” Amasai went on, arranging kindling grasses in the firepit in the cave floor. “He takes fresh clothes, some food, wine, and the things needful for his divining rituals. But much that is necessary is already here, waiting for him.”