The Firelord raised his arms, and the musicians stopped playing. The children fell silent, wrapped for extra warmth in the thick folds of their mothers’ skirts. Only a single drum beat now, steady and slow, like a mighty heart. We all stood back, giving the Firelord room on the flat, dusty ground.

He held his divining staff in both hands, and began drawing on the ground. In utter silence we watched, the drumbeat and the wind the only sounds in all that wintry world. In the dust the Firelord drew a large map. He marked the valley, the houses of the Chosen, the dwellings of the Quelled, the mine. He placed stones in the places where rocks and foothills were, and made deep scratches in the earth where there were valleys. When he had finished, there was a replica of the valley and town of Talbar, and the surrounding hills. It was twelve paces long, eight wide, and was so accurate we could see even the plateau where we stood.

It was my turn then to play my part. I took five sacred golden urns, placing one on each edge of the map – in the south, north, east, and west – and the fifth in the centre. Into each urn I placed kindling grass and fragments of firestone, and the Firelord lit the five fires. When they blazed, he sat behind the eastern fire, facing west, across the replica of Talbar. I stood behind him, and all the people gathered behind me. It was forbidden to look on the face of the Firelord as he divined.

He lifted his great staff in his hands, placing it just within the place he had made, and bent his head. For a long time he didn’t move. We waited, our breath held, our eyes streaming in the bitter wind, our ears filled with the throbbing of the drum. The air was tense, charged with the force of the Firelord’s will, his passion for the stones he sought. The whole earth throbbed, caught up in his power, held there while he mastered dust and rock and firestone.

Slowly he stood up. He walked onto the map he had made, and bent for a while over the central fire. He stood side-on to us, though still we could not see his face, lost deep within his hood. I thought sometimes I heard his voice, as though he commanded the fire, but then I thought it was the wind, or the echoes of the drum. The gale tore at the fires, scattering smoke and ash across the small hills and ravines, and across the Firelord’s boots. Smoke and dust whirled in his garments, and his cloak billowed scarlet behind him.

He crouched in the northwest section of the map, his staff stretched out across the earth, close to it, trembling with power. Then he moved to the other sections, one at a time, slowly, his staff always close to the ground. In the last sector, the north-eastern one, he crouched for a long time. His staff shook in his hands, and seemed to turn of its own volition, twisting his hands, driving the wood and silver across a small ravine not far from the old mine. Suddenly he dropped the staff and it rolled, twisting in the windswept dust, its silver point, filled with firestone dust, forced into the ravine. With a great cry he leapt back, lifted his arms to the skies, and thanked God.