Out of all the Chosen, there was only one I loved. We called him our Firelord. He was our great firestone diviner, by whose sacred sight fire and warmth were kept alive in our world. My father told me stories of him, and visions of him illuminated my life. I used to snuggle close to my father on the dirt floor by our firepit at night, and look into the flames and listen.

“Once, long ago, when my father was a boy, the firestones in this place were hidden deep in the mountain,” my father told me. “The people did not know where they were. There was no mine, and there were no firestones for fuel, and everyone was in danger of dying from the cold. In all our land, there was only one man who could help; one who had the power to look upon the mountains and see the firestones deep inside, and tell the people where to mine. He is the Firelord. He alone has the gift of inner sight, the great divining power.”

I remember how my heart used to beat like a wild thing at the thought of that power, and I asked eagerly, “How did he see the stones, Father? How?”

My father used to laugh and stroke my hair. I loved the sound of his laugh. “No one knows how he sees them, child,” he said. “But he came to this place, and he saw the stones, and he told my father’s people where to dig their mine. He still divines for firestones and tells people where to mine. He is an old man now, though some say he is very strong, and still looks young. His soul is full of firestone power, and has all the strength and light of flame. And in the time of the great Fire Festival, he goes back to the sacred flame and renews the fires there.”

“The Firelord can touch fire, and not be burned?”

“I don’t know, child. He is a man apart. No one knows him very well, except the highest-born woman of the Chosen, who is his handmaid.”

“I’ll see the Firelord one day,” I said.

My father’s voice became husky then, and full of sorrow. “No, Elsha. You will work in the mine this year and next year and all your years until you die. Because that is the fate of the Quelled. And the Firelord won’t be coming here again. Our mine will last a hundred years.”

“I will see him,” I said. “I love the Firelord. And I love his sacred flame. I love the way it burns high on a mountaintop and never goes out.”

“How can you know such things?” he asked.

“I’ve seen them, Father. I’ve seen them in my dreams.” My father gathered me up in his arms then, and kissed my hair and face. “You are strange, my little love,” he said, laughing. “The strangest Quelled child ever born.”

2

Dark Realities

THE SIRANJARO MINE was one of the largest in our mountains. Seven hundred Quelled worked there, besides the old women and men who were the caretakers in our camp. For us there was no other life but mining. We were branded and easily identified, so there was no escape.