Shall I tell that one then? Very well. The story of the Firestarter has been a favorite of the children of these halls, well, since I began telling it! No parents would be cruel or silly enough to name their child the Firestarter, would they? No, of course not. He has a name, and, though few know it, I do. A strange name it is. So our story starts with a man named Masood Świętopełk Dunn—not to worry about the middle name, everyone. It seems that I am the only one interested in it anyway, as you are no doubt wondering how a man gets a nickname such as his. This is the tale of the Firestarter.

I do not know where he was born, but, like so many youths before him, Masood Dunn succumb to the promise of excitement and lure of adventure, left his home and family behind, and travelled to Toriah in his early youth. His family was neither a rich nor a poor one, and I have heard that he was schooled by his father in both the ways of the world and the arts of war. Perhaps he came here to test what his father taught him.

Toriah may be the capital of the Kingdom, but that does not mean all its streets are safe. No, indeed not, and you will find this true if you were ever to venture down the maze of alleyways that line the great outer walls. You can come to the palace and gaze up at the magnificent spires, adorned with flags bearing the royal family’s crest and the seals of the great protectors of the realm. Then, you can turn right around and slink into a back-alley tavern and find yourself in a completely new place indeed! This is what young Dunn did, for as anyone who has ever met him will attest, he is not one for the heights of marbled throne rooms, but rather one for the paradoxical beauty of the dirty night streets.

Very late one night in midsummer, when most of the Capital was snug in their beds, the Ailing Swan Inn in the Shifworth district was still awake and crawling with all manner of sordid folk. The benches in the common room were packed with sharp eyed traders, dangerous mercenaries, pisspots, vagrants and travelers. The stout was flowing thick and heavy, serving men and women bustling around, trying to dispense food and potables without offending the leery patrons. Young Masood Dunn was sitting in the back his thin figure under a dark hood.

Who knows what could have started the fight, but, as the story goes, one of the biggest mercenaries in all the capital took a great dislike to the young Firestarter. Perhaps he saw a man sitting alone, easy prey for such a large predator. Perhaps Dunn’s gaze found the man at the wrong time. Perhaps the young Firestarter did just what he is known for, starting trouble. We can imagine that the room was filled with the dull roar of happy talk, until the peace was suddenly broken as the huge man spoke.

“Just what in the name of Mörja are you looking at?”

The big man threw a glass, which barely missed Dunn and shattered on the back wall. All eyes suddenly turned to the center of the room, where the hulk was standing in a rage, his red eyes leveled at the young man sitting at the edge of the room. “No one turns a sideways glance at Roc and gets to smile twice,” said the big man, who was the slow type who refers to himself when he speaks. What happened next was just one of the many moments when Dunn earned his nickname. The big man threw aside a great oak table, glasses clattered and shattered on the floor. He rushed toward the young man in the corner, who had only seconds to react.

Now, I do not want to be known as a spreader of lies. I only tell the story as it was told to me, from someone who saw it, many years ago.

The big man came at him, fists balled into great fleshy hammers. But young Masood was quick as fire, he avoided the first great blow, which sailed past his head, then the second. He ducked under the table in one fluid motion, swinging under and over to the other side. Before the big man could realize what was happening, Masood kicked the back of one knee, sending the man off balance, then jumped to the right, and made a swift jab into the side of the man’s gargantuan neck. There was no sound; all eyes were on the pair of fighters. Masood Dunn just stepped back, with a small smile on his face. He did not touch the sword at his hip or the dagger strapped around his leg. He just waited. Roc, for that must be the big man’s name, turned with a strange expression on his face, and took a step forward. Suddenly, his legs would not hold him. With a look of surprise he toppled to the floor and was unable to rise. The entire room, still quiet, took notice of the young Masood, who could dispatch a man two heads taller than he with a single strike! Roc’s friends, not courageous enough to avenge their friend, soon came to pick him up and cart him off to his room. They glared a the Firestarter as if they might try to jump him, but in the end no one was willing to suffer the first blow.

A common fight! Yes, this is how the great Firestarter set out on the journey that would give him his name. Not fifteen minutes later, Masood Dunn was approached by an elderly Landborne. One of the bluish skinned mixed race who are born of the humans of Samlonas and their amphibious undersea neighbor at Tunus City. It was the call to adventure Dunn had been searching for. The man spoke slowly, not the least bit unsettled by what had happened only moments before. His long hair and beard were an inky blue black color and his eyes were an eerie yellow surrounding deep jet pupils. They seemed to swallow the firelight.

“Alph Oye is my name,” said the Landborne in the deep slow stilted accent of all folk east of the border. “I shan’t waste your time. I’ve put together a party to escort a valuable item to the dwarven lords of Dhol Dworgdene. I would like you to join us. I can pay fifteen thousand pieces, a third upon departure and the remainder upon delivery inside the city. I shall not negotiate. We leave tomorrow at noon.”

He did not think twice about leaving Toriah. For this type of man, life is a path that leads in one direction, and, being almost incapable of lingering on the past, he was the type of revolutionary who could look only to sun setting in the horizon. The next morning he gathered with Alph’s party, which included a total of eight others, making him the tenth member of the little brigade. Their expedition was evidently well financed; twenty strong horses for only ten travelers. Masood was not as well travelled as he would become, certainly not, but even he knew that they would be riding fast. The sun had decided to linger behind clouds on this afternoon, making it all the more easy to leave the Capital.

Several of them had seen the altercation the day before and were looking at him with a mixture of wariness and wry amusement. He was hastily introduced to them all, first to the broad shouldered Sunder, redbearded Rajiv, and shifty eyed Gotam, each had the look of Capital mercenary riffraff. He received uncaring nods from the pale heads of Suresh, Raras, and Manjun. They were brothers from the north, each with pale skin and a long brown beard. Then to blue skinned Kistna, a tough yet striking female Landborne who was evidently one of the expedition organizers. Their contact with the Dhol was Godz, a stocky and taciturn dwarf wearing dark circular glasses. He did not acknowledge the young man.

“Let’s be off then. Talking makes for fewer miles,” growled the dwarf.

Alph said nothing in response, but mounted a brown coldblood trotter, keeping the reigns of a second, almost identical horse in his other hand. “Let us be off. We will ride into the dusk and make camp on the Great East Road when it is too dark to travel. Eyes out for any figure on the horizon, never you mind whether they look friend or foe, I want to know about them.” The party meandered through the narrow alleyways until they reached the front gate, the Alph dug his spurs into his horse and they were off at breakneck speed.

They embarked upon the wide Plains of Deihost, just north of the Great Farms of Toriah, and continued riding hard for the next four days, only stopping or slowing when Alph began to fear that their horses might stumble in the dark. The riders, each with a pair of horses, switched mounts every hour to rest them and even gave them drink from their own waterskins. Dunn had never heard of anyone ever making the journey from Toriah to Rana in less than a week, but they did it in just four days, arriving on the night of the final day, saddlesore and travel worn. He did not know why they had rushed in this manner, or what precious cargo they were carrying, and he did not ask. The party stayed at the Winter Fox, in the center of the town.

Rana is a beautiful place. I wonder if any of you have seen it. Very small, it is, with perhaps only five thousand souls to the lot of it. It rests on the shores of a lake sharing the same name. The lake’s water is cold northern runoff, and is fed by the Ranabryl River. The party was nearing the eastern border of the Kingdom of Page.

As he lay in bed, that restful night in Rana, Dunn felt that their journey, arduous as it had been, would soon turn dangerous. In the nights, in the few hours when they would stop riding, the others would tell boasts or stories of their travels of the lands beyond. Alph had travelled the most extensively, except perhaps for the silent dwarf Godz. Alph told stories of his own treks on the wild roads of the East, and he told stories (as I am doing now) of the brave or foolhardy travelers who dared to venture down to where the Great East Road fell south, skirting the northern edge of the Saltmarshes and the western border of Yfelwood, through the Five Fingers of the forest that stretch greedily over the mountain passes to the south.

This was the path to Dhol Dworgdene, the southernmost of the great dwarven mountain enclaves, and also the gateway to the Sea of Tunus and the Three Cities, undersea Tunus, the human city of Samlonas, and stronghold of the high elves at Manalenor. In the darker moments of these nights, Dunn was not so sure he would even make it to the dwarven city alive. The dangers were many, ordinary bandits being not the least of them, but there were others, insidious creatures too from Yfelwood or the Marshes, things that the imagination could not envision without seeing. Monsters that skulk in darkness and voraciously devour the fear and suffering of others. Then there were also the more everyday murderous abominations—the wild men, giants, goblins or harpies in the mountain passes—these could kill a careless nomad as sure as the rest. During these nights of his first journey, the young Masood Dunn was beset with a completely alien feeling, with the niggling dread that comes with being alone in a strange place.

As the ten travelers convened outside the stables of the Winter Fox, Alph stood before them to make an announcement. Kistna and Godz took up positions near the entrance to the stables, with hands on their weapons. Alph drew the attention of the remaining seven members of the party.

“The time has come to explicate our purpose.” Alph took a leather wrapped bundle from his back. It was long and shaped roughly like a club. Dunn had not seen it before.

“This is our purpose on this journey. This is our cargo bound for the southern Dhol.” He undid the tie binding the hide around the package. Masood Dunn was surprised, not because he guessed the great implications this might have for himself, nor because of the beauty of the object. No, in fact, he thought, the object did not look valuable at all.

“Well, wot’s it den, eh?” Sunder was in no mood for guessing games.

“This,” said Alph, “is the Origin Fire-saw.”

You would probably be quite amused to see the looks of amazement on the faces of harden fighters and travelers such as these! I know I would.

“It’s not possible,” said the brothers, Suresh, Raras, and Manjun, all at once.

And few would call them fools for thinking it a hoax. What they saw was an old wooden stick, about the width of a thick human forearm, blackened on one end. How could they believe that this was The Origin Fire-saw? How could they believe that this was the very same stick that the First Wizard, Es Terik the elder, had created the first fire for the men of his tribe tens of thousands of years ago. (Before the arrival of the dwarves and elves from skywards and earthwards.) This artifact was bound deeply in the human consciousness and tied to the fated origin of the species. Tales of the creation of fire are still told all over the Kingdom. Artifacts were made by the mere touch of the First Wizard, but this, this was something of untold potential. Alph continued:

“It is said that only a certain type of person can touch it.” Dunn noticed that the Landborne was holding it over its leather covering. “And we must be wary of those who might be able to feel its existence, for if the elders of Manalenor and Tunus be right in their stories of the Fire-Saw, it is something of great power.”

“Where did you find it?” asked Dunn. But Alph was looking past him.

Gotam had remained silent for nearly the entire journey. Now it was clear that he had been waiting for this moment. His face had always held something unsavory behind it, and seeing the artifact stirred him to action. He threw apart his cape and drew his sword and rushed at Alph. Before Dunn could react, Kistna was in front of him. There was a clash of swords.

“Stand down, Kistna,” said Alph Oye.

Immediately she was out of the way, and Gotam was moving toward Alph.

The Landborne slowly, deliberately, drew the covering aside, and tossed the Origin Fire-Saw to Gotam. Without thinking, the man caught it. Instantly, Dunn felt a heat that defied explanation. Gotam screamed, fire seemed to issue from his veins. He writhed and was consumed in flame, burning to ash in only seconds. Alph walked over to the Stick, and picked it up carefully with the leather sleeve.

“So now you see the power and magnetism of this thing. Beware that it doesn’t affect your mind. Where we are going, fear is a scent that draws beasts of prey.” The other stood in stunned silence.

“Get moving then,” said Gotz gruffly. “We’re down to nine. Best keep your minds on not being the second one to die.”

They headed south out of Rana and soon ferried over the southern outlet of the lake, the Ranalow, which fed into the distant Sea of Tunus. They crossed over the border of the Kingdom of Page without comment. Their pace was lightning once again, but now they did not build fires at night for fear of the attraction it might bring. Three days were spent on the road before they arrived at the southern reaches of Yfelwood. It was then that members of their party began to go missing. On the second night Suresh went to find water for the party and never returned. His brothers took his death hard. Only a day later, another brother died. Raras climbed a large outcropping of rock to scout the trail ahead. He disappeared around a rock face and did not come back. They found his body, torn to grisly shreds. It was clear that something was stalking them.

Alph, Kistna and Godz no longer slept. Neither did Masood Dunn, for that matter, in spite of his exhaustion. The leaders still refused to travel in the dead of moonless nights, but their pace accelerated and their hours of travel extended. No one went anywhere alone; this was their sole defense against the unknown predation. Their horses were equally nervous. Some ran off, others whinnied through the night. On the sixth night, they had reached the second of the Five Fingers of forest that extended the southward grasp of Yfelwood. It was the dead of night, and suddenly the horses were in an uproar. Alph Oye drew his sword and sprinted toward the noises in the back of camp, followed shortly by Godz, Kistna, Masood and then the rest of the party.

Masood Dunn arrived in time to see it fly off, carrying a horse in tow. Even in the dark, he could make out the massive pair of wings, four huge sets of talons and a misshapen torso. He looked down at the horses. The thing, whatever it was, had killed eight of them and carried off one. They were left with only six tired horses for seven people.

“What was that thing?” asked Manjun, his eyes both worried and sorrowful.

Alph Oye looked at Godz. Both of their faces were made of steel. They had the look of men staring death in the face.

“A Strix has found us.”

“What the hell is a Strix?” asked Sunder.

“A Strix is one of the airborne monstrosities that broods in Yfelwood,” Godz spat grimly, “They are the owl demons of the forest. They are thirty feet tall with massive claws and a beak that can shave the flesh from your bones. Who knows how they came into being, but none doubt that they are evil. They have destroyed towns on the border of the forest. We need not simply fear their talons. Some of them have powers sorcerous in nature. I fear this one senses our cargo. Worse of all, they are completely silent in flight. Were all of Dhol Dworgdene over our head we might still be in danger. We will never see it coming.”

“Then what are we to do? Wait until it kills us all?” asked Kistna.

“We can only do one thing,” said Alph Oye. “We ride until we reach the Dhol. We are three days away. Turning back is a greater insanity than pressing forward. We are lucky in our own way, the full moon is nearly upon us. We shall keep our eyes to the sky and our swords unsheathed, and hope that Godz is wrong. There is little else we can do.”

“Drop the damn Fire-Saw and run, says I. Maybe it leaves us alone,” Rajiv suggested.

“I will not be responsible,” said Oye gravely “for turning over one of the world’s most powerful magics to the claws of a fiend of the dark. Not while I draw breath.”

Godz and Kistna bristled behind Oye, hands on weapons; the matter was left to rest. Masood took note of Oye’s formidable resolve, and felt in some small way strengthened. He knew, or perhaps felt, that if there was one man who might be able to lead him through this, it was the elder Landborne. They continued on through the next day. Eating on top of their horses, which were steadily more exhausted.

As dusk approached, every member of the party was on heightened alert, with one eye on their horse and one turned skyward, in watch for the great menace. The Strix waited until the dead of night to strike.

“There!” Shouted Godz, pointing upwards. A huge dark shape drifting like smoke over the trees to the north.

“I’m out of here,” Rajiv, followed by Sunder and Manjun lit out back the way they had come, leaving Godz, Kistna, Oye and Dunn to fend for themselves. The Strix changed course, gliding to where the three mutineers had gone round a bend. Screams issued into the night sky.

“We are moving!” yelled Oye. He spurred his horse forward. “Keep your eyes back. It will catch us tonight!”

Oye led as they moved at breakneck pace over the Great East Road, careening around bends and down steep paths, eventually reaching a meadow between the forest and the rising face of a hillside.

A muffled cry in the dark. A huge shadow came from the sky and consumed Alph Oye and his horse, lifting them up from the ground. There was a glint of silver steel and the great beast cried out, dropping both Oye and his horse. Both hit the ground roughly and did not move. Masood was the closest; he galloped his horse over to where the dying man lay on the ground. With his head looking upwards, searching for the Strix, he leaned down toward Oye, who was coughing blood.

“You boy,” Oye cried. “Touch the Saw. Light the thing ablaze.” Before Dunn could stop him, the bleeding man unwrapped the Origin Fire-Saw and thrust it into his palm.

Masood Dunn suddenly understood. He was fire. He was the destruction of the past, the strife of the present, and the revolution of the future. He was the cleansing flame. He was the power to protect and destroy. He was the bringer of the reckless pain of flame, the herald of ashes. He turned upwards to the sky and saw the huge shape of the Strix bearing down on him.

He lifted the stick into the air, and fire shot forth, turning the air molten and engulfing the great wings. A cry of great pain and anguish shook the night sky, and the Strix, still alive, continued to burn, retreated away from the Firestarter, and winged its way to the north.

The moment spelled the end of the quest. Masood Dunn was greatly changed by his contact with the Origin of Fire. The Firestarter has never given up the prize he earned that night, and few could hope to take it from him, though Alph, Kistna, and Godz tried to convince him to help them. In the end, only Kistna, Godz, and a severely injured Alph Oye completed the quest to Dhol Dworgdene to explain to the dwarven elders and forgesmiths that the artifact was stolen.

For this is the nature of fire, to consume what is at hand, with little regard for aught else, lacking intent and full of consequence. You will no doubt have heard of the Waste of Strix. But do you know where the name comes from? That night, the great beast took the fire back to its forest home, and a great swath of Eastern Yfelwood was laid to waste. The event started a war between the creatures of the Western forest and the dwarves. Such is the nature of fire, and now the nature of the Firestarter. Full of bravery and might, and yet also full of destruction and ill fate. His was a life of upheaval and strife, myriad dangers and tragedies. We may never know them all. And though his tale does not end here, this one will.

"Tomorrow Morning" is © 2015 Julio Dionizio, used with his permission.