Chapter 7

"I like the look on your face now," she snickered. "Mindless, almost! I've always wanted to do this, you know, have a man look at me like that, like I was the only thing that mattered in the world. But I've been ugly for so many years, and I never ... Anyway, Now may I ask a few questions?"

"All right." My throat was dry all of the sudden. Her right foot was naked, and her big toe was casually resting on my knee by now.

"I'll ask them in increasing order of importance. Who was that man? Why did he try to kill us? How much money did he have? Remember that half of it is mine! And finally, do they serve dandelion tea here?"

I started laughing. A lot of emotion that had been closed up inside me since this circus begun was released. I had bought a slave. I had been attacked and attempted murdered. And my calling as a Wanderer had been, with the appearance of my strange healing powers, truly confirmed. I laughed so much that Nightbreeze had to order the dandelion tea herself, that sweet, spicy beverage so treasured that all but the more common, hardier variety was worth more than gold. But we were wealthy now, fair compensation for an attempted murder as we both agreed.

"He had quite a bit of money," I confided to her. She merely blinked at that, and somehow I got the feeling she was not too interested. But her eyes still held mine from underneath her hood, and her foot returned to my knee.

"And why did he- Or even, how did do the fire thing? The door burst into flame like a bonfire that was bathed in oil by some enthusiastic, drunker reveler! Who can do such a thing?"

"He was a firedancer," I said, almost as if it did not matter now. I wore nothing under my pants, and I could feel blood flowing down to my groin like a waterfall fills up a ... Whatever, I don't know. Fills up something hard and slightly twitching.

"A what now? I didn't see him do any dancing until you started banging him on the head with the bucket. You sure know how to keep a rhythm!" She almost forgot to cover her mouth as she grinned at me. I loved that smile. It was the kind that flows from the mouth to every part of one's face. And when it reaches the eyes and they start to twinkle, then you are sure it is genuine. With eyes like hers the twinkling outshone even the cutest of dimples.

"Well, I..." I begun, feeling ashamed for my violence earlier and falling silent. Her foot was now resting on my chair between my legs. I had my belly pushed all the way to the table, and pressed my groin forward towards her toes, but there was still no contact...

I sighed, realizing that the only way I would be able to feel the touch I was craving was to keep talking. "Up north among the ice and snow where I come from there are many gateways to the fires in the deeps of the world. Huge, towering mountains of smoke, and bottomless fissures rending the landscape and releasing poisonous fumes. These places are taboo, for evil things of fire live there."

"Such as... ?" She was leaning across the table now, her face all eager. A toe, a single toe, brushed again my pants. Even that brief touch brought a gasp of pleasure from my mouth, and I hurried on with my story.

"Such as flamewraiths. Devils of fire and wind, murderously raging across the snow, seeking out all that lives. And powerful and sinister cindermen, who are half fire and half men, offspring of the fires of the earth and human women, sorcerers of great powers. They make their abode down there in the heat if they are not casting their shadows on our towns. They say the red dragon are hatched there as well. Also you have glowmaggots, small, twisted dwarves that serve the cindermen, or they have their own chieftains; they capture and enslave humans."

"Just like you," Nightbreeze winked at me, and sipped at the dandelion tea. "Mmm ... I only ever heard of this before, but it sure is as good as they keep saying!"

I wondered of that was a double entendre, because as long as I kept talking she was rubbing her big toe up and down my shaft, making my speech throaty and labored, like I was in great duress. And in a way I was.

"And a firedancer is? A creature born of those eternal fires?"

"No, they are their human worshipers. They serve the mightiest of the fireborn demons, who teach them spells of fire and flame, of fiery destruction."

"And they don't like you and those priests chanting the spell of eternal whatsitsname?"

"Right, right!" I nodded fervently as I felt her other foot starting to climb up my legs. "Eternal winter, yes! Yes, the Order of Ygrim, Lord of the Falling Snow to which I belonged, they are our saviors. But not the chanting priests like I was. The Giants, the supreme warriors of the North, who are granted gifts of arms beyond mortal men, seek out the fireborn and vanquish them wherever they are found."