Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (19 page)

“I’m sorry,” Rex said quietly. “I had no idea.”

“Nor do we still. Whoever it is out there picking off children is still a mystery to everyone. We don’t even know if it’s the work of a single predator or a pack.”

“Have the killings just been with young animals, I mean people?”

“So far.”

“I suppose I can’t blame him in the end for attacking me. I mean, I must have looked really suspicious just wandering around in the forest like that.” Then a thought occurred to him. “What did you mean you were shocked when you heard about me?”

“Hmm? Oh. Well, I just meant that reports of a missing person matching your description would have stirred at least some commotion with whoever heard of it.”

“How so?”

“Well, because of your flame, not to put too fine a point on it. Aside from DiNiya, I have never heard of anyone being born of the red flame. No one alive, away.”

“So are she and I really the only ones?”

“Before I would have said yes, but now having seen you, I really can’t be sure. I’m sorry I cannot be of more help to you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Can I ask you another question?”

“By all means,” he replied, motioning with his hands for Rex to proceed.

“What happened to the TyRanx?”

ShinGaru gave him a look of apprehension before beginning to speak, but just then DiNiya came back holding four medium-sized scrolls in her hands. “Here you are,” she said kindly as she handed them to ShinGaru, who in turn reached into his cloak to pull out a trade. “That’s not necessary,” she said, smiling as she stopped him. “You do so much business with us already, and the fire stones you brought us yesterday are payment enough.”

ShinGaru looked at her for a moment as if he was unsure but then bowed in agreement. “Well, I better be off. I have to start going over these.”

“Won’t you at least stop by the tavern for a short while tonight?” she asked.

“I will try but can’t make any promises.”

“Well, we hope to see you there, but if not, have a safe trip.”

“Thank you, and I will.”

DiNiya hugged him and watched him turn and disappear out the front door.

Rex was dusting in the back when he came across a small chest tucked behind two figurines of CyTorians. He pulled it out and examined it before noticing the lock was not latched. Opening it slowly, he peered inside and saw something no larger than his fist wrapped in a silk cloth. Picking it up gently, he unwrapped it to reveal a dark red stone that resembled quartz. Rotating it in his hand, he peered more closely when he spotted what he thought was a flicker of light coming from inside it. At the same time, he began to feel weak, as if suddenly overtaken by fatigue. He nearly dropped the stone when DiNiya called to him. Quickly rewrapping it, he placed it back in the chest and pushed it back in place, moving the two figurines back in front of it before making his way up front.

The day passed by and they finished at the shop, closing down not long after sunset. Rex noticed that she never locked the shop; there was not even a lock to begin with. “How do you keep people from breaking in if there’s no lock on the door?” he asked.

“Why would someone break in?” she replied.

“To steal,” he said bluntly. “Why else?”

“Well, I suppose if they couldn’t make it here while we were open, they could just leave their trade on the counter,” she said, giving the idea some thought. “But without one of us there, they may not be able to find what they were looking for and have to come back the next day anyway.”

“No, no,” Rex said, shaking his head and realizing this was going to be one of those informative discussions where the differences between their two worlds were made painfully obvious. “I meant they just go in, take something, and not leave a trade for it.”

“Why wouldn’t they leave a trade?”

“Because if they did, it wouldn’t be stealing and then they really might as well come back the next day,” Rex replied, frustrated.

“Exactly.”

Rex let out a heavy sigh. “So…I’m guessing no one just takes without giving something in return around here?”

“Not just around here,” she replied. “Everywhere. It’s the nature of balance. To receive something, you must be willing to give something in turn. That’s just the natural order of things; equivalent exchange for resources, no matter what they are, are always recycled.”

“What about ShinGaru?”

“What about him?” she asked, turning down a narrow path.

“He didn’t trade anything today, and you let him just have those maps.”

“The fire stones he traded us yesterday were ample payment for his next several trades with us,” she explained. “Especially when you consider that he used such rare and valued items as the stones to get something as simple as a map, even if it was a somewhat rare one. It simply wouldn’t have been a fair trade to make him give something in return again.”

“Well,” said Rex, looking a bit impressed. “I guess that’s that.”

“Do people steal on Earth?” she asked curiously.

“All the time.”

“Why?” she pressed. “It makes no sense. By throwing the balance off like that, it can only come back to hurt them.”

“People on Earth don’t look at it that way,” he explained as they passed through the market where all the merchants were closing up for the night. “Remember, we don’t trade like you do here. We use money to get what we want.”

“Why don’t they just get more money?” she asked as if his reason was absurd.

“If it was that easy, everyone would be rich back there,” he reasoned. “Most people just do what they’re supposed to do and work for a living to make money. Some people get lucky and get rich or are born into a wealthy family. Then you have some people who aren’t rich and don’t want to earn the money, so they just take what they want by stealing it.”

“Sounds like money is the real problem,” DiNiya said. “I mean, if they would just barter, then everyone would have an equal chance at getting what they want.”

“People are the real problem, but I’m still curious as to how you came to your conclusion,” Rex asked, glancing over to her.

“Well, think about it. If you create something people truly want or need in the world and it requires a great deal of money to get, then you also create temptation.”

“I’m still not following.”

“You said that it was not always easy to earn money, especially not large amounts of it.”

“It’s never easy from what I’ve seen,” he replied cynically. Somehow he always seemed to get sucked into these philosophical debates. It was not that he thought she was wrong so much as it just reminded him that he was really the ignorant one.

“Exactly,” she said. “So it stands to reason that some people will get so frustrated from trying to make money and never making enough while others around them have plenty of it. Don’t you see that some will always get frustrated and feel that the system they placed their trust in isn’t taking good care of them, and so they’ll abandon it and just take what they want?”

“Okay, fair enough,” he replied, giving a thoughtful nod. “But you still haven’t told me what makes your system so much better.”

“It’s simple. There is no such thing as expensive or cheap. Only equal opportunity.”

“Is that right?”

They passed a small group of street musicians who were comprised of both DyVorians and SaVarians, playing large string instruments that sounded like cellos and what looked like a small taiko drum.

Realizing he was not yet fully convinced, DiNiya tried a different tact. “Let’s say you come into the shop and you see a statue that you simply must have. To you it’s the greatest statue in the world. On Earth, if this item required a lot of money to get, you may not be able to get it, period. Knowing that, would you just try to take it? Here, however, you may be able to get it by trading something as simple as food, clothing, or another similar item that you find uninteresting but we at the shop feel is just as amazing as the statue we have is to you. Do you follow?”

“I think so. We have a saying back on Earth: one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.”

“Exactly,” DiNiya responded happily.

“But you’re wrong when you say things can’t be expensive in trade.”

“How do you mean?” she asked, frowning.

“Just because you’re not using money does not mean the price cannot be too high. In ancient times, Earth societies used trade like you do here; they would sometimes barter children or other loved ones for things they needed, like food. You’re telling me that your father would have just traded you to ShinGaru if he had come in the shop offering a scroll he really wanted?”

“Of course not,” she said, sounding shocked. “And people in our world would never consider another person as an item to be traded.”

“That’s good, but it still shows that even a system of barter can have something with too high a price.”

“Seems like even our way of doing things isn’t perfect,” she said, smiling thoughtfully and looking up at the starry sky.

“Guess none of them really are.”

DiNiya looked at Rex and laughed. “I think I’d like to see the other.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” replied Rex sternly. “Trust me.”

“Oh, it can’t be so terrible,” she said, giving him a little nudge in the arm. “Any place that has people as introspective as you can’t be that bad.”

“Trust me, I was one-of-a-kind back there.”

They walked through the rest of the market and down to the water’s edge where next to the large forest path were two enormous doors that must have reached forty meters up the rock wall. Rex craned his head all the way back to look at them in awe.

“Wow. That is one big damn door.” As he took in the impressive sight, he immediately found himself wondering how they were supposed to get it open. It did not look like it would be a problem for the larger DyVorians like VayRonx, but it would be impossible for smaller ones, let alone a SaVarian. Then he remembered how his flame amplified his strength. He could only imagine how strong it would make something as big as a house. That still left him with the issue of how they would get in. Then his question was quickly answered when he saw DiNiya leading them towards a smaller door about four meters high and two meters wide built into the right side door. She pushed it open and stepped through. Rex could hear music and laughter coming from inside, and smelled food. Delicious food. His mouth began to water as instinct told him to put one foot in front of the other faster. He could feel a faint memory trying to push its way to the surface of his mind.
What is it?
he wondered. He knew there was something he still was not remembering. Something that was right there in front of him but always slightly out of reach, like an itch in a hard-to-reach place. DiNiya popped her head out from inside. “What’s wrong?” she asked with concern. “You don’t want to come in?”

“It’s not that…” Rex said, shaking his head. “It’s just—”

“Come on,” she said, smiling, and gently took him by the hand.

He stepped through the door and was greeted by a sight out of his wildest dreams. The tavern was in fact a massive cathedral-like cavern within the mountain that was at least four hundred yards wide and just as long. Huge beautiful rock formations rose up out of ground throughout the golden orange cavern, which was filled with dozens of DyVorians and SaVarians, all of whom were laughing and carrying over drinks and assortments of food. Rex could see huge pools of what looked like strange brown water, which the DyVorians drank from, while their hominid counterparts drank from large metal tankards. Huge roots hung down from the ceiling and seemed to power the lights.

Rex was beginning to realize that EeNarin technology was organic rather than mechanical in nature, like it was on Earth. Where machines were constructed in factories or sterile work environments back there, they were grown here. He remembered the morning he first awoke to find DiNiya watching over him; he had had been connected to a type of plant that seemed to be feeding him its own flame, acting as a form of life support. EeNara was considerably more advanced than one would think upon first glance, for the physical aesthetic of its entire society was agrarian in nature. Still, this would not be the result of stunted technological advancement if it stemmed from a culture whose entire basis for technology was organic in nature.
Why create a rift between yourself and the natural world if every form of technological advancement was literally grown from it?
Rex thought.

Furthermore, could it also mean that he was now seeing a society that was more highly advanced than any found on Earth? It would not be hard to believe because these people were not at war with each other; any and all resources could go into the development of things to better and advance their society, rather than being slowed at every turn because time and resources were constantly being diverted to develop new means to kill one another.

Since he arrived, he had heard of no talk of communicable diseases, which meant that they could heal any form of ailment with their flames or that perhaps they had long since devised cures or vaccines to permanently inoculate themselves from any such contagions. Perhaps it was even a combination of the two, for unlike humans, SaVarians proved to be far more resilient in terms of physicality and psychology. Rex had walked away from countless situations that would have left a normal human his age broken or even dead—and this came from a time before he had the physically enhancing powers of his flame.

In addition, he found himself most often able to remove himself mentally from a difficult situation in terms of his emotions. Something that may have come across cold and detached in nature to others in fact gave him an objective point of view, thus making the logical solution clear. Still, it was the lack of this very same logical approach to life’s problems that he saw running rampant amongst humans that was ultimately what drove him towards the breaking point back on Earth—something he in no way missed.

Now he found himself standing in a room full of people of all shapes, sizes, and species, all of which were conversing as equals. “What is this place?” Rex asked, scanning as much of the cavern as he could.