In a fit of rage, Ramaral hit the ceiling of his underground dwelling with his enormous fist. The aboveground world went shaking all throughout. Rocks and mountains crushed down, plains and plateaus covered in cracks and holes, rivers turned into boiling torrents.
Chosen-One lay flat in the middle of the bushland, waiting for the catastrophe to cease. He witnessed a tall standing rock fall down in a cloud of dust, its debris spreading across the field. Astounded at the power of the phenomenon he endured, he lay in the brush motionless long after the earthquake ceased, afraid to even look up. For a whole day he lay like that. Eventually, his stomach drove him up—he needed something to eat. He rose and saw a pillar of smoke near the fallen rock.
Chosen-One went closer. In a gully beside the base of the fallen rock, a fire burned, and beside that fire sat Cat. Chosen-One was amazed at the sight of the fire that came seemingly from nowhere. In his Valley, people hunted fire the same way as they hunted everything else. It’s a capricious creature, one that is not easy to capture and even less easy to find. Yet here it was, quiet and obedient, burning at the paws of the spotted feline creature.
“Be well, spotty one!” he said, sitting opposite the fire. “Tell me, how did you catch this fire?”
Cat looked up from the fire and studied the newcomer. A grin spread across her face.
“I didn’t have to catch it. It lives along with me,” she said, gently touching a sack on her belt.
“Along with you? And it doesn’t hurt you, doesn’t burn you, doesn’t damage anything beside it?”
“It’s obedient as an innocent child,” Cat said and touched her sack again.
“But how did you manage that? In my valley, we have to hunt it like other animals. We spend moons and moons looking for it around the valley, and when we find it, we spend days and nights watching it, else it escapes and we have to go looking again. What is your secret?”
Cat grinned again, but this time did it playfully, like a girl at the time of spring.
“You wanna know my secret?”
“Very much!”
“I will share it with you—if you get something for me! Do you know how to steal things?”
“Of course I know how to steal things!” Chosen-One said. “You taught Found-in-the-Dell how to do it, and he taught this art to his children, and his children taught it to their children. We’ve known how to steal for twelve generations.”
“Then this should be easy for you. You see, there is a thing called the crystal of the sky. I used to have it but lost it, and now Fat Lu has it and doesn’t want to give it back. Fat Lu lives in the Round Valley, east of the Small Mountain, behind the Long Hills. Go there and steal the crystal, and bring it to me. For this, I will thank you with my secret.”
“And what’s this crystal of the sky? What’s it good for?” Chosen-One asked. He tried to get closer to Cat, but Cat stood on her four and moved away, keeping the fire in between them.
“Not that you should know it,” she said. “But if you want to know so much, I’ll tell you—when you bring me the crystal.”
So, Chosen-One went to the Round Valley, east of the Small Mountain, behind the Long Hills. It was a perfectly round valley as if a giant grabbed a handful of earth and threw it away. It was empty, and in the middle of it sat Fat Lu. To his right, there was a rack with drying meat, and on the left, a wild dog lay asleep. Right in front of him lay his belly—huge and folded. His head had eyes on all four sides—Fat Lu could see everything everywhere.
Chosen-One thought for a little about his options. Sneaking up to him was out of the question—Fat Lu would see him. Taking the crystal and leaving was not an option because Chosen-One did not know where the crystal was. Forcing Fat Lu down and making him give away the crystal was impossible—he was bigger and stronger. Well, I’ll have to devise the fourth way of theft, Chosen-One thought, I’ll make him give it to me by himself.
Thus Chosen-One decided and confidently trod down the slope.
“Be well, fat one!” he shouted to the creature when he got close. Fat Lu glared at him with all four pairs of his eyes.
“What do you need, thief?” he asked.
Chosen-One stopped, baffled.
“Thief? Insulting! I’m not a thief, I’m a passerby, a guest. I’m here... to have some of your meat that you’re about to share. You will share your meat with me. Won’t you?”
Fat Lu snickered.
“No one ‘passes by’ through this valley. One comes here at will. One comes here for two and only two purposes: to kill me, or to steal from me. You’re too meek to want to kill me, so you’re here to steal from me. There are two and only two things you’d want to steal from me: my meat or my crystal. By the look of your teeth, you don’t eat dried meat, so you’re here to steal my crystal. Now,” Fat Lu grabbed a sharpened stick that lay by his thigh and leaned on it. “There are two things, and only two, which can happen next. Either you wipe that smirk off your face and roll out of here into the sunset where you came from, or I kill you and add your meat to this rack for drying. You choose!”
Chosen-One removed the smile from his face, looked around him, and swallowed his drool. “Awright,” he began. “You win. I’m here because of your crystal, true.” He stopped to swallow another lump and suddenly began sobbing. He fell to his knees, face covered with hands. “But please, o big one! Cat has taken my spirit. She threatens to give it away to Ka and leave this body of mine lifeless. She threatens to eat my body next and spread the bones across the savanna. She says my bones will be gnawed by vultures and jackals and chewed up by pigs and dogs. There will be nothing left of me, not a single piece, if I don’t bring the crystal to her! Please, o please, big one, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
The wild dog on the left of Fat Lu woke up and stared at the weeping man. Fat Lu looked at Chosen-One with four pairs of his eyes, then thoughtfully stared at the horizon. “Cruel situation,” he said with a sigh. “How would I help you, though? This crystal is mine, you see, and I need it.”
Chosen-One wiped away his crocodile tears and said.
“We can do it slyly! How about this: you give me the crystal—temporarily. I bring it to Cat, make her happy, get my spirit back. Then, when she becomes careless, I steal it from her and bring it back to you. As a thank you, I will do you a favor—any favor you ask!”
Fat Lu stroked his chin, all eight of his eyes closed. The wild dog on his left scratched behind its ear and glared at Chosen-One, its eyes shining with red.
“You’ll do me any favor I wish?” Fat Lu asked.
“Anything you want!”
“Well, then,” Fat Lu reached in between the folds on his stomach and pulled out the sрiny crystal of the sky. He held it out to Chosen-One and Chosen-One carefully took it. Chosen-One studied the thing: cold and heavy it lay in his palm, the size of his two fists, with a smooth and bumpy surface the color of wet coal. Pure-yellow, clear drops of crystals were ingrown all over its surface. It was tough—tougher than anything that Chosen-One had held before, more beautiful than anything one could imagine.
“Do it quickly and return soon,” Fat Lu urged, “Because this crystal is mine, you see, and I need it.”
“Sure thing, fat one, I will be quick!” Chosen-One said, putting the crystal in a sack and running out of the valley as fast as possible. “I’ll return soon!” he shouted. “I promise to return!” he cried from the edge of the valley and disappeared from Fat Lu’s sight.
“Yes, you be quick. Watch your step!” Fat Lu cried in response and then said to the wild dog, “Follow this monkey”.
***
Chosen-One returned to Cat.
“Do you have it?” Cat asked, and Chosen-One said,
“Of course!” and gave Cat the sack. Cat grabbed the sack and touched it, feeling a heavy thing inside. Her face once again spread in a malicious grin.
“Well, spotty one,” Chosen-One said, “you have the thing. Now, will you tell me the secret, what’s it good for and how to work it? And also another secret—how to own the fire the way you own it?”
Cat put down the sack and said,
“You know, boy... it looks like Found-in-the-Dell didn’t teach his offspring well, did he?”
She let out her claws and flashed her fangs. With her eyes dead set on the human, she stood on her four, her rear high up wiggling left and right. “Because the most important rule of any thief is not to trust another thief!”
She jumped but missed and tumbled in the dirt, as Chosen-One stepped aside and took his fighting stance, his spear in front of him.
“Joke’s on you, predator!” he said. “I know the fourth rule. Found-in-the-Dell taught his children, and his children taught their children. We are the people of teaching and we teach each other well!”
Cat jumped back up on her four paws, eyes on the hunter, her rage overspilling. With not a word but a growl, she charged at him. Chosen-One fended off her attacks with his spear: she leaped on him, he pushed her off. She tried to bite him—he cut her face. She tried to scratch him with her claws—he cut her fingers. She made one last charge, and Chosen-One stepped aside and cut the sack off her belt. Cat rolled away and lay in the dirt, hurt and wounded; Chosen-One picked up the sack and quickly escaped the Cat’s gully.
He fouled his trails as best as he could to escape Cat and went to the secret place under a tree where he hid the crystal of the sky. He dug it up and cleaned it of dirt; the thing shone with a matte sheen in the evening sunlight, its crystal drops sparkling greenish-yellow. Chosen-One tried to hit it with a rock—the rock only broke into splinters, and the crystal gave off a quiet ringing tone, not even a scratch on its surface. Unsure what to do with it and how to even work this thing, he put it aside and reached into the sack he had stolen from Cat. There were two rocks in it—two flintstones. Chosen-One studied them from all sides, weighted them, turned them around, tossed them up and down. He couldn’t understand what to do with them and how it all related to fire. Almost disappointed, he struck the two rocks on each other, and lo! A spark flew out and ignited the dry grass at his feet. Chosen-One tried again—another spark flew out. These two rocks were the home to fire—the fire was now along him! Excited, he put all his new acquirings into the sack and went off into the plains, towards the setting sun.
Thus, Chosen-One acquired the means of making fire, the crystal of the sky, and also a new enemy. As for Cat—she growled and screamed for a long time when she found out that both her fiery flintstones were gone and the sack Chosen-One had given her had nothing but a simple sandstone. And ever since then, she couldn’t make fires anymore and stayed away from humans.
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