The children of White-Bone Ridge have never seen a herd-boy drive sheep. They have seen me drive fire.
At dusk I climb the slope with my soul-guiding lantern and blow one note on my whistle above the burial pits. All across the hillside the ghostfires sway up into the air and fall in behind my lamp — one, two, thirty-six. I lead them on the rounds: the east gully to check the landslip, the west bluff to check the sink-pits, the mouth of the official road until the third watch — then back, lamp by lamp, each to its own bones.
People ask: does fire need herding?
It does now. It didn't once.
In the old days a ghostfire kept to its own bones, burned till its oil was spent, and went out in peace — a good death. But since the Grudge-Bone Altar rose on this ridge, fire has become a coveted commodity. The eclipse-night suction harvests exactly these lifetimes of thriftily hoarded light, and a fire on its own is the easiest to take. So now they must flock. Must be counted. Must have a lantern-bearer walking at their head — so the suction meets my big lamp first.
I was a ghostfire myself once. The remainder of a child who died young — no, don't make that face: the young leave the most fire unspent. Enough, in my case, to burn three hundred years and burn itself into this body that can carry a lantern and sound a whistle.
The old fires say I "grew a wick." A fire with a wick is no longer mere light: it can gather light. It can lead light.
My work now is half herding, half bookkeeping.
I know the origin of every lamp. Number Three is a midwife who died in childbirth — half a lifetime delivering others, and no one there who knew how to deliver her. Number Eleven is an old farmer who froze on the post-road on his way to file a grievance that was never heard. Number Twenty-Nine burns fiercest: a caravan guard executed on a false charge — his flame trembles to this day. Every night I call the roll, name by name. Fire has no voice; the way a lamp answers is to brighten, once.
Thirty-six lamps; thirty-six pulses of light a night. Only when all have answered do I dare lead them out.
Why so strict a count? Because I have lost lamps before.
The first month after the altar rose, I was careless — patrolled as usual on an eclipse night. When the suction came, the two oldest fires at the rear of the column could not grip their bones. Before my eyes they were drawn out into two thin threads of light and swallowed into the altar's mouth. I chased them to the perimeter with my lantern held high; the black gate was shut fast; and what leaked through its seam was their light — with the color changed.
Two lamps. My ledger has carried that deficit ever since.
From then on I patrol no more on eclipse nights. I gather all thirty-six around the soul-guiding lantern and wrap them in my own fire and take the suction's pull head-on. By morning my flame is a full ring thinner. So be it. The fire-herd's rule was written by me, for me:
not one lamp may go missing.
The night the medicine-basket boy's company assaulted the Grudge-Bone Altar, I made the largest decision of a fire-herd's life.
They fought hard before the altar; its black light pressed down layer on layer. I climbed the high slope with my lantern and blew the whistle louder than I have ever blown it — and all thirty-six lamps rose as one, ringed the altar's crown in a great circle, and burned to their utmost together.
Black light fears that. The hoarded light of thirty-six entire lifetimes, spent all at once — even the dark must squint.
And in the moment the altar broke, out of its collapsing mouth drifted two faint sparks — worn almost to nothing. But I knew them. How could I not.
The two from the rear of my column.
They circled my lantern three times, brightened twice — the old roll-call answer, even then — and sank back into their own bones on the slope, where they sleep still.
The ledger is balanced.
So when the boy asked whether I would come along, I set a single condition: my thirty-six must be properly entrusted. Old brother Skeleton agreed, and took my soul-guiding lantern from my hands.
Now I travel west with the company. At my belt hangs a new-made lantern, empty.
They say far more light has been taken along the west road than was ever taken from White-Bone Ridge.
Every stray spark I meet, I will gather in.
The fire-herd's ledger has turned to a new page — and the rule at the head of the page is unchanged:
not one lamp may go missing.