The wasteland was far from often smooth beneath their feet. At times it was merely uneven, at times there were small holes, other times far from small, gaping and sunken; now and then was encountered such rubble as was left when one works was abandoned, its fire having “gone sick,” died down: timbers too tired or rotten to be moved, iron too rusted for salvage, shreds of rags worn beyond reuse even to test a dye upon. . and other stuff serving only to stumble over, had they not moved cautiously. Nowhere, indeed, did he see any such line as that one said to have been engraved upon a galley slave’s oar washed ashore somewhere in Ultima Thule or akin far-off place beyond ken, Oft was I wearied when I worked at thee, though the thought came to him that such would not be amiss here.
Toward the waning hours of each night so passed and spent, they moved their own wearied bodies to some high place or hill, whence they might spy down upon the wastes. For the most parts all was dark and dim. Sometimes they saw a glowing light, sometimes they saw one argent-pale. Iohan had known the story of the salamander, who had not? Could Iohan have been trusted to select only those in their first year? Possibly not. Therefore Vergil had counseled him — and him, to counsel others: those forest herdsmen of swine — to select, and to select only, the salamanders no bigger than his, Iohan’s, index finger. The young man was stalwart, but he had not reached his full growth yet at all (almost he seemed to be growing from day to day, to have grown a bit, perceptibly, during his absence); who could know, how could Vergil have known, how large the swineherds’ hands might be, or how long their fingers? Suppose any of them to be older or larger, either way to have fingers longer than Iohan’s? If any of them should have index fingers longer than the lad’s, say, as long as Iohan’s next finger, the so-called “digit of infamy,” well, it would still not be too long. Salamanders of such a size would still be within the proper length. So Vergil mused.
For the most part, there below, all was as dark or as dim as when they had walked across those parts, stooping, marking. But as with tired eyes they peered, in other parts, not so. Now and then Iohan gave his master a slight tap on arm or shoulder; pointed. There, then, where he gestured, would be seen some spot of light, like that of a glowworm, though less intermittent, or not at all. Sometimes they saw one golden-bright, sometimes they saw one argent-pale. Sometimes a mere single spot, and this, Vergil knew, was that of a single small salamander that had sought and found some nearby bit of warmth, signaling by its now-glowing presence some fire beneath. This he would mark in the (approximate, if not better) proper space upon the grid-worked chart. This he did regardless. Many a pickle makes a mickle. But what gave him (and Iohan) the greater satisfaction was when a number of such fiery spots was seen, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes swiftly, sometimes appearing, as ‘twere, one glowing mass of fire. . yet different, clean and clear different, from the greater blazes whence were shooting forth the subterranean fires that constituted the real riches of the Very Rich City. . or, even, merely, smoldering. For such sights meant that more than a few small salamanders had found out where a greater heat lay beneath the surface, though that heat be nowhere ordinarily observed above.
And this place, too, was marked. By night, with a certain sign in dark lead. By day, when day came, refreshed with paint of bright-red minium.
Sometimes, of course, as they had known would happen, the salamanders merely found their ways (naturally, but now, to Vergil, uselessly) to some of those many fires already visible and known and worked, and there would crawl quite fast into the glowing, roaring heart of such, there themselves to glow the selfsame fire color as the flames themselves; though from above unseen.
As for others, whenas either Iohan or Vergil or both came the following day to check, it happened more than once he or they found a trail as though left by some influorescent slug or snail; and would trace and follow, only to see the shining line disappear into the tiniest of tiny holes or the slimmest of cracks or fissures. Sometimes their feeling the ground thereat was rewarded with a feeling of fire or heat: a seal upon the chart, of a different sort than the other marks. Sometimes, of course, the temperature of the ground round about such cracks told them nothing to the touch. But the trail was there, the trail of the salamander, that creature born for fire as the frog is born for water. And they would know that some sense stronger by far than any sense of man had informed the salamander, had, as it were, beckoned it, had tempted and drawn it thither and in and down: and that, though they saw this not, they would know that somewhere in caverns below, in fires so far beneath and below the surface that the surface told no man aught, in the flaming depths of hell that lay beneath Averno those creatures reveled, awaiting their own transformation into fire and flame. These deepest places they had sought as certain fish seek the deepest pools.
But it was of the utmost importance that the salamanders being used were no older than their first year, for at that age, though their inclination toward the fire was fully developed, it was an inclination that must result in every one of them being gradually subsumed into the fire; within much less than one year would each atom of flesh be replaced by an atom of fire, and so, atom by atom, these fingerlings would, glowing, vanish into fire and flame. A salamander of the third year, however, though still provided with the same instinct, would have already passed a climacteric, visible to the eye (this climacteric) chiefly only as to the salamander’s size; prior to that the salamander “chick” would be to the true salamander as the tadpole to the true frog; only after that time would it be a true salamander: And the salamander, the true salamander, its skin by now proof against the searing flames, its inner heat transformed, contrarities clean reversed, sympathies changed into antipathies — the salamander thus transformed, in contrarity to all folk belief would not start a fire; it would by its mere presence, and weight for weight, atom for atom, put the fire out. And all this he had learned in Sidon, where he had studied fire.
And now and again on such nights, was the wind in the right quarter, or was the night quieter than most, or were they in some sound-pocket, kith to an echo chamber. . or whatever and why-ever. . they might hear the tambours beat and the cymbals clash and such other sounds and cries betimes they might hear as told them that Cadmus the King, Mad Cadmus, King of Averno and King of Fools, still danced in the mule market -
— and sometimes they would learn, by the direction of the cries and sounds of song and music, that not there alone did he dance. Not only there. At all.