It wasn't quite accurate to say that he'd never been interested in the Fire Festival. Before Fakir and Mytho had entered the Academy, Charon and then Raetsel had taken them, the white- haired, vague foundling on one side and the blacksmith's adopted son on the other. Long before that, there was a very early memory: swinging between his parents as he held their hands, moving among the dancers' legs, eating a pastry the likes of which he hadn't tasted since.
He hadn't done more than wander around its fringes since starting school. It was noisy and crowded, and although Mytho enjoyed it as much as he could enjoy anything, noisy crowds made keeping track of him just that much harder. Raetsel wasn't around any more by then; instead there was Rue and he'd never trusted her with Mytho.
He had to wear stupid costumes for ballet performances anyway. Fakir had no intention of dressing up unnecessarily just for a bonfire.
They'd go, of course. Duck had missed her chance the year that she'd been a girl. Even if she couldn't dance anymore, even if he had to carry her, he'd make sure she enjoyed herself.
Just now, though, he had a few hours. He reached out, touched the stone...
... And heard a memory. He focused on it. Soon came images as well, feelings, sounds, and the words that a Spinner had spoken to the Oak, long before. Someone else had been thinking of the Fire Festival...
...The young Count of Goldkrone leaned back against the Oak, to all appearances doing no more than resting in the shade on a hot midsummer's day as the town beyond readied itself for the Festival of St. John. He was prepared for the night; the prize was in his purse, ready to award to the couple whose dance pleased the crowd best.
For a few moments, the Count wondered about the festival itself. Similar events would be held that night in villages and towns all over; if one climbed to the wooden church spire and looked out over the new walls a-building, three other such fires would be visible, barring mist. He knew, after many years of communing with the Oak, that the Festival must be far older than St. John; he knew that the couple who won for their dancing would have been married that very night, not so long ago– at least as the Oak measured time. There were echoes too, of a darker time, before Rome had come and built the round settlement near the Danube. If he opened his eyes the proof surrounded him, the few standing stones that the Church hadn't yet thought to pull down. It had only been a few years since the poorest peasants had built against them, using them as walls for huts or sties, disguising them. And now he was master here, times were better and he'd been generous to the landholder and the peasants he'd moved out. He thought he'd like to keep the stones as they were.
He never forgot one flash of memory, the feel of a weight around his neck, rigid gold with knobs on the ends. Just after he'd bought this patch of land with its Oak and its standing stones, along with the large house adjacent where he lived when in town, he'd kicked and brushed enough dirt aside to level a stone. Before he could replace the stone and steady the bench it propped up, the glint of metal caught his eye. He had dug out the golden torc with his hands, realizing that he had found the Golden Crown that gave the town its name. No one knew; the Count hadn't had a servant with him. One of the knobs had been missing altogether, along with a few inches of the body. The other knob had been less than a handspan away. It was round and hollow, still heavy, and definitely gold.
He'd wondered. People had lived here, children had played here, and no one had seen this, tucked in a crevice between roots? Or had the Oak something to do with the discovery?
The knob was in his purse. He'd award it at the Festival and then redeem it before they could get a good look at it. He could call it an apple, a Golden Apple, the sort that appeared in the stories about Hercules or Atalanta that his tutor had told him. Perhaps next year he should get a proper one made, maybe gilded brass, and keep this one safe...
It had happened before, this sort of vision, seeing into another Spinner's mind. Fakir knew that, should another Spinner touch this stone, what the Oak remembered of his own mind could be found and studied in the same manner.
But for now, the vision had faded. Those few moments of recollection had cost nearly an hour of real time, and there was Duck, head cocked to one side, quacking softly as he shed the last fragments of the torpor that accompanied his forays into the Oak.
He told her his vision as they went, his mind nibbling at a few puzzles. Perhaps he could look up the name of the Count who first awarded a Golden Apple. The house beside the Oak was about the same, but had centuries to go before it was the Museum Fakir knew. The walls– yes. The walls as they were now were being built, only one gate tower completed. That much he could look up.
Duck liked it. Fakir decided. He'd do some research; not strictly necessary for the historical fiction that a publisher would assume the story was, but if he could back it up with facts, he'd be happier. He'd put it down on paper and try to get it in print, the parts of it that didn't deal with the Oak and story- spinning, anyway.
Well. Maybe Duck would like it if he raided the school's wardrobe for a costume, too.