Great fires run over Rage scorching the woods and prairies. Firefighters try to protect the towns. Beneath helmets, sweat and smoke stings their eyes.
In the center of Rage, stands a great knotted, scorch-marked tree filled with magical forces. Malgunder has withstood many fires. Ragians worship Malgunder. They encircle it chanting and pounding the tree god with their fists.
Everything comes undone in the fire. Fires take half-built coliseums. Farmers dig charred potatoes out of the burnt fields beneath screaming, darting, frenzied crows.
Pained, the barren patch at the center of Rage, does not burn. Lava bubbles in the capitol.
Ragians wear heat-proof thigh-high silver boots when they come to Pained. They chant and kneel in the lava. Visitors come to join the wailing.
“They think it will reduce their pain, the wailing,” says the Guide. “But pain goes on and on. If they stay too long they become monstrous lava monks.”
The monks live for the moments when the burn recedes.
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