Firedance: Words that Burn A searing selection of short stories from the circle of Firedance authors. The child, the girl, slowly rose up out of the water, then turned away, laughing, and skipped and danced over the path of fire towards the setting sun. My kind, the Fire Dancers, we make the machines work. We harvest the sun for energy. The star had been growing closer to the atmosphere. The forests burned with fire that ran across the ground like sunlight at daybreak. It was a ragged, wild dance that left the land exhausted. Fire danced amongst the rebels. Horses bolted, their manes, their tails afire, liquid flame dripping upon the grass. As he watched, she whirled, like a dervish, faster and faster until she burst into a fireball. The painting I found most striking is one that he calls 'The Fire Dance, ' or 'Upa 'upa in the native Tahitian language. Fire-starting was something of a talent, perhaps his only one. 'My land in this realm is fraught with tension, fire and instability; I dare not leave.' 'Why do you call that dog Firedance, not Henry?' Three ragged children gyrate to rhythms that none can hear to make the fire, the animating fire. 'Ya gotta learn a lesson kid: you mess with me, and you're messing with fire.'