Phoenix Without Ashes by Harlan Ellison, Edward Bryant Page B

fellows who had been orphaned. Perhaps they feared the same fate, and, fearing turned on the source of that alarm.
     
    Six of them had cornered Devon in a glade beside the small lake called Temperance. Not yet ten cycles old, he had looked warily from one to another of the older boys. He said, “What do you want?”
    Young Goodman laughed nastily and said, “Just your garments, Devon.”
    Devon looked puzzled.
    Esau, a thin, cross-eyed child, said, “The Elders have directed us to clean Master Silas’s school and we need your clothing for rags.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Devon. “Why—”
    Without warning, Goodman struck him in the face.
    Though surprised, Devon struck back automatically, hitting Goodman in the throat. All the other boys save Esau rushed into the fray.
    “Bastard!” cried Esau from the sideline. “In naked shame we’ll send you to the women.”
    Goodman had grappled with Devon. Breath ratcheted from the older boy’s mouth. He echoed Esau, “Bastard.”
    Superior size and age finally prevailed: four of the boys held Devon’s limbs to the ground. Goodman and Esau stood back from the spreadeagled figure. Goodman still found it difficult to breathe, much less speak. “Beg for—” The words garbled as he choked. “—fatherless—”
    Esau roughly jerked loose Devon’s belt and pulled his overalls down around his knees. Devon struggled but his captors held fast. “You’re the bastards,” he said. Goodman drew his foot back to kick. Then he was knocked sprawling.
    “Garth!” Esau cried. Even at the age of ten cycles, Young Garth was fearless. Large for his age, he knocked the boys aside as though they were wheat going down before the scythe. After they got up, they joined Esau and fled.
    Without allies, Goodman had no stomach to fight further. He took a tentative step toward Garth; then, thinking better of it, he wordlessly turned and ran away. Garth helped Devon to his feet.
    “I thank you,” said Devon, “but why did you help? This wasn’t your fight.”
    “Six of them,” said Garth. “It was not right.” He looked embarrassed.
    Devon gingerly touched his own nose, checking for blood. “They called me a bastard.” He looked belligerently at Garth. “I had a father and a mother.”
    “Yes,” said Garth. “I know. I liked them.”
    The two boys silently walked along the shore of the lake Temperance. Then Garth said, “I’m on my way to prayers.” Devon said nothing. “Will you walk with me to the town?”
    After that afternoon they remained friends.
     
    And now, is this right? said Devon silently. He stood up and walked toward the shed.
    His back to the wide doorway, Garth turned the glowing horseshoe over in the flame. He pulled it from the jet, examined it critically, then set it on the anvil. With his other hand he picked up the three-kilo iron hammer.
    Devon paused in the shadow of the entrance, listening to the clang of metal against metal, seeing the orange sparks fan out with each blow. He was struck by the power and rhythm of the smith; it was a steady, reassuring song.
    Clang!
    Devon stepped through the doorway. At the sound of hard sod-boot heels on the threshold, Garth looked around.
    Clang!
    The rhythm faltered only slightly. Garth turned back to the anvil. Again the hammer swung in its arc.
    Clang!
    “Garth.”
    Clang! There was no response.
    Devon said, “I’m sorry. I had to do it.”
    Clang! Garth looked up. With a flash of annoyance. Still he said nothing and returned to hammering with even greater vehemence.
    Devon moved around the anvil where Garth could not avoid seeing him. “Try to understand. It doesn’t have to be the way the Elders say it is. If you loved Rachel, or she loved you, I would never have spoken.”
    Clang!
    “Garth...”
    Garth stopped. He stood with red-hot shoe in tongs in one hand and hammer in the other. For a moment, Devon thought Garth would hurl one or both at him. Then Garth turned and quenched the shoe in the