Fire and Water

The boys who hated Orem most were Cressam and Morram and Hob. They had not ruled before Orem came, but because of their ruthless torture of the younger boys they had been valuable enforcers for the smarter boys who did rule. Now they had no role at all within the House of God: they were fools at their schoolwork and none of the boys' games rewarded cruelty and ruthlessness.

So they plotted Orem's death, partly for lack of anything else to do, and when they had settled on a plan, they practiced until they were sure they could bring it off quickly and unnoticed.

It was the day the offerings of hay came in. Orem stood with the other boys watching the stack grow higher and broader as the farmers brought their gifts to the House of God. Orem hoped to see his father, though he knew the chance was small that his own family would draw the lot to bring the village tithe.

Suddenly Orem found himself gripped by many hands and thrust under the hay. He writhed and twisted, but he was not in water, and they had practiced well. Orem did turn enough to see that Cressam held a torch. Then the hay fell down to cover him. He saw the whole plan at once. Cressam would stumble. The torch would fall. They would count the boys when the fire was out and only then discover Orem wasn't there. If any of the other boys saw it, they would not dare to tell; if Cressam and Morram and Hob had murdered once, they would not fear to do it twice.

So he did not try to leap forward out of the hay, where the flames would first erupt. Instead he plunged backward, burrowed deep into the stack. Behind him he heard the sudden roar, the shout of Fire. He could not see the flame, but he could hear it, and the heat and smoke came quickly. He did not have to think. His arms knew to burrow deeper into the hay, his feet knew to kick down hay behind him so the smoke would not be funneled in to where he meant to hide.

It was black as a sow's womb inside the hay, and because his eyes could not see, his mind did: remembered vividly the haystack fires that he had seen before. It never took more than a few seconds for the fire to reach all the way around, and only a minute or two for the flames to die down. Within the haystack there was always an unburnt core, a place where the flames could not reach. That was his hope.

But he also remembered raking through such a fire once, and he found the corpse of a mouse in the unburnt portion. There was no mark upon it, not a hair was singed, but he was still dead, eyes staring wide. Fire or not, the heat or the smoke had killed to the center of the stack, and Orem wondered what form his death would take and how much it would hurt.

Then came the only miracle of his childhood. The haystack had been built upon firm, dry ground, but now his hand reached forward for support and found none. He slid and splashed into a pool of water that could not have been there. He had presence of mind enough to take one sharp, deep breath as he went under; then he let himself drift downward, downward in the water, not moving, trying only to remember up and down, and to estimate how long till the fire was out.

Suddenly there was ground under his feet and he stood. When his head broke the surface of the water it was not into a nest of hay. It was ash that floated on the surface of the water, ash that covered his face. He breathed and it was hot and smoky in his lungs, but it was air. Then the pain of the heat and smoke in his lungs hit him, and he fell back into the water. Surely he would die, he thought, but he had scarcely splashed when strong hands took him, lifted him out, pressed his lungs.

Large male lips closed over his mouth to breathe life into him, but Orem pushed the priest away. "I'm all right," he said.

The priests looked at him in awe, and Prester Enzinn said what they all thought. "We drained this marsh a century ago, and just for you the water came up again and made a spring under the stack.

God must love you, Orem. You are not meant to die."

From then on the priests and the other boys knew that Orem was protected, and they raised no hand against him.

In his learning he excelled. His hand was so fine they took him from the scribal class and set him to making manuscripts at the age of twelve. They let him do a new transcription of the prophecies of Prester Cork, and when he finished it they commended him for discovering seven new and hidden meanings in the rhymes and the diagonals. But whenever their praise tempted Orem to be proud, to speak boldly with the other boys, or to presume a friendship with a priest, he felt himself slip helplessly forward into a pool of water, felt his lungs wrench at him in a desperate plea for air, and he could not speak.

So the years passed in the House of God in Banningside, until the day his true father found him.

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