“First, you’re an apprentice Maker,” said Alvin. “Second, they won’t know anything about your knacks unless you go bragging on them or showing off the things you can do.”

  “Can’t do much.”

  “Next to me you’re the most powerful man in this country,” said Alvin.

  He could see how gratified Calvin was to hear him say it.

  “Study. Learn the human body, the diseases, the injuries, and practice healing people. Healing them from ten feet away, or on the other side of a wall, or the other side of a field. Without them knowing that it’s you doing it.”

  “I don’t know how you do it, Alvin.”

  “I didn’t know how to do it till I figured it out,” said Alvin.

  “I’m not you,” said Calvin miserably.

  “You’ll be glad of that after I’m gone,” said Alvin.

  “All I ever wanted was to be like you,” said Calvin.

  “You’re my brother and I love you,” said Alvin. “But never, not once in your life, have you ever wanted to be like me, except in my knacks and skills.”

  “What else is there?” asked Calvin, truly baffled.

  “The other things I’ve tried to learn. I’ve got no knack for wisdom or generosity or patience, I have to work on those things all the time and I’m still not all that skillful at them. Work on those things, too, Calvin, and you’ll have a happier life.”

  “They’ll kill me as soon as you’re gone,” said Calvin. “The leaders of this mob, they know me, they know what I can do.”

  “They have no idea what you can do,” said Alvin.

  Calvin rolled his eyes.

  “You have no idea what you can do,” said Alvin.

  “Why aren’t you angry with me?” asked Calvin. “Why don’t you hate me?”

  “You’re my brother,” said Alvin. “And it was hard being my younger brother, with gifts of your own, and all the attention was coming to me. I know how you suffered, I know how it rankled. Why would I hate you, when you always came down on my side, in the end.”

  Calvin looked away for a few moments. “You’re taking my girl with you,” he said.

  “Come now, Calvin, you’re not a child. Eliza is not and never was your girl. She’s fifteen years older than you and her domicile has been occupied by so many boarders and renters that she barely knows who’s inside her from one night to the next.”

  Calvin’s face flashed with anger. “I love her, Alvin, and I won’t have you—”

  “Speaking the truth about her? How do you think I know this? I’m not Margaret, I can’t see deep into people’s heartfires. I know what Eliza herself has told me.”

  “I mean it,” said Calvin. “I love her.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Alvin. “I also don’t doubt that once she’s over the river, and you’re back here, both of you are going to find people to love. With any luck, one each, so you can start families.”

  “If she’s pregnant, the baby’s mine,” said Calvin. “What about that? Don’t I get to know my own baby?”

  Alvin shook his head. “She’s not pregnant.”

  Calvin started leaking tears. “I wish she was.”

  “She’s old enough that there’s a fair chance she never will get pregnant, by anybody, Calvin.”

  Calvin embraced his brother and wept onto his shoulder.

  “You’re taller than I remembered,” said Alvin.

  “I was just thinking how you weren’t half as big as I thought.”

  The two of them chuckled, still in their embrace.

  The horse had been approaching for some time. From the east.

  Alvin pulled away from his brother and saw that the rider was Verily Cooper. Calvin started to walk away.

  “No,” said Alvin. “Stay.”

  Verily dismounted and took a few steps to get his legs working right after much riding.

  “Who did you meet with?” asked Alvin.

  “Cavil Planter is still humiliated and furious.”

  “He’s always been furious. He’s done so much wickedness that it eats him up all the time.”

  “Did humiliating him help?” asked Verily.

  “I didn’t tell Mike Fink what to do. Planter must know that.”

  “Planter hardly spoke, but his eyes were flashing anger and resentment at everybody.”

  “Who’s really running the show in Carthage City?”

  “Is that where you were, Verily?” asked Calvin.

  “Had to talk about terms,” said Verily. “Don’t want Alvin getting murdered on his way into town.”

  Calvin was stunned. “You’re going?” he asked. “To Carthage City?”

  “A man ought to go wherever he’s wanted,” said Alvin.

  “They want you dead,” said Calvin.

  “I have no doubt of it.”

  Verily shifted his weight. “They promised to let your people alone. Perfect safety, no interference.”

  “You believe them?”

  “I believe them, but that doesn’t mean I believe their underlings will comply with a treaty like that.”

  “Do they know we’re emigrating?” asked Alvin.

  “Nobody even hinted at it. I don’t think they know, no matter how many spies they send in.”

  “They must have seen the wagons,” said Alvin.

  “People who aren’t crossing the river make wagons, too,” said Verily.

  “Who’s running the show?” asked Alvin.

  “You know who’s running it,” said Verily.

  Alvin waited.

  “Philadelphia Thrower is the one giving orders, the one they report to, but you know who’s really running things.”

  Alvin nodded.

  “Dammit,” said Calvin. “Why did you have me stay if you aren’t going to let me know what’s going on?”

  “Reverend Thrower,” said Alvin, “believes he is the servant of a powerful angel, or maybe Christ himself, I’m not sure what lies the reverend has been told.”

  “But he’s not serving an angel, is he?” demanded Calvin.

  “God has better things for his angels to do, I hope,” said Alvin. “No, the being who has appeared to Thrower many times, urging him to kill me, to destroy all my work right down to the ground, it’s…” Alvin couldn’t, for a moment, bring himself to say it.

  “The Unmaker,” said Verily. “The enemy of all creation.”

  “The Maker is opposed by the Unmaker,” said Calvin.

  “Seems appropriate,” said Alvin.

  “And Reverend Thrower has seen this creature?” asked Calvin.

  “He’s seen whatever the Unmaker wanted him to see. He’s sure he’s on the Lord’s errand.”

  “So he’s trying to kill you innocently?” asked Calvin.

  “Such a good question,” said Alvin.

  “Not innocently,” said Verily. “He thinks he believes that the angel he sees is from God, and he’s on the Lord’s side. But in his soul, Calvin, he knows that he’s serving the father of lies.”

  “Then why doesn’t he stop?” asked Calvin.

  “He has no importance in this world,” said Verily, “except what he gets from following the Unmaker.”

  “So it’s the Unmaker directing the marauders, the assassins,” said Calvin.

  “I doubt any of them know it, except Cavil Planter. But yes, they’re all acting out the Unmaker’s plan.”

  “If he makes a plan,” said Calvin, “isn’t that a kind of making?”

  “It is,” said Alvin. “But what none of his followers know is that the Unmaker never tells his plan to anyone, because the ending of it all will be the utter destruction of all the Unmaker’s servants.”

  “You’ll defeat him?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The Unmaker’s promises are all lies, he has no loyalty, he has no gratitude, he has no honor.”

  Calvin stepped back to think about this.

  Another horse was coming, this time from the direction of Crystal City. It was John Binder and Marty Laws, plodding along on horseback.

  “Those were the best horses you could find?” asked Verily.

  “We figured Alvin would be walking, and so would we,” said John Binder. “Walking with him, we cover ground pretty nicely. And the horses are needed here to pull wagons.”

  “Neither of those beasts could even pull a plow,” said Verily.

  “You and Alvin are the ones who know about plows,” said Marty. “Or so I’ve heard.”

  “And there’s a difference,” said John Binder, “between pulling a wagon over the ground and pulling a plow through it. These horses will do their work well enough.”

  “They will,” said Alvin. And he knew that they all knew that if the horses had anything wrong with them, Alvin had just healed them and made sure it was well done.

  Out of the nearby house came its owner, on foot, with children draped all over him, or so it seemed. Measure’s wife Delphi came out and scolded the children mildly back into the house. She embraced Measure and kissed him and he swung her around in the air twice and set her down on the porch of their house.

  “So Measure is coming too?” asked Verily.

  “He’s coming with me, yes,” said Alvin. “But you have work to do here, and I want you to stay and see to it.”

  “If everybody else is going,” said Calvin, “what work does Mr. Cooper have here?”

  “He’s got the deed to every piece of ground in Crystal City that hasn’t already been sold or traded, and he’s going to make sure that every deed is properly recorded in the capital.”

  “So we’re coming back?” asked John Binder.

  “I imagine that someday this land will be worth something,” said Alvin.

  “With the Crystal City sitting on it?” said John Binder. “It’s a wonder of the world.”

  It was Verily who explained. “The Crystal City is coming down. It’ll be kind of a flood, as it all turns to ordinary water and flows away.”

  “So … nothing where it was but a slurry of mud,” said Calvin.

  “All the crystal blocks I made,” said Alvin. “I think you know how to undo them.”

  Calvin protested. “I don’t even know how to make them properly, let alone unmake them.”

  “You’ll figure out how to unmake mine, and you’ll figure out how to break up your own. Unless you think our enemies should find a few dozen crystal blocks lying about.”

  “I’ll break mine first,” said Calvin.

  “So Calvin’s staying,” said Verily, “with an important and difficult job to do. And I’m supposed to protect the knackles’ property rights here, if I can.”

  “If you can,” said Alvin.

  Verily waited. Then said, “You’re taking Measure with you.”

  “Yes,” said Measure.

  “And John Binder,” said Verily.

  “He couldn’t stop me if he tried,” said John Binder.

  “If he asked you to stay, you would,” said Verily. “And Marty?”

  “I’m not here just because I’m so pretty,” said Marty Laws.

  “So you will have a lawyer with you,” said Verily.

  “Somebody’s got to speak up to the judge in Carthage City.”

  That’s when they heard a kind of rushing sound, and then saw Arthur Stuart just emerging from the woods on the other side of the road, slowing down. Alvin was pleased to know that Arthur Stuart could hear the Greensong well enough to have such speed.

  Alvin held out his hand to Arthur Stuart, who took it, then tried to throw Alvin to the ground. He succeeded, but ended up sitting on his buttocks in the road himself. The two sat in the dirt of the road, laughing.

  “I want to go with you,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “You’ve got work to do,” said Alvin.

  “I don’t want to do that work. I’ve been all over this continent with you, Alvin. Why are you going to shut me out now?”

  Measure helped Arthur to his feet, while Verily did the same for Alvin. “Arthur Stuart,” said Measure, “you know that you have a role to play.”

  “It’s not a play,” said Arthur. “It’s real life.”

  “And in real life, you should have all the people and wagons across the river before we get back,” said Measure.

  Arthur Stuart looked as if he wanted to say something—something angry. But he calmed himself. “There’s no changing your mind on this, Alvin Maker, you fool.”

  “You’re the keeper of Taleswapper’s book now,” said Alvin. “You can’t come with me.”

  Tears were streaming down Arthur’s face. “Will I ever see you again, Alvin?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Alvin, “but I can’t think why not. Meanwhile, you have my greatest work in your hands.”

  Arthur Stuart looked puzzled.

  “Crystal City,” said Alvin. “The people are the city, not the crystal blocks. I’m giving over my city to you. Protect the people, hold them together.”

  “Holding them together is John Binder’s job!” said Arthur Stuart.

  “Usually it is,” said John Binder, “but Alvin asked me to go with him.”

  “You and not me,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “Arthur,” said Alvin, “seeing as how you know the way back to Margaret’s house, would you be so kind as to take Calvin by the secret way back to the Crystal tower. He has work to do there.” And then, to Calvin, “When you dissolve the blocks, make the water flow off to the south instead of going right to the river. The last thing we need is for the approaches to the river to be a sea of mud, to mire all the wheels.”

  Calvin nodded gravely.

  “Measure,” said Alvin, “would you take these horses down to your house and ask your wife to watch over them till somebody comes from the city to bring them back.”

  Measure immediately and wordlessly took the horses’ leads and showed them the way down to the house, where he loosely tied them to the porch railing.

  Alvin looked at Calvin and then at Arthur. Arthur Stuart held out his hand, and Calvin took it. “You know how to hear the Greensong, don’t you,” said Calvin.

  Arthur nodded.

  “I’ve tried,” said Calvin.

  “Maybe this time you will,” said Arthur. Then the two of them, holding hands, jogged off into the woods, speeding up as they went.

  “I wish you hadn’t taken my horse, Alvin,” said Verily. “I’ve got a lot of riding to do, getting up to the capital.”

  “I know,” said Alvin, “but Margaret is already planning for you to take the buggy. She can’t drive it anymore, and you’ll want to ride with a roof to keep off the rain.”

  Verily smiled. “I should have known that you’d prepare things right.”

  “I know you, Verily,” said Alvin. “You’d always rather drive than walk or run or ride.”

  “I’ll cut a wider swath in the capital if I come in a buggy,” Verily said. “You chose right.”

  Measure walked up from the house. “Well, Alvin, I figured, why wait for somebody from the city, when Verily here can ride his horse and lead the other two.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” said Alvin.

  Verily grinned. “Which is your way of saying, that’s what you were planning all along.”

  “I’m not good at making plans,” said Alvin. “That’s why I try not to make any.”

  In a few minutes, Verily was down at the porch, untying the horses. He mounted his own, and began to move his little equine parade out to the road, about fifty yards closer to the city than the men surrounding Alvin.

  “Four of us?” asked Marty Laws. “Is that enough?”

  “It’s more than they’ll want me to have,” said Alvin.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” said Marty.

  “I don’t know what ‘enough’ would even mean,” said Alvin. “I know that I want the four of us to go to Carthage City together. And you seemed willing to go.”

  Alvin didn’t have to join hands with anybody. He led the way, and Measure brought up the rear, and between the two brothers, the other two were swept up in the Greensong and in a few moments they ran like the wind, without the forest or farmland causing them any delay or difficulty. In Ireland, Alvin had learned to find the Greensong in farms and fields, not just in woodland, and so despite the cut-down trees and single-crop fields, the land was still alive enough to carry them along.

  They were halfway to Carthage, Alvin reckoned, when he called a stop to void their bladders and get a drink.

  As they were reassembling into their single file, Measure asked, “I reckon you already said goodbye to Margaret.”

  “When she told me where to rendezvous with everybody, with Verily especially, we said our goodbyes then. And little Vigor, too. Though he’s not so very little anymore.”

  “It’s a hard thing to say goodbye to children,” said Measure.

  “It’s easier to say goodbye when you’re leaving them at home with their mother, than when you’re standing over their grave,” said Alvin.

  “I didn’t forget your daughter, Alvin,” said Measure.

  “Neither did I, and never will,” said Alvin. “I wasn’t rebuking you. I was just thinking on all the loved ones I’m leaving behind here.”

  “Well, if I’m on your list of loved ones,” said Measure, “I’ll be right behind you all the way.”

  And soon the four of them were running through the forest, the Greensong giving them the rhythm and music of their path. Alvin wondered if this was his last journey with the Greensong. Then he silently mocked himself for sentimentality. If it was, it was. If there’d be more, then there’d be more. Nothing he did right now would make any difference. So he emptied his mind except for the Greensong, and led them even faster through the forest.

  34

  ALVIN AND HIS companions emerged from the forest and the Greensong in farmland north of Carthage City. Alvin had made it a point to pass the city first, so that they would be coming in from the northeast, not at all the direction they would be expected to arrive. Not that he thought they would not be noticed, but he wanted them to be surprised, discommoded, maybe even confused.

  The four of them walked into town on a well-used and heavily trafficked road, so that lots of people saw them. Nobody challenged them, though—why should they? It was not threatening to have four strangers heading into the biggest city on the Hio. There must be a thousand people a day, from every direction, even across the river, coming to Carthage for some business or other. Shopping. Looking for work. Aiming to steal or defraud. Seeking vengeance or looking for love. That’s what cities were for, to attract people to live together in close proximity, where there were more opportunities for good or ill.