Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

In answer, she placed her hands in his. And there, sitting in the parlor, with all the noise of the business of camp outside, and some of it inside, too, as people bounded in from time to time, demanding a decision from La Tia or Rien, Alvin set to work changing her inside.

Arthur Stuart tried to follow along, and this time Alvin was moving slowly and methodically. Almost as if he were trying to make it clear for Arthur-and maybe he was. But always the most important details seemed to elude him. He'd see what Alvin was looking at, and he'd feel how he was seeking out the boundary between good flesh and bad. But how Alvin knew when he had it right, that's what Arthur Stuart just couldn't fathom.

But some things he could see. How, when Alvin broke down the sick flesh, he made it dissolve into the blood to be carried away. How he made sure to connect everything up inside when the cancerous parts were gone. How he left her strong.

"I feel sick," she murmured.

"But not in pain," Alvin whispered back.

"No, no pain."

"I'm almost done. Your body is helping me find all the wrong places. I couldn't do it without your own body's help. You know how to heal yourself, not in your mind, but in the flesh and bone and blood. It just needed a little ... direction. You see? There's no miracle here. My knack is no more than finding what your body already wants to do but can't figure out for itself, and . .. showing the way."

"I don't understand," she said.

"The sick feeling will pass when the last of it comes out of you at stool," he said. "By morning at the latest. Maybe sooner."

"But I won't die?"

"Can't you feel it?" said Alvin softly. "Can't you feel how right things are inside you now?"

She shook her head. "The pain's gone, that's all."

"Well, that's something, ain't it?" said Alvin.

She began to weep.

At once Roy rushed to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and looked in anger at Alvin and Arthur Stuart. "She never cries! You made her cry!"

"She's crying in relief," said Arthur Stuart.

"No she's not," said Alvin.

"You hurt her!" said Roy.

"She's crying because she's afraid." He looked to Mistress Cottoner. "What are you afraid of, ma'am?"

"I'm afraid that when you go, it'll come back."

"I can't promise you it won't," said Alvin. "But I don't think it will. But if it ever does, you send me a letter. Send it to Alvin the Miller's son, at Vigor Church in the state of Wobbish."

"You can't come back here," she said.

"Damn right he can't," said Roy. "I'll be bigger then, and I'll kill him!"

"No you won't," said Mistress Cottoner.

"Will so. Stealing all our slaves! Don't you see, Mother? We'll be poor!"

"We still have the land," said his mother. "And you still have your mother. Isn't that worth something to you?"

Her steady gaze must have said something to the boy that Arthur Stuart just didn't understand, because the boy burst into tears and ran from the room.

"He's young," she said.

"We've all been guilty of that sin," said Alvin. "And some never get over it."

"Not me," she said. "I was never young."

Arthur Stuart reckoned there was a whole story behind that, but he didn't know what it was. If his big sister Peggy had been there, she would've knowed, and maybe she could have told him later. Or if Taleswapper had ever been here and learned her story and wrote it in his book, then maybe he'd understand. As it was, though, he could only guess what she meant when she said she was never young.

Or what Alvin meant when he answered her, "You're young now."

"For a few hours, maybe," she said.

Alvin opened his hands to let hers go. But she moved quickly and caught him by the wrists. "Oh, please," she said. "Not yet."

So he sat there a while longer and held her hands in his.

Arthur Stuart couldn't watch it for long. There was no healing going on now. Alvin wasn't doing a blame thing with his knack. He was just holding hands with a woman who looked at him like he was God or a long-lost brother or something. It made Arthur Stuart feel like something was wrong. Like his adopted sister, Peggy, was somehow being betrayed by this. Those aren't your hands to hold, Ruth Cottoner, he wanted to say.

But he said nothing, and went outside, and saw how La Tia was quietly making decisions and keeping things moving without raising her voice. She even laughed sometimes, and got smiles and laughs from those who came to her.

She saw him, and called to him. "Come here, you!" she said. "I don't got enough Spanish to understand this man!"

So Arthur Stuart got back into the business of camp, and left Alvin alone in the house with a woman who was half in love with him. Well, why shouldn't she be? He just saved her life. He just looked inside her body and saw what was wrong and fixed it up. You have to love somebody who does that, don't you?

It was no riverboat they boarded for the Mexico expedition. Steve Austin must have found somebody with mighty deep pockets, because what they had was a three-masted lateen-rigged schooner, good for the coastal trade, and with oar ports like a galley ship because the Gulf of Mexico was so often calm. There were full blown cannon on this ship, and field-pieces to take ashore when they got there. Artillery, by damn!

Calvin's respect grew for Sieve Austin's ability to get things done. Naturally, there were plenty of people willing to put up money to conquer Mexico-if they believed the expedition could actually succeed. And since there was almost no chance that it would-not with just one ship and a hundred or so minimally obedient "soldiers"-the fact that he got so much money behind this project meant that Steve Austin knew how to sell.

That's something I need to learn, thought Calvin. I'll watch this man and learn how he persuades people to invest money in insane projects. That would be a useful knack to have.

The ship turned in the river with the help of a couple of lines still attached to shore, so there'd be no chance of it getting out into the perpetual fog on the far bank and being lost. Then they cast free and began the long, stately voyage to the Mizzippy's mouth.

Not far below Barcy, the fog on the right bank thinned and well before they reached the open sea the fog was gone. That was interesting. The fog must not be attached to the river, it must be attached to the boundary of the land that Tenskwa-Tawa intended to protect. Which made Calvin wonder if there was fog along the coast, too, and fog between the Mexica lands and the lands that Tenskwa-Tawa had taken under his protection.

Or was Tenskwa-Tawa somehow allied with the Mexica? Did Tenskwa-Tawa maybe do some of this human sacrificing, too? And if he does, does Alvin know about it? What an interesting thought. All this high-mindedness about opposing slavery and trying to prevent a bloody war, and all the time he's best friends with a red prophet who chums up with the heart-ripping savages of Mexico.

Not that Calvin didn't know it all along. Alvin pretended to be virtuous and only use his power for "good," but he didn't know what "good" was any more than Calvin did or anyone else. Whatever story he believed in, whatever "us" he was protecting against "them," Alvin had to think that whatever he was doing was noble, but it wasn't. It never was. Alvin was just like everybody else, doing what he wanted that he thought he could get away with, using whatever power came to hand, and stepping on whoever got in his way.

At least Calvin knew that about himself. Didn't have any illusions.

He looked out over the sun-shimmered water as the breeze caught the sails and bellied them and allowed the ship to zigzag its way out to sea. So smooth and clean, this ocean, so bright and dazzling. Downright blinding, when the sun reflects on the little waves and the light gets thrown into your eyes. All so clean, with the little white clouds parading along in the bright blue sky.