Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

"So tell me some good news, Alvin," said Verily. "Tell me that there's nobody near us, so we don't have to keep watch and I can go back to sleep."

Alvin grinned. "There's nobody near us," he said. "Go back to sleep."

"Before I do," said Verily, "tell me this. Did you come here tonight because this is the right place for us to be?"

"I came here tonight because tomorrow I need you to make the handles for my plow."

When Dead Mary told Alvin about her vision of the Crystal City, it filled him with hope. He hadn't told her about the Crystal City, had he? And what she described, it wasn't like what he saw in Tenskwa-Tawa's whirlwind. Or rather, it was more than what he saw.

All he had ever seen or thought of was the part of it that was made of crystal, the part of it that would be filled with dreams and visions like the ball, like the bridge, like the dam. And he had always thought that to live in such a place, all the citizens would have to be makers, like him. That's why he had been teaching them, or trying to teach them, all these eager people who simply couldn't do it. All had accomplished something, some slight increase of awareness or ability. Verily Cooper, of course, already had something of makery in his knack, and Calvin was a maker, after his fashion. And Arthur Stuart-now, he was a marvel, all these years and suddenly he makes his breakthrough and he sees it. But that's what, four people? And Calvin none too reliable. You don't make a Crystal City out of that.

But that's why Dead Mary's vision of the Crystal City changed everything. Because they weren't all living in the palace, as she called it. In fact, probably nobody was living there. They lived in regular houses on regular streets, and most of them did regular jobs and had regular lives, except that for a few hours a week they helped to build this extraordinary palace or... or library, or theater, or whatever the building was supposed to be... and when it was built, then for a few hours a week you go inside and look at what you see there, what the walls of it show you, and you learn from it what you can and try to understand what it means. Not some grand, earthshaking thing, maybe just... who your wife really is, or what your children might be, or some danger to avoid, or why the suffering in your life is bearable after all. Or why it isn't. Not everything would be happy. But you'd know things that you didn't know otherwise. Even if all you saw was your own hopes and dreams and fears and guilt and shame thrown back in your face, even that would be worth going inside to see, because how else can you come to know yourself, unless you have some kind of faithful mirror that can show you more than just your face?

It's a city of makers, not because everyone in it is a Maker, but because the whole city cooperates in making the Making possible, and the whole city participates in the good thing that they have made.

So obvious now. Who is the builder of a great cathedral? The architect can truly say, I built this, even though he never lifts a stone. The stonecutters can say, I built this, even though it was not their hands that put the stones in place. The masons, the glassmakers, the carpenters, the weavers of rugs, they are all part of the building of it. And the bishop who caused them to build it, and the rich people who donated the money, and the women who brought the food to the workers, and the farmers who grew the food they serve, all the people of the city caused that building to exist. And fifty years later, when all the people whose hands did the work, they're all dead now, or old and doddering, their grandchildren can walk inside that building and say, "This is our cathedral, we built this," because it was the city that built the building, and the city that goes inside to use it, and each new generation that keeps the city alive, and walks into the building with veneration and pride, the cathedral is theirs as much as anyone's.

I can still teach makery to those who want to learn, thought Alvin. But I don't have to wait until they master it. Because I can make the crystal blocks one by one, and others can set them into place. Verily Cooper can set them into place, because he'll know how to make them fit. And other people, with other knacks, they can help. It might even be that Arthur Stuart can make some of the building blocks.

And since everyone will have contributed in one way or another to the crystal edifice, then they are part of it, aren't they? Part of the Crystal City. And a maker is the one who is part of what he makes. So... they are all makers, then, aren't they? Makers of the Crystal City.

Which means the Crystal City will truly be the City of Makers.

Through the morning he watched and then tried not to watch and then watched again, as Verily Cooper stroked the wood and with his bare hands made it into what it needed to be. Verily did not set a tool to the wood. Nor did he choose a fallen log or fell a tree. He found two saplings that were of a size, and stroked them until they separated from the tree. He didn't exactly knead the wood like clay, but the effect was the same. Bark stripped away from the living wood, and the wood shaped itself, bent itself until each of the saplings was now the shape of a plow handle.

Abe and Coz and Mike watched too, for a while. In awe, at first. But miraculous as it might seem, it was a slow and repetitive process, and after a while they wandered off to do other things-survey the area, Abe said.

So it was that when Verily was done, it was just him and Alvin there. The two saplings were now joined at the base as completely as if they had grown that way.

"Time to take that plow out of the sack," said Verily.

"The wood is still alive," said Alvin.

"I know," said Verily.

"Have you made anything out of living wood before?" asked Alvin.

"No," said Verily.

"Then how did you know how?"

"You asked me to do it, and I didn't have any tools," said Verily. "But all this work you've had me doing, learning how to actually see and understand what was going on inside the wood when I made barrel staves and hooped them-well, Al, did you think I wouldn't learn anything!"

Alvin laughed. "I knew you were learning, Very. I just... didn't know it would happen like this."

"So let's see if it'll fit."

Alvin set down the poke and rolled back the top until it made a thick cloth circle around the top of the golden plow. Then he picked up the plow and knelt down before the handles that Verily had made.

"Gold is soft," said Verily. "It'll wear away quickly in hard ground, won't it?"

"A living plow don't fit into the world the way ordinary ones do, and I expect it'll be as hard as I need it to be." Alvin rotated the plow this way and that, trying to figure out how to do the job with only two hands. "So do I fit the plow to the handles, or the handles to the plow?" he asked.

Verily laughed. "I'll hold the handles in place, and you work it out from there."

Alvin laughed, too. Then he brought the plow closer to the end where it was supposed to fit. His intention was to see how close a fit it was, and how exactly to insert it into place. But this was a living plow, and the handles were made of living wood, and when they got near enough, it was as if they recognized each other the way magnets do, lining themselves up in exactly the right way and then leaping together.

Leaping together, joining, the plowshare sliding into exactly the right spot, the wood flexing a bit to let it in, then closing back down over it, so it looked as if the handles had been carved from a tree that had the golden plow already embedded inside it.

Neither of them had a chance to marvel and admire, though, for the moment the plow leapt into place, there came such a music as Alvin had never heard before. It was the greensong-the song of the living wood, the living world, he recognized it, and felt how the handles vibrated with it. And yet it was another music, too. The music of worked metal, of machinery, of tools made to fit human needs and to do human work. It was the beating throb of the engine in a steamboat, and hissing and spitting of a locomotive, the whine of spinning wheels, the clatter and clump of power looms. Only instead of the cacophony of the factory, it all blended together into a single powerful song, and to Alvin's joy it fitted perfectly with the greensong and became one music that filled the air all around them.