Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

When he woke it was still night. Except it wasn't. The sun was up-but it was only a dim red disk in the ashes that filled the air. Morning. How long till the eruption? What time of day had it been when the smoke first started?

Doesn't matter. Can't control that. Keep walking. There was no running in him today, especially since his path led inexorably uphill, and the ground kept shaking so much that if he'd been running he would have fallen down.

He was still far from the crest when the volcano blew up. He only had time enough to burrow his way into an outcropping of rock, which took the brunt of the shockwave. It struck with such force that the rock he was hiding in would have given way and crumbled and collapsed into the valley, but Calvin held it firm, kept all but a few shards and slivers of rock in place. And when the hot fiery air blew past, incinerating all life in its path, Calvin kept a bubble of air around him cool enough to bear, and so he did not die.

And when the shock wave passed, he stepped out into the burning world, keeping that cool bubble around him, and turned back to see lava pouring down the slopes of the mountain like a flood from a burst dam. Only it wasn't heading toward the city, because there was no city. Every building had been blown flat by the blast. Only a few stone structures stood, and then only in ruins, most of the walls having been broken down. There was not a sign of life. And the lake was boiling.

Calvin wondered, for a moment, whether any of the men of Austin's expedition had lived long enough to be killed by the eruption. Probably not. Who was to say which was the better way to die? There was no good way to die. And Calvin had come this close.

But close to death was still not death.

Cooling the ground under his feet so his shoes didn't burn, he slowly made his way up the slope until, before nightfall, he reached the crest and started down the unburnt side. Ash had fallen here, too, but this land had been sheltered from the blast, and he could eat the fruit from the trees, as long as he got the ash off it first. The fruit was partly cooked-the ash had been that warm when it fell-but to Calvin it tasted like the nectar of the gods.

I have been spared alive yet again. My work is not yet done in the world.

Might as well head north and see what Alvin's doing. Maybe it's time I started learning some of the stuff he taught to Arthur Stuart. Anything that half-black boy can learn, I can learn, and ten times better.

Labor

Tenskwa-Tawa watched from the trees as Dead Mary, Rien, and La Tia uncovered the crystal ball.

"We got to do something good for Alvin, all he do for us," said La Tia.

"Maybe we should ask him what he wants," said Dead Mary.

"He not here," said La Tia.

"Men never know what they want," said Rien. "They think they want one thing, then they get it, then they don't want it."

"Your life story, Mother?" asked Dead Mary.

"I name her Marie d'Espoir," said Rien to La Tia. "Marie of hope. But maybe Marie de la Morte is the right name. She the death of me, La Tia."

"I don't think so," said La Tia. "I think men be the death of you, and that don't come from the crystal ball, no."

"I'm too old for men," said Rien.

"But they never too old for you, Caterina," said La Tia. "Now we look to see what Alvin want the most in his heart."

"Can you command it to show what you want?" asked Dead Mary.

"It always show me the right thing," said La Tia.

"But I would still find a way to do the wrong thing," said Dead Mary.

"You see?" said Rien. "My fille n'a pas d'espoir."

"I have hope, Mother," said Dead Mary. "But I have experience too."

"Look," said La Tia. "Do you see what I see?"

"We never do," said Dead Mary.

"I see Alvin with a son. That what he want most."

"I see him with a woman," said Rien. "That is what he miss the most."

"I see him kneeling by a child's grave," said Dead Mary. "That is what he fears the most."

"I can make a charm for this," said La Tia.

Tenskwa-Tawa stepped out from the tree. "Don't make a charm for him, La Tia."

"I knew you was there, Red Prophet."

"I knew you knew," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "That crystal shows you want you want to see, not always the truth."

"But the truth what I want to see," said La Tia.

"Everybody thinks they want to see the truth," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "That's one of the lies we tell ourselves."

"Him heart more dark than Dead Mary, him."

"Alvin knelt by the grave of his firstborn," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "The child came too early to live. Don't meddle this time."

"Give him the woman he love," said Rien. "I know you have the charm for this."

"He has the woman he loves," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "She's carrying his child right now."

"Give him the power to keep the child from dying," said Dead Mary.

"He has the power," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "He figured out what the baby needed. He just couldn't do it fast enough. The baby suffocated before he could get its little lungs to breathe."

"Ah," said La Tia. "Time what he need. Time."

"You have a charm for this?" said Rien.

"I got to think," said La Tia.

"Leave him alone," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "Let his life be what it is. Let it be what he makes of it."

"Did he leave our lives as they were?" said Dead Mary. "Or did he heal my mother?"

"He heal me better than I was before," said Rien. "I had the Italian disease, long time, long before the yellow fever, but he fix that too."

"Did he leave black people in chains, him?" asked La Tia.

"But he knew what he was doing," said Tenskwa-Tawa.

La Tia reared back and roared with laughter. "Him! He don't know what he do! He do the best thing he think of, and when that go wrong he do the best thing he can think of then. Like all us, him!"

Tenskwa-Tawa shook his head. "Don't meddle with his baby or his wife," he said. "Don't do it."

"The Red Prophet command the Black Queen?" said La Tia.

"Lolla-Wossiky was a slave to hate, and blind with rage, and Alvin made me free, and Alvin let me see. I never set him free. I never gave him sight. He is in the world to bless us, not the other way."

"You do what you think with him," said La Tia. "I gonna bless him back, me."

Margaret spent all day preparing for her journey to Vigor Church. Not that she owned that much-packing was the least of it. But she had letters to write. People to summon from here and there. Those who should know that Alvin was going to build the City of Makers now. People who should come and take their place beside him, if they wanted, if they could get away.

And then there was the carriage to arrange. She had seen many paths in which the journey was too much for her, and caused the baby to come early. This baby must not come early again. Already it had lasted longer in the womb than their firstborn, but not long enough. If he was born on this journey the child would die.

So she hired the finest carriage in town, the one belonging to the young doctor. He tried to refuse, telling her that any carriage was out of the question in her condition. "Stay here and have this baby," he said. "To travel now would only endanger you and the child. Do you think you're made of iron?"

No, she had no such fancy. Nor did her torchsight show her everything clearly. The futures of this child were as foggy and confused, almost, as Alvin's futures. There were great gaps. So even though the child had nothing like Alvin's gifts, it was caught up in the same mystery, the same defiance of the laws of cause and effect. She did not know with any kind of certainty what would happen to the child if she stayed or went. But she knew that Alvin needed her in Noisy River, and on the far side of the fog, she saw a few paths that had her holding a baby in her arms, standing with Alvin on a bluff overlooking a fogbound river. Those were the only paths where she saw herself holding that baby. So she was going to Vigor Church, to Alvin's family, to invite them-and any others from the school of the makers-to come to Noisy River to help Alvin build the Crystal City. And with them traveling with her, she would go the rest of the way well accompanied.