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passed, the mound he walked toward was always just as far away. It made him afraid - would he be trapped up here forever? - and he hurried back in the direction he started from. In just a few minutes he reached the place where his footprints came down the slope. Surely he had walked away from that spot for much longer than that. A couple more tries convinced him that the valley went on forever in every direction except the one he came from. In that direction, it was just like he was always in the very center of the Mound, no matter how far he'd walked to get where he was.

Alvin looked for the gold-leafed tree with the pure white fruit, but he couldn't find it, and he wasn't surprised. The taste of the fruit was still in his mouth from the dream the night before. He wouldn't get another taste of it, waking or dreaming, because the second bite would make him live forever. He didn't mind much, not getting that bite. Death didn't breathe all that heavy down the neck of a boy his age.

He heard water. A brook, clear cold water flowing rapidly over stones. It was impossible, of course. The valley of Eight-Face Mound was completely enclosed. If water ran so fast here, why didn't the valley fill right up to make a lake? Why wasn't there a single stream running off the mound outside? Where would such a stream come from, anyway? The mound was man-made, like all the other mounds scattered all through the country, though none of the others was so old. You don't get springs coming out of man-made hills. It made him suspicious of this water, to have it be so impossible. Come to think of it, though, quite a few impossible things had happened to him in his life, and this was far from being the most peculiar.

Ta-Kumsaw said to drink if the mound offered him water, so he knelt and drank, plunging his face right into the water and sucking the water straight into his mouth. It didn't take away the taste of the fruit. If anything, it was stronger after he drank.

He knelt on the bank, studying the opposite shore of the brook. The water was flowing differently there. In fact, it was lapping the shore like ocean waves, and once that thought occurred to Alvin he saw that the shape of the opposite shore was just like the map of the east coast that Armor-of-God showed him. The memory came back clear and sharp. Here where the shore bowed outward, that was Carolina in the Crown Colonies. This deep bay was the Chase-a-pick, and here was the mouth of the Potty-Mack, which made the border between the United States and the Crown Colonies.

Alvin stood and stepped across the stream.

It was just grass. He didn't see no rivers or towns, no boundaries, no roads. But from the coast, he could pretty much guess where the Hio country was, and where this very mound would be. He took two steps, and all of a sudden there he saw Ta-Kumsaw and Taleswapper, setting on the ground in front of him, looking up at him as surprised as could be.

"You climbed up after all," said Alvin.

"Nothing of the sort," said Taleswapper. "We've been right here since you left."

"Why did you come back down?" asked Ta-Kumsaw.

"But I ain't down at all," said Alvin. "I'm down here in the valley of the mound."

"Valley?" asked Ta-Kumsaw.

"We're down here below the mound," said Taleswapper.

Then Alvin understood. Not so as to put it into words, but well enough to use it, to use what the mound had given him. He could travel across the face of the land like this, a hundred miles in a step, and see the people that he needed to see. The people that he knew. Measure. Alvin touched his forehead in salute to the two men who waited for him, then took a small step. They disappeared.

He found the town of Vigor Church easy enough. First person he saw was Armor-of-God, kneeling in prayer. Alvin didn't say nothing to him, for fear Armor might take it as a vision of the dead. Where would Armor be, though? In his own house? In that case Vinegar Riley's place would be back this way, east of town. He turned around.

He saw his own father, setting with Mother. Pa was smoothing out some musket balls he'd cast. And Ma was