The Crystal City Page 0,116

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