The Crystal City Page 0,42

how it's done," he said. "I can't walk on these two feet. My right leg feels too long."

"Lean on me," said Mama Squirrel. He did, and managed to stand.

"Go to Frenchman's Dock," said Alvin. "You and all the children. I'll be there afore you."

"Me too?" asked Dead Mary.

"Go to your mother and arrange a wheelbarrow from among the French, to tote that thing. I got another shirt."

"Me?" asked Arthur Stuart.

"To La Tia, and tell her to get all them as is going down to Frenchman's Dock at nightfall."

When all were gone, it left only Alvin and Calvin there in the house of Moose and Squirrel, which was, after all, just a big old empty house when it didn't have all them children in it.

"I suppose I've done a dozen things wrong," said Calvin with a crooked grin.

"I need a fog from you," said Alvin. "To cover the whole city. Except right at Frenchman's Dock."

"I don't know where that is," said Calvin.

"Don't matter," said Alvin. "You make the fog everywhere else, and I'll push it away from where I don't want it to go. Just don't push back at me."

He didn't say: For once.

"I can do that," said Calvin.

"I'm glad Margaret sent you," said Alvin. "And I'm glad you came."

Arthur Stuart stood outside the kitchen door until he heard those words. He could hardly believe that Alvin acted like Calvin hadn't meddled and fussed and picked quarrels, not to mention the mess he made with Papa Moose.

There was only one meaning Arthur Stuart could get from it. Alvin didn't believe Calvin had caused the problem with Papa Moose. And that meant Alvin believed Calvin's lie and thought Arthur Stuart had caused the problem with Papa Moose's foot.

Burning with resentment at Calvin, at the way a real brother could instantly supplant a half-black oughta-be-a-slave step-brother-in-law in Alvin's heart, Arthur Stuart took off at a run to find La Tia and get the show on the road.

Chapter 6

Exodus

Calvin stood on the levee that kept the Mizzippy from pouring over its banks to flood the city of Nueva Barcelona. A couple of hundred masts stuck up from the water like a curiously bare forest, as the seagoing vessels were towed up and down the river by steam-powered tugboats. Dozens of columns of smoke and steam joined to cast a pall over the city as the sun sank toward the horizon.

It had been a sultry, hazy day. Already everything got blurry only a mile off. The air was so wet that sweat could hardly evaporate. It ran down Calvin's neck and back and legs, and when he mopped his brow with a handkerchief, it came away dripping wet.

Nobody'd mind if he cooled things off a little.

Around him the air suddenly gave up some of its heat, sending it upward. The moment the air cooled just a couple of degrees, the water vapor began to condense a little, just enough to form a cloud, not enough to make rain or dew. It wasn't easy to maintain the temperature at just that point, and Calvin had to jostle the temperature up and down a little till he got it right.

But once the fog was nicely formed, he began to reach out farther and farther, cooling the air, condensing the invisible humidity into visible fog.

He turned a slow circle, watching as his fog spread out over the city. This was power-to change the look of the world, to blind the eyes of men and women, to block the light and heat of the sun, to allow slaves and oppressed people to sneak to freedom. Poor Alvin, always fencing his power about with rules-he never felt the sheer joy of it like Calvin did.

It was like being rich, but spending money like a poor man. That was Alvin, wasn't it? A miser, hoarding his enormous power, using it only when he was forced to, and for trivial purposes, and according to rules that were devised to allow weaker men to control strong ones. I have no use for such rules, thought Calvin. I don't choose to wear chains, still less to forge my own.

So I'll help you, Alvin, because I can and because I love you and because I don't mind being part of your noble causes when it suits me. But I make up my own mind on all things. Collect your disciples and try to teach them some clumsy imitation of makery, like that sad boy Arthur Stuart, whose true knack you stole from him. But