The Crystal City Page 0,48

and with the echoes of the greensong still singing in their hearts, they dozed in the faint moonlight, their dreams infused with the music of life.

Calvin couldn't help being curious. And it's not as if he had to stay on the levee to keep the fog in place.

In fact, the fog could pretty much look after itself, at this point. And with all the angry, frightened heartfires flowing through the streets of Barcy, Calvin couldn't see any particular reason to stay by himself. Who knew what mischief these mobs might be up to? And since he was a maker, wasn't it his job to keep such mischief from happening?

One mob was moving through Frenchtown, getting more and more furious as they found house after house empty. Another mob, consisting mostly of dockside drunks, was looking for slaves to throw into the water. Finding none, they started throwing in whatever passersby spoke English with a foreign accent or not at all. Which wasn't too logical, seeing how this wasn't even an American city.

All Calvin could see of this was the anger in the heartfires and, of course, the panic in those being tossed into the river.

The angriest mob, and the one moving with the most sense of purpose, was moving directly toward the orphanage where Alvin had been unable to resist showing off by one-upping Calvin's fixing of the man's foot. What was the big deal, Calvin wanted to know. When was he supposed to have learned anatomy? Of course, Alvin knew everything-everything except how the world actually worked.

So let him sit there by that briny lake and flow his heartfire out as a bridge for the scum of the earth to walk on. Wasn't that just like Alvin? Making a show of being humble and the servant of all. But since Jesus said that the person who wanted most to be ruler was the one who was servant of all, didn't that tell something about Alvin, after all? Who was the ambitious one? Calvin was perfectly willing to stay in the background-which was the attitude a maker ought to have, as Alvin always said. But with Alvin it was do as I say, not as I do.

Calvin jogged easily along the foggy streets-sober, decent folk were all indoors, fearful of the sudden fog and the sound of distant shouting. There were soldiers marching, too. The Spanish were ostensibly looking for a riot to quell, but the officers carefully found the quietest streets, since there was neither honor nor safety in confronting a mob. If you shoot, it's a massacre; if you don't shoot, you're likely to get a brick in the head.

So it wasn't hard to avoid the soldiers, and soon Calvin found himself on the fringes of the mob just when it reached the house of Moose and Squirrel. He wasn't that interested in most of the people-a mob was a mob, and all the faces were as ugly and stupid as always when people turn their decision-making over to someone else. Brutal puppets, that's all they were. What Calvin wanted was the hot, dark heartfire that was leading them and goading them on.

Glass was shattering as bricks and stones went through the windows of the house. Several men with torches were trying to set the house on fire, but the air was so moist and heavy that it wasn't working.

The leader, who carried a big heavy knife at his hip, was taunting the would-be firestarters. "Y'all never set a fire before? Babies burn theirselves up all the time, but you can't even get a dry wooden house to burn!"

Calvin sidled up. "Reckon sometimes you gotta do a thing yourself."

The man turned to him and sneered. "And have the Spanish find some informant to testify against me? No thanks."

"I didn't mean you." said Calvin. He reached out and pointed toward the roof. While he was pointing, he hotted up the wood just under the peak of the gable, so sudden and hot that it burst into flames.

A cheer went up from the crowd, everyone being too drunk, apparently, to notice that the fire had started about as far as possible from where the torchwielders were doing such a pathetic job. But the mob's leader wasn't drunk, and that's the only person Calvin was looking to impress.

"You know something?" said the man with the big knife. "I think you look a powerful lot like a certain thief and fraud name of Alvin Smith as was living in that boardinghouse only