feel how atoms came from all around the plow and joined together with those already in the iron, forming bits much heavier than what the iron was, and lined up in different ways, until they fit the pattern that he showed them in his mind.
Between his hands he held a plow of gold. He rubbed his fingers over it. Gold, yes, bright yellow in the firelight from the forge, but still dead, still cold. How could he teach it to be alive? Not by showing it the pattern of his own flesh - that wasn't the kind of life it needed. It was the living atoms that he wanted to waken, to show them what they were compared to what they could be. To put the fire of life in them.
The fire of life. Alvin lifted the golden plow - much heavier now - and despite the heat of the slacking fire, he set it right amid the glowing charcoal of the forge.
* * *
They were back on their horses now, them Finders, walking them calmly up the road to Hatrack River, looking into every house and hut and cabin, holding tip the cachet to match it with the heartfires that they found within. But nary a match did they find, nary a body did they recognize. They passed the smithy and saw that a heartfire burned inside, but it wasn't the runaway mixup boy. It was bound to be the smith what made the manacles, they knew it.
"I'd like to kill him," whispered the black-haired Finder. "I know he put that spell in the manacles, to make them so that boy could slip right out."
"Time enough for that after we find the pickaninny," said the white-haired Finder.
They saw two heartfires burning, in the old springhouse, but neither one was like what they had in the cachet, so they went on, searching for a child that they might recognize.
* * *
The fire was deep within the gold now, but all it was doing was melting it. That wouldn't do at all - it was life the plow needed, not the death of metal in the fire. He held the plowshape in his mind and showed it plain as can be to every bit of metal in the plow; cried out silently to every atom, It ain't enough to be lined up in the little shapes of gold - you need to hold this larger shape yourselves, no matter the fire, no matter what other force might press or tear or melt or try to maim you.
He could sense that he was heard - there was movement in the gold, movement against the downward slipping of the gold as it turned to fluid. But it wasn't strong enough, it wasn't sure enough. Without thinking, Alvin reached his hands into the fire and clung to the gold, showing it the plowshape, crying to, it in his heart, Like this! Be like this! This is what you are! Oh, the pain of it burned something fierce, but he knew that it was right for his hands to be there, for the Maker is a part of what he makes. The atoms heard him, and formed themselves in ways that Alvin never even thought of, but the result of it all was that the gold now took the heat of the fire into itself without melting, without losing shape. It was done; the plow wasn't alive, exactly, not the way he wanted - but it could stand in the forgefire without melting. The gold was more than gold now. It was gold that knew it was a plow and meant to stay that way.
Alvin pulled his hands away from the plow and saw flames still dancing on his skin, which was charred in places, peeling back away from the bone. Silent as death, he plunged his hands into the water barrel and heard the sizzle of the fire on his flesh as it went out. Then, before the pain could come in full force, he set to healing himself, sloughing away the dead skin and making new skin grow.
He stood there, weakened from all his body had to do to heal his hands, looking into the fire at the gold plow. Just setting there, knowing its shape and holding to it - but that wasn't enough to make the plow alive. It had to know what a plow was for. It had to know why it