THE CRYSTAL CITY

The baby was fussy tonight, and since Margaret had already fed him and Alvin had changed his diaper, there was nothing for it but to carry him around and sing to him. Alvin had long since learned that it was his voice that Vigor wanted- something about the deep male tones vibrating in Alvin's chest, right next to the baby's head. So he let Margaret go back to sleep and walked outside in the air of a warm September evening.

He expected to be the only person abroad in the night, except for the night watchmen with their lanterns, and they'd be more on the outskirts of town, one along the river and the other along the edge of the bluff. But to Alvin's surprise, someone else soon fell into step beside him. His brother, Measure.

"Evening, Al," said Measure.

"Evening yourself," said Alvin. "Baby was fussy."

"I was the fussy one in my house. 1 sent myself out so I wouldn't cause any trouble."

"Calvin's staying with you, then?"

"I never could figure out why Ma and Pa felt the need to have the one more child. Not like there was a shortage."

"They didn't know what he'd be," said Alvin. "There's never too many children in the house, Measure. But you're not responsible for what they want, only for what you teach them."

"Alvin, I'm afraid," said Measure.

"Big man like you," said Alvin. "That's just silly."

"What we're doing here, it's wonderful. But how folks hate us and fear us and talk against us, that's pretty fierce. The law's against us-oh, I know, that charter is mighty fine, but it'll never stand up, not with us resisting the fugitive slave law. And with Calvin here-I don't know how, but he's going to cause trouble."

"It's the Unmaker," said Alvin. "It always is. No matter how fast you build things up, he's there, trying to tear it down even faster."

"Then he's bound to win, isn't he?"

"That's the fu

"You must be smarter than Plato," said Measure, "because I can understand him."

"Oh, you understood me," said Alvin. "The question is, when we go down this dangerous road, with so many hands against us, will you be there with me, Measure? Will you stand beside me?"

"I will, to the end," said Measure. "And not just because you saved my life that time, you know."

"Oh, that wasn't much. You were trying to save mine, as I recall, so it was a fair trade on the spot."

"That's how I see it," said Measure.

"So why will you stand beside me? Because you love me so much?" He said it jokingly, but he thought that it was true.

"No," said Measure. "I love all my brothers, you know. Even Calvin."

"Why, then?"

"Because the things you make, I want them to be made. You see? I love the work. I want it to be."

"And you're willing to pay for it, right along with me?"

"You'll see," said Measure.

They stood facing the rows of crystal blocks, ready to become the gleaming tabernacle of the Crystal City. The baby was asleep. But Alvin tilted him up anyway, just enough that his little sleeping face was pointed toward the blocks. "Look at this place," he said to Vigor-and to Measure, too. "I didn't choose this place. I didn't choose my life, or the powers I have, or even most of the things that have happened to me. But for all the things that have been forced on me, I'm still a free man. And you know why? Because I choose them anyway. What was forced on me, I choose just the same." He turned and faced Measure. "Like you, Measure. I choose to be a maker, because I love the making."

Acknowledgments

So much of what a novelist does is made up at the moment of composition-details of milieu and character, questions that need to be answered, a secondary character's hopes and fears-that it is impossible, over the years between volumes of an ongoing series like this, to remember everything. As a result, there are contradictions between volumes (or even within a volume), threads that are left dangling, questions that remain unanswered.

Unless the novelist is fortunate enough to have a group of readers who are willing to collaborate by checking the current composition against what went before. In the online community that has formed at our Hatrack River Web site (http:// www.hatrack.com) there were several generous and careful readers who volunteered to vet this manuscript for just such problems.

Undoubtedly there are still problems remaining. During my years as a professional proofreader and copy editor I learned that no matter how careful you are and no matter how many proofreaders and editors go over it, in a work of any length some problems will always get through. The errors that remain are entirely my fault, but the errors you don't see were corrected because of the work of Michael Sloan ("Papa Moose" on Hatrack), Noah Siegel ("Calvin Maker"), Adam Spieckerma

In addition, Michael Sloan won a trivia contest at EnderCon in July of 2002, and the prize was to have a character named after you in a future book of mine. My intention-which everyone understood-was that this would be a "cameo," a momentary appearance of a character with the contest wi

Oh, all right, I admit that I enjoyed having Rocky and Bullwinkle references in the book. If I could have George Washington beheaded in the first volume and have Alvin dream the plot of Lord of the Rings in a later one, why shouldn't I welcome a chance to allude to a masterpiece of comic fantasy from my childhood?

Roland Brown read the novel just after it was finished, and offered wise suggestions on the character of Old Bart and several other points, which I gratefully accepted.

My editor, Beth Meacham, and my publisher, Tom Doherty, deserve great thanks for their patience with my unpredictable delivery dates and for the wonderful things they do for and with my books after I turn them in. It was because Tom and Beth took a chance on this strange American fantasy series back in 1983-based on, of all things, an epic poem I wrote- that I was able to leave fulltime employment for the second time and return to the freelance writing life for the past twenty years.