Seventh Son

“He has.”

“Then the protector failed him.”

“It did not fail,” said Taleswapper. “For a moment, as the stone fell, I saw it split, wide enough that it wouldn't have touched him.”

“Like the ridgebeam,” whispered Faith.

“I thought I saw it too, Father,” said David. “But when it came down whole, I decided I must have seen what I wished for, and not what was.”

“There's no split in it now,” said Miller.

“No,” said Taleswapper. “Because Alvin Junior refused to let it split.”

“Are you saying he knit it back together? So it would strike him and wreck his leg?”

“I'm saying he had no thought of his leg,” said Taleswapper. “Only of the stone.”

“Oh, my boy, my good boy,” murmured his mother, gently caressing the arm that extended thoughtlessly toward her. As she moved his fingers, they limply bent as she pushed them, then sprang back.

“Is it possible?” asked David. “That the stone split and was made whole again, as quickly as that?”

“It must be,” said Taleswapper, “because it happened.”

Faith moved her son's fingers again, but this time they did not spring back. They extended even further, then flexed into a fist, then extended flat again.

“He's awake,” said his father.

“I'll fetch some rum for the boy,” said David. “To slack the pain. Armor'll have some in his store.”

“No,” murmured Alvin.

“The boy says no,” said Taleswapper.

“What does he know, in pain as he is?”

“He has to keep his wits about him, if he can,” said Taleswapper. He knelt by the bed, just to the right of Faith, so he was even nearer to the boy's face. “Alvin, do you hear me?”

Alvin groaned. It must have meant yes.

“Then listen to me. Your leg is very badly hurt. The bones are broken, but they've been set in place– they'll heal well enough. But the skin was torn away, and even though your mother has sewn it back in place, there's a good chance the skin will die and take gangrene, and kill you. Most surgeons would cut off your leg to save your life.”

Alvin tossed his head back and forth, trying to shout. It came out as a moan: “No, no, no.”

“You're making things worse!” Faith said angrily.

Taleswapper looked at the father for permission to go on.

“Don't torment the boy,” said Miller.

“There's a proverb,”,said Taleswapper. “The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse, how he shall take his prey.”

“What does that mean?” asked Faith.

“It means that I have no business trying to teach him how to use powers that I can't begin to understand. But since he doesn't know how to do it himself, I'll have to try, won't I?”

Miller pondered a moment. “Go ahead, Taleswapper. Better for him to know how bad it is, whether he can heal himself or not.”

Taleswapper held the boy's hand gently between his own. “Alvin, you want to keep your leg, don't you? Then you have to think of it the way you thought of the stone. You have to think of the skin of your leg, growing back, attaching to the bone as it should. You have to study it out. You'll have plenty of time for it, lying here. Don't think about the pain, think about the leg as it should be, whole and strong again.”

Alvin lay there, squinting his eyes closed against the pain.

“Are you doing that, Alvin? Can you try?”

“No,” said Alvin.

“You have to fight against the pain, so you can use your own knack to make things right.”

“I never will,” said Alvin.

“Why not!” cried Faith.

“The Shining Man,” said Alvin. “I promised him.”

Taleswapper remembered Alvin's oath to the Shining Man, and his heart sank.

“What's the Shining Man?” asked Miller.

“A– visitation he had, when he was little,” said Taleswapper.

“How come we never heard of this afore now?” Miller asked.

“It was the night the ridgebeam split,” said Taleswapper. “Alvin promised the Shining Man that he'd never use his power for his own benefit.”

“But Alvin,” said Faith. “This isn't to make you rich or nothing, this is to save your life.”

The boy only winced against the pain and shook his head.

“Will you leave me with him?” said Taleswapper. “Just for a few minutes, so I can talk to him?”

Miller was rushing Faith out the door of the room before Taleswapper even finished his sentence.

“Alvin,” said Taleswapper. “You must listen to me, listen carefully. You know I won't lie to you. An oath is a terrible thing, and I'd never counsel a man to break his word, even to save his own life. So I won't tell you to use your power for your own good. Do you hear me?”

Alvin nodded.

“Just think, though. Think of the Unmaker going through the world. Nobody sees him as he does his work, as he tears down and destroys things. Nobody but one solitary boy. Who is that boy, Alvin?”

Alvin's lips formed the word, though no sound came out. Me.

“And that boy has been given a power that he can't even begin to understand. The power to build against the enemy's unbuilding. And more than that, Alvin, the desire to build as well. A boy who answers every glimpse of the Unmaker with a bit of making. Now, tell me, Alvin, those who help the Unmaker, are they the friend or the enemy of mankind?”

Enemy, said Alvin's lips.

“So if you help the Unmaker destroy his most dangerous foe, you're an enemy of mankind, aren't you?”

Anguish wrung sound from the boy. “You're twisting it,” he said.

“I'm straightening it,” said Taleswapper. “Your oath was never to use your power for your own benefit. But if you die, only the Unmaker benefits, and if you live, if that leg is healed, then that's for the good of all mankind. No, Alvin, it's for the good of the world and all that's in it.”

Alvin whimpered, more against the pain in his mind than the pain in his body.

“But your oath was clear, wasn't it? Never to your own benefit. So why not satisfy one oath with another, Alvin? Take an oath now, that you will devote your whole life to building up against the Unmaker. If you keep that oath– and you will, Alvin, you're a boy who keeps his word– if you keep that oath, then saving your own life is truly for the benefit of others, and not for your private good at all.”

Taleswapper waited, waited, until at last Alvin nodded slightly.

“Do you take an oath, Alvin Junior, that you will live your life to defeat the Unmaker, to make things whole and good and right?”

“Yes,” whispered the boy.

“Then I tell you, by the terms of your own promise, you must heal yourself.”

Alvin gripped Taleswapper's arm. “How,” he whispered.

“That I don't know, boy,” said Taleswapper. “How to use your power, you have to find that out inside yourself. I can only tell you that you must try, or the enemy has his victory, and I'll have to end your tale with your body being lowered into a grave.”

To Taleswapper's surprise, Alvin smiled. Then Taleswapper understood the joke. His tale would end with the grave no matter what he did today. “Right enough, boy,” said Taleswapper. “But I'd rather have a few more pages about you before I put finis to the Book of Alvin.”

“I'll try,” whispered Alvin.

If he tried, then surely he would succeed. Alvin's protector had not brought him this far only to let him die. Taleswapper had no doubt that Alvin had the power to heal himself, if he could only figure out the way. His own body was far more complicated than the stone. But if he was to live, he had to learn the pathways of his own flesh, bind the fissures in the bones.

They made a bed for Taleswapper out in the great room. He offered to sleep on the floor beside Alvin's bed, but Miller shook his head and answered, “That's my place.”

Taleswapper found it hard to sleep, though. It was the middle of the night when he finally gave up, lit a lantern with a match from the fire, bundled on his coat, and went outside.