47

I woke up crying for that loneliness. And I knew somehow that the dream was not really a dream but a lesson about my friend Tall John from beyond the stars. His light was a part of me now and it was telling me about my friend, his history, and my mission.

"You awake, boy?" Champ Noland asked.

It was nighttime. Champ and Flore and Tall John and Nola stood around me as I lay on the ground. The moon illuminated my friends.

"Where's Eloise?" I asked.

"We sent her home," John said.

"She was like in a spell," Nola added. "John put the evil eye on her."

I could see that the newly freed slave girl was of two minds about my friend and his powers.

"Yes," John said. "I put her in a trance and suggested that she tell her friends that we saved her and then headed west for the river. That should give us enough time."

I got to my feet and clasped hands with Champ. Then I kissed Mama Flore and touched Nola's arm.

"Are you still willing to help me?" John asked.

"Yes, sir," I said.

Champ was walking just fine and Flore stood on her own two feet with no assistance. I was happy that Nola was with us. I didn't know her very well because even though she was a fellow slave, she'd been in the service of Eloise and so I had hardly ever crossed her path.

I guess I must have been looking at Nola while having these thoughts because she came up to me then.

"Do you trust that boy they call John, Forty-seven?" she asked softly so that no one else could hear.

"Sure, Nola. He's the on'y reason that we got away alive."

"But before he got here nuthin' ever happened that we had to get away from," she said, looking at me with wide, trusting eyes.

I realized that I was like a savior to her because I had saved her life her and her mistress Eloise.

"Do you miss Eloise?" I asked then.

"Miss Eloise?" she asked, repeating the last part of my question. "I s'pose that I will miss her. But I can see how

things will never be the same. An' even though I love her in my heart I'd be afraid evah to sleep in that house again 'cause I might awake to gunshots and fire."

"You were brave out there, fighting Mr. Stewart to save Eloise," I said. "You're a hero too."

Hearing this made Nola's brow furrow.

"But I was scared to death fightin' that man," she said.

"Me too," I added. "Bein' brave, I figger, is just the othah side'a the coin from bein' scared. If whatevah you fightin' ain't bad enough to scare ya then they ain't no reason to be

brave."

Nola smiled at me then and touched my arm. I knew that from that day on we would be the best of friends.

"It's time to go, Forty-seven," Tall John said.

And so we were off through the deep woods that surrounded the cotton plantations.

John was in the lead, holding up an orange light to show

us the way.

"Is that niggah crazy?" Champ asked me along the way. "Holdin' up that light so them white mens can find us."

"We free now, Champ," I remember saying. "There ain't no more masters or niggahs or slaves for us. Just free men and free women no mattah what color they is."

"But what about that light?" he asked.

"Only we can see it, Champ," I said.

I didn't know how I knew that but I knew it was true.

When Flore said that she was hungry John gave us all little squares of food that looked like bread but tasted sweet like cake. After eating a couple of those squares I wasn't hungry at all.

We walked for hours before reaching the field where John saved me with his light. Eighty-four was there waiting for us. She ran up to John and kissed him on the lips and hugged him to her. She was happy to see the rest of us too but Tall John was the only one she had eyes for.

The sun was coming up again and John told everyone that we needed to sleep before making it out of the south. He gave everyone a drink of the special water that he carried in his yellow bag, but only Champ and Flore and Eighty-four and Nola went to sleep.

"What now?" I asked my brother in light.

"Now we go after Wall and his minion Mr. Stewart," John said, hefting his yellow sack over his shoulder.

"Sounds good by me," I said, even though I was quaking inside.

With that John and I took off through the woods while my friends and fellow ex-slaves slept in the clearing next to the big flat stone.

I expected John to hurry us along toward Andrew Pike and Mr. Stewart. But instead he set a slow pace through the woods. There were larks and whip-poor-wills singing in the trees. A dry breeze was blowing and bright sunbeams peeked down through the dark covering of leaves and pine needles. We walked along a shallow creek bed that burbled over large white stones.

For quite a while John was silent on our country stroll. I didn't want to interrupt his reverie. I could tell by the look on his face that he was worried.

I didn't want to know about his fears. The battle at the Corinthian Plantation had been the worst thing that I had ever seen, and from what I understood Andrew Pike meant to cause a conflagration that was on an infinitely grander scale. I didn't care to know about it, fearing that my courage might fail if I did.

After a long time an hour or more the smile came back into Tall John's face.

"You must wonder why," he said. I knew what he meant. It was almost as if I knew what he was thinking. The light he had saved me with had brought us closer than brothers.

"Yeah," I said. "Why me? There's a many millions of peoples in this world. You could'a picked any one'a thems to help you. Heck, you could'a raised a whole army with the tricks you could pull."

"Yes," Tall John said, shaking his head sadly. "And then Wall would raise an army and the whole world would go to war. And war would only benefit my enemy." "It'a on'y hep him if he win," I said. "No, my friend. If Wall could start a big enough war he would spur the growth of technology. Man always starts inventing when he wants to win a battle. Soon enough he wouldn't need my Sun Ship to mine the green ore.

Mankind itself would furnish him with the tools he needs."

"But why me?" I asked again. "Why am I here wit' you? Why not a real hero like Champ Noland or somebody at least knows his numbers like Mud Albert?"

Tall John stopped walking and put his hand on my shoulder. When he did this I realized that I had still been growing. I was now taller than he.

"On my homeworld," he said, "we had a machine made of glass. There were a trillion trillion prisms in this machine and they made up an infinite number of tiny reflections…"

I understood the meaning of his words as they filtered through the light in my mind. I could even see the machine he spoke of. It was a great crystal ball throwing off an uncountable number of rainbow-colored beams of light.

"… this machine was one-of-a-kind," John continued, "built by our ancestors who were very wise and very patient. It is believed among my people that the ancients placed all of their knowledge into the crystal globe so that in times of great stress we could come to them and ask for advice."

"An' so that big glass ball got the answer to anything you wa

We were standing in an open field of grass surrounded by a dozen or more live oaks. The sun was high but the air was almost cool. And even though I was scared of going

into battle against Wall I was also deeply happy to be learning things that no other human being had ever known.

"You see," John said, "it is the custom among my people that every citizen gets to ask only one question of the Queziastril " "The what?"

"Queziastril was the name of our glass machine." "Was?"

"The Calash attacked us and destroyed Queziastril so as to keep it from revealing their plan to rip the fabric of existence."