47

_23.

Free to do what we wanted to do. Freedom what every slave dreamed about from morning to night and from night to morning, every day of their lives.

Flore's mouth opened and tears flooded her eyes.

"Free?" she said again.

She rocked forward and put her arms around me. When she hugged me I was her little boy again. I grabbed on tight.

In the distance dogs were howling and the smell of smoke was in the air but we didn't care about all of that. We were free under the pale blue morning skies. Even if they caught us and hung us from the tree we hid behind we still had the greatest treasure in the world.

After a while Flore fell asleep too. Nola had taken a sip of Tall John's water earlier on and so she was dozing peacefully.

"Will they find us?" I asked my friend.

"I don't think so," he said. But his brow was furrowed and his words were heavy.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There's a place about ten miles north of here where my machine lies hidden under the ground. There's an alarm set on it designed to tell me if one of the Calash is somewhere nearby."

"Did that alarm ring?" I asked.

John nodded.

"Maybe it's just some animal rubbed up against it," I suggested, wanting to calm my friend down.

"No. It's Wall. He has found my ship while I was distracted here with you and your friends. He will soon be able to utilize the mechanism and dig the green powder from the earth."

"Then we bettah go an' stop 'im 'fore he can do that," I said, speaking right up. "You helped me save my friends an' now I'll help you."

John smiled then.

"You would help me even though you are just now free?" he asked.

i "If'n we can put Flore an' Champ ovah wit' Eighty-four then I'd be happy that they was free an' you'n me could go an' take that green powder gin away from Andy Pike."

"It will take him a while to open the door," John said. "And together we might be a match for him."

I smiled and shook my friend's hand.

"We gonna do it," I said.

Then John said something that I didn't understand at the time but it struck me as being rather odd.

"Your courage gives me the strength to surrender myself," he said. "All life flows toward the Upper Level."

After that John gave me a drink of his sleeping water and I drifted off into a dream that was not a dream at all.

I was floating in the air among thousands of the tiny, multicolored people of John's race. Then I felt something pulling and pushing at me, and the sky disappeared and there was nothing above but blackness and stars. I was thrown out of the company of the little people and I was flying faster than anything toward one of the glittering stars.

All of a sudden I knew that I wasn't dreaming about me

but about Tall John when he got into his Sun Ship and headed off toward Earth.

The star I was heading for became as big as the sun. It was a wide field of fire that sang with power and majesty, but I wasn't afraid. I slipped through the white flames of the star and came to a place that was pure and red. It was hot but there was a place right in the middle of the star that was black and cold. I/John dove into the center of the blackness and suddenly I/John was somewhere else. I/John was far, far away from my home, and lonely. I/John would never be home again. All of my people were far behind me while I/John would find star after star traveling so far away from my home that it would be as if there was no home for me, anywhere.

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 wanna know?" I asked. "In a way," John said.

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."

"But you knew anyway," I said.

"Yes. But knowledge is a strange thing," John replied. "A thousand people might ask Queziastril the same question and for each person the machine would give a different answer."

"Maybe yo machine was broken," I speculated. John grinned.

"No," he said. "What would the answer be if I asked you how long it would take you to run around this field of grass?" "I dunno," I said. "With the speed you give me I expect it would be pretty quick."

"Now what if I asked Flore the same question?" "Big Mama don't run," I said. "She on'y walk, an' not too fast neither."

"So the answers would be different." "I see what you mean," I said. "For everyone ask yo machine how to do sumpin' there would be a different way."

"And so," John said, "when I went to Queziastril and asked how could I stop the Calash from destroying everything…"

I don't know if John finished his explanation in words because suddenly it was as if I were standing in front of the great glass ball. My mind was sucked into image after image upon the reflective faces of the prisms. It was as if I were traveling down halls of pure light, one after the other.

I saw strange and alien images at the end of each hall but there was no time to ponder them because no sooner than I came to the end of one hall I was hurtled off into another. Then, finally, after seeing ten thousand fleeting scenes, I stopped before a square prism that was shiny and reflective like a silver mirror.

The image I beheld there was my own. I realized that I was seeing my own image through John's eyes many years before I was ever born. And even though I was sure that the boy I was seeing was me I seemed somehow different, not older but with much more experience. I was wondering how that could be when John started speaking again.

"You," John said, and I came out of the vision to find myself again in the grassy lea. "You were the answer Queziastril gave me. For the next five years I was granted special access and so I came back again and again to learn about you and what role you were destined to play in our war against Wall."

"And so you know everything that's going to happen?" I asked.

"No," he said. "One day the Calash came and destroyed the machine of the ancients. And also Queziastril will not allow certain information to pass through time. The machine is sentient "

"What does that mean?" I asked. "It is like a living thing and knows to keep certain information about the future from those living in the past. Because if you knew mistakes that you were going to make and you tried to change them the world would suffer from things that never came to pass."

"How long ago did you ask that question?" I asked John. "Thousands of years ago." "I wasn't even born."

"No. But time, like all other things, moves in a circle. Every moment comes back on itself. It was said that Queziastril could remember tomorrow."

That was way beyond anything I could understand at the time. Even though I contained part of Tall John's light I was still limited by the things I had known and experienced as a child and a slave on the Corinthian Plantation. "We bettah git down to yo machine," I said then. "Let us run," Tall John from beyond the stars said with a grin.

I ran as fast as I could through the thick forest. I tried my best to keep up with John, but now he moved like the wind. Every now and then when I would lose sight of him completely I'd hear his voice in my head saying, "This way, slowpoke." And I'd follow in the direction of the thought.

After a short time I came to a ledge that looked down into a basin. John was there scanning the valley. His chest was heaving and sweat was dripping from his head and neck. Over his shoulder down about five hundred feet or so, I could see Mr. Stewart and Andrew Pike peering into a hole that resembled a freshly dug grave. Mr. Stewart was on his knees, holding up what looked like a long green stem.

"That's a part of the machine I used to come here," John said. "It once held enough power to ignite a thousand stars. But that's nothing compared to what the green powder can do."

"What now?" I said.

"We have to destroy the machine that still lies in that hole," John said.

"How big is the rest of it?" I asked.

"Like so," John said, holding his arms out as if he were holding one of Mama Flore's prize watermelons.

"Really ain't all that big," I suggested. "I guess we can fall on 'em and it'll prob'ly get broke in the jumble."

Tall John smiled. He opened his mouth as if he were about to laugh.

"No, Forty-seven," he said. "You can't just fall on my golden machine and hope it will break. That thing carried me through ten thousand suns and just as many black holes. It will take more than a clumsy boy to destroy it."

"So, what then?" I asked, a little piqued about him laughing at my ignorance.

"I will climb down the left side," John said then. "You go down to the right. When you get behind those pine trees I want you to gather up as many throwing rocks as you can. Then, when you see my signal, start throwing your rocks at Stewart and Pike. Every time after you've thrown a stone run a few steps before throwing again. You have to keep moving because Stewart will be shooting at you."

"Shootin' what?" I asked. "He don't have no gun."

"You don't want to find out, brother."

Brother. It was a word that I had heard most of my life. There was Brother Bob who called us all his brothers, and there were the slaves that had the same mother, there were the male puppies from the same litter, but never had the word meant so much to me. John, after only a few days, had become my brother. He was as close to me as my hands or feet. His pain would be my pain and his people were my own. This kinship, this relation, was even more important to me than my newly found freedom. Because the love in our hearts for each other, even though an expanse as large as the Universe divided us, was the power that would save both his race and mine.

I didn't have long to consider these thoughts though. I ran down into the woods and gathered a dozen stones.

I squatted down behind an old pecan tree. Most of the branches were dead, and only one still bore fruit. I stared across the field to where Mr. Stewart and Andrew Pike were working with a rope and pulley, trying to pull something heavy out from the grave.

Up at the top of the gorge I saw John stand and hold up a hand. A flash appeared. Pike noticed the light somehow and turned away from the winch.

"Keep digging!" Pike shouted at his ghoul. Then he strode off up the hillside toward the place where the flash had originated. I could see that my friend was hidden again. As soon as he was a dozen steps from the excavation I hurled my first stone at Stewart. My aim was true and the rock clocked the ex-slave-boss on the forehead.

He felt the blow but didn't go down like I expected him to. Instead he gazed in my direction for three seconds, maybe four. In that short span his metal eye-patch began to glow, and then a crackling flash of light burst forward in

The tree I stood under exploded into flames, and then I remembered that John told me to keep on moving. I ran twenty steps, stopped, and threw another stone. The rock hit Stewart but at the same time his eye flared and the earth blew up under my feet.

From the ground I could see that Pike had turned around. When he laid eyes on me he began to run back

down the hill.

"Go back to the hole!" he yelled at Stewart. But Stewart didn't hear because he was cursing my number and running right at me.

At the same time John came out from hiding and was running toward the hole. Pike turned to pursue but John was moving faster. I hefted my largest rock and crouched down. Then the most amazing thing happened. Pike's body fell away like a shirt that someone had thrown off while running. From the cloth of skin a full-grown, winged Calash flapped its great blue wings, speeding toward the hole. Now he and Tall John were moving near the same speed at their destination.

I couldn't worry about them right then because Stewart was only five steps from me. I hurled the stone with all my might, hitting him on the metal eye-patch. There was a great blue spark that jumped off the torturer's metal eye. He flipped in the air and hit the ground with a loud humph! I threw another stone at the Calash named Wall but missed.

He and John dove into the hole at the same time, it seemed.

I ran toward them with a rock in each hand.

Just when I reached the hole, Wall flew out with a golden ball clutched within his tentacles. I threw both rocks but they just bounced off of his pale hide.

The great black eye turned toward me. In the brief instant that Wall looked at me he seemed to know everything about me. He knew the history that my blood held. He knew every thought and fear I'd ever known.

I knew that he was laughing, laughing at my weakness and ignorance and fear.

And even though the only thing I wanted to do was run away I yelled and leaped forward. I didn't care if I broke every bone in my body, I would still stop Wall from stealing my brother's Sun Ship.

A voice in my head said, "Good-bye, Forty-seven. What I do now will give you the time to prepare for Wall's final attack. And remember, if you think of me I will be there."

Wall must have heard the voice in my head because he screamed then and flew high in the air. He was trying, it seemed, to free his tentacles from the golden ball…

… and then they both exploded in the air like a thousand sticks of dynamite.

I was thrown to the ground, and for a long time there was nothing but darkness.