Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV Read Online Free Page B

others?”
    “By going out into the world and learning everything and coming back and showing Alvin who’s got the real Maker’s knack and who’s just pretending.”
    Taleswapper propped himself up on one elbow. “But Calvin, your actions here today have made the answer to that question as plain as day.”
    Calvin wanted to kick him in his face. Silence that mouth. Break that shiny pate and watch the brains spill out into the meadow grass.
    Instead he turned away and took a few steps toward the woods. He had a destination this time. East. Civilization. The cities, the lands where people lived together cheek by jowl. Among them there would be those who could teach him. Or, failing that, those he could experiment with until he learned all that Alvin knew, and more. Calvin was wrong to have stayed here so long. Foolish to have kept hoping that he’d ever get any love or help from Alvin. I worshipped him, that was my mistake, thought Calvin. It took this boneheaded old fool to show me the kind of contempt that people have for me. Always comparing me to Alvin, perfect Alvin, Alvin the Maker, Alvin the virtuous son.
    Alvin the hypocrite. He does with his power just what I want to do—only he’s so subtle about it that people don’t even realize he’s controlling them. Tell us what to do, Alvin! Teach us how to Make, Alvin! Does Alvin ever say, It’s not your knack, you poor fool, I can’t teach you how to do this any more than I can teach a fish to walk? No. He pretends to teach them, helps them get a few pathetic illusory successes so they stay with him, his obedient servants, his disciples.
    Well, I’m not one of them. I’m my own man, smarter than he is, and more powerful, too, if I can just learn what I need to learn. After all, Alvin was only a seventh son for a couple of moments after he was born, until our oldest brother Vigor died. But I have been a seventh son my whole life, and still am one today. Before long I’m bound to surpass Alvin. I’m the real Maker. The real thing. Not a hypocrite. Not a pretender.
    “When you see Alvin, tell him not to follow me. He won’t see me again until I’m ready for him to square off against me, Maker against Maker.”
    “There can never be a battle of Maker against Maker,” said Taleswapper.
    “Oh?”
    “Because if there’s a battle,” said Taleswapper, “it’s because one of them, at least, is not a Maker at all, but rather its opposite.”
    Calvin laughed. “That old wives’ tale? About some supposed Unmaker? Alvin tells the stories, but it’s all a bunch of hogwash to make him look like more of a hero.”
    “I’m not surprised that you don’t believe in the Unmaker,” said Taleswapper. “The first lie the Unmaker always tells is that he doesn’t exist. And his true servants always believe him, even as they carry out his work in the world.”
    “So I’m the Unmaker’s servant?” asked Calvin.
    “Of course,” said Taleswapper. “I have the bruises on my body now to prove it.”
    “Those bruises prove you’re a weak man with a big mouth.”
    “Alvin would have healed me and strengthened me,” said Taleswapper. “That’s what
Makers
do.”
    Calvin couldn’t take any more of this. He kicked the man right in the face. He could feel Taleswapper’s nose break under the ball of his foot; then the old man flopped back into the grass and lay there still. Calvin didn’t even bother to check his pulse. If he was dead, so be it. The world would be a better place without his lies and rudeness.
    Not until he was well into the woods, about five minuteslater, did the enormity of what he had done flow over him. Killed a man! I might have killed a man, and left him to die!
    I should have healed him before I left, The way Alvin healed people. Then he would have
known
that I’m truly a Maker, because I healed him. How could I have missed such an opportunity to show what I can do?
    At once he turned and raced back through the forest, dodging the roots,