"But he was," said Alvin. "Slave to likker and slave to rage and hate. But now he's at peace with everybody that wants to, and he spends his life reading and studying and learning everything he can about everything."

"So red folks got books?"

"He gets them from our side of the Mizzippy," said Alvin. "And from Canada and Mexico. He travels widely, the way his brother used to do. That's why he speaks English so well. And French and Spanish and about thirty red languages, too. He says that someday the barrier won't hold, and white folks and red folks will have to mix, and he wants his people to be ready so they can do it without losing the greensong the way the Cherriky and Irrakwa did."

All that morning, Tenskwa-Tawa was holed up with La Tia and about a dozen old red men and women, and when Arthur asked what they were doing. Alvin told him to mind his own business.

But at noon-when they started in on yet another meal, this time with meat in it-mostly smoked turkey, which the reds seemed to herd like sheep-Alvin was invited in to the big hall where the red council and La Tia were meeting, and in a few minutes he came back out and fetched Arthur Stuart inside.

It was a cool, dark place, with a fire in the middle and a hole in the roof, even though the reds knew perfectly well how to make a chimney, as every cabin in town proved. So it must have something to do with keeping up the old ways. The reds sat right on the ground, on blankets, but they had a chair for La Tia, just like the one she sat in back in Barcy. So she was the tallest thing in the room, like one lone pine standing up in the middle of a stand of beeches.

"Sit with us, Arthur Stuart," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "We have a mission for you, if you're willing."

This was about the last thing Arthur Stuart expected. A mission for him? He'd expected to follow along with Alvin as he led the company north along the river. The days he'd spent as a second-rate maker barely keeping the fog around the camp had convinced him that he was not ready to go out makering on his own. Nothing terrible had happened, but it could have, and he had never been more than barely in control. He was proud that he'd done OK, and perfectly relieved if he never had to do it again.

"I'll do my part," said Arthur Stuart, "but you do know that I'm not a maker, I hope."

"It's not makery they need you for," said Alvin. "Or at least not mostly. It's your own knack with languages, and the fact that you're smart and dependable and ... you."

That made no sense to Arthur Stuart, but he was willing to listen-no, he was eager to hear what it was that they actually needed him for, himself.

Tenskwa-Tawa laid out for him what was going on in Mexico, about how the volcano was going to blow up, especially now that La Tia was on the case. "I already planned to send some of my own people to give warning to the Mexica, and they will still go," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "Already some of them are there. But there's a complication. A group of white men is heading for Mexico City and they will surely be killed, either by the Mexica or by the volcano."

"Or both," said La Tia. "Some men has to die two times to get the point."

"So we need you for two things," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "You have to go warn the white men and help them get out, if they're willing."

Arthur Stuart laughed. "You gonna send a half-black boy my age to warn white men to get out?"

"My brother Calvin's with them," said Alvin.

"But he don't like me."

"But he'll know you came from me," said Alvin. "And it's up to him to persuade the others."

"So this is about saving Calvin's life," said Arthur Stuart dubiously. He knew perfectly well that his sister Margaret had no high opinion of Calvin and Arthur Stuart kind of suspected that if Calvin died it might ease her mind. But Alvin wouldn't feel that way, of course. He still thought of Calvin as nothing worse than a foolish little brother who would grow up someday and became a decent man.

"And all the others," said Alvin, "if they're smart enough to be saved."

"But how am I going to get there in time to warn them?"

"Two things," said Alvin. "First, you'll run with the greensong."

"But it's desert between here and there."

"The greensong doesn't depend on the color green, really," said Alvin. "It conies from life, and you'll see, the desert is packed with living things. They're just thirstier, is all."

"But I can't do the greensong alone."

La Tia spoke up. "I give you a charm like I made before, only better."

"And I'll run with you the first hour or so, to get you started. Arthur Stuart, you've passed the threshold, don't you realize it? You're the first one to do it, but you're a man who wasn't born to be a maker, but he's learned makery all the same."

"Not as good as you. Nowhere near."

"Maybe not," said Alvin, "but good enough-and the greensong's not makery anyway. I learned it as surely as you will, and you get better at feeling it the more you do it. You'll see."

"And somehow I'll find the way?"

"The closer you get to Mexico, the more folks will know how to point out the road."

"And if somebody decides my heart would make a dandy sacrifice?"

"Then you'll use the powers you've learned to get away. I don't just want you to deliver the message, I want you to come back safe and sound."

"Oh," said Arthur Stuart, realizing. "You want me to bring these white men with me."

"I want you to bring them as far as it takes to make them safe," said Alvin, "but on no account is that to be here with us. Get them to the coast and put them on a boat-as many as will come-and then you come on back."

"I don't think a soul's gonna listen to me," said Arthur Stuart. "When did Calvin ever listen to you?"

"Calvin will do what he wants," said Alvin. "But I won't let him die because he didn't know something I could have told him."

"I just hope I get there before the volcano blows," said Arthur Stuart. "What if I get lost?"

"Don't you worry," said La Tia. "You be carrying the volcano with you."

The other part of the errand? "How can I do that?"

Tenskwa-Tawa answered. "We have awakened the giant under the earth," he said. "It flows now hotter and hotter. But what we couldn't do was control the moment when it erupted. Or where. But La Tia, she knows the old African ways of calling to the earth. She's made two charms. They won't work until they're burned. But where they're burned, and what you say when you burn them, you'll have to memorize that and teach it to my people who are there."

"Why two charms?" asked Arthur.

"The one she call smoke from the ground," said La Tia. "The other one, she call the hot red blood out of the earth."

"My people," said Tenskwa-Tawa, "will tell the Mexica people what day the smoke will first appear, and when it happens, they'll believe. We want to give them plenty of time to leave. The idea isn't to kill Mexicas. The idea is to show them that a greater power rejects their lies about what God wants them to do."

"We're trying to break the power of the priests who sacrifice human beings," said Alvin.

"Three days after the first charm," said Tenskwa-Tawa, "they'll use the second one."

"And the volcano blows up."

"We don't know how bad it will be," said Tenskwa-Tawa. "We can't control what the giant does, once it's awake."

"What about the reds who work the charm?" asked Arthur Stuart.

"We hope that they'll get away in time," said Tenskwa-Tawa.

"I don't know how fast she work," said La Tia. "I never make this kind before."

"How do you know it'll work at all, then?" said Arthur Stuart.

It seemed a practical question to him, but La Tia shot him a glare. "I be La Tia, me," she said. "Other people charms, they maybe don't work."

Arthur Stuart grinned at her. "I hope I grow up to be perfect like you."