And since everyone will have contributed in one way or another to the crystal edifice, then they are part of it, aren't they? Part of the Crystal City. And a maker is the one who is part of what he makes. So... they are all makers, then, aren't they? Makers of the Crystal City.

Which means the Crystal City will truly be the City of Makers.

Through the morning he watched and then tried not to watch and then watched again, as Verily Cooper stroked the wood and with his bare hands made it into what it needed to be. Verily did not set a tool to the wood. Nor did he choose a fallen log or fell a tree. He found two saplings that were of a size, and stroked them until they separated from the tree. He didn't exactly knead the wood like clay, but the effect was the same. Bark stripped away from the living wood, and the wood shaped itself, bent itself until each of the saplings was now the shape of a plow handle.

Abe and Coz and Mike watched too, for a while. In awe, at first. But miraculous as it might seem, it was a slow and repetitive process, and after a while they wandered off to do other things-survey the area, Abe said.

So it was that when Verily was done, it was just him and Alvin there. The two saplings were now joined at the base as completely as if they had grown that way.

"Time to take that plow out of the sack," said Verily.

"The wood is still alive," said Alvin.

"I know," said Verily.

"Have you made anything out of living wood before?" asked Alvin.

"No," said Verily.

"Then how did you know how?"

"You asked me to do it, and I didn't have any tools," said Verily. "But all this work you've had me doing, learning how to actually see and understand what was going on inside the wood when I made barrel staves and hooped them-well, Al, did you think I wouldn't learn anything!"

Alvin laughed. "I knew you were learning, Very. I just... didn't know it would happen like this."

"So let's see if it'll fit."

Alvin set down the poke and rolled back the top until it made a thick cloth circle around the top of the golden plow. Then he picked up the plow and knelt down before the handles that Verily had made.

"Gold is soft," said Verily. "It'll wear away quickly in hard ground, won't it?"

"A living plow don't fit into the world the way ordinary ones do, and I expect it'll be as hard as I need it to be." Alvin rotated the plow this way and that, trying to figure out how to do the job with only two hands. "So do I fit the plow to the handles, or the handles to the plow?" he asked.

Verily laughed. "I'll hold the handles in place, and you work it out from there."

Alvin laughed, too. Then he brought the plow closer to the end where it was supposed to fit. His intention was to see how close a fit it was, and how exactly to insert it into place. But this was a living plow, and the handles were made of living wood, and when they got near enough, it was as if they recognized each other the way magnets do, lining themselves up in exactly the right way and then leaping together.

Leaping together, joining, the plowshare sliding into exactly the right spot, the wood flexing a bit to let it in, then closing back down over it, so it looked as if the handles had been carved from a tree that had the golden plow already embedded inside it.

Neither of them had a chance to marvel and admire, though, for the moment the plow leapt into place, there came such a music as Alvin had never heard before. It was the greensong-the song of the living wood, the living world, he recognized it, and felt how the handles vibrated with it. And yet it was another music, too. The music of worked metal, of machinery, of tools made to fit human needs and to do human work. It was the beating throb of the engine in a steamboat, and hissing and spitting of a locomotive, the whine of spinning wheels, the clatter and clump of power looms. Only instead of the cacophony of the factory, it all blended together into a single powerful song, and to Alvin's joy it fitted perfectly with the greensong and became one music that filled the air all around them.

Even then, he scarcely had time to realize what the music was before the plow started bucking and bouncing. It was clear that it no longer intended to be still, and Verily, far from controlling it, was barely able to hang on as the plow lurched forward-no ox or horse pulling it, nothing at all but its own will. It skipped a few feet and then dug into the thatch of the meadowgrass, cut through it like a hot knife through butter, then raced forward, Verily hanging on for dear life, running and twisting to keep up with it.

Whatever else this plow might want, it had no respect for the idea that the best furrow is a straight one. It twisted and turned all around the meadow, as if it were a dowser's stick searching for water.

Which, when Alvin thought about it, it very well might be. Not searching for water, but a dowser's wand all the same. Hadn't Verily shaped it into a single piece of living wood? Wasn't it shaped like a dowser's wand, with the two handles joined at the base?

"I can't hold on any longer!" cried Verily, and he fell to the ground as the plow lurched forward another yard and then ... stopped.

The plow just stood there in the ground, unmoving.

Alvin ran over as Verily got up off the ground.

Gingerly, Verily reached a hand out to it. The moment his skin touched it, the plow bucked again and moved forward.

"I have an idea," said Alvin. "You take the right handle, I'll take the left."

"Both at once," said Verily.

"One," said Alvin. And Verily joined in on "two" and "three."

"Wait a minute," said Verily. "How high are we counting?"

"I was thinking of three, but looks like that won't be it after all."

"When we say three, or when we would have said four?"

"When we say three, we should be grabbing right then," said Alvin.

One.

Two.

And away they went.

Only this time there was no bucking. The plow moved, all right, cutting deep into the ground and turning up the soil just like a plow should do. But its path was no longer so crooked.

And its purpose seemed to be to get out of the meadow, move through the trees, and climb back up onto the bluff.

It was steep going-this wasn't all that gentle a slope- and there were low branches that looked like they were designed to take the head right off anyone foolish enough to be hanging on behind a living plow.

But the greensong in the music of the plow was powerful, and the branches seemed to rise up or bend back, and neither Alvin nor Verily suffered so much as a scrape or scratch or bump. Nor did they get weary as they ran up the hill behind the plow.

When it reached the top, the plow turned a little and ran across the face of the bluff. That was when Alvin became vaguely aware of the voices of Mike and Abe and Coz, somewhere in the distance, whooping and hollering like little boys. But there was no waiting for them to catch up. For the plow was zeroing in on its destination and speeding up as it grew closer.

Closer to a stony outcropping some twenty yards back from the front of the bluff, a spot where no trees grew because the stone continued under the meadow, leaving too little soil for any tree to root deep enough to withstand a storm.

They headed straight for the bare rock in the middle of the clearing, and Alvin was not altogether surprised when the plow cut right through the stone without so much as a stutter. It cut a furrow into the rock just as it had with the soil, only where the soil behind the plow had been loose and warm, the upturned stone hardened in place, like a sculpture of a furrow.

And when the plow got to a spot where a puddle of water had formed in a depression in the stone, it went straight to the middle of the puddle and stopped.