Easy as breaking a rat's neck. If that was all the Umnaker could think of doing, it might as well go on home. Alvin was a match for him, just like he was a matchfor Makepeace Smith and Hank Dowser both. He dug on, dredged up, hoisted, flung, then bent to dredge again.

He was pretty near deep enough now, a good six feet lower than the stone shell. Why, if he hadn't firmed up the earthen sides of the well, it'd be full of water over his head already. Alvin took hold of the knotted rope he left dangling and walked up the wall, pulling himself hand over hand up the rope.

The moon was rising now, but the hole was so deep it wouldn't shine into the well until near moon-noon. Never mind. Into the pit Alvin dumped a barrowload of the stones he'd levered out only an hour before. Then he clambered down after it.

Hb'd been working rock with his knack since he was little, and he was never more sure-handed with it than tonight. With his bare hands he shaped the stone like soft clay, making it into smooth square blocks that he placed all around the walls of the well from the bottom up, braced firm against each other so that the pushing of soil and water wouldn't cave it in. Water would seep easily through the cracks between stones, but the soil wouldn't, so the well would be clean almost from the start.

There wasn't enough stone from the well itself, of course; Alvin made three trips to the stream to load the barrow with water-smoothed rocks. Even though he was using his knack to make the work easier, it was late at night and weariness was coming on him. But he refused to pay attention. Hadn't he learned the Red man's knack for running on long after weariness should have claimed him? A boy who followed Ta-Kumsaw, running without a rest from Detroit to Eight-Face Mound, such a boy had no need to give in to a single night of well-digging, and never mind his thirst or the pain in his back and thighs and shoulders, the ache of his elbows and his knees.

At last, at last, it was done. The moon past zenith, his mouth tasting like a horsehair blanket, but it was done. He climbed on out of the hole, bracing himself against the stone walls he'd just finished building. As he climbed he let go of his hold on the earth around the well, unsealed it, and the water, now tame, began to trickle noisily into the deep stone basin he'd built to hold it.

Still Alvin didn't go inside the house, didn't so much as walk to the stream and drink. His first taste of water would be from this well, just like Makepeace Smith had said. He'd stay here and wait until the well had reached its natural level, and then clear the water and draw up a bucket and carry it inside the house and drink a cup of it in front of his master. Afterward he'd take Makepeace Smith outside and show him the well Hank Dowser called for, the one Makepeace Smith bad cuffed him for, and then point out the one where you could drop a bucket and it was splash, not clatter.

He stood there at the lip of the well, imagining how Makepeace Smith would sputter, how he'd cuss. Then he sat down, just to ease his feet, picturing Hank Dowser's face when he saw what Al had done. Then he lay right down to ease his aching back, and closed his eyes for just a minute, so he didn't have to pay no heed to the fluttering shadows of unmaking that kept pestering him out the corners of his eyes.

Mistress Modesty was stirring. Peggy heard her breathing change rhythm. Then she came awake and sat up abruptly on her couch. At once Mistress Modesty looked for Peggy in the darkness of the room.

“Here I am,” Peggy murmured.

“What has happened, my dear? Haven't you slept at all?”

“I dare not,” said Peggy.

Mistress Modesty stepped onto the portico beside her. The breeze from the southwest billowed the damask curtains behind them. The moon was flirting with a cloud; the city of Dekane was a shifting pattern of roofs down the hill below them. “Can you see him?” asked Mistress Modesty.

“Not him,” Said Peggy. “I see his heartfire; I can see through his eyes, as he sees; I can see his futures. But himself, no, I can't see him.”

“My poor dear. On such a marvelous night, to have to leave the Governor's Ball and watch over this faraway child in grave danger.”

It was Mistress Modesty's way of asking what the danger was without actually asking. This way Peggy could answer or not, and neither way would any offense be given or taken.

“I wish I could explain,” said Peggy. “It's his enemy, the one with no face–”

Mistress Modesty shuddered. “No face! How ghastly.”

“Oh, he has a face for other men. There was a minister once, a man who fancied himself a scientist. He saw the Unmaker, but could not see him truly, not as Alvin does. Instead he made up a manshape for him in his mind, and a name– called him 'the Visitor,' and thought he was an angel.”

“An angel!”

“I believe that when most of us see the Unmaker, we can't comprehend him, we haven't the strength of intellect for that. So our minds come as close as they can. Whatever shape represents naked destructive power, terrible and irresistible force, that is what we see. Those who love such evil power, they make themselves see the Unmaker as beautiful. Others, who hate and fear it, they see the worst thing in the world.”

“What does your Alvin see?”

“I could never see it myself, it's so subtle; even looking through his eyes I wouldn't have noticed it, if he hadn't noticed it. I saw that he was seeing something, and only then did I understand what it was he saw. Think of it as– the feeling when you think you saw some movement out of the corner of your eye, only when you turn there's nothing there.”

“Like someone always sneaking up behind you,” said Mistress Modesty.

“Yes, exactly.”

“And it's sneaking up on Alvin?”

“Poor boy, he doesn't realize that he's calling to it. He has dug a deep black pit in his heart, just the sort of place where the Unmaker flows.”

Mistress Modesty sighed. “Ah, my child, these things are all beyond me. I never had a knack; I can barely comprehend the things you do.”

“You? No knack?” Peggy was amazed.

“I know– hardly anyone ever admits to not having one, but surely I'm not the only one.”

“You misunderstand me, Mistress Modesty,” said Peggy. “I was startled, not that you had no knack, but that you thought you had no knack. Of course you have one.”

“Oh, but I don't mind not having one, my dear–”

“You have the knack of seeing potential beauty as if it were already there, and by seeing, you let it come to be.”

“What a lovely idea,” said Mistress Modesty.

“Do you doubt me?”

“I don't doubt that yqu believe what you say.”

There was no point in arguing. Mistress Modesty believed her, but was afraid to believe. It didn't matter, though. What mattered was Alvin, finishing his second well: He had saved himself once; he thought the danger was over. Now he sat at the edge of the well, just to rest a moment; now he lay down. Didn't he see the Unmaker moving close to him? Didn't he realize that his very sleepiness opened himself wide for the Unmaker to enter him?

“No!” whispered Peggy. “Don't sleep!”

“Ah,” said Mistress Modesty. “You speak to him. Can he hear you?”

“Never,” said Peggy. “Never a word.”

“Then what can you do?”

“Nothing. Nothing I can think of.”

“You told me you used his caul–”

“It's a part of his power, that's what I use. But even his knack can't send away what came at his own call. I never had the knowledge to fend off the Unmaker itself, anyway, even if I had a yard of his caulflesh, and not just a scrap of it.”

Peggy watched in desperate silence as Alvin's eyes closed. “He sleeps.”

“If the Unmaker wins, will he die?”

“I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps he'll disappear, eaten away to nothing. Or perhaps the Unmaker will own him–”