“And that boy has been given a power that he can’t even begin to understand. The power to build against the enemy’s unbuilding. And more than that, Alvin, the desire to build as well. A boy who answers every glimpse of the Unmaker with a bit of making. Now, tell me, Alvin, those who help the Unmaker, are they the friend or the enemy of mankind?”

Enemy, said Alvin’s lips.

“So if you help the Unmaker destroy his most dangerous foe, you’re an enemy of mankind, aren’t you?”

Anguish wrung sound from the boy. “You’re twisting it,” he said.

“I’m straightening it,” said Taleswapper. “Your oath was never to use your power for your own benefit. But if you die, only the Unmaker benefits, and if you live, if that leg is healed, then that’s for the good of all mankind. No, Alvin, it’s for the good of the world and all that’s in it.”

Alvin whimpered, more against the pain in his mind than the pain in his body.

“But your oath was clear, wasn’t it? Never to your own benefit. So why not satisfy one oath with another, Alvin? Take an oath now, that you will devote your whole life to building up against the Unmaker. If you keep that oath—and you will, Alvin, you’re a boy who keeps his word—if you keep that oath, then saving your own life is truly for the benefit of others, and not for your private good at all.”

Taleswapper waited, waited, until at last Alvin nodded slightly.

“Do you take an oath, Alvin Junior, that you will live your life to defeat the Unmaker, to make things whole and good and right?”

“Yes,” whispered the boy.

“Then I tell you, by the terms of your own promise, you must heal yourself.”

Alvin gripped Taleswapper’s arm. “How,” he whispered.

“That I don’t know, boy,” said Taleswapper. “How to use your power, you have to find that out inside yourself. I can only tell you that you must try, or the enemy has his victory, and I’ll have to end your tale with your body being lowered into a grave.”

To Taleswapper’s surprise, Alvin smiled. Then Taleswapper understood the joke. His tale would end with the grave no matter what he did today. “Right enough, boy,” said Taleswapper. “But I’d rather have a few more pages about you before I put finis to the Book of Alvin.”

“I’ll try,” whispered Alvin.

If he tried, then surely he would succeed. Alvin’s protector had not brought him this far only to let him die. Taleswapper had no doubt that Alvin had the power to heal himself, if he could only figure out the way. His own body was far more complicated than the stone. But if he was to live, he had to learn the pathways of his own flesh, bind the fissures in the bones.

They made a bed for Taleswapper out in the great room. He offered to sleep on the floor beside Alvin’s bed, but Miller shook his head and answered, “That’s my place.”