I understood the meaning of his words as they filtered through the light in my mind. I could even see the machine he spoke of. It was a great crystal ball throwing off an uncountable number of rainbow-colored beams of light.
"… this machine was one-of-a-kind," John continued, "built by our ancestors who were very wise and very patient. It is believed among my people that the ancients placed all of their knowledge into the crystal globe so that in times of great stress we could come to them and ask for advice."
"An' so that big glass ball got the answer to anything you wanna know?" I asked. "In a way," John said.
We were standing in an open field of grass surrounded by a dozen or more live oaks. The sun was high but the air was almost cool. And even though I was scared of going
into battle against Wall I was also deeply happy to be learning things that no other human being had ever known.
"You see," John said, "it is the custom among my people that every citizen gets to ask only one question of the Queziastril " "The what?"
"Queziastril was the name of our glass machine." "Was?"
"The Calash attacked us and destroyed Queziastril so as to keep it from revealing their plan to rip the fabric of existence."
"But you knew anyway," I said.
"Yes. But knowledge is a strange thing," John replied. "A thousand people might ask Queziastril the same question and for each person the machine would give a different answer."
"Maybe yo machine was broken," I speculated. John grinned.
"No," he said. "What would the answer be if I asked you how long it would take you to run around this field of grass?" "I dunno," I said. "With the speed you give me I expect it would be pretty quick."
"Now what if I asked Flore the same question?" "Big Mama don't run," I said. "She on'y walk, an' not too fast neither."
"So the answers would be different." "I see what you mean," I said. "For everyone ask yo machine how to do sumpin' there would be a different way."
"And so," John said, "when I went to Queziastril and asked how could I stop the Calash from destroying everything…"
I don't know if John finished his explanation in words because suddenly it was as if I were standing in front of the great glass ball. My mind was sucked into image after image upon the reflective faces of the prisms. It was as if I were traveling down halls of pure light, one after the other.
I saw strange and alien images at the end of each hall but there was no time to ponder them because no sooner than I came to the end of one hall I was hurtled off into another. Then, finally, after seeing ten thousand fleeting scenes, I stopped before a square prism that was shiny and reflective like a silver mirror.
The image I beheld there was my own. I realized that I was seeing my own image through John's eyes many years before I was ever born. And even though I was sure that the boy I was seeing was me I seemed somehow different, not older but with much more experience. I was wondering how that could be when John started speaking again.
"You," John said, and I came out of the vision to find myself again in the grassy lea. "You were the answer Queziastril gave me. For the next five years I was granted special access and so I came back again and again to learn about you and what role you were destined to play in our war against Wall."
"And so you know everything that's going to happen?" I asked.
"No," he said. "One day the Calash came and destroyed the machine of the ancients. And also Queziastril will not allow certain information to pass through time. The machine is sentient "
"What does that mean?" I asked. "It is like a living thing and knows to keep certain information about the future from those living in the past. Because if you knew mistakes that you were going to make and you tried to change them the world would suffer from things that never came to pass."
"How long ago did you ask that question?" I asked John. "Thousands of years ago." "I wasn't even born."
"No. But time, like all other things, moves in a circle. Every moment comes back on itself. It was said that Queziastril could remember tomorrow."
That was way beyond anything I could understand at the time. Even though I contained part of Tall John's light I was still limited by the things I had known and experienced as a child and a slave on the Corinthian Plantation. "We bettah git down to yo machine," I said then. "Let us run," Tall John from beyond the stars said with a grin.
I ran as fast as I could through the thick forest. I tried my best to keep up with John, but now he moved like the wind. Every now and then when I would lose sight of him completely I'd hear his voice in my head saying, "This way, slowpoke." And I'd follow in the direction of the thought.
After a short time I came to a ledge that looked down into a basin. John was there scanning the valley. His chest was heaving and sweat was dripping from his head and neck. Over his shoulder down about five hundred feet or so, I could see Mr. Stewart and Andrew Pike peering into a hole that resembled a freshly dug grave. Mr. Stewart was on his knees, holding up what looked like a long green stem.
"That's a part of the machine I used to come here," John said. "It once held enough power to ignite a thousand stars. But that's nothing compared to what the green powder can do."
"What now?" I said.
"We have to destroy the machine that still lies in that hole," John said.
"How big is the rest of it?" I asked.
"Like so," John said, holding his arms out as if he were holding one of Mama Flore's prize watermelons.
"Really ain't all that big," I suggested. "I guess we can fall on 'em and it'll prob'ly get broke in the jumble."
Tall John smiled. He opened his mouth as if he were about to laugh.
"No, Forty-seven," he said. "You can't just fall on my golden machine and hope it will break. That thing carried me through ten thousand suns and just as many black holes. It will take more than a clumsy boy to destroy it."
"So, what then?" I asked, a little piqued about him laughing at my ignorance.
"I will climb down the left side," John said then. "You go down to the right. When you get behind those pine trees I want you to gather up as many throwing rocks as you can. Then, when you see my signal, start throwing your rocks at Stewart and Pike. Every time after you've thrown a stone run a few steps before throwing again. You have to keep moving because Stewart will be shooting at you."
"Shootin' what?" I asked. "He don't have no gun."
"You don't want to find out, brother."
Brother. It was a word that I had heard most of my life. There was Brother Bob who called us all his brothers, and there were the slaves that had the same mother, there were the male puppies from the same litter, but never had the word meant so much to me. John, after only a few days, had become my brother. He was as close to me as my hands or feet. His pain would be my pain and his people were my own. This kinship, this relation, was even more important to me than my newly found freedom. Because the love in our hearts for each other, even though an expanse as large as the Universe divided us, was the power that would save both his race and mine.
I didn't have long to consider these thoughts though. I ran down into the woods and gathered a dozen stones.
I squatted down behind an old pecan tree. Most of the branches were dead, and only one still bore fruit. I stared across the field to where Mr. Stewart and Andrew Pike were working with a rope and pulley, trying to pull something heavy out from the grave.
Up at the top of the gorge I saw John stand and hold up a hand. A flash appeared. Pike noticed the light somehow and turned away from the winch.
"Keep digging!" Pike shouted at his ghoul. Then he strode off up the hillside toward the place where the flash had originated. I could see that my friend was hidden again. As soon as he was a dozen steps from the excavation I hurled my first stone at Stewart. My aim was true and the rock clocked the ex-slave-boss on the forehead.