Pathfinder

CHAPTER 23 Carriage

Three years after the stasis pod sealed itself over Ram’s inert body, the preservation of a wide and deep sampling of the native DNA of Garden’s life forms was complete. So also was the collection and stasis of the Garden flora and fauna that would be restored to the ocean and to the isolated small continents after the extinction event.

The expendables did not speak to each other; their analog communication devices were solely for use with conscious humans. Instead, they were in constant conversation at a digital level, sharing experiences and conclusions as if all were inside each other’s minds.

The ship’s computers were not disgruntled—or gruntled, for that matter—that Ram’s last instruction had been to obey the expendables. The ship’s computers did not care who gave them their orders. For that matter, neither did the expendables. But the expendables’ deepest programming gave them a mission that even Ram could not have contradicted, and in order to protect that mission, they could not be subject to the mechanical reasoning of the ships’ computers.

There was no ego. None of the mechanical devices called computers or expendables had any interest in “getting their way.” They had no “way.” They only had programming, data, and their own conclusions based on them.

The nineteen ships left their near-Garden orbits and rose nearly half an Astronomical Unit, until they were in optimal position. Then they configured their collision fields to the right level of absorption, dissipation, rigidity, and storage and began to accelerate toward Garden.

They did not impact with the planet simultaneously. Instead, they hit at carefully calibrated intervals and angles, so that when the series of collisions ended, Garden had a tilt sufficient to create seasonal variations and a rotation rate slowed to just over 23 hours.

Unlike meteors, which are themselves largely or entirely vaporized when striking a planet, the ships themselves were not affected in any way by the collisions, except that they came to a sudden stop. Even that was mitigated by internal fields in each ship that absorbed the energy of inertia loss and passed it beyond Garden’s magnetic field.

The large chunks of debris thrown up by the impacts soon returned to the surface—except that none penetrated the fields that rose columnlike directly above each ship. The result was that when the new surface of Garden took shape, there were nineteen smooth-sided shafts leading from each ship to the open sky, which pointed, not straight out from Garden’s center, but rather at such an angle as to remain in constant line-of-sight with satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Meanwhile, thick dust almost completely blocked the sun’s rays from the surface of Garden, killing all plant life that had not been burned up in the waves of shock and heat from the collisions. Most of the native animals that did not die immediately, or suffocate minutes later, starved to death. In caves, in certain sheltered valleys, a few species of plants and animals survived on Garden’s surface; in the ocean, many species of plants and animals that could tolerate low light and heavy silt continued to live.

Garden was not dead. But most of the surface was devoid of visible life.

“The first thing we have to do,” said Olivenko, “is get better clothes. Or worse ones, depending on how you look at it.”

“The royals do,” said Umbo. “Loaf and I are dressed exactly right.”

“Please don’t call us that,” said Rigg.

“He’s right,” said Loaf. “Get out of that habit, or you’ll say something that gives us all away.”

“Sorry,” said Umbo resentfully.

“You’re dressed like privicks,” said Olivenko. “I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“We were supposed to look like privicks,” said Loaf. “We are privicks.”

“There’s no way we can make her look like she belongs with you,” said Olivenko. “Either we put you in livery to look like her servants, or you dress like the kind of people who might be traveling with her.”

Rigg watched the others closely, reading their body language. “Listen,” said Rigg. “Olivenko isn’t taking charge, he’s just telling us things that none of the rest of us are in a position to know.”

“Who said I was in charge?” asked Olivenko, bristling.

“Nobody,” said Rigg. “We all contribute what we know, do what we can do. Olivenko knows this city in a way none of us can. My sister least of all.”

“Do we have enough money?” asked Olivenko. “Because I don’t have enough to buy shoes for a one-legged man.”

“We have enough,” said Loaf.

Param merely stood beside Rigg, eyes downcast, looking demure. It had been her survival strategy in Flacommo’s house. And it occurred to Rigg that this continued to be her best disguise. No one knew what the princess looked like—she hadn’t been seen by the public in a long, long time. And nobody would expect a royal to act so humble.

And Father had trained Rigg to act however he needed to. He could command the eye, impose his presence on others so they couldn’t take their eyes off him. He could also disappear, becoming hard to notice even when he was the only other person in the room. “People treat you as you expect to be treated,” Father had said. Rigg had complained that since all their work was with animals, this was hardly important. Now Rigg could only wonder if Father had known everything, planned everything.

“We could use a map,” said Rigg.

“I know how to get to the Wall,” said Loaf.

“It’s not hard anyway,” said Olivenko. “Any direction you go, eventually there it is.”

“But they’ll be chasing us soon enough,” said Loaf. “We’re getting out of town today, but once they know we’re gone, how long before General Citizen’s men overtake us on the road? It doesn’t look like the lady is ready for a long pursuit.”

“What I need,” said Rigg, “is a place where the ground hasn’t changed its level in eleven thousand years.”

“Oh, are there maps with that information?” asked Loaf.

“I need a stony place without a river, fairly smooth ground. Grass and no trees, if we can help it. As few trees as possible.”

“I can think of a few places that might answer,” said Loaf.

“What’s the closest one?” asked Rigg.

“In the east. And well south of here.”

“Do you or Umbo remember how the boundaries were on that globe in the Tower of O?” asked Rigg. “We don’t want to end up in the same wallfold where Father Knosso was killed.”

Loaf stopped, closed his eyes a few moments. “It’s well south of the boundary of the next wallfold. It won’t be the same one.”

“Good,” said Rigg. “The people there are not . . . nice.”

“Saints forbid we should go to a place where people aren’t nice,” said Umbo.

“We want them to be nice enough not to kill us immediately.”

They were walking again, and soon arrived at the shop Olivenko had been looking for. “Not that I’ve ever bought anything here,” he said. “But the clothes are nice—even if they weren’t made for anyone in particular. We don’t have time for tailoring.”

They explained to the shopkeeper what they wanted. “Good, practical traveling clothes for all of us.”

The shopkeeper looked them up and down, especially taking note of the difference between Loaf and Umbo on one hand, and Rigg and Param on the other.

“We don’t want to be conspicuous when traveling,” said Rigg. “These two went to an extreme, I think.” He indicated Umbo and Loaf.

“And you haven’t even started trying yet,” said the shopkeeper.

“We don’t want to look so poor that innkeepers won’t trust us to pay, or so rich that robbers are tempted.”

The shopkeeper gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “With two soldiers like these with you, it would take a bold band to make a try for you.”

“We aren’t going to look like soldiers,” said Olivenko.

The shopkeeper looked him and Loaf up and down again. “Good luck with that. I don’t have any magical clothing that will make you look wan and sophisticated.”

“What about making me look tall?” asked Umbo.

“Now, that I can do—if you don’t mind walking in very tall shoes.”

It took an hour, but they emerged with reasonably well-fitting and comfortable clothes. They still looked like money—but not like really big money. A trading family, perhaps.

“So who are we?” asked Olivenko, when they were on the street again. “I’m too young to pass for anybody’s father. And you, sir, are frankly too old.”

“We did well enough before,” said Loaf.

“Loaf is Param’s and my father,” said Rigg. “And Umbo is your cousin from upriver, who was sent to Aressa Sessamo to get an education under your supervision.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll fool everybody with that,” said Umbo.

“I didn’t say you actually got one,” said Rigg, smiling. But the smile didn’t work. Umbo was a little surly and Param was getting shyer. Maybe they were uncomfortable in their new clothes. Or maybe they were just frightened about what lay ahead.

“Look,” said Rigg. “I know what I’m asking of all of you. Only two of us are in any serious danger. But we can’t get to safety—if that’s what it is—without the rest of you. Especially you, Umbo.”

“Am I complaining?” asked Umbo.

“I’m just thinking that maybe you’d rather—”

“Stop apologizing for being alive,” said Umbo. “Don’t you know who your friends are? Don’t you know what friendship is?”

“You didn’t seem very happy.”

“I’m not happy,” said Umbo. “I don’t know this guy, but I know he works for the city guard, and here we are trusting him with our lives.”

“He’s late showing up for duty—by tomorrow he’s a deserter,” said Rigg.

“Unless he’s on assignment right now,” said Umbo.

“You came to me,” said Olivenko stiffly.

“My father trusted him—my real father.”

“And look where that got him,” said Umbo. “Could he be deader?”

Rigg watched Olivenko as he calmed himself. Rigg decided not to intervene, but rather to let Olivenko handle this himself. “You don’t know me,” said Olivenko, “but I loved his father and grieved for him when he died, more than anybody.”

“Not more than me,” said Param softly.

“But nobody saw you grieving,” said Olivenko. “So how could I know? All I can say is, with the passage of time, you’ll see who I am, and I’ll see who you are. I trust you now because Rigg trusts you. I’m betting my life and career, my whole future on you. And Rigg is asking you to make the same bet on me. Has Rigg shown bad judgment before?”

“Yes, I have,” said Rigg. “I trusted my mother.”

“No you didn’t,” said Param.

“Well, no, never completely. But I wanted to believe in her.”

“Is it that way with this Olivenko?” asked Loaf. “Do you want to believe in him?”

“No,” said Rigg. “It never occurred to me that one of my guards might be somebody—a person, somebody I could talk with. But he became my friend during my time in the library. He never tried to ingratiate himself with me.”

“That only means he’s really good at it,” said Umbo.

“You’re way too young to be so cynical,” said Loaf.

“When we get across the Wall,” said Rigg, “I’m going to need you all. We’re going to need each other. But I don’t give much for our chances if you’re not able to work together.”

They all looked at each other, at the ground, at each other again.

“Let’s get out of the city,” said Param. “We have plenty of time to work things out among us on the road.”

They took a city carriage to the outskirts of town, where they paid off the driver and then bought a good traveling coach and four horses. “The purse isn’t infinite,” Loaf grumbled, but Rigg saw that there was plenty of money left. They also bought some supplies—food, tents, water bags, tools, a few weapons, nothing unusual for travelers setting out into rough country. One of the outfitters warned them that if they were going to a place where the roads weren’t maintained by the government, they’d want to have spare wheels and axles with them. “And a fifth horse tied behind,” he said. “Without good roads, even the best-made coach isn’t going to hold up forever, and you may have to leave the coach at some point. You’ll want five horses then.”

“Next you’ll try to sell us saddles.”

“It’s your buttocks and thighs that’ll do the riding,” said the man with crude amusement. “It’s not so much the saddles as the stirrups that you’ll be wanting, if the horse decides to trot—and that’s the favorite gait of a good carriage horse.”

Rigg wasn’t sure what he was talking about—he had done precious little riding in his life. And that was only being perched atop an old nag when he was a little boy. “I wish we could ride the river,” said Rigg.

“River doesn’t go where we’re going,” said Loaf.

And then both of them realized that they had probably said too much in front of a stranger. In a day or two, General Citizen’s men would no doubt be questioning this man, and now he knew that they weren’t going home.

Worse yet, the man saw them exchange glances, indicating that they wished they hadn’t spoken—so that the words would be cemented in the fellow’s mind. The only way they could make it worse would be to ask him not to tell anyone. That would almost surely send him scurrying to the nearest city guards as soon as they were gone.

But maybe they could give him another reason for that glance. “What we’re wondering,” said Rigg, “is whether you have a map. We’re going into country we don’t know.”

“I don’t keep maps in stock,” said the man. “People mostly knows where they’re going from here. Traders get their own maps and lore from each other. Other folks is just going home—they knows the road and they knows their turning.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to ask in the roadhouses.”

“If they know. Remember that roadhouse keepers don’t travel, so they don’t know anything but their town,” said the outfitter, “and if you start asking the travelers you meet in such places, you never know which ones will send you down a blind road where only your valuables will come back out again.”

“This is a bad idea,” said Loaf.

“Then don’t come,” said Rigg. He knew that Loaf now understood his ploy, so the act could proceed with confidence. “You’re the one who said the Wall was the only test of a man’s strength, so if you want to back out . . .”

Loaf rolled his eyes. “Fool boy. We’ll get there.” They left the outfitter behind. Rigg knew that by telling him the truth about their destination, but only after acting stealthy about it, the man would assume that they were lying, and so would the soldiers who questioned him. And even if General Citizen decided to believe the Wall was their destination, there was a lot of Wall.

Soon the buying was done. It was late enough in the day that they couldn’t very well begin their journey in earnest. But the ostler and the outfitter both recommended several different roadhouses on the way out of town. They reached the second one before full dark, and stayed the night, Param in one room, with the door stoutly barred, and the four men and boys sharing the bed and floor in the other. “If anybody so much as scratches at your door in the night,” said Loaf, “you set up a holler and we’ll have him in a moment.”

Param shook her head. “If someone tries to break in, they’ll only find an empty room,” she said.

Loaf looked startled, but then remembered what she could do, and sighed and shrugged. “It’s a strange world we live in now.”

The farther out into the country they went, the more unusual their expedition was. They weren’t on a main road between important cities, but on a road used mostly for bringing crops and trade goods to market, or for visiting among neighbors. Sometimes the road wasn’t a road at all, but a few ruts here and there in a meadow or pasture, and Loaf had to ride ahead on the fifth horse to see where the road picked up again, so that Olivenko would know where to drive the carriage.

“We’re too memorable,” said Olivenko one morning, after they had set out from the house of a prosperous farmer who had given Param a room in the house and the rest of them space in the barn. “Maybe for the first few days, Citizen’s outriders were searching for the two royals, or for the royals and their privick friends, a boy and an old soldier. But soon enough they must have found out about your buying of the carriage, and then they’d have a better count of us five, and the carriage makes it easy to follow us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re only a day behind us, especially with us stopping each night for sleep in an inn or tavern or house.”

“At least we’re off the main roads,” said Umbo.

“All the more memorable we are then,” said Loaf. “You’re making his point, lad.”

“What can we do?” asked Rigg. “If we sell the carriage or give it away, then they’ll find out about it and know they’re not looking for a carriage any more.”

“Could we hide it somewhere?” asked Umbo.

“Maybe,” said Olivenko.

“No,” said Loaf. “I know what I would do as a soldier tracking somebody, and there’s no chance you could hide it where I couldn’t find it.”

“True enough,” said Rigg. “Father and I were both good trackers.”

“You with your paths,” said Umbo.

Param spoke up then. “I think Umbo is right, we have to hide it.”

“And then what will you do, Param?” asked Rigg. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“As a little girl, I remember once,” said Param, and then she smiled. “I know I’m the reason we’re going so slowly and being so obvious—the carriage is for me because I couldn’t even run a hundred steps without panting, back there in the city on the day we escaped.”

Rigg nodded with a shrug. “We are what we are, Param. No one gave you a chance to build up any stamina.”

“But build it I shall,” she said. “And the carriage is no help to me. So hide it.”

“Where?” asked Olivenko.

“How?” asked Loaf at almost the same moment.

“In the past,” said Param.

Rigg was disgusted that he hadn’t thought of it himself. “Far enough in the past, and either somebody finds it and steals it, or it sits there and rots in the rain and wind for a hundred years and Citizen’s men are sure it isn’t the one we’ve been using.”

They picked a place where the road led along the crest of a gentle hill, sloping down a mile or more to streams on both sides. Soon the horses were free of the traces and hobbled in the meadow on the left side of the road, grazing peacefully, three of them loaded with their provisions, expertly bundled and tied to their backs by Loaf.

“Sorry I don’t know how to do any of this,” said Olivenko. “In the city guard we didn’t have much need for loading and unloading animals.”

“As Rigg said, we are what we are,” said Loaf.

“All right, then,” said Rigg. “The four of us will go back into the past and push the carriage off the road. If we can get it rolling free down toward the stream, it’ll look like an ancient accident. Param can stay with the horses.”

“And I’ll stay with her,” said Umbo.

“You’re not very big, but you can still do your share,” said Loaf.

“I’m not going into the past with you,” said Umbo. “Not if we mean to get back to the present where Param will be waiting for us.”

Rigg was surprised. “Why would that be a problem?”

Umbo looked at Loaf. “Remember what happened when we dug up the stones? At O?”

Loaf nodded. “That’s right. When Umbo goes himself, and handles things in the past, he doesn’t go right back to where he was. He was a day off, a day early.”

“And that was after going back only a few months,” said Umbo. “Who knows how far off I’ll be if we go back a hundred years. Or two hundred. What if I miss by a month?”

“So you wait here with Param,” said Rigg. “But that raises another question. When I pushed Param into the past, I put her hand into the hands of people to whom that time was the present. Whom will we be giving the carriage to?”

“Can’t we just take it back there and then let go of it?” asked Loaf.

“This sounds so crazy,” said Olivenko. “Straight out of the Library of Nothing.”

“I don’t know,” said Rigg. “I’m not even sure if we can ‘take’ something that’s bigger than we are. Why not put our hands on a mountain, go into the past, and then leave the mountain there? Why doesn’t the ground come with us every time we move through time?”

“Our clothes come with us—which I for one think is convenient,” said Param.

“I think the ground, and things attached to the ground, they stay in the present because time is tied to the world,” said Umbo. “Remember, Rigg? Otherwise time travel would mean dropping yourself into the middle of the space between stars, right?”

“So is the carriage attached to the ground?” asked Rigg. “Would we have to lift it up all at once?”

“Not likely,” said Loaf, “not if we have to hold hands with each other like we did when we were going back to join Olivenko in his time.”

“Let’s stop talking and try it,” said Rigg.

In a few moments, he and Olivenko and Loaf were tightly gripping the carriage at various points, using their right hands, while gripping each other’s left hands in a three-handed knot.

Rigg searched for a useful path, more than a hundred years old. He found one—a cow that had moved through the meadow across the road from where they meant to push the carriage. “All right, Umbo,” he said.

He felt the familiar change as the paths on the road started to become people—walking, riding horses. But he didn’t let himself get drawn into focusing on any of them. Instead, he kept his eyes on the path of the cow. It moved very differently, and was harder to get a hold on. Rigg had never done this with an animal before, and now he realized how difficult it was. It was as if the smarter brains of people made it easier for him to latch on to them. The cow was elusive. Just a little vague, though the image was always clear enough. Like trying to see through sleepy eyes at the first light of dawn.

But he locked in with the cow soon enough, and saw the world change around him. The cow was behind a fence now. There were fences on both sides of the road. Rigg hadn’t counted on that. This area used to be more populated, and what were now meadows had once been pastures. The road was also more trafficked—instead of being mostly grass, it was mostly dirt and stones.

“Are you seeing the fences?” asked Rigg.

“Yes,” replied both Loaf and Olivenko.

“Then we’re here. Don’t let go of the carriage. But one of you—Olivenko, all right?—let go of my hand.”

“Why?”

“To see if you pop back to the present with Umbo.”

“But Umbo is right there,” said Olivenko.

“That’s how it is. We see Umbo because he’s actually the one putting us back in time. Now let’s see if you go back to the present if you let go of me.”

Olivenko let go—but still gripped the carriage. He didn’t disappear.

“Now let me try something else,” said Rigg. He let go of Loaf now, too, and reached down and scooped up rocks from the road and tossed them into the carriage. They made a satisfying rattle as they fell to the floor and some of them bounced off the door on the other side. “Wherever we are,” said Rigg, “the carriage is here with us.”

“So it is,” said Loaf. “It’s a relief I’m not holding on to nothing.”

“If stones from the past can rattle around in the carriage, then the carriage is in the past.”

“Or you brought the stones into the future,” said Loaf.

“Let’s try moving it,” said Rigg.

“Meaning let’s me and Olivenko move it, since your weight against this thing won’t do much.”

“Sorry I didn’t get fatter in Flacommo’s house,” said Rigg.

“But you did,” said Loaf. “Taller, too. But not much.”

“Don’t ever let your hand leave the carriage,” said Rigg.

Loaf immediately let go of the carriage completely.

“Thanks for that,” said Rigg.

“You were being cautious,” said Loaf, “and that’s right, but I thought we should find out whether letting go of the carriage flips us back into the future. Or the present or whatever we call it. And it didn’t, I can still see the cow and the fences. Once we’re back here, we’re back here, as long as Umbo holds us here.”

“All right,” said Rigg. “But I was more worried about whether the carriage would stay.”

“So let’s all let go of it and go back to Umbo’s and Param’s time and see if the carriage stays.”

“But I don’t want it here by the road.”

“Then we’ll go back and move it. Let’s just see first,” said Loaf. “Before we go to all the trouble of pushing it down the hill and then finding out that it stays in the present and General Citizen’s spies will spot it instantly.”

“Smart,” said Rigg.

“You say that,” said Olivenko, “as if the fact that Sergeant Loaf here thought of it, and not you, must mean that you’re stupid.”

“Get used to it,” said Loaf. “Rigg is constantly surprised when somebody is smarter than he is.”

“We’ve all let go of the carriage,” said Rigg, ignoring their banter. “Umbo, bring us back to the present.”

The fences were gone. The cow was gone. The carriage was gone.

“Good job,” said Umbo. “You got rid of it.”

“We didn’t move it,” said Olivenko, “and it’s gone.”

Rigg looked among the paths on the road and found the answer. “Within a day after we left it there, a half dozen paths come up to the thing and stop. With a couple of horses—no, too small. Donkeys. Not ideal, but strong enough to move the thing. They took it—down to that barn.”

“What barn?” asked Olivenko.

“The rotting weathered shards of wood there,” said Umbo, pointing. “They used to be a barn.”

Rigg took off running, and Umbo was with him at once. “You stay there, Param!” That almost guaranteed that she would come walking down the slope with Olivenko and Loaf, picking her way over the uneven ground.

Inside the rectangle defined by a few scraps of standing wall, and amid the ruin of a fifty-years-fallen roof, the wheels of the carriage were still identifiable. As were the rusted and tarnished metal fittings.

“Well, ain’t that something,” said Loaf.

“Waste of a good carriage,” said Olivenko. “Those folks took it from the road, and never did another thing with it.”

“Good hiding place, though,” said Umbo.

“They took it out quite a few times at first,” said Rigg. “Got four horses to pull it. But not always the same people—it was like the neighborhood carriage. I count . . . five different groups that took it out at different times. But always the same horses.”

“They bought four horses?” asked Umbo.

Rigg knew what he was thinking. Nobody in Fall Ford could have bought four horses, all at once.

“They must have pitched in together to buy them,” said Loaf.

“Well, they never replaced them,” said Rigg, looking at the paths. “For a while they pulled the carriage with three horses, and then two. And then the carriage never went out again after that. So they had the use of the carriage as long as the horses lived.”

“Probably worked the horses to death at the plow and harrow, or pulling wagons at harvest,” said Loaf.

“I wonder if they thought it was worth the price, to have the carriage to take out now and then.”

“Our little gift cost them,” said Rigg.

“Come on, they loved it,” said Umbo. “What if we could have had carriage rides when we were little, Rigg?”

“Imagine your father chipping in to buy a pig, let alone four horses, and then sharing!”

Umbo shuddered. “Let’s get back up to the road. They haven’t been waiting somewhere till we finished our business. What if they came up the road right now? What would we do?”

Rigg led the way back up the slope toward the horses. He could see that uphill was hard for Param, but then Olivenko was instantly there, helping her, and so Rigg ran on ahead. At the top of the hill, as he stroked the horse that he had decided was his, he scanned for new paths being formed in the road behind and below them. For miles out he scanned, and saw no paths except those of animals and local people going about their business. No urgency yet.

For a moment Rigg thought it might be a good idea to go back a few days into the past, all of them, including the horses, putting more time between them and any pursuers. But then he nixed the idea without saying it aloud. To go back, they’d need to latch on to someone the way they had with Olivenko. That would be memorable, and when General Citizen’s men came along, they’d know that Rigg’s party was time-jumping.

And if they jumped ten years, or fifteen years, or a hundred years into the past, then what? How could they guess what troubles they might run into? Or how they might change the future? Maybe they’d start a legend about travelers appearing out of nowhere—or, worse yet, about a prince and princess appearing out of the sky. Either General Citizen or Mother would have guessed what happened and been ready to intercept them as soon as they got on this road. No, they’d travel in the present until something forced them to do otherwise.

The journey went faster now, even though three of them were walking. Param started out astride a horse—that was hard enough work—with Loaf taking the other to ride ahead and scout the way. Before long, Param insisted on dismounting and taking a turn walking. “I’ll never build up my walking strength by sitting on a horse. Besides, it isn’t all that comfortable. It chafes my thighs and I feel all stretched out.”

They traveled for another couple of weeks this way, Param walking farther and farther before needing to ride again, until she was walking all the way. They bought more provisions at two different farmsteads, and at the last one, the farmer said, “Don’t know where you think you’re going, but it isn’t there.”

“What isn’t there?” asked Olivenko.

“Anything,” said the farmer. “Ain’t nothing at all that way.”

“Maybe nothing’s what we’re looking for,” said Olivenko.

“You think to find the Wall,” said the farmer.

“Wall?” asked Olivenko.

“Ayup,” said the farmer. “At’s right, then. Oh, you’ll find it. All up that way. Day or two beyond.”

“Are there any brigands living in that area?” asked Loaf.

“Might be,” said the farmer. “If they is, they an’t bothering us here.”

“Then we’ll do fine,” said Olivenko.

“What you running away from?” asked the farmer.

Rigg didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “You,” he said. “We want to get to a place where nobody pries into other folks’ business.”

“Soldiers patrol along there, you know,” said the farmer, not taking the hint. “You never know when they’ll come along. Just thinking you might want to know that, if you’re running away and don’t want to get caught.”

Rigg changed his estimation of the man at once. “Thank you for the warning.”

“Why do you think a man moves to this part of the wallfold?” said the farmer, grinning. “Run off with a rich man’s wife, you got to get off to a far place where you’ll never meet the old cuckold by chance. Close to the Wall, but not too close. I know what it is to run. So does my wife.”

Rigg looked at the half-toothless woman and the five children who huddled around her and thought: Is she happy with the bargain that she made? He could see that she had once been pretty.

They paid the man for the provisions—paid exactly what he asked, with no bargaining, since they were buying silence as well, if it could be bought, or at least thanking him for his attempt at good counsel.

There was no road now, and as they moved out across country, up hill and down dale, Rigg kept thinking about the farmer’s wife until he finally spoke up. “Why would she give up a life of comfort for what she has here?”

“She didn’t know it would be like this,” said Umbo, “and then it was too late.”

“She knew how the world works,” said Olivenko. “Her beauty would fade, her rich husband would replace her with someone younger.”

“She loved the man,” said Loaf. “Probably loved him before she ever married the rich man—bet her parents talked her into that. Bad advice, and she decided she’d been wrong to take it. That’s the whole story, I think.”

Rigg looked at Param. Param smiled a little and said, “She wanted his babies, and not the other man’s.”

The others laughed.

“Is it that simple?” asked Rigg.

“It may not be the story she told herself,” said Param, “but it is that simple. That’s what Mother said.”

Ah yes. Mother. “Is that the reason she gave for marrying Father Knosso?” asked Rigg.

“She was talking about other women,” said Param. “Other women marry for that reason.”

“And her reason?”

“For the good of the royal line,” said Param.

“In other words,” said Loaf, “she wanted to have his babies.”

They all had a good laugh at that.

They came to the Wall four days after leaving the farm instead of two, but that was no surprise, they’d been angling southeast, not east. They found the Wall, not with their eyes, but with their minds.

“You notice how we’ve turned south?” asked Loaf.

“Have we?” asked Olivenko.

Rigg and Umbo didn’t need to ask. “I know,” said Umbo. “The horse won’t go to the east at all anymore.”

“They sense it. The aversion,” said Loaf. “The wish not to go that way.”

Param shuddered. “I didn’t realize that that feeling was the Wall.”

“You just think of going that way, and it makes you a bit tetchy, right?” said Loaf.

“It would be like volunteering for a nightmare,” said Param.

“Very good,” said Loaf.

Olivenko handed the reins of the horse he’d been leading to Rigg. Then he strode out going due east, up a rise of ground. Soon he disappeared on the other side.

“He’ll be back,” said Loaf.

Sure enough, Olivenko reappeared farther south, walking resolutely, until he finally heard them calling him and saw them waving. He seemed genuinely astonished to see them and ran to them. “How did you do that?” he demanded. “How did you get ahead of me like that?”

They laughed, and Loaf explained. “It’s the Wall. It steers you clear. You just kept walking, fast and hard, right? Thought you could bull your way through. But the Wall bends you. Every step you shift direction a little more, bending farther, and then you’re heading away from the Wall. Thinking you’re still heading for it.”

“You didn’t move?” Only then did Olivenko seem to notice how the horses were pretty much where they had been when he left. “You just stood here waiting?”

“So the Wall tricks you into staying away?” asked Param.

“No,” said Loaf. “It fills you with terror and grief. Your brain can’t stand the idea of bearing it, not for a moment, and so you trick yourself into staying away.”

“I wanted to know what it felt like,” said Olivenko. “I didn’t really think I could get through.”

“You have to pick a landmark on the other side. And by ‘pick’ it, I mean write down what the landmark is and keep glancing down at the writing so you can remember it. You pick the landmark and you walk straight toward it, never taking your eyes off it for long. Then you’ll get close enough to really feel it.”

“I want to do it, then,” said Olivenko. “So I’ll know.”

“You’ve never had a nightmare? Never woken up in a cold sweat, or crying?”

Olivenko shrugged a little. “You’re saying I already know?”

“I’m saying you don’t want to know. Because the closer you get, the more your mind starts coming up with reasons to be as terrified and devastated as you feel. You start hallucinating monsters or mutilations, or your family tortured or dead. And what you remember afterward, for the rest of your life, it’s the things your brain showed you to explain the grief and horror that you felt.”

“Then I wonder how anybody ever understood that it was the Wall, and not a haunted place,” said Olivenko, the scholar in him coming to the fore.

“Didn’t you experience the Wall when you went with Father Knosso?” asked Rigg.

Olivenko shook his head. “Your father made us stay well back. Still, I was near enough to see that the Wall is marked out with buoys. Has been for a thousand years. For fear of boats getting lost. You have a wind in the wrong direction, and sailors can get too close. They go mad. Everyone always knew a boat could get through the Wall—it was your father’s idea to make himself unconscious during the passage.”

“Wasn’t he afraid of dreaming? Nightmares as he crossed?”

“Drugged and dreamless sleep,” said Olivenko. “And we don’t know that it worked. He was never able to tell us.”

“Let’s keep moving,” said Loaf. “Unless you want to try again, Olivenko.”

“No,” said Olivenko. “Time enough for the evils of the Wall when we meet the place where we cross together.” He looked at Rigg. “What are we looking for?”

“A smooth place. Stony, no trees, but not so steep there’d be avalanches or landslides. Father and I saw it atop Upsheer Cliff. The whole area used to be a huge lake, the Stashi Falls pouring right over the lip of the cliffs. But then the water cut its way deeper and deeper, and the lake drained lower and lower, until now it’s just a wide place in the river, and it leaps out far below the rim of the cliffs, and falls through a deep canyon that didn’t exist twelve thousand years ago.”

“You saw the past?” asked Param. “The lake?”

“I saw the paths of the people,” said Rigg. “Where they walked. Where the bridges were. Where they swam. Paths in the middle of the air, where once there was land, before it eroded away. None of us can fly. We have to pick a place that hasn’t eroded much, a place where the path we have to follow isn’t in midair. And where there isn’t a lot for animals to eat, so we won’t be faced with a predator that thinks we look like easy pickings. A place that was the same twelve thousand years ago as it is today.”

“Oh, is that all?” asked Loaf.

“Why?” said Rigg. “You know such a place?”

“I only worked the west Wall,” said Loaf, “and you know I was being ironic.”

“There were animals here, before humans came,” said Rigg. “Not small, like ebbecks and rutters and weebears. Some of them were huge. Some of them were huge predators. I’ve been looking for them as we walked here near the Wall. Most of the really old ones are nothing like any animal I’ve seen. The old paths are so faint, so worn-out, and they had nothing to do with any animals I was tracking for their fur, so I never really studied them till now. They’re different. From a different place.”

“A different planet, you mean,” said Umbo.

“That’s what I mean, yes,” said Rigg.

“What planet?” asked Param.

“This one,” said Rigg. “Garden. We’re the interlopers. We’re the strangers here. We came a little more than 11,191 years ago. Before that, the world was a different place, filled with different life. It’s one of the native animals I’m going to use to bring us far enough into the past that we can pass through the Wall before it was ever built.”

“So we’ll be the earliest human beings to walk on this world,” said Olivenko. “You do realize this is even crazier than your father’s ideas.”

“Much crazier,” said Rigg. “I’d never believe it except that it’s true.”

In the end, though, they never did find the ideal place. Because as they passed through a fairly arid landscape, with only the scrubbiest of trees and brush, Rigg noticed new paths converging on their own paths—many miles away, but only a few hours behind them if they didn’t keep moving forward. Gaining on them, even if they kept moving.

When he told the others, their first impulse was to hurry, but Rigg stopped them. “The Wall is right here. The ground is stony enough. There’s no major stream between us and the Wall. I just have to find a ground level that stays the same—paths that we can follow. We’ll be gone before they get here.”

“If it works at all,” said Loaf.

“Thanks for the cheerful support,” said Rigg.

“If it doesn’t work,” said Param, “there’s to be no fighting. None at all. They’ll take me and Rigg, and the rest of you can go.”

“They may have opinions about that,” said Loaf. “Even if they make a promise, I don’t expect them to keep it.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Param. “Umbo will just take you two men a month into the past. Or a year. You’ll be gone, then, with plenty of time to hide. They’ll never find you. You don’t have to go through the Wall to be safe. Only us chosen ones, us lucky royals.” She smiled wryly. “Meanwhile, let’s let Rigg concentrate on finding the right place.”

Umbo pulled the bag of jewels out of his pants. “Rigg,” he said. “You should take these.”

“Oh, that’s good, distract him,” said Param softly.

“Why?” asked Rigg. “You’ve been carrying them safely enough.”

“Because they’re yours,” said Umbo. “The Golden Man gave them to you.”

“Who?” asked Rigg.

“Your father.”

“Nobody ever called him that.”

“We children did,” said Umbo. “We all called him that. But not in front of him, and not in front of you.”

“But the Golden Man is the Undying One,” said Rigg. “I think my father’s no longer eligible for the title.”

“He gave the jewels to you, and so they’re yours. Besides, what good would they do me and Loaf and Olivenko if we go into hiding? I think we found out just how much good selling one of them would do.” Then Umbo reached for the sheath at his waist that held the knife Rigg had stolen from the past.

“Keep that,” said Rigg. “It’s yours now.” When Umbo made as if to protest, Rigg added: “A gift.”

Param took a deep breath and said, “Rigg, I don’t understand why we have to divide. Umbo can take us into the past, all of us, all at once. He proved that the day he took us into Olivenko’s time.”

Rigg didn’t have to answer, because Umbo did. “It’s not the getting into the past that Rigg is worried about. It’s getting back to the present.”

“But you’ve done that again and again,” said Param. “The messages you sent to yourself, to Rigg, to Loaf.”

“It’s different when I just appear to somebody and talk. Part of me stays in the present, and only part of me goes back. Or I’m in both times at once. But when I go completely—like the time Loaf and I went back to take a single jewel from the stash near the Tower of O—when I brought us back to the present, we didn’t go all the way. We came back to a time a day before we actually reached O. More than a day before we stepped into the past.”

“But what’s a day? Who cares about a day?” asked Param.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” said Umbo. “We don’t know if it’s a day every time. It might be just a day. But it might be the same proportion. We went back six months, and I returned a little over a day early. A year might be two days off. A thousand years could be more than two thousand days. Eleven thousand years might be twenty-two thousand days. Almost fifty years.”

Param nodded. “But if we’re leaving this wallfold, will that matter?”

“What if we want to come back to this wallfold someday?” asked Rigg. “What if we find a way to break the power of General Citizen? Because I have a feeling that he and Mother are about to remind everybody why the People’s Revolution happened in the first place. What good can we do if we arrive thirty years before we were born?”

“Or three hundred years,” added Umbo, “because it might be random.”

“Or maybe,” said Rigg, “going so very far into the past, he couldn’t move forward again at all, and we’d be stuck there in a world before the human race ever arrived here. It’s an experiment we can’t afford to perform when everything’s at stake.”

“So I stay in the present,” said Umbo, “and send Rigg and Loaf and Olivenko into the past, before the Wall existed. Then they wait for us to pass through the Wall, using your power to be invisible. If we can.”

“What if we can’t? What if the Wall blocks us even in slow time?” asked Param.

“Then I come back across,” said Rigg, “and bring you over, too.”

“Leaving Umbo behind.”

“Without us around,” said Rigg, “Umbo won’t be in any particular danger.”

“What would they care about me?” asked Umbo. He sounded lighthearted, but there was an edge to his voice. It occurred to Rigg that it really bothered Umbo that he was nobody much, in the eyes of history.

“You’re right,” said Rigg. “Nobody cares about you—but that’s because they’re stupid. You’re the most powerful of us. You’re the one who actually travels in time. You’re the one who can change things. The only one.”

Rigg saw Param look again at Umbo. Perhaps it had never occurred to her—raised as she had been in a world where only the royals mattered—that Umbo was anything special. He was a peasant’s son from upriver. But he was also the world’s only time traveler. It wouldn’t hurt Param a bit to realize that nobility of birth meant nothing. It was only what you could do, and chose to do, that made you important or genuinely noble.

They walked only a little further, topping a rise, and Rigg saw that this was the right place. It was not ideal—there were outcroppings of rock, and places that had certainly been eroded by wind-borne sand. But it was a crown of a hill in a dry landscape; no rivers cut through their path. And there were paths of ancient animals crossing right through the Wall, their placement showing that the ground had not changed level very much at all.

“This will do,” said Rigg. “As Loaf said—if it works at all.”

They brought the horses to the very edge of the Wall’s influence and unloaded them. They began grazing on such scant food as they could find.

Rigg climbed up onto an outcropping of rock that gave him a view that extended farther across the Wall. Umbo came up after him. Finally Rigg spotted the distant paths that told him just how far it would take to cross the Wall.

“It’s about a mile,” said Rigg. “Do you see that bent-over scrub oak, next to the spear of rock? When we reach that spot, you can bring us back to the present.”

“That’s more than a mile,” said Umbo.

“Probably,” said Rigg.

“How fast can you walk it, carrying packs?”

“Fast enough. Param will be with you.”

“And what if Param’s ability doesn’t let us go through the Wall after all?”

“Then at least you’ll disappear for a while until they go away.”

“Maybe Param and I should cross first,” said Umbo, “to make sure we can do it.”

“If they weren’t an hour behind us,” said Rigg, “that would be a good idea. But when she’s invisible, she goes very, very slowly. We might be waiting a week for her to bring you across that mile. Or longer.”

“All right then,” said Umbo. “I’ll sit here to watch. Help Param climb up, will you?”

“Saints watch over you,” said Rigg, and started to climb back down.

“Wait,” said Umbo. “Shouldn’t we have some of the provisions?”

Rigg laughed. “Umbo, to you it will be only an hour at the most. However long it takes the two of you to walk a mile together. You won’t get hungry. You won’t even have time to need to pee.”

“I need to pee right now.”

“Well, then, do it off the other side of the rock while I bring her up this one.”

Rigg climbed down and looked for Param.

She was nowhere to be found.

Rigg saw her path and realized that she was testing, after all. But she was moving faster than he had ever seen her go while invisible—which meant that she had actually sped herself up relatively little. He could even glimpse a shimmering in the air where she was, the shape of her—she was at the borders of invisibility.

But it still meant she was moving far more slowly than a normal walk. How far did she intend to go? Because the paths of their pursuers were coming closer all the time, and at the rate they were going, Rigg’s group wouldn’t have a lot of leeway. They needed time to cross the Wall before Umbo would be free to disappear with Param. It was irresponsible of her to use up precious minutes on an experiment. To her she had only been doing this for a minute or two, Rigg was sure. She hadn’t gone more than a few dozen yards into the Wall. How much would she learn from that?

She became visible.

She screamed.

Rigg ran straight for her, as did Olivenko and Loaf.

“I’ll get her!” cried Rigg. “Stay clear!” He already felt the grief and despair and terror filling his heart. He knew that he could never reach her, that all was lost. He knew why she had screamed.

She was staggering toward him, her face a mask of grief and madness. “Run to me!” he shouted. “Don’t disappear again! We haven’t time!”

In a moment he had reached her, but by now the fear was unbearable. His mind kept coming up with reasons for the fear. They were trapped in the Wall and would never get out. The earth would open up and swallow them. General Citizen was already there to kill them. Nothing would work, all would fail.

Param could not have gotten that far if she had been feeling like this as she moved invisibly into the Wall. And she could make it all end by going back into invisibility. But if she did, then there really would be reason to despair. Because by the time she came out of her slow movement, their pursuers would be too close and they’d never make it.

She was stronger than Rigg had feared. For that matter, he was stronger than he had known. Because not only did she not speed up her movement through time in order to end the torment, he did not beg her to, though he longed to.

They took another step, another, and suddenly they could feel the terror fading. Two more steps and they were free of it. Standing with the others.

“I had to know,” said Param. “I had to know if my pathetic little power would let us cross through.”

“Well?” asked Rigg.

“I felt it even in slow time,” said Param. “I thought my ability must have had no influence on it, it was so terrible. But when I returned to real time, it became far worse. Unbearable. As you felt it. So my power did work, and if I slow myself down even more, I think Umbo and I won’t feel it at all. Or not enough to care. And another thing. It doesn’t get worse. It quickly reaches the peak of torment, and continues like that the rest of the way across. That’s when I stopped—when I realized that it wasn’t getting any worse with each step I took. What we experienced there, my brother, I think that was the worst the Wall can do.”

“It was bad enough,” said Rigg.

“You’ve got tears and snot all over your face,” said Loaf. “Very unattractive.”

Rigg wiped his mouth and nose with a kerchief and then glared. “Get her up the rock, the two of you. Get her up there with Umbo and then get back down here and put on your packs. We’re going to have to run that mile if we’re going to get this done before General Citizen and his men get here.”

“General Citizen himself?”

“I know his path,” said Rigg.

“Not Mother, though,” said Param.

She would see for herself soon enough. “Mother too,” said Rigg.

“She came to see him catch us? To see us die?”

“Or to see us go through the Wall,” said Rigg. “They’re on horseback and they’re galloping now. Get up onto that rock!”

Fast as they went, it took five minutes for the two men to put Param atop the rock, get back down, and put their packs on.

“Ready?” asked Rigg.

“Yes,” said Olivenko.

“As I’ll ever be,” said Loaf.

Rigg led them the two steps to the ancient path they were going to follow, right where it entered the Wall. He held Loaf’s hand, and Loaf held on to Olivenko. Then, watching the path intently—for it was very faint and old—Rigg reached up and pumped the air with his fist.

At once he saw the path begin to reveal an animal racing along, over and over. No, he thought. It’s moving too fast, we’ll never keep up. But then he realized that was just the way the path worked. The animal was walking. As he had hoped.

He had never seen such an animal before. It was a little smaller than a deer, and it was obviously a plant-eater, not a predator—he had analyzed that correctly. But it wasn’t fur covering it, or scales—something more like feathers, but with barbs on the ends.

Oh, wonderful. I found a giant porcupine.

But he saw that as long as he laid his hand on it firmly and didn’t stroke upward, he wouldn’t be harmed.

Touch it, he told himself.

Yet he knew that if he made it panic, if it ran away, this would never work. He forced himself to watch the spot in the path where the creature’s line of sight had just passed him, where, by appearing exactly then, he could touch it before it knew he was there.

He reached out and laid his hand on the crown of its shoulder and at once began to match its pace. The feathers were harsh-feeling under his hand, but there was no pain. And all around him, the landscape was changed now. He was in the past. The sky was dazzling—it was noon here, and the climate was hotter. Not a cloud in the sky.

The animal bore his touch, his presence. Perhaps it had no fear of him because it had never seen or smelled a human being. Perhaps it didn’t believe its eyes. Perhaps this is how it showed fear, by continuing to move, its pace unchanged.

Rigg allowed himself to glance back and see that the others were still with him.

Olivenko was reaching out with his free hand. He touched the animal at the rump, just above where its thick, almost reptilian tail separated from the haunches. Still the animal did not bolt. Then Olivenko let go of Loaf’s hand, so Loaf could also touch the beast.

Once Loaf also had his hand on the animal’s back, Olivenko worked his way around behind it, making a light leap—pack and all—over the tail without losing contact with it—and then working his way up the other side until he was nearly parallel with Rigg.

No farther, come no farther forward, thought Rigg.

Olivenko didn’t hear him, but apparently he had sense enough to understand the danger. Keep out of its sight, that was the plan, for now Rigg could see that the eyes were not placed like a cow’s eyes, or a deer’s. They were pointed almost directly forward, like a lemur, an owl, a man. In their position right now they could not be seen. Perhaps the nerves in its skin were not as sensitive as in mammals’ skin. Perhaps the feathers kept it from feeling them as long as they made no sharp movements.

And for all they knew, they could let go of the animal entirely, now that they were in its time, and remain in the past. But Rigg couldn’t be sure of that. He had never gone so far back in time before. Without this animal to hold him firmly focused in this moment, could Umbo’s power hold them here?

They had gone a quarter mile like this before it occurred to Rigg to notice that he felt nothing of the Wall. It was as if it didn’t exist. Because it didn’t. He had come to a time before humans came to Garden, and there was no Wall, and no enemy fast approaching behind them.

How fast? Rigg dared not look for the paths of Mother and Citizen, for that would mean taking his concentration off the animal who was their guide. It seemed to him that they must be going much more slowly than their pace across the ground suggested, because the sun had moved away from noon and their shadows were stretching in front of them. How long had they been walking? Only a few minutes, but it had been high noon and now it wasn’t.

The animal’s shoulders bunched and released, the muscles flowing under Rigg’s hand. It was not a herd animal, or Rigg would not have chosen it—herds would have been too dangerous. A solitary beast. He wanted to follow it for days, for a year, to find out how it lived, how it mated, whether it gave birth or laid eggs or some other method entirely, as yet unguessed by human mind, how it passed the winter, what it ate, what would eat it. How could his forebears have had the heart to kill this beast and all its kind?

To make room for us, for me, thought Rigg. So that I could live here, this world was taken away from its natives and given to me and all the humans of the wallfold, all the humans of the world.

Rigg risked a look back at Umbo and Param. He could see them clearly, kneeling together atop the promontory; but could also see that they were inside a higher, thicker rock. That was how much wind erosion had happened between this time and the future moment when their little band would arrive at the spot. Umbo and Param were in no danger—they were not going to come into the past, so the rock would never become firm and real around them.

Rigg was about to turn toward the front again when he saw Param turn in the direction that Citizen and Mother would be coming from, then turn back and gesture toward Rigg. Faster, she was saying with her hand. Move, faster, faster. The first of the enemy must have come into sight.

“We have to run,” Rigg whispered as he faced front again. “Can we get this animal to run?”

They were more than halfway across. Three-fourths of the way. But their shadows were too long, it was taking much too long.

The moment they started to press forward, against the grain of the feathers, the beast started to go faster, yes, but the feathers also began to cut their hands. It was not just the obvious barb at the tips of the feathers—every strand of each feather was also a barb, and they were pressing their skin into them. Gloves would have been a very good idea, thought Rigg, even as he ignored the pain and pushed harder, getting the animal to a trot so he himself was jogging now.

In the sky ahead of him, there was a sudden streak of light, like a shooting star racing up from the distant horizon, growing brighter, dazzlingly bright. They were running now, and Rigg began to fear that perhaps they would get the animal going too fast, faster than they could keep up with. But the ground was smooth enough, and they kept up with it. Now the barbs were not sticking deeper into his hand; something worse; they were coming out, and not easily. They must be hooked inside his skin.

With my luck they’re probably toxic and my hand will rot and fall off before the end of the day.

He looked back again, and saw Param still gesturing more furiously than ever. He saw something else, too—he saw that the streak was not a shooting star at all. It was something large and black and descending so rapidly that it doubled in size as he watched it, and the front end of it was as bright as the sun, and in the time it took him to notice, it went below the horizon and Rigg thought: It’s going to hit the ground.

At the moment of he thought it, a dazzling light burst up from the horizon, followed at once by a cloud of black and white. A moment later the ground shook so hard he would have stumbled and fallen if he had not had his hand on the surefooted beast, and he realized the mistake he had made. He had chosen the most recent path that crossed the Wall before everything changed. And by doing that, he had managed to get himself and his friends to exactly the moment in the past when humans had arrived from space. That black thing must have been the vessel that carried them. And the heaving earth, the vast erupting cloud behind them, that was the end of the world. He could see the black cloud rolling toward them and he knew at once that if it reached them they would never breathe again.

He raised his hand and pumped the air again. Bring us back to the present.

Then he looked forward and saw why Umbo had not obeyed him at once. They were still a good couple of minutes from the landmark he had shown Umbo, the one that would mean they were beyond the danger of the Wall.

There are greater dangers than emotional agony and desperate fear. Rigg pumped again. Bring us back to the present or we will die here, Umbo!

The others saw what he was signaling and since they, too, could feel the shaking of the ground, whether they had looked back to see the source of it or not, neither was surprised. They both had to know what he knew—that once Umbo believed his signal and obeyed him, they would have to travel the last of the passage in the agony of the Wall, filled with terror and grief, and only the strength of their will would keep them running until they could get beyond it to the safety of the other wallfold.

Rigg pumped yet a third time.

Why wasn’t Umbo paying attention? Why was the animal still under his hand, why was . . .

His shadow wasn’t lengthening—in fact, he had no shadow, it was still morning. The ground wasn’t shaking. The beast was still under his hand, but now for the first time it was panicking. And why shouldn’t it? Because the terrors of the Wall had descended on them like a giant fist, crushing all hope out of them, man and beast alike.

“Run!” shouted Rigg.

Olivenko tried to reach for his hand but Rigg drew his elbows tight against his body and ran at full tilt, pumping his arms and legs as fast as he could. He had the advantage of having felt this agony before, of knowing that if he just ran far enough it would stop. But the others were soldiers. Fighters. Strong men.

And sure enough, both of them passed him—both of them could outrun him, and he knew that it was right for them to leave him behind if they could, and yet it also filled him with despair, for he knew that they would live and he would die, he could never go as fast as they. Their very speed seemed to slow him down. In his fear, he imagined the earth shaking again, the cloud of dust coming up behind him again, the choking dust that would kill him and every other living thing. His mind tried to tell him something else, something important about that cloud of dust, but he couldn’t quite get a grip on the idea, because the terror of the dust was unbearable, making thought impossible. He could never outrun it. And yet outrun it he must.

Olivenko had stopped running. He had turned to face him; he was shouting words that Rigg could not hear. Then Loaf, too, stopped, turned, waved and shouted to him.

But they were too far ahead. He could not catch up. He would be overtaken by the cloud—was being overtaken by it. He could feel it now, coming into his lungs, thick dust that stopped his breath, that made him choke. It blocked his vision of them. It blocked everything, turned the world black and dark. And in the dark he stumbled. He fell.

The grief and despair and terror that fell over him then were more than he could bear. It would stop his heart as it had plugged up his lungs and blinded his eyes. All he wanted was to die.

Then the wind picked him up and blew him forward. Out of the darkness. Out of the dust. Out of the blindness and the grief and the choking inability to breathe. The wind was not wind at all, it was the hands of Loaf and Olivenko. They had come back into the Wall when he fell, they had come back into the agony in order to save him and bring him out, and they had succeeded, for here they were beyond the Wall.

“Thank you,” whispered Rigg. “I was choking. I was blind.”

“I know,” said Loaf, holding him close.

“It was the end of the world,” said Olivenko, and Rigg looked up to see that his face was streaked with tears.

Then Rigg turned and looked where the two men were both looking. Across the more-than-a-mile of Wall, to the rock where Umbo and Param had been. But they were not there.

Instead, a dozen men with thick bars of metal were running this way and that, sweeping the air below the rock; and two men were also atop the rock, also holding heavy bars, also sweeping those bars through the air, reaching out with them beyond the rock as far as they could reach.

Mother and General Citizen sat on horseback, not watching the men at all, but rather looking out across the Wall, across the grassy plain. Citizen had a telescope; he handed it to Mother.

At first Rigg assumed that they were looking at him and Loaf and Olivenko, but gradually he realized they were not.

He turned to look where they were looking.

The beast had come into the present with them. Rigg had used the beast to carry them back into the distant past, but they had still been holding on to it when Umbo brought them back into the present, and it had come with them. Truly the last of its kind in the world.

But that was not all. For a man stood beside the beast, stroking it as it stood quivering beside him. The man was gentle and his face was kindly and strong. Rigg knew that face better than any other in the world.

It was Father.