Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

“Until it no longer makes sense,” said Loaf. “The rest of you can stay with each other—I advise it. You’ll be safer. But I want to get back through the Wall. I want to go home to Leaky. But then maybe I’ll come back. This is a vast empty land. It’s not just this city, it’s the whole wallfold. Who knows what could be built here? Vadesh is a lying snake, but the more people who come, the less attention we’ll have to pay to him. He wants the Wall to come down so immigrants can come in? So do I.”

Vadesh made an elaborate shrugging motion. “But it’s not just a person I need. It’s the jewels.”

Loaf looked at Rigg and held out his hand.

Rigg wanted to say, No, they’re mine, Father gave them to me, they’re my inheritance! But he knew he had no right to keep Loaf here against his will. So he drew out the bag with the stones and handed it to Loaf.

Loaf opened the bag and poured out the jewels into his hand.

“Ah,” said Vadesh. “This one is the key to Vadeshfold.” He picked up a pale yellow stone. “With this, a human can turn off this wallfield.”

“This wallfield is only half the Wall,” said Loaf.

“The other stone isn’t here,” said Vadesh. “The one that shuts down the field protecting Ramfold.”

“The one we sold,” said Rigg, realizing.

“The one that the People’s Council stole from us,” said Loaf.

“This one?” asked Umbo. He opened his hand, and there in his palm lay a red stone. Just like the one that Rigg had entrusted to Mr. Cooper, the banker in O.

“Where did you get that?” asked Olivenko.

“After all the times we tried to break into the bank to get it back, you had it all along?” said Loaf.

Now Rigg put things together. “He found it yesterday, when we first arrived.”

“It was just lying there at the edge of the woods where we slept,” said Umbo. “I picked it up.” He turned to Rigg. “You saw me, but you didn’t even ask me what it was.”

“I figured you’d tell me when it mattered,” said Rigg. “And you did.”

“So much for Rigg always trying to be in charge of everything,” said Olivenko.

“I never said that!” said Umbo.

“Yes you did,” said Olivenko. “About a hundred times, in a hundred ways.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Rigg. “Is that the right stone?”

Vadesh looked at it, then handed it to Loaf, pairing it with the yellow one from Vadeshfold. “These are the two you’ll need to bring down the Wall between Ramfold and Vadeshfold.”

“You put it there,” said Rigg. “For Umbo to find.”

“I did not,” said Vadesh. “I couldn’t.”

“Don’t all the expendables have a complete set of all the jewels?” asked Rigg. “This is one of yours.”

“You couldn’t use any of mine,” said Vadesh. “They can only be used by humans who grew up in the same wallfold as the jewels. They imprint on you. What would be the point of leaving one of my jewels for you to find? This jewel is from the Ramfold set.”

Vadesh spoke so confidently. Yet he seemed untroubled by the question of how the jewel got from Ramfold to this grove of trees. “Who put it there?” Rigg demanded of the others. It was plain Vadesh was not going to tell them, even if he knew, which he probably did.

“Maybe you did,” said Olivenko.

“Me?” said Rigg. “I didn’t have it!”

“Maybe you came back from the future, when you do have it, and you put it there,” said Olivenko. “Isn’t that possible?”

“Or Umbo did,” said Rigg. “And put it where he knew that he alone would find it.”