Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

All of them but Rigg, who was filled with something else. There had been a plague at the very beginning of human life on Garden that forced the Larfolders into the water. And the expendables had told each other far more than the Odinfolders had known, or admitted they knew. Had the mice known all this?

Rigg looked around and saw that there had been no mice here listening today. Good. For the moment I know something that they don’t know. Or at least, I know something that they knew but didn’t want to share with me. Either way, I’m ahead of them by just a little. For I know now what the mice intend to do, and I know that I must stop them, and I cannot do the thing from here, from Larfold, and I cannot do the things that I must do with anyone beside me. I will have to act alone, and quickly, before it can be known or guessed by anyone what I must do.

“May I borrow the knife from you, Umbo?” Rigg asked.

“Of course,” said Umbo, drawing it out and handing it to him.

“Thank you,” said Rigg. “I’ll try to return it as soon as possible after this moment.”

Rigg started walking back to the flyer.

“Where are you going?” asked Umbo, falling into step beside him.

“To Vadeshfold,” said Rigg.

“That liar? That snake? What for?”

“I need to ask him something,” said Rigg.

“And what might that be?” Umbo asked.

“I need to ask him for a facemask,” said Rigg. “And I need to know when Ram Odin died, and which wallfold he was in when he did.”

“You’re going back,” said Umbo. “You’re going to talk to him.”

“No,” said Rigg. “That might undo the whole world. It might undo ourselves.”

“Nothing we do undoes ourselves,” said Umbo. “We’ve had that discussion too many times. Or at least Loaf and I have.”

“I’m going forward,” said Rigg.

“You can’t do that,” said Umbo. “Only Param moves forward in time.”

“Not true,” said Rigg. “All of us move forward, at the rate of one minute per minute.”

“Well, yes, that way. What do you mean? That you’re going to just . . . pass the time away from us? Take me with you! I can keep you company.”

“The thing I’m going to do, Umbo, I wouldn’t ask you to do, and you wouldn’t do it if I did.”

“I’ll do whatever you think is right. Don’t you believe me, Rigg? I’m over being jealous of you. I really am. I’m your friend, and loyal to you to the end.”

“I’ll come back to you and give this knife to you when my job is done, if I succeed in it.”

“What job?”

But they were at the flyer now, and Rigg solemnly shook Umbo’s hand, a thing which he couldn’t remember ever having done before. “You’re the most powerful shifter in the world,” Rigg said to him. “Learn all you can from Knosso—he’s wise and clever, and he’s a pathfinder, too. So if you need to go into the past the way a pathfinder can help you do, he’ll help you.”

“He looks like you, Rigg, but he’s not you. I don’t know him.”

“Get to know him, then. And please don’t be angry with Param. She’s what she was raised to be, and she’s trying to get over it.”

“I’m not angry,” said Umbo. “I just don’t like her.”

“I know,” said Rigg. “And that’s a shame, considering that you’re still in love with her, and it doesn’t make sense for either of you to marry anybody but each other.”

And with those words, Rigg left a flabbergasted Umbo behind him as he jogged up the ramp into the flyer and gave the command to take him to the Vadesh Wall.

CHAPTER 22