Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“The Wandering Saint,” said Umbo.

“The what?” asked Rigg.

“We used to play the game—you’d be the Wandering Saint, or I would, or Kyokay, and the others would try to push him off the cliff, over the falls. You know.”

But Rigg did not know what Umbo was talking about. It can’t have been very important or surely Rigg would remember. And what a horrible game, anyway—to play at falling off the cliff! If that’s how Umbo and Kyokay played when Rigg wasn’t there, no wonder Kyokay thought it was all right to dance around on the edge of the falls.

Umbo stared intently at Rigg’s face. “Are you insane?” asked Umbo. “It’s our local saint.”

“What’s a saint?” asked Rigg. “You swore by one before—the same one? This wandering one?”

“A holy man,” said Umbo impatiently. “A man some god has favored. Or at least some demon has been merciful to.”

Gods and demons Rigg had heard about, but Father had no patience with such ideas. “There are some gods and some demons whose stories are based on real things that happened to real men,” Father had taught him. “And some that are completely made up—to frighten children, or get them to obey, or to make people feel better when something goes terribly wrong in their lives.”

Now a new category had been added: saint.

“So this saint isn’t a god, he just has a friend who is.”

“Or a demon who favors him. Like a pet. They go out hunting or whatever. Ordinary people just stay away from the gods and demons as best they can. It’s the saints we talk to, since they’re so thick with the powerful ones. But you know this, Rigg. You went to Hemopheron’s lessons same as me.”

Rigg knew Hemopheron, the schoolteacher for the boys whose parents could afford the tuition. Rigg had gone with Umbo now and then, but Father had ridiculed him for it, pointing out that if Hemopheron knew anything, he wouldn’t be teaching in Fall Ford. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” Father had said. But he hadn’t, after all. He had held back some of the most important bits. In fact, Rigg wondered if Father had mostly taught him things he didn’t need.

“Come inside,” said Umbo. “We can stay here—it’s a sanctuary for travelers, all the shrines of the Wandering Saint are. The only curse on it comes if we desecrate the place.”

“Desecrate?” asked Rigg.

“Poo or pee,” said Umbo. “Inside it, I mean.”

They were standing there in nearly complete darkness, just a bit of starlight seeping in through the door. There were walls. There was a floor.

“Well,” said Rigg, “I’d better go back out before I lie down on this very hard stone floor to sleep. In fact, since it isn’t raining, I think I’ll sleep outside.”

“But . . .” Umbo began.

“You’ll be fine inside, if that’s where you want to be,” said Rigg. “And I’m used to sleeping outside.”

“You’re rejecting the hospitality of the saint?”

“On the contrary,” said Rigg. “I’m preserving the holiness. Of this place. Because I intend to poo and pee all night.”

Umbo stayed inside when Rigg came out and found a place to empty his bladder. He didn’t really need to do anything else, so he walked a quarter of the way around the shrine and found a place where, using his fingers, he could rake together a reasonably soft bed of soil and leaves.

But he couldn’t get to sleep because this was all too strange. He had never come to this place, but since they rarely traveled on the North Road that was no surprise. This business of saints and gods and demons—Rigg did not remember ever playing such games as Umbo described. And gods and demons were things that people invoked without actually seeming to believe much in them. I mean, when you curse “by Silbom’s left testicle” you can’t be terribly worried that the god might take offense and come and punish you—and that had always been the favorite oath of the blacksmith.

Yet Umbo seemed absolutely certain that he and Rigg had played these games, and that everyone—including Rigg—knew about saints. How could such a thing be? How could two people who had played together quite a lot as children have such completely different memories, but in just one area?

Rigg heard Umbo come out of the shrine. “Rigg?” he called out.

“I’m over here,” said Rigg. “You’re welcome to sleep outside near me—it’s a lot softer and it’s not a cold night.”

“No,” said Umbo. “Where did you pee and all?”

“You don’t have to use the same place.”

“I want to avoid the place,” said Umbo. “I don’t want to step in anything.”

“Oh—go away from the door to the left and you won’t be anywhere near my personal mud.”