Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“Or my mind sped up,” said Rigg. “Either way, the paths became people doing the same motions, over and over. Except when I looked at one of them, concentrated on him—then he did it just the once. I figured he wasn’t real. Just a vision of the past, like the paths I see. I walk right through them all the time. So I lunged at the stone—and I hit him and knocked him off. He wasn’t a dream after all, he was solid and real. Solid enough that I could knock him down, pound his hand, pry up his fingers. I didn’t know how to get rid of him. And Kyokay died while I was trying.”

Umbo sank to the ground. “Do you know why time slowed down? Why the paths turned into people? Into the Wandering Saint?”

Rigg shook his head, but even though he didn’t have an explanation, Umbo seemed to believe him now.

“I did it,” Umbo said. “You might have saved Kyokay, except time slowed down and that’s why the Wandering Saint appeared.” His face twisted with anguish. “I couldn’t see him. How could I know that I was making him appear?”

Now Rigg understood why Umbo had started to believe him. Umbo’s secret, the one that Father had told him never to tell, was a strange gift of his own. “You had something to do with that slowing down of time.”

“Your father noticed me doing it,” said Umbo. “When I was little. That’s why he came to the shop so often. He talked to me about what I could do. It used to be I could only slow down time around myself—you know, when I wanted to keep playing for a while longer. I guess what I was really doing was slowing down time for everybody else, or speeding it up for me, but I was little, and what I saw was that everybody else started moving really slowly and I had time to do whatever I wanted to do. It could only last a few minutes, but your father knew what I was doing somehow, and he gave me exercises to do so I could learn how to control it. So I could slow time down exactly where I wanted it to slow, and nowhere else. When I was running up Cliff Road and I was out of breath and exhausted and I caught a glimpse of Kyokay falling, I . . . slowed him down. I mean, I practically stopped him.”

“Father never said anything about you,” said Rigg. “I mean, about you having a . . . thing like that.”

“He was a man who could keep a secret, wasn’t he?”

Like never mentioning that Rigg’s mother wasn’t even dead—yes, he could keep a secret all right.

“But this explains it,” said Rigg. “Why I don’t remember anything about this W.S. I mean, I don’t understand it, but it at least makes some kind of weird sense. I was the one who was in the story. Until you slowed time and I knocked the man off the rock, he probably never fell at all. But once it happened, then the past changed for everybody else. Now everybody knew the stories of the W.S.—except me. Because I was the one who was there with him, and I did it. So my past wasn’t changed. I don’t remember it, because to me it didn’t happen until yesterday.

“Excuse me while I stab myself in the eye with a stick,” said Umbo. “None of this makes any sense. I mean, I was there, too.”

“But you didn’t slow down time for yourself,” said Rigg. “You didn’t touch the man, and I did. Why else does this shrine exist to honor a man I never heard of, only you say everybody knows about the Wandering Saint and his story. But I remember doing everything the demon supposedly did. So because I was the one who made the change, I can still remember how it used to be, and everyone else remembers how it is now.”

“Rigg,” said Umbo, “I don’t know why I decided to ask you to let me travel with you. Talk about this all you want, but I did not need to find out that I caused Kyokay’s death by stopping time. Do you get that? That’s the only change I care about!”

“I know,” said Rigg. “Me too.” But as soon as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. Somehow the combination of their gifts had changed the world. Because they were ignorant of what was going on, it had prevented him from saving Kyokay. But the solution to ignorance was obvious. They had to do it again so they could figure out how it worked.

Rigg took Umbo by the arm and started leading him—no, almost dragging him—toward the road.

“By the Wanderi—” Umbo began. “What are you doing?”

“We’re going to the road. The Great North Road. The place is thick with paths. Every one of them is a person. It isn’t just a few like right there at the edge of the cliff. It’s hundreds of them, thousands if we go back far enough. I want you to slow down time so I can see them. I’m going to prove to you that I’m not making any of this up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“See whether we can do this thing on purpose.” When they got to the highway, Rigg walked out into the middle of the road. “Do you see anybody?”

“Just a crazy guy named Rigg.”

“Slow down time. Do it—for me, right here. Slow it down.”

“Are you insane?” asked Umbo. “I mean, I know you’re insane, one way or another. Because if people become solid when I slow down time, you’re going to get trampled to death by ten thousand travelers.”

“I think the only one who gets solid is the one I’m concentrating on,” said Rigg. “Slow me down.”

“So you turn people solid just by concentrating on them?”

“While you’re slowing them down, yes,” said Rigg. “Or at least I think that’s how it worked. Here, I’ll leave the food by the side of the road, so if I do get trampled, you can have all of it.”

“Wow, thanks,” said Umbo. “Dead friend, free lunch.”

“Are we still friends?” asked Rigg. “Even though we remember the past so differently? I never played Wandering Saint with you—we played hero games, that’s what I remember. But at least we both remember playing something together, right? That means we’re still friends.”

“Yes,” said Umbo. “That’s why I’m here with you, fungus-head, because I’m your friend and you’re my friend and by the way, I have very clear memories of your playing Wandering Saint with me and Kyokay because you did all these death scenes of the bear and the wolf and everybody the Wandering Saint defeated. That happened. So there is some version of your life where you lived in a world where the Wandering Saint was respected by everybody.”

“You’re right, this is complicated,” said Rigg. “It’s like there are two versions of me, only I’m the wrong one—I’m here in the world with a W.S., even though I never lived in it, and the me who did live in it, he’s gone.”

“Like the me,” said Umbo, “who lived in the world with your hero games, whatever they are.”