Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“We all three went together,” said Umbo. “Right?”

“It was flickery,” said Loaf. “At first I kept seeing the boatman and then not seeing him.”

“But the flickering had stopped by the time he saw us, right?” asked Umbo.

Loaf nodded.

“I want to go back to the time before the Wall existed,” said Rigg. “And then just walk on through. But if we’re in both times at once, what if the—influence, whatever it is, the repulsion from the Wall in our present time—what if we still feel it as we’re passing through?”

“Maybe it’ll be less,” said Umbo.

“I hope so,” said Rigg. “But maybe we’ll need my sister, too. So we won’t exist in any one moment or any one place for longer than a tiny fraction of a second.”

“Can she extend her . . . talent to other people?” asked Umbo.

“She had to be touching me, but yes, we’ve done it.”

“What do you need me for?” growled Loaf.

Rigg shook his head. “We don’t need you—to get through the Wall. But we’ll need your experience, and maybe your fighting ability, once we’re on the other side. When Father Knosso found a way through the Wall—drugged unconscious and drifting in a boat—some water creatures on the other side dragged him out of the boat and drowned him.”

“Ouch,” said Loaf. “I have no experience fighting murderous water creatures.”

“We’re not passing through where Father Knosso did,” said Rigg. “We don’t know what we’ll find. Umbo and my sister and I are really smart and important and powerful and all, but we’re also kind of small and weak and not particularly scary. You, on the other hand—you make grown men cry when you look at them angrily.”

Loaf gave a short bark of a laugh. “I think we have several messages from your future self, Umbo, to prove that we can get the crap beaten out of us.”

“Only when you’re seriously outnumbered,” said Umbo.

“Which might happen thirteen seconds after we get through to the other fold,” said Loaf.

“If it happens, it happens,” said Rigg. “But I know this—if we don’t go where nobody from this wallfold can follow us, then my life—and the lives of my mother and sister—aren’t worth a thing.”

“Can your mother do . . . anything?” asked Umbo.

“If she can, she hasn’t confided in me,” said Rigg.

“If we don’t like it in the fold next door,” said Loaf, “we can always go back.”

“You’ve been stationed at the Wall,” said Rigg. “Have you ever seen a . . . a person, or something like a person, beyond the Wall?”

“Not me personally,” said Loaf. “But there are stories.”

“Scary stories?” asked Umbo.

“Just stories,” said Loaf. “But yes, they all sound like the kind of thing that people like to make up. Like . . . ‘My friend saw a man beyond the Wall and he was lighting a fire. Then he poured water on the fire, putting it out completely, and stamped on the ashes, and pointed at my friend three times. Like a warning of some kind. The next day my friend’s house burned down.’”

“It always happens to a friend,” said Rigg.

“A friend of a friend,” said Umbo.

“But when you think about what we’ve done—you’ve done—”

“You were part of it,” said Umbo.

“Anything seems possible.”

“Do any of these stories include dangerous stuff? People in other wallfolds who eat babies or something?” asked Umbo.