Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“Come in,” said Mother. “No one needs to knock to enter this room.”

The door opened, and six men entered. They were strong, soldierly men, but wearing the clothes of common day-workers. And instead of weapons, they held in their hands thick bars of iron, nearly a man’s height in length. They immediately lined up along the wall that had the door in it, holding the iron bars at opposite angles, so that each pair formed an X.

Then they began slowly moving the iron bars in a pattern that seemed designed to create a constantly shifting barrier. A wall of iron.

“What are they doing, Mother?” asked Rigg. But he already knew.

“Come out of hiding now, Param,” said Mother. “Don’t let this iron hurt you when it passes through you.”

“You told them,” said Rigg. “How to hurt Param. How to force her to become visible.”

“You’re quite an amazing young man,” said Mother to him. “All you can see is the danger to Param, but none of the danger to you.”

“What I see,” said Rigg, “is a monster. Why would you do this to your own daughter? I’m the one who’s a liability to you. I’m the manchild that Aptica Sessamin decreed should be killed.”

“Rigg, my darling son, my poor stupid sweetling, even now you don’t see the truth?”

“It makes no sense for you to have us both killed.”

“Once upon a time the people of the Sessamoto tribe hunted on the plains where lions also hunted. We had great respect for each other. We knew their ways, and they knew ours. We learned the law of the lion.”

Father had taught Rigg about all the animals, or so Rigg thought. They had not trapped animals on the plains of the west, but only in the mountain forests. Still, Rigg knew about lions. How a new alpha male, after killing the old one, would take over his mates. But if any of them had cubs, he would kill them.

“General Citizen wants you to kill us both?”

“I’m still of child-bearing age, dear boy,” said Mother. “He wants his own children to inherit—without complications.”

That was something Rigg had never guessed. Yet it had been General Citizen himself who told Rigg about the different factions in the city—for and against allowing male heirs to live, or in favor of killing the entire royal family, or maintaining the status quo. Of course he had never mentioned yet another possibility—that someone would seize the queen, marry her, and kill her heirs in order to found a new dynasty.

By now Rigg had backed far enough into the room that he was near the opposite corner from where the spy normally sat to watch. Now, however, he could see why the spy was not moving: The hilt of a sword protruded from the wall right where the spy’s heart must be. It had been rammed right through the lath-and-plaster surface. And the path that led to and away from the sword was Mother’s.

“With your own hand,” said Rigg.

She saw where he was looking. “It wouldn’t do for any reports to reach the general public about how things proceeded here today.”

“I thought these spies served General Citizen,” said Rigg.

“The spies served the Council,” said Mother. “General Citizen managed them for the Council. You really didn’t think you could master royal politics in a few short months of wandering around in the library and playing with your sister?”

“You think General Citizen will keep you alive after you bear him an heir?” asked Rigg.

“Don’t be desperate and pathetic, my dear son,” said Mother. “He loves me devotedly, as Flacommo did before him. He’s smarter and stronger than Flacommo, but that’s why it’s worth having him as a consort instead of as a mere tool.”

“And Param and me—we’re nothing?”

“You were everything that mattered in my life,” said Mother, “until the situation changed. My first responsibility is to preserve the royal house and then to rule the kingdom we created—from Wall to Wall, we were meant to rule this world. Could you have done that? You didn’t even want to, with your skepticism about royal privileges. And Param? Weak—if I married her off to someone, she would merely be loyal to her husband and I could never control her. No, neither of you was likely to advance the royal cause. But General Citizen—he is of the highest noble blood. He was weaned on politics. He understands how to get power and how to keep it, and he’s not afraid to take bold and dangerous action. He is everything dear Knosso was not.”

“Do you love anyone?”

“I love everyone,” said Mother. “I love the whole kingdom, but I love none so much that I cannot sacrifice them in order to achieve a higher purpose. That is how a queen must live, my dear. I have come to like you so much—I was so touched by your loyalty, telling me about spies that I’ve known about ever since I lived here. If I could have had the raising of you, you might have amounted to something. But fate—in the form of that monstrous Wandering Man, so called—took you from me. You are who you are, and so you will most certainly die in this room in a few moments.”

Rigg was standing pressed against the corner of the room.

“I plan to weep bitter tears for you, when I’m informed later today that you and your sister were killed. These tears will be politically necessary, but they will also be sincere.”

Rigg nodded. “And I’ll weep for you, too, Mother,” said Rigg. “For what you might have been, if the human heart had not been trained out of you.”

Mother looked at him quizzically. Rigg knew what she was wondering. Why does Rigg think he’s going to be alive to weep for me? And . . . why haven’t these iron rods yet collided with Param, or persuaded her to return to visibility?