Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“How fast can you walk it, carrying packs?”

“Fast enough. Param will be with you.”

“And what if Param’s ability doesn’t let us go through the Wall after all?”

“Then at least you’ll disappear for a while until they go away.”

“Maybe Param and I should cross first,” said Umbo, “to make sure we can do it.”

“If they weren’t an hour behind us,” said Rigg, “that would be a good idea. But when she’s invisible, she goes very, very slowly. We might be waiting a week for her to bring you across that mile. Or longer.”

“All right then,” said Umbo. “I’ll sit here to watch. Help Param climb up, will you?”

“Saints watch over you,” said Rigg, and started to climb back down.

“Wait,” said Umbo. “Shouldn’t we have some of the provisions?”

Rigg laughed. “Umbo, to you it will be only an hour at the most. However long it takes the two of you to walk a mile together. You won’t get hungry. You won’t even have time to need to pee.”

“I need to pee right now.”

“Well, then, do it off the other side of the rock while I bring her up this one.”

Rigg climbed down and looked for Param.

She was nowhere to be found.

Rigg saw her path and realized that she was testing, after all. But she was moving faster than he had ever seen her go while invisible—which meant that she had actually sped herself up relatively little. He could even glimpse a shimmering in the air where she was, the shape of her—she was at the borders of invisibility.

But it still meant she was moving far more slowly than a normal walk. How far did she intend to go? Because the paths of their pursuers were coming closer all the time, and at the rate they were going, Rigg’s group wouldn’t have a lot of leeway. They needed time to cross the Wall before Umbo would be free to disappear with Param. It was irresponsible of her to use up precious minutes on an experiment. To her she had only been doing this for a minute or two, Rigg was sure. She hadn’t gone more than a few dozen yards into the Wall. How much would she learn from that?

She became visible.

She screamed.

Rigg ran straight for her, as did Olivenko and Loaf.

“I’ll get her!” cried Rigg. “Stay clear!” He already felt the grief and despair and terror filling his heart. He knew that he could never reach her, that all was lost. He knew why she had screamed.

She was staggering toward him, her face a mask of grief and madness. “Run to me!” he shouted. “Don’t disappear again! We haven’t time!”

In a moment he had reached her, but by now the fear was unbearable. His mind kept coming up with reasons for the fear. They were trapped in the Wall and would never get out. The earth would open up and swallow them. General Citizen was already there to kill them. Nothing would work, all would fail.

Param could not have gotten that far if she had been feeling like this as she moved invisibly into the Wall. And she could make it all end by going back into invisibility. But if she did, then there really would be reason to despair. Because by the time she came out of her slow movement, their pursuers would be too close and they’d never make it.

She was stronger than Rigg had feared. For that matter, he was stronger than he had known. Because not only did she not speed up her movement through time in order to end the torment, he did not beg her to, though he longed to.

They took another step, another, and suddenly they could feel the terror fading. Two more steps and they were free of it. Standing with the others.

“I had to know,” said Param. “I had to know if my pathetic little power would let us cross through.”

“Well?” asked Rigg.

“I felt it even in slow time,” said Param. “I thought my ability must have had no influence on it, it was so terrible. But when I returned to real time, it became far worse. Unbearable. As you felt it. So my power did work, and if I slow myself down even more, I think Umbo and I won’t feel it at all. Or not enough to care. And another thing. It doesn’t get worse. It quickly reaches the peak of torment, and continues like that the rest of the way across. That’s when I stopped—when I realized that it wasn’t getting any worse with each step I took. What we experienced there, my brother, I think that was the worst the Wall can do.”

“It was bad enough,” said Rigg.

“You’ve got tears and snot all over your face,” said Loaf. “Very unattractive.”