Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

But eleven thousand years and more made that tingle into a twist so strong it stole his balance from him and dropped him to his knees. Param took hold of him so he would not fall from their little promontory. He was gasping as the party of time travelers set out on their journey across the open mile of the Wall.

Maybe, if he included himself in the altered timeflow, Umbo could have seen what creature it was they clung to. But if he did that, then he himself—and Param, clutching him—would also hurtle into the past, and they would all be lost there. So Umbo restrained his curiosity about the unseen shape they bent over and rested their hands upon, keeping his mind on maintaining this projection into the ancient past.

The farther they walked, the more he felt like something was twisting him inside, stringing him out like fibers being spun into a thread. This was hard. It had never crossed his mind that there was any significant danger to him from pushing someone back so far in time. But this feeling that something else had hold of his guts and was pulling them hand-over-hand into the past could not be good.

Yet he kept on holding them deep in the past as they walked out farther and farther into the Wall. He could see that their legs were moving swiftly, but bent as they were, ever so slightly, to keep their hands on the invisible beast, their strides were not long. It was as if they scuttled across the stony, grassy ground like an insect, six-legged.

He grew lightheaded; he wanted a drink of water; he wanted to take a deeper breath, and took one; he needed to pee, even though he had done it not that long before climbing up here. It was as if his body wanted to distract him from this labor, and would use any means to do it.

But there were Param’s arms wrapped around him from behind. Hers were the arms of a woman, weak as they might be, and they reminded him of his mother, the only woman who had ever held him like this—held him when he was filled with rage against his father; held him when he wanted nothing more than to run away.

He had never understood why Mother wanted him to stay. Stay to be beaten? Stay to prove again and again how a boy his size could not do any manly tasks? Only when Mother was grieving for

Kyokay’s death and, though she tried to hide it, angry with Umbo for letting his younger brother die, only then had Umbo been able to slip out of that embrace and strike out on the road with Rigg.

And now he was held again, only this time the embrace didn’t feel like confinement, it felt like Param was strengthening him, like something flowed into his chest from her hands pressing palms-flat into him. They were like one person perched atop the rock, and so they remained, both kneeling, as Rigg and Loaf and Olivenko passed the halfway point.

Hooves of horses were cantering over open stony ground, and Umbo heard their own horses, already nervous from being so near the Wall, nicker and neigh, stamping and nervously walking a few steps.

He felt Param’s body twist behind him; he knew she was looking for the source of the sound. Then she turned back front and one of her hands briefly left his chest. She made sharp, sudden movements; she must be gesturing for Rigg to hurry. And Rigg had seen her, glancing back over his shoulder as he ran.

“They’re here,” whispered Param. “Hear nothing. Only watch Rigg and the men, and do your work as long as you can. I will do whatever speaking must be done—none at all, if I can help it.”

So Umbo heard without paying attention as a score of horses came nearer and nearer, then neighing and shying as their riders tried to bring them near the Wall. The horses got their way; it was dismounted that the armed men came walking into the space between the Wall and the promontory where Umbo and Param knelt.

The men wore swords, but in their hands held the fiercer weapon Rigg had spoken of, when he told them about his and Param’s final interview with their mother the queen: heavy bars of iron with straps and handles to make it easy to manipulate.

“Come down, the two of you! Call back your brother, Param!” It was a man; it was the voice of General Citizen, strong and warm and compelling. But Umbo merely took note of it and kept his eyes forward, as Rigg and the men kept moving forward over the wold. How much farther? Were they yet three-quarters of the way? Hurry. Citizen wouldn’t kill Param, he was sure, but his men could kill Umbo without compunction.

“Stop where you are,” said Param, and Umbo was surprised to hear the command in her voice. “Together we are holding back the Wall; hurt us and it will consume you where you stand.”

Umbo was aware of the cleverness of Param’s lie. Already the men were nervous, feeling the Wall brushing and nudging at their fears, kindling the first traces of despair. Param was playing on that fear, that growing certainty of failure.

“We are all that keeps you from destruction,” said Param.

Then came a woman’s voice, though Umbo could not see the woman any more than he could see General Citizen. From the sounds, he thought the two of them were still on horseback.

“Param, my darling,” said Queen Hagia, “let us welcome you back into the family.”

“Says the woman who brings these metal bars to kill me with.”

“Only if you disappear and try to flee, my sweetling. Stay with us and no one will harm you.”

“Everything you say, my lady Queen, is false,” said Param—not angrily, but still with power.

“As are all the things you say,” said the queen. “You cannot bend the Wall, or hold it back, or let it loose. You have no power here.”

“I know that boy,” said General Citizen, and now his horse walked slowly into view, nervously picking its way along the fringes of the Wall, each step carefully placed. “You jumped once from a riverboat, as I recall.”

Umbo felt himself compelled to answer; but Param’s fingers pressed into his chest, and he said nothing, only measured the distance left for Rigg and the others to cover.

“They will never touch us,” whispered Param. “They have no power here.”

“We need the two of you,” said General Citizen, “or neither. If you don’t bring back the queen’s son from the Wall, then we’ll have no use for Param, either.”

Param laughed; it sounded warm and throaty in Umbo’s ears, and he felt the vibration of her laughter through his back, where their bodies touched. “Citizen,” said Param, “you see the miracle of someone passing through the Wall, and all that you can think of is to bring him back? All that matters to you are your petty ambitions and desires? You are too small a man to dwell in the Tent of Light. If you are truly meant to be King-in-the-Tent, then step out into the Wall yourself to bring him back. Only the King-in-the-Tent can walk through the Wall—that will never be you. You lack the courage to try, the strength to succeed. It is my brother who is king by blood, by right, by strength. The Wall accepts him. He rules over the Wall. You rule nothing in the world but fearful men.”

She spoke slowly, deliberately; she was not shouting, but rather chanting, intoning the words like music. Umbo could see that all the soldiers heard her and were becoming as nervous as the horses, shifting their weight and stepping here and there, back and forth.