Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

Not much longer now; Rigg was only an eighth of a mile or so from the end. Why didn’t he simply concentrate on his goal and run? Instead, Rigg kept staring back over his shoulder as if watching Citizen and the Queen. You can’t do anything for us except to reach the other side, Umbo wanted to shout at him. So hurry, run, keep your eyes on the goal.

“I think you need to kill the boy,” said the queen. “He’s doing something. I think he’s the one making it possible for Rigg to get through the Wall.”

“Bows,” said General Citizen.

“You shall not harm this boy,” said Param. “He is under my protection.”

“I think she can’t make him disappear till Rigg is safely on the other side,” said the queen. “He’s the one with all the power, he’s the wizard.”

“Aim at the boy, but do not harm Param Sissaminka,” said Citizen.

Far away, Rigg raised his hand into the air and pumped. That was the signal for Umbo to bring them back to the present, but it was obvious that Rigg was wrong—they were not yet to the other side.

“Two more minutes,” murmured Umbo.

“Kill him now!” shouted the queen. “What are you waiting for?”

Again Rigg pumped the air, more urgently, and it occurred to Umbo that perhaps Rigg wasn’t just thinking of Umbo’s safety, and offering to run the rest of the way through the Wall in the present so that Umbo and Param could disappear. Perhaps Rigg had reasons of his own, back in the time he was moving through, for wanting to come back to the present right away.

Behind him Param rose to her feet. “Hold!” she said. “We will come down to you! Stand up, my friend.” Her hands held Umbo under the arms and helped him rise. He could see at the edges of his vision that a dozen bows were pointed at him, rising slightly as he rose.

Rigg’s urgency was obvious. Bring us back now, his hand was signalling. So Umbo pulled them all back, let them all go.

He saw them stagger under the impact of suddenly feeling the power of the Wall. He also saw that they had brought the animal back with them—a strange, bright-colored creature, vivid as a bird, yet four-legged and thick-tailed. The animal was now running full-out, as were the men, as was Rigg. The animal was fastest, and then the men. Rigg was last. Rigg was staggering.

I should not have brought him back, thought Umbo. He’ll go mad out there before he ever reaches safety.

“I brought them back,” said Umbo softly. “There’s nothing more that I can do for them.”

Param’s hands were around his chest again, pressing him tightly to her. “Lower the bows and we’ll come—”

In the middle of her own sentence, she did something and the world went utterly silent. It also sped up. In a glance Umbo saw the men reach the safety point as Rigg lay writhing like a burning worm, still within the boundaries of the Wall. At once the men turned back and fetched him out. It was very quick. Less than five seconds, and even as he watched, Umbo felt Param dragging him to one side, her hands pulling his body and then sliding down his chest to where his hands were coming up; she took his hands, still behind him, and pulled him down.

The soldiers were no longer holding bows. Had they fired the arrows? If they had, it had all been much too quick for Umbo to see. He felt a tickle in a couple of spots and wondered if that was what it felt like to have an arrow pass through him while he was invisible in Param’s slow time.

There were men climbing up the rock, carrying their metal bars; there were men upon the rock now, waving the bars around; they moved so quickly. But Param was already leaping from the rock, and Umbo leapt too—and in that moment Param must have vastly slowed them even more, for now the men scurried around faster than ants, faster than darting hummingbirds, waving the bars around. Suddenly it was dark and Umbo couldn’t see a thing. Then it was light again and they were still falling, twisting their bodies in midair so that when they landed, they would be upright.

The soldiers were still scurrying around waving metal bars. They did not know that Umbo and Param had jumped from the side of the rock instead of straight forward, so throughout this second day most of their scurrying was on the ground in front of the promontory. Then the queen scuttled like a bug among them and they were re-deployed, so that the second day ended with the dance of the men with metal bars now whirling around directly below them.

Still they were falling, and it was night again, and then it was day, and the scurrying did not stop. If anything it was more frantic, with the bars rising up into the air. Invisible now for two days—for two seconds—Param and Umbo were clearly in more danger than they were before, for the queen would not give up, would not let the men give up. In moments they would be down among them, where the bars could reach; they would die before they ever reached the ground.

And then Umbo realiz

ed that he had the power to save them, and as quickly as the thought he threw the shadow of time across himself and Param and thrust himself and her backward in time, only a couple of weeks.

The men were gone.

Another three days and three nights had passed before Param was able to make sense of what Umbo had done and bring them back up to speed.

They hit the ground, stumbled. Param was behind and above him; her weight came down upon him so that he could not catch himself, but landed full out, the air driven from his chest by the impact of her weight.

He lay there gasping as the world around him slowed down and the sun beat down and he could hear again. Hear his own panting. Feel the pain in his chest—had she broken his ribs?—and hear her talking to him.

“How did you do it?” she said. “You are the powerful one, to do that while we were in slow time, to do that in midair, in mid-jump.”

“I think my ribs are broken,” whispered Umbo between gasps. But then he realized that they could not be—it didn’t hurt more when he breathed. “No,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”

“When are we?” asked Param. “How far back did you take us?”