Ruins

“So you left your daughter to save your own life,” said Rigg, “knowing that her life was also in danger.”

“I was rarely allowed to see my daughter,” said Knosso, “and I had no reason to think that Hagia would harm her heir. Killing children is common but not universal among the royals, or there’d be no royals left. Usually it’s done upon remarriage, so that only the children of the new mate will be left alive to inherit. I had no way of knowing that your mother would remarry after I left. But it makes sense to me now. I well knew Haddamander Citizen, an ambitious man. I thought that when your mother died, it would likely be at his hand; it never occurred to me that they would mate, until the Landsman told it to me as a bit of gossip from my old life.”

“He couldn’t have protected her if he had stayed,” said Olivenko. “He couldn’t have protected himself.”

“I knew that,” said Param. To Rigg she added, “But it’s sweet of you to be outraged on my behalf.”

I don’t like the way these people think, thought Rigg. When I saved Param, I didn’t understand that she was as utterly arrogant and self-obsessed as Mother; and now I find that Knosso is the same. A nice man, a good scholar, but unable to see past his own needs and desires. Now, though, I understand Param’s behavior since we left Aressa Sessamo. She’s a child of her family.

“Thank you for giving me to the Gardener, sir,” said Rigg, “to raise me outside of court.”

“It was the only way to keep a pathfinder like you alive,” said Knosso. “In the royal house, as soon as word of your gift seeped out, those who believed in the female line would have had you killed, for fear you’d use your powers to displace the queens from the Tent of Light and take it back for the male line.”

“You knew I was a pathfinder?” asked Rigg.

“You were tracing the paths as soon as you could crawl.”

“But how would you know?” asked Rigg.

“Because I’m a pathfinder too, of course,” said Knosso. “But nothing like you are, according to the Landsman. He says you can see paths a hundred years old.”

“Ten thousand years,” said Umbo. “And older.”

Knosso beamed. “I knew you would be something, my son!”

“What paths do you see, sir?” asked Rigg.

“I can barely make out paths ten years gone. And those are blurred and hard to trace. Easier to track yesterday’s path, or last month’s. But it did mean none could sneak up on me—don’t you find it convenient to be able to sense paths behind you as easily as those in front?” Knosso squeezed Rigg’s shoulder. “I’ve been out of the water a long time now, and Mother Monk and the Aunties even longer. We also spread our gills to show you, and now the gills are dry. So we’ll return to the water for the night, I think. Will you stay here on land, so we can talk tomorrow?”

“Of course,” said Param.

“We have so many questions,” said Olivenko.

“I never thought I’d meet a king,” said Umbo.

“Well, technically you have,” said Knosso, indicating Rigg. “Though I’m not dead, I think I can be considered to have abdicated my right to the Tent of Light. So Rigg is king, if you believe in kings. And if you don’t, then Param’s next in line to be the queen. Or neither of them is anything, if you’re republican.”

“More to the point,” said Loaf, “we’re not in Ramfold, so we really don’t care anymore, and won’t care in the future, either, unless we decide to go back to Ramfold.”

“A born republican,” said Knosso, “but I remember meeting you as a soldier in my army, I believe.”

“Yes,” said Loaf. “We met once at a victory celebration, sir, but why would you remember me?”

“Left to myself, I wouldn’t have,” said Knosso. “But my Companion brings all my memories to life, and the moment I saw you, the mantle saw behind your facemask and knew you, and replayed for me the memory of when we met.”

Loaf bowed his head. “I am republican,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I bear any enmity against the royal house.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Knosso. “And now good-night. Sleep peacefully in the sharp hard air of land; I’ll be rocked to sleep in cool darkness for another night.”

The Larfolders were on their feet, walking into sea and river, their mantles rising, covering them, their gills emerging as they sank or splashed or launched themselves into the water. And soon the Ramfolders were alone on the shore, and filled with wonder, all of them.

All of them but Rigg, who was filled with something else. There had been a plague at the very beginning of human life on Garden that forced the Larfolders into the water. And the expendables had told each other far more than the Odinfolders had known, or admitted they knew. Had the mice known all this?

Rigg looked around and saw that there had been no mice here listening today. Good. For the moment I know something that they don’t know. Or at least, I know something that they knew but didn’t want to share with me. Either way, I’m ahead of them by just a little. For I know now what the mice intend to do, and I know that I must stop them, and I cannot do the thing from here, from Larfold, and I cannot do the things that I must do with anyone beside me. I will have to act alone, and quickly, before it can be known or guessed by anyone what I must do.

“May I borrow the knife from you, Umbo?” Rigg asked.

“Of course,” said Umbo, drawing it out and handing it to him.

“Thank you,” said Rigg. “I’ll try to return it as soon as possible after this moment.”

Rigg started walking back to the flyer.

“Where are you going?” asked Umbo, falling into step beside him.

“To Vadeshfold,” said Rigg.

“That liar? That snake? What for?”

“I need to ask him something,” said Rigg.

“And what might that be?” Umbo asked.

“I need to ask him for a facemask,” said Rigg. “And I need to know when Ram Odin died, and which wallfold he was in when he did.”

“You’re going back,” said Umbo. “You’re going to talk to him.”

“No,” said Rigg. “That might undo the whole world. It might undo ourselves.”

“Nothing we do undoes ourselves,” said Umbo. “We’ve had that discussion too many times. Or at least Loaf and I have.”

“I’m going forward,” said Rigg.

“You can’t do that,” said Umbo. “Only Param moves forward in time.”

“Not true,” said Rigg. “All of us move forward, at the rate of one minute per minute.”

“Well, yes, that way. What do you mean? That you’re going to just . . . pass the time away from us? Take me with you! I can keep you company.”

“The thing I’m going to do, Umbo, I wouldn’t ask you to do, and you wouldn’t do it if I did.”

“I’ll do whatever you think is right. Don’t you believe me, Rigg? I’m over being jealous of you. I really am. I’m your friend, and loyal to you to the end.”

“I’ll come back to you and give this knife to you when my job is done, if I succeed in it.”

“What job?”

But they were at the flyer now, and Rigg solemnly shook Umbo’s hand, a thing which he couldn’t remember ever having done before. “You’re the most powerful shifter in the world,” Rigg said to him. “Learn all you can from Knosso—he’s wise and clever, and he’s a pathfinder, too. So if you need to go into the past the way a pathfinder can help you do, he’ll help you.”

“He looks like you, Rigg, but he’s not you. I don’t know him.”

“Get to know him, then. And please don’t be angry with Param. She’s what she was raised to be, and she’s trying to get over it.”

“I’m not angry,” said Umbo. “I just don’t like her.”

“I know,” said Rigg. “And that’s a shame, considering that you’re still in love with her, and it doesn’t make sense for either of you to marry anybody but each other.”

And with those words, Rigg left a flabbergasted Umbo behind him as he jogged up the ramp into the flyer and gave the command to take him to the Vadesh Wall.