their gifts had changed the world. Because they were ignorant of what was going on, it had prevented him from saving Kyokay. But the solution to ignorance was obvious. They had to do it again so they could figure out how it worked.
Rigg took Umbo by the arm and started leading him-no, almost dragging him-toward the road.
“By the Wanderi-” Umbo began. “What are you doing?”
“We’re going to the road. The Great North Road. The place is thick with paths. Every one of them is a person. It isn’t just a few like right there at the edge of the cliff. It’s hundreds of them, thousands if we go back far enough. I want you to slow down time so I can see them. I’m going to prove to you that I’m not making any of this up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“See whether we can do this thing on purpose.” When they got to the highway, Rigg walked out into the middle of the road. “Do you see anybody?”
“Just a crazy guy named Rigg.”
“Slow down time. Do it-for me, right here. Slow it down.”
“Are you insane?” asked Umbo. “I mean, I know you’re insane, one way or another. Because if people become solid when I slow down time, you’re going to get trampled to death by ten thousand travelers.”
“I think the only one who gets solid is the one I’m concentrating on,” said Rigg. “Slow me down.”
“So you turn people solid just by concentrating on them?”
“While you’re slowing them down, yes,” said Rigg. “Or at least I think that’s how it worked. Here, I’ll leave the food by the side of the road, so if I do get trampled, you can have all of it.”
“Wow, thanks,” said Umbo. “Dead friend, free lunch.”
“Are we still friends?” asked Rigg. “Even though we remember the past so differently? I never played Wandering Saint with you-we played hero games, that’s what I remember. But at least we both remember playing something together, right? That means we’re still friends.”
“Yes,” said Umbo. “That’s why I’m here with you, fungus-head, because I’m your friend and you’re my friend and by the way, I have very clear memories of your playing Wandering Saint with me and Kyokay because you did all these death scenes of the bear and the wolf and everybody the Wandering Saint defeated. That happened. So there is some version of your life where you lived in a world where the Wandering Saint was respected by everybody.”
“You’re right, this is complicated,” said Rigg. “It’s like there are two versions of me, only I’m the wrong one- I’m here in the world with a W.S., even though I never lived in it, and the me who did live in it, he’s gone.”
“Like the me,” said Umbo, “who lived in the world with your hero games, whatever they are.”
“Slow down time for me,” said Rigg. “Let’s just do it and see.”
“Kyokay got killed by doing crazy stuff on an impulse. Think this through, Rigg. Don’t stand in the middle of the road. Come to the edge. There have to be fewer people here at the edge.”
“Right,” said Rigg. “That’s good, that’s right.” He walked out of the middle of the road and then looked back at Umbo. “Now.”
“Not while you’re looking at me,” said Umbo.
“Why not? What happens, your pants fall down?”
“You weren’t looking at me when I did it up on the cliff,” said Umbo. “And shouldn’t you be watching the road so that nobody bumps into you?”
“Umbo, I can’t look both ways at once. No matter where I look, somebody’s going to be coming up behind me and walking right through me.”
“You’re going to die.”
“Maybe,” said Rigg. “And maybe my body will just disappear in our time here and I’ll show up as a mysterious corpse in the past. Maybe I’ll be the Magical Dead Kid and they’ll build a little temple for me.”
“I really hate you,” said Umbo. “I always have.”
“Slow down time for me,” said Rigg.
And, just like that, with Umbo glaring at him, it started to happen. Umbo hadn’t waved his hands or muttered something like the magicians did when traveling players came to town.
Rigg deliberately kept his eyes out of focus-it was pretty easy, considering what came into view when time slowed. The middle of the road was so full of blur that Rigg was grateful he had moved to the edge. Because here the blurs became more individual, he could see people’s faces. Just glimpses as they blurred past, but he finally picked one man and watched how he hurried, looking neither left nor right. He seemed to be a man of authority by his attitude, and he was dressed opulently, but in an outlandish costume whose like Rigg had never seen before.
At his hip, his belt held a scabbard with a sword in it. On the other side, the side nearer to Rigg, a sheathed knife had been thrust into his belt.
Rigg fell into step beside him, reached down, snatched the knife and drew it out. The man saw him, reached out immediately to grab him or take back the knife-but Rigg merely looked away and focused on somebody else, a woman, and at the same time he called out to Umbo, “Bring me back!”
Just like that, all the blur people became mere paths of light, and Rigg and Umbo were alone on the road.
Rigg was still holding the knife.
Now he could see that it was quite a lavish thing. Fine workmanship in the metal of the hilt, with jewels set in it that seemed the equal in quality of any of those Father had left for him, though they were smaller. And the thing was sharp-looking; it felt wicked and well-balanced in his hand.
It had been in the past, and Rigg had brought it into the present.
“That knife,” said Umbo, staring at it with awe. “It just-you just reached out and suddenly it was there.”
“Yes, and when the owner of it tried to take it back, to him it must have seemed that suddenly I was not there. Just like the demon.”
Umbo sat down in the grass beside the road. “The Wandering Saint story-it really happened-but it wasn’t a demon.”
And then Rigg had a sudden thought, and just like that, he burst into tears, nearly the way Umbo had. “By Silbom’s right ear,” he said, when he could speak. “If I had just been able to take my mind off him, the W.S. would have disappeared and I could have saved Kyokay.”
They wept together then, sitting by the side of the road, realizing that if either one had understood at all what their gifts were doing, Kyokay might still be alive.
Or, just as likely, Kyokay would have fallen anyway, dragging Rigg with him. Who knew whether Rigg could really have drawn him up onto the rock? Who knew whether they both could have hopped from rock to rock and made it to safety even if Rigg had dragged the younger boy back up?
The weeping stopped. They sat in silence for a while. Then Umbo said a really foul word and picked up a rock and threw it out into the road. “There was no demon. There was just us. You and me, our powers working together. We were the demon.”
“Maybe that’s all the demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we’re doing.”
“That temple back there,” said Umbo. “It’s a temple to us. The Wandering Saint was just an ordinary guy like the one you took the knife from.”
“He was actually pretty extraordinary.”
“Shut up, Rigg. Do we always have to have a joke?”
“Well, I do,” said Rigg.
“So let’s fix it,” said Umbo. “Let’s go back to before your father got killed, and stop him and tell him what happened and then he won’t have a tree fall on him and you won’t be out on the rocks upstream from the falls just when Kyokay-”
“Two reasons why that’s a really bad idea,” said Rigg. “First, if I’m not there, Kyokay falls. Second, you can’t watch him more closely because I’m the one who experiences the time change, not you, so you won’t know anything about what’s going to happen, you’ll just keep doing the same thing. Third, we can’t go back and talk to Father. Or shove him out of his path. Ever.”
“Why not?”
