Orson Card - Pathfinder

“He’ll be back,” said Loaf.

Sure enough, Olivenko reappeared farther south, walking resolutely, until he finally heard them calling him and saw them waving. He seemed genuinely astonished to see them and ran to them. “How did you do that?” he demanded. “How did you get ahead of me like that?”

They laughed, and Loaf explained. “It’s the Wall. It steers you clear. You just kept walking, fast and hard, right? Thought you could bull your way through. But the Wall bends you. Every step you shift direction a little more, bending farther, and then you’re heading away from the Wall. Thinking you’re still heading for it.”

“You didn’t move?” Only then did Olivenko seem to notice how the horses were pretty much where they had been when he left. “You just stood here waiting?”

“So the Wall tricks you into staying away?” asked Param.

“No,” said Loaf. “It fills you with terror and grief. Your brain can’t stand the idea of bearing it, not for a moment, and so you trick yourself into staying away.”

“I wanted to know what it felt like,” said Olivenko. “I didn’t really think I could get through.”

“You have to pick a landmark on the other side. And by ‘pick’ it, I mean write down what the landmark is and keep glancing down at the writing so you can remember it. You pick the landmark and you walk straight toward it, never taking your eyes off it for long. Then you’ll get close enough to really feel it.”

“I want to do it, then,” said Olivenko. “So I’ll know.”

“You’ve never had a nightmare? Never woken up in a cold sweat, or crying?”

Olivenko shrugged a little. “You’re saying I already know?”

“I’m saying you don’t want to know. Because the closer you get, the more your mind starts coming up with reasons to be as terrified and devastated as you feel. You start hallucinating monsters or mutilations, or your family tortured or dead. And what you remember afterward, for the rest of your life, it’s the things your brain showed you to explain the grief and horror that you felt.”

“Then I wonder how anybody ever understood that it was the Wall, and not a haunted place,” said Olivenko, the scholar in him coming to the fore.

“Didn’t you experience the Wall when you went with Father Knosso?” asked Rigg.

Olivenko shook his head. “Your father made us stay well back. Still, I was near enough to see that the Wall is marked out with buoys. Has been for a thousand years. For fear of boats getting lost. You have a wind in the wrong direction, and sailors can get too close. They go mad. Everyone always knew a boat could get through the Wall—it was your father’s idea to make himself unconscious during the passage.”

“Wasn’t he afraid of dreaming? Nightmares as he crossed?”

“Drugged and dreamless sleep,” said Olivenko. “And we don’t know that it worked. He was never able to tell us.”

“Let’s keep moving,” said Loaf. “Unless you want to try again, Olivenko.”

“No,” said Olivenko. “Time enough for the evils of the Wall when we meet the place where we cross together.” He looked at Rigg. “What are we looking for?”

“A smooth place. Stony, no trees, but not so steep there’d be avalanches or landslides. Father and I saw it atop Upsheer Cliff. The whole area used to be a huge lake, the Stashi Falls pouring right over the lip of the cliffs. But then the water cut its way deeper and deeper, and the lake drained lower and lower, until now it’s just a wide place in the river, and it leaps out far below the rim of the cliffs, and falls through a deep canyon that didn’t exist twelve thousand years ago.”

“You saw the past?” asked Param. “The lake?”

“I saw the paths of the people,” said Rigg. “Where they walked. Where the bridges were. Where they swam. Paths in the middle of the air, where once there was land, before it eroded away. None of us can fly. We have to pick a place that hasn’t eroded much, a place where the path we have to follow isn’t in midair. And where there isn’t a lot for animals to eat, so we won’t be faced with a predator that thinks we look like easy pickings. A place that was the same twelve thousand years ago as it is today.”

“Oh, is that all?” asked Loaf.

“Why?” said Rigg. “You know such a place?”

“I only worked the west Wall,” said Loaf, “and you know I was being ironic.”

“There were animals here, before humans came,” said Rigg. “Not small, like ebbecks and rutters and weebears. Some of them were huge . Some of them were huge predators . I’ve been looking for them as we walked here near the Wall. Most of the really old ones are nothing like any animal I’ve seen. The old paths are so faint, so worn-out, and they had nothing to do with any animals I was tracking for their fur, so I never really studied them till now. They’re different. From a different place.”

“A different planet, you mean,” said Umbo.

“That’s what I mean, yes,” said Rigg.

“What planet?” asked Param.

“This one,” said Rigg. “Garden. We’re the interlopers. We’re the strangers here. We came a little more than 11,191 years ago. Before that, the world was a different place, filled with different life. It’s one of the native animals I’m going to use to bring us far enough into the past that we can pass through the Wall before it was ever built.”

“So we’ll be the earliest human beings to walk on this world,” said Olivenko. “You do realize this is even crazier than your father’s ideas.”

“Much crazier,” said Rigg. “I’d never believe it except that it’s true.”

In the end, though, they never did find the ideal place. Because as they passed through a fairly arid landscape, with only the scrubbiest of trees and brush, Rigg noticed new paths converging on their own paths—many miles away, but only a few hours behind them if they didn’t keep moving forward. Gaining on them, even if they kept moving.

When he told the others, their first impulse was to hurry, but Rigg stopped them. “The Wall is right here. The ground is stony enough. There’s no major stream between us and the Wall. I just have to find a ground level that stays the same—paths that we can follow. We’ll be gone before they get here.”

“If it works at all,” said Loaf.

“Thanks for the cheerful support,” said Rigg.

“If it doesn’t work,” said Param, “there’s to be no fighting. None at all. They’ll take me and Rigg, and the rest of you can go.”

“They may have opinions about that,” said Loaf. “Even if they make a promise, I don’t expect them to keep it.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Param. “Umbo will just take you two men a month into the past. Or a year. You’ll be gone, then, with plenty of time to hide. They’ll never find you. You don’t have to go through the Wall to be safe. Only us chosen ones, us lucky royals.” She smiled wryly. “Meanwhile, let’s let Rigg concentrate on finding the right place.”

Umbo pulled the bag of jewels out of his pants. “Rigg,” he said. “You should take these.”

“Oh, that’s good, distract him,” said Param softly.

“Why?” asked Rigg. “You’ve been carrying them safely enough.”

“Because they’re yours,” said Umbo. “The Golden Man gave them to you.”

“Who?” asked Rigg.

“Your father.”

“Nobody ever called him that.”

“We children did,” said Umbo. “We all called him that. But not in front of him, and not in front of you.”

“But the Golden Man is the Undying One,” said Rigg. “I think my father’s no longer eligible for the title.”

“He gave the jewels to you, and so they’re yours. Besides, what good would they do me and Loaf and Olivenko if we go into hiding? I think we found out just how much good selling one of them would do.” Then Umbo reached for the sheath at his waist that held the knife Rigg had stolen from the past.