Orson Card - Pathfinder

“You have a better gift than mine, Umbo,” said Rigg, “and that’s the truth. But we both have better gifts than my sister. Hers is great when she wants to disappear, and when she’s doing it, she doesn’t age as fast as other people because she doesn’t actually live through most of the time when she’s . . . that way.

The countergirl wasn’t paying attention to them; nor were any of the other customers—but then, a good spy wouldn’t look like he was paying attention, would he? So they tried to be at least a little cryptic in the things they said.

“But she also moves so slowly,” said Rigg. “Like she’s half-frozen. And it’s dangerous. When people walk through her, it . . . damages her a little. When she walks through solid objects, it makes her dangerously sick.”

“Then she shouldn’t do that,” said Loaf.

“And she doesn’t,” said Rigg. “I’m just saying—her gift isn’t as useful as you’d think. But here’s the real question, Umbo. You’ve always been able to spread your gift to include me, even when we weren’t in physical contact. Does that only work with me? Or have you brought Loaf back in time with you?”

“It’s harder,” said Umbo. “Well, not harder, it just takes more concentration and makes me tireder.”

“So you’ve tried it with him?” asked Rigg.

“When we went back to steal one of the . . . items . . . from ourselves,” said Loaf, “he took me along. Yes, he can do it.”

“Steal from yourselves?” asked Rigg. “What would you do that for?”

“Ask Mister I’m-So-Funny,” said Loaf. “It never made sense to me.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it,” said Umbo to Loaf.

“We need to try something,” said Rigg. “When you put your whatever-it-is on me so I could see the people on the paths and go to their time, I went alone.”

“That’s because I didn’t know how to do it to myself yet,” said Umbo.

“So we need to see if you can put all three of us into that slowed-down time thing, and then see if I can drag all three of us back into a much earlier time. Not months, centuries ago.”

“Centuries? Like when we got the dagger?”

“Millennia,” said Rigg.

Loaf leaned over to Umbo. “That means thousands of—”

“I know what it means,” said Umbo. “Do you have a particular time in mind?”

“Yes,” said Rigg. “Eleven thousand, two hundred years ago.”

Umbo and Loaf both sat in silence, contemplating the implications of this.

“Before the calendar began,” said Loaf finally.

“Before humans existed on this planet,” said Rigg.

Umbo’s mind reeled. “Are you saying we’re not from here?”

“When we have more time,” said Rigg, “I have a lot to tell you—things I learned in the library, things I learned from the scholars. From Father Knosso’s research and from a guard named Ovilenko who was his apprentice for a while.”

“You’re trusting a guard?” asked Loaf.

“You don’t know him and I do, so don’t waste our time,” said Rigg. “I have to get back to Flacommo’s house, and soon, before somebody misses me. If they search the house and don’t find me, then when I do get back where will I say that I was? I came here to see if we could actually travel in time together.”

“So,” said Umbo, “let’s do it.”

Rigg started to stand up. Loaf immediately put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down into his seat. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Somewhere with privacy,” said Rigg.

“Do it right here,” said Loaf. “Sitting right here. When we travel in—when we go back—we don’t disappear in the present time, do we? We’re in both places at once, right?”

“Yes,” said Rigg. “Or that’s how it worked before, when Umbo was providing the power and I was the only one actually traveling.”

“Then pick the oldest path you can find here, and see if Umbo can get all three of us to see it at once.”

“But this place isn’t all that old—there won’t be stools,” said Rigg.

“But if our butts remain in this time,” said Loaf, “then we won’t fall into the swamp or whatever.”

Rigg nodded. “All right, Umbo. I’m going to concentrate on a particular path . . . I’ve got it. Slow me down—and yourself and Loaf too.” All three of them held on to their noodle bowls, as Rigg stared into the distance, and somewhat downward, apparently concentrating on a path.

Umbo had never tried to slow down two people besides himself. It took some real concentration on his part. And it felt as if Rigg was pulling him just as much as he pulled Loaf. Rigg was taking him farther back than Umbo had ever gone. Like the time Umbo’s father had set him up on a peddler’s horse and the beast had taken off with him for a few rods. Umbo almost lost the connection a few times, and could hardly hold on to Loaf at the same time. But after a while he was able to hold it all together.

He could no longer see the noodle bar—though he was still sitting down on something . There was no town at all, nor any building. Just a man poling a boat slowly along a bayou among tall reeds in the dusky light of evening.

The man and the boat were much lower than Umbo, as if Umbo were on the top of a hill instead of on a stool on the floor of a noodle bar. They must have raised the ground level of Aressa Sessamo very high above the original delta.

Rigg whispered, “Can you see him? The boat? The reeds, the water?”

The man might have heard him, for it was nearly silent in the marshland in mid-day. He looked up from the boat and saw them; they must have been quite a vision, a man and two teenage boys sitting in the air, holding bowls of noodles.

The man staggered in surprise, which overbalanced the boat and sent the man toppling backward into the water.

Umbo mentally let go of Rigg and Loaf, and eased himself back into the present. He felt dizzy. Mentally exhausted.

“A time before Aressa Sessamo even existed,” whispered Loaf.

“This isn’t the oldest city in the wallfold,” said Rigg. “And anyway, it was first built up about six miles from here. Floods have forced a lot of relocations over the years.”

“I feel sorry for the boatman,” said Umbo.

“He got a soaking—he’ll recover,” said Loaf.

“A vision of three men in the air, eating noodles,” said Rigg, and then chuckled. “What could the saints have possibly meant by that ! Do you think somebody built a shrine there? The ‘Three Noodle Eaters.’” Rigg laughed a little louder. The bargirl glared at him.

“He was so far below us,” said Umbo.

“At the original level of the delta,” said Loaf.

“So the builders of the city brought all that dirt to build up such a high mound?” asked Rigg.

“They didn’t have to,” said Loaf. “The river brings down silt every year. You just start building up a higher island, and then after each flood season, you dredge out the silted-up channels so boats can pass, and what do you do with the silt? You pile it up, extend the edges of the island the city is built on. A few thousand years and you have a very large and fairly high island.”

“Which is why there can be so many tunnels and sewers under the city,” said Rigg, “even though we’re in the midst of the delta.”

Umbo looked up and saw something on the wall. He reached out and touched Rigg’s hand and then looked up again at a shelf high on the wall of the noodle bar. A statue of a man and two boys, holding noodle bowls.

Rigg murmured, “Ram’s left elbow.”

Loaf covered his face. “ We were the origin of the Noodle-eaters.”

“I don’t know that story,” said Umbo.