But Umbo did not fail; he held on to Rigg. And while he could not trace paths, he knew when Rigg was back in place. It was a sense of rightness, of nearness. The flyer had completed its journey; now it was a fact that the flyer had landed nearby a year ago, and if Umbo brought Rigg back to the present, he would leave a path behind him, in the right place, at the right time.
The mouse, too, no doubt.
“I’m doing it now,” said Umbo to Loaf and Olivenko. “I wish I knew where Param was.”
“It’s been long enough that she could be anywhere,” said Loaf.
“With our luck, she’ll be stubborn and angry enough to have perched in the center of where the flyer was when she got out of it,” said Olivenko.
“Can you tell where Rigg will appear?” asked Loaf.
“He’ll appear wherever he is in the time that’s ‘now’ to him,” said Umbo. “I know he’s close, but I can’t say where for sure.”
“Just do it,” said Loaf. “If something terrible happens, you can go back and warn yourself not to do whatever we did that went wrong.”
“My whole stupid plan, probably,” said Umbo. Then, with a sigh, he let go of the continuous pushing that had held Rigg in the past.
Nothing happened. No flyer appeared.
“Are you going to do it?” asked Loaf.
“It’s done,” said Umbo. “I brought Rigg back to now. I just don’t know where he was when I did it.” Umbo rose to his feet to scout the horizon. Then he remembered that if Rigg had returned to the present, and still had the flyer with him, the orbital phone should work again. He pulled out the knife and talked to it, feeling stupid the whole time. “Rigg?” he said. Several times.
And then the knife answered him. “What’s so urgent?”
“You returned to our time,” said Umbo, relieved.
“I decided not to come to an area where Param might have wandered,” said Rigg. “I thought you’d figure that out.”
“We did,” said Umbo, “but what if I was wrong? What if I had stranded you somewhere else. Some when else?”
“You didn’t. But I can only talk to you this way while I remain with the flyer. I was already a hundred meters away, walking toward you, when the flyer called me back. So let’s hold the rest of our conversation till I get there.”
It took twenty minutes for Rigg to join them. “How far did you think Param could have gotten?” said Loaf when Rigg returned.
Rigg looked annoyed. “She had five hours. If she slices time just barely enough to stay invisible, she can cover a lot of ground. And what if she got into those trees and stopped time-slicing? Then she could have walked at a normal pace and gotten anywhere.”
“Can you see your own path?” asked Umbo. “The one you just made?”
“Yes,” said Rigg. “We can do this now.”
“And where is Param?” asked Olivenko.
“Over there,” said Rigg, pointing toward the edge of the woods.
Olivenko looked, and when he did, Param reappeared. She turned away from them and made no move to join them, but she was visible again, and that was a good thing.
With the first pass, Loaf got a dozen mice to climb onto Rigg’s clothing before Umbo sent him into the past. Umbo brought him back a few moments later, and the mice were no longer with him.
“I tested it,” said Rigg. “I was in control of the Wall.”
“Did you send them through?” asked Umbo.
“I was only there for a couple of minutes,” said Rigg. “I wasn’t going to strand them fifty feet into the Wall. It’ll take a long time for mice to cover the distance, so I figured we’d move them all into the past and then open the Wall and let them all through.”
With the next sending, a couple of hundred mice climbed up onto Rigg, or clumped up near him, all touching him in a continuous heap of rodentkind. A musine mound. A mass of musculinity.
Not that the scientific name Mus musculus still applied to these creatures, even if it was the correct term for their ancestors. More like Mus sapiens now. Or perhaps, recognizing their human kinship, Homo musculus.
Umbo collected his thoughts and focused on Rigg, preparing to send him.
“Wait,” said Olivenko. “Don’t go back to the exact place you went before.”
Rigg got it at once, and Umbo understood only a moment later. If Rigg latched onto the same moment in time, while he was sitting in the same spot, he’d return to the past at the same moment and in the same place he had before. The two versions of Rigg would annihilate each other.
Rigg got up and moved a few meters away. “So the mice don’t crash into each other, either,” he explained.
Then the mouseheap remade itself, and Umbo gathered them all into his attention and began to try to push them back.
It was as if each one of them had a mass as great as Rigg. Like pushing a boat up a mountain. “I can’t,” said Umbo.
“Just send as many as you can,” said Rigg. “Let’s see how many that is.”
Umbo gave a shove to the past. He could still see Rigg and the mice. But when the mice nearest Rigg scampered away from him, they vanished; Umbo had no hold on them. Other mice, however, were still in the present moment, and so as they moved away, they remained as visible as ever.
Umbo brought Rigg back, and they assessed how many they had sent. Only about fifty or sixty were gone, the mice told Loaf.
“That means it’ll take about two hundred sendings,” said Olivenko. “If you’re going to do all ten thousand.”
“We need to,” said Loaf.
“Then we will,” said Umbo.
“Can you do it?” asked Rigg. “You look tired already.”
“I’ll do all I can, and then I’ll rest,” said Umbo. “What does it matter if we spread the sending across several days, as long as they all arrive at the same time and place?”
“I told them to head for those trees,” said Rigg. He turned to Loaf. “They do understand me when I talk, right?”
“They hear us just fine,” said Loaf.
As the day wore on to evening, they did another dozen sendings, each time with more mice attached. They had moved a good way along the knoll. But by then Umbo really was exhausted, and it was getting dark.
“We’ll continue in the morning,” said Rigg.
“I can do another,” said Umbo.
“These last two were smaller than the one before,” said Rigg. “You’re exhausted. We’re done for the day.”
Umbo was content to wait and rest.
Loaf had been cooking something over a fire he built. Umbo was vaguely aware that Loaf had gone down to one of the Odinfold houses and apparently he got food, because he had corn roasting and a loaf of bread and a quarter of a cheese. “They eat pretty simply,” said Loaf. “Not like what they fed us in the library.”
“That was simple fare,” said Olivenko.
“By the standards of Aressa Sessamo the library food was simple,” said Loaf. “And by the standards of O. But for this region of Odinfold, it would be a banquet. This is the best they have here. And speaking as an old soldier, I think it’s just fine.”
As Umbo, Rigg, and Loaf ate, Olivenko took his supper over to Param. A few moments later, Umbo heard distant weeping. He looked over to the edge of the woods where, sure enough, Param was sobbing into Olivenko’s shoulder.
She despises you, Umbo, he told himself. You’ll never be anything but a peasant boy to her. And what do you care? You stopped being in love with her months ago.
But seeing her holding on to Olivenko that way stabbed Umbo with jealousy all the same.
In the morning, Param ate breakfast with them, and formally apologized for her “petulant actions” the day before. Just as formally, Rigg and Umbo apologized in return. “I don’t know what we came back to prevent,” said Rigg, “but I have a feeling I behaved very badly.”
“Not in this version of history,” said Param.
But Umbo noticed that she hardly looked at him. Was it shame for having pus
hed him off the flyer ramp? Or contempt because he was just a peasant boy?
For your information, princess, I can make you a pair of shoes out of grass and rose thorns. I have a skill; I’m a cobbler’s son. Sort of.
It was the first time Umbo could recall ever being proud of something he acquired from his reputed father, the master cobbler Tegay. And it’s not as if Tegay ever praised Umbo for his prentice work.
Breakfast done, they went back to pushing mice into the past. They were done well before noon.
“Eleven thousand, one hundred ninety-one mice,” said Loaf.
“You’re joking,” said Umbo. “Why that number?”
“It’s a holy number here, too,” said Loaf.
“But they don’t believe in holiness,” said Umbo.
“No, you don’t believe in it,” said Loaf. “The mice are very devout. I don’t think the number has any practical value. They just think of it as a sacred number and they expect their new colony will prosper if they start with that many settlers.”
Thinking of mice as “settlers” jarred, but that’s how it would always be, Umbo knew. Mice were hard to see as human, or of equal value. There were so many of them.
“What can they even do?” asked Umbo. “It’s not like they can pull a plow.”
“They don’t have to farm,” said Loaf. “They scavenge beautifully. They would never have developed civilization on their own, but because they inherited the human culture and knowledge of the Odinfolders, they could leap forward vastly. And they’re designed to require less food than ordinary mice. So they can live as scavengers and still have leisure to create.”
“Create what?” asked Umbo. “Can they wield a hammer? Iron doesn’t get any softer just because the blacksmith is very tiny. What can they actually make?”
“They seem content about their ability to establish a very high level of civilization in a very short time,” said Loaf. “But now it’s time for us to go.”
Umbo turned to Param. “Are you coming with us?”
She turned away from him.
“Of course she is,” said Olivenko.
“Oh,” said Umbo. “She’ll allow the peasant boy to push her into the past?”
“She apologized for that,” said Olivenko.
“Not enough for me to forget it,” said Umbo. “Or to believe she meant it.”
“Then leave me behind,” said Param spitefully. “I can watch the world get destroyed from here as well as from anywhere else.”
“We need you,” said Umbo.
Param turned her face away. But Umbo could tell she was pleased.
They all held whatever bags and extra clothing they meant to take with them. It wasn’t much.
And this time, Umbo didn’t have to push. He and Rigg instead pulled together, shifting themselves and their friends all at once, leaving no anchor in the future they had just left.
The hill was teeming with mice, except in the spot where they arrived. Mice were so thick on the ground in every direction that it was easy to see the edge of the Wall, because mice were arrayed right up against the spot where the Wall’s despair was first clearly noticeable.
“I’m letting the Wall down now,” said Rigg.
The mice seemed to sense at once that it was gone, and they surged forward, down and across the little vale. It took hours for the mice all to go through the Wall. Umbo sat and watched the undulating sea of mice until they were gone. We are servants of the mice. We have opened a door for them. Does it even matter now whether we cross into Larfold?
It matters to Rigg and Param—their father died here. And to Olivenko, because Knosso was his mentor and his king. Maybe Loaf cares. But I’m just a tool of the mice, or the tool of the Sessamids, or Loaf’s surrogate son.
No, I can’t think that way anymore. These are my friends. It’s my choice to go with them, to help them do the things that matter to them.
“Please come with us,” said Rigg.
Umbo looked at him, startled. Did he know what Umbo was thinking?
“Of course I will,” said Umbo.
“You’re free to do whatever you want,” said Rigg. “I couldn’t have done this without you, so I’m glad you were with me. But now it’s done. You never asked to be in the business of saving the world.”
Umbo was moved. “You think it’s a monopoly of the royal family?” The words could have sounded harsh, but Umbo said them with a grin.
“The Sessamids?” Rigg chuckled. “From what I know of family history, we don’t save worlds, we take over what other people have built and slowly wreck it.”
“Pretty much describes my old dad,” said Umbo. “Except when he worked with shoes.”
“We Sessamids make no shoes,” said Rigg. “I want you with me, Umbo. I need your help. But if you choose not to come, I won’t resent it. How many times do people have to die because they came with me?”
“So far death hasn’t interfered with my life as much as you’d think,” said Umbo. “I’m in.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Rigg, and he held out a hand.
Umbo took it, bounded to his feet, and side by side they walked briskly toward the Wall, with Param, Loaf, and Olivenko following at a slower pace.
CHAPTER 19
Royal
“I’ve been trying to figure out why everyone was so angry with me,” said Param as they walked through the Wall. Umbo and Rigg were far out of earshot ahead of them.
Loaf grunted.
“Any progress?” asked Olivenko. “Have you thought that pushing Umbo out the door might have been part of it? Not to make any suggestions.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me,” said Param.
“I think he was being delicate and respectful,” said Loaf. “If I had said that, it would have been sarcastic.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed him,” said Param.
“We’re making progress,” said Loaf.
“Someone else should have done it,” said Param. “I shouldn’t be reduced to protecting the name of the royal family myself.”
“The royal family that tried to kill us all back in Ramfold?” asked Loaf. “The royal family in which the queen tried to murder her own children while she bedded General Citizen?”
“Leadership comes naturally to some people. Look at Rigg and Umbo. Raised in the same village. But Rigg is a natural leader, and Umbo is . . .”
“A peasant boy,” said Loaf. “I think that’s what you called him, when you accused him of being a liar.”
“I never accused him of—”
“I have perfect recall now,” said Loaf. And when he quoted her own words back to her—“And we’re supposed to take the word of a peasant boy?”—his voice sounded astonishingly similar to her own. All the intonations were exactly right.
“I didn’t suggest that he was lying,” said Param. “I merely said that it was unreasonable to expect someone like me or Rigg to take the word of a peasant boy as if it were indistinguishable from fact.”
“So you studied the history of the wallfolds for nearly a year and you’re still as ignorant as ever,” said Loaf.
Instead of time-slicing to get away from Loaf, Param slowed down and let him move on ahead. But Olivenko stayed with her, walking at her slower pace.
Param could feel the hideous music of the Wall playing with the back of her mind, making her angry, sad, despairing, lonely, anguished; but not the way it was the first time she had experienced the Wall, not overwhelming, not terrifying. “Are you going to criticize me, too?”
“You were raised to rule,” said Olivenko.
“Or so my mother said,” Param replied. “I have no idea when her plan for me changed, but my education, such as it was, never changed. You don’t announce to the cattle that you’re going to slaughter them.”
“You were raised with courtly manners,” said Olivenko. “You heard people talking in elevated language, observing the courtesies.”
“As Rigg does,” said Param.
“But the
expendable Ramex trained him to be able to do that.”
“Exactly.”
“So you and Rigg were taught to behave in a certain way. You were given skills. But how was Umbo raised?”
“As a peasant boy,” said Param. “I didn’t say it was his fault.”
“He was the son of a cobbler in a small village. He attended the village school. In that school, he was taught the history of Stashiland. He was taught that the royal family were rapacious monsters, who came to Aressa as uncivilized barbarians from the northeast. They killed most of the ruling class of Stashiland, and raped the few women of that class that they allowed to live, after killing their children, so they could ‘start fresh.’”
“I’ve read the history. I’m not proud of our origins. But that was many hundreds of years ago.”
“Not so very many,” said Olivenko. “And Umbo wasn’t taught that history as a distant memory, to be ignored or glossed over. He was taught it as if it was a fair description of the way the Sessamids have always ruled in Stashiland.”
“And that’s a lie,” said Param.
“So there was no murderousness when Aptica Sessamin decreed that no male could inherit the Tent of Light and had all her male relatives executed like criminals, for the crime of being male? Including the male babies?”
“That was ugly,” Param admitted. “But it was a long time ago.”
“Your mother’s grandmother,” said Olivenko. “I’m not arguing with you, I’m reminding you of what Umbo was taught. The People’s Schools taught children that everybody had the right to rule, when their turn came, and nobody was better by birth than anyone else.”
“Obviously false.”
“By birth,” Olivenko repeated. “By lineage. Umbo was taught that just because your mother was powerful didn’t mean you had any more right to that power than anyone else. He was taught that power had to be earned, and that if you showed merit, you could become anything.”
“But that’s not how the People’s Republic worked at all,” said Param with contempt. “I saw how those hypocrites pretended everything was so egalitarian as they promoted their relatives and friends and established a whole new class of nobles.”