Visitors

by Orson Scott Card

  Well, no. He knew, in some rational part of his mind, that he fully believed he was nothing without anyone having to treat him very badly at all. And he knew why. If he hadn’t fallen hopelessly in love with a princess, and spent hours noticing all the ways he was beneath her, he might not have been so prickly and taken offense at everything that could possibly be construed as looking down on him. Now he understood that. But he also knew himself well enough to be pretty sure that when and if he got back with Rigg and Param, he’d still be prickly, even if he tried not to show how easily offended he was.

  He did stop for a quick meal and some provender for the journey. He’d be doing no trapping. As often as he had watched Rigg set traps, Umbo still had no idea where to set them. Rigg knew the paths the animals used. Umbo would just be setting a trap in some random place, and he was sure that animals would only stumble on his traps out of pity, they’d be so ill-situated.

  The travel was not as hard as he feared, but harder than he hoped. There were tracks and traces in the woods, and once a fair reach of fields that the farmers consented to let him walk through—half a day’s journey, passing through open ground without brambles and branches trying to leave scars all over his body.

  He got to the base of Upsheer not far from the falls, and he was pretty sure that Kyokay had not fallen yet. The trouble was, it might happen tomorrow, and it might happen next week, and if he let his attention wander, the whole thing could happen while he was peeing or napping or eating.

  Of course, if he missed it, he could always go back again. But then he’d have to deal with his own lazy self, sitting around getting in the way. Or he could just appear to himself at the right moment, telling himself to get a move on, it was about to happen.

  Instead, he picked his way to a stand of trees with a good view across the river, and when a bunch of boys came to the river to swim, despite the cold water and the stiff breeze, he saw Kyokay among them.

  Not so much among them as all around them, doing five stunts for every one that another boy tried. Why Kyokay didn’t die long before that fall from the cliff, Umbo couldn’t understand. He climbed everything, jumped off of everything, swam under or into or through any obstacle in the water, dove deepest and held his breath the longest. He leapt into the water backward, or deliberately splatted in a belly flop, or tried to turn multiple somersaults in the air when he jumped from the highest part of the bank. And it’s not as if he was particularly adroit. Kyokay must have hit his head half a dozen times, and one time he yelled for help when he got his arm caught in a floating log that he himself had just pushed free from its entanglement with the bank. Nothing taught him a lesson. Nothing made him more careful.

  What will I be saving him for? thought Umbo. That boy is doomed to get himself killed.

  But not on a day when I was charged with his safety. Especially when I now know that I probably helped to kill him. Or, to be more accurate, made it harder for Rigg to save him. Rigg had risked his life to get out to the perilous rock at the brim of the cliff, but Umbo had slowed time, and included Rigg in it, which was why the path of a long-since-fallen man turned into that very man, blocking Rigg from getting to Kyokay in time to save him. It was the first time Rigg had any notion that paths were really people or animals, and that when Umbo was slowing time for him, the past became solid, and Rigg could touch a man, and push him, or steal a knife from him . . .

  And Kyokay had fallen while Umbo prevented Rigg from helping him, though he thought he was preventing Rigg from killing him. I judged too quickly, when I couldn’t really see what was happening. And not only did Kyokay die, I also came this close to getting Rigg killed by a mob in Fall Ford.

  Then Umbo knew his whole plan, all at once. Bits of it had been nibbling at him during the whole voyage. Maybe Kyokay hadn’t been killed in the fall, maybe he only drowned in the turbulence of the water. So maybe Umbo could swim to him and help pull him out.

  Or maybe Umbo would get drowned, too, and put an end to his miserable stupid life.

  But now Umbo realized that he could do more than just swim out to drag whatever was left of his brother to safety. The very thing he had done to slow down time for Rigg, he could do to Kyokay as he fell. Slow down time so that Kyokay had time to think, to twist around in the air, to get ready for his collision with the water. It might make all the difference.

  Once Umbo had learned how to shift time the way Rigg did, only without having a path to latch on to, he and everyone else had pretty much forgotten this much feebler ability that he had started with. But it might be just what he needed. And it was something Rigg couldn’t do, not even with the facemask: He couldn’t project his power to someone else that he wasn’t even touching.

  If only Umbo could slow down Kyokay himself, so that he settled like a leaf to the water’s surface. But no, Kyokay would fall as fast as ever, and hit with the same momentum. The only difference was that the time of the fall would seem slower to Kyokay, giving him time to think.

  Not that Kyokay was famous for thinking. But he was fearless. And maybe as he fell that fearlessness would allow him to prepare like a cat for the impact. Maybe.

  Meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt for Umbo to use the time he had to practice swimming in the dangerous water at the base of the falls. Of course there was no swimming right under them—the bones would be pounded right out of his skin. But he could see just how close he might get. And he’d know how cold the water was, and where was the nearest bank, and . . .

  And so off came the clothes, as soon as he was up by the base of the falls, and down into the water he went. He was no Kyokay—he didn’t just dive in. Good thing, too, because in the roiling water he could not see where there were submerged rocks. After he got to where he could open his eyes underwater, he realized: There are submerged rocks everywhere, and Kyokay is going to die.

  No he isn’t. I will get him out of this water alive.

  Because to Umbo’s surprise, it didn’t take him long to adapt to swimming there. The water was icy, but Umbo didn’t stay in it very long at a time, and he took care to dry off and warm up thoroughly before going back in.

  What he learned was that if he slowed the perception of time for himself, he had plenty of time to orient himself under the water and sense the currents. If Kyokay was alive after he fell, then Umbo had a fair chance of getting him out of the water before he drowned.

  Umbo would not enter the water, though, until Kyokay was in it. That’s because he had to be up on a good vantage point so he could see where Kyokay went into the water.

  Three days later, Umbo wasn’t napping, eating, or peeing when he saw Kyokay running along the road to the great stair that climbed up through the rock to the top of Upsheer. And sure enough, after him—too far behind him—came Umbo, looking young and stupid and angry and helpless. What a privick I was, thought Umbo. What a privick I am.

  But he wasn’t there to criticize himself as a boy. He was there to bring his brother back from the dead.

  He watched the whole thing unfold. He was so close to the base of the falls that he couldn’t see anything that happened up top until Kyokay slipped and clung, and then there was Rigg, pounding at something—but not at Kyokay’s hand, as Umbo had thought. No, Rigg was pounding at a man that he could see but Umbo could not, because younger Umbo had made the path visible to him.

  And then Kyokay slipped, starting his tumble. That’s when Umbo’s work began in earnest. With all his concentration he slowed time for his brother as he fell. He was farther from him than his younger self had been from Rigg that day so long ago—today—but all the other things he had done with time-shifting had also strengthened and sharpened this half-forgotten skill. He knew that he was slowing time for Kyokay far more than he had ever been able to do as a lad. And he saw that Kyokay was using his quickened perceptions well.

  Kyokay did not land among the rocks closest to the surface. He was in an arms-first div
ing position by then, and there was water for him to plunge into. Was it deep enough? From above the water, Umbo could not tell, and besides, it was now time for him to be in the water.

  He dove from his perch—he had ascertained that it was safe enough to dive at that spot—and swam swiftly and surely toward a spot downstream from where Kyokay had hit the water. Umbo was slowing his own perception of the passage of time—which meant he was speeding up his own reactions and processes—even more powerfully than he had slowed Kyokay’s. He quickly saw his mistake: Kyokay was not being carried downstream, he was caught in the roiling water, getting tumbled over and over in the same place.

  Umbo instantly changed the direction of his swimming, cursing himself for not having guessed this would happen, because now he had to swim upstream instead of across the current. A few seconds longer for Kyokay to roll around under the water.

  As he drew closer, Umbo saw why Kyokay couldn’t swim himself free. The boy was conscious—he was trying to kick—but both arms seemed to have way too many elbows. Those extended arms had saved Kyokay from the certain death of smashing his head into a rock—but the arms had broken in the process.

  He couldn’t worry about how much pain Kyokay felt. The only thing Umbo could grab was one of those broken arms, and so he did. In water this cold, and with so much terror, Kyokay probably wouldn’t notice the pain.

  The trouble was that Kyokay couldn’t grip him back, couldn’t help at all.

  No, he could. Once Umbo had stopped his spinning and pushed off from a rock to push himself and pull Kyokay out of the turbulence that held him, Kyokay’s kicking began to have a purpose. He couldn’t hold on to Umbo, but he could join his kicking with Umbo’s, and then they were free of the unpredictable cross-currents and into the main stream of the river.

  Umbo had left his clothes—and his blankets—at the place where he was pretty sure he’d have to fetch up on the bank, and yes, he was able to get there. He dragged Kyokay out of the water and checked to see if he was breathing. It had all happened quickly enough that Kyokay had not drowned at all. He coughed and sputtered, but there was no water in his lungs.

  In moments Kyokay was whimpering, because now he felt his arms. Three breaks in the right arm, four in the left. But all clean and honest breaks—nothing sticking out of the skin. These could be set and splinted, Umbo was reasonably sure.

  In Odinfold, they had the doctors and the tools and the drugs to fix him up without any pain at all. But they weren’t in Odinfold.

  Umbo worked to dry himself first—he needed to get back the full use of his fingers and he couldn’t afford to be shivering much as he worked on getting Kyokay dry and warm.

  By the time Umbo was able to get his own clothes on, and was wrapping Kyokay in a blanket, Kyokay was capable of speech. “Did you jump after me? How did you get down there so quick?”

  Umbo didn’t bother trying to explain.

  He found that he was large enough now, and strong enough, especially after a couple of weeks of boatwork, to pick Kyokay up like the child he was and carry him down to the ferry.

  It wasn’t an attended ferry—just a boat attached by an iron ring to a hawser that stretched across the river where once a ford had been. There was another boat on the other side. Umbo laid Kyokay in the bottom of the boat and then took the oars. The rope strained to keep the ring from moving forward, but it had been well-greased during the summer and whenever it snagged, on the next pull of the oars it broke loose and slid further out into the stream, and then out of the stream as it came closer to shore, and then the bottom scraped on gravel and Umbo was out of the boat, lifting Kyokay and carrying him toward his family’s house.

  Mother could nurse him, and there were those in town who had a knowledge of bone-setting and splints. If it left Kyokay just a little bit weaker, then maybe he wouldn’t get himself killed next week or next month. Maybe all this would be worth it, if Kyokay had learned something from his terror in the fall.

  Unless he thought that his perception that time had slowed was some kind of magic that proved that a kind saint or spirit was watching over him. Then he’d be more of a dares-all than ever.

  Umbo knew he couldn’t let the family see him. He laid Kyokay on the ground within easy earshot of the house and then jumped back in time a few minutes. Long enough to run out of the way, into a brushy patch where he could watch. In moments, there was himself, carrying Kyokay, laying him down roughly and abruptly.

  No, I was careful.

  But careful did not mean gentle, he could see now. He saw himself wink out of existence. Yes, that is disturbing, he thought. Good thing we try not to let other people see that too often.

  Kyokay called out as Umbo had told him to do, and in moments Mother appeared, and soon Kyokay was surrounded by her and the other kids—whom Umbo now realized he missed more than he would have supposed possible. One of them was sent running for help, of course.

  Umbo was about to jump back in time even farther, to make his getaway, when he saw Father rushing up, dragging young Umbo by his upper arm and making it almost impossible for the boy to walk or run alongside. “Does that look dead to you!” shouted Father.

  “I saw him fall!” said young Umbo, terrified. “How could he live?”

  “But you saved me from the water,” said Kyokay.

  “His arms are broken,” said Mother. “Deal with Umbo later, we have to get his arms set.”

  “We can set Umbo’s arms too, while we’re at it. We were going to kill Rigg because you said he killed Kyokay, do you know that, you lying little demon!” Father cuffed young Umbo so hard he sprawled out facedown on the ground. But Father wasn’t done. He ran into the house and came back, not with a strap as Umbo had expected, but with the heavy knife he used for cutting leather.

  “No!” Mother screamed, and rushed to stop him, but Father flung her aside and stood straddling young Umbo. He pulled him up by the hair and Umbo thought he was about to witness his own murder, the knife drawn across his throat like a pig being slaughtered. But no, Father began striking him with the flat of the blade, hitting him on the shoulders and the side of his head, until young Umbo hung limp and unconscious.

  By then some men were rushing from town, including Sellet the barber, who was the second-best bonesetter in town. They began shouting at Father to put down the knife, put down the boy, be glad that Kyokay was alive, there should be no killing, and after brandishing the knife a while to keep them back, Father finally gave in to Sellet’s obvious point that if Father kept him away, he couldn’t set Kyokay’s bones, which he could see from there were broken in many places.

  “I need splints and leather thongs to tie them,” said Sellet. “Be a good father and fetch me what I need!”

  “Don’t tell me how to be a good father!” roared Father, and it might have started up again except now there were six strong men looming around him, making it clear that they would tolerate no more nonsense from him. Two of them went into the house with him.

  Sellet went to Kyokay all right, but the others went to young Umbo, who was now being held by his mother. Father might have struck with the flat, but the blade was still there, and it had cut willy-nilly all over young Umbo’s head and shoulders and arms.

  “Nothing’s bleeding hard,” one of the men said. “But I think the skull is broken here. Look how it’s swelling, but it looks dented anyway.”

  “I’m sorry, Enene,” said one man. “But I don’t like the look of his head.”

  “Umbo saved me,” said Kyokay feebly, and then cried out in agony as Sellet pushed one of his bones into place. Father came out with thongs and bracing sticks that Umbo recognized as dismantled frames for stretching leather. He was still angry and Umbo could see that he wanted to kick young Umbo again.

  “What are you doing?” said a man. Umbo couldn’t remember his name, though once he had known it. “One son all broken up, and this boy
saved him, and you already broke his head. He may never be right again, you fool.”

  “He was never right! He was never my son! I say it out loud—does he look like me? All the others do, but not him! And now he tried to get us to commit murder by his false accusation! That’s no son to me!”

  They got the splints and thongs out of his hands and then he was roughly walked far from the scene. Mother continued to weep over young Umbo.

  Only then did Umbo himself jump back in time just enough to allow him to arrive at the riverbank only moments after he had carried Kyokay up from the boat. With two boats on this side, it was easy enough to hop into the one he had just left and row urgently back to the other side.

  Though there was no urgency. Only in his own heart and mind. He had all the time in the world, because he was not going to let this happen.

  Umbo was coming up out of the water for the last time on his second day of swimming, when he saw a vision of himself standing on the shore only a few feet away.

  “I’m not here! I’m not going to make two fools where one will do. You can’t do it. It’s a disaster.”

  “What’s a disaster? You’re all right,” said Umbo.

  The vision of future Umbo seemed distraught, about to cry, but also angry and ashamed and . . . urgent.

  “I’m such a fool—and so are you!” cried the vision of Umbo. “It all works, you save him, his bones are broken, you take him home and leave him, but then he says that Umbo saved him, and so it makes me—us—young Umbo, it makes him look like a liar, like he knew Kyokay was alive and he lied to try to get them to kill Rigg and Father beat him—us—”

  “Young Umbo,” prompted Umbo. “Beat him, of course.”

  “Broke his skull,” said vision Umbo. “Maybe he’ll die. Maybe he’ll live and be . . . simple. Or crippled. But he’s sure not going on any trips with Rigg. It’s all undone. We just—I just ruined everything. You can’t do it! Don’t do it! Undo this future, you fool! Let him die!”