Pathfinder

by Orson Scott Card

  So over the years she has learned to control it the way Umbo learned to control his sense of timeflow, the way I learned to distinguish among the paths and see at a glance how old they were compared to each other, and peel them away with my mind so I could concentrate on the paths of a certain time or of a certain person rather than all the paths that passed through that point in space.

  This Invisible is like me. And like Umbo. Talented.

  Umbo and I were both trained by Father to hone our talents. So was Nox. Did Father know this person and train her, too?

  Rigg remembered Father’s voice as he lay dying under the fallen tree. “Then you must go and find your sister. She lives with your mother.”

  Father had sent Rigg to find his sister, not his mother. His mother, the queen-by-right, was not the important one. What mattered to Father was Rigg’s talented sister.

  Everything came together and made sense. His theory fit all the facts and omitted none that he could think of. He might later learn of many flaws in the theory, but for right now, as Father had taught him, it was useful enough to act on the assumption that he was right.

  Rigg allowed himself to notice the paths again. The Invisible was moving toward the door she had come out of—and she was moving much faster. Which meant she was actually leaping forward in time by smaller increments, or less frequently, which meant that she was reflecting more photons. And sure enough, Rigg could make out a shadowy form, and it was running—running so very slowly that he could still have overtaken the Invisible in a dozen steps.

  This is how the Invisible has learned to escape—trading a little bit of visibility for speed in getting away.

  Now he knew better than to try to speak to her. Existing only a thousandth of a moment in any one position in space, there was no way the Invisible could distinguish speech.

  The Invisible. She has a name. Param Sissaminka.

  Rigg walked into the kitchen, where the morning shift was now beginning to be about their business—bakers shaping the dough that had been left for them by the night bakers, cooks starting the pots for the afternoon stews, servants sleepily going here and there, taking care of their needs so they could begin their chores.

  “Did you sleep at all, young master?” asked the head baker. This was a woman that Rigg had not met the night before, but of course the kitchen staff talked to each other, especially since Rigg had been a stranger sleeping in the nook behind the fire.

  “I did,” said Rigg. “But I wake early—no doubt I’ll be back in the afternoon for another nap, if you don’t mind.”

  The baker looked at him with a hint of amusement. “If you’re sleeping away from your room for fear of someone meddling with you, perhaps you should sleep in a different place every time, and not go returning to the nook to sleep.”

  Rigg was surprised that the baker was so forthright. “Am I in danger?” he asked.

  “It seemed to my sister that you thought you were, and so you may well be. My sister is the night baker, Elella. I’m Lolonga.”

  “Then let me tell you something, Lolonga,” said Rigg. “Something was left in my room last night, which is why I didn’t sleep there. Something designed to kill. And I’m afraid that if anyone goes into that room today, and jostles the bed, the trap that was set for me might be sprung on some innocent who does not deserve to die.”

  “Do you deserve to die?”

  “I’d like to think I don’t, but there are those who think the world will be a better place without me.”

  “Since you haven’t told me what the trap is—though I assume it is involved with the bed—I take it you’d like me to warn people away from that room without it being known that the warning came from you.”

  “I’d like that, yes, but it’s not worth lying about. If someone asks point blank, someone whose trust you need to retain, then by all means tell them I warned you. It will come out soon enough anyway. But if they don’t ask, please don’t volunteer the information.”

  “The housekeeper, Bok, is an early riser,” said Lolonga. “Even though my idiot apprentices will no doubt ruin the day’s bread in my absence, making the dough too dry or too wet, I’ll go find her and tell her so she can save the life of some silly worthless chambermaid.”

  “Even the silliest chambermaid is worth saving,” said Rigg.

  “Really?” said Lolonga. “But I never suspected that one of you would feel that way.”

  “One of . . . who?”

  “Royals. The rich. The educated. Those we wait upon, who have all the money and fame and power. You.”

  “Ah, well, there’s your mistake, ma’am. Until a few months ago, I was one of you. No, worse—I was a wandering trapper whom folk like you would look down on and not let into the kitchen.”

  Lolonga grinned. “I sensed that about you, lad,” she said, “which is why I didn’t have you thrown out of my kitchen the moment you stepped in. I don’t let your mother in, you know. Not while I’m baking. It distracts my people and ruins the breads and cakes and pies of the day.”

  “Ma’am,” said Rigg. “I have to know. Between you and your sister, which one is head baker?”

  “We both are. It’s a constant battle between us. She thinks she gets to decide what dough to make each night, and I’m stuck with making whatever bread she determined we’d need. But I got even with her. I made her take on my lazy worthless son, Long, as her apprentice on the night shift. It’s a punishment that goes on and on.”

  “I like Long,” said Rigg.

  “So do I. That’s why I put him on her shift—so I don’t have to spend all day every day yelling at him and cursing him for a stupid lazy son of a stupid lazy father. That might interfere with the affection between us.”

  She left the kitchen on Rigg’s errand. He went out by another way and found himself in the dining room, which at the moment stood empty, the table cleared away. Soon it would be set for breakfast, he was sure, but for now it was a quiet place, and almost completely dark, illuminated only by the starlight coming through the windows—the Ring cast its light from the other side of the house.

  Rigg sat in one of the chairs and watched the path Lolonga took through the house. He saw her path encounter the housekeeper’s path, and then followed the housekeeper—Bok?—as she went to the maids, no doubt to give them instructions about avoiding the room with the trap.

  Then he cast his attention to his mother’s room, and sure enough, the Invisible, Param, had moved back into it. Now Rigg had the leisure to study the paths in that room, and he could see that Param came there every night. So did someone else, always arriving and leaving just before Param came invisibly in. Rigg traced that path and saw that it led to a serving maid he had seen last night. In fact, he had watched her on what must have been that very errand—taking a tray of food out of the kitchen and going . . . somewhere. Now he knew where. He thought back to the tray of food and realized: This is how Param eats. An invisible has to hold still, become visible in order to interact with the physical world enough to eat, to drink, to wash, to void her bladder and bowel. Such would be the times of greatest danger. So she does all this in Mother’s room.

  Param is under Mother’s protection. “She lives with your mother.” So to Param, Mother is a refuge, not a danger.

  I wish that it were so for me. But I can’t know. I can’t be sure. Param is the female heir to the Tent of Light. Mother might be her protector, and my deadliest enemy. The games are all too deep and layered here for me to fathom them.

  Rigg sat down to breakfast at the table with Flacommo, Mother, and a dozen guests and courtiers.

  After the normal social niceties had been observed, and after a polite amount had been eaten without distracting conversation, Rigg turned to his mother and said, “Actually, my lady mother, I did not set out for Aressa Sessamo to meet you. Nothing delighted me more than to learn that you were alive, though naturally I wondered why I had never met you, or why my adopted father had never mentioned you until he lay dying. But
his first instruction was for me to go to Aressa Sessamo to meet my sister. And I can’t help but wonder where she is. Is she unwell? Doesn’t she want to meet her brother?”

  Rigg pretended to be surprised at how silent everyone grew at the mention of his sister.

  “Is there some reason why it isn’t right for me to ask after her? No one on my journey hinted that there might be something wrong; I assumed that I would meet her.”

  All eyes were on Mother now. She alone looked completely poised, paying attention to the bite she was chewing, while looking at Rigg with twinkling eyes. “I’m not surprised you’re curious,” Mother finally said. “But you see, your sister has withdrawn from society for more than a year. She had a very unpleasant experience when one of the peasants who periodically burst into the house of our host, to demand that we let him shave our heads or take our clothing, forced her to surrender all her clothing. It was a cruel thing, and ever since that happened, she sees no one.”

  Or rather, no one sees her, Rigg thought. “Is there no hope, then, even for her long-lost brother?” he asked aloud.

  What he did not say was that he knew perfectly well his sister was in the room right now. He had seen her path moving slowly into the room and then pacing back and forth in order to stay in motion. No doubt she was as curious about Rigg as he was about her. She knew that he could see her, or at least that he knew where she was. In fact, after he sat down at table he had turned toward her and given her a little wave, though he held his hand below table level, so no one else could see. He waved very slowly, too, so that she would be able to detect the motion.

  “There is hope indeed,” said Mother. “I’m quite sure she’s eager to see you, and when the time comes, I will fetch you to the place where she is in seclusion.”

  “It must be setting back her schooling dreadfully,” said Rigg.

  “Her schooling is a paltry thing, compared to the heartbreak of her humiliation,” said Mother.

  Flacommo chimed in now. “It was a shame to all of us, that someone would use a child so harshly. The Revolutionary Council immediately changed the law to prevent anyone from taking the clothing of the persons of the family once called royal from their bodies. It was a change long overdue.”

  “In other words,” said Rigg, who of course already knew the story, “the Council discovered that the humiliation of the royals no longer played well with the crowd, and they discontinued it. Could it be that the public hatred of the royal family is slipping?”

  “I think that would be wonderful,” said Flacommo. “Someday, of course, the royals will be just like any other family. But right now they remain a constant hope for certain revolutionary factions.”

  “Then I wonder we haven’t all been put to death,” said Rigg.

  There were gasps all around the table.

  “It’s a matter of pure logic,” said Rigg. “As long as members of the royal family survive, we will be used by this or that group as a rallying cry, even if we never lift a finger against the Revolutionary Council. Wouldn’t it be better for the sake of the nation if we ceased to exist entirely?”

  “I will never be persuaded of that!” cried Flacommo. “Once there was much talk of it, but your mother—and her mother before her—conducted themselves with such humility and deference to the Council, obeying all laws and never countenancing any talk of revolt, that the Revolutionary Council has thought it wiser to keep them here, accessible to the public, though not to so great a degree. Your mother graciously allows the people to see that royals own nothing and live as obedient citizens.”

  “We eat rather well, though,” said Rigg, looking at the lavishly spread table.

  “No,” said Flacommo, “I eat rather well, and so do you all when you share my table as guests. But many a day each year your mother dines with whoever invites her, no matter what their station or how simple their fare.”

  “I see,” said Rigg. “Then there will be no objection if I do the same?”

  “You may accompany your mother whenever she accepts such an invitation,” said Flacommo. “But of course you may not do this on your own, because each time a royal leaves my house and goes forth into the city, she—they—must be kept under guard. There are those, alas, whose rage against the royal family is unabated after all these years of Revolutionary government.”

  Rigg was quite sure the guards were there to keep the royals from running off, escaping the city, and going out to raise an army. But there was no reason to say this. He had a different item on his agenda. “Oh, I know about that!” he said. “Someone tried to kill me last night.”

  Everyone at the table cried out at once. No! Who! When! How did you stop them!

  “I stopped them easily enough,” said Rigg. “I simply didn’t sleep where I was supposed to sleep. The assassination attempt was a stealthy one, a trap set for me.”

  “What kind of trap!” demanded Flacommo. “If someone came into my house and—”

  Rigg made a soothing gesture and smiled. “I’m sure it was done without your knowledge, my dear friend. I may call you ‘friend,’ may I not? You have been so kind to my mother and sister.”

  “Yes, please, I’m honored if you think of me that way,” said Flacommo. Though of course he would not have forgotten what Rigg had said the night before.

  “It was a little box containing akses, which was placed under my bed. The box was flimsy enough that the very action of lying on the bed would break the box and release the akses. And of course you all know how long I would have remained alive after that, since they are drawn to body heat.”

  “But how did you defeat them?” someone asked.

  “I didn’t,” said Rigg. “I avoided them. As far as I know, they’re still there. I would advise sealing the door to the room and leaving them alone. They’re bound to starve to death within a few weeks, especially if the room is kept warm. It’s very tricky trying to dispose of them any other way. There are gases that will immobilize them—but it takes time for such gases to act, and in the meantime whoever brings the gas near them runs the risk of one of the akses taking a flying leap and winning the engagement preemptively.”

  “And such creatures were left in your room?” Flacommo said, incredulous. “How did you detect them?”

  “Having been warned that there are those who still hate the royal family, one of them having made an attempt on my life during the voyage here, I’ve become cautious. I look under beds.” Rigg hoped that no one questioned Long, since he knew perfectly well that Rigg had not even entered the room, let alone bent down to peer under the bed.

  “Thank the Wandering Saint for that!” said Flacommo, and many at the table agreed.

  Rigg turned to his mother, who did not seem alarmed at all, but merely regarded him between bites of her breakfast porridge—for she ate much simpler fare than any of the others at table. “Lady Mother,” he said, “I’m not sure how to take this incident. I’m really quite certain that I was not sentenced to such a death merely because I’m a royal—after all, the assassins could have killed any royal in the house, and yet they targeted only me.”

  She took another bite.

  “I can think of two reasons why I would be singled out. One is that my presence destabilizes the arrangement under which you and my sister have lived under the protection of such flunkies of the Revolutionary Council as our gracious host Flacommo. In which case it might be the Council itself, or some faction of it, that wants me dead. On the other hand, I’m a male, and ever since my great-grandmother killed all the males of the royal family and made it a law that only females of the family could rule, there have been those who have eagerly awaited the birth of a male heir, hoping he would live long enough to strike down that old decree and reestablish an emperor rather than an empress.”

  “If there are any such people,” Mother said mildly, “I doubt they’d try to kill you.”

  “Probably not,” said Rigg. “Ever since I learned of my true identity, or at least the possibility of it, I have
wondered who it was that kidnapped me and carried me away from my mother and father and sister. One possibility was that I was taken by members of the faction that wants a male heir restored to the throne. But if that’s so, why wasn’t I trained and indoctrinated to fulfil that role? Why wasn’t I raised to be a king? Because I can assure you, I never had a breath of a hint that I had any connection with royalty, or any great destiny to fulfil. So I have to conclude that the man who raised me was not of that faction.”

  Mother said nothing, but smiled slightly.

  “Still, you never know what people so insane they would seek the restoration of the royal house might do—surely the ones who want to restore the male line are the craziest of them all.”

  “There are so many crazy people in the world,” said Mother. “Some who are crazy and remain silent, and some who in their madness keep talking and talking, annoying everybody.”

  “I understand your rebuke, Mother, but I really am trying to learn how things stand, so I can guess where danger might come from.”

  “It can come from anywhere,” she said sweetly. “It can come from everywhere at once.”

  “I simply wondered if the attempt to kill me came from the faction that supports the restoration of the female line, and regards the existence of the male heir as a great danger. That faction would have been waiting all these years for me to surface again, so I could be killed, in obedience to great-grandmother Aptica Sessamin’s edict.”

  “That law was rescinded by the Revolutionary Council,” said Flacommo. “Most people have forgotten it ever existed.”

  “But since the law was never rescinded by the Tent of Light,” said Rigg, “there are people insane enough to think that it’s still the law, and that killing me would be a noble act. I say this because the man who tried to kill me on my way here was exactly that kind of madman.”