“See what?” asked Loaf.
“If I knew,” said Rigg, “I wouldn’t have to go back.”
“Let’s see,” said Umbo. “Going into the past has brought us exactly what, so far?”
“Saved our lives,” said Loaf, and almost at the same time Param said, “You set me free and saved . . .”
Olivenko added, “It was ten thousand years ago that all the people left this city.”
“Or died in it,” said Rigg. “It could have been a plague.”
“Cities rise and fall,” said Olivenko. “That’s what history is.”
“Let’s find a way to be comfortable here tonight,” said Loaf. “I wish we were still mounted. We could just leave this place.”
“Leave our only known source of safe water?” asked Param.
Then they were among the trees, and the conversation turned to other things. Rigg only happened to stop and look back at the moment that Umbo bent down, picked something up, and tucked it into his pocket. Rigg was too far away to casually say, “Find something?” or “Drop something?” It’s not as if he even had a right to ask. Umbo didn’t owe him explanations.
At the same time, there had been something furtive in the way Umbo pocketed it and then glanced around. Yet Umbo hadn’t looked at Rigg or any of the others to see if they were observing him. On the contrary, he specifically glanced around as if looking for someone else. The person who might have dropped whatever Umbo picked up? Without even thinking about it, Rigg scanned for paths. No one had been here since the city was abandoned, and that long ago it was doubtful that there was a grove of trees here, anyway.
But animals came and went all the time here, Rigg could see. One in particular had been in and out of this grove several times in the past few hours. He recognized its path.
“We have a friend here,” said Rigg.
The others looked around, startled.
“Our feathered friend,” said Rigg. “The beast that led us into the past and through the Wall.”
“I thought he went crazy when we popped back into the present and the Wall came back,” said Loaf.
“He’s not in the Wall anymore. He came here. He’s been going up to the trees. Tree to tree.”
“He didn’t look like a climber to me,” said Loaf.
“Or a bark-eater,” said Umbo.
“We wouldn’t know what he looked like,” said Olivenko. “There aren’t any like him in the modern world.”
“He can’t have gotten far,” said Rigg. “He was here not half an hour ago.”
“You know we only have that Vadesh’s word that the water’s not safe,” said Olivenko.
“He can’t lie,” said Umbo.
“And who told us that he can’t?” asked Olivenko. “‘Hi, I can’t possibly lie to you.’ Isn’t that the first thing a liar would say?”
“He’s just like Father,” said Rigg, “and Father never lied to me.”
“He didn’t exactly open up and bare his soul to you, either,” said Loaf.
“He didn’t tell you about me,” said Param.
Rigg started to answer. “He did when he was . . .” But then he realized that Father hadn’t been dying, he had just been hiding behind a fallen tree, pretending to be trapped under it. Lying to Rigg.
Rigg covered his eyes with one hand. “I still live in the world he built around me. All his teachings and talk, and I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t.”
“Welcome to adult life,” said Loaf.
“I’m not an adult,” said Rigg.
“Really?” said Umbo. “Well, I think when you’re in charge of yourself, you’re an adult.”
“Oh, right,” scoffed Loaf.
“Plenty of full-size grownups don’t do half as well as me and Rigg, thanks,” said Umbo.
Again Rigg wanted to know what Umbo had found. What he had in his pocket.
They heard a snorting noise from three rods away. Quietly they spread out to surround it. Rigg looked at Umbo and rolled his eyes. None of the others knew how to walk stealthily. Not that they had to. The beast was making so much noise it couldn’t have heard them.
It was indeed the beast with the barbed feathers, and it was hitting the side of its head against a tree, then scraping the same area on the bark. As Rigg got closer, he could see that he had mud on that side of his head.
Not mud. The thing that looked like mud was actually another creature in its own right. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see its tiny faint path moving through the air right along with the barbfeather’s path the whole time it had been in the woods.
Loaf and Umbo, who had both dealt with animals, were much closer to it now; Olivenko and Param were hanging back. They were city people.
“Don’t get too close,” said Rigg.
“What’s it got on its face?” asked Loaf.
“My guess is it drank from the stream,” said Umbo.
“I think so too,” said Rigg.
“You mean it picked up that parasite? That facemask thing?” asked Olivenko.
“Whatever it’s got on its head, it’s alive. A separate creature. With its own path.”
“Every time the beast smacks it or scrapes at it,” said Umbo, “it gets bigger. Spreads more, I mean. There’s a strand of it going into the poor beast’s ear.”
“So all the barbfeather’s efforts to get rid of it are actually helping it attach more firmly,” said Rigg.
“What a clever evolutionary ploy,” said Olivenko. “Facemasks that could make use of the beating and scraping would have a better chance of survival.”
“Maybe all the fear and aversion allow the facemask to find the right parts of the brain to attach to in order to get control,” suggested Rigg.
“You sound so excited,” said Param. “Has anybody noticed what this means?”
“That Vadesh wasn’t lying about the parasite, you mean?” asked Loaf. “That’s obvious.”
“I mean that we’re totally dependent on Vadesh for our drinking water,” said Param.
“You know,” said Umbo, “I’m thinking we ought to be able to find a place to slink back through the Wall and just figure out how to stay alive in our own wallfold.”
“Let’s see,” said Loaf. “A land with one dangerous parasite, or a place where thousands of soldiers will be looking for us and everybody else will be happy to turn us over to them in exchange for a reward.” He made weighing motions with his hands.
“They’re only looking for me and Param,” said Rigg. “Why don’t the rest of you go back?”
“And leave us here alone?” Param didn’t even try to conceal the panic in her voice.
“They’d still catch us,” said Loaf. “And then torture us till we told them where you were. And since they wouldn’t believe the truth . . .”
“I was just saying that you don’t have to stay here,” said Rigg. “I didn’t claim it would be perfectly safe.”
“What do we do about this poor animal?” asked Param.
Rigg looked at her in surprise. “Do?”
“It’s in so much distress,” said Param.
“Of course it is,” said Rigg. “It’s got a parasite sticking to its head that’s trying to invade its brain.”
“Well, we brought it here,” said Param.
“I suppose we did,” said Rigg. “But it’s from this world and, if Vadesh is telling the truth—and about these facemask things he seems to be—then the parasites are natives here, just like old barbfeather. So if we hadn’t pulled him to now to run into this parasite, he might just as easily have had exactly the same thing happen to him back then.”
“Except that the world was just about to end for him anyway,” said Loaf. “Our ancestors were about to wipe him out along with all his cousins, right? We saved him.”
“I can see now that he ought to be grateful,” said Param.
“Look, if you gave him a choice between parasite on his face and dead, what do you think he’d choose?” asked Rigg.
“Look what he actually is choosing,” said Umbo.
Param nodded but she clearly didn’t like it. “Life,” she said.