“Then I’d better stop talking with you and get busy exploring,” said Rigg.

“You traveled down the Stashik River. First without money, trapping animals for meat as long as open country held out. Then with Loaf to guide you and shape your experience on the river and in O. Then as a prisoner so all you saw were your invisible paths. Then closed up in Flacommo’s house and in the library. You had how many hours on the loose in Aressa Sessamo before you made your escape, and then you were in that carriage heading for the Wall. Rigg, how well do you know Ramfold?”

“I know what I know,” said Rigg stubbornly. “I know the things that everybody knows, and I know some things that only I know. You may know the whole history, you may have seen it through all its history while I only know the last fifteen minutes of it, but you didn’t grow up in Ramfold, so you don’t really know it, either.”

“You don’t know Ramfold, Rigg. You know Fall Ford and the forests above Upsheer, and then a quick tour of the river. What do you know about the vast lands on either side? That’s where most of the millions of people of Ramfold live. Village after village. Places where they’ve never heard the language of Aressa Sessamo. Places where even the tax collectors don’t go.”

Rigg sat on the edge of the ramp and put his head in his hands. “And I’ll know even less about the other wallfolds. I get it. But I have to do something.”

“Then do it with me. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut, all right? I’ll try not to shape your perceptions. Yes, I think I know what you’ll learn. But I’ll let you learn it.”

“The best way to do that is not to go with me,” said Rigg.

“I know how dangerous it is,” said Ram Odin, “and you don’t.”

“I’ve dealt with danger before. I think I can get out of ­trouble more easily than anybody in the world, except Umbo. And Noxon.”

“You won’t learn much if you’re always getting out of trouble. And think of what you’ll do by ‘getting out of trouble.’ Suddenly disappear. You think they won’t notice? Word won’t spread? You think that won’t change what people believe about the world?”

“I did a lot of that in Ramfold, and I didn’t change everything.”

“Of course you changed everything! Just because you can’t see what it would have been without all your disappearing and reappearing—that’s all you and Umbo did, over and over, was change things!”

Rigg had to concede the point. “And having you with me will accomplish exactly what?”