At once the pilot was on his feet, clearing away dishes to let Umbo lay Kyokay on his own table. A bonesetter was called for, and a stitcher too, once they saw the blood-soaked rags binding the wound. The pilot asked no more questions after Umbo said, “I saw him fall, and I knew nowhere to take him but here.”

“What about Fall Ford?” asked the pilot.

“We were already downstream of it,” said Umbo. “And you—your boat is gone.”

“My brother took it back. I’m here waiting for my wife to deliver my firstborn. If she doesn’t hurry, I’ll take the boat you came in and catch up with my brother.”

Umbo didn’t want to lie to this good man, but he knew he had to, for the future’s sake. “This poor boy thinks I’m his brother. Kept calling me by his name. Bobo or something like that.”

“Whereas you’re ‘Ram Odin.’” The pilot’s tone made it clear that he didn’t believe that was Umbo’s name, and probably never had.

“On the river, sir, a man is what he does, don’t you think?”

The pilot only grinned at him and kept working on warming up the boy’s arms and legs.

Next morning, Umbo left a good deal of money with the taverner with instructions to send someone upriver to tell the folk in Fall Ford that they should come fetch one of their children. Umbo knew it would insult the pilot to offer payment to him, and that the man would look in on Kyokay as if he were his own nephew, if not son.

When Umbo got to his little boat, he saw that it had been provisioned for a downriver voyage. A long one. And someone had untied the rope that had once connected the boat to the ring. So it was no longer obvious that it was a stolen ferryboat.

The man didn’t know whether my business was fair or foul, but he abetted me in trust that it wouldn’t bring him harm.

I already repaid him by not undoing the course of events that brought me and Rigg together, and Param, and Loaf and Olivenko. Now it’s their job to go ahead and save the world. I saved my brother’s life, and that’s all I can do, and more than I should have attempted, but now it’s done.

Chapter 7: Paths and Slices

CHAPTER 7

Paths and Slices

Noxon wasn’t despairing yet, exactly. He and Param had accomplished quite a lot. The easiest part was for Noxon to master the stuttering forward jumps that Param did when she sliced time, so that he could race through hours and days in just a few minutes.

But he was not a whit closer to being able to do it backward. Not simply going into the past—he could already make backward leaps just by attaching to some path and joining that person or animal in its time. What he couldn’t do was get time flowing the other direction and then slice through it in that direction. He wasn’t even sure it was possible.