Read Ruins (Pathfinder Trilogy) for Free Online

Olivenko’s voice. How had he gotten from his watch position to here without Umbo hearing?
    “Your watch,” said Olivenko.
    Of course it was Umbo’s watch. And the reason he didn’t hear Olivenko coming was because Umbo must have fallen asleep. And the reason he didn’t feel as if he had slept at all was because he took so long with his thoughts before falling asleep that all he got was a nap at best.
    Bleary, Umbo got up. Loaf stirred—he slept lightly and woke at every change of watch. Rigg and Param remained oblivious. The sleep of royalty.
    What an unfair thing even to think of, Umbo told himself. If there’s anyone in the world who can’t sleep peacefully, it’s royalty. When rebels aren’t trying to kill them, or warlords whothink they should be king, then royal families are always killing each other.
    Just how stupid are my resentments and jealousies going to make me?
    “Speak to me,” said Olivenko. “If you’re sleepwalking, you won’t keep much of a watch.”
    Umbo opened his eyes fully and stretched. “I’m awake,” he whispered.
    “Keep moving until you’re really awake,” said Olivenko. “You only fell asleep a few minutes ago. I felt bad waking you, but . . . your turn.”
    And we can’t change turns around if it might mean waking one of the royals.
    No, Umbo told himself. Stop thinking that way.
    He got up and walked briskly out of the center of the grove, not caring how much noise he made among last year’s fallen leaves. Then he was on the closely grazed meadow, where his steps made almost no noise at all, and where the breeze was unimpeded by the trunks and leaves of the trees.
    What animals keep this grass so close-cropped? Why aren’t they all here now, with their faces covered by facemasks? Maybe Vadesh comes out and mows it himself. Or grazes it. Who knows what these machines can do, if they put their minds to it?
    Umbo circled the grove, which was quite a wide circuit, though the grove did not seem large or thick. He stayed well beyond its verge, which took him down a slope on the side beyond the city. Only when Umbo heard the gurgling of water did he realize how foolish he was to have strayed so far fromcamp. From here he couldn’t even see the sleepers, though he could see the tops of the trees under which they lay. But to go near the water—what if he stumbled in and got his own facemask?
    As if on cue, his left foot sloshed into a boggy spot in the grass. Umbo leapt back as if dodging a harvester’s scythe. But maybe there was no point in dodging. Maybe a larval facemask had already fastened itself to him.
    He scampered up the hill till he reached the edge of the copse and could see Loaf. Then Umbo sat down and ran his hands over his legs and feet. Nothing was attached, though he got a start when he found some wet leaves clinging to the top of his right foot and then to his hands when he tried to brush them away. There were no clouds tonight, so the ringlight was enough to show him that he had no parasite inching up his body. Unless the parasite was very small. Or it was creeping along under his skin.
    Umbo shuddered, then rose to his feet and walked again, continuing his circuit of the grove, though much closer to the edge of it now.
    Along the north side, he had to give up the plan. He couldn’t continue to circle the outside of the grove because it wasn’t a grove at all—it was a peninsula of a much larger forest that extended away to the north. It had only seemed like a grove from the city side because its link with the greater forest was hidden behind the brow of the hill.
    You think you know where you are, you think you know what’s what, and suddenly nothing is the way you thought, andit should have been obvious all along, and you feel stupid for having made assumptions, and you were stupid, but . . . Umbo could hear Wandering Man say, “It isn’t stupid when you assume things; that’s how the human brain is supposed to work. We assume things so we