The Dispersal, however, probably did not involve nearly half a million people, as the no doubt–inflated legends claim. Rather these great national heroes probably left with rather small groups, taking their high–level civilization to more benighted peoples in different areas of the world. This would indeed, at least in one sense of the word, be bringing man — civilized man — to places where he had never lived before. And careful study of the Aven Map will undoubtedly bring us a greater understanding of the religion, the government, and the culture of people much farther into our past than archaeologists had ever dared to dream of going...

The Aven Map: The First Translation, 1204, University of Darkwater, pp. 22–25.

16

LITTLE REUBEN followed the bird into the forest. He did not look where he was going. He did not notice when he stepped through the cleared area that stretched all the way around the farm. But if he had, chances are he wouldn't have stopped. Because he was only four years old, and his education was not complete.

The bird, of course, being small, flew easily through the invisible barrier and on into the dense undergrowth of the Forest of Waters. But Reuben could still see the splash of red, now hopping back and forth on a branch. He did not know that it was hopping because even though the barrier was passable, it still caused such a disturbance in the tiny brain that it was all the bird could do just to stay on the branch.

Reuben ran through the invisible barrier, too — but it cost him far more than it cost the bird. Between the moment when his head first entered the field and the moment he hit the ground Reuben felt more pain than he had ever felt in his short life. It seemed like every nerve in his whole body was on fire, like huge thunders were erupting in his head, like lightning was dancing in his eyes. So great was the pain that he didn't notice that his shoulder struck a rock and bled profusely.

He didn't even notice the hideous scream he uttered.

And because his leg remained in the middle of the barrier after he fell, the pain went on and on and on.

He fainted, but not soon enough. When he woke in the dark house, with father and grandma bending over him, massaging his arms, he could still hear the terrible thunder in his ears, and white spots danced at the edges of the world, retreating just out of sight when he tried to look at them. And his leg was completely numb.

He heard nothing but the thunder, though grandma's lips moved, and she seemed to be angry. He wondered why his leg felt like it wasn't there. Grandma and father were arguing, it seemed, and he wondered why they were talking so soft that he couldn't hear them.

Grandma clapped her hands hard beside his ear. He thought she was trying to hit him, and he dodged. Father looked triumphant, but grandma shook her head. She reached down and rolled Reuben over on his stomach, so he was looking at the wall. Reuben didn't see anything, then, though he did feel a wind rushing past his ear — at least, his hair was stirred by something.

Then, as if from far away, he heard through the thunder a soft voice, calling his name. He rolled over quickly, to see who might be calling. But it was grandma, and she was only a few inches away. She seemed to be shouting. He answered, "I can't hear you, grandma, you sound so far away."

But she seemed pleased with that response, and father also looked relieved. Reuben didn't understand.

But he soon understood his useless leg.

Over the months his hearing gradually came back, but the feeling in his leg did not. He could swing the leg from the hip, but he had no control over what happened to the knee or foot. And so he was always falling down, always dropping things, and father and mother were impatient with him. But after a while he learned to walk by throwing his leg forward and bringing the heel down hard on the ground, which made his knee lock. Then he treated his leg just as if it were a crutch, as straight and hard as wood. He swung over it, then threw the leg forward again.

He could not see himself, but his older brothers and his older sister teased him unmercifully because of the way he walked. "You walk like a mantis," they said. "You walk like a crippled rabbit."

But one day grandpa came back. Reuben was old enough by now to notice that grandpa looked younger than father, and much, much younger than grandma. It was a mystery, but the kind of mystery that he knew not to ask questions about. Another mystery was why no one would answer him when he asked if there were other people outside the farm, and where they came from, and who was grandpa's father.

When grandpa came back he took Reuben into the shed behind the house and touched him with little cold boxes and spheres that frightened him and made him cry. But when grandpa left, grandma began massaging Reuben's leg for an hour every day.

Father complained about that, because it took so much time away from important work. But grandma answered, "That's what Jason said, my boy, and so that's what we'll bloody well do. The boy's leg is more important than the weeds."

Father looked angry, but went out of the room. Grandma kept on massaging.

It did no good.

When Reuben turned five, grandma began to take him out to the barrier now and then. He would go with her easily enough until he realized that they were near that partially cleared strip of ground. Then he began to cling to her skirt and try to hold back, try to pull her away.

"No, grandma please!" But she took him right to the barrier, and then, every time, she said the same words.

"This is the wall of Worthing Farm. On this side of the wall is life and food and clear water and everything good. On that side of the wall is death and pain and terrible loneliness. What happens if you cross that barrier?" She said all this in such a dark and terrible voice that Reuben only cried and answered, "I don't know!"

So she told him. And when she finished, he was sobbing so hard he could barely breathe, and then grandma would take him away from the barrier. At night for weeks after one of those visits to the wall, he would have nightmares, and wake screaming. "Jason!" he would call. "Help me!" But grandpa didn't come — only grandma, or mother, or father.

When Reuben turned six, he stepped on a sharp rock and cut his bad foot. But he rejoiced — for he had felt the pain, like a little spark from miles away, but he had felt it.

When he told grandma, she didn't believe him, told him that he must get used to not having the use of his leg. But then father came and looked at Reuben with his vivid blue eyes (just like grandpa's) and said, "He's telling the truth, mother." And then grandma cried for joy and hugged him in her long, strong arms.

And because he was getting better, father began to give him more work to do. Reuben learned ropemaking and bucketmaking, and was taught all the seeds and which to plant at what day of the year and month. He learned the calendar and the names of all the weeds, but grandma never taught him how she did her trick of scratching a quill on thin strips of paper, and then say the same words from it every time. She taught no one how to do it, not even father.

When Reuben turned eight, father said he was old enough to come on the Walk.

Reuben didn't want to go, but when father decided, the children did it.

The Walk came every seventh day. Winter or summer, blizzard or wind or the hottest day of the year, they would leave at noon and walk to the northeast corner of Worthing Farm. There at the corner father would repeat the very words grandma had used. Except that when he said them, he not only made the children afraid, but he also seemed to be afraid himself. When the words were said, they walked in single file all the way around the barrier. Reuben could hardly stand to be so close to the edge. In the dark forest beyond he could imagine them, waiting. He knew them well: he had seen them in a hundred terrible dreams. Now, walking along the barrier, he felt the same sweating, freezing sensation that woke him up screaming in the night. He kept turning around to look, but they retreated out of sight before he could get a clear glimpse. He stayed as close to father as possible. Why doesn't he hurry? Reuben wondered. Doesn't he know they're watching us?