“No.” Mari shook her head. “I don’t know. Do you mean that I’m supposedly irrational because I got hit on the head in Ringhmon?”
“Partly, yeah. The Senior Mechanics are oh-so-worried about poor Mari,” Alli said with broad sarcasm.
“I told you about Ringhmon, but I’ve found out a little more since the last time we talked. I was set up by the Guild. Nice, huh? The Senior Mechanics wanted me dead, and they wanted to be able to pin it on commons.”
“Who told you this?” Alli demanded.
“Mechanics who knew it for a fact.”
“Why didn’t Calu say something about that?”
“Are you kidding?” Mari asked. “How could he hide something that explosive in a letter without some snoop spotting it? Besides, I didn’t find out the details until after I’d seen him.”
Alli exhaled heavily, looking at the tabletop. “That’s just sick. I’ve been more and more unhappy with the Senior Mechanics, but this… Mari, I can tell you’re not whacked out. But there’s another reason being given for why you need help. There’s supposed to be some guy that you’re traveling with,” she paused and looked to where Alain was standing against a wall some distance from them, “who’s controlling you with drugs or something.”
Mari couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that, too. Don’t they think I can behave badly on my own?”
Alli grinned. “They certainly ought to know that by now. But I think they’re trying to get your friends to help catch you by making us think that we’re helping you.”
“Well, it’s ridiculous. Nobody’s controlling me.”
“Nobody ever could,” Alli agreed. “But then what’s going on? Who is he?” Alli rested her chin on the palm of one hand, gazing at Alain. “He’s not half-bad looking…”
“Hey, back off! He’s mine.”
“Yours?” Alli raised both of her eyebrows and smiled slyly. “That sounds interesting. What’s up with you two? Just working partners, or…?”
“Or,” Mari said, smiling back.
“Where’s he from? What’s his specialty? Where did he apprentice?” Alli demanded.
“He’s not a Mechanic, Alli.”
“He’s not? But the Guild thinks…” Alli studied Alain again. “You took up with a common?”
“No…”
“Mari, if he’s not a Mechanic and he’s not a common, what is he? He’s not a Mage.”
Mari hesitated for only a moment. “Um, yes, he is.”
Alli gave Mari a startled and skeptical look, then gazed at Alain again. “Stop messing with me. He’s not a Mage.”
“Yes, he is.”
“No, he’s not. They all look like their faces are dead.”
“I’ve been working on him,” Mari explained.
“But why? Why work on him if he’s a Mage?” Alli must have seen something in her face. “You said you two weren’t just working partners. Oh, Mari, tell me you haven’t.”
“Haven’t what?”
“A Mage. Mari, that is so…you promised me that you’d only get with the right guy. You promised me, Mari!” Alli shook her finger at Mari.
“I know,” Mari said. “And I did. He really is the right one.”
Alli shook her head again, looking very worried now. “A Mage, Mari. How could he be right? Wait. Is this the guy Calu talked about? He was trying to tell me something about him, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.” Alli stared at Alain. “He said you were in really good hands, and the other hints…yeah, he knew this guy was a Mage. No wonder I couldn’t figure it out. That was the one answer I didn’t try to fit to Calu’s vague clues. Calu said he liked— What’s his name?”
“Alain,” Mari said. “Yes, Calu did like him. Alli, I swear to you that Alain is the greatest. He respects me and he believes in me and he’s risked his life for me more times than I can count.” Mari raised her hands in a pleading position. “Please, Alli. You know me. You can see I’m still myself. Can you still believe me?”
Alli hesitated. “That’s a big thing, Mari, but—” Her eyes suddenly focused on Mari’s hands. “Oh. My. Stars.”
“What?”
“Is that a promise ring?”
“Uh…this?” Mari held up her hand, spreading the fingers a bit. “Yes.”
“You married him?” Alli just sat staring at Mari, then shook her head with a dazed expression. “If Calu hadn’t already told me that this Alain was all right, I’d… Who proposed?”
“He did, first. Then later, I did.”
“You got a Mage to propose to you? Wow.” Alli’s eyes were on Alain again. “He looks all right, and I can tell he’s worried about you by the way he’s watching us.”
“Do you remember when I told you about the guy who saved me in the desert, and from the dungeon in Ringhmon and later in Dorcastle? That was Alain.”
Alli made a helpless gesture. “All right, Mari. It’s your heart, and you know it better than anyone else. I know Mages aren’t frauds like the Guild told us. I’ve seen what they can do, too. I was told never to talk to anyone about it.”
“That’s what happened to me.”
“But Mari, how do they do it?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mari admitted. “I mean, Alain has tried to explain it to me in Mage terms, but it doesn’t make any sense in Mechanic terms. Though Calu gave me some ideas, based on some kind of physics he was taught. I was wondering if I’d find some more clues in Marandur but—”
“Marandur?”
“Yes.” Mari leaned forward, delighted at the chance to finally share with another Mechanic. “You won’t believe the stuff I found there. Things from the vaults inside the old Guild Headquarters.”
Alli’s eyes had widened. “Banned technology?”
“Oh, yeah. Alli, this stuff is so great. The things we could build with it!”
Alli’s face lit up. “Really? I can’t begin to imagine—”
“No! You really can’t! It’s astonishing.”
“But, Mari, the penalty if you’re caught with it—” Her expression sifted to shock. “Marandur? You got it from Marandur? If the Empire gets its hands on you it’ll kill you.”
“The Empire has already tried,” Mari admitted. “Alli, don’t tell anyone else about Marandur or what I found there. Not yet.”
“Sure. I promise. As long as I get to see it someday.” Alli frowned at Mari. “Have you heard some of what the commons are saying? About this young female Mechanic who’s the daughter of Jules and traveling with a Mage? I thought it was crazy common talk, but you really are with Alain. You might get mistaken for the one the commons are talking about.”
Mari sighed and spread her hands apologetically. “The commons are talking about me.”
“You’re telling people that you’re the daughter of Jules? Mari, that’s suicidal! If the Guild gets its hands on you now—”
“Alli…I…” Mari didn’t know how to say it, so she finally just blurted it out. “I am the daughter.”
“What?” If Alli had looked dazed before, it was nothing compared to now.
“The Mages have seen it. They say I’m the woman who will fulfill the prophecy. If I live that long.”
“Oh my stars.” Alli blinked, then stared at Mari. “If the Mages believe that you’re her, why haven’t they killed you?”
“They’re trying,” Mari said.
“And so are our Guild and the Empire.”
“Well…yeah. A lot of people want to kill me.”
Alli looked away, then mimicked Mari’s spread-hand gesture. “All right. So, to summarize, everybody is trying to kill you, and you’re married. To a Mage.” She leaned forward and whispered. “Is it true what they say about Mages?”
Mari knew that she looked puzzled. “Is what true about Mages?”
“You know. Those things they know. In bed.”
“Things?” Mari asked.
“Come on, Mari! Everybody’s heard about that!”
Mari gave Alli a bewildere
d look. “I haven’t. What are you talking about?”
“Like you don’t know!” Alli said with a laugh. “Oh, wow. Mari of Caer Lyn, married.” Alli shook her head suddenly, sobering. “We need to talk about the Guild. How much do you know about what’s going on?”
“Not a lot. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone since I saw Calu in Umburan and someone else in Severun. Well, I was talked at by a Senior Mechanic on the ship that captured me, but she didn’t seem to be interested in giving me any information.”
“Calu isn’t at Umburan anymore.” Alli saw Mari’s expression. “It’s not that bad. I’m sure he wasn’t sent to Longfalls. But he was transferred somewhere else. There’s a lot of that going on—Mechanics being sent to different Guild Halls, often a long way from their original Halls. Officially, it’s all routine, which everyone knows is ridiculous because of how many transfers are being ordered right now. Unofficially, the Guild is trying to break up gangs.”
“Gangs?” Mari asked.
“Uh-huh. The Senior Mechanics think that there is a traitor behind every tree. That’s one reason they want you so badly. It’s an open secret that they’ve been trying to find you for months with no luck, and after what you did to the Queen of the Seas—” -
“Was that the ship that captured me?” Mari asked. “You’ve heard about that?”
“A report came in on our far-talker a few days ago. You didn’t quite sink the ship, you know,” Alli confided. “Which I guess means you weren’t trying to sink it, because the Mari I know would have done that if she’d wanted to.” Her face lit up with understanding. “The rumor mill was trying to figure out how you escaped. Was Alain with you? And the Guild doesn’t know he’s a Mage?”
“Right, and right,” Mari confirmed.
“Cool. I want all the details someday. What the Guild thinks happened is that some of the Mechanics aboard must have helped you escape, so the whole crew is under suspicion. Anyway, everything you’re doing is making you a symbol for disaffected Mechanics. And after word got around about the mess in Emdin, what the Senior Mechanics were doing to the apprentices there and how the Guild leadership had been covering it up, there are a lot more disaffected Mechanics. And they look at Mari and see someone who is thumbing her nose at the Senior Mechanics and getting away with it.” Alli bent a mock disapproving look on her. “You’re encouraging rebellion by commons and Mechanics.”
“Mages, too.”
“Really?” Alli asked.
“Well, one other Mage besides Alain, at least.” Mari sat back, deciding to tell Alli the rest. “There’s a storm coming.”
“No, the weather’s supposed to be fine for a few days.”
“Not that kind of storm, Alli.” Mari mimed steam escaping from a valve. “Pressure has been building up in the commons for a long, long time. They’re about to blow.”
She nodded, eyes intent. “How bad?”
“Extremely bad. Think Tiae. Only worse, and everywhere.”
“Are you serious?” Alli asked. “How…what’s the relief valve? There has to be a relief valve.”
Mari pointed to herself.
“Oh my stars.” Alli twisted her mouth. “And with the Guild maybe about to blow up, too.”
“What?” Mari demanded. “The Guild is about to blow?”
“Yeah.” Alli leaned toward Mari. “I don’t think this is the first time that’s happened, but the other times the commons weren’t about to blow as well. I have a friend who tried to go through the official Guild records, and he said there were strange gaps, places where lots of stuff had just been yanked out. Like about a century ago. The rosters of the Guild Mechanics suddenly disappear, and when they show up again years later they’re a lot smaller, as though hundreds of Mechanics just vanished.”
It was Mari’s turn to stare at Alli. “Just like that Mechanic who disappeared from the Guild Hall in Caer Lyn when we were apprentices. Remember him? I wonder just how big the prison at Longfalls is?”
“Not that big, Mari,” Alli said. “I was wondering whether my worst suspicions about what happened to all of those Mechanics who disappeared could actually be true, but with what you just told me about what the Guild tried to do to you at Ringhmon, now I think I know.”
Mari found herself looking down at the table, studying the marks in it as if they held great meaning. “Alain told me that the elders in the Mage Guild, who are like their Senior Mechanics, are ruthless in dealing with anyone they think is an enemy of their Guild. I remember thinking, how horrible to just decide to kill people, to kill other Mages just because they are suspected of being disloyal. Maybe the Mage Guild isn’t all that different from the Mechanics Guild that way, though.”
“Maybe not,” Alli agreed. “The Senior Mechanics control what little we learned about history, so it looks like they told us whatever they wanted and left out a lot of other stuff.”
“I wonder…” Mari gave Alli a curious look. “The Guild’s technology has been regressing for a long time. I wonder of purges like that are part of the reason. You can’t kill that many trained people and not have some impact. Think of all the stuff that never got passed down from one generation to the next.”
“I bet it is part of the problem. Remember how we used to complain about short-term solutions to long-term problems?” Alli leaned forward again, her elbows on the table. “So, speaking of long-term solutions, when do we start the revolution, o daughter of Jules?”
“We? Alli—”
“I’m in, Mari. Do you think I want to sit around pretending to be a good little girl until I disappear in some Guild loyalty sweep?” Alli looked to the side, frowning in thought. “Speaking of which, I heard late today that some special Mechanics are arriving here in about a week. The word came in just this afternoon to the Guild Hall by high-priority far-talker message.”
“Special Mechanics? What’s their specialty?” Mari asked, feeling uneasy.
“I don’t know. Officially, they don’t even exist, but the Guild had to make room for them at the Hall, so of course lots of us have heard that they’re coming, and we were told not to talk about it, so of course everybody is talking about it. But no one who knows who they are will say why they’re coming, or what the rush is about.”
Mari took a deep breath. “Maybe you should get out now.”
“No. If I hang in there a little longer I may be able to find out something about them.”
“Alli—”
“You’d better not be getting ready to lecture me on careful behavior, Lady subject-of-arrest-order daughter of Jules who went to Marandur and married a Mage.”
Mari couldn’t help laughing. “You’ve got me there. Alli, I still don’t know exactly what comes next. I’m here in Altis because I think there’s a place that holds some answers I need before I can figure out what to do. The less I tell you about that, the better.” Blinking back grateful tears, Mari reached over and grasped Alli’s hands. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that we’re still on the same team. I’m going to be out of the city for several days at least, but when I get back I’ll get in touch with you again.”
“You’d better.” Alli nodded toward Alain. “Now do I finally get to meet your promised husband?”
“Sure, but if you try to steal him from me you’re a dead woman.” Mari turned to gesture Alain over to them. He came quickly, yet without moving so fast it attracted attention. “Alain, this is Alli.”
Alain bowed to her. “I have heard much of you. You are the Lady Mechanic who makes the dragon-killer weapons.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” Alli grinned. “I love that title. Someday when I have my own weapons workshop I’ll put Maker of Dragon-Killer Weapons over the front entrance. So, Alain, what attracted you to Mari?”
“Alli!”
Alain eyed Alli for a moment, then Mari saw his small smile. “I was attracted to Mari by her intelligence, her spirit, and her excellent taste in friends.”
Alli stared at him for a mom
ent, then covered her mouth to stifle laughter. “You are the right one for Mari,” she finally said. “No wonder Calu liked you. Does he know about the marriage?”
“Not yet,” Mari replied.
“Good. I would have killed him if he’d known and not told me.” Alli stopped smiling, looking around. “You two had better get what you came for and get out of here. How do we meet again? You said several days. I’ll wait five days and then come back here in the evening. After that I’ll try to come every other day or so, as often as I can without arousing suspicion. Deal?”
“Deal.” Mari reached to clasp Alli’s hand again. “I am incredibly lucky when it comes to friends.”
“You make that luck, Mari. There were a few times when we were apprentices when I had nowhere else to turn, but I knew Mari would be there for me, and you always were.”
“Mari never leaves anyone behind,” Alain said.
“Exactly!” Alli winked at Alain. “Nice meeting you. I always wondered who Mari’s Mister Right would be.”
Alain bowed toward her. “I am fortunate, though I believe that since Mechanic Calu is favored in your eyes he considers himself more fortunate than I am.”
“He’d better,” Alli said with a laugh.
Mari grinned. “Thanks, Alli.”
“No problem. See you at the revolution.” Alli gestured them away. “Stay safe.”
“I’ll try,” Mari promised as she and Alain walked away.
They quickly bought enough food for dinner and for the trail, then left just as a batch of Mechanics came in and called greetings to Alli, who smiled back as if nothing unusual had happened recently. As Mari and Alain slipped out the door, Alli was focusing the attention of the other Mechanics on herself by asking some loud questions about contracts.
#
Mari trusted Alli but still felt extra nervous until they left the city early the next day. There had been too many cases where the Mechanics Guild had managed to locate Mari without any obvious slip-up on her part or Alain’s. Until she figured out what was betraying them, any period of time in one spot left her jumpy.
The first part of their travel wasn’t too difficult: through the city of Altis, then through the outlying portions lying up against the slopes of the mountains rising behind the city. Mari was surprised at how rapidly the city dwindled as they moved inland, the road very quickly changing from a paved street lined with buildings to a dirt lane bordered by sheds and storage huts and then a narrow path lined only by a couple of small orchards before it vanished completely where it met the skirts of a mountain. As Mari and Alain climbed higher into the interior through territory unmarked by human artifacts, she looked back at the city beneath them. “If this tower does exist inland, it’s no wonder nobody but those old mapmakers know about it. Everything on this island seems to be focused toward the sea.”