He could be selling her out right now. Telling the bandits where she was in exchange for his life and enough water and food to reach Ringhmon by himself. Who would be fool enough to trust a Mage? You, Mari. Not like you had any choice. But if he does try to sell me out, those scum won’t take me easily. I can’t run, but I can fight.
Mari propped herself against the rocks so she could see down the slope, then drew her pistol. She lay there, trying to rouse herself occasionally to look for anyone coming up, but the slope stayed empty.
The weapon in her hand was a deadly thing, but in this case far overmatched by the numbers and firepower of the bandits. Using it even once would bring the bandits upon her.
The words that Professor S’san had spoken as she gave Mari the pistol remained engraved in her memory. “This weapon I am giving you is a tool, an emergency tool. It is not to be depended upon as a first resort, or a second, or even a third. Your greatest assets will always be your mind and your ability to act on wise decisions. Fail to make proper use of those assets, and the weapon cannot save you. Remember that, Mari.”
Great advice, Professor. Just how do I use it now?
Mari turned the weapon, thinking that if she had simply fired when the Mage loomed out of the murk, she probably would have killed him. Then, when she fled, the bandits on the slope would have caught her or killed her. Thinking, instead of firing, had saved both of them, at least to this point. What a strange tool this pistol is. Normally a tool exists to be used. But it’s as if this one is best not used, unless absolutely no other option remains. I guess that is what Professor S’san meant. But if she gave it to me, she must have thought I might face that kind of situation. I really hope I never end up in that kind of mess.
She had no idea how much time had passed when a dispassionate voice whispered, “Master Mechanic Mari.” Mari blinked. The Mage had appeared close to the ledge. She hadn’t seen him coming up, which was odd since the slope was so open. But he was back, and no bandits were with him, so she breathed a sigh of relief and holstered her weapon. Even through her daze, Mari couldn’t help noting that the Mage had an easier time remembering her Master Mechanic rank than Senior Mechanics did.
Mage Alain slid over the top of the rocks, several bundles cradled in his arms. “The large water barrels have all been smashed, but some of the wagons were untouched as of yet, so I was able to get supplies from them.” Opening one of the packs, the Mage pulled out several clay bottles and worked the cork free from one. “Here. Water.”
Mari’s hands trembled as she drank. It took all of her self-control to keep from gulping down the entire bottle at once. Finally she lowered the bottle, gasping for breath but feeling a tremendous sense of relief. “How can I ever repay you?”
“Repay?”
“You know,” Mari said. But Mage Alain looked back at her as if he didn’t know at all. “I’m in your debt,” she said. “For the water. So I asked how I could pay you for it.”
“Pay.” The Mage shook his head. “That is a matter for elders to deal with.”
“I wasn’t talking about giving you money.”
He eyed her with that unrevealing expression. “I have no use for money.”
She felt a twinge of fear, and let her expression harden as she gazed back at him. “I hope you don’t think you’re going to get anything else from me.”
Was that puzzlement in the Mage’s eyes again? “I do not want anything from you. Why do you prepare to fight?”
Mari realized that one of hands was gripping her pistol. She let go of the weapon and forced herself to relax. “I— Sorry.” That earned another blank look. “You don’t know what ‘sorry’ means?”
The merest hint of a frown line appeared on the Mage’s brow, as if he were struggling to remember something. “It is forbidden,” he finally said.
“Forbidden,” she repeated. “Why?”
The Mage shook his head. “The teachings of my Guild.”
“Guild secrets?” Not too many hours ago she would have laughed, thinking that the only secret the Mage Guild had to keep was the fact that it was all a fraud. But she had seen some inexplicable things since then. “It has something to do with that heat you created?”
He gazed back at her silently, no trace of emotion visible.
“Guild secrets,” Mari answered herself. “Fine. I understand that you can’t talk about that. Whatever the reason is, I wasn’t trying to insult you or hurt your feelings. ‘How can I repay you’ is just an expression, another way of saying thanks.”
“Oh.” The Mage sagged back against a rock. His expedition seemed to have exhausted him again, as if whatever he had done to stay hidden had cost him a lot of extra effort. “I am unused to different ways of…of saying thanks.”
“I’d noticed,” Mari said. “What’s it like down there?”
“There are still some bandits present. I got close enough to overhear their conversation.”
“I’m not sure I would’ve had the courage to do that,” Mari admitted frankly. She saw a hint of surprise on Mage Alain’s face, then a trace of embarrassment. When the Mage gets tired, he doesn’t hold his mask as well. Good. I prefer being with someone who acts at least a little human. Too bad being exhausted and getting out of this alive are mutually exclusive.
Mage Alain pointed back down the way the caravan had come that morning. “They believe you must have stolen a mount from one of the guards and fled down the road. Most of them have pursued on their own mounts, feeling sure they will run you down by morning at the latest.”
Mari inhaled deeply, trying to suppress a shudder. “They are after me. Did you hear why?”
“No.”
“They didn’t track us up the side of the pass, then? They didn’t find where you had killed those three bandits?”
The Mage nodded. “Yes, they found that place. But since it was clearly the act of a Mage, and none of the weapons were taken, their leaders believe that is the way I fled. They believe I will soon die alone in the desert waste, and assume since I went that way no Mechanic would willingly have taken the same path.”
She smiled at the chance that had misled her pursuers. “It wasn’t entirely willingly, I have to admit. We were under some pressure.”
“I do not understand why you keep saying ‘we’ or ‘us’ when you speak of you and I,” Mage Alain said. “The two of us are together, but hardly companions.”
Mari bent her head, resting her forehead on one hand and feeling incredibly weary now that her thirst had been dealt with. “I’m just being efficient. ‘We’ is a lot easier to say than ‘you and I.’ ”
“I see.”
“I wasn’t being serious. I was using sarcasm.”
“How can I tell when you are being serious?”
Mari raised her head to look at the Mage. “I start speaking in short sentences, my voice gets loud, and my face gets darker.”
“I will remember that,” Mage Alain answered with no emotion but apparently perfect sincerity.
Exhaustion, tension, the relief of getting water, the Mage’s safe return, and the simple absurdity of it all finally got to her. Mari started laughing, holding her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound but unable to stop for a while. The Mage eyed her, waiting silently. “Sorry,” Mari finally managed to gasp. “I just…what do we do from here? Do you think the road toward Ringhmon will be safe if those bandits are searching for me the other way?”
He thought about that, then shook his head. “I doubt the road will be safe. From what we know,” he paused after the phrase and gave her a dispassionate look before continuing, “they have more than enough numbers to scour the road in both directions for you.”
“Then what do we do? Strike out overland?” She waved at the rough terrain. “We could spend weeks trying to get through this, and unless I’m mistaken there’s only a few days’ worth of water here.” Mari tapped the bottle closest to her. “You said you saw the caravan master’s map? How far do we need to go to reach someon
e who can help?”
The Mage frowned very slightly, not to reveal emotion but in thought. “There were wells along the caravan route, but I cannot recall their locations. The first place where any were marked was, I would guess, about halfway from here to Ringhmon.”
“We were supposed to be in Ringhmon in six more days. So, on foot, at least three or four days’ travel to reach these wells?”
“I would say so. It could be as much as five days on foot. Along the road.”
“ And we have to avoid the road. Any ideas?”
Mage Alain shook his head. “Not right now. Why do you ask me my opinion? You are a Mechanic. I know Mechanics do not respect Mages.”
Mari shrugged. “You seem to understand some of this stuff, things about fighting. You said you were taught about it. That kind of material wasn’t part of my education. And…I like knowing what other people think. Even if they want me to make the decision, I want to have their input. I hate it when people make decisions about me without asking me about it, so I’m not going to do that to other people.”
“Why not?”
Could that question possibly be sincere? “Because I want to treat them right.”
“You speak of how to act toward shadows? They are nothing.” She, too, was only a shadow, the Mage Guild's teachings told him. She, too, was nothing. But he felt a strange reluctance to say that to her again. “What is 'right'?”
She took a deep breath. “Look…I don’t like being treated badly myself, and I don’t enjoy treating other people badly. I tried being rough on people who were junior to me a couple of times when I was an apprentice, because that was expected of you when you got some seniority, and I really didn’t like doing it, so I haven’t since then. That’s what I mean by treating people right.”
Mage Alain spent a while thinking before he spoke again. “Why does that matter?”
“Because it does. To me.” She wondered why she wasn’t getting angry at the Mage’s attitude, and realized it was because he appeared to be genuinely puzzled.
“This is how Mechanics think?”
Mari had to look down, biting her lip. She didn’t want to admit the truth, not to a Mage, but it was a truth everyone on the world of Dematr already knew. “Not all of us. Many Mechanics treat common people badly, because…because the Guild says they don’t matter.”
He nodded. “I had not expected any wisdom from the Mechanics Guild.”
“It’s not wisdom! I don’t think it’s wisdom.”
Mage Alain studied her, then nodded again. “You do not lie. You have not treated me badly, even though you are a Mechanic.”
“Yeah…well…” Mari looked down, feeling embarrassed. “My instructors used to complain that I didn’t listen to everything they told me.”
“Even when they disciplined you?”
Mari paused before answering this time. Even though the Mage’s robes covered most of his body, she had spotted the marks of scars on his hands and face. “I don’t know what you mean by discipline, and I don’t think I want to know. Life as a Mechanic apprentice can be pretty harsh, but I’m getting the feeling that you went through a lot worse.”
“It was necessary,” Mage Alain said.
“If you say so,” Mari replied, not willing to debate the issue right now. “But getting back to your question, I ask your opinion because that’s what I do, and you seem to be pretty level-headed even if you do believe crazy things.”
“This was…praise.” Mage Alain watched her intently. “From a Mechanic. Am I supposed to ask how I can ever repay you for saying that?”
She grinned even though her dry, cracked lips made the gesture painful. “That’s up to you. Listen, we’re both worn out. I can’t think straight. Let’s get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.”
“Do you feel safe sleeping here?”
“I won’t feel safe until I get inside the walls of the Mechanics Guild Hall in Ringhmon,” Mari replied. “But for tonight, hopefully this is the last place those bandits will be looking for us.”
She had closed her eyes before it occurred to her that the Mage might actually have been asking about whether she felt safe sleeping near him.
Was he being honest with her? Mages were notorious for their lies. And the way he implied that not revealing his feelings was somehow tied in with that heat thing felt ridiculous. She could build a machine that would create heat, and it wouldn’t matter if she were frowning or smiling the entire time she was at work. Despite the jokes about machines mockingly refusing to work when they knew you needed them, engineering had nothing to do with feelings.
But he had done something. Somehow. A Mage had done something that she couldn’t explain.
A Mage here with her. Her too exhausted to stay awake and alert for anything he might try. Bandits below, so that she dared not struggle or cry out if the Mage attacked her. Situations didn’t get much uglier.
Her last thoughts as she passed out from fatigue were that if she had misjudged Mage Alain, if her decisions to trust him had been wrong, this night could get a lot worse.
Chapter Four
The dream came, as it usually did after a difficult day.
Eight-year-old Mari stood in the doorway of her family’s home, staring at the Mechanics who had come for her. Her father protesting, her mother crying as the Mechanics led her away. You did very well on the tests. You will be a Mechanic.
The dream shifted, Mari watching the streets of Caer Lyn glide by as if she were floating down them. The city watch in chain mail and bearing short swords, common folk watching impotently as the Mechanics passed with Mari and one other child they had collected. Sailing ships crowded the harbor, their masts and spars forming a spiky forest that swayed slowly to the rhythm of the low swells undulating across the water. A single Mechanics Guild steamship headed out to sea, trailing smoke in a long, spreading plume. Then the Mechanics Guild Hall rising before her, the group passing through the gates into rooms where Mari gawked at her first sight of electric lights and the Mechanics carrying their strange weapons.
Another dream-shift, and young Mari was standing before the mail desk at the Guild Hall. She was taller, and wore an apprentice’s uniform with the ease of someone accustomed to the trappings of the Mechanics Guild. On her sleeve was the mark of a second-year apprentice.
The retired Mechanic occupying the desk shook his head sadly, as he always had. Still nothing for you, Apprentice Mari. The common folk do that, you know: you become a Mechanic and they can’t accept that you’re better than them. They’ve probably even forgotten that today’s your birthday. They just leave you behind. Not like the Guild. We’re your family now.
They can do that to me, that younger Mari said, fighting back tears, but I will never forget anyone. I will never leave anyone behind.
On the desk a letter appeared, but as she grabbed it to look at the address she knew it wasn’t for her.
Mari’s eyes flew open to see the brassy blue morning sky above her. The familiar nightmare born of her memories faded into the waking nightmare of here and now. As her mind brushed aside the cobwebs of sleep, Mari remembered her last waking thoughts the night before and tensed. She looked down at her body. Her clothing hadn’t been disturbed.
Cautiously turning her head, Mari saw that the Mage lay on the other side of the small ledge, as far from her as he could get, head concealed under the cowl of his robes. Just as his feelings lay concealed, she reflected. Maybe he had been as tired as she last night, too tired to act on any male cravings. Or maybe Mage Alain wasn’t like all of the Mages she had heard about.
She lay still for a little while longer, trying to banish the last traces of the all too familiar dream and listening for any sounds from the caravan below them. Finally she fumbled for one of the water bottles, carefully removing the cork and drinking far less than she wanted before resealing it.
Her movements woke the Mage, who sat up gradually and squinted his eyes against the glare of the morning sun. H
e said nothing, getting water and drinking sparingly, then opening another pack to bring out trail food salvaged from the caravan. He handed some to Mari before taking a bit for himself.
Mari ate slowly, not feeling very hungry as she thought about her dilemma. Yesterday had left little time or energy for thinking, but in the harsh light of morning she was stuck in the desert with a Mage and had no idea how to reach safety. As Alli’s hallucinatory presence had helpfully reminded her, male Mages were infamous for predatory behavior toward any female who took their fancy, and Alain was a male Mage and she was a female.
Still, last night had passed without incident. During the day he hadn’t grabbed at her even when unsteady ground would have offered a convenient pretense. From what she had been told, Mages didn’t even worry about giving excuses for that kind of behavior. But Mage Alain had done nothing to cause her alarm aside from being strange. Strange and dangerous was one thing. Strange and helpful was another. I wonder if he thinks I’m strange? There would be plenty of Senior Mechanics, and more than one Mechanic instructor at the academy, who would agree with him on that count. The same Senior Mechanics and Mechanics who think all Mechanics should act the same and look the same and think the same.
Give this guy a break, Mari. We can’t be friends…wow, that was weird that I even thought of that…but even if every other Mage is scum, until Mage Alain gives me cause to think of him otherwise, and until we find help, I’ll consider him an unusual ally.
Moving very carefully, she raised herself up to look over the rocks. Figures still walked about the remnants of the caravan, perhaps a half dozen by a quick count. There was no telling how many couldn’t be seen, or might have gone off but still be within hearing range of a gunshot. Slumping back, she shook her head at Alain. “They haven’t left yet.”