“We’re considering trying to take that ship,” Mari said. “Do you know anything about sneaking up on a ship at night and getting people aboard it?”
The captain scratched his head. “Well, now, I may have heard a few things about that. Just idle talk in the portside bars, you know. But I think I may remember enough to help you out, Lady.”
Alain could easily see the deception in the man, who showed every sign of being extremely familiar with the matters discussed. “The moon will still be bright.”
“That depends on what time we make our approach, Sir Mage. If no clouds come along to aid our concealment in the night, we can move in between the time the moon sinks and the sun rises.” The captain paused, eyeing Mari. “I do feel obligated to point out, Lady, that the matter we are discussing is commonly referred to as piracy.”
“That may be the one crime I have not yet been accused of,” Mari said. “We’ll make some plans tomorrow.”
“Aye, Lady. That will also give my crew time to sew the armbands your Mechanics have asked for.”
“Armbands.” She gave Alain an aggravated look.
“It’s not a problem, Lady,” the captain assured her. “All sailors know some sewing. There aren’t any tailors out on the water to mend rips in clothes, and sometimes the sails themselves require some repairs.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Mari said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow about the plans.”
Alain could see that she was dogged by weariness, but Mari circulated about the ship, talking not only to her fellow Mechanics but also to the common members of the crew, the healers Cas and Pol, and even the new Mages. Her stubbornly determined attempts to converse with the Mages Hiro, Tana, and Dimitri were getting nowhere, though, until Mage Dav intervened and began presenting questions of wisdom to her. His inquiries were posed in terms that Mari couldn’t grasp, so she didn’t realize their purpose. But she gave Alain a look that told him she assumed Mage Dav was acting for a reason, and after a few rounds of questions all three new Mages inclined their heads towards her. “We accept your wisdom, elder,” Mage Hiro said.
Mari’s jaw dropped, and even Alain had trouble hiding his reaction. “Elder?” she asked.
“An elder,” Mage Hiro said in his emotionless voice, “is one who teaches wisdom, or a new wisdom. You have shown a new wisdom to Mage Alain, Mage Asha, and Mage Dav. You will be Elder Mari to us now.”
As Mari and Alain walked back to the small cabin, she turned a baffled look on him. “Elder? I’m nineteen years old.”
“Yes, Elder,” Alain said, unable to resist the impulse.
She glared at him. “You just lost a chance at a warm, happy night, Sir Mage.”
“I…am…sorry?”
“I’ll bet you are.” Mari reached the cabin, looking over the main deck of the Gray Lady. The last vestiges of daylight were fading in the west, the sea a great, dark expanse stretching uninterrupted on all sides, the stars already shining brightly in the vast bowl of the heavens.
“Look up there,” Mari whispered. “One of those stars is the one our people came from. And somewhere the remains of the great ship are still above this world. Do you think it could be one of the twins that follow the moon?”
“Did you not say you could look?”
“My far-seers aren’t powerful enough to tell,” Mari said. “And I can’t divert the efforts of the Mechanics to making a big far-seer just to satisfy my curiosity as soon as possible. That’s not a hard decision to make.”
She fell silent, gazing out over the water. After a long time, she spoke in a wistful way. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Alain. About how my choices were still driving us toward that battle in Dorcastle, and that I could make other choices if I really wanted to change that. And I remembered the western continent. You and I know where that is now. I could tell the captain of the Gray Lady to point this ship toward it, and I’m sure we could make it, and then we could just stay there. We have plenty of men and women. We would be safe from the Storm. We could just build something new there, and I’d never have to face that battle in Dorcastle.”
She fell silent again, this time for so long that Alain felt the need to prod her. “But you have not done that.”
“No.” Mari looked at him, both sad and determined. “Because what about everyone else? What about all of those people we saw in Altis, and in Julesport? The fathers and mothers and children. Did you see the babies in Julesport? They wouldn’t have a chance. How could I just abandon them to that fate? It’s a choice I have, but it’s a choice I can’t make. I have to keep trying. I have to keep trying to fix things, even if my choices lead us to that battle, and…”
She bit her lip, staring into his eyes. “Even if I lead us into that battle and we don’t come out of it. As long as we win.”
“Mari—” Alain began, once again feeling wracked by guilt.
“No. That doesn’t mean I want to die,” Mari said. “I intend doing my best not to die. And my best to ensure that you don’t die. Because if I lived and lost you then the greatest victory would still feel like a defeat to me. But I need to accept the possibility, or I’ll be so scared of what might happen that I won’t be able to do what we have to do.”
“You know that my foresight shows things,” Alain began, his resolve wavering.
“Yes. We— Do you mean it might show something else? Something…bad? About you or me?” Mari inhaled abruptly, a deep and shuddering intake of breath. “But then we could try to change it, right?”
“Yes.” If he had ever believed in anything, he now believed in that.
“But if you did—” A deeper darkness passed across her face. “If you did.”
“Mari?”
“Alain, don’t die! Do you understand?”
“You have told me before that I am not allowed to die,” Alain said. He was still struggling to figure out what Mari wanted. “I will die, though, if it is the only way to save you.”
“We have been over this!” Mari said in a low growl, pointing her forefinger at him. “You don’t do something stupid in the name of saving me! You especially do not die in the name of saving me! And if your foresight, which I am really beginning to hate, shows you or me or someone else we really care about being badly hurt or…or dying, then we change that. We do not accept it. Am I clear on that?”
“You are,” Alain said. “Do you trust my decisions?”
She held his eyes with her own. “Yes. I may be the Mechanic, the one trained to fix things, but you, Sir Mage, are very good at fixing things as well. I hope you understand how much I trust you. There will be times when we can’t ask each other for input or advice. Like what happened in Julesport. I just had to act. There may be times when you have to do the same thing. I know you’ll decide well.”
“Thank you,” Alain said, the words coming easily this time. He was still uneasy about not telling Mari, but it seemed to be clear that Asha had been right. Mari would not want that information, and she trusted him to decide what to do. “I have known from the first day we met that you make wise decisions.”
“Oh, sure.” She laughed. “Like when I led us into the desert waste? Or went into Ringhmon City Hall all by myself and ended up in the dungeon?”
“Sometimes the choices available to us are not good,” Alain said.
“You don’t have to remind me of that.” Mari sighed and leaned against him, wrapping her arm around his waist. “But I had a choice to save a Mage or think only of myself, and saving someone else was the right decision. I assume that you agree.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go to bed. Keep acting nice and we may find out if two people can fit into one of those bunks.”
“You always make wise decisions,” Alain repeated.
She laughed as she led him inside.
* * * *
“Hey, Alain.”
Alain nodded in greeting. Mages were not supposed to notice or care about the weather. But along with reminding him of feelings, Ma
ri had shown him how nice a morning like this could feel, with the ship bounding along over following seas and a warm sun and the blue sky merging into the blue water all around. “Hey, Calu,” he said, proud to be able to display what Mari called “social skills.”
The Mechanic sat down next to him, looking up at the sails. “Mari told us to let you rest today since we might need you at full strength tonight. I wanted to see if you needed anything, though. The blow to your head wasn’t that long ago.”
“I need nothing,” Alain said. “Mari will not rest,” he added.
“No. Right now she’s grilling the captain of the Gray Lady on every little aspect of tonight’s fun and games.” Calu smiled at Alain. “Mari’s always been like that. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always liked her. She’ll see that something needs doing and then she’ll go talk to everyone she can find who knows something about it so she can figure out exactly what to do. Mari doesn’t just accept that something that is wrong or broken has to stay that way, and she doesn’t assume she knows enough on her own to decide what to do. Like she’s doing right now, learning all about what’s going to happen tonight. By the time we meet up with the Pride of Longfalls, Mari will understand enough about what is happening and what should happen that if anything unexpected occurs or goes wrong she’ll be able to know what to do or tell others to do. Did she ever tell you about the time she saved several Mechanics at Caer Lyn?”
“No,” Alain said. “I will ask her.”
“Don’t bother. She’ll wave off the question and say it was no big deal. What happened was that the governor on a lathe was going bad, but the Senior Mechanic in charge of that shop didn’t want to report it because the shop was already behind on a work order.”
Alain nodded, grasping that something had been going wrong but not much more than that.
“Mari,” Calu continued, “stopped by to check on an apprentice she knew. Mari never worked with lathes much but she can tell when a piece of equipment is making a noise that says Run, you fools! She heard that lathe making that kind of sound and declared a safety emergency and ordered everybody else out of the shop. The Senior Mechanic showed up pretty soon, mad as could be that Mari had interrupted the work. He walked over, activated the lathe, and the governor failed. The lathe over-powered so much that it blew apart and filled that shop with as much shrapnel as a high-explosive shell. Somehow the Senior Mechanic survived, but if Mari hadn’t done what she did somebody would have died, maybe several people.”
Something bad had happened, but Mari had kept anyone from dying. Alain understood that much. “Did Mari get praise for her wisdom?”
“Nah.” Calu’s grin this time was crooked. “Admitting that she’d saved lives would mean the Senior Mechanics admitting that one of their own had put those lives at risk. Officially, the Guild reprimanded the Mechanic in charge of keeping that lathe working, even though that Mechanic had been warning about the danger for weeks and been ignored.”
Alain felt a concern crystallizing inside, but did not know how to ask about it. Lacking whatever social skill was needed, he fell back on his Mage training. “Mechanic Calu, this one has questions.”
“What?” Calu gave him a confused glance. “Um, sure. What is it?”
“Your description of Mari’s actions. I know she did something important. I know she saved the lives of others. But beyond that I have no idea what happened or why.”
“That’s no big deal, Alain. It’s not like you’re going to be tested on Mechanic knowledge. There aren’t any commons in the world who would understand it any better than you would.”
“But it reminds me that Mari and I have so many differences.”
“I guess you do,” Calu said with a laugh. “But lots of people do. Take Alli and me. We’re both Mechanics, but I’m a basic skills Mechanic at most things. I’d never gain Master Mechanic status at anything, because nothing hands-on clicks for me. I’m a theory guy, and I’m really good at that. But Alli is one of the best hands-on Mechanics out there. She’d have been a Master Mechanic by now if the Senior Mechanics weren’t worried about her knowing Mari. Alli just has to look at a piece of gear and she knows how to fix it and maybe make it better.”
“This is a big difference between you?” Alain asked.
“Huge,” Calu assured him. “The hands-on types think the theory types—and there aren’t very many of us, just enough to keep the knowledge alive—are pretty useless. And my theory instructors tried to convince me that the hands-on Mechanics were just hammer-pounders. That could come between us. But it doesn’t. Oh, we don’t always see eye-to- eye. That’s just life. But we know what we’ve got in each other.” Calu looked at Alain. “You do know what you’ve got in Mari, right?”
“Yes,” Alain said. “But she must know how flawed I am.”
“Everybody has flaws. Mari has her faults, too, Alain. She can be a little short-tempered—”
“More than a little, sometimes,” Alain said.
“Yeah. And she’s pretty stubborn, and impulsive at times. So she’s not perfect. But she is absolutely loyal. If you’re sitting there thinking Mari’s so wonderful that she’ll leave me for someone better, you can relax. In her eyes there is no one better, and the only person who could convince her otherwise is you, if you start acting wrong to her.”
“I may have to marry you,” Alli said.
Alain looked up and saw that Mechanic Alli had approached as they talked.
Calu covered his face, embarrassed. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough,” Alli said. “What do you say? I was going to wait, but we’re about to go on another one of Mari’s death-defying missions, so why not get it done? And we’re on a ship, which means we’ve got a ship’s captain to do the legal stuff.”
“You mean get married today?” Calu asked.
“I mean right now, if we can get Mari to leave off pestering the captain long enough for him to sign the document.” Alli pulled a folded paper from her jacket. “Which I happen to have been carrying around for a while, just in case.”
Calu grinned and pulled a similar paper from his own jacket. “If you hadn’t had that, we could have used the one I’ve been carrying around. We’re already on our honeymoon cruise, so why not? We need a witness, though.”
“Alain’s not busy. Come on, Sir Mage. Hey, Calu, we’ll be the first in history to have a Mage as the witness at our marriage!”
Calu helped Alain stand. “I’m afraid this won’t be as glamorous as whatever Mari managed for your wedding, Alain.”
“I did not even know our wedding was happening,” Alain said as he walked with them to the quarterdeck.
Alli gave him a delighted grin. “Oh, I have got to hear that story. No wonder Mari has refused to talk about it much! Hey, Lady Mari, your daughterness! We need to borrow the captain for a couple of minutes.”
“What for?” Mari asked, brushing hair from her eyes and turning away from the captain. “And the daughter thing isn’t funny.”
“Excuse me! The captain just has to sign this.” Alli offered the paper and a pen to the captain. “Oh, you too, Calu. And you, Alain.”
The captain was gazing at the paper, nonplussed.
“Is something wrong?” Calu asked. “You do have legal authority under the laws of Dematr to sign that.”
“Yes,” the captain admitted. “But I’ve never actually done it before! I guess my ship hasn’t been sought out by young lovers prior to this.”
“Young lovers?” Mari bent to look at the paper. “Alli? You and Calu?”
“It’s not exactly a rush decision, Mari,” Alli said. “Calu and I would have gotten married a couple of years ago if the Guild hadn’t kept us apart.”
“I know! It’s easy to forget that you two are a little older than I am. I just…with everything going on…are you sure this a good time?”
Alli reached out to tap Mari’s promise ring with one finger. “Are you seriously asking us that?”
“Uh…”
Mari shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I guess that would be a little hypocritical of me, wouldn’t it?”
“Just a little.”
Alain watched as Alli and Calu looked at the signed paper, then embraced.
“We’ll get to celebrate our honeymoon by attacking a Mechanics Guild ship,” Calu commented as Alli and Mari wiped tears from their eyes and also hugged.
“Yeah,” Alli agreed. “Nice wedding present, Mari!”
It had taken Alain some time to realize what a joke was, and then more time to recognize one when it was being made, something he still was not good at. He had been confused at first by the way that Mari, and then her friends when he met them, would make jokes before doing dangerous things. But looking at Alli and Calu, he saw the tension in them, and realized finally that the jokes were their means of coping with their fears. Mages were supposed to deny all fear, not even to admit it existed, but Mechanics dealt with it differently.
And of what his fears? He could not joke, but looking at the deck beneath his feet, Alain realized he could deal with them. His vision of Mari lying on a floor made of stone blocks had been very clear. He would know if he saw the type of stone and the shape of the blocks again. And if he did, he would be able to stop that vision from happening.
“Mast sighted!” the lookout called down from high above. “Two points to starboard!”
The captain grinned. “Just about where our prey ought to be. We’ll run in a little closer to be sure he has three masts, and then we’ll know he’s our target. After that, we’ll hold course and gain on him as he has to tack with the wind. By midnight we’ll be ahead of him and well positioned to come over and manage a little meet-up in the darkness before dawn.”
* * * *
Mari stood near the rail of the Gray Lady, Mechanics jacket on, her pistol ready and snapped into its holster under her shoulder and her right arm wrapped about the end of a rope that rose up and away to meet the end of one of the great spars holding the largest square sails on the ship. The moon had set some time before and a layer of thin clouds scudding not far overhead dimmed the light of the stars, making the darkness thick enough to feel as though she could reach out and close her free fist over a patch of it.