“What do you suggest?” Alain asked.
Patila looked startled at being asked for her opinion. “If you truly wish to know, I would advise sending messages to every city explaining Lady Mari’s intentions. I know this has been done with some cities, but tell everyone. Let them know that the daughter’s only enemies are the Great Guilds.”
“And those commons who ally with the Great Guilds.”
“Yes. The Great Guilds are moving slowly, Sir Mage, but do not doubt that they move. They play on the fears of some of the leaders of the commons and on the greed for power or wealth of other leaders.”
Alain nodded. “I will advise Mari to do as you say.”
“You…have come far, Sir Mage,” Patila said. “Have you heard that the Mage Guild says you have lost your powers because of your feelings for Lady Mari? They are telling everyone that you are a…fraud.”
“Are they?” Alain found himself amused instead of upset. “That may work to my advantage.”
* * * *
Only a few days later, Alain found Mari poring over some strange drawings in the small upstairs safe room. The house they had been given in Pacta Servanda had once belonged to a merchant who had constructed on the second floor a room with one door, no windows, and solid walls to allow for private negotiations and deals. Decades later, that room offered a secure place for talking about much more grave matters. “Take a look at these,” she said.
He studied the drawings, seeing many different aspects and views of what looked like two large boats that had been joined deck to deck to form a single flattened fish-like shape. “What is this?”
“It’s the blueprints for the Terror,” Mari explained. “Master Mechanic Lukas has already approved them, but he wanted me to see them before work starts on the thing. See, the hull will be watertight except for these places, where water can enter or leave the tanks that adjust the buoyancy of the ship.” She pointed. “This is where the waterline should be, so almost all of the ship will be underwater except for a low deck around this oval compartment that the captain will steer from. The low deck extends back to where the stack for the boiler sticks up, giving us some room to work. It will all be covered in carefully crafted camouflage so that the upper portions are hidden behind what looks like a big pile of driftwood.”
Alain frowned as he tried to make sense of the drawings. “This is the deck inside?”
“Yes. There’s only one deck inside.”
“If I stand on it, I will be under the water?”
“Yes,” Mari said. “Wow. You got that!”
“This is the boiler creature?” Alain asked, pointing.
“Right again!”
“It is…very close.”
“Umm…yeah,” Mari admitted. “There is very little free room inside this ship. These things near the boiler are for the whole steam cycle, circulating the feed water, condensing the steam when it’s done its work, and all the rest. These things convert the steam pressure into work like driving the ship’s propulsion. This is the fuel tank. These tanks on the outside are for ballast, which is water. We had to put in a big enough boiler to drive the ship’s propulsion and the pumps to adjust the ballast and drain the bilges and…I lost you, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” Alain said. “Soon after you said there was little room inside.” He looked from the drawing to her. “This is what we need?”
“I think so,” Mari said. “Lukas did an amazing job coming up with these plans so quickly. I don’t see any flaws in them.”
“Then I know all that I must know.”
Mari smiled at him for a moment, then lowered her head and exhaled slowly. “Seeing these plans drives home for me that this is going to happen. I don’t want to do it,” she whispered. “If you weren’t coming along I don’t think I could muster the courage. The last time we went there we were hardly known. We could hide among the populace. Now…the entire world knows that Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn has been proclaimed the daughter by Mages. If anyone figures out I am there, if they get their hands on me…”
Alain watched her helplessly for a moment, trying to think of what to say that would not reveal his own fears for her. “Whenever I have expressed concerns, Mari would tell me to make use of our plan that has never failed.”
She raised her head enough to frown at him. “What plan of ours has never—" Her expression cleared and she laughed. “You mean our plan to make up a plan as we go along? To improvise? Alain, sometimes we have survived by the skin of our teeth!”
“But we have survived,” he said.
“This time we need to not just survive, but to get the stuff we had to leave behind last time.”
“If that is our job,” Alain said, deliberately using the Mechanic term, “then we will do it.”
She smiled again. “Thanks, my Mage. Let’s get these back to Lukas so I can go back to worrying about how to conquer another city.” Mari began rolling up the plans into tubes.
Alain, following his usual habit during quiet moments, ran his gaze around the room, checking the ceiling, floor, and walls for anything unusual and giving his foresight a chance to give warning, if it happened to work at all. He rarely saw anything, but since encountering the Mechanics Guild assassins in Altis and being kidnapped in Julesport he had made a habit out of constantly watching for trouble, even in places where none was expected.
Which was why he saw a wavering patch of darkness appear on one wall as his unreliable foresight chose to give warning this time.
On the other side of the wall was a bedroom, and beyond that the wall to the next building, which was supposed to be guarded.
Alain whipped out his long knife, walking toward the wall.
Mari’s eyes locked on him. She said nothing, but kept rolling the papers with one hand, while her other reached into her coat for the weapon she always carried there.
Feeling a sudden sense of urgency, Alain activated a spell to create the illusion of an opening in the illusion of a wall. Fortunately, there was a good supply of power here, so the effort was not very tiring.
A doorway-sized opening appeared in the wall. Two men were there, one already moving toward the bedroom door, the other still facing the wall as he held a Mechanic device.
Chapter Seven
The first man bolted out the bedroom door and away. The second dropped his device and pulled out a pistol that looked like Mari’s. Before he could bring the weapon to bear, Alain brought his knife around and slashed it into the man’s upper wrist. With a howl of pain the man dropped the weapon, fixed enraged eyes on Alain, and with his other hand yanked out a dagger that he swung at Alain’s face.
Alain twisted his long knife and shoved it point first into his attacker, who staggered back and fell.
Mari leaped past Alain and the man he had taken out, racing in pursuit of the other spy.
Alain kicked the fallen man’s pistol and dagger into the safe room, then relaxed his spell so that the wall was whole again and the weapons out of reach. He ran after Mari, wondering where her guards were.
He heard the front door slam open, startled cries, and the sound of the door slamming open again as Mari went through. By the time Alain reached the doorway the shocked sentries were beginning to chase after Mari in a belated attempt to protect her. “Two of you go inside for the man I wounded,” Alain ordered.
The center of the street was fairly clear, the second spy bolting along it as people on either side began to realize that something was wrong.
“Everybody down!” Mari shouted, her voice carrying such a strong force of command that nearly everyone within earshot dropped to the dirt without hesitating. Everyone except the spy, who kept running.
Mari aimed carefully, holding her weapon with both hands. She fired.
The running man jerked from the impact of the bullet but kept moving.
A few soldiers had realized what was going on and were scrambling to their feet to intercept the fleeing spy.
The spy pulled out a weap
on that looked similar to Mari’s and swung it about, apparently uncertain whether to aim at Mari or the soldiers closer to him.
In that brief moment of indecision, Mari fired again. This time the spy staggered and fell.
The two soldiers who reached him first pinned him to the ground and wrested the weapon from him.
Mari lowered her pistol as Alain reached her. She wore the expression he had become used to seeing on similar occasions, a remorseless resolve that hid inner regret and unhappiness. Hid from most of those around her, at least; Alain could see through it clearly. “What about the other one?” she asked as she carefully did things to her weapon before returning it to the holster under her shoulder. Her voice stayed steady, but Alain saw the way Mari’s hand shook now that the danger was past.
Alain glanced back to the building, seeing some soldiers carry the other spy out and lay him on the street. A healer bent over him and began to work. “He still lives.”
Mari’s eyes went to the blood on Alain’s knife. She grimaced and nodded, then began walking to the group that had formed around the spy she had shot.
Mechanic Calu was part of that group. As he noticed Mari approaching, Calu moved between her and the fallen Mechanic spy. “You don’t need to worry about this, Mari. I’ve got it.”
“I shot the guy,” Mari said. “The least I can do is to look him in the face.” She went around Calu, looked down at the wounded man, and stopped, her expression going blank.
“What is it?” Alain asked Calu.
“We know him,” Calu said. “Roge was an Apprentice with us when we were younger and used to hang around with our group. Long story short, the Senior Mechanics told all of us, repeatedly, that hanging with Mari wouldn’t do our future Guild careers any good. Most of us didn’t listen. Roge did. We didn’t see much of him after that.”
Mari finally spoke, her voice thin. “Hi, Roge.”
“Mechanic Roge,” the wounded man got out between teeth clenched against pain as two healers worked to save his life.
“I’m sorry we had to meet again like this,” Mari said. “Maybe after the fight is all over, we can work together again.”
Roge’s attempt to smile mockingly was distorted by agony. “When this is over…you’ll be dead…traitor.”
Her expression hardening, Mari shook her head. “I’ve never betrayed my friends. And I’m not going to lose this fight.” She looked at General Flyn, who had just arrived, breathing hard from running. “Make sure this one is kept separate from the other prisoners. No communication with any of them.”
“What about the other one?” Flyn asked. “Your Mage stuck a knife in him, but he’ll likely live.”
“Put them in the same cell. Away from everybody else.”
“Yes, Lady. Did they hear anything?”
“They heard something,” Mari said. “I’m pretty sure one of them, the one Alain stabbed, had a far-listener. We can check when we get back to the building. But they didn’t hear any locations. I’m certain of that.” She paused, closing her eyes and breathing slowly, then looked at Flyn again. “How did they get in?”
“We’re checking on that, Lady,” Flyn said, with an expression that boded ill for anyone who had failed in their duties.
A lieutenant ran up, saluting. “They came in through the basement, after entering the building next door through the basement of the building behind it.”
“Why wasn’t the digging detected?”
“We’re looking into that, General. If anyone—"
“There is no if about it,” Flyn interrupted. “That basement should have been checked on every guard shift. Find out why it wasn’t.”
“Yes, sir. I deeply regret—"
“Don’t apologize to me! When those two had finished listening in, they probably would have tried to kill the Lady.”
The lieutenant came to rigid attention and saluted again. “I understand, sir. I will find out what went wrong.”
“See that you do,” Flyn said in dismissal. He shook his head at Mari. “You should be berating me now, Lady.”
“What good would that do?” Mari said, looking down the street to where the man Alain had stabbed lay under the hands of the healers. “Is there anything I could say that would make you feel worse about this or more determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
“No, Lady, there isn’t.” Flyn shook his head. “In one more week we head south for Tiaesun. Which at least will make you a moving target once more.”
“Many people know we are preparing to move the army again,” Alain said. His anger at the danger to Mari had been balanced by relief at having been able to identify the threat in time and take the right steps.
“Yes, Sir Mage,” General Flyn agreed. “But they will discount reports of how soon we’re going to move. It’s far earlier than anyone will expect, and if not for the way your army is growing and the weapons you are providing it would also be far too risky.”
Calu came up again, carrying the weapon the spy had dropped. “It’s not a standard model Guild revolver, Mari. It’s a semi-auto pistol like yours. I’ll have Alli take a look at it, but from what I can tell it’s almost brand new. Hardly ever fired.”
“Tell Alli she can have it,” Mari said, gazing at the weapon. “So the Mechanics Guild is making more pistols.”
“We figured they were,” Calu said. “But this one has maker’s marks on all the parts. The Guild is still crafting each weapon, one at a time. They can’t have made very many.”
“There’s another the first spy dropped when Alain chopped his wrist. You can keep that one.”
Calu stared at her, smiling awkwardly. “Are you sure, Mari? These things are worth their weight in gold. Actually, they’re worth a lot more than that.”
She smiled slightly in return. “I’d rather my friends had them than the people who are trying to kill me.”
General Flyn listened as another officer ran up with a report. “Both spies had daggers, and both daggers apparently have some sort of poison on them,” Flyn said, offering one carefully for their inspection.
Calu took a close look. “Cyanide, from the looks of it. A small quantity can kill pretty quickly. Make sure nobody touches it, General.”
“Why would Mechanics have such a thing?” Alain asked.
“Cyanide is an industrial reactant. We use it to make stuff. But it’s also a really nasty poison.”
"Mari would have walked past the door to their hiding place on her way out of our meeting," Alain said.
Mari stared at the dagger blade, then looked away.
Alain turned to Calu. “Could you help General Flyn dispose of those daggers so they do not harm anyone?”
“Sure.” Calu’s expression darkened as switched his gaze from Mari to the poisoned weapons. “Yeah. I’ll get rid of them. You take care of Mari.”
“We should get the plans,” Alain suggested to Mari, who nodded wordlessly in agreement. She led the way back to the safe room.
They collected the plans and were most of the way to Master Mechanic Lukas’s offices before Mari finally spoke again. “One of them tried to stab you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” He had been thinking about the danger to her, and was not surprised that she had been thinking about him.
“We can’t let them win, Alain. Not people who would use weapons like that. I won’t let them win. We’re going to beat the Storm and every idiot working for it and we’re going to save this world.”
“Yes,” Alain said once more.
* * * *
A week later Alli bade them farewell as most of Mari’s army marched away from Pacta Servanda. “I have to stay here to supervise some of the work on the Pride. I found some cool recoil mechanisms that should allow us to mount a pretty big gun on her. Along with the steam propulsion system we’re retrofitting, the Pride soon ought to be ready for…anything.”
Mari nodded. “Keep an eye on that special construction project for me, will you, Alli?”
“Sure. But Lukas is there almost constantly. I doubt that I’d spot any problems he didn’t.” Alli’s smile slipped as she looked at Calu. “Keep an eye on my husband for me, Mari. I’d kind of like to have a family when this is all over, so don’t let him lose any important parts.”
“I love you, too!” Calu called.
“I’ve been thinking I should tell him to stay,” Mari admitted.
“No,” Alli said, shaking her head and offering Mari a squeeze of her hand. “If you and I are going to go off and do stuff, then we have to let them do the same. Calu would let me go, so I’ll let him go. Have a fun adventure, and bring the big goof back to me in one piece.”
“I will, sister.”
Alain saw Mage Asha and Mechanic Dav watching from a distance and raised one hand toward them. Asha raised her hand in answer while Dav waved. It felt absurd to have a sense of heading out alone when he and Mari were accompanying her army, but Alain found he had become very used to having those other Mechanics and Mages around. “You are certain that you do not wish to say farewell to your family?” Alain asked Mari.
She shook her head, sadness in her eyes. “They’re safer if I stay away from them. What if those last two had taken Kath hostage?”
“I can drop by and let them know you couldn’t,” Mechanic Bev offered. “Since I can’t do anything else,” she added pointedly.
Mari smiled. “Bev, you know that we’d love to have you along, but your work with the schools here is far more important than nursemaiding me and Alain. It’s a full-time job now, and you’re good at it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bev said dismissively, though Alain could see her pleasure at Mari’s words. “I’ll keep an eye on things here. But you two be careful. No matter where you end up.”
Orders were called and repeated down the road, and the column of soldiers and wagons lurched into motion like an immense and deadly creature. Mari and Alain mounted their horses, waved farewells again, and joined the movement.
Feeling both depressed at leaving some of the friends he had never expected to have and elated at the excitement of being part of the campaign, Alain looked along the road, seeing hundreds of cavalry and many more foot soldiers moving south. Out in the harbor, ships loaded with more soldiers were getting under weigh, including the Dolphin, which had been built to land soldiers anywhere they were needed. Somewhere in all that activity was Captain Patila.