It was not as if Mari lacked for work, as couriers struggling along the flooded, muddy roads and ships daring the storms along the coast arrived with requests for decision or direction. The Mechanics still looked to her whenever a dispute arose with either commons or Mages, and the Mages sought both her instruction and her counsel, which continued to baffle Mari.
Eventually, killers made their way south. Mari’s guards stopped two. Alain stopped a third who had come almost within reach of her.
Alain got very little rest.
The rains were beginning to slacken when Alain received two visitors he had awaited, and had not looked forward to seeing. He left them to eat and rest, going himself into the next room where Mari was struggling with something she called “allocating limited resources.”
But she immediately noticed that Alain was tense. “What’s happening?”
“Mage Alera and Mage Saburo arrived today, riding on the Rocs of other Mages,” Alain said. “They are well rested. Before dawn, they will create their Rocs to carry us north on the mission we planned before leaving Pacta Servanda.”
Mari covered her face with both hands. “I’ve been dreading this day. Let’s find Sien and Flyn and let them know.”
Flyn was easy enough to find. “I will escort you outside the city myself. Lady, you know how little I want you to go on this mission, but if you feel so strongly that it must be done, perhaps the spirit of Jules is speaking to you.”
Sien was much harder to locate. Alain and Mari, encircled by the guards whose presence had become all too familiar, trudged through the intermittent rain of late afternoon, finally finding the queen’s escort standing outside the gates to one of the ruined palaces. They left their own guards there and went into the palace.
Inside, they found Sien standing alone in an upstairs room, looking out a long-shattered window onto a tangled mass of tall weeds. Once-bright paint on the walls had faded and peeled, the cartoonish images of happy children and animals on them distorted by time and damage. “Are you all right?” Mari asked.
“As well as may be,” Sien replied, looking at the floor. “I somehow always expected that when I came back the toys and dolls would still be here. But of course those were carried off long ago.” She gestured out the window. “That was the garden where we played. The royal children, blessed by the land of Tiae.” Her voice carried bitterness but also sorrow for the lost past.
“Why did you come here?” Mari asked.
“Sometimes ghosts must be faced down,” Sien said. She looked slowly about the stained walls of the room. “So much to rebuild. No matter how much longer I live, I will never lack for a long list of tasks to complete.” She focused on Mari. “You’re leaving, aren’t you? It is time for that?”
“Yes. That job that has to be done. I’ll be back,” Mari said.
“You’ve never broken a promise to me, Mari. Don’t let this be the first. Alain, I would grieve to lose you as well. Bring her back.”
“I will,” Alain said. “What is it you have not told us?”
Sien shook her head at him. “Fool that I am, trying to deceive a Mage with silence. My dreams have been haunted of late. Perhaps it is only because of being in Tiaesun again and seeing how little is left of what a very young girl once knew. Have you seen anything of my future, Alain?”
Alain shook his head regretfully. “Nothing. I have been preoccupied with concerns for Mari, but even of her I have seen no visions recently. It is…odd.”
“Odd?” Mari asked.
“It is hard to explain,” Alain said. “I have a sense that too many images seek to crowd upon me and block each other. As if—" An idea finally came to him. “As if the future near us is so unsteady that no one image of a possible event can prevail. Too many possible futures hang in the balance.”
“That isn’t reassuring,” Sien said. “Remember your importance to this world, Mari.”
Mari sighed and shook her head. “If I am important, it’s because of who I am, Sien. And…that means I’m going to do certain things if they need to be done.”
“Then go with my best wishes.” Sien hugged her, eyed Alain, then kissed his cheek. “You too, Sir Mage. Make real the future that we all want.”
“Nothing is real,” Alain said. “Mari knows as well as I do how many dangers we will face beginning tomorrow. But I will do all I can to make this illusion the right one.”
He hoped that all he could do would be enough.
Chapter Eight
Mari felt a strange sense of fate hovering over her the next morning when they were awakened well before dawn by General Flyn. It was not in any way reassuring. She had struggled with nightmares again, fighting off visions of dungeons, torture, and death, nonetheless grateful that unlike Mages, whose visions might be of actual future events, hers were fantasies born of the fears she denied during her waking hours.
She stayed close to Alain as they walked through dark, nearly silent streets, along little-used ways that Flyn had scouted out. They left the city through a recently repaired sally port and moved silently through the open area outside the walls. A thin drizzle of rain fell through near-total darkness as Mari and Alain followed the barely visible glow of Flyn’s heavily shielded lantern. She grasped her coat tightly to her, wishing it was her Mechanics jacket. But that garment, too easily tied to Lady Mari, had been left behind in Calu’s keeping, and the coat Mari wore would be much warmer.
Large shapes loomed out of the murk. General Flyn came to a halt, exchanging a few words with Mage Alera and Mage Saburo. “They are ready for you,” he told Mari, his expression shadowed by the night. “Lady, come back to us. Please.”
Mari, already tense, tried to sound confident. “I will. You take care of things here. Alain and I will be back. With the texts.” She blinked rain from her eyes, everything blurring for a moment. Fear rose again inside her, but she fought it down ruthlessly, focusing on the job that needed to be done. The job that only she could do.
Alain and the general exchanged a few murmured words, then Alain put both arms around her. “You will be safe on Swift,” he said, holding her.
“You promised me that we’d ride on a Roc together some day,” Mari said, trying to joke to hide her nervousness. She had avoided flying up until this day, and wasn't looking forward to her first flight on an imaginary bird.
“We will,” said Alain. “But it will be another day.”
“A Mage’s promise,” Mari pretended to scoff. She kissed him. “You’ll get another kiss when we rest for the night.”
Mage Saburo and Alain walked off into the gloom.
Mage Alera led Mari to what appeared to be a wall of giant feathers. Swift lowered enough for Alera to assist Mari up to a position on his back. To her immense relief, a harness tied to a line around the Roc’s body waited there so that Mari could fasten herself securely, lying face down.
Alera took position ahead of Mari, riding just behind Swift’s neck. “Are you ready, Elder?”
Mari exhaled a shaky breath. I will never be ready for this, she thought. “Yes.”
Swift’s huge wings spread to either side, then Mari felt like she did when a locomotive surged into motion. But no locomotive accelerated like this. Her stomach felt as though it had remained behind, while the thin rain and a suddenly much stronger wind lashed at her. She wanted to look for the dim glow of General Flyn’s lantern, but feared to raise her head.
The play of impossibly strong muscles beneath her was both exhilarating and frightening. The darkness was so complete that she could not see the movement of Swift’s wings to either side, but could feel the rhythmic pumping as each sweep drove them up and forward, with jogs and pitches to either side at unpredictable intervals as wind gusts caught the Roc.
Face pressed against the feathers of Swift’s back, Mari wondered if this was how Alain had felt the first time he had ridden on a Mechanic train.
The darkness grew somehow deeper, and the rain changed to what felt like dense fog. Swift jerk
ed abruptly up, down, and to side as the Roc kept climbing.
Suddenly, the air cleared and became bright enough to see. Mari stared to one side as a moonlit ledge of fog went past. How could there be fog this high?
She felt a thrill of terror as she realized the truth.
It had been a fragment of cloud. She was higher than the rain clouds, riding above them, nothing between her and the ground but the body of this giant bird that her Mechanic training told her could not actually exist.
How high were rain clouds, anyway?
High enough for it to be cold. High enough that Mari felt herself breathing more deeply, as if she were once more among the highest peaks of the Northern Ramparts where the air was thin. She closed her eyes, grateful for the warmth of the heavy coat, and wondered how she would survive an entire day of this.
The air was definitely thinner. There must be a way to use that to determine how high she was. Didn’t air density change at a steady rate as you got higher? Mari found herself trying to figure out how to build a device to measure the effect, and surrendered gratefully to the distraction.
It wasn’t until bright light struck her closed eyelids that Mari remembered it had been only an hour before dawn when the Rocs began flying. She cautiously opened her eyes, squinting against the sun rising over what looked like a rumpled field of fog—the top of the rain clouds. Mari felt a sense of wonder overawing her fear as she realized that rain was probably still falling down below, but up here she was seeing a sunny day. She turned her head, catching a glimpse of the moon near setting, the Twins that followed the moon blazing like bright sparks in the light of the rising sun.
The air was thin, sharp with cold, but also clean and amazingly clear.
Mari felt herself smiling, almost laughing, at the thrill of it. “Thank you,” she whispered, breathing the words not to anyone, but to that something that Alera had spoken of, a something that somehow felt nearer up here.
She hadn’t slept well before leaving, and now felt both physically and emotionally exhausted. Mari did not even realize that she had fallen asleep until she woke abruptly as her stomach protested a sudden lurch downward.
Mari looked around cautiously. The sun was much higher, uncomfortably warm on her heavy coat even though her face was tingling with cold. She raised her head enough to see past the edge of Swift’s body. The layer of cloud was gone, replaced by a few wisps that barely obscured the ground. She stared, fascinated, at the view, wondering if the river visible below was the one which originated in the Southern Mountains and flowed south and then west until reaching the sea at Edinton.
A bird rose into view, flying near Swift. Mari saw Mage Saburo riding on his own Roc and behind him the shape of Alain lying prone just as she was. Worried about moving, Mari slowly raised one arm high enough to wave at the other bird.
Alain’s hand rose and he waved back.
This was so cool.
* * * *
By the time the sun sank toward the western horizon, most of the novelty and wonder had worn off, replaced by the ache of muscles that couldn’t be stretched, very dry lips and throat, hunger, and a headache from breathing the thin, cold air.
Thankfully, Swift was now sinking through the sky, gliding ever lower. The peaks of the Southern Mountains could be seen ahead, but still far off. Below she could see what must be the rolling plains of the southern Bakre Confederation, occasional towns and villages looking like children’s toys from this high and clumps of dots marking the presence of horse and cattle herds. Around the villages, farms could be identified by the long rectangles of their fields, the crops or bare, harvested fields standing out against the wild grasses of the rangeland.
Despite Mari’s growing discomfort, both Swift and the Roc carrying Alain flew onward as the sun set with what felt like excruciating slowness. Only after twilight was well advanced did the two birds head for an isolated area well away from the nearest town, finally coming to earth with a jolt.
Free at last to move, Mari just lay still, afraid of how her muscles would protest. “Stretch,” Mage Alera said, looking back at her. “A little at first, then more, then I will…help…you off of Swift.”
Feeling grateful that she had made a point of teaching all of her Mages what “help” meant, Mari followed Alera’s instructions, wincing as her stiff muscles protested. Once on the ground, still feeling wobbly, Mari realized that after a day confined to the back of a Roc she had a far more urgent need than food, water, or exercise. Fortunately, there was a stand of trees not far away, and what the trees did not conceal the growing darkness took care of.
Once that vital task had been completed, Mari rejoined the others. Her muscles ached, but the last thing she wanted to do was sit down, so she paced restlessly while digging into her pack. Alain came to walk beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“It was fun for a while,” Mari said. “Breathtaking. It’s funny how breathtaking can turn into tedious and tedious can turn into torment, though. I suppose you three Mages are taking this all in stride?”
“It is physically difficult,” Alain said. “You will feel better after eating.”
“I hope so.” Mari pulled out her dinner, a portion of jerky and a slab of hard journey bread. Before tackling either of those, she fished out the canteen and drank long and slowly. “Do you have beeswax for your lips?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you would. Mages just endure such things. I don’t want it hurting you when I kiss you though, so you can share mine.” As Mari replaced her canteen, she felt something else in the pack. “The jar of honey. I may survive this after all.”
Even jerky tasted great after a day without food. After wolfing it down, Mari sat next to Alain and used a nearby rock to break off a piece of the journey bread, then placed it in her mouth to soften before trying to chew it. “How do you navigate, Mage Alera?” she asked around the bread.
“Navigate?”
“How do you know which way to go to get where you want to go?”
“I tell my Roc.”
Mari waited for more. “That’s it? You tell Swift where you want to go and Swift goes there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea how that works?” Mari prodded gently, having grown used to coaxing Mages to elaborate on replies that tended to be as brief as possible.
Alera took a moment to respond. “The Rocs are birds. Birds know how to reach the places they want to go.”
“So even though you don’t know exactly how it works, you’re creating something that works like a bird?”
“Yes.”
Like many Mage things, it actually made a kind of sense.
“This one has questions,” Mage Saburo said.
It took Mari a little while to realize that had been directed at her. “Uh…sure. What?”
“Why does Elder Mari ask how the Rocs find their way? The Rocs do find their way. Why does the how matter?”
That took her some thought to answer. “It’s because that’s how I do things,” Mari said. “How I work my version of Mage spells. I learn how things work, so I can figure out how to change them or fix them or…well, to be honest, just because I like knowing how things work.”
Mage Saburo, his face impassive in the moonlight, pondered Mari’s words. “This is acceptable wisdom? To want to know not for any purpose, but just because one wishes to know?”
“Absolutely!” Mari said. “Who is wise enough to know what might be important to know? Something that seems insignificant might lead to something great. Or maybe just knowing that thing might make you happier. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing knowledge for its own sake.”
“Mechanics believe this?” Mage Alera asked.
“Not all Mechanics, no,” Mari admitted. “Some, especially among the Senior Mechanics who run the Mechanics Guild, want people to learn just what they are told to learn and nothing else. They don’t want people thinking about new things, or what they consider the wrong things.
So they try to put strict limits on what people are supposed to learn. But I think just about all the Mechanics who have joined with us are the sort who want to learn new things.”
Alain nodded. “This is so of the Mages as well.”
“Yes,” Saburo agreed. “We all seek something different. The elders in the Mage Guild would rebuke me for asking too many questions. I will think on your wisdom, Elder,” he told Mari.
“As will I,” Alera added.
Alain intervened to ease Mari’s embarrassment. “I first followed Mari because she asked me questions and did not believe she knew all the answers. I wanted to see what I could learn from her.”
“You followed me out of curiosity?” Mari asked. “I’m sure you weren’t the first or last to do that.”
Despite not looking forward to another day in the air, as Mari and the others settled to sleep she found it strangely idyllic to be far away from other humans. Only the huge shapes of the two Rocs nestled nearby as the birds, too, slept.
She was roused as dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky to the east, eating a hasty breakfast but being sure not to drink too much water before what would be another full day of flight.
This time, it was light enough to see when Swift leapt into the air. Mari stared as objects below grew rapidly smaller, and her range of vision grew larger the higher the Roc flew. The sun appeared to jump into view with startling speed. Mari comforted herself by trying to work out the math for the difference in her view of the dawn from high up in the air compared to that of someone on the ground.
Soon enough the grasslands began to blur into monotony. There were fewer villages or other signs of human presence this far inland.. Mari wondered how much this land had changed from before the great ship came. Had there been grass on the ground or birds in the sky? How much of what she saw had been here when the ship came, and how much had grown and multiplied since then?