“Some Mages are not dangerous anymore,” Mari said. “They have important skills and insights. And many more of the Mages can learn to be more considerate of others, to be…human again. What they were taught, that people like you and me are only shadows who have no importance at all, has been proven wrong, and many are listening to that. Mages can change, can be good people once more. Colonel Hasna can testify that many Mages in Tiae have changed.”
“Sir Mage, what happened with Lady Mari, can you do that to anyone?” the Confederation admiral asked. “Bring them back from the dead?”
Mari was relieved when Alain answered as she had hoped.
“Mari was not fully dead when I was able to help her body repair itself,” he said. “I do not know how well it can be taught. It requires a Mage to be totally dedicated to the life of the person he or she wishes to help. But perhaps we will learn other ways to do it. I will tell anyone who asks what I know.”
The Western Alliance diplomat who had met Queen Sien spoke up. “I can also confirm what Lady Mari says. There are good Mages in Tiae. I mean it. They weren’t nice, but you could talk to them and they’d talk to you. And even though we’re hearing that some of the things Mages could supposedly do were never true, there’s no doubt they can do some amazing things. If there are still going to be bad Mages running around, I think it would be very useful to have good Mages at hand.”
“This is all very well,” the Confederation President of State remarked in acidic tones, “but it does not resolve the issue of this Mechanic’s authority. Or rather, the lack of it. If we accept that only she is allowed to negotiate with the Imperial delegation, then we are ceding to her power that we are obligated to retain for the elected leaders of our people!”
The old woman from Julesport stood up. “Lady Master Mechanic Mari said nothing but the truth when she spoke of the Imperials. The Emperor is sending them to speak with her. It’s not a matter of us allowing it. We weren’t asked by the Emperor.”
“That is not—"
“I am not finished,” the woman from Julesport said. Seeing the looks that passed between her and the Confederation President of State, Mari could tell that some old rivalry divided them. “It is foolish to make demands. Have you seen the army that answers to her? Have you seen their weapons? Most importantly, have you paid no attention to the feelings of those we represent toward this woman, the woman who freed them and who is the daughter in spirit and perhaps in blood of Jules who founded our Confederation? If she had ill intent, she could become ruler of the Confederation with a word, and we could do nothing but flee. Nor can we threaten the Empire, weak as it is at the moment, because our own losses here at Dorcastle were so great we could not launch an attack without leaving our lands completely defenseless.”
The First President of the Confederation, who had been quiet prior to this, silenced the President of State before he could say more and nodded to the woman. “What would you recommend?”
“The daughter of Jules is no enemy to us. Neither will someone with the spirit of Jules be dictated to by us. Or by anyone.” The old woman nodded toward Mari. “She has died and returned. She commands an army loyal to her which is superior to any other. What can you threaten her with? But even now she does not issue orders when we all know that she could. She listens, while we argue. Trust her, I say.”
“The Free Cities will not be ruled by the whims of a Mechanic!” the woman from Cristane insisted.
“You do not speak for every city!” declared the man who had previously argued with her. “Alexdria has not forgotten our debt to the daughter and her Mage.”
“The Western Alliance is very concerned,” one of those representatives said cautiously. “But recognizes that for now we must wait to see what actions may be necessary in the future.”
Alain leaned over to murmur to Mari. “There is something hidden behind those words. The leaders of the Western Alliance still seek some gain in the long run.”
“They all do,” Mari grumbled under her breath.
“What about all of the once-banned technology?" the Confederation First President asked Mari. "When will we get it?”
“Copies of some of it have already been sent to you,” Mari said. “The rest is being copied. It will take a while because the copies have to be exact.”
“They’re in Pacta Servanda?" the President of State pressed. "Are we permitted to send representatives to view them?”
“Yes,” Mari said, nettled by the tone of the question. “Though since Pacta is on the territory of Tiae it would be courteous to inform Queen Sien of your intentions.”
“They shouldn’t be under your control. They should be someplace neutral,” the President of State continued.
“Someplace neutral?” the Western Alliance diplomat asked. “Such as? What place on Dematr is neutral in this matter?”
“The Western Continent,” the man from Alexdria suggested wryly.
It went on that way for some time, until the meeting ended with courteous expressions of mutual respect that did not sound to Mari all that sincere.
General Flyn smiled and saluted her as he watched Mari being carried out, but some worry still shadowed his eyes.
Mari said nothing until she and Alain had been left alone in their room again. “What was going in there? I mean, aside from the obvious power grabs that some of them were attempting.”
“They were testing you,” Alain said. “As an acolyte is tested by Mage elders to see if they can provoke the acolyte into failure, and to see what the acolyte will do when confronted. Some pushed to see what they could get from you, some sought to diminish you, others watched to see how you would react. Did you notice that there was no one in the room who was not of high rank?”
“Yes,” Mari said. “Colonel Hasna was the most junior there. I think they only let her in because she's the sole official representative of Tiae. I guess they didn’t want anyone of lower rank knowing what was being said.”
“In that, they failed. When we left I could sense the feelings of those waiting outside. It was clear they had found means to hear what was said inside, and that they were unhappy. The unhappiness was not aimed at you.”
Just how unhappy they were was obvious the next morning. “Lady, will you come listen to us?” Lieutenant Bruno looked worried, but determined.
“Who is us?” Mari asked.
“The people whose freedom you have won.”
She and Alain were carried down via chair seats again, but this time into a large room in a building connected to the hospital. Mari stared out across the crowd, seeing many uniforms from many places, none of high rank except for some of those from her army. Mechanics and Mages were also in attendance. This time her chair and Alain’s were placed on a raised platform before the others, so that she looked down on everyone.
That bothered her. Positioned like this, her chair felt entirely too much like—
“A throne,” Alain murmured.
“What are we doing up here?” Mari demanded, speaking to everyone. She felt suddenly naked without her Mechanics jacket to bolster her confidence.
“Use mine,” a familiar voice said.
Mari turned to see Alli standing next to her, taking off her own Mechanics jacket so she could drape it over Mari’s shoulders. “Alli! How did you know I’d want— Wait. When did you get here?”
“A little while ago. Since you messed up your own jacket, you can borrow mine for this.”
“My jacket has a big hole in it and was soaked with dried blood, Alli, and when I wanted to get it cleaned and repaired everybody freaked out so now I have to get a new one. What is this? What’s the matter?”
Alli looked at Mari. “Nothing, I hope.”
“Is that Professor S’san? And Master Mechanic Lukas? And I see Mage Dav and Mage Hiro and— That’s Master Mechanic Lo!”
“Yeah, just like old times.” Alli touched Mari on the shoulder. “Do the right thing.”
“What’s the right thing?” Mari
asked, surprised that Alli, of all people, was being so solemn.
“I don’t know,” Alli said. “I hope you do.”
“What is going on?” Mari hissed to Alain as Alli walked off the platform and joined the other Mechanics.
“What you have feared,” Alain said. “I am certain of it. Remember what you asked me on our way to Marandur the first time? When I said that some might want an empress?”
She remembered. Hiding from the Imperial patrols. Worrying about what might happen. The words were clear in her memory. “Can you see me on a throne?” she had asked Alain, mocking the idea.
Mari looked again at her raised chair, then stared out at the crowd, wishing that she had the strength to stand and walk away.
“Lady.” It was Lieutenant Bruno again, standing out from the crowd. “Lady Mari, daughter of Jules. We have asked you here in the hopes that you would accept our petition.”
Mari forced a smile. “Petition? Shouldn’t that be presented to your own leaders?”
“Our own leaders don’t care about us. They seek more power and wealth for themselves and their friends. They did nothing while the Great Guilds made our lives miserable, and did little to aid you when you began your campaign against the oppression. They let Tiae suffer, they suppressed riots instead of dealing with the causes, they cooperated with the Great Guilds in keeping us enslaved. But you care. You stood beside us. You freed us. We represent many, many more people who feel as we do. Please accept our plea to govern us.”
“Govern you.” It really was happening. They actually were asking that of her. “You have governments. All of you. You have leaders that you elected,” Mari protested.
“Leaders who have betrayed us. Who have worked only for themselves!” someone called.
Master Mechanic Lo spoke loudly. “Which leader is going to protect us? We have none. The Senior Mechanics never cared about us, but used us to protect themselves. Now we’re alone, in a world full of people who have long-standing, and I will admit justified, grievances against us.”
“Where is the path of wisdom?” asked a Mage Mari did not recognize. “Where do we turn? All know that you led the Master of Mages to wisdom. Show us the same. All know you have treated well the Mages who have journeyed to follow you. Show us the same.”
A woman in the uniform of the Western Alliance spoke up. “We need you to protect those who will be forgotten as our leaders fight each other over who will profit most from the new day. Who will look out for the weak and the small? We know that you will!”
Mari felt her resolve wavering. They were right that someone needed to watch over the least, and that too many of those with the most—the people she had met with the day before—seemed to pay little attention to that. If she had the power to ensure that things were fair, the power to tell those squabbling self-important people in fine suits that their interests were not the only things that mattered, if she could prevent the wars that she had heard the leaders of the West arguing over just yesterday…
The elder had told her that she still had an important role to play. As little as she liked it, how could she ignore the real concerns of these people?
How could she sit back and watch new wars blossom in the light of the new day that she had done so much to bring about? How many would die during those wars if she refused to accept responsibility for what only she might be able to do?
Chapter Thirteen
Mari looked at Alain, desperate for his opinion.
He gazed back at her with calm confidence. “Freedom.”
Freedom. Mari inhaled as deeply as she could, the scar tissue in her chest protesting the effort. “We’re all used to being told what to do,” she said to the crowd. “We’ve been told that was the only way to protect ourselves and the people we cared about. To have someone in charge who can give orders that must be obeyed. That is what the Great Guilds told all of us. Yes, even the Mechanics and the Mages, because our Senior Mechanics and the Mage elders insisted on obedience to their rules, their orders. But the commons here are from places where you can select the people in charge. Even Tiae. I see you, Colonel Hasna. Even in Tiae, Queen Sien has said she will rule only with the consent of her people. What I said on the battlements was true. You are all the equals of anyone. Make sure your leaders know they are no better than you. Demand that they serve you well. But that is your task, not something that you should give away to someone like me. Do not immediately surrender the freedom you have just won.”
She felt the wave of disappointment from the crowd. “Lady, you are needed!”
Alain spoke, his voice Mage calm, but not void of feeling this time. “You wish Lady Mari to become your ruler. She would be Empress of the West in all but name, with a wider realm than that ruled by the Emperor in the east. Let me ask this. If Lady Mari is all that you believe, if she can be everything you hope for, what will happen when she is here no longer?”
The crowd stirred wordlessly.
“I will do all I can to keep her alive,” Alain said. “I have proven that. But sooner or later she will pass on to the next dream. You will have made her empress, and become dependent on an empress to control and to order and to dictate. Who will be the next empress? What orders will that empress give?”
“We wouldn’t get to choose the next empress, would we?” Professor S’san asked.
“You could choose her. Or him,” someone in the crowd suggested.
“Who?” Mari asked. “You say you trust me. Fine. I don’t think I’m worthy of that, but fine. Say you are right. Who else do you trust? If I’m gone, who else would you accept in that position?”
“If the daughter’s army continues to exist for years to come, and whoever it is has command of the daughter’s army,” General Flyn said, “everyone else would have to accept that person’s rule, no matter who he or she is.”
“Which Mechanic?” Mari asked. “Which Mage? Which common? Who would you all accept? Who would you all trust? You don’t need a system dependent on me. You need a system that depends on you to select worthy leaders and does not take that obligation and that responsibility out of your hands.”
Lieutenant Bruno spread his hands helplessly. “But Lady, you are needed.”
“You are needed,” Master Mechanic Lo agreed loudly.
She looked at Alain again, hoping he would have another answer.
“I understand little of Mechanic devices,” Alain said. “But I have heard the words safety valve and governor as things which prevent devices from hurting people. They do not rule the device, but they keep it from exploding.”
Mari frowned at Alain, trying to understand.
Mage Dav spoke up. “You speak of Lady Mari as being such a thing in the larger illusion of the world? Someone who would not rule the west, but would protect those in it?”
“Oh,” Mari gasped. She smiled at Alain. “Oh. I get it.” Two Mages had realized what she could not. She remembered the meeting yesterday, the competing men and women in their various factions, and how she had worked as a brake on the arguments sometimes without even intending to. “I’d help look out for everyone, I’d help resolve problems, but I wouldn’t be in charge. I’d keep things from flying out of control.”
“Anyone who needed your help could ask for it,” S’san said.
“But if she has no title and no army—" Lieutenant Bruno began.
“You don’t understand!” Colonel Hasna called, pointing at Mari. “She has given me back a country and a queen. She has given us all our freedom. Her power lies not in a title or the authority to coerce. Her power lies in the willingness of others to follow, and in her willingness to listen. Do not require her to keep an army that answers only to her. It betrays what the daughter has done and would be an endless temptation to whoever comes after her.”
Master Mechanic Lo spoke forcefully. “Will you enforce the peace of the daughter by your words and actions? Will you call out those who act unfairly?”
“Yes,” Mari said, though she wasn’t ye
t sure exactly how that would work. “Anyone who tries to mistreat you will be my enemy, and I will tell everyone that.”
“Then you need no other title or army. I’ve been listening to the commons. Your words have more power behind them than a decree of the Emperor.”
She didn’t like hearing that, but most of the others in the room seemed happy with it.
“Will you always be fair?” a woman called. “Will you favor Tiae?”
“I will favor no land,” Mari promised. “We are all one people. Look at my army. If we can fight side-by-side, Mechanics, Mages, commons from Tiae, the Confederation, the Western Alliance, the Free Cities, and other places, then we can build a new day side-by-side.”
“With you as the governor,” Professor S’san said.
“Only in the Mechanic sense of the word,” Mari said.
There were more words, more requests for reassurance, but the crowd began to discuss the new day among themselves rather than demand answers from Mari, who gradually began to relax.
“If you’re not going to be empress, can I have my jacket back?” Alli asked, getting back up on the platform.
“Go ahead! I would have kept it if I’d become ruler of everything,” Mari threatened. “I still need a new one, though. You would think somebody who was offered an empress-ship…is that a word? A chance to be an empress. You’d think she could get a new jacket!” Mari glared at Alli. “Did you know what this was going to be about?”
“Yeah.” Alli stood next to her chair, looking down and smiling. “Mari, none of us knew what the right answer was. We could see the problems, but not the solution. We hoped you would. And you did.”
“Alain came up with the solution!” Mari insisted.
“Well, yeah, but you always listen to Alain. You’re a team. We knew getting you meant getting him, too.”
Mari shook her head in disbelief. “I help overthrow the Great Guilds, which is what so many people have wanted for so long, and the first thing everyone wants to do is give total power to a Mechanic and a Mage. What is the matter with you?”