The Dragons of Dorcastle

Chapter Ten

Mari held herself absolutely still, looking around. “What is it?”

“An alarm spell, set on the area near the door. If someone not wearing the right charm passes through it, it will alert its master or masters.”

Mari gave the Mage a level look. A big part of her wanted to just keep walking, because that sounded ridiculous. Another part of her pointed out that she wouldn’t be standing here unless something even weirder had already happened. She stood still. “Mages? Like you?”

“Not like me,” Alain denied. “This feels like the work of Dark Mages.”

“Dark Mages? What are Dark Mages?”

Alain gave her a look in which surprise could actually be seen. “You have not heard of Dark Mages?”

Mari shook her head. “I’m beginning to understand that there’s a whole lot of things I haven’t heard of.”

“Dark Mages use the same methods as the Mages of the Guild,” he explained, “but they apply their skills in different ways and undertake tasks which the Mage Guild will not. They are unsanctioned by the Guild, their works often the sort of thing no one wishes to openly admit. They do not wear robes or other distinctive garb, instead hiding among the common folk.”

“Are you saying that there are things Mages won’t do?” That was certainly contrary to the stories that Mari had heard.

Alain nodded almost absentmindedly, his attention focused mainly on the area just in front of her. “There are things which diminish wisdom, which harm a Mage’s ability to gain power and learn new spells.” He paused, giving her a sidelong look which seemed…worried?

“All right.” Mari nodded back to him, wondering why any Mage’s worries would be aimed at her. She must have misinterpreted that.

But as she stood still, her mind raced. If there were Dark Mages hidden among the commons, could there also be Dark Mechanics? Unsanctioned Mechanics didn’t exist, her Guild claimed. But then who was responsible for what she had found here? Commons, who were supposed to lack the necessary special talent to do Mechanic work? That thought was a lot scarier than the idea of Dark Mechanics. She had to ask some pointed questions. She wasn’t an apprentice now. If she demanded answers, even Guild Hall Supervisor Stimon would have to provide something in return.

But that could only happen after they got out of here. “Can we do anything about this alarm?”

Mage Alain stood silent for so long without answering that Mari started to worry. Then he shook his head. “Not yet. I need to rest, then perhaps I can get us through it without alerting its master.”

“Any idea how long you’ll need to rest?”

Mage Alain twitched his shoulders in the most minimal of shrugs. “A while.”

“Five minutes a while, half an hour a while, an hour a while?” Mari pressed.

He finally looked at her again. “Minutes? Hour?”

“Got it. A while,” Mari agreed, thinking guiltily that if she hadn’t insisted that the Mage create the hole to let her get her tool kit, he might already be able to handle this. Unfortunately, along with not learning math, Mages didn’t seem to worry about measuring time in anything more precise than morning and afternoon. She pointed to the nearest cell. “That door’s ajar. Let’s wait in there where we’ll be hidden if anyone comes along.”

“That is acceptable.” Once inside, the young Mage sat down against one wall, breathing slowly and deeply.

Mari checked for any sign of a far-listener in this cell, didn’t find any, then sat near the door, her hand holding the pistol ready, pointed at the ceiling. The throbbing in her head had faded to a continuous dull ache.

Mage Alain sat silently until she had settled. He was looking not at her, but between them, his expression revealing nothing.

What was he looking at? Oh. “Is it still there?” Mari asked.

Alain’s gaze rose to meet hers. “No.”

“That’s a relief.”

“It was never there. It does not exist. But it does remain.” His eyes stayed on hers. “Your…tools. You said you can disconnect.”

“You mean the thread? The metaphorical thread that isn’t there but is?” Mari asked. “Unfortunately, all of my tools only work on stuff that’s really there.”

“Nothing is really there,” Alain insisted.

“Blazes! I…my tools only work on the strong illusions. I can’t unscrew an allegory or disconnect a metaphor, Mage Alain!”

“You cannot?” He definitely appeared disappointed.

Absurdly, she felt bad that she couldn’t do it. “I’m sorry. Honest. But neither my tools or my training can do that. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I could.”

His eyes were on hers again. “You gave me the impression that you could do many things and do them well.”

Flattery? From a Mage? “I wish you were a Senior Mechanic. None of them feel that way.” Mari shook her head, feeling overwhelmed as the reality of their circumstances still trapped in the dungeon overcame the last traces of euphoria after the escape from her cell. “I’m not experienced enough even though I’m well-trained. This is my first job outside a Guild Hall, the first time I’ve really been outside a Guild Hall without a lot of other Mechanics around.” Life in a Guild Hall, life at the academy in Palandur, safe and simple and predictable, seemed like one of the Mage’s illusions now. “I don’t know what the blazes I’m doing.”

“You are certainly good at creating the illusion of competence, then.”

Mari stared at the Mage, who showed no signs that his comment was meant anything but seriously. He seemed to think that he had paid her a great compliment. She started giggling, fighting to stay quiet. “I’m going to have to make sure that’s in my next performance evaluation. ‘Master Mechanic Mari is good at creating the illusion of competence.’” Her sides shaking with suppressed laughter only a few steps removed from hysteria born of injury and stress, Mari slumped against the wall.

The Mage watched her intently. “Are you well?”

She managed to get her laughter under control with the help of some renewed throbs in her head and sat straighter, wiping her eyes. “Oh, just great. I’ve got a lump on my head, I’m in a dungeon with a Mage, and if I’m honest with my Guild about what’s happened down here I’ll be locked away forever. Couldn’t be better.” Mari paused to look at the Mage’s face, no sign of emotion on it. “Do you ever laugh?”

“No. It is not permitted.”

There was that sense of pity filling her again. Mari looked away. He’s not a lost puppy. He’s a young man. He chose this life. He’s not my responsibility. “Why did you come after me?”

“There is a thread—”

“The one that’s not there but is. Yeah. But I asked why. Why did you follow that thread, assuming there is a thread?”

The Mage looked at her, and for a moment she could see the concern in his eyes. “I felt that I needed to…help you.”

Mari smiled at him. “Well, thanks.”

“Because,” Mage Alain continued, “I thought that might be the only way to break the spell you have placed upon me.”

Her smile vanished. “Spell?”

“The thread may have something to do with it. It holds us together. That is why I wanted you to disconnect it, to remove what you have done to me.”

“I—” Mari paused to try to reason out what the Mage was saying. “You think I’m doing something to you? Using that metaphorical thread? You think that I made that thread that isn’t there?”

He nodded. “It must be so. I keep thinking of you. You make me remember things that I should not. I do things when you are involved that I would not ever considering doing otherwise.” The Mage’s otherwise blank expression contained just the tiniest hint of accusation. “I do not know how you have done this to me. I thought that if I returned the help you had given me that I would be free of the inexplicable influence you have over me. But it does not seem to be working, and you say you cannot break the thread.”

Mari realized that her mouth had fallen open as she stared at Mage Alain. “Are you serious?”

“What would I be if I was not serious?”

“You’re saying that I put a spell on you that controls your thoughts and actions?”

“Why else am I here?” the Mage asked.

“Because it was the right thing to do!”

“The…what? I am still uncertain about what right thing means— ” The trace of puzzlement had returned to him.

“Listen…Mage Alain! I don’t…put spells on boys! Or men! Or anybody! I have no idea why you think that you are thinking about me, but I assure you that it has nothing to do with me thinking about you or making you think that you want to think about me!”

Mage Alain looked back at her for a while before speaking. “I could not follow all of that.”

She gazed at him, feeling helpless. “All right. In short, whatever you are thinking or doing is all from you. I have nothing to do with it.”

“Then why does the thread link us? Why is it you I think about? Why is it you I want to help? This does not happen with others. Only with you.”

Oh, no. A Mage was crushing on her. What had she ever done to deserve ending up in a dungeon with a Mage who was crushing on her? Why couldn’t Alli be here to help her explain things? Alli understood boys and men. Better than Mari did, anyway. What would Alli say to Mage Alain? “It’s not anything that I did. All right, maybe what I did were things you liked. But I didn’t do them to make you think about me or to make you do things.”

“Liked?” Alain asked. “I am also still unsure as to what that means.”

Stars above. Better makes this as simple as possible. “It’s because…you’re a boy.” Mari chose her words carefully. “And sometimes boys get…interested in a particular girl, and maybe, for some totally inexplicable reason that completely escapes me, you…got interested in me.”

The Mage actually frowned as he thought about what she had said. Then his expression cleared. “Love.”

She stared at him, amazed and appalled. “What?”

“We were warned about love by the elders,” Alain explained without any feeling in his voice. “It is a very serious error.”

“Yes,” Mari quickly agreed. “They were right. You don’t even want to think about…about that.”

“But what is it?” Mage Alain asked. “Is thinking about someone love?”

“No! Whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t that.”

“Why are you concerned? You are much more alarmed. Do you sense that enemies are near?”

“Yes,” Mari said. “That must be it. But I don’t hear anything now, so I can relax. Let’s both relax. Hey, I know. Let’s talk about something else.”

Alain sat, his eyes hooded in thought. “You are difficult.”

“Yes. We already established that.”

“Do you experience love with other Mechanics?” Alain asked the question in the same way someone else would have asked whether it was going to rain today.

Mari took a deep breath. “No. Not that it’s any of your business. But, no.”

“Because you are difficult,” he deduced.

“That probably has something to do with it, yes. Is there a point to this?”

“You are a challenge,” Alain concluded triumphantly. “Something I must overcome.”

“Uh…that’s not exactly the greatest compliment that I’ve ever received, but if it helps you figure out that you’re not in…love…then great.” How could she get him off this entire line of thought? While also hopefully making it clear that she wasn’t interested in that kind of thing with a Mage, even if that Mage was Alain? That they had no possible future together? “Um, I don’t know what your marching orders are, but I was told not to have any more contact with you.”

Alain nodded dispassionately. “I was told not to have any more contact with you, as well.”

“That’s a…a real shame. I mean, that we won’t see each other again after we get out of here,” Mari said, trying to sound regretful rather than grateful. To her own surprise, she didn’t have to try very hard. In fact, she sort of did feel regretful and not at all grateful. What was that about?

“I have already acted against my instructions,” Mage Alain said. “By being here.”

“I can’t say that I’m sorry you came here,” Mari admitted. She felt bad now. Bad about maybe somehow leading on Alain, bad about rebuffing him after he had just gotten her out of a cell, and bad thinking about what his upbringing in a Mage Guild Hall must have been like for so many things to be unfamiliar to him. “And I doubt that I’ll admit to my Guild Hall Supervisor that I was in contact with you again. I guess neither one of us is very good at following orders.”

He nodded in solemn agreement. “No, Master Mechanic Mari, we are not good at following orders.”

Mari couldn’t help grinning at him. If only Alain wasn’t a Mage. The more she learned about him, the more she liked him. But she really still knew very little. “You haven’t lied to me, have you?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Why not? Everybody knows how Mages are. You’ve been honest with me about…well, about what you’re thinking.” That was what had made his statements to her so disconcerting, she realized. This wasn’t some smooth-talking Mechanic looking to score another notch in his belt and willing to say anything that would further that. No. Alain just said things, speaking his mind rather than hiding behind politeness or social games. He doesn’t seem to understand, or has never been taught, all of the ways people use to avoid saying what they really think. Not that I want to pursue whatever he’s thinking or feeling… Feeling. He never talks about feeling anything. That’s what he hides. He doesn’t hide thoughts. He hides feelings the way the rest of us hide our thoughts. “Um…anyway, I haven’t caught you in a lie yet. You do things I can’t explain with the science I know. I have an irrational inclination to believe you. Why?”

She could have sworn that the Mage almost smiled. “Perhaps you are a good judge of character.”

For somebody who never showed emotion, he could be really charming. “Oh, yeah, that’s it.”

“But,” Alain continued, “truth and falsehood do not mean the same thing to one trained in the Mage arts. If all we see is false, where is truth to be found? If the people we think we see are but shadows of the world illusion, what matter what we tell them? It becomes not a matter of truth and lies, but a question of whether either matters. The choice of what to do is mine.”

Mari watched the Mage, but he seemed to be perfectly serious again. “That sounds like a good excuse for doing whatever you want to do.”

“It can easily become exactly that,” the Mage agreed. “But…” He seemed to be struggling for words. “I do not follow that road.”

That was a relief to hear. No wonder other Mages were infamous for just grabbing any woman who took their momentary fancy.

With all that she had been taught about Mages, all of the stories she had heard, why hadn’t she felt revulsion at the idea that Alain was attracted to her? Because he was Alain, Mari realized. He had stopped being just a Mage. He was a person to her. A wounded person. And she really did like that person.

Maybe to such a person, taught to hide feelings, the mildest forms of companionship, of liking, would seem overwhelming. Maybe all he needed, all he wanted, was a friend.

She could do that.

“Good for you, Mage Alain,” Mari finally said. “Truth matters to me. So does being willing to stick your neck out for someone else, and you’ve certainly done that for me. But if you’re going to be my friend you’ll have to make sure you don’t tell me any lies. We have to be honest with each other.”

Alain frowned very slightly. “I do not know how to do that. I can only be what I am.”

“That’s good. That’s fine. If that’s who you’ve been up until now, just keep being you. How’s the resting coming?”

“I am recovering.” Alain shrugged, wondering why this conversation with the Mechanic had become complicated at times. “If I were older I would be stronger, but I would also take longer to recover. Under these circumstances, I guess it is lucky I am who I am.”

His words made her smile slightly. “I’d say we’re both lucky you’re who you are.” She settled back again, holding her strange hand weapon pointed upward, closing her eyes and letting her face settle into lines of pain and fatigue. Alain was not surprised by the pain she showed. He had seen the back of her head and the blood matted into the hair there. Unfortunately, he had no training in the healers’ arts. But if he ever encountered the person who had struck Mechanic Mari like that, Alain knew he would use the skills he did have to even the score. He did not know why he resolved to do that, but he did.

At least he was fairly sure that his reason was not love. Whatever love was, other than something to be avoided. Master Mechanic Mari had shown clear signs of being concerned when Alain spoke of it, and had denied experiencing love with other Mechanics, so perhaps Mechanics also were warned to avoid love. It must be a very dangerous thing.

She had mentioned something else, though. He watched her as he sat, trying to rebuild his strength, thinking about her words. “Master Mechanic Mari, could you…”

“What? Are you all right?” She opened her eyes, concern there again. It was so easy to see her feelings, yet something always remained unseen. Alain could not understand that, either.

“Yes. You said I could be…friend?”

“Sure. It’s a little weird. Maybe a lot weird. But you’re all right, Mage Alain.”

“What is being your friend?”

She showed that expression again, the one that seemed sad but also something else, the one that always made her look somewhere else for a moment. This time she blinked her eyes rapidly, too. “Why are you a Mage?” Mari asked abruptly. “Did you go volunteer or something?”

“Mages came to my home, when I was much younger. I was taken by them to the Guild Hall.”

“Oh.” The Mechanic looked at the floor this time. “Not your choice, then.”

“No. It was what had to be, because I had the talent.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, seeming distressed about something else for a moment, then took a deep breath and smiled at him again, though Alain could still see a hurt behind the smile. “All right. Uh, a friend is someone who did what you did, coming to help me, and don’t think I’m not very grateful for that, whether we manage to get out of here or not. A friend helps you, hangs around with you, not because they have to do that, but because they want to do that. A friend is someone you think about sometimes and want to do things for.” She added the last with a smile that seemed oddly strained.

Alain thought carefully. Did that violate the teachings of the Mage Guild? Yes. But maybe not. It depended on why he did those things. As long as he continued to know this girl was a shadow, what difference did it make if he chose to help her? To think of her? If you helped a shadow, someone who did not exist, the act itself must be an illusion as well. “I can do that.”

“Well, good.” She was doing that other thing now, as if he had said something intended to evoke humor in her. “You sound real enthusiastic about it.”

“I always sound the same.”

“I had noticed that,” the Mechanic replied with another smile, one which grew anxious as she watched him. “What?”

“There is something wrong?”

“You were looking at me like…I don’t know.” Mari firmed her smile. “When we get a chance, we ought to talk more about what friends are. And what they aren’t.”

Perhaps he thought about her so much because the things she said were often so hard to comprehend. “Why do I need to know what something is not?”

“Because…you wouldn’t want to believe that something that wasn’t real actually was real, would you?”

Alain gazed at Mari, thinking that perhaps his surprise had shown. “That is an argument worthy of a Mage. It shows wisdom. I knew you were not like other Mechanics.”

Mari appeared to be at a loss for words. “I meant…maybe I shouldn’t say anything else.”

Something occurred to him, an explanation for the inexplicable. “The thread. Is that because you are friend? I have never heard of such a thing as the thread, but I know of no other Mage with friend.”

“Maybe… Maybe that is it,” she said, considering the idea. “Maybe when Mages make friends they see it as something like that. Like a connection to someone else.”

A soft noise came from outside the room. Both froze, then Mari cautiously looked around the door, her weapon held ready. “Probably just a rat,” she finally whispered. She gave him another look, a question in her eyes.

Every moment they waited was necessary to regain his strength, but every moment also increased the risk to them. He came slowly to his feet, testing his strength as he did so. There was plenty of power in this area to draw on, which would make his task a little easier. Was it enough? He looked toward Mechanic Mari, watching him with worry and hope easy to see in her expression, and suddenly he felt enough strength, almost as if it had come to him along that thread between them even though it had not. But this surge of strength did seem to be related to the thread in some strange way. “I am ready to attempt the alarm. We must go. I do not know how close to morning it now is.”

The Mechanic gave him another concerned look. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

She had been extra careful with him ever since he had almost fallen. That bothered Alain, although he tried not to show it. It was oddly as if Mechanic Mari were an elder whom he did not want to disappoint. “I do not need more rest.”

“All right.” She stood up, wincing at what must be renewed pain in her head.

He did not feel it as he had when his foresight worked, but still Alain felt a strange urge to wince himself. “I must lead the way through the alarm.”

“Have I been leading?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I do that. I don’t mean to.”

“It is not a difficult thing about you,” Alain told her, and to his surprise was rewarded by another of her smiles. “You lead well.”

Was that a friend thing, to want to see her smile?

Her smile was distracting, though, and he needed to concentrate. Alain led the way back toward the door with the Mage alarm, Mechanic Mari staying close behind him. Focusing his Mage senses, Alain could see the alarm as fine strands of suspended power drifting across the hallway like filaments of spider web. Touch one and the power in it would be released, creating a change that would be felt by a Dark Mage somewhere. An alarm spell, like all spells, was temporary, though the drain on the power locked in it was so small that it could last for a month before dissipating. This one felt a couple of weeks old and still strong enough to be a worry.

Alain drew upon the power here, channeling it with his own energy, using that power to gently push away the strands to either side so that a path lay clear down the middle. That temporary minor alteration in the alarm spell should be invisible to the Dark Mage who had placed it. “Follow closely and directly behind me,” Alain instructed, stepping forward. He walked steadily down the open path, watching for any strands that threatened to drift back in front of them. “We are past it.”

The Mechanic stared back along the way they had come, her expression baffled. Then she shook her head and knelt down at the door barring their way. Alain braced himself, wondering if he could find the resources inside to open a hole in this door. But instead of asking for his assistance, Mechanic Mari pulled open her bag and began to extract strange items which she started using on the door near what she called the lock. Alain watched her work, trying to grasp what she was doing and not understanding any of it.

Somehow she easily loosened pieces from the apparently solid block of metal and began piling them on the floor. Finally there came a metallic click and a pleased exclamation from the Mechanic. “It’s open.” Then she began picking up the loose pieces and returning them to the lock, where by mysterious means she fastened them into place again, forming it back into a single piece of metal. “Good as new, but unlocked now.”

“How did you do that?” Alain asked. “It held the illusion of being whole, then it was in pieces, then you made it appear whole again, but I felt no power being employed.”

She looked up at him with another smile. “Guild secret. And elbow grease.”

“You used those weapons.”

Mari frowned in puzzlement, then glanced down at what she still held, something that looked like a knife with a round blade and a point that had notches in it. “This is a screwdriver. Those are wrenches. They…” She paused, her eyes growing shadowed. “They’re tools. They could be used as weapons, I guess. Mage Alain, tools can build things, and help people. Or they can destroy things, and hurt people. It’s my responsibility to use my tools wisely.”

“Do all Mechanics believe that?” Alain asked.

Another pause, then Mari sighed. “I had instructors who told me the importance of using my tools wisely, and others who said it didn’t matter. I think it matters.”

Alain thought about that, trying to understand. “Then your tools are so important to you because of the things you choose to do with them?”

She gave him a startled look. “Yes. That’s exactly right.” Mari finished putting away the objects she had been using. “Let’s see what’s on the other side of this door.”

The door swung open under the Mechanic’s push, she edging through with the hand weapon pointed forward. They found themselves in a short hallway ending in another locked door, with rooms on either side. Mari glanced back at him questioningly. “Are there any of those alarms here?”

Alain studied the hall, walking slowly down it. “I see none.”

“Good.” She pointed upward, at a small metal object on the ceiling. “That’s a Mechanic device, but it’s just a smoke-sniffer. It sounds an alert if there’s a fire. Not exactly cheap, but with everything Ringhmon has in this building, they sure wouldn’t want an uncontrolled fire starting down here.” Mari grimaced. “I hate to think what they do with fire down in this dungeon that they are worried about it spreading. Probably something involving hot metal applied to human skin.”

“Does that cause harm?” Alain asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Mari said it in the manner of someone recalling an event. “Believe me, you only put your hand on a noninsulated steam pipe once. Anybody who doesn’t learn their lesson from that is too dumb to be a Mechanic.”

He nodded in understanding, remembering his own training. “The Mechanics teach lessons to their acolytes by using physical punishment just as Mages do.”

Instead of nodding back, she stared at him. Then Mari swallowed and spoke in a strained voice. “It wasn’t— I’m sorry. You were— No. I can’t go there. Let’s get out of here.”

She hastened forward, kneeling again by the new door, frowning as she examined it with unusual intensity.

He watched her, trying to understand what had caused her distress this time and curious about these strange Mechanic arts. Alain had been satisfied briefly by his conclusion that the thread and his thoughts of Mari were part of a test, a challenge on his path to greater wisdom. But once she had mentioned her orders not to contact him again, Alain had realized that he did not want the thread to break. If the thread meant friend, though, it could remain, though he was still hazy on just what friend was.

He had feared thinking of Mari would weaken him, lead him astray, but Alain had been surprised to be able to walk after getting past the alarm. He should have been worn out from his exertions. Instead, Mechanic Mari’s presence, or perhaps the thread he saw between them, had pushed him to be able to do more than he ever had before. His conclusions had been right. The challenge she represented would make him stronger.

Would other Mages be able to detect the thread? That would create difficulties. He would have to explain it, not as what he believed it to be, but as something the elders could accept. They have taught me that there is no truth and no lie, so I will hold to their teachings and say what will serve my purposes.

Mechanic Mari had said that truth mattered to her, but surely she would not object to Alain misleading his elders in that fashion.

Mari gave a small cry of dismay that cut off Alain’s thoughts. “I don’t believe it,” she complained. “There’s three—no, four—bolts or hasps holding this door shut, and they’re locked from the outside. I can’t get us through this.” She slumped, sitting on the step before the door and rubbing her head with both hands, then looked up at him. “Can you do it? We’d need a hole this big.” The Mechanic outlined a large section of one side of the door. “And you’d need to hold it longer because I’d need to disable or open all four locks.”

Alain evaluated his overtaxed strength, felt the power here, then shook his head. “I cannot get us through the door, either. Not for some time. Only the guards could open it for us. They will surely not come before full day without good reason, and then they will come in force, and we will have to fight our way out.”

“If we could fight our way out of here. What could make the guards come earlier…distract them…?” Mari looked up at him, her eyes still holding a stricken quality but lit with inspiration. “A good reason. Mage Alain, you’re a genius.” She jumped up and made a fist, but before he could react to the shocking attack Mari had merely lightly bumped the fist against his shoulder. She turned, but then spun back to face him. “I don’t know what they did to you. I don’t want to know. But something good survived that. He’s still in there. I can tell. I’m difficult. I can be very difficult and hard on my friends. But I’m always there for them and I never let them down. All right?”

He gazed back at her, mystified anew by her words. “This is part of friend?”

“Yeah.” She forced a smile, then pivoted and ran toward one of the side rooms. Mari looked inside, then beckoned to him. “Just what we needed,” she remarked.

The room held a number of the thin mattresses like that which had been in her cell. “It’s a storeroom,” she explained. “With lots of flammable material.” Shoving some of the dry mattresses together, she pulled another Mechanic thing out of her tool kit and clicked it with her thumb, making sparks fly. The bright spots landed on the fabric of the mattresses and began to send up thin trails of smoke from where they lay. “If we need to, we can go back and try to pry free one of the oil lamps, but that would mean getting past that alarm thing again. I think this will do the job.”

“What are you doing?” Alain asked.

“Starting a fire, of course.” Mari held up the thing in her hand. “It’s a fire-starter. A really simple device. Haven’t you ever seen one?”

Alain shook his head. “Never. That thing seems very complicated. I do not understand how it can work.”

“How do you start fires?”

That was a Guild secret. Or was it? The elders had told him that no Mechanic could understand how it worked. What would this Mechanic say if he told her? “I use my mind to channel power to create a place where it is hot, altering the nature of the illusion there,” Alain explained, “and then use my mind to put that heat on what I want to burn.”

“Oh,” Mechanic Mari said. “Is that actually how you visualize the process?”

“That is how it is done,” Alain said.

“That’s…interesting.” She grinned. “So, instead of making a fire by doing something complicated or hard to understand like striking a flint, you just alter the nature of reality. That is a lot simpler.”

“Your tone of voice,” Alain said. “You are saying sarcasm.”

“I do that too much,” Mari said apologetically. Her smile this time seemed more natural, though it was still stiff with some strain as she nursed the small spots of flame into larger blazes. “Sometimes denying reality is all that keeps a person going, isn’t it?”

“Reality? Do you mean the illusion?”

“Right. You have no idea how many people superior to me in rank and age have insisted on trying to explain reality to me over the years.” Mari gasped a short laugh. “That’s the one area I’m a slow learner in, I guess.”

Alain studied her. “You are speaking quickly. You are frightened.”

She met his eyes. “No. I’m nervous. About getting out of here, and about the risk of what I’m doing right now, and about…about talking to you. I start to think maybe I understand who you are and what you’ve been through and then…stars above. I’ll get over it. Let me explain what’s going on, because I just realized that I was assuming you know, but we don’t operate on the same wavelength at all.”

“Wave length? We are nowhere near an ocean.”

“Um…” Mechanic Mari paused. “Never mind that. Listen. When this fire gets bad enough, the smoke-sniffer will set off an alarm and the guards will come charging in through that door to put out the fire. While they do that, we’ll go charging out the door under the cover of all the smoke and confusion and stuff.” She sat back, eyeing the flames now leaping upward to lick at the wooden beams of the ceiling. “If this fire gets out of hand, or if the guards take too long to come, you and I may be in a lot of trouble.”

“We are already in a lot of trouble.”

“That was my reasoning, too. Of course, if that happens and the fire gets too big before the mighty citizens of Ringhmon stop it, it’ll also gut this little palace and destroy everything inside it. Including the enormously expensive Model Six that I just fixed, which they’ll be responsible for paying for, and probably the other Model Six that they openly own.” She shrugged, trying to appear unworried. “That’ll teach them to kidnap me. But that won’t happen. We’ll be fine.”

“You say that and yet you are frightened.”

“Yes, I’m frightened! I admit it! Happy? No, wait, Mages are never happy. Just try not to die, all right? I don’t want that to be my fault.”

Alain thought through her words. “I will attempt not to die. Your plan appears to be sound, as well as potentially very destructive. I see that it is a mistake to offend you.”

“Yes, yes, it is,” Mari agreed, a smile flickering briefly to life. “Stay on my good side and you won’t have to worry about it.” She backed away from the fire, which was now burning brightly, sending up flames and sending out heat. “Let’s toss some more mattresses on it to get some good smoke.”

He assisted her as they mounded a couple of more mattresses on the burning one, producing billowing clouds of smoke which stung Alain’s eyes and throat as he backed out of the storeroom after her. Fire had sprung to life on the beams of the ceiling in the room, illuminating the smoke from above. “Over here,” Mechanic Mari called, coughing as the smoke began filling the hallway as well. He followed her again, to the room on the opposite side. A harsh sound began blaring around them, echoing off the walls. “That’s the smoke-sniffer.”

As they waited, the Mechanic coughed again, her eyes watering. “Mage Alain? There’s something I forgot to take into account.”

Alain squeezed his eyes to try to clear them, but the irritation from the smoke kept blurring his vision. “How so?” he asked, coughing as well.

“The smoke. It’s spreading faster than the flames right now. We have less time than I thought. If those guards don’t get down here soon, the smoke will kill us.”

“That would be unfortunate,” Alain admitted. “So you have erred as well?”

“Yes. I have erred. Let’s hope it wasn’t a fatal error. I hate it when that happens.”

She had attempted more of her sarcasm, but Mari’s fear stood out clearly despite the front of bravery she was attempting, the feelings radiating from the Mechanic like the heat from the fire. As Alain used his training to keep his own fears deeply buried, he wondered about her. “Master Mechanic Mari, is this a time when a friend would help?”

“If they could, yes,” she gasped.

“Death is just a passing from one dream into another. It is nothing but another journey.”

She blinked at him with eyes watering because of the smoke. “Thanks. That doesn’t really help, but thanks for trying. I—” Whatever else the Mechanic might have said was forestalled by shouts from the other side of the barred door, accompanied by a metallic rattle and clicking. “They’re unlocking the door,” Mari whispered. Moments later the door slammed open and a group of guards carrying pails of water surged into the hall. The heat and smoke from the fire met them and threw the group back as it billowed into the new space the open door now offered.

Alain felt a hand grab his arm and followed its tug downward toward the floor. The smoke wasn’t as thick down here. Mechanic Mari moved in a low crouch toward the door, still holding onto him and trying to avoid the guards, who were milling about in confusion while someone shouted orders. They bumped into the legs of several guards, all of whom were so disoriented they didn’t react, then reached the door, where another wedge of guards was being urged forward into the hall. For now, that wedge completely sealed the doorway against them. Alain let Mari lead him to crouch to one side, tears streaming down her face as the smoke irritated her eyes, holding her hand over her mouth as the roar of the fire grew behind them. He was having a lot of trouble breathing himself, and wondered how long they could last here.

The plug of guards burst out of the doorway under the urging of their leader, hurling their buckets of water randomly in all directions before stampeding back to the doorway. Alain once again let Mari lead as she merged with the tangle of guards, who were fleeing up a long flight of stairs. He caught a brief glimpse of a guard commander howling curses, then a gust of smoke roiled up the stairway and blotted out his sight.

Pounding up the stairs in Mari’s wake, Alain’s breathing grew more labored by the moment. Coming on top of the weakness he still felt from his earlier efforts, it left his head spinning. He had thought her lost in the smoke ahead, but suddenly Mechanic Mari appeared before him, reaching back to pull Alain onward. The knowledge that she had backtracked into danger to ensure his survival kept him going as much as the tug of her hand.

Just when he feared he would collapse, they came to a small landing, then out the door at the head of the stairs and around a corner, where the air near the floor was almost completely clear of the smoke fountaining from the doorway and along the ceiling above them. Alain struggled for breath, coughing as he did so. He noticed Mechanic Mari lying on her side nearby, curled up and coughing constantly. Acting on a vague memory, Alain crawled to her and began thumping her back hard with his palm.

The Mechanic’s coughing broke and she started breathing. Mari grabbed his hand to stop him. “That’s enough. Thanks.”

He peered at her, blurry through the water filling his eyes from the irritation of the smoke. “You came back for me on the stairs.”

“Didn’t you believe me? I don’t leave anyone behind, Alain.”

She had simply used his name, not the title of Mage. He should have objected, but instead felt a desire to do the same with her. “I will believe you next time…Mari.”

“Good. You’re a quick learner.” She looked both ways along the hall, where individual commons were running about in panic, none of them seeming to take note of the Mechanic and the Mage on the floor. The night shift in this building must be substantial, though nowhere near as large as the number of day workers. “Do you know how to get out of this building?” Mari asked.

“I came in through walls.”

“Then the answer is no,” Mari gasped, pushing herself to her hands and knees. “Let’s just get away from the fire before any of those commons starts thinking and wondering what the blazes we’re doing here. This way looks as good as any.”

They crawled away, trying to avoid any other occupants of the building as those rushed by. The smoke gradually diminished as they turned corners, but the roar of activity behind them didn’t relent. Mari got to her feet, helping him rise as well, and they both staggered along. Some of the commons stopped to stare at them but Mari’s glare got them moving again quickly.

Something crashed somewhere, causing the entire building to shudder. Moments later a huge cloud of smoke came billowing along the hall. Alain could not help thinking that the smoke seemed to be pursuing them, as if the fire did not want them to escape its grasp.

Mari stared at the oncoming wave of smoke, but instead of fleeing immediately knelt to press one hand against the floor. She straightened quickly, shaking her head. “The floor is hot. That means the fire is spreading rapidly beneath us. We have to get out of this building. Fast. This way.”

They managed a stumbling trot, trying to reach the end of the long hallway. Alain realized that the smoke was coming not just from behind them, but also shooting up in geysers through tiny cracks in the flooring. “Your plan is working,” Alain said to Mari as he struggled for breath. “This building will be destroyed.”

“My plan didn’t involve us being inside when that happened! Just keep your head and keep moving. Look! A window!” Mari called, tugging at his robes again. The window, a large one divided into several panes and almost floor to ceiling, the night sky visible through it just beginning to pale with the dawn, sat at the end of the wide corridor they had just turned onto. Alain yielded to Mari’s pull, scrambling along with her toward the promise of safety.

The thud of feet startled him, then several soldiers of Ringhmon came charging around the corner near the window. They stared down the hall at the smoke billowing in their direction, then at the Mechanic and Mage coming toward them in front of the cloud. Faces stark with panic, four of the soldiers leveled crossbows. One brought a Mechanic weapon to his shoulder.

Mari began to skid to a halt, her face a mask of despair, her hand weapon looking far too small compared to the weapons carried by the soldiers. But she was leveling her weapon, ready to fight rather than try running back into the smoke chasing them down the hallway.

Alain grabbed her jacket and pulled her forward. “Keep going,” he ordered, then called on everything he had for one more effort. The world illusion said the air in this hallway was clear. It let light pass. But the air could be dark. It could stop light. Change the illusion. Reverse it.

He did not have the strength to do this. He knew that. But it came to him in a sudden release and the power flowed through him as he pushed the Mechanic.

The air around them went pitch black.

Through a haze of total exhaustion, Alain could hear shouts of alarm and terror from in front of them. A familiar thunder boomed in the hallway and things whipped past him with angry cracking sounds. The Mechanic weapon must be launching its projectiles, but with no way to see his targets the chances of the soldier getting a hit must be very small. Alain stumbled, falling, his strength almost totally gone, but a firm grip caught him and propelled him forward. He realized that Mechanic Mari must almost be carrying him, despite his weight and her own tiredness. She was again risking her own life to save him.

Mechanics were not supposed to do that sort of thing. But this was not a Mechanic. This was Mari. Where was she getting the strength to carry him along? His fatigue addled mind dredged up an answer: that it must come from the same place he had found the means to cast this last spell, a place where strength could be found when none remained. She had shown him how to find such a place, and now she was using it as well to save them both. The thread and its odd effects ran both ways.

They crashed into a tangle of bodies, broke through in the confusion, and moments later hit something hard that shattered under the impact. Their rush carried them through the broken window and there was nothing under their feet.

His strength completely failed, the spell broke and sight returned. Pieces of glass were flying through the air all around, rotating and spinning away with what seemed to his overstressed mind to be dreamlike slowness. Next to him, one arm wrapped about his arm, Mari rolled in midair with her head tucked into her elbow for protection. As his own body spun in the predawn dimness, Alain saw bushes rushing up to meet him. Or perhaps he was falling onto them. Both were only illusions of his mind, so he surrendered to weariness and waited for his body and the bushes to rush together.