The Dragons of Dorcastle

Chapter Twelve

The screaming of metal came to an end, and the mysterious force holding Alain against the seat before him released its grip, allowing him to fall to the floor.

Alain blinked in the darkness, wondering what could have happened. All around, the shocked silence was starting to give way to cries of alarm and, in some cases, cries of pain.

Still bemused by the sudden waking from his dream, Alain sought to feel for the presence of Mages and the drain on the power in this area as they cast spells. He felt nothing, though. Whatever had caused the Mechanic train to screech to a halt, it had not been the work of Mages.

If it had been bandits again, they were now silent. No crashes of Mechanic weapons broke the night, no thump of crossbow bolts striking home, no shouts of battle. All that Alain could hear outside were the voices of a few commons who had already spilled out of the wagons and were loudly speculating on what had happened.

Checking himself for injury and finding none, Alain followed the rest of the travelers as they filed out of the wagon. The Mechanic train had stopped along the face of a high cliff, with only a small shelf of land to stand on next to the metal lines the wagons ran along. A three-quarter moon cast an icy light across the area, revealing a view of remarkable but cold beauty as it sparked silver from froth thrown by angry waves crashing in endless array against the cliff face below. Unfazed by the sheer drop, Alain looked down on those cliffs forever standing sentinel before the waters of the Sea of Bakre.

He was still taking in his surroundings when there came a rumbling sound from the rear of the train. Alain looked back that way, seeing that the last and grandest wagon had been separated at some point. Mechanics were now rolling it back into contact with the rest of the train. The Mechanic wagon struck with a crash that bounced from wagon to wagon past Alain, then the Mechanics began walking forward, the commons scattering hastily to clear a path. Alain watched the Mechanics approach, not even realizing he was acting like a Mage in robes, before he recalled in the nick of time that he was dressed as a common person and had to likewise get out of the way. He hastily stepped back against the wagon he had ridden in, just in time to avoid being shouldered aside.

Alain fought down a wave of un-Magelike emotion, of irritation, gazing after the Mechanics. Arrogant, the elders had said. They think they rule the world. He had forgotten that advice, which seemed accurate enough in the case of these Mechanics. Mari did not show that arrogance.– But these Mechanics even walked differently than she did.

He heard the word “accident” being repeated as the commons around him talked. They seemed content to wait on whatever the Mechanics decided. Those who had received broken or sprained arms and legs in the sudden stop were being tended to by other commons, the Mechanics ignoring them.

I can wait as well, thought Alain. But if I go ahead after those Mechanics, I will see whatever creature pulled this train and learn more of it. Did it die, or did it rebel against the lash of the Mechanics? Trolls and dragons can slip their control if the creating Mage loses his concentration. Is that what happened here?

And Mari was up there, the thread told him.

Why not see? Alain began working his way forward through the crowd, finding himself disconcerted by the need to avoid commons who did not shrink away from him as usual. Appearing to be a common was not without its disadvantages, but at least he had some practice with threading through crowds because of his occasional use of the concealment spell.

When he finally got close enough to the front, Alain could see the groups of common travelers came to an end at the last wagon, leaving a good-sized gap before the group of Mechanics standing near a hulking shape from which smoke rose into the sky. Alain could not make out details in the moonlight, but he could feel the heat radiating from the creature, and hear a low, steady rumble which might be its breathing. None of the Mechanics appeared worried at being close to the creature, which sat unmoving before the wagons. If it had slipped its bonds before, the creature was surely under control now. Why had not the train begun moving again?

A hand fell on his shoulder, surprising him doubly: no one touched a Mage, and he had grown unused to unexpected physical contact. “Praise the stars we stopped in time, eh, lad?” a bluff voice remarked.

Alain looked back at a large, older man as the common pointed forward past the Mechanic creature. “That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? See? The rails just stop at the edge there.” Following the man’s gesture, Alain could see that the metal lines indeed seemed to vanish as they reached a place where the strip of land on the cliff came to an end. “If those Mechanics hadn’t gotten this thing stopped in time we’d all be at the bottom of the cliff right now,” the common continued.

Another man spoke, his voice harsh but low to keep it from carrying to the Mechanics. “It’s their bridge! Why did it fail? We pay a lot to use their trains, and a safe journey is the least we expect for that.”

“It’s not the Mechanics’ fault,” a third man interjected. “Not this time, anyway. It’s the dragons. We’re near enough Dorcastle. It’s got to be them.”

The first man nodded in agreement. “Like as not. Them blasted Mages— ”

“The Mages claim the dragons aren’t under their control,” the second man insisted.

“And what’s the word of a Mage worth?”

Murmurs of agreement came from those around Alain. “There are dragons near Dorcastle?” Alain asked, realizing too late that while it was too dark for the commons to see his Magelike impassivity, they would be able to hear the lack of emotion in his voice.

But the commons assumed there was another reason for his stiffness. “Relax, lad, you’re fine now,” the first common said. “And the dragons haven’t killed anyone yet. That we’ve heard of.”

The third man nodded. “Aye, boy. Dragons. They’ve been threatening the city and doing harm to force Dorcastle to pay enough to get them to leave. But Dorcastle won’t pay.”

“It can’t,” a woman protested. “Those dragons want enough to beggar a city twice Dorcastle’s size.”

“Dragons are greedy, they say,” another added.

Alain listened, his puzzlement growing. Dragons wanting money? How could that be possible? “Are the Mages in Dorcastle doing nothing to stop these dragons?”

“Relax, buddy. The Mages say they are,” the first man replied. “And maybe they are, because it’s bringing them no profit. Dorcastle’s been screaming to the Mage Guild leaders and threatening to sanction every Mage and break every contract. They’re trying to get the rest of the Bakre Confederation to back them up, and I hear the Confederation’s likely to do so for fear another city will be targeted by these dragons next, or by the Mages controlling them, more likely.”

The travelers began arguing among themselves about who or what was responsible for their near disaster. Alain stared forward again, thinking.

A smaller figure walking with a familiar gait came back from the ranks of the Mechanics. One hand reached toward the train creature as if running a calming touch down its flank. Was Mari its creator and controller?

She paused at the end of the creature, speaking, and Alain saw another Mechanic leaning out from what he had thought the back of the beast. Her conversation done, Mari turned back, but then halted again. As if sensing his gaze, she turned and stared toward him.

He inclined his head toward her. She stood silent, then walked quickly up to him, he walking forward a couple of steps too so that they could converse quietly without either Mechanics or commons overhearing. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I need to know.”

“I am not injured. Are you well?”

“I’m fine.” Mari shuddered visibly. “I was riding in the locomotive. We came very close to going over the break.”

“Locomotive? That is the creature’s name?”

“Creature?” She hesitated. “It’s not alive.”

Alain nodded. “Like a troll.”

“A what? No.”

“Did you create it?”

“Me?” Mari shook her head. “This locomotive is well over a century old. It’s been around a lot longer than me. I just know how to run them, to operate them. Do you understand?”

“No. Whoever creates the creature is the only one who can control it.”

“I can’t explain now. It doesn’t follow Ma— your rules.” She looked forward past the locomotive. “The Mechanic who runs the engine on this shift told me he usually gets bored along this stretch and has trouble staying awake. But I was assigned to ride with him because of my specialty in steam. I was nervous and looking forward, and thank the stars above I saw the break just in time. Otherwise we’d all be dead.”

“Perhaps you have foresight,” Alain remarked. “But not all would have died. Your fellow Mechanics in the last wagon would have survived.”

She looked startled. “What do you mean? Not about that foresight thing. The bit about the last wagon.”

“The last wagon was separated from the rest of the train. I saw it being brought up to rejoin the other wagons.”

“You saw that?” Mari paused. “Did you see or hear anything else?”

“The commons say this was caused by dragons.”

Mari stared at him. “Dragons?” she finally asked.

“Yes. Everyone thought so. It surprised me to hear it.”

“You don’t sound surprised. But then you never sound like anything. It’s kind of creepy.” The Mechanic glanced back at her fellows, who were still conversing among themselves. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. My nerves are still shot. I shouldn’t be talking to you. But— We were heading for the edge, and slowing down, and I couldn’t tell if we would stop in time, and it wasn’t that long but it also seemed that time was moving very slowly, and—” she looked at him, “and I was less worried about dying myself than I was about you dying.”

“Why?” Alain asked. “Because you are a friend?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe because I had suggested that you take this train and I had bought the ticket. If you had died or been hurt, it would have been my fault.”

Alain considered that, then shook his head. “My decisions were my own.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say in that emotionless voice of yours, but I’d feel guilty.” Mari hesitated. “It really focused my mind, watching the edge getting closer and closer, thinking about you the whole time. And I realized something else, that running away from something was wrong. That’s not how you solve a problem.”

“What were you running from?”

She stared at him before answering. “A problem. A really big problem. Something that needs to be fixed. But if you stay with a problem long enough, instead of running from it, you’ll learn more about it, and then you’ll realize its, uh, flaws, that it’s really not all that…wonderful a problem. And then it won’t be a problem, because once you understand what is wrong, you can fix it. I hope.”

Alain looked back at her, trying to comprehend her words. “Which problem is this? The dragons?”

“Right. The dragons. Of course.” Mari turned quickly to point toward the chasm ahead. “We were thinking maybe a washout of some kind caused this, though that doesn’t seem likely. This is a very old line, but the engineer told me that trestle was replaced only a few years ago. No one mentioned dragons,” Mari continued. “Dragons? Do those really exist?”

“Nothing really exists.”

He heard a strangled sound come from her, then Mari spoke heavily. “Just tell me about dragons.”

“You know nothing? They are created, which requires a Mage of great strength and an area with substantial power to feed the spell. The more power that can be put into the spell, the more skilled the Mage who creates it, the larger the dragon. But like all other spells, they fade. I do not know how Mechanics could keep this locomotive creature in existence for so long.”

“It takes a lot of work,” Mari whispered. “What else?”

“Dragons are not very intelligent. Like trolls, they exist only to destroy, and like trolls they must obey the commands of the Mage who created them. This is what I do not understand. These travelers all spoke of dragons acting on their own, outside the control of the Mages in Dorcastle.”

“Why are they destroying train trestles?” Mari asked.

“There is some sort of ransom being demanded. A very large sum. The city will not pay, and the Mage Guild Hall in Dorcastle is attempting to deal with the problem and failing. All this according to my fellow travelers. I have not heard of this from Mages.”

Mari nodded. “How strong are they? Could a dragon have pulled out the supports from a trestle like this? Wooden supports bigger around than I am?”

“It depends on the dragon. But, yes, they can be very large and very strong.”

“I’m asking about dragons. This is crazy,” she muttered, just loud enough for Alain to hear.

“They do not act like the dragons I know of,” Alain repeated. “Could they be Mechanic dragons?”

“Mechanics don’t have dragons. I need to check on this and why the last wagon was detached from the train before we stopped. Wait here. Please,” she added hastily, then walked back to talk to her fellow Mechanics.

Alain waited, aware that he was standing out from everyone else and thus the object of attention from both the Mechanics ahead and the commons behind. That felt odd, too. Normally everyone tried not to look at a Mage. Now everyone seemed to be looking at him.

The voice of the large man who had first talked to him came from the commons. “Hey! You know one of the Mechanics? On speaking terms?”

Alain considered the best way to answer. He needed to maintain the proper illusion. “I was able to do some services for her in Ringhmon.”

“You’re not free and easy with them, that’s for sure,” the man commented. “Don’t worry, we don’t think you’re one of them. Try to calm down. You still sound like you’re in shock.”

“Maybe he’s really a Mage,” another common joked, and several other commons laughed.

Mari came back, her face troubled, and the commons hastily backed away again. “We’ve contacted the Guild in Dorcastle to come get us, but it’ll take until morning for a train to get here.” Almost immediately she flinched enough for it to be visible in the dark. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Why not? Do Mechanics not have something like message Mages?”

“Message Mages?” Mari blew out an angry breath. “One more thing my Guild claimed wasn’t real. For now, just don’t mention what I said to anyone.” She looked at the other Mechanics. “They said the two Senior Mechanics in the last wagon were able to open the coupling to the train and set the brake when we started the emergency stop. One single wagon was able to stop a lot faster than the entire train could.”

“I understand very little of what you said, except that it seems fortunate these Senior Mechanics were where they needed to be.”

Mari looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“When your train began stopping,” Alain explained, “some force held me in place. Are Mechanics not affected by it?”

“Yes, of course they are. It’s called momentum. It—” Mari stopped speaking. “They had to be exactly where they needed to be when we hit the brakes on the train. One at the coupling and one at the brake. Those are real close to each other, but…”

Alain studied her expression. “You are concerned.”

She took a deep breath. “Is that what it seems? It’s just…the last car would’ve survived even if the rest of the train had gone over, and if we had seen the break just a little later the locomotive would have gone over even if the wagons were able to be saved.”

“You said you were in the locomotive.”

“Yeah.”

He saw her emotions change, fear shifting to anger, then to resolve. “I need some answers. Some of the Mechanics are going to go down and look at the wreckage of the trestle to see what we can discover. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to go with them.”

“Why would you not go?” Alain asked.

“If it’s dragons, what could I learn? I’m an engineer. I work with facts.”

Alain pondered that. “Then why do you not seek facts about dragons?”

She did not answer for a moment. “Very good point. All right. I’ll go, too. Now, this is going to sound weird. I can’t believe that I’m saying it. But…you’re the only person on this train that I trust.”

Alain felt his lips twitching, as if the sides wanted to curl upwards. But that would form a…smile? Unthinkable. He had to work to avoid showing his reaction. “You trust me?”

“I told you it was weird. I don’t know any of these other Mechanics. That shouldn’t matter, but there’s been some strange stuff happening.”

“It is not weird,” Alain objected. “You do not know the Mechanics. I am a friend.”

“Yeah.” He could see the flash of teeth in her smile. “Would you come along? Down to the wreckage?” Mari added quickly.

“Me?”

“Yes. Because I trust you, and because you actually know stuff about dragons, and, heavens above, if you’d told me a month ago that I’d be saying this I would have— Well, I wouldn’t have answered, because I wouldn’t have talked to you.”

“Nor would I have talked to you.” Alain looked toward the Mechanics, considering what Mari had said. The elders would have warned him not to trust her, that she was planning some trick, perhaps to get him alone among the Mechanics and then strike. Long years of training, of being told wisdom, warred with the experiences of the last few weeks. “Master Mechanic Mari, you are a friend, and you ask for help. I will do this.”

“Thanks. You’re a good friend.” She hesitated again. “You do understand, I’m only a friend. Nothing more.”

“More?

“Nothing more. Just remember that. Now, don’t use my name around anyone else. Just call me Lady Mechanic. Would you be willing to carry my tool kit down?”

It was Alain’s turn to hesitate. “Mechanic tools? I have been told many warnings about those. I was told they were dangerous. You said they could be weapons.”

“If you misuse them, they can be dangerous,” Mari admitted. “And they can be deliberately used as weapons in an emergency. But they are perfectly safe to carry. I swear it. I need to have a reason for you to be with me. I’ll tell them that I got injured in Ringhmon and need someone to carry my bag down the cliff for me. The other Mechanics know I was at the City Hall fire, so they’ll believe me. I’ll say that I’m paying a common to haul my stuff. Mechanics do that when we need manual laborers. Understand?”

“You were not really hurt in the fire?”

“No.” She sounded pleased. “It’s nice of you to ask again, though.”

“Your fellow Mechanics will not think it odd that you would not just leave your tools near what you call the locomotive?”

Mari paused before answering. “It’s hard to explain. It’s not just that the tools are really expensive because so few are made, or that apprentices get it drilled into them that losing a tool is a sign of incompetence. Those tools represent who we are in the same way that your…skills…represent you.”

Alain nodded. “I understand the importance that shadows can attach to illusions, but wisdom would say that what represents a Mechanic, or any other shadow, is what is found within them.”

“Um, yeah,” Mari admitted. “Maybe we’re not all that wise in wanting our tools close at hand. But a tool you don’t have is a tool you can’t use, so it’s more complicated than a matter of self-image. Anyway, that means everyone will think it’s perfectly normal for me to want my tools with me.”

“Then I will do this.”

For the second time that night, he saw her smile. “Thanks.”

A few minutes later a group of the Mechanics detached themselves and headed for the cliff edge. Mari followed, beckoning to Alain. By the time they reached the edge, the other Mechanics were already climbing down toward the patch of beach dimly visible below, now choked with tangled wreckage. Mari offered him the bag she had been carrying, and Alain, after a moment’s hesitation, took it. She smiled encouragingly at him, an expression which almost immediately changed to intent worry as she turned away. Then Mari started down, moving cautiously from rock to rock.

Alain looked downward to the barely seen jumble of broken wood. Then he gazed out to sea along the dark lines of waves rolling toward the shore. If a dragon had done this it might still be lurking nearby, in water shallow enough to stand in. It might attack again, this time rending not wood but anything else it encountered. Alain tried to judge his strength and the power to be found in the area around them. I probably could not defeat a dragon big enough to do that kind of damage, even at my best.

But Mari has asked for my help. She seems confused and uncertain.

I want to help her. I had thought that helping her would remove my need to help her again, but the more I help Mari, the more I want to help her. I erred a great deal in my assumption. But that error is not of importance. My road leads down this cliff tonight. I do not care if it is wisdom or not.

He took another look at Mechanic Mari, clambering stubbornly downward, and began climbing down after her.

Mari started to wonder if she was actually having another kind of nightmare. As she went farther down the cliff, the rocks kept getting looser and harder to get good hold on. Lower still her hands and feet started slipping where spray flung up from the sea had wetted the rocks. Beyond that, she started to get into the tangle of fallen pieces of trestle, mighty pillars of wood which had been twisted and splintered into jagged spears. Worse yet, thoughts about the Mage kept distracting her. A near-death experience had led her to do what she had absolutely, positively vowed not to do: reach out to Alain as a companion again.

Just a trusted companion. I’m a big girl. I’m not a slave to emotions. My feelings caught me by surprise, that’s all. I was scared. I was vulnerable. I felt sorry for him. He had saved me. So it wasn’t really real feelings, just gratitude and stress and all. I can handle this, get to know him and find out everything that’s wrong with him. He may be a Mage, but he’s also a guy, so he has to have plenty of stuff wrong with him. I’ll learn what his flaws are, and then I can put him in perspective.

Unless he turns out to be as good as he seems. Then I’m in trouble.

At last she ruthlessly blocked out all thoughts of anything but the climb down, until Mari found herself taking a final step down onto a small area on the beach where she could stand.

As beaches went, it wasn’t anything to inspire songs. Small and covered with pebbles instead of sand, the only thing good thing was that it offered decent footing in the areas not covered by wreckage or by large rocks which had fallen from above.

The other Mechanics were already clambering over the wreckage, muttering to each other. One pulled out a knife and thrust it into a broken piece of wood. “Solid here, too. No rot,” he called.

“The foundations are still firm,” another announced.

“No fire damage visible,” a third declared.

Mari watched for a moment, waiting for Alain. None of the other Mechanics took notice of her. They all seemed to know each other, and most seemed to be from Ringhmon. The only Mechanic on the train with whom Mari had gotten on halfway familiar terms was the engineer, who had stayed up on top of the cliff with his locomotive.

“Obvious sabotage,” a Senior Mechanic was concluding, his voice angry. He kicked at a shattered pole. “These were broken not far above ground by something pulling at them from seaward.”

“By what?” a woman Senior Mechanic demanded. “This has to be the work of Mages. No one else has the resources and the cold blooded deceit to carry it off. But how did they do it?”

Mari spoke finally, her voice carrying over the group. “Wouldn’t it have been easier for Mages simply to set fire to the trestle?”

The Senior Mechanic gave her a disdainful look. “How would they have built a fire down here with that salt spray wetting everything?”

“They’re supposed to be able to produce heat by some means,” Mari said. She couldn’t have been the only Mechanic present who had seen the results of that, and she wanted to see how these Mechanics reacted to her carefully phrased suggestion.

The woman Senior Mechanic shook her head, the gesture aimed as much at Mari as at her statement. “No, child. That’s just a parlor trick. It has no practical use. You’re that sixteen-year-old, aren’t you?”

“Eighteen-year-old,” Mari corrected, realizing that the correction didn’t sound as impressive as she would have hoped.

“Of course,” the woman Senior Mechanic said. Turning away from Mari, she began conferring with the male Senior Mechanic and some others in a low voice.

Mari, trying to control her anger at being so summarily put down, noticed a couple of the other Mechanics frowning toward the group including the two Senior Mechanics. Another one gave Mari a what-can-you-do sort of look before going back to examining the wreckage.

“Your elders?” someone murmured very softly near her in an emotionless voice.

Mari turned to see that Mage Alain had reached the beach and was eyeing her with his usual dispassionate expression. “My superiors, yes. How could you tell?” she added dryly before pointing toward the wreckage. “Well?” she whispered. “Give me some facts to work with.”

The Mage ran his eyes over the mess. “If it were a dragon, it would need to use its hind legs to do the heaviest work. Those are much stronger than its forelegs.”

“Really?” Mari nodded, trying not to think about the absurdity of seriously considering facts about dragons. “Then do you think it would have had to brace itself, maybe with its front limbs, and push back against the bases of the poles? Wouldn’t that have buried it when the wreckage fell?”

“Dragons can be very swift, and they are very tough.”

“I don’t think I want to meet one. Have you?”

“Yes. In my training. It was…” Alain paused. “Interesting.”

“I bet it was.” Mari beckoned him to follow and led the way through an ugly mess of splintered wood and bent metal until they found a sort of open area framed by wreckage. Here they could view the cliff face as long as they didn’t try to stand up. She pulled out a hand light and clicked it on, causing the Mage to utter a sudden low gasp. Smiling to herself at having impressed someone who could walk through imaginary holes in walls, Mari ran the light across the rock. “Look. These abrasions.” She pointed at scars on the rock.

“Those could be claw marks,” the Mage agreed cautiously.

Another voice intruded. “Did you find something?” It was one of the sympathetic Mechanics. He gave both Mari and Alain curious looks.

Mari nodded, then gestured toward Alain. “A common I hired to carry my tools down here. I got hurt at Ringhmon.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about that. So what’s back here?”

Mari pointed to the rock face. “This.”

The other Mechanic, ignoring Alain now, crouched to look. “Those are fresh.” He looked up and around at nearby wreckage. “And they weren’t caused by any of the wreckage hitting the cliff. Good job, Mechanic.”

Mari smiled at him. “Master Mechanic, actually.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

“Not a problem. Do you mind me asking how you guys managed to get your car uncoupled from the train and stopped?”

The other Mechanic blew out a gust of air with a relieved expression. “Dumb luck, I guess. Our two Senior Mechanics happened to be out on that little shelf between cars, so when they felt the train stopping they figured they’d better plan for the worst and make sure we stayed safe.”

Mari’s eyes rested on the cliff face. “Amazing luck. Of course, the engineer and I might well have been dead.”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to minimize that.”

“Why would they have been out there this late?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they like each other and needed some privacy.”

“That’s a scary thought.” The other Mechanic grinned as Mari jerked a thumb in the direction of the group still conferring together. “Should we tell them about these abrasions, or do they already know everything that needs to be known?”

The other Mechanic rolled his eyes. “You know the type, I guess. Go through the motions of researching the problem when they’ve already decided what the problem is and what they’re going to do.”

“I usually end up having problems with Mechanics like that.”

“Don’t we all.” He gave her a searching look. “It sounds like you’ve heard what we were told about you.”

“No, but I’ve got some pretty good guesses. Unprofessional? Inexperienced? Out of her depth?”

“Loose cannon,“ the other Mechanic added. He looked unhappy this time. “Not very professional of them to attack your qualifications that way, if you ask me. The academy wouldn’t have certified you if you hadn’t passed the exams. Who was your primary instructor at the academy?“

“Professor S'san,“ Mari said.

“S'san?“ The Mechanic's eyes widened. “If you got her approval, you're one of the best. Don’t worry about those Senior Mechanics. We think they got sent to Ringhmon because no one else would have them. I’ll tell them what you found. My name’s Talis, by the way.” He scrambled off through the wreckage.

Mari became aware that the Mage was watching her. “What?”

“He seemed like…a friend toward you,” the Mage said in a voice that as usual didn’t reveal much.

“I suppose. Nothing like you, though.” Mari rubbed her forehead, wondering when her head would stop aching. Was it her imagination that her last statement had caused the Mage to relax a bit? “But he acted like you weren’t even there. Like you didn’t exist.”

“He believes me to be one of the commons,” the Mage pointed out.

Mari stared into space. “So he ignored you. Because commons don’t count to Mechanics.”

“Or to Mages.”

“I do that, too.”

“Not to me.”

She glared at him. “You know what I mean!”

The Mage regarded her. “I have been thinking on this. You and I have been taught to think in a certain way of those who do not belong to our Guilds. I know you to be a shadow, one with no significance. You know me to be a Mage, which you were told are but frauds and liars.”

Mari looked out to sea, through the tangle of wreckage. “And if what we were taught about each other is wrong, maybe what we were taught about commons is wrong. Or do you think what we were taught is wrong?”

He stayed silent for a moment. “I think that there are questions which what I was taught do not answer. I did not even know some of these questions existed until I met you.”

“That’s funny. Pretty much the same thing happened to me. And now that I have those questions, you’re the only person I can talk to about them.”

“Would another Mechanic have done what you did at the caravan?” Alain asked abruptly. “Insisted I come with them?”

“No,” Mari said, reluctant to admit that but not wanting to lie to Alain. “Even if they hadn’t shot you, they would have just run off in another direction and left you. Would another Mage have reacted the way you did?”

“I do not know. Some other Mages might have. If it was you. You…are different.”

“I hope that’s a compliment,” she said dryly. “There’s nothing all that special about me.” Mari closed her eyes, feeling a sudden urge to admit something she had not been able to talk about for years. “My parents were commons. Both of them.”

“Were?” the Mage asked. His voice actually seemed to hold a little sympathy. “I am…” Alain struggled, as if trying to say sorry but the effort was too much for him.

“That’s all right. I know what you mean. Thank you for trying to say it. But they’re not dead.” She turned her head and studied the marks on the cliff face as if something new could be seen there. “Might as well be. After I tested as having the skills and was taken to the Mechanics Guild for schooling, I never heard from them again. After awhile I stopped writing, too.” And it doesn’t hurt anymore, it doesn’t hurt anymore, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Silence stretched, punctuated by vague sounds from the other Mechanics discussing the wreckage and the low, constant boom of the surf against the rocky shore. Finally she heard the Mage speak again, his voice clearly revealing emotion this time. “My own parents are truly dead. They were commons who lived on a ranch near the southern edge of the Bright Sea, north of Ihris. Raiders killed them after I had gone to study at the Mage Guild Hall in Ihris. They were shadows, but…I cannot stop believing they mattered.”

“I’m very sorry,” Mari said. She looked at Alain. “I don’t know just how we ended up becoming friends, but I’m glad for it, and I’m glad you think of me as a friend you can say things to. You’ve never been able to tell anyone that, have you? I know that feeling.”

“I have been taught that loneliness is all there is. That each of us is alone. Perhaps that is wrong as well.” The Mage couldn’t bow in the midst of the wreckage, but he inclined his head toward her. “I am also…glad, Lady Mechanic.”

She smiled. “You might try sounding like you’re glad.”

“I thought I was.”

“Not even close,” Mari said.

A scuffing sound marked the return of Mechanic Talis. He gave Mari a rueful look. “They don’t think it’s worth looking at.”

“Did they ask you who found it?”

Talis made a face. “Yes.”

“I’m sure that helped them decide it wasn’t worth looking at.” Mari thought a few dark thoughts aimed at superiors with brains of clay, then tilted her head outward. “Fine. Let’s go.”

But as she started to climb out of the wreckage near the cliff, Mari saw the Senior Mechanic who had disdained her suggestion about Mage abilities standing near the edge of the water with a far-talker. Mari motioned Alain to stay out of sight, not wanting to be accused of letting a common see a far-talker in action even though she was far enough away that whatever the other Mechanic was saying couldn’t be made out over the sound of the surf.

Then the Senior Mechanic lowered the far-talker, her voice ringing out in disgust loud enough for Mari to hear clearly. “Not a thing! This piece of junk can’t get any signal through at all from down here.”

“It’s too new,” one of the other Mechanics noted. “If we used one twenty or thirty years older, maybe— ”

“Fifty years older would be more like it! Do we have any working older far-talkers down here? Anybody? No. Isn’t that great! I’ll just have to try again once we get up the cliff.” She went to the rocks they had come down and started climbing.

Mari looked over at Mechanic Talis, who had paused next to her. “In another few decades, portable far-talkers will be too heavy to lift and they won’t work at all,” Mari observed.

“I worry that’s the trend,” Talis replied.

“It is the trend.” Mari gestured toward the east. “A few months before I graduated from the academy, Professor S'san took me to a sealed storeroom.” S’san had refused to say where they were going or why, and Mari strongly suspected that what she was doing wasn’t permitted, based on the number of locks on the nondescript door keeping that room secure. “Inside I was shown a shelf of far-talkers. On the right end was a far-talker like we use today, about as long and thick as a lower arm, with an extendable antenna. On the left end…” She paused at the memory. “A far-talker that seemed to have been machined or molded from one piece of material. I’m not sure what. It was the size of my palm. It weighed less than a deck of cards. And according to the specifications listed below it, it had several times the range of our current far-talkers and battery life good for days of continuous use.”

Talis stared at her. “That sounds impossible. That small, that light, and that kind of performance? How could you even build that?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t look like you could take it apart, so I don’t know how it was built. And between that ancient one on the left and a current far-talker on the right were a series of far-talkers, each model larger and heavier than the one that came before, and each one with worse performance.”

“Mari, blazes, you know what that has to mean?”

“Yes. And it’s not just far-talkers. Complicated devices like electronics are regressing, getting less sophisticated and less reliable. Most Mechanics don’t realize it, because it’s happening too slowly, but seeing all of those together brought it home.”

“Like we’re forgetting how to build certain things, or losing the ability to build them,” Talis whispered, his eyes on the Senior Mechanics climbing the cliff. “The rugged, simple things like locomotives are still working well, but we’ve all seen the problems with complex stuff. And those problems feel like they’re getting worse at an accelerating rate, as if it’s all falling off a cliff.” He turned to stare at her. “The Guild has to be working on it. Our leaders can’t be ignoring whatever’s causing the problem. The Senior Mechanics can be hidebound and stupid, but this is too important to ignore. How old was that first far-talker model?”

Mari shook her head. “There weren’t any dates on any of them. I recognized the current one, and the one before that because I’ve seen a couple of those that are somehow still working, but there’s no telling how old that first one was.”

“Something’s broken,” Talis whispered. “What do we do?”

And he looked at Mari.

“I…don’t know yet,” she said. What was the matter with people? Talis had a couple of decades of experience on her, and he was looking to her for an answer to this? Why did you show me that display, Professor S’san? You wouldn’t tell me. “Draw your own conclusions, Mari.” For once couldn’t you feed me one blasted answer, so I’d know what to tell people like Talis?

“Keep me in mind,” Talis said, then headed toward the cliff.

Mari waved to Alain to let him know he could come on, then started ahead herself. By the time she and Alain had worked clear of the wreckage near the cliff, most of the other Mechanics had already started the steep climb. Mari felt a light touch as she stared at the pile of rocks she would have to climb up and looked over to see Alain pointing at the places where the timbers anchoring the trestle had been broken. Mari bent to look closely. The impressions forced deeply into the wood weren’t of rope or wire. They seemed to have been made by gigantic claws. How did the other Mechanics miss this? Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they chose to miss it. Maybe they didn’t see anything that didn’t match their own predetermined theories. “I guess we can’t rule out anything at this point, can we?”

Alain looked thoughtful. “One possibility can be eliminated. The rulers of Ringhmon could not have done it in revenge for what happened to their Hall of City Government. They would not have had time to get here before the Mechanic train.”

“True.” Mari felt a tightness in her chest. Unless somebody helping the rulers of Ringhmon had far-talkers. Unless the wreck had been set up by some of the people on the train with me, in the last car. Was that why the Guild cargo shipment from Ringhmon was cancelled? Too valuable to lose while disposing of an inconvenient Master Mechanic with a big mouth and too much knowledge of things people weren’t supposed to know? I need to ask some questions where no one else can hear.

She nodded to Alain. “Give me a good head start up the cliff,” she whispered.

He nodded back, not asking the question in his eyes.

Mari walked to stand beside Talis, the only other Mechanic still on the beach, and waved upward. “Shall we?”

Talis didn’t appear thrilled at the prospect. “It didn’t look as bad coming down, did it? Maybe because we couldn’t see the bottom too well. But that moon’s lighting up the top just fine.”

They started up, climbing close to each other. Mari tried to think through what to ask, wishing she hadn’t already been ordered to say nothing about possible non Guild Mechanics. She couldn’t mention that unless she already knew someone would be willing to talk to her. But that left a big topic available for opening a conversation. “Talis, have you ever seen a Mage do something that you couldn’t explain? Something real?”

The other Mechanic stopped moving for a moment, his face gone to stone, then did a search of the immediate surroundings to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Put it out of your mind, Master Mechanic Mari. It didn’t happen.”

“But if I saw— ”

“No. I told you. You saw nothing.”

Mari felt her temper rising. “Facts cannot be ignored.”

Talis shook his head. “There are facts and there are facts. There is truth and then there’s truth. As far as the Guild is concerned, whatever you thought you saw, you didn’t see. No one ever sees a Mage actually do something. That’s all there is to it.”

She stared at him. “How can we follow such a policy?”

“I don’t know what the Guild’s thinking is, but you and I don’t have any alternative! Do you want to be kicked out of the Guild and imprisoned at Longfalls? That’s your choice. Beat your head against a wall and accomplish nothing, or keep your head down and continue doing good work as a Mechanic.”

Mari looked at the rocks before her, silently absorbing the information. “Do all Mechanics know this?” All but me, anyway.

Talis shrugged as best he could while climbing. “Not until they get out in the field. After that, most know something to a greater or lesser extent, depending on experience. Some are so diligent about avoiding Mages that they never learn anything to shake their confidence that Mages are total frauds. Then you’ve got the oldtimers like Saco up there,” he pointed up at one of the Senior Mechanics far above them, “who I think have honestly convinced themselves that they’ve never seen anything. Their brains are like lance-thick armor plate. Totally impervious to anything they don’t want to see.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“How do you tell somebody something that no one’s supposed to know? Something that isn’t even supposed to be real? Besides, I think most Mechanics learn like I did, by running into something we couldn’t explain and then when we asked, being firmly told to forget about it.” Talis paused, then spoke forcefully. “And like you’re learning about it. For your own sake, Master Mechanic, forget about it.”

“Thanks. I do appreciate the advice.” Mari stopped short of saying she would follow it. There was so much to take in, so many things that clashed with what she had been taught. Did you set me up, Professor S’san? Trained me not to settle for easy answers, insisted on the importance of truth in our work and our actions, and then sent me off to tangle with a system which denies truth?

I can’t blame her for who I am, though. If Professor S’san helped make me who I am, all she did was sand off the rough edges. I was already me when I got to the academy.

Me. I’m one girl. What can I do alone? Maybe everyone looks to me for answers, but if it were a matter of going against the Guild, no one would follow me.

A rock rolled behind her and she looked to see Alain laboring up the slope beneath them. One might.

How can I do that to the first friend I’ve found since leaving Caer Lyn? A guy who might even be…no, no, no. That’s not going to happen.

Especially since I don’t know what might take place in Dorcastle if I do make it there. Is whoever did this planning something else?

Is whoever did this after me for things I haven’t even done yet?