The Dragons of Dorcastle

Chapter Three

Mari’s heart jumped at the Mage’s words. Her right hand went to the pistol she had holstered, then she took a breath to calm herself. All right. Time to go. Which way? “There,” she said to the Mage as she pointed. “Farther into the heights.” She had stopped questioning their weird alliance, which after all was going to be as temporary as she could manage. The Mage was unnerving, with his emotionless voice and face and his strange attitudes. But the fact that these so called bandits were still chasing them made teaming up with him a simple matter of survival, even if she didn’t feel responsible for his fate.

The Mage gave her one of his impassive glances. “To the west? The ground is more difficult that way and the original attack came from that direction.”

“Exactly! They’ll think we’re running in panic and taking the easiest route, which is in the other direction.”

“And you always take the more difficult route,” the Mage said.

“Well…yes.” She hadn’t expected a Mage to remember that. “Because it makes sense this time. Besides, it’ll be easier to stay hidden up there.” Mari paused, thinking of how Mage Alain had fallen after whatever he had done to the bandits on the ledge. “Can you manage it?”

What would she do if he couldn’t? Leave him? No. Nobody gets abandoned. Not by me. Not even one of them. Touching him earlier to help the Mage to his feet had felt…peculiar, after all that she had heard about Mages. But if he needed assistance again, she would grit her teeth and do it.

Despite his usually successful attempts to hide his emotions, Mage Alain gave her a look which communicated a trace of wounded pride. For that brief moment he seemed more human, more a boy close to her own age. “Of course I can manage.”

She lurched to her feet, wishing tools weighed a lot less. Leaving them behind was unthinkable, though. Being a Master Mechanic had qualified her to have one of the limited number of portable far-talkers. It was in her pack, but the range on the device was so limited that Mari figured she would have to be within less than a day’s march of Ringhmon before she could use her far-talker to contact her Guild for help. Until then it was simply a heavy object in her pack.

“Why do you not leave your treasure behind?” The Mage’s bland tone made the question sound as if the answer held no interest to him.

“Treasure?” She gave him a baffled glance, then realized the Mage was looking at her pack. “This isn’t treasure. My tools are in here.”

“Tools?”

“Mechanics use tools. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”

“No.”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Mari said, wondering if she should be explaining tools at all to a Mage. “But a Mechanic never loses or abandons her tools. It’s one of the most important rules of my Guild.” Taking a deep breath, Mari started off, scrambling along the slope at an angle until it merged with another rise before climbing. Mari didn’t know why the young Mage was so tired. He looked strong and healthy, even tough, but he had almost collapsed after whatever he had done to take out those bandits, so it must be related to that. But how? The engineer in her kept puzzling over the answer, a welcome distraction from the fear she still felt.

Despite his obvious weariness, though, the Mage stayed right behind her, displaying a stubborn determination to keep up that she had to admire.

They rolled over another, higher crest, once again blocking their view of the way they had come. Mari tried to swallow and then coughed, trying to muffle the sound with both hands over her mouth. How far into these hills would the bandits search for them? How close behind were they now? “Did you see any sign of them, Mage Alain?”

He shook his head. “I saw nothing of the bandits. I heard a few faint cries, but they seemed far distant.”

Maybe she had made the right decisions. I’m only eighteen years old, and ten years of studying engineering isn’t exactly the best preparation for running for your life from bandits. Knowing how to fix a steam engine isn’t likely to be too useful out here.

The Mage had approved of her first decision, and left other decisions to her, so he must think she knew what she was doing. She wished she had the same confidence in herself.Why had she been sent to Ringhmon this way? Sent alone on her first contract, contrary to normal procedures, and told it was too urgent to wait for the winds to shift so she could take a ship from the Empire to Ringhmon’s tiny coastal port. With the Empire and Ringhmon not at war at the moment, that would have been the safest way to travel. If this contract was so blasted important, if getting her there as fast as possible were so critical, then why had they put her into this kind of danger?

And why had Professor S’san, who had always shown the greatest interest in Mari at the Mechanics Guild Academy in Palandur, insisted on giving her as a graduation gift a very expensive and hard-to-acquire semi-automatic pistol? Every weapon and every machine was made by hand, their quantities strictly limited by the Mechanics Guild, and the allotted production of pistols like Mari’s was only a few a year. What had worried S’san enough to justify that gift?

As much as she had always chafed at authority, Mari found herself wishing that a more experienced Mechanic was with her. Someone who might know what to do and how to survive.

Of course, if there had been another Mechanic with her, she never would have spoken to the Mage. She surely would have been overruled on telling the Mage to come with her.

And Mage Alain would have died, and she would have been captured by those bandits on the ledge.

Not a better outcome.

At least for the moment they seemed to be safe. Mari tried to draw in a deep breath but ended up hacking painfully. Her throat was a dry wasteland to match the ground they were surrounded by. “We’re going to need water soon,” she croaked.

The Mage nodded. “Do even those from the stars need water then?” he asked in that empty of feeling voice.

She gave him an annoyed look, unable to tell if he was joking or giving her a hard time. “Mechanics have special skills, but we’re still as human as anyone else when it comes to things like food and water. Don’t Mages need water?”

“Of course. We also share those same needs.” The Mage appeared thoughtful for a moment, as if recalling a memory. “Perhaps all people came from the stars.”

“Very funny.”

“Funny?” The Mage asked as if not knowing what the word meant.

He couldn’t be that cut off from emotions, could he? Mari wanted to snarl a reply, but her dry throat caught and she coughed again.

The Mage considered her, then spoke slowly. “There is a place nearby where water lies.”

Mari felt hope flare as her head came up. “Where?”

“The caravan.”

The hope vanished like a burst bubble. “Are you crazy, Mage? We can’t go back there.”

“Not at this moment. But you said they expect us to flee in panic. This is so. They will not expect us to stay near the caravan, to creep down when opportunity offers and find water there.”

Mari took shallow breaths, lost in thought as she considered the idea and how dry her mouth felt. The plan was insane, but somehow the totally emotionless way in which the Mage had outlined it made it seem almost possible. “It’s our only chance, isn’t it?”

“I can see no other action which would offer any chance.”

She could be too impulsive. Her teachers had warned her of it many times, but her impulsive decisions so far today had kept her and the Mage alive. “Then let’s go a little higher up before we start bearing back toward the pass. We’ll wait until it gets dark. Hopefully the bandits will be done looting the caravan by then.”

“The bandits did not seem concerned with loot,” the Mage pointed out again.

Mari nodded wearily. “That’s right. They blew up the front wagons. Why destroy loot? Even if they wanted me, why throw away the chance to pick up some loot on the side? And those weapons. And the explosives. How could any caravan carry enough loot to pay back those expenses? Mage Alain, I don’t expect you’ve priced out the cost of repeating rifles and bullets, but the Empire itself wouldn’t field an attack force like that unless it had a very good reason. There was an army’s worth of rifles there, and a treasure chest’s worth of gold used up in the bullets they’ve already fired today.”

“So you said. Capturing you must have been worth such a cost to them.”

Mari’s laugh once again turned into a choking cough. “Me? I’m skilled at what I do, but I’m not that conceited.”

The Mage watched her intently. “Perhaps your value is greater than you know, greater than any treasure spent in pursuit of you.”

The sort of statement any girl wanted to hear from a guy, and she had to hear it from a Mage with an expressionless face and a toneless voice. “I’m not that special. I have special talents, and the job in Ringhmon will be worth a lot to my Guild, but—” Mari realized that the Mage was now staring at her. “What?”

“Do you know of foresight?”

“Foresight? You mean fortune-telling?” Mari asked, not bothering to hide her automatic scorn.

“No,” the Mage replied with no sign of being offended. But then he wasn’t showing much sign of any feelings, so that didn’t mean anything. “True foresight tells what will happen and cannot be summoned reliably, nor is it easy to understand what can be seen or heard.” The Mage was looking directly at her, his expression somehow serious despite the lack of visible emotion. “I have developed a small gift of foresight. Some new danger awaits you in Ringhmon.”

Mari felt herself stiffening, rubbing her left arm slightly against her body so that she could feel the pistol resting in its shoulder holster under her jacket. “Please tell me you’re not threatening me.” Every warning she had ever been given about Mages came back with renewed force.

He gazed at her for a long moment before replying. “No. This danger does not come from me.”

Of course, Mari thought. It was a come-on. The Mage wanted her to offer something in exchange for more information. The oldest con game in the book, and he actually had the nerve to pull it while they were being chased by bandits. “What is it you want? How much money would it take for you to see more about this danger you claim I face?”

The Mage’s expression didn’t waver. “No sum of money or other favor would make a difference. What my foresight provided has no value to me. What little I know I will tell you.”

Surely he wanted money. Her Guild seniors had never wavered in their assessment of Mages. Money-grubbing frauds, fakes, liars, never to be trusted or spoken to. Or touched. How many rules had she broken today? “You don’t want any payment?”

He shook his head. “You made no contract for my services. Warning you may fall under my contract with the owners of the caravan. Either way, you owe me nothing, and I do not care for money.”

“How can you be so cold-blooded about everything?”

She could have sworn that one corner of the Mage’s mouth twitched upward for just an instant as he gestured toward the sun beating down upon them. “I am actually quite warm at the moment.”

Even though delivered in a voice without any feeling, that sign of humanity, or an actual sense of humor, caused Mari to forget her anger. There really was a boy behind that face Mage Alain used as a mask. He seemed absolutely sincere, and his refusal to consider payment was the opposite of what Mari had been told of Mages by her Guild. This Mage Alain was weird, but he didn’t seem to be evil. “So, all you know is that there is some danger for me in Ringhmon.”

“I heard words that hold no sense to me. Beware that in Ringhmon which thinks but does not live.”

Mari stopped breathing for a moment, certain that she had betrayed her shock. She inhaled slowly, trying to get herself back under control, wondering how a Mage could have acquired knowledge of the secret contract for which she had been ordered to Ringhmon. “Why are you saying that?”

“It is what I heard. I do not know the meaning. I know of nothing which thinks but does not live.”

“Not even any Mechanic device?” Mari pressed.

“I know nothing of any Mechanic device of any kind.” The Mage paused to look at her, his eyes the only thing alive in his face. “I have been in a Mage Guild Hall since I was five years old. There I was told that all Mechanic devices were tricks.”

Was he lying? He had to be lying. But why? And why declare he knew nothing more if the Mage was trying to extort something from her? “That’s what I was told about Mages, that everything you did was fake.”

Mage Alain appeared to think on that for a moment before answering. “We were both misinformed, then.”

He wasn’t making a joke this time. Or was he? Mari couldn’t tell. She wasn’t that good at understanding boys, who weren’t nearly as easy to figure out as a balky steam locomotive or fluid dynamics equations, but this Mage seemed far harder to understand than the apprentices and full Mechanics she had grown up around. “I can’t figure you out,” she said. “What do you want?”

“What I want does not matter.” He said it mechanically, if that description could ever fit a Mage, the words coming out as if they had been drilled into him.

Remembering some of the harsher harassment she had endured in her Mechanics Guild apprenticeship, Mari wondered what things had been like for this Mage. What had been done to him to make him seem so inhuman? “Why can’t you just act like everyone else?”

He gave her an inscrutable look. “I am not like everyone else.”

For some reason that sounded sad to her. “I ask your pardon, Mage.” The formal words almost stuck in her parched throat, but Mari forced them out, seeing real surprise flashing for a moment in the Mage’s eyes in response. “I’m a Mechanic, but I’m not closed-minded.” Which has got me in trouble already more times than I can count. “Thank you for your warning.”

The Mage shook his head. “Thank…you,” he repeated, the words sounding almost rusty as they came out, an intentness again showing in his eyes. “Thank you,” he repeated in a murmur to himself, a hint of understanding appearing in his voice. “I…remember. Asha.”

“Asha?”

“Long ago. I do not remember what to say.” He gave her a look in which no feeling could be seen. “What do I say?”

“Um…you say…you’re welcome,” Mari replied, feeling oddly anguished by the Mage’s reactions.

“Yes.” He inclined his head toward her. “You…are…welcome, Master Mechanic Mari.”

Mari averted her eyes, not wanting him to see her feelings, and wondering who he might once have been before the Mages got their hands on him. But now he was a Mage, too, and there was nothing she could do about that. “Um…let’s go, just in case those bandits are still tracking us. We’ve rested as long as we should.”

The rocks on the heights kept slipping under her feet, the sun beat down mercilessly, their path seemed to always lead either up a steep slope or down a steeper slope, and her pack felt as though it weighed more with every step.

The dryness in her throat had become a constant source of distress. But she kept moving, trying to pick a path that kept a screen of rocks or ridges between them and where the bandits might still be climbing up. A small ravine opened before them, leading down and back toward the site of the attack on the caravan, so Mari eased carefully down the walls of the gap and followed it until it ended in a sheer wall. Muttering curses, she climbed, her pack seeming to be trying to pull her down with evil intent.

It almost succeeded, as a handhold crumbled and Mari began sliding downward past the Mage, who simply watched her falling. “Help!” Mari got out as she slid past. The Mage just stared again for a long, heart-stopping moment, then at the last possible instant shot out an arm to lock his hand on her wrist.

She could swear he looked remorseful for an instant, then the Mage mask was back in place. He waited until she had a good grip on the stone again, then let go of her wrist as quickly as if the touch burned.

Mari didn’t know what to think of this boy. Part of her felt sorry for him, part was grateful for his aid, but part of her remained worried and suspicious. Why can’t he show what he’s feeling? Does he really feel anything? Why didn’t he help me right away? How could he have known anything about my contract in Ringhmon? “Thanks.”

“You…are…welcome.” The Mage had a far off look in his eyes. “Help,” he whispered to himself, as if trying to remember what the word meant.

The afternoon wore on as they labored over the heights back toward where the front of the caravan had been, the sun slowly sinking in a red haze born of the fine dust thrown up by the battle, dust which would take hours yet to settle. Mari finally made her way along a narrow rift that gave out on a rock screened ledge.

From here they could look down into the pass and see the wreckage of the caravan spread out beneath them. Mari couldn’t help wondering if some of the bandits had used this spot as a firing position earlier in the day. If they had, they hadn’t left any brass lying around from bullets that had been fired, but even bandits would want the discount on reloads offered by the Mechanics Guild. The sun had sunk far enough that the entire pass was now in shade, providing a small measure of relief from the heat that had been plaguing them. Groups of figures in the robes of desert dwellers could be seen moving around the pass, gathering up swords and crossbows and ransacking wagons but apparently not taking much from them.

“What are they doing?” Mari whispered.

The Mage studied the scene for a while. “They are trying to create the illusion that the caravan was looted without actually looting it. See, they’re setting fire to that wagon after pulling out the goods within, but the goods are so close they will also burn.”

Mari slid down behind a rock and tried not to think about water. Her shirt under her jacket was soaked with sweat, but she was determined not to remove that jacket. It was a symbol of who she was, of all she had done to earn her status, and it also felt like protection, even though the leather wouldn’t stop much. Protection against bandits, and protection against this strange boy even though he had shown no signs of threatening her. “We’ll have to wait until dark to have any chance of getting down there without being detected.”

“Can you conceal yourself?” the Mage asked.

“What?”

“Can you conceal yourself?” the Mage repeated. “Use a spell to make yourself hard to see?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Mari said. But the Mage appeared to be perfectly serious. “No. I’ve got dark clothes on. That’s as good as it gets.”

“Then I should go alone. I can hide my presence, though with effort, and have a better chance of succeeding.”

Mari regarded him. She was less concerned about being spotted than she was about physically collapsing during a climb down from here. That would make so much noise the bandits would hear it for certain. But if she stayed up here, the Mage would have a free hand down there. “How can I trust you, Mage Alain?” she said bluntly.

The Mage stared outward. “I would not expect you to take the word of a Mage.”

The word of a Mage. She had heard that phrase often. Mechanics, and common folk, used it to mean something totally worthless.

“I cannot think of any assurance I could offer you,” Mage Alain added.

“You’re telling me there’s nothing that could make me trust you?” Mari asked.

“No, I am saying that there is nothing I could say that could make you trust me.”

She got it, then. He was telling her to judge him by his actions. But even those actions could have been driven by a desire to survive rather than good will toward her, which would make betraying her an easy thing for the Mage to contemplate. “I need to hear some words, anyway. Just give me one reason to trust you.”

The Mage gazed back without visible emotion. “I want to…help.” He said the word again as if it were an unfamiliar thing, and she remembered his hesitation when she had been falling earlier, as if he were unsure what “help” meant.

Mari nodded, trying not to show the wave of pity that hit her. “All right, I can understand wanting to help someone. But why do you want to help me? Our Guilds have been enemies for their entire histories, as far as I know.”

“I do not understand it myself.” The young Mage looked down. “You saved my life. When I was ready to stand at the wagon and die because I could not think of anything else to do, you made me come with you. If you had not led us up the side of the pass I would have passed from this dream into the next already.”

Her memories of those moments were obscured behind veils of fear, but Mari remembered the Mage seeming lost and indecisive, having to be ordered to follow her. “I thought you said dying didn’t matter. That everything is an illusion. Why do you care about living now?”

The Mage almost frowned as he pondered the question. She was sure of it, even though the expression barely appeared. Finally he looked back at her. “There are many illusions I have not yet seen.”

Though delivered without apparent emotion, the open humanity of the statement won her over. “All right. I’ll trust you.” That will make a nice saying to engrave on my tombstone: She trusted a Mage. But it’s that or just give up.

Between the lingering heat, her thirst, and exhaustion, Mari found herself drifting in and out of consciousness as they waited for it to get fully dark and the movements of the bandits to subside. At one point she saw her best friend Alli sitting nearby, fiddling with the broken rifle that Mari had left on the ledge with the dead bandits. She didn’t seem to have changed in the two years since Mari had last seen her, aside from the fact that Alli was now wearing a Mechanics jacket like Mari’s. What are you doing here? Mari silently asked Alli.

Fixing this rifle. You need it, right?

Yeah. If anyone can fix it, you can. You always loved weapons, Alli.

Weapons are way safer than boys, Mari. What are you doing here with one?

He’s not a boy. He’s a Mage.

He’s a boy Mage, Mari. Why are you hanging out with him?

I have no idea. It must make sense somehow. Why didn’t you write me more than a couple of times after I left the Mechanics Guild Hall in Caer Lyn? Why didn’t you answer my letters?

But Alli didn’t answer and when Mari roused herself enough to focus, she was gone.

Most of the bandits rode out just before sunset, many back to the east along the track the caravan had taken but some to the west toward Ringhmon. The pass, already murky with shadow, grew rapidly darker as the sun fell below the horizon.

“I will go now.” Mage Alain’s voice was cracked with dryness that sounded as bad as that which tormented Mari, but he moved surely as he crawled over the rock barrier and began heading downward.

Mari hitched herself up far enough to watch him for a while. She had been right in guessing that he was physically tough. Even after the exertions of the day and the lack of water, Mage Alain didn’t seem weak now.

He also wasn’t particularly hard to see in his Mage robes, even in the gathering darkness, but as the Mage reached the floor of the pass he vanished. She blinked, wondering if fatigue was affecting her eyesight, then slumped back down, half-delirious with thirst and hoping she had done the right thing by trusting the Mage.

He could be selling her out right now. Telling the bandits where she was in exchange for his life and enough water and food to reach Ringhmon by himself. Who would be fool enough to trust a Mage? You, Mari. Not like you had any choice. But if he does try to sell me out, those scum won’t take me easily. I can’t run, but I can fight.

Mari propped herself against the rocks so she could see down the slope, then drew her pistol. She lay there, trying to rouse herself occasionally to look for anyone coming up, but the slope stayed empty.

The weapon in her hand was a deadly thing, but in this case far overmatched by the numbers and firepower of the bandits. Using it even once would bring the bandits upon her.

The words that Professor S’san had spoken as she gave Mari the pistol remained engraved in her memory. “This weapon I am giving you is a tool, an emergency tool. It is not to be depended upon as a first resort, or a second, or even a third. Your greatest assets will always be your mind and your ability to act on wise decisions. Fail to make proper use of those assets, and the weapon cannot save you. Remember that, Mari.”

Great advice, Professor. Just how do I use it now?

Mari turned the weapon, thinking that if she had simply fired when the Mage loomed out of the murk, she probably would have killed him. Then, when she fled, the bandits on the slope would have caught her or killed her. Thinking, instead of firing, had saved both of them, at least to this point. What a strange tool this pistol is. Normally a tool exists to be used. But it’s as if this one is best not used, unless absolutely no other option remains. I guess that is what Professor S’san meant. But if she gave it to me, she must have thought I might face that kind of situation. I really hope I never end up in that kind of mess.

She had no idea how much time had passed when a dispassionate voice whispered, “Master Mechanic Mari.” Mari blinked. The Mage had appeared close to the ledge. She hadn’t seen him coming up, which was odd since the slope was so open. But he was back, and no bandits were with him, so she breathed a sigh of relief and holstered her weapon. Even through her daze, Mari couldn’t help noting that the Mage had an easier time remembering her Master Mechanic rank than Senior Mechanics did.

Mage Alain slid over the top of the rocks, several bundles cradled in his arms. “The large water barrels have all been smashed, but some of the wagons were untouched as of yet, so I was able to get supplies from them.” Opening one of the packs, the Mage pulled out several clay bottles and worked the cork free from one. “Here. Water.”

Mari’s hands trembled as she drank. It took all of her self-control to keep from gulping down the entire bottle at once. Finally she lowered the bottle, gasping for breath but feeling a tremendous sense of relief. “How can I ever repay you?”

“Repay?”

“You know,” Mari said. But Mage Alain looked back at her as if he didn’t know at all. “I’m in your debt,” she said. “For the water. So I asked how I could pay you for it.”

“Pay.” The Mage shook his head. “That is a matter for elders to deal with.”

“I wasn’t talking about giving you money.”

He eyed her with that unrevealing expression. “I have no use for money.”

She felt a twinge of fear, and let her expression harden as she gazed back at him. “I hope you don’t think you’re going to get anything else from me.”

Was that puzzlement in the Mage’s eyes again? “I do not want anything from you. Why do you prepare to fight?”

Mari realized that one of hands was gripping her pistol. She let go of the weapon and forced herself to relax. “I— Sorry.” That earned another blank look. “You don’t know what ‘sorry’ means?”

The merest hint of a frown line appeared on the Mage’s brow, as if he were struggling to remember something. “It is forbidden,” he finally said.

“Forbidden,” she repeated. “Why?”

The Mage shook his head. “The teachings of my Guild.”

“Guild secrets?” Not too many hours ago she would have laughed, thinking that the only secret the Mage Guild had to keep was the fact that it was all a fraud. But she had seen some inexplicable things since then. “It has something to do with that heat you created?”

He gazed back at her silently, no trace of emotion visible.

“Guild secrets,” Mari answered herself. “Fine. I understand that you can’t talk about that. Whatever the reason is, I wasn’t trying to insult you or hurt your feelings. ‘How can I repay you’ is just an expression, another way of saying thanks.”

“Oh.” The Mage sagged back against a rock. His expedition seemed to have exhausted him again, as if whatever he had done to stay hidden had cost him a lot of extra effort. “I am unused to different ways of…of saying thanks.”

“I’d noticed,” Mari said. “What’s it like down there?”

“There are still some bandits present. I got close enough to overhear their conversation.”

“I’m not sure I would’ve had the courage to do that,” Mari admitted frankly. She saw a hint of surprise on Mage Alain’s face, then a trace of embarrassment. When the Mage gets tired, he doesn’t hold his mask as well. Good. I prefer being with someone who acts at least a little human. Too bad being exhausted and getting out of this alive are mutually exclusive.

Mage Alain pointed back down the way the caravan had come that morning. “They believe you must have stolen a mount from one of the guards and fled down the road. Most of them have pursued on their own mounts, feeling sure they will run you down by morning at the latest.”

Mari inhaled deeply, trying to suppress a shudder. “They are after me. Did you hear why?”

“No.”

“They didn’t track us up the side of the pass, then? They didn’t find where you had killed those three bandits?”

The Mage nodded. “Yes, they found that place. But since it was clearly the act of a Mage, and none of the weapons were taken, their leaders believe that is the way I fled. They believe I will soon die alone in the desert waste, and assume since I went that way no Mechanic would willingly have taken the same path.”

She smiled at the chance that had misled her pursuers. “It wasn’t entirely willingly, I have to admit. We were under some pressure.”

“I do not understand why you keep saying ‘we’ or ‘us’ when you speak of you and I,” Mage Alain said. “The two of us are together, but hardly companions.”

Mari bent her head, resting her forehead on one hand and feeling incredibly weary now that her thirst had been dealt with. “I’m just being efficient. ‘We’ is a lot easier to say than ‘you and I.’ ”

“I see.”

“I wasn’t being serious. I was using sarcasm.”

“How can I tell when you are being serious?”

Mari raised her head to look at the Mage. “I start speaking in short sentences, my voice gets loud, and my face gets darker.”

“I will remember that,” Mage Alain answered with no emotion but apparently perfect sincerity.

Exhaustion, tension, the relief of getting water, the Mage’s safe return, and the simple absurdity of it all finally got to her. Mari started laughing, holding her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound but unable to stop for a while. The Mage eyed her, waiting silently. “Sorry,” Mari finally managed to gasp. “I just…what do we do from here? Do you think the road toward Ringhmon will be safe if those bandits are searching for me the other way?”

He thought about that, then shook his head. “I doubt the road will be safe. From what we know,” he paused after the phrase and gave her a dispassionate look before continuing, “they have more than enough numbers to scour the road in both directions for you.”

“Then what do we do? Strike out overland?” She waved at the rough terrain. “We could spend weeks trying to get through this, and unless I’m mistaken there’s only a few days’ worth of water here.” Mari tapped the bottle closest to her. “You said you saw the caravan master’s map? How far do we need to go to reach someone who can help?”

The Mage frowned very slightly, not to reveal emotion but in thought. “There were wells along the caravan route, but I cannot recall their locations. The first place where any were marked was, I would guess, about halfway from here to Ringhmon.”

“We were supposed to be in Ringhmon in six more days. So, on foot, at least three or four days’ travel to reach these wells?”

“I would say so. It could be as much as five days on foot. Along the road.”

“ And we have to avoid the road. Any ideas?”

Mage Alain shook his head. “Not right now. Why do you ask me my opinion? You are a Mechanic. I know Mechanics do not respect Mages.”

Mari shrugged. “You seem to understand some of this stuff, things about fighting. You said you were taught about it. That kind of material wasn’t part of my education. And…I like knowing what other people think. Even if they want me to make the decision, I want to have their input. I hate it when people make decisions about me without asking me about it, so I’m not going to do that to other people.”

“Why not?”

Could that question possibly be sincere? “Because I want to treat them right.”

“You speak of how to act toward shadows? They are nothing.” She, too, was only a shadow, the Mage Guild's teachings told him. She, too, was nothing. But he felt a strange reluctance to say that to her again. “What is 'right'?”

She took a deep breath. “Look…I don’t like being treated badly myself, and I don’t enjoy treating other people badly. I tried being rough on people who were junior to me a couple of times when I was an apprentice, because that was expected of you when you got some seniority, and I really didn’t like doing it, so I haven’t since then. That’s what I mean by treating people right.”

Mage Alain spent a while thinking before he spoke again. “Why does that matter?”

“Because it does. To me.” She wondered why she wasn’t getting angry at the Mage’s attitude, and realized it was because he appeared to be genuinely puzzled.

“This is how Mechanics think?”

Mari had to look down, biting her lip. She didn’t want to admit the truth, not to a Mage, but it was a truth everyone on the world of Dematr already knew. “Not all of us. Many Mechanics treat common people badly, because…because the Guild says they don’t matter.”

He nodded. “I had not expected any wisdom from the Mechanics Guild.”

“It’s not wisdom! I don’t think it’s wisdom.”

Mage Alain studied her, then nodded again. “You do not lie. You have not treated me badly, even though you are a Mechanic.”

“Yeah…well…” Mari looked down, feeling embarrassed. “My instructors used to complain that I didn’t listen to everything they told me.”

“Even when they disciplined you?”

Mari paused before answering this time. Even though the Mage’s robes covered most of his body, she had spotted the marks of scars on his hands and face. “I don’t know what you mean by discipline, and I don’t think I want to know. Life as a Mechanic apprentice can be pretty harsh, but I’m getting the feeling that you went through a lot worse.”

“It was necessary,” Mage Alain said.

“If you say so,” Mari replied, not willing to debate the issue right now. “But getting back to your question, I ask your opinion because that’s what I do, and you seem to be pretty level-headed even if you do believe crazy things.”

“This was…praise.” Mage Alain watched her intently. “From a Mechanic. Am I supposed to ask how I can ever repay you for saying that?”

She grinned even though her dry, cracked lips made the gesture painful. “That’s up to you. Listen, we’re both worn out. I can’t think straight. Let’s get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.”

“Do you feel safe sleeping here?”

“I won’t feel safe until I get inside the walls of the Mechanics Guild Hall in Ringhmon,” Mari replied. “But for tonight, hopefully this is the last place those bandits will be looking for us.”

She had closed her eyes before it occurred to her that the Mage might actually have been asking about whether she felt safe sleeping near him.

Was he being honest with her? Mages were notorious for their lies. And the way he implied that not revealing his feelings was somehow tied in with that heat thing felt ridiculous. She could build a machine that would create heat, and it wouldn’t matter if she were frowning or smiling the entire time she was at work. Despite the jokes about machines mockingly refusing to work when they knew you needed them, engineering had nothing to do with feelings.

But he had done something. Somehow. A Mage had done something that she couldn’t explain.

A Mage here with her. Her too exhausted to stay awake and alert for anything he might try. Bandits below, so that she dared not struggle or cry out if the Mage attacked her. Situations didn’t get much uglier.

Her last thoughts as she passed out from fatigue were that if she had misjudged Mage Alain, if her decisions to trust him had been wrong, this night could get a lot worse.