The Assassins of Altis

Chapter Eight

Mari wasted a precious second gaping at Alain. Not because she was surprised by his sudden appearance; she had seen the door catch on something and knew it meant that Alain was close by. What stunned her was seeing the Mage holding a Mechanic rifle as if he intended using it. Fortunately, the other Mechanics were a lot more shocked by Alain’s appearing out of nowhere than she was, giving Mari time to recover and hastily seize another rifle from the unresisting hands of a second Mechanic. Stepping back, Mari leveled the rifle at her former guards. “The rest of you set down your weapons slowly. Don’t make any noise. I know the Guild intends to kill me, so I’ve got nothing to lose by killing you all.”

The Mechanic who had hit her with his rifle shook his head. “You can’t get away, you idiot. You’re on a ship at sea.”

“Then there’s no sense in you dying trying to stop me, is there?” Mari answered coolly.

Mechanic Kalif was staring at Alain. “How did you get out of your cell?” He turned an accusing gaze on the sentry, who mimed bafflement.

Alain answered calmly, though not as impassively as a Mage would have. “There are things the Mechanics Guild does not know.” Mari could see from the sweat on his brow that Alain had been working hard to stay concealed

Kalif turned his eyes to Mari. “How do we know you won’t kill us as anyway as soon as we put down our weapons?”

“Because I never hurt anyone unless I’m forced to,” Mari said.

“That’s not what we were told.”

Mari’s laugh mixed sadness with derision. “I can’t take the time to explain how many lies you’ve been told, not just about me but about everything. I won’t let the Guild torture and kill me just because I learned things that the Guild doesn’t want any Mechanic to know. Now put down your weapons and raise your hands, or my companion will start shooting.” It was quite a bluff, considering that Alain probably didn’t even know how to fire a weapon. Mari didn’t dare look, but she suspected that Alain didn’t have a finger on the trigger of the rifle he was holding.

Fortunately, the other Mechanics didn’t focus on that detail. Kalif lowered his rifle to the floor cautiously, as did the others. Mari indicated the cell she had occupied. “All of you, in there.”

“You can’t get away!” the guard who had bludgeoned her repeated angrily.

“I’m really tired of people like you trying to tell me what I can and can’t do.” Mari used her thumb to pull back the hammer on the rifle, then raised it to aim at his face. “And I’m even more tired of people like you who are willing to hurt others just because someone else tells them to. Get in there. I won’t repeat myself a third time.”

He went in hastily, followed by the other former guards and the former sentry, the tiny compartment barely holding all of them. Mari looked at Mechanic Kalif as he turned to face her. “Thank you. I know this isn’t a nice way to repay your humanity, but thank you.”

“Mari,” Kalif said, “the Guild won’t really torture and kill you. They’re trying to play games with your mind is all. Give it up. You can trust the Guild.”

“I believed the same thing once,” Mari said. “Until the Guild set me up to be killed. There are other Mechanics who know about that, who know it’s true. Maybe you can find some of them. Now, you and you,” she said, pointing to two of the other Mechanics. “Take off your jackets and toss them out here.” Both Mechanics hesitated, glaring at her. “Alain.”

Alain obligingly stepped forward, raising the weapon a little awkwardly, and spoke in tones that mimicked the Senior Mechanics Mari had dealt with earlier. “Do as you are told!”

The two Mechanics yanked off their jackets and threw them out the hatch to land at Mari’s feet.

“Close the hatch, Alain.” Mari kept her rifle aimed at the five Mechanics until the hatch swung shut, then immediately grabbed its handle and twisted it down before pushing the lock closed.

Only then did she turn back to Alain. “Stars above, you’re a sight for sore eyes, my Mage.” She kissed him very quickly. “How long were you with us?”

“All the way. The woman has our packs.”

“I saw. We need to pay her another visit. She’s expecting you already.” Mari indicated the bigger jacket. “Would it bother you to wear that?”

“Not at all. It is just part of the illusion.”

“Right.” Mari hastily put on the other jacket. “We need to look like we belong here. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you holding one of these rifles. When did you learn how to use one?”

“I do not know how to use one.”

“I was afraid of that. Please, very carefully, give me the one you’re holding. Don’t press or push anything.” Mari took the rifle from Alain gingerly, breathing a sigh of relief once it was out of his hands. “Very good bluff, my Mage.”

“Did you want me to shoot them? I do not know how to do that.”

“No, I didn’t want you to shoot them. That was a bluff, too.” Mari opened the lock on the room which had held Alain, putting all but two of the rifles she had taken into it and swinging the hatch shut again. “All right, I’m going to set the safety on this rifle and give it back to you. There isn’t a round loaded and the safety is on, so as long as you just carry it and point it and don’t move anything on it, the rifle shouldn’t go off. See this lever thing on the bottom? That needs to be swung down and then back up to load a round, so if you don’t move the loading lever, then the rifle can’t fire.”

Alain was watching her, frowning in concentration. “Lever?”

Of course a Mage wouldn’t know what a lever was. “Never mind. Just don’t move anything on the rifle. And don’t point it at anyone! Unless I tell you to. We’re going to walk back to the captain’s cabin as if we’re on official business. If anybody tries to talk to us, let me answer.”

“All right. But I can talk like a Mechanic. What is an idiot?”

Mari grinned. “Someone like a Senior Mechanic. You really do have the arrogant voice down. Where did you learn it?”

“I… have observed Mechanics.”

“I’m the Mechanic you’ve spent almost all of your time with—” Mari paused. “Do I do that?”

“Very rarely, and never to me since first we met. Mari, the Mechanics on this ship are far more likely to recognize you than they are to recognize me.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “You’re right. You take the lead. Do you remember the way to the captain’s cabin?”

“I believe so.”

“Same here. Hopefully one or the other of us will remember all the details.” Mari took a long, calming breath, then tried to look relaxed and casual. “Let’s go.”

There were fewer Mechanics in the passages of the ship now that the normal work day had ended, and they paid little attention to what appeared to be two of their fellows. Mari tried to unobtrusively avert her face whenever they passed other Mechanics, or use Alain to shield herself from being seen directly. It felt very odd to be walking behind Alain while he was wearing a Mechanics jacket. He didn’t look half bad in the jacket, though. He actually looked pretty good. Really good, Mari thought.

Alain was even mimicking the exaggerated self-confidence and swagger of a Mechanic. She knew he wasn’t copying her. She never had been able to get the swagger thing down, thinking that she looked ridiculous whenever she tried.

Mari ducked her head again, pretending to examine her rifle, as they passed two more Mechanics who were talking together. They paid no attention to Mari and Alain.

They finally reached the captain’s quarters, Mari breathing a sigh of relief that they hadn’t gotten lost on the way. Pausing a short distance away from the door, Mari looked at Alain, speaking very quietly. “There’s three things we have to do before we can try to escape. We have to get our packs back, which means dealing with that witch of a captain, then we have to disable the ship’s far-talker so they can’t tell anyone that we’ve escaped, and then we have to somehow sabotage the main propulsion system so the ship can’t chase us down. Only after all that can we try to steal a boat.”

“We cannot steal a boat unnoticed?” Alain asked.

“No. Too much noise, and the lookouts could easily see us.”

“How will we do all these things? What is the plan?”

“The plan?” Mari hesitated. “We don’t really have a plan. We’ll have to improvise.”

“Improvise?”

“That means making things up as you go along,” Mari explained.

“But you told me earlier today that we need to have a plan before we begin anything complicated,” Alain objected.

“Yes, I did, but— Fine. Our plan is to improvise.”

“But you said that means not having a plan.”

Mari glared at him. “If our plan is to improvise, then that means our plan is to not have a plan. Can we get on with it now?”

With a slightly baffled expression, Alain nodded in agreement.

Mari readied her weapon, walked the rest of the way to the captain’s door and knocked the same way the guard had before. Hearing a muffled order to enter, Mari opened the door and pointed her weapon at the Senior Mechanic in one smooth motion. “Hi, Captain. I decided to come back.” The Senior Mechanic made an abortive motion toward one side of her desk, halting when Mari cocked her rifle. “Go ahead and go for your pistol. I’d love an excuse to put a bullet in you.”

Alain came in after Mari, closing the door and then going directly to their packs while the captain stared at them with glittering hostility. “The packs have not been opened,” he told Mari. Next to one of them he found his Mage knife, and concealed that under his coat once more, grateful to have something other than the long Mechanic weapon.

Mari smiled at the captain. “Are there orders from Palandur that even you can’t look inside my pack? I wonder what Guild headquarters thinks I’ve got in there? The truth? That seems to be what they’re most scared of. It doesn’t matter, though. People will learn the truth no matter what the Guild does.”

“What doesn’t matter is whatever you try to do,” the woman spat. “You’ll die a traitor’s death.”

“I don’t think so,” Mari stated in a soft voice that nonetheless carried something menacing that made Alain turn to stare her. “And if I do, I consider being a traitor to the likes of you to be an honor. Though I do appreciate your confirming that the Guild intended seeing me dead after getting whatever information it could from me. Turn around.”

The Senior Mechanic shook head slowly. “No. You’ll have to kill me to my face, and I know you don’t have the courage to do that.”

Mari laughed softly. “You’re not nearly as ugly as the dragons I’ve faced, honored Senior Mechanic. Well, maybe you are as ugly as the troll, but did it ever occur to you that I’m not interested in killing people if I don’t have to?” She stepped closer to the desk, nerved herself, then quickly swung the butt of her rifle so it struck the woman on the temple. The captain fell sideways, sprawling on the deck. “Make sure she’s out,” Mari asked Alain, suppressing a sick feeling at having clubbed another person unconscious.

Alain checked, then nodded. “Shall we tie her up?”

“Yeah.” Mari looked around. “We’re on a ship. Why can’t I see any rope?”

“How about this?” Alain asked. “It is slick and not too thick, but it looks like rope.”

“That’ll do.” Mari picked up the intercom wire and yanked. It didn’t give, so Mari stuck her rifle barrel behind it and twisted until the wire broke with a snapping noise. Then she handed the free length to Alain. “It’s actually wire. Make sure it’s not too tight.”

“Wire? You mean metal? But it bends like stiff rope and feels like cloth?”

“Yeah. The cloth is insulation, and no, I don’t have time to explain what insulation is. Do you remember how to tie knots?”

“Not very well,” Alain admitted.

Mari grabbed the wire from him, then pulled the captain’s wrists behind her back and tied the wire around them, making sure the wire was over the sleeves of the captain’s jacket so it wouldn’t cut off the blood to her hands. The other end of the wire was still attached firmly to the wall. She then pulled open drawers in the captain’s bureau, using a spare shirt to tie the captain’s legs together. Mari stuffed a handkerchief she found into the captain’s mouth as a gag. “That’s the best we can do. Let’s— Wait. One more thing.”

Yanking open the captain’s desk drawers, Mari found a pistol. “Same size cartridges as mine,” she explained to Alain, getting a blank look in exchange. Mari grabbed the entire box of cartridges and stuffed it in a pocket of the jacket she was wearing. Given what the Mechanics Guild charged for a single round of ammunition, she might just as well have pocketed a sack full of gold.

“Now, we need to find this ship’s far-talker. It’ll be somewhere up high.” Mari led the way out into the passageway, their movements a little harder now with the big packs on, then out onto an open upper deck area where the sea breeze gusted between parts of the metal ship’s superstructure. The sun had completely set, leaving the upper parts of the ship in darkness interrupted only by the stars above and the navigation lights on the mast of the ship. There was no sign of the passenger ship Sun Runner, which had apparently been set free to continue its interrupted voyage while the Mechanic ship turned back toward Landfall.

Another Mechanic came by, alone, and Mari waylaid him. “How do I get to the far-talker from here?”

The Mechanic provided the directions, then peered at Mari. “Are you new on board? Got a boyfriend?”

“Yes and yes,” Mari replied.

“Every girl on this ship is taken,” the other Mechanic grumbled good-naturedly, then headed off about his business.

Mari watched him go, then sighed with relief. “I didn’t want to have to club down another Mechanic. Come on.” The directions they had been given lay along the outside of the ship’s superstructure, so they had to move carefully with only starlight to mark their path. It wasn’t very far, but Mari was getting increasingly nervous by the time they reached the hatch with a sign identifying it as the place where the ship’s long-distance far-talker was kept. The longer she and Alain had to spend taking out the far-talker and the propulsion plant, the greater the chance of their being discovered or alarms being sounded. Mari rapped a brisk knock on the hatch, opened it without waiting for a reply, and quickly entered the far-talker room.

As she had expected, the far-talker was being watched at this hour by an apprentice. Mari gritted her teeth, then brought her rifle to bear on the girl. “Apprentice, I strongly recommend that you don’t move or make any noise while my friend here ties you up.” The girl sat frozen with fear while Alain used more wires to bind her.

Mari laid down her weapon and shut off the main power switch to the far-talker, then started pulling open access panels. Then she just stared at the rows of vacuum tubes gleaming in their sockets, and the ranks of circuit boards with their brightly-banded resistors. “I can’t do it,” she whispered to Alain.

“Do what?” he asked, coming close.

“Break this stuff. Stars above, Alain, I’ve spent my life learning how to fix this gear, how to treat it with respect and keep it working. Do you know how much artistry goes into those tubes and circuit boards? They’re all hand-made. It’s… it’s beautiful.”

“But it must be broken?”

“Yes,” she whispered again.

Alain looked at the butt of his rifle, then at Mari. “Is there anything else you must do in here?”

“Um, I need to check the message log to see if they’ve reported my capture and see if any special orders have come in regarding me.”

“Do that,” Alain said.

With another sick feeling inside, Mari walked over to a desk near the bound apprentice. As she opened the message log, Mari heard the sound of breaking glass and snapping boards. She had to pause, breathing deeply to calm herself, then nerved herself enough to glance back and see Alain energetically pounding his rifle butt into the openings beneath the access panels.

Shuddering at the destruction, Mari quickly scanned the message log. There’s the report of my capture, then right after that the report about Alain. A far-talker specialist from Umburan? How did he convince them of that? And here I’ve got him smashing this far-talker. But no orders received back yet. I guess the Guild Masters in Palandur are too busy celebrating my capture. She glanced over at the apprentice. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m not doing any of this because I want to. Please remember that we didn’t harm you. We’re going to put a gag in your mouth, but if you breathe calmly you won’t have any trouble.”

“Are you Master Mechanic Mari?” the apprentice asked hesitantly.

Here it came, a young Mechanic trainee already terrified of her because of the lies her Guild had told. Mari nodded. “Yes.”

To Mari’s shock, the apprentice turned pleading eyes on her. “Take me with you.”

“What?”

“Please. I want to join you. Whatever you’re doing.”

Mari had to think for a moment before answering. She had never expected to receive such a request from someone she didn’t even know. “Listen, it’s too dangerous. My friend and I have very little chance of getting off of this ship alive. Stay here and you’ll be all right. Come with us and you’ll probably die very soon or be captured and treated as a traitor.”

The apprentice shook her head. “But—”

“There’ll be another time. Somehow. Please don’t risk yourself now.”

She nodded to Mari. “How will we find you?”

We? Mari stared again. “There are still some things I need to do, but after that I’ll find a way to let the right people know.”

“And we’ll be able to build anything we want? The Guild won’t be able to tell us not to anymore? The Senior Mechanics won’t be able to do anything they want?”

“That’s what I hope for.”

The apprentice nodded. “Put the gag in my mouth. Good luck, Master Mechanic Mari. You’ve got a lot of friends.”

“I do? More than I realized, it seems. But I’ve also got a lot of enemies, and I don’t want people like you hurt by those enemies. Good luck to you, Apprentice… ?”

“Madoka.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Apprentice Madoka.” Mari gently placed the gag in the apprentice’s mouth, then stepped back and nodded farewell. Then she grabbed Alain and rushed from the room.

Closing that door behind her, Mari paused again for a moment. “Now the engine room. That’s the last thing we need to do. We need to take out the boiler.”

“The boiler?” Alain asked, his eyes showing a most unmage-like level of alarm. “You are going to destroy a boiler? Like the one in Dorcastle?”

Mari glared at him. “No. Not like that. Why is it whenever I talk about a boiler you think I intend exploding it?”

“That has been my experience.”

“I am a Mechanic! I am trained to fix things! I only break things under the direst necessity!” Mari paused. “Like now. But I won’t blow up this boiler. That would kill a lot of the crew. I have to disable it some other way. Come on.”

Alain followed Mari as she hurried back down the ladder. “It’s going to be low inside the ship,” she told him. After taking some more turns and ladders down, they ran into another lone Mechanic, who gazed at them in surprise.

“The captain has told us to take these packs down to a place near the boiler,” Alain said, surprising Mari.

“You mean the armory?”

“Yes,” Alain agreed with a readiness that awed Mari. She suspected that he had no idea what an armory was, but Alain still acted completely self-assured.

“You took a wrong turn, then. It’s quicker if you go back to port, two ladders down and then you’ll see it just aft.”

“Thank you,” Alain said, then paused just long enough for Mari to nudge him to the left as the other Mechanic went about his business.

Sure enough, when they reached the bottom of the second ladder Mari could feel the heat from the boiler room and easily found the hatch leading into it. She put her hand on the lever to open the hatch, looking back at Alain. “There’ll be more than one person tending the boiler even at night. I need to handle this one. Stay back and follow my lead.”

She could tell Alain was shocked when they entered. What would a Mage think of this, a world made entirely of Mechanic creations? Heat pulsed through the boiler room. Tubes of various sizes led everywhere, snaking around the room like a forest of straight, curved and bent vines which had overgrown the room and then somehow been turned to metal. In the center, the huge squat metal cylinder that was the boiler radiated the heat which filled the air and brought sweat springing out on their skin.

Mari walked toward the boiler as it rumbled with the fires and steam within, for the first time really understanding why Alain thought of boilers as a sort of creature like a Mage dragon. She held her weapon casually, as if not planning to use it.

Another Mechanic sat near the boiler, his face flushed with the heat, staring glumly at various dials and other objects in the age-old attitude of someone standing a boring and routine watch.

This watch wouldn’t be either boring or routine, though. “I have a message from the captain,” Mari explained as the Mechanic turned to look at her. She had to speak a little loudly to be heard over the growl of the broiler and the hum of the vent fans driving air. “I need all the Mechanics on duty here to listen to it.”

“Sure.” The Mechanic looked backwards and yelled. “Hey, Yon and Gayl, we got a message from the captain!”

A few moments later the other two Mechanics came walking up from different directions, both wearing clothes marked by sweat. One was a girl not much older than Mari and the other a man who seemed close to the captain’s age.

Mari waited until the three were all together, then brought her rifle to bear on them. “I’m sorry to report that the prisoner has escaped and is threatening to shoot anyone who makes any noise. Which one of these lines is the fuel feed for the boiler?”

The three Mechanics stared at her, but none of them spoke. “All right, have it your way.” She gestured to Alain. “Keep them covered.” Alain gazed back, his expression controlled but betraying confusion to her since she knew him well. “That means point your weapon at them,” Mari hissed in a low whisper.

“But you told me not to—” -“

“Until now! Point it at them now!”

He nodded, somewhat clumsily pointing his rifle in the direction of the three Mechanics, none of whom seemed to doubt Alain’s capability to use the weapon. Mari bent down, studying the labeling on the many pipes running by. Fortunately, the labels were as standardized as everything else the Mechanics Guild maintained. She quickly spotted the right pipe by the color and its code. The pipe was down low, just above the deck gratings and about as big around as her finger.

Now what? She needed to break this in a way that couldn’t be easily or quickly fixed, yet not threaten the lives of every other Mechanic on this ship. Mari beckoned to Alain, then pointed to the pipe. “That’s the fuel line feeding the boiler. Can you make part of it disappear?”

Alain studied it for a moment. “How much?”

“Just a little. Like so,” she indicated with spread finger and thumb.

“There is little power available. I can only do this once.”

“That’s all we need. But wait a moment.” The fact that Alain was a Mage remained unknown to the Mechanics Guild so far, and maybe it should stay that way a little longer. Mari faced the other Mechanics. “Turn around. I won’t hurt you if you turn around.” The three Mechanics exchanged frightened glances, then first one and then the other two turned and faced away from her. “Now, Alain.”

“Very well.” Mari saw Alain take on a look of concentration, and a section of the pipe vanished. Thick fuel oil started gushing from one end of the gap, its strong smell immediately obvious.

Mari stood back and kicked hard several times, forcing one end of the pipe at the gap out of alignment. “Okay.”

Alain relaxed and the missing segment returned, though since Mari had kicked the end of the pipe away the restored segment now no longer matched up and the fuel continued to splash out, covering a spreading area of the deck and dripping down into the bilges. “You’re very handy to have around when I need to break something,” she commented. “All right,” Mari called to the three other Mechanics, “we’re are leaving now.” She gestured with the weapon. “Out.”

Mari went last, her head beginning to ache from the fumes of the fuel oil still pouring from the pipe. The lights around them started dimming and one of the Mechanics made an abortive move back. Mari stopped him with a threatening move of her weapon. “No fuel’s going to the boiler, so it’s losing steam pressure fast,” she explained to Alain. “The fires will go out in a very short while. Then the steam pressure will totally fall off and the electricity will fail as well as the propulsion.”

He nodded, then shook his head.

Oh, right. He doesn’t even know what a lever is and I’m explaining a steam plant’s operation to him. “But that’s not enough. We need to start a fire.”

“Fire?” Alain looked doubtful, and she noticed that he seemed to be drawn and tired. “I have done a great deal since coming aboard.”

“I’m sorry. It’s important.”

He sighed. “You always say that, and I always find a way. Where?”

“The liquid. It will burn, but it has a high flashpoint. That means it needs a lot of heat to get it burning.”

“I will do what I can.” The three captive Mechanics were just outside the hatch, unable to see what Alain was doing. Mari stood in the hatch watching them but keeping one worried eye on Alain as well.

Alain held his hand before him, palm up, looking at it. The air above his hand began to glow noticeably as the lights of the ship dimmed more. Alain looked back into the boiler room toward the pool of liquid beneath the broken pipe, and the glowing air above his hand vanished.

Flame fountained out in a frightening blast that drove Alain, Mari and the three other Mechanics away from the open hatch. Mari glared at the three captives. “Get out of here! Run!” They stared at her, then turned and bolted.

Alain stared as well. “Is that wise?”

“What was I supposed to do?” Mari growled. “Leave them in the fire? Walk around holding three Mechanics at gunpoint? Tie them up and maybe let them burn or drown? I will not kill if I don’t absolutely have to!” She paused, remembering something. “Blast. Come on.”

Mari led them back at a run to the place where she and Alain had been imprisoned, their journey complicated when the lighting on the ship went out and only a few replacement lights sprang on to provide dim illumination. “Battery-powered emergency lamps,” Mari explained, looking back and seeing that Alain had his whatever-you-say expression on, meaning he understood nothing but was willing to accept that she did. Amid her fears she felt a surge of real joy at his trust in her, trust that meant all the more since he had plenty of grounds for knowing she wasn’t perfect by any means.

But she also noticed that Alain was visibly struggling to keep up with her, gasping for breath as he followed. Despite her urgency, Mari slowed down some.

Along with the lights, the fans providing air through the ship had now died, leaving an eerie silence in their wake punctuated by growing numbers of alarmed cries from members of the crew and the sound of feet thundering on the metal decks as Mechanics dashed to and fro in hopes of discovering the problem. Mari, seeing Alain faltering more, stepped back to help him keep moving. “They can shut off the fuel and get that fire out, but by the time they do that we should be off this ship,” she explained, trying to cover her growing fear with talking. “The boiler room will be badly damaged. They won’t be able to get steam up again for quite a while.”

Finally reaching the place where they had been confined, Mari stopped at the locked hatch, unfastened the lock, then lifted the handle and yanked the hatch open. The five Mechanics inside stared back. “I won’t leave anyone locked in a room on a ship that might sink,” Mari announced. “But if any of you come after me I’ll blow your heads off. Understood?” Without waiting for a reply she grabbed Alain again and ran for the closest ladder at the best pace which Alain could manage.

Reaching the next level up, Mari hesitated, looking in each possible direction, then ran up another ladder, thinking that would take her to the main deck level. Alain leaned on her, struggling up the steep steps, as the tumult grew around them. The ship’s crew dashed around and past them, staggering as the ship rolled drunkenly in the seas, its last traces of headway lost without the propulsion system working anymore.

“We are still improvising?” Alain asked.

“That’s the plan, yes,” Mari assured him. “We’re going to improvise our way off of this ship.” She saw an open hatch with the darkness of night visible through it and dodged that way.

Out on deck there were Mechanics rushing around in singles and small groups. In their stolen jackets and the darkness, Mari and Alain blended in without notice. “Follow me.” There were life rafts fastened nearby, but they were small and lacked sails. Drifting helplessly on a small platform wouldn’t save them. With Alain still leaning on her, Mari ran toward the stern, where she could see lifeboat davits rising from the deck.

Skidding to a halt at the first boat, she bent to read the instructions, blessing the Mechanics Guild’s obsession with spelling out written procedures. “Just as I thought I remembered. It’s a gravity release system.”

“A what?”

“It doesn’t need any power,” Mari explained. Yanking off her pack, she tossed it in the boat. “Put your pack in there, too.” Then she hurled the weapons they had stolen into the boat as well.

As Alain threw his pack into the lifeboat, Mari pulled out heavy pins that had held the lowering mechanism locked, then threw herself against a big lever. Alain added his own strength and the lever swung over with a dull, metallic thunk.

The davits sagged outward, taking the boat out over the water, and the lines holding the lifeboat close to the davits began unreeling, the boat freefalling to land in the sea with a tremendous splash. Mari yanked off her stolen jacket and dropped it on the deck, gesturing to Alain to do the same.

“Hey, what’s going on?” A Senior Mechanic was staring at them, the same man who had led the group that had captured Mari. “Why are you lowering a lifeboat? I didn’t hear anything about abandoning ship.”

“We’re lightening the ship,” Mari yelled back. “Getting rid of excess weight. Captain’s orders.”

“That’s ridiculous! Who told you—? Hey! You’re—!”

Mari crouched slightly, spun, and kicked out, catching the Senior Mechanic in the gut and knocking him backwards. Straightening, Mari grabbed Alain’s hand. “Jump!” she whispered urgently.

Alain, bless the Mage, didn’t ask any questions, but went over the rail with her. The side of the ship rushed past as they hurtled downward, the drop briefly terrifying, then they hit the water and went at least a lance length underwater. Mari fought her way back to the surface, spluttering and trying to swim toward the lifeboat bobbing in the water nearby, the weight of her boots and her clothing trying to drag her back down.

For several heart-stopping moments Mari wondered if she would make it, then made a desperate lunge and closed one hand over the rail of the boat. Alain reached it at the same time she did and they helped each other in. Mari rolled onto the bottom of the boat, coming up against their packs and staring upward, where she could see the silhouette of the Mechanic who had been questioning them visible against the ship’s rail. The Senior Mechanic was pointing toward them and yelling. “Get the sail set, Alain. We’ve got to get out of here.”

The Mage stared helplessly at the mast mechanism.

“Sorry, I keep expecting you to do everything,” Mari gasped as she elbowed him aside, swinging up the small mast and locking it, then yanking at the lines holding the sail bound tightly to the mast. Her hands shivered with cold and water dripped off her clothing and hair in steady streams, but Mari tried to ignore those distractions. The sail came free, flapping for a moment before billowing out. “I’ll trim it. You get to the tiller and steer us out of here.”

“Tiller?”

“That stick thing at the back! Move it from side to side and the boat will turn. Hurry!”

As Alain threw himself to the back of the boat and awkwardly grabbed the tiller there came the unmistakable boom of a rifle shot, followed immediately by the flat, hard slap of a bullet hitting the water nearby. The lifeboat swung around, wallowing in a way that ironically made it harder for someone to aim at, then steadied, the sail now taut and the boat oh-so-slowly gaining speed away from the looming mass of the Mechanic Guild ship.

More shots rang out and tiny geysers erupted around the lifeboat. Mari grabbed one of the rifles she had thrown in the boat, then looked upward and back at the Mechanics shooting at her, knowing that she couldn’t fire back when some of her targets might be Mechanics like Kalif or Apprentice Madoka. Instead, she pointed her weapon nearly straight up and fired several shots, pumping the lever awkwardly with the rifle held that way, hoping the sound of the shots would frighten the Mechanics aiming at her and praying a lucky hit wouldn’t strike her or Alain. A plonk marked a hit on the boat, wood splintering under the impact. “What of the big Mechanic weapon?” Alain called. “The one on the front of the ship?”

“With power out on the ship they’ll have to train and load it manually. Hopefully they’ll be too busy with the fire to think of that until we’re too far away.” On the heels of her words, as if mocking them, a deep boom came from the direction of the ship, causing Mari’s heart to stutter with fear.