The Dragons of Dorcastle

Chapter Two

Alain was once again calling forth heat above his hand, his own remaining strength and the residual power here both draining like water into the spell. He had a moment to realize that he could have run again while the bandits were occupied capturing the Mechanic, but rejected the idea before it fully formed.

In the time required to create the spell, one bandit's finger twitched on the trigger of his crossbow. The Mechanic might have died then, but the bandit with the strange weapon struck aside the crossbow so that its bolt flew harmlessly away. “Fool! If any harm comes to her—”

The heat above his hand peaked. Alain placed it upon a boulder directly beside the man in the center of the group. An instant later the surface of the boulder exploded with the sound of shattering rock.

The man closest to the fireball uttered a single sharp cry as he was flung sideways, then collapsed. Ripped by sharp fragments of stone, his two companions were thrown outward and fell in tumbled heaps.

Alain bent over, then fell to his knees and sagged against the nearest rock, gasping for air and hoping no more bandits lurked nearby. Fighting off a blurring of his vision, Alain managed to look up, searching for more danger, and found his eyes focusing on the dead bandits. His earlier attacks had been at a distance and he had not seen the results. Now he could see that the side of the bandit nearest where he had placed the fire had been burnt black. Trails of red blood trickled away from the other dead bandits. Alain looked away from the bodies, feeling a sudden odd hollowness at seeing men he had killed. They are only shadows, he kept repeating to himself, but the words brought no comfort. Nausea rolled through him and he was grateful that he had not eaten for a while.

Alain gradually became aware that the Mechanic was staring at him with wide eyes. She took three steps to him, going to one knee and reaching out, then stopping her hand just before touching him. Even Mechanics, it seemed, knew that no one touched a Mage without a Mage’s permission. “Are you all right?”

He struggled to nod, unable to speak for a moment.

“What did—?” Rising again, the Mechanic ran to the rock Alain had just struck, avoiding the bodies and running her fingers above the crater on its surface. “It’s hot. Much hotter than the sun’s heat could account for. Superheated steam could do this, except that there’s no way you could have a steam boiler hidden under those robes. But there’s no apparent residue, either.” The Mechanic came quickly back to him, her expression determined. This time she reached to grab one arm and help Alain to his feet. “You can’t do this without burning something, using some accelerant. What is it?”

Startled by her touch on his robes, Alain took a moment to think through what she had said. His mind couldn’t concentrate, fuzzy with fatigue and fear, so he shook his head. “I do not know your words.”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about?”

“None.” More shouts came from behind and below, where the wreckage of the caravan lay. “We had better move from here. They may have noticed the sound of my spell breaking that rock.”

“Just a moment. Can you stand?”

After Alain nodded the Mechanic let go of his arm, spun around and picked up the strange metal object longer than her arm. Alain gazed at the thing, noting that it bore a superficial resemblance to a crossbow, except that it was longer and lacked the bow portion. The metal of the weapon gleamed under a sheen of dust. A pungent smell came from the thing, sharp and almost stinging to the nostrils but with an undertone of something deep and oily. He felt an urge to examine it more closely, but since it was obviously of Mechanic make he knew that would be foolish. His teachers had warned him of the traps Mechanics placed on their so called devices.

The Mechanic held the weapon, turning it in her hands as she hastily examined it. “Standard model repeating rifle. Made by Mechanics Guild workshops in the city of Danalee in the Bakre Confederation. This one’s new. Only been fired a few times.” She looked at Alain, then tossed it onto the ground. “But the lever action has been broken, so it won’t do us any good.” Glancing quickly toward the crossbows still clasped in the hands of the other two dead bandits and then averting her eyes, the Mechanic shuddered. “I don’t want a crossbow that bad.”

The shouts from the caravan came again, this time clearly expressing disappointment and carrying the tone of command. From the direction of the sound, Alain guessed the voices were coming from the area of the wagon the Mechanic had occupied. “The bandits have discovered that you are missing.”

“Blazes, we’ve got to get out of here. Can you climb by yourself?”

“Yes,” Alain said, not understanding the reason for her question but unwilling to admit to his continued weakness.

“Good. Let’s go.” With a lingering look of regret toward the long Mechanic weapon lying discarded on the ground, the Mechanic turned and started climbing higher along the walls of the pass. “Thanks for saving us from those guys, Mage,” she called back in a low voice.

Alain watched her for a moment. She obviously intended for him to stay with her. He could not remember how to respond to her last words. Thanks. That had meant something to him once. He had said it…to Asha. Only once, the night they had both been brought to the Mage Guild Hall with the other new acolytes. He had been punished for it. That had been…twelve years ago? What had the word meant?

He climbed after the Mechanic as she toiled up the slope. Alain took each step, each pull upward on a handhold, one at a time, refusing to collapse again. The dust was gradually thinning, but down around the caravan it still blocked vision enough that Alain could not see what the bandits were doing, and hopefully they could not see the fleeing Mage and Mechanic. The climb was steep and difficult now, leading ever upward, and Alain felt his lingering strength being quickly consumed as they went higher.

The Mechanic looked back at him and then stopped, crouching behind an outcropping of rock that screened her from below. “How are you doing?”

Alain had to pause to get enough breath to answer. “Why do you ask this? Why do you keep asking such things?”

She looked aggravated at his response. “Do you think there’s something weird about being worried about somebody else?”

He could not think of an answer to that.

“Stars above,” the Mechanic said, “what’s the matter with you? We’re in this together, like it or not. And, no, I don’t particularly like it either, but we do what we have to do, Mage.”

Alain caught up with her, hauling himself up behind the same rock outcropping. He wished he were not so tired from the effort of casting his spells. “I neither like it nor dislike it. It is. But you are foolish to risk yourself for another, to worry. It does not matter.”

Anger flared on her face. “Everybody matters, Mage. Don’t lie to me. You must have feelings one way or the other, even if you hide them behind those robes and a face that shows nothing.”

“You do not seem to know Mages very well.” Alain looked away from her. After his years around impassive Mages, and then around commons who sought to hide their reactions to a Mage, the emotions on the Mechanic’s face were so clear and strong that it was if she were shouting the feelings at him, their intensity almost painful. Grateful for the chance to rest, Alain peered from behind the rock to search the slope behind them for signs that the bandits had realized which direction their quarry had fled.

“You’re the first Mage I’ve ever met,” the Mechanic said. “Do you believe that there’s something wrong with helping others?”

“Helping?” That had meant something once, too. He had been punished for that, and now shied from remembering.

“Yes.” The Mechanic gazed at him, some other emotion he couldn’t identify showing on her face now. “You don’t know what helping others means? You don’t believe people should help others?”

He did have a reply to that. “There are no others, and I do not believe this. I know it. Mages believe in nothing.”

His frank statement seemed to startle her. “Nothing? And that makes you happy?”

Another easy answer, drilled into him countless times during his years as an acolyte. “Happiness is an illusion.”

“I don’t believe that, and I can’t believe you do.” The sound of shouts down in the pass came again, distance rendering them vague but still menacing. The Mechanic took another deep breath. “We can’t afford to rest any longer. Ready?”

He finally realized that she had waited here, she had spoken with him, to give him time to rest even though it increased the danger for her. Alain took a moment to answer as he tried to understand the Mechanic’s actions, which were even more confusing than her words. “Yes.”

The Mechanic started climbing again, toward a crest that seemed tantalizingly close now.

Alain kept waiting for more thunder that would signify that the Mechanic weapons were launching their projectiles at him again, but they reached the top and slid over without any sign they had been spotted. The Mechanic was sitting below the ridge line on a slope that dipped down a short ways before rising to join more hills looming behind her. She was obviously waiting for him again. “They didn’t see you?” she asked.

“I do not think so.”

“How you can be so calm and unemotional about this, I don’t know,” the Mechanic said.

“A Mage has no interest in the world,” Alain explained.

“Not even when it’s trying to kill him? At least you’re consistent.” She rubbed one hand across her face, smearing sweat and dust into a dirty, wet mask. “You said that everybody else in the caravan died?”

“I believe so. All I saw were dead. I heard no sounds from anyone fighting or calling out offers to surrender.”

“Stars above.” She blinked away tears. “We were lucky to escape with our lives.”

“They do not want to kill you. They sought to capture you,” Alain said, offering the obvious explanation.

“What? Me?” She stared at him. “Why do you say that?”

“The attack destroyed the front of the caravan. Your wagon was at the rear. None of the weapons were aimed at the area near your wagon. The bandits did not immediately kill you as they did all others in the caravan, and before I killed them, their leader stopped one from harming you. I could hear the shouts when the others reached your wagon. They were discontented.”

“No, that’s…” She swallowed as her voice choked. “Bandits. They wanted to loot the caravan. That’s what bandits do.”

“They destroyed the wagons in the lead. Why would they destroy so much if they desired to loot it?”

The Mechanic ran one hand through her hair, haunted eyes gazing now at the nearby rocks. “Yeah, but…they shouldn’t even have known I was with the caravan. My Guild insisted I stay locked in that wagon so no one would know I was on my way to Ringhmon.” Her face darkened with anger. “They made me stay locked in there. If I hadn’t figured out how to take apart that lock I’d have been trapped in that wagon when the bandits got to it.”

“I would have gotten you out before then,” Alain said tonelessly.

Her eyes shifted back to him. “That’s why you were coming back?”

“Yes.” There was no reason to deny that. “I had been contracted to protect the caravan and I thought whichever shadow was in the wagon might still need my protection.”

“I never imagined a Mage would do that. The Senior Mechanics always said…you said that Mages didn’t care about people.”

“I did not do it because I cared about you. You are nothing,” Alain said impassively.

It did not take a Mage to see the resentment that statement aroused in the Mechanic. “Thanks.”

“I do not understand.”

“I’m being sarcastic, Mage. What’s your name?”

Alain eyed her, trying to guess why the Mechanic had asked for that information.

“If we’re going to depend on each other to live I deserve that much,” the Mechanic insisted. “And I need to know what to call you besides ‘Mage.’ ”

His elders would be angry if they knew he was even talking to a Mechanic. They would be angrier yet if they knew he had accompanied her this far. Even though the elders, like all Mages, were supposed to feel no emotions, every acolyte learned to fear the anger the elders would never admit to.

Many of those elders had also made clear their belief that he did not deserve to be made a Mage so young, despite his ability to pass the tests.

And the elders had sent him here, alone, as if wishing for him to fail.

The defiance he had kept carefully buried in recent years rose close enough to the surface to bring the words to Alain’s lips. “I am Mage Alain of Ihris.”

“Mage Alain of Ihris.” The Mechanic studied him for a moment, her nervousness fading a bit as she examined him. Now, resting close to each other, he could see clearly how young she was. “Ihris is a long ways north of here. I’m Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn.”

“Caer Lyn.” Islands, to the west of the Empire. “That is also north of here.”

“Not nearly as far as Ihris.” She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “We need to keep moving, but I think we should rest a little longer. Climbing in this heat is very tough and we’ll kill ourselves if we push it too hard.” After he said nothing, the Mechanic opened her eyes to glare at him. “Well?”

“What?” Did all Mechanics act in such strange ways?

“I expressed an opinion. What is your opinion?”

“It does not matter.”

Her expression changed from disbelief to anger to resignation so quickly that he barely had time to recognize each emotion. “Fine. I’m in charge, then. Why does everybody always want me to be in charge? Have you ever been in anything like this situation before?”

“No. This is my first contract.”

She frowned this time. “Mine, too. What’s such a young, inexperienced Mage during out here by himself?”

He knew no Mechanic would catch any bitterness leaking through his control of his voice as he answered. “My Guild has declared me a Mage, but being inexperienced, my price is less than that of older Mages. The caravan could not afford more.”

“If you’re so inexperienced, they should not have sent you out alone to face this kind of danger!” Strangely, the Mechanic’s anger now seemed aimed at his own Guild’s elders.

“The commands of the elders are not to be questioned.”

What did her expression mean now? But her brief gasp of laughter did not sound like she was happy. “I never expected to hear something that made your Guild sound like my Guild.”

This talk was treading onto dangerous ground. Guild secrets. If there were another Mage here…

If there were another Mage here, he would never have spoken to this Mechanic. He would not have gone with her. He would never have known anything about her or any other Mechanic.

If Mechanics were enemies as he had always been told, then he had a duty to learn more about them. And perhaps he would learn that this Mechanic, at least, was not an enemy. She did not act like an enemy. But she was not a Mage. What was she then? “Why are you here alone, young, inexperienced Mechanic?”

She flushed slightly at the question. “I wish I knew all of the answers to that. I asked for some of those answers, but Senior Mechanics aren’t in the habit of giving explanations when they issue orders. The short answer is that I have some unique skills that Ringhmon needs.” Her voice held undeniable pride as she spoke that last sentence.

Alain almost frowned, too, barely catching himself in time. If everything the Mechanics did was a trick, why import this girl when more experienced tricksters surely lived in Ringhmon? How could she have unique skills? But it was obvious now that what he had been told about Mechanics, or their weapons at least, was at best incomplete. “Are these unique skills of yours the reason why the bandits seek you?”

“No. No, that’s impossible. They’d have no possible use for my skills, unless they were thinking of ransom,” she said. “But kidnapping a Mechanic? The Guild would never stand for it.”

“The attackers had many of the weapons made by your Guild,“ Alain pointed out.

“Yeah.” The Mechanic’s lips twisted, her feelings once again hard to read. “A bandit gang with as much firepower as an army could afford.”

Twelve years of Mage Guild training had never been able to suppress Alain’s curiosity. “Why would your Guild elders permit that?”

“I told you that my…elders…don’t provide reasons for what they do. They don’t listen and they don’t explain.” Her feelings didn’t seem so much anger as frustration now. “I wish—” The Mechanic’s eyes went to him, startling him with the intensity of her gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about things like that with a…”

“I am a Mage,” Alain said. That was not a matter for the comfort or discomfort of others, whose feelings did not matter anyway, but he understood the Mechanic this time. There were things that should not be discussed with any outsider, and especially not with a Mechanic. But perhaps there other things she would explain. “I have been trained in tactics, since my work would involve the military forces of the common people. Perhaps that is why I was thought able to handle this contract alone. Tell me your thoughts on your tactics. Why did you choose to run up the side of the pass instead of back down the road along the way we had come? Why did you choose the harder path?”

The Mechanic slumped, then to Alain’s amazement began laughing softly. “That’s who I am, I guess. If I’m working on a piece of equipment, say a locomotive or a far-talker, I do things the best way I can. Not the easy way. And I’m like that in everything. I don’t do what’s easy. The Senior Mechanics, my elders, haven’t always appreciated that.” She sighed, her eyes gazing bleakly at nothing. “From what I’d seen of the road to the pass, it was wide open. We’d have been spotted and run down in no time. So going up the side of the pass was the harder road, but the right one.”

“You were correct,” Alain said, then wondered why he had felt any need to tell her that. “Once I had the opportunity to think it through, I realized that you were right.”

Her gaze went back to him, puzzled. “Why is a Mage telling a Mechanic that she was right?”

“I…” do not know. “Because we survived and have a chance to reach Ringhmon.”

“Yeah. A chance.” The Mechanic closed her eyes again. “Do you have any food or water? I don’t.”

“I do not, either.”

“How long can we survive in the Waste without water?”

It took him a moment to realize she was not expecting him to answer that with some exact number of days. “The caravan master’s map showed wells farther up the road once we had cleared the pass.”

She opened her eyes, looking at Alain with hope. “You’re sure? How far?”

“I am sure, but I do not know how far.” Mechanic Mari nodded wearily, leaving Alain wishing he had been able to tell her something more hopeful. She is a shadow. Do not forget. Nothing more than those you have fought today.

He felt a cold hollowness inside himself. He had never fought in earnest before today, never killed before today. The common folk he had seen among the caravan now lay dead themselves. People who had depended upon him for protection. All of them were shadows, so none of that should matter, but it did.

He sensed something then, and turned to look back at the crest of the ridge. A black haziness floated there, the sort of thing that might drift into vision when physical stress was so intense that a person was in danger of passing out. He knew that type of thing all too well from years of intense training to teach him to ignore what non Mages called reality, but this haze was different.

It did not waver, and suddenly Alain realized what the haze represented. Foresight, warning of danger. That skill has finally come to me, in a time of great stress as the elders taught. But the elders also said foresight was an undependable gift at best. He inched upward cautiously until he could see back down the slope they had climbed. There were figures visible down there, above the dust now as they clambered up the heights, their Mechanic weapons shining in the sun.

Alain crawled backward rapidly. “They are coming up in this direction,” he reported without letting any betraying feeling into his voice this time.