The Hidden Masters of Marandur

Chapter Two

Mage Alain of Ihris went to war.

The elders who had informed him of his new contract had of course betrayed no emotions. He had managed to keep his own expression unrevealing as one of the elders spoke in the cold monotone of a Mage. “You will accompany a military force from the Free Cities during an attack on Imperial territory east of the mountains. Provide whatever services you deem appropriate.”

“Who will be the other Mage assigned to this contract?” Alain had asked, his own voice just as unfeeling as those of the elders.

“There will be no other Mage.” The elders had watched him, as if expecting to see some betraying emotion, but Alain had not given them that satisfaction.

“This one has questions,” Alain said.

Instead of giving the formal reply of “This one listens,” one of the elders simply shook his head. “The Free Cities cannot afford more than one Mage on this expedition of theirs. You will do this task alone. Perhaps you will succeed this time.”

Had Alain’s face or eyes revealed emotion then? The elder’s brutally emotionless reference to the caravan which Alain alone had been contracted to defend, a caravan almost wiped out by overwhelming force, seemed to have been intended to provoke Alain into showing some feeling.

But elders had been using similar tricks ever since Alain had been taken from his family to become an acolyte, and the punishments for any visible trace of feeling had been severe. The scars he bore testified to that. After years of such training, Alain felt sure his voice, his face, and even his eyes revealed nothing as he answered. “This one understands.”

Alain had accepted the contract. He had no choice but to accept it.

Now, a week later, he rode among the soldiers of the Free Cities.

He turned in his saddle, gazing back at the mountains named the Northern Ramparts. They rose majestically skyward, seeming to leap up from the flat lands that lapped at their feet. It was as if nature itself had raised the Ramparts as a barrier to block the Empire’s reach. The column of soldiers had left the foot of a pass at the base of those mountains earlier today. Settling back into his saddle, Alain looked forward again, where the rolling, fertile plains of the northern reaches of the Empire stretched away toward the horizon.

The Free Cities sat nestled within the rugged reaches of the Northern Ramparts, while the Empire had dominated the part of the continent to the east of those mountains for almost as long as history recorded. This attack would not change that, would not change anything, because nothing in the world of Dematr was allowed to change. Some of the shadows who rode and marched around Alain—those the Mechanics called common folk—would die, along with some Imperial soldiers. But in the end the border between the Free Cities and the Empire would remain as it had always been. The Mage Guild wanted nothing to change, unless that change involved something harmful to those who called themselves Mechanics.

The teachings of the Mage Guild were that none of these others was real, no one else and nothing anywhere was real, that everything around him was merely a shadow born of Alain’s own illusions. He had accepted that wisdom—until he met Mari. In a world where nothing was allowed to change, Alain had been changed.

He could let himself feel emotions again. He had learned what it meant to help someone else. He had learned what a friend was.

He had forgotten what love was. Until he had fallen in love.

He had learned that this unchanging world was threatened by catastrophic change, a storm of death and destruction that only one person could prevent—by overthrowing the power of the Mage Guild and the Mechanics Guild.

The elders suspected something was wrong with him. If they ever learned the depth of his failure, he would die. If they ever learned about Mari, that she was the one long ago foretold to overthrow the Great Guilds…

She would die.

Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn. Even the thought of her name gave him a feeling of forbidden pleasure. No matter how hard he resolved, no matter how he tried to concentrate on the danger that he and these soldiers might encounter, Alain could not stop thinking of her, wondering where she was, wondering whether she was safe. Such thoughts could lead to Mari’s death, even if the Mage Guild elders never learned of the vision Alain’s foresight had given him.

Every thought could betray him—and. worse, betray her. She was somewhere far south of here, on the other side of the Sea of Bakre, far from him and the danger his presence would bring Mari. And…it could well be that her thoughts of him had changed. She had said that she cared for him, but they had been separated since then, and Mari had been among her fellow Mechanics. Did Mari still think of him as a friend? As more than a friend? Or had she already regretted and cast aside feelings which could only add to the dangers she faced?

But even if she forgot him, he could not forget her, no matter how hard Alain tried to wall away all feelings, all thoughts of Mari.

He rode alone, about two lance-lengths separating him and the horse he rode from those ahead and behind. Commons kept their distance from Mages, more out of fear and revulsion than respect, but that did not matter to Mages. Nothing mattered to Mages, because nothing was real.

In front of and in the wake of Alain, the soldiers of the Free City of Alexdria marched, following the track they were on eastward and deeper into the Empire. Farthest forward rode a long column of cavalry, their harnesses jingling with a merry sound that clashed strangely with the sharp, businesslike points of the cavalry’s lances. Behind came a long file of foot soldiers, tramping along steadily, every one of them carrying a few empty bags which they expected to fill with loot by morning. Last of all came wagons, pulled by mules and similarly empty, clattering along over the dirt road.

“Do you require anything, Sir Mage?” The question came in a voice that trembled. Alain had a special escort, a young man in new cavalry gear. There had been a time when Alain would not have cared about how the young soldier felt, about the dread Mages inspired in common folk. Alain would not even have deigned to take notice of him, the young soldier and every other person being mere shadows cast on the illusion which was the world.

But Mari would have noticed that young soldier, would have cared about him. She had even noticed and cared about the fate of a young Mage. “I don’t leave anyone behind.” A simple thing. And yet with it she had saved his life and then, unwittingly, began to undo much that long years of very harsh training as an acolyte of the Mage Guild had drilled into Alain.

I will be eighteen years old tomorrow. Master Mechanic Mari is eighteen as well. Will I see her again, as my vision on the wall of Dorcastle foretold? Is she safe, for I know she feared her Guild’s reaction if it learned we had come to know each other? And my own Guild had resolved to kill her if she were to be seen near me again. That is why I knew we had to separate, to ensure that Mari did not die because of me. But what if my own Guild learned of my vision, which foretold Mari would bring a new day to Dematr? If my elders learn of this, they will seek to have Mari killed no matter where she is, for they want change no more than do the leaders of the Mechanics Guild.

Alain became aware that the nervous young soldier was still awaiting his reply. “I require nothing,” Alain answered in the properly emotionless tones of a Mage.

Could even a common soldier sense feelings in him now? Alain had been increasingly certain that other Mages and Elders had noticed the changes in him. Some of them resented Alain for having been declared a Mage at such a young age, and watched for any sign of unfitness. Others had heard that Alain had, unimaginably, actually spoken to a Mechanic in the desert waste east of Ringhmon, and watched for signs of corruption in him. And surely the signs were there, in the feelings he could no longer suppress.

And now the memory of Mari and those feelings caused Alain to look over at the young soldier, to take notice of him. “What do I call you?”

“P’tel, Sir Mage,” the soldier said quickly, wide-eyed with nervousness at being addressed by a Mage. “P’tel of Alexdria.”

“You have ridden against the Empire before?” Alain asked.

The young Alexdrian hesitated. “N-no, Sir Mage.” Then Alain saw defiant pride rise in P’tel, something Alain understood all too well. “I am a soldier of Alexdria. I turned eighteen three weeks ago and was given my shield.”

“You are a soldier of Alexdria,” Alain repeated without feeling, knowing how it felt to be singled out for seeming to be too young. Then he put on his Mage aspect again, trying to ignore all of the commons around him as a Mage should, only vaguely aware of the passage of time.

“Sir Mage?” General Flyn, middle-aged, full-bearded and in command of the Alexdrian force, had brought his horse up to ride near Alain. Unlike the new armor which P’tel wore, Flyn’s cuirass and helm were worn and battered with age and use. “Is there a problem, Sir Mage?”

“Why would there be a problem?” Alain asked in his most emotionless voice.

“Your escort says that you spoke with him. If something is amiss, Sir Mage, I ask that you tell me so that I may deal with it. If you are…not satisfied with your escort, I will assign someone else.”

Alain rode silently for a moment, trying to decide how to reply. “I am satisfied,” he finally said.

General Flyn kept his own expression controlled, but the attempts by commons to hide emotions were child’s play for Mages to see through. He was worried by Alain. That had been obvious from their first meeting. “If—” Flyn began.

“General.” Alain’s voice held neither feeling nor force, but somehow that gave it the power to override other sounds. “Why could your city afford to hire only a single Mage for this expedition?”

Flyn shook his head, looking steadily at Alain. “I must tell you two things, Sir Mage. First, Alexdria is not my city. I am hired by those who seek a capable commander, and Alexdria is the latest such employer. Secondly, the city attempted to hire more than one Mage, but was told by your Guild that only you were available.”

He was not lying. Alain, like all Mages, could easily spot a lie in a common’s voice, eyes and expression.

But Mage elders could say anything and reveal nothing. Lies did not exist for those who did not believe in any truth.

“Sir Mage?”

Alain realized that he had been riding without speaking for a while, considering the implications of what he had just learned. The column of soldiers had reached a stout wooden bridge spanning a gash in the plains, Alain’s horse clattering over it now with a hollow sound of hooves on planks. The channel below the bridge was not a terribly deep gully, not much deeper than a lance-length, but the sides were steep. A fair-sized, shallow stream ran along the bottom of the gully, surrounded by thick brush growing amid the mud of the floodplain. Small as the gully was, crossing it without a bridge would be slow and tedious work.

On the other side of the bridge, the Empire truly began. Instead of wild fields used for grazing herds in the spring and summer, cultivated farmland now spread away on either side of the road.

Alain turned his eyes on the general. Unlike most commons, Flyn met that gaze without flinching. “You go to raid the Empire,” Alain said.

“Yes, Sir Mage.”

Should he say it? A Mage would not. “I know of one whose parents were killed by those who raided.”

Flyn stared at Alain, stunned to hear such a thing from a Mage.

“Do you go to kill those who cannot defend themselves?” Alain asked. His voice carried no feeling. A remarkable thing, given the pain tearing at him at the memory of his own mother and father, who had died while he was confined within a Mage Guild Hall as an acolyte. And now he was supposed to assist those who would do the same?

“No, Sir Mage,” Flyn said, his face darkening with emotion. “Ask any man or woman in this force. I have issued firm orders, the same I give every time. No one shall be harmed unless they attack us. We come to take property, Sir Mage, not to take life. Am I permitted to ask a question?”

His training told Alain to say no. But his elders had sent him out alone and denied that they had done so. “Ask.”

“Why does this matter to a Mage?”

“Nothing matters.” Leave it at that.

“If any soldier under my command commits an atrocity,” Flyn said, each word clearly spoken, “they will be left behind when we depart. They will be left behind hanging from their necks. I have told them so and they believe me, for my reputation tells them I mean it.”

Once again, the general did not lie. Alain felt a weight leaving him. “I will fulfill my contract.”

“Of course, Sir Mage.” Flyn eyed him, clearly wanting to ask more questions, but then caution born of experience with Mages won over, and the general remained silent.

The general rode off to check on other portions of his force as the column kept moving down the road. Alain watched as farmhouses appeared alongside the road, the Alexdrians sending out small groups of cavalry to seize horses. As the raiders rode away, they did not leave the silence of death in their wake. Instead, Alain could see and hear the farmers and their families lamenting their property losses. So far, at least, the general had spoken truly.

The afternoon wore on, the sun sinking toward the wall of mountains behind them. Alain had stood silently by while the general outlined his plan before the expedition began. A march through the night, a strike before dawn overwhelming surprised defenders, a quick looting of the large town, and then an equally quick withdrawal before any elements of the Imperial legion responsible for protecting this area could catch the invaders. Simple enough. If something went amiss, if some part of the Imperial legion was encountered despite all precautions, then Alain was to use his skills to discourage the Imperials.

General Flyn returned as the sun finally began to set behind them, casting their shadows far ahead. “Is all well, Sir Mage?”

Alain turned a Mage’s unfeeling gaze on Flyn. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t rightly know,” Flyn confessed. “There’s no sign of trouble ahead, no sign that the Imperials know that we’re coming, but I feel uneasy. Do you have the Mage gift to see that which may be, Sir Mage?”

“I do.” Alain looked ahead and shook his head. “I see nothing.”

“Thank you, Sir Mage.”

“You are wel—” Alain bit off the response, the one which Mari had taught him, the one no Mage should know, let alone speak, but he didn’t succeed in stopping himself quickly enough.

Flyn had been in the act of riding off again, but now simply stared at Alain.

What is the matter with me? Alain wondered. It was not just memories of Mari. There was something else. His eyes came to rest on a weapon carried by one of the Alexdrian soldiers, and Alain suddenly knew the answer for his own disquiet. It was a weapon like a crossbow, but without any bow. A weapon Mari had called a rifle. One made by Mechanics.

He remembered dust and death and the sound of many rifles as the caravan he had been tasked to protect had been destroyed. That was it. Memory of fear and failure.

“General,” Alain said, “do the Imperials have many weapons such as that?”

Flyn’s eyes followed Alain’s gesture. “Mechanic weapons, Sir Mage?” The general’s voice was cautious again, worried. Every common knew how Mages felt about Mechanics and their works. “We have a few rifles. Three, to be exact. Like any military force that can afford them.”

“How many do the Imperials have?”

“A full legion will typically have five or ten at the most,” Flyn replied, not trying to hide his bafflement that a Mage was acknowledging the existence of Mechanic-made weaponry.

“Only ten?” Alain felt a sense of reassurance. “I have faced more than twenty.” Why had he told this older man that?

Flyn’s astonishment grew. “Twenty? And you survived? That is most remarkable, Sir Mage.”

Alain had expected the general to show some skepticism, some disbelief in what Alain had said. No Mage elder had ever accepted that Alain had faced such peril and survived it. But Alain felt a need to disabuse Flyn of any exaggerated expectations about him, he who had failed to save many others in the caravan. “Only myself and one other survived. All the others died.”

“Others.” Flyn let the word hang for a moment. “Your pardon, Sir Mage, but it is unusual for a Mage to speak of…others.”

“As it is unusual for a Mage to speak of Mechanic weapons?” Alain asked. He was being reckless. Amazingly reckless to confide in even so small a way with a common. But with Mari he had learned what companionship could be, and since parting from her had missed more and more the ability to speak of things large and small with another who might understand or simply listen. Something in this general, his steadiness and his openness, made Alain want to unburden himself a little. “I have seen what such weapons can do. I have seen what my own weapons can do.”

Flyn nodded, his eyes intent on Alain. “It is an ugly thing.”

“Does it hurt you to kill others, General?”

The question so startled Flyn that he stared wordlessly for a while before he could reply. Then Alain saw understanding dawn on the common’s face as he looked at Alain. “It is a hard thing, Sir Mage, for any man or woman with a conscience. I do what I must, and in the heat of battle the excitement fills me, but afterwards I feel the pain of it.” He paused. “The first time is the hardest. I’ve never forgotten the face of the first man I killed. I was…eighteen at the time.”

Alain nodded. “I was seventeen.”

“When you were facing more than twenty rifles? It is a hard thing, Sir Mage,” Flyn repeated. “A hard thing to remember, a hard thing to face afterwards, for anyone who thinks life has value.” Flyn rode a little closer to Alain, lowering his voice. “I have never met, nor heard of, a Mage who had such concerns. If I did, I would tell that Mage what I tell my young soldiers. They do not believe me, but perhaps a Mage would. I would say that what we do is an ugly business but a necessary one. We keep the Empire off balance, we keep the soldiers of the Free Cities experienced and sharp, and so perhaps we prevent worse things. Preventing something worse, defending something worth defending, helping those who need and deserve such assistance are the only justifications for what we do.”

Flyn jerked his head toward where the young soldier P’tel rode, far away enough that he could not hear their words. “I know that. He doesn’t. He still thinks of glory and excitement, proud of his shiny armor and his new lance and the shield his mother gave him before he rode off with us. The young ones look forward to battle and hope to encounter a legion so they can come home to celebrations, covered in what they see as glory. Not me. If we meet a legion, it means some soldiers like P’tel will die, never to come home to mothers and fathers who sent them off with pride and tears. My job is to get those soldiers home, and I hope you will do your utmost to assist me in that if necessary.”

“You do not wish to fight?” Alain asked.

“No, Sir Mage. My job is to get our mission accomplished while losing as few soldiers as possible. That’s why I do this. Because I’m pretty good at it, good enough that I can usually get the job done while losing as few of my own men and women as can be.”

“Two are more than one,” Alain said, remembering what he and Mari had been able to do together. “I will do all I can to assist you in your work.”

Flyn nodded, no longer distant, but almost reassuring in his attitude. “You’ll do fine. Twenty rifles! Where was that, if I may ask?”

“Far south of here. In the Waste east of Ringhmon.”

“Ringhmon!” Flyn spoke in a disgusted tone. “They wanted to hire me once, but I told their emissaries that from what I knew of Ringhmon no sum of money would be enough.” He paused. “Some interesting events occurred in Ringhmon not too long since. Do you know of them, Sir Mage?”

Alain felt that thing Mari called humor, though he did not let it show. “I was involved.”

“Were you, Sir Mage?” Flyn grinned. “Your Guild slapped Ringhmon with some sanctions, and that on top of—”

“Of?”

“Your pardon, Sir Mage. There were actions taken by others.”

Alain turned a direct look on the general again. “The Mechanics Guild?”

“Yes, if you wish to speak so directly of them. An interdict. Ringhmon can receive no services from that Guild and must pay a large fine when it can raise the money.”

So Mari’s Guild had finally done something. But Alain did not believe that the action was in revenge for what had been done to her by the leaders of Ringhmon. “And the Empire?”

Flyn’s eyes evaluated Alain shrewdly. “They’ve made noises about snapping up Ringhmon while it is in a weakened state, but rumor has it that your Guild, and another Guild, have told the emperor it will not be permitted.”

Alain gazed along the gently rolling fields at the horizon. “The Empire will never be allowed to take Ringhmon, or the Free Cities.”

“Not as long as the Great Guilds rule, no,” the general agreed.

“Nothing must change,” Alain said, his voice flat.

But he wondered if something in his voice or face had betrayed his feelings. Flyn gazed wordlessly back at him before finally nodding once.

Flyn returned to his duties elsewhere, and Alain rode onward with the column as night came on, thinking about the shadows among which he rode. The commons. Mari had said the common people—all those who were not Mages or Mechanics—were like Alain and Mari even though they lacked the skills of members of the Great Guilds. Alain did not want to kill any more commons, but when his Guild elders insisted that Alain take this contract, he could not refuse it. Not simply because no Mage would accept Alain’s reluctance to strike at shadows, which would be an unmistakable sign of just how far he had strayed from wisdom. But also because Alain had been asking for contract work as the weeks wore on, wishing to prove himself and knowing that the elders distrusted his skills and perhaps him.

In the darkness of full night, he imagined Mari riding beside him.

He had sought out some female Mages when he arrived in the region of the Free Cities, seeking distraction from thoughts of and feelings for Master Mechanic Mari. But the female Mages, with the expressionless faces and lifeless voices which were proper in Mages, had no interest in conversation. Nor could he feel any physical desire for them, not when Mari entered his thoughts the moment he touched any other woman.

Midnight passed, the soldiers marching steadily, any talk in the ranks silenced as the weary Alexdrians concentrated on walking or riding. Occasionally Alain would see pairs of cavalry riding past on scouting duty, or the figure of General Flyn accompanied by several other riders.

The quiet and the motion of his horse made Alain so drowsy that he dozed off in the saddle a few times, jerking himself awake when he started to slip. Then he came fully awake, staring at the vision of a burning tower that had appeared beside the road. Though the flames leapt high from the tower, they cast no light upon the road or the fields.

Then it was gone.

Alain twisted in his saddle, seeing his soldier escort P’tel drowsing in the saddle nearby. “Get the general here. Immediately.”

P’tel jerked with surprise and alarm at Alain’s order, then saluted and rode off as fast as he could spur his horse.

A very short time later, two horses came racing down the line of the column, P’tel pulling up well short of the Mage but General Flyn riding up right next to Alain. “Is something amiss, Sir Mage?”

“Is there a tower ahead?” Alain asked. “To the left. A few lances off the road. Square. Wooden. Perhaps the height of four men.”

Flyn nodded, frowning. “There is such a tower. Not far ahead at all. An abandoned Imperial watch tower. It hasn’t been occupied for a decade, and my scouts just reported it still empty.”

“I saw it burning,” Alain said. “My foresight warned of something to come. How far ahead is it?”

“The head of the column should be almost reaching it,” Flyn said. “Sir Mage, I have three pairs of scouts out, all experienced soldiers. None have reported danger.”

Alain started to reply, then he felt something. Several somethings. The unmistakable sense that Mages were not too far distant and working spells. Alain pointed ahead and to the sides, surprised that he could keep his voice steady. “Do your scouts ride there, and there, and there?”

Flyn stared. “Yes, Sir Mage.”

“Then at this moment they are probably dying at the hands of the Mages I sense.”

The general did not hesitate for another moment. He rose in the saddle to roar out orders in a voice that carried easily through the night. “Ambush! Everyone off the road! To arms! Move or die!”

Alain looked ahead as shocked soldiers roused themselves from the stupor of march and flung themselves toward cover. He could now see the dim outline of the watch tower visible in the night. The world illusion seemed to have slowed down, everything happening with terrible sluggishness, General Flyn’s words coming out oh so slowly, Alexdrian soldiers running and reaching for weapons with the agonizing snail’s pace of those caught in a nightmare, Alain trying to gather power to himself yet not knowing which spell he needed to use.

Lightning flared, not from the sky but from the ground, racing across the surface to strike the watch tower and cause it to erupt into flames that illuminated the Alexdrian soldiers as they scrambled off the road.

The sudden blare of the brass trumpets used to pass signals among Imperial forces came from the left side of the road, and time shot back into motion as a storm of crossbow bolts came hurtling out of the darkness. Deeper thrums marked Imperial siege machines called ballistae hurling their projectiles toward the Alexdrians. Much louder than all the rest came the thunder of Mechanic weapons from the Imperial position, the fire of several rifles adding to the havoc among the Alexdrian soldiers.

Alain’s horse reared, screaming in pain, then twisted and fell. Alain barely managed to jump free of the saddle before his horse crashed to the ground. Toughened by his Mage training and partially cushioned by the robes he wore, Alain landed hard but unhurt. Jumping up, he looked down at the horse he had ridden, seeing the crossbow bolt protruding from its chest and the bloody foam on the horse’s muzzle as it twitched out the last vestiges of life. Alain turned away, his eyes coming to rest on the Alexdrian soldier named P’tel. The boy had fallen on his back, a crossbow bolt protruding from his neck. Blood pooled beneath the new armor which had not been able to protect him. P’tel’s sightless eyes stared up at the stars, his expression forever frozen in surprise.

Alain went to one knee beside the body, momentarily oblivious to the battle around him. He is nothing. Just a shadow. No. My training cannot be right in that. For the loss of a shadow would not pain me so. Eighteen years of age, only a few days older than Alain, and P’tel would never see another sunrise. You journey to another dream, soldier of Alexdria. May your next dream end better than this one. Standing up again, Alain stared around, feeling a curious calm mixing with the anger and fear that he kept suppressed. He could find few targets for his spells in the uncertain light cast by the burning tower. Dead Alexdrian soldiers littered the road and its verges, while the Imperial crossbows and other weapons continued to flay the other Alexdrians who had sought cover.

Focusing on one of the dimly seen ballistae, Alain concentrated on changing the world illusion. The air above his palm was hot, much hotter than the surrounding air. Very, very hot. His own strength went into the spell, aided by the power held by the land around him.

The illusion of heat was above his palm. Alain looked toward the ballistae, and imagined the heat there instead of here. In an instant, the heat had gone from here to there, and the wooden ballistae turned into another torch as it caught fire, the distant figures of its crew hurling themselves away from the inferno.

In the light cast by the burning tower and siege machine, Alain could see that General Flyn had rallied his cavalry, leading it in a charge against the flank of the Imperials entrenched on the left side of the road. The Imperial troops had not expected their targets to be warned and able to recover so swiftly from the shock of ambush. In the darkness and the confusion, the legionaries did not notice the Alexdrian charge coming until it was too late. The Alexdrian cavalry hit the Imperial forces and rode over them, breaking that end of the Imperial line. Overrunning one of the Imperial war machines, some of the cavalry turned it and fired its huge bolt down the ranks of the Imperial trenches, causing chaos. Flyn wheeled his forces, preparing them to charge down the length of the disrupted Imperial line.

Alain was watching, waiting for good targets, when lightning came again from the ground among the shadowed areas behind the Imperial line. The forks of lightning shot out, smashing into the Alexdrian cavalry, sending horses and soldiers flying. Those horses unhurt or singed by the attacks panicked, stampeding away riderless or with riders vainly trying to regain control. The lightning struck once more, and then a third time, weakening with each bolt, but disrupting the attempts by some groups of Alexdrian cavalry to hold their ground.

The Imperials have a lightning Mage, and a very strong one to cast so much lightning so fast. But he could do nothing about it. Even though Alain could sense the position of the lightning Mage, the Mage Guild did not permit Mages to attack each other when the forces they were contracted to clashed in battle. The Mages could only strike at commons. Alain stood, helpless, as the Imperials rallied and the fleeing Alexdrians streamed past him.

Imperial trumpets sounded again. Alain could see lines of mounted soldiers coming toward him. Imperial cavalry this time, moving at a steady pace, preparing to charge down the road and sweep away the shattered Alexdrian force.

Leave them to their fates, Alain’s Mage training told him.

Run, save yourself, Alain’s fears cried.

I don’t leave anyone behind, Mari’s voice said, so clearly he wondered for a moment if she truly stood beside him. That insubstantial thread he had once sensed tying them together was present again, and he felt strength and resolve fill him simply because he was conscious of that thread.

Alain braced himself, facing the ranks of Imperial cavalry. These Alexdrians depended on me. I am their defense against disaster. I cannot fail them. Not as I once failed the caravan on its way to Ringhmon. I will save these people, because Mari would want me to do this, because it is the hard thing but also the right thing.

He gathered the power in the area to himself, feeling where it had been already drained by the Mage who hurled lightening. But enough remained. As much remained as he could use.

Heat flared above his hand as he created it there. Alain stared at the ranks of Imperial cavalry, trying not to think about what he was going to do to them. Then he willed the heat to a spot in the stones of the road just ahead of the front rank of the cavalry.

The area exploded, hurling fragments among the Imperial soldiers. Alain had already created another fireball and willed it to strike a little distance from the first. Then another, then another, his strength draining away as Alain sent fireballs as rapidly as he could. The ranks of the Imperial cavalry disappeared in a succession of explosions that hurled men and horses in all directions. As the last fire left his hand to create a weak burst of heat among the Imperials, Alain fell to the road, his vision hazed by exhaustion so great that he could make no attempt to cushion his fall. Dimly aware that he must not lie here to die, Alain struggled to move as cries of panic and shock sounded from the Imperial troops.

Lightning flared above him, tearing through the space which Alain had occupied moments before. Then it came again, flaying the body of a horse lying between Alain and the Mage sending the lightning. Even through the haze of fatigue clouding his mind, Alain wondered why the lightning had been directed so close to him. Could not the lightning Mage have sensed where Alain was?

He had to have. Then had the lightning been aimed at Alain on purpose?

Alain tried to move again, his limbs shaking with effort, but could not manage to rise even to his elbows. Several horses came to a halt near him. The Imperials. Will they dare to slay me in revenge for what I did to their comrades?

But the boots that came into Alain’s field of vision were those of Alexdrians. The voice of General Flyn sounded above him. “Forgive us, Sir Mage, the familiarity of laying hands upon you, but we feel obligated to save the life of the one who just saved ours!” Hands grasped Alain, raising him and tossing him into an empty saddle, then a mounted Alexdrian soldier was on each side of him, holding him upright, and the group was heading away from the site of the ambush. The brass trumpets of the Imperials blared in their wake, sounding victorious but also frustrated at the escape of so many Alexdrians.

Alain tried to regain enough strength to keep in his saddle on his own, dimly aware of General Flyn organizing the survivors of his cavalry to drive the remaining Alexdrian foot soldiers ahead of them in a race to safety. Detachments of the remaining Alexdrian cavalry fell back occasionally to hamper the Imperial pursuit. General Flyn seemed to be everywhere at once, tireless as he drove his soldiers onward.

The general stopped by Alain briefly at one point. “Sir Mage, your warning saved us from suffering much worse losses in the first onset, and your stand against the Imperial cavalry saved us from being wiped out. I will admit I doubted the abilities of a young Mage, but I was wrong, Sir Mage, very wrong. I have never heard of any Mage who stood their ground so to defend common folk. If any one of us lives to reach the Northern Ramparts again, it will be because of you.”

Alain, still swaying in the saddle and holding on to his horse with great difficulty, could only nod. The general saluted him and rode off, urging another group of his soldiers to greater effort.

The rest of the ride seemed like a nightmare brought to life. The unchanging plains made it seem as if they were making no progress as they rode on, the enemy always behind. Alain slowly regained some strength, but was grateful for the escorts on either side of him, who remained alert for any sign the Mage was going to fall. It is odd. I should have died back there, struck by the lightning Mage who violated Guild rules by attacking me directly, or impaled on the lances of Imperial cavalry. But I still live, because these common soldiers, these shadows who my training says do not even exist, risk themselves to save me.

They clattered back across the wooden bridge as a faint glow to the east announced that dawn was not far off. General Flyn sat, watching his soldiers stream past, his face grim. From their conversation the day before, Alain knew that the general was thinking of how many soldiers had not lived to reach that bridge. The escort accompanying Alain brought their horses near the general and stopped, their mounts trembling with weariness.

“What can you see, Vasi?” Flyn asked one of the other Alexdrians. “Have you still got your Mechanic far-seers?”

That soldier put something like two tubes joined together to his eyes. “They’re coming, sir. Four or five bowshots off, I’d guess.”

A small group of foot soldiers came staggering across the bridge, herded by two more Alexdrian cavalry on exhausted horses. Flyn stopped one of the mounted soldiers. “Who’s behind you?”

The woman stared at him for a moment, too tired to think, then sat straighter in the saddle. She had lost her helmet in the battle or the retreat but had kept her sword and now raised it in a salute. “None but the Imperials and the dead as far as I know, General.”

“Then keep going. Well done.” Flyn ran his eyes across the group. “Akiko, you’ve got the freshest horse. Gallop a bowshot from the bridge and see if you can spot any more of ours coming, then get back here.”

The Alexdrian officer named Akiko turned a fearful but determined face forward and urged her horse across the bridge, its hooves thundering clearly in the stillness that marks dawn. Alain, finally able to sit in the saddle by himself again, watched the figure of the Alexdrian recede into the still, dark landscape. They waited, the only sounds the deep breathing of their blown horses and the rattle of equipment on the road where the fleeing Alexdrian force sought the refuge of the Ramparts.

Hooves sounded again, no longer galloping. General Flyn and his escort stiffened, tightening their grips on their weapons. Then Akiko reappeared, urging her horse on in a shambling trot. As she reached the far side of the bridge Akiko called out her message. “I couldn’t see anyone but some bodies lying in the road, sir, and the Imperials coming on strong behind.”

Flyn nodded grimly. “Sir Mage, had I a hundred soldiers still in fighting shape I would make a stand here and hold off the Imperials for a while. But the force I have here is too small and too tired. It would be a great service to us if this bridge were destroyed before the Imperials got here, because that is all that might delay them. Everything we had that could start a big fire fast is gone, lost in the retreat. Can you destroy this bridge, Sir Mage?”

Alain sat straighter, eyeing the wooden structure. Like anything else built by the Empire, it was stout enough to stand for centuries. Fortunately, this far out in the hinterlands, it was not made of stone but of wood. Still, it would take a good sized fire to make it unusable before the pursuit arrived, and he had very little strength. “Get your soldiers back from the bridge. I will do what I can.”

The Alexdrians fell back, eyeing him nervously. If Alain had not been so tired and so frightened, he would have been pleased to see that the soldiers who had seemed so skeptical of him now feared his abilities. His dismount wasn’t quite a fall from the saddle, as Alain managed to keep his feet. He stood unsteadily gazing at the bridge, then concentrated, seeing his hand trembling, finally using his other hand to grasp his forearm to steady it. There was plenty of power here to use, but his strength was so low. I cannot do this. I need my own strength, and it is gone.