The Hidden Masters of Marandur

Chapter Five

Alain’s heart seemed to pause in its beating. “Who is trying to kill you? Your Guild?”

“At least my Guild. Maybe others,” Mari said. “Dark Mechanics, Senior Mechanics, Mages, maybe Dark Mages, too. I can’t tell the difference between regular Mages and Dark Mages like you can. As far as I know, none of the commons are after me, but that’s probably just a matter of time.” Her tone seemed light on the surface, but he could sense the tension under it, the worry.

“You believe that your Guild has learned about you?” Alain asked, wondering how the Mechanics Guild could have discovered that Mari was the daughter of the prophecy, fated to overthrow the Great Guilds if she lived.

“Well, they haven’t sent a dragon to kill me, but they’ve tried a lot of other things,” Mari said.

That reminded Alain of something else. “What did you kill the dragon with? I have never heard of a dragon being slain by a single blow.”

She grinned. “A shoulder-fired, fin-stabilized rocket with a shaped-charge warhead. There are only two in the world, and I have them. Or had them. There’s one left now. You have Alli to thank for those weapons. Lady Mechanic Alli, that is. She was a friend of mine when we were apprentices. Alli has always been interested in how to make better weapons and bigger explosions.”

“This Mechanic Alli must be highly regarded within your Guild if she alone can make such weapons.”

Mari laughed sharply. “No. She’s in trouble with my Guild, even though Alli was careful. She found authorized texts describing each component of her weapon—the propulsion, the stabilizing fins, the warhead—and then she combined them into those two prototypes. After which she told the Guild, assuming in her youthful innocence that the Guild would be thrilled to have a weapon for sale that could punch holes in walls and anything with thick armor. Instead, the Guild decreed it to be a new weapon, and since independent innovation is strictly prohibited, the Guild reprimanded her most severely, told her never to build another one and to dispose of those two.”

Alain looked toward where the dragon’s carcass still lay. “But she did not do as your Guild ordered?”

Mari looked guilty. “I talked her into giving them to me. I said, ‘Alli, the Guild said to dispose of them. Dispose means for you to get rid of them. If you give them to me, you’ve disposed of them.’ Alli wasn’t too sure that was a good idea, but she was angry enough at her Guild superiors that she decided to follow the letter of her orders.” Mari shrugged in an unsuccessful attempt to make her words seem casual. “Hopefully my Guild won’t find out what I did with one of the weapons, but how can they complain? According to them, dragons aren’t real.”

“Dragons are not real,” Alain said. “Nothing is real.”

“I thought we’d agreed for you not to say that anymore.”

“You told me not to say it,” Alain pointed out. “Is that how Mechanics define agreement?”

Mari looked at him, then laughed. “I’m acting like a Senior Mechanic myself. Please, Sir Mage, do not keep reminding me that nothing is real.” The humor went away again, replaced by worry. “Alain, when we parted at Dorcastle I thought we needed to separate partly because I was afraid that the Senior Mechanics who run my Guild would try to kill you if they saw us together.”

He nodded. “You told me that you had to go away from me to protect me from your Guild, just as I felt the need to leave you for a time in order to prevent my Guild from killing you.”

“Yeah. You think we would have gotten a little credit for being willing to leave each other.” She took a deep breath, staring into the flames. “Not that I could tell anyone that I’d fallen in love with a Mage. And I do love you. Even though it’s completely crazy and impossible, and even though everyone else in my Guild would totally freak out if they knew. How could you fall in love with a Mage? they’d ask. That’s sick and disgusting and perverted, and Mages are awful.”

Alain nodded, trying to smile at her once more. The gesture still felt unfamiliar, and his muscles had been trained to avoid showing emotion, so he never knew how well it came off. “It is strange that my own Guild would say similar words about my feeling the same about a Mechanic.”

Mari perked up, her eyes shining in the firelight. “You really do love me?”

“Yes. I…I….” Alain fought to say the simple words, but they stuck in his throat, blocked by too many years of unforgiving training as an acolyte, too many years of conditioning to reject any emotions or feelings for others. He swallowed, then tried again. “I…”

“It’s all right, Alain,” Mari said, her voice gentle. “I can tell how hard you’re fighting to say it. Someday you’ll be able to say it easily, and it will mean a lot to me when you do. But you’ve already shown me how you feel. Months ago, when you risked your life to come rescue me in that dungeon in Ringhmon, and later in Dorcastle when you stood beside me while a dragon charged at us.” Another sigh, then Mari slumped back again. “If only every threat was as easy to dispose of as a dragon.”

“Easy?” Alain asked, wondering how much incredulity had sounded in his voice.

“Relatively easy,” Mari corrected herself. “Maybe simpler is a better word. If you see a dragon, you know it’s a threat, you know it wants to kill you just because it saw you, and you know you have to kill it. Simple. Not like having to figure out who is after you and why they want to kill you and what the right thing is to do.”

Alain nodded. “You seek to see through the illusion.”

“Pretty much, yeah. Where was I? We separated at Dorcastle, but I didn’t tell you that I was also worried that my own Guild was also a threat to me.” She gave him a guilty glance. “I thought you might insist on staying with me if you knew that. Besides, it still seemed crazy then, to worry that my Guild would try to hurt me. Would a Mage be a danger to me? Sure. Present company excepted. Would a common be a threat? Maybe, if they could nail me without being found out. But a fellow Mechanic? When I had never acted against my Guild? I hadn’t done anything except excel at my work, ruin Ringhmon’s plan to delve into my Guild’s secrets, discover evidence that some Guild secrets had already been compromised, and then uncover a plot by commons who were using Mechanic equipment and skills. Those should have been good things!”

She shook her head, staring at the flames of the fire. “Yes, I’d also learned about you, and that Mages weren’t frauds as I’d been taught, but my Guild didn’t know that I had learned that. At least, I didn’t think they did. So why the threats and the Interdicts against discussing anything? I needed to have the time to find out more.” Mari shifted position, grimacing. “Blazes, my butt hurts. I think horses were designed as instruments of torture. And my thighs. You can’t imagine how my thighs feel.”

“I have tried to imagine how they feel,” Alain offered.

Mari stared back at him blankly for a moment, then broke into laughter. “Alain, you don’t just say something like that to a girl. Everybody knows men are thinking it, but they’re not supposed to say it. We really have to work on your social skills.”

“What are social skills?”

“They’re…um…how people avoid saying what they really think. There’s probably a better-sounding explanation than that.”

“Lies?” Alain asked.

“No.” Mari twisted her face in thought. “More like lubrication in an engine, to keep things going smoothly.” She must have noticed his puzzlement. “That doesn’t mean a thing to you, does it? We don’t even use the same metaphors. How did we fall in love?”

“I did not choose to do it. It just happened,” Alain said. “I have wondered myself how this came to be.”

She studied him closely, then smiled. “I’m assuming you mean that in a good way. Where was I? My plan. I’d keep my head down, do as I was told, and learn more. The Senior Mechanics would stop seeing me as a threat, and all sorts of wonderful things would happen. Only they didn’t. I kept getting sent farther south, and finally ended up in Edinton.”

Her smiles and laughter were gone once more, replaced by moodiness. She leaned forward, picked up a stick dropped by those building the fire, and began drawing in the dirt before her. From Alain’s angle, she seemed to making a map. “At that point, I figured I was being out-and-out exiled for a while. Very annoying, especially when I only wanted the best for my Guild. No explanation, just ‘Follow orders, Mari.’ I didn’t have much to do—the leadership of that Guild Hall rivals that of the Guild Hall in Ringhmon for sheer idiocy and poor management—and the longer I was stuck there the more worried I got.”

Mari stopped moving or talking for a long moment, her lowered head bent over the stick in her hands. “Long story short, I got lured into a trap. A Mage using that concealment spell tried to knife me. Then someone else tried to blow my brains out with a bullet.”

“A Mage attacked you?” Alain asked, feeling a sick sensation inside.

“She tried. I knew they’d been watching me. I didn’t give them any reason to try to kill me.” Mari looked at him. “Did I?”

“It is my fault,” Alain admitted. “Even though I have tried to keep them from finding out who you are, they still believe that you are dangerous.”

She gave him another look, then shook her head. “From the looks of things, I’m mainly dangerous to my friends and myself. Just how much trouble did you actually get in because of spending time with me in Dorcastle?”

Alain looked into the fire. “My Guild did not believe that I had been with you in Dorcastle. The elders thought that the woman I had been seen with in that city was a common I had sought out because she resembled the Mechanic I had met in Ringhmon.”

“Why would you want to find a common who looked like me?” Mari asked.

“For physical satisfaction.” The simple statement would have created no reaction in a Mage, but he saw the outraged look on Mari’s face and hurriedly added more. “I would not have done that. But the elders assumed that I did. I told you that they believed I was attracted to you.”

“Alain, ‘attracted to’ doesn’t bring to mind the idea of finding another woman who resembles me so you can pretend that you’re—” She choked off the words, glaring into the night.

“The elders assumed that. I never wanted it. I would never do it. There is no other woman like you.”

Somehow he must have said the right thing, because she relaxed. “But because of that belief of theirs,” Mari said, “your elders thought you might look for me again.”

“They actually thought that you would seek me,” Alain explained. “They were very concerned that you would…” His “social skills” might need work, but Alain realized that he probably should not say the rest.

Too late. Mari bent a sour look his way. “What did they think I would do?”

“It is not that important.”

“Alain…”

He exhaled slowly, realizing that Mari would not give up on this question. “The elders thought that you would seek to ensnare me, using your physical charms, and through me work to strike at the Mage Guild.”

She stared back in disbelief. “Ensnare? They actually used the word ensnare?”

“Yes. Many times.”

“Using my physical charms?” Mari seemed unable to decide whether to laugh or get angry. She looked down at herself. “I’m a little low on ammunition when it comes to physical charms, or hadn’t these elders of yours noticed?”

“You are beautiful beyond all other women,” Alain objected.

Mari rolled her eyes. “And you are seriously deluded. I hadn’t realized how badly until this moment. You’re welcome to your illusions on that count, but please don’t assume that anyone else will share your opinion. So if other Mages had seen me near you, they would have assumed I was ensnaring as hard as my physical charms allowed? Do you have any idea how revolting that entire idea sounds to me?”

Alain nodded. “I think so. I know how I felt when the elders accused you of such a plan. I thought they had insulted you, that if they had known you they would never have suggested that you would do such a thing.”

He had managed to say the right thing again. Mari relaxed a bit. “Well, apparently your elders decided my ensnaring skills were too powerful to risk leaving me alive. After their knife attack failed, I think it was Dark Mechanics seeking revenge for Dorcastle who took a shot at me. And then my own Guild…” Mari paused, her expression a mix of anger, anguish, and disillusionment. “They gave me orders to go to Minut.”

“Minut?” It took a moment for Alain to place the name. “That is in Tiae.”

“Minut is in what used to be Tiae,” Mari said. “My supervisors claimed that a Calculating and Analysis Device had been abandoned there when the Mechanics Guild pulled out of Tiae. Do you know what a Cee A Dee is?” Alain shook his head. “What a Cee A Dee does is think. Sort of. It doesn’t really think like a person does. It calculates. Does math problems, but it does them very, very fast. And that’s all it does, though writing the proper ciphers lets you use math to figure out all kinds of things and track inventories and run simulations and…” Mari gave him a look. “You’re bored.”

“No,” Alain assured her. “I always look like this.”

“No, you don’t. Not like that. But that’s all right, because Cee A Dees are rare, and even a lot of Mechanics don’t know much about them. You warned me about the one I was going to Ringhmon to work on, though it turned out what I had to fear wasn’t the device itself but what was stored on it.” Mari grimaced at the memories. “Anyway, my Guild ordered me to go to Minut, claiming that there would be a strong escort waiting for me inside Tiae. Alain, I couldn’t find any sign that an escort had been sent. I had never heard of any CAD abandoned in Minut, either. My Guild wanted to send me into Tiae to get rid of me.”

Silence fell for a moment, then Mari shrugged. “So, everyone is trying to kill me. Except commons. How about you?”

He waved toward the remains of the dragon. “My Guild has decided to kill me as well.” Alain told her of his being contracted as the sole Mage with the Alexdrians, of the ambush and retreat, concluding with the dragon. “It is clear I was meant to die. If not for you, and if not for General Flyn, I would be dead. Why my Guild did not simply kill me within the Mage Hall I do not know. But it seems that as with your Guild, they did not wish to do it outright, rather making it seem the byproduct of a normal tasking.”

“Stars above, Alain,” Mari said, her voice carrying anguish, “how can you sound so detached about that? Doesn’t it bother you that your own Guild tried to kill you?”

Alain shook his head. “There is no surprise in it at all, merely confirmation of a possibility that I have considered more and more likely. The Mage Guild teaches all acolytes that any threat to the Guild will be dealt with in whatever way is necessary. My Guild has decided that I must die.”

“But why? I was on the other side of the world, as far as they knew,” Mari said. “Did they somehow track me, to know that I was coming this way? Or did they read my mind?”

“The first is possible, the second not.” Alain looked into the fire. “Foresight on the part of some other Mage is possible also, seeing me as a potential future threat. But it may be that I betrayed myself. Since Dorcastle, my ability to suppress my emotions has diminished. I know feelings are showing, not in ways which commons might see, but clearly enough for Mages to spot. My elders could well have decided that I am ruined, that my contact with you has corrupted me beyond correction.”

Mari looked at him, her expression miserable. “I’m used to some people in authority not being thrilled with me, but I’ve never thought of myself as being corrupting before. That’s strange. Some Senior Mechanics said that about me, too, that I was a negative influence on other Mechanics. What does it take to corrupt a Mage, anyway?”

“I told you. They thought that you had attempted to seduce me. Perhaps they thought that you had already succeeded despite my denials that such a thing had happened.”

Once again Mari stared at him, her face darkening. “I was under the impression that your elders thought I would try that at some future point. What did you tell them to make them think that I had already put my moves on you? Or that I had already hooked you?”

“Hooked?” Alain asked.

“Ensnared.” Mari got the word out between clenched teeth.

“I told them nothing. That was the illusion they wished to believe, not thinking there could be any other reason for a female Mechanic to seek my company.” Alain paused in thought. “A young and attractive female Mechanic, that is.”

“Oh, right. The one with all of those physical charms.”

“Yes,” Alain agreed.

She gasped a laugh. “I was being sarcastic again, Alain. I hope that isn’t the reason you’ve been attracted to me. Not the only reason, anyway.”

“You are very pleasant to look upon,” Alain said, and Mari’s face flushed again. Had he angered her? “But my elders were foolish to think physical desire alone could corrupt me. It should not have been possible with all of my training, but I found that a single shadow was by far the most important part of the world illusion. That is what doomed me, so my elders were correct in thinking that you had altered my thinking. Not with your body or other physical temptation, but with who you were and the things you did.” Alain made another effort to bend his lips into a smile. “I will never be able to return to what I was before I met you.”

Her face as she stared at him now was tragic. “I hope you’re not trying to make me feel better by telling me that, Alain, because if so it’s not working. Because of me, your Guild wants to kill you.”

“My Guild wants to kill me because my elders doubt my loyalty. They are correct to do so, because I have learned much from you, and remembered much from being with you, and will help you with the task you are fated to perform.” Mari gave him a quizzical look, but waited as Alain continued speaking. “The road my elders dictate is a narrow one, and I no longer believe it to be the road to wisdom. I choose my own road. I choose to do the right thing, as you call it. I would not choose another companion for that road, and should you choose to walk that road with me, it would be…” His voice faltered, unable to put words to Alain’s feelings, but he met her eyes, trying to let his feelings show. Perhaps he succeeded this time, because once again Mari blushed and bent her head.

“I don’t deserve you,” Mari muttered. “I leave a trail of destruction in my wake. Maybe I belong in Tiae where I can’t do any more damage.”

“You did not go to Tiae.”

“No.” Mari waved at the crude map she had drawn in the dirt. “It was pretty obvious I wasn’t supposed to come back alive from Minut.” She pressed lips tightly together and squeezed her eyes shut. “Alain, the Guild has been my only family for a long time. You expect families to have quarrels, disagreements, but it’s not easy to accept the idea that your family wants to kill you.”

“Our Guilds differ. Mine regards murder as but the fading of a shadow. Where did you go?”

“I rode out of Edinton but jumped a train north, traveling by various means through Debran and on to Danalee, hiding my jacket like I did in Dorcastle so I could pass as a common. An old friend of mine from Caer Lyn was at the Guild weapons workshops in Danalee. Have I ever talked about Alli? No? Sorry. I guess we’ve always had a lot of other things to worry about. Anyway, Alli was still my friend. She didn’t tell anyone I was there, but told me that there was a Guild alert out for me.” Mari snorted in derision. “The Senior Mechanics were supposedly worried that something might have happened to me, claiming that I had decided to go into Minut on my own. I needed to talk to someone who had a lot more pull than Alli or I, but when Alli checked with the Mechanics Guild Academy in Palandur she found out that Professor S’san had retired suddenly a month earlier. What about Professor S’san? Have I mentioned her to you?”

“Yes, in Dorcastle. A Mechanic elder you respect for her wisdom.”

“I couldn’t believe she had retired, Alain. Professor S’san was old, but she hadn’t slowed down at all. I would have sworn she had no intention of retiring. But there was my most reliable and powerful acquaintance in the Guild, abruptly sidelined.” Mari gazed gloomily at nothing. “I really hope Alli didn’t get in more trouble.”

She poked at the fire with her stick, sending sprays of sparks on brief, brilliant arcs through the darkness. “So, there was nothing else I could do for myself at the moment. I swore Alli to secrecy and headed for Dorcastle, staying hidden as a common and taking ship from Dorcastle for Kelsi.”

“Why did you not go to Palandur?” Alain asked.

“Because you were somewhere up here, and I had a growing fear that you were also in danger.” She waved toward the remains of the dragon. “I was right. In Kelsi, I paid a common to go to the Mage Guild Hall, letting him believe that I wanted to hire a young Mage whom I had heard of whose services didn’t cost as much as older Mages’. Because of what you’ve told me I knew the Mages in Kelsi would have known I was lying if I’d gone to them disguised as a common myself, but that common I hired thought I was sincere and so didn’t show any deceit when he talked to the Mages. Those Mages told the common that you weren’t available, that you had a contract in Alexdria. So I went there, where every man, woman and child was chattering about the secret raiding force which had recently left on a secret mission to secretly loot an Imperial town. And plenty of them were willing to talk about the young Mage who was accompanying that force.”

Mari made a face. “Do you have any idea how much junk a military column leaves in its wake? It’s like soldiers shed things as they walk. After picking up some medical supplies just in case a certain Mage had gotten himself hurt, despite his promise to me to take care of himself, I just followed the trail of trash at the best pace my horse could maintain until I heard gunshots ahead of me, and then I hustled faster, until I saw you facing that dragon. I dismounted, activated Alli’s weapon, took careful aim, and conducted a successful field test of the device.” Mari grinned. “I can’t wait to tell Alli how well it worked, even though I have no idea when I’ll see her again. Now, it’s your turn. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Alain took a moment to order his thoughts. “After we separated at Dorcastle, I took ship north as my Guild ordered. Since that time I have been moved from Guild Hall to Guild Hall, I suspect because many elders wished to evaluate me. I was closely watched everywhere.” He shrugged. “I did betray much more feeling than I should have, especially when I thought of you and of our time together.”

“Great.” Mari sighed. “That should be sweet, except it meant that you were ultimately marked for death.”

“Not right away,” Alain said. “I was given no assignments, though I kept asking for one. I…I had difficulty having no one to talk with, as we had. There is only one Mage I think I could talk with, though not like with you, but I do not even know where Asha is.”

“Asha.” Alain could not make out Mari’s expression. “You mentioned her a couple of times before.” Mari hesitated. “Does Asha have dark hair? And is she a little shorter than I am?”

Her voice revealed that those questions had some deeper meaning, but Alain could not think what that might be. “No. Asha’s hair is yellow. No. Golden. And she is about my height.”

“Asha is a tall blonde?” Mari asked, her tone of voice shifting very quickly.

“Yes. Despite her skills, she had trouble with the elders because of her appearance.”

“Her appearance?” Mari peered at Alain. “I thought Mages were taught not to care about their appearance.”

“Female Mages are taught to disregard any sense of personal appearance,” Alain agreed. “This was a problem for Asha. No matter what she did, she always looked very physically attractive.” After a long moment of silence, Alain looked closely at Mari. “Mari?”

“What?”

“You said nothing.”

“What would I have to say?” Mari asked in an outwardly casual voice that sounded oddly tense to Alain. “This Asha you keep talking about, this old friend of yours, is a tall, very attractive blonde. Why would I have anything to say about that?”

There had been times when Alain was an acolyte that elders posed questions to him, questions that seemed very simple yet had contained hidden meanings. Choosing the right answer could sometimes be extremely difficult. He wondered why Mari’s last statement reminded him of that. “Should I not speak of Asha?”

Mari made a gesture which seemed uncaring, but the jerkiness of it implied considerable stress. “I don’t care whether or not you talk about your tall, blonde, very attractive former girlfriend. Why should I care?”

“Asha…is a girl. We were never friends. Perhaps we could have been.” Alain thought he should drop it, but felt a need to explain. “The first day after the Mages took us from our families and brought us to the Guild Hall, we were very young, and we spoke together. We could have been friends, I think, in time. But we were taught not to speak, not to help. There could be no friends. I learned that Asha was a shadow. She learned not to see me as real. Anything that might lead us from wisdom caused punishment. We learned not to be anything, not to care.”

Mari held out one hand, touching his cheek. “I’m sorry. I forget the sort of things you went through. Sometimes I can be a real witch.”

Heartened, Alain nodded, even though he was not sure what had just been happening. “Asha was not one of those female Mages sent to me to see if I would act as expected in a young male.”

Her hand dropped abruptly, her eyes widened, and Mari’s face got tense again, but surely not from embarrassment this time. “Female Mages? Sent to you?” she asked in what was almost a whisper.

“Yes.” Alain nodded again. “To see if I would have physical relations with them. I showed no interest. This surely confirmed for the elders that I was somehow corrupted.”

Mari breathed in and out slowly a couple of times, her tension subsiding. “Just what does your Guild teach about men and women?” she asked.

“That physical relations are meaningless, only a matter of satisfying the demands of the body, while no emotional relations are permitted.”

“But you turned down all of these females sent to you?” Mari’s voice was outwardly calm, but once again he could sense the tension underneath.

“Yes.” Alain spread his hands helplessly. “I could not stop thinking of you, and when I did those others held no attraction.”

She finally smiled. “Good.”

“When I failed those tests, it must have been clear how far I had strayed from the path of wisdom,” Alain continued. He noticed Mari’s eyes narrowing again and hastily added more. “Wisdom as my elders see it, that is. A short time after the last such test, I received orders to go to Alexdria to accompany a military force. I understand now that the decision must already have been made that I must die, as my Guild had surely already put in motion the betrayal of the Alexdrian force and the large number of Mages to be arrayed against me.”

Mari exhaled slowly, then drew in a deep breath. “Why didn’t they just try to kill you? A knife in the back or something?”

“I am uncertain. I think my death may have been meant to send a message. Even a great Mage may be killed by a knife in the back at an unexpected moment, but if I died while on a routine contract, it could be blamed on my own failures as a Mage and my youth. It would be an object lesson on the dangers of succumbing to emotion, and a warning against granting Mage status to one as young as I. Then, too, I have heard discussions among the elders that the shadows of the Free Cities have been too bold of late and needed some rebuke to keep them under control. The total destruction of a force of that size would have had a strong impact.”

Her expression had been shifting to dismay, and now Mari lowered her face into both of her hands, her voice partly muffled by them. “If you had done what your Guild expected you to do with those women, it would have lessened your Guild’s suspicion of you. You didn’t have any commitment to me, Alain. You had promised me nothing. You didn’t even know whether or not you would ever see me again, since you say that vision in Dorcastle is only what might be some day. You would have had every right to do whatever you wanted with those women.”

He gazed at her, puzzled at the change in Mari’s reactions. She had seemed upset at the idea of him with other women, but now… “You wanted me to lie with other women?”

“No! Maybe.” Mari kept her face hidden, but her voice was torn with conflicting feelings. “It would have kept you safe, Alain.”

“I did not wish to do that so as to remain safe. Would you have lain with other men in order to protect yourself?”

“No!” Her hands came down and her head up, Mari glaring at him. “That’s different. Completely different.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Her glare deepened. “Because it is. But it doesn’t matter now.”

Alain frowned slightly, the visible reaction reflecting his extreme level of puzzlement. “You are angry with me because I did not lie with other women.”

“No. You are completely missing the point. Just forget it. What happened after you turned down all of the Mage Guild’s sluts?”

He did not understand Mari’s reactions at all, but decided that pursuing the question would definitely not be along the path of wisdom. “I went to Alexdria, where I joined with the military force under the command of General Flyn, neither of us knowing that the fate of our mission had been already decided. Now you and I both know of the recent past of each other. What will you do, Mari?”

She licked her lips nervously. “Give thanks that you survived, thanks that this general was the commander of the Alexdrians, and thanks that I made it here when I did. After that? More data. I need more data. Exactly what is going on and why?”

“You seek to learn more of the oncoming storm?” Alain asked, thinking of the vision he had seen.

“Storm?”

“The danger,” Alain said, casting his voice lower. “The chaos that threatens all this world. We spoke of it in Dorcastle, and you said you knew all about it, and what your role was to be.”

“Oh,” Mari said. “That stuff. Rioting in the cities, and random attacks by commons, and disproportionate actions by my Guild, and what’s still happening in Tiae? As for my role, I know something must be done, but I don’t know how to do it. I want to talk to Professor S’san. I found out that she’s gone to live at Severun in retirement, so I’m going to go there and ask some hard questions and not leave until I get some decent answers.” Mari looked down, her clasped hands twisting uncertainly.

“But Severun is deep within the Empire, and you cannot travel as a Mechanic if your Guild is searching for you,” Alain objected. “A common without travel papers trying to enter and journey through the Empire will face many difficulties and dangers.”

She still did not look at him, her face lowered. She brushed back her hair with one hand. “I’ve got some fake travel papers.”

“It will still be very dangerous, Mari. But if you believe this must be done to fulfill your task, then I will do all I can to protect you.”

Her head shot up and Mari stared at him. “Really? You’ll come along? I didn’t want to ask. It’s too much to ask of you.”

“If a friend is someone who helps, surely one who cares much more for another does even more,” Alain said. “I only parted from you in Dorcastle because it seemed the best way to protect you from harm. I will not willingly leave you again. And I must assist you in what you seek to do.”

Mari seemed to be trying to avoid crying, even though she was also smiling. “Alain, it’s not something you must do. It’s your choice, though I don’t deny I am very happy with it.” Mari paused, then spoke with careful control. “Please think about it before you commit to this, Alain. It will be very dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous?” Alain asked. “My Guild already seeks to kill me. It would have already succeeded if not for you. But most important is ensuring your safety as best I can, and helping you to do the right thing. I will not leave your side again, I will assist what you seek to do, and I will not allow harm to come to you while I live. I do not have fake travel papers, though.”

Mari looked embarrassed. “Actually, Alain, I have a set of fake travel papers for you, too. I was hoping…”

“You should have known this, Mari, that I would help you.”

She was smiling again as she wiped her eyes. “Maybe I should have known. But I didn’t, Alain. You are a Mage, and sometimes my memories of what happened in the Waste and in Ringhmon and at Dorcastle have seemed like some kind of hallucination. I didn’t know how you would react when I found you. I was actually… Alain, I was afraid that when I found you I’d discover that you’d gone back to being like you were when we first met. That you’d just look at me as if I didn’t exist and walk away. I should have realized that wouldn’t happen. I should have known that you’d help without question. You keep saying that truth doesn’t exist, but you are true. There’s nothing false about you.”

He felt very good at that moment, better than he could recall feeling in his entire life. “You will sleep beside me tonight?” Alain asked.

She looked surprised, then breathed a laugh. “I don’t know exactly how you mean that, but the answer is no. We maintain our distance, Sir Mage, so that our desires don’t get the better of our brains. You said that you’re safer with me around, and I feel the same way about you. Just like before, whatever one of us can’t handle, the other one can deal with. But I won’t feel safe sleeping right next to you because I’m not sure that either one of us can handle that the way we should.”

“You are right,” Alain agreed.

“There. You told me that I’m right again. You may not have great social skills, but you know what to say to a woman.” Mari reached over and retrieved her cup of stew, sipping at it. “It’s cold. Yours must be, too. Sorry.”

Alain picked up his and finished it off quickly. “Between the fire and your presence, I am warm enough.”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “Who told you that line? Some of the soldiers that you’ve been hanging around with?” In the distance, the calls of the sentries sounded, reporting that all was still well. “I’m glad they’re around us now, though. It’s been a little scary sleeping out here alone.” Mari made a face. “Blazes, it’s been scary for months, every time I wanted to sleep, not knowing what might happen while I was sleeping. I could put wedges under my doors to keep out commons or Mechanics, but thanks to you I knew those wouldn’t slow down Mages. I just had to hope the Mage Guild had lost track of me, too.”

“Do you wish me to stay awake and keep watch?”

“Stars above, no. I can see how tired you are. Just having you near will be enough.” She sighed, giving him a longing look. “But not too near. My physical charms might be too much for you, your touch might be too much for me, and then, hey, you’d be ensnared and I’d be worrying about maybe having to knit baby booties.”

“I believe that I already am ensnared,” Alain suggested.

“As long as you mean that in a good way. Alain, I’m exhausted. Do you mind if I lie down now? We can talk more in the morning.” Mari wrapped herself in her blanket and lay down a good arm’s length out of reach of him, though close enough to the fire to stay warm as the night air cooled. She blew him a kiss, her eyelids drooping, then closed her eyes, a slight smile on her lips. Mari must have been as tired as Alain, falling asleep within moments, but her smile remained in place.

He wondered how hard she had ridden to catch up with him and the Alexdrians. From what he had seen of her on horseback here and in the Waste near Ringhmon, Mari was not a natural rider. She must have suffered on that ride, but she had stayed in the saddle until she reached him.

Despite his own weariness, Alain remained sitting, watching her a while, seeing Mari’s face relaxed in sleep, the gentle rhythm of her breathing bringing a sense of great comfort. He sat under the stars, absorbed in wonder at the marvels of this illusion others called the world, letting feelings he had once forgotten fill him.

She loves me.

In danger herself, she came to see if I was safe, pushing herself hard until she found me barely in time to slay the monster that was about to kill me. I should be unhappy about that, concerned that Mari ran such risks for me when only she can fulfill the prophecy that means everything to this world. But, perhaps, the same parts of Mari that brought her here in time to save me will also enable her to save this world.

I was taught that love did not exist, that like all else it is an illusion, yet today love saved my life.

I will never again leave her.