Jack Campbell - The Hidden Masters of Marandur

Mari pointed toward the city. “They’ll kill us!”

“That’s not our affair.” His words were also archaic in accent, but clear. “We don’t meddle in the city beyond our walls.”

“You can’t do this! You can’t turn away people who need safety!”

The figure gestured, and several more men and women appeared on both sentry towers, all aiming their own crossbows. “We don’t take in anyone from the city.”

“We’re not from the city, you blasted common idiot!” Mari shouted. “Didn’t you hear the shots I fired? How many working Mechanic weapons do you think there are in this blasted, hateful, smashed excuse for a city?”

“Mari,” Alain said through his attempts to catch his breath, “that may not be the best way to gain their cooperation.”

The guard hesitated, then brought his crossbow to his shoulder. “You lie. We heard the sounds, but no one here knows what a Mechanic weapon sounds like. I will not warn you again. Go or—”

“Wait!” Mari turned to Alain. “Quick. Get your robes out and put them on.” She was kneeling as she said it, pulling open her own pack. “Hurry!”

Alain did, finding the carefully folded robes, yanking them out and hastily donning them. By the time he was done Mari had her Mechanics jacket out and had traded her coat for it. Then Mari looked up at the sentry towers again. “You must remember what this jacket means and what those robes mean. I am Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn. This is the Mage Alain of Ihris. We are not from Marandur. Please let us in.”

Alain could see the figures above staring and pointing. The one who had first spoken came to the edge of the tower to gaze down at them. “A Mechanic and a Mage? Together? What has happened in the world to bring this about?”

“If you want to know,” Mari shouted back, “you’ll have to let us in.”

Unexpectedly, the man grinned. “A fair trade, it seems. It has been a long time since this place has seen any members of your Guilds.” He called down to someone inside the gate. “Open! Quickly!” Then to the other figures on the sentry towers. “Keep watch for the barbarians!” They raised their crossbows and aimed out across the open area toward the city.

Mari reached and grabbed Alain’s hand. He gripped hers tightly in reply, hearing sounds on the other side of the gate. Slowly, it creaked open a small distance. Mari grabbed her pack and darted for the opening, dragging Alain along. He had just enough room to get through the gap behind her, pulling his pack in last, then they were inside and several people were hastily pushing the gate shut again and sliding a heavy beam across the back to seal it.

Mari threw her arms around Alain, laughing with relief, then kissed him hard. “I told you we’d make it, my Mage,” she said, breathless from the kiss and their exertions.

“You were right, as always, my Mechanic.” He held her tightly as well, then looked around to see faces staring at them in total bafflement. “We will have a lot to explain to these people,” Alain murmured to Mari.

The furnishings were old and worn, most of the windows boarded over, and candles provided only a weak illumination, but the large room still felt like a paradise after even a few days amid the ruins of Marandur. Mari and Alain were both seated in chairs facing one side of a long table. Several men and women were seated along the other side. All wore the robes of professors among the common people, though those robes showed signs of long wear. “I am Wren of Marandur, Master of the Professorship of the University of Marandur in Marandur, by grace of the emperor,” a woman with gray-streaked hair announced. “Together with these others, we are the masters of the university. Who are you?”

Alain let Mari talk. She smiled politely, indicating Alain. “As we told your people at the gate, this is the Mage Alain of Ihris. I am Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn.”

“Ihris. Caer Lyn,” another of the professors noted in a drained voice. “How long has it been since those cities were represented here?”

“You know that as well as the rest of us,” Professor Wren replied tersely. “Tell me, Lady Master Mechanic, how did you come to be here?” Listening to her was like reading the words of someone from almost two hundred years before. Which, Alain realized, in many ways she was, since the university had been isolated for so long.

“We entered Marandur from the north two days ago,” Mari said, speaking in a firm voice as if she were the one in authority here and merely bringing the commons up to date on her activities. “After coming through the city and crossing the Ospren River, we came under attack by those savages who still live in Marandur. Fleeing them, we came upon your wall and knew civilized people still lived there.”

The professors waited for a moment after Mari finished as if expecting more, then Wren spoke again. “Why did you enter Marandur? Does not the emperor’s ban still stand?”

“Yes,” Mari admitted, “it still stands. We had business in the city, seeking something I sought to find in the ruins of the old Mechanics Guild Headquarters.”

“Something important enough to bring a sentence of death upon the pair of you?” asked a third professor, perhaps the oldest of the group. “What could this be?”

“I sought manuscripts from the vaults. But they were gone.”

The professors all kept the same expressions, but Alain, used to watching Mages trying their best to conceal emotion, could see something flicker across the faces of the men and women facing them. What could it mean? “Do you know anything of those records?” he asked.

Another, stronger flicker, even as Professor Wren shook her head with every outward appearance of regret. “No idea, I am afraid.”

The direct denial revealed clearly, to the eyes of a Mage, that she was lying. But why? “That is unfortunate,” Alain said, deciding to wait and learn more before confronting the professors over their lie.

Wren nodded, her movements quick with nervousness. “You, too, are concerned with Mechanics Guild records? Tell us, Sir Mage, what brought you along with the Mechanic? Was this by order of your Guild? Has some remarkable event caused the Mechanics and Mages to be reconciled?”

Alain shook his own head, realizing as he did so that he was once again adopting the mask of a Mage to conceal his own feelings. “Our Guilds still dislike and distrust each other. I came with Lady Mari for reasons of my own.”

“You embraced her!” another female professor exclaimed in bewildered tones. “She did the same to you! She kissed you! And your ages! You’re both very young. If you had not already demonstrated your powers as a Mage, if she had not already given proof of her status as a Mechanic, we would not believe it.”

Mari sat silent, her jaw clenching with stubborn pride. Alain could see her face hardening at the mention of her youth. He gave the woman professor a bland look, his voice still betraying nothing. “I have come to enjoy the company of this particular Mechanic.”

All of the professors stared back, then one slumped in his chair. “The world outside our gates has gone mad.”

Mari exhaled slowly, then looked at them with cool authority, becoming even more the Mechanic as she posed her own question. “What of you? Everyone was supposed to be gone from Marandur. All of Marandur was supposed to be a place of death and ruins. Yet here we find life and purpose.”

Professor Wren nodded. “Our ancestors chose to disregard the edict of the Emperor Palan to leave this city. They had all sworn an oath to the old emperor, you see, to remain in these offices for life, and most of them interpreted that phrase literally as applying to the buildings. The university hadn’t been too badly damaged in the battle compared to the rest of the city, because the rebels did not occupy it. Our ancestors never found out why, they just gave thanks.”