Jack Campbell - The Dragons of Dorcastle

She smiled at the chance that had misled her pursuers. “It wasn’t entirely willingly, I have to admit. We were under some pressure.”

“I do not understand why you keep saying ‘we’ or ‘us’ when you speak of you and I,” Mage Alain said. “The two of us are together, but hardly companions.”

Mari bent her head, resting her forehead on one hand and feeling incredibly weary now that her thirst had been dealt with. “I’m just being efficient. ‘We’ is a lot easier to say than ‘you and I.’ ”

“I see.”

“I wasn’t being serious. I was using sarcasm.”

“How can I tell when you are being serious?”

Mari raised her head to look at the Mage. “I start speaking in short sentences, my voice gets loud, and my face gets darker.”

“I will remember that,” Mage Alain answered with no emotion but apparently perfect sincerity.

Exhaustion, tension, the relief of getting water, the Mage’s safe return, and the simple absurdity of it all finally got to her. Mari started laughing, holding her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound but unable to stop for a while. The Mage eyed her, waiting silently. “Sorry,” Mari finally managed to gasp. “I just…what do we do from here? Do you think the road toward Ringhmon will be safe if those bandits are searching for me the other way?”

He thought about that, then shook his head. “I doubt the road will be safe. From what we know,” he paused after the phrase and gave her a dispassionate look before continuing, “they have more than enough numbers to scour the road in both directions for you.”

“Then what do we do? Strike out overland?” She waved at the rough terrain. “We could spend weeks trying to get through this, and unless I’m mistaken there’s only a few days’ worth of water here.” Mari tapped the bottle closest to her. “You said you saw the caravan master’s map? How far do we need to go to reach someone who can help?”

The Mage frowned very slightly, not to reveal emotion but in thought. “There were wells along the caravan route, but I cannot recall their locations. The first place where any were marked was, I would guess, about halfway from here to Ringhmon.”

“We were supposed to be in Ringhmon in six more days. So, on foot, at least three or four days’ travel to reach these wells?”

“I would say so. It could be as much as five days on foot. Along the road.”

“ And we have to avoid the road. Any ideas?”

Mage Alain shook his head. “Not right now. Why do you ask me my opinion? You are a Mechanic. I know Mechanics do not respect Mages.”

Mari shrugged. “You seem to understand some of this stuff, things about fighting. You said you were taught about it. That kind of material wasn’t part of my education. And…I like knowing what other people think. Even if they want me to make the decision, I want to have their input. I hate it when people make decisions about me without asking me about it, so I’m not going to do that to other people.”

“Why not?”

Could that question possibly be sincere? “Because I want to treat them right.”

“You speak of how to act toward shadows? They are nothing.” She, too, was only a shadow, the Mage Guild's teachings told him. She, too, was nothing. But he felt a strange reluctance to say that to her again. “What is 'right'?”

She took a deep breath. “Look…I don’t like being treated badly myself, and I don’t enjoy treating other people badly. I tried being rough on people who were junior to me a couple of times when I was an apprentice, because that was expected of you when you got some seniority, and I really didn’t like doing it, so I haven’t since then. That’s what I mean by treating people right.”

Mage Alain spent a while thinking before he spoke again. “Why does that matter?”

“Because it does. To me.” She wondered why she wasn’t getting angry at the Mage’s attitude, and realized it was because he appeared to be genuinely puzzled.

“This is how Mechanics think?”

Mari had to look down, biting her lip. She didn’t want to admit the truth, not to a Mage, but it was a truth everyone on the world of Dematr already knew. “Not all of us. Many Mechanics treat common people badly, because…because the Guild says they don’t matter.”

He nodded. “I had not expected any wisdom from the Mechanics Guild.”

“It’s not wisdom! I don’t think it’s wisdom.”

Mage Alain studied her, then nodded again. “You do not lie. You have not treated me badly, even though you are a Mechanic.”

“Yeah…well…” Mari looked down, feeling embarrassed. “My instructors used to complain that I didn’t listen to everything they told me.”

“Even when they disciplined you?”

Mari paused before answering this time. Even though the Mage’s robes covered most of his body, she had spotted the marks of scars on his hands and face. “I don’t know what you mean by discipline, and I don’t think I want to know. Life as a Mechanic apprentice can be pretty harsh, but I’m getting the feeling that you went through a lot worse.”

“It was necessary,” Mage Alain said.

“If you say so,” Mari replied, not willing to debate the issue right now. “But getting back to your question, I ask your opinion because that’s what I do, and you seem to be pretty level-headed even if you do believe crazy things.”

“This was…praise.” Mage Alain watched her intently. “From a Mechanic. Am I supposed to ask how I can ever repay you for saying that?”

She grinned even though her dry, cracked lips made the gesture painful. “That’s up to you. Listen, we’re both worn out. I can’t think straight. Let’s get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.”

“Do you feel safe sleeping here?”

“I won’t feel safe until I get inside the walls of the Mechanics Guild Hall in Ringhmon,” Mari replied. “But for tonight, hopefully this is the last place those bandits will be looking for us.”

She had closed her eyes before it occurred to her that the Mage might actually have been asking about whether she felt safe sleeping near him.

Was he being honest with her? Mages were notorious for their lies. And the way he implied that not revealing his feelings was somehow tied in with that heat thing felt ridiculous. She could build a machine that would create heat, and it wouldn’t matter if she were frowning or smiling the entire time she was at work. Despite the jokes about machines mockingly refusing to work when they knew you needed them, engineering had nothing to do with feelings.

But he had done something. Somehow. A Mage had done something that she couldn’t explain.

A Mage here with her. Her too exhausted to stay awake and alert for anything he might try. Bandits below, so that she dared not struggle or cry out if the Mage attacked her. Situations didn’t get much uglier.

Her last thoughts as she passed out from fatigue were that if she had misjudged Mage Alain, if her decisions to trust him had been wrong, this night could get a lot worse.

The dream came, as it usually did after a difficult day.

Eight-year-old Mari stood in the doorway of her family’s home, staring at the Mechanics who had come for her. Her father protesting, her mother crying as the Mechanics led her away. You did very well on the tests. You will be a Mechanic.

The dream shifted, Mari watching the streets of Caer Lyn glide by as if she were floating down them. The city watch in chain mail and bearing short swords, common folk watching impotently as the Mechanics passed with Mari and one other child they had collected. Sailing ships crowded the harbor, their masts and spars forming a spiky forest that swayed slowly to the rhythm of the low swells undulating across the water. A single Mechanics Guild steamship headed out to sea, trailing smoke in a long, spreading plume. Then the Mechanics Guild Hall rising before her, the group passing through the gates into rooms where Mari gawked at her first sight of electric lights and the Mechanics carrying their strange weapons.