“He’s different, Mother! Please get to know him, please trust me,” Mari pleaded.
Kath had finally taken some steps forward, gazing at Alain. “You don’t look like other Mages.”
Alain bowed to her. “I am not like other Mages. Mari has given me back my feelings, and my life.”
“Do you really love Mari?” Kath asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“Isn’t your Guild mad about that?”
Alain nodded. “My Guild seeks my death.”
“Oh, wow.” Kath looked at Mari. “What about your Guild? Aren’t the other Mechanics upset?”
“Yes, Kath,” Mari said dejectedly. “The Mechanics Guild is very unhappy with me. They’re trying to capture me. We narrowly escaped them on our way here.”
A big smile slowly spread across Kath’s face. “You’re on the run. Fleeing from your Guild because the man you love is a Mage. The two of you are giving up everything for each other! How incredibly romantic!”
Mari stared at her little sister in disbelief. “It is?”
“Oh, of course it is! You have to make sure they don’t stop you from marrying the man you love! I’ll bet you’ll get married in some hidden place deep in the Great Woods! Or maybe far Daarendi! Fleeing lovers go there all the time.”
Mari was laughing and Alain felt himself smiling, noticing Eirene watching him with wonderment. Mari looked from her mother and then back to her sister. “I haven’t really thought about where we’d get married, Kath. We just got engaged a short while ago.”
“The important thing is not to get caught,” Kath cautioned.
“I will remember that, Kath,” Mari replied, her lips quivering as she suppressed another laugh.
“What if they catch you? Can you defend yourself? You pointed something at me when I came in. Was it a Mechanic weapon?”
“Yes, Kath.” Mari smiled at Alain, then brought out the weapon slowly. “Would you like to hold it?”
“Mari!” Eirene cried. “Those are deadly!”
“It’s all right, Mother. I’ll unload it. It will be perfectly safe.” As Mari’s mother watched anxiously, Mari drew the weapon, did something that Alain had never been able to figure out which caused part of it to fall into her hand, pulled back the top and peered into it, then gave the weapon to Kath. “It’s called a pistol. A semi-automatic, clip-fed pistol. You won’t see many like this. Most Mechanic pistols are revolvers. Don’t worry. It can’t fire. I took the bullets out.”
Kath held the weapon awkwardly. “It can kill people?”
Mari flinched, then nodded, biting her lip. “Yes, Kath, it can kill people when it’s loaded.”
“Have you killed anyone with it?”
“Kath—!” her mother began.
But Mari gestured to her mother. “It’s all right. Yes, Kath, I have.” Mari’s voice was weighed down with sorrow. “I had to. I hope you never have to.” Kath swung her arm, pointing the weapon at Alain. “Wait, Sister! Never point a weapon at someone unless you wish to harm them, and I hope you never wish to harm Alain.”
Kath lowered her hand and stared at Alain. “You’re really a Mage? Have you ever rescued Mari from a dragon?”
Alain shook his head. “It was the other way around. Mari rescued me from a dragon. In the Northern Ramparts, after my battle with an Imperial legion.”
“You fought Imperial legions?” Kath asked, awed. “And Mari killed a dragon?”
Mari made a dismissive gesture. “It wasn’t all that big a dragon.”
“It was huge,” Alain corrected her. “The largest I have ever seen, and you killed it with one blow from your weapon.”
Kath stared down at the pistol in her hand with a dumbfounded expression.
“I didn’t kill it with that,” Mari assured her, gently retrieving the weapon. She put the smaller part back into the handle, pulled the top of the weapon backwards and let it slide forward again, pushed something on the side of the weapon, then returned it beneath her jacket. Only then did Mari notice how her mother and little sister had been watching her. “What?”
Eirene smiled. “You really are a Mechanic. Just watching you do that, I felt so proud of my little girl.”
“She is not a little girl,” Kath insisted. “She’s older than me, and I am not a little girl, either.”
“You tell her, Kath,” Mari said with a grin. “Anyway, I didn’t use my pistol to kill the dragon. It’s too small to hurt a dragon.”
“As we discovered at Dorcastle,” Alain agreed. “You had to slay that dragon using another Mechanic creation.”
“Right, but we killed that dragon, Alain.” Mari noticed Kath staring at her again.
“My big sister has killed two dragons?” Kath asked.
“So far,” Alain answered, earning himself a narrow-eyed look from Mari.
“Alain,” Mari said, “you’ll have my family thinking I’m dangerous.”
“You are dangerous,” Alain said. “You told me so yourself, and so did my Guild elders, though I think they failed to understand just how dangerous you can be.”
Mari shook her head and laughed.
Her mother gave Alain a questioning look. “I have never before seen a Mage smile, and now you not only do that, but you seem to have just made a joke.”
“He’s different, Mother,” Mari said once more.
Kath reached up tentatively for Mari’s hand. “Would you like to see my room?” Mari nodded and was instantly tugged along into another part of the house, leaving Alain and Eirene standing alone.
“Sir Mage,” Eirene began.
Alain held up one hand to halt her. “To the mother of Mari, as to her friends, I am Alain.”
“I’m glad you’re not wearing your robes… Alain.” Eirene shook her head. “This is all hard enough to accept as it is. I didn’t think that Mages liked other people.”
“Mages are taught that other people do not exist, that they are only shadows who merit no interest or concern.” Alain nodded his head in the direction which Mari and Kath had gone. “I met Mari, and it became clearer and clearer to me that other people were real, and that she was real, and that feelings should be accepted, not rejected. What I told Kath is what happened. Mari gave me back my life.”
Eirene watched Alain closely as he spoke. “She’s certainly done something. I’ve seen Mages converse, and it’s very strange because they seem so inhuman. But you’re far from that.”
“It has been difficult to relearn how to show feelings, to accept feelings. Mari sometimes calls me a long-term project.”
This time Eirene laughed. “Every man fits that description. I’m sorry I was so taken aback, but I hope you understand. There’s been so much in such a short time. It’s so wonderful that Mari is back with us, and that she’s grown into such a splendid woman, don’t you agree?”
“There is no other woman like her,” Alain said, earning himself a smile from Mari’s mother. “But Mari was right when she said that we cannot stay long. Mari did not wish to alarm Kath, but her Guild does seek her and wants to bring about her death. My Guild seeks to kill both of us, as do the Imperials.”
“Given the sentiments that Mari expressed, I’m proud but not surprised that the Mechanics Guild is unhappy with her. The Mages and the Imperials also want to kill her and you?” Mari’s mother took a deep breath. “There have been a lot of rumors lately among the common folk, stories claiming that someone like no one else has appeared. You heard Kath, what she started to say. Have you heard of the daughter of Jules, Alain?”
Alain hoped his Mage training successfully hid his reaction to the question. “I have heard of the prophecy.”
“The rumors say a young woman has been seen, in the Northern Ramparts, one who has the heart of a common person, the soul of a hero, and the skills of a Mechanic, and who is traveling with a Mage.” Mari’s mother speared Alain with her gaze. “That’s an odd coincidence, isn’t it? A Mechanic traveling with a Mage. Who would have expected two such pairs in the world at the same time, and both of them not long ago in the Northern Ramparts, especially since no such pair has ever before been seen?”