“So at a minimum, the Imperials are looking for a couple of refugees from Marandur. And your Guild might be hot on our heels, too.” Mari blew out a long breath. “You really know how to make a girl feel great first thing in the morning, Alain. Remind me not to ask you how I look right now. Stop. I’m not asking you to tell me that.” She paused, thinking. “We need to get moving again. Get far enough from Marandur that we can blend in with the people in the countryside. I know Palandur from my time at the Mechanics Guild training academy there. But I didn’t spend much time worrying about anything outside the city gates, especially anything this far away.”
“I know nothing of the area at all.”
Mari winced as she moved, pulling her pack around to dig out the map she had brought with her all the way from the Bakre Confederation. She studied it for a little while, then shook her head. “I can’t tell how far we’ve gotten or where we need to go next. But we need to get moving.”
“Yes. Which way?”
She frowned again, then looked up at the sun. “South. It’s not directly away from Marandur, but it should take us to some secondary roads running to Palandur. There’ll be plenty of traffic on those roads, even in the winter, and we’ll just be two more travelers.”
Alain thought about the pristine stretches of snow outside the small patch of woods they occupied. “How do we avoid leaving a clear trail for the Imperials to follow?”
Mari didn’t say anything for a while. “I have no idea,” she finally said. “There are no other tracks out there? Nothing we could use to cover our own?”
“There are the tracks made by the lumber wagon and its horses.”
She made a helpless gesture. “We’ll have to use those. Which means we have to wait here at least until the wagon leaves.” Mari’s expression brightened. “That might actually work out. I’ve seen how the Imperials handle trying to catch someone. They set up checkpoints and send out patrols, gradually expanding the search.”
“This helps us how?” Alain asked.
Mari drew a circle in the snow before her, then another larger one around it, then an even bigger one around that. “It helps us because the Imperials assume their prey is running at the best pace it can manage. Therefore as they expand their perimeter their checkpoints have to cover wider areas. While we wait here, the checkpoints and patrols will think we’re doing the sensible thing and running like crazy, so they’ll keep searching areas we haven’t gone to. By the time we start out tonight, the Imperials will have searched this whole area and already declared it clear.”
Alain considered the diagrams, nodded, then asked a question. “But what if they find us while they are searching this area?”
“That is the one weak point in the plan. We’ll have to keep an eye out for search parties and react as best we can.” Mari glanced around. “We should have a much better chance of evading searchers in these woods than out in the open, so it’s the option we’ve got. Can you still sense that Mage?”
“Yes, but he is not close.”
“Let’s hope he stays distant.” Mari settled back against the twin trees again, wincing. “I am so cold, and so tired, and so hungry, and so thirsty. Can Mages make food or wine?”
“How could Mages do that?” Alain asked, startled by the question.
“They make dragons.”
“That is different.”
Mari gave him one of her narrow-eyed looks, then pulled the blanket up over her head. “Don’t bother me until nightfall unless you see Imperials or find food.”
“I have food in my pack. The university sent some extra with us. Your pack was already loaded with your tools, so they—” Alain stopped speaking as Mari yanked the blanket down and glared at him. “Had I not mentioned that before?”
“No,” she replied in her dangerous voice. “You had not mentioned that. So you have more food?”
“Yes.”
“What about drink?”
“Just water.”
“When were you planning on telling me about that? Before or after I collapsed from hunger and thirst?”
Alain paused to think, deciding not to answer that last question directly. “I was trained not to think about physical discomforts like food and drink, so I do not always feel such things as you do.”
Her anger subsided as quickly as it had arisen. “Sorry. I know your acolyte training was very rough.”
“Perhaps we should eat now.”
“Perhaps we should,” Mari muttered.
He got out the food, which while sparse still represented a generous gift from the university, whose inhabitants were always on lean diets. Mari let him back under the blankets, so that even though it was still icy cold outside they were able to share their warmth. “I’m sorry I’ve been in a bad mood,” she finally mumbled again in apology. “We’re both under a lot of pressure, and we’re both suffering from the cold and all the walking in the snow we’ve had to do. I don’t have any right to act like I’m the only one suffering. How are you doing?”
“It could be much worse,” Alain said.
“Yeah. And it probably will be,” Mari said. “Can I ask what is probably a silly question about Mage stuff?”
“Of course,” Alain said. “I know many of my questions about Mechanic things sound odd to you.”
“Fair enough,” Mari said. “Why can’t Mages make food if they can create something like a Dragon? Why can’t you imagine into existence a steak or a roast chicken?”
“It would not be worth the effort expended,” Alain said. “The amount of strength and power required to create such a thing would exceed whatever benefit the food would give.”
“Wow,” Mari said. “That actually makes sense to me.”
“But it does not matter,” Alain continued, “because there would be no benefit to it. What Mages create is an imitation. Dragons, trolls, and other spell creatures do not live, they imitate living creatures. They bleed, but it is not blood. They have muscles and other flesh, but it is not actual meat.”
“What does it taste like?” Mari asked, staring at him, her expression both fascinated and revolted.
“I have not tasted it,” Alain said. “An elder once told my group of acolytes that it is like eating dirt or dust.”
She made a gagging expression as if she had actually tasted some. “All of a sudden I am very grateful for any other form of food. Go ahead and try to sleep some more. I’m a little restless, so I’ll stay awake and keep an eye on things.”
It was about noon, and the thunking of the crew cutting wood had not yet let up, when Alain awoke to Mari cautioning him to silence. It was not hard to understand why, since he could faintly hear the tramp of many feet in the snow. Mari crept out to check, then came hastening back. “About a cohort of legionaries, spread out in a search line, walking across country and heading this way.”
Chapter Three
No Mage could create a spell using only his or her own strength. Mages needed to draw on the power they could feel in whatever location they were—power whose source remained unknown and which varied unpredictably in magnitude from area to area. Some places held so little power that Mages would have to exhaust themselves to create even a minor spell, while others were rich in that resource—though whenever power was drawn on by a Mage it would lower the amount in that area until it slowly renewed. Alain, accustomed to having Mari unable to grasp any aspect of the Mage arts, had been surprised when she understood that. “Like a battery, which can be stronger or weaker and can be recharged,” she had said, an example which Alain had not understood but apparently satisfied the mind of a Mechanic.
Now Alain felt for the power in the area around him, sensing how much was available here as only Mages could. “We could run, but only across the open fields. We would be seen easily, if only by the footprints we made in the fresh snow. If we stay here, there is enough power available to me to sustain a concealment spell for some time.”