“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.”