Master Mechanic Lukas froze with his mouth half-open.
“You mean like when you made that opening in the deck?” Mechanic Ken asked eagerly, leaning in toward Alain. “Can you do that for a longer time?”
“Yes,” Alain said. “On land there will be much more power to draw on. And the other Mages who follow Mari can also perform this spell.”
“We’ve seen it,” Alli said. “It’s a solid wall, then the Mages do their thing, and there’s an opening big enough to walk through.”
“How can they make openings in walls?” Lukas asked. “I’ve seen it, but how do they do it?”
Alain answered. “Mages do not make openings. We create the illusion of an opening in the illusion of a wall. The illusion lasts as long as our power can sustain it, and then the illusion of the wall returns to its former appearance.”
Mari laughed. “I’ve had this conversation before! Everyone, Alain is not messing with you. That is how the Mages think. It’s how they do something that we can’t explain. And Alain was the one who proposed this plan. Unlike me, or probably any of the Mechanics here, he actually has some training in how to conduct military operations.”
“If we can get inside the Guild Hall somewhere far from the front entrance,” Calu said, “then we’d just be more Mechanics walking around. We could get access to things like the armory—”
“That’s heavily alarmed and locked,” someone cautioned.
“Why can’t a Mage make an opening in the armory?” Ken asked, looking around.
“Bring a Mage inside a Mechanics Guild Hall?”
“Why not?”
“What happens when they kill somebody?”
“Why would we kill anyone?” Alain asked. “Would that be necessary?”
“No,” Mari said. “And if it did prove to be necessary, Mechanics would do it. We can handle our own. The Mages will not harm anyone if I tell them not to.”
“They aren’t like other Mages, then,” someone scoffed.
“This one is talking to us,” Master Mechanic Lukas pointed out. “I can even spot some feeling in his voice at times. No, he’s not like other Mages. And neither is the Lady Mage there. While we were pounding our heads against the front entrance fortification problem, this Mage thought of a way around it. Why haven’t Mages broken into Mechanics Guild Halls that way before this, Sir Mage?”
“Why would Mages want to?” Alain asked.
“Don’t Mages hate us?”
“Mages hate no one. Mages do not care about anyone. That does not mean they will never harm them,” Alain added. “It means Mages do not care whether others are hurt or killed, because they do not believe others are real. Why attack the Mechanics unless they first attack the Mages?”
“Which I understand did happen in the past,” Mari said. “Maybe our Guild decided in part to leave the Mages alone because the Mages did break into Guild Halls in the way Alain has suggested.”
“Your… work,” Mechanic Ken asked. “It can’t be detected by alarm systems?”
“It can be,” Alli offered. “If a Mage makes a hole that breaks an alarm wire, that sets off an alarm just as if someone cut it. But if we tell the Mages where to make the holes—I mean, if Mari tells them where to do it—they should be able to avoid setting off alarms. There’s about thirty of us. Counting the weapons we still have on the Gray Lady, we’ve got a dozen rifles and four pistols. That’s already a lot, but Edinton’s armory should have ten or twelve more rifles and a couple of revolvers.”
“We go in at night,” Mari said. “We know where the security patrols travel and what their schedules are because we’ve all walked those patrols and the Guild never changes them. We know the exact layout of the Guild Hall at Edinton because the Guild builds every Hall using the same plan. I don’t know where all the alarm wiring runs but I bet some of the others of you do. We surprise everyone, we get all the weapons under our control, and when the Senior Mechanics at Edinton wake up, we’ll be in control of that Guild Hall.”
“I’ve always wanted to loot a Guild Hall,” Bev said. “To get my hands on some of the stuff the Senior Mechanics have hidden away for only their use.”
“I’ve wanted that longer than you have,” Lukas said.
“Do we get a vote on this plan?” another Mechanic asked.
Mari could see Alain’s head move very slightly to left and right in a tiny shake of disapproval. They had discussed this, too, and Alain had been very firm that while voting might be a good idea under other circumstances, it was no way to run an army.
And while this was a very small army, it was going to attack a Guild Hall.
“No,” Mari said. “We can discuss long term policy issues, but when it comes to a project like this, we need someone in charge.”
“Why is that someone you?”
Calu laughed. “Are the Mages going to listen to you?” he called to the dissenting Mechanic. “Are the commons going to do what you say? How many Mechanics in Edinton are going to look to you as someone to follow?”
Mechanic Ken glared at the objector. “You are just like me and the others here. All except Master Mechanic Mari. We sat around as the years went by and things got worse and worse. We complained and said something ought to be done, and watched our friends get shipped off to exile or prison, and waited for someone to do something. Why follow Mari? Because she’s willing to lead! And you know what the best measures are of how good she is at that? The fact that the Guild has worked so hard to kill her, and the fact that she not only is still alive but has hit the Guild harder than we ever dreamed possible.”
Ken pointed to the banned technology text that Lukas still held. “Anybody else who has managed to get their hands on that can present themselves as a candidate to lead us.”
“We should have an organized group in charge,” Senior Mechanic Gina said cautiously. “But when dealing with issues of Mages and commons, there is only one person who can give orders.”
“I just don’t want her setting herself up as the only one in charge,” the dissenter complained.
“I don’t want that, either,” Mari said. “Believe me. I want to build things and fix things, and when this is over that’s what I’m going to do. Anybody who tries to haul me into a Guild Master’s job is going to face a very nasty fight.”
“That settles it,” Lukas said. “None of us would have been interested in joining—if you’ll forgive me, Mari—a mindless act of rebellion by a girl barely out of school. But the Guild has already made it clear how much they fear your ability to inspire other Mechanics, and it is obvious that you have put a lot of thinking and preparation into this. We’ve been looking for a leader, and we’ve found one. A leader with plans and the means to carry them out. That leaves only the question of where we’re going to take all of the equipment we will hopefully get from Edinton.”
“I want to avoid saying that until we leave Edinton,” Mari said. “There is a place, but since we have a chance of losing someone at Edinton I don’t want to tell everyone yet and risk the Guild learning right away.”
As the meeting broke up, Mari turned to her friends. “Thanks, guys. Alain and I should stay aboard the Pride to keep an eye on this bunch.”
“It’s a good thing Master Mechanic Lukas backed you,” Calu commented. “He deliberately brought up issues others might use to try to undermine you so you could address them up front.”
“Yeah,” Alli said, “but he was also testing her. I worked with Lukas enough to be able to spot that. If Mari hadn’t passed, he would have challenged her. Hey, Mari, as long as you’re staying here, maybe Calu and I should go back to the Gray Lady.”
“You just want to be alone in that rear cabin,” Mari teased, feeling giddy with relief that she had made it through the meeting so well.