“It would be best to avoid roads altogether,” Alain cautioned, “but that would make our journey much harder, and since this land is divided into many farms we would have to deal with many fences and many landowners who would question our presence.”
“Much harder and a lot more time,” Mari agreed. “We’ll stay with minor roads, hitching or paying for rides when we can, and walking when we can’t.”
It took over a week of hiking and occasional rides in passing wagons. Every time they approached an intersection Mari discreetly pulled out her far-seer and scouted ahead, allowing them to spot Imperial checkpoints early enough to evade them without being seen themselves. Unfortunately, that usually meant avoiding riding on wagons, since dodging checkpoints would arouse the suspicion of drivers. By the time they sighted Landfall, Mari was wondering how much longer her boots would hold out.
Mari timed their arrival at the Imperial checkpoint outside the south gate to coincide with a rush of travelers. The officer they met eyed their new identification papers briefly, shoved them back at Mari and gestured to the next traveler.
Not far inside the city gate a small park beckoned, with few people in it at this time of the day. Mari sat down on a badly weathered stone bench under an ancient tree, pulling off her boots to rub her feet. “Ow, ow, ow. I am so tired of hiking.”
Alain sat down next to her, nodding wearily.
Mari leaned back, closing her eyes. “I suppose I should be grateful. All of this walking must be doing wonders for me. I’ll bet my legs must look great.” She glanced over at Alain and grinned. “Not to mention my rear end. Am I still distracting when you watch me walk from behind?”
“Very distracting,” Alain said. “I will be happy to evaluate your legs, if you wish.”
“I bet you would. You’ll see them someday, Mage, and a lot more besides.” Mari stretched, thinking happily of the upcoming sea voyage, on which any walking would be limited to going around the deck. “I’m probably looking forward to that day more than you are.”
“I doubt it.”
She laughed. “All right. We won’t have any trouble finding the waterfront. I vaguely remember it from a few years ago when I came here from… my first Guild Hall.”
“In Caer Lyn,” Alain said.
“Yes,” Mari replied, hoping the sudden frost in her tones got through to Alain. She stood up abruptly, her good mood vanished.. “We should go check the sailing schedules.”
Alain’s voice held a sigh of resignation. “All right.”
Her disposition lightened a bit on the way, partly because she felt guilty for snapping at Alain and partly because she was finally getting a chance to see a bit more of Landfall the Ancient, supposedly the oldest of cities. Many of the buildings showed ample signs of age in the weathering of their stone or in their old designs. Many of the trees were very old as well, with wide trunks, gnarled bark and expansive spreads of branches. The streets of Landfall were wide and straight, a perfect grid varying only occasionally to accommodate terrain or some special building.
Special buildings such as the Mechanics Guild Hall. Mari saw it in the distance, where the Guild Hall rose next to the same river that flowed downstream from Marandur and Palandur, and felt the same mix of yearning and anger at the thought of what she had lost and the lies she had been told.
Alain stayed silent the entire way. Though he never talked as much as Mari did, she had slowly learned to sense different qualities in his silence. Sometimes it was the quiet of someone lost in his own thoughts, an intriguing silence, and sometimes Alain would be wordlessly enjoying her presence, which was a nice silence. But this silence loomed like a fortress in which the gate had been sealed, as Alain drew into himself because he thought he had been wronged.
Upset as she had been, Mari had to admit that those times when he sealed the gate it was usually because she had given him good cause. Stubborn as she could be, Mari knew that she had been wrong to snap at him this time. “I’m sorry,” Mari finally muttered.
He nodded, but still said nothing.
“You know how I feel about that,” Mari continued. “You shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Alain looked over at her. “I said the name of a city.”
“Yes, but—” She glowered at the worn cobblestones beneath their feet. “I don’t think you can understand.”
“I understand that you avoid thinking about and confronting your past.”
“What makes you an expert at dealing with the past?” Mari whispered savagely.
“I have stood at the graves of my parents.”
It was odd how painfully such an impassive statement could lash at her. Mari grimaced. “All right. You have a point. I can only guess how hard that must have been for you. It’s different for me.”
“Would you feel better if your parents too were in their graves?”
That was as harsh a thing as Alain had ever said to her. Mari fought to control her anger. “No. I admitted that you have a point. Please drop it.”
“We always drop it, yet always it stays with us and between us.”
She stopped walking so abruptly that Alain took another step before he caught himself and came back. Mari stared at the ground, not really seeing the cobblestones now. “Maybe this was all a mistake. You and me.”
“Do you believe that?” he asked, and once again she could easily sense the emotion in his words.
Mari thought about possible responses, about more ways to hurt Alain, and then got a grip on herself. “No. Not really. I was trying to attack you so I could avoid facing things I don’t want to face. I can’t forget the past, Alain.”
“I would never ask you to do so. But will you let the past destroy the present?”
She exhaled slowly, dimly aware of annoyed pedestrians going around her and Alain where the two of them stood still on the sidewalk. An image of Marandur came to Mari, and it took her a moment to realize why. “Is that what I’m doing? Building a wall around the ruins of my childhood and maintaining those ruins as some kind of horrible monument to my suffering? Alain, please stick with me. I know something has to change. I don’t know how, yet. Please… don’t go.”
His voice finally relented. “I will never go.”
Mari took a deep breath, smiled at him, then took his hand as they started walking again. “I don’t deserve you.”
“If you did not deserve me,” Alain said, “then destiny would not have brought us together.”
“I’m sure. Maybe destiny wanted to punish you.” Feeling better, Mari spent the rest of the walk to the docks trying to relax.
Unfortunately, once they got there a series of talks with agents selling tickets on outbound ships kept producing the same result. “It will be three days before a ship leaves directly to Altis,” Mari said with disgust. “I do not want to spend three days here, worrying about various people who are looking for us.”
“One night in Palandur was almost too many,” Alain agreed.
Mari studied the boards where sailings and ships were posted, finally shaking her head. “There’s only one thing to do. Yes, again, we’ve only got one good choice. There’s a passenger ferry leaving about noon for Caer Lyn. From there we can surely get a ship heading straight for Altis without having to wait much, if at all.”
“You have not been back?”
“Not since I left the Guild Hall there.” But she knew what he was really asking. Had she ever gone home again. “No. Once I became a Mechanic, I guess my parents decided there was no place for me to go back to.” It came out not in anger, as she knew it usually did, but sadly.
He nodded, not pressing it this time.