“But getting on the ferry means getting past the Imperial customs checkpoints.” Mari looked around, an idea coming to her. “They’re looking for two people traveling together. If we buy two tickets for two separate compartments, and then go through customs separately and board separately, that might ensure that the Imperials don’t take any special notice of us. Once out of Landfall, we’ll be clear of the Imperials and not have to worry about them anymore.” She frowned as Alain shook his head. “What? The Sharr Isles are independent.”
“They are called independent,” Alain explained. “To a Mechanic such as you, the real status of the Sharr Isles would not matter, but the independence of the Sharr Isles is purely at the sufferance of the Empire and maintained by the Great Guilds. It serves the Empire’s interests to have so-called independent islands to funnel trade to and from the west. Even then, only the supremacy of the Great Guilds and their insistence that the Imperial borders expand no farther has kept the Empire from claiming the islands. The Sharr Isles take no step without Imperial approval, and do whatever the Empire commands. In exchange they gain the right to call themselves free and are defended by the Empire’s formidable military.”
“Great,” Mari groused. “So even in Caer Lyn we’ll have to worry about the long arm of the Empire. Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“What bridge is that?”
One moment he was explaining geo-politics and history to her, and the next he was confused by something simple and everyday. Mari closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at Alain. “That is a figure of speech. It means we will deal with that situation when we encounter that situation.”
He nodded back, his expression serious.
“The ferry is the Sun Runner,” Mari continued. “Let’s go get the tickets. I’ll go first, with you in line behind me, and you can just copy what you see me say and do. All right?”
The plan worked without any problem, though the length of the line to get past Imperial customs and border control worried Mari when she saw how close it was getting to the Sun Runner’s sailing time. The line moved slowly, everyone waiting with the stolid acceptance of official inconvenience that marked life in a state such as the Empire. When Mari finally reached an official, that woman eyed Mari’s papers with disinterest. “Traveling alone?”
“Yes.” An Imperial customs official just wasn’t as intimidating as a troll.
“Purpose of travel?”
“I spent a few years in Caer Lyn as a child.” Alain had taught her that lying by telling a misleading truth was far less likely to be apparent to any questioner than telling a complete fabrication.
“Emdin,” the officer commented. “You came straight from there?”
“Yes,” Mari replied. “Through Alfarin.”
“Have you been north or east of Alfarin?” the officer pressed.
That called for a flat-out lie. “No. I went from Emdin to Alfarin and then here.” Mari tried to look and sound like a rustic girl who didn’t have much experience in the wider world. “Should I have gone another way?”
“No,” the officer replied, sighing in the manner of someone tired of dealing with the public. “Did you see any unusual travelers? A pair of them, one an uncommonly attractive young woman with dark hair, the other a young man? They might have been claiming to be students at the university in Palandur.”
“I saw many other travelers, but none that seemed unusual,” Mari said, wondering again at why the Imperials seemed focused on an “uncommonly attractive” young woman. “I didn’t meet anyone who looked like that.”
The officer glanced at Mari’s pack. “Are you carrying any contraband?”
“No.” Not by Imperial definitions, anyway. It was the Mechanics Guild which had banned the ancient texts in Mari’s pack, manuscripts which the Imperials didn’t even know existed.
“Pass.” The official handed back Mari’s papers and gestured her onward.
Mari went up the gangway onto the Sun Runner and leaned on a rail, looking down at the pier where Alain was just reaching another Imperial official to be interviewed. She wasn’t too worried about how well Alain would handle that. The ability of Mages to lie without any sign of misgiving or deception was legendary.
Sure enough, after a very brief interview Alain was waved onward and came up the gangway. He glanced at Mari, then once aboard took a place at the rail nowhere near her but still within eyesight.
It wasn’t too much later that whistles sounded and sailors began taking in the gangway and the lines holding the Sun Runner to the shore. Commands were shouted from the high quarterdeck at the stern of the ferry where the ship’s wheel rested. More sailors ran up into the rigging and along the spars, and soon sails unfurled on the masts above the ship, shining white against the blue sky. Mari felt the ferry lurch beneath her as the sails caught the wind. The Sun Runner swung out away from the pier and into the harbor, then began gliding across the water toward the harbor entrance.
Mari watched the city of Landfall and the territory of the Empire slowly recede, thinking about when she had entered the Empire with Alain months ago and far to the north from the mountains of the Northern Ramparts. We made it. Through the heart of the Empire, through the forbidden city of Marandur itself, and out through the Empire’s oldest and largest port.
Maybe Alain and I can actually sleep in peace tonight, without keeping one eye open for danger. I’ve forgotten how that feels.
Several commons were talking in low voices nearby, just loudly enough for Mari to catch the conversation. She had been trying to ignore them, but then Mari heard something about Jules and listened closer.
“She was seen in the Northern Ramparts,” a woman insisted. “Just a few months ago. The daughter of Jules. Wearing a Mechanics jacket, she slew a dragon single-handed to save some commons, wouldn’t take any payment, and healed a dozen badly injured soldiers with the touch of her hand.”
“Nobody wearing a Mechanics jacket would care about commons,” a man grumbled.
“She did, but she didn’t act like a Mechanic except that she fixed all of their Mechanic weapons, too. And then,” the woman added, “a Mage showed up and swore allegiance to her and they went off together. People saw it. Some say she’s on her way to see the Emperor, to ask him to let her lead the legions against the Great Guilds.”
Mari pressed the palm of one hand against her forehead, closing her eyes to try to block out this latest development. Blasted soldiers. I save their lives and this is the thanks I get, them telling everybody who I am!
Stars above. I thought “who I am.” Not “who people think I am.” Am I starting to accept it? Am I starting to believe that I really am the daughter? I don’t want to be her. I don’t want that responsibility. But… she’s needed.
Caught in the internal discomfort of her thoughts, Mari barely noticed the second man shaking his head, but when he started speaking his words immediately caught her attention again.
“I don’t doubt she’s trying to get to the Emperor,” the man said in a low voice. “I’m sure she wants back in the palace again, after all these centuries.”
“What?” the woman asked in anxious tones. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve heard of Mara, haven’t you?” the second man whispered. “Consort to the first emperor, Maran himself? So incredibly beautiful, they say she bewitched Maran and almost ran the Empire for a time.”
The first man nodded. “I heard about that. She never wanted to get old, so she made a deal with the Mages to keep herself young forever. But it’s just a story, isn’t it?”