Alain sat down beside her, peering into the swirling snow. “Your words are wise,” he told her. “I increasingly feel the same about my spells which can harm.” As nervous as he was about the barbarians tracking them to this spot, he was more worried now about trying to get past the Imperial sentries. “I am assuming there will be a Mage alarm set around this part of the city as well, just as there was where we came in on the northern side.”
“Yeah.” Mari sat silent for a moment. “Maybe the snow and the ruins muffled the sound of the one shot I fired back there and the Imperials didn’t hear it. I don’t see any sign that they’re more alert than usual. Do you sense any Mages anywhere near us?”
“No,” Alain said. “I sense no other Mages at all.”
“Why don’t you sound happy about that?”
“Because there should be some trace of Mages,” Alain explained. “The Imperials employ some Mages to help maintain their quarantine of Marandur. Why can I not sense any even at a distance now, as I did when we entered the city?”
She inhaled with a hiss of breath. “They’re hiding themselves just like you are?”
“I believe so. It would mean they are alert and prepared. The sound of your weapon may have carried far enough to warn them something is happening in the city. We must assume there may be a Mage, or more than one, not far distant. I must be very careful about using any spells at all, or our chance of discovery will become much greater.”
“Wonderful.” Mari sometimes used words when she appeared to mean the exact opposite, such as now. Alain could not think of anything about this situation which he would call wonderful. “If we’re lucky,” she continued, “the Imperials will hole up in their watch towers during the storm. If we’re unlucky, they’ll increase the number of patrols just in case someone’s trying to use the storm as cover to enter or leave the city. Maybe they heard enough noise from my one shot to alert the Mages, but if nothing else happens for a while they’ll relax again and decide the boom was something collapsing. Once it gets dark enough, we’ll find out just how alert the Imperials are tonight for people trying to sneak out of this city instead of trying to sneak into it.”
“Who would be fools enough to sneak into Marandur?” Alain asked. “Who would want to enter a dead city in ruins when the Emperor has decreed that anyone doing so must die themselves?”
Mari looked over at him and grinned despite the worry he could see in her. “You’re getting good at sarcasm, too. I hope I’m not creating a monster. And no, I don’t mean ‘creating a monster’ in the same way you Mages do.” She kept her voice just loud enough for Alain to hear, her eyes going back to searching the ruins for any signs of the barbarians. “But you’re right. Only fools would have done it.”
Mari sounded concerned and weary to Alain, so he moved a little closer, offering his shoulder, and she leaned against it with a happy sigh even though her weapon remained ready and her eyes alert. “But it was a good idea,” Mari continued. “With the technology in the banned Mechanic manuscripts we found we can really change things. If we have enough time.”
“And if we can reach the island of Altis,” Alain said, “and find there the tower which is spoken of in those manuscripts. It will be a long journey, filled with many hazards. You are certain we must go to Altis?”
“Yes,” Mari said without any hesitation. “The notes on that page of the manuscripts said records of ‘all things’ are kept in that tower. That note must have been written a long time ago, but old records are exactly what we need. Unless we can learn something about the history of our world, something about how it ended up the way it is, we won’t know how to fix things. We have to go to Altis and find that tower, even if it is in ruins now, and learn what we can from any surviving records. People expect me to change the world, to make it better, but I can’t fix something that big unless I know how it came to be broken.”
“Then we must go to Altis.” Alain could feel against his back the edges of the water-tight package in his own pack which held his share of the manuscripts. Mari had shown him some of the Mechanic documents, but he had understood none of them. He did know that Mari was convinced that these texts could change the world, and that was enough for Alain.
“You’re very quiet,” Mari whispered to him. The snow had kept falling, and was now coating them as well the ruins. “Talk to me. It’s cold and I’m scared. What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that none of my fellow Mages would be able to understand what I am doing,” Alain admitted. “They, like me, were taught that the world we see is an illusion and that all people are but shadows on that illusion. We were told that the works of Mechanics were all tricks. They are obedient to the Mage Guild because that is drilled into us as young children. Yet here I am, having thrown off the discipline of my Guild, which seeks my death. I have decided that at least one other person is a thing of a great value, having fallen in love with that person despite my training to reject all feelings, and she moreover a Mechanic, member of a Guild which is the ancestral enemy of the Mage Guild. Other Mages would think me mad.”
In the gathering gloom, Alain sensed more than saw the smile on Mari’s face. “Maybe not every Mage. That old girlfriend of yours was trying to understand.”
“Mage Asha was never my girlfriend. Why do you keep calling her that?”
“Because I don’t believe you, my Mage,” Mari said. “But that’s okay. Asha felt like a good person trapped in a Mage’s teachings, just like you were before I met you and, uh, ‘ensnared’ you. She tried to help us back at Severun. I hope she’s all right.”
“Yes,” Alain agreed. “It would be… nice to have more friends, after so long being alone.”
Mari’s voice took on that slight edge it still sometimes did when talking about Asha. “Just as long as she doesn’t try to get too friendly with you.” She looked out over the dead city. “Alain, if we fail, if we can’t break the grip that your guild and my guild have on Dematr, the whole world could end up looking like this.”
“It will end up looking like this,” Alain said. “Within a few years at most. Uncontrolled wars, breakdown of the governments of the common folk, mobs, rioting, the same anarchy that has riven what once was the country of Tiae in the south. The efforts of our former Guilds to control the bedlam will only magnify the chaos, until the Guilds are swept away along with all else.”
“Unless…” Mari drew in a deep breath. “Unless the daughter of Jules stops it by overthrowing the Great Guilds first. Alain, why is it me? Jules died centuries ago. Who knows how many women descended from her have lived since then? And I don’t even believe that she’s actually my ancestor. Why me? Why now?”
“I do not know for certain,” Alain said. “I would say that it must be now, because no more time remains. And I would say it must be you, because there is no one else who could do it.”
“Neither of those conclusions is particularly comforting,” Mari grumbled.
They sat quietly then for a while, listening for trouble, watching for danger, as the darkness grew heavier along with the snowfall. The wind had calmed, and aside from the gentle hiss of the falling snow nothing moved or made a noise. But Alain distrusted that sense of peace, wondering what moved silently beyond their very short range of vision.
Some pieces of rubble rattled not too far away, a tiny avalanche of debris that brought both Mari and Alain to full alertness. The heavily falling snow made it hard to tell exactly where the noise had come from. Mari stood up very slowly and carefully, trying not to make a sound, snow cascading from her as she rose. Alain waited until she was ready, then he did the same, snow showering off his body with a soft murmur. Perhaps it was just the nearest ruins shifting as they decay. Perhaps. A scraping sound came from somewhere close by, as if something had rubbed up against something else. But I do not believe it.