The crates between Mari and the Mechanics exploded into flame, dazzling her sight and that of the attacking Mechanics, and Alain was standing up beside her and pulling her to one side and through a hole where a solid wall had been.
Mari lay in the semi-darkness of a large room, quivering with reaction, unable to move. Her mind kept insisting that she had to be dead now, even though she could hear the muffled sound of shots on the other side of the wall as the Mechanics at the end of the alley blindly fired into the area where she had been only a moment before.
Alain, staggering with exhaustion from the effort of deploying the two spells close together, was trying to pull her up. “Mari! We have to run!”
Mari stared blankly up at him for a moment as she slowly absorbed the fact that Alain had recovered in time to save both of them. Her mind suddenly kicked into gear and she got her feet under her, wavering under the weight of her pack for a moment and wishing for the umpteenth time that she could just dump the thing but knowing that she couldn’t. “I love you,” she gasped. “Remind me to tell my mother how nice it is to have a husband who can hurl fire and walk through walls.”
Alain urged her forward, stumbling as he went. “I need time to recover from that and from whatever knocked me out.”
“You’ll get it,” Mari vowed, ramming another clip into her pistol and letting the slide rock forward to load a round. “I don’t care what happens to me. They don’t get you.”
“You should have run and left me. I would be angry, except for the fact that I know you are even more stubborn than I am.”
Mari fought down a wave of giddiness born of her unexpected survival. “You’re only allowed to be stubborn when I say so, Mage. Remember that.”
“Is this another rule of marriage?” Alain reached a doorway and leaning against it while he peered into the darkened room ahead, his Mage knife ready in one hand.
“Yes. I’ll try to keep you informed as I come up with them. You pulled me to the right, didn’t you? We must be in the building across the alley from the hostel.” Mari crouched and went past Alain into the room, holding her pistol at ready. The room stretched a short distance, ending in large windows facing the street. Shelves packed with clothing and other goods could be dimly seen. “It’s a store of some kind.” She paused. “All right. We’re fighting Mechanics. They don’t believe Mages can actually walk through solid walls, and they would have been temporarily blinded when you set fire to those crates. So they’ve got to believe that we somehow made it down the alley and over the fence at the back end. They’ll be searching for us in that direction. If my orientation is right, those windows we see face on a street to the front, the opposite from that.”
Alain nodded heavily, his tiredness showing in his movements. “Can you get us out to the street?”
“Probably.” They scuttled through the store, keeping below the level of the shelves, until they were close enough for Mari to see through the windows. She crawled carefully forward, peering out. “Lots of lights to our left. That’d be at the hostel. People out there, some obviously city guard. I see some Mechanics jackets moving through the crowd. Most of the people seem to be bystanders, though, commons attracted by the noise.”
Alain came up next to her. “Can we get out without being spotted?”
“If we’re lucky.” Mari edged her way to the main door. As she expected, it was locked, but the lock wasn’t keyed from this side. Breathing a silent prayer of thanks, Mari slowly turned the latch until it clicked open with a sound that seemed to fill the silent store. The noise outside had probably covered the sound from being heard by anyone out there. Mari pushed down on the lever. “We walk out smooth and calm, like everything’s normal and we’ve every right to be here. Clerks working late or something. Got it?”
“Got it,” Alain agreed.
Mari put her pistol into the shoulder holster under her coat, closed the coat to hide the weapon and holster, then stood up, pushed open the door and stepped out onto the street, Alain right behind her. Some of the nearest bystanders gave them curious looks, but Mari calmly closed the door, then turned to Alain and pointed away from the hostel. They started walking steadily through the crowd, trying not to seem fearful or in a special hurry.
Mari caught a glimpse of a Mechanics jacket to one side, but the owner was fighting his way through the crowd toward the hostel, yelling insults at the commons who were too caught up in trying to find out what was happening to be aware that an exalted Mechanic was demanding they make way for him.
They reached the end of the street and crossed quickly, heading up into the city and walking into the relative sanctuary of a quieter cross street, where they could still hear echoes of Mechanic rifle shots bouncing from building to building. Behind them the sound of fire bells was resounding, and a faint flickering against low clouds told of a spreading fire. The fire in the crates must have spread to the surrounding buildings.
Mari realized that her hands were shaking again and hastily gripped Alain’s arm. “That was too close.”
Alain nodded. “How do you suppose they found us?”
“I can’t imagine. I haven’t talked to anyone since we got back to the city. No one knew we were there. We didn’t even know we’d be there until we picked the place. Could Mages somehow be helping my Guild and detecting you?”
He shook his head. “Had Mages been present, they would have attacked us as well. They would not have any confidence in the ability of Mechanics to kill me.”
“I guess you’re right.” Mari felt a prickling of alarm as she realized something. “Hey, the shots have stopped. They’ve already figured out where we aren’t.”
Alain just nodded and began walking faster. They dodged from corner to corner, crossing streets and changing direction as they put more distance between themselves and the hostel. The crowds had long since been left behind; they saw only an occasional other person on the darkened streets. Finally Mari pointed to a small bar on a street corner, still open this late in the evening. “Let’s go in there, rest a little and figure out what to do next.”
The dimly lit bar had only a few patrons, all of them drinking with the grim efficiency of those for whom alcohol was not a diversion but a constant companion. Mari and Alain took a table against one wall, gazing at each other and catching their breath. Before she could say anything, Alain frowned. “I have tried to sense the amount of power available here. It is very small. There is not enough power to support even a single spell, even if I put all of my own strength into it as well.”
“Then we’d better get the blazes—” Mari broke off in mid-sentence as she turned, staring at the small window next to the door. A shadow had flickered across it, as if someone had moved quickly and stealthily there.
Alain caught Mari’s worried look and turned to stare that way. “There is danger,” he announced. “Darkness lies that way.”
Alain’s foresight had kicked in again, but perhaps too late. Mari turned toward the back of the bar, getting out of her chair only to have Alain grab her arm. “That way as well.”
“Alain,” Mari hissed, “you can’t get us through a wall here, can you?” He shook his head. “That means front and back are the only directions we’ve got!”
“Both are deadly,” Alain repeated, his face worried.
Mari looked around. Aside from the flimsy tables, the only cover in the place was offered by the actual bar itself, a fairly substantial-looking piece of furniture anchored to the outside wall and with a sturdy load-bearing brick interior wall behind it, extending most of the way across the room. The brick of the wall next to them, which must be shared with the next building over, went all of the way up to the ceiling. Opposite them, the outside wall was made of brick up to about waist high, but above that were thick wood planking and beams, hinting that this place had once had a far grander occupant. It also had no windows at all except the small one near the front door, no way of getting out through.