“Can we trust the common people there, you mean?” Mari shrugged. “I think so. I only passed through there once, so I don’t know much about the place personally, but the captain told me that Julesport still takes after the person who founded the city.”
Asha nodded. “Jules?”
“Herself. Explorer, pirate and hero of the Confederation. She didn’t exactly live by the rules.”
“My uncle has told me that sailors hold her name in awe to this day,” Asha said.
Mari remembered the way the sailors from the Sun Runner had reacted to her when they believed she was the daughter of Jules, and the way the sailors on this ship looked at her. She didn’t look forward to seeing those gazes constantly aimed at her. “That may be true. Anyway, the captain says that Julesport has never strayed all that far from its origin as her home. They have a fairly lax attitude toward laws and don’t ask a lot of inconvenient questions. At the least we can resupply ourselves there and decide on the next destination.”
Asha gazed across the dark waters. “If the leaders of Julesport learn that the daughter of Jules is among our number, perhaps they will greet her as a long-lost and long-sought-for relation.”
Mari stared up at the stars, wondering which of them was the sun that warmed Urth. “We’ll tell them if we have to. It’s… uncomfortable for me to call myself that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s as if I’m suddenly someone else,” Mari explained. “As if Mari of Caer Lyn was never real, that who I always was is just…”
“An illusion?” Asha asked.
“Yes. Exactly. And, really, I don’t feel like I’m all that special. On top of which, the daughter has got the biggest job in the world, and if she screws up the entire world goes to blazes, and we don’t know how much time we have to work with, but we do know it’s very limited.” Mari sat quietly for a while longer, wondering at the way she could feel companionship with a female Mage who betrayed no feelings. Maybe it was because Mari’s association with Alain had taught her how to see the woman beneath the mask. “Asha, there’s something I have to know. About me.”
“You have a question about yourself that I can answer?”
“Yes.” Mari steeled herself. “About my bonfire.”
“Ah. It is remarkable.”
Mari gritted her teeth. “You said it had gotten brighter.”
“Very much so.”
“I just…” Mari buried her face in her knees. “How much can you tell from it?”
“I can tell where you are.”
“No. I mean, about other things.”
“Other things?” Asha asked.
“What I’m… what Alain and I… are doing.”
“Nothing.”
Mari jerked her head up, turning to stare at Asha. “Still? Nothing at all?”
“Nothing,” Asha repeated.
“But you said it got brighter after Alain and I got married and started, uh…”
“You need not give me details. I know what passes between men and women.” Asha’s lip twitched in what passed for a Mage smile. “Lady Mechanic Mari, I must explain. The bonfire represents the feelings you hold at the core of your being. They do not change by the day or the week or the month, they do not change based on what your body experiences, but only when there has been a great alteration in your thoughts. Or, if you had taken great harm, then it would weaken. Nothing else affects it.”
“So my bonfire only got blinding because I married Alain? Not because of anything we were doing after that? Anything we did that night?”
“When you married him, yes, and committed yourself truly and completely to him, as Alain tells me he has also to you. I believe that is what brightened your feelings. Perhaps the physical sharing you have enjoyed has contributed to the fire within, but if so even that, I think, was fed by the feelings you share. I have seen those who shared their bodies and nothing else. There is no brightness there, nothing that lasts. What I have seen in you was one of the things which caused me to see the importance of the emotions I was taught to deny.”
Mari closed her eyes, feeling a wave of relief wash over her. “That is so good to hear. You have no idea how good that is to hear.”
Asha nodded. “I can guess now that you have shared your worry. I am a woman, beneath these Mage robes.”
“Asha, there is no man in the world who needs to be told that, and I’m pretty such most of the women can figure it out, too.”
The female Mage seemed to be trying to smile again. “You and Alain have given much to each other.”
Mari grinned. “I think I get more than he does, but he’s been nice enough not to complain much.”
“A Mage and a Mechanic,” Asha mused. “The Mechanic Dav seems interested in me.”
“Oh, you’ve noticed that, have you?”
Even under the starlight Mari could see the humor dancing in Asha’s eyes. “Yes. It is nothing I have not seen many times before. But… he feels oddly appealing, this Mechanic, and he acts very nice toward me. He took a great risk to aid you and Alain, even when he did not know you, and he acts brave. Are he and the Mechanic Alli close?”
“No. Alli’s got a guy back in Umburan. Well, he was in Umburan. Neither of us is sure where he is right now.”
“And the Mechanic Bev has not gone to him for companionship. So perhaps I will see.”
Mari grinned again, thinking that Mechanic Dav might soon be happy beyond his wildest dreams for at least a little while. She heard Alain’s voice and looked over to see him speak briefly to Bev, who was sitting a little way off on the quarterdeck gazing out to sea. Then Alain came down the deck, pausing before her. “Am I welcome?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” Mari said, patting the deck next to her on the side opposite Asha.
Alain sat down, but still looked cautious. “There was something you wanted to discuss with me once things calmed down.”
Mari frowned at him. “There was?”
“In the warehouse. You said we must speak later.”
“Oh, yeah. The bonfire thing.” Mari waved it off. “Never mind.”
“Never mind?” Alain had the look of a man facing a firing squad who had just received a reprieve and had no idea why.
“Right. That’s all taken care of. I forgive you.”
Alain nodded cautiously. “I am still not sure why I needed forgiveness.”
“I’ll fill you in some day. How’s Bev doing?”
“She is moody.” Alain looked back at the quarterdeck. “I think that one bears a deep wound.”
Asha nodded in agreement. “She tries to hide it as a Mage would, but she hurts greatly inside.”
“Alli said Bev had been an apprentice in Emdin,” Mari noted. “Something happened in Emdin, but I don’t know what. Something the Guild covered up. I need to corner Alli in some private spot and find out just what sort of things were done to the apprentices in Emdin at the hands of the Senior Mechanics there. There’s some very ugly possibilities that I hope didn’t happen.”
“But,” Alain replied, “that you fear did happen?”
“Exactly. Especially given the way Bev is acting. Like you say, the girl’s been hurt badly.” Mari looked up at the stars again. “What now, Alain? We’re going to Julesport, but we can’t stay there. You’re our best long-term planner. What does the daughter do now? Where do we go next?”
Alain nodded toward the south. “I have given it some thought. I recommend we keep going south.”
“What, to Edinton? I’ve been there, and let me tell you, it’s an end-of-the-world sort of city. They even call it that now. End-of-the-world Edinton.”
“But Edinton is not the end of the world. I suggest that we go farther south.”