The simple repair brought a feeling of satisfaction. She thought of the task she would tackle tomorrow and felt another lift to her spirits. I’m one of the only Mechanics in the world who can do that job. Girl, am I? Wait until they see me at work. Then they’ll call me Lady and mean it.
She thought about cleaning herself off. Thought for several seconds about doing the quiet thing, the expected thing, the typical thing. She had spent years thinking about those sorts of things, really, years of staying relatively quiet and trying not to raise a fuss, though rarely with complete success. She always asked too many questions, always chafed at rules that didn’t seem to make sense, and other apprentices and later on Mechanics had for some reason looked to her for ideas. It had gained her Master Mechanic status, a recent, close brush with death, and nasty attitudes from Senior Mechanics.
Mari settled her dusty jacket on her shoulders, ran one hand through her matted hair, set her jaw and went looking for Senior Mechanic Stimon.
Since dinner hour had sounded, Mari headed for the dining hall. She found Stimon where the Senior Mechanics were dining, seated at the head of the table as befitted the Guild Hall Supervisor. Mari walked briskly across the floor, knowing her boots were leaving dusty footprints, knowing every other Mechanic in the dining hall was watching her. She halted before Stimon’s table. “Master Mechanic Mari reporting in.”
The Senior Mechanics all looked back at her with disapproval, then Stimon stood up. He had a shaven head, a broad stomach, and a truly impressive frown. All other conversation in the dining hall had stopped, so Stimon’s voice had no trouble carrying clearly. “What is the explanation for your appearance?“
“I informed you earlier that my caravan had been attacked and almost wiped out, and that I had been forced to make my way to this city by my own means across the desert waste,” Mari said. “What little water I had went to narrowly avoiding dying of thirst, so I was regrettably unable to use it for washing up each evening. However, you instructed me to report to you as soon as I arrived, and I am following your instructions.” Mari jerked her head to get some hair out of her eyes and a fine cloud of dust arose from her, drifting toward the Senior Mechanics’ table.
“Mechanic Mari—”
“Master Mechanic Mari.”
Stimon sat down again, drumming the fingers of one hand on the table. “It appears the stresses of your journey were too much for you.”
Mari smiled. “Not at all, Guild Hall Supervisor.”
“I decide whether or not Mechanics are prepared for contract work.”
“You intend defaulting on the contract with Ringhmon, then?” Mari asked. “I’m the only Mechanic within a few hundred thousand lances who can do the job. I assume you don’t want to discuss that here, though.”
“No, I don’t,” Stimon said, his face reddening. “You are dismissed. I will see you in the morning, after you have returned your appearance to that expected of a Mechanic.”
“Thank you, Guild Hall Supervisor Stimon.” Mari pivoted like an apprentice, then walked to a table with a few other Mechanics seated at it. As an apprentice hastened up with a plate of food and a drink, Mari nodded in greetings to the others.
One of the Mechanics pretended she didn’t see Mari. The other two, a man and woman, smiled in greeting.
“You really survived the Waste?” the male Mechanic asked, his voice pitched low as conversations began around the dining hall again.
Mari rubbed her forehead, then looked at the dirt on her hand. “I think I did. I won’t be sure until I get all of this dust off me.”
The Mechanic who had been ignoring Mari shook her head. “This is what comes of making a child a Mechanic.”
Mari smiled at her. “A Master Mechanic. I made Mechanic at sixteen.”
The woman glared at Mari before getting up and walking to sit at another table.
The face of the female Mechanic who had stayed lit up in recognition. “You must be Mari. A friend of mine at the academy mentioned you in his letters to me. I’m Cara.”
The man nodded again. “And I’m Trux. The Senior Mechanics are glaring at us.”
“I get that a lot,” Mari said, digging into the food.
“They’re on edge more than usual lately, what with the rioting in Julesport.”
“Rioting?” Mari took a drink to clear her throat. “I’ve been out of touch for weeks now. What happened?”
Cara answered. “It started out with the usual protests against the Mechanics Guild, but when the Guild Hall at Julesport told the local authorities to shut down the protests the people went crazy and raised blazes for a few days before Confederation troops restored order. Typical. They say they want to rule themselves and then they prove they’re incapable of it.”
“Not too typical,” Trux commented. “I mean the rioting. It was pretty strange for the commons to explode like that. Like they were primed to blow.”
“But no one has identified anything unusual going on,” Cara said. “Things are just like they’ve always been. Except that the commons went berserk.”
“It’s a good thing all of that fury was unfocused,” Trux added. “The commons need a leader, and they’ll never get one that they’ll all follow. That’s why they cling to that daughter of Jules nonsense.”
“What is that all about?” Mari asked. “I’ve heard that expression a few times.”
Cara laughed mockingly. “The commons think there was a Mage prophecy a long time ago that a daughter of Jules would someday overthrow the Mechanics Guild. Can you imagine being desperate enough to believe something a Mage said?”
Mari took another drink to avoid answering, hoping that she wasn’t revealing her reaction to the last statement.
“The commons think she’ll overthrow the Mage Guild, too,” Trux pointed out. “Jules hasn’t risen from the dead, so the commons have to hope some descendent of hers can do the job.”
“If any common could have, it might have been Jules,” Cara said. “Not that even Jules could have overthrown the Guild, right?”
Mari made an uncertain gesture. “I don’t really know anything about Jules.” She saw the surprise on the others’ faces. “History wasn’t my strongest subject.”
Trux laughed this time. “If you made Mechanic at sixteen, you wouldn’t have had time for much besides technical subjects. Jules was an officer in the Imperial fleet a long time back, when only the east side of the Sea of Bakre had been settled. She left Imperial service, got her own ship and headed west, exploring and engaging in piracy. She was the first one through the Strait of Gulls into the Jules Sea and the first to sail the Umbari Ocean. Jules helped found a couple of the cities in the Confederation, and when the Empire tried to move in she organized the cities in the west to fight back and keep Imperial control confined to the east.”
“She must have been an undiscovered Mechanic,” Cara added. “No one who was really a common could have done all of that.”
“Wow,” Mari commented. “But why did the unrest at Julesport throw off the Senior Mechanics out here? Even if the rioting was unusual, Julesport is a long ways off, and it’s not like there’s never been commons rioting or even attacking the Guild.”
“Because of Tiae,” Cara said. “How long has it been since the kingdom fell apart? Something like fifteen years, and it just keeps getting worse. I hear it’s complete anarchy there now.”
Trux nodded. “The Guild pulled the last Mechanic out of there about ten years ago. Too dangerous. Since then the Guild has been trying to hold the line at the border between the Confederation and what used to be Tiae. We think that’s what has the Senior Mechanics spooked, the worry that the unrest in Julesport was the first sign that the problems in Tiae might spread north. If we lose the Confederation like we did Tiae, well, that’s a big chunk of Dematr.”