As she lay there, Mari remembered whispers in the dark. She, Alli and Calu, sneaking out of the apprentice barracks in the middle of the night and climbing up onto the roof to share a few moments of pretend freedom from the oversight of older apprentices, Mechanics, and most of all Senior Mechanics. Calu, frowning up at the stars as he spoke in a voice so low only Mari and Alli could possibly hear. If commons can’t do Mechanic work, why is Mechanic work secret? It’s like forbidding horses to learn algebra. What’s the point? They can’t. You only need to keep secrets from someone who can use those secrets. So why do we have to prevent commons from learning Mechanic secrets?
Alli had punched him in the side. Shut up, you idiot! Are you planning on asking some Senior Mechanic that question?
No! But what do you think the answer is?
And, as Mari had already become used to, both Ali and Calu looked at her for an answer. She had pretended indifference. I bet the answer is that if you ask the question you end up catching blazes and getting demoted back to entry-level apprentice. You guys want to bet on another answer?
They hadn’t, going on to other topics, like who was the stupidest Senior Mechanic, or who Mari should try dating because you really are hopeless with boys, Mari. But she had remembered Calu’s question. It had nagged at her, even as she accepted what the Mechanics Guild told her about commons.
She lay there, her head pounding with pain, thoughts bleak, for how long she didn’t know. The pain gradually lessened, and a stubborn flame of determination grew. I am a Master Mechanic. I’m Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn. I’m the youngest person ever to qualify as a Mechanic and the youngest ever to qualify as a Master Mechanic. I won’t let anyone do this to me. Not Stimon and not Polder. Not anyone. I won’t just lie here helpless until somebody comes for me. Im going to get out of here and get some answers.
She managed to sit up again, finding the hammering in her head stayed manageable this time. Moving very cautiously, Mari stood up, her feet a bit unsteady. Taking each step carefully, she crossed to the door, confirming that it was indeed locked. She knelt to examine the lock, discovering that it was tightly sealed behind a heavy armor plate so she couldn’t have accessed its workings even if she had possessed her tools. Odd. Why so much trouble when commons couldn’t crack a lock? Am I not the first Mechanic who’s disappeared in Ringhmon? But how could they hope to get away with having more than one Mechanic vanish after coming to the city hall? Surely they would have been smart enough to plan on a kidnapping that couldn’t possibly be tied to them.
That ambush. Mari, you idiot! The so called bandits equipped with lots of expensive rifles. The same type of rifles that Ringhmon has bought for its army. You fool. Why did it take you so long to figure out that connection? Who else even knew a Mechanic would be coming in on that caravan? They planned to kill everyone but me and probably bring me into the city with a hood over my head and a gag in my mouth, just one more anonymous prisoner. My Guild would’ve searched the Waste in vain for any trace of me. No wonder I saw some of those ‘bandits’ in the city. They were probably soldiers of Ringhmon, back from trying to find me, and once I made it to the city I bet they had orders to let Polder’s guards handle it.
She had figured it out too late, though Mari suspected that even if she had realized the truth sooner no one would have listened to her. Just a nervous girl, promoted too quickly, not really ready to do her job, and finding excuses to avoid it. Right. Well, water under the bridge. Now the problem is how to get out of here. She stood up again, going over the door and walls in search of any feature that might offer something she could use.
There was nothing. Just that extremely solid door and walls made of closely fitted blocks of extremely solid stone. Mari looked upward, staring at the ceiling. The beams of wood offered no signs of help, either. Hardwood, thick and massive. Even an axe would have trouble biting into them, and she didn’t have an axe.
Mari squinted, spotting what seemed to be a large knothole in one beam. Something about it didn’t look right. Grabbing the cot, she pulled it under the knothole, cautiously stood on the cot, and raised her hand to probe inside.
Something metal rested in the hole, concealed from sight in its shadow. Mari got her fingers around it, blessing the fact that her hands were small enough to allow that purchase, and twisted the object free. She started to pull it out, finding it resisting like something attached to wires. Yanking viciously, Mari pulled the object out, hearing and feeling wires snap. Then she stared down at what she had found.
A far-listener. Someone had installed a device in this cell that would detect any sounds made and send them along the wires to a place where someone else would hear them. She knew Mechanics produced such things. She had never imagined a common cell apparently designed to hold a Mechanic would include such a device.
Mari examined the far-listener closely, seeking clues to where it had been made. To her bafflement, she couldn’t find any of the telltale makers’ signs that should have provided a guide to which workshop in which city had crafted the thing. It’s as if this were made by Mechanics who aren’t in the Guild. But that’s impossible. All Mechanics are in the Guild. All Mechanics are trained by the Guild. No one is allowed to work outside the Guild. Someone trained by the Guild who tried freelancing would face death, and those who hired them would be banned from receiving Mechanic services.
The far-listener couldn’t exist. But it did.
Mari stuffed the broken far-listener into a pocket and sat down on the cot, staring at the stones of the wall. First she’d seen a Mage do things which Mages weren’t supposed to be able to really do, then commons attacked her and imprisoned her, and now she had evidence that unauthorized Mechanic work was being done. Three “impossible” things. My education wasn’t nearly as thorough as I thought it was. I can’t be the first Mechanic to experience this stuff. What the blazes is going on? If Professor S’san suspected enough to insist on giving me a pistol as a graduation gift, why didn’t she tell me more?
What else haven’t I been told?
The light changed slightly. Mari looked up and over at one wall. There was now a narrow, roughly door-shaped hole in it. Standing in that hole was Mage Alain.
Mari stood up, realizing that her mouth was hanging open. That wall was solid. I felt it. There wasn’t any opening. She watched as the Mage took two shaky steps into the cell, then paused, some of the strain leaving his face. She blinked, wondering what she had just seen, as the hole in the wall vanished as if it had never been. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.
Mari walked rapidly past the Mage and slammed her hand against the wall where the hole had been. The stone stung her palm, as hard and unyielding as it had been when she had checked it earlier.
Mari whirled back to face the Mage, the sudden motion making her still- throbbing head dizzy. “How did you do that?” she demanded, pointing at the wall, shocked by how ragged and hoarse her voice sounded.
The Mage looked at her with that unrevealing face. “I have come to…help,” he said in an impassive voice tinged with weariness.
“Help? You’ve come to help me?” Mari felt a wave of weakness and leaned back against the solid stone for support. “A Mage has walked through a wall into my cell to help a Mechanic.” She couldn’t suppress a shudder. “My head. They hit me and now I’m seeing and hearing things.”