Mari stared at the oncoming wave of smoke, but instead of fleeing immediately knelt to press one hand against the floor. She straightened quickly, shaking her head. “The floor is hot. That means the fire is spreading rapidly beneath us. We have to get out of this building. Fast. This way.”
They managed a stumbling trot, trying to reach the end of the long hallway. Alain realized that the smoke was coming not just from behind them, but also shooting up in geysers through tiny cracks in the flooring. “Your plan is working,” Alain said to Mari as he struggled for breath. “This building will be destroyed.”
“My plan didn’t involve us being inside when that happened! Just keep your head and keep moving. Look! A window!” Mari called, tugging at his robes again. The window, a large one divided into several panes and almost floor to ceiling, the night sky visible through it just beginning to pale with the dawn, sat at the end of the wide corridor they had just turned onto. Alain yielded to Mari’s pull, scrambling along with her toward the promise of safety.
The thud of feet startled him, then several soldiers of Ringhmon came charging around the corner near the window. They stared down the hall at the smoke billowing in their direction, then at the Mechanic and Mage coming toward them in front of the cloud. Faces stark with panic, four of the soldiers leveled crossbows. One brought a Mechanic weapon to his shoulder.
Mari began to skid to a halt, her face a mask of despair, her hand weapon looking far too small compared to the weapons carried by the soldiers. But she was leveling her weapon, ready to fight rather than try running back into the smoke chasing them down the hallway.
Alain grabbed her jacket and pulled her forward. “Keep going,” he ordered, then called on everything he had for one more effort. The world illusion said the air in this hallway was clear. It let light pass. But the air could be dark. It could stop light. Change the illusion. Reverse it.
He did not have the strength to do this. He knew that. But it came to him in a sudden release and the power flowed through him as he pushed the Mechanic.
The air around them went pitch black.
Through a haze of total exhaustion, Alain could hear shouts of alarm and terror from in front of them. A familiar thunder boomed in the hallway and things whipped past him with angry cracking sounds. The Mechanic weapon must be launching its projectiles, but with no way to see his targets the chances of the soldier getting a hit must be very small. Alain stumbled, falling, his strength almost totally gone, but a firm grip caught him and propelled him forward. He realized that Mechanic Mari must almost be carrying him, despite his weight and her own tiredness. She was again risking her own life to save him.
Mechanics were not supposed to do that sort of thing. But this was not a Mechanic. This was Mari. Where was she getting the strength to carry him along? His fatigue addled mind dredged up an answer: that it must come from the same place he had found the means to cast this last spell, a place where strength could be found when none remained. She had shown him how to find such a place, and now she was using it as well to save them both. The thread and its odd effects ran both ways.
They crashed into a tangle of bodies, broke through in the confusion, and moments later hit something hard that shattered under the impact. Their rush carried them through the broken window and there was nothing under their feet.
His strength completely failed, the spell broke and sight returned. Pieces of glass were flying through the air all around, rotating and spinning away with what seemed to his overstressed mind to be dreamlike slowness. Next to him, one arm wrapped about his arm, Mari rolled in midair with her head tucked into her elbow for protection. As his own body spun in the predawn dimness, Alain saw bushes rushing up to meet him. Or perhaps he was falling onto them. Both were only illusions of his mind, so he surrendered to weariness and waited for his body and the bushes to rush together.
Chapter Eleven
Guild Hall Supervisor Senior Mechanic Stimon didn’t look happy. Mari gazed back at him, her own face carefully showing nothing. She was surprised to realize she had learned a little more of that useful trick from watching Alain. She felt triumphant inside, though. Triumphant and in high spirits. She was free, and she had gotten some serious revenge last night, all with the help of Mage Alain.
Stimon’s nose kept wrinkling, so Mari guessed that she and her clothing must reek of smoke even though she couldn’t smell it any more herself. “The Hall of City Government in Ringhmon has been totally consumed by fire,” Stimon growled. “The fires still rage amid the shell of the structure. The city is in an uproar. And you come here covered with ashes and trailing the scent of burning.”
Mari nodded. “I was close to the fire. I had a contract at the city hall, as you recall.”
“You went to that contract yesterday! What were you still doing there in the early hours of this morning?”
“It was a very complex job,” Mari said earnestly. If you know more, tell me. If you suspected I might have been in danger, I want to hear it from you.
Stimon’s face reddened. “The City Manager told us you had completed the job and left the building.”
“Obviously, he was mistaken.” Mari locked her eyes on Stimon, daring him to take the word of a common against that of a fellow Mechanic. “Though I certainly appreciate your concern for my welfare, Senior Mechanic Stimon. You’ll be happy to know that the healer in the Guild Hall has seen to the injuries I acquired…while escaping the fire.”
“How fortunate that you were able to escape…the fire.”
Glowering at Stimon, Mari leaned forward. “Shall we dispense with the lies? As you should’ve already been told, I’ve reported that I was knocked out, kidnapped by the City Manager of this stinking pestilence of a city, and managed to escape only by great luck.” It had been hard to explain how she had done so without mentioning the Mage, but Mari had kept the details fuzzy, claiming lingering effects from the blow to her head.
Stimon sat, glaring at her. “Is there anything else?”
“Does there have to be? A common person assaulting and kidnapping a Mechanic? You should be calling for the man’s head,” Mari snapped. “And it’s certain that the attack on my caravan was also an attempt by Ringhmon to kidnap me before I even reached the city.”
“Do you have any proof of that?”
“The bandits used the same rifles—” She broke off as Stimon shook his head.
“Proof,” Stimon repeated.
“I saw some of them in Ringhmon!”
Stimon’s voice remained implacable as he slammed his hand on the desk. “Proof!”
“You want proof of something?” She dug in one pocket and tossed what she found onto Stimon’s big desk. “I found that inside the cell where they’d locked me.” Stimon just looked at it, his face revealing nothing of his thoughts. “It’s a far-listener, one apparently not made in any Mechanics Guild workshop. And the problem with the Model Six that used to be in the city hall? The secretly contracted Model Six Form Three, that is, and thank you so much for informing me of that before I went there. The problem was a contagion, Senior Mechanic Stimon. Do you know what a contagion is? A banned piece of thinking cipher. One that bore no hallmarks of anyone I have ever encountered in the Guild who knows thinking ciphers.”
Stimon finally pursed his lips, his face intent. “We shall have to look into this.”
“Pardon me, but you really don’t seem to be as alarmed as you should be. I’d appreciate knowing why.”
“This is a very serious matter.” Stimon looked at her steadily, his own face now as unrevealing as that of a Mage. “I will look into this,” he repeated. “I will send a full report to Guild headquarters. Did you find anything on the Model Six aside from the contagion that should not have been there?”