For the second time that night, he saw her smile. “Thanks.”
A few minutes later a group of the Mechanics detached themselves and headed for the cliff edge. Mari followed, beckoning to Alain. By the time they reached the edge, the other Mechanics were already climbing down toward the patch of beach dimly visible below, now choked with tangled wreckage. Mari offered him the bag she had been carrying, and Alain, after a moment’s hesitation, took it. She smiled encouragingly at him, an expression which almost immediately changed to intent worry as she turned away. Then Mari started down, moving cautiously from rock to rock.
Alain looked downward to the barely seen jumble of broken wood. Then he gazed out to sea along the dark lines of waves rolling toward the shore. If a dragon had done this it might still be lurking nearby, in water shallow enough to stand in. It might attack again, this time rending not wood but anything else it encountered. Alain tried to judge his strength and the power to be found in the area around them. I probably could not defeat a dragon big enough to do that kind of damage, even at my best.
But Mari has asked for my help. She seems confused and uncertain.
I want to help her. I had thought that helping her would remove my need to help her again, but the more I help Mari, the more I want to help her. I erred a great deal in my assumption. But that error is not of importance. My road leads down this cliff tonight. I do not care if it is wisdom or not.
He took another look at Mechanic Mari, clambering stubbornly downward, and began climbing down after her.
Mari started to wonder if she was actually having another kind of nightmare. As she went farther down the cliff, the rocks kept getting looser and harder to get good hold on. Lower still her hands and feet started slipping where spray flung up from the sea had wetted the rocks. Beyond that, she started to get into the tangle of fallen pieces of trestle, mighty pillars of wood which had been twisted and splintered into jagged spears. Worse yet, thoughts about the Mage kept distracting her. A near-death experience had led her to do what she had absolutely, positively vowed not to do: reach out to Alain as a companion again.
Just a trusted companion. I’m a big girl. I’m not a slave to emotions. My feelings caught me by surprise, that’s all. I was scared. I was vulnerable. I felt sorry for him. He had saved me. So it wasn’t really real feelings, just gratitude and stress and all. I can handle this, get to know him and find out everything that’s wrong with him. He may be a Mage, but he’s also a guy, so he has to have plenty of stuff wrong with him. I’ll learn what his flaws are, and then I can put him in perspective.
Unless he turns out to be as good as he seems. Then I’m in trouble.
At last she ruthlessly blocked out all thoughts of anything but the climb down, until Mari found herself taking a final step down onto a small area on the beach where she could stand.
As beaches went, it wasn’t anything to inspire songs. Small and covered with pebbles instead of sand, the only thing good thing was that it offered decent footing in the areas not covered by wreckage or by large rocks which had fallen from above.
The other Mechanics were already clambering over the wreckage, muttering to each other. One pulled out a knife and thrust it into a broken piece of wood. “Solid here, too. No rot,” he called.
“The foundations are still firm,” another announced.
“No fire damage visible,” a third declared.
Mari watched for a moment, waiting for Alain. None of the other Mechanics took notice of her. They all seemed to know each other, and most seemed to be from Ringhmon. The only Mechanic on the train with whom Mari had gotten on halfway familiar terms was the engineer, who had stayed up on top of the cliff with his locomotive.
“Obvious sabotage,” a Senior Mechanic was concluding, his voice angry. He kicked at a shattered pole. “These were broken not far above ground by something pulling at them from seaward.”
“By what?” a woman Senior Mechanic demanded. “This has to be the work of Mages. No one else has the resources and the cold blooded deceit to carry it off. But how did they do it?”
Mari spoke finally, her voice carrying over the group. “Wouldn’t it have been easier for Mages simply to set fire to the trestle?”
The Senior Mechanic gave her a disdainful look. “How would they have built a fire down here with that salt spray wetting everything?”
“They’re supposed to be able to produce heat by some means,” Mari said. She couldn’t have been the only Mechanic present who had seen the results of that, and she wanted to see how these Mechanics reacted to her carefully phrased suggestion.
The woman Senior Mechanic shook her head, the gesture aimed as much at Mari as at her statement. “No, child. That’s just a parlor trick. It has no practical use. You’re that sixteen-year-old, aren’t you?”
“Eighteen-year-old,” Mari corrected, realizing that the correction didn’t sound as impressive as she would have hoped.
“Of course,” the woman Senior Mechanic said. Turning away from Mari, she began conferring with the male Senior Mechanic and some others in a low voice.
Mari, trying to control her anger at being so summarily put down, noticed a couple of the other Mechanics frowning toward the group including the two Senior Mechanics. Another one gave Mari a what-can-you-do sort of look before going back to examining the wreckage.
“Your elders?” someone murmured very softly near her in an emotionless voice.
Mari turned to see that Mage Alain had reached the beach and was eyeing her with his usual dispassionate expression. “My superiors, yes. How could you tell?” she added dryly before pointing toward the wreckage. “Well?” she whispered. “Give me some facts to work with.”
The Mage ran his eyes over the mess. “If it were a dragon, it would need to use its hind legs to do the heaviest work. Those are much stronger than its forelegs.”
“Really?” Mari nodded, trying not to think about the absurdity of seriously considering facts about dragons. “Then do you think it would have had to brace itself, maybe with its front limbs, and push back against the bases of the poles? Wouldn’t that have buried it when the wreckage fell?”
“Dragons can be very swift, and they are very tough.”
“I don’t think I want to meet one. Have you?”
“Yes. In my training. It was…” Alain paused. “Interesting.”
“I bet it was.” Mari beckoned him to follow and led the way through an ugly mess of splintered wood and bent metal until they found a sort of open area framed by wreckage. Here they could view the cliff face as long as they didn’t try to stand up. She pulled out a hand light and clicked it on, causing the Mage to utter a sudden low gasp. Smiling to herself at having impressed someone who could walk through imaginary holes in walls, Mari ran the light across the rock. “Look. These abrasions.” She pointed at scars on the rock.
“Those could be claw marks,” the Mage agreed cautiously.
Another voice intruded. “Did you find something?” It was one of the sympathetic Mechanics. He gave both Mari and Alain curious looks.
Mari nodded, then gestured toward Alain. “A common I hired to carry my tools down here. I got hurt at Ringhmon.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that. So what’s back here?”
Mari pointed to the rock face. “This.”
The other Mechanic, ignoring Alain now, crouched to look. “Those are fresh.” He looked up and around at nearby wreckage. “And they weren’t caused by any of the wreckage hitting the cliff. Good job, Mechanic.”
Mari smiled at him. “Master Mechanic, actually.”