“But,” Alain said slowly, “as with the Mages searching for dragons, if the Mechanics are looking for things that do not exist, they will not find them no matter how hard they try.”
“Right.” She smiled broadly at him. “Stars above, you’re listening to me.”
“Of course I am listening to you. Your words, your ideas, are always of interest to me.”
“They are?” Mari’s expression changed, her eyes widening, then she looked down hastily, covering her face with one hand. “There have to be some flaws,” he heard her barely whisper.
“Something is wrong again?” Alain asked.
She kept her gaze averted. “Only with my head. I’ve been called crazy by people before this, but now I’m beginning to wonder if all of those people were right. I’m…feeling…thinking…something that no rational Mechanic should feel or think. And the more I think about it, the more I know how impossible it is, but I keep thinking about it. And even though I told you that I don’t want to talk about it, here I am talking about it. Maybe I am crazy.”
“You do not seem stranger to me than any other member of your Guild.”
Alain waited as Mechanic Mari went into another of her muffled laughter episodes. When she recovered enough to talk again, Mari tried to bend a stern look at him. “We have to do something about the way you talk. Get some feeling back into it.”
“Around Mages, I cannot speak differently than I have been trained. That I cannot agree to try. But it would be interesting to see if I could speak in a manner which displayed some emotions when around others, if I could manipulate the illusion in that way. I am willing to attempt that, if that is your wish.”
“If that’s what I wish?” She stared out the window. “I want you to do things, and then you want to do them, but you’re also strong enough that you’re setting limits and obviously not just bending to whatever breeze I blow your way. Are you for real?”
“Nothing is—”
“I know. You don’t have to say it anymore. What were we talking about?”
“What you wish?” Alain ventured. “And something about me that I did not understand.”
“No,” Mari said. “That has to do with the stuff we do not need to discuss. Before that.”
“People believe you are crazy?”
“Before that, too.”
He thought. “Your ideas. Listening to them.”
“Right.” Mari was once more looking at the street outside. “The Mechanics who will listen to me say I need to convince the Senior Mechanics. But the Senior Mechanics all say they’re too busy to talk with me. I’ve managed to corner a few of them long enough to outline my idea, but they’ve listened with these blasted indulgent expressions and then given me a metaphorical pat on the head and essentially told me to go off, play like a good little girl, and leave them alone. Or I get a verbal slap across the face and am essentially told to shut up and leave them alone. I was supposedly sent to Dorcastle in a rush to fulfill some contract, but there's no work for me here. I need to do something, though.”
Alain watched the rain, too, for a little while. “My Guild elders will not listen to me. Yours will not listen to you. Neither of us can tell our elders that we have learned something important from a member of the other Guild. What are we going to do? Is there a way we can act on this idea of yours?”
Her eyes lit up. “We? You’ll help me?”
“Why do you think you have to ask? Friends help. You have said help should always be given, even if someone is not a friend, but we are friends.” He did not mention the other reason why she would need protection, but Alain did not see any need to do so since Mari had said she knew all about it, and the elder had cautioned against speaking of it.
“Yeah. You listened to that, too.” Mari stopped speaking and just gazed at him for a long moment. “I was just remembering the desert waste, when even saying ‘we’ sounded weird. That was you, and yet you’re different now.”
“I am,” Alain agreed. “You are not quite the Mechanic I met then, either.”
“Really? What’s different?”
He paused to think. “Then, your worry was turned toward me and the bandits. Now, your worries face elsewhere.”
Mari bit her lower lip as she looked at him, then finally nodded. “You’re right. But I think if we can solve this dragon thing, maybe things will start getting back to what they’re supposed to be.” Her voice carried more worry than conviction when she said that, though. “Assume that what we’ve seen and heard about isn’t related to dragons at all. Is there any other, uh, what do you call them?”
“Spell creature?”
“Yes. Any other spell creature that could be doing it?”
Alain pondered the question. “Do you mean one which inflicts major destruction, demands ransom, acts on its own, and cannot be found or dealt with by the resources of the Mage Guild within this city?”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
“No.”
“Can you think of any Mage explanation for what’s going on?”
He thought again. “Dark Mages? No. My Guild suspects them, but as a wise elder reminded me that the spells of Dark Mages can be detected just like those of Guild Mages. Their dragons do not and cannot differ. If any kind of Mage were involved, my Guild would have already solved the problem.”
Mari laughed briefly, the sound carrying no humor. “You’d think that would make them wonder after a while if they were barking up the wrong tree.” Her mouth twisted once more, this time in thought, and Alain thought she had never looked more fascinating. “If we assume it really isn’t dragons, that means we have to figure out what else could be doing this. Or who else.” She shook her head in frustration. “There are too many secrets, and I keep getting the feeling that some of those secrets are really dangerous.”
“There are many dangers,” Alain agreed, certain that she was speaking of the storm visions that threatened. “But, at this moment, I see no specific danger aimed at you.”
“Well, neither do I. At this moment,” Mari replied, looking around.
“No, I mean my foresight.”
“Your— ? Oh, yeah.” She looked very uncertain. “I have a lot of trouble accepting that. Other things you can do, I can see counterparts to in Mechanic work. But seeing the future? That’s real?”
“Nothing is—”
“Don’t say that. I mean, it actually warns of danger?”
“Sometimes,” Alain explained. “It is unreliable. A wise member of my Guild does not depend upon it. My Guild elders discourage any use of it, but it comes and goes by its own rules and not by being summoned as other spells are. Other elders have told me that it can be very important.” He looked at her. “Visions of what may come can be very important. You know this.”
“I…what?” Mari shook her head. “Do you mean like estimates? Forecasts?”
“What is a forecast?”
“For weather, mostly,” Mari said. “To predict when a storm is coming. That’s what you are talking about?”
“Yes,” Alain said, now absolutely certain that Mari knew of the prophecy and her role in it.
“I don’t know enough,” Mari said. Her mouth set in a stubborn and defiant expression. “But with your help, I’ll learn what I need to know.” Mari stood up suddenly, tossing a coin on the table as she did so. “That should cover the meal, as long as you don’t mind me paying.”