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But that circle had been broken lately, as the ships already there remained in Dorcastle’s harbor and new ships stayed away for fear of the dragons terrorizing the city. The warehouses were packed to the brim with cargo waiting to go out to sea, and nothing was coming in to go back up the river. As a result, the number of barges had grown steadily, until the inner harbor was filled with them and their increasingly restive crews.

Alain and Mari had chosen a place on top of a flat-roofed two-story building where they could sit unobserved and watch the inner harbor area. As the sun sank, the workers at the warehouses left for their homes, leaving the sailors on the barges where they lived. Some of the sailors who still had a little money to spend wandered into town, looking for entertainment in the nearby inns, but most stayed on their boats, huddled around small cooking fires in the boxes of sand that served as the barge kitchens. Alain could hear Mari muttering angrily to herself occasionally as the night wore on and the sailors sat up talking, gambling, and singing. She had been on edge ever since the attempt to kidnap her. In a Mage that would have been improper, but since Mari was a Mechanic, Alain could not fault her. And if someone in Dorcastle already knew or suspected who Mari was, that she was the daughter named in the old prophecy, her reactions actually displayed great composure in the face of such a threat.

By midnight, almost all of the sailors had packed themselves off to sleep. A trickle of foot traffic still existed as party-goers wandered back in twos and threes. “Do sailors ever sleep?” Mari grumbled.

“It is growing quiet,” Alain reassured her. “We can move soon.” He had noticed that the Mechanic was much more impatient than the Mages he was used to associating with. Apparently she felt time pass in a different way, speaking of short periods as if they held great importance and must be measured exactly. Alain had refrained from asking Mari about that tonight, however, as she had seemed very irritable on the subject of how much time had gone by while they watched the sailors.

He felt a lingering urgency himself from the vision of the oncoming storm. Was that what drove Mari as well? The same sense that danger loomed and must be dealt with?

Seeking some subject to distract her, he looked upward, seeing the tapestry of the stars standing out brilliantly against the black of night. “You do not believe that Mechanics came from the stars, as your Guild claims?”

She gave him a cross look, then took on a more companionable expression with an obvious effort. “Didn’t we talk about that once? Officially, yes, we’re the superior beings from the stars. I personally think it was just made up to make the Guild seem more powerful or mysterious or whatever. Aside from our skills, we seem to be just like everyone else.”

“Do you know of any other group who believes they came from the stars?”

“No.” Mari’s expression changed to curiosity. “Why are you asking? I mean, that would just be a ridiculous myth.”

“Perhaps.” Alain gestured upward. “There is an oddity in history. You asked me of the last few centuries when we talked of Tiae and other events, but before that we know of the oldest cities, places like Landfall the Ancient, Larharbor, and Altis, which were of course much smaller when they started. And we know when people left those cities to found new ones. But nowhere does it say where the people of the oldest cities came from.”

“They came from…” Mari waved a hand vaguely. “Around those places.”

“There are no older towns, no settlements, no ruins. Only the oldest cities. I checked on that when I went through Landfall. There are no signs of any human presence older than the city itself, and the oldest portions of the city show planning. It was not the haphazard growth which happens when no authority is ordering events.”

She gave him a perplexed look. “Really? That’s sort of strange. How could a city full of people just show up from nowhere? It makes me wonder if maybe the Western Continent really exists and they came from there. But if there is such a place, and people were there, why haven’t they kept coming?”

“Or perhaps they came from the stars?”

“I’d need some proof of that.” Mari shook her head. “I’m not sure what difference it would make, anyway. Say we did come from the stars. Why would that matter now?”

Alain considered that. “I do not know. I have a feeling that it is somehow important, but cannot say why. At the least it would mean that, somewhere among those stars we see, there are others looking up at us as we look upon them.”

She stared upward. “That’s sort of wild to think about. Do you know that you can be almost poetic at times, Alain? But there’s the same problem as I mentioned before. If we came here from the stars, why hasn’t anyone else come here from there?”

“It could be the journey is too long or too difficult.”

“That I can believe. How far away are the stars, anyway? The Guild discourages any actual study of the heavens.” Mari gave him a sharp look. “I wonder what’s up there that I’m not supposed to see? I can’t believe it matters, but if it doesn’t, why doesn’t the Guild want people studying the stars? I know someone who wanted to build a far-seer that would let them view the moon better.” Calu, enthusiastic as he outlined the design for a scaled-up version of what Mechanics used to see longer distances on land and sea. Calu, abashed as Senior Mechanics tongue-lashed him for improper experimentation and wasted effort. “He wasn’t allowed.”

She dropped her gaze back to the rows of barges alongside the piers, then stood up and stretched, stiff from the long wait. “We’ll have to leave questions about the origin of everything for another time. It’s as quiet as it’ll get. Let’s go for a walk.”

“All right.” Alain saw the smile that she turned on him as he used her phrase. He had guessed that Mari might be pleased to have him say it. How strange it felt to correctly anticipate the emotional reaction of another.

He stretched out his muscles as well, then followed her down the fire stairs on one side of the building. Once they reached the ground, he had to speed up to walk beside her, as Mari started off at a rapid pace. She might complain of others looking to her for direction, but Mari had a habit of taking the lead. “We might want to walk slower so we do not seem so obvious,” Alain suggested. Everyone else they had seen in the area for a while had been ambling along as if they had no need to be anywhere soon.

Mari grumbled something under her breath, but slowed her walking. “Thanks for pointing that out.”

“Thank you for listening to me,” Alain said.

She gave him a startled look. “That’s right. Your elders don’t listen to you, either. I’m so grateful that you listen to me that I forget how important it is for me to listen to you.”

“Even when you forget, you listen,” Alain said. “That is important to me.”

Mari mumbled something, looking embarrassed, then made an obvious effort of focusing back on the barges.

“What are we looking for?” he asked. “Just a barge? There are many.”

She took a moment to answer as she thought it through. “We want a low-riding barge. You can see most of these are riding high because they’ve offloaded their cargo. But the one we want would still have a lot of heavy stuff aboard.” Mari hesitated. “I’m not sure what else. When we see any low-riding barges, we’ll take a closer look and maybe spot something else.”