He sensed something then, and turned to look back at the crest of the ridge. A black haziness floated there, the sort of thing that might drift into vision when physical stress was so intense that a person was in danger of passing out. He knew that type of thing all too well from years of intense training to teach him to ignore what non Mages called reality, but this haze was different.
It did not waver, and suddenly Alain realized what the haze represented. Foresight, warning of danger. That skill has finally come to me, in a time of great stress as the elders taught. But the elders also said foresight was an undependable gift at best. He inched upward cautiously until he could see back down the slope they had climbed. There were figures visible down there, above the dust now as they clambered up the heights, their Mechanic weapons shining in the sun.
Alain crawled backward rapidly. “They are coming up in this direction,” he reported without letting any betraying feeling into his voice this time.
Chapter Three
Mari’s heart jumped at the Mage’s words. Her right hand went to the pistol she had holstered, then she took a breath to calm herself. All right. Time to go. Which way? “There,” she said to the Mage as she pointed. “Farther into the heights.” She had stopped questioning their weird alliance, which after all was going to be as temporary as she could manage. The Mage was unnerving, with his emotionless voice and face and his strange attitudes. But the fact that these so called bandits were still chasing them made teaming up with him a simple matter of survival, even if she didn’t feel responsible for his fate.
The Mage gave her one of his impassive glances. “To the west? The ground is more difficult that way and the original attack came from that direction.”
“Exactly! They’ll think we’re running in panic and taking the easiest route, which is in the other direction.”
“And you always take the more difficult route,” the Mage said.
“Well…yes.” She hadn’t expected a Mage to remember that. “Because it makes sense this time. Besides, it’ll be easier to stay hidden up there.” Mari paused, thinking of how Mage Alain had fallen after whatever he had done to the bandits on the ledge. “Can you manage it?”
What would she do if he couldn’t? Leave him? No. Nobody gets abandoned. Not by me. Not even one of them. Touching him earlier to help the Mage to his feet had felt…peculiar, after all that she had heard about Mages. But if he needed assistance again, she would grit her teeth and do it.
Despite his usually successful attempts to hide his emotions, Mage Alain gave her a look which communicated a trace of wounded pride. For that brief moment he seemed more human, more a boy close to her own age. “Of course I can manage.”
She lurched to her feet, wishing tools weighed a lot less. Leaving them behind was unthinkable, though. Being a Master Mechanic had qualified her to have one of the limited number of portable far-talkers. It was in her pack, but the range on the device was so limited that Mari figured she would have to be within less than a day’s march of Ringhmon before she could use her far-talker to contact her Guild for help. Until then it was simply a heavy object in her pack.
“Why do you not leave your treasure behind?” The Mage’s bland tone made the question sound as if the answer held no interest to him.
“Treasure?” She gave him a baffled glance, then realized the Mage was looking at her pack. “This isn’t treasure. My tools are in here.”
“Tools?”
“Mechanics use tools. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”
“No.”
“I don’t have time to explain,” Mari said, wondering if she should be explaining tools at all to a Mage. “But a Mechanic never loses or abandons her tools. It’s one of the most important rules of my Guild.” Taking a deep breath, Mari started off, scrambling along the slope at an angle until it merged with another rise before climbing. Mari didn’t know why the young Mage was so tired. He looked strong and healthy, even tough, but he had almost collapsed after whatever he had done to take out those bandits, so it must be related to that. But how? The engineer in her kept puzzling over the answer, a welcome distraction from the fear she still felt.
Despite his obvious weariness, though, the Mage stayed right behind her, displaying a stubborn determination to keep up that she had to admire.
They rolled over another, higher crest, once again blocking their view of the way they had come. Mari tried to swallow and then coughed, trying to muffle the sound with both hands over her mouth. How far into these hills would the bandits search for them? How close behind were they now? “Did you see any sign of them, Mage Alain?”
He shook his head. “I saw nothing of the bandits. I heard a few faint cries, but they seemed far distant.”
Maybe she had made the right decisions. I’m only eighteen years old, and ten years of studying engineering isn’t exactly the best preparation for running for your life from bandits. Knowing how to fix a steam engine isn’t likely to be too useful out here.
The Mage had approved of her first decision, and left other decisions to her, so he must think she knew what she was doing. She wished she had the same confidence in herself.Why had she been sent to Ringhmon this way? Sent alone on her first contract, contrary to normal procedures, and told it was too urgent to wait for the winds to shift so she could take a ship from the Empire to Ringhmon’s tiny coastal port. With the Empire and Ringhmon not at war at the moment, that would have been the safest way to travel. If this contract was so blasted important, if getting her there as fast as possible were so critical, then why had they put her into this kind of danger?
And why had Professor S’san, who had always shown the greatest interest in Mari at the Mechanics Guild Academy in Palandur, insisted on giving her as a graduation gift a very expensive and hard-to-acquire semi-automatic pistol? Every weapon and every machine was made by hand, their quantities strictly limited by the Mechanics Guild, and the allotted production of pistols like Mari’s was only a few a year. What had worried S’san enough to justify that gift?
As much as she had always chafed at authority, Mari found herself wishing that a more experienced Mechanic was with her. Someone who might know what to do and how to survive.
Of course, if there had been another Mechanic with her, she never would have spoken to the Mage. She surely would have been overruled on telling the Mage to come with her.
And Mage Alain would have died, and she would have been captured by those bandits on the ledge.
Not a better outcome.
At least for the moment they seemed to be safe. Mari tried to draw in a deep breath but ended up hacking painfully. Her throat was a dry wasteland to match the ground they were surrounded by. “We’re going to need water soon,” she croaked.
The Mage nodded. “Do even those from the stars need water then?” he asked in that empty of feeling voice.
She gave him an annoyed look, unable to tell if he was joking or giving her a hard time. “Mechanics have special skills, but we’re still as human as anyone else when it comes to things like food and water. Don’t Mages need water?”
“Of course. We also share those same needs.” The Mage appeared thoughtful for a moment, as if recalling a memory. “Perhaps all people came from the stars.”
“Very funny.”
“Funny?” The Mage asked as if not knowing what the word meant.
He couldn’t be that cut off from emotions, could he? Mari wanted to snarl a reply, but her dry throat caught and she coughed again.