“But why does everybody think that Mages can do those things?” Mari asked. “I mean, if they think Mages can do anything, that is.”
Alain’s small smile came and went. “The Mage Guild sees such beliefs as being to its advantage. They increase the fear with which the commons regard Mages.” He looked down the street again. “Mage Asha has left the Mage Guild Hall.”
Mari watched as Alain’s head slowly pivoted, as if he were a cat following the track of an invisible prey. Then Mari saw the robed shape of a Mage appear around the corner, walking their way. The Mage pulled back her hood, golden hair spilling down her back, but otherwise did nothing but keep walking toward them, her face an emotionless mask.
Alain just stood and waited, so Mari did as well, trying to keep her hand from jerking up to grab hold of her pistol. If Mage Asha really were hostile, there might be very little time to deal with her if she attacked.
The female Mage came even with them, then walked past, giving no sign that she had noticed them. Alain waited until Asha was a few lance-lengths beyond them, then beckoned to Mari and began following, roughly matching Asha’s pace.
As a result, Mari got an unwanted but prolonged look at the female Mage’s long blonde hair falling to her waist and the seductive sway of her hips as she walked. I can’t believe it. She’s even got a great rear end. I am so completely outclassed here.
They followed her along the street until Asha turned off toward the city park. The journey continued until they reached the forested park area, then through ever-diminishing pathways that finally ended in a small bower shaded by low-hanging branches that blocked sight in all directions. There, Asha stopped and turned to await them, her face still betraying no visible emotion.
As they walked toward the expressionless female Mage, Mari could feel herself tensing, fearing an ambush. She had some idea how to handle threats posed by other Mechanics. She had no ideas at all how to deal with a surprise attack by several other Mages with the powers that Alain had demonstrated.
Chapter Twelve
Alain kept walking, his face showing neither worry nor any other emotion, until he stopped just before the female Mage. “Mage Asha.”
He had reverted to full Mage behavior, Mari noted nervously, his voice as impassive as his face. “Don’t lose yourself, Alain,” she muttered.
Asha inclined her head very slightly toward him. “Mage Alain.” If Asha had taken any notice of Mari’s presence, she didn’t show any sign of it.
“This one has been trying to find you,” Alain explained, “to discover why you did not inform the other Mages present when you saw me on the road to Umburan.” He might have been asking about the weather in Kitara, for all the feeling in his voice.
“I knew you,” Asha stated blandly, her face still showing nothing, “from the days of our acolyte training. Your presence was clear to me, though the other Mages did not feel it.”
“Why did you not tell the others?” Alain asked.
“I had no instructions to do so.”
Alain nodded. “Were you among the Mages who assisted the Imperial ambush of the Alexdrian raiders west of Umburan about three weeks ago?”
Asha nodded back. “I was.”
“Did you know the Guild had assigned me to be the Mage for the Alexdrian forces?”
“I did not.”
“I was the only Mage with the Alexdrians.”
The female Mage stayed silent for a moment before replying. “Only you? There were ten of us with the Imperials.” Was it Mari’s imagination that some trace of surprise, of upset, had finally entered Asha’s voice?
“Ten.” It was Alain’s turn to pause, as he absorbed that information. “I was not told. The Mage who cast lightning attempted to strike me during the battle,” Alain continued with a deadpan voice and no expression. “A direct attack on me. The dragon Mage then sent his spell creature up the pass with orders to kill me first.”
Asha hesitated again before replying. “I did not know these things. Do you say, Mage Alain, that our elders have decreed your death?”
“I believe this is so.”
Mari watched the two Mages converse, feeling a growing sense of disbelief and disquiet. They were discussing, quite literally, matters of life and death. This was apparently their first reunion in some time. Yet their faces and voices gave no clue to the emotions they felt, gave no clue to any emotions at all. It was both eerie and disturbing. I’d forgotten that Alain could be like this. I’d forgotten what he was like when we first talked in the waste outside of Ringhmon. Watching this is downright scary. What if there had been another Mage along with the caravan? What if I had seen him conversing with another Mage then, the two of them so blasted inhuman? I never would’ve spoken to him, even if we’d still ended up fleeing together. He, they, would’ve been too creepy. Even if I’d just seen other Mages talking together close up then I bet I would’ve felt that way. But I never have.
Alain talks sometimes about destiny bringing us together. I think that’s nonsense, but then again if we hadn’t both been alone when the caravan was destroyed, if we both hadn’t lacked actual experience with members of the other’s Guild before that, we wouldn’t have talked. We wouldn’t have seen beneath the exterior we thought we knew and caught a glimpse of the real person beneath. Things would’ve been a lot different.
Thanks, destiny.
Asha was gazing dispassionately at Alain. “A Roc Mage arrived here a day ago with a tale of having attacked a Mechanic creation. I saw that she was hiding something from us when she spoke of this.”
“That Mage too tried to kill me, and Mari as well.”
“Why would the Guild seek your death, Mage Alain? Did you act against the Guild?”
“I did not act against the Guild before the attempts to kill me. I believe that the elders ordered my death because I had come to know this woman.” Alain indicated Mari.
Mari nodded at Asha, then decided someone here ought to act human and smiled politely. “Hi. Nice to meet you. How are you doing?”
The female Mage looked at Mari for just a moment as if she was gazing at a rock, not returning the smile or any other expression before turning her attention back to Alain and speaking only to him. “She is not a Mage. Why do you know a common, and why should the Guild be concerned by this?”
“She is a Mechanic.”
News that would have aroused outbursts of emotion in a conversation with Mechanics or commons merely caused Asha’s eyebrow to twitch. “Why are you with her?”
Perhaps it was because Mari had been around Alain, gaining experience with detecting emotions which were mostly hidden, but she thought that Asha’s voice rose infinitesimally in disbelief at the end. Not that anyone else would probably have noticed. Listening to the Mages’ emotionless conversation did have one benefit, Mari thought. She couldn't hear or see any negative feelings about her in the impassive words of Asha.
“I am with her,” Alain said, “because she is important.”
“I do not understand. She is a shadow. She cannot be important.”
“She is to me.” Alain paused. “She is to this world. She defines the world I see.”
That actually caused a visible flash of surprise on Asha’s face. Mari was so busy staring at Alain, aghast at what sounded to her like a very exaggerated description of her importance to him, that she almost missed Asha’s reaction. The female Mage looked at Mari a little longer this time, then shook her head. “I do not understand how a shadow could lead you to believe this, Mage Alain.”