S’san shook her head. “I never told you they were fakes, Mari.”
“You didn’t?” Mari frowned, thinking back. “No. You didn’t, did you? A lot of other Mechanics did, but you never talked about that, and when somebody else did, you didn’t comment on it. But then why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“I was trying to protect you.” The professor took a deep breath, seeming to shrink in on herself as she exhaled. “How many lies could I expose without dooming you, Mari? You had to learn gradually, like other Mechanics do. I knew you wouldn’t be satisfied with official explanations, that you would be smart enough to navigate the dangers of learning the truth.” S’san’s gaze sharpened again. “At least, I thought you’d be smart enough.”
“My smarts were busy trying to keep me alive,” Mari shot back. “Despite the best efforts of the Senior Mechanics, I did manage to stay alive.”
“Do not doubt that I am very grateful for that,” S’san murmured, looking away. “Mari, I honestly did not know the lengths to which the Senior Mechanics would go. I feared you might be sent into dangerous situations, but no more so than any other Mechanic. I never suspected that you would be deliberately exposed to peril by setting you up to be kidnapped on that caravan to Ringhmon—”
“What?” Mari leaned forward, her body rigid. “Deliberately? The Guild wanted me to be kidnapped?”
S’san nodded, her expression hardening into anger. “They kept it very secret, but the Guild leadership had some knowledge of what Ringhmon was up to. They wanted to hammer that city, but claimed they needed more proof. So you were set up, placed in that caravan, alone, with the full knowledge of Ringhmon, bait for the commons who would see you as an irresistible target.”
“Bait?” Mari’s ears were buzzing as she stared at S’san in shock. “My Guild used me as bait?”
“Yes. I did not know, Mari. I swear it.”
“She speaks the truth,” Alain said.
Mari reached to grasp his arm with her free hand, grateful for that confirmation even through her growing outrage. “They wanted Ringhmon to kidnap me, to kill me, to give them the evidence they needed to put the city under an interdict. Stars above, Professor, no wonder the Guild Hall supervisor in Ringhmon was so unhappy with me! I wasn’t playing my role!” Mari knew her voice was rising, but she kept talking. “I hadn’t let myself be kidnapped! Or killed! When I was captured I escaped! I wasn’t cooperating with the Guild’s plans at all! The Guild wanted my dead body!”
“Mari—” Professor S’san began.
But Mari kept talking, overriding her professor, something she would never have imagined doing not long ago. “I trusted the Guild! I was loyal to the Guild! I never would have done anything against its interests. Yet the Guild was willing to sacrifice me like a cheap game token. If it hadn’t been for Alain…” She looked over at him. “How’s that for irony? My Guild’s own actions led me to know a Mage, and to learn some of the truth behind my Guild’s lies. I suppose I should be grateful that they tried to use me as bait. Otherwise I might have spent many years laboring loyally for people who deserve no loyalty.”
S’san nodded in the silence that followed Mari’s outburst. “You have every right to be angry, to feel betrayed. You were betrayed. The Guild didn’t need your body as evidence of wrongdoing by Ringhmon. The Guild doesn’t need any evidence to do whatever it wants. But it offered a way to get rid of someone who worried the Senior Mechanics.”
“Why?” Mari demanded. “Why did I worry the Senior Mechanics? What did I do?”
“You did nothing except what any loyal Mechanic should do. What worried the Senior Mechanics was what you were: smart, with an agile mind, a natural leader who acquires followers the way most people pick up spare change. They feared that over time you would gain enough strength to challenge them, to challenge the way they believe the Guild must be run. That’s why the Senior Mechanics tried to get rid of you in a way that would tar the commons with the guilt for your death, turning your death into a reason for anyone sympathetic to you to become more loyal to the Guild and also reinforce support for maintaining a hard line against allowing any change. Never forget that most of the Senior Mechanics are certain that they are right, and that makes them willing to do anything that they believe to be necessary.”
The professor bent her head toward Mari. “I am very sorry, Mari. If I had known, I would have warned you. I swear it, though perhaps you have little faith now in my own vows as well.”
Mari sat without speaking, emotions tumbling through her, finally fixing on one thing she could be sure of. “You didn’t have to admit that to me, what the Guild had done. But you did. You’re too honest for your own good, Professor.”
S’san nodded somberly. “Perhaps. You and I probably share that fault. Did you wonder why I had retired?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Once word got out of what the plan had been,” S’san explained, “there was quite a blow-up among the senior ranks of the Guild. Some, such as myself, were appalled. All too many others were willing to excuse the betrayal of you as necessary for the good of the Guild. I was outvoted, to put it mildly. But everyone in the senior ranks knew that if the rank-and-file Mechanics heard the truth, there would be very serious consequences. Most of them would be shocked by the betrayal. So, I was given the choice of retirement here, in exchange for swearing to say nothing, or retirement in a cell in Longfalls. I chose here, where I have been discreetly trying to find out where you were, and trying to come up with an idea to help you, though nothing has come to me.”
S’san covered her face with both hands. “I don’t consider myself bound by oaths forced under duress, so I’m telling you the truth, but I have failed you, and I failed my Guild. Its current leaders are too shortsighted, too ruthless. We cannot continue doing the same things, but they refuse to change. Perhaps we are all doomed.”
Mari didn’t know what to say, finally looking helplessly at Alain.
The Mage had been watching S’san. “It is not hopeless. A new day can come to this world.”
“A Mage offers hope?” S’san laughed harshly. “It’s come to that.”
“Professor,” Mari said, “the reason I didn’t die at Ringhmon, the reason the kidnap plot failed, the reason I was able to escape when the commons in Ringhmon imprisoned me, was because of this Mage.”
“Indeed?” S’san sat up a little straighter, intrigued. “I had heard something about a Mage, but as someone tangential to everything that occurred in Ringhmon.”
“He was central to it all,” Mari said. “I’m sure you understand why I didn’t report that to my superiors. I could scarcely tell them that a Mage had helped me escape from the dungeon under the city hall and helped me burn the place down.”
“He helped you escape from a dungeon? How very romantic.”
“Yes. That’s…probably when I started falling in love with him.”
“In love.” S’san bent a skeptical look on Alain. “And when did you start falling in love with Mari?”
“I have thought on this,” Alain said, “and decided it began when first I met her, but I did not understand what was happening to me until after she threw me out a window.”
“She threw you out a window?” The professor shook her head. “Mari has always been fairly awkward around boys, but throwing one through a window is a bit much even for her. Still, I suppose that might have been what was necessary to get the attention of a Mage.”
Alain nodded. “It did get my attention. I should add that Mari was saving my life when she did that.”
“Men tend to like that in women.” S’san raised an eyebrow at Mari. “I told you that you impress people. Even a Mage found you memorable the first time you met.”