“No. Mages, I think. It feels like that. They must be coming to Severun on one of the lake ferries or ships.”
“Blast! My Guild seems to have figured out we’re here, and so has your Guild. How did they find us?” Mari looked around. “More importantly at the moment, how do we throw them off our track?”
“Asha,” Alain said suddenly.
“What? Do you think she betrayed—”
“No,” Alain said. “She is close to those on the lake. Her presence shone brightly for a moment. She must have been ordered to assist the Mages coming here, but she deliberately let her presence show so strongly. She has tried to warn us that the other Mages are coming.”
Hearing the clop of hooves and the rumble of wheels on the paved streets, Mari looked ahead to see a carriage approaching at a rapid clip along streets nearly deserted at this late hour. She took Alain’s arm and pulled him into the nearest doorway, waiting in the shadows there as the carriage rattled past. “They’re in a hurry to get somewhere. Let’s– Get back!” Mari pushed Alain into the shadows again as a second carriage appeared and rushed down the street past them. “We can’t run without drawing too much attention, but let’s walk as fast as we can. I couldn’t see who was in those carriages, but the drivers sure looked like Mechanic apprentices to me.”
Alain stayed with her as they walked, but glanced back once. “Why would your Guild have warned you if they were sending Mechanics to take you?”
She frowned at him. “That’s a good question. That message tipped me off. It was pretty dumb of someone to—” Mari paused, looking straight ahead now as she thought. “Maybe that wasn’t a mistake. Maybe someone warned me just like Asha warned you.” Who did she know in Severun besides Professor S’san? If Calu had been sent to Umburan, perhaps some of her other old friends had been sent here.
Or someone she had never met? Like the Mechanics who had confided in her their own doubts and worries about the Guild?
The two- and three-story shops and homes on either side of the road were mostly dark or with only a single window showing light from a lantern or candle inside. They had made it a fair way along the street, the road still climbing along the long slope leading down to the lake behind them, when Alain held out a cautioning arm. “I see police ahead.”
“Oh, great,” Mari groaned. “We have to worry about Imperials tonight, too.”
The two Imperial police walked at a leisurely pace as they approached, but when Mari and Alain were close one of them held up a restraining hand. “A bit late to be out, citizens. Papers.”
Mari tried to look meek as she handed over the fake identity papers. The officer scanned them slowly, while Mari wondered how close behind various pursuers might be. “Palandur,” the Imperial officer finally said. “Why are two citizens from Palandur wandering the streets of Severun at night?”
“We’re visitors seeing your city,” Mari said.
The two police officers exchanged glances and both smiled in a smug way. “This looks suspicious, don’t you think?” one asked the other.
“Definitely,” the second agreed. “You two will come with us for a little talk down at the local station.”
Mari had no trouble understanding what the Imperial cops were doing. It was the same sort of thing which she had seen certain apprentices and Mechanics do to more junior apprentices on a whim, using their power to enliven an otherwise dull period of time by harassing someone unable to resist. One of the trade-offs which Imperial citizens suffered for their sense of security was dealing with police who had few practical limits on their powers.
She tried smiling beseechingly at the two officers. “Please, we’re just passing through the city and will leave soon. Two fine officers such as yourself—”
“Resisting us?” one of the officers asked the other. “She’s resisting answering questions.”
“Yup,” the second agreed.
Alain gave Mari a look. She knew that his spells could handle these officers, but that would betray his location to the Mages coming in from the lake. Her pistol could also deal with the officers, but the noise of it would draw the Mechanics chasing her. Mari looked over the Imperial police officers again, in their leather chest armor, each armed with a short sword and a hardwood club. There didn’t seem to be any alternative to threatening them with her pistol and hoping they wouldn’t force her to fire.
Mari nodded to Alain, then gave the two Imperial officers a pleading look. “I’m sorry, I forgot. There’s something else I need to show you.” She raised her hand toward the pistol concealed under her coat. If she could overawe them with that weapon, keep them quiet while Alain tied them up—
Her hand had closed about the grip of the pistol, but before she could draw the weapon a series of rapping sounds resounded from far down the street in the direction of the hostel Alain and Mari had fled. Both of the Imperial officers focused their attention down the street, listening. “Mechanics?” one questioned, then pointed a finger at Mari and Alain. “Did you two see any Mechanics up to anything down that way?”
“We saw some closed carriages go past us moving quickly,” Mari replied. “Really quickly. They almost ran us down.” She managed to inject some righteous indignation into her voice along with the meekness expected of Imperial citizens speaking to anyone in authority.
The first officer turned on his companion. “I told you we should’ve checked on that! Now there’s a bunch of Mechanics in the Viryen District breaking into houses and hostels down there!” He shoved the identity papers back at Mari. “You two get the blazes out of here.”
Mari stuffed the papers back into one of her pockets, grabbing Alain’s arm as they walked rapidly onward.
Alain looked back to see one of the officers kneeling, hardwood club in hand, to rap out a reply to the first message on the stones of the street. Then the two Imperial police set off running toward the lake. “I had not realized before that commons employed such methods to communicate over distances,” he remarked.
“I didn’t know about it, either,” Mari said. “I’ve heard that kind of rapping at times, but I haven’t been out among commons that much and when I was I never paid attention. It’s a clever system, using those clubs to tap out simple coded messages that carry a long distance, especially at night when there’s not as much background noise. I wonder how many Mechanics know that commons keep track of our movements using systems like that? In any case, it got us out of that mess before I had to use my weapon. There was no way I was going to let us be hauled in so some bored Imperial cops could practice interrogation techniques on a couple of citizens from out of town.”
Despite her hold on him urging Alain along, Mari felt Alain pausing again. She spun to tell him this was no time to wait around and saw Alain looking steadily to the north.
“The Mages are moving…that way,” Alain said. “Along the lake. I just sensed Asha again. She must be more cautious in her attempts to warn us. The Mages with her will surely notice that she is dropping her defenses for brief periods.”
“That way?” Mari swung her arm along that direction. “West. Why are they going west?”
“We must assume that something, or someone, has caused them to search in that direction.”
“Asha,” Mari said. “You were right. She’s helping us.”
Alain frowned very slightly as Mari got him walking quickly south again, a sign of how deeply he was concerned. “The Mechanics knew not only that you were in the city, but in which part of the city as well. From what the Imperial police officers said, the Mechanics are breaking into the hostel where we were staying or somewhere near there. Can Mechanics sense the presence of other Mechanics, just as Mages can sense Mages?”