“A spell?” Mari asked. “What spell?”
“My spell that bends light. If you hold me tightly and stay close to me, it will protect you as well. If we wait until night falls again, then use it only when we reach the area where the fires show everything, we should be able to get past the patrols without giving the distant Mage enough time to react.”
“You want to make us invisible? Even though I’ve seen you do that, it’s still hard to believe that’s possible. Are you sure that other Mage won’t know it’s you doing the spell?”
“Yes. Not at that distance.”
“I don’t see any other way in, so I guess we’ll have to risk it.” She looked over and grinned at him. “Your plan requires me to hold you tightly all the way into the city? Shame on you, Mage.”
Alain gave her a slight smile back. “I am not saying I will not enjoy it, despite the danger.”
They reached the saplings and lay down close to each other, screened as well as possible from anyone coming from the Imperial lines around the city. “I can just see the top of the Imperial watchtowers while lying down,” Mari said. “We’re going to have to stay as still as possible when daylight comes.”
It was a very long day. The thin patch of woods offered little cover, and the ground was scattered with drying leaves, making it hard to shift position without causing the leaves to crackle in a way that sounded far too loud. Mari managed to fall asleep now and then, only to awaken with a start of fear that she had been making noise. “Do I snore when I’m sleeping?” she finally whispered to Alain.
He didn’t answer.
“Alain? Are you awake?”
“Yes,” his reply finally came. “I just do not know which answer would be right.”
“Just tell me!”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Mari moved her eyes enough to glance at Alain. “Loud or soft?”
“Sometimes.”
“Does it ever bother you?”
Alain hesitated again. “Sometimes.”
“Are you going to give me any plain yes or no answers to this?”
“Not if I can avoid doing so,” he replied.
“I guess you’re learning social skills.” Mari watched an insect clambering across the dead leaves in front of her nose. A chill breeze was coming down from the north again, but she was afraid even to shiver for fear the motion might be seen from one of the guard towers. “I wish we were talking about this in bed. A nice warm bed in a nice warm room and nobody trying to capture or kill us.”
“That would be nice,” Alain agreed.
“Do you remember the first time we slept nearby each other? On that ledge looking down on the wreckage of the caravan to Ringhmon?”
“I will never forget that.”
“Would you have stayed there if you had known you’d end up with me here?”
His voice was barely audible. “If I had known I would end up with you, no matter where, then I would have known that night what happiness was.”
She smiled despite the situation they were in, then tried to get some more sleep as the distant calls of the Imperial sentries echoed off the walls of the dead city.
They waited in the small patch of woods for full night to fall and the bustle of activity involved in lighting the watch fires to diminish, then waited a while longer for the sentries to lapse into the boredom of another night of guarding a dead city. Finally, Alain rose into a crouch. “The other Mage remains far from us in another part of the Imperial lines, but we should wait to use my spell until we must. The less time I am revealing my presence, the better. But remain close.”
“Not a problem,” Mari assured him, wincing as she tried to stretch out stiff and sore muscles. As night had fallen, the eerie silence and emptiness of the city had become more unnerving. Alain’s presence was even more comforting than usual. “Let’s head for that gap in the city wall there. It’s about equally distant from the guard towers on either side, and looks like it extends low enough for us to climb in easily.”
They went out into the open, hunched over, moving slowly and carefully toward the guard towers. All of the Imperial sentries, their postures relaxed, were once more facing toward the city. She wondered at that, since it implied that the Imperials were more worried about someone leaving Marandur than they were about someone entering. Why? But the open ground and the fires between the towers and the walls made it almost impossible for anyone trying to enter as well, so in practical terms the sentries’ focus inward made little difference.
As Mari and Alain got closer to the towers, they began to hear snatches of conversation. The legionaries were talking about their homes, their families, their girlfriends and boyfriends, how bad the food was, and what they would be doing once they got off guard duty. Mari listened, realizing how human these Imperial men and women were, yet also knowing they would not hesitate to kill her and Alain in the course of following their orders.
Alain stopped short of the guard towers, beckoning Mari over. She wrapped one arm tightly around him. “Both arms,” Alain breathed at her.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” Mari mumbled under her breath, but she brought the other hand around and hugged him with that as well, clinging to his back as tightly as she could.
Alain held still for a moment, then Mari saw her view blur slightly. He started walking slowly so that Mari could keep pace and her hold. It was awkward walking with both arms around Alain, but the sight of the watch fires burning ahead was enough to keep Mari clinging to the Mage. They reached a point from which they could watch a patrol walking between the towers. Mari held her breath, staring straight at a legionary who seemed to be looking right at her. No, right through her. The Imperial soldier showed no sign he had seen Mari. The patrol passed, then Alain went ahead again. Mari found herself breathing as shallowly as she could, trying to make as little noise as possible, even though the Imperial soldiers made plenty of noise themselves tramping through the grass.
She relaxed a bit once they had gotten past the line of fires, then almost fell when Alain stopped abruptly. He bent his head over and back to breathe his words in her ear. “Mage alarms. I do not see any way around them. We will have to go through. It will be difficult to avoid the alarms and maintain my spell to keep us hidden. Do not distract me.”
Mari waited, trying not to do anything distracting. It was very hard not to move while holding Alain tightly, very hard to keep breathing shallowly so the motion of her chest rising and falling against Alain’s back wouldn’t be too obvious to him. She could feel his own breath coming more heavily. Was that because her body was pressed tightly against him, or because the exertion of maintaining the spell was wearing on Alain? There wasn’t much she could do about it if Alain was being distracted by her, but as Mari thought about it she doubted that was happening. She had seen how the often-brutal training Alain had undergone as a Mage acolyte had taught him how to block out physical discomfort and distractions. More likely he was being tired out by the Mage spell. Despite Alain’s attempts to explain to her, she had never been able to grasp exactly how tiring doing spells was for a Mage. But she knew it took work, and she wished right now that she could lend some of her strength to him instead of just standing here uselessly.
“Now,” Alain whispered, and started moving ahead. She kept locked onto him, matching his slow steps with her own as Alain moved through alarms which Mari couldn’t see. Alain had described them to her as looking like gossamer spider web strands drifting through the air but confined in one area. Getting through them undetected required Alain to use his mind to move the strands enough to each side to allow him to pass through the gap that created, without pushing so hard that it alerted the Mage monitoring and maintaining the alarm.