Alain shook his head. “I would not trust it. You see there are still many places where grass or trees do not grow. Old poisons must still abide here. The river should be safe, though. It flows from clean lands to the east and then through the city, constantly renewing itself.”
“Yeah.” She pulled herself up, studying the route ahead. “I think we need to bear right a little for the shortest route to the river.”
“I would advise staying on this side street. The way you are looking is too exposed.”
She sighed. “I’m tired, but I see your point. All right. Let’s see how far we can make before sunset. I’m not walking around this place in the dark. Even if I wasn’t worried about unseen humans and other predators, this wreckage is treacherous. We’d probably end up walking into a big hole that used to be a basement or something.”
But they almost immediately encountered a maze of destruction so jumbled that it slowed progress to a crawl. Climbing to a precarious perch on a high mound of rubble, Mari could see the same devastation running off to both sides for long distances. Making her way back down a sliding slope of broken brick, she told Alain. “This is at least as bad as the stuff near the walls.”
“It is probably what is left of the inner defensive line of the rebels,” Alain suggested.
“What were they doing all the way from the walls to here?” Mari groused. “I thought that wreckage marked heavy fighting.”
They still hadn’t caught sight of the river by the time the setting sun was touching the top of the ruins to the west, though at least they had gotten clear of the area of total destruction. Alain pointed out a nearly intact storefront and led the way inside. Mari pulled out her hand light and searched the dim interior. “The front room doesn’t look bad, and there’s some kind of counter or divider still intact here. We can get behind that and be invisible from the street.”
Whatever the store had once sold must have been looted long before, the remnants having since crumbled into piles of decay. They cleared a small area of the floor behind the counter in the angle where two miraculously intact walls met, Mari feeling relief at the lack of human remains here. She and Alain ate cold rations, drank sparingly, and then huddled together against the chill that night brought on, not wanting to risk the light and smoke a fire would create. Mari closed her eyes, feeling worn out and achy. “I’m hope I’m not too tired to sleep. Hey, Alain? Guess what we’re doing.”
He turned his head to look at her. “What are we doing?”
“Cuddling together on the first night of our visit to the old Imperial capital. Isn’t it a wonderful vacation?”
“You are making an illusion to place over that of this city?” Alain asked. “Perhaps I will make a Mage of you.”
“Not likely,” Mari said. “So, how do you like it in my illusion?”
“The accommodations leave something to be desired,” Alain said, “and the travel arrangements have been wanting. But I cannot fault having you along with me. The only thing that would make things better would be if this was our honeymoon.”
“Men!” Mari said with a snort. “Move your hands, Mage. No, not there. All right, that’s better. I thought you’d be too tired to be thinking about that kind of thing.”
“You have a way of bringing it to my mind, even here.”
“You’ll get over it,” Mari told him.
“It seems I must, for now,” Alain said. “Try to sleep. I can no longer sense any other Mage nearby, so I have set a small alarm spell on the entrance to this place which should sustain itself until close to morning, if not full daylight. It will reveal little trace of itself to anyone searching for signs of me.”
“Thanks.” She raised her head enough to kiss him. “I’m a lucky girl, even if I am in the middle of a dead city with two Great Guilds after my hide and now an Imperial death sentence added to the measure.” Mari closed her eyes again, wondering how long it would take to fall asleep in the middle of this dead city.
She was so tired she must have passed out quickly, but at some point in the night something caused Mari to jerk awake. The room lay in almost total darkness now, barely illuminated by the moonlight outside which revealed only the vague shape of the counter they were huddled behind. A heavy chill lay leaden in the air around them, making her glad for Alain’s warmth next to her. Mari lay still, breathing slowly, listening as carefully as she could, wondering what had awoken her, feeling incredibly grateful for the barrier between them and the broken front of the building that gave onto the street. Faint sounds came, the sort of noises insects or small rodents might make. The thud of Mari’s pulse pounding in her ears seemed almost deafening by contrast.
Every once in a while she could hear the far-off sound of debris shifting slightly, marking the movements of small creatures, or the slow centuries-long collapse of the city’s ruins, or possibly the progress of larger beings accustomed to negotiating the rubble. Possibly humans, though how human such persons would be after living all their lives in this awful place was an open question.
Glancing over at Alain required Mari to turn her head slightly, which she did with great care, afraid of making the slightest noise in the eerie quiet that enfolded the ruins of Marandur. Alain was sleeping peacefully, no sign of worry on his face. Surely if there was any immediate danger, Alain’s Mage alarm would provide warning.
Mari closed her eyes again, trying to calm herself. None of the noises appeared to be nearby. But if anything in this world was haunted, it was these ruins. Her imagination too easily conjured up images of vengeful spirits stalking the empty streets of the dead city. How many had died here? Not just the rebels who had chosen their fates and the legionaries following their orders, but the countless men, women, and children caught in the middle of the fight? There wasn’t any way to know how many victims there had been. “I’m sorry,” Mari whispered in the barest voice she could manage.
Alain stirred slightly and she leaned into him, willing Alain to be silent again but finding immense comfort in his presence. She imagined being alone in these ruins and almost shuddered at the thought. A night alone in Marandur could surely drive someone insane.
Would the ruins of the Mechanics Guild Hall feel haunted, too? What would those dead Mechanics think of her and what she wanted to do? Would they feel remorse for their actions when living, or would they seek to protect the secrets they had kept in life?
Jules herself might have walked these streets, centuries ago when Marandur had been a living city and the capital of the Empire. Mari had learned a little more about Jules in the last few weeks, curious about the woman. After all, if Alain and the old prophecy were right, that ancient hero had been her distant forbearer. Before heading west, Jules had been an officer in the Imperial fleet. Different accounts offered different reasons for her leaving Imperial service and becoming an explorer and a pirate. The truth was probably long lost, though Mari fantasized for a moment about finding some ancient records lying amid the rubble of the city. Am I doing the right thing, Jules? Should we have come here? Are you really my blood ancestor? Can anything about that blood help me know what to do and how to do it? It seems like total superstition, but is there any truth to it? I need all the help I can get.
Why am I doing this? Not because I’m supposed to, according to that prophecy. To stop the storm? Yes. But that’s like overthrowing the Great Guilds, just a step on the way to something else. For freedom? That’s a big thing. This city…this city is a monument to how the world works, the world controlled by the Great Guilds. The Great Guilds didn’t prevent this. All they could do was help destroy the city.