“Can you see them?” Alain asked.
“No. Even if I could see them I couldn’t hit them at this range. But maybe I can scare them into keeping their heads down.” She put the weapon back inside her coat and tugged at Alain. “Come on, my Mage. You can do it. It can’t be much farther to the gate.”
If it is much farther, we will not make it. Alain concentrated on keeping his feet moving, knowing speed was their only hope now.
Mari gave a gasp of joy. “There it is.” She pulled him in toward the wall at a sharper angle, their feet crashing through the dry grass which had grown since the last burn-off and now stood knee-high in places.
Alain looked in the direction Mari was guiding them, seeing a large gate of heavy timbers reinforced with wide bands of metal, sealed shut to bar entry inside the wall. Sentry towers stood at either hand, but no one was visible standing guard.
They staggered to a halt before the gate as another set of whistles sounded, making it clear that their pursuers now had them boxed in. Mari pounded on the gate, yelling. “Inside the wall! Let us in!” No reply came. “Alain, can you get us through that door?”
He shook his head. “I am too tired. A small hole, perhaps…”
“That won’t do any good! This thing has to be locked with a heavy bar of some kind. Inside the gate! Please let us in!” Still no answer. He could hear the desperation growing in Mari’s voice. “Alain, can you set fire to the door? If we can hold them off long enough for the fire to eat a hole in it—”
Her words cut off as a crossbow bolt flew down from one of the sentry towers to thud quivering into the dirt nearby. A figure was visible in that tower now, looking down at them. The lowering sun lit him up well enough to see that his clothing was frayed but neat and his armor polished. Unlike the barbarians, he was also clean and shaven. As Mari watched, the sentry picked up another crossbow and pointed it at her. “Go!”
Mari pointed toward the city. “They’ll kill us!”
“That’s not our affair.” His words were also archaic in accent, but clear. “We don’t meddle in the city beyond our walls.”
“You can’t do this! You can’t turn away people who need safety!”
The figure gestured, and several more men and women appeared on both sentry towers, all aiming their own crossbows. “We don’t take in anyone from the city.”
“We’re not from the city, you blasted common idiot!” Mari shouted. “Didn’t you hear the shots I fired? How many working Mechanic weapons do you think there are in this blasted, hateful, smashed excuse for a city?”
“Mari,” Alain said through his attempts to catch his breath, “that may not be the best way to gain their cooperation.”
The guard hesitated, then brought his crossbow to his shoulder. “You lie. We heard the sounds, but no one here knows what a Mechanic weapon sounds like. I will not warn you again. Go or—”
“Wait!” Mari turned to Alain. “Quick. Get your robes out and put them on.” She was kneeling as she said it, pulling open her own pack. “Hurry!”
Alain did, finding the carefully folded robes, yanking them out and hastily donning them. By the time he was done Mari had her Mechanics jacket out and had traded her coat for it. Then Mari looked up at the sentry towers again. “You must remember what this jacket means and what those robes mean. I am Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn. This is the Mage Alain of Ihris. We are not from Marandur. Please let us in.”
Alain could see the figures above staring and pointing. The one who had first spoken came to the edge of the tower to gaze down at them. “A Mechanic and a Mage? Together? What has happened in the world to bring this about?”
“If you want to know,” Mari shouted back, “you’ll have to let us in.”
Unexpectedly, the man grinned. “A fair trade, it seems. It has been a long time since this place has seen any members of your Guilds.” He called down to someone inside the gate. “Open! Quickly!” Then to the other figures on the sentry towers. “Keep watch for the barbarians!” They raised their crossbows and aimed out across the open area toward the city.
Mari reached and grabbed Alain’s hand. He gripped hers tightly in reply, hearing sounds on the other side of the gate. Slowly, it creaked open a small distance. Mari grabbed her pack and darted for the opening, dragging Alain along. He had just enough room to get through the gap behind her, pulling his pack in last, then they were inside and several people were hastily pushing the gate shut again and sliding a heavy beam across the back to seal it.
Mari threw her arms around Alain, laughing with relief, then kissed him hard. “I told you we’d make it, my Mage,” she said, breathless from the kiss and their exertions.
“You were right, as always, my Mechanic.” He held her tightly as well, then looked around to see faces staring at them in total bafflement. “We will have a lot to explain to these people,” Alain murmured to Mari.
The furnishings were old and worn, most of the windows boarded over, and candles provided only a weak illumination, but the large room still felt like a paradise after even a few days amid the ruins of Marandur. Mari and Alain were both seated in chairs facing one side of a long table. Several men and women were seated along the other side. All wore the robes of professors among the common people, though those robes showed signs of long wear. “I am Wren of Marandur, Master of the Professorship of the University of Marandur in Marandur, by grace of the emperor,” a woman with gray-streaked hair announced. “Together with these others, we are the masters of the university. Who are you?”
Alain let Mari talk. She smiled politely, indicating Alain. “As we told your people at the gate, this is the Mage Alain of Ihris. I am Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn.”
“Ihris. Caer Lyn,” another of the professors noted in a drained voice. “How long has it been since those cities were represented here?”
“You know that as well as the rest of us,” Professor Wren replied tersely. “Tell me, Lady Master Mechanic, how did you come to be here?” Listening to her was like reading the words of someone from almost two hundred years before. Which, Alain realized, in many ways she was, since the university had been isolated for so long.
“We entered Marandur from the north two days ago,” Mari said, speaking in a firm voice as if she were the one in authority here and merely bringing the commons up to date on her activities. “After coming through the city and crossing the Ospren River, we came under attack by those savages who still live in Marandur. Fleeing them, we came upon your wall and knew civilized people still lived there.”
The professors waited for a moment after Mari finished as if expecting more, then Wren spoke again. “Why did you enter Marandur? Does not the emperor’s ban still stand?”
“Yes,” Mari admitted, “it still stands. We had business in the city, seeking something I sought to find in the ruins of the old Mechanics Guild Headquarters.”
“Something important enough to bring a sentence of death upon the pair of you?” asked a third professor, perhaps the oldest of the group. “What could this be?”
“I sought manuscripts from the vaults. But they were gone.”
The professors all kept the same expressions, but Alain, used to watching Mages trying their best to conceal emotion, could see something flicker across the faces of the men and women facing them. What could it mean? “Do you know anything of those records?” he asked.
Another, stronger flicker, even as Professor Wren shook her head with every outward appearance of regret. “No idea, I am afraid.”