“Why would your Guild have suppressed things which would have allowed it to exercise more power?”
“I’m not sure.” Mari frowned down at the text in front of her. “But you’re right. I said we’ve lost this. That’s not true. It was deliberately kept away from everyone, deliberately suppressed. I think these things would’ve made it too hard for the Mechanics Guild to claim mastery and control if this sort of technology had been available.” She laughed briefly and harshly. “Or maybe they were just afraid, those old Guild leaders and the Guild leaders now, afraid to take any risk, so they suppressed things right and left just in case.”
Alain nodded. “To keep things from changing.”
“Yeah.” Mari abruptly slammed her palm onto the table, making the text in front of her jump. “But where did it all come from? This stuff couldn’t have been dreamed up by a Guild Hall or a city or even the Empire. It’s got to be the end product of a huge number of scientific and technological advances. Where and when did that happen?”
“Some say there is another continent to the west,” Alain reminded her.
“I know all about that legend. But with all this? And we’ve never heard from them? Maybe if they didn’t want to hear from us and kept a tight quarantine—but surely over all the centuries of our history someone would’ve seen something.” She leaned back, the explosive frustration of a moment before gone. “I’ll keep looking, but I’m not finding anything but technical and scientific texts. No histories that might explain where the science and technology came from. It’s enough to make me seriously consider that thing you keep bringing up about us all coming from the stars. That would at least help explain this where nothing else does.”
“Could learning the answer to that help you understand what is here?” Alain pointed to the texts piled around her. “Could it provide some insight into these things you are having trouble understanding?”
“It’s possible. I have no idea.” Mari stared around at the stacks of documents. “If only I could take all of this with us. But that’s impossible. There are some things I need, texts that describe weapons and other equipment or devices better than those the Mechanics Guild allows and yet within our capability to build. I’ll choose what can fit in my pack and—”
“Our packs,” Alain corrected.
She laughed again, but this time happily. “Oh, yeah. Not only do I go into the forbidden city of Marandur, not only do I read forbidden texts, not only do I teach forbidden Mechanic arts to the commons here, but I’m also going to hand some of the most secret Mechanic texts to a Mage! I’m running out of truly epic crimes to commit.”
“I am certain that you will think of some new ones.”
“That’s right. It’s good to know that you have such confidence in me.” Mari smiled wearily. “Thanks for the food. I need to get back to work.”
“I will be back with dinner.”
Mari did not answer. She was already absorbed in the text in front of her. Alain watched her for a moment, wondering what secrets she would find, just what weapons and other devices might be hidden in those old texts. The possibility of change seemed to be filling the air around them, but he felt the tug of urgency again. “Mari?”
She looked up, blinking at him as if having to refocus on the world around her. “What?”
“Are these the tools your elder spoke of?”
“My elder? Oh. You mean Professor S’san.” Mari grimaced, thinking. “Yes. I think so. But Alain, I can’t just walk out of here, wave a magic wand, and have these, uh, tools appear for use. It will take time and resources and trained Mechanics and lots of other things.”
“How much time?” Alain asked.
“I don’t know. I truly don’t.” She looked down at the open book before her. “All we can do is hope it won’t be longer than we have before that chaos storm hits.”
Chapter Eighteen
Two small stacks of books and papers rested on the table where Mari had spent the last couple of weeks. Her entire body was weary, eyes aching, head pounding from all the reading of faded texts for hour after hour, day after day. She gestured toward them. “That’s it. I don’t know how I managed to winnow it down to that.”
Alain, tired himself from days spent on watch in the hallway, judged the stacks and nodded. “I have asked the masters of the university. They have said they can make watertight parcels to hold these, so even if our packs are wetted again the documents you have chosen will remain safe.”
“Alain, you’re a lifesaver.” Mari smiled crookedly. “Usually literally saving my life, but you know what I mean in this case.”
“You have saved mine a few times.” Alain sat down. “Where do we take these? Back to your elder in Severun?”
“No,” she answered with a yawn. “Even if my Guild hasn’t yet arrested Professor S’san, they’ll have her under a tight watch by now. No, we’re going to Altis.”
“Altis? Why a city on an island far to the west?”
“This is why.” She took the top book off of her stack and opened it. “I told you the texts down here didn’t have history in them. Nothing to explain where the technology in them came from, or why it was suppressed to begin with. Nothing to explain where we came from, for that matter. Alain, I’ll be nineteen soon. Only nineteen. I’m not qualified to decide what’s right for the world when I don’t know who made these other decisions and why. I’m pretty sure my Guild is just about power and wealth, but what if there was something else behind the way the world is now, some awful event or crisis that people thought could only be solved by having something like the Great Guilds controlling everything? Before I start making changes to a machine, I need to know why it was designed the way it was to begin with, what its purpose is. That’s the only way I can know all of the changes that need to be made.”
Mari paused, distress visible. “And if what I’m going to do is going to cause more death, more people having to fight and…and kill, then I need to have a better idea of what to do. I have no right to start…a war…if I don’t know that no alternative exists.”
“That storm approaches,” Alain said. “War will come, regardless of what you do.”
“Then I will try to make sure it’s the right war being fought for the right reasons with the right goals!” She laid the book she held in front of Alain. “Look. Somebody took a lot of notes in this one. See this drawing?”
He studied the sketch in one margin. “It is a tower of some kind.”
“Yes. A big tower. I think these are supposed to be people standing near it. And right here it says The tower on Altis, where records of all things are kept. Altis is the name of the island as well as the city, Alain. I checked with the masters of the university. They have some ancient texts of their own that mention in a couple of places the same tower somewhere on that island, though they give only vague clues as to its purpose. It was a really old tower even then, though. The professors here don’t know who lived in the tower or what they did, but they thought the hints they had pointed to some kind of record-keepers, so that fits. Maybe whoever kept all of those records is still there. Maybe it’s abandoned or in ruins, but some records might still remain intact, even if they’re just pictures on a ruined wall.”
Alain looked at the drawing again. “You wish to go to Altis to try to find the reasons for what the Mechanics Guild did long ago.”
“Yes. Why was this technology suppressed? Was there a good reason? Maybe the people in that tower also have some answers to that question of yours about where we came from. Maybe they can point to a star our ancestors called home. All of our ancestors, not just the Mechanics. We need to get those answers as soon as we can. If they exist.” Mari smiled at him, then winced and massaged her aching head with both hands. “It won’t be easy, getting to Altis. Getting out of Marandur alive isn’t going to be simple, and then we’ll have to get out of the Empire without any of the emperor’s goons figuring out we’ve been to Marandur. My Guild and your Guild are going to be looking for us. If the Great Guilds have heard anything linking me to that prophecy, they’ve probably been going crazy trying to figure out where we disappeared to. The Dark Mechanics surely want me silenced for good now. Did I leave out anyone?”