“I remember hope,” the old woman commented, gazing into the distance. “When I was very young. Before I learned what the world was like, and what my role must be in serving the will of the Great Guilds. But even the very young today don’t know what hope is. It has been too many years of enslavement. The next riots will be worse. I fear whether our police and military will be able to control them, and at what cost to this city. What sign can you give me, Lady Mechanic? Your words are all that they should be, and I want you to be what you claim. But what sign can you show that something that has never existed in this world can now be?”
Mari hesitated. She hated doing this, hated making a show out of something that meant so much to her, but there didn’t seem any alternative. Mari slowly raised her left hand, fingers slightly spread. “Do you see this?”
“A promise ring,” the old woman said. “Where is your husband?”
“Beside me.” Mari reached to take Alain’s hand and hold it up enough to reveal the matching ring.
All four of those from Julesport stared in disbelief for several long moments.
The old woman recovered first. “Why would you wed a Mage, Lady Mechanic?”
“He asked me,” she said. “Proposed to me, that is. I proposed to him later.”
“A political alliance, then? A means to the end of overthrowing the Great Guilds?”
“No!” Mari said with more force than she had intended. “We wed because we were in love, and we would have done it no matter whether it helped or hindered anything else.”
“In love?” the old woman asked. “You taught a Mage to love?”
“She did,” Alain said. Mari saw him relax his face, let some feeling show, and while it was a small display compared to what non-Mages would reveal, it was nonetheless shocking to see in a Mage. “She gave me back my life, a life that my Guild had taken from me.”
The old woman began laughing, drawing startled glances from the others. “The oldest magic of all! And it ensnared both of you, did it? You saw the man beneath a Mage’s mask, Lady Mechanic, and helped the Mage see the woman beneath your Mechanics jacket! I would not have believed it. See this!” she told the other three. “Those rings do not mark just the alliance of those two, of Mechanic and Mage. They also mark an alliance with us, for they show that these two believe in the same things that we do. That they believe in something other than power and wealth. That they would risk all for someone and something other than themselves! And that a new day can truly come. What else could you call a world where a Mechanic and a Mage are not enemies, but partners in life, joined by love?”
“But the safety of the city—” the woman in uniform began.
“The daughter is right! Give our people a reason to wait, a belief that the new day is finally coming, and they will wait.” The old woman shook her finger at Mari. “Don’t make it too long. Wherever you go, do not disappear. Let word come back to us. We will keep it from the Great Guilds as best we can, but our people must know you are pursuing their overthrow.”
“I will do that,” Mari said.
“General Shi,” the old woman said to the woman in uniform. “Your soldiers are already on alert?”
“Yes,” Shi confirmed.
“These two,” the old woman pointed to Mari and Alain, “do not exist as far as your soldiers are concerned. The soldiers do not see them. The same for the harbor guard, Colonel Faron. They will protect these two, but our soldiers will not see them.”
“What about the city council?” the middle-aged man asked. “They need to—”
“The city council,” the old woman interrupted, “will be told about this tomorrow, when there is no longer any possibility of them arguing other courses of action to death, or of one of them betraying the presence of our guests before they depart. The daughter should be welcomed in the home of her ancestor, and I would hope in the days and years to come that the daughter would remember the special status of Julesport in her family.”
The man nodded reluctantly. “The good wishes of the daughter are of immense value. And it is true that too many secrets have become known to the Mechanics and the Mages.”
Mari, uncomfortable from the repeated references to her as the daughter, felt a sudden suspicion. “Your city council chamber. Does it have electric lighting?”
“Mechanic lights, you mean?” the man asked. “Yes. Two large fixtures in the ceiling.”
“Can I see them?”
“Why?” the old woman asked, her eyes intent.
“I may be able to do you a service,” Mari said, “by finding the means by which the Mechanics Guild has learned your secrets.”
The old woman gestured briskly, and with a bow Colonel Faron led the way out of the room and into a long hallway. Mari and Alain followed him, while General Shi and the other man brought up the rear, the old woman staying behind to await their return.
Faron halted before an impressive set of double doors. Opening one side, he looked in, then nodded to Mari and opened his mouth to speak.
Mari silenced him with a strong gesture, then walked into the room. It was perhaps four times the size of the room they had left and much brighter, with a long table along one side and two massive chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. She looked up, studying the lights. Turning back to the mystified leaders of Julesport, Mari pantomimed the need for a ladder high enough to reach the lights.
It took a few minutes before Colonel Faron himself returned with a ladder and set it up where Mari directed. She climbed up, thinking that the ladder felt way too rickety, then when high enough began looking over the light fixture.
And found nothing but the bulbs and the wiring to them.
Fearing that she might look like an idiot, Mari climbed down and the ladder was moved beneath the second light.
This time she found what she had been looking for.
It wasn’t until they were out of the room and the door closed that Mari spoke. “The Mechanics Guild has a far-listener in that second light fixture.”
“A what?” General Shi asked.
“A far-listener. It’s a device that picks up sounds and transmits them along wires to somewhere else where they can be heard.” She pointed upward. “The wires for it are disguised by the wires for the light fixture. The Mechanics Guild has been listening in to everything said in that room.”
“Did you— Did you break it?” the middle-aged man asked.
“No. Do you want me to? Because if I do, the Mechanics Guild will immediately know that you have learned of it.”
Colonel Faron nodded grimly. “It’s like arresting a spy the moment you learn of them. Or leaving the spy in place and feeding that spy only what you want them to know.”
“You have done us a great service, Lady Mechanic,” General Shi said. “Would the Mechanics have shared the information gained here with the Mages?”
“No,” Mari said, almost laughing at the idea. “Alain?”
Alain gestured slightly toward the general. “Mages can learn your secrets by what is said—and by what is not said: by what you reveal in your voice, your face, the way you stand.”
“We know Mages can spot lies,” Colonel Faron said. “But if we don’t voice a lie—”
“It does not matter,” Alain said. “A Mage can see that you have not said something, that there is more left which you do not wish to speak, that by silence you seek to mislead. It is easy to read, for a Mage.”
Once back in the smaller room, the old woman was told. She lowered her face into one hand for a long moment. “No wonder the Great Guilds have been able to outthink us time and again. We thought we had our secrets, our means of avoiding their tricks, but they only let us believe that. How many men and women have died because the Great Guilds knew our plans even as we made them?”