The captain paused again. “My apologies if I have overstepped or misspoken, Sir Mage. But you did ask for my reasons.”
“And you did not lie,” Alain said. Mages, trained to suppress their own feelings, could easily spot lies told by commons. “You will get us to Julesport?”
“If I can, Sir Mage.” The captain gestured again, this time toward the sound of the galley hidden in the fog. “But they can move when we cannot. We need wind. If the fog goes before the wind rises, the galley will see us and close in. Can you…?”
“Raise a wind? No.” Alain left it at that. In theory a Mage could create the illusion of the air moving and superimpose that over the illusion of still air that surrounded them, but the amount of power needed far exceeded anything available here. However, commons knew nothing of how Mage arts worked, and so assumed they could do anything.
“I’ll prepare my crew to defend the ship if necessary,” the captain said, not daring to further question a Mage. He saluted and hurried off.
Right behind the captain came Mari, her eyes searching the fog before coming to rest on Alain.
Alain had been taught to believe that everything he saw was an illusion, that every other person was just a shadow on that illusion, that nothing was real. But every time he saw Mari, he knew how false those teachings were. The world might be an illusion, but she was real.
“What’s going on?” she asked Alain, keeping her own voice low. “We’re becalmed? Why wasn’t I told?”
“You have not slept well since leaving Altis,” Alain said. “Your dreams are often troubled, so I decided to let you rest. But I was preparing to wake you now.”
“Why?” Mari brushed back an errant strand of her raven-black hair, peering into the fog. “What’s that I hear?”
“The captain believes it is a Syndari galley, seeking us for the rewards offered.”
“And we can’t move.” She made it a statement rather than a question, gazing upward into the web of rigging and stays on their ship. “If only this was a steam-powered ship. I can fix a balky boiler. I can’t do anything about a lack of wind.”
“The captain is preparing his crew to defend this ship if the galley finds us before we can move,” Alain said.
“What would our chances be? Did your training in the military arts cover that sort of thing?”
“Some of it,” Alain replied. Told that arrogant Mechanics believed they knew everything, he had been surprised upon first meeting Mari to discover that she had no problem with admitting when someone else knew more about any subject. “Our chances would be poor, because a galley has so many rowers who can join in an attack on us. The crew of this ship would be heavily outnumbered.”
“But we’ve got three Mages,” Mari said. “You, Mage Asha, and Mage Dav.”
“There is not much power here to use,” Alain said. “Without that power to draw on, there is little we can do. We also have four Mechanics,” he added.
“With rifles,” she said, then grimaced. “Four Mechanics firing rifles might not be enough, and our ammunition is limited. I’m worried about the lever action on Alli’s rifle. It keeps sticking, and she keeps fixing it, but it might jam again during a fight. And you still have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“No. I understand only that the matter concerns you.”
Mari sighed and leaned on the railing, staring outward. “If we ever have time, and if we survive, I need to see if you can learn anything about tools and devices, or if your Mage training makes them total mysteries to you forever. Is your foresight telling you anything?”
“I had a vision last night.”
Her gaze switched to him. “What did you see?” she asked anxiously.
“It was another vision of the coming Storm. Armies and mobs raging against each other, cities burning, a terrible sense of urgency, and a second sun appearing in the sky to stand against the Storm.”
“Nothing new, then,” she grumped, staring back out to sea. “It sounds like my latest nightmare, though that dream didn’t have any hopeful sun in it.”
“You are that sun. You know this.”
She made a face, looking out into the fog. “I know that people believe I can make a difference, and I know that I’m going to do my best.”
“My vision confirmed once more that you are the one who can bring the new day, that you alone can stand against the Storm.”
“Alain, I am nineteen years old. I am a very good Mechanic trained to fix lots of things. But for some reason my training never included how to fix a world!” She looked over at him, her expression softening, then touched Alain’s arm, the sort of gesture that could still startle him after so many years of being taught in the most painful ways not to allow casual human contact. “I’d be lost without you.”
“All the world will be lost without you,” Alain said.
She gave a brief snort of derisive laughter. “There’s my poetic Mage, who doesn’t even realize when he’s being poetic. You’re in love, and while I know that makes you delusional when it comes to me, I don’t know why other people so readily believe things like that, why they just accept that I’m…”
“The daughter.”
“You promised that you would never call me that!” Mari said, her voice suddenly low and angry.
“I… am… sorry,” Alain said, still sometimes having to stumble over the words that had once been literally beaten out of him. “Others have called you that, and you have accepted the title from them.”
“You are not others! I need at least one person in this world who sees me as me, as Mari. And that person has to be you.”
He nodded in agreement, if not entirely in understanding. “Your old friends, the other Mechanics, always appear to see you as Mari.”
“That’s because if Alli called me the daughter I’d punch her out and she knows it! And Dav and Bev aren’t old friends, but they still look at my jacket and see another Mechanic. Besides, Mechanics aren’t big on believing Mage prophecies.” She laughed, low and full of self-mockery this time. “It’s the Mages who look at me like the common folk do. The Mages, who aren’t supposed to care about other people at all.”
“We are taught that other people are not real,” Alain reminded her. “But our foresight, unreliable and imperfect as it is, shows that your shadow is cast wide across this illusion of a world. To Mages, this makes you worthy of notice.”
“Thank you so much. Can you sense any other Mages nearby who might consider me worthy of killing?”
“You are using what you call sarcasm again?” Alain asked.
“Yes. And no. Do you sense any Mages on the Syndari galley?”
“Not yet.” Alain strained his senses, hearing the creak of oars from somewhere in the fog, followed by the beat of those oars against the water. Then the sound of oars and the splash of water again, along with indistinctly heard orders spoken to someone out there in the formless mist. In between the louder sounds he could hear the soft rushing of a hull cleaving the quiet waters. But he could feel nothing in that extra sense which would warn of other Mages nearby. “If there are Mages with the galley, they are hiding their presence well.”
The captain returned, walking with care to prevent the sound of his boots from carrying through the fog. “We are prepared to fight if necessary, Lady,” he told Mari, his tone carrying respect and a happiness at odds with their predicament. Alain had noticed it among all of the common people who made up the Gray Lady’s crew. Generations of men and women like them had waited for the daughter, and they believed that Mari was she. But, perhaps sensing how little Mari liked being called by that name, they usually addressed her as Lady or Lady Mari.