“She does,” Alain said, swinging his hand slightly to include Alli and Calu. “As do other Mechanics who follow her. They do not understand our wisdom, they strive to see how it works and cannot, but unlike their Guild they accept that it is valid.”
“And their tricks?” Hiro said. “The Mechanic toys? You have seen them?”
“They work also,” Alain said.
“This is a conflict,” Tana observed. “Wisdom says the world illusion cannot be changed so by other illusions.”
Alain paused to think, to put into words ideas that he had only slowly been developing. “There is more than one wisdom,” he finally said. “More than one path. The wisdom of Mages does things that of Mechanics cannot. Mari says many Mechanics cannot accept this and so deny it. But the wisdom of Mechanics can do things to the world illusion that the arts of the Mages cannot. I have seen this, and so cannot deny it.”
“There was a heresy,” Mage Hiro said. “Two generations gone. It held that more than one wisdom can coexist, that there were different ways of seeing the world illusion that could produce very different arts. The heresy was suppressed, but if the Mechanic arts can work, it may offer a wisdom that explains it.”
“But to see others as real,” Mage Tana objected. “Can other Mages accept this and still have power?”
Mage Asha spoke. “I have begun to see one other as real. He… does not harm my power. He gives me a new way to see my wisdom.”
“Why did you take this risk?”
“Because I saw Mage Alain and Mechanic Mari, and I knew Mage Alain had not lost in any way. I wanted to share what they had.”
“With them?” Mage Tana pressed. “Do they take you into their sharing?”
“Not in that way,” Asha said. “They share their reality only with each other. But they offer something else to friends.”
“Friends,” Mage Dimitri whispered. “I remember friends.”
“You may remember again,” Mage Dav said. “It is not forbidden among us. Mechanic Mari calls me friend. She saved me from dying where another would have left me.”
“Mechanic Mari,” Mage Hiro said. “I have seen this one, when we came on this ship. You were the Mage who declared her the daughter of the prophecy?” he asked Alain.
“I was the first who saw her so,” Alain said.
“You are not the only. I see her and see the same. If she lives, she has a chance to fulfill the prophecy.”
Alain managed to suppress the fear that statement created inside him. If she lives.
Hiro kept speaking. “There was another. When I was only a boy, barely become an acolyte. A daughter born in the southern lands.”
“I have not heard of this,” Mage Dimitri said.
“You are young,” Hiro said. “And you have not had access to the secrets of the Mage Guild as an elder does. The Guild denies that the prophecy exists even as it hunts those who might fulfill it.”
“What became of that daughter?” Alain asked.
“She died. The records are vague as to who saw her and who betrayed her, but in the end she was alone and slain. Thus did the Mage Guild seek to ensure the prophecy would never come true.”
“Could there have been others?” Mage Asha asked.
“There could have been,” Mage Hiro replied. “It has been long since the prophecy was made, and the Mage Guild has sought to end its threat ever since.”
“The Mechanics Guild does the same,” Alain said. “They sought to kill Master Mechanic Mari even before I met her. They would have succeeded, if not for me.” He did not say it as a boast, but as a statement of what had been, and knew the others would see it that way as well.
“So? This daughter, this shadow, is not alone.” Hiro looked intently at Alain. “She has recognized wisdom and held it close to her. It has saved her, and she has helped you see new wisdom.”
“She has lived because of that,” Alain agreed. “As have I. Alone, I would have died.”
“Alone, both would have died.” Hiro pondered that, his eyes hooded.
“I am thinking,” Mage Dav said, “that this wisdom is an old one, a wisdom forgotten by the Guild. We are taught that only the one is real, that only each of us should matter to each of us. Yet see the strength in Mage Alain, who has survived where older and wiser Mages would not have. He has lived because added to his strength and wisdom is the strength and wisdom of Master Mechanic Mari. Together there is something greater than each can claim alone.”
A flicker of pain flashed across the face of Mage Tana. “I once— There was a time, Mage Dav, when I had a chance at such wisdom.”
“You are not the only,” Mage Hiro said. “Perhaps all who see such a chance realize the faults in the wisdom of the Guild. Perhaps not.”
“We all follow the words of shadows,” Mage Dav said. “For if what the elders of the Mage Guild teach is the only truth, then they are shadows to us. If all wisdom comes from the illusion that surrounds us, how can the sole reality which is me be the only source of wisdom? Is wisdom but the echo of my own thought, or is there something outside to which I must listen?”
The others looked at Mage Dav with visible respect. “We will follow Mage Alain, and Mage Dav, and learn,” Mage Hiro said.
Mage Tana and Mage Dimitri nodded in agreement.
“Master Mechanic Mari requires that all who follow her treat others as real,” Alain cautioned. “You need not attempt to think of them as real, but they cannot be treated as only shadows.”
“It is odd, but not difficult,” Mage Tana observed. “One of discipline can act as they will, not as habit dictates.”
“Just so,” Mage Dav agreed.
“Excuse me, Mage Alain.” Alain turned to see that Mechanic Alli had approached them. She crouched down so that her eyes were on a level with Alain’s. “I’m not sure how long your talk is going to last, and there is something we need your approval on. Yours or Mari’s, and none of us want to wake her up.”
“What is this something?” Alain asked, aware of how the other Mages were observing without giving outward signs of doing so.
“Calu says the day before we got into Julesport, a Mechanics Guild ship left carrying a lot of Mechanics. It’s a three-masted ship, the Pride of Longfalls. They were headed for Edinton. But it’s being used as a prison ship, collecting and transporting Mechanics to exile. Most of the Mechanics aboard are the sort of people who would likely join with Mari.”
Alain considered that. “Mari needs more Mechanic followers?”
“Yes,” Alli said. “We’re going to Tiae to fix the Broken Kingdom, right? That’s not going to be easy, even if we find enough common soldiers to deal with the warlords and bandits that have made Tiae a living nightmare. A lot of stuff needs to be done by people. Hands-on work to build things, and Mechanics know how to do that. The more Mechanics we have with us, the more we can get done and the faster we can do it. So if we can overtake that ship, the Pride, and free those Mechanics, it might help a lot.”
“We would have to defeat the guards,” Alain said. “Capture the ship.”
“Right. It’s not risk-free. But the captain of the Gray Lady says the Pride is, uh, square-rigged, and will have to tack back and forth a lot in these winds to head for Edinton. The Lady is square-rigged and fore-and-aft rigged, so she can sail a lot straighter, which means we could probably overtake the Pride in a couple of days.”
“I do not know what square means,” Alain said. “But the captain of the Gray Lady has his own wisdom. I have not seen him err in matters of the sea. If we seek to find the Mechanic ship Pride, does it force us to fight that ship?”