“Watered wine,” Mari said around a mouthful of beef. “I see we’re still heading south.”
“There has been a slight change.” Alain explained what Alli had told him about the Mechanic ship Pride of Longfalls.
“Good decision,” she said. “We’ve still got about a day to think about it? Even better. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I am fine,” Alain said.
“Do you remember anything?”
“Very little,” Alain said. “I was on the street with the soldiers, then I recall nothing until I awoke aboard the ship. As this day has gone on I have had a few blurred memories, if that is what they are and not products of the drug I was told they used on me. There are a few images of a dark street crowded with people, and a woman.”
“A woman?” Mari asked.
“Yes. I felt she was undressing me, which I do not understand.”
“But you did remember it,” Mari said, her voice growing sharp. “Men! Anything else?”
“No,” Alain said. “My head has hurt some, and so has my hand.” He flexed the fingers of his left hand. “The healers explained about my head, but I do not know what caused my hand to ache so.”
Mari’s attitude softened as swiftly as it had hardened a moment earlier. “Your left hand hurts because you are the most wonderful man who ever lived.”
“I… what?”
She stood up carefully, both because of the rolling of the ship and because of the low overhead in the cabin. They had both knocked their heads on the wooden beams more than once. “I think we both deserve a hug. Actually, I need a hug.”
“Then you will have one.” Alain held her, trying not to tighten his grasp too much as the dark image from his foresight came to mind.
“I should get out on deck at least once before sunset,” Mari said with a sigh. “Everybody is going to think I’m lazy.”
“I have heard no one suggest such a thing. The crew have been careful to be as quiet as possible all day to avoid disturbing you.”
“Oh, great. So I’ve messed up their day?”
“That’s not what I—”
Mari was already headed for the door, chewing a last hunk of bread. She stepped out into a gathering that seemed to include every Mechanic on the ship, the group breaking into smiles as they saw her.
“Great timing as usual,” Mechanic Alli said.
“Why?” Mari asked. “What’s happening?”
“We just raised your banner!”
“My—?” Mari looked up, her jaw dropping.
Alain followed, seeing that at the top of the mainmast a new flag flew. It was simple as flags went, just a golden sun with many points centered on a field of light blue.
“It represents the new day,” Mechanic Calu said. “You needed a banner, so—”
“Why did I need a banner?” Mari asked. “A banner? For me? Like I’m some empress or the queen of Tiae?”
“Jules had a banner,” Alli pointed out.
“I’m not Jules! Guys, I really appreciate this, but how is this going to make me look?” Mari demanded. “Like I think I’m so great? Like I need to have my own flag?”
“Mari,” Alain began.
“Did you know about this? Because you should have told them it was really nice but not a good idea.”
“Mari,” Alain said. “I did not know, but I believe it is a good idea. For two reasons.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. “The first reason being?”
“Your friends are right. You need an emblem that reveals whether someone supports you, or your enemies.” Alain pointed at the group in their Mechanic jackets. “How do you know these Mechanics are your friends?”
“Because I recognize them,” Mari said. “Well, most of them.”
“And if we have a hundred Mechanics? If we stop in a city and the Mechanics there are of different loyalties, how do you know which are loyal to you?”
“All right,” Mari said, “first of all, nobody should be loyal to me.”
“To Master Mechanic Mari or to the daughter,” Bev said. “Whatever you call it. Like it or not, that’s what it comes down to. Are they taking orders from the Senior Mechanics of the Guild, or the elders of the Mage Guild, or some local lord from Syndar, or from you?”
Mari hesitated. “I’m sure there’s a good answer for that which doesn’t require having my own banner. I just need to think of it. Besides, everyone isn’t going to run around carrying my banner. That would be ridiculous.”
“That is the other reason,” Alain said. “Do you remember my vision in Dorcastle?”
She gave him a sidelong look. “The one about the battle we were going to be in? How could I forget that?”
“I told you that in that vision, you and I were wearing armbands of a strange design.”
“Armbands?” Mari’s eyes widened in dismay and she looked upwards again.
“Yes. That was the design, Mari. We were wearing your banner.”
“Then this is your fault,” she said, looking accusingly at Alain.
“Hold on,” Calu said. “Are you saying that you knew we were going to make a banner with this design?” he asked Alain.
“I saw this design,” Alain said. “Several months ago, in a vision I had on the walls of Dorcastle. I did not know what the design meant. Not until now.”
“Do I get any say in my own life?” Mari demanded. “You see us wearing some design and I end up with a banner showing that. You see us married and we end up married. You—”
“Huh?” Alli broke in. “Alain predicted that you two would be married?”
“Guys do that,” Calu said.
“Most guys don’t see visions where you are both wearing promise rings and then months later ask you what the rings mean!” Mari said.
“Is that why you married him?” Alli asked doubtfully.
“No! How can you even ask that? My point is, things keep happening whether I want them to happen or not! Are all of my decisions already carved in stone somewhere and I’m just some puppet living out the script?”
That quieted everyone.
Alain shook his head. “That is not so. Your decisions brought us here. Fate gives us choices to make. There are many points at which different things could have been done, different choices made, and those choices dictate the next set of choices. Had you not chosen to rejoin me in the Northern Ramparts, I would have died there and your actions these last several months would have been much different. My vision was of something that might be. So far, your choices have kept us on that path. But they might change our path at any time.”
“But not all foresight is like that, right?” Mari asked. “If you don’t see yourself in the vision, it’s something that will definitely happen, right?”
Alain wondered if the guilt and sorrow her question triggered showed on his face. “No.”
“No?” Mari looked doubtful. “I was sure you had said—”
“Much remains unknown and uncertain about foresight because the Mage Guild elders have discouraged study of it. I believe that any vision represents only something that might be, and that if we try hard enough we can change what comes to pass.” Truth might not exist, as the elders of the Mage Guild taught, but surely what he said was not false. And the elders had always insisted that any aspect of the world illusion could be changed by a Mage of sufficient skill and wisdom.
Mari bit her lip. “I don’t want to end up fighting in some huge battle at Dorcastle, Alain. I don’t want to fight any battles. I want to build things and fix things. And that banner sort of means there will be battles.”
“Mari, the warlords in Tiae aren’t going to just surrender, and the Senior Mechanics everywhere aren’t going to give up without a fight,” Alli said. “They’ll fight as hard as they can to keep anything from changing, right up until the moment when everything falls apart. Unless we can stop them before then.”