Mari indicated Alain. “He can explain.”
“Mages,” Alain said, “can do nothing to another directly. I can create heat in the air which will burn someone, but I cannot set a fire inside them. I can create the illusion of a hole in a wall, but I cannot create the illusion of a hole in the heart of another. No Mage can.”
“Why are there so many stories about Mages doing those kinds of things to people?” Banda asked.
“Because the Mage Guild has encouraged such stories,” Alain said. “They served to increase the awe and fear with which shadows regarded Mages. But the truth—and you must understand I was taught that there is no truth but have rejected that—is that no Mage spell can directly change another, for good or for ill. Mage elders claim that the reason for this is because no Mage has ever been able to totally disassociate themselves from others, that even in the wisest Mages to date there has always been a trace of belief that others are real and not just shadows who mean nothing.”
“What do you think?” Calu asked.
Alain remained silent for a moment. “I think it is because all others are real. The world is an illusion and may be changed. But others are, they are reality amid the illusion, and cannot be altered. Perhaps we all create the illusion together. This is my theory.”
Master Mechanic Lukas smiled. “I hope you’re right, Sir Mage. If we’re real, then that might mean there’s more to the story even after we die.”
“We go from this dream to another dream,” Alain said. “The story never ends.”
Senior Mechanic Gina gazed at Alain with a shocked expression. “I wondered how you could have fallen in love with a Mage,” Gina said to Mari. “Now I know. Are there any others like him?”
Mari grinned. “There is no one else anywhere like him.”
Later, alone, she held Alain close. “What am I doing giving orders to the likes of Professor S’san?” Mari asked, resting her head against his shoulder.
“They do not have to obey you,” Alain said. “They have made a choice to obey you.”
“Was Edinton as messed up as I thought it was? Because everybody else seems to think it went great.”
“You achieved everything you set out to do,” Alain pointed out. “Despite some major threats which surprised everyone. I have seen an experienced and talented military commander in the face of such a surprise, Mari. You did as well as he did.”
“You are so delusional!” Mari drew back a little and shook her head at Alain. “I’m sure General Flyn would love hearing that I’m as good a commander as he is!”
“He is already sworn to your service.”
“And I wish he was here! If we face any fights in Tiae, everybody is going to look to me, aren’t they?” Mari stepped away from Alain, rubbing her face with both hands. “Where is this going to end, Alain?”
“With the overthrow of the Great Guilds,” he replied.
“And then what? What happens to me if I’m still alive at that point?”
“I do not know,” Alain said. “But I will be with you, wherever you are.”
Somehow, that made everything feel all right.
Two days later, in the late afternoon, Captain Banda led Mari’s small fleet past the city of Minut. “It’s necessary to fix our position here before we turn south again,” he insisted.
Mari stood on the deck of the Pride, gazing on what had once been one of the largest cities in the Kingdom of Tiae. From a distance it looked all right, if oddly pristine. “Marandur was like that,” she said to Alli, who was standing beside her. “Cities always have this cloud of smoke and dust above them from fires and people and everything. But Marandur had nothing above it but blue sky. It looked so clean from a distance. Because Marandur was dead.”
“How do you sleep?” Alli asked. “You’ve seen more than your share of nightmares.”
“Sometimes I don’t sleep,” Mari said. “Other times I don’t sleep well.” She raised her far-seers to her eyes and scanned the city. “I can see some people, not nearly enough for a city of that size, and a lot of the buildings are still intact but some are beat up and falling apart. It’s like the city is on its way to becoming like Marandur.” She passed the far-seers to Alli.
“Everywhere is going to become like Marandur if we fail, right?” Alli asked as she studied Minut.
“Yeah.”
“How long exactly do we have?”
“Not very long. That’s as exact as I know.” Mari paused. “Alli? Why are Mechanics like you and me and Calu leading this? All right, I know why I am, but why you two when we have people like Professor S’san and Master Mechanic Lukas also with us? They’re in charge of Mechanics, but you and Calu are running the two most important projects almost independently. And why are Alain and Asha playing leading roles with our Mages? Mage Dav guides the other Mages, but he does what Alain says.”
“You want to know why older and wiser heads aren’t calling the shots?” Alli lowered the far-seers and shuddered. “That is an awful sight, isn’t it? My theory, Master Mechanic Mari, is that the Great Guilds are at least partly designed to operate like lathes. Over time they grind down Mechanics and Mages alike, taking off the hard edges and the other parts that stick out, and eventually shearing away anything like rebellion and free thinking and initiative. Mechanics like S’san and Lukas are smart and capable, but when faced with something bad they look around for someone to tell them what to do. You and me and Calu haven’t been under the lathe too long. We’ve still got all our nonconforming and inventiveness attached to us.”
“I actually wasn’t expecting an answer,” Mari said, “but that’s a really good one.”
“Want another?”
“I love your answers, Alli.”
“And I love your humility, your daughterness.” Alli went on speaking before Mari could finish getting her glare on. “Everybody is like, whoa, Mari has figured out how to get Mechanics and Mages to work together! Isn’t that totally amazing? But for me, what’s amazing is how you get us young types to work well with the older-and-wisers. You remember how yesterday I came to you all ticked off because Master Mechanic Lukas was telling me something about the production process for the new rifles and I am Mechanic Alli and I already know everything about weapons? What did you do?”
“Umm.” Mari had to think. There had been a lot going on that day. “I asked you…”
“’Is there something we’re missing because we’re not seeing it?’” Alli quoted. “And I thought, how can I miss it if I can’t see it? And then I realized that I can’t notice a problem I’ve never seen or thought about. But Lukas is older than dirt. He’s seen all kinds of stuff. And he’s willing to talk about it. At great length. Which can be annoying. But I went back to him and listened and, yeah, I was missing something.”
“It just seemed like the right thing to ask ourselves,” Mari said. “Alain has really made me think more about our assumptions and how we shape what we see by how we expect to see it.”
“You’re starting to sound like Calu and his observer-effect stuff,” Alli commented. “Not that I mind. I do love him. But that stuff is weird.”
“How is Calu doing?” Mari asked, taking back the far-seers and looking at the harbor of Minut. There were forlorn masts rising out of the water where ships had sunk, some rotting wrecks still tied up to the piers, and a long stretch of brownish water that Captain Banda said probably marked silt from the river which was slowly choking the decaying harbor.