“This might have been the last ship to get out of the harbor,” Alain observed.
Mari sighed. “Even though it almost caused us to be stuck here, I don’t regret taking the time to marry you before we left. Do you think we’ll ever be back here?”
“Perhaps not, since these islands are dominated by the Empire. But we can see your family again even if we never return here. They may need to leave for their own safety.”
Her hand tightened on his. “
Our
family, Alain. Remember? It’s official now that we’re married.”
“I have felt it was so since your mother spoke those words.” Alain looked at her, trying to smile. “This day I have gained a wife and a family.”
“Uh-huh.” Mari’s smile became wicked. “Speaking of which, the sun is setting, Alain. Maybe we should see what our cabin is like. You know, how comfortable it is. What the bed is like. Stuff like that.”
He barely had time to ensure that the door to their cabin was locked behind them before she was in his arms, kissing him and pulling at his clothing.
On the third day out from Caer Lyn, Mari had relaxed sufficiently to suggest that they mingle a little with the other passengers. “If my Guild hasn’t intercepted this ship by now, we should be safe for the rest of the journey. We could try to find some commons our age and see what they’re like. We can’t spend the entire voyage in our cabin.”
“I like being together in our cabin,” Alain replied.
“You like being together in our bed in our cabin! Even on a honeymoon couples are supposed to get out and breathe fresh air every once in a while.”
“Being on a honeymoon gives us the perfect excuse for staying in our cabin where no one can recognize you,” Alain pointed out.
“Alain, I will suffocate if I don’t get out a bit,” Mari said. “As much as I love you and as much I’m enjoying getting physical with my new husband, I cannot endure being locked in a room for days on end. I need freedom.”
He had finally understood, then, and agreed to try to mingle with others. Which was a big concession from someone who had been brought up as a Mage, Mari knew. She thanked him with a kiss, which led to another, which led to other things.
They managed to make it out of their cabin for dinner.
The dining room on the ship was fairly fancy, decked out with shining brass and gleaming woodwork. The dining room ran across the entire width of the ship, and portholes on both sides provided light and could be opened for air in good weather. Mari led Alain toward a table where five men and women about their age were already seated and eating, introducing herself and Alain using the false names on their current set of forged Imperial identification papers.
Two of the men and one of the women were in the Western Alliance military, the other man and woman friends of theirs, the entire group finishing up a trip to the Sharr Isles “while things are sort of quiet,” as one of the soldiers put it.
Mari mostly listened, trying to get a better feel for these people who were like her and yet not like her. She had spent most of her childhood in a Mechanics Guild Hall, learning not only the science and technology of the Mechanic arts but also living within the closed society of the Mechanics Guild. Commons had lived very different lives. They represented diverse cultures, but all had been brought up in the shadow of the Great Guilds, whereas Mari had been taught to be one of their rulers. Never comfortable with that role, Mari had grown increasingly ashamed of what she had once believed to be the proper order of things.
Most of the conversation among the commons was about things they had done together and spots they had visited, but Mari’s attention was caught when she heard a certain name. “Flyn’s in command of part of the army of Ihris,” one of the Western Alliance soldiers said. “They hired him away from Alexdria.”
“After that mess on the last raid he commanded?” another one of the soldiers asked. “His force got cut to pieces.”
Mari was thinking about whether or not to ask more about Flyn when she heard Alain speaking.
“That was not the fault of General Flyn,” Alain said, betraying an unusual amount of emotion. Fortunately, an unusual amount of emotion for a Mage appeared just mildly upset to other people. “His force was betrayed, ambushed by a full legion backed by many Mages.”
The others focused on Alain. “How do you know about it?” one asked.
Mari answered before Alain could. “His brother was up there.”
One of the women leaned forward eagerly. “Did he see the daughter?”
“Oh, come on, Patila,” one of her companions laughed.
“All of the soldiers with Flyn saw her,” Patila insisted. “And a lot of Mechanics went through later looking for her. I have a friend who personally talked to them, or was interrogated by them I guess I should say, and those Mechanics were looking for a woman about our age.”
“Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t make her the daughter of Jules. The stories say she was wearing a Mechanics jacket.”
“But she fixed things for free, and gave away stuff to help injured commons. Does that sound like any Mechanic you ever met?” Patila gazed at Alain again. “Did your brother see her?”
Alain nodded. “He did.”
Mari watched the others, trying to judge their reactions.
“Did she seem like the daughter?” Patila asked excitedly.
Alain glanced at her, and Mari nodded ever so slightly.
“Yes,” Alain said. “He was certain of it.”
One of the men looked skeptical, but the others exchanged looks filled with emotion. “I hope you’re right,” the other woman said. “We need her. When we left home, everything felt…what’s the word?”
“Tight as a drum,” the skeptical man said. “And ready to snap from being pulled too tight. Like those civil disturbances near Genese.”
“There was rioting in Palandur recently,” Mari said.
“Really? In the Imperial capital?” The man shook his head. “This world is going to blazes like a raft going over a waterfall, and I don’t see where anyone can stop it.”
“Hey, lighten up,” the second soldier said with a grin. “We’re still on vacation for a few more days. Let’s talk about something fun.”
“Such as?”
“Uh…hey, that other story, the one we heard from some Imperials in Caer Lyn the night before we left.”
“You mean Mara?” Patila asked with a roll of her eyes.
“Yeah. It really had them spooked,” the soldier explained to Mari and Alain. “Have you heard about it?”
Mari shook her head wordlessly, aiming a warning look at Alain as she did so.
“Well,” the soldier began, obviously relishing the chance to tell the story, “apparently there had been some worries about Mara before, just superstitious stuff. In most places Mara is just a creepy legend to tell stories about around the fire, but I guess you Imperials take her a lot more seriously. The Imperials told us that somebody got out of Marandur recently, which is supposed to be impossible. You know, the dead city?”
“We’ve heard of it,” Mari replied dryly.
“Oh, yeah, of course you guys would know about it. According to the Imperials I talked to, there were a lot of funny noises in the city, where nobody is alive to make funny noises, and soon after footprints were found coming out, right through the area where there were legionaries guarding the city. Somebody snuck right through the Imperial sentries and then vanished completely.”
“Mages can be invisible,” one of his companions pointed out.
“Yeah, but they can’t fly without a Roc, and legionaries couldn’t miss a Roc. From all I hear, those guys are really sharp. Anyway, half the Empire has been trying to find whoever escaped and having no luck at all. So,” the soldier leaned forward, grinning, “the Imperials are starting to say it was Mara who left Marandur, that she’d been at Maran’s tomb, maybe trapped there for a long time, but now somebody let her out and she’s running free.” He laughed loudly. “I can’t believe the Emperor would encourage that kind of superstition. Every young man in the Empire must be checking the teeth of every attractive girl he sees.”
“If Mara leaves the Empire,” the other woman suggested slyly, “maybe you guys will have to worry about that. You’re just the right age for her appetite.”
“See? That’s what I mean! How can making guys nervous around good-looking women serve any good purpose?”
“Maybe it’s a stratagem,” Patila replied. “I’m serious. If the daughter really has appeared, that could create problems for more people than the Great Guilds. What’s the Empire’s first priority?”
Mari answered. “Control. Stability. Just like the Great Guilds.”
The woman soldier nodded. “Right. Does the Emperor want the daughter running loose inside the Empire, stirring up the common folk? Not on your life. But if the common folk of the Empire think she’s really Mara, they’ll be even more inclined to be good little citizens so the Emperor will protect them.” She looked at Mari again, embarrassed. “Sorry I put it that way.”
“No, that’s probably a good way of saying it,” Mari assured her.
Alain was nodding, too. “It is a possibility. The Emperor would want to be able to control the daughter as well as his own people.”
“Then why feed the rumors at all?” the first male soldier asked. “That’s what I can’t figure out, why so many people are paying attention to them right now.”
Patila tapped her finger on the table to emphasize her words. “Because this time it’s different. I talked to my grandfather before I left, and he said there’s never been so much talk about the daughter, or so many people claiming to have actually seen her. Grandfather said that in the past every once in a while somebody would say that the daughter was coming soon, but nobody ever said she was alive and getting ready to move against the Great Guilds, and nobody ever claimed to have seen her or what she had done. She killed a big dragon in the Northern Ramparts. Lots of people saw her do it and others hiked out to see the dead body before it finally dissolved. Before that there was Dorcastle. Nobody knows exactly what the Great Guilds tried to cover up there, but somebody killed a dragon there, too, and messed up a lot of Mechanic equipment.”
“And there’s rumors about what happened at Ringhmon,” one of the men added.
“Maybe she did go to Marandur,” the second woman suggested. “I mean, Jules was in the Imperial fleet before she headed west. Maybe Jules left something in Marandur centuries ago and her daughter had to go looking for it. Why else would anyone go to that city?”
Another of the men shrugged. “Whether the rumors are true or not, the Mechanics are in an uproar. One of the ship’s officers told me several of them were supposed to sail with us but got yanked off at the last minute. He said they were complaining about a Guild emergency when they left.”
Mari feigned only a small amount of interest, even though she was feeling intensely curious. “A Guild emergency?”
“Yeah, like they were needed back in Caer Lyn for something.”
“I wonder if the Mages are upset, too?” another soldier asked.
“Who can tell? Though if the daughter really does have a Mage with her, that would be something, wouldn’t it?”
The second male soldier grinned. “It would be for her. You know what they say about Mages.”
Patila glowered at him. “Pig.”
The other woman was looking out the nearest porthole. “How many people have lived and died under the control of the Great Guilds? But if the daughter really has come, maybe our kids will be free.”
“Maybe we’ll live to be free,” one of the men agreed.
Mari finally spoke again, consumed by guilt as she thought about people like these risking themselves for her. “It might be hard to gain that freedom. There might be a war.”
The soldier nodded in reply, unfazed. “Yes. There’s certain to be a price. Maybe a big price. I can’t imagine the Great Guilds giving up easily, and with apologies to present company, I don’t think the Emperor is going to be thrilled at the idea of that much change, either. But we die as it is, don’t we? Dying for that…well, it might make it a lot easier.” The soldier raised his glass of wine. “To freedom, and to the daughter.”
Mari, Alain and the others raised their glasses as well, Mari wondering what the others would say if they knew the daughter was sitting with them.
But as the toast ended, the skeptical man shook his head. “I’d be as happy as anyone if she really came,” he said in a way that didn’t sound sincere to Mari, “but listen to yourselves. You’re putting your hope in someone who was wearing a Mechanics jacket and working with a Mage. Why would either of them care about what happens to us?”
“Maybe,” said Mari, “they both know that everyone deserves freedom, and that everyone will suffer if the world doesn’t change.”
“There’s nothing in the prophecy about any Mechanics, though,” the skeptic objected.
“There is,” Alain said. “The prophecy says that the daughter will unite Mages, Mechanics, and common folk to overthrow the Great Guilds.”
Patila pointed at Alain. “Yes! That’s what the guy with General Flyn said the Mage told him!”
“So,” the skeptic continued, “we’re going to base our hopes on the word of a Mage?”
“He wasn’t a normal Mage,” Patila said hotly. “All right, I know it’s silly to say normal and Mage. But every soldier with Flyn in that action said that Mage was special, that he saved their butts from the Imperials and nearly died more than once doing it.”
Alain spoke in a voice so calm that Mari feared he would give away that he was a Mage. “You are soldiers. Think of a battle, where the foot soldiers and the cavalry and the siege machines work together to achieve victory. Now think of a battle where Mages, Mechanics, and soldiers of the common folk work together as allies in one cause.”
Every eye stayed on Alain, then one of the male soldiers nodded. “That would be something. Tough to beat.”
“And suppose,” Mari added, “that the daughter used her Mechanic skills to get new weapons made, new kinds of rifles, and lots of ammunition for them.”
“That would be awesome,” Patila said. “New kinds of rifles? I’ve never heard anyone talk about different kinds of rifles. There are just the ones the Mechanics make.” She peered at Mari, puzzled. “How did you even think of something like that?”
“I heard about it,” Mari said, trying to think how to cover her tracks. “Somebody was talking and…who was that guy?” she asked Alain, hoping that he could come up with something.
Alain pretended to think. “We were not able to learn his name.”
Patila looked from one of them to the other doubtfully. “Who would talk about that kind of stuff? Doesn’t Mechanic equipment always stay the same?”
“And it doesn’t matter anyway,” the skeptic said. “Help some Mechanic overthrow the Great Guilds? A Mechanic who’s working with a Mage? They’d just set themselves in charge as soon as we got rid of the old bosses. Just a couple of new Great Guilds, that’s all. Count me out.”
“Jorge,” one of the other men began. “Anything is better than—”
“No,” Jorge interrupted. “People going crazy and rioting because they think things can’t worse? Attacking the Great Guilds because they think they can win? Everything going to blazes because people believe that some mythical daughter is going to make everything right? How is that better?” He stood up. “I need some air.”