“I need to speak with Mage Alain.” Asha pulled her cowl a little higher to better hide her face and hair, but even with her Mage attempts to keep emotion from her voice, Mari could hear a faint note of urgency. Being around Alain had made her much more sensitive to subtle signs of emotion. “Is Mage Alain still safe?” Asha asked.
“As safe as I am. Which is to say, not nearly enough.” The crowds around them were all edging away, putting distance between themselves and the Mage. A few spared pitying glances for Mari. A pair of Imperial police on a corner were looking in another direction as if unaware of anything going on. Everyone watching thought Mari was a common like them whom a Mage had decided to hijack as a personal servant or to torture or for some other reason inexplicable to normal people. None of them were crazy enough to try to interfere, because no one in his or her right mind invited the attention of Mages. “Let’s pretend you’ve told me to come with you,” Mari said. “Go to your right, out of the market and down that street with the tavern on the corner. I’ll follow looking meek and terrified.”
Asha’s face offered no clue as to whether she thought that was a wise plan or not. She nodded with no visible emotion, then turned and began walking, while Mari hastened to pick up her packages and follow, not entirely feigning worry since a lot of people were watching her now and that was the last thing she had wanted.
A woman at a stall she passed called out in a low voice. “Is there anyone we should tell of you?”
Mari shook her head. “I’ll be all right. She just wants some of the food I bought.”
“Blasted Mages. Take care, girl!”
Once far enough down the road which Mari had indicated, she called quietly to Asha. “The hostel is to our left, about three blocks. If you turn at that next corner we can make a few more turns along the way to see if anyone is following.” Mari took a moment to be glad that Asha had kept her eye-catching beauty concealed behind her robes and cowl. That would have attracted an extra measure of attention.
Mari directed Asha though some more turns, even doubling back at one point to ensure no one was shadowing them. Unfortunately, with so many people on the street at this time of day she couldn’t be certain that no one had followed, but it seemed unlikely. Asha followed Mari’s directions without comment or protest, her expression when Mari could see it unreadable. Finally, Mari brought them to the hostel and ducked inside. Fortunately, the desk clerk was momentarily busy with other customers, two men with two courtesans who were falling out of the tops of their dresses. The eyes of the desk clerk and the two men were locked onto the cleavage of the courtesans, and the courtesans kept their own eyes on the wallets of the two men, so no one noticed Mari lead a Mage up the shaky stairs.
She rapped softly. “It’s Mari.” A moment later Alain opened the door. Mari was fleetingly surprised that Alain didn’t seem startled to see Asha.
“I sensed you approaching,” Alain told Mari, “and that Mage Asha was with you, though Mage Asha conceals herself well.”
He was doing it again: reverting to that expressionless, emotionless Mage voice and face. Already unsettled by Asha finding her, Mari glared at him as she shut and locked the door. “Act human, blast you. I’ve put a lot of work into getting you to show feelings and I don’t want to see that go to waste.”
Alain, startled, nodded before turning to Asha. “Mage Asha, I am happy to see you.”
Asha raised one eyebrow the tiniest amount. “Happy?” she asked without feeling.
“Yes, Mage Asha. You are my friend.”
“You still think of me as friend?” Asha gave Mari a glance from those gorgeous eyes.
Mari fervently hoped that Asha couldn’t sense all of her feelings right now.
Asha nodded at Alain. “I have been trying to remember what ‘friend’ meant. Helping is involved. Helping with no obligation.”
“Like you did at Severun,” Mari said. “Warning Alain and misleading those other Mages. We’ve both been worried about you since then.” It felt good to say that, because it was true, and because her pangs of jealousy still bothered Mari.
“Worried?” Asha asked. “Is that what I have sensed in myself when I think of Mage Alain and you?” She looked full on at Mari. “Do you still say that you…love Mage Alain?”
“Yes.”
“Do you already carry his child?”
Mari felt her face getting hot. “Excuse me?”
“My questions discomfort you? Why is this?”
Mari took a deep breath, remembering her attempts to explain privacy to Alain. “Why don’t we all sit down?” She and Alain sat on the edge of the bed while Asha took the room’s one chair. “No, I do not carry Alain’s child. That has to wait, even if I decide to do that.”
“You do not want Alain’s child?”
Mari’s face got hotter. “Yes, I do. Maybe. I don’t know.” She wasn’t even completely ready to discuss that with Alain, let alone with another woman she hardly knew. “But not now.”
“You are not happy because of my question.” Asha blinked at Mari, then looked at Alain. “What are the words?”
“I am sorry,” Alain said.
She nodded and turned to Mari once more. “I…am…sorry. I…try to understand how you see him, even though I am still attempting to be aware of such feelings once more. But I know that you think of him very much.”
“How do you know that?” Mari asked, not certain that she should be asking, but curious that a Mage would say such a thing.
“When you think of Mage Alain,” Asha explained dispassionately, “your self blazes clearly to my senses even across great distances. This is how I found Mage Alain, knowing that you would be with him.”
Mari suddenly realized that what she had felt before was not embarrassment. Not compared to what she felt now. “You can tell when I’m thinking about Alain?”
For his part, Alain had developed an anxious expression at Mari’s reaction. “This is an unusual thing, Mage Asha.”
“I had never heard of it from other Mages,” Asha replied without emotion. “Yet even now Mechanic Mari’s presence flares before me very brightly. She must be thinking of you.”
“Oh, yes,” Mari said, struggling to keep her voice under control. “I’m thinking about Alain right now, yes, I am. Can you tell what I am thinking, Alain?”
“You…are unhappy.”
“Yes, Alain, I am unhappy. I thought you told me that Mages can’t read minds.” Mari’s words came out sounding only partly strangled with emotion.
“They cannot,” Alain said quickly. “I do not know what this thing is which Asha can see from you.”
“She knows what I’m thinking about you! Do you have any idea what some of the things I’ve
—
Oh, blazes,” Mari gasped, wondering if anyone could possibly feel this humiliated.
Asha was watching Mari with visible curiosity. “You are not happy to know another can sense your thoughts of Alain?”
“Happy,” Mari said with all of the restraint she could manage, “is not quite the right word.”
Watching Mari and looking more alarmed by the moment, Alain leaned toward Asha. “This thing you sense from Mari, it is like that from a Mage?”
“Yes,” Asha agreed. “Like when a Mage casts a spell. The presence is clear, even though it is different from that of a Mage.”
“Then,” Alain said, choosing his words carefully as he looked at Mari, “Asha does not know what you are thinking of me. She only knows
that
you are thinking of me.”
Mari glared at him suspiciously. “Just that? Nothing else? No…details? No…pictures?”
“Pictures of what?” Alain asked.
“Nothing! Not a blasted thing! Now answer the question!”
Alain, looking like he had the time they faced a dragon in Dorcastle, turned back to Asha. “Do you see any pictures?”
“No.” Asha switched her gaze from Alain to Mari and back again, betraying no reaction at all. “What pictures should I be seeing? Perhaps if I focus on attempting to see such pictures
—
”
“NO!” Mari paused to get control of herself. “Please do not, Mage Asha.”
Asha suddenly revealed a tiny measure of understanding. “You are concerned that I may be seeing your imagined manifestations of physical desire for Mage Alain.”
Mari stared at Asha. Mari’s face was so hot now that it felt like it was on fire. With nowhere to hide, she buried her face in her hands, wishing with all her might that a hole would appear beneath her and allow her to fall deep into the Earth.
“Master Mechanic Mari.” Asha’s voice was very low, and very close. The female Mage must be kneeling beside her. “I saw nothing. I will see nothing. Yet I have done something to cause you to conceal yourself. I do not know what should be done now.”
That probably was the closest a Mage could come to an apology. In fact, it was a remarkable act for a Mage. Mari concentrated fiercely on what Asha had said and managed to lower her hands enough to see Asha. “Can you imagine how I feel right now?”
Asha stared back blankly. “How…you…feel? You?”
“Me.”
“Shadows…feel?” Asha looked over to Alain for confirmation and must have received some. “But it is usual to imagine having physical relations with others. Why does this distress you?”
Mari shook her head. “We really need to talk, Mage Asha.”
“We are talking.”
“No. Alone. Without Alain here.”
“Why?” Those beautiful blue eyes in that beautiful face looked back at Mari with no trace of feeling or understanding. “Is this a secret from Mage Alain?”
“No.” Mari forced her hands back into her lap, though she still couldn’t look toward Alain. “It’s just…some things are very private. Not to be shared.”
“Like Guild secrets?”
“Um…yes. Sort of. But just for each person. Personal secrets.”
Mage Asha was thinking so hard that a slight furrow appeared on her brow. “Why does it matter what others know? They are but shadows.”
“It matters,” Alain said. “I still do not know why, but it does matter. Mari calls it having social skills. I have never before heard of a Mage being able to track someone who is not a Mage, except for the thread I sense that connects Mari with me."
"A thread?" Asha asked, her Mage tones making her sound uninterested in the answer.
"It does not exist, but it does exist, running invisibly between us. I do not know what it is. Could you sense Mari even more strongly than I do?”
“I do not know,” Asha said. “I asked careful questions of elders, but saw their suspicions rise quickly and could gain no answers. It seems some tie exists between me and Mechanic Mari now. As the feelings I cannot admit to have become stronger inside—a sense of…wanting to…share…life, of not being the only real thing in a world of illusion populated by shadows—I am able to sense her more strongly.”
Mari buried her face in both hands again. “Just one big happy threesome,” she mumbled. “Alain, we need to talk.”
“We are talk
—
”
“
Alone
! Do you Mages always have to do that
?
”
His hand touched her shoulder very gently, so Mari lowered her hands and glared at him as Alain spoke with great care. “There is no other for me but you.”
“Me and my blazing bonfire of love, you mean?” Mari glanced over at Asha, who to Mari’s surprise was betraying discomfort and confusion. “Mage Asha? Is something wrong?”
“Mechanic Mari,” Asha said, “it is hard to explain. I have…a brother and a sister. I saw them when I left Ihris. They saw me. I could say nothing, show nothing. I was taught they…mean nothing. They showed…what other shadows reveal when they look upon Mages.” Asha paused for a long moment. “I saw their expressions, and I told myself they did not matter, but I lied. Then I met you, and for the first time since I left the Guild Hall as a Mage, for the first time since I became an acolyte, someone looked at me and…and…smiled. No one smiles on a Mage, Mechanic Mari. I had not known how much I missed seeing a smile when another looked upon me, shadow or not.”
Mari’s embarrassment vanished as the female Mage’s words hit home. She reached to grasp Asha’s hands, barely noticing the shock in the female Mage at being touched. “Call me Mari, Mage Asha. That’s why you feel a connection to me? Because I smiled at you? I thought you didn’t care. You didn’t react at all.”
Asha gazed into Mari’s eyes. “We are taught, in many ways, harsh ways, never to show what we think, what we feel.”
“I know.” This close, Mari had no trouble seeing the scars on Asha’s hands and face, the same sort that Alain bore, the marks of the discipline that Mage Guild acolytes suffered. Some of the scars were so old that Asha must have been just a little girl when they did some of those things to her.
Asha looked down at Mari’s hands holding hers, but she didn’t try to withdraw them, instead seeming oddly vulnerable to Mari.
She wants me to like her,
Mari realized.
She’s been alone for years, since she was a little girl, and now she’s trying to find herself again. Asha sees what has happened with Alain and she wants the same for herself, but she doesn’t even know how to ask. Instead of being envious of Alain, she’s been helping him. And I’ve been jealous and angry and suspicious of this woman.
“Mage Asha, please say you will still be my friend.”
Asha stared at Mari for a long time, then nodded. “I would be…happy…if that were so.” Her mouth twitched, as if it were attempting to remember how to smile. “I have been trying, since I met you and Alain. Trying to remember.” She looked at Alain. “I have an uncle who is a Mage also.”
He nodded to her, Alain’s eyes distant with some memory. “You once spoke of him.”
“So long ago, it seems.” Asha looked into a corner for a moment, then refocused on Alain. “He and I have talked a little. He…remembers, too, I think, but is not ready. I am not certain.”
Asha took a long, slow breath. “I am remiss. I think of myself when there is much to warn you of. Alain, I must tell you of the danger here in Palandur.”