Wood splintered around Alain. It took him a moment to realize that the bandits must now be trying to kill him. A moment’s fear was submerged by his training as he jumped down from the wagon and willed another spell into being, making light bend and curve around him. He looked down, seeing himself waver and then vanish from sight.
That done, Alain paused to seek more targets. Another guard screamed and dropped nearby, causing Alain’s concentration to falter. He stared at the dead guard, then all around. He could no longer see any caravan guards still fighting, just bodies lying in the dust. A couple of wagons lay on their sides, overturned when their teams panicked. One of the drivers was still fleeing on foot, but jerked and fell as Alain watched.
Am I the last? Dust flew in spurts all around him, telling Alain that the attackers were hurling their projectiles at where they thought he was. His stomach tight with fear, Alain focused on his spells again with a great effort. If I am to survive this, if I am to save anyone left alive in this caravan, I have to keep fighting.
Calling up power, Alain created fireball after fireball, placing them on the heights above the caravan. A series of explosions shattered ancient stone to cascade onto the attackers. His barrage finally caused the onslaught to falter. Clouds of dust rolled down,covering the area of the caravan and blocking Alain’s view of the devastation around him as well as the walls of the pass where the bandits were positioned.
Alain stopped, his breathing heavy and sweat covering his body. He looked down to see his hand trembling with exhaustion, and realized that he had so depleted his strength that the protection spell had failed. A foolish error worthy of an acolyte. Until he rested a little he would not be able to defend either himself or the caravan. Even then, almost no power remained here to draw on. Under his robes he carried one of the long knives Mages bore, but that would be of little use against whatever weapons these bandits were wielding.
Not that defending the caravan seemed to matter any longer. The attack continued from the front and sides, the bandits hurling death blindly into the haze of dust. More and more crossbow bolts thudded home into the dirt or the sides of wagons, as if the ambushers were running low on the deadlier, unseen projectiles. But Alain could hear no movement nearby, or sounds of any guard returning the fire.
Alain staggered back, spent from his spell work but trying to reach the wagons in the rear. Perhaps some guards still survived there. His own flurry of attacks might keep the bandits from advancing for at least a few moments longer, giving time to muster some other defense.
He stumbled through the slowly falling clouds of dust past several more wagons, all abandoned or with their former occupants dead. Tired and scared, Alain could hear his Guild elders lecturing him that a Mage must not show weakness, must not show human frailty. Alain repeated the lessons to himself, trying to block out the thunder of the bandits’ weapons, taking long, calming breaths while he attempted to deny any feelings of fear.
But along with the fear he could not totally eliminate, one thought kept intruding. What other weapons were the bandits using? The thunderous weapons which had wiped out the guards were not crossbows. They were far deadlier.
He reached one of the last wagons, a large one with barred windows whose door had been kept locked since the caravan had left on its journey. Alain had not mingled with the other members of the caravan, of course, since all were commons, but he had overheard some speculation about the occupant of this wagon possibly being a spoiled Imperial lady who had remained unseen throughout the journey. If so, and if the lady still survived, he might still be able to do something for someone.
Alain came around the side and saw that the wagon door sagged open. How could the bandits have reached it before he did? Forgetting caution and weariness for a moment, the Mage rushed forward to look inside the wagon.
A figure rose up before him, holding something in one hand that glinted dully in the dust filtered sunlight. Alain checked his own lifted hand and the two stared at each other for a long moment. A Mechanic?
There could be no doubt. Even in the scorching heat of the waste the woman wore the dark jacket which marked the members of the Mechanics Guild as surely as Alain’s robes marked his own. Unlike the garments of the Mage Guild, though, which bore symbols and ornaments to mark their ranks and special skills in a form only other Mages could read, the jackets of the Mechanics were aggressively plain, just leather stained dark. Those unadorned jackets sent a message to everyone that Mechanics thought themselves so important that they did not need to impress with their clothing or show any visible sign of rank. Her trousers were also plain, though made of tough and high quality material, and her boots dark leather like her jacket.
It took Alain a moment to overcome his shock, then look past the raven black hair cut short so it fell just to her shoulders and the frightened, angry expression, to see that the Mechanic was about his own age.. Her youth startled him, but then it surely would not take the Mechanics that long to teach even elaborate tricks to their members.
“What are you doing here, Mage?” the Mechanic demanded, pointing the object in her hand at his face. That thing she carried had no blade, nor any visible bolt like a crossbow, instead looking like an oddly shaped piece of metal with a hole in the end facing Alain. But the way the Mechanic held it made clear it was a weapon of some kind. “I’ve seen you occasionally during the journey, so I know you’re not among the attackers. Otherwise you’d already be dead!”
He could hear the fear in her voice, barely concealed beneath the bravado of her words.
“I am charged with protecting this caravan!” Alain yelled back over the crash of the bandit weapons.
“They depended on a Mage for protection?” she shouted. “What was the caravan master thinking? Who’s attacking us?”
Under normal conditions Alain would have turned his back on her, adopting a Mage’s lack of interest in anyone and anything in this world. Under normal conditions he would not speak with a Mechanic at all. But he was badly enough rattled that Alain answered instead. “Bandits, the guard commander said. He said there would be only a few, and poorly armed.”
“Bandits!” The Mechanic shook her head, eyes wild. “Impossible. There are dozens of rifles firing on us. No bandit gang could afford those.”
“Rifles?” Mechanic weapons?
“Yes.” The Mechanic held up the thing in her hand. “Like this pistol, but bigger and longer ranged. Where are the caravan guards?”
“Either dead or fled. I believe most have died. I found no one alive until you.” He had spent years being told of the evil nature of Mechanics, and wondered for just a moment if Mechanics were behind this attack. But the fear in the eyes of this female was real.
Alain realized suddenly that the thunder of the Mechanic weapons had fallen off a great deal and the thump of crossbow bolts had also subsided. He stared toward the front of the caravan. “The bandits must be advancing.”
He looked around, not knowing what to do. His training had covered such circumstances, but to actually face them, to be desperately tired and surrounded by the dead while weapons he didn’t understand hurled death over long distances, left him momentarily paralyzed. For a moment he felt his youth and inexperience so heavily that he could not even think.
The Mechanic spoke again, her voice sharp. “We need to get out of here.” Then she looked startled. “I mean…”
Alain understood her hesitation. He could not imagine spending time in her company, either, even under these conditions. “I will try to stop them while you flee. I was contracted to protect this caravan and those in it. That means I have an obligation to protect you.”
“You protect me? A Mage protect me?” The Mechanic seemed to forget her fear momentarily as outrage bloomed. “That’s—”
Hoarse shouts sounded a short distance away. Alain licked lips dry with dust. “They have reached the front of the caravan.” He had regained some control now and kept all feeling from his voice.
“Ar
Alain gazed down at his hands, then shrugged, feeling overwhelmed. “I will have to stand here and fight. There is nothing else to do.”
“Yes, there is. We can run.”
“We?” The single word made no sense.
“You and me. I won’t let anyone, even a Mage, die if I can help it! I don’t leave anyone! Not even you!”
Alain, baffled by her words and feeling fear bloom inside him again at the thought of death, fell back on his earliest training. “This world is not real. Dying is but the passing from one dream to another.”
The Mechanic stared at him as if his words had been just as incomprehensible to her. “You intend dying here because you think it doesn’t matter?”
“I know it does not matter,” Alain stated in as calm and emotionless a voice as he could manage.
The Mechanic’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Fine,” she said. “Your Guild contracted you to protect this caravan? To protect me? To do that, you’ll need to stay with me. We seem to be the last two alive, and if you stay here while I go, then you’ll be breaking your contract. Now, whether you like it or not, come on!”
Alain hesitated a moment longer as the Mechanic turned to go, then followed. After so many years of obedience to authority, it wasn’t easy to shake off the Mechanic’s commands, and her argument did seem reasonable.
As soon as the Mechanic was sure Alain was behind her, she started running off to one side, beckoning him to follow. Now that he was behind her, Alain could see a large pack on her back. He wondered what it contained that could be so important the Mechanic didn’t abandon it so as to flee faster. Treasure of some kind? The elders had always said that Mechanics were ruled by greed and deception.
They scrambled over rocks and up a steep slope, dust clouds still concealing them from the bandits. Why did she insist I come with her? Why am I following her? But he stayed with the Mechanic as she climbed.
The shouts were coming slowly closer, showing the bandits had kept moving forward but were being cautious, probably because the dust kept them from seeing very far. Only an occasional crash from one of the Mechanic weapons could be heard now.
As the Mechanic reached a long ledge and swung past a cluster of rocks, some figures suddenly emerged. Two had crossbows and the third a strange weapon with a hole in the end like the Mechanic’s hand weapon. All were pointing their weapons at her.
The Mechanic had frozen in the act of bringing up her hand weapon, staring at the bandits, clearly realizing that she was trapped. The bandits had not yet noticed the Mage lagging behind her.
Chapter Two
Alain was once again calling forth heat above his hand, his own remaining strength and the residual power here both draining like water into the spell. He had a moment to realize that he could have run again while the bandits were occupied capturing the Mechanic, but rejected the idea before it fully formed.
In the time required to create the spell, one bandit's finger twitched on the trigger of his crossbow. The Mechanic might have died then, but the bandit with the strange weapon struck aside the crossbow so that its bolt flew harmlessly away. “Fool! If any harm comes to her—”
The heat above his hand peaked. Alain placed it upon a boulder directly beside the man in the center of the group. An instant later the surface of the boulder exploded with the sound of shattering rock.
The man closest to the fireball uttered a single sharp cry as he was flung sideways, then collapsed. Ripped by sharp fragments of stone, his two companions were thrown outward and fell in tumbled heaps.
Alain bent over, then fell to his knees and sagged against the nearest rock, gasping for air and hoping no more bandits lurked nearby. Fighting off a blurring of his vision, Alain managed to look up, searching for more danger, and found his eyes focusing on the dead bandits. His earlier attacks had been at a distance and he had not seen the results. Now he could see that the side of the bandit nearest where he had placed the fire had been burnt black. Trails of red blood trickled away from the other dead bandits. Alain looked away from the bodies, feeling a sudden odd hollowness at seeing men he had killed. They are only shadows, he kept repeating to himself, but the words brought no comfort. Nausea rolled through him and he was grateful that he had not eaten for a while.
Alain gradually became aware that the Mechanic was staring at him with wide eyes. She took three steps to him, going to one knee and reaching out, then stopping her hand just before touching him. Even Mechanics, it seemed, knew that no one touched a Mage without a Mage’s permission. “Are you all right?”
He struggled to nod, unable to speak for a moment.
“What did—?” Rising again, the Mechanic ran to the rock Alain had just struck, avoiding the bodies and running her fingers above the crater on its surface. “It’s hot. Much hotter than the sun’s heat could account for. Superheated steam could do this, except that there’s no way you could have a steam boiler hidden under those robes. But there’s no apparent residue, either.” The Mechanic came quickly back to him, her expression determined. This time she reached to grab one arm and help Alain to his feet. “You can’t do this without burning something, using some accelerant. What is it?”
Startled by her touch on his robes, Alain took a moment to think through what she had said. His mind couldn’t concentrate, fuzzy with fatigue and fear, so he shook his head. “I do not know your words.”
“You have no idea what I’m talking about?”
“None.” More shouts came from behind and below, where the wreckage of the caravan lay. “We had better move from here. They may have noticed the sound of my spell breaking that rock.”
“Just a moment. Can you stand?”
After Alain nodded the Mechanic let go of his arm, spun around and picked up the strange metal object longer than her arm. Alain gazed at the thing, noting that it bore a superficial resemblance to a crossbow, except that it was longer and lacked the bow portion. The metal of the weapon gleamed under a sheen of dust. A pungent smell came from the thing, sharp and almost stinging to the nostrils but with an undertone of something deep and oily. He felt an urge to examine it more closely, but since it was obviously of Mechanic make he knew that would be foolish. His teachers had warned him of the traps Mechanics placed on their so called devices.
The Mechanic held the weapon, turning it in her hands as she hastily examined it. “Standard model repeating rifle. Made by Mechanics Guild workshops in the city of Danalee in the Bakre Confederation. This one’s new. Only been fired a few times.” She looked at Alain, then tossed it onto the ground. “But the lever action has been broken, so it won’t do us any good.” Glancing quickly toward the crossbows still clasped in the hands of the other two dead bandits and then averting her eyes, the Mechanic shuddered. “I don’t want a crossbow that bad.”
The shouts from the caravan came again, this time clearly expressing disappointment and carrying the tone of command. From the direction of the sound, Alain guessed the voices were coming from the area of the wagon the Mechanic had occupied. “The bandits have discovered that you are missing.”
“Blazes, we’ve got to get out of here. Can you climb by yourself?”
“Yes,” Alain said, not understanding the reason for her question but unwilling to admit to his continued weakness.
“Good. Let’s go.” With a lingering look of regret toward the long Mechanic weapon lying discarded on the ground, the Mechanic turned and started climbing higher along the walls of the pass. “Thanks for saving us from those guys, Mage,” she called back in a low voice.
Alain watched her for a moment. She obviously intended for him to stay with her. He could not remember how to respond to her last words. Thanks. That had meant something to him once. He had said it…to Asha. Only once, the night they had both been brought to the Mage Guild Hall with the other new acolytes. He had been punished for it. That had been…twelve years ago? What had the word meant?
He climbed after the Mechanic as she toiled up the slope. Alain took each step, each pull upward on a handhold, one at a time, refusing to collapse again. The dust was gradually thinning, but down around the caravan it still blocked vision enough that Alain could not see what the bandits were doing, and hopefully they could not see the fleeing Mage and Mechanic. The climb was steep and difficult now, leading ever upward, and Alain felt his lingering strength being quickly consumed as they went higher.
The Mechanic looked back at him and then stopped, crouching behind an outcropping of rock that screened her from below. “How are you doing?”
Alain had to pause to get enough breath to answer. “Why do you ask this? Why do you keep asking such things?”
She looked aggravated at his response. “Do you think there’s something weird about being worried about somebody else?”
He could not think of an answer to that.
“Stars above,” the Mechanic said, “what’s the matter with you? We’re in this together, like it or not. And, no, I don’t particularly like it either, but we do what we have to do, Mage.”
Alain caught up with her, hauling himself up behind the same rock outcropping. He wished he were not so tired from the effort of casting his spells. “I neither like it nor dislike it. It is. But you are foolish to risk yourself for another, to worry. It does not matter.”
Anger flared on her face. “Everybody matters, Mage. Don’t lie to me. You must have feelings one way or the other, even if you hide them behind those robes and a face that shows nothing.”
“You do not seem to know Mages very well.” Alain looked away from her. After his years around impassive Mages, and then around commons who sought to hide their reactions to a Mage, the emotions on the Mechanic’s face were so clear and strong that it was if she were shouting the feelings at him, their intensity almost painful. Grateful for the chance to rest, Alain peered from behind the rock to search the slope behind them for signs that the bandits had realized which direction their quarry had fled.
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