Alain paused beside her, breathing deeply but evenly from their climb so far. “I thought the same from my study of the map. There are towns and villages elsewhere on the island, but all lie along the coast. The roads follow the coastline, but often end where cliffs going down to the water block their passage.”
Mari looked upward, where the mountains rose amid steep slopes and deep chasms. “The interior of this island is the perfect place to hide something, isn’t it? Even a long time ago people could have figured that out. How the blazes did anyone build a big tower in terrain like this, though?”
Their progress became slower and slower as they struggled through the rough landscape, and when night fell they had to sit wedged on a small shelf overlooking a sharp drop, taking turns sleeping while the one who was awake made sure neither of them slipped off. About midnight a sudden late-winter squall sent freezing rain to lash the mountains, further adding to the misery of the day.
In the morning the sun rose on a rough countryside glittering with an icy glaze. They had to wait for the ice to melt enough for their footing to be safe. Mari consulted the map often in search of landmarks as they went steadily higher and deeper into the island. Difficult climbs alternated with perilous descents, each complicated by scrub brush which all too often bore thorns instead of leaves. Measuring their apparent progress against the map, she felt despair. “It will take us a month at this rate.”
“Perhaps it will get easier,” Alain said.
“Right now I just wish one of those Mage Rocs would appear so we could fly to that blasted tower.”
This time, darkness descended while they were halfway up a scree-covered slope. Unable to keep going in the uncertain footing and poor visibility, they found a patch of bushes they could lie against, hoping the roots would hold until morning. Neither got much rest that night, either.
Mari blinked at the sun as it finally rose over the rocky peaks around them on the third day. “I hate this island. If that tower is empty I’m going to be one unhappy Mechanic, let me tell you. This little hike better prove to have been worth it.”
“We have had worse,” Alain pointed out, looking as worn out as Mari felt.
“Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.” Mari pulled out her far-seer and studied the ground around them, checking all directions. “Bad that way. That way’s worse. Wow. A lot worse. Hey.” She thought she saw something and blinked to clear her eyes, then took another look. “There’s somebody moving over there.”
“Where?” Alain asked, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked in the same direction.
“Along the side of that ridge there. He’s gone now. No, wait, there he is again, on the side of that mountain. All I can see is his head and a bit of his shoulder. How is he moving so fast? There’s got to be a path there even though we can’t see it.”
Alain shook his head. “Without your Mechanic device, I cannot see any sign of this traveler you are watching.”
“Looks like he’s disappeared for good.” Mari lowered her far-seer, thinking. “Suppose the tower does exist, and suppose there are people living there, and those people need to get to the outside world every once in a while.”
“They would need a path,” Alain agreed.
“But since practically nobody knows about this tower, whoever lives there must be keeping it secret, so…”
“Their path would be secret as well.” Alain looked at the ground ahead. “It will be difficult to reach wherever you saw this traveler, but it will be difficult to go in any other direction as well.”
Mari grinned fiercely, coming carefully to her feet on the slope. “Let’s go find us a path, my Mage. Down that way, up that slope, over that ridge and hope what’s on the other side isn’t too bad.”
The other side wasn’t great, but it wasn’t impassable, either. Not quite impassable, anyway. Mari had determined certain landmarks on the way to where she had caught brief glimpses of the traveler: a large rock with an odd shape, a cluster of evil-looking scrub bushes, and a nearly vertical ravine in one cliff face as if a huge knife had sliced into the rock. She was able to stay headed in the direction of what was hopefully a hidden trail while they toiled down, up and around numerous obstacles. About noon, as Mari was struggling up another steep slope, she suddenly found herself stepping onto a very low ridge and looking down at a path heading inland. Stumbling down onto the surface of the path and resisting an urge to kneel and kiss it, she helped Alain step down as well. “That ridge is almost like a wall running alongside this path, completely hiding it.” She looked up at an almost sheer cliff face. “You couldn’t see the path except from overhead, and nobody is going to be walking up there. If I hadn’t spotted that person, which I couldn’t have without my far-seer, we would have never known this was here.”
Alain sat down, relieved enough for the emotion to be obvious. “This is not a heavily used way, but it has clearly been here a long time.”
“Like part of the landscape,” Mari agreed. She studied what she could see of the path, puzzled. “It looks artificial, as if the path was cut through here, but I can’t tell what did the cutting through so much rock and left such smooth surfaces.” They took a break to eat, Mari hauling out the map and studying it again. “We haven’t even come halfway, but on this path we can move a lot faster. I think we should push on today until sunset, get a decent night’s sleep, then try to reach the tower tomorrow.”
Alain nodded, standing up with a heavy sigh. “I miss the White Wing.”
“I bet. Are you sure what you really miss isn’t being in bed with me?”
“That, too.” He looked back and forth along the path. “Perhaps tonight, on a level surface like this…”
“Do men ever stop thinking about that? And in any case, forget it. That’s rock and gravel. I will not engage in any vigorous activity on that kind of surface.”
Despite their weariness, the easier road lent Mari and Alain extra energy, and they covered a lot of ground before it grew too dark to travel. They slept on a level surface, hemmed in by the path’s concealing barrier and the slope rising on the other side, so that even though they alternated watches through the night both got a decent amount of rest for the first time in days.
Mari felt a curious mix of elation and dread as they started off the next morning. What if the tower was not there? What if the "records of all things" it once held had long since crumbled to dust? What if the current inhabitants had no idea the tower had been a place to keep important information safe and could tell her nothing?
But what if the tower was there and the people in it could answer her questions? The possibility lent wings to her feet as they walked.
Mari’s prediction from the map proved accurate. The sun was still just short of noon when they rounded a mountainous curve and found themselves gazing down into a pocket valley. It was bigger than Mari had expected from the map and greener, too. Meadows and cultivated fields covered a wide area beneath them, with stands of trees here and there as well as on the slopes of the valley. They could see the shapes of farm animals moving in some of the fields.
Rising against the back wall of the valley was the tower. Even though it was dwarfed by the mountains rising around them, Mari couldn’t hold back a gasp of surprise at the tower’s size. It soared upward for what she guessed must be a hundred lances, its surface some sort of smooth, shiny stone with no sign of break or seams except for windows and a large entry. On the tower’s top, an unbroken expanse of dull black material not only roofed the structure but created the odd impression in Mari that the stuff was actually soaking up the sunlight. “Did they carve it out of the living rock?” Mari wondered out loud as she studied the tower through her far-seer.
She moved her head slowly, using the far-seer to view more of the valley. Near the base of the tremendous tower other, much smaller, buildings were clustered. Some of those looked as if they had been fashioned from the same mysterious substance as the tower, but most appeared to have been built of
stone and timber in ways Mari was familiar with. “Looks like communal living areas, barns and structures like that. There are plenty of people down there. I’d guess maybe a hundred within view right now. It looks like they’re all wearing plain robes of some kind.”
“Robes?” Alain asked.
“Yeah, not like Mage robes, though,” Mari said. “As far as I can tell, they’re tending to animals, working the fields and doing other work. Wait.” Mari spotted some smaller figures who weren’t wearing robes. “Children. There are families down there.”
Mari lowered her far-seer, glancing at Alain. “Families with children. And the children are playing. That’s a good sign.”
“It may be,” he agreed cautiously. “If children are among them, and playing, they are definitely not Mages, despite the robes.”
She raised the far-seer again. At the base of the tower, great doors stood open, with robed figures passing in and out. “The tower’s definitely still occupied. I see no sign of defenses or weapons, unless you count the staves being carried by the people herding the flocks. No sentries, no guards.”
Alain nodded. “These people depend for safety on not being known. They raise their own food, and must require little contact with the rest of the world.”
“Yeah. But this path proves they send people in and out for something. I wonder what? Medicine? Mechanic devices? Do you want a look?”
Alain shook his head, eying the far-seers warily. "No. I would see nothing that you did not, and I do not know how to safely use that."
"They're just far-seers, Alain. They can't explode."
"Then they are unlike the other Mechanic devices I have experience with," Alain said firmly.
Reminding herself that Alain's Mage arts still seemed as perplexing to her as Mechanic devices were to a Mage, Mari put away her far-seer and looked to Alain. “What do you think? Sneak around and see what we can spy out? Or just walk down, introduce ourselves and see what they do?”
“If I lived as these people do,” Alain suggested, “I would be highly suspicious of anyone acting suspicious.”
“You mean someone sneaking around and spying, I take it.”
“Yes. I think we would be best served by acting open and unthreatening.”
Mari drew her pistol and checked it, then replaced it in her shoulder holster. “All right. I agree. But let’s be ready in case they turn out to be a bunch of maniacs who consider outsiders to be the spawn of demons.” She paused, thinking some more. “Yeah, let’s be open and honest for once.” Pulling off her coat, she stuffed it into her pack and drew out her Mechanics jacket, putting it on and settling it into place with a small smile. “I’ve missed wearing this, you know,” she confessed to Alain.
“I could tell, every time you were able to put it on and every time you saw another Mechanic.” Alain also bent to his pack, removing the Mage robes inside and donning them. “Here we are, once again openly the Mage and Mechanic, just as when we first met.”
“That seems so long ago.” Mari glanced at the ring on her hand. This was the first time she had worn her Mechanics jacket and the ring at the same time. “You know, back when I was single.”
“As I was.”
Mari bit her lip, staring outward. “Your vision of us fighting in a battle at Dorcastle someday. We’re obviously on the path to that. We’re married now, just like in the vision. You have no idea who we were fighting?”
“No. Only you and I were clear.”
“It looks more and more like we’re going to be fighting the Great Guilds.” Mari looked over at him, feeling somber. “Have you seen anything else? Anything that would tell whether or not we both survive that battle?”
Alain regarded her gravely. “No. I have seen nothing of us, together or alone, in any period after the battle.”
“At least you haven’t seen either of us dead.” Mari swallowed, put her doubts and fears aside, then straightened her jacket and smiled at him. “Come on. Let’s go visit the tower of Altis.”
The path they were on switched back and forth twice as it descended into the valley, the obscuring barrier on its outside edge dwindling away to nothing so that there was no obstruction hiding their approach from everyone in the valley. “They have no need of sentries,” Alain observed.
The path followed the rise and fall of gentle slopes as it headed for a stream cutting through the valley. Mari and Alain walked at an easy pace, approaching a bridge spanning the stream. As they got closer to the bridge, Mari could see that it was made of the same seamless rocklike material as the tower.
Alain pointed. “There is a small group coming this way. A dozen, I think.”
Mari squinted, making out the figures. “Do we have a cover story this time, or do we just tell the truth?”
“You are asking a Mage about truth?”
“Yes, you clown.” Mari couldn’t help smiling, though. “I think we should try the truth. We’re fighting people who lie. Let’s be on the side of honesty regarding what we want and why we came.”
“I agree with your wisdom,” Alain said.
“And once again you affirm one of the many reasons I love you.” She grasped his hand as they walked, using her free hand to check her pistol again. “But they could be hiding all kinds of weapons under those robes. You’re still ready for trouble, right?”
“Of course.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mari and Alain kept walking toward the robed figures, while the group who apparently made up a welcoming committee strode toward them. They met at the bridge, the robed group spreading out to block the span. One of their number stopped ahead of the rest.
“Good day,” Mari said politely.
“Good day,” the robed figure in the lead responded, throwing back a hood to reveal that she was a woman, tall, a bit thin, with sharp eyes. She managed to look both gracious and unwelcoming at the same time. “You are lost. We will give you directions back to Altis.”
“We’re not lost,” Mari said.
“Then I regret to tell you that we do not welcome visitors here. Our people live apart from others. We must ask that you leave this valley and explore some other part of the island.”
Mari raised her arm to point at the tower. “We’re not exploring. We came here to visit that tower and those who live in it.”
The woman conveyed puzzlement. “Why would you seek that? Our people have lived here for generations, and we have nothing in which the outside world would be interested.”
Alain leaned close to Mari to speak in her ear. “The first part of her statement was true, the last part a lie.”
Nodding, Mari smiled at the woman. “You can see that this man is a Mage. He can tell when someone speaks the truth. And when they don’t.”
“He wears the robes of a Mage,” the woman agreed. “But Mages do not accompany Mechanics. One of you is false. Perhaps both of you are.”
Mari smiled. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that if I were you. I am Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn, and this is Mage Alain of Ihris.” She noticed some of the robed figures reacting slightly when she said her name, and wondered what news the person they had seen on the path might have brought here. “We have questions which we hope you can answer.”
“Then you will surely be disappointed,” the woman replied, more severely this time. “I ask you again to go. You are not welcome in this valley and will not be permitted to go farther.”
“There’s nothing in that tower?” Mari asked.
“Our homes. Nothing more.”
Mari glanced at Alain, who shook his head, then back at the woman. “But I have read that there is much more there,” Mari said. She didn’t need Alain’s help to see the way the robed figures tensed after that statement.
But the robed woman recovered quickly, smiling sadly. “There are many stories with no basis in fact. Whatever you read of that tower is no more real than one of the tales of Mara the Undying.”
That made Mari fix a cross look on the woman. “At the
moment, Mara is kind of a sore subject with me. Do you want to know where I read about this tower? I’ll show you.” The robed figures all watched as Mari shrugged off her pack, kneeling to carefully unseal the watertight package holding her half of the banned Mechanic texts from Marandur.
She stood up slowly, holding one of the texts, then carefully opened it to the page with the drawing on the side. “It says here, ‘The tower on Altis, where records of all things are kept,’ and the drawing certainly resembles your tower.”
The robed woman was staring not at Mari but at the book she held. “What is that?”
Mari turned it to read the cover. “Survival Technology Manual, Base Level Two, Volume Four, Wireless Communications, Second Edition, Revision Three, Demeter Projekt.” She looked back at the men and women facing her. “Demeter. That sounds like our world. Dematr.”
A ripple passed through the ranks of robed figures. “The tech manuals,” a woman whispered. “Coleen, it’s one of the tech manuals.”
One of the men cried out in a much louder voice. “We cannot let this opportunity pass!”
“Silence, all of you,” the woman ordered. “We know nothing of this, or of that book you hold,” she insisted to Mari.
“Don’t you want to know where I got it?” Mari asked.
“Such knowledge could be extremely dangerous to us,” the woman named Coleen replied, but even Mari could see the yearning for answers in her.
The Assassins of Altis Page 27