“I will speak with them,” Alain said. “You are worried that they might harm someone?”
“Yeah. Mage Dav says they’re all right, but, uh…”
“I understand.” The reputation of Mages—that they treated others as merely playthings—was well established and, Alain knew, well earned. Why care about the lives and well-being of shadows? But he had learned otherwise and so must these new Mages. Alain stood up carefully, still feeling weak.
Calu immediately offered a steadying hand. “Take it easy. Let us know if you need anything.”
“Mari may be out cold, but we’ve got your back,” Alli said.
It made no sense, did not comport with the wisdom taught to Mages, but Alain felt stronger at that moment. Strong enough to manage a small smile of reassurance and then walk steadily to where the other Mages sat.
Asha looked up as Alain approached, one corner of her mouth twitching slightly in the way of a Mage who had not yet relearned how to smile. She moved aside in the tight circle so that Alain could seat himself next to her.
Alain looked around the tight circle of hooded figures. Mage Asha was next to him, and next to her Mage Dav. Then a male Mage who bore the marks of advanced age, another male Mage not much older than Alain, and a female Mage of middle years. All looked back at him in the way of Mages, barely acknowledging his presence and giving no sign of how they felt about it.
“Mage Alain,” Alain said, introducing himself to the eldest first.
“Mage Hiro,” the old man said.
“Elder Hiro,” Mage Dav corrected.
“No longer.” Mage Hiro’s voice and face gave no clue as to whether he felt regret over that. “I have known the wisdom I was taught is lacking. I seek new wisdom.”
The young man spoke next. “Mage Dimitri. I cannot see all as shadows, yet I have some power. The elders could not explain, but they could punish.”
Then the woman. “Mage Tana. Like Mage Hiro, I have had questions, and no longer will keep silent.”
Mage Hiro gestured slightly at Alain. “Mage Dav says you see one other as real?”
“This is so,” Alain admitted, realizing that his own face and voice were growing as impassive as the other Mages’. He let it happen, knowing it would help them believe his words. “Master Mechanic Mari. She is real.”
“Yet you have power? Show us.”
Mage Asha indicated Alain’s bandage. “He has been injured.”
“I see this,” Hiro said. “I feel how little power there is here. I would know what Mage Alain can do when injured, with little outside himself to draw on.”
It was the sort of test that elders would demand to judge the abilities of younger Mages. Alain nodded once, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Mechanics Alli and Calu were watching the group from a distance. Watching him. Because Mari cared for him, they did also.
It gave him a confidence and a strength that had been lacking. Alain wrapped himself in the spell that granted invisibility, causing the illusion that light itself bent around him. He held it, feeling his strength draining quickly, then finally dropped the spell.
Mage Tana measured Alain with her gaze. “One who could manage that under such conditions is not weak.”
“But he was taken by the Dark Mages,” the young Mage said.
Hiro dismissed the comment with another sharp gesture. “See the bandage. A blow from behind. The smallest illusion can defeat the one thing that is real. The mightiest Mage can be felled by a single rock. You know this.”
“I do not question that wisdom.”
“Has your art changed?” Hiro asked Alain. “Because you see the Mechanic as real?”
“No. The means by which I place a smaller illusion over the greater illusion of the world has not changed. My art has only grown more powerful,” Alain said, drawing some barely visible reaction from the three new Mages.
“She accepts your wisdom?” Mage Tana asked. “This Mari?”
“She does,” Alain said, swinging his hand slightly to include Alli and Calu. “As do other Mechanics who follow her. They do not understand our wisdom, they strive to see how it works and cannot, but unlike their Guild they accept that it is valid.”
“And their tricks?” Hiro said. “The Mechanic toys? You have seen them?”
“They work also,” Alain said.
“This is a conflict,” Tana observed. “Wisdom says the world illusion cannot be changed so by other illusions.”
Alain paused to think, to put into words ideas that he had only slowly been developing. “There is more than one wisdom,” he finally said. “More than one path. The wisdom of Mages does things that of Mechanics cannot. Mari says many Mechanics cannot accept this and so deny it. But the wisdom of Mechanics can do things to the world illusion that the arts of the Mages cannot. I have seen this, and so cannot deny it.”
“There was a heresy,” Mage Hiro said. “Two generations gone. It held that more than one wisdom can coexist, that there were different ways of seeing the world illusion that could produce very different arts. The heresy was suppressed, but if the Mechanic arts can work, it may offer a wisdom that explains it.”
“But to see others as real,” Mage Tana objected. “Can other Mages accept this and still have power?”
Mage Asha spoke. “I have begun to see one other as real. He…does not harm my power. He gives me a new way to see my wisdom.”
“Why did you take this risk?”
“Because I saw Mage Alain and Mechanic Mari, and I knew Mage Alain had not lost in any way. I wanted to share what they had.”
“With them?” Mage Tana pressed. “Do they take you into their sharing?”
“Not in that way,” Asha said. “They share their reality only with each other. But they offer something else to friends.”
“Friends,” Mage Dimitri whispered. “I remember friends.”
“You may remember again,” Mage Dav said. “It is not forbidden among us. Mechanic Mari calls me friend. She saved me from dying where another would have left me.”
“Mechanic Mari,” Mage Hiro said. “I have seen this one, when we came on this ship. You were the Mage who declared her the daughter of the prophecy?” he asked Alain.
“I was the first who saw her so,” Alain said.
“You are not the only. I see her and see the same. If she lives, she has a chance to fulfill the prophecy.”
Alain managed to suppress the fear that statement created inside him. If she lives.
Hiro kept speaking. “There was another. When I was only a boy, barely become an acolyte. A daughter born in the southern lands.”
“I have not heard of this,” Mage Dimitri said.
“You are young,” Hiro said. “And you have not had access to the secrets of the Mage Guild as an elder does. The Guild denies that the prophecy exists even as it hunts those who might fulfill it.”
“What became of that daughter?” Alain asked.
“She died. The records are vague as to who saw her and who betrayed her, but in the end she was alone and slain. Thus did the Mage Guild seek to ensure the prophecy would never come true.”
“Could there have been others?” Mage Asha asked.
“There could have been,” Mage Hiro replied. “It has been long since the prophecy was made, and the Mage Guild has sought to end its threat ever since.”
“The Mechanics Guild does the same,” Alain said. “They sought to kill Master Mechanic Mari even before I met her. They would have succeeded, if not for me.” He did not say it as a boast, but as a statement of what had been, and knew the others would see it that way as well.
“So? This daughter, this shadow, is not alone.” Hiro looked intently at Alain. “She has recognized wisdom and held it close to her. It has saved her, and she has helped you see new wisdom.”
“She has lived because of that,” Alain agreed. “As have I. Alone, I would have died.”
“Alone, both would have died.” Hiro pondered that, his eyes hooded.
&n
A flicker of pain flashed across the face of Mage Tana. “I once— There was a time, Mage Dav, when I had a chance at such wisdom.”
“You are not the only,” Mage Hiro said. “Perhaps all who see such a chance realize the faults in the wisdom of the Guild. Perhaps not.”
“We all follow the words of shadows,” Mage Dav said. “For if what the elders of the Mage Guild teach is the only truth, then they are shadows to us. If all wisdom comes from the illusion that surrounds us, how can the sole reality which is me be the only source of wisdom? Is wisdom but the echo of my own thought, or is there something outside to which I must listen?”
The others looked at Mage Dav with visible respect. “We will follow Mage Alain, and Mage Dav, and learn,” Mage Hiro said.
Mage Tana and Mage Dimitri nodded in agreement.
“Master Mechanic Mari requires that all who follow her treat others as real,” Alain cautioned. “You need not attempt to think of them as real, but they cannot be treated as only shadows.”
“It is odd, but not difficult,” Mage Tana observed. “One of discipline can act as they will, not as habit dictates.”
“Just so,” Mage Dav agreed.
“Excuse me, Mage Alain.” Alain turned to see that Mechanic Alli had approached them. She crouched down so that her eyes were on a level with Alain’s. “I’m not sure how long your talk is going to last, and there is something we need your approval on. Yours or Mari’s, and none of us want to wake her up.”
“What is this something?” Alain asked, aware of how the other Mages were observing without giving outward signs of doing so.
“Calu says the day before we got into Julesport, a Mechanics Guild ship left carrying a lot of Mechanics. It’s a three-masted ship, the Pride of Longfalls. They were headed for Edinton. But it’s being used as a prison ship, collecting and transporting Mechanics to exile. Most of the Mechanics aboard are the sort of people who would likely join with Mari.”
Alain considered that. “Mari needs more Mechanic followers?”
“Yes,” Alli said. “We're going to Tiae to fix the Broken Kingdom, right? That's not going to be easy, even if we find enough common soldiers to deal with the warlords and bandits that have made Tiae a living nightmare. A lot of stuff needs to be done by people. Hands-on work to build things, and Mechanics know how to do that. The more Mechanics we have with us, the more we can get done and the faster we can do it. So if we can overtake that ship, the Pride, and free those Mechanics, it might help a lot.”
“We would have to defeat the guards,” Alain said. “Capture the ship.”
“Right. It’s not risk-free. But the captain of the Gray Lady says the Pride is, uh, square-rigged, and will have to tack back and forth a lot in these winds to head for Edinton. The Lady is square-rigged and fore-and-aft rigged, so she can sail a lot straighter, which means we could probably overtake the Pride in a couple of days.”
“I do not know what square means,” Alain said. “But the captain of the Gray Lady has his own wisdom. I have not seen him err in matters of the sea. If we seek to find the Mechanic ship Pride, does it force us to fight that ship?”
Alli shook her head. “No. It will just put us in a position to do something if Mari decides to. But the captain doesn’t want to alter course to do that unless Mari says so, or unless you say Mari would be all right with it.”
“Tell the captain that Mage Alain agrees with the wisdom of what you wish to do,” Alain said.
“Great. Thanks.” Alli straightened with a grin that changed to an uncertain look as she nodded to the other Mages and walked aft again.
Mage Tana spoke softly. “The Mechanic spoke to you as an elder. She sought your approval and accepted your authority.”
“Mechanic Alli helped save Mage Alain from the Dark Mages,” Mage Asha said. “She is…different, but she has a wisdom of her own. She will return in kind whatever is given her.”
“Given?” Tana puzzled over that. “There is much to think on.”
* * * *
Alain spent much of the day regaining his strength and thinking, sitting on deck with his back against the door to the cabin where Mari still slept the sleep of exhaustion. While the Mechanics he could see and hear were clearly happy, and the other Mages remained in deep discussion or meditation, Alain’s thoughts were dark.
If she lives.
There was another…she died.
He remembered Mari’s face when he told her that she was the daughter. What had she said? Something about her life being worth only dust because of all those who would want the daughter dead. He had felt awful then, but mainly because of how his words had distressed Mari. He had not wanted to think too much about the fact that her words were also true.
But it was getting difficult to ignore. Mari’s dreams were often troubled now, and when she would speak of them she would talk of assassins and death stalking her and her friends. How much comfort could he offer when those dreams were not fantasies but a reflection of the dangers Mari and her friends actually faced?
He could change small parts of the world illusion for short times, but he could not change that.
“Are you all right?”
Alain looked up to see Mechanic Bev nearby. He had long been able to tell that Bev held some secret inside, some pain that she would not share with others. But now she stood eyeing him with concern.
“I am…all right,” Alain said.
“You know,” she said, “there are a lot of jokes about how much Mages lie, but I never actually caught one at it before. What is it? Is Mari all right?”
“Mari is well. Just tired. And worried.”
“Do you mind?” Bev sat down beside him, looking out across the deck. “Mari spends most of her time worrying about the rest of us, and you, and how she’s supposed to make this prophecy come true before the world blows up. Every once in a while she stops to think about what might happen to her personally and she gets really scared. I can see it. I don’t blame her. I couldn’t handle it if it was me. But she’s got you. So it worries me a bit when I see you looking scared.”
“You saw—?”
“I could tell. I doubt anyone else could. Maybe another one of you Mages.” Bev sighed. “It’s easy to be scared. To be so scared you don’t know how to face it. I know. But you have to keep going.”
“I know this,” Alain said. “Sometimes it is hard.”
“Sometimes it is very hard,” Bev said. “You need to be honest with Mari when it is. She thinks you’re built of the finest steel alloy and can’t crack. But nobody is that strong.”
“You are right,” Alain said. “Nobody can stand alone.”
“Nobody,” Bev whispered. “Here I am giving you good advice that I can’t follow myself. There’s something I can’t talk about to people. Not even Mari. But maybe I really sat down here because I have to say something to somebody. I’ve heard about the kind of hell you went through when you were an acolyte. So maybe you’d understand.”
Alain simply nodded, waiting.
“The Senior Mechanics run the Mechanics Guild,” Bev said in a very low voice, her eyes on the deck now. “They make the rules and they’re supposed to enforce the rules. Maybe you’ve already heard how much they abuse that power. At the Guild Hall in Emdin where I was an apprentice…” She paused for a long moment. “They lost control of themselves. Completely lost control. They started—”
Bev paused again, swallowing. “It was physical, you know? Not just beatings. I could handle that. Other stuff. And being told it was our duty as apprentices to do everything we were told, to keep quiet about it, to just submit.”
“They did this not to teach, but to harm?” Alain asked.
“Oh, they were teaching us stuff,” Bev said. “Stuff about how little we mattered, how we were just toys for them, how the people in charge could do anything they wanted and we had to go along with it.”
“Mechanic Alli said something about Emdin.”
“Yeah. Rumors got out eventually, and then three apprentices committed suicide. Not one by one but all at once. That got the attention of the Guild Headquarters at Palandur, which had somehow avoided seeing anything before that. They had to do something, and there are some Senior Mechanics who aren’t monsters. They pushed for an investigation.”
Alain waited.
“So,” Bev continued, her eyes still on the deck, “investigators came and talked to us and heard everything. And then some of the Senior Mechanics at Emdin were sent to other Guild Halls, and some of the apprentices were sent to other Guild Halls, and all of us were sworn to secrecy and told that if we ever said anything then every single detail would come out and we wouldn’t want that, would we? For everyone to know everything that had been done to us?”
“There was no punishment of the elders, of the Senior Mechanics?” said Alain.
“No. For the good of the Guild. Had to keep it quiet. What would the Mage Guild have done? Does that sort of thing happen there?”
Alain shook his head. “No. Not the same. The elders and the Mages who teach acolytes would beat us. They would inflict harm, and withhold food and water, and leave us to stand freezing in the winter. To enable us to ignore the world illusion, you see. It had a purpose. Sometimes an elder or a Mage would be…too enthusiastic. They would beat and harm in ways that could cause permanent damage. That was not allowed, and they would be sent away, not allowed to teach anymore.”
“But what about other stuff? Did acolytes ever get abused?”
“It is different,” Alain said, trying to find the words to explain. “Mages are taught that physical relations do not matter except that they are distractions from wisdom. They should be satisfied as quickly and efficiently as possible. And then move on and focus once again on the wisdom that says others do not matter.”
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