“She’s got a revolver! Where was that supposed to have come from?”
“I don’t make policy,” Hal said. “If I did-”
“Don’t,” Gayl warned. “You don’t want to be associated with Grand Master Bran’s faction.”
“Bran has some good points about the need to accommodate some changes and-”
“And be less harsh toward the commons! And he’s running straight down a track to a collision with Grand Masters Fern and Ulan! You don’t want to be one of the casualties when those two locomotives collide!”
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” Hal muttered.
“A few people have already disappeared. I don’t want you to be one of them.” As if suddenly remembering others were present, Gayl cast a glance toward Jules.
But Jules had kept her eyes down to avoid seeming like she was listening.
“Drive around!” Mechanic Hal ordered the carriage driver. “We’re going to the harbor and we’re not going to wait on Mages!”
At this hour, even in a big city like Sandurin, traffic to the harbor wasn’t backed up far. Jules heard other drivers shouting angrily at the carriage driver as he rolled past them, only to be silenced when their driver indicated that he had Mechanics as passengers.
“What are you even doing in this city?” Mechanic Hal demanded of Jules. “I thought you were smart enough to avoid putting yourself in the lap of the Mages and the Emperor.”
“I had a task to do, Sir Mechanic.”
“What task?”
“Rescuing people who are trying to escape the Empire.”
The Mechanic grinned. “Rescuing them right out from under his nose? That’ll certainly upset the Emperor and keep his attention on you. You are clever. You’re doing that all by yourself?”
“I have friends at the harbor, Sir Mechanic,” Jules said. Clever. The sort of thing someone said to a child who’d done something better than expected. Not smart or capable, she thought. Clever. And that was from the Mechanic who seemed most considerate toward her. But then anything short of withering contempt toward a common was considerate for a Mechanic.
“We probably shouldn’t know any more about this than we have to,” Mechanic Gayl said. “Not if the Guild is officially not supposed to be involved.”
“You’re right,” Mechanic Hal said.
“Stars above, you’re actually listening to me for once! This must be a day for miracles.”
The carriage halted. “I have orders, Sir Mage,” the driver could be heard saying, his voice quivering with fear.
“Let’s make sure they don’t look in here. Mages should know better than to interfere with Mechanics.” Hal went out the door, closing it behind him. As Jules waited, tense, she saw Gayl looking at her. The female Mechanic mimed using a pistol. Jules nodded and drew out the weapon, ready in case it was needed.
The sound of the rain and the wind made it hard to hear what was happening outside. Jules put her ear to the window covering, listening.
“-out of the way now!” Hal was saying.
Then something she couldn’t hear, though the emotionless tones came through enough to make it clear a Mage was replying.
“You won’t search us and you won’t search our carriage. You don’t give orders to the Mechanics Guild.”
Another short inaudible reply.
“We’re driving through. If you try to stop us, there’ll be trouble. We’re not commons. We’re not afraid of your tricks!”
Hal came back inside, sitting down and breathing out heavily. He grinned at Gayl, tense. “Let’s see.” He glanced at Jules. “You might still have to use that.”
“They didn’t back down?” Gayl asked.
“I don’t know. How can you tell? The one I talked to just turned away. That might mean they won’t fight. I saw three or four here. If they’ve got all roads to the harbor blocked, every Mage in Sandurin must be out and they must have called in extra Mages from elsewhere to help.” Hal looked at Jules again. “They really seem to believe their own fortune-telling.”
“Lucky me,” Jules said.
Hal smiled. “Driver! Go ahead!”
Jules wondered how badly that driver was shaking was fear as he urged the horses back into motion.
They moved ahead, the carriage gradually picking up speed.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you all right?” she murmured to Lil, who was huddled next to her.
“Yes, Lady.”
Jules laughed. “I told you that I’m a pirate.”
“Yes, Lady Pirate.”
The carriage halted. Hal opened the door, looking out cautiously. “We’re at the waterfront. No Mages in sight. J— What was it?”
“Jules, Sir Mechanic.” Mechanics were supposed to be so smart, but none of them could remember her name.
“You and that other common follow me out. Gayl, watch our backs. We’ll go right down to the boat waiting at the landing.”
“Go ahead, hero,” Gayl said.
Jules reached behind her to holster her pistol and jumped out of the carriage, back into the storm, the cold, the wind, and the slapping rain. She helped Lil down as well, once again helping her walk down stairs. The stone steps leading to the landing were slippery from the rain, forcing Jules to concentrate on her feet rather than looking around. It would have been a lot easier if either of the Mechanics had helped get Lil down the stairs, but neither one did, of course.
A harbor boat at the landing held a couple of miserable-looking rowers and a woman at the tiller. Mechanic Hal waited until Jules and Lil were in the bow of the boat before joining them with Mechanic Gayl. “Where’s your ship?”
Jules looked around, trying to orient herself. There were the unnaturally steady lights of the Mechanic ship, impossible to mistake. Up there were the lights of the fort atop the harbor wall. Which meant the Sun Queen was tied up… “Over there, Sir Mechanic. I can’t see it yet, but it’s that way.”
“Go that way,” Hal told the woman at the tiller.
“Sir Mechanic, your ship is over-”
“Did we ask you to tell us where our ship was?” Gayl demanded.
“No, Lady Mechanic.”
The group fell silent except for the splash of the oars, Jules gazing anxiously ahead.
“How’s your math?” Mechanic Gayl suddenly asked.
Jules looked, seeing the question was directed at her.
How should she answer? Jules remembered what Lady Mechanic Gin had said after her first meeting with Mechanics. Learning that Jules had more education than the Mechanics had thought, Gin had given her what was either a warning to stay quiet about it or an implied threat of what could happen to a common who was too smart for her own good. Whether it had been a warning or a threat, Jules decided it’d be smart to downplay her abilities to Mechanics from now on. “I know my numbers, Lady Mechanic.”
“That’s all?” Gayl shrugged, huddled under the rain, looking at Hal. “I don’t know what you see in her.”
“She’s not my mistress,” Hal said. “Look at her! Sooner or later she’d knife me.”
“Yeah. You can’t trust commons. Thank you for talking sensibly for once,” Mechanic Gayl said. She glanced at Jules again and caught her looking this time. “You don’t like hearing that, do you? But you’re our enemy. You’re happy knowing that daughter of your line is supposedly going to overthrow our Guild.”
“You’ll help,” Jules said, unable to stop herself.
“What?”
“The prophecy said the daughter of my line will unite Mechanics, Mages, and common folk to overthrow the Great Guilds.”
Gayl stared at her. “You believe that?”
“The Mages do. Even though it says they’ll also help her.”
“Why would the Mages say something like that?” Mechanic Gayl asked Mechanic Hal. “Unless they’re referring to internal dissension in the Mechanics Guild that’ll open the door for commons to attack,” she added pointedly.
“The Mages don’t k
now anything about internal Mechanics Guild matters,” Hal said. “And even if they did, it’d be wishful thinking for them that any Mechanic would further their aims, or those of the commons. Every Mechanic is faithful to the Guild, and Mages are all crazy,” Hal added. “Who can even talk to them?”
“I did,” Jules said, unable to understand why she was saying so much. Maybe despite her worries she wanted these Mechanics to respect her. To feel less smug about themselves and their place in the world. “I talked with a Mage. He was dying. An old man. And he told me things.”
“What did he say?” Mechanic Hal asked, hunching closer, rain dripping from his hair and face.
“He said…he said everything is an illusion and everybody is just a shadow.”
“That’s the sort of craziness I’d expect from a Mage, but I’ve never heard of a Mage saying even that much to anyone,” Hal said. “You’re sure he said that?”
“Yes, Sir Mechanic,” Jules said.
“What else did he tell you?”
“Nothing. I asked him a lot more but he just kept saying I had to find the answers inside me rather than expecting someone else to tell me those answers.”
Mechanic Gayl shook her head. “You must have asked the wrong questions. How do you like that? The only Mage anyone could talk to, and a common got the privilege. If only one of us could have interrogated that guy and gotten more useful information out of him.”
“There it is,” Jules said as the hull of the Sun Queen loomed out of the rain like a wooden wall rising from the harbor’s waters, relieved both to reach the ship and to have an opportunity to get out of the helpful but condescending company of the two Mechanics. Still, without them she’d be trapped outside the harbor, facing a cordon of Mages. “Sir Mechanic, Lady Mechanic, thank you. I owe you my life.”
“Don’t speak of this,” Hal warned her.
“Yeah,” Gayl said. “We don’t need Senior Mechanics giving us loyalty quizzes.”
As the boat came alongside the Sun Queen on the side away from the pier, Jules called up. “On the Queen! We need a ladder!”
Startled faces looked down on her over the railing. “Captain, she’s back!”
A Jaycob ladder came down in a fall of wooden steps and rope supports. Jules sent Lil up first, pushing to help her up until those on deck could grab her hands. “She needs to see Keli right away!” Jules called. She put her hand and foot on the ladder, turning back to see the Mechanics watching her. “Thank you,” she said again, before beginning her climb, but neither one answered her.
What was the matter with her? Jules thought as she climbed. Confiding in Mechanics. Telling them things she didn’t have to tell them. Trusting them. Practically every word they’d spoken to her had dripped with contempt, with their own assured superiority over her. They weren’t friends. They never could be. They were, barely, allies of convenience in an arrangement that could be ended at any moment.
But those same two Mechanics had just saved her life.
Had there actually been a time when her life made sense? Or had she just been oblivious to how bizarre life really was?
On deck, Jules looked to see the boat already vanishing into the rain, on its way to the Mechanic ship.
“How’d you do it this time?” Captain Mak said from close by, the rain running in little rivers down his face and his oilskin.
“I guess I’m fated to live until I have that kid,” Jules said.
“You promised to be careful.”
“And I was, sir. Every step of the way.”
Mak shook his head. “Were those really Mechanics in that boat?”
“Yes, sir. They got us through the Mages blocking access to the harbor.”
“Friends of yours?”
“They’d be the first to tell you they couldn’t be friends with a common,” Jules said.
“That’s what I thought. We’ll talk more later. Right now we need to get out of Sandurin. There are Mages at the head of the pier. They showed up a while ago, but they seem to be waiting for something. We have to get out of here before they come down the pier to search us and the other ships.”
She followed Captain Mak up onto the quarterdeck, the wind whipping at her. The crew was already taking in the lines tying the Sun Queen to the pier, but as Jules looked out over the harbor, she could hardly see anything in the pre-dawn murk. “Sir, maybe we should wait. It’s going to be really hazardous navigating when we can’t see past our own noses.”
“I don’t think waiting any longer is an option,” Mak said. “Look down the pier.”
She did, where storm lanterns provided some light that allowed more visibility. Figures moved on the pier. Figures wearing robes, coming this way.
Mages.
Had they sensed her arrival here somehow? Or just seen the boat pull alongside the Sun Queen and put two and two together?
The last lines taken in, the Sun Queen broke away from the pier, the wind pushing her away, as the crew fought against wind and rain to get the sails unfurled.
Jules stood by the rail, leaning out to try to see a little better, watching the Mages get closer, seeing one of them stop moving as the others kept coming.
The rail she was leaning on vanished.
Jules twisted her body wildly. The support she’d been leaning on gone, she was toppling over the side, grabbing frantically for anything that might stop her fall.
Another hand grabbed hers, her wet fingers slipping through that grasp.
Chapter Thirteen
Jules shouted a wordless cry, lunging to grab on to the arm again, this time the grip holding, her feet precariously on the deck, most of her body suspended over the water, her arms reaching back to hold onto the person who was taking her weight.
Captain Mak hauled her fully back on deck, breathing heavily from the sudden exertion. “I can’t take my eyes off of you for a moment, can I, Jules?”
“Sorry, sir.” Jules blinked rain out of her eyes, staring. Had she just seen the missing section of railing suddenly reappear in the air, to fall unsupported into the waters of the harbor? A long gap remained in the previously sturdy rail.
The Sun Queen swung about, the crew hauling on the lines to catch the wind. Jules, standing back from the railing at the rear of the quarterdeck, swung herself around as well to keep her eyes on the Mages who had reached the closest point on the pier to the ship. They stood in a group. Watching her.
It felt very oddly like when the legionaries at Saraston had stood on the pier, aiming crossbows at her.
Aiming.
“Get down!” Jules yelled. “Mak, get down!”
She grabbed his hand as she dropped, pulling him with her, seeing the sailor at the helm dropping to the deck as well at the frantic warning.
Intense heat bloomed just above her and the captain, as if the air from a roaring bonfire, or even hotter, had suddenly appeared in that spot.
The rain falling through the air above Jules vanished into a cloud of steam like that from a boiling pot.
Part of the wooden helm caught fire, spokes of the wooden wheel flickering with flames.
The back of Mak’s oilskin blackened from the heat above it.
But the sensation of intense heat dissipated rapidly, blown away by the wind and more rain falling through the place where it had been.
Together, she, Mak, and the sailor at the helm beat at the burning part of the helm, aiding by the rain and the wet wood in rapidly putting out the fire. “What was that?” Jules asked Mak.
“The heat? I’ve heard Mages can do that, but I’ve never encountered it before.”
“Why did they make that railing disappear instead of my head?” Jules said.
“No idea. Why not kill you directly? We’d have to go back and ask.”
“No, thanks.” Jules looked off the stern again. The pier had vanished in the gloom as the Sun Queen got farther away and picked up speed. The Mages were no longer visible.
“They say if a Mage can’t see you, a Mage can�
�t hurt you,” Captain Mak said, standing beside her again.
“I hope that’s true,” Jules said. “Thanks for saving me from falling.”
“Thanks for saving me from being burnt like overdone bacon,” he said. “And for finally just calling me Mak.”
“It was an emergency, sir.”
“And there we go again.” Mak waved forward. “Get up to the bow and see if you can spot any buoys.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Blazes, girl! You do that on purpose!”
“No, sir. I really don’t, sir.” Jules ran down the ladder and forward, splashing along the deck, narrowly avoiding slamming into the foremast when it loomed up suddenly before her.
She advanced cautiously along the bowsprit, only too aware of her slick leather bootsoles and wishing she’d thought to remove them. Having probably already run through several lives’ worth of luck this evening alone, Jules kept a tight grip on the stays as she advanced.
When she’d gone as far forward as she dared, Jules hung on to the nearest stay, listening and staring into the dark, blinking constantly as the rain fell into her eyes.
The clong of a bell came from close to her right, to starboard. The wrong side when they were leaving the harbor. “We’re too far to port! Come starboard!”
The Sun Queen swayed beneath her as the helm went over, turning the ship. Jules caught a brief glimpse of the buoy passing just under the bow as the ship went past. “Bring her back about one point to port!”
Another clang of a buoy bell, just to her left. Good. They were in the channel.
A sheet of rain swept by, blinding her for a moment. As Jules wiped the water from her eyes, she thought the skies above might be just a tiny bit brighter as dawn approached.
An anchor lantern on another ship came into sight to starboard, dim and wavering like the light of a ghost ship. Jules watched it as long as she could, trying to judge the movement of the Sun Queen by that marker.
Another buoy, this one appearing out of the gloom right under the bow, hitting and scraping along the hull. “Take her a point to starboard! We’re too far to port again!”
It seemed to be taking a lot longer to leave Sandurin than it had to enter.
Pirate of the Prophecy Page 27