“What would I be if I was not serious?”
“You’re saying that I put a spell on you that controls your thoughts and actions?”
“Why else am I here?” the Mage asked.
“Because it was the right thing to do!”
“The…what? I am still uncertain about what right thing means— ” The trace of puzzlement had returned to him.
“Listen…Mage Alain! I don’t…put spells on boys! Or men! Or anybody! I have no idea why you think that you are thinking about me, but I assure you that it has nothing to do with me thinking about you or making you think that you want to think about me!”
Mage Alain looked back at her for a while before speaking. “I could not follow all of that.”
She gazed at him, feeling helpless. “All right. In short, whatever you are thinking or doing is all from you. I have nothing to do with it.”
“Then why does the thread link us? Why is it you I think about? Why is it you I want to help? This does not happen with others. Only with you.”
Oh, no. A Mage was crushing on her. What had she ever done to deserve ending up in a dungeon with a Mage who was crushing on her? Why couldn’t Alli be here to help her explain things? Alli understood boys and men. Better than Mari did, anyway. What would Alli say to Mage Alain? “It’s not anything that I did. All right, maybe what I did were things you liked. But I didn’t do them to make you think about me or to make you do things.”
“Liked?” Alain asked. “I am also still unsure as to what that means.”
Stars above. Better makes this as simple as possible. “It’s because…you’re a boy.” Mari chose her words carefully. “And sometimes boys get…interested in a particular girl, and maybe, for some totally inexplicable reason that completely escapes me, you…got interested in me.”
The Mage actually frowned as he thought about what she had said. Then his expression cleared. “Love.”
She stared at him, amazed and appalled. “What?”
“We were warned about love by the elders,” Alain explained without any feeling in his voice. “It is a very serious error.”
“Yes,” Mari quickly agreed. “They were right. You don’t even want to think about…about that.”
“But what is it?” Mage Alain asked. “Is thinking about someone love?”
“No! Whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t that.”
“Why are you concerned? You are much more alarmed. Do you sense that enemies are near?”
“Yes,” Mari said. “That must be it. But I don’t hear anything now, so I can relax. Let’s both relax. Hey, I know. Let’s talk about something else.”
Alain sat, his eyes hooded in thought. “You are difficult.”
“Yes. We already established that.”
“Do you experience love with other Mechanics?” Alain asked the question in the same way someone else would have asked whether it was going to rain today.
Mari took a deep breath. “No. Not that it’s any of your business. But, no.”
“Because you are difficult,” he deduced.
“That probably has something to do with it, yes. Is there a point to this?”
“You are a challenge,” Alain concluded triumphantly. “Something I must overcome.”
“Uh…that’s not exactly the greatest compliment that I’ve ever received, but if it helps you figure out that you’re not in…love…then great.” How could she get him off this entire line of thought? While also hopefully making it clear that she wasn’t interested in that kind of thing with a Mage, even if that Mage was Alain? That they had no possible future together? “Um, I don’t know what your marching orders are, but I was told not to have any more contact with you.”
Alain nodded dispassionately. “I was told not to have any more contact with you, as well.”
“That’s a…a real shame. I mean, that we won’t see each other again after we get out of here,” Mari said, trying to sound regretful rather than grateful. To her own surprise, she didn’t have to try very hard. In fact, she sort of did feel regretful and not at all grateful. What was that about?
“I have already acted against my instructions,” Mage Alain said. “By being here.”
“I can’t say that I’m sorry you came here,” Mari admitted. She felt bad now. Bad about maybe somehow leading on Alain, bad about rebuffing him after he had just gotten her out of a cell, and bad thinking about what his upbringing in a Mage Guild Hall must have been like for so many things to be unfamiliar to him. “And I doubt that I’ll admit to my Guild Hall Supervisor that I was in contact with you again. I guess neither one of us is very good at following orders.”
He nodded in solemn agreement. “No, Master Mechanic Mari, we are not good at following orders.”
Mari couldn’t help grinning at him. If only Alain wasn’t a Mage. The more she learned about him, the more she liked him. But she really still knew very little. “You haven’t lied to me, have you?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Why not? Everybody knows how Mages are. You’ve been honest with me about…well, about what you’re thinking.” That was what had made his statements to her so disconcerting, she realized. This wasn’t some smooth-talking Mechanic looking to score another notch in his belt and willing to say anything that would further that. No. Alain just said things, speaking his mind rather than hiding behind politeness or social games. He doesn’t seem to understand, or has never been taught, all of the ways people use to avoid saying what they really think. Not that I want to pursue whatever he’s thinking or feeling… Feeling. He never talks about feeling anything. That’s what he hides. He doesn’t hide thoughts. He hides feelings the way the rest of us hide our thoughts. “Um…anyway, I haven’t caught you in a lie yet. You do things I can’t explain with the science I know. I have an irrational inclination to believe you. Why?”
She could have sworn that the Mage almost smiled. “Perhaps you are a good judge of character.”
For somebody who never showed emotion, he could be really charming. “Oh, yeah, that’s it.”
“But,” Alain continued, “truth and falsehood do not mean the same thing to one trained in the Mage arts. If all we see is false, where is truth to be found? If the people we think we see are but shadows of the world illusion, what matter what we tell them? It becomes not a matter of truth and lies, but a question of whether either matters. The choice of what to do is mine.”
Mari watched the Mage, but he seemed to be perfectly serious again. “That sounds like a good excuse for doing whatever you want to do.”
“It can easily become exactly that,” the Mage agreed. “But…” He seemed to be struggling for words. “I do not follow that road.”
That was a relief to hear. No wonder other Mages were infamous for just grabbing any woman who took their momentary fancy.
With all that she had been taught about Mages, all of the stories she had heard, why hadn’t she felt revulsion at the idea that Alain was attracted to her? Because he was Alain, Mari realized. He had stopped being just a Mage. He was a person to her. A wounded person. And she really did like that person.
Maybe to such a person, taught to hide feelings, the mildest forms of companionship, of liking, would seem overwhelming. Maybe all he needed, all he wanted, was a friend.
She could do that.
“Good for you, Mage Alain,” Mari finally said. “Truth matters to me. So does being willing to stick your neck out for someone else, and you’ve certainly done that for me. But if you’re going to be my friend you’ll have to make sure you don’t tell me any lies. We have to be honest with each other.”
Alain frowned very slightly. “I do not know how to do that. I can only be what I am.”
“That’s good. That’s fine. If that’s who you’ve been up until now, just keep being you. How’s the resting coming?”
* * * *
“I am recovering.” Alain shrugged, wondering why this conversation with the Mechanic had become complicated at times. “If I were older
His words made her smile slightly. “I’d say we’re both lucky you’re who you are.” She settled back again, holding her strange hand weapon pointed upward, closing her eyes and letting her face settle into lines of pain and fatigue. Alain was not surprised by the pain she showed. He had seen the back of her head and the blood matted into the hair there. Unfortunately, he had no training in the healers’ arts. But if he ever encountered the person who had struck Mechanic Mari like that, Alain knew he would use the skills he did have to even the score. He did not know why he resolved to do that, but he did.
At least he was fairly sure that his reason was not love. Whatever love was, other than something to be avoided. Master Mechanic Mari had shown clear signs of being concerned when Alain spoke of it, and had denied experiencing love with other Mechanics, so perhaps Mechanics also were warned to avoid love. It must be a very dangerous thing.
She had mentioned something else, though. He watched her as he sat, trying to rebuild his strength, thinking about her words. “Master Mechanic Mari, could you…”
“What? Are you all right?” She opened her eyes, concern there again. It was so easy to see her feelings, yet something always remained unseen. Alain could not understand that, either.
“Yes. You said I could be…friend?”
“Sure. It’s a little weird. Maybe a lot weird. But you’re all right, Mage Alain.”
“What is being your friend?”
She showed that expression again, the one that seemed sad but also something else, the one that always made her look somewhere else for a moment. This time she blinked her eyes rapidly, too. “Why are you a Mage?” Mari asked abruptly. “Did you go volunteer or something?”
“Mages came to my home, when I was much younger. I was taken by them to the Guild Hall.”
“Oh.” The Mechanic looked at the floor this time. “Not your choice, then.”
“No. It was what had to be, because I had the talent.”
“Yeah,” she whispered, seeming distressed about something else for a moment, then took a deep breath and smiled at him again, though Alain could still see a hurt behind the smile. “All right. Uh, a friend is someone who did what you did, coming to help me, and don’t think I’m not very grateful for that, whether we manage to get out of here or not. A friend helps you, hangs around with you, not because they have to do that, but because they want to do that. A friend is someone you think about sometimes and want to do things for.” She added the last with a smile that seemed oddly strained.
Alain thought carefully. Did that violate the teachings of the Mage Guild? Yes. But maybe not. It depended on why he did those things. As long as he continued to know this girl was a shadow, what difference did it make if he chose to help her? To think of her? If you helped a shadow, someone who did not exist, the act itself must be an illusion as well. “I can do that.”
“Well, good.” She was doing that other thing now, as if he had said something intended to evoke humor in her. “You sound real enthusiastic about it.”
“I always sound the same.”
“I had noticed that,” the Mechanic replied with another smile, one which grew anxious as she watched him. “What?”
“There is something wrong?”
“You were looking at me like…I don’t know.” Mari firmed her smile. “When we get a chance, we ought to talk more about what friends are. And what they aren’t.”
Perhaps he thought about her so much because the things she said were often so hard to comprehend. “Why do I need to know what something is not?”
“Because…you wouldn’t want to believe that something that wasn’t real actually was real, would you?”
Alain gazed at Mari, thinking that perhaps his surprise had shown. “That is an argument worthy of a Mage. It shows wisdom. I knew you were not like other Mechanics.”
Mari appeared to be at a loss for words. “I meant…maybe I shouldn’t say anything else.”
Something occurred to him, an explanation for the inexplicable. “The thread. Is that because you are friend? I have never heard of such a thing as the thread, but I know of no other Mage with friend.”
“Maybe… Maybe that is it,” she said, considering the idea. “Maybe when Mages make friends they see it as something like that. Like a connection to someone else.”
A soft noise came from outside the room. Both froze, then Mari cautiously looked around the door, her weapon held ready. “Probably just a rat,” she finally whispered. She gave him another look, a question in her eyes.
Every moment they waited was necessary to regain his strength, but every moment also increased the risk to them. He came slowly to his feet, testing his strength as he did so. There was plenty of power in this area to draw on, which would make his task a little easier. Was it enough? He looked toward Mechanic Mari, watching him with worry and hope easy to see in her expression, and suddenly he felt enough strength, almost as if it had come to him along that thread between them even though it had not. But this surge of strength did seem to be related to the thread in some strange way. “I am ready to attempt the alarm. We must go. I do not know how close to morning it now is.”
The Mechanic gave him another concerned look. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
She had been extra careful with him ever since he had almost fallen. That bothered Alain, although he tried not to show it. It was oddly as if Mechanic Mari were an elder whom he did not want to disappoint. “I do not need more rest.”
“All right.” She stood up, wincing at what must be renewed pain in her head.
He did not feel it as he had when his foresight worked, but still Alain felt a strange urge to wince himself. “I must lead the way through the alarm.”
“Have I been leading?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I do that. I don’t mean to.”
“It is not a difficult thing about you,” Alain told her, and to his surprise was rewarded by another of her smiles. “You lead well.”
Was that a friend thing, to want to see her smile?
Her smile was distracting, though, and he needed to concentrate. Alain led the way back toward the door with the Mage alarm, Mechanic Mari staying close behind him. Focusing his Mage senses, Alain could see the alarm as fine strands of suspended power drifting across the hallway like filaments of spider web. Touch one and the power in it would be released, creating a change that would be felt by a Dark Mage somewhere. An alarm spell, like all spells, was temporary, though the drain on the power locked in it was so small that it could last for a month before dissipating. This one felt a couple of weeks old and still strong enough to be a worry.
Alain drew upon the power here, channeling it with his own energy, using that power to gently push away the strands to either side so that a path lay clear down the middle. That temporary minor alteration in the alarm spell should be invisible to the Dark Mage who had placed it. “Follow closely and directly behind me,” Alain instructed, stepping forward. He walked steadily down the open path, watching for any strands that threatened to drift back in front of them. “We are past it.”
The Mechanic stared back along the way they had come, her expression baffled. Then she shook her head and knelt down at the door barring their way. Alain braced himself, wondering if he could find the resources inside to open a hole in this door. But instead of asking for his assistance, Mechanic Mari pulled open her bag and began to extract strange items which she started using on the door near what she called the lock. Alain watched her work, trying to grasp what she was doing and not understanding any of it.
Somehow she easily loosened pieces from the apparently solid block of metal and began piling them on the floor. Finally there came a metallic click and a pleased exclamation from the Mechanic. “It’s open.” Then she began picking up the loose pieces and returning them to the lock, where by mysterious means she fastened them into place again, forming it back into a single piece of metal. “Good as new, but unlocked now.”
“How did you do that?” Alain asked. “It held the illusion of being whole, then it was in pieces, then you made it appear whole again, but I felt no power being employed.”
She looked up at him with another smile. “Guild secret. And elbow grease.”
“You used those weapons.”
Mari frowned in puzzlement, then glanced down at what she still held, something that looked like a knife with a round blade and a point that had notches in it. “This is a screwdriver. Those are wrenches. They…” She paused, her eyes growing shadowed. “They’re tools. They could be used as weapons, I guess. Mage Alain, tools can build things, and help people. Or they can destroy things, and hurt people. It’s my responsibility to use my tools wisely.”
“Do all Mechanics believe that?” Alain asked.
Another pause, then Mari sighed. “I had instructors who told me the importance of using my tools wisely, and others who said it didn’t matter. I think it matters.”
Alain thought about that, trying to understand. “Then your tools are so important to you because of the things you choose to do with them?”
She gave him a startled look. “Yes. That’s exactly right.” Mari finished putting away the objects she had been using. “Let’s see what’s on the other side of this door.”
The door swung open under the Mechanic’s push, she edging through with the hand weapon pointed forward. They found themselves in a short hallway ending in another locked door, with rooms on either side. Mari glanced back at him questioningly. “Are there any of those alarms here?”
Alain studied the hall, walking slowly down it. “I see none.”
“Good.” She pointed upward, at a small metal object on the ceiling. “That’s a Mechanic device, but it’s just a smoke-sniffer. It sounds an alert if there’s a fire. Not exactly cheap, but with everything Ringhmon has in this building, they sure wouldn’t want an uncontrolled fire starting down here.” Mari grimaced. “I hate to think what they do with fire down in this dungeon that they are worried about it spreading. Probably something involving hot metal applied to human skin.”
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