Fate of the Free Lands

by Jack Campbell

  “Maybe they’re looking for those Mages that attacked the Emperor’s soldiers!”

  “They’re looking for the girl,” a woman chimed in. “My brother is with the police. Find the girl of the prophecy. That’s their orders.”

  “Why wouldn’t she turn herself in?” the first man asked.

  “Maybe the Mages were able to do something even though they couldn’t kill her,” the woman suggested. “Take over her mind. Mages can do that.”

  “Why not just kill her?” the second man said.

  “Are you asking me why Mages are doing one thing and not another?” the woman demanded. “Nobody knows how they think.”

  Jules, resisting the urge to ask all three why it didn’t occur to them that the “girl” might not want to end up in the hands (and the bed) of the Emperor, drained the flask and pushed off into the morning crowds. At least she’d learned that the police were definitely searching for her.

  Holding a second pastry next to her mouth as if nibbling it as she walked, which served to hide the lower half of her face under the hood , Jules took a wide main street heading east. A secondary street might have been less likely to be watched, but the crowds were bigger here and easier to get lost in.

  Wagons, coaches, and carts traveled both ways down the center of the street, the horses pulling them looking resigned to their fate as they ignored most of the people walking past. An occasional carriage bearing a high-ranking Imperial official or rich merchant stood out due to the high-stepping pair of horses drawing it. Chickens and pigs in cages on some of the carts and wagons eyed the people in the street, unaware that they were headed for a butcher shop and eventually the kitchens of some of those people. People called to each other in the Landfall accent that Jules had grown up hearing. The air held the mingled scents of manure, massed humanity, sweaty horses, burning coal and wood, and the occasional waft of food cooking. It was all enough to make Jules a bit homesick for the city even though she’d never wanted to return here.

  Any growing feelings of being home vanished as a wagon carrying Imperial police rattled through the crowds, bypassing the other horse-drawn conveyances, the people on foot scattering to make way. Because that was part of the bargain that Imperial citizens had to live with regardless of whether or not they liked it: the Empire gave them stability and rules and security, and in return the citizens were expected to follow all the rules and do as they were told.

  She’d gone three long blocks east before Jules spotted legionary armor ahead and the dark red of an Imperial officer’s uniform. Looking through the crowd, she saw the legionaries moving portable barriers into place to establish a checkpoint. Citizens were already obediently forming into a wide queue to pass through, knowing that trying to avoid the checkpoint would attract attention from the Imperial soldiers.

  Jules glanced around, seeing that the side roads were also being blocked off. The legions were efficient in all they did.

  I’m not trapped yet. Stay calm and think. She paused as if reading a sign in the window of a business, trying to decide whether she could hide inside one of the nearby buildings until the checkpoint was moved.

  Maybe she could still unobtrusively start walking the other way.

  But when Jules turned about she saw four Mages coming down the street, easy to spot not only because of their distinctive robes, but because of the wide, empty area around them as every common person tried to avoid getting too close to or in the way of the Mages.

  As the old saying went, she was trapped between a brick wall and a bull.

  Did the Mages already know she was on this street, or were they looking for her? Jules saw the Mages paying an unusual amount of attention to the people around them, making those people extremely nervous. It was a search then. They hadn’t spotted her yet.

  Jules took another look at the checkpoint in the other direction, seeing the orderly queue formed by the citizens moving forward at a snail’s pace. She’d never get past that checkpoint undetected by the legionaries.

  Unless the legionaries had something else to worry about. Something big.

  Maybe the best way out of this was to let the Mages see her.

  Knowing her chances were dwindling by the moment, Jules turned to fully face the oncoming Mages, who were still a ways down the street. Partly lowering the hood of her cloak, she looked directly at the Mages.

  No common ever looked straight at a Mage. No common wanted the attention that might attract from a Mage.

  The Mages noticed, two of them pausing to look back at Jules across the distance separating them.

  She didn’t think the Mages could recognize her from this far away, but had learned that Mages could somehow tell she was the woman of the prophecy just by laying eyes on her. Some Mages could do that, anyway.

  And at least one of these Mages must have had that ability, because all four suddenly began moving fast, running toward Jules as frantic citizens scattered out of their path.

  Hoping she hadn’t just doomed herself, Jules turned and bolted toward the Imperial checkpoint, weaving through the thickening crowd so that the Mages could no longer see her. If a Mage can see you, a Mage can kill you, the old warning went. She didn’t have to make it any easier for them by staying in sight.

  Ducking under the noses of a pair of horses who snorted in surprise, their heads snapping up to search for danger, Jules shoved her way forward, drawing angry comments from those waiting stoically to get through the checkpoint. With the crowd thickening, forcing her way through was getting harder.

  Shouts of alarm sounded behind her, warning that the Mages had reached the rear of the crowd. The shouts changed to screams as the Mages pulled out their long knives and began hacking at anyone in their way. The crowd convulsed like a single creature, waves of fear rolling through it, those closest to the checkpoint looking back to try to see the source of the screams.

  “Mages!” Jules cried, pitching her voice high like someone badly frightened. “They’re killing everyone!”

  The front of the crowd wavered, caught between fear of the Mages and Imperial rules.

  Jules saw a couple of legionaries climbing up onto the wagon they’d come in, crossbows tensioned and at the ready, trying to get a view of what was happening at the back of the crowd.

  One of the legionaries made the mistake of pointing his crossbow in the general direction of the Mages.

  Lightning ripped through the air above the crowd, accompanied by the deafening boom of thunder. The legionary’s crossbow exploded into splinters as the lightning hit it, knocking the legionary back off the wagon.

  Jules only had a moment to wonder if the Mage who’d sent that lightning was the same one who’d tried to kill her off the Bleak Coast. An instant later the entire crowd went from uncertain and fearful to erupting into wild panic.

  Clamoring in fear, the crowd rushed the checkpoint, overwhelming the portable barricades and ignoring the swords the legionaries drew to try to intimidate them. Jules stayed with them as the mob of citizens stampeded down the street, swamping the legionaries and their officer as she tried to call out orders. Horses squealed in fear, bolting forward and plowing paths through the people ahead of them. The barricades blocking the nearest side streets vanished under the tide of fleeing men, women, and draft animals, Jules picking one of those side streets and trying to stay with the crowd. She felt as she were caught in a rushing river of humanity, the current of frightened bodies too powerful for the efforts of one person to fight.

  Working her way to the edge of the crowd, Jules managed to duck into another street, feeling the pressure around her lessen as fewer people surrounded her. Most of those on the street were still running, so Jules dodged again into the next street over, slowing her pace to a fast walk. The buildings around her blocked a lot of noise, but she could hear legionary horns sounding streets away as the alert spread, an alarm bell being rung, and the rapid clacking of Imperial police rapping out coded messages to each other by striking the cobblestones wit
h their hardwood clubs. Under all of those distinct sounds continued the indistinct rumble of frightened crowds shouting and running.

  Realizing that she’d lost her sense of which direction she was going, Jules ducked into an alley to catch her breath and orient herself. Just inside the alley was a small pile of bricks against one wall where someone was repairing it, so she stopped beside the bricks.

  She’d only taken two deep breaths when a Mage turned the corner and was upon her in an instant, the Mage’s long knife sweeping toward her.

  Chapter Two

  Just about every common facing a Mage, including Jules herself not so long ago, would’ve been at least momentarily paralyzed with fear. Just about every common would’ve died. But Jules had confronted enough Mages by now to not succumb to the fear.

  Pulling out her dagger and bringing it up in a frantic parry, Jules managed to partially divert the Mage’s strike. But the tip of the long knife sliced into her upper arm, the force of the blow knocking the dagger from Jules’ grasp.

  Her free hand already coming up, Jules’ fist slammed into the Mage’s face.

  As her attacker staggered back, Jules bent enough to grab a brick.

  The Mage lunged forward again, knife raised for another blow.

  Instead of flinching away, Jules ducked inside the attack, swinging the brick she held against the Mage’s head.

  The impact slammed the other’s head back to strike the nearby wall, the thud of the brick hitting followed almost immediately by the thunk of the second impact. The Mage fell like a rag doll, dropping into a limp heap on the floor of the alley.

  Her breath coming fast and harsh, Jules eyed the Mage warily for a moment to be sure the Mage was unconscious. Pausing only to pick up her dagger, Jules quickly stepped out onto the street, searching for any other Mage that might have followed her.

  Despite her fears, no other Mages were in sight among the laggard citizens fleeing the earlier fight. Stepping back into the alley and dropping the brick, Jules checked her injury, seeing that the Mage knife had torn a wide slash in Jules’ cloak. The cut in her arm wasn’t too deep, fortunately, but it was bleeding badly.

  Jules picked up her dagger and ripped a length of fabric off the cloak, wrapping it around her upper arm where the cut was, using her teeth and one hand to manage a knot. Having done all she could to stop the bleeding, Jules glared at the Mage, her dagger at the ready.

  But after killing this one, what chance did she have of getting out of this city now that the cloak was torn and slashed? Its ragged state would attract more attention than her not wearing it, and there wasn’t anything else she could use to disguise her appearance.

  Except…

  Jules looked down at the Mage, wondering if she dared do what she’d thought of. No one disguised themselves as a Mage. Aside from no one wanting to be shunned as Mages were, the danger of what the Mages would do if someone was caught pretending to be one of them was sufficient to keep anyone from even thinking of doing that.

  But every Mage already wanted to kill her. And so far they hadn’t done any of the other things to her that rumor claimed Mage spells could do, from making parts of her disappear to changing her into a small animal or insect. Or taking over her mind, for that matter.

  She fought down a shudder of revulsion as she pulled off the Mage’s robes. They stank, because most Mages never seemed to bathe, so that Jules felt ill at the idea of wearing them. But avoiding being killed, or captured and put into chains again, was more than enough motivation to override her squeamishness.

  Jules turned back to the Mage, knowing that every living Mage was one more person trying to kill her. She hated killing a helpless opponent, but such scruples were an unaffordable luxury at the moment.

  But her hand holding the dagger didn’t move as Jules stared at the Mage. With her robes pulled off, the Mage was revealed as a young woman, perhaps within a few years of Jules’s own age. Senseless from the blows to her head, the Mage had lost the carefully maintained lack of feeling or expression that made common people tremble at the sight of what they called dead faces on living Mages. Instead, the Mage’s loose features resembled that of any other girl her age lost in sleep. Except that with the robe removed Jules could see the myriad of scars on the Mage’s face and body, scars that every Mage seemed to share in permanent record of whatever brutal treatment changed them into Mages.

  Jules knew she could, reluctantly, kill an unconscious Mage. But she couldn’t kill an unconscious young woman with marks of abuse all over her.

  Growling in frustration, Jules knelt by the Mage, whose long hair had apparently rarely been cut. It was a tangled mess, but Jules got some long bundles of hair sorted out and cut them loose to use as rope, binding the Mage’s hands and feet. Hair didn’t take to knots nearly as well as rope did, but Jules tightened the knots enough that hopefully they’d hold.

  Jules pulled on the robes she’d just stolen over the remains of the cloak she’d stolen last night. She wanted to minimize the amount of her skin that would touch the Mage robes, and she thought it would help hide the shape of her body. Anything that made her look less like Jules would be good.

  The robes weren’t quite her size, but close enough. Jules pulled up the cowl to cover her head and make it hard to see her face. She couldn’t manage the Mage dead-face expression, instead trying her best to look impassive, but since everyone avoided looking directly at Mages no one should notice.

  Of course, if she ran into more Mages her imposture could get very ugly very fast. And the legionaries would be on high alert for further attacks from Mages, so her disguise would get a lot of attention.

  But there weren’t any better alternatives.

  Jules, having decided on which direction east lay, stepped out onto the street.

  And nearly darted away as every person nearby jolted with surprise and fear, hastily putting distance between themselves and her.

  It took her a moment to realize that this was the result she wanted and should expect. She’d gone from trying to avoid being noticed to being someone who’d be very much noticed. But not as herself. As someone everyone else would try to avoid.

  Jules started walking east, hearing the tumult on nearby streets of the earlier fight and panic beginning to subside. She didn’t have to weave her way through any crowds, because people kept opening a clear path for her, frightened of blocking or inconveniencing a Mage.

  She’d never paid that much attention to how Mages walked, because like everyone else she kept her eyes averted. Jules tried to maintain a steady pace, not too fast but not slow, walking with a firm stride that she hoped didn’t display any un-Mage-like emotion. She had to constantly remind herself not to look around, because Mages rarely showed any obvious interest in their surroundings.

  Her gait almost faltered when two more Mages came into view, heading in the other direction, on the other side of the street. Did Mages use their powers to exchange greetings unseen and unheard by common people? If so, she’d soon find out. Resting one hand on her dagger under her pilfered Mage robes, and trying not to wince at the resultant pain from moving her injured arm, Jules maintained her steady, unvarying pace.

  As far as she could tell, the Mages didn’t look her way as they walked past. Jules followed them as long as possible through the corners of her eyes, but the edge of the cowl blocked her vision before the Mages even passed her. And she couldn’t turn her head to look without acting oddly for a Mage.

  Sweating under the robes, Jules held her dagger tightly, listening for any hint that the Mages might’ve turned and were approaching her from behind.

  It finally occurred to her to watch the common people in front of her. Their worried eyes avoided looking toward Jules, but as far as Jules could tell they weren’t reacting to anything behind her. And they didn’t seem more alarmed than usual around a Mage, as they should’ve been if two more Mages were coming up fast. It was a tenuous reassurance at best, but it was all she had.

  Jules ke
pt walking, gradually relaxing as no attack came.

  It felt increasingly odd, though. Not having to worry about wending around other people left plenty of time to just think and notice her surroundings. On the one hand, everyone avoided looking at her. Not in the usual manner of people not really paying attention to those around them, but in a very obvious I’m-not-looking-at-you way. She’d never thought about how such a thing would seem to a Mage.

  Then again, Mages didn’t seem to see such things in the same way as typical people. Perhaps they didn’t even notice how other people reacted around them.

  At the same time, the way everyone cleared a path for her was something she could definitely get used to. It made the simple act of walking so much easier. This must be how Mechanics or Imperial princes felt too, when they were out on the streets. If she were a Mechanic, how easy would it be to accept this sort of thing? It set her apart in a different way than the Mage robes did, apart in a manner that would easily reinforce any feeling of superiority over others. Was that why people like the Mechanics and Imperial princes insisted on others always deferring to them? Not just because it made them feel special, but because it provided a constant reassurance that they deserved such special treatment?

  Jules almost badly broke character by laughing at herself. These people weren’t clearing a path before her because she was Jules of Landfall. It wasn’t about her. They were giving her special treatment because she was wearing Mage robes, and they’d do the same if she wore the jacket of a Mechanic, or had the retinue of an Imperial prince with her., And people weren’t acting that way out of respect, but because they had no choice or feared the consequences of not clearing a path for her.

  Did Mechanics or Mages or princes ever think about that?

  Probably not.

  In the west, common people wouldn’t be ruled by princes or emperors. Not if she could help it. There wasn’t much she could do about Mechanics or Mages, though. The Great Guilds were something the daughter of her line would have to take care of someday.