The Pirates of Pacta Servanda (Pillars of Reality Book 4)

by Jack Campbell

  “There’s no power in it,” Bev said. “Your elders and Mages couldn’t get any thrills out of that kind of power trip, could they? Because I knew it was about power, mostly. Some of them hurt you in ways that did satisfy their power thrills, but abusing you wasn’t one of them because you were all being taught it didn’t matter. Did thinking that way make you happy?”

  Alain shook his head again. “Happy did not exist. Happy was an illusion. After enough time, we all believed that.”

  “They stole something else from you,” Bev whispered.

  “What they stole, I was able to find again,” Alain said. “I wish…I wish I could change the illusion so that you had not been hurt. Mari reminded me that the shadows around me feel pain just as I do. But there is so little I can do to stop that pain. It is easier to think of them just as shadows. But Mari never does the easy thing.”

  “And she won’t let you, either, huh?” Bev blew out a long breath. “Thanks for wanting to make it go away, but it never will. Do you hate the elders who hurt you?”

  “No. They could not make me into what they desired. They failed. I feel…contempt? I do not care about them. They are as nothing, even as other shadows become something.” Alain shrugged. “That is what I tell myself. Mage Asha suffered worse than I did. I used to wonder at how strong in wisdom she was. But she rarely talks of those times.”

  “That’s easy for me to understand. You know, I worried that you could tell about me. That being a Mage could let you see something.” Bev shut her eyes tightly. “I worry that everyone can look at me and tell, but Mages mostly.”

  “I saw nothing except pain,” Alain said. “No Mage could see more than that, and no Mage would guess the cause.”

  “Mages lie all the time,” Bev said. “Why do I believe you?”

  “Mari would not like it if I caused you more hurt, and I would not like it if I caused you more hurt.”

  “Um…thanks. Don’t tell Mari any of this, all right? Except, tell her I’m all right when it comes to doing things. I won’t lose it, I won’t go crazy, I won’t let her down. She can count on that.” Bev paused. “So can you. Thanks, Mage Alain. Just for listening. I had to tell somebody.”

  Alain felt a helpless sensation. “I can do nothing, though.”

  “You listened. You didn’t judge. You won’t tell others. That’s more than I could ask of anyone else. Thanks.” Bev got up, nodded at him, then walked off slowly.

  Alain got up as well, opened the door to the cabin very quietly, and walked inside.

  Mari was still deeply asleep, snoring lightly. He sat down on the other bunk, watching her, remembering that she had asked whether she snored while they waited to enter Marandur. They had survived Marandur. Perhaps—

  And in that moment, his foresight came upon him again.

  Overlaid on his sight of Mari was a vision of her. In the vision, Mari was also lying down, but on a surface of dressed stone blocks, the sort that made up stout outdoor structures. Her face and mouth were slack, not with tiredness, but with the shadow of death upon them, a shadow hovering very near, and something red and wet stained her dark Mechanics jacket.

  As Alain stared, horrified, the vision faded. Mari was sleeping, her expression untroubled for the moment.

  But he could not forget what he had seen.

  And he had not been in that vision. If he had been, it would have meant the vision was of something that might happen. But he had seen Mari only.

  Which meant this was something that would happen.

  Chapter Six

  “Mari was not dead?” Mage Asha spoke softly, just as Alain had spoken to her. She was upset enough to betray the emotion and so both of them were at a rail, facing out to sea.

  “She was dying,” Alain managed to choke out.

  “But not dead.”

  “No.”

  “Then she is fated to be badly hurt, but you did not see her dead.” Asha locked eyes with him. “That means even if this comes to pass, you can make a difference.”

  “What difference is possible?” Alain asked. “You know as well as I that no Mage can directly affect a shadow. None of our spells can change a shadow in any way, for good or ill. Healing is impossible.”

  “Then find a way, Mage Alain! You were not in the vision. That must matter.”

  “How?”

  “Perhaps if you are there, it will change things. If you are beside her, what you saw will not be.”

  Alain stopped to think, breathing deeply. “Mage Asha, that offers hope. But how can I learn a wisdom that has evaded all Mages before this?”

  “That is something you must discover,” Asha said. “How did Mari look? Was she older?”

  “I could not tell,” Alain said.

  “It may have been something that will not happen for years.”

  “Not too many years,” Alain said. “Mari looked as I know her.”

  “Listen,” Asha said with an intensity that Alain had never heard from her. “If it is known that Mari is to be so badly injured, it will harm what she seeks to do. Mari will be terrified to act, and those who would follow her will hold back for fear she will fail. You must not speak of this to anyone else.”

  “I must tell Mari—”

  “To what purpose?” Asha demanded. “Mage Alain, she is already haunted by fears. Will you now wave a bloody vision before her?”

  “She deserves to know,” Alain said.

  “And if such knowing causes her to fail? If such knowing causes Mari to hold back at a moment when she must leap forward? If such knowing causes the Storm to triumph and all to be lost because her fears of failure make the failure come to pass?”

  Alain stared out at the sea, where countless whitecaps appeared and disappeared in endless array. “I do not know.”

  “Ask yourself this,” Asha said. “If it were Mari who had this vision of you, lying with death on your brow, would you want her to tell you?”

  He had to think a long time about that, his thoughts circling around and avoiding the answer. “No,” Alain finally admitted.

  “What would Mari do?”

  “She would work to…to change things. To fix things so that I would not die, regardless of what the vision shows. That is what she does.”

  “Then you do the same,” Asha insisted. “Mage Alain, you are here for a reason, and that reason is not to bear helpless witness to the death of Mari. You are here to ensure that she succeeds in her task, and that she lives through every peril that task places in her path! I do not have foresight, but still I know this!”

  Alain shook his head. “All is illusion. I cannot change so much.”

  “All cast shadows on the illusion, and such as Mari are fated to cast shadows that change the illusion itself,” Asha said. “Your shadow is intertwined with that of Mari. Your fates are joined, just as your shadows are joined.”

  “I feel you are right,” Alain said. “But it will be very hard not to tell Mari.”

  “And it would be easy to tell her,” Asha said. “Easy to drop the burden of this foresight upon her even though she could do nothing with the knowledge but let it break her resolve. Should you do what is easy for you, or what is hard?”

  “Hard,” Alain said. “Mari would understand.” He hoped that was so. “Your advice is good, Asha. Thank you. I did not know where else to turn.”

  “You are welcome,” Asha said with the precision of someone who had just relearned the phrase. “Alain, you would have been my friend had either of us remembered what a friend was. Mari reached out to me when I could see only a shadow before me, and she showed me that I could regain so much I had lost. You and I are friends now because of Mari, and there is a chance that I will become more than a friend with Mechanic Dav because of Mari. I would not advise you in ways that I thought would hurt her, and if the worst comes to pass my grief will be second only to yours. But we will work to ensure the worst does not happen. Mari cannot bear every burden of being the daughter. This part of it must be ours.”r />
  * * * *

  He was sitting on the bunk in the cabin, watching her again, the setting sun low enough in the sky to slant through the windows looking out over the stern, when Mari finally woke up. She yawned hugely, then looked over at him. “Good morning. Is it morning?”

  “Almost evening,” Alain said.

  “You look worried. Is anything wrong?”

  “I am worried about you,” Alain said, feeling bad speaking a half-truth to someone he never wanted to lie to.

  “About me?” Mari sat up, wincing at the effort. “I think I pulled several muscles getting you back to this ship. I’ll remind you that I wasn’t the one who got kidnapped by Dark Mages. Where are we? And is there anything to eat?”

  Alain produced a platter of meat, cheese, and bread. “The cook prepared this for you. Do you want wine or water?”

  “Watered wine,” Mari said around a mouthful of beef. “I see we’re still heading south.”

  “There has been a slight change.” Alain explained what Alli had told him about the Mechanic ship Pride of Longfalls.

  “Good decision,” she said. “We’ve still got about a day to think about it? Even better. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I am fine,” Alain said.

  “Do you remember anything?”

  “Very little,” Alain said. “I was on the street with the soldiers, then I recall nothing until I awoke aboard the ship. As this day has gone on I have had a few blurred memories, if that is what they are and not products of the drug I was told they used on me. There are a few images of a dark street crowded with people, and a woman.”

  “A woman?” Mari asked.

  “Yes. I felt she was undressing me, which I do not understand.”

  “But you did remember it,” Mari said, her voice growing sharp. “Men! Anything else?”

  “No,” Alain said. “My head has hurt some, and so has my hand.” He flexed the fingers of his left hand. “The healers explained about my head, but I do not know what caused my hand to ache so.”

  Mari’s attitude softened as swiftly as it had hardened a moment earlier. “Your left hand hurts because you are the most wonderful man who ever lived.”

  “I…what?”

  She stood up carefully, both because of the rolling of the ship and because of the low overhead in the cabin. They had both knocked their heads on the wooden beams more than once. “I think we both deserve a hug. Actually, I need a hug.”

  “Then you will have one.” Alain held her, trying not to tighten his grasp too much as the dark image from his foresight came to mind.

  “I should get out on deck at least once before sunset,” Mari said with a sigh. “Everybody is going to think I’m lazy.”

  “I have heard no one suggest such a thing. The crew have been careful to be as quiet as possible all day to avoid disturbing you.”

  “Oh, great. So I’ve messed up their day?”

  “That’s not what I—”

  Mari was already headed for the door, chewing a last hunk of bread. She stepped out into a gathering that seemed to include every Mechanic on the ship, the group breaking into smiles as they saw her.

  “Great timing as usual,” Mechanic Alli said.

  “Why?” Mari asked. “What’s happening?”

  “We just raised your banner!”

  “My—?” Mari looked up, her jaw dropping.

  Alain followed, seeing that at the top of the mainmast a new flag flew. It was simple as flags went, just a golden sun with many points centered on a field of light blue.

  “It represents the new day,” Mechanic Calu said. “You needed a banner, so—”

  “Why did I need a banner?” Mari asked. “A banner? For me? Like I’m some empress or the queen of Tiae?”

  “Jules had a banner,” Alli pointed out.

  “I’m not Jules! Guys, I really appreciate this, but how is this going to make me look?” Mari demanded. “Like I think I’m so great? Like I need to have my own flag?”

  “Mari,” Alain began.

  “Did you know about this? Because you should have told them it was really nice but not a good idea.”

  “Mari,” Alain said. “I did not know, but I believe it is a good idea. For two reasons.”

  She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. “The first reason being?”

  “Your friends are right. You need an emblem that reveals whether someone supports you, or your enemies.” Alain pointed at the group in their Mechanic jackets. “How do you know these Mechanics are your friends?”

  “Because I recognize them,” Mari said. “Well, most of them.”

  “And if we have a hundred Mechanics? If we stop in a city and the Mechanics there are of different loyalties, how do you know which are loyal to you?”

  “All right,” Mari said, “first of all, nobody should be loyal to me.”

  “To Master Mechanic Mari or to the daughter,” Bev said. “Whatever you call it. Like it or not, that’s what it comes down to. Are they taking orders from the Senior Mechanics of the Guild, or the elders of the Mage Guild, or some local lord from Syndar, or from you?”

  Mari hesitated. “I’m sure there’s a good answer for that which doesn’t require having my own banner. I just need to think of it. Besides, everyone isn’t going to run around carrying my banner. That would be ridiculous.”

  “That is the other reason,” Alain said. “Do you remember my vision in Dorcastle?”

  She gave him a sidelong look. “The one about the battle we were going to be in? How could I forget that?”

  “I told you that in that vision, you and I were wearing armbands of a strange design.”

  “Armbands?” Mari’s eyes widened in dismay and she looked upwards again.

  “Yes. That was the design, Mari. We were wearing your banner.”

  “Then this is your fault,” she said, looking accusingly at Alain.

  “Hold on,” Calu said. “Are you saying that you knew we were going to make a banner with this design?” he asked Alain.

  “I saw this design,” Alain said. “Several months ago, in a vision I had on the walls of Dorcastle. I did not know what the design meant. Not until now.”

  “Do I get any say in my own life?” Mari demanded. “You see us wearing some design and I end up with a banner showing that. You see us married and we end up married. You—”

  “Huh?” Alli broke in. “Alain predicted that you two would be married?”

  “Guys do that,” Calu said.

  “Most guys don’t see visions where you are both wearing promise rings and then months later ask you what the rings mean!” Mari said.

  “Is that why you married him?” Alli asked doubtfully.

  “No! How can you even ask that? My point is, things keep happening whether I want them to happen or not! Are all of my decisions already carved in stone somewhere and I’m just some puppet living out the script?”

  That quieted everyone.

  Alain shook his head. “That is not so. Your decisions brought us here. Fate gives us choices to make. There are many points at which different things could have been done, different choices made, and those choices dictate the next set of choices. Had you not chosen to rejoin me in the Northern Ramparts, I would have died there and your actions these last several months would have been much different. My vision was of something that might be. So far, your choices have kept us on that path. But they might change our path at any time.”

  “But not all foresight is like that, right?” Mari asked. “If you don’t see yourself in the vision, it’s something that will definitely happen, right?”

  Alain wondered if the guilt and sorrow her question triggered showed on his face. “No.”

  “No?” Mari looked doubtful. “I was sure you had said—”

  “Much remains unknown and uncertain about foresight because the Mage Guild elders have discouraged study of it. I believe that any vision represents only something that might be, and that if we try hard enough w
e can change what comes to pass.” Truth might not exist, as the elders of the Mage Guild taught, but surely what he said was not false. And the elders had always insisted that any aspect of the world illusion could be changed by a Mage of sufficient skill and wisdom.

  Mari bit her lip. “I don’t want to end up fighting in some huge battle at Dorcastle, Alain. I don’t want to fight any battles. I want to build things and fix things. And that banner sort of means there will be battles.”

  “Mari, the warlords in Tiae aren’t going to just surrender, and the Senior Mechanics everywhere aren’t going to give up without a fight,” Alli said. “They’ll fight as hard as they can to keep anything from changing, right up until the moment when everything falls apart. Unless we can stop them before then.”

  “We.” Mari looked up again. “It’s not really my banner, is it? It’s our banner. It’s about what we’re all fighting for.” She seemed to be comforted by that.

  “Symbols are important,” said Mechanic Rob, who had joined them at Julesport. “And I think you’re right that it’s important this symbol be about what everyone wants to happen and not about you personally. The Senior Mechanics are already claiming you just want to set yourself up as the sole leader of a new Guild.”

  “There!” Mari said. “See? Someone gets it! Wait. What are the Senior Mechanics saying?”

  “That this is just about you wanting to be in charge, becoming some sort of queen of the Guild,” Rob said.

  “The banner works against that,” Calu said. “It makes it clear that you and all of us are fighting for something much bigger than some power grab involving the Mechanics Guild.”

  “It’s your banner,” Alli said, “but it’s not about you. We could fix that, though. Put a crown on it. A big one with Mari Queen Of Everything stenciled on it.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  * * * *

  Alain and Mari found the captain of the Gray Lady in good spirits. “I am confident we’ll run down that Mechanic ship, Lady,” he told Mari. “Not tonight. We may catch sight of her upper masts before the sun sets tomorrow, and we’ll catch her fair before the sun rises on the day after.”