The Assassins of Altis (17 page)

“Later,” one of the Mechanics replied. “The captain wants to see them one at a time. Stay here and stay on guard.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The sentry leaned against the hatch to Mari’s prison, looking unhappy with the continuation of his duty.

The other four Mechanics put Mari between them, the two at the rear prodding her along with their weapons, unaware of Alain following close behind. They walked along short hallways and took stairs upward, climbing into the higher levels above the main deck. Alain caught glimpses of the outside through infrequent small, circular windows, seeing that the sun had almost set and night was coming on quickly. Their small procession passed other Mechanics, who always stood aside. Those Mechanics averted their eyes from Mari with expressions that were trying to conceal emotions, but to Alain’s practiced eye hinted at feelings from curiosity to sympathy to fear to hostility.

He concentrated on maintaining his spell, grateful for how the ship’s motion kept supplying new reserves of power
. And I know for certain that there are no other Mages anywhere near, so I need not worry about revealing myself to them.

They finally reached a short passageway where one of the escorts knocked on a door labeled
captain
, then opened it and led the way in. Alain barely managed to squeeze in as well before the door was closed, finding he had precious little space to stand without touching any of the Mechanics. Fortunately, the four Mechanics had herded Mari to stand in front of a desk where a middle-aged woman Mechanic sat, leaving room for Alain to stand back against a wall. Alain barely managed to avoid a small cry of satisfaction as he spotted both his and Mari’s packs sitting in one corner of the room.

The woman Mechanic at the desk gazed at Mari with obvious dislike. “Former Master Mechanic Mari, now only Mari. Even the Guild makes mistakes sometimes, and you’re the biggest mistake in quite a while. I’ve never looked upon a traitor before.”

Mari stared steadily back. “Try looking in a mirror.”

“How dare you—”

“You’re betraying everything, every Mechanic, everyone—!” Mari was yelling, when the woman made a gesture and one of Mari’s guards used his weapon as a club, jamming the wide end against Mari’s side and causing her to choke off her words with a gasp of pain. Alain noticed that the other three guards looked uncomfortable at the abuse but did not protest it.

“You’ll stay silent unless you’re answering my questions,” the woman Mechanic said in a harsh voice. “Why did you go to Marandur?”

Mari straightened up with some difficulty, then shrugged. “It seemed like a good place to hide. No one would look for me there.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Because I couldn’t stand it anymore. The place is haunted.”

“Did you go to the Mechanics Guild Headquarters in Marandur?”

“I went to what was left of it,” Mari said scornfully. “Just a big pile of rubble and rusted-out equipment. There wasn’t anything there that I could use.”

“You should have had the brains to know that before you went to Marandur. Where were you going on that ship?”

Mari seemed indifferent as she answered. “West.”

“Why?” the woman asked with barely concealed anger.

“For my health. I thought I’d visit the hot springs on Syndar.”

“Liar.” The woman pointed to a map on one wall. “That ship was going to the Sharr Isles. Where your family lives.”

This time Mari’s eyes sparked with real resentment that Alain had no trouble spotting. He was sure the Mechanics in the room could easily see it as well. “So what?” Mari spat out.

“I didn’t think you were going to them,” the woman replied with a cruel smile, “but it never hurts to check.”

Looking from Mari to the older woman, a thought occurred to Alain. The Mage Guild had tried to sever him from his family by convincing him that his family did not matter. Not as people, and not as mother and father. The teaching left Mages looking only to the Guild for what life they had. From what Mari had said, the Mechanics Guild thought little of commons and yet had never ordered her to stay away from her family. She had broken contact with her family because the family had broken contact with her.

Or, rather, Mari had been convinced that her family had broken contact with her, leaving her nowhere else to turn but her Guild. Had Mari’s Guild used its own tactics to sever the family ties of those from common origins? And if they had, how could he get Mari to listen to the possibility when she refused ever to talk about her family?

But that would have to wait. There were more critical things to deal with right now.

“Who is this other Mechanic you were traveling with?” the woman demanded.

Mari made a contemptuous noise. “A lovestruck fool who I used to help me. He’s harmless.”

“We’ll see what he has to say about that.”

Alain tensed, wondering if Mari would betray knowing that he was aboard, but she was quick-witted enough to frown at the captain’s words. “I left him—” Mari began.

“On that ship. He turned himself in.” The captain smiled unpleasantly. “We’ll see how much loyalty he has to a traitor.”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Mari insisted.

The captain shook her head. “Why would I believe a word you say? I’m glad you’re not wearing the jacket you’ve disgraced. Just in case you’re planning on sleeping easily for the next few days, let me tell you what’s going to happen to you. You’re to be returned to Guild headquarters in Palandur. Hooded and in chains, with a gag in your mouth, so you can’t corrupt any other Mechanics. If you cooperate and answer every question put to you truthfully, you may be allowed to spend the rest of your miserable, traitorous life in a tiny cell in Longfalls. If there’s any question about your truthfulness, you’ll be turned over to the Empire to answer for your visit to Marandur. I’m sure the Emperor will want to make a special example of you, one involving an extended and painful death.” The female Mechanic gave every sign of enjoying reciting the terrible future intended for Mari. “Are there any questions?”

Mari nodded. “Two questions. The first is, do you actually think that I’m stupid enough to believe that the Guild will still let me live when it has already tried to kill me more than once? The second is, how do you live with yourself, Senior Mechanic?”

The woman flushed with anger and gestured again. Alain had difficulty restraining himself as the same guard once again bludgeoned Mari with his weapon. “Take her out of here,” the captain ordered, “and make sure she falls down a few ladders on the way back to her cell. Maybe that will bang a little sense into her. Then bring the other one.”

“Yes, Senior Mechanic,” the leader of the guards said with the eagerness of the type of follower who wanted to impress any superior, then as Alain slid to the side the Mechanics yanked open the door and dragged Mari out between them.

Once again he had to move fast, and once more his foot caught in the door as one of the Mechanics tried to close it. That Mechanic shoved the door harder, shrugging as it closed without hindrance the second time.

Mari had noticed, though, her eyes widening briefly before she carefully schooled her expression to reveal nothing but an apparent stoic acceptance of her fate.

They reached the first of the stairs down, and the Mechanic in charge moved to trip Mari and tumble her down them, but one of the other Mechanics stepped in the way. “She could break some bones going down that.”

“So? You heard the captain.”

“We’re not Mages who torture people for fun. This girl is…she used to be a Mechanic.”

The first Mechanic glared at his companion. “You’re disobeying orders?”

“Get them in writing,” the second Mechanic insisted. “If you think those orders are all right, get them in writing and show them to me.”

“The captain’s going to hear about this, Kalif.”

The other Mechanic wavered, then shook his head. “The Guild wouldn’t allow someone to be treated like that. Now let’s get her back to her cell.”

“Sure.” The first Mechanic stepped back, glowering. “I’ll let you explain things to the captain when we get back with this one’s friend, and you can ask the captain for her orders in writing.”

Alain tried to relax. He had nearly leaped at the Mechanics when Mari seemed threatened with serious harm. Now, as Alain followed the Mechanics back toward the places where he and Mari had been imprisoned, he measured his remaining strength, trying to decide what to do. Once they reached the improvised cells, Mari would surely be locked up again—and then the room where Alain was supposed to be confined would be opened. He was already tired from the effort of holding the concealment spell and could not see how his usual weapon, the fireball, would be able to defeat these Mechanics without also harming Mari and causing enough noise to bring more Mechanics running.

If only he had another weapon, a weapon which did not require his rapidly diminishing spell strength to employ. But his knife had been taken from him, and would have little effect against the Mechanic weapons even if he had it.

The Mechanic weapons.

Alain took a long look at the Mechanic weapons the guards were carrying.
Impossible. I cannot use them, even if I am pretending to be a Mechanic.

Do I have to know how to use them? An illusion. They already see me as another Mechanic. If I hold one of those weapons, they will see the illusion of another Mechanic ready to employ it. If the illusion is strong enough, they will act as if it is real.

They came down a last stairway and walked up to the sentry, the guards almost ready to shove Mari back into her cell. Alain dropped his concealment spell and slammed his elbow into the side of the Mechanic who was farthest back, while reaching with his other hand and grabbing the Mechanic’s rifle, wresting it free from the surprised and staggered Mechanic. As the Mechanic who Alain had attacked reeled into his companions, Alain tried to hold the weapon just as he had seen Mechanics do it. He was certain that he had the right end pointed at them, and his hands should be in about the right places, but that was the extent of his knowledge when it came to using a Mechanic weapon.

By the time the other Mechanics turned to look, Alain had the weapon pointing at them. “Do not move,” Alain said in the most menacing voice he could manage, copied from the tones of the Senior Mechanic. “Make no sound.”

Mari wasted a precious second gaping at Alain. Not because she was surprised by his sudden appearance; she had seen the door catch on something and knew it meant that Alain was close by. What stunned her was seeing the Mage holding a Mechanic rifle as if he intended using it. Fortunately, the other Mechanics were a lot more shocked by Alain’s appearing out of nowhere than she was, giving Mari time to recover and hastily seize another rifle from the unresisting hands of a second Mechanic. Stepping back, Mari leveled the rifle at her former guards. “The rest of you set down your weapons slowly. Don’t make any noise. I know the Guild intends to kill me, so I’ve got nothing to lose by killing you all.”

The Mechanic who had hit her with his rifle shook his head. “You can’t get away, you idiot. You’re on a ship at sea.”

“Then there’s no sense in you dying trying to stop me, is there?” Mari answered coolly.

Mechanic Kalif was staring at Alain. “How did you get out of your cell?” He turned an accusing gaze on the sentry, who mimed bafflement.

Alain answered calmly, though not as impassively as a Mage would have. “There are things the Mechanics Guild does not know.” Mari could see from the sweat on his brow that Alain had been working hard to stay concealed

Kalif turned his eyes to Mari. “How do we know you won’t kill us as anyway as soon as we put down our weapons?”

“Because I never hurt anyone unless I’m forced to,” Mari said.

“That’s not what we were told.”

Mari’s laugh mixed sadness with derision. “I can’t take the time to explain how many lies you’ve been told, not just about me but about everything. I won’t let the Guild torture and kill me just because I learned things that the Guild doesn’t want any Mechanic to know. Now put down your weapons and raise your hands, or my companion will start shooting.” It was quite a bluff, considering that Alain probably didn’t even know how to fire a weapon. Mari didn’t dare look, but she suspected that Alain didn’t have a finger on the trigger of the rifle he was holding.

Fortunately, the other Mechanics didn’t focus on that detail. Kalif lowered his rifle to the floor cautiously, as did the others. Mari indicated the cell she had occupied. “All of you, in there.”

“You can’t get away!” the guard who had bludgeoned her repeated angrily.

“I’m really tired of people like you trying to tell me what I can and can’t do.” Mari used her thumb to pull back the hammer on the rifle, then raised it to aim at his face. “And I’m even more tired of people like you who are willing to hurt others just because someone else tells them to. Get in there. I won’t repeat myself a third time.”

He went in hastily, followed by the other former guards and the former sentry, the tiny compartment barely holding all of them. Mari looked at Mechanic Kalif as he turned to face her. “Thank you. I know this isn’t a nice way to repay your humanity, but thank you.”

“Mari,” Kalif said, “the Guild won’t really torture and kill you. They’re trying to play games with your mind is all. Give it up. You can trust the Guild.”

“I believed the same thing once,” Mari said. “Until the Guild set me up to be killed. There are other Mechanics who know about that, who know it’s true. Maybe you can find some of them. Now, you and you,” she said, pointing to two of the other Mechanics. “Take off your jackets and toss them out here.” Both Mechanics hesitated, glaring at her. “Alain.”

Alain obligingly stepped forward, raising the weapon a little awkwardly, and spoke in tones that mimicked the Senior Mechanics Mari had dealt with earlier. “Do as you are told!”

The two Mechanics yanked off their jackets and threw them out the hatch to land at Mari’s feet.

“Close the hatch, Alain.” Mari kept her rifle aimed at the five Mechanics until the hatch swung shut, then immediately grabbed its handle and twisted it down before pushing the lock closed.

Only then did she turn back to Alain. “Stars above, you’re a sight for sore eyes, my Mage.” She kissed him very quickly. “How long were you with us?”

“All the way. The woman has our packs.”

“I saw. We need to pay her another visit. She’s expecting you already.” Mari indicated the bigger jacket. “Would it bother you to wear that?”

“Not at all. It is just part of the illusion.”

“Right.” Mari hastily put on the other jacket. “We need to look like we belong here. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you holding one of these rifles. When did you learn how to use one?”

“I do not know how to use one.”

“I was afraid of that. Please, very carefully, give me the one you’re holding. Don’t press or push anything.” Mari took the rifle from Alain gingerly, breathing a sigh of relief once it was out of his hands. “Very good bluff, my Mage.”

“Did you want me to shoot them? I do not know how to do that.”

“No, I didn’t want you to shoot them. That was a bluff, too.” Mari opened the lock on the room which had held Alain, putting all but two of the rifles she had taken into it and swinging the hatch shut again. “All right, I’m going to set the safety on this rifle and give it back to you. There isn’t a round loaded and the safety is on, so as long as you just carry it and point it and don’t move anything on it, the rifle shouldn’t go off. See this lever thing on the bottom? That needs to be swung down and then back up to load a round, so if you don’t move the loading lever, then the rifle can’t fire.”

Alain was watching her, frowning in concentration. “Lever?”

Of course a Mage wouldn’t know what a lever was. “Never mind. Just don’t move anything on the rifle. And don’t point it at anyone! Unless I tell you to. We’re going to walk back to the captain’s cabin as if we’re on official business. If anybody tries to talk to us, let me answer.”

“All right. But I can talk like a Mechanic. What is an idiot?”

Mari grinned. “Someone like a Senior Mechanic. You really do have the arrogant voice down. Where did you learn it?”

“I…have observed Mechanics.”

“I’m the Mechanic you’ve spent almost all of your time with—” Mari paused. “Do I do that?”

“Very rarely, and never to me since first we met. Mari, the Mechanics on this ship are far more likely to recognize you than they are to recognize me.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “You’re right. You take the lead. Do you remember the way to the captain’s cabin?”

“I believe so.”

“Same here. Hopefully one or the other of us will remember all the details.” Mari took a long, calming breath, then tried to look relaxed and casual. “Let’s go.”

There were fewer Mechanics in the passages of the ship now that the normal work day had ended, and they paid little attention to what appeared to be two of their fellows. Mari tried to unobtrusively avert her face whenever they passed other Mechanics, or use Alain to shield herself from being seen directly. It felt very odd to be walking behind Alain while he was wearing a Mechanics jacket. He didn’t look half bad in the jacket, though. He actually looked pretty good. Really good, Mari thought.

Alain was even mimicking the exaggerated self-confidence and swagger of a Mechanic. She knew he wasn’t copying her. She never had been able to get the swagger thing down, thinking that she looked ridiculous whenever she tried.

Mari ducked her head again, pretending to examine her rifle, as they passed two more Mechanics who were talking together. They paid no attention to Mari and Alain.

They finally reached the captain’s quarters, Mari breathing a sigh of relief that they hadn’t gotten lost on the way. Pausing a short distance away from the door, Mari looked at Alain, speaking very quietly. “There’s three things we have to do before we can try to escape. We have to get our packs back, which means dealing with that witch of a captain, then we have to disable the ship’s far-talker so they can’t tell anyone that we’ve escaped, and then we have to somehow sabotage the main propulsion system so the ship can’t chase us down. Only after all that can we try to steal a boat.”

“We cannot steal a boat unnoticed?” Alain asked.

“No. Too much noise, and the lookouts could easily see us.”

“How will we do all these things? What is the plan?”

“The plan?” Mari hesitated. “We don’t really have a plan. We’ll have to improvise.”

“Improvise?”

“That means making things up as you go along,” Mari explained.

“But you told me earlier today that we need to have a plan before we begin anything complicated,” Alain objected.

“Yes, I did, but— Fine. Our plan is to improvise.”

“But you said that means not having a plan.”

Mari glared at him. “If our plan is to improvise, then that means our plan is to not have a plan. Can we get on with it now?”

With a slightly baffled expression, Alain nodded in agreement.

Mari readied her weapon, walked the rest of the way to the captain’s door and knocked the same way the guard had before. Hearing a muffled order to enter, Mari opened the door and pointed her weapon at the Senior Mechanic in one smooth motion. “Hi, Captain. I decided to come back.” The Senior Mechanic made an abortive motion toward one side of her desk, halting when Mari cocked her rifle. “Go ahead and go for your pistol. I’d love an excuse to put a bullet in you.”

Alain came in after Mari, closing the door and then going directly to their packs while the captain stared at them with glittering hostility. “The packs have not been opened,” he told Mari. Next to one of them he found his Mage knife, and concealed that under his coat once more, grateful to have something other than the long Mechanic weapon.

Mari smiled at the captain. “Are there orders from Palandur that even you can’t look inside my pack? I wonder what Guild headquarters thinks I’ve got in there? The truth? That seems to be what they’re most scared of. It doesn’t matter, though. People will learn the truth no matter what the Guild does.”

“What doesn’t matter is whatever you try to do,” the woman spat. “You’ll die a traitor’s death.”

“I don’t think so,” Mari stated in a soft voice that nonetheless carried something menacing that made Alain turn to stare her. “And if I do, I consider being a traitor to the likes of you to be an honor. Though I do appreciate your confirming that the Guild intended seeing me dead after getting whatever information it could from me. Turn around.”

The Senior Mechanic shook head slowly. “No. You’ll have to kill me to my face, and I know you don’t have the courage to do that.”

Mari laughed softly. “You’re not nearly as ugly as the dragons I’ve faced, honored Senior Mechanic. Well, maybe you are as ugly as the troll, but did it ever occur to you that I’m not interested in killing people if I don’t have to?” She stepped closer to the desk, nerved herself, then quickly swung the butt of her rifle so it struck the woman on the temple. The captain fell sideways, sprawling on the deck. “Make sure she’s out,” Mari asked Alain, suppressing a sick feeling at having clubbed another person unconscious.

Alain checked, then nodded. “Shall we tie her up?”

“Yeah.” Mari looked around. “We’re on a ship. Why can’t I see any rope?”

“How about this?” Alain asked. “It is slick and not too thick, but it looks like rope.”

“That’ll do.” Mari picked up the intercom wire and yanked. It didn’t give, so Mari stuck her rifle barrel behind it and twisted until the wire broke with a snapping noise. Then she handed the free length to Alain. “It’s actually wire. Make sure it’s not too tight.”

“Wire? You mean metal? But it bends like stiff rope and feels like cloth?”

“Yeah. The cloth is insulation, and no, I don’t have time to explain what insulation is. Do you remember how to tie knots?”

“Not very well,” Alain admitted.

Mari grabbed the wire from him, then pulled the captain’s wrists behind her back and tied the wire around them, making sure the wire was over the sleeves of the captain’s jacket so it wouldn’t cut off the blood to her hands. The other end of the wire was still attached firmly to the wall. She then pulled open drawers in the captain’s bureau, using a spare shirt to tie the captain’s legs together. Mari stuffed a handkerchief she found into the captain’s mouth as a gag. “That’s the best we can do. Let’s— Wait. One more thing.”

Yanking open the captain’s desk drawers, Mari found a pistol. “Same size cartridges as mine,” she explained to Alain, getting a blank look in exchange. Mari grabbed the entire box of cartridges and stuffed it in a pocket of the jacket she was wearing. Given what the Mechanics Guild charged for a single round of ammunition, she might just as well have pocketed a sack full of gold.

“Now, we need to find this ship’s far-talker. It’ll be somewhere up high.” Mari led the way out into the passageway, their movements a little harder now with the big packs on, then out onto an open upper deck area where the sea breeze gusted between parts of the metal ship’s superstructure. The sun had completely set, leaving the upper parts of the ship in darkness interrupted only by the stars above and the navigation lights on the mast of the ship. There was no sign of the passenger ship
Sun Runner
, which had apparently been set free to continue its interrupted voyage while the Mechanic ship turned back toward Landfall.

Another Mechanic came by, alone, and Mari waylaid him. “How do I get to the far-talker from here?”

The Mechanic provided the directions, then peered at Mari. “Are you new on board? Got a boyfriend?”

“Yes and yes,” Mari replied.

“Every girl on this ship is taken,” the other Mechanic grumbled good-naturedly, then headed off about his business.

Mari watched him go, then sighed with relief. “I didn’t want to have to club down another Mechanic. Come on.” The directions they had been given lay along the outside of the ship’s superstructure, so they had to move carefully with only starlight to mark their path. It wasn’t very far, but Mari was getting increasingly nervous by the time they reached the hatch with a sign identifying it as the place where the ship’s long-distance far-talker was kept. The longer she and Alain had to spend taking out the far-talker and the propulsion plant, the greater the chance of their being discovered or alarms being sounded. Mari rapped a brisk knock on the hatch, opened it without waiting for a reply, and quickly entered the far-talker room.