The Assassins of Altis (30 page)

“They would need a path,” Alain agreed.
“But since practically nobody knows about this tower, whoever lives there must be keeping it secret, so…”

“Their path would be secret as well.” Alain looked at the ground ahead. “It will be difficult to reach wherever you saw this traveler, but it will be difficult to go in any other direction as well.”

Mari grinned fiercely, coming carefully to her feet on the slope. “Let’s go find us a path, my Mage. Down that way, up that slope, over that ridge and hope what’s on the other side isn’t too bad.”

The other side wasn’t great, but it wasn’t impassable, either. Not quite impassable, anyway. Mari had determined certain landmarks on the way to where she had caught brief glimpses of the traveler: a large rock with an odd shape, a cluster of evil-looking scrub bushes, and a nearly vertical ravine in one cliff face as if a huge knife had sliced into the rock. She was able to stay headed in the direction of what was hopefully a hidden trail while they toiled down, up and around numerous obstacles. About noon, as Mari was struggling up another steep slope, she suddenly found herself stepping onto a very low ridge and looking down at a path heading inland. Stumbling down onto the surface of the path and resisting an urge to kneel and kiss it, she helped Alain step down as well. “That ridge is almost like a wall running alongside this path, completely hiding it.” She looked up at an almost sheer cliff face. “You couldn’t see the path except from overhead, and nobody is going to be walking up there. If I hadn’t spotted that person, which I couldn’t have without my far-seer, we would have never known this was here.”

Alain sat down, relieved enough for the emotion to be obvious. “This is not a heavily used way, but it has clearly been here a long time.”

“Like part of the landscape,” Mari agreed. She studied what she could see of the path, puzzled. “It looks artificial, as if the path was cut through here, but I can’t tell what did the cutting through so much rock and left such smooth surfaces.” They took a break to eat, Mari hauling out the map and studying it again. “We haven’t even come halfway, but on this path we can move a lot faster. I think we should push on today until sunset, get a decent night’s sleep, then try to reach the tower tomorrow.”

Alain nodded, standing up with a heavy sigh. “I miss the
White Wing
.”

“I bet. Are you sure what you really miss isn’t being in bed with me?”

“That, too.” He looked back and forth along the path. “Perhaps tonight, on a level surface like this…”

“Do men ever stop thinking about that? And in any case, forget it. That’s rock and gravel. I will not engage in any vigorous activity on that kind of surface.”

Despite their weariness, the easier road lent Mari and Alain extra energy, and they covered a lot of ground before it grew too dark to travel. They slept on a level surface, hemmed in by the path’s concealing barrier and the slope rising on the other side, so that even though they alternated watches through the night both got a decent amount of rest for the first time in days.

Mari felt a curious mix of elation and dread as they started off the next morning. What if the tower was not there? What if the "records of all things" it once held had long since crumbled to dust? What if the current inhabitants had no idea the tower had been a place to keep important information safe and could tell her nothing?

But what if the tower was there and the people in it could answer her questions? The possibility lent wings to her feet as they walked.

Mari’s prediction from the map proved accurate. The sun was still just short of noon when they rounded a mountainous curve and found themselves gazing down into a pocket valley. It was bigger than Mari had expected from the map and greener, too. Meadows and cultivated fields covered a wide area beneath them, with stands of trees here and there as well as on the slopes of the valley. They could see the shapes of farm animals moving in some of the fields.

Rising against the back wall of the valley was the tower. Even though it was dwarfed by the mountains rising around them, Mari couldn’t hold back a gasp of surprise at the tower’s size. It soared upward for what she guessed must be a hundred lances, its surface some sort of smooth, shiny stone with no sign of break or seams except for windows and a large entry. On the tower’s top, an unbroken expanse of dull black material not only roofed the structure but created the odd impression in Mari that the stuff was actually soaking up the sunlight. “Did they carve it out of the living rock?” Mari wondered out loud as she studied the tower through her far-seer.

She moved her head slowly, using the far-seer to view more of the valley. Near the base of the tremendous tower other, much smaller, buildings were clustered. Some of those looked as if they had been fashioned from the same mysterious substance as the tower, but most appeared to have been built of stone and timber in ways Mari was familiar with. “Looks like communal living areas, barns and structures like that. There are plenty of people down there. I’d guess maybe a hundred within view right now. It looks like they’re all wearing plain robes of some kind.”

“Robes?” Alain asked.

“Yeah, not like Mage robes, though,” Mari said. “As far as I can tell, they’re tending to animals, working the fields and doing other work. Wait.” Mari spotted some smaller figures who weren’t wearing robes. “Children. There are families down there.”

Mari lowered her far-seer, glancing at Alain. “Families with children. And the children are playing. That’s a good sign.”

“It may be,” he agreed cautiously. “If children are among them, and playing, they are definitely not Mages, despite the robes.”

She raised the far-seer again. At the base of the tower, great doors stood open, with robed figures passing in and out. “The tower’s definitely still occupied. I see no sign of defenses or weapons, unless you count the staves being carried by the people herding the flocks. No sentries, no guards.”

Alain nodded. “These people depend for safety on not being known. They raise their own food, and must require little contact with the rest of the world.”

“Yeah. But this path proves they send people in and out for something. I wonder what? Medicine? Mechanic devices? Do you want a look?”

Alain shook his head, eying the far-seers warily. "No. I would see nothing that you did not, and I do not know how to safely use that."

"They're just far-seers, Alain. They can't explode."

"Then they are unlike the other Mechanic devices I have experience with," Alain said firmly.

Reminding herself that Alain's Mage arts still seemed as perplexing to her as Mechanic devices were to a Mage,
Mari put away her far-seer and looked to Alain. “What do you think? Sneak around and see what we can spy out? Or just walk down, introduce ourselves and see what they do?”

“If I lived as these people do,” Alain suggested, “I would be highly suspicious of anyone acting suspicious.”

“You mean someone sneaking around and spying, I take it.”

“Yes. I think we would be best served by acting open and unthreatening.”

Mari drew her pistol and checked it, then replaced it in her shoulder holster. “All right. I agree. But let’s be ready in case they turn out to be a bunch of maniacs who consider outsiders to be the spawn of demons.” She paused, thinking some more. “Yeah, let’s be open and honest for once.” Pulling off her coat, she stuffed it into her pack and drew out her Mechanics jacket, putting it on and settling it into place with a small smile. “I’ve missed wearing this, you know,” she confessed to Alain.

“I could tell, every time you were able to put it on and every time you saw another Mechanic.” Alain also bent to his pack, removing the Mage robes inside and donning them. “Here we are, once again openly the Mage and Mechanic, just as when we first met.”

“That seems so long ago.” Mari glanced at the ring on her hand. This was the first time she had worn her Mechanics jacket and the ring at the same time. “You know, back when I was single.”

“As I was.”

Mari bit her lip, staring outward. “Your vision of us fighting in a battle at Dorcastle someday. We’re obviously on the path to that. We’re married now, just like in the vision. You have no idea who we were fighting?”

“No. Only you and I were clear.”

“It looks more and more like we’re going to be fighting the Great Guilds.” Mari looked over at him, feeling somber. “Have you seen anything else? Anything that would tell whether or not we both survive that battle?”

Alain regarded her gravely. “No. I have seen nothing of us, together or alone, in any period after the battle.”

“At least you haven’t seen either of us dead.” Mari swallowed, put her doubts and fears aside, then straightened her jacket and smiled at him. “Come on. Let’s go visit the tower of Altis.”

The path they were on switched back and forth twice as it descended into the valley, the obscuring barrier on its outside edge dwindling away to nothing so that there was no obstruction hiding their approach from everyone in the valley. “They have no need of sentries,” Alain observed.

The path followed the rise and fall of gentle slopes as it headed for a stream cutting through the valley. Mari and Alain walked at an easy pace, approaching a bridge spanning the stream. As they got closer to the bridge, Mari could see that it was made of the same seamless rocklike material as the tower.

Alain pointed. “There is a small group coming this way. A dozen, I think.”

Mari squinted, making out the figures. “Do we have a cover story this time, or do we just tell the truth?”

“You are asking a Mage about truth?”

“Yes, you clown.” Mari couldn’t help smiling, though. “I think we should try the truth. We’re fighting people who lie. Let’s be on the side of honesty regarding what we want and why we came.”

“I agree with your wisdom,” Alain said.

“And once again you affirm one of the many reasons I love you.” She grasped his hand as they walked, using her free hand to check her pistol again. “But they could be hiding all kinds of weapons under those robes. You’re still ready for trouble, right?”

“Of course.”

Mari and Alain kept walking toward the robed figures, while the group who apparently made up a welcoming committee strode toward them. They met at the bridge, the robed group spreading out to block the span. One of their number stopped ahead of the rest.

“Good day,” Mari said politely.

“Good day,” the robed figure in the lead responded, throwing back a hood to reveal that she was a woman, tall, a bit thin, with sharp eyes. She managed to look both gracious and unwelcoming at the same time. “You are lost. We will give you directions back to Altis.”

“We’re not lost,” Mari said.

“Then I regret to tell you that we do not welcome visitors here. Our people live apart from others. We must ask that you leave this valley and explore some other part of the island.”

Mari raised her arm to point at the tower. “We’re not exploring. We came here to visit that tower and those who live in it.”

The woman conveyed puzzlement. “Why would you seek that? Our people have lived here for generations, and we have nothing in which the outside world would be interested.”

Alain leaned close to Mari to speak in her ear. “The first part of her statement was true, the last part a lie.”

Nodding, Mari smiled at the woman. “You can see that this man is a Mage. He can tell when someone speaks the truth. And when they don’t.”

“He wears the robes of a Mage,” the woman agreed. “But Mages do not accompany Mechanics. One of you is false. Perhaps both of you are.”

Mari smiled. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that if I were you. I am Master Mechanic Mari of Caer Lyn, and this is Mage Alain of Ihris.” She noticed some of the robed figures reacting slightly when she said her name, and wondered what news the person they had seen on the path might have brought here. “We have questions which we hope you can answer.”

“Then you will surely be disappointed,” the woman replied, more severely this time. “I ask you again to go. You are not welcome in this valley and will not be permitted to go farther.”

“There’s nothing in that tower?” Mari asked.

“Our homes. Nothing more.”

Mari glanced at Alain, who shook his head, then back at the woman. “But I have read that there is much more there,” Mari said. She didn’t need Alain’s help to see the way the robed figures tensed after that statement.

But the robed woman recovered quickly, smiling sadly. “There are many stories with no basis in fact. Whatever you read of that tower is no more real than one of the tales of Mara the Undying.”

That made Mari fix a cross look on the woman. “At the moment, Mara is kind of a sore subject with me. Do you want to know where I read about this tower? I’ll show you.” The robed figures all watched as Mari shrugged off her pack, kneeling to carefully unseal the watertight package holding her half of the banned Mechanic texts from Marandur.

She stood up slowly, holding one of the texts, then carefully opened it to the page with the drawing on the side. “It says here, ‘The tower on Altis, where records of all things are kept,’ and the drawing certainly resembles your tower.”

The robed woman was staring not at Mari but at the book she held. “What is that?”

Mari turned it to read the cover. “Survival Technology Manual, Base Level Two, Volume Four, Wireless Communications, Second Edition, Revision Three, Demeter Projekt.” She looked back at the men and women facing her. “Demeter. That sounds like our world. Dematr.”

A ripple passed through the ranks of robed figures. “The tech manuals,” a woman whispered. “Coleen, it’s one of the tech manuals.”

One of the men cried out in a much louder voice. “We cannot let this opportunity pass!”

“Silence, all of you,” the woman ordered. “We know nothing of this, or of that book you hold,” she insisted to Mari.

“Don’t you want to know where I got it?” Mari asked.

“Such knowledge could be extremely dangerous to us,” the woman named Coleen replied, but even Mari could see the yearning for answers in her.

“Not as dangerous as it is to me and my Mage. We got it in Marandur. It’s from the vaults of the old Mechanics Guild Headquarters in that city.” It hadn’t come directly to her from those vaults, but the statement was still true.

She could see the people before her wavering. Mari held up the text. “This is only one of what we have. If you truly value knowledge, perhaps you would like to see the texts. All of them.”

“What…what is you want?” Coleen asked.

“We are here seeking records of the past,” Mari said. “Records which might tell us how our world came to be as it is. I need to know this.”

The woman rallied. “We cannot help you.”

Alain spoke to her for the first time. “You
choose
not to help us.”

“I’m offering a trade,” Mari said. “You answer my questions, and I let you look at the texts that are in our packs.”

“Can you tell us about Marandur?” a man asked. “What it is like right now?”

Coleen turned to glare at the man as Mari answered. “Yes. And about the masters and students still occupying the university there.”

“They still survive?” a woman cried. “Coleen, please, this is priceless.”

“We have our mission,” the leader said, but her resolve was clearly wavering. “What do you seek in our records?”

Mari met her eyes. “I need to know why the world is the way it is, why the Great Guilds control its fate. I need to know if there is a good reason for that, if the world’s subjugation to the Great Guilds was in the name of some higher purpose or in response to some awful events. And I need to know anything about other ways that the world could be, ways that give more freedom than anyone has now.”

“Why do you need to know this?”

Mari took a deep breath and then spoke steadily even though the words felt as if someone else were saying them. “Because I am the daughter of Jules, and our world will soon face a great crisis that will destroy everything. I can stop that, if I can unite Mechanics, Mages, and the common folk to overthrow the Great Guilds and bring freedom to this world.”

Another of the robed men spoke. “It is her, and the Mage. The ones we were told of.”

Coleen gazed at Mari. “Do you have any idea of the cost if we reveal ourselves to you, and if that information becomes known to the Great Guilds?”

“I swear to reveal nothing of this place, not unless you give me permission.”

Her eyes went to Alain. “But what of the Mage? What oath can he give?”

Alain inclined his head toward the woman. “I vow also to say nothing.”

“The word of a Mage means nothing.”

Mari felt anger that she couldn’t quite suppress. “That may be true of most Mages, but it is not true of my Mage. He is a man of honor.” She held up her left hand so the promise ring shone in the sun. “He is also my husband, and I will not have his word questioned.” She could see the eyes of the entire group focusing on her hand in disbelief, then shifting to see the identical ring on Alain’s.

The woman leader stared at Alain. “Why did you marry this Mechanic?”

“Because I love her,” Alain answered.

“But the wisdom of Mages says that all people are shadows, and no feelings must bind you to others.”

“Lady Mari has shown me a new wisdom, one stronger than that which the elders of the Mage Guild teach. That is why we walk together, and why I have resolved with her to do the right thing.”

Mari spoke into the silence which followed Alain’s declaration. “We wish you no harm. Please. We need to know that what we are doing is the right thing.”

The woman shook her head, looking down at the path. “We hold knowledge, Lady Mechanic, but the answers you seek may be beyond the wisdom of any man or woman. We can provide facts, but right and wrong are judgments, and only you can decide them.”

“Then give me the facts to make such a decision wisely! That’s why I came here, to have the data I need to make an informed decision!”

The woman turned to look at her fellows, and one by one they nodded back at her. She faced Mari and Alain again. “We cannot deny your request, for knowledge must have a purpose, and for too long our only purpose has been to protect it, not to assist in the use of it as our calling demands. I am Coleen, head librarian of the librarians of the tower. If you will come with us, we will try to answer your questions, and in exchange you must grant us access to the materials you carry. The knowledge in them will be a great gift to us and to the people of this world.”

Mari nodded, smiling. “It’s a deal.”

#

Coleen led the way to the tower, the rest of the librarians following behind Mari and Alain. People they passed stopped to look at the procession in amazement, but either Coleen or one of the other librarians always assured them that all was well. Mari endured the slow walk, wanting to run to the tower, but Alain’s hand in hers helped hold her back.

When they reached the tower, Mari paused to run her fingers across its surface. Up close, the material was just as smooth as from a distance, but also very hard and apparently unmarked by time. “What is this? Mari asked.

“We don’t know,” one of the male librarians admitted. They had all dropped their hoods and seemed just as eager to talk now as they had formerly been reticent. “It was something our ancestors could make, a material which could be poured like water, yet would hold a shape and then harden into something stronger and more enduring than stone.”

“Our ancestors.” Mari glanced at Alain. “Did they come from the stars?”

“Yes. Very few people are still aware of that.”

Mari felt her breath stop for a moment. “Our ancestors really did come from the stars?”

“Don’t the Mechanics still boast of their lineage from the stars?”

“Yes, but most of them don’t believe it anymore. It’s true?”

Coleen gave Mari a wry smile. “If you truly wish to know how our world came to be as it is, that is where you’ll have to start, with the ship that came from another star.”

The ground floor of the tower was a vast room, with stairs leading upward and down. The interior was illuminated by some kind of electrical lighting, though Mari noted that a lot of the lights had failed. “Where’s your power generator?” she asked.

A librarian waved around to encompass the tower. “The tower itself turns the sun’s rays into power for us to use. But the amount of power has been slowly dwindling for generations for reasons we do not understand, and when lights now go out, we have no more replacements for them.”

Coleen headed for one of the stairways down, leading Mari and Alain down three flights to what must be a level well beneath the surface. “It is very safe here,” she said. “The safest storage space in all of Dematr. Not just because it’s deeply buried in living rock, but because this part of the planet is very geologically stable. It is where we keep Original Equipment.” From the way she pronounced the words, it was easy for Mari to hear the capital letters in them.

Coleen paused at the door at the bottom of the stairs, manipulating a lock and then standing aside as she opened the door to allow Mari and Alain to enter.

Lights came on as Mari walked into the room, apparently triggered automatically. She came to a halt, staring around at an assemblage of equipment which surpassed anything she had ever imagined. Mari knew her mouth had fallen open as she gazed at the smooth panels, at the devices whose functions she could only guess at. As Mari slowly turned to take in everything, she felt moisture running down her cheeks, and reached up to wipe away tears of joy and wonder. “Stars above. So many things in the banned texts are right here, truly existing. Oh, this is awesome.” Her voice cracked and Mari had to close her eyes, more tears spilling out as she cried at the marvel of these devices which actually did exist, which were real and here in front of her. Things that the Mechanics Guild had kept from her world.

“Mari?” Alain’s voice was concerned as his hand touched her gently.

“Oh, Alain.” Mari shook her head, opening her eyes and turning around and around to look at everything over and over again. “This is so beyond belief. This is what the Mechanics Guild took from us. Am I right?” she asked Coleen, who had entered behind them and now watched Mari with shared joy.

“Yes,” the librarian said. “All of these things came from the great ship, which means all of them came from a world warmed by another star. They were all built an unimaginable distance away, many, many years ago. We have had to keep them hidden to protect them from your Guild.”

“Not my Guild,” Mari denied violently. “I am a Mechanic, but that is not my Guild any longer. I could never belong to any organization that forced the suppression of such wonders.”

Coleen had walked over to one wall, where a large diagram hung, the image on it faded but still legible. “This was the ship.”

Mari came close, staring at the drawing. “What’s the scale?”

“Here,” the librarian said, indicating a marker in one corner of the diagram. “Our ancestors used something called a metr. A metr was about half a lance in length.”

Checking that against the diagram, Mari felt her jaw drop again. “It was huge.”

“It had to be. The voyage took hundreds of years.” Coleen indicated a map on the wall next to the diagram of the ship. Even under its protective covering, the map had browned with age.

Mari and Alain studied the map, seeing huge continents of unfamiliar shape. “What does this show?” Alain asked.

“The home of our ancestors,” Coleen said, her voice now worshipful. “The place from which the great ship came. Another world. Urth is its name.”

Mari traced the outlines of the continents with her fingertip, carefully not touching even the covering of the map. “Urth. How far away is it?”

“We do not know anymore,” another librarian answered. “We know only that the distance is so great that light itself takes many years for the journey.” Her voice saddened. “One of the stars we see in the sky is the sun which warms Urth, but we no longer know which star that is.”