The Dragons of Dorcastle (26 page)

* * * *

Leaving the Mage Guild Hall was the work of a moment, informing the acolyte at the door that he would not be returning, but would be heading for Dorcastle as instructed by the elders. Alain suspected those elders, who had regarded him with ill-concealed suspicion at a second Inquiry this morning, would be grateful enough for his departure not to worry about how he was leaving. No one had ever told him specifically that Mechanic “trains” were off limits to Mages, and asking permission seemed a needless complication, so he did not bother about that. Alain had brought no baggage from the ruin of the caravan, and Mages had few possessions in any event. He had acquired a small bag to hold his robes hidden, and now walked toward the Mechanic place which Mari had told him to look for. The common clothes he wore still felt very odd, but he would grow used to them.

Following some commons, Alain carried his bag inside the Mechanic station, looking around and absorbing the noises, smells and vapors that swirled through the station. Some of those noises and smells always seemed to go with Mechanics and their doings. Sharp bangs and sudden, loud crashing sounds. The tang of things heated too hot, overlaid by something like rancid cooking oil left too long on a fire. Metal grinding against metal. What purpose did such things serve?

Not long ago he would not have come this far, avoiding anything with the taint of Mechanics about it. But he could still sense the thread. Mechanic Mari was here, and she would not have sent him into danger.

The window was not hard to find, and when Alain gave his name a boy who must be a Mechanic acolyte shoved a piece of paper forward without even looking at Alain. Mechanics must also teach their acolytes to ignore others. Alain took the paper and followed commons again. They walked to a series of identical, long, narrow buildings next to a platform. The sides of each of the buildings were lined with windows. At the very end of the line stood a building which appeared grander than the others, and had some of the Mechanic acolytes standing as if guarding it. Alain guessed that one would be for the Mechanics themselves. In front of the windowed buildings were a number of similarly shaped buildings with no windows, but rather large doors through which boxes and other objects were being brought inside.

It all seemed incomprehensible, but the commons ahead of Alain walked into the nearest building and he followed, finding the single room inside filled with benches along each side and an aisle down the middle. Seating himself as the commons did, Alain waited, wondering what to do.

Alain could wait. He gazed out of the window impassively as the room gradually filled with commons, taking many of the seats, some of them giving him curious looks. Someone might have said something to him, but he ignored them, and they went away.

He heard a rumbling sound, felt vibrations, then a sudden shock rocked the building he was in. None of the commons appeared alarmed, and Alain of course hid his own reaction, but he had more trouble remaining impassive when the building slid backwards a bit, then forwards, with its own rumbling vibration.

Very odd. Then he saw one of the buildings being rolled by on a nearby set of metal lines and realized the buildings had wheels on them. Clever. They were wagons, not buildings, linked together into a single long caravan. But what kind of creature could pull so many?

Up ahead, somewhere past the wagons which carried boxes, Alain heard a deafening, wild screech, as if a huge creature had been stricken. Once again, he barely kept from showing any reaction. Mechanics were shouting orders, then with a lurch the wagons surged into motion.

Mechanic Mari had said she would be on this train as well. Alain wondered whether she would be in the last car with the Mechanics. But the thread led forward, not back. Mari was up front, perhaps near the beast that pulled this strange Mechanic caravan.

The train kept going faster and faster, the outlying buildings of Ringhmon whipping by quicker than a galloping horse could manage. Alain stared out the window, remembering how Mechanic Mari had looked when he had walked into her cell through the hole he had imagined in the wall. He suspected she had felt then as he did now, astonished at something which should not have been possible, according to what he had been taught. What he had been taught instead was to pay no attention to the works of Mechanics, not even to look upon them. Tricks deserved no attention, required no attention.

This was not a trick. He had been trained to see through illusions, and this was a very good one. How did the Mechanics do this?

In the sky above, Alain noticed a trail of smoke which appeared to come from the front of the train. Whatever was pulling all of these wagons, whatever had screamed, must also be producing the smoke. A dragon? A troll? No, neither created smoke, nor could a troll move fast.

But the Mechanics had made something, using their own arts, just as Mages could create creatures. What would Mage Guild elders say if Alain asked about this?
They would tell me I was fooled, being young. They would accuse me of having strayed from wisdom, of having been overcome by the illusions of the Mechanics.

They would ask me why I chose to ride what Mari called a train.

I will stay silent on this while I try to learn why my Guild is so much in error when it comes to Mechanics.

The wheels of the wagons clicked in a rhythmic way as the train rolled along, the wagons swaying back and forth slightly. The gentle motion brought back memories of long ago, before he had been taken by the Guild. Being gently rocked, a soft voice singing.

Alain focused tightly on his training, unwilling to give in to that memory. It lay behind a locked door in his mind, and somehow he knew that if he opened that door it would bring more buried emotion than his training could deal with.

The seat was far from comfortable, with cushions as thin as those in the dungeon of Ringhmon, but Mages were taught to disregard physical discomfort. He fell asleep watching the land roll past, the accumulated fatigue of the last several days catching up with him, only to awaken when the train slowed to a halt. Outside, low vegetation and an occasional tree could be seen, but no sign of the ocean. This was not Dorcastle.

“They’re feeding the Mechanic engine,” he heard one of the commons say to another. “Water and that liquid like lamp oil they make that burns really well.”

The Mechanic creature ate and drank. Interesting. He could feel no drain on power in the area as the Mechanic train moved, so the Mechanic creature did not draw on that as a Mage spell would. The creature must rely on the aid of power provided in another form.

Alain fell asleep again after the train began moving once more. He woke as the Mechanic train finished skirting the rugged mountains which blocked access to Ringhmon from the western side and turned west toward Dorcastle. The air took on the bracing scent of salt water, and before long Alain could spot the lowering sun glittering on the surface of the Sea of Bakre. The wide coastal marshes he could see soon gave way to rocks on which waves beat unceasingly.

He had never seen that sea until recently, when he had ridden a ship south to find employment far from Ihris. Alain watched it, thinking of his time with the Mechanic. Thinking of Mari. So many changes, so many challenges to the wisdom he had been taught. Yet his foresight had not warned him of her. If she were a danger, if she were leading him astray from wisdom, such a warning would surely have come or would come.

He thought again about the vision involving Mari. A second sun, and a terrible storm that threatened it, and perhaps more. What could that mean?

Had the vision regarding Mari come to him for the same reason the thread had appeared? Did being a friend have something to do with it? Or was it simply because of Mari herself? Alain recalled Mari’s own warnings that other Mechanics were likely a danger to him, and wondered what would have happened if there had been another Mechanic traveling with the destroyed caravan. Would any other Mechanic have done what Mari did, forcing their alliance and thereby saving them both?

Friend. He remembered more now. Asha would have been a friend. He felt sure of that from the brief time before the elders had taught acolytes to avoid even mentioning such things. What would that have been like? Not like being a friend with Mechanic Mari. But it had not happened, it could not happen. If Asha was not already a Mage, she surely would be one soon. The biggest thing holding her back was the natural beauty that no amount of neglect could diminish and which created deep suspicion among elders. But she felt nothing, just as he felt nothing.

Those memories roused something inside him that Alain did not understand but wanted to avoid. He tried to concentrate on Mari again. That was not too hard.

She had acted oddly when last they met. He had wondered if she would greet him here. But she had never said “we” would travel on this Mechanic caravan. She had spoken of them being separate once again. Had Mechanic Mari developed second thoughts about being a friend? They had been thrown together twice, but each time she had needed him as he had needed her. Now, neither needed the other.

Surely friend meant more than that.

The way she had looked at him before parting in Ringhmon…what did that mean? He could not sort out the emotions he had seen in her. But her eyes had been wide as she looked at him and…and…

Those thoughts were disturbing, too.

As long as light lasted, he watched as the Mechanic caravan climbed ever higher along the steep cliffs which marked the southern shore of the Sea of Bakre. Inland from the cliffs were even higher mountains, forming barriers so rugged to travel that they were almost impassable. There were no lights within the caravan, at least not this part of it, but the moonlight shone brightly. Alain could easily see the moon and the smaller twins that forever chased it across the night sky. At last, even the spectacular view could not overcome the tempo of the clicking wheels, and Alain fell asleep again, thinking that this Mechanic way of travel was indeed superior to anything commons offered. The Mage Guild had its own means, of course, faster than this Mechanic device.

Had Mari ever flown on a Roc? It seemed unlikely.

Alain dreamed of flying above the clouds, looking down on toylike cities, Mari by his side. He felt…what was this? Like when he had qualified to be a Mage, passing all tests. Better than that, though. Much better.

But the clouds darkened, forming into the storm of his vision, towering thunderheads filled with rage rising higher to threaten Alain and Mari.

The Roc screamed and they fell…

Alain woke to hear the screaming still in his ears as a huge, invisible hand grasped Alain and hurled him against the seat in front of him. It held him there while the shrieking of tortured metal continued and the view of a rock wall outside the windows on one side showed the wagon was slowly rapidly. The sense of great danger, of something being very wrong, was so strong that Alain felt a momentary sting of panic despite his training.

The screaming of metal came to an end, and the mysterious force holding Alain against the seat before him released its grip, allowing him to fall to the floor.

Alain blinked in the darkness, wondering what could have happened. All around, the shocked silence was starting to give way to cries of alarm and, in some cases, cries of pain.

Still bemused by the sudden waking from his dream, Alain sought to feel for the presence of Mages and the drain on the power in this area as they cast spells. He felt nothing, though. Whatever had caused the Mechanic train to screech to a halt, it had not been the work of Mages.

If it had been bandits again, they were now silent. No crashes of Mechanic weapons broke the night, no thump of crossbow bolts striking home, no shouts of battle. All that Alain could hear outside were the voices of a few commons who had already spilled out of the wagons and were loudly speculating on what had happened.

Checking himself for injury and finding none, Alain followed the rest of the travelers as they filed out of the wagon. The Mechanic train had stopped along the face of a high cliff, with only a small shelf of land to stand on next to the metal lines the wagons ran along. A three-quarter moon cast an icy light across the area, revealing a view of remarkable but cold beauty as it sparked silver from froth thrown by angry waves crashing in endless array against the cliff face below. Unfazed by the sheer drop, Alain looked down on those cliffs forever standing sentinel before the waters of the Sea of Bakre.

He was still taking in his surroundings when there came a rumbling sound from the rear of the train. Alain looked back that way, seeing that the last and grandest wagon had been separated at some point. Mechanics were now rolling it back into contact with the rest of the train. The Mechanic wagon struck with a crash that bounced from wagon to wagon past Alain, then the Mechanics began walking forward, the commons scattering hastily to clear a path. Alain watched the Mechanics approach, not even realizing he was acting like a Mage in robes, before he recalled in the nick of time that he was dressed as a common person and had to likewise get out of the way. He hastily stepped back against the wagon he had ridden in, just in time to avoid being shouldered aside.

Alain fought down a wave of un-Magelike emotion, of irritation, gazing after the Mechanics.
Arrogant,
the elders had said
. They think they rule the world.
He had forgotten that advice, which seemed accurate enough in the case of these Mechanics. Mari did not show that arrogance.– But these Mechanics even walked differently than she did.

He heard the word “accident” being repeated as the commons around him talked. They seemed content to wait on whatever the Mechanics decided. Those who had received broken or sprained arms and legs in the sudden stop were being tended to by other commons, the Mechanics ignoring them.

I can wait as well
, thought Alain.
But if I go ahead after those Mechanics, I will see whatever creature pulled this train and learn more of it. Did it die, or did it rebel against the lash of the Mechanics? Trolls and dragons can slip their control if the creating Mage loses his concentration. Is that what happened here?