The Assassins of Altis (32 page)

“We do not know,” the librarian said with equal firmness, “but what remains to us says this can happen.”

“I don’t see how. What kind of fuel does a sun use, anyway?”

The librarian made a helpless gesture. “That knowledge was withheld from us by the Mechanics Guild’s founders.”

Alain was looking at another map. “This is Dematr, our world. But it looks more like a painting than a drawing.”

“It is an image,” Coleen explained. “Made from what were called orbital surveys when the great ship first arrived here.”

“I have been told how the world appears to one riding a Roc high in the sky,” Alain said. “This seems the same, but as if from a height no Roc could reach.” He pointed to the map. “There is the Dematr we know, the lands around the Sea of Bakre. But what is this far to the west across the Umbari Ocean?”

Mari answered before the librarians could. “The western continent? It’s real?”

“Yes,” Coleen said. “Far enough distant to be difficult to reach with the ships we have. Needless to say, the Great Guilds have not permitted any expeditions in search of it. As far as we know, no ship has ever gone there, and no people live there. Perhaps it has plants and animals such as those we know, or perhaps it is still like this world was before the great ship came.”

“You know so much,” Mari said softly. “You have kept so much knowledge safe. And yet there is still so much more to learn.”

Coleen smiled. “Those things are the definition of happiness for a librarian. That and sharing the knowledge we have.”

Mari walked carefully through the room, not quite touching the devices, noting that all had been kept clean and free of dust. The Mechanic in her admired the care with which the librarians had tried to maintain these things. “When I saw the texts in Marandur, and saw all of the amazing things they described, I knew it had to have come from somewhere. All of that technology had to have developed over many years, building on advance after advance.” Her gaze went to the maps again. “And now I know where it came from. Urth. Where our ancestors lived and hopefully our brothers and sisters still live. And now I also know how much was taken from us, and why, by those who founded the Mechanics Guild.”

She stopped in front of a very large box which rose slightly higher than her height and was about three times her width. Mari read the label on the device, which had words stamped into metal. “ ‘Transmitter.’ This is the largest far-talker I’ve ever seen. Why is it so big?”

The voice of the librarian who answered Mari was hushed. “It is designed to talk not to anyone on Dematr, but to the stars. This device is supposed to be able to send a message to Urth itself, and receive replies.”

Mari stared at the librarian, then back at the transmitter. “It has enough range to reach across a distance that took centuries to cover? Does it still work?”

“We don’t know. It should. It has never been activated.”

“Why not?”

Coleen answered this time, her voice resigned. “The Mechanics Guild forbade our ancestors to activate it. The librarians of the tower have survived these many years because the Guild wanted to have these devices and knowledge still available if they were needed to maintain control of this world. But we have always existed at the sufferance of the Mechanics Guild, for we have neither weapons nor defenses. Over time, knowledge of us may have faded in the Guild, a loss of memory probably aggravated by the purges which have occasionally resulted in the deaths of numerous Mechanics.”

“Purges?” Mari asked. “Was the last one of those about a century ago?”

“It was.” Coleen made a helpless gesture. “We have had no inspectors from the Mechanics Guild visit for many decades, and when you first appeared we feared that the Guild had remembered our presence here. But it appears the Guild has forgotten us. However, if we activate the transmitter, it might alert the Guild. We don’t know. We have never dared try it, for if the Guild learned we had done so then everything here could be lost.”

Another librarian spoke gruffly. “It’s questionable whether we still can activate the transmitter. We told you earlier that the power we receive from the tower has slowly lessened. It may no longer be enough.”

Mari ran one hand very gently across the surface of the transmitter. “Maybe someday I can get another generator here. I saw that your stream is fed by a waterfall, so a simple water turbine might be all you need.” She bent to look at the transmitter’s label again. “ ‘Feyn-man. Feynman Transmitter.’ What does Feynman mean?” The librarians shook their heads in reply. “I didn’t see an antenna.”

“The tower contains the antenna—
is
the antenna, if what we have remembered is true.”

Once more Mari touched the device reverently. “We’ll speak to the stars. Someday we’ll speak to the stars.”

Coleen spoke with sadness this time. “We can offer you no aid in your task, Lady Mari. We must remain hidden while the Mechanics Guild retains power, and we have no weapons to offer you.”

Mari gazed back at the librarian. “My friends and I can make weapons, with the help of those texts. I don’t want to have to use them, but we may have no choice. If the Great Guilds remain in control of this world, everywhere will end up like Tiae and eventually Marandur—because the founders of the Mechanics Guild wanted the wealth and power of Dematr for themselves.”

Alain nodded. “And because the Mage Guild will not care what is happening to everyone else as long as its elders stay in control. They do not wish change, because they do not believe the suffering of others is real. They would not believe this is real, even as they die at the hands of mobs of commons.”

“You said most of the crew of the great ship disobeyed the orders they had been given long ago,” Mari said to Coleen. “Do you know what those orders were?”

Coleen looked at the other librarians, who made various gestures of ignorance. “All that we know,” she told Mari, “is that what they did—take control of all technology and power for themselves—was in violation of those orders.”

“Then whatever they were told to do involved sharing their knowledge with everyone,” Mari said. “And sharing power with everyone. Those people who built the great ship, who knew so much more than we did, intended that this world be free of the control of anything like the Great Guilds. They intended that the commons have more control over their own lives.”

“That is safe to say,” Coleen agreed.

“Then I know what my job entails,” Mari said. “In order to fix things, I need to correct the errors made long ago. I need to break the power of the Great Guilds, and I need to give the common folk the right to rule themselves.”

“Do you truly believe that you can do that?” Coleen asked.

“I don’t know,” Mari said, looking toward Alain. “But we’re either going to succeed, or die trying.”

#

The librarians had given them a comfortable room to stay in while the librarians worked through the days and nights copying everything Mari had brought. Night had fallen, and from their bed Mari and Alain could look through a window at the stars shining above the valley where the tower sat.

“Can you believe it, Alain?” Mari asked him. “It’s so astounding. What must that voyage have been like? What is Urth like? Think how it must have felt when those people got here and first set foot on this world.”

“And then decided to enslave all the others who would live here,” Alain could not help adding.

She turned and gave him a narrow-eyed look. “I’m trying to focus on the romance here. What are you thinking? All of this Mechanic stuff in the tower and all, and finding out the Mages began appearing after people got here. How does that all feel for you?”

Alain did not answer for a little while, trying to put his thoughts together. “I thought at first that you were very unhappy, distressed when you saw all of those Mechanic devices. I wondered if you were jealous of those who had created such things. But then I saw that it was joy that moved you. And I felt some of that, through you. There is much to learn. We share that, you and I. In many ways our thoughts are different, but both of us want to learn new things. In that we are alike.”

Perhaps Mari sensed that he had more to say, because she waited until he spoke again.

Alain gestured at the stars. “You know that I was taught that all we see is false, an illusion. Those stars, this world. And so I can change the illusion, for a little while. But people make the illusions, and this has been puzzling me more and more. Mage teaching says that people are but shadows moving across the world illusion. Even I would be but a shadow in someone else’s mind. But I do not believe that any more, not of you and increasingly not of others. If we create the illusions by what we believe, then how can we be illusions as well?”

Mari made a baffled gesture. “I’m not quite following you, but I would think that to create something you’d have to be real.”

“Yes,” Alain said in a low but intense voice. “The people are real. That surely is the explanation for why the Mage arts cannot directly alter a person as they can anything else.”

“You told me about that. It is kind of odd. I mean, people are made of the same elements as other things in the world.”

“People are not those things. They are different somehow. But they are not illusions. No Mage can alter that which is real, and I now believe that each person is a reality, and a truth.”

Mari reached over and grasped his hand. “I’d sure like to believe that’s true.”

“I think it is. Why has not my connection to other people harmed my ability to change the world illusion? Because it is a totally different thing. I can love you and it harms my art not at all. Indeed, I believe my love is somehow leading me to a new level of art. I have told you this, that I have found new strength. I do not understand it all, yet, but I feel things I did not feel before, and I sense possibilities beyond anything my elders promised.”

“Because you love me?” Mari sounded uncomfortable. “I’m not that special.”

“You are a truth, Mari. Everyone is. More importantly, you are my truth.”

“You’re really embarrassing me.”

“I am sorry,” Alain said.

She laughed and held him close. “Wait’ll I get you someplace safe and private again.”

“Must we wait?”

“You’ll have to. The librarians said there is some sort of ancient recording device in each of these rooms and they never know when one will kick on for a little while. They may be willing to live with that possibility, but I’m not.” Mari lay back, then spoke tentatively. “Alain? That reminds me. Is there something about being married that Mages know that nobody else does?”

Alain frowned up at the dark, puzzled by the question. “Not that I know of.”

“But somebody told me that everybody knows Mages know something nobody else knows. I didn’t know that, but everybody else knows it.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Um.” Alain tried to work his way through her last statement. “How could it be something only Mages know if everybody knows it?”

“No,” Mari said, exasperated. “You’re trying to confuse me.”

“I am trying to confuse you?”

“It’s something that Mages know that everybody knows Mages know but nobody else knows,” Mari said.

“Mari, I really have no idea—”

“About being married, Alain!”

Alain tried to remember every reference to marriage he had heard from other Mages. There were not many, and they were all the same. “The only thing I was ever told about marriage by Mage elders was to avoid it all costs, because it weakened you.”

“That’s not it. And I’d like to have a talk with those Mage elders someday.”

“That probably would not be a good idea,” Alain suggested. “What is this thing Mages know about marriage supposed to be about?”

“You know.”

“Uh, no.”

“People,” Mari said. “In bed together. Something special about that.”

“Are you serious?” Alain thought, then again shook his head. “No. Nothing. No one ever said anything about that. We were told that sex was but a physical act and no emotion must connect to it.”

“Really?” Mari asked. “Maybe a female Mage would know. I’ll ask Asha the next time we see her.”

“Mari, I must ask again if you are serious?”

“Yes. Alain, I’m afraid this is something you just don’t understand.”

Alain lay back again, staring at the ceiling. “I am certainly not going to argue that,” he murmured under his breath.

“I heard that!”

Alain raised his hand to gaze at the ring there. It had not caused any physical changes in him that he knew of, but Mari’s ring seemed to have given her extraordinarily good hearing. He wondered if they only had that effect on Mechanics, or if all women gained that ability along with their rings.

“Alain?”

“Yes, Mari?”

“Would you have done it?”

Alain took a moment to ponder what that could refer to. “What do you mean?”

“What those people did, the ones who gave their unborn children to the ship.” He heard her sigh. “They would never see those children, and those children would never know their parents. They would grow up so unimaginably far away, and they wouldn’t even be born until long after their parents had died. That would be so hard. But those children would someday walk the soil of another world, one warmed by a different sun, and they’d see and experience things their parents couldn’t even imagine. And those people knew that someday their children and grandchildren and so on would live on that world and make it their own. So I can’t decide.”

Alain lay silent for a little while, thinking about it. “I do not know. As you say, it would not be an easy choice.”

“No. It would be very, very hard. I guess I’m lucky we’ll never face that choice. I have a feeling that having children will require enough difficult decisions as it is.”

Alain felt a curious blend of wonder and fear fill him. He could not see her expression well in the dark, but Mari’s comments reminded him of her statements about children earlier that day, her actions when she had heard about the passengers on the great ship, as if she were protecting something inside her. “Mari? Are you trying to tell me something?”