3
" Asha stared as Mari for a while, her face once again betraying no emotions. " When we were acolytes, newly come to the Mage Guild Hall on Ihris, Mage Alain once tried to catch me as I fell. He was punished for this." Her gaze went to Alain. " We talked. In the first days. Before such things were driven from us. He was...he could have been...someone..." " A friend," Alain said." Friend." Asha seemed to be looking inward now, as if searching for memories lost in time. " What does this mean?" Alain's voice took on more feeling. " It is someone who helps." " Helps?" Asha suddenly inhaled strongly. " I remember. When all else was gone...Alain...helps...helped...me." " We were taught to forget this," Alain said. " Master Mechanic Mari reminded me of what it meant. She has reminded me of many things. She must do something of great importance. Will you help me now, Mage Asha?" Here gaze rested on Alain, then went back to Mari. " This Mechanic helps Mage Alain. I will help, too. I will not betray you to the Guild, Mage Alain. "
5
" The light changed slightly. Mari looked up and over at one wall. There was now a narrow, roughly door-shaped hole in it. Standing in the hole was Mage Alain. Mari stood up, realizing that her mouth was hanging open. That wall was solid. I felt it. There wasn't any opening. She watched as the Mage took two shaky steps into the cell, then paused, some of the strain leaving his face. She blinked, wondering what she had just seen, as the hole in the wall vanished as if it had never been. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. ...Mari took a long slow breath. 'They use smoke and mirrors and other 'magic' to make commons think they can create temporary holes in walls and things like that. It's all nonsense.' " Mages actually can make real holes in walls." " No." Her head hurting with increased intensity, Mari glowered at the Mage. " You didn't make a hole in the wall?" " I made the illusion of a hole in the illusion of the wall." Mari looked at Mage Alain for what felt like a long time, trying to detect any sign of mockery or lying. But he seemed perfectly sincere. And unless she had completely lost her mind, he had just walked through that solid wall. ..." We can get out the same way that you got in?" Mari asked. " Through imaginary holes in the imaginary wall?" She wondered how her guild would feel about seeing that in her report. Actually, she didn't have to wonder, but she wasn't about to turn down a chance at escape. The Mage took a deep breath and swayed on his feet. " No." " No?" " Unfortunately—" Alain collapsed into a seated position on the cot next to her—" the effort of finding you has exhausted me. There were several walls to get through. I can do no more for some time. I am probably incapable of any major effort until morning." He shook his head. " I did not plan this well. Maybe the elders are right and seventeen is simply too young to be a Mage." Mari stared at him. " Are you telling me that you came to rescue me, following a metaphorical thread through imaginary holes, but now that you're in the same cell with me you can't get us out?" " Yes, that is correct. This one erred." " That one sure did. Now instead of one of us being stuck in here, we're both stuck in here." The Mage gave her a look which actually betrayed a trace of irritation. He must have really been exhausted for such a feeling to show. " I do not have much experience with rescues. Are you always so difficult? "
6
" Long story short, I got lured into a trap. A Mage using that concealment spell tried to knife me. Then someone else tried to blow my brains out with a bullet." " A Mage attacked you?" Alain asked, feeling a sick sensation inside. " She tried. I knew they'd been watching me. I didn't give them any reason to try to kill me." Mari looked at him. " Did I?" " It is my fault," Alain admitted. " Even though I have tried to keep them from finding out who you are, they still believe that you are dangerous." She gave him another look, then shook her head. " From the looks of things, I'm mainly dangerous to my friends and myself. Just how much trouble did you actually get in because of spending time with me in Dorcastle?" Alain looked into the fire. " My Guild did not believe that I had been with you in Dorcastle. The elders thought that the woman I had been seen with in that city was a common I had sought out because she researched the Mechanic I had met in Ringhmon." " Why would you want to find a common who looked like me?" Mari asked. " For physical satisfaction." The simple statement would have created no reaction in a Mage, but he saw the outraged look in Mari's face and hurriedly added more. " I would not have done that. But the elders assumed that I did. I told you that they believed I was attracted to you." " Alain, 'attracted to' doesn't bring to mind the idea of finding another woman who resembles me so that you can pretend that you're—" she choked off the words, glaring into the night. " The elders assumed that. I never wanted it. I would never do it. There is no other woman like you." Somehow he must have said the right thing, because she relaxed. " But because of that belief of theirs," Mari said, " your elders thought you might look for me again." " They actually thought that you would seek me," Alain explained. " They were very concerned that you would..." His " social skills" might need work, but Alain realized that he probably should not say the rest. Too late. Mari bent a sour look his way. " What did they think I would do?" " It is not important." " Alain..." He exhaled slowly, realizing that Mari would not give up on this question. " The elders thought that you would seek to ensnare me, using your physical charms, and through me work to strike at the Mage Guild." She stared back in disbelief. " Ensnare? They actually used the word ensnare?" " Yes. Many times." " Using my physical charms?" Mari seemed unable to decide whether to laugh or get angry. She looked down at herself. " I'm a little low on ammunition when it comes to physical charms, or hadn't these elders of yours noticed?" " You are beautiful beyond all other women," Alain objected. Mari rolled her eyes. " And you ate seriously deluded. I hadn't realized how badly until this moment. "
7
" For when a woman resists an unwelcome passion, she is obeying to the full the law of her sex; the initial gesture of refusal is, so to speak, a primordial instinct in every female, and even if she rejects the most ardent passion she cannot be called inhuman. But how disastrous it is when fate upsets the balance, when a woman so far overcomes her natural modesty as to disclose her passion to a man, when, without the certainty of its being reciprocated, she offers her love, and he, the wooed, remains cold and on the defensive! An insoluble tangle this, always; for not to return a woman's love is to shatter her pride, to violate her modesty. The man who rejects a woman's advances is bound to wound her in her noblest feelings. In vain, then, all the tenderness with which he extricates himself, useless all his polite, evasive phrases, insulting all his offers of mere friendship, once she has revealed her weakness! His resistance inevitably becomes cruelty, and in rejecting a woman's love he takes a load of guild upon his conscience, guiltless though he may be. Abominable fetters that can never be cast off! "
― Stefan Zweig , Beware of Pity
11
" The doctor looked shifty. “He’s still breathing,” he said. “Look, his pulse is nearly humming and he’s got a temperature you could fry eggs on.” He hesitated, aware that this was probably too straightforward and easily understood; medicine was a new art on the Disc, and wasn’t going to get anywhere if people could understand it. “Pyrocerebrum ouerf culinaire,” he said, after working it out in his head. “Well, what can you do about it?” said Arthur. “Nothing. He’s dead. All the medical tests prove it. So, er…bury him, keep him nice and cool, and tell him to come and see me next week. In daylight, for preference." " But he’s still breathing!” “These are just reflex actions that might easily confuse the layman,” said the doctor airily. Chidder sighed. He suspected that the Guild, who after all had an unrivalled experience of sharp knives and complex organic compounds, was much better at elementary diagnostics than were the doctors. The Guild might kill people, but at least it didn’t expect them to be grateful for it. "
12
" All of us, together, are the unlovable, the unreformable. We, the people, who are deemed incapable of existing alongside society. But, we did just that in the forming of this guild. We have done more than simply build a place to sleep and eat and plan elaborate heists. We have found a place that we, at long last, belong. All of you remember how important that feeling was the first time you truly experienced it here… This guild is more than just an organization and a council and various members. To me, from the beginning, this guild has been a family. It is a place for people like us, the ones who had no place of their own. We made it ourselves, carved out a space in the world that we could call home. "
― Drew Hayes , Forging Hephaestus (Villains' Code, #1)
