No. If it’d been good they would have said something like, come see us, we have punch and pie. No, as I watched the herald lead us forward with quick, purposeful steps, I got the distinct impression there would not be punch and pie.
Gwen and Gabriella had come along with me, but neither of the two were speaking much. Part of that had been out of necessity. We couldn’t spare many people to leave, and truth be told, if it had been an option, I’d have come alone.
Unfortunately, the summons had specifically included both Gwen and the archangel. That was just another reason I felt particularly pissed off.
As we moved through the winding, cobblestone streets of the town, I realized there were far fewer people here than I’d ever seen. Usually, the Royal Centre was a bustling hub of commerce. Typically, barkers and pull carts laden with goods practically filled every inch of the streets.
Now it was a ghost town, and as I inclined my head toward Voodoo Star Donuts, I found not a soul in line. No. Something was definitely off.
Gwen must have agreed because as her gaze flicked from me to the donuttery and back again, the concern etched on her face grew.
“Where is everyone?” Gabriella asked, hurrying forward to close the distance between the herald and us. “Is it normally this empty here?”
“Mammon happened,” the herald said, giving me a thin, tight-lipped smile. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I said, crossing my arms.
“It was hers,” the herald jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Gabriella. “Mammon was very clear about that before she disappeared with almost all our people.” She looked like she was about to say more, but before she could, we arrived at the guild halls.
The last time I’d been here, I’d wasted nearly an entire day fruitlessly trying to convince the guilds to help me. In the end, we’d succeeded in getting the head of the carpenter’s guild, Saramana, to allow Maribelle to accompany us, but that had been it. In fact, if we hadn’t tried recruiting blacklisted crafters like Sally, we’d have never gotten anyone.
Then the Darkness would have crushed Lustnor, and these people wouldn’t have given a handful of warm shit.
Anger exploded inside me as we moved up the steps toward the huge wooden doors of the guild halls. It was an immense building that made the rest of the shops seem small by comparison. I knew it was somehow even bigger seeming from the inside thanks to its many rooms and twisting halls, but at the moment I didn’t care.
No. At this moment all I could think about was how we had a million and ten things to do, and these people were here wasting my time. It was bullshit.
Still, getting mad wouldn’t help. I tried my best to take a deep breath, and calm myself, but it didn’t seem to be working.
“What is this place?” Gabriella asked as we followed the herald through the doors and into the main halls. Only instead of heading toward one of the various guild offices, she marched forward toward a massive set of thick marble doors across the room. They were carved with depictions of blacksmiths, carpenters, and other crafters in the process of raising a city from the dust and dirt.
“This is the guild hall,” I said, glancing at the angel who was busily staring wide-eyed at everything.
“But I don’t understand,” she said, turning her sparkling eyes to me. “Why is it so pretty?” She twisted her hands together. “All the carvings. The gold and silver.”
“What do you mean,” Gwen asked, voicing the question before I could. “Don’t you guys have crafters in Heaven?”
“Yes, but it’s all utilitarian. Nothing is done just for the sake of beauty.” She pointed to a statue along one wall. It was of a female blacksmith with a huge hammer over one shoulder. She stood before a flaming forge with fire so real seeming I practically felt the heat coming off of it. “Like we’d never have anything like that.” She shook her head. “The material is much too valuable to waste on anything but the war effort.”
“That seems sort of bland,” I said, staring at the statue, and as I did, a menu appeared over it, revealing its stats.
The Blacksmith’s Hammer
Class: Sculpture
Material: Stone
Grade: A
Use: Increases Blacksmithing ability by 10%. Can be combined with other effects. (Additive)
The stats didn’t surprise me because I’d had Annabeth sculpt similar statues when we’d been trying to craft a Nexus Conduit Gateway, which was also how we’d managed to make the trek to the Royal Centre so quickly. Thanks to the portal generator, we could instantly move to anywhere that had a gateway. Still, it surprised me that Heaven didn’t have similar items.
“How do you increase your chances of success with trade abilities if you don’t have sculptures? Do you have paintings? Some other kind of art?” I asked, curious. I’d not thought about it before, but if there was another kind of craftsman like Annabeth, getting ahold of it would give us an additive bonus for success.
Thanks to my ability to see those bonuses, we’d been able to craft items far beyond our skill level, and in the process, power level our crafters skill far beyond what they’d normally have been in a similar amount of time.
“We don’t have any kind of art, so we wouldn’t be able to use those sorts of bonuses. Even if we did, they wouldn’t be that useful. Trades aren’t valued in Heaven, so almost no one practices them.” Gabriella shrugged. “No, the only way to gain any sort of prestige is through battle. If you’re not a warrior, you are worthless.”
“Sounds terrible,” I said as the herald stopped outside the carved doors and waited for us to quiet ourselves.
“It may be,” Gabriella said, taking one last glance at the sculpture. “And while I enjoy looking at all this art, I have to agree with Michelle. We have stood against the Darkness for eons thanks to the strength of our resolve. We cannot change tactics now. Not midway through a war, anyway.”
I wanted to reply, but before I could, the herald cleared her throat. Then she looked at us with her purple eyes, one white-gloved hand extended toward the door handle.
“I trust you are through gawking? It isn’t wise to keep the guild leaders waiting.” She gave me a serious look. “Trust me.”
“Yes, we’re ready,” I said when Gwen gave me a shrug.
Guess it was now or never. Part of me was excited. I hadn’t met the guild leaders before, and while I knew this wouldn’t be the best of circumstances, I also knew we’d need their help to craft the Stairway. That was one of the reasons I’d decided to come so quickly. Sure, they’d threatened to take the town away, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to ask them about the Stairway. You know, always look at the Brightside and all that.
Tongue-lashing or not, we had to secure their help in making the Stairway. Otherwise we’d be royally screwed.
“Very well,” the herald said, glancing at each of us in turn before depressing a button on the door handle. There was a strong vibration through the floor, and then the doors started to swing open on mechanized hinges. As they moved, opalescent light spilled out from the hallway beyond, covering the ground before us in a kaleidoscope of colors.
I took a deep breath as I swung my gaze inside. While I couldn’t see anyone or anything besides a large open floor, the immense stained-glass windows allowing the light into the room covered the upper-half of the room. I took a moment, marveling at how figures had been worked into each of them before the herald cleared her throat again.
As I looked at her, I found her face had gone completely neutral, but what’s more? Her knees were shaking slightly. She made a quick gesture toward the room like she was trying to hurry us on, and I immediately realized that if we dallied, she’d be the one punished for it. So much for sticking it to the leaders by making them wait.
A sigh escaped me as I looked to Gabriella. She was intently focused on the stained glass figures embedded in the walls, reminding me of someone seeing their first bird.
“Let’s get this over with
,” Gwen huffed, taking my hand and pulling me forward. As I moved, Gabriella followed, but her focus was still on the windows. I glanced back at them, looking over the seven figures, but didn’t think much of it. Each was a crafter, that was obvious, but there were no more discerning details about them.
“Should I be concerned about them?” I asked Gwen. I gestured toward the windows before nodding to Gabriella. “She seems really distracted.”
“She’s a child,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes. “Show her anything pretty, and she goes deaf and dumb for ten minutes.”
“That’s mean,” I said even though it was sort of true. Still, it was definitely like she was trying to work something out in her mind. I just wished I knew what that was.
As we stepped through the doors and onto the silver-flecked marble floor, the doors began to swing shut behind us.
That was when I realized how massive this room was. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. The room wasn’t all that big, maybe a couple thousand square feet on the outside, but it seemed to stretch up into the heavens. Seven pillars stood toward the front of it, and as I looked at them, I realized each was intricately carved in much the same way the statues had been. Each related to a different guild, and near as I could tell they were all represented here.
As my gaze swept up the designs of the blacksmithing one near the center, I realized there was a lone figure perched atop it. She was seated on a throne of black iron and had a massive hammer across her knees. I squinted trying to see her face in the low light of the room, but between the multicolored light, and the shadows, I couldn't make out her features very well. Besides, for all I knew, the green hair was natural.
A quick glance at the rest of the pillars revealed them all to have figures atop them, and I quickly identified all the trades. Blacksmithing, Carpentry, Alchemy, Sculpting, Painting, Masonry, Tailoring.
That made me wonder if there were even more guilds, or trades because I had to imagine there would be. I vaguely remembered Buffy saying something about the merchant’s guild not being a formerly recognized guild, but at the same time, given the aggressive bureaucracy of Hell, I had a hard time believing there wasn’t a chef’s guild or a farming guild. Hell, I knew Crystal was a formally trained lumberjack. That seemed like it’d have a guild too. No, there just wasn’t enough guilds represented here. Not by a longshot.
“Welcome to the Hall of the Seven Guilds. Please step into the light,” the herald said, ushering us forward into the center of the room. There was a strange beam of light in the center, and as we were pushed into it, I found it hard to make out any details of the room anymore. What’s more, the unnerving light made me feel like we were being interrogated.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” boomed one of the voices. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and as it touched my ears, visions of massive castles filled my head. I could see stone being hauled up hills, being shaped and fitted. It was crazy, but as the images played through my mind, I wondered if the woman at the top of the masonry tower had spoken.
“You’re very welcome, honored guild mistresses,” Gwen said, bowing her head and taking a step forward. We’d agreed earlier that she’d do the talking since she was most familiar with the customs of Royal Centre by a huge margin, even if she’d never spoken to the guild leaders in such a fashion.
“Is that so?” another voice spoke, and this time the images of lumber being shaped filled my head. Massive houses were erected right before my mind’s eye. This voice had a touch of familiarity to it though. Saramana. The leader of the Carpenter’s Guild. Only I’d heard her speak before and it hadn’t conjured imagery before. Was it something to do with this room?
“Why would it not be?” Gwen asked, a touch of trepidation in her voice. She shot a nervous glance at Gabriella and me, and when her eyes settled on the angel, her eyes widened.
I turned to look and found the angel had moved to the edge of the circle and was again peering at the high walls.
“You make an excellent point. It would be a great honor for someone like you to meet us,” Saramana responded, and there was more than a hint of condescension in the tone of her voice. “However, you may not feel so inclined once you hear the charges leveled against you.”
“Charges?” Gwen asked, taking a deep breath. “What charges could there possibly be? We drove back the Darkness and freed the Graveyard of Statues. We’ve saved hundreds, no, thousands of people. You should be rewarding us.”
“Your deeds have been taken into consideration, rest assured,” the mason leader said, and her voice brokered no argument. “Please do not speak of them again, for to do so would be to call my words into question. That is not something you wish, for I am one of your few allies here.”
“Noted,” Gwen grumbled, but before she could say more, a new voice spoke up that conjured images of lead being turned to gold. No doubt the leader of the alchemist’s guild.
“You have been charged with not only enlisting work from blacklisted parties but allowing them official status as tradesmen within your towns. This cannot be allowed.” Anger flowed into her voice. “Because of this, you defy the very laws that separate us from the Darkness. It makes you no better than them.” She took a deep breath, and in that pause, an ocean of despair settled over me. She was talking about Sally, our alchemist.
Sally hadn’t told me why she’d been blacklisted, and I hadn’t cared. Hell, I still didn’t, but clearly, these people did. To be fair, I’d never have hired her if they’d agreed to let me hire an official alchemist, but when they hadn’t, well…
“Do not try to argue this point,” the leader of the alchemist’s guild continued. “You sought an official alchemist, and when you were denied, went around my back. This cannot be allowed. If it is not punished, others may think they can do the same.”
“And you’ll lose your monopoly,” I muttered under my breath.
“We are not a monopoly. We exist solely to ensure that the people are not swindled. If we did not, any two-bit charlatan could claim to be an alchemist, or a mason, or a carpenter. Then the world would descend into anarchy. No, it is far better that the people know who to trust, who is official.”
Gwen shot me a look that told me to keep my damned mouth shut, and I agreed since I was pretty sure I’d made our situation worse.
“What can we do to pay recompense?” Gwen asked, stepping casually in front of me, like somehow hiding me from sight would soften the tongue lashing we’d received. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t matter. These women had something in mind already. This meeting was merely a formality.
“You cannot just pay money and have this problem fixed,” the alchemist leader said, and this time the image of shattering molds filled my eyes and the smell of sulfur filled my nose. “I am not a common whore whose favor can be gained with money. No, you must be punished, must be made an example. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise, anarchy, got it,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. “Just tell us what you’re doing.”
The room was quiet for a moment, and I could hear murmuring above us. This time the mason spoke.
“You have been stripped of the leadership of Lustnor and Blade’s End as well as all funds, property, and personnel judged to be owned by the town. Be thankful we have not executed you nor found you personally liable.” With that, the light above us went out, leaving us completely shrouded in darkness.
7
“This is Mammon’s doing,” Gabriella said after we’d been unceremoniously ushered from the guild hall while Gwen stayed behind to try to formulate an appeal. Something told me it wasn’t going well.
“What?” I snapped, even though I didn’t mean to. I was just so pissed off at what had just happened I couldn’t help it. Not only had we lost all our people, but now? Now we didn’t even have our town. It was like we were being systematically stripped of our assets bit by bit. The craziest thing was that without me and my town, we’d have lost to the Darkness.
&n
bsp; Instead of celebrating our victory and coming together, the denizens of Hell had decided this was the perfect time to take what I had gotten.
“You do not understand how greed works,” Gabriella said, taking my hand in an effort to comfort me. It didn’t work, and I wanted to pull my hand away but didn’t. Doing so wouldn’t help the situation.
“Care to explain it to me?” I huffed, instinctively reaching for my sword, Clarent. Perhaps I could retake my town by force…
“That room,” Gabriella gestured back toward the guild hall behind us. “I recognized the images in the windows. I wasn’t sure of it before, but now I am. That is the hall of princesses from long ago. That is where they sat upon their gilded thrones and ruled over their domain. It is the very heart of the archangels’ powers. The very place where it is made manifest.” She took a deep breath. “Greed is using her influence over the place to bend the council to her whims.”
“But why would she do that?” I asked, shaking my head. “We saved her.”
“Do you not remember what she told us?” Gabriella asked, raising a perfect eyebrow at me. “She wishes to take everything from us, to make us bend the knee for her. This is part of her plan.” Gabriella rubbed her chin. “If I had to guess, we will lose more before this is over.”
“How are we to win a war without people? Without supplies? Just without?” I asked, feeling frustrated. It felt like I was back home once again with the boot of the man on my neck once more. I’d had this same feeling when I couldn’t make tuition and had to drop out when the bank told me my deceased parents owed too much money on our house and they had to take it. Always a good reason to justify not helping, for turning the other way, and now it was happening again.
“That is easy,” Gabriella said, brightening as she pointed at the guild house. “You use their greed against them.” She reached down and touched the hilt of Clarent. “You are the builder, the ultimate prize. This is all happening because Mammon wants you.” The archangel leaned in until she was so close to my face, I could feel her warmth on my skin. “You have to use that.”
The Builder's Greed (The Legendary Builder Book 2) Page 5
