The Guild

by Jean Johnson

  The two stared at the stone in Torven’s hand, then retreated to the doorway for a whispered conference. Torven relaxed, knowing that he had at least been given a shot at freeing himself. The distant Threefold God of Fate—well, not so distant, now that he was just two kingdoms away from Fortuna—gave chances and opened doors of opportunity to the wicked and the good alike.

  Of course, Torven didn’t consider himself all that wicked. Selfish, oh yes, quite, but then why shouldn’t he be? Every single person in the world was after whatever he or she could get in life, and he was merely determined to be very good at getting whatever he wanted. At the moment, he wanted his freedom. His ultimate goal was always power, however. Stealing the Fountain at the heart of the Tower had been one possibility, but there had been many others buried in the dusty, forgotten tomes of the Tower archives. Demonic enslavement and power-draining were simply another way to achieve his goal.

  Eventually, Hansu and the other priest had to break up their little conversation as the boy came back, cheek smudged with coal dust and arms struggling with the now heavily laden bucket. Letting him pass, the priests waited for him to reach the next brazier and begin tending it, then Hansu led the way back to Torven’s altar table.

  “If you really can do what you say you can do, we’ll presume you want your freedom. For both you and for this other mage?” Hansu asked him, flicking a hand at the still unconscious Healer.

  Torven didn’t even glance at Crastus. Most Healers tended to be selfless twits who bleated on and on about having some sort of stupid obligation to use one’s powers for the good of many. Before their exile from the continent of Aiar, Crastus had been more interested in being paid for his services, as a sensible person should be. After their exile . . . the older mage had expressed occasional doubts, even feelings of remorse, as if a simple bad turn of luck, losing that stupid fight in the banqueting hall and then being tossed out onto another continent to live or die, was some sort of holy wake-up call. Bad luck was simply Fate’s way of saying, find another path toward your goals or be stuck in stagnation like an idiot.

  “I don’t care about him either way, other than that he’s a good-enough Healer. But he probably won’t serve you willingly, so either let him go or drain him dry. As for myself . . .” He tried to smirk, though the silvery web material covering his mouth probably hid the effect. “I want power. Secular and magical power. A position of some rank in your order, a decent amount of money—obscenely decent, by preference—and of course a way to tap into some of the power that’ll be raised. And a nice title wouldn’t be amiss.”

  “Of course,” the bald, bearded priest drawled. “And naturally you’ll escape the moment we set you free. We do realize how powerful you are. We’re not idiots.”

  The gray-haired priest started to say something, then glared at the youth in the dark gray knitted tunic. “Aren’t you done yet, lackwit? Stop fiddling with the coals, and get out!”

  The boy jumped, hastily scooped a few more black lumps onto the glowing orange white ones, and scuttled off, bucket clutched to his chest.

  Hansu covered his brow with his palm. “I swear, we’re surrounded by inbred idiots . . . You were going to say something, Koler?”

  “Swear a mage-oath,” the other priest asserted. “Bind unto your powers an oath that you’ll serve our holy order and conjure us a demon for power-binding unto Mekha.”

  Torven narrowed his eyes. “I’m not swearing any oath casually . . . but if you’ll let me sit up and fetch pen and paper, perhaps we could draft a version between the three of us that will satisfy both sides. You know I know how to conjure and bind a demon for power-draining. A few minutes’ delay won’t harm anything either way.”

  Koler, the shorter priest, narrowed his eyes under his bushy, age-salted brows. “If you know how to do it, then why haven’t you done it before? You claim you crave power and that this is a great source of it.”

  Torven rolled his eyes. “Because binding a major demon requires a lot of participants? If it’s one tiny denizen of a Netherhell, that’s fine; one mage can do that . . . but the demon’s power is piddly, and a mage can bind only one or two personally before they start to threaten his control. A larger demon has exponentially greater energies that can be drained from its vast reserves, but many mages are required to subdue, bind, and control it.

  “Most mages whine about how dealing with anything associated with the Netherhells is an abomination against the world,” he continued, while the other two considered his offer and mulled over his motives. “They wouldn’t touch such a project if their immortal souls depended on it—which they don’t. You’d be binding the power for your God to use, not for yourselves. Heaven couldn’t touch any of us . . . and They certainly won’t touch Mekha, or They’d have done so by now.”

  “Heaven doesn’t give a damn about any of us,” Hansu scoffed under his breath. “If They did . . .” He broke off, sighed, and asserted firmly if a bit rotely, “We serve Mekha, and that is our reward. Fetch pen and paper, Koler.”

  “If this isn’t a viable option, you’ll be plugged into our God without a second thought,” Koler warned Torven before turning toward the door.

  “If it isn’t a viable option, that will be the fault of your colleagues, not mine,” Torven told him, clenching his fist as the older priest turned back with a scowl. “Check the Truth Stone still in my hand—I am not going to let any fault of mine damage my chances of gaining vast power.” He relaxed his fingers, showing what was undoubtedly an unblemished disc. He spoke the truth after all.

  Koler grunted and turned toward the door again, and he was almost bowled over as a junior priest ran up the corridor, skidding to a stop in front of the gray-haired man. “Brother Koler!” the youth gasped, panting. “Brother Hansu! He’s gone!”

  “What do you mean?” Hansu asked. “Who is gone?”

  “Mekha! He’s gone! Not ten, fifteen minutes ago, He was in the power chamber soaking up everything like normal, then there was suddenly a great, shimmering light in front of Him, like a giant egg. He stood, said, ‘Finally!’ and . . . was gone! The light took Him, and He vanished, almost like He stepped into nothingness!”

  Bound on the table as he still was, Torven couldn’t see the young man’s face clearly, but he certainly heard the bewilderment in that breathless, cracking voice.

  “He just vanished, brothers, and no one knows why! We waited, and we waited, but now . . . now the symbols are going, too! ’Scuse me, I have to go tell the others!” A patter of feet took him farther down the hall.

  Koler turned to watch the youth go, moving just enough that Torven could see the scowl on his face. It deepened as his gaze shifted to someone else outside the Aian mage’s view. “Haven’t you moved on, boy?”

  Hansu frowned and started to say something—then reached out and clutched his fellow priest’s shoulder, hard enough to make the older man grunt. His other hand pointed straight at the carvings, and he hissed, “Look!”

  His shoulder and sleeve blocked part of Torven’s awkwardly angled view, but the robe itself revealed more than enough. The runes and the gears, painstakingly stitched on the fabric and carved into the walls, were melting and fading. Vanishing. Being erased, the Aian mage realized, as the phenomenon spread, rippling across the walls and even the ceiling.

  As the wave passed Torven’s toes, he felt the spells binding him to the altar weaken . . . and the webbing decay. Using a surge of his personal powers, Torven broke the last of the binding spell and quickly sat up, shifting to dangle his legs over the side of the stone table. He didn’t move farther than that, since his head pounded from a lack of blood after his sudden change in position, but it was enough to catch the attention of the other two men. Quickly, before they could re-enslave him, he held up one hand, thinking hard and fast.

  “I suspect, gentlemen, that you no longer have a Patron Deity. Which means it is no longer necessary for
you to bind and drain me. This . . . vanishing,” he added, gesturing vaguely at the walls, “matches some old records I have read about old Gods and Goddesses being disbanded. Which is a little odd, because that would normally require the Convocation of Gods and Man, which hasn’t been seen since my homeland was an intact empire two centuries ago . . . but it isn’t impossible. After all, there is no reason for Mekha and His symbols to disappear otherwise . . . and with no detectable traces of magic, I might add.”

  “If that is true, then this is a disaster,” Hansu muttered, swiping his palm over his bare scalp. “Without Mekha to keep the peasants in line, we’ll have rioting in the streets! They’ll try to attack us—and I can feel that I don’t have the great power I once held . . .”

  “Then it sounds like you need a powerful ally . . . and that you still need a power source,” Torven reminded him, ignoring the faint groan from the Healer on the other altar-table. “My point earlier about other mages not wanting to handle such a source is still valid, particularly if you cross-gift the energies so that you are not tapping the creatures you yourself bind, but instead exchange powers with the beings tapped by someone else.

  “I am still willing to work with your Brotherhood,” he reminded them. “It’s not as if you have anything to lose at this point, if the peasants will turn on you once they know that the wrath of their vanished God no longer holds them in check. Gather the others in a secure place, lay out these suggestions to all of them, and make up your minds. But do it quickly.”

  “Hansu—the mage-prisoners,” the gray-haired priest said, catching his companion’s sleeve while Hansu hesitated. “Without Mekha draining them, they will start to recover, and then they’ll come after us. We have bigger problems on our hands!”

  Torven rolled his eyes again. Feeling well enough to stand, he pushed off the altar but leaned his hip against it for hidden support. If he had to fight to get out of here, he would need his reserves for battle not for balance. “For the love of a proper education . . . Gentlemen. Set them free, apologize to them—even if you have to choke on your bile to do it—and tell them that you were forced into doing everything you’ve done by your former Patron Deity! After all, who can go against the will of their God? Who cares if it’s a partial lie or a flat-out fib? With Mekha gone, banished from existence itself, you have the perfect scapegoat to blame!

  “At the very least, you’ll have them pushed outside the temple doors before they know what’s happened to them, and you’ll have a valid excuse to lock those doors behind them,” he added archly.

  “Apologize?” Hansu looked like he was being asked to swallow a manure-covered toad. He checked himself after a moment of thought, albeit with a look of distaste. “I . . . I suppose if we must . . .”

  Mind no longer fogged by the spells laid on him, Torven had already thought five moves ahead. I could easily flee or overpower these two . . . but I’d have to go looking for another Fountain to try to take over, and that could take years of searching and careful insinuation. If the shattered remnants of this priesthood can pull their heads out of their collective arses long enough to stay organized, we might be able to summon up a vast source of power . . . and retain positions of power in this land. If they’re not idiots.

  “Yes, you must,” he said, barely concealing his impatience. “You have a very rare opportunity, gentlemen. With the removal of Mekha—as evidenced by the loss of His symbols and sigils from everything, even from the embroidery on your robes—you have the opportunity to create a God or Goddess of your choosing. One with all the power you could want . . . and one completely under your control.”

  He smiled at them. Not a bland or a pleasant smile, but rather the kind that showed too many teeth. Koler blinked and frowned at him, but the bearded Hansu slowly nodded his head. “Yes . . . Yes. A powerful ‘God’ of our choosing . . .”

  “Whatever you have planned, you had best stay here, if you want to see it through, mage. The others don’t yet know that you’re willing to join us,” Koler said, pointing at the Aian. “And they may not yet know that Mekha is gone. If He is truly gone.”

  Torven glanced down at the hand still clutching the Truth Stone, then lifted it. “I have every reason to believe, based on ancient texts I have read regarding similar situations, that the disappearance of Mekha’s sigils from your robes and these walls—and His very presence from your ‘power room,’ whatever that was—means that He has somehow been disbanded and removed from His Patronage of Mekhana.”

  Turning his palm up, he unfurled his fingers, revealing the unblemished white disc balanced neatly on his palm.

  “As you can see, I have every reason to believe this may indeed be the truth.” He gave the other two men an arch look. “If you still want to retain some power, magical and governmental, I am willing to work with you on terms favorable to both sides.”

  Again, the stone was white. Sighing heavily, Koler stepped into the hall. “I’ll contact the Patriarch and talk with the other temples. This may just be something that is strictly localized, or it may be kingdom-wide. We won’t know for sure until we talk to everyone.”

  Hansu looked at his departing colleague then at the groaning Healer whose mouth-covering web was still in place, and snapped his fingers, knocking out the older foreigner with a wordless cantrip-spell. He stared at the younger mage. “Don’t get full of yourself, Aian. We’ll see how ‘favorable’ those terms truly are . . . and you may still have to be oathbound to them.”

  Torven dipped his head. He was a capable law-sayer when needed, quite able to word rules and oaths just so. Without the power of their God behind them—provided Mekha truly was gone—Torven was fairly confident he could wrest a good deal from these people.

  At least they seem to be sensible, practical souls like me, and not a bunch of moralizing imbeciles, hobbling themselves just because they’re afraid of the true advantages that lie beyond being mindlessly good all the time.

  • • •

  Torn between wanting to stay in the next prepping chamber over from the two newest prisoners to try to keep eavesdropping on that slimy foreigner, and running to the slave pens to free the mages—if they were free—Rexei finally set down the coal bucket she had been clutching to her flat-bound chest and forced herself to think through the thoughts swirling and clashing in her head. It wasn’t easy to comprehend, but the blankness of the very walls around her did seem to corroborate the mage’s claim. More than that, though, the pervasive, sour, mildew-slimed feel of the place, the way it had pressed in and down upon her inner senses in a blanket of cold, uncaring repression and depression, was now gone.

  Mekha . . . gone. Just gone, poof, vanished! It was a giddy, liberating thought, but also a disorienting one. She felt like a mouse that had long been caught under the stare of a cat, only to see it finally move off and vanish. Except she couldn’t quite believe it. The background tune—one of a score—that always filled her thoughts hummed louder, cloaking her life-force to further hide her magical signature just in case.

  He’s gone from this temple’s power room . . . but I know the other major temples around the kingdom also have power rooms, which He occupies simultaneously. I . . . I need to get close to the scrying room and try to overhear. If He is truly gone, the other temples would surely be discussing it with the priest.

  The foreign mage’s other claim was quite chilling. Conjure a demon? Bind its powers for draining? Did I hear him right? She hoped not. Demons were reputed to be even nastier than Mekha was, and He was loathed by His whole people, save for the priests who profited from His demands. And yet if the foreigner was telling the truth . . .

  She picked up the coal bucket, since it gave her an excuse to go places, though she didn’t yet move from the room she was in. It was winter, and Heiastowne had been built in a broad valley nestled against the foothills of the eastern mountains. The entire temple was crafted from thick stone laid by masons many cen
turies ago, back when Mekha had been a kinder, less capricious, less insatiable, less insane God. That meant the place required braziers and hearths to keep it warm. The priests weren’t going to tend those fires, though; they considered themselves superior to all others.

  In all other guilds, from Apothecaries to Chandlers, Masons to Tanners, Vintners, and more, all apprentices were equal to each other. Journeymen were equals, as were masters and grandmasters, each to their own rank. There was a little bit of jockeying among the Guild Masters, but mostly among related groups, such as Goldworks, Silverworks, Brassworks, Ironworks, and the like, though Brassworks and Silverworks were both considered equal to Lumber, even if they didn’t always agree between themselves. At least, they were supposed to all be equal save for the Priests Guild, but there was always an argument or three about whose craft was the more skilled, the more valuable, or the more whatever.

  Individual elevation and rank were based on merit and ability, a most sensible way to give someone authority and power . . . but not in the priesthood. Their “novices”—apprentices in any other guild—were to be accounted equal with journeymen in other guilds, their priests as masters, their bishops as grandmasters, and their archbishops the equal of any Guild Master. That was supposed to be the highest rank one could attain, for there was only one Guild Master at a time in all branches of that guild. The Patriarch, the Guild Master of the Priests Guild, was supposed to be considered the highest ranking of all, the spiritual leader . . . and the default kingdom leader, because he outranked everyone. A fact that rankled.

  The Patriarch’s bound to be in a panic, Rexei realized when her thoughts circled around to the highest priest of all. He might start issuing nasty orders, if he stops to think that this means the people will try to overthrow the stranglehold of the priesthood, once their greatest source of political and magical power is gone.