The Guild

THREE

She honestly did not know if she could trust the man. He was militia, and the militia had special squads sent out by the officers—at the prodding of the priesthood, admittedly—to hunt down and capture mages. But . . . the purpose for the Hunter Squads no longer existed, as far as she knew. If she could convince this man of that, then maybe word would spread, and the Hunter Squads could be disbanded. That would save a lot of mages’ lives.

Hands dry, she slipped on a spare pair of leather gloves, pulled a knitted cap over her head for warmth while the fresh coals slowly caught, and folded her arms across her chest. “I saw two mages brought in . . . and midway through interrogating them, before the priests could bind either one . . . every last cog and gear of Mekha’s decorations vanished from the walls and from the priests’ embroidered robes. The outlander mage they were interrogating, he claimed it meant that Mekha had been dissolved. And then, later . . . they were making us haul all the prisoners up out of the basement rooms, where we weren’t supposed to go, before.

“While I was down there . . . I saw Mekha’s power room.” She shivered, more from the memory than from the cold. Then she shivered again from the chill in the air. What she wanted to do was crawl under the felted-wool blankets on her bed and huddle there until she and her room were both truly warm, but she couldn’t.

“And?” Surprisingly, he didn’t ask her what the chamber looked like. Nor did he ask her where her accent had gone. If he knew she was Rexei Longshanks, if he knew she was a journeyman of the Actors Guild, then he’d know she could don and doff an accent at will.

“And it was crumbling. Pillars with crystals disintegrating. Some sort of chair-thing at the heart of it, cracking and sloughing off in clumps, like you’d let garden dirt fall from your hands.”

“And?” he prompted when she fell silent. “I know you’re bright enough to have observed far more than that, Longshanks. Give me the details.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “That’s for my unnamed client to know, and it’s time for you to get out of my tenement. I’ve answered your questions. Now, go.”

He stepped close to her. She didn’t have anywhere to retreat, since next to the washstand was the table and cupboards where she kept what little food she cooked. Lifting her chin, Rexei tried to stare down the taller man.

“You’re brave, I’ll give you that. But these are priests, lad,” he warned her, fooled by her slim frame and ambiguous, youthful face, as everyone had been. “And they now have your cap and your coat. All they need to track you down is a hair plucked from either. They can tuck that into a tracking amulet and find you . . . save for one location. If they realize you saw or heard anything you weren’t supposed to—if they now know, after watching that blowhard’s ploy at making trouble for you, that you aren’t just a mere Servers apprentice—then they will come for you. And they will try to demand the Precinct’s help.

“I am trying to find out if that will happen or not . . . because if Mekha is truly gone, the captain and I are not giving anyone else to the priests ever again,” he finished grimly, moving close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. “But we don’t have any magic to counteract their abilities. And I know you don’t have full access to the one place where they cannot find you. Yet. So give me a reason to help you.”

She didn’t know what to make of him. It was clear he knew things . . . and that implied he was one of them, too . . . but neither of them could ask each other outright questions. Not here. The sanctuary he alluded to was not in Heiastowne, though it wasn’t far by motorhorse. But mentionable or not, he knew who Rexei Longshanks was—as much as she had let anyone know—and he was the Precinct leftenant.

One thing he was not was slimy feeling. Nor brittle and harsh like a cracker, like the man who had bruised her shoulder and hauled her to the leftenant’s side. Instead, the leftenant reminded her more of a fine leather coat. Precise, tailored—a finished product, not rawhide. He was also not a bully like so many other officers she had warily watched in other Precincts, men who would not have hesitated to beat an answer out of her with the back of a hand. This leftenant seemed to actually care about his city. Ambivalence warred within her, between the need to flee far away and establish a new identity elsewhere, and the stacking of subtle facts that said he might be semi-trustworthy.

Mekha is gone, Rexei reminded herself, and shrugged defensively. “I overheard the foreign man—not an Arbran but from somewhere else—telling the priests of . . . an alternate power source. Other than draining you-know-whats dry.”

One thought of the word mage in the kingdom of Mekhana, but one rarely ever said it aloud. It was whispered that priests had ways of tracking the word, spells that could pluck it out of the wind and backtrack it to its source. No one had a spell that could penetrate and reveal the privacy of a person’s very thoughts. So while her claim made the leftenant narrow his eyes in wary puzzlement, he only mouthed the forbidden word; he did not say it aloud.

Instead, he said, “What alternate power source?”

Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, Rexei murmured one word, “Demons.”

He stumbled back from her, shock widening his light brown eyes. Rexei felt unsettled herself; she had never seen any militia officer so quickly discomposed. They were bastions of power, authority, and in many cases cruelty. This man’s composure had been shattered, though. He stared at her, clutched at his head, stared, and turned first toward the door, then back to the rest of the room, then toward the door again, as if unable to decide what to do or where to go.

“Demons,” he whispered, no longer even looking at her. “It starts here . . . This is where it starts!”

It was her turn to frown at him. Eyes narrowed, she opened her mouth to ask—but he interrupted her, snapping his fingers and pointing at the majority of her tenement.

“Start packing!”

“What? I’m not packing!” Rexei argued, though her heart pounded with fear. She was going to pack. Her assignment from the Mages Guild be damned; she would only pack as soon as he was gone, make her report, and head for the northern hills—or maybe the southern, head to Sundara in the hopes of escaping everything. But she wasn’t about to let him know that. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’ve done nothing wrong!”

He swung back to face her, ending his awkward pacing. “Oh, you’ve done nothing wrong, I’ll agree. But the moment the priests find out you know that, your life will be worth nothing, lad. There is only one place in this whole kingdom, or what’s left of it, where you will be safe. Trust me, their ambitions did not end with Mekha,” the leftenant warned her, pointing at her face. “And your knowledge is needed to save the whole world. Start packing.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“I’m taking you to the one place where both of us know you’ll be safe . . . though neither of us dares say why. It’s not like you have that much to pack,” he added gruffly, looking at the stark contents of her tenement room. “Now, be quick about it. The faster we get you out of here, the faster we’ll have you in the one place where they cannot get a hold of you.”

She only had the bits of furniture, such as the table, chair, cupboards, and bed, simply because they came with the room. Most tenements had at least a few basic amenities, thanks to the efforts of the Consulates representing the many, many lessees across Mekhana in negotiations with the Lessors Guild. Even the lamp, the sparker, the coal bucket, and the wood bin were borrowed, but then Rexei didn’t own a clothes chest, either; what she owned, minus two of the blankets on her bed, could fit into a single large pack that could be hefted onto her back. With her other coat missing, she could add in one of those blankets.

But she didn’t move yet. “How do I know this isn’t a trick to impress me into the militia?”

The leftenant frowned at her, then sighed heavily. “Because we’ll be headed due east, not west by southwest, and that is all I can say. If you’re Rexei Longshanks, hired to pose as a Servers Guild apprentice, then you know why I cannot say.”

West by southwest was the direction of the Precinct headquarters, with its barracks and training yards. East of Heiastowne lay the Heias Dam, in a valley that had been blocked off. Its runoff powered various engines that drove the great presses and extrusion rollers of the Steelworks Guild and others. Eastward . . . was also the Vortex. The one place that could thoroughly confuse active magics and render mages too dizzy to concentrate if they weren’t keyed into the spells maintaining that sphere of instabilities.

Some of those spells prevented anyone from even talking about the fact there was more to the Heias Dam than power generation. Yes, she did know what he was talking about, and what he wasn’t able to talk about. The spells involved, enriched with generations of paranoia, prevented anything from being even hinted at in the presence of a priest or a priest sympathizer. To be questioned about it by a priest would cause complete amnesia regarding the secrets hidden behind the dam, or so she had been warned.

She didn’t know what the leftenant meant by, It starts here. This is where it starts. But she did know he was right about the priests’ reactions if they ever realized she knew about the demon-summoning thing. Because even without Mekha, they could band together, summon a powerful demon, and use the siphoned energies to power their own magics. If demons truly were superior to mages as a source, then the sheer level of power that could be siphoned from them was not a pleasant thought.

“Fine. But one hint of the wrong direction, and I’ll react badly,” she threatened, letting the implication sound as if she would attack him or steal his motorhorse and run. She’d run, but the most Rexei would do to him and the other militiaman would be to put them to sleep with a simple spell. A second one to make them forget they had ever met her, and she would be on her way with neither man the wiser. It was an escape plan that she already knew worked on priests, never mind non-mages. She’d been forced to test it on three in the past.

The leftenant flicked his hand at her meager belongings. “Hurry up, then. Don’t dawdle.”

Edging around him, she crossed to the cupboard built into the wall next to the bed. Pulling out her travel pack as well as her clothes, she stuffed them inside, added in the basket of crocheting needles and soft balls of wool that sat near the hearth, then stuffed in as many blankets as she could.

As she worked, the leftenant crouched in front of her hearth and used the tongs to nudge apart the coals. Once that was done, he replaced the grate. “Your lease will have to expire, but I’ll see you’re compensated for the refund lost. We don’t want rumors that you’ve fled to get out, so as far as your fellow tenants will know, you’ll just vanish.”

“If I’m to walk out of town, I should go at night, when I’m less likely to be recognized,” Rexei pointed out.

“You won’t walk,” he countered.

She looked at him. “And being dragged out of here on a militia motorhorse isn’t going to cause people to talk?”

“You’ll not walk all the way,” he amended. “Head for the east gate. As soon as I’ve dropped off my corporal, I’ll come back and pick you up. I should make it back by the time you’re less than a quarter-mile from the city.”

Crossing back to the cooking cupboards, she pulled out a leather sack and stuffed in her bag of crushed oats for porridge, a waxed round of cheese, a waxed paper packet of dried fruit slices, and a bag of mixed beans. The sausage end she stuffed into a half loaf of bread, wrapped it in a kerchief, and put it into her coat pocket.

“Once we get where we’re going, leftenant,” Rexei found herself stating as she swung around to face him, “I am going to question you thoroughly about how you know about what we are not talking about.”

That caused him to quirk one of his brows, but the leftenant merely gave her a slight half-mocking bow. “As you wish, Sub-Consul. Though it will become apparent if you’ll simply be quiet and watch.”

He headed for the door. Rexei discovered she had one more question. “Hey.”

He turned to face her. “Yes?”

“You got a name?” she asked. “Or should I just call you Leftenant? Somehow I don’t think they’ll be all that friendly toward your title.”

“It’s my rank, not my title, and they already know about it. But they mostly call me Rogen Tallnose when I’m there. Try to refrain from any jokes about the family name while you’re there,” he added dryly. “Be a good guest, Longshanks, and you’ll be treated well. Remember that.”

He walked out the door before she could do more than frown in confusion. The leftenant was roughly average in height, maybe a tiny bit taller, but by no means the tallest man in town. Nor was his nose particularly “tall” in appearance, though it was a little longer and pointier than average. Unable to think of a reason to make fun of his name, Rexei fished out the sausage and bread and gnawed on it, then remembered belatedly to pull out her waterskin and fill it from the keg that fed the washstand. The splashing water competed with the rumble of the motorhorse starting up.

When her uncooked supper was halfway eaten, she wrapped it up and stuffed it back into her pocket, then took herself outside and to the far end of the balcony where the refreshers were located. As she came back, she checked the alleyway. No sign of a motorhorse, so she ducked into her tenement, hefted her packs, and stepped out again. A quick look around showed her an empty balcony and no one in sight across the narrow street, so she placed the key along the upper edge of the doorframe once the room was locked.

With that taken care of, she hefted the pack so it sat more comfortably and headed down the stairs. Choosing a path that would get her out of the north gate of the city, she started walking. After three blocks, though, just as she passed the mouth of an alley, the sudden rumble of a motorhorse coming to life startled her. A quick glance to her right showed the leftenant on the machine, with no sign of the operator from earlier.

Rexei glared at him. Releasing the stopper pedal briefly, he coasted up next to her, then stilled the rumbling mount. “This isn’t the way to the east.”

“Any fool would head east right away. I know better when expecting pursuit,” she shot back.

For a moment, his mouth twisted wryly. Leftenant Tallnose tipped his head at the street she stood on, then at the second saddle position on his motorhorse. “I had a feeling you’d bolt, so I sent the corporal back on foot and picked your most likely route in this maze of streets. Get on. We’ll head north, then swing around east.”

For a second, she wanted to rest, to enspell him and run. But the Vortex was the safest place for her, and a motorhorse was considerably faster than a shank’s mare. Since she didn’t want to spend all night marching on foot in an inadequate coat while the temperatures dropped, she moved over to the side of his bike and awkwardly climbed aboard. Not because she was unfamiliar with motorhorses—no one reached journeyman status in the Messengers Guild without learning how to operate one of the machines—but because her belongings coupled with the greater height of the rear seat made climbing into place a bit awkward.

She managed, though. Tucking her gloved hands into his belt for security, she tightened her legs on the machine’s flanks and held on, balancing with each turn and twist in their path as they got under way. The last light of the sun glowed peach where it touched the city walls by the time they rumbled out of the north gate. He continued north for a mile, too, but she wasn’t too alarmed; in fact, when he slowed the motorhorse at the crossroads and turned right, she relaxed, leaning gently into the curve with him so the wheeled, mechanical beast wouldn’t slip or skid.

Once on the road that would connect with others headed eastward, he shifted a couple of levers and increased the fuel mix in the engine. Rexei wasn’t completely sure of how such things worked; the Engines Guild was one of many she had yet to apprentice in, never mind master. She did know just enough to be able to tell the engine sounded like it was in excellent shape. Good enough that the leftenant increased their speed once they were on the straightest stretch of the road, until she was grateful to huddle behind his leather-clad back, though the wind still whipped around him, chilling her where it blew through her felted outer clothes.

The trip by motorhorse took only a fraction of the time it would have taken her to walk the five miles on foot. If it weren’t for the heat of the engine seeping through the metal flanks of the motorhorse, she would have been as cold from the wind caused by their speed as she would have been from the longer journey at a shank’s mare pace. Even the pack on her back helped somewhat, but her arms were stiff and numb by the time he carefully guided the vehicle up the winding road that mounted the side of the northern hill and turned it onto the crystal-lit curve that formed the top of the Heias Dam. By then, they were so close that the water cascading over the spillway was louder than the motorhorse engine.

The dam was one of the few structures still extant that had been crafted in part by magic. Over three hundred years old—and rumored to be from a time before Mekha had turned rapacious—the runes that imbued it with the power to self-seal any developing cracks drew their power down from the aether via large crystals on the ends of tall iron poles. During thunderstorms, those crystals attracted and transformed lightning into the magic necessary to prevent even a minor failure.

It was also rumored that the priesthood had been considering a similar system in their temples, but storms were difficult to conjure, even more difficult to turn electric, and without magic, they were too unpredictable and infrequent to make such a use practical for anything other than the slowest, most long-term spells. Such as repairing the Heias Dam. Right now, there were no storms in the clouds drifting in patches over the near black sky, and what few stars shone through their gaps could not compete with the glow of the crystals.

They weren’t the only source of light. Brother and Sister Moons were riding the night sky, though their light was partially blocked by the clouds. On the northern hillside, Rexei and the leftenant had passed the buildings used by the Steelworks to manufacture the extra-hard, flexible metal for Mekhana’s war-machines industry. That guild ran its services every hour of the day, for it was far more difficult to restart the smelting fires from scratch than to keep them going, and too wasteful not to use up all that nighttime heat. On the southern hillside, there were only a few oil lamps and crystal lights, but those were the Guilds that had a mere building or two, not several, and they were usually only worked in the daylight hours.

Some of them were not what she had expected. The first time her work as a messenger had brought her here, Rexei had not expected to see the Tillers’ symbol—a scythe crossed with a wheat sheaf—on one of the signboards. She hadn’t expected to grow dizzy from the conflux of energies, either, but during her recovery in the outer halls of the Vortex and her subsequent induction into the never-mentioned Mages Guild, she had learned that the Heias Dam had been so well planned, its creators had even included a special set of spells and a sluice that scraped up the silt washed down to the reservoir from farther upstream.

That silt was captured, dried, and bagged by the Tillers Guild for shipment to local farms so it could be mixed in with composted manure and other forms of mulch. The Tillers—the farmers—who worked those fields spread it out to keep the ground fertile. She had grown up in the north, where the land was flat and had few trees and mines, but was rich in good farming soil. Down here near Heiastowne, the valley where the town sat was fertile enough, but most of the landscape was hilly and better suited for growing timber, grapevines, and digging ore.

But they weren’t headed for the far side of the valley. At the center point of the broad, long curve, the leftenant guided the motorhorse to the left, along a causeway out over the reservoir waters. It terminated in a roundish, almost castlelike structure. To either side of the causeway, smaller ones led to the open, semi-submerged, pipelike spillways feeding the great turbines powering each of the local buildings, but this one led to the control house.

Moonlight gleamed off the ice that had crusted the edges of the lake, cold and pale blue. Warm yellow light spilled down from the windows of the control house. The leftenant guided his motorhorse into one of the stables set aside for vehicles, but once he parked it and turned it off, once they were both off the saddle-fitted back, he did not lead her toward the nearest door into the stone-walled structure. Instead, he caught her wrist and pulled her toward the back of the parking stable.

Confused, Rexei followed. The tune in her head had changed the moment they drew within sight of the dam. A counterpoint melody wove itself around the first one, stabilizing her inner senses so that the swirling energies of the aether around this place would not disturb her own energies, as they had the first time. As they did to any mage who didn’t know the exact key to countering what seemed to be a natural phenomenon, but which she had been told on her first visit was a deliberately exaggerated effect. Priests did not like coming here because of that effect, which was the one thing making the Vortex a safe zone for mages.

The militia officer did something in the darkest corner of the stall . . . and part of the stone wall swung away. Beckoning her to follow, he entered the shadowed passage beyond. Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, clinging to her knowledge that the priests hated coming to the dam and that Mekha was dead, Rexei followed him inside.

The head-sized rectangular stones quickly gave way to the smooth concrete surface that made up most of the dam. A good thing, too, for the passage turned into a spiral staircase that descended down, down, down. She expected the air to turn damp as well as cold, but it didn’t; it stayed dry and became warmer. The light coming from below grew brighter, too.

After the third turning, she could see the source, another of those odd, ceiling-embedded crystals like in the forbidden basement of the temple. It wasn’t quite as bright as daylight, but it was brighter than three oil lamps put together. It illuminated a table set at the bottom of the stairs and a man who was hastily pulling his feet off the table, replacing them with his book. Behind him lay a longish passage lined with two doors nearby, two farther down, and one at the end; the door behind him and to his right lay open and seemed to look into another curving stairwell leading down.

“Rogen!” the sentry exclaimed, gaining his feet. “Wait . . . who’s that?” he demanded, frowning at Rexei. “I don’t recognize that one. He’s not authorized to be here.”

“Stow it, Barclei,” Rogen Tallnose ordered, or tried.

“Stow it yourself, Tallnose,” the other man retorted, lifting his chin. “Your brother may be one of us, but you’re not, and I don’t take orders from you. Leftenant.”

Rexei struggled to keep her shock off her face. This man had zero fear of a leftenant of the militia? Or at least so little that he felt he could be rude to the man’s face? That was unheard-of, in her experience. Next to the priesthood, the militia was the second-biggest source of authority and power in the kingdom. Even the Consulates, which represented all the guilds, treaded lightly around their local Precinct officers. This man didn’t, and that astounded her. The only thing she allowed herself to do was blink; the rest of her face, she kept carefully straight and blank.

“Stow it anyway, and get my brother up here,” Tallnose ordered. “There are things going on that you are not authorized to know about, but I am. So get him up here. Now.”

Barclei eyed Rogen a long moment, then shifted to a small box set in the wall above the edge of the table. Pressing a toggle, he spoke, “Barclei to central, Leftenant Tallnose wishes to see his brother at the control house gate. He has a . . . guest . . . with him.”

Releasing the toggle, he straightened. The mesh grille crackled and a tinny voice spoke. “Central to control house gate, who is the guest?”

At a lift of the guard’s brows, Tallnose gestured at her. “Journeyman Rexei Longshanks. He’s already authorized for the outer levels.”

Barclei passed that along, though he eyed Rexei as he did so. A few moments passed, then a reply came back. “He’s on his way.”

The longer they waited, the warmer Rexei felt. Even the leftenant started feeling it, for he unbuckled the belt of his riding coat, unfastened the buttons, and pushed the edges aside. Eventually, he removed his helmet, once again revealing flattened, reddish brown curls with the faint start of a receding hairline. His hair reminded Rexei of her father, though her father’s hair had been as dark brown as her own. She turned away to hide her reaction, masking the movement by unbuttoning her own coat now that she, too, was finally feeling blessedly warm.

Footsteps made her turn back. A figure bounded up the steps of the second spiral stairway. He had a cap on his head and a scarf wrapped around his throat and chin, though his shirt and trews were lightweight wool at best. Green viewing lenses perched on his nose . . . and there was no doubt that this was the reason why the leftenant had warned her against making fun of the family name. His nose was long vertically like the leftenant’s, yes, but it also jutted forward in a sharp point, more nose than most men possessed naturally.

She tried not to stare. Dragging her eyes up to those green lenses, she realized the leftenant’s brother was at most only a thumbwidth taller than her, not the length of a finger. It was odd, but she could sense his presence in the aether as easily as if she had been around this newcomer for a good solid week. He felt warm, clean, and well shielded. The redhead looked back at her, looked at his browner-haired brother, and clapped his hands together, rubbing them in an eager motion. His strawberry blond brows rose in an inquiry.

“Right, then, what have you got for me, Leftenant?” the unnamed brother asked. His tone was a lot more polite when using the other man’s title than Barclei’s had been.

“Tell him what you told me,” Rogen directed her.

Licking her lips and wondering how much she dared tell when this shrouded man was not the mage she was supposed to report everything to, Rexei finally began with the truth. “I was hired by someone in the uh . . . local guild . . . to investigate Servers Guild claims of abuse by priests. As a Sub-Consul, I could represent the local Consulate in the investigation.”

That was her cover story. The cap-and-scarf swathed man nodded, rolling his wrist to get her to move on. “Yes, yes, I know all that. Go on. What do you know about the claims of the Dead God being gone?”

“There was a foreign man—not Arbran, but brought up from beyond the border with another man—and he started negotiating for his freedom,” she said. That earned her snorts of disbelief from all three men. “He said, why should they be draining . . . you know, the prisoners . . . when they could be draining demons.”

The leftenant’s brother’s eyes widened behind those green-tinted viewing lenses, but they did not move from her face. His hand moved though. He pointed at Barclei and snapped his fingers. “You, forget you ever heard that.” Pointing at his brother next, he said, “You, get back to town, and cover all his tracks; make it seem like Longshanks left town with no notice or future address. I’ll give your love to the family.” That finger jabbed at her. “You, come with me.”

“Why?” Again, Rexei surprised herself, but she stood by the word, lifting her chin a little. “I don’t know you from him.” She poked her thumb at the stairwell sentry. “Why should I go anywhere with you?”

“Because I need you to give your report in full to some very interested parties, and it needs to be done immediately.” He reached for her hand.

Rexei backed up. “My orders are to report to Master Julianna Harpshadow. Not to you. If you want to know the full-on details, you can ask her after I’ve given my report. If you’re authorized to know what she requested I learn.”

Both the leftenant and his brother stared at her, mouths open but without any sounds coming out. It was Barclei who spoke, poking his thumb at the brother. “Master Harpshadow reports to him, you stupid twit. He’s the Guild Master.”

She looked back and forth between the three men. The newcomer wasn’t wearing the symbol-stamped gold oval medallion of his guild, so she had no clue which one he headed. Rexei tried a guess. “Hydraulics?”

“The other guild,” the leftenant’s brother said flatly. “If you truly overheard what you say you did, then the priests might want to eliminate you. That means we need to know everything that you know. Give my contemporaries and I every scrap of knowledge you have, and we will give you sanctuary. Now, come.”

This time, when he held out his hand, Rexei let him clasp hers and pull her into the stairwell he had come from. A last glance over her shoulder showed the leftenant turning to head for the stairwell that led back to the hidden entrance in the motorhorse stables.

“Have you eaten?” the Guild Master asked her.

“Uh . . . somewhat. I’ve got food for a bit,” she added. The leftenant’s brother flicked his hand, dismissing her statement. It occurred to her she didn’t know his name, and it looked like this was another long stairwell spiraling down to who knew where. “So, uh . . . the Leftenant’s name is Rogen Tallnose. If you’re his brother, what’s yours?”

“Alonnen.” He didn’t tack on the family name. “And you’re Rexei. We’re a little bit crowded at the moment; we’ve taken in several of the mages that were released, but that’s all in the outer layers, where you were allowed before. Normally, you’d be quartered with them, but right now you’re in too much danger. Some of the outer layer guildmembers have been shifted to the mid-layers, so that’s overcrowded because of the shift inward . . . and of course some of the mid-levels got bumped into the upper levels.

“So, since you’re now an even bigger target than I would be if they knew about me—or maybe on par,” the Guild Master half joked, “that means you’re going to have to share quarters, since there are no empty rooms left.”

She blinked at that and cleared her throat, hoping he would attribute her flushed face to the heat of this place and her layers of wool. Sharing was not a good idea. Sharing when she was pretending to be male was never a good idea, because they’d room her with another male. She’d have to do all her changing in the refreshing room and bind her breasts even for sleeping. At least it was winter, so the extra layers would keep her warm. “Uh . . . who am I sharing it with?”

“Me.” Pulling his scarf down, he flashed her a smile and opened a door at the bottom of the stairs. Alonnen nodded at yet another person seated at a table. This time, it was a woman, though Rexei could only tell because she had definite curves under her knit tunic. The Guild Master lifted his chin at both of them. “Margei, this is Rexei Longshanks. Rexei’s being moved to the inner Vortex. Rexei, this is Margei, master rank. She’s sort of a leftenant type—and much better-looking than my brother,” he added, winking at the middle-aged woman.

Margei blushed but gave him a dark look. “And happily married.” She turned her green gaze on Rexei. Her brow creased in a frown. “Well, you’re a bit tall for an unbearded youth. How old are you, lad? Fifteen?”

“Old enough to know it’s none of your business.” At the other woman’s affronted look, Rexei gave her a pointed one. “You’re married, remember?”

“He has you there,” Alonnen said. Tugging Rexei past the station, he led her down the hall to the door at the end. He touched the wood rather than the doorknob. She saw the faintest ripple of magic over its surface and stiffened. Sensing her movement, he glanced back at her. “Relax. Everything’s disguised by the Vortex. I’ve even made some progress with mastering that masking spell of yours.”

“Funny, I don’t remember teaching you,” Rexei countered. After her message had been delivered to the Hydraulics Guild, she had been drawn into the Mages Guild to explain just how strong she was—moderately so—and how thoroughly she could mask her abilities. That had led to her being inducted into the Teachers Guild for one month as she strove to train three other mages to replicate the meditation spells her mother had taught her. But that had been two women and a man, and that other man was taller and had possessed a rounded, more broad nose.

“Scrying mirror,” the Guild Master explained. “I watched what I could, when I could, and puzzled out the rest on my own. You’re a terrible teacher, you know.”

“I know. Aside from the Carters Guild, it’s the shortest I’ve ever been apprenticed,” she muttered. “I didn’t like doing it.”

“You’ll never make master rank in any discipline if you can’t learn how to teach better,” he warned her.

“It’s the subject I don’t like. I don’t even like saying the M word out loud, and I’ve spent over half my life hiding that such things even exist, never mind that I’m one of them. But I taught new carving tricks in the Engravers Guild, and everyone took to the lessons like ducks to water,” she countered. Then frowned. Her sense of direction was good. The hallways were still smooth and seamless, broken only by metal-framed doors. “How much of this complex is under the reservoir?”

“The outer layers are on the hillsides above the shoreline, the middle layers under the shoreline. The inner depths of the Vortex are mid-lake. There used to be an island there. It got destroyed when the last Convocation of Gods and Man ended rather abruptly, killing off Mekha. Unfortunately, not permanently. He came back, more hungry than before, which was when everything grew exponentially worse for us.”

“That foreign fellow was rather sure Mekha is gone. He swore it was what he believed had happened on a Truth Stone,” Rexei offered. “He said he’d heard about such things happening in the ancient days, back when we still had the Convocations. I don’t know how it happened now, but the embroidery, the carvings, anything directly tied to Him . . . all gone.”

“Oh, I know how. And every single one of us who pricked a thumb and bled in the protest books owes a certain Darkhanan priestess a huge thank-you, since she’s followed through on her promise.”

Using his palm to unlock one last door, he stepped through and pulled her into an astonishing chamber . . . if one could call it that, since it seemed to be both outside and inside at the same time. It was as if a great, multiguild glassworks team had crafted a huge, crystalline bowl and upended it in the reservoir, trapping a vast bubble of air in which a large, multileveled stone building now sat, anchored to what had to be the stub of bedrock left over from the explosion he had alluded to a few moments before.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Alonnen asked her, grinning the moment she glanced his way. He removed his cap and green lenses as he did so, revealing kind hazel green eyes and longish strawberry blond curls pulled back into a short tail at the nape of his neck. “Welcome to the safest place for mages in all of Mekhana.”

Breathtaking was the word for it. It wasn’t just the fishbowl dome—literally, fish were swimming down near the bottom edges, barely visible in the glow from the crystals providing illumination for everything, while thin patches of ice distorted the light of what had to be Brother Moon overhead. It was also the man next to her. Seeing that grin, the welcoming warmth of it, made her feed odd. Nervous, excited, and perched on the edge of something big. Like her first solo ride on a motorhorse at messenger speeds.

“The view’s a lot better in the daylight, of course. Fish, plants . . . well, more of the latter in the warmer parts of the year. But the sunlight through the ice can be nice. Oh, don’t worry about the lights being seen at night. It’s all cloaked under layers and layers of illusions,” he dismissed, waiving his free hand. The other had tucked his scarf and cap under his arm, while his spectacles had gone into a clever pocket on the breast of his tunic. He caught her gaze drifting down over his lean chest and shrugged, misinterpreting her curiosity. “I know, I know, I’m not wearing a knitted shirt. Certainly not one I knitted myself.

“Truth be told, lad, I can practically spin wool into gold, it’s that fine and slub free, but anything after that point keeps eluding me. Stabbing my fingers with embroidery needles, hopelessly tangling any yarn—oh, speaking of which,” Alonnen added, nudging her toward the multistory structure ahead of them. “You were given a scrap of spell-knitting by Master Harpshadow. Do you still have it?”

She put her hand over her pouch. “Yes. I’m lucky I put it back in my pouch, not in my coat pocket, or it’d still be back at the temple, like my coat and my cap.”

That checked him mid-stride. Swinging around, he faced her, his cheerfulness gone, along with much of the color in his cheeks. “They have a cap from your head? With your hairs in it?”

Defensively, Rexei touched her chest. “I didn’t have any choice! One minute, I’m helping get the others out of the priests’ clutches, and the next thing I know, they’re shoving me out the door with the last of them, right past the bubble-ward! They had the doors locked and shielded before we knew what hit us. Maybe they won’t realize the cap on the floor is mine, and there’s no way they could tell which coat is mine, since there were five other Servers from the guild serving the temple at the time, and they got shoved out without their coats, too.

“I couldn’t exactly go knocking on the door asking for it back, either. Not when I was supposed to be playing a half-wit,” she added, giving him a hard stare. “I don’t care who’s signing my pay vouchers. I’m not going to take huge risks for anyone.”

“And we won’t ask you to,” Alonnen stated, touching Rexei’s forearm. “It’ll be okay. We’ve had hairs caught in tracking amulets before, and we’ve always been able to lead them astray once they get near the dam. We’ll need a few hairs from your head, but within a day, they’ll be convinced you’ve gone over the eastern mountains into northern Aurul.

“Now calm yourself and get inside,” he said, though she suspected the request was as much for his own sake as for hers. “You’ll be safe here. And well fed. The inner circle of the Vortex is served by a grandmaster chef from the Hospitallers Guild, a journeyman, and three apprentices.” He eyed her up and down, and flashed a brief smile. “I’d bet a lad like you could eat a whole chicken in a single sitting, plus have room for veg, bread, and pie. Or rather, I think it’s a stuffed rib roast tonight. Come on.”

She wasn’t hungry until he opened up the nearest door and ushered her into a warm foyer not too dissimilar to what she’d seen in the larger houses attached to farms and workshops. The rich scents of roasting beef, herbed vegetables, fresh-baked bread, and more made her mouth water and made it difficult to struggle out of her pack, her coat, gloves, and knit hat.

A youth came at a call from the Guild Master; he took the bundle of her things and staggered upstairs. When she opened her mouth to protest, Alonnen cut her off with a lift of his free hand and a quick explanation.

“It’s Guild policy to check over all belongings for magical traces, in case something’s been slipped in by the priests or one of their agents that could help them track this place. That, and it’s also a policy that everything gets cleaned. There are spells that recycle the air to keep it fresh, but every little bit helps when trying to keep the air from being manky or stuffy. Among other reasons—just consider it a free laundry service. All your things will be accounted for, so don’t worry.”

She wanted to worry, but he took her hand and guided her up the steps in the young lad’s wake. That took them away from the delicious smells of the ground floor. But where the lad detoured at the third landing, they kept going up.

When they reached the top, Alonnen led Rexei into a wood-paneled room. While he tossed his hat and scarf onto pegs by the door, she looked around. There were three mirrors on the wall with the door along with shelves and cupboards, a woodstove on the other wall flanked by bookshelves, a desk with a vast window to her left, and an even larger set of windows on the right—floor to ceiling windows broken into four giant panes by what she realized were two sliding panels in the middle that could be retracted along grooves.

The windows overlooked a broad stone balcony with a view of the night-lit fishbowl. The crystals in the ceiling were radiating a dim sort of light, but her Messenger-trained mind said she could not possibly be seeing what was just outside the window.

It was impossible, flat-out impossible, for what she saw to have fit into the space. Tugging her hand free, she slowly approached the balcony and the vast window that covered it, trying to make sense of what was out there. Vortex was the right name for it, for it reminded her very much of the swirling funnel formed when one pulled the plug out of the bottom of a large basin of water. But this wasn’t water she was seeing.

This was pure magic, and instead of draining down to a point at the base—a bright point of light just a little bit lower than the balcony itself—the Vortex seemed to be spewing upward, infusing the waters of the reservoir almost all the way up to the surface. Except it was also constrained in the whole fishbowl warding sphere at the same time, yet she hadn’t seen any sign of this from outside the building.

“Illusion,” Alonnen stated. She jumped, not having heard him approach close enough to speak into her ear. He shrugged and nodded at the view. “That’s what the reservoir truly looks like, that funnel right there. Everything outside this room, it’s all cloaked in illusion after illusion. Grandmaster-level magery, and we’re damn lucky to have it. The old records say that the previous Guild Master of the Mages Guild had traveled to Aiar to petition for a new God. But we don’t know what happened after that. His replacement, she was the one who quickly caged the shattered Portal that had been on the island and wove all the protective illusions on top of all the previous wardings that had been here.

“Unfortunately, she suffered a stroke before she could do more than start to teach her surviving apprentices how to maintain it all properly, though they managed as best they could. The confusion in the aether around the Heias Dam is the result of generations of imperfectly made repairs from before and after the Shattering. My predecessors then figured out how to capitalize on that effect. It’s helped us to weed out would-be spies. But then you’ve already been through that interrogation process, so you know that.”

Blushing, Rexei cleared her throat. “I . . . am surprised you’re showing this to me. Explaining it.”

He clapped her on the back. “That’s because you, young man, are now on the front line of a war to help save our entire world. From a demonic, Netherhell-based invasion, no less. And for that much, you have the Guild’s undying gratitude. More than that, lad? You’re about to have the undying gratitude of some of the most powerful mages in the whole world. This way—oh, you’ll probably want to disguise your face and hair as a precaution. I do, and I’m not the only one who does. If you like, I’ve got a spare scarf and hat on the rack.

“They’re very trustworthy, but I have no clue whether the priests can spy on scrying mirrors or not, even if this connection goes straight through the Fountainways,” he said, confusing her with the unfamiliar word. “It’s also been a sort of tradition for all the Guardians of the Vortex to hide their identities over the centuries. Even if Mekha’s gone now, I see no reason to stop just yet.” Nudging her back over to the door, he redonned his cap and scarf, settled his glasses back on the midpoint of his beaky nose, and offered her a floppy felted cap and a soft lamb’s-wool scarf to wrap around her throat and chin.

She took both, but after only a few seconds of wearing it, she had to unwind the scarf. He might only be wearing a woven wool shirt and matching waistcoat, but her knitted tunic lay over two layers of linen and her breast and waist bindings. In fact, she was now uncomfortably warm, for the iron stove across the broad room was keeping the Guild Master’s study quite cozy.

“Something wrong?” he asked as she tried to discreetly flap her sweater to cool down a little.

“I’m too hot now,” she admitted, grimacing. “The temple doesn’t get a lot of heat outside the priests’ rooms. I’m not dressed for this.”

“Looks like you have a shirt on underneath,” Alonnen observed, peering at her clothes. “Strip off the knit and make yourself comfortable. Nobody’s going to care what you’re wearing so long as you’re reasonably decent. Most of the people we’ll be talking to don’t wear sweaters or other layers to keep warm—in fact, some are downright undressed compared to us, but that’s okay; it’s just the way they dress in their homeland.”

Not quite comfortable, Rexei unbuckled her belt, set it and her pouch on the side table, then pulled the wool tunic over her head. She had tucked her medallions back under her sweater on the walk to her tenement with his brother, but not underneath her undertunics. Not when they had been exposed to the chill winter air. They were still cold but not shockingly so. She had to redon the cap, but this time when she tried the scarf, it wasn’t so cloying. Nodding, she looked at him.

“Good—try those blue-tinted lenses, if you want to hide your eyes,” he added, nodding at a set of spectacles on the narrow, table-like side cupboard not far from the pegs on the wall. “Mind the curvature, as it might make you a bit dizzy. I’m mildly farsighted; I need ’em to look at things close-up.”

Unsure what the lenses would do, Rexei picked up the glasses and gingerly peered through them. Everything turned blue, and there was indeed a slight sense of distortion . . . but she kind of liked everything faded to blue, so she carefully hooked the wires over her ears and gave him a thumb-out gesture, palm flat to the floor to let him know she was okay with it despite the discomfort.