The Guild

FOUR

Pleased that the lanky young man was doing alright, Alonnen moved over to one of the three silvered glass mirrors on the wall near the desk. Boy’s not quite so suspicious now. Can’t say as I blame him. I do wonder about Harpshadow’s choice of Longshanks for playing spy in the heart of a bloody temple though . . .

Stroking the edge of the mirror, he muttered his activation word and waited for the scrying spells to connect with the Tower far to the west. Blue rippled across the screen for a few moments, only to be replaced by the dark-skinned face of a woman. She smiled wryly at him. “I’m sorry, Guardian Alonnen, but the Master of the Tower is not available at the moment and will be indisposed for another hour. I can record a message for him, if you like.”

“Great. Can you connect me to the other Guardians?” Alonnen asked.

“I can certainly try. Is this an emergency?” she asked politely.

That made him pause. Whatever the priests were planning, the fact that Mekha was no more and that other cities would no doubt be on the brink of rioting meant the priesthood would be in turmoil. Which meant the Guardians probably had a little leeway. His brother and the Precinct captain would keep Heiastowne as calm and orderly as possible, but their only concern was for the citizens; looting, fighting, and setting fires were not things one did carelessly in the harsh cold of winter.

“Well, it’s not yet life-or-death, but it is more than a bit important,” he finally said. “Get who you can on the Fountainways, and record our conversations for the others when they’re free.”

“Of course, Guardian. The Tower is happy to serve your needs in this matter.” She shifted and did something that caused the blue glow to come back, covering the surface of the mirror.

“The Tower?” Rexei asked him.

“Yes, it’s . . . um . . .” Alonnen scratched at one ear, trying to figure out how to explain it to a fellow Mekhanan. “It’s . . . utterly unlike the Vortex. Pretty much the exact opposite, really. Mages openly flaunting their powers, scrycasting what they can do . . .”

“Scrycasting?” the youth repeated, giving him a dubious look.

“It’s like a performance by the Bardic or Actors Guilds. The important thing is, the Master of the Tower, Guardian Kerric, has a special mirror that can peer one year into the future. And in that mirror, he saw . . . ah, hello Guardian Sheren,” he interrupted himself, greeting the wrinkled, white-haired woman who appeared on the mirror. A moment later, the image split, with her face sliding to the left and shrinking a bit, and a new face appearing on the right. “And Guardian Keleseth.”

“I just woke up,” the darker-haired but still elderly woman on the right groused. “What’s so important that we have to talk about it right now?”

A third face appeared between them, a man with blue eyes, short blond hair, and a worried look pinching a line between his brows. “What’s the emergency, Guardian Alonnen?”

“Please, gentles, if we can wait until we have everyone who can join this scrying, then I’ll answer all the questions all at once and not have to repeat anything,” Alonnen stated. He glanced over at Rexei Longshanks, who was hanging back a bit, peering at the mirror in curiosity but clearly not willing to get close to it. “Oh, don’t worry, Longshanks. It’s not going to hurt you. Come here.”

The images split and shrank even more, reducing into a grid of nine. Alonnen taxed his memory to remember all of them. Besides Sheren of Menomon and the grumpy lady, Keleseth of Senod-Gra, they now had Daemon of Pasha; Suela of Fortune’s Nave in Fortuna; Sir Vedell of Arbra; the dark-skinned Tuassan of Amaz; the tired-looking, spectacles-wearing Koro of the Scales; the autocratic Ilaiea of the Moonlands; and the woman from the Tower whose name he couldn’t remember. He knew her face, but he couldn’t remember her name.

“These are all the ones who are answering the call, Guardian Alonnen,” she stated. “The rest are either delayed or have messages stating they are out of reach, and the Fountain of Nightfall is completely without communication at the moment thanks to the reconvened Convocation.”

Alonnen heard the lad a few paces to his side draw in a sharp breath at that, but the Guardian ignored Rexei’s shock. He nodded. “Thank you, dear. This’ll do for now.”

Nodding, the woman bowed out of the scrycast call, leaving a grid of eight faces on the horizontally hung mirror. Rubbing his hands together, he drew in a deep breath and began.

“Right, then. To get straight to the point, I do believe I know how the foreseen Netherhell invasion begins. Or at least, where it begins. Come here, Longshanks,” he ordered, tipping his head to summon the youth. Eyes blinking behind the blue lenses, the young man moved closer until Alonnen could pull him into proper viewing distance at his side. “Everyone, this is Longshanks, who was assigned to spy on the priests of Mekha. Several things happened today which are extraordinary and which pertain strongly to our current mutual quest.

“Longshanks, these are eight of the Guardians of the world—like me, they protect powerful sources of magic. They are as trustworthy as you could hope to find, and I want you to start from the beginning and tell them whatever you overheard and anything you saw today. Give us your report like you were going to give to Harpshadow. Don’t worry about being understood unless it’s a term unique to Mekhana. These mirrors are made to automagically translate everything we say. Got it? Good. Go.”

Rexei nodded, swallowed, and began at Alonnen’s command. “I, uh, was picked because I . . . can hide all traces of . . . of magic from the priests of Mekhana. I was supposed to spy on them, and this morning I saw them bring in a pair of newly captured . . . uh . . . mages . . . hauled all the way up from the Arbran border.”

“Wait, you’re in Mekhana? You’re Mekhanan? A land that devours mages? When were you going to tell us this?” Ilaiea demanded.

“Ilaiea, would you keep your mouth shut?” Alonnen interjected. “It doesn’t bloody matter where we live; we’re not priests of Mekha. Now do have the courtesy to be quiet and listen. Please. Go on, Longshanks.”

Rexei cleared her throat before continuing. “Uh . . . right. The two, ah, men—the priests distribute the captives across all the temples, and I think we were overdue. That’s what the other Servers Guildmembers said when I joined. I was hoping to find a way to break the binding spells on them and help them get away, but the priests came in early. One of the two managed to convince them to let him talk . . . and he asked them why they were using, uh . . . our kind to feed the God. Mekha.”

The men and women in the divided grid of the mirror flinched at Longshanks’ words but thankfully stayed quiet.

“Go on,” Alonnen encouraged again when Rexei paused. He stayed close to the youth’s shoulder, lending support and protection as the Hostess of Senod-Gra scowled.

“There was a bit of name-calling, and then the foreign one—he wasn’t from Arbra, but I don’t know where—he said they should be stealing energy from demons . . . and that he knew how to bind and drain ’em.”

Noise erupted from the eight Guardians as they all reacted and tried to speak at once. Alonnen subtly braced Rexei, waited for a brief pause in the hubbub, and spoke up sharply. “Oy! With respect? Shut it! He’s not done reporting yet.”

Longshanks nodded and continued when they fell watchfully quiet. The scarf shifted off the youth’s jaw, distracting Alonnen with the dawning realization that for someone as old as Longshanks surely had to be, there was no sign of stubble, let alone the beard-shadow that should have been there on someone with such dark hair. There wasn’t much time to contemplate that oddity, however. Alonnen pulled his attention back to the subject at hand when Rexei continued.

“Mind you, I couldn’t hear all of it. They kept trying to send me off—I was playing the part of a dumb servant, a lackwit, and had been for two months, so they’d be used to talking more freely around me. But I did hear enough. He, the foreign man, wanted to bargain with them, with Mekha’s priests. Set him free and give him access to the power they raised . . . but then a novice came running up with the word that Mekha had disappeared from the power room.”

“Power room?” the woman with sun-streaked light brown hair asked.

Alonnen explained that one. “Every temple to Mekha has a set of rooms in the basement level—down where they keep the mage prisoners they drain to feed the Dead God. It’s said that Mekha divides . . . or divided . . . Himself into pieces and sent each of those pieces to a temple to be housed, so that He could drain all the locally caught and enslaved mages of their power. The power room is where He is—or was—rumored to sit and sup.”

The winces of disgust and disbelief on his fellow Guardians’ faces were mollifying to see. Not everyone understood what his fellow countrymen had suffered all along, but these mages were beginning to understand. He nudged Longshanks subtly, who nodded, swallowed, and continued.

“Right . . . So the God-piece in the local temple was summoned by some sort of shimmering light, He apparently said something about it finally being time, whatever that meant, and then vanished. I wasn’t there to see any of it, so don’t ask me whether the report was accurate,” Rexei added quickly as one of the men in the mirror drew in a breath to speak. “You have to understand, the Servers Guild was forbidden to go down to the basement level. We always cleaned the public parts of the temple, and the novices cleaned the hidden parts and . . . and took care of the prisoners and their cells.

“But then a short while after Mekha apparently vanished . . . so did everything of His. All the walls were carved with His sigils and signs, and the priests’ robes were embroidered with the same sorts of symbols. I watched it all fade from the walls right in front of my eyes, and when I looked at the priests, their robes were bare, without a single stitch of embroidery. And that was when the foreign fellow said it was most likely a sign that Mekha had been removed from power. They even used one of their Truth Stones on him.”

“I know, thanks to our little cross-guardianship conferences, that the Convocation of Gods and Man has been reinstated,” Alonnen stated. “So whatever is happening down in Nightfall, even though we cannot get through to Guardian Dominor right now or to Priestess Orana Niel, who pledged to my people for generations that she would take our complaints to the Convocation when next it took place . . . I’m pretty damn sure Mekha is gone for good . . . and good riddance, I say.

“Of course, this causes a bunch of other problems for us, things which may impact our ability to stop the Netherhell invasion, but we’ll give you our all. Now, back to the lad’s report. What else happened?” he asked Rexei.

Licking her lips, Rexei continued. “Well, I’d stashed a spare coal bucket in the next room over, so I could pretend to go get extra for the braziers, and though they kept sending me off, I heard much of it. The foreign man said, to throw off any rioting, something about setting the imprisoned mages free, if they weren’t going to be drained by Mekha anymore. And . . . it sounded like the two priests listening to him talk about conjuring powerful demons with their help were going to give it actual thought. But then everything vanished of Mekha’s, and one went running off to mirror-call the other temples.

“So I grabbed my bucket and followed to see if he was going to share the offer with the other temples, but before I could hear much, the archbishop—that’s the local high priest—he grabbed me and made me go into the basement rooms and start . . . and start bringing up the prisoners.”

Alonnen could only imagine what the youth must have seen, for his cheeks flushed and his mouth sealed for a moment in a grim line. Cupping his hands around the youth’s shoulders in silent support, he wordlessly urged Rexei to continue.

“The novices and the other servants, we brought up over a hundred and fifty of ’em, sat ’em on benches in the prayer hall. Then we guided them to the door, where the archbishop and a fellow bishop-ranked priest unlocked their spell-slave collars and pushed them out through the wardings. I got pushed out, too, and they said the temple was closed until further notice, and . . . that’s it. That’s all I know.” Rexei shrugged. “I don’t know if they’re going to take up this foreign fellow’s offer on conjuring demons or not, and . . . well, that’s all I know.”

“Before you all get your various pants wedged up,” Alonnen asserted as the others started to speak, cutting them off, “just try to remember this: We have no God now. No Patron Deity. Locally, we don’t have any problems yet, but that’s a very big yet. There’s no telling what it’ll be like here in Mekhana a day or a week from now. Riots, fighting, maybe even an invasion—no offense to any of our neighboring Guardians, such as Sir Vedell, whom I’d trust to be kind, but Guardians aren’t the ones who decide whether to make war or not. Now, I’ve got someone in the local militia who’s going to try to keep things calm around here, but there’s going to be things falling out all over this land. Power grabs, anger problems, retaliations and counter-retaliations, you name it.

“We do not have a lot of resources, training being the foremost. So if things do go sour, before you try accusing me or mine of not acting fast enough or hitting hard enough, or whatever else might or might not happen, try to keep that in mind.”

“You’ll have my sympathies, if not theirs,” Guardian Daemon stated. “Pasha’s being hit by the early stages of a civil war, with the old king’s sons and daughters and even a few cousins all fighting for the right to claim the throne. I suspect you’re about to have a far-less-organized version of that descend on everyone there, so for what it’s worth, I at least understand.”

Alonnen nodded at the blond mage, thankful for the sympathy, but Keleseth took the bit in her teeth.

“Well, that’s all to the well and good, but do try to impress on your people that you have bigger problems than the overthrow of a sadistic God,” she stated.

“Ha! That’s a laugh,” Guardian Sheren scoffed. “You’re the Guardian of the City of Delights, Keleseth. Try to impress anything serious on your own people, and we’ll see how far you get.”

“Oh, and like your Menomonite committees are any more organized or fast acting?” Keleseth shot back.

“Stop it!” The sharp protest came from Rexei. Alonnen lifted his brows but let the youth speak. “This isn’t the time or place for . . . for petty quarrels! You’d think you were apprentices from different guilds, squabbling like children over whose guild is run better or worse than the other. If a Guardian is anything like a Guild Master, then set a good example. Is that clear?”

I think I can believe the lad is indeed a journeyman Gearman. Sub-Consul and all that. Wait . . . Gearman. He shot the youth a quick look, thinking quickly. Squeezing Rexei’s shoulders, Alonnen lifted his chin at the faces on his mirror. “As Longshanks so rightfully points out, let’s get back on track, shall we? Now, the prophecies Guardian Saleria shared with us before the Convocation have a few things to say about this point in time, and they’re quite clear.”

“Clear perhaps to you,” the brown-faced Tuassan stated, “but we’re not Mekhanans. The boy talks about guilds, so that strongly suggests the last line of the third verse. What more can you tell us about any relevancies?”

“Yes,” the sandy-haired woman a few frames over agreed. “And the fighting of the demons, that much is clear, based on the suggestion of this outkingdom mage and his bartering with the Mekhanan priests. But of the fighting of one’s doubts, maybe the doubts refer to the current instabilities? Maybe you’ll have to wrest some sort of new kingdom organization out of the chaos?”

“They could try, but if these priests are so used to the power of their previous God backing them, they’re going to want to maintain control any way they can,” Guardian Ilaiea stated. She frowned, tugging on her long, pale cream braid. Alonnen had last seen her daughter, Guardian Serina pulling that same trick when she was worried. The mother firmed her look. “Your best bet is to establish a new God or Goddess, a Patron Deity to seize control away from the priesthood.”

“Finally you say something reasonable and calm,” the black-haired man with the blue viewing lenses muttered, the one named Koro. The others started to argue, and he quickly held up a hand. “Sorry! Sorry . . . it’s just her better-than-us attitude gets on my nerves. She’s right, though. Guardian Alonnen, you need to select a deity and get everyone to worship whatever that is.”

“Guildra.”

Alonnen turned his head quickly, staring at the young man on his side of the mirror conference. “Beg pardon?”

“Guildra,” Rexei asserted, turning to look at Alonnen. “That’s who I’ve been thinking we should’ve had for a Patron Deity. A Goddess, kind and gentle, wise and skilled. She’d be the Patron of the Guilds . . . because it’s the guilds that have consistently given a damn about Mekhanans all this while, when our own so-called Patron and His priesthood clearly have not—and I’ll be damned if I’ll have another bastard male God in charge of this land. Women are the equal of men, and to the Netherhells with the priesthood if they think they can keep us . . . if they can keep us pushing women down any longer.

“No more. By the pricking of my thumb, no more,” Longshanks added firmly, invoking the oath virtually every guild member across the land had given when signing their name in their own blood in the books reserved for presentation at the next—now the current—Convocation of the Gods. Which Rexei Longshanks had undoubtedly given multiple times, given how many guilds the youth had clearly joined, based on the sheer number of medallions alone. “There’s even a symbol out there that’s Hers.”

“Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of this. What symbol?” Alonnen asked. Before the youth could answer, a bell chimed from inside the talker-box mounted on the wall next to the right-hand mirror. Sighing roughly, he shook his head. “Never mind that. It’s something Longshanks and I can discuss off-scrying. The rest of you can chat amongst yourselves about what we now know. I know it’s not much, but at this point, all we can do here in Mekhana is try to spy carefully, and try to impose some sort of order locally . . . and we’ll try to come up with a good Patron Deity as fast as we can. No promises other than that we’ll try.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, it’s suppertime here. I’ll leave the dissection of what this means in relations to the prophecies to the lot of you, and I’ll review the Tower’s recording after we’ve eaten and I’ve had a chance to chat in more depth with Longshanks, here. I had to share what little we know right now with the rest of you, because the lad did pinpoint where it’ll most likely start, but without a God or Goddess, don’t expect any miracles from us just yet. I’ll chat with you all later, so have a good night. Or day, or whatever time it is where you are.”

Tapping the frame of the mirror, he cancelled the connection spell. In an instant, the image flicked away, leaving him with a reflection of his long-nosed self and the pale-chinned young man at his side.

Rexei cleared his throat. “I’m not sure they like me.”

The youth said it with a touch of what sounded like self-deprecating humor. Alonnen patted Rexei on the back. “Bunch of self-important twiddlers half the time, if you ask me. But they’re good sorts, even if that pale-haired woman is an uppity twit at times, and the darker-haired elderly one is a grouch, and . . . well, they all have their plusses and minuses. But they’ll back you if they believe in you, and they’re quite literally the most powerful mages in the whole world.

“Anyway, that bell was for announcing supper,” he told Rexei, dismissing the subject of the Guardians. “Don’t worry about finding enough to fill your appetite. There’s always plenty. Mind you, we get any leftovers for luncheon on the morrow, but it’s a very rare day when our chef makes something that’s no good reheated.”

He helped Rexei put the caps and scarves back on the pegs, reclaimed his spectacles, and watched the youth blink and stare several times, trying to refocus. Alonnen grinned. “You look like I felt, first time the Optics Guild gave me a pair for reading. How’s your vision, lad?”

“Uh . . . just fine, thank you,” Longshanks replied politely.

Alonnen clapped Rexei on the back and nudged the youth toward the stairs. “Come on, five floors down. My quarters and personal workrooms are on the fourth floor, other bedrooms and the laundry are on the third, and the second floor is workrooms for the others. The first floor is kitchen, dining, meeting, and storage rooms.”

Rexei glanced back at him as they descended the steps. “I’m surprised you let just anybody up here, if the Vortex is such a huge power source.”

Shutting the door firmly behind him, Alonnen shook his head. “It’s not the risk you’re thinking. Anyone else opens that door, they won’t even see the balcony, never mind the Vortex. It’ll just be a blank wall covered in maps of Mekhana.”

“Wait—you told that boy to take my things somewhere. Third floor. But you said I’d be staying with you?” Rexei asked.

“I told you, it’s standard for anyone coming to live in the Vortex. This is all an enclosed environment, so we need to make sure there aren’t any spying talismans or rank odors. Or, for that matter, fleas and other things. It was a bit before my time, but the Vortex chronicles mentioned a great plague of fleas one summer. We try to ensure they get killed off quickly with soap and hot water. Don’t worry; nobody will shrink your woolens while they’re being washed,” he added in reassurance. The youth didn’t look reassured.

“But . . . my things. I have private things in my bag,” Rexei protested. “Things I don’t want anyone touching or handling. I know it’s a bit too late, but . . .”

Alonnen patted the youth on the shoulder. “Relax, lad; they’ll treat your things as carefully and circumspectly as they treat mine. And it’s to your advantage to have your gear checked over. We might be deficient in many areas of magical knowledge, but the one thing we do know how to do is find and disable priestly tracking spells. Anyway, I still have a few more questions. Like, how old are you?”

“Old enough,” Rexei replied, still sounding a little distressed over the absence of those belongings.

Alonnen wondered what was in the lad’s bag that should distress him so much. Maybe a crankman? They were originally made for women, but there are plenty of us lads who enjoy the clever little things, too. Maybe if he learns we’re not prudes here in the safety of the Vortex, he’ll relax a bit? I can tell the poor boy’s far too tense by habit, given how hunched his shoulders are even when calm.

Out loud, Alonnen said, “Yes, but what specific age are you? There are a few rules in the Vortex about how to behave around the ladies and such. And if you’re a mage, then you get rationed on anything fermented. So how many years have you lived?”

His pestering earned him a hard sigh from the lad. “I’m twenty-one, alright? Almost twenty-two.”

That made Alonnen blink and almost miss a step. Thankfully they had reached one of the landings, or he would have stumbled badly. Nearly twenty-two? And hardly a sign of a whisker on the boy . . . er, young man? How odd . . . unless he knows one of those cantrip things for plucking whiskers and not just shaving them? He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. His own beard grew slowly, but it did grow, which left him with a slightly sandstone-rough chin at the end of each day.

“How do you keep your chin whisker free?” he finally asked.

“Spells.”

“So, you’ll teach me, then?” he pressed.

“I’m a lousy spell teacher, remember?” Longshanks shot back.

Caught in his own honest, unflattering trap, Alonnen chuckled and clapped a hand over the younger man’s shoulder. “I can tell we’ll get along fine—wait, why are you flinching?”

Rexei pushed his fingers off her shoulder. “Because some bully-man tried to crack my collarbone when I was trying to stop the town from rioting on the temple steps, with me between them and the doors. He dragged me off to your brother and tried to get me arrested.”

“Oh. Sorry. I apologize for the other hugs, too,” Alonnen offered, hoping he hadn’t hurt the lad earlier. “I can call in an Apothecary mage if you like, have them look at your shoulder and all.”

“No! No, thank you,” Rexei added politely on the heels of the quick denial. “It’s just . . . the top of my left shoulder is bruised, not the side or the right one or anything. I’ll live.”

He’s got a ways to go before he trusts us, I see, Alonnen realized. And I’m glad I mostly touched the near shoulder or the side of his arm, before. Gently clasping the right shoulder, he patted the youth with his fingertips. “I’m sure you will live, too. But you’re now a guest of the inner circle . . . and something of an involuntary guest, since until we can figure out how safe it is for you to go outside, you’ll probably be stuck here for a while. So you might as well take advantage of all the amenities, eh?”

Rexei shrugged, arms folding defensively across her chest. As they reached the ground floor, the noise of dozens of people engaged in multiple conversations drifted back to them. A few turns this way and that, and they wound up in a large hall a few steps down from the rest of the ground floor, but one with a grand view of the fishbowl in the night through another quartet of floor-to-ceiling windows. It was also crowded with several tables, chairs, and benches, enough that the sea of people surprised Longshanks, making her lift her head and slow her steps.

“Come on, it’s not so bad. A bit crowded, but not so bad,” Alonnen murmured. Raising his voice, he lifted his right hand. “Oy! Everyone, this is Rexei Longshanks, a journeyman Gearman and my personal guest. Rexei, this is . . . everyone. You’ll have a chance to learn names and faces, don’t worry. The rest of you, treat him right, or I’ll have your ears boxed up for Midwinter Moon! Come on, budge over; make room for two hungry lads!”

He nudged Rexei forward—almost having to push—and maneuvered the two of them over to a spot that opened up on a bench seat. Clean plates and silverware were passed down, thankfully faster than the platters of food, and two mugs of mulled apple cider. One of the women in the hall rose and made her way over to the two of them.

“Oh hey—Rexei, this is my mum, Alsei. Alsei, Rexei,” he introduced.

They shook hands, then Alsei rested her palm on her hip. Like many of the women in Mekhana, she no doubt wore baggy knits and trews to work in, but skirts when she wanted to relax. At the moment, she wore a warm skirt in the same dark gray and black wool favored by the locals, though a bit of reddish wool had been knitted into a rolling wave pattern down by the hem of skirt and tunic alike. Or rather, a crocheted tunic and skirt, since that particular pattern required a hook to create, in Rexei’s experience.

Alsei eyed Rexei’s worn linen shirts and felted dark gray pants, then shook her head. “Al, where are you going to put this lad? Sure, he’s skinny, but we’ve got every bed and couch crammed with bodies right now. Every quarter hour that passes, we’re getting a new mage or two shipped to us from the other guilds—at least this one is cognizant and not crying all the time, but where are you going to put the lad? In a drawer somewhere?”

“He’ll be staying with me,” Alonnen dismissed, reaching for the roast beef platter passing their way. He snagged a slice for himself, and an extra one for Rexei, who hadn’t grabbed a great deal of food. Even at almost-twenty-two, the lad should have hollow legs. Alonnen had certainly had hollow ones at that age.

“Staying with you?” his mother repeated, brows lifting. “How long have you known the boy? Is he trustworthy? What kind of family does he come from, and where are they? Why can’t he stay with them?”

“I haven’t got a family.” The unhappy words came from the target of her doubts. Rexei shrugged, shoulders hunching inward a bit. Then she lifted her chin a little. “And I’m a Sub-Consul. If you don’t think that’s trustworthy enough, take it up with your Consulate.”

Alonnen suspected there was a whole history behind those few short words. He didn’t press, though. “Mind your manners, mum. This young man is the second-most important person in the Guild right at this moment.”

“What, are you finally taking up an apprentice?” Alsei asked, brow lifting toward her strawberry and silver curls.

“He’s not strong enough for that, from what I’ve heard. But he was spying in the temple when Mekha vanished. As soon as we’ve fed, I’m taking him back up to my office to write out everything he can remember from his time in there—and he knows enough, the priests would happily grab and torture him, if they don’t just kill him outright the moment they find him. So stop pestering him. Frankly, the safest place he can sleep is in my suite, under the circumstances. Now sit down, and enjoy your meal.”

With a last, doubtful look at her son, Alsei complied. Alonnen sighed. He leaned in close to Rexei, murmuring in the younger man’s ear.

“Don’t mind her. She doesn’t know I’ve had you under surveillance ever since they told me we had a Gearman with sixteen guild coins show up, only to turn out to be a mage.” Picking up knife and fork, he cut into his beef. “She doesn’t know much about the prophecy my contemporaries mentioned earlier, but I do. Since it just might be talking about you, I’ll get you a copy of it when we’re back up top. Go on, eat up. Food’s free here . . . though I’m not sure how much longer it’ll last, if we keep packing in more people like this,” he muttered, eyeing the others crowding around the five long tables.

• • •

Head swimming with tiredness, Rexei finally put down the graphite stick she had been given for writing down everything she could remember. She wasn’t done recording her thoughts, but she was done for the night. Her notes weren’t the most organized, but she had underlined and repeated key words in the left margin so that one could skim the body of the text and pick out a specific topic. With all the food her host had pressed on her, it was a wonder she wasn’t fast asleep with full-belly syndrome.

What she wanted now was a hot bath with some mild-scented soft soap and a soft wool-stuffed bed with thick blankets. Of course, the mattresses down here in the southlands weren’t nearly as thick as the ones up north, but then up north was where most of the sheep grazed on large stretches of pastureland. But that was there, and this was here, and she was seated across the desk from the Guild Master of all mages. The head of a guild almost no one ever mentioned aloud for fear the priests would somehow hear of it.

Smothering a yawn behind her hand, she glanced at the scroll Alonnen Tallnose had offered to her. Eight verses of five lines, transcribed from some far-flung language into Mekhanan. The stuff doesn’t rhyme in our tongue, but there are notes down the side of what the meter was and which words rhymed together. The Mathematics Guild would claim that the numbers and the countings and the position of things has relevance . . . but all I can think of right now is that the first line of each quintain is paired over the whole simply by rhyme but mainly pertains to the verse it prefaces. And the four lines that follow each cover a specific event.

Line about me? Maybe. I don’t know. She honestly didn’t, but she did read over the third verse again.

“Cult’s Awareness, it shall rise:

Hidden people, gather now;

Fight the demons, fight your doubt.

Gearman’s strength shall then endow,

When Guilds’ defender casts them out.”

The verses about hidden people and “Guilds’ defender” were surely linked. There was a Thieves Guild in Mekhana, simply because having a guild structure meant having the safety of like-minded people who would band together to watch each other’s backs. Sometimes they were called the Antiquities Guild or the Reclamations Guild. But the line about fighting doubt, that was very much the life of a mage, the doubt that Mekha was truly gone, the doubt that the priests could be overthrown, the doubt that there was a better life just waiting to be somehow seized.

So that’s bound to be talking about the Mages Guild, not Thieves. But I have no clue what “Gearman’s strength shall then endow” means. I don’t have any strength. I’ve been a bit more brave than usual in the last day, after that horrid feeling of Mekha’s mildew and oppression and decay went away, but . . .

Another yawn interrupted her thought. Across from her, Alonnen sighed and set down the papers he was reading.

“You know, your yawns are making me sleepy. I can take the hint, though. Off to bed for both of us. Or rather, me to my bed, and you to a nice, broad, well-cushioned couch in my sitting room. I’ve napped on it a few times, and it’s about as good as any bed. Save mine, of course,” he added, flashing her another of his engaging grins. “But then mine comes with a feather-stuffed mattress two full handspans in depth. You should see the covers when I’m lying abed. It looks like nobody’s even in there; the mattress is all mounded up level with the rest of me.”

Deeply grateful she wouldn’t literally be sharing a bed with him, Rexei allowed him to shoo her out of his study and down the stairs to the next floor. This part of the building curved a little; now that she knew the Vortex was there, even if hidden, she could see how the floor had been built to curve around the swirling base of the Vortex. They passed a few rooms, which her host dismissed as “workrooms, nothing special unless you’re into trying to figure out how to make magic work properly” and guided her into a door at the end.

This turned out to be the promised sitting room. Touching the control rune by the door, he brightened the suncrystals in the ceiling. Squinting against the light, Rexei was glad he had taken the time to explain to her what they were, how they were activated, and how they absorbed real sunlight, transmitting roughly half of it right away and storing the other half for use at night. The shout, however, was unexpected.

“Oy! Turn’t off!”

“What the . . . ? Dolon! What the bloody Netherhell are you doing in here?” Alonnen demanded, glaring at the squinting redhead wrapped up in blankets on his divan.

“Got booted out by Grandmaster Parsong an’ his wife,” the younger man grumbled. “Too many damned people in th’ Vortex. Turn it off, already!”

Her host reduced the light coming into the sitting room, but he didn’t reduce his glare. “Bloody hell . . . Fine. I guess you’ll have to actually share the damned bed with me.”

“Oh, good,” Dolon mumbled, struggling to sit up. “More room in there.”

“Not you, you daft twit!” Alonnen argued, pushing Rexei forward to the far door. “This one. You snore too much. Not to mention I didn’t invite you in here.”

“I didn’t know you played that way, brother,” Dolon quipped, knuckling some of the sleep out of one eye, while surveying Rexei’s slender form with the other.

“I don’t,” the Guild Master retorted as Rexei flushed, belatedly catching Dolon’s meaning. “But you snore like an ore crusher. I’ll take my chances with Longshanks, here. At least he doesn’t have the family nose and all its attendant resonances.”

“Fine, whatever. Get the light, will you?” his brother muttered, hunkering down under his bedding.

Alonnen slapped the runes scribed on a metal panel next to the other door, then smacked the ones inside the next room. Muttering under his breath, he shut the door behind Rexei. “I can see I’ll have to make more rooms under the mountains to accommodate everybody. Or at this rate, I’ll be packed into my own bed with eighteen others. Sorry ’bout that.”

“I really shouldn’t . . .” she started to protest, trying not to look at the bed in the center of the carpet-strewn chamber. It was a little wider than twice the cot she was used to sleeping on, and maybe a little longer, but that was about it. There was one overstuffed chair by the iron stove, a short padded chest at the foot of the bed, a wardrobe cupboard, and a tall clothes chest. At least someone had built up the fire in the woodstove, but unless she could get her hands on the blankets she had brought, there wasn’t anything she could curl up under, other than what lay on the bed.

“Nonsense, it’s late, we’re both tired, and if I snore, I’ll forgive you for trying to smother me with a pillow. If you snore, I’ll expect you to extend the same forgiveness.” A friendly shove pushed her toward one of the other doors. “That’s the refreshing room. I’ll get you one of my nightshirts.

“Just dump your clothes in the basket in there, in the corner,” he directed her, moving over to the chest of drawers. “It’ll be taken off and cleaned, and your other things will be back by morning, fresh and ready to wear. The other door’s the bathing room, but the tub takes a while to fill, and it’s a bit late for that. You can do a sketch-bath with one of the washcloths, if you want, but don’t take too long—here, the nightshirt.”

Rexei caught the folded fabric, fumbling it before she had it secured in her grasp. Swallowing, she stalled for time. “Uh . . . you go first. I can wait. Promise.”

Eyeing her, he shrugged and stepped into the refreshing room. Left alone, Rexei tried to dredge up any excuse for not sharing a bed with her host. With this Guild Master, though, she didn’t really feel like a member of his guild, the Mages Guild. Picking her way over to the side of the bed, she investigated the coverlets. A sheet, a wool blanket, a feather-stuffed quilt, and a lightly felted coverlet in a soft dyed gray; the color of the coverlet was too uniform to have been from a naturally gray sheep.

Maybe if she stripped the bottom and top blankets and doubled them up, she might be comfortable enough. As a messenger, sometimes she’d been forced to sleep in the wild. A carpet-strewn floor in a fire-warmed building would be far more comfortable than dossing down on a bedroll inside a low-slung tent made out of an oilcloth tarp tied over the back of her motorhorse for a ridgepole and staked out to one side. Not often, but sometimes she had been forced to camp like that.

The door opened. She glanced at her host—and gasped, stumbling back. Alonnen Tallnose was naked. Completely nude. Hair brushed out and looking like gold and copper fluff around his shoulders, he padded out of the refreshing room on bare feet . . . bare legs, and bare everything else . . . and headed toward the same drawer he had used before. Only to stop and stare at her. “Are you alright?”

Wide-eyed, she shook her head. He looked around the room, then down at himself, clearly puzzled by what was upsetting her. Thankfully his organ was flaccid, but it was still there, exposed to the world amid a short thatch of reddish nethercurls. Rexei tried not to stare at it, but she couldn’t help backing away from it. She had spent over half of her life avoiding the horrid things, thanks to the memory of what that priest had done to her own mother, and if it so much as twitched, she would run. Except there really wasn’t any other place for her that was safe from the priests. Feeling trapped, she tried not to panic.

“What? You’re acting like you’ve never seen another naked man before.” Pulling out a second nightshirt, Alonnen padded over to her. She looked anywhere but at him. “Buck up, lad! It’s not like you’re seeing nothing you yourself don’t have, right? . . . Right?”

He wasn’t going to let the subject go . . . and there was really nowhere left for her to flee. Arms folded across her chest, shoulders hunched, she squeezed her eyes shut. Hoping—praying to any God that would listen—that he was as nice as he seemed, Rexei blurted out, “I’m a lass, not a lad!”