The Guild (38 page)

Alonnen wrinkled his long nose but dipped his head. “It normally would be against my Guardianship policy to allow anyone to use the Vortex Fountainway in such a manner, but . . . I will trust Guardian Tipa’thia’s judgment of her apprentice.”

The younger tattoo-covered woman lifted her brow. “You have no objection over this Darkhanan Witch traveling to the seat of your Guardianship, but you have one for me? Neither of us is a Guardian. Yet.”

“Nothing personal, Apprentice Pelai,” Alonnen said wryly, “but we of ex-Mekhana have known for generations of Knight-Priestess Orana Niel’s many efforts to free us from Mekha’s enslavement. We will need to spend at least a little time getting to know you to develop a solid level of trust . . . but it will happen in due time.”

She tilted her head, acknowledging his point.

“Once they have instructed enough of the mages in Guardian Alonnen’s region to set up the anti-Portal resonances, and he has tied them into the singularity he guards, Apprentice Pelai and Witch Ora will disperse to other locations to instruct others. Pelai will do so via the Fountainways, while Orana will use . . . whatever methods Darkhanans use,” Kerric hedged. It was clear he didn’t
understand what those methods were but equally clear he was willing to trust her competency in using them. “This will add to the instructions being offered by Morganen of Nightfall and increase the spread of the effects.”

“Keep in mind that this set of spells can only be applied once every decade,” Tipa’thia asserted, her voice a little unsteady from age, but her gaze as sharp and level as her apprentice’s. “To apply it a second time before the aether has healed and recovered would be to risk tearing open the Veil in uncontrolled rifts.”

“I can vouch for that
not
being a good idea,” Guardian Saleria interjected. “You don’t want to know the damage that can be wrought by having three rifts in one location spewing unchecked, uncontrolled magic into the world. I’m dealing with constrained rifts, and they’re bad enough.”

“Quite,” Kerric agreed. “We will begin by setting the first spell with the power of Guardian Alonnen’s singularity. By Serina’s calculations, that should blanket all of Mekhana, a fifth of Arbra along its eastern border, the western half of Aurul, a tenth of northern Sundara—it’s a long country—the northeastern third of Haida, and some of the kingdoms to the northeast whose names I forget. From that point, every Guardian and mage involved will then examine their local aether and apply their own version so that it matches up to the edges of the previous applications but does not overlap.”

“What of the oceans?” Guardian Sheren asked, speaking up for the first time this session. Alonnen recalled she was the Guardian of Menomon, which apparently was an underwater kingdom. “We can only cover so much, Migel and me.”

Serina addressed her question. “There is no Portal which can be erected on a ship at sea; mirror-based Gates, yes, but not any grand Portals. The deck of a ship moves far too much and is far too distant from a solid chunk of ground—as in, a chunk of the planet
we all live upon—for a Portal to be successfully opened. We need only cover the islands with civilized presences upon them.”

“But what if they pick some uninhabited island somewhere in the middle of an ocean?” Ilaiea asked.

The question visibly worried the rest, furrowing brows and turning down mouths. Alonnen, however, thought he had a pretty sound counterpoint. “Guardian Ilaiea has a good question, but I know these priests. They are a very spoiled lot. As much as the Aian mage Torven might try to convince them otherwise, and as much as we will strive to end their ambitions one way or another, they will not be easily swayed into going to an isolated, uninhabited island with zero buildings, services, shops, supplies, and other trappings of civilized life. They will instead try to seek out a city or a well-managed kingdom, or even a remote but wealthy nobleman’s estate—these are men used to taking whatever they want of the finest things in Mekhanan life, not laboriously creating it from scratch.”

“We’ll try our best to keep an eye on where they go and what they try to do,” Kerric promised him. Or rather the others, for he added, “Just in case. Now, since this does have a bit of a priority on it, when will you ladies, and you sir, be ready to travel?”

The ash-blond man in the crowded mirror-window shrugged. “I can be packed within just a few hours.”

Pelai smirked. “I already packed a couple bags in anticipation.”

Orana Niel arched one brow, then stated serenely, topping both of them, “I am a Witch of Darkhana. My bags are
always
packed . . . and kept in the Dark.”

Did she mean . . . ? Isn’t the Dark the place where ghosts roam on their way to the Afterlife?
Alonnen shivered at that thought. He’d heard rumors of her being able to magically summon or dismiss items from plain sight via that black-lined sleeved cloak of hers, and the thought of those things going into and coming out of the place where only the dead dared tread unnerved him. He trusted
her—nothing about that had changed—but he wasn’t about to
be
her, if he could help it.

Clearing his throat, he spoke up. “Well. If you ladies are ready to travel, then I shall need just a few minutes to set my Fountainways to accept and catch you gently upon your arrival.”

“I’ll need two minutes to pick up my bags,” Pelai agreed. “But then I’ll be ready to go.”

“I’ll let Guardians Dominor and Tipa’thia know when I’m ready to receive you,” Alonnen agreed.

“Orana will have with her a set of Artifacts to gauge the effectiveness of the disruption spells,” Serina told him. “If you could set up a feedback sub-channel through your Fountainways to Koral-tai so that I can monitor everything, I’ll be able to run calculations on exactly how much the disruptions will affect local Gates and regional Portals, and whether or not there’s a risk of overlap tearing the Veil. Hopefully there shouldn’t be, but monitoring will be a good safety net.”

“I’ll do my best,” Alonnen said. Silently, he promised himself to contact Guardian Kerric privately for a lesson as soon as discreetly possible, since he was fairly sure the Master of Scrycasting would know how to do just that.

As irritating as Ilaiea’s contempt was, Alonnen knew very well how little he and his fellow ex-Mekhanan mages knew, and he could admit it to himself, even if he didn’t like his long nose rubbed in it. Admitting his ignorance was an irritation, but it was at least one he could do something about. Eventually. In his copious spare time, of course.

• • •

H
er bottom ached. Not much, but there was definitely a sense of tenderness in that area. A certain lingering
awareness
of what she and Alonnen had done.

There had been ribald jokes about that, too, throughout her youth—jokes of cog-stars being widened, of “boring the hole wider,” and more. Sore-bottom jokes, tender-bottom jokes . . .

Rexei hadn’t realized just how many butt jokes she had absorbed in her guise as a young man over the years, but seated on one of the unpadded chairs in the Heiastowne Consulate Hall, she was recalling them now. Feeling them, too, every time she shifted the wrong way.

It was a good ache, though. It made her smile at random moments, even when it made her feel like wincing a little. She kept both the smiles and the flinches to a minimum. Instead of chatting with her brother, or even instructing her apprentices, Rexei had found herself corralled within minutes of entering the Consulate for a long discussion with a wide selection of townsfolk on the nature of Guildra, Patron Goddess of Guilds.

The astonishing thing was how they came to her to actually
learn
, not to rail against or deny or demand a completely different Patron concept. The more she talked with the men and the women, the elderly and the teenagers who wanted to understand, the more Rexei realized she
had
picked the right Goddess for her people. The guilds were something they intimately understood.

The Guild System was a concept every ex-Mekhanan could grasp. A Goddess of Guilds, patient, educated, disciplined, encouraging . . . these were characteristics utterly unlike the last God. That was the reason why her fellow citizens came to her in the dead of winter; they wanted
reassurance
that Guildra was indeed real and that She was going to be their new Patron . . . exactly as they wanted Her to be.

This was a gratifying and very humbling realization, on Rexei’s part.

Her apprentices listened in, too, and spoke when she gestured for them to add to the conversation. Master Jorro, a fellow Gearman, was even able to speak for her when her voice started to grow
rough around the edges from so much talking. When she realized he was indeed thinking along very similar lines, Rexei paused the conversation long enough to promote him to the rank of journeyman of the Holy Guild. She still didn’t have any guild medallions just yet, but she knew the Mintners Guild was working on it for her, since she didn’t have time to gather tools and start the work herself—there was so much to do, she just didn’t know when she would fit it all in.

One bite at a time
, she thought as lunch drew near and her stomach nudged her sense of time in pre-hunger warning.
Speaking of which . . .

“Okay, people,” she told the crowd of roughly two hundred gathered into the meeting hall, with herself and her apprentices occupying the center of the curved head table—which felt a bit weird with just the four of them up there. “As much as we could continue to expound and expand upon the nature of Guildra, it is almost time for luncheon . . . and every Guild charter I know of demands the right to a luncheon hour for its members. Mine shall be no exception.”

Her dry-voiced reminder provoked a ripple of laughter in the men and women seated in the pews, thanks to the truth in her words.

“I thank you for coming, and I shall send word for the Binders to post the time and day for the next open meeting to discuss the nature of our new Patron and new Holy Guild. Feel free to discuss what we have talked about today with others; though if any of you have questions, I strongly encourage each person to come to the Consulate hall and leave a written question for my fellow guildmembers and me to contemplate the answer. In the meantime . . . it is lunchtime. Have a good day.”

Grasping the wooden handle of the stone mallet, she cracked granite against polished granite, ending the meeting. A young apprentice wearing the familiar medallion of the Messengers
Guild moved up to the head table, a folded paper outstretched in his hand. “Message for you, Guild Master Longshanks.”

Nodding, Rexei dug into her pouch. All messages were prepaid for delivery, but it was courtesy to tip the apprentices for a job well-done; once a guildmember became a journeyman or higher, their pay was good enough—and presumably the service as well—to not need tips for encouragement. She handed over three square coppers and accepted the note. It wasn’t sealed, just folded over, and was fairly simple.

Rex,

I twisted my ankle on the way out of the inn, and now cannot even hobble across the room, let alone halfway across town. I know you have meetings this morning, but if you could join me for the midday meal over here, I’ll buy. Send word if you can’t make it; send yourself if you can.

Lun

Rexei quirked her brows, looking up at the apprentice. “Why didn’t you deliver this earlier?”

“He said before noon was fine, no big rush,” the youth told her, shrugging. “I had a dozen others that were. Any return message?”

“No . . . I’ll go myself. Thank you.” Watching him walk off, she absently tucked her brother’s note into her pouch. Rexei looked around for some of the other mages but couldn’t see them. They were still nervously avoiding her. Her apprentices and journeyman had already vanished as well, taking off to find their own food sources, leaving her alone. Sighing, she acknowledged that she should leave a message for Alonnen, in case he was already on his way back from the Vortex to rejoin her here.

Using the pen and paper she had brought for this morning’s meetings, she dipped the pen in the ink jar and wrote out a quick note explaining she had gone to the Fallen Timbers Inn for lunch with her brother. Rexei folded it up, writing
For Master Tall
on the outside. With that task done, she dropped the letter off at the front desk of the Consulate, belted her winter coat over her clothes, and headed into the damp and windy but no longer drizzling winter day.

The gusts increased as she turned down one of the main streets, heading for the Fallen Timbers. Leaning into the wind, she timed the pace of her steps to the songs that always hummed in the back of her head, masking her magical signature, warding her from detection, from attack, from—magic sizzled over her skin, disrupting that song. Just for a fraction of a moment, but it was enough to make her foot fumble.

The misstep drove her to the ground. Heart pounding, knee bruised, she twisted as she struggled back to her feet, looking all around for the source of the attack. Three men—strangers, none of them from the Heiastowne temple—converged on her from three different directions. The one on the far right scowled at her and flicked his hands. Panicking, she tried to shove to her feet, humming harder. The spell slapped into her with a jolt of pain.

For a moment, unable to see or move, she lost the thread of her protective meditations. One of the two remaining men grabbed her right elbow, saying gruffly, “Easy lad, you look ill.”

The other grabbed her left arm and pressed something to her neck. It sealed to her skin with a sizzle of magic just as she got her humming back. The pain remained, blurring her vision . . . but . . . she could hum, and that meant she could think. It was hard; Rexei felt the energies in the spell trying to drown her thoughts. She fought it to the point of humming faintly under her breath, struggling to remember the melodies of her warding spells.

“Stand up, Longshanks,” the man on her right ordered tersely. “You will act like we are helping you. Now, walk with us.”

Physical pain and cognitive dullness warred with the need to struggle, to escape. Rexei found herself walking between the two men, who still had their arms tucked through her elbows.