Jean Johnson - The Guild

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

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

I’d hate to be in Mekhastowne, in the heart of the kingdom. As soon as everyone there realizes Mekha is gone, there’ll be rioting for sure. Even the Patriarch won’t be safe; priests may be able to use their magics unfettered by fear, and they’ll know tons more spells than anyone else, but even a strong mage can do only so much in the face of an infuriated, finally free mob.

Another, more disturbing thought crossed her mind, making her hurry faster, taking the stairs two steps at a time. Oh, Gods— this place won’t be safe, once people realize what’s happened. I need to get out of here! But . . . I need to know if they’re actually going to try the demon-conjuring thing. That’s far more important . . . isn’t it?

It was not an easy choice. Ever since her family had been torn apart when she was barely ten, forcing her to flee her home and make her way on her own, Rexei had always preferred caution and flight. She wasn’t a fighter and didn’t want to be one, ever. She had always avoided being drafted into the local Precincts in her guise as a boy by initially pretending to be too young to be drafted whenever questioned about her age—aided by her slim figure and youthful, beardless face—and by vanishing to a new town and a new guild a month or so later, well before she could be considered old and healthy enough to be hauled to the Precinct headquarters for training.

Just like she had fled many other jobs. In fact, she had fled their associated guilds in the beginning as well, though after the first year she tried to make a point of giving the grandmaster of each local guild a feasible reason why she had to leave, and in a hurry. Often enough, the truth sufficed: Some of the priests were looking at me funny. I got a bad feeling. I need to go. But sometimes it was a non-priest who looked at “the boy” funny. At least until her time in the Messenger Guild, which had allowed her to move around quite a lot.

It was through the Messenger Guild that she had met up with the Hydraulics Guild, and that . . . had led her to her position here. A spy in the local priests’ stronghold. Which means . . . which means I have to find out what is going on and report on it. Even if it scares me.

Or annoys me , Rexei added, feeling the tender spot on her tongue where she had bitten it. The gray-haired priest, Bishop Koler, had startled her with his shouting about her being a useless lackwit. I’d think after two months of being berated and harangued on a daily basis, I’d have grown used to it . . . but all it does is make me want to stand up tall and proud and claim I’m not a boy, I’m an adult . . . since technically I’m not a man.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t let either her fear or her irritation show. She was here on behalf of three guilds: as a representative of the Gearmen’s Guild, acting on behalf of the Servers Guild, in order to investigate claims of guildmember abuse—that was the legitimate cover story—and the third was the Mages Guild, to see if there was any way of freeing the mages kept somewhere in here.

In two months, she had determined the Servers apprentices were treated with equal doses of disdain and contempt but, otherwise, were treated fairly for their lot. She had not, however, managed to make it into the basement level, though she at least knew which door the priesthood used. Only those bound to Mekha’s will—one way or another—were allowed to pass through that particular door.

Keeping her forehead and cheeks relaxed, breathing through her mouth as well as her nose, she carried the coal bucket to the stairs leading up to the second floor. Here were the little offices for each of the priests and the bishops, plus the larger one for the temple archbishop. Koler’s study was next to Archbishop Elcarei’s, and from the sound of Koler’s voice as she approached, it was to his own office that he had gone in order to use his scrying mirror.

Scrying mirrors were far more secure than the talker-boxes, since the messages sent by those could be picked up by anyone else within fifty miles who had a talker-box. Unfortunately, the scrying mirrors required magic to activate, which meant they were a secret reserved for the priesthood alone. No one outside of the priesthood knew how to make them, here in Mekhana . . . but that was okay, because unlike the sound-maker on the talker-box, which had to be held to an individual’s ear, mirrors made conversations as easily audible as if the people involved were standing in the same room.

She ducked into the archbishop’s empty office and moved to the fireplace. Her gloved hands went to work, pulling the tongs off the edge of the bucket, shifting the glowing embers, adding new lumps of black in a scattered pattern so they would slowly turn white and pale orange, heating up the place. This room didn’t have a brazier; it had a hearth, one that shared a thin brick wall with the chamber on the other side. If she strained her ears . . .

Footsteps were her only warning. “Boy! What are you doing up here?”

The shout should have startled her, but the sound of someone approaching had given her two seconds in which to master her surprise. As it was, she had to conceal her growing irritation. Lad was an acceptable term for a young man; it conveyed youth but didn’t condemn. Boy , particularly when spoken with a sneer to someone of her apparent age, was just plain insulting.

Blinking away her ire, Rexei merely turned her head and stared at the “spiritual leader” of Heiastowne, Archbishop Elcarei. She gaped, really, letting her mouth hang slack in a sign of stupidity. Not for nothing had she earned her journeyman status in the Actors Guild. “Holy sir?”

“What are you doing up here?” the dark-haired priest repeated, stalking toward her where she knelt in front of the hearth.

“Helping?” she asked, adopting a worried, dull-witted look that skittered around the room as if looking for anything to fasten on but the scowling priest. He always reminded her of the slimy feel of cold saliva spat onto a polished surface—one of the priests took near-weekly pleasure in spitting on the winter-chilled floor in front of her and then demanding she wipe it up with her bare hands. But she didn’t dare show revulsion in front of the archbishop himself. “Coals . . . go t’ the rooms wi’ people innem, sir?”

“I swear to the Gods, you get stupider every time I talk to you,” Elcarei muttered under his breath. Snapping his fingers, he pointed at the doorway. “Out!”

She took just enough time to replace the tongs and pick up the bucket, then moved out of his study. Then stopped just past the threshold, her mind racing. Slimy or not, she needed to know what the local priests were going to do, and that meant asking them about the few things she could reasonably know about. Like the vanished symbols from stone carvings and embroidered garments. Turning to face him, Rexei asked, “Holy sir? What happened t’ the walls, sir? They’s gone blank, sir.”