Jean Johnson - The Guild

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.

If it weren’t for the way the silvery web covering his jaw prevented him from casting spells, Torven Shel Von would have immediately freed himself and transformed his captors into little insects, the kind that were easily squished.

It wasn’t possible, though. He couldn’t even curse them verbally, let alone magically. The silencing web spell had been applied thickly enough to prevent even plain speech, though the captured mage knew there was an intermediary version that allowed the one while still cutting off the other. Strapped onto a table while fighting off the effects of what felt like a long-applied sleep spell, he could only breathe. That, and contemplate two important things.

One, he was going to get free and kill whoever had betrayed him and the Healer strapped to the other table in this dark, unpleasant, heavily carved chamber. And two . . . he was going to need a refreshing room soon. There might be some vengeance to be found in relieving himself straight into the faces of his captors, but they had yet to remove his clothing. The fact that they hadn’t was a mixed blessing; it was late winter, and the low-burning braziers in the four corners of the room weren’t doing much to either heat or light the place, so at least his clothes were keeping him warm. But oh, how he wanted vengeance.

The sounds of someone approaching turned his head to the side, toward the door. A slender figure entered the chamber, dressed in a dark brown, lumpy-woven tunic with a black, felted cap pulled low over his head. The youth lugged something up to the first brazier, set it down, then furtively looked at the door and approached the still-unconscious Crastus. Fishing a strip of something out of the pouch hung at the front of his belt—knitting, that was what the lumpy fabric was, Torven realized—the knitting-clad, knitting-carrying lad laid it across the Healer’s brow.

More bodies approached. The youth quickly snatched the piece of intricately knitted yarn off the Healer-mage’s forehead and stuffed it into his sleeve, then realized Torven was watching him. The youth gave the mage an impudent stare and returned to the brazier. Torven couldn’t even ask him what that was all about; his mouth was still bound by the enspelled webbing.

Two figures, dressed in high-quality velvet robes embroidered with symbols of gears and esoteric runes, entered the chamber. The stone walls of this place were a dull shade of gray, and the robes were rich dark reds and purples, but the carvings and the embroidery matched. Priests of Mekha, God of Engineering and Patron Deity of Mekhana, making this a temple to Mekha.

May He rot in Heaven .

Torven had learned what to look for, or rather, what to look out for, regarding this particular deity. It had long been known in Arbra that the fate of mages caught by the priesthood of this land was an ugly thing, and the natives there had warned him and the others in his group. To have one’s magic, one’s essential superiority over all common souls, siphoned and stolen away without consent was an ugly theft. But the fact that he and Crastus alone had been taken captive and brought here while their whole group had slept in a barn set with warding spells meant someone had betrayed the two of them.

Perhaps it was the Arbran farmer who owned the barn and whose permission they hadn’t sought since it had been snowing, though most Arbrans hated Mekhanans with a passion. The farmer would have been able to penetrate the subtle shields Torven had laid on the structure, since it was his property and Torven hadn’t intended to block out the owner. But perhaps—and more likely—it had been one of the others. That lock picker, Unsial, was at the top of his list. She’d trade her own grandmother for a bag of gold, in his view. Not that he’d seen her do so literally, but she had that kind of attitude about her.

Possibly Barric and Kellida. Those two had been getting rather chummy , Torven recalled, watching the priests warily. He couldn’t disguise the fact he was still awake, but he could watch them as they first looked over him and the Healer, then eyed the boy working to refuel the braziers with black lumps. Coal, Torven realized. Oh, I have a spell or two I could use on those braziers that could damage this lot . . . but this stupid web spell is blocking even the most basic and intrinsic of cantrips from working. And somehow I doubt they’re going to wait to deal with me long enough for the webbing to dry up and crumble. If they were going to wait that long, they’d have used anti-magic shackles.

The taller of the two priests leaned over Torven. Unlike the other, who was short, rotund, and had solidly gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard to match, this fellow had a smooth, shaved head and a white-streaked dark brown beard a full handspan in length. He reached down and pried one of the mage’s eyes wider, and lifted his brows when Torven angrily pulled his head free. “Don’t bother resisting, foreigner. Your magics are very strong, but we are very good at holding your kind captive . . . and you’ll do very well to feed His hunger, praise Mekha.”

“Don’t bother, Hansu,” the other priest stated, busy examining the still-unconscious Crastus. “He probably doesn’t speak a word of Mekhanan. Remember, they were picked up within Arbra, may He smite the Tree Slut’s lands,” the shorter man stated in a bored tone that suggested it was nothing more than rote repetition to say such things.

Actually, Torven did know the local tongue. In his youth he had run across a description of how to craft Ultra Tongue and had stolen the tiny supply of myjiin powder available at the academy where he had trained. That had eventually been uncovered, and he had been forced to flee and give himself a new name so he could start over at a different school . . . with some funds liberated from the previous one during his flight. It wasn’t the first time he had had to flee a bad situation. The trick is to make sure this situation isn’t my last one. But in order to do that, I need to talk! I can convince people to give me the gold rings off their fingers if I can only talk.

He had to settle for meeting the first priest’s gaze, then rolling his eyes away in expressive, bored dismissal. Hansu frowned, then quirked a brow. “What, you understand Mekhanan?”

Torven raked his gaze over the man’s bearded face and bald head, then nodded curtly. He returned his gaze to the ceiling as if the other man’s presence were trivial.

“You aren’t the least bit scared of your surroundings?” Hansu asked.

Deigning to glance at him, Torven shook his head. The priest snorted. He stroked his beard, pressing it against his velvet-clad throat as he leaned over the Aian mage.

“Clearly, you don’t understand what danger you are in. If you did, you’d be begging me for death.”

Oh, I know what danger I am in , Torven acknowledged silently. But he gave the priest a pitying look and shook his head slowly.

“What, does he think he knows something we don’t?” the other priest scoffed.

Torven nodded curtly, then relaxed back against the table or altar or whatever they had him pinned to, as if whatever happened next didn’t concern him in the least. He had a plan, based on a question that had been bothering him ever since being exiled by that short little bastard who dared call himself Master of the Tower. A question of why the God Mekha had to rely upon draining mere mages for power when there were far better sources available.