The Guild (14 page)

“Tell me about this Guildra concept you have. If we’re to ensure law and order remains in place across the kingdom, then we need to impose it locally and ensure it spreads. Having the
idea
of a Patron Deity is too deeply ingrained to ignore, particularly now that we have none . . . but nobody will ever want another lying, false deity like Mekha,” he acknowledged. “So. How long ago did you first hear of Guildra? Or did you come up with the idea yourself?”

S
till a little off-balance from that friendly hug, Rexei focused on settling her thoughts. Alonnen Tallnose was not the only person here in the heart of the Mages Guild to touch others so casually. Going downstairs to break her fast, she had seen a couple dozen late risers laughing and chatting, and yes, touching each other in friendly, companionable ways. In ways she had not seen since the destruction of her family.

She hadn’t realized how much she missed such friendly closeness. It unsettled her even as she longed for it. This whole place unnerved her, even as it made her want to relax—even her habitual mental humming, protective and omnipresent, seemed quieter in the back of her mind here. The place felt warm and cozy to her inner senses. It was hard to uncurl from her protective mental huddle and accept that comfort, when she had been forced to live out in the cold and the damp for so long.

Squirming a little, Rexei slouched in her seat and considered
his questions firmly, banishing all other thoughts to the back of her mind. “I came up with it myself. Mostly. I remember . . . when I was young, my father and brothers were talking about this and that, and they got onto the topic of what we’d do if we ever actually
did
get rid of the Dead God. Lundrei, that was the one . . . my eldest brother—half brother, technically—
he
said something about he’d never want another male deity.

“He said Goddesses were almost always more compassionate and caring, and less devoted to war and other violent pursuits—not that we knew for sure if this is true or not,” she cautioned. “Even now, we barely have any friendly trade with the Sundarans, and the priesthood constantly comes up with blatant lies about them and everyone else just to keep the wars going on the other three fronts, against Arbra, and Aurul, and the northeastern lands.

“But that was his thought, to long for a gentler ideal to worship. And Father asked, what sort of patronage would a Goddess have of our land? So we all thought about it, and the others offered suggestions. I was a bit young, so I didn’t say much, just listened. But I remembered it, and I thought about it from time to time, especially after I had to leave,” she said, looking past him at one of the bookcases lining his sitting room. “I remember I was apprenticing with the Coalminers. One of the priests came to oversee the operation.

“He wanted to grope me, just because he saw a young lad with . . . with a pretty bottom.” The indrawn hiss of Alonnen’s breath reassured her of his sympathy. She continued, clearing her throat. “One of the master miners distracted him, while one of the visiting Carters whisked me away in a coal shipment. Got me a job with the Coopers Guild, making barrels. Just like I’d gotten a job in Brassworks after a Tanner journeyman tried the same thing—he got punished by the local grandmaster, last I heard—and how the Woodrights took me on after my first accidental . . . you know . . . thingy we shouldn’t do.”

“Spellcasting?” Alonnen asked her, arching one brow.

Rexei nodded. “Yeah. That. It drew attention when I was apprenticed in a Glassworks forge. That’s when I realized the
guilds
had always been there for me, even as an orphan.” She looked up, meeting Alonnen’s gaze. “That’s when—in the Coopers Guild—I realized what kind of Goddess we needed, if we could only get rid of Him. A Goddess of Guilds.”

Listening to her recite her thoughts, Alonnen almost missed it. Almost, but not quite. As the Guild Master of Mages, he was constantly hyperaware of magical energies. Rexei still appeared to have none, even though he had watched through his scrying mirrors as she had demonstrated how to cast spells while cloaking the power traces. But behind her . . . something shimmered.

“I’d already played around in the Woodwrights with some carvings and drawings, a symbol of all the things I’d done. I was thinking I might go into the Engravers Guild at that point, but I ended up having to flee when my powers showed up again in the woodshop at the wrong moment, and I wound up in the Lumber Guild. I realized a Goddess would need a symbol . . . so I started working it up, perfecting it . . . and then drawing it everywhere I went. All the while thinking about what kind of deity we deserved, instead of the one we suffered.”

Alonnen scratched his chin, listening to her rambling reminisces. The faint glow had eased a bit and faded once she stopped talking about the concept of a female Patron Deity. Letting his suspicions simmer in the back of his mind, he focused on her current words. He had seen the extra Guild medallions while setting out the stacks of her freshly laundered things. At the time, he had wondered how it was possible, but with just a few descriptions of her troubles, she had outlined just how one youngish person—male or female—had racked up memberships in roughly thirty guilds.

With that many guild associations under her belt and with her mind
attuned to the
thought
of a Goddess of Guilds . . . Gods, this young woman might actually be the focus for manifesting an actual, real, tangible Patron Deity. . . .
But he didn’t say that out loud.

“I’d think that would be the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done, marking everywhere you went with the symbol of a new Patron,” he said. She gave him a lopsided smile, one reminiscent of Gabria’s friend, the one who worked as a clerk in the Precinct his brother served and who rarely smiled fully at anyone or anything. He smiled back equally wryly at Rexei. “So, what’s the symbol, and how did you slip it past everyone?”

Rexei tried not to feel too much pride in her cleverness, since part of it was simply because it was a good design. “I didn’t work out the final version until I was around fourteen, and by then, I was in the Tailors Guild and ended up chatting with a Brassworks master while filling an order for my master . . . and he realized I knew enough about brassworkings and glassworkings and such, he sponsored me to the local Consulate as a Gearman apprentice.” She shrugged, folding her knitting-covered arms over her flat-bound chest. “When I got in, the master Gearman who approved my apprenticeship caught me doodling it one day, asked me about it, and said it was perfect.”

“Oh?” Alonnen asked, raising his brows. “How so? What does it look like?”

She shrugged diffidently. “You’ve probably seen it by now. It’s a gear-toothed wheel, but the six spokes are actually made up of three crossed tools,” she explained. “A scythe, a hammer, and a paintbrush.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” Alonnen agreed, nodding slowly. “I remember seeing it a few years back in the Heiastowne Consulate—that was you? I thought the name of the creator was some chap named Targeter.”

Rexei sighed. “That was the name I held at the time. The gear stands for our engineering knowledge, the hammer is for craftsmanship, the paintbrush for artistry, and the scythe represents our
kingdom’s many resources. Master Crathan said it covered all the guilds he could think of and carved a stamp of it to use on all his Consulate paperwork. I think his fellow Consuls saw it, liked it, and started using it as well. By the time I was fifteen, the Masons Guild I had joined was already carving it into the motifs for the Consulate Hall they were renovating.”

“So when did you stop being Rexei Targeter?” Alonnen asked, curious. “Or did you have a different first name?”

The question roused a blush to her cheeks. Rexei shrunk down a little in the padded leather chair and tugged on her black woolen sleeves, half hiding her hands. “I had to quit the Actors Guild, so I just picked a new last name when I moved on.”

As much as he wanted to respect her privacy, Alonnen could not help the rampant curiosity her shy, embarrassed shrinking evoked. “What happened that had you abandoning a guild you’d gained journey status in?”

Her face heating even more, Rexei mumbled, “Th’ women wouldn’t leave me ’lone.”

For a moment, Alonnen frowned in puzzlement. Then his confusion lifted. “Ahh, right. Randy older actresses, younger cute lad . . . Well, you’re quite good at acting. My brother would’ve given me a sign if he thought you were a young woman instead of a young man. He’s good at figuring out that sort of thing, weeding out the women in trousers from the men he’s had to conscript, but you still managed to fool him. I can see why you’re a journeyman.”

He fell silent, thinking. Rexei watched him rubbing at his chin. The sitting room was warm, but she still huddled a bit in her chair, feeling vulnerable instead of chilled. Finally, he sighed.

“Right, then. Can you put yourself together, mentally, so you’re back as a boy again?”

She snorted at the question. “I’ve been a boy for longer than I’ve been a girl. It’s always been safer.”

“Well, I’d say ‘you’re safe now,’ except you’re not safe
now
, you’re just safe
here
,” Alonnen shot back. “But the point is, you
should
go back to the temple to ask for your coat and cap. If you were a normal sort of Server apprentice.”

Rexei shuddered and shook her head. “I don’t know if they were listening or not. I didn’t sound like an idiot when I . . . when I stupidly confronted that crowd all but on the temple steps. And I don’t
need
the coat. Not if I’m going to stay here.”

“That might be so, and you’re more than welcome to stay . . . but if
we
, the regular sorts, don’t find a Patron Deity fast, the priesthood’s going to want to fill it for us. I don’t know about you, but
I
don’t want whatever they come up with. Odds are, it’ll be a demon in disguise, but even if it isn’t, they’re a group of men that have never hesitated to kidnap, torture, and do many worse things to anyone they wanted.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Rexei asked, challenging him.

He leveled a look at her. “I know you do. But we have two major problems on our hands. First and foremost, the threat of demon summonings. Now that Mekha is gone, we might have a chance to get some sort of scrying aids planted inside the temples, but to do
that
, we need someone to get inside with focus crystals. There are probably a dozen other things we could use, but I know how to make those. Still, to get past the outer wards, they’ll have to be smuggled inside and
then
activated. That takes a mage . . . and you’re the only one we’ve got who they won’t
know
is a mage.”

Every time he said the
M
word, she shivered. Rexei tried to hide it by sitting up a little more, huddling into her borrowed sweater. “You said, that
you
know how to make them. But weren’t we talking last night with a bunch of powerful mages from outkingdom? I’d think they’d know tons of stuff we don’t about spying and scrying.”

Alonnen hadn’t considered that. So used to doing things on his own, of struggling against the local ignorance of his fellow mages,
plus the need to hide his actual location and the existence of the Vortex, he had not actually considered that. Blinking, he nodded slowly. “Yes . . . I suppose I could ask them. But that solves only one problem,
if
it can be solved.

“The other thing we need is to make sure the rule of law doesn’t break down here in the Heias region. Those laws were decided upon by the Consulate, which means by the representatives of all the many guilds. If we can present the local guild heads with a Patron Deity they can understand, grasp, and focus upon, then we just
might
be able to get one to manifest—and what better Goddess than this Guildra you’ve been meditating upon?” he asked her.

Rexei wasn’t too sure about the word
meditating
, but she supposed it did fit, sort of. Guildra was a concept she had clung to in the hopes that one day, someday, they could be rid of Mekha and lead far less fear-filled lives. Now that Mekha was gone . . .

“For that matter, who better to
explain
the concept of Guildra to the others than you?” Alonnen added, gesturing toward her. “You’re practically Her . . . well, not a Patriarch since I don’t think anyone would want a system so similar to the last one, but I’m not sure what to call the highest priestess of the new system, if not a Matriarch.”

His words stirred unnerving feelings of trepidation within her. She could see his points, but Rexei wasn’t so sure she wanted to follow Alonnen’s suggestions to their “logical” outcome. Rexei shook her head. “Actually, if we’re going to have a Patron Goddess of Guilds, Her priesthood should be arranged exactly like a regular guild. None of this ‘superior to you’ nonsense the old priests used, and none of their fancy titles. No one guild should be ranked higher than another.”

“Rule by committee is a terrible method,” Alonnen pointed out. “There is always someone who guides and rules during Consulate meetings. But I don’t think the other guilds would care to always be ruled by the Guild Master of the Gearmen’s Guild.”

“In one of the towns where I stayed, they had three grandmasters of equal rank in the Weavers Guild,” Rexei pointed out. “Each one served a term of two years. We could rotate Guild Masters that way.”

“Yes, but in what order?” he challenged her. Then sighed. “I suppose we could always call a quorum vote . . . So, what, the highest clergy would be a Guild Master of . . . Priests? Of the Worship Guild? Prayerful Guild? I’m Not A Bastard Meanie Guild?” Alonnen tossed out. It pleased him to see her grin at his silly suggestions, though she did duck her head a little in the effort to hide it. “See, there? That’s what we need. A fresh look at everything.