The Adventurers Guild

by Zack Loran Clark

  Brock couldn’t help but feel trapped.

  He had been in awe of the king at the castle, but it had been a natural sort of awe, like when he saw a particularly bright harvest moon glowing orange in the night sky. A rare sight, but not completely unexpected.

  Seeing the king here was like finding a bright harvest moon inside an outhouse. Strange and ominous and wrong.

  The king looked around the sad little training yard as if contemplating where his throne had gone. Finally he chose to stand at the far end, by the dummies used in archery practice, where he could have a good view of the entire yard. He planted his feet in the dirt, placed his hands on his hips, and radiated his displeasure.

  The guildmasters—Ser Brent, Archmagus Grima, Mother Brenner, and Lord Quilby—took up positions on each side of the king, their expressions severe, save for Grima, who looked on placidly.

  Frond stepped to the center of the field, Hexam and Lotte right behind her. The quartermaster ushered the apprentices forward, and Zed cast Brock an uncertain look as they and Liza took their places beside the leaders of the guild. The rest of the adventurers filed out from the guildhall in a steady stream, filling the yard. They were uncharacteristically quiet, but Brock could feel them at his back.

  “Alabasel Frond,” Peter announced formally. “With her young charges, apprentices of—”

  “That’s fine, Peter,” the king said coldly. “We’re all acquainted.” He turned his gaze back to Frond. “Alabasel. How nice to see you haven’t maimed any of your apprentices since last we spoke.”

  Frond’s body went taut, and for a moment Brock wondered if he would even have to say or do anything after all. But she kept her mouth shut.

  “I’d like to know why you didn’t come directly to the castle on your return last night from a mission of critical importance.”

  Frond waited a moment to see if he would continue. When he didn’t, she answered, “It was very late, Majesty.”

  The king barked a brief laugh. “So, decorum? That must be a first.”

  Frond grimaced. “It was also not a successful mission.” She gestured for Hexam to step forward. He did, reaching into his satchel to produce the splintered remains of the focus.

  The king looked down his nose at the shards and waved Hexam over to Archmagus Grima. The mistress of the Mages Guild reached to take the crystals, oblivious to Hexam’s scowl. Brock sensed bad blood there, at least on Hexam’s end.

  The king spoke. “This is unfortunate, Frond, and it does not bode well.”

  “We are agreed on that, Majesty.”

  The king sighed heavily. “I mean it does not bode well for you, Alabasel.” He said her name in a tone of mixed reprimand and regret. “There are those who have questioned whether you’re fit to lead this guild.” Purposely or not, he inclined his head toward Quilby, who squirmed a bit to find himself under Frond’s scrutiny.

  “There have always been those who questioned,” Frond said, eyeing the merchant lord. “And I have ever said to them—come here and do the job yourself.”

  Brock heard grumbling coming from the adventurers at his back while the king regarded Frond coldly, contemplating whether to take her response as a challenge.

  Mother Brenner spoke first. “All respect and deference to Your Majesty,” she said, “but is now the time for this? It’s surely not in question whether placing another at the head of the guild would have made any difference here.” She gestured at the fragment of crystal in Grima’s hands. “Frond didn’t do this.”

  “Indeed not,” the archmagus said. She turned the crystal to catch the morning light. “No human hand could shatter a focus crystal.”

  “Oh, for Fie’s sake,” Brent said. “What about a human hand holding a large hammer? Honestly.”

  “You misunderstand,” she replied. “A focus full of mana cannot simply be hammered into pieces. It would need to be emptied first.”

  “It wasn’t Frond,” Zed said, as forcefully as he’d ever said anything. “It was a Danger. It bragged about it.”

  “You…spoke to a Danger?” the king said.

  Zed didn’t blush. He held his head high and said, “Yes, Your Majesty. It claimed to know we were coming.”

  “You specifically?” the king asked.

  Zed hesitated.

  “Think carefully, son. This is important.”

  Zed shook his head. “It was expecting someone to come. It didn’t say who.”

  “Your Majesty,” Frond said. She paused, tapping at the sharp points of a throwing star on her belt as she considered her words. “How many people knew about the focus in the shrine? Who knew that we sought it?”

  Silence was her answer. The guildmasters looked from one to the other. The king remained very still.

  “There’s still time, Your Majesty. We can fix this. But we must pursue the truth, however uncomfortable—”

  “And there it is.” The king glowered at her. “You can’t have a single conversation without sowing discontent—”

  “That’s because you don’t listen!” Frond shouted, and Brock wasn’t the only one who flinched at the sound.

  “The enemy is out there, Alabasel!” the king shouted back, gesturing at the wall that loomed above them. “Perhaps you’ve been looking at monsters too long, and now you see them everywhere.” He sighed, deep and mournful. “I know well the service you have done, and I honor it. But in times of trouble, nothing is more important than stability and discretion and trust among the leadership.

  “The wards are failing. We must find a solution. If that solution is out there somewhere”—he gestured once more at the wall—“then your guild will be notified. Until then…”

  “Until then what?”

  The king frowned. “The Adventurers Guild is not to leave the guildhall outside of scheduled patrols.” Grousing and grumbling sounded at Brock’s back. The king raised his voice. “You’re not to speak of anything to do with wards, focuses, or anything else we’ve discussed here. I will summon you when the current crisis is past, and we will decide then what sort of leadership the Sea of Stars requires.”

  Brock held his breath. The men and women behind him had gone silent, scarily so, and he could feel Frond’s barely contained rage coming off of her like a static charge in the air. The king held her eyes, willing her to stay silent—to accept his judgment. And Quilby…

  Quilby was looking at Brock expectantly.

  Brock had hoped that he might not have to say anything. Frond had built her own pyre, after all. But she had stopped shy of lighting it.

  That task, it seemed, would fall to him.

  He thought about everything he’d heard here—everything they’d learned in the last few days. And he knew that she might not be right about everything, or even about much…but Frond wasn’t wrong about this. One broken focus was bad luck, but two…

  It didn’t matter. There was nothing he or Zed could do to fix things. The most they could hope for was to be far from the trouble when it all boiled over.

  Quilby was their best chance for that.

  “Frond is right,” Brock said, breaking the silence. The words felt strange on his tongue, so he said them again, willing himself to believe what he said. “Frond is right. She…she puts herself between our town and a hundred Dangers. Every single day.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Liza turn to him and smile. He felt his heart ache a little, and kept his eyes on the king.

  “Go ahead,” he continued. “Tell her to look the other way when the town’s in peril. Tell her to ignore her gut when it’s telling her something is wrong. Tell her to be discreet.

  “It won’t stop her,” Brock said. “She’s going to save us all…whether you like it or not.”

  The king cast a dark look at Frond. “I do believe you’re right, boy,” he said sadly. “Brent. Take her in.”

  At a sign from Ser Brent, the knights stepped forward.

  “No!” Liza shouted, and her voice was echoed in two dozen cal
ls of protest.

  Then she drew her sword.

  “Liza,” Brock warned, holding out a calming hand as the knights closed in. He looked over his shoulder to see the entire guild on the verge of action, and he wondered, if it came down to it, were these people loyal to their king or to Frond?

  Armed, dangerous, and potentially treasonous. No wonder Quilby wanted Frond ousted.

  “Enough!” Frond said, holding out her hands, turning her back on the king to address her guild. “Everyone stand down immediately.”

  Liza hesitated. “But—”

  “That’s an order,” she said, addressing Liza directly now.

  Liza slowly lowered her sword. She nodded, a dazed look in her eye.

  The knights surrounded Frond then, binding her hands and taking care to remove the dozen blades she had affixed to her leathers. It was a long and awkward process, and though the adventurers made no move to interfere, they booed and hissed at the knights, making obscene gestures and talking loudly about their mothers. Brock shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot, his eyes flitting about the training yard.

  He saw Quilby trying not to smile; Brenner shaking her head sadly; Grima running a finger over the shard of crystal.

  He saw Brent and the king speaking in low voices, their faces grim.

  He saw the blade of Liza’s sword drooping into the dirt, and Zed watching the assembled guildmasters with suspicion, his nose crinkled up as if in distaste.

  And though he tried to look away, his gaze came inevitably back to Frond. Set within her scarred and stony face, her eyes were hard and hateful. They struck him breathless with their fury.

  She knew exactly what he’d done.

  “They can’t do this,” Liza said. “How can they do this?”

  Zed, Liza, and Brock watched from the second-floor window as a retinue of knights took up posts outside the guildhall.

  Apparently word was getting around that Frond had been arrested and the Adventurers Guild imprisoned within their own hall. A crowd had congregated nearby, pointing and whispering. Some had amused expressions, but most looked worried and even a little scandalized.

  Whatever they think of us, they know how important we are to the city, Zed thought.

  Boards had been nailed across the guildhall’s front door, along with a vellum sign bearing the royal seal. Zed had only caught a glimpse of the notice before it was hammered to the door, but the words KEEP AWAY were written large and clear.

  Beside him, Brock groaned. “Zed, you may not want to see this…” he said.

  But it was too late.

  Zed spotted his mother as she pushed her way through the crowd, her face frantic. Considering the time of day, she must have run straight from her noble patron’s home. She was still wearing her uniform, and her hair—usually twisted into a neat bun during work hours—had slipped out into several ribbonlike strands.

  Zed’s mother squeezed between two gawkers, then rushed for the guild’s doors. A knight immediately stepped into her path, shoving her back roughly with a gauntleted hand.

  “Mom…” Zed rasped. “Mom!” He shouted it this time, pounding his hand against the window.

  His mother couldn’t hear him, of course. She was arguing with the knight, though Zed couldn’t make out any of the exchange. After a few moments of heated dispute, the knight seemed to lose patience; he glowered and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. The gesture was undeniably a threat.

  Zed’s mother narrowed her eyes at the man.

  “No, no, no,” Zed moaned. “I’m all right, Mom. Just back off.…”

  Another figure emerged from the crowd. A second woman rested a hand protectively on Zed’s mother’s arm, then stepped between her and the knight.

  “No way…” Brock breathed.

  It was Brock’s mother. Zed had only ever spoken to the Mistress Dunderfel a handful of times in the marketplace—and a sharp, prickly handful at that. Brock would never say so, but Zed had long suspected that she didn’t approve of him or his family. As usual, the woman was dressed finely—a much more impressive sight than Zed’s mother in her gray Servants Guild smock—and she leveled a look of such scorn at the Stone Son that the guard’s hand immediately fell away from his sword.

  The knight’s stern expression melted. His palms rose apologetically into the air as he spoke. But he still blocked their path. In the end, Brock’s mother led Zed’s back into the crowd, supporting her with an arm around her shoulder.

  “Did…did Fie just freeze over?” Brock asked. “I can’t have just seen what I think I saw.”

  Zed watched the two go, a tightness slowly unknotting in his chest.

  “I wonder if my parents or brother have heard by now…” Liza said softly. “Or if they know about Micah.”

  “Oh, they know.” Micah’s voice spoke up from behind them, dripping with contempt. “But don’t expect them to come throwing themselves at the doors anytime soon.”

  Zed felt a shudder run up his back. He’d nearly forgotten about Micah.

  The three turned around to find the boy leaning against the doorway. His face was scrubbed clean, and he’d traded his tattered robes for an unsoiled jerkin and trousers. “The dolt from the door is calling a meeting.” Micah scowled. “I guess she’s in charge now? I have got to be the most unlucky scud in this whole city.”

  Liza frowned at her brother. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” she said, shaking her head. “How does someone possibly get kicked out of the Golden Way?”

  Micah rolled his eyes. “Spare me, Liza. Brenner’s a hag. She’s had it out for me since my first day.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Liza replied innocently. “Oh, wait. Do you think it could have to do with the time you practically screamed ‘Please don’t put me in the Healers Guild!’ in front of the whole city?”

  The boy crossed his arms and shrugged. “I’ve lost my title and my name, and I’ve been publicly humiliated more times this week than I can count on one hand, so you should all be very happy.” His eyes flicked to Zed. “Except maybe for you, sorcerer. Just so you know, I snore.”

  “For crying out loud—his name is Zed!” Brock said. “Sorcerer is not a name.”

  Micah shrugged again. “I’m going downstairs. Come if you want. The dolt is already in over her head, so at least there’s some entertainment.”

  Liza sighed, but she followed her brother out. After a moment, Brock trailed after her, leaving Zed hanging behind.

  Zed frowned at his feet.

  He had a secret.

  Well, a few of them.

  There was something he needed to tell his friends. He knew he should have said it already—probably should have screamed it out in the training yard—but he just wasn’t sure how people would react. Would his friends turn against him? Would the city?

  As bad as things were now, Zed had a feeling they were going to get a lot worse.

  Lotte was in over her head, literally. Guild members crowded around her in the main hall, most towering over the woman. Nearly all were shouting.

  As he entered, Zed spotted Jayna standing near the back beside Hexam, nervously biting her lip. Her eyes caught Zed’s for a moment, but then she quickly looked away.

  “Everybody CALM DOWN!” Lotte shouted, finally cutting through the noise.

  The guild members quieted, though Zed definitely heard Fife’s voice finish “…should set carnivorous pixies on ’em!”

  Lotte cleared her throat, then stood a little straighter. “For now, no one will be allowed in or out of the guildhall, except as part of our routine patrols outside the wall. I’ve been told this is a temporary lockdown. Once the king has deemed that the guild is truly penitent, our probation will end.”

  “Penitent for what?” a voice demanded and was joined by others in agreement.

  “Frond is charged by the king’s council with recklessness and insubordination,” Lotte said. “And her actions reflect on all of us. As bad as this sounds, it could have been wo
rse. A sword was drawn this morning in the presence of the king. Under normal circumstances, that would be called treason.”

  Lotte didn’t look at Liza, but Zed felt her stiffen beside him. Treason? Liza had just been trying to protect Frond!

  “King Freestone is showing us a mercy,” Lotte continued, “and to earn back our place in the city, we must show him that we are still prepared to protect it. Patrols will resume outside the city as normal, but only through the guild’s private wall access door. Our mission is the same as always. Nothing has changed.”

  Except that Frond is shackled away somewhere, Zed thought bitterly.

  “What about the hole in the wards?” a deep voice called out. Every eye in the room turned to Hexam. Zed had never heard the wizard speak up in a full guildhall before, but the rest of the guild members seemed to defer to him. “What about the focus, and the evidence of foul play? The council can’t just ignore our warnings.”

  Murmurs of agreement rose from the other guild members. Everyone had seen the pieces handed to Grima, and heard Frond’s accusation. They were the only citizens of Freestone who knew that the wards were in danger, and now they’d been separated from the rest of the population.

  “They trapped us here to shut us up!”

  “The whole city’s coming down around us!”

  Lotte raised a hand. “Thank you, Hexam,” she said testily. “The council is looking into this, and a bounty has been put out for Old Makiva’s arrest.”

  “The mystic?” Hexam asked. “On what grounds?”

  “On the charge of witchcraft. Several items survived the fire that indicate she was in fact a practicing witch. Apparently she had quite a few focuses of her own, made from carved bones. The bones of what, I don’t know, but after seeing the token that you brought back, the council believes she may be connected to—”

  “Makiva didn’t know where we were heading,” Hexam interrupted. “Not even the scribes were told what their map was for. Only the council knew. Frond said as much, Lotte.” Beside the archivist, Jayna wrung her hands.