Guilds & Glaives

by David Farland

“No, then we’d have to raise our rates and that just makes everyone unhappy. The lesser mages start dropping their catastrophic disaster coverage, we end up with not enough working capital, and we have to up our rates AGAIN. The whole cycle gets vicious.”

  “Nothing you’re saying makes the slightest bit of sense.”

  He crooked out an elbow in invitation.

  Esther bit her lip. “If you’re planning to magic us out of here, it won’t work. Magic doesn’t work on me.”

  The man smiled wider. “Under other circumstances that might present a problem, but as I’ve moved the space itself and not you, you merely need step through. I’m not casting ON you, as such.”

  She stared at his proffered arm. “Well, as the alternative is staying in here and most likely being tortured and executed, I suppose I must.”

  “That’s the spirit!” He smiled again.

  She levered off the door, dusted her hands, and grabbed his proffered arm.

  And then they were someplace else.

  * * *

  Esther liked to think she’d lived and experienced a great deal as a migrant who traveled in search of work requiring her particular brand of magic immunity. She’d once been stuck overnight in a collapsed barn with a prince (who she’d had to wallop for getting too handsy). She’d once had to take tea with a magician so old and demented that he kept exchanging the teapot for a badger, the sugar cubes for potted ham, and the cream for orange juice. They’d made the best of it by toasting cubes of ham dipped in orange juice over the fire, sharing with the badger so it wouldn’t maul them … overall not a half bad afternoon. But Esther had to say that being popped out of a deep dungeon like a cork from a bottle, marched through an office buried in filing cabinets that casually stepped out of one’s way when told to budge off, and plopped on a sofa with a blanket and a cup of strong coffee, well sweetened, with a file folder of paper as thick as her arm labeled ‘Warklin, Esther P, MIGS’ took the prize trophy for odd days.

  The office was bright, open, and airy, with windows facing into the cheerful morning light. It smelled of books, leather, and ink. She looked at the man, seated comfortably behind his desk in a big squashy chair. The nameplate on the massive mahogany desk read ‘Carlin Murgen, First Adjuster.’

  “So what’s a MIGS, then?” she asked.

  Carlin propped his elbows on the desk, tenting his hands. “Mage In Good Standing. It means you’re paid up through the end of the fiscal year and not currently in trouble with the guild for other reasons.”

  So many questions to that. She opened the file. On the top of the gathered sheaf of parchment lay a sheet titled, ‘Request for Ward Breaker to Remain on Retention in Case of Unexpected Incarceration.’ It was stamped ‘APPROVED’ in bright red.

  “Hand me that, would you?” Carlin reached out an impatient hand for the form, opening a drawer in the desk with his other hand.

  She passed it over.

  He pulled a stamp and a pad of ink from the drawer, rolled the stamp several times over the pad, and thwacked it heavily onto the paper. He passed the paper back. The new stamp read, ‘Cashed Out, No Return on Client Deposit.’

  Esther stared at the bold red blot, then at Carlin as he leaned back in his chair with a small smile of satisfaction. “So, I’m a witch?”

  “Mage.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Only the non-magical refer to us as witches and warlocks. We’re mages.”

  “We? Are you a mage?”

  “Oh, yes. You have to be to work for the guild.”

  Esther blinked. “What kind of magic do you specialize in?”

  “Oh, standard Adjuster magics. Wards, reassembly and disassembly, animation and disanimation, tracing and hiding, etcetera.”

  “Animation?”

  “Bringing things to life.” He wiggled his fingers at his own cup of coffee, where his spoon began to enthusiastically stir in his cream and sugar.

  “So with your god-like powers of life-bringing, you chose to become some sort of magic … clerk?”

  He winced a bit. “Insurance adjuster. I manage policies for guild members, execute claims, and manage recovery up to reanimation, as necessary.”

  His tone struck her. “Is it prestigious?”

  “Oh, yes. Had to relocate three other applicants for the position to parts unknown. Job security. Low chance of sudden dismemberment or enkindling. Reasonable pay after materials. My own office, now I’ve been promoted to first rank.”

  Esther nodded. She well understood the value of a stable job. “So I’m a mage, then. A black mage?”

  “Smudgy dark gray, really. It’s a whole spectrum of light to dark, not so you’d hear it from the white mage’s guild. They whinge on about natural law and sins against gods and no death, blah, blah, blah. We’re not bad, just not entirely legal under some interpretations of the law.”

  “If you’re legal, it’s squinting at the law sideways through a glass of dark beer, by what I’ve heard.”

  Carlin waved a dismissing hand. “Unfounded rumors, mostly.”

  “Why don’t I remember I’m a smudgy dark mage?”

  “Spell gone dodgy. I analyzed the remains of the orphanage after the explosion—”

  “I blew up an ORPHANAGE?”

  “Well, not on purpose, but backfirings do happen. Near as I can tell, it was simply a case of wrong place, wrong time. Channeling near all that unbound mental chaos is bound to misfire now and again. There was an interesting study done by Mertigan the Third on how an overabundance of children in the vicinity of a spell can crimp the flow of dark magic until it backs up and rebounds on the caster. I hear mages usually just blow themselves up. You seem to have more rebounded your rebounding and splattered everything around you—clever way to survive a bad casting, really.”

  Esther gaped at him, cold sweat breaking out all over her. “Are they all … dead then?”

  “Who?”

  “The orphans!”

  Carlin blinked at her. The thought had apparently not occurred to him. “Oh, yes, I suppose. Probably why they imprisoned you.”

  She fought tears. “So I’m an orphan murderer?”

  “Murder implies deliberation and planning. I would categorize it more as accidental child slaughter.”

  “I don’t care what you call it! Those children are all fucking exploded because of me!”

  “I believe I listed among my skills the reanimation of the dead. The snotty little monsters are very much alive again, with only minimal brain damage. Not a dire outcome, considering how little they need their minds. However, it makes long-term cleanup much easier if there aren’t large groups of outraged citizenry out for your blood. I have to say that is an interesting side effect of a backfiring spell-induced mind wipe, though.”

  “What is?”

  “You seem to have developed a warping in your morality, divorced from logic. We’ll have to note that in the post-incident study report.”

  “Inconvenient, is it, the crippling grief of destroying innocent lives?” Esther gripped her coffee mug harder, considering whether he’d blow her up if she threw it in his face.

  “More annoying, really.”

  She chucked the cup at him. He held a hand up and the mug arrested itself mid-air, its lukewarm contents slopping a bit over the side and onto the paperwork on the desk. Carlin hissed, quickly hovering a hand over the puddle and muttering under his breath. The liquid pooled up from the paper, floated back up, and plopped back into the cup. The paper was unstained, as if it had never been touched. Esther blinked.

  “As I WAS saying, the spell backfired at you. You did seem to channel most of it away from you, but it’s not unheard of for there to be residual effects. Missing memory is high on the list of expected additional bother. You blew all your protection magics and tracking spells right off, as well. You can’t imagine what I had to do to track you down after you’d blundered away from the crater.”

  “But I don’t have any gaps in my memory. I can tell you e
verything I’ve done for the last week, right up until I was having a beer at the inn where they arrested me, and none of it involves exploding orphanages.”

  Carlin shrugged, plucking the mug out of the air and setting it out of her reach on his side of the desk. “Minds and memories are funny things. They don’t like holes. They fill them with stuff.”

  “What about the fact that magic doesn’t work on me?”

  “That is a first, but if one extrapolates the idea that your last act was to furiously channel harmful magics away from you, you may have done so by making yourself magically impervious.”

  “But I’ve been this way my entire life!”

  “Holes, remember. Filled with stuff. It was a brilliant save, but I have no idea how it will affect your recovery.”

  “My recovery?”

  “Your policy covers the revocation of harmful magic, curses, or otherwise resetting from ill-effects of magic gone wrong. Third page of your policy file.” A page shifted out of the stack and floated up to her hand. “We will attempt to reverse what you’ve done. Not my area, but there are specialists on call.”

  Esther looked at the word-packed page and thought about this. “What if you can’t reverse it?”

  “Well, there is a rider on your policy in case of irreversible debilitation. You’ll have a monthly stipend, and you’ll be resettled in secret and hidden by wards for your defense against those who would take advantage of your weakened state. Addendum three, page seven.” Another page extracted from the folder and handed itself to her.

  “So I’ll be paid to go away and live peacefully in the country somewhere?”

  “Yours is an excellent policy, but then you’ve always had good reason for paranoia, a mage of your skill. Still, it’s a pitiable state, stripped of your power and even your memory. But hopefully it won’t come to that! With any luck, we’ll have you right as rain and back to your research.”

  Esther felt like she was drowning. Nothing in this made any sense at all. “… Do I want to know what subject I’m researching? It isn’t using orphans as bits for spells, is it?”

  Carlin considered her across the desk, glanced briefly at her coffee cup still perched on his side of the desk, opened his mouth, reconsidered, closed it, then smiled brightly. “Let’s introduce you to the memory specialists!”

  * * *

  Esther gave it considerable thought and concluded that the only difference between a dungeon and a medical examination room was the fact that the latter was cleaned far more often. However, the smells, sights and sounds were remarkably similar.

  She’d been shuttled from this room to a tiny suite upstairs in the tower every other day for a month, to be stared at and poked by a group of people in leather aprons. They talked over her head and used alarming terms like ‘exsanguination and replacement of her bodily fluids’ as possible treatment options. (She tried very hard to ignore the occasional far-away scream coming from down the hall somewhere.)

  Today, like every day, they ended their session with disgust and splatters of rebounded magic smoking lightly on their apron fronts.

  Being in her room was almost worse. She had nothing to do, save reading some of the many books on her table, full of impossible titles like ‘A Measured Sky: Interpreting Moon Phases for Reliable Spellwork.’ Not one adventure or fairy tale book in the whole lot. No wonder these people were all mad, if this was all they were subjected to. She read them anyway, while eating the bland food and drink they brought her. The alternative was contemplating that everything that existed in her mind, her full sense of self, was a lie.

  There was never any beer, which was her starkest indication that she was still in a special kind of incarcerated hell.

  Carlin visited her once a week to update her on things like ‘billable hours against remaining retainage’ and ‘inconclusive investigation findings.’ His pronouncements were heavier each time he saw her, though nothing seemed to have really changed for the worse in her opinion.

  Unexpectedly, only three days from his last visit, he showed up in her tiny tower again with a ladies’ jacket draped over his arm and an enormous smile. She’d come to realize that the larger his smile, the more dire the situation.

  Esther didn’t smile back. “Have we reached the ‘ship batty old Esther off to the country’ phase already?”

  Carlin tossed her the jacket. “Not quite yet. We’ve exhausted all magical options, which means we have to switch to more … mundane methods.”

  “Does it involve them sucking out my blood? Because I think I’d rather be stuck in the countryside forever.”

  “No, no exsanguination. They disproved that theory. The barrier isn’t in your blood.”

  She shrugged into the jacket. It was a perfect fit, because of course it was. “That’s good to hear.”

  Carlin examined his nails. “They think it’s in your skin, actually. Luckily, they decided flaying you wouldn’t remove the barrier, so you get to keep your hide today!”

  Esther blinked at him. She could never quite tell if Carlin was joking with her or not.

  “No, when I say mundane, I mean truly non-magical methods. We’re going to try some bland old exposure therapy. See if we can jog your memory.”

  “What happens if I do remember?”

  “You fix yourself, hopefully. Then I can close out this case file and go back to boring desk work, you can go back to warping reality, and we’ll all be the happier for it.” He clapped his hands together.

  “So what am I being exposed to?”

  “The black manse … dark corner of the bladed hills where no good soul dares to tread.” He wiggled his fingers at her dramatically. Definitely joking, then.

  She finished buttoning the jacket, found gloves in the pockets, also a perfect fit. “Sounds … fun?”

  He dropped his hands. “Oh, decidedly not. I don’t know your security spell codes, so we might very well get incinerated or eaten.”

  Or maybe not joking. “Are you sure I can’t just go get flayed?”

  “No good. Wouldn’t work. Come along, Esther. Let’s take you home!”

  * * *

  The house sat tucked in a secluded dead-end street on the outskirts of the city. It had a solid looking wrought iron fence with ‘EW’ scrawled into the gate, a pleasantly shady wooded yard, and a bright red front door. There were purple tulips and herbs in the window boxes, buzzing with bees against the cheerful yellow siding.

  Esther squinted through the gate. “Are you sure we have the right address?”

  Carlin pulled a card from his pocket, then checked the number on the gate. “Yes, it’s definitely your house. First time I’ve been here. Very nice, east-facing windows. Must be lovely in the mornings.”

  She cocked her head. “Is it an illusion, then? Hiding the wicked black house?”

  He looked puzzled. “Why would it be an illusion?”

  “You said it was black. ‘Where good men fear to tread’ and all that.”

  “Look, when you’re not popular with the local constabulary, you need a certain off-putting reputation to keep most people away. The addition of misdirection keeps the brave ones from finding you as well, so you can get on with your spellwork in relative peace.”

  “Were you lying about the incineration and getting eaten part, then, too?”

  “Sadly, no. Now be quiet a minute. I need to see if I can get us in the gate without setting anything off.” He placed a hand on the gate, muttering to himself. His eyebrows drew together and the muttering intensified. He jerked his hand away from the gate and stepped back, a small crackle of lightning zapping the spot where he’d been standing. “Damn.”

  Esther tried not to smile. “No good?”

  “To be fair, you ARE the best mage in the region. I’d have been surprised if it had been easy. I may have to go get some components, maybe a few friends here to get this open. It’s a very sensitive trigger.”

  “What happens if a common thief gets in?”

  “Nobody misses
them.”

  “Or a child?”

  The fat false smile bloomed. “Then I get overtime pay.”

  On impulse, Esther reached out and grabbed the latch. There was a popping noise and the gate swung open. She wiggled her fingers at Carlin’s open-hanging mouth, smile completely gone. “Impervious to magic, remember?”

  “You might have died!”

  “Considering all the magic I’ve had bounced off me recently, I thought it unlikely.”

  He looked alarmed. “Can I ask you most sincerely to not do that next to me again? You might be immune, but I most certainly am not. I’d rather not be in the way of a rebound.”

  “You might want to go for a quick walk, then, as I intend to walk up the path and trip everything.”

  Carlin blinked. “I can’t decide whether that’s brilliant or mad.”

  “That seems fitting for the Black Blade of Sindaria, I suppose. Decide while walking away, please!” Esther stepped through the gate.

  Carlin jogged quickly around the corner.

  When he returned five minutes later, she stood calmly on the porch. Her hat was missing. A pot of hydrangeas was tipped over, and a smoking crater marred the front lawn, but otherwise all was as it should be. He stopped at the gate, checking the area.

  “Did I get everything?” Esther called from under the eaves.

  “Not hardly, but the walkway is clear. Just don’t step off the path while I’m nearby, all right?” He joined her on the porch, where the door hung open in an inviting manner.

  As they stepped inside, Esther looked around. Warm wooden floors strewn with brightly colored carpets led to a very ordinary-looking sitting room, a dining room, and what looked to be a library. She was amazed to note that she owned more books than she’d ever seen in one place. A quick scan of the shelves revealed that none were adventure stories. The library did have the benefit of a large fireplace, a full bar of liquors, and both laying settees and squashy chairs. She approved of her mage self’s furniture choices.

  At the back of the house was a set of locked doors. While Carlin popped back out to the porch, she despelled them, but they remained locked.