Guildpact

by Cory Herndon

  “Trijiro,” Kos said aloud, “get home soon or someone’s going to do something they’ll regret.” Silently, he added, and if he doesn’t, what are you going to do about it, old man?

  * * * * *

  Even if her mouth hadn’t been shut firmly by the magical bonds, Crix would have been unable to free herself. She had tried, of course. Ordinary leather should have burned away easily, but this was no ordinary leather. The magic of the living lashes was strong and resistant even to her abilities. She had to console herself with the fact that had she tried to free herself from Golozar earlier, she would certainly have failed. The Gruul didn’t kid around when they bound their prisoners.

  She wanted to study the lashes more closely, but her head was tied at the wrong angle to get a good look. She suspected they might not be leather at all but perhaps some kind of snake or worm. Intriguing, if frustrating.

  Crix could always continue her studies in other ways. Her eyes had been blindfolded for much of the trip between the junk nephilim’s deadfall—where Golozar had left it to burrow down into the ground in frustration—and the Gruul camp, but the bandit had quietly removed the blindfold once they arrived, if not the other bonds. For the last twenty hours or so, she’d been completely unable to sleep and barely able to close her eyes. The entire camp, all their daily activities, were laid out before the inquisitive goblin. And since none of them, even Golozar, seemed interested in speaking to her, she continued to study their language as well as their customs from afar.

  The camp appeared to be home to some four to five hundred individuals. An accurate head count was stymied by the frequent departures and arrivals of small raiding parties that often shared members and wore heavy battle helmets that sometimes prevented proper identification. Not only that, but most of the tents and temporary homes were scattered in and around jagged, rocky ruins that didn’t allow Crix the full view of the place, tied as she was to a post not far from a large central cooking fire she sincerely hoped wasn’t for her. She somehow doubted it. From what she’d seen so far, these Gruul were nothing like the creatures that had attacked the lokopede. Those had been savage and definitely cannibalistic, as Crix could personally attest. But she hadn’t seen any of these Gruul do anything like that.

  And the mix of species! Crix had never seen anything quite like it. Centaurs, goblins, half-demons, ogres, trolls, a few elves, and of course humans—a lot of humans, but there always were, it seemed, no matter where Crix went. And that meant half-ogres, half-trolls, half-elves, quarter-everythings—humans always managed to get into the broader mix if you gave them enough time. There appeared to be nothing in the way of real cultural differences between the species. They were all Gruul, all spoke the barking Gruul language with a patois of Ravi thrown in, and they all gathered at the same time at dawn to pray with the same goblin priestess, at least the ones who weren’t sharpening blades or pacing back and forth in front of her.

  Not all the Gruul here were warriors. Far from it. Most of the ones she’d seen over the last day, night, and morning were parents and children attending to the daily activities that kept this small clan alive. The children, when they were not playing games or helping their parents, formed small hunting parties of their own and brought back game—rabbits; birds; fat, green lizards; and the like. Just before dawn on her first full day in the Gruul camp, one of the children bravely brought Crix a piece of roast rabbit and a skin of water. Crix thanked the boy—a young centaur—in the Gruul tongue. The youthful hunter and his friends seemed to find this absolutely hilarious.

  She definitely needed to find someone with whom to practice this new language. Crix learned a couple of hours later that she’d mixed up the distressingly similar words for “thanks” and “flatulence” in one of her few stabs at speaking Gruul.

  Though activity abounded in the camp, there seemed to be little in the way of central organization other than that priestess. There was no one leader to whom all deferred, at least none who seemed to be present. Different Gruul at different tents handed out food and water, others simply worked and lived. Leather workers and weavers made clothing, blankets, and baskets. Blacksmiths pounded away at hunks of metal that would almost certainly be weapons. Raiders returned, empty-handed in this case except for her. Golozar seemed to be the most important Gruul present, or at least the most feared by the others (if fear was the right word), but she could tell the others did not treat him as the real leader. In a tribal system like Gruul society, there had to be a chief, or at least a council of chiefs, running things. Crix wondered where that leadership was.

  So immersed was Crix in the barking Gruul tongue that the sudden sound of a calm voice speaking lightly accented Ravi gave her a start. “Golozar, what is that doing here?” the centaur demanded as he ambled into the camp. The aging creature cocked his bearded chin at Crix and pointed. “Where did it come from?”

  “Fell off the back of that lokopede Aun Yom’s people hit, and we took it,” the bandit growled. He switched to Gruul, which Crix followed as best she could. “It is a goblin. Aun Yom left no quarter and refused to share the kill. We must talk about that, you and I.”

  “Later. I can see it is a goblin. Can you see it is a courier? The Gruul have enough enemies.”

  “So what is one more then? We tire of hiding from these interlopers. Utvara is ours, is it not? I tire of intrusion, greatest Zuriv.”

  “Zuriv. Zuriv. Greatest … shaman, I presume?” Crix whispered. “Greatest shaman-chief? Chief greatest priest?” She tried it in Gruul, then in Ravi, and ultimately decided to wait. He would no doubt speak to her directly soon enough.

  “Aun Yom is bold, perhaps too bold, but until I speak to him, that is your problem. You want blood. Perhaps you will be allowed to challenge Aun Yom for his. But attack the township, and we will be through. The ghost-thieves will bring another plague bomb.” Crix blinked. Had she translated that correctly?

  “Ghost-thief?” she murmured. Did the chief mean the Izzet, the Orzhov, or neither?

  Stranger perhaps was that they knew about the bomb. Well, she thought, gazing up at the Schism that hung high over the township, it was rather hard to miss the effects. And even if the members of this clan each had an overall shortened lifespan, they obviously had a spoken historical tradition. The Gruul did not strike her as especially stupid, despite their status as “primitives.” They used bam-sticks easily enough. It seemed the Gruul were better educated than most of the Izzet, at least most of her goblin undercolloquy, on the subject of Utvara. Which made sense, she had to admit. She stifled a cough and wondered if her throat was dry or if this was the kuga beginning to work its way around her temporary defenses. And speaking of education, she wondered if perhaps this centaur had been the one to teach Golozar his Ravi.

  “They cannot do that again,” the bandit Golozar said. “Their own people are here now, in that town. They would never—”

  “You think this number matters to them at all? It is a large world, Vor Golozar, and you have not seen as much of it as you like to think. Of course they would sacrifice this town if we caused them enough trouble. This small alliance is fragile and rare among our people. Even people like Aun Yom. This complaining is not like you. It does not befit a raid captain.”

  “He and his sister have gone mad, Greatest One,” Golozar said. “The viciousness of their attack—it humbled me. We have been too long at bay here in this camp. We are not farmers or hunters. We are raiders. We take what we please! We are Utvar Gruul, Trijiro! What would you have us be?”

  “So you hope to be the same as he?” The centaur stamped a hoof. “Impulsive, foolish, and suicidal? If you do not slay Aun Yom, my friend, the ghost-thieves and their servants will. I’ve received a warning. Now is not the time to increase our raids. Give these newcomers the chance to show us their colors and we will then decide what to do. If there is an attack to be led on the township, you will lead it, I promise you. But not now.”

  “This warning—it is from your ‘trusted frien
d’ who works for the ghost-thieves, Zuriv?”

  “Kos is a good man, and there aren’t many in that town,” the centaur said. “If he says we should lie low, we should lie low. If this clan does not stay united, the greater clans will move in. We must remain strong. Borborygmos is ultimately the only enemy we should truly worry about, and a fractured Utvar Gruul would only serve him should we draw his notice. I have other sources of information, Golozar, beyond that old lawman. The cyclops king is surely aware of the treasures of the flats, and if he ever chose to go after them, we would be crushed without unity.”

  “Trijiro—” Golozar said.

  “Zuriv Trijiro,” the centaur said firmly. “And your zuriv wants to maintain peaceful relations with our neighbors, the fire-takers. Only a fool makes an enemy of the entire world.” All right, Crix thought. The fire-takers had to be the Izzet, which would make the ghost-thieves the Orzhov. If the shroud fit….

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Golozar demanded. “Send another raiding party to be enslaved in their fire pits? An envoy for their weirds to burn alive?”

  “Do not push your luck,” the centaur said. “If you want to see someone burned alive, I can arrange that for you. But I speak of a simple, friendly delivery. I want you to deliver something. To the Cauldron.”

  The bandit bowed his head, seething but humbled before the centaur, who obviously had power Crix had not yet seen if he could so easily cow the brutish raid-captain. “You are the zuriv,” he said.

  As she listened intently to the bandit, flash-interpreting his words with the practiced, flexible mind of an able multilinguist, Crix realized several seconds had passed, and the old centaur had not answered.

  Probably because he was staring right at her with a somewhat bemused but mildly irritated expression.

  “I would have you watch your tongue,” the centaur Trijiro said without losing eye contact with the goblin. “That one is listening more closely than you think.”

  Crix smiled tentatively, the smile of a cornered criminal found with a bloody knife, a dead body, and all the loot. She would have raised a hand in greeting had they not been tied behind her back.

  “Hail to the … chief?” she ventured in Gruul.

  “Would you prefer we speak your language, Izzet?” Trijiro said.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, though I would enjoy a few attempts at conversation in your own, if you have the time later,” Crix said. “Are you in charge here, Mr. Trijiro?”

  “How do you know our language, creature?” Golozar demanded in accented, snarling Ravi.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Crix said, feeling curiously unintimidated.

  “Release this goblin,” Trijiro said.

  “Greatest One—”

  “Now, raid-captain. Unless you wish to challenge me?”

  “No good will come of this. It was a curiosity. Now I should kill it.”

  “I prefer ‘her,’ if you don’t mind,” Crix said.

  The centaur turned back to her as the ogrelike human bandit moved to the post to which Crix had been bound. He whispered a few words similar to an ancient Troll dialect from the Towerscar period, and her bindings—her constant nemeses for more than twenty-four hours—fell away to the ground and coiled themselves obediently. Golozar came around the post to pick up the lashes but stopped at a cough from Trijiro. Golozar scowled and instead offered the goblin a hand up.

  “Thank you,” Crix managed. Every muscle she had was in agony, but she forced herself to stand all the same. She channeled a bit of power from her arm into her bloodstream to improve her circulation and relax her cramped joints. “So you are in charge here.”

  “I am the one others go to for advice,” the old centaur said. “I speak for this clan, and the others trust my wisdom in other matters. And you are a courier for,” Trijiro looked her up and down, “Zomaj Hauc, of course. I recognize that brand on your ear and the tattoo work.”

  “I do have the honor of serving the great magelord Zomaj Hauc in this capacity, yes,” Crix said. “I have a message to deliver to the Cauldron, and I fear I’m running out of time. Will you allow me passage?”

  “I’ll do better than that,” the centaur said with a conspiratorial smile. “Our friend Golozar just volunteered to guide you there.”

  The touch of the Firemind is not granted lightly. Have I been disappointed in some of those who accepted it? Of course. But without disappointment, there is no pride in those who exceed even my expectations. Next question, mortal.

  —Niv-Mizzet, last recorded public statement

  (4 Paujal 7425 Z.C.)

  2 CIZARM 10012 Z.C.

  Zomaj Hauc had many ways to get around, but his personal flight sphere was definitely his favorite. The forged mizzium shell, the belching flame-pods, the smooth lines of the controls, all had been personally designed by the magelord and assembled by his hands. No other being had ever sat inside the sphere’s cockpit in flight or touched the interior, and except for power maintenance performed by his handpicked engineers, no other being ever made contact with the Pyraquin.

  Unfortunately, this trip hadn’t been as pleasant as most. The words of the Great Dragon still echoed in his mind, words that drove him to pour just a little more pyromana into the pods as he cleared a flock of wild birds. The avians were incinerated instantly, but Hauc could not even take joy in that simple pleasure. Niv-Mizzet was displeased, and for the dragon lord of the Izzet to take enough interest in the mortal world to show displeasure was a rare thing indeed. To be the object of that displeasure was terrifying, and Hauc doubted many magelords had ever weathered such fury and lived.

  The plan was not the problem. It was the execution—several executions, actually—which had slowed down production at the Cauldron while Hauc had been engaged in other matters, matters which, if Niv-Mizzet knew of them, might cause even further displeasure. Hauc knew he had pushed the dragon’s patience to the limit and was grateful that the magic of his secret Orzhov contact kept their meetings from the dragon’s attention. The other Orzhov, however, were causing trouble for him. This new Utvara baroness had callously murdered the foreman of the work crews—not truly any great loss. It hurt morale, though, which hurt production. The old goblin had been popular, and goblins with low morale worked slowly. Then an entire work crew stationed at a remote power node was butchered by roving Gruul.

  Then there was the missing messenger. Niv-Mizzet knew nothing about Crix and his other secretly enhanced servants, and Hauc aimed to keep it that way. But it was difficult. The dragon’s gift gave Niv-Mizzet ways to find out secrets, if he wanted to bother. That was why Hauc had sent the courier in the first place: to keep the information her message contained a secret. The Orzhov were just supposed to grab her and bring her to him, but no, they’d managed to lose her entirely.

  The tragedy was that had he known what Hauc really wanted to do, Niv-Mizzet might have gone along willingly. But without certainty of that fact, Hauc hadn’t dared bring him in on the plan. It was not easy being as brilliant as Zomaj Hauc.

  Niv-Mizzet’s displeasure had been burning a long time, ever since the mana-compression bomb had formed the Schism instead of wiping Utvara from the face of Ravnica. Hauc had convinced the dragon that the process was a lengthy one, and the dragon had accepted that. And indeed it was, though the result might end up being different than the dragon lord expected. The Schism would not exist forever, indeed, at the rate it was absorbing ectoplasma and other forms of energy, it might not last the week. Hauc had to find the messenger before then or Hauc’s chance for real power on Ravnica would be forever lost.

  Zomaj Hauc scowled as he broke through the cloud cover and bright sunlight streamed through invizomizzium plating. It was stressful deceiving the most powerful being in the world, but he must not crack under that stress. The rewards would be far too great.

  There was no other option now. He had to risk communication with his Orzhov contact before he reached the Cauldron, where Niv-Mizzet would have mor
e eyes on him. The flight sphere was Hauc’s favorite not because of the freedom it allowed or the beauty of its design. It was the privacy. The Firemind could do many things, but only with extreme effort and concentration could Niv-Mizzet’s fiery attentions pierce the flameproof substance. If he focused, of course he could do it. But if that happened Hauc would have a little warning. Not much, but enough to switch to less traitorous matters than what he had planned.

  Traitor. They would call him a traitor for what he was doing, when he succeeded. In time, they would learn the truth. What he was going to do, he did for the good of the plane as well as the good—and power—of Zomaj Hauc.

  The magelord turned a blue crystal dial on the control board, and a glass cylinder mounted next to it hummed to life. In the air above the cylinder a silvery-blue vertical pane appeared, like a tiny magical window made of water. Hauc’s Pyraquin was the first flight sphere to use this Hauc-designed improvement over the old voice-only crystals, but they were now common within his colloquy, and he was looking into providing them for others in the guild as well—provided those others could afford them.

  The face of a white mask appeared in the placid, vertical pool, and a voice sent visible ripples out from the center of the liquid-mana surface.

  “What is it?” the mask demanded. “This is not the best time.”

  “I need a favor,” Hauc said. “I’ve lost something important, and I think you can get it for me.”

  “The new baroness is wondering where you’ve been,” the mask said. “I do not believe she will overstep, but her ambition was unexpected. If you don’t get back soon, she may begin to catch on. She’s liable to go to the Cauldron herself.”

  “Can’t be helped. Tell her I’ll be back at the Cauldron in a few hours,” Hauc said. “I will meet with her if she wishes, wherever she wishes. If she wants to leave instructions, contact Chief Observer Vazozav, and ask her to please refrain from shooting him if she would be so kind. Do not let her get there before I do.”