The Guild

by Jean Johnson

  Each man wore an overcoat of metal-plated leather, a metal helm with leather coverings, stiff bracers, and leg guards. Like their armored clothes, the flanks of their motorhorse steeds bore the symbol of the local Precinct militia, a war hammer on a shield. The operators of the motorhorses sat toward the front where their hands could guide the somewhat horse-shaped machines by their steering bars, feet ready to brace the bike when at a standstill like this or to stomp on the galloper pedals to go fast and the stopper pedals to slow down. Their riders sat on raised saddles behind the operators, where they could grip the flank-brown housing with their thighs and operate crossbows and hand-cannons, lariats and lances, whatever tool they needed when chasing down a criminal . . . or a mage who was trying to flee.

  Rexei flinched when the muscular man dragged her up to face the second of the two men seated on the lead motorhorse. He was the only one wearing bits of metal at the collar of his overcoat and with studs banding his bracers, and he carried himself with an air of unquestioning command. That, and his slightly long, pointed nose were the only things distinguishing him from the rest, but this was clearly the Precinct leftenant. Swallowing, she quickly dropped herself into the role of a brave, lawful youth who hadn’t done wrong—which she hadn’t—and was determined to be brave in the face of authority. Which she was.

  “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.” She asserted that much before wincing from the strength of the man’s fingers; they dug in hard on her shoulder, bruising to the point where she feared for her collarbone. “I’ve done nothin’ wrong! Leggo a’ me!”

  “Oh yes, you have!” Burly Man asserted, dropping her to her knees with his grip as he tightened his fingers and pushed her down to hold her in place.

  “Enough.” The order came from the leftenant. “Release him. You’ll not damage the youth any further, or you will be judged a troublemaker.”

  The angry man released Rexei’s shoulder with a slight shove, making her gasp with the sudden flush of blood to the bruised region. She was grateful for the release but wished heartily she could run away. Unfortunately, running was a sure sign one had done something wrong, and it was not unknown—rare but not unknown—for Hunter Squads to use motorhorses. Usually, they used regular horses, as it was easier to guide a real horse through rough terrain than a mechanical one.

  Not that the Hunter Squads are needed to chase down mages anymore, she tried to reassure herself. Mekha is no more, His hungers are gone . . . but they might not believe that . . .

  “So,” the leftenant stated, shifting his light brown eyes between the two of them. “What are the lad’s supposed crimes? Inciting a riot?”

  Rexei couldn’t let that one stand. “I stopped a riot.”

  “Not that,” the other man growled. He grabbed at her throat, almost choking her as he pulled free both necklaces. “This!”

  She quickly pushed to her feet and grabbed at the thong and the chain, not wanting either to break. “Leggo! You’ll snap ’em!”

  “This boy claims t’ be a journey-level Gearman,” her accuser growled. “But th’ lad’s clearly not even militia aged, an’ yet he’s got nigh-on twenty Guild coins! He’s a forger, that’s what. That’s yer troublemakin’,” he added, aiming his last words at Rexei, grabbing the youth’s shoulder for another shake.

  “I said, let go of him.” The words were delivered mildly, but they didn’t need to be forceful. Two of the other second riders were already dismounting and moving forward in matching martial menace.

  The man quickly released Rexei’s shoulder. He even backed up a little. The leftenant swung his leg over the rump of the motorhorse, dismounting. Since the leg-shaped shanks connecting the machine to the wheels were shorter than a regular horse, more like a pony’s legs, the militia officer managed to do so gracefully. Rexei forced herself to hold her ground. What she wanted, desperately, was to flee. Being noticed by the authorities was nothing but trouble, and trouble could get her killed or . . . Well, maybe not shackled to the temple, now that Mekha’s gone, but I can’t let them find out I’m a girl, either. And I don’t want to fight anyone!

  It wasn’t easy to stand her ground when the leftenant walked right up to her and looked down into her eyes. Without a cap to help shield her gaze, all she could do was try not to flinch, and, keep humming in the back of her mind. Not that she suspected the leftenant of having magic, but it was by now a long-standing habit that kept her outwardly calm in the face of her inner terrors. She was afraid, but mentally humming the tunes her mum had taught her kept her brave.

  The leftenant gently lifted the thong-strung medallions on Rexei’s flat-bound chest with one of his leather-gloved hands. She hadn’t worn all of them—a good dozen or so from her earliest years on the run weren’t registered with her current identity—but she had worn eighteen guild tokens. The others were hidden among her things in the bolt-hole she currently called home. She tried not to flinch when he thumbed through them, but at least he didn’t pull or yank or say anything derogatory.

  She didn’t trust the way he narrowed his eyes, studying the four larger coins strung on the thong, the ones representing her journeyman status. The first one was for the Actors Guild, the second for Engravers. The third for Messengers. The fourth was her journeyman Gearman status, gained when she’d earned the one for the Messengers. Shifting the thong aside, he stared at the Servers Guild pendant strung on the silver chain beneath it.

  When he spoke, she shivered from more than just being cold. “Rexei Longshanks . . . isn’t it?”

  Oh Gods . . . he knows my name.

  “Y’know who th’ boy is?” the burly troublemaker asked.

  He dropped her medallions back onto her chest and moved past her. “Walk with me, Longshanks. You,” he added to the broad-shouldered man, “you’re dismissed. Go about your business, and cause no more trouble.”

  Taking that for what it was worth, the stout man quickly hurried off. Just like Rexei, he didn’t want the attention of the Precinct leftenant upon him, either. She wished she could join him.

  Rexei did not want to go anywhere with the leftenant. She stayed where she was, silently amazed at her courage, and asked, “Why should I?”

  Surprised, he turned to face her from a few paces away, brows raising. She lifted her chin, fingers balled into fists to keep them warm. It wasn’t working.

  “I’ve done nothin’ wrong . . . and if you know my name, then you know I’m a Gearman. Sub-C-Consul.” She folded her arms quickly, trying to stave off more shivering. “I’d n-no more c-c-cause a problem than c-cut off my own arm. You got no c-cause t’ arrest me.”

  Returning to her, the leftenant leaned in close. “I’m not arresting you. I’m asking you questions. If you want to stay here and freeze, be my guest, Sub-Consul. If you want to be warm, I’d suggest walking and talking. Though I doubt your intelligence, standing here without coat or cap in the dead of winter.”

  “’S in the bloody t-t-temple,” she muttered, shivering. “They sh-shoved us out th’ d-d-doors before I c-could g-g-get it.”

  “Then start walking home. Or better yet, get on the motorhorse. We’ll give you a ride there.” He stared at her, then flicked his gloved hand impatiently. “The sooner you get home and get warmed up again, the sooner I’ll have my questions answered and go.”

  He was being entirely too reasonable. Too polite for her to protest. Tucking her hands under her armpits, Rexei started walking. Behind her, she heard the leftenant give an order that sent most of the others off. She heard the creak of his leathers as he remounted behind his motorhorse operator, and the gruff rumble as the engine was restarted.

  There was no way she was going to be sandwiched between two militiamen, where she could be all too easily subdued and hauled off for unwilling service. Or incarcerated for doing nothing wrong but catching the leftenant’s eye at the wrong moment in time. That and her bolt-hole was only a few blocks away.

/>   As a member of the Messengers Guild—the longest guild she had spent time in so far, almost two full years—she had learned how to walk at a tireless, long-legged pace. It helped that the melodies constantly playing in the back of her mind, hiding all traces of her magical abilities, were usually set at a tempo well suited for walking.

  For messages delivered between towns or to a recipient more than a couple miles away, she had learned how to ride a motorhorse, but those were loaned out by the Guild and had to be returned at the end of each ride. Unless it was an emergency, any messages delivered within a town were delivered on foot. The pace she set was brisk enough that some of her chattering eased, though her muscles were still tight from the aching cold.

  Within a matter of minutes, she reached the wood and stone tenement building which was her home while in Heiastowne. This one was occupied by tenants from various guilds. Though some apprenticeships came with lodgings, usually in the home of whatever master had been assigned to teach said apprentices, not all of them did. The Servers Guild was one of those that didn’t.

  It had been decided long ago that no member of that guild would stay overnight in any temple or priest’s home, just to be safe. The guild had also raised its members’ wages so that they could afford to rent rooms . . . and had withheld all services from all priests when some of those priests had tried to incarcerate their servants on their properties to keep them past their service hours. Peer pressure had forced the release of the maidservants, footmen, housekeepers, and butlers. But while the wages had been raised to pay for lodgings elsewhere, that raise hadn’t been much, and her tenement reflected it.

  The leftenant dismounted when she started up the external stairs. The operator didn’t come with them, though he did shut off his engine. A glance behind showed the leather-armored man settling into the saddle to wait the leftenant’s return. It also showed the leftenant moving up behind her, clearly determined to follow her all the way home. Wincing, she moved up the steps. At the fourth floor, she strode along the open balcony. Their boots clomped on the wood, both hers and his.

  The only thing that showed almost a dozen Servers lived here was how well the snow had been scraped off the balconies and steps of the whole building compared to the one directly across from it. All of them got together in the mornings and the evenings after a snowfall to keep the balcony and steps clear, since living on the fourth floor meant a very dangerous fall should they slip on an icy surface. It also meant a slight break for them in the cost of living here in winter, if they swept and shoveled.

  Fourth floor rooms in winter were usually a bit warmer than ground or first floor ones, and thus were more expensive. Size was another factor. When she unlocked her tenement, there was only one room to it; that was another cost kept down. The right-hand wall was a mass of brick, since every room above and below hers had its own hearth, and they all shared a wall for the chimney spaces. Midday in winter, it could be quite cold if the others were out and about when their hearth fires were either banked or gone out. At midnight, it could be cold, too, but it was now close to supper, and that meant people were coming home and lighting fires, preparing food.

  Her breath didn’t frost inside her tenement, but it wasn’t exactly warm, either. Grabbing her spare coat off one of the pegs by the door, she shrugged quickly into the felted wool and picked up the sparker and oil lamp from the shelf above it. Light came in from the narrow window by her door and the slightly broader window at the back of the somewhat narrow, rectangular room, but she carried the lamp to the table and lit it with a squeeze of the spring-loaded arm that scraped a bit of flint over a coil of steel.

  Her teeth still threatened to chatter, though the coat helped somewhat. Unfortunately, it was a summer-weight coat, not winter weight. More heat would be needed. Ignoring the leftenant, she crouched by the hearth in the middle of the wall and used the fire tongs that came with the room to scrape back the ashes, hoping for a couple live coals. Grateful there were a few, she reached for the coal bucket, not the kindling box, and laid sooty black lumps on the glowing orange ones. It would take a while for the room to heat up, but at least she had started the process.

  Only after she had washed her hands in the bowl of water by the front door did the leftenant speak. He didn’t seat himself on the sole chair in the room nor on the edge of her bed—not that she had invited him to make himself comfortable, but he didn’t seem upset at the lack of courtesy. Instead, he got straight to the point.

  “I know you were assigned to be a Server in the temple, Longshanks,” the older man stated without preamble, making her heart skip a beat. She turned to stare at him, absently wiping her hands on the cloth hung on the rod along the side of the washstand, and watched him dip his head to her. “And I know who assigned you to watch the priests as well as serve them.”

  He . . . he works with the mages? She stared at him, wide-eyed and unsure whether to be relieved or afraid.

  Taking off his leather helmet, he set it on the table with a sigh, then scrubbed a gloved hand over his short-cropped hair, as if relieving a full-scalp itch. Smoothing the ginger-brown locks back from his face, he wrinkled his nose. “I need to know what happened in there, Longshanks. I need to know if . . . He . . . is actually gone. The only thing keeping this town from going mad is the bitter cold and the shock of disbelief, and I will not have Heiastowne overrun and burned down by rioting. So tell me, what did you see in the temple?”

  THREE

  She honestly did not know if she could trust the man. He was militia, and the militia had special squads sent out by the officers—at the prodding of the priesthood, admittedly—to hunt down and capture mages. But . . . the purpose for the Hunter Squads no longer existed, as far as she knew. If she could convince this man of that, then maybe word would spread, and the Hunter Squads could be disbanded. That would save a lot of mages’ lives.

  Hands dry, she slipped on a spare pair of leather gloves, pulled a knitted cap over her head for warmth while the fresh coals slowly caught, and folded her arms across her chest. “I saw two mages brought in . . . and midway through interrogating them, before the priests could bind either one . . . every last cog and gear of Mekha’s decorations vanished from the walls and from the priests’ embroidered robes. The outlander mage they were interrogating, he claimed it meant that Mekha had been dissolved. And then, later . . . they were making us haul all the prisoners up out of the basement rooms, where we weren’t supposed to go, before.

  “While I was down there . . . I saw Mekha’s power room.” She shivered, more from the memory than from the cold. Then she shivered again from the chill in the air. What she wanted to do was crawl under the felted-wool blankets on her bed and huddle there until she and her room were both truly warm, but she couldn’t.

  “And?” Surprisingly, he didn’t ask her what the chamber looked like. Nor did he ask her where her accent had gone. If he knew she was Rexei Longshanks, if he knew she was a journeyman of the Actors Guild, then he’d know she could don and doff an accent at will.

  “And it was crumbling. Pillars with crystals disintegrating. Some sort of chair-thing at the heart of it, cracking and sloughing off in clumps, like you’d let garden dirt fall from your hands.”

  “And?” he prompted when she fell silent. “I know you’re bright enough to have observed far more than that, Longshanks. Give me the details.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “That’s for my unnamed client to know, and it’s time for you to get out of my tenement. I’ve answered your questions. Now, go.”

  He stepped close to her. She didn’t have anywhere to retreat, since next to the washstand was the table and cupboards where she kept what little food she cooked. Lifting her chin, Rexei tried to stare down the taller man.

  “You’re brave, I’ll give you that. But these are priests, lad,” he warned her, fooled by her slim frame and ambiguous, youthful face, as everyone had been. “And they now ha
ve your cap and your coat. All they need to track you down is a hair plucked from either. They can tuck that into a tracking amulet and find you . . . save for one location. If they realize you saw or heard anything you weren’t supposed to—if they now know, after watching that blowhard’s ploy at making trouble for you, that you aren’t just a mere Servers apprentice—then they will come for you. And they will try to demand the Precinct’s help.

  “I am trying to find out if that will happen or not . . . because if Mekha is truly gone, the captain and I are not giving anyone else to the priests ever again,” he finished grimly, moving close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. “But we don’t have any magic to counteract their abilities. And I know you don’t have full access to the one place where they cannot find you. Yet. So give me a reason to help you.”

  She didn’t know what to make of him. It was clear he knew things . . . and that implied he was one of them, too . . . but neither of them could ask each other outright questions. Not here. The sanctuary he alluded to was not in Heiastowne, though it wasn’t far by motorhorse. But mentionable or not, he knew who Rexei Longshanks was—as much as she had let anyone know—and he was the Precinct leftenant.

  One thing he was not was slimy feeling. Nor brittle and harsh like a cracker, like the man who had bruised her shoulder and hauled her to the leftenant’s side. Instead, the leftenant reminded her more of a fine leather coat. Precise, tailored—a finished product, not rawhide. He was also not a bully like so many other officers she had warily watched in other Precincts, men who would not have hesitated to beat an answer out of her with the back of a hand. This leftenant seemed to actually care about his city. Ambivalence warred within her, between the need to flee far away and establish a new identity elsewhere, and the stacking of subtle facts that said he might be semi-trustworthy.