by Jean Johnson
“Since the lines mentioned a Painted Lord, yes, that makes even a Mekhanan think of the Painted Warriors of Mendhi,” Rexei agreed. Clasping her hands between her felt-covered knees, she gave him a keen, penetrating look. “If we can send them on their way, if the prophecy is about sending these demon-minded priests on their way to their prophesied point of doom . . . then how do we go about it? What little I overheard made it sound like they come in different strengths. One mage can hold one or two minor demons, but if they summon a major demon with the aid of many priests—and they’re far more trained in magics than we are—then how can we stop them?”
The lad—the lass was a lot smarter than she looked. Not just educated, but smart, able to cut to the heart of the important questions. Alonnen slipped his right leg off the armrest and pushed his body upright with his left arm. Echoing Longshanks’ pose, he rested his elbows on his knees as well. “This has actually come up in some of the discussions the other Guardians and I have been holding over the last few weeks. And oddly enough, you just might have the best solution.”
“Me?” Rexei touched her flat-bound chest, bemused by his assertion. “If this is more nonsense about me having a Gearman’s strength . . .”
He shook his head. “Not that. Not exactly. There are two Guardians in the empire of Fortuna. One of them, Guardian Suela of Fortune’s Nave, ransacked some of the oldest libraries outside Mendham. As did Guardian Tipa’thia of the Great Library of Mendham, in Mendhi. And her apprentice, Pelai. They both agreed that the few old records of demonic fighting included the fact that the priesthoods of the various afflicted lands were able to turn back the demons as surely as if they’d one and all been mages . . . only not all of them were mages. The records said that some quality of being a ‘true priest’ granted them the power, the ability, to cast demons back into the Netherhells.”
She blinked and sat up. “So . . . my thoughts on Guildra, on manifesting ourselves a Patron Deity, might actually be helpful?”
“Yes. But in order to do that, we’ll need to not be inundated with all these ex-prisoner mages,” Alonnen said, sitting back. He crossed one leg over the other, resting his ankle on his knee. “We’ll need order instead of chaos. We’ll need organization. Because if we’re not fighting each other, then we’ll be able to concentrate as a nation—or whatever corner we can grab of it—on worshipping a manifestation of faith and belief. And I think you’ve hit the nail on the head squarely with the thought of a Patron of Guilds.”
“The Guild System has kept the priests shut out of our lives as much as it can,” she agreed. “We all believe in the guilds. But they have to step up and take responsibility for what’s happening. No one group, not even the Precinct militia, can impose order on all the others. Every guild stands equal in the Consulates for the laws affects us all. One Guild, one voice, one vote. I’ve actually had to stand in for all the missing Guilds, even the ones I haven’t been a member of, for those times in my Messenger days when I’d take some problem to a distant Consulate only to find I’d have to represent those who had sent me when the Consulate had to make a decision based on the information I’d brought.”
“Then you’ll go to the Consulate meeting tonight,” he stated, not making it a question. She drew in a breath to speak, but Alonnen held up his hand. “Not to represent this Guild, because I’ll be there . . . but because you need to represent the new . . . well, the new holy Guild that needs to be formed. If we’re going to get a new Patron Deity, Longshanks, someone is going to have to represent the rest of us and organize our worship and . . . and figure out what sorts of ceremonies there will be, and what sorts of holy days.
“Somehow, I doubt we’re going to want to keep celebrating Resurrection Day,” he added tartly. “Not if the Dead God is finally gone.”
“Well, no,” she muttered, agreeing with him. “But me? Organize a new priesthood? The only things I know about the priesthood come from the nightmares that destroyed my family, and . . . and what little I observed in the two months I spent spying on the current lot.”
“Then you’ll know what not to put into the new order. More importantly, Longshanks,” he stressed, pointing at her, “you’re a Gearman who’s been at the very least an apprentice in, what, roughly thirty Guilds? I seem to remember about that many medallions among your things. I don’t know of anybody who has apprenticed in more than ten.”
“That’s hardly a qualification, Tallnose,” she shot back. “I’m a journeyman in only three of them, and no master of any.”
“On the contrary, you’re still fooling me into thinking you’re a male, so you’re bound to be master class in the Actors Guild by now. And you spent the last two months walking into and out of the Heiastowne temple under the very noses of the priesthood without getting caught,” he countered. “That’s worthy of a master’s rank right there. I’ll even put your name up for it, next time I chat with the Grand Master of Actors.”
She blushed.
“Rexei, the real reason why you’re the most qualified to set up a new Holy Guild is because you’re proposing a Goddess of Guilds, and you, lad—lass,” he corrected himself, “have personal, firsthand knowledge of all those Guilds. In fact, I’d suggest the first rule you draw up is that no one can serve in the new Holy Guild unless they’re already an apprentice Gearman at the very least. Because it’s a Patron Deity of the Guilds, plural, that we need . . . and if you can classify any Gearman as holy, then any member of the Mages Guild who has served in two other Guilds—and many of them have—can then be considered a member of the Holy Guild.”
“So?” Rexei asked.
“So, coupling holy power with mage power has made all the defenders in all past accounts appear to be three times as effective at thwarting, banishing, and outright destroying demons as anyone else. Not just twice as effective as holy persons alone or mages alone,” he said.
She blinked at him, then sighed heavily, scrubbing at her hair. “Well, I wish you’d told me all of this earlier.”
He flung up his hands, sitting back. “I only thought of it just now! Forgive me for being mortal.”
For a moment, she stared at him . . . then her mouth curved up on one side. Raising her hand, she fluttered it at him. “You’re forgiven, young man. Though I’ll have to figure out some sort of holy penance for you to perform later.”
Chuckling, he relaxed back into his chair. It wasn’t just the almost-twenty-two-year-old Rexei calling him a young man, when he was nine years her elder. It was the fact that she was willing to make a joke about being a priestly type. Shaking his head a little, he smiled at her. “You remind me of me, just now.”
“I do?” Rexei asked, giving him a dubious look. “How?”
“It was back when my predecessor, Millanei Tumbledrum, picked me to be her personal apprentice. I was barely ranked a journeyman in the Guild, and I was convinced I wasn’t the right person for this job,” he confessed, flicking a hand in a dismissive, expressive motion. “Being Guardian, and thus Guild Master, takes a great deal of personal strength. The Vortex can kill a weak mage, burn them up like a leaf blown into a glassworks forge. She told me I had the power to be the next Guardian of it.
“I pointed out a Guardian needed a lot more experience, like a master or a grandmaster. She countered by stating yes, I was incredibly young for a journeyman mage, barely sixteen, and that I’d likely make master status long before she’d hand over the starter key for this particular motorhorse,” he told her. “The same had happened with the other two candidates, Gavros and Storshei, both of them rising up the ranks quickly and early, based on their wits and their magical strengths. There are a few others who were and are strong enough magically, but she told me she picked the three of us because we could think, and we could lead.
“You can lead,” he told Rexei, giving her a frank look. “And it’s obvious you can think. Beyond that, what a priest needs—a real one, and not the false bas
tards we have here in Mekhana—is the ability to believe. Which you clearly do. So . . . you’ll still need to write down all your observations on what you saw in the temple in the last two months, apprentice priest,” he admonished, “but I think your biggest task, to be completed before midafternoon, is to write down and organize the rules for the Holy Guild we’ll need. At the very least, you’ll need something written up before we head off to Heiastowne this evening.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “I left all my papers on the temple doings up in your study.”
“Set it aside for now. Focus on the new guild. Start with what we’re going to call it,” he added. “Priesthood has a rather nasty connotation in this kingdom, so we’ll want another name for it.” She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. Alonnen raised one brow. “What did you think of just now?”
“I was about to say, why call it anything when your suggestion about making Gearmen into holy guildmembers was a good one, so why not just merge the Gearmens Guild with it . . . but not all Gearmen are the sort I’d trust with something as important as worshipping a new Goddess,” she told him. “Some Gearmen have been rather priestly in their attitudes.”
“In that case, write up some sort of criteria that’ll winnow out the unsuitable sorts,” he told her. “You’ve been in enough guilds by now to surely know how to sum up the differences between, say, Silverworks and Blacksmiths?”
“Silverworks Guild crafts in silver and its related alloys, predominantly making jewelry and tableware, but also certain engineering components,” she stated promptly. “Blacksmiths primarily fashions the iron and steel tools all the other trades use. And they work at least a little bit in all the various metals, doing the crafting and repair work for things that don’t need a true specialist.”
“So make up a list of the differences a true Priests Guild needs, and not the false crap Mekha’s bootlickers have forced on us all these years,” he ordered. Unfolding his limbs from his seat, Alonnen nodded at a side table beyond her. “I’ve paper and graphite sticks over there, so you can start writing right away. I need to get back up to Springreaver so I can make sure she’s got the various Guilds alerted about the big meeting tonight, and then I might have to go yell at a few folks through another talker-box for foisting so many ex-prisoners on us, but I’ll be back.”
Nodding, Rexei rose as well. She had been an apprentice for too many years not to give respect to someone of master rank or higher whenever they stood to leave a table or a room. Which made her think about the kowtowing and subservient respect the False God’s priesthood had demanded of all others. “I’ll make sure the new Holy Guild is no more important than any other.”
“And no less important,” he agreed.
• • •
The chugging rumble of a motorcart engine greeted them when Alonnen, Rexei, Gabria, and four more emerged from the back of the motorhorse stalls. Motorhorses were cheaper to run, as they consumed far less of the smelly, difficult to process fuel, but when there were eight people all headed to the same place, it made sense to take a single, larger vessel.
It was just as well Tallnose had ordered the motorcart, too; the great crystals illuminating the thick curve of the Heias Dam also illuminated the tiny white specks drifting down out of the lead gray clouds overhead. While the seven of them climbed into the back and found seats on the padded benches lining the long sides of the roof-covered motorcart, the guider quickly finished lighting the oil lamps at the front of the vehicle, then climbed into the guiding seat. Having rarely had the chance to ride in one of these machines, Rexei peered over the back of his seat, watching him crank the engine into starting.
With a shift of three levers, he released the cart brake and sent the vehicle trundling forward. Instead of guiding posts like a motorhorse had, sticking out and back from the mechanical beast’s neck, someone had affixed a spoked wheel with short, rounded knobs along the outer edge. She remembered a long, long time ago her father, Gorgas Porterhead, sketching out the steering mechanism developed for horseless vessels like these.
Gorgas had told his young, wide-eyed daughter that the “steering wheel” was based on a sailing ship’s wheel and that the knobs helped the helmsman—or the guider—control the vessel with a bit more leverage and thus without needing that much more strength in bad conditions. She had never seen a sailing ship, however, not unless one counted the little toy boats that were carved and set to float on ponds with little paper sails—hardly the same thing. But thoughts of toys led her right back to thoughts of her family.
Letting her wool-and-leather covered arm cushion her chin from the bouncing and jouncing of the seatback, Rexei wished she knew what had happened to her father and her brothers. With Mekha gone . . . if we can stop the priests from drawing upon any source of power . . . and if we can make this land into its own kingdom, a real kingdom with a real Goddess and not a False God like Mekha was, then maybe I can find out what happened to them. Maybe, because if the old priesthood gets disbanded and scattered into powerlessness, then nobody will have to fear them looking for more mages among the family of the people they’ve already taken.
Warmth leaned against her back and left side. Alonnen’s voice murmured in her ear, just loud enough over the motorcart’s engine to be heard. “Silver tricoin for your thoughts.”
“They’re not even worth a copper square,” she returned, “but I was thinking of my family. Wherever they are.”
She lifted her head a little so she could turn it and speak. That brushed her scarf-wrapped cheek against his. He had left off the tinted viewing glasses since night was about to fall, and that meant she could see little flecks of gold and green in his hazel eyes and the faint hints of laugh lines at their outer edges. His hair wasn’t golden copper anymore; instead, he had done something, cast some sort of spell, that made his hair, even down to the brows and lashes, look a plebian shade of brown. It also made the planes of his face appear subtly different, particularly the length of his nose.
It took her a few moments of studying the differences in his face to realize she was actually comfortable with him leaning up against her, and the realization confused her.
Seeing the faint look of worry creep into her gaze, Alonnen righted himself. As he shifted, he used a one-armed hug to scoop her back against his chest and shoulder. Somewhere along the way, this poor young lady—lad again, now that we’re away from the Vortex—lost the right to hold and be held. That’s too damn sad not to correct. “Come on,” he murmured. “You’ll be warmer leaning against me than against a bunch of wood and metal.”
Since he was right, Rexei didn’t resist. She did squirm a little, getting a little more comfortable, and adjusted the lie of her messenger bag, which was doing double duty as her crocheting bag, laden with both papers and skeins of wool. A frown creased her brow when he shifted and scooped the other female, Gabria Springreaver, up against his left side. She relaxed after a moment, realizing the three men across from them on the other bench were huddling together. A glance to the front showed the fourth male was hunkering as close to the driver as possible without interfering with the other man’s arms and hands.
They weren’t moving fast yet, but she know that would change once they got away from the winding road on the hillside flanking the dam. When they cleared the forge buildings, the dark, damp cobblestones gave way to an icy patch that the guider drove carefully over, then that gave way to frosted white pavement. The cement-mortared road was grooved for traction even in wet or icy weather, but only if the snow remained only a few inches deep.
“Looks like the snow’s going to stick,” one of the men across from them muttered. “Might be smarter to head back, Tall.”
Alonnen shook his head. “This meeting is too important. If things get too tough for traveling back, we’ll just use the bolt-holes in Heiastowne.” Next to him, Rexei snorted. The sound was almost lost
under the rumbling of the motorcart picking up speed as they reached a straight stretch, but he heard it. “Something amuses you, Longshanks?”
“You’re not laughing at his nickname, are you?” the other fellow asked her. His face wasn’t easily seen, now that they were away from the lights around the dam and its many outbuildings, but his tone was thick with disapproval.
“What? No,” Rexei denied. “Though I guess it’s ironic, you calling him ‘Tall’ when you’re a full head taller. No, I was . . . well, that’s what I called my tenement in town. My ‘bolt-hole,’” she explained awkwardly. “I just found it funny for a moment.”
“Is it a good bolt-hole?” Alonnen asked, curious.
“On a Server’s pay? Apprentice grade?” she asked, brows quirking skeptically under her borrowed felt cap. The motorcart trundled around a corner, forcing her to reach up and tug the cap farther down over her ears in the face of the increasing wind. “It’s a one-room hole on the fourth floor, with an external refreshing room. The only advantage it has is that it’s in the middle of a six-floor building, and that means I got shared heat from the rooms to either side, above and below. Your brother demanded that I clear out, so there’s not even a set of blankets left. Coal for the hearth, yes, but nothing else to keep warm, so I hope your own ‘bolt-hole’ is better off than mine right now.”
The three men across from her exchanged looks and chuckled. The young woman on the other side of Alonnen groaned. “Oh, gears . . . you are not dragging me to Big Momma’s for a ‘bolt-hole.’ I’d rather walk all the way back through an ice storm.”
“Big Mom . . . ? Oh.” Clearing her throat, Rexei realized who, or rather, what the other lass referenced. Big Momma’s was short for Big Momma Bertha’s Brothel.
Home of the Happy Whores, she mocked silently, rolling her eyes at the establishment’s motto. Posing as a young man had given her a broader education—in theory—than she probably would have learned if she’d posed as a young woman. Though at least the local Whores Guild was egalitarian in that there were rumors of male guildmembers working in Big Momma’s establishment, too, not just females.