The Guild

by Jean Johnson

  Yanking his hand off her throat, Stearlen stepped away, leaving her with an unobstructed view of the power room. Instead of crystals topping spikelike pedestals, all surrounding a huge throne at the very center, the power room had been smoothed flat and painted with ring within ring of runes and wards, symbols and sigils. Painted, not just chalked, in several hues. The foreign mage had been busy in the intervening days; if she hadn’t realized within seconds that this piece of spell-crafted artistry was going to be the source of her demise and the center of a plan to throw the world down into chaos and despair with a Netherhell invasion, she would have admired the jewel-tone lines and pastel swirls.

  There were more details to see, all of which she took in quickly as Stearlen moved a few steps away. Most of the apprentices and lesser-ranked priests were scattered around the room in random clumps. Those who had strong magic, fourteen of them, had been spaced around the chamber at regular intervals, while the Aian mage who had started this mess stood in one of the cleared circles painted on the floor. Spaced between pairs of chanting mage-priests were mirrors.

  They did not reflect the power room, however, but rather peered into other, mostly unfamiliar locations. For a moment, she thought she recognized one as the courtyard of a high-ranked priest’s manor which she had once upon a time delivered a sack of scrolls and letters to as a journeyman in the Messengers Guild. She only had time for a brief, angled glimpse of that mirror, though. The novice standing nearest her drew in a deep breath.

  “Grandmaster Torvan!” Stearlen called out, his voice cutting through the chanting, though not stopping it. “He’s a mage!”

  Rexei paled and closed her eyes, humming hard. Stearlen had said any more spells, but the ones she was using to thwart the compulsion, those technically weren’t more, they were simply the same ones as before. The hard part lay in changing their melody enough to break the controlling magics, not just shove them aside, without triggering a blinding headache.

  The Aian male turned, one of the few in the chamber not chanting. “What did you say?”

  “I said, he’s a mage. He knocked out Ervei, Talos, and Doric with some sort of sleeping spell,” the apprentice priest added. “Almost got Frankei, too. He’s shaking it off outside, still.”

  Stepping over the painted lines, his face a pale, tight mask of fury, Torven stalked up to Rexei. Just as Stearlen had, he grabbed the wool-clad captive by the throat. “What else do we not know about you, boy?”

  His magic flowed into the collar, reinforcing its obedience spells. Rexei snapped her eyes open, compelled to speak . . . but she could still direct what she had to say. “Almost my whole life?”

  For a moment, his fingers tightened, hurting her throat even more than the apprentice had. With the physical force came a rush of magical energy, too. It was brief, though; just as she reached up to try to pry his fingers off, maybe even break his thumb, Torven shoved her back far enough that she swayed and staggered. Rexei winced in pain as the compulsion to stay in one place attacked her nerves for daring to move half a step back. She quickly stepped forward again.

  Torven grimaced, mind spinning rapidly through the choices. “Light blue paint!” he snapped at Stearlen—then jabbed a finger at their captive’s metal-banded throat. “You, Rexei Longshanks, or whatever you call yourself, will stay right here until one of us commands you to move. You will obey our commands, and you will do nothing to disrupt this ritual.

  “I said, get me the light blue paint,” he repeated impatiently, whirling on Stearlen. “I have to add in the fact that this idiot is a mage and reword the oathbinding contract to account for anything else this idiot is that we do not yet know and don’t have the time to find out—now, or I’ll sacrifice you to bind Nurem, instead!”

  The only relief Rexei had from the despair of her situation was the abrupt shift from gloating to pallid fear on the apprentice’s face. He stumbled backward, then turned and dashed for a collection of pots and jars located on one of the lower tier risers a third of the way across the room. The Aian followed him at a more normal pace, hands fisted at his sides. Rexei struggled with her countering harmonies, trying to restrengthen them, but the mage had imbued extra energy into her collar, making it hard to concentrate.

  The priests spaced around the edges of the room continued to gather energies via chants and gestures that were at odds with the horror of the moment, given how graceful the slow swoop and scoop of their hands and arms looked. They collected those energies into crystals vaguely similar to the ones she had seen when getting the prisoners out of this horrid place. Using some sort of hovering spell, Torven Shel Von floated above the painted runes lining the smooth stone of the floor and carefully applied new symbols around the edge of a medium-sized circle set right next to the edge of the largest one in the center.

  As much as she did not want to be surprised by what was coming, Rexei forced herself to close her eyes and concentrate. Humming the base melody under her breath, adding in the harmonies in her mind, she struggled to break the collar. A slight shift of her weight, half a foot’s length back . . . another foot . . . Her head ached, but she—bumped into someone.

  “So you can cast in spite of that thing,” a male voice said.

  She belatedly recognized the quiet murmur as Frankei’s voice, the novice she had not successfully put to sleep with her second spell. She hadn’t had much contact with him during her Servers Guild efforts, but she did know him as one of the quieter priest apprentices. Now she felt his hand on the back of her neck, sending a shiver of fear down her spine as he spoke.

  “Cast and move . . . despite being told not to go anywhere.” He did not throttle her from behind, but he did do something that nudged at the side of her throat. “Don’t shout, and don’t fight,” he ordered softly . . . and eased away the collar. His hand gripped her shoulder, holding her still even as hope exploded upward in her heart. “You’ll still need a huge distraction to get out of here . . . and from what these men have planned, you’re going to need a friend hidden among them. Frankei Strongclip. That’s my name. Remember it.”

  She didn’t turn, didn’t look at him. Not that she needed to; Frankei was one of those young men who had a bland, ordinary, forgettable face, with the typical rectangular face and dark brown hair of most southern-born Mekhanans. Even his dark brown eyes weren’t too unusual, though they were several shades darker than her own. But she did whisper, “Why?”

  “I served because it was either serve or be drained. But that was the coward’s way,” she heard him confess just behind her right ear, his words barely audible over the chanting of the rest. It looked like the apprentices were spacing themselves out to guard the various openings to the three layers of the outer rings where the cells were. Since there was a doorway tunnel behind her, it probably looked to the others like Frankei was guarding this one. He continued after a pause, and a sigh. “I stayed because it was either flee and be at fault for what these men want to do to the world—cowardice again—or find out what their plans are and find a way to thwart them.

  “Now stay here. I need to go get a jug of paint thinner, and I want you to hide the fact I’m not still—”

  His light blue artistry done, Torven gestured with a fist. Magic closed around Rexei’s body, yanking her up off her feet. “You will stand in this circle, Longshanks. You, Stearlen, get this pot and paintbrush out of here. Pay attention, everyone!” he called out sharply. “We are about to begin. No more delays!”

  Freed of the collar, but trapped within the circle painted in shades of pale blue, bright yellow, dark red, and more, Rexei struggled to free herself from the Aian’s magic with her meditation songs. She could slip free of just about any spell, given time. Unfortunately . . . he was strong. Very strong, enough that she wasn’t sure if she had enough time, because this wasn’t a collar she had grown used to over the last little while; this was a completely new warding spell. It gripped and held her body s
till as the chanting shifted in tone, though at least she could still breathe, blink, and see.

  She saw Torven, the Aian mage, walking about a foot off the ground on a patch of misty-looking air, chanting something and scattering some sort of gritty powder in a very carefully laid circle within the greatest circle drawn on the floor. As soon as the powder circle was complete, he retreated to a heavily rune-warded ring a quarter of the way around the chamber from her.

  The chanting of the others changed, and now light streamed in from every crystal held by one of the fourteen priests and bishops, and even two archbishops positioned around the room, gauging from the size of the medallions displayed on their velvet-covered chests. Despite the weight and warmth of her woolen clothes, Rexei shivered. It was clear the ex-priests had practiced in the two-plus weeks since the Aian had offered them an alternative source of power. It was enough that their chant—a short, repetitive, almost brutal set of notes and words—threatened to overwhelm her own inner melodies.

  Her ears weren’t the only thing under assault; the glow of energy pouring into the painted circles and runes filled her eyes with aetheric glimpses of great domes rising up from each circle, of shimmering walls of force emerging from each symbol and set of mystical words. Squinting to enhance her view of the energies, she realized these were not domes but were actually bubbles, with hidden halves sinking down into the bedrock far enough to seal it off from the rest of the world.

  On the bright side, no demon could dig down through the floor and escape the wards that way. On the dark side . . . I haven’t nearly enough energy of my own to counter this and esca—

  Torven shouted in a voice that thundered louder than any munitions-packed cannon, making Rexei shout and clamp her hands over her ears. The others winced, but the priests kept chanting and the apprentices—minus Frankei—kept watch with one eye on the ritual and one eye on the passages into this giant round chamber, each determined to do their part. Squinting against the rolling, echoing, overwhelming words, Rexei realized Torven no longer held her bodily in place. Only the ward-spheres did that.

  The shouting ended. Stepping forward, she lifted her hand to the edge of the transparent sphere. It was and was not there; her fingers met firm resistance, but she could feel a slight draft cutting through the room at the same time, proof she would not suffocate. She could, however, feel the magic, like resting one’s fingers lightly on the belly of a resonant instrument. It was the same short brute of a tune the priests had just finished chanting.

  “Every piece of magic has a voice, Rexei,” she remembered her mother saying. “Every spell, every ward, every spark of energy. It all sings its own song. Learn to match the song, and you can learn to mimic the song. Mimic the song, and you can hide in that song . . .”

  So let’s see if I can match and hide in this song, Mum.

  To do so, she had to turn around and move to the back of the circle holding her prisoner, so that she had the shortest distance to push through the rest of the painted runes and whatever spells they held. To do that, she had to open her eyes first so that she could see where to go . . . and that meant she saw the black mist spewing out from a tiny spark of nothingness about knee-high in the center of the largest dust-ringed circle.

  Between one breath and the next, that spark snapped wide, spewing forth a hot wind of sulphurous, acidic hatred in a ring—no, a sphere, that should not have been there. Something defined by that line of dust poured onto the ground. Within its confines, within a soap bubble of an innermost ward, a veil between sanity and that burning, dark-shrouded Netherhell, a Monster stood in towering view. Terrified, Rexei dropped to her knees.

  Blackened, scale-plated skin, burning fire for eyes, long claws upon which something torn and bloody had been snagged . . . the demon stared through the sphere connecting the two realms . . . licked its lips with a long, forked tongue . . . and transformed.

  “Hhhhumannnsss,” the monster hissed, shrinking down from something that filled the sphere to something that was merely half its size, if half again as large as any actual human in the chamber. Pale pink skin took the place of some of those scales, and the demon morphed from a monstrous bulk of muscles to a well-toned chest, normal-seeming arms, and hands that . . . were still long clawed and bloodied. The waist and legs were still black scaled, with twin tails, and spikes growing out of the man-thing’s black mane. He almost looked handsome . . . but the eyes were still afire. That mouth, sensuous and shiveringly cruel, quirked up on one side in amusement. “You ssseeek to bind me?”

  Goddess . . . ! Guildra, help me! Rexei pleaded, praying as she had never prayed in her life. If they turn this . . . this thing into a God . . . Help me! How do I stop this from happening?

  . . . Patience . . .

  Guildra? Rexei blinked, but darting her gaze around showed no female other than her disguised self in the chamber. No divine Patron to protect her.

  “Nurem. You are summoned to the Veil to be oathbound to our service. We offer you this boy for you to do with as you wish, body and soul, in return for your utter obedience and, through it, your elevation to bonded, subservient, but extremely powerful Godhood,” Torven stated.

  Nurem’s flaming eyes shifted, and his head turned, taking in the various figures in sight. He returned his attention to Torven. “Whhhich boy?”

  “That boy,” Torven stated, pointing at Rexei. “That young man, who goes by the name of Rexei Longshanks. He is a mage, among other things—whatever he is, we offer him to you if you will offer yourself in total obedience to us . . . with myself as your master, and my fellow binders your controllers. Those who oppose us, we will feed to you or slay in your name, and in turn you will give your powers to us to reshape this world for our needs . . . and your occasional pleasures.”

  Rexei shuddered as those burning streaks of fire were turned toward her. “Thissss . . . boy? You give thissss boy to me?” The other side of Nurem’s mouth quirked up in humor. “I acsssept.”

  Reveal yourself! Now!

  SEVENTEEN

  The shout, in Guildra’s voice, spurred Rexei into pushing to her feet. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say, then seized on the word boy. “I’m not a boy! I’m not a young man, either,” she added firmly as Torven scowled at her. She didn’t know why her Goddess wanted her to do this, but she quickly worked on the buttons of her trousers as she continued. “I’ve never been a male—all this time, you’ve been duped by a woman!”

  Whirling around, she dropped her trousers, pulling down her undershorts as well, and mooned Torven, the demon, and over half of the ex-priests. The look on Elcarei’s shocked face was worth the fear that she would be brutalized for her revelation, but it was the demon’s response that caught everyone’s attention. Nurem snarled, hissing at her with jaws that gaped four times as wide as any human’s, revealing nested rows of too-sharp teeth lining that unhinged jaw. He clawed at the bubble-sphere separating his universe from theirs and glared at her as she hastily yanked her pants up and faced him again, fumbling to get everything buttoned back in place.

  Beyond him to the left, she could see Torven, his palm scraping slowly down a face screwed up in a grimace of rage. “Stupid . . . moronic . . . ! Why didn’t anyone check to make sure she wasn’t a she?!”

  “What does it matter?” Elcarei called out. “Feed her to the demon!”

  “The demon has already accepted a male sacrifice, that’s why!” Torven yelled back, whirling to face the middle-aged, blue-robed priest. “If we feed her to him now, he’ll be able to break the bindings and escape our contr—”

  BANG bam POW! Tufts of munitions smoke puffed out from the passageways. Priests and apprentices cried out in pain, some dropping with hands clasped to reddish stains, others whirling to confront this new danger.

  “Torhammer!” Elcarei snarled, spotting the captain of the Precinct. Rexei remembered the face of Captain Torhammer from the Consulate meetings, and sh
e felt both worry and relief. The captain was more than competent as a warrior, as were his men, but none of them were mages like the priests in this chamber.

  “You!” Bishop Hansu accused, pointing at a younger man with brown curls, green viewing lenses, and a distinctive pointed nose, one which Rexei knew she would’ve remembered if she had ever seen him lurking around the temple. She wondered who he was, if Hansu could be so upset at his presence among all others.

  Others appeared all around; she recognized the chief leftenant, Rogen Tallnose, but most of the others she didn’t know. She loved them, however, for most had hand-cannons pointed at the priests, and hopefully some hadn’t wasted their only shot. The ones who weren’t in leather-and-plate-armored coats were somehow casting energies from their hands, some of them female like her.

  “Retreat!” Archbishop Gafford shouted. “Full retreat!”

  Those that could still move whirled and ran for the mirrors displaying those odd views. Inside his bubble-sphere, Nurem hissed and clawed at the membrane separating their worlds; he lost the shape of his semi-handsome form, resuming the same horrific monster visage as before. Backing up from that side of her own bubble-ward, Rexei turned and pressed her hands against the shield, striving to hear the tones it made so that she could match them and slip through.

  Before her hands could do more than sink wrist deep into the shield, a woman in steel armor and an open, black-lined cloak cleaved through the air between herself and Rexei with a mirror-bright sword. Though her long blade cut nothing, touched nothing but air, entire sections of paint were somehow flung off the stone floor. Rexei knew the woman. Knew her name was Orana . . . something. Orana Niel. But Rexei had no context as to how she knew the other woman, other than having seen her face somewhere. Whatever spell had been used to cut out chunks of her memory had been very concise in some areas and a bit vague in what it removed from others. The demons, she knew about; her chosen Goddess, she had always known. But . . .