The Guild (19 page)

Sometimes the priests
, Rexei thought.
But sometimes the grabby hands of men and women who thought a young apprentice, or even a journeyman, could be taken advantage of . . . Not often, but it did happen occasionally. Each time I reported it to the next-highest guildmember and picked a new guild. Not an unfamiliar tune, though many would simply have picked a new master or grandmaster in the same guild to learn under in some other town. But mostly the priests, yes.

“That is an understandable reason for switching careers. I am surprised that you managed to gain journey status in three different guilds, lad,” Toric allowed, nodding his head at Rexei, “but if you can fool the . . .
ex
-priesthood for two months straight, you’ve clearly earned your Master Actor rank. Any objections? . . . None? Motion granted,” he stated, cracking his mallet on its anvil once. “Journeyman Callis? There you are . . . Fetch a Master Gearman medallion from my office, if you please. Master Rexei, as you are from outside the Heias Precinct, you are invited to join the rest of us as a discussion arbiter. Good luck trying to find a seat, but do stay at that end of the table and help maintain order.”

Bowing, Rexei settled in to stand behind Saranei Grenfallow. The leader of the Actors Guild sighed and patted the bench next to her, shifting just enough to make room for Rexei to sit. Grateful, she sank onto the bench next to the older woman . . . who leaned in and murmured in her ear.

“Good job on fooling everyone that you’re a male, too,” the Guild Master said quietly while the grandmaster paused for a moment or two of quiet discussion among the audience members. “You might want to consider hiding your throat as you get older; men usually have an apple-lump there, while women do not.”

Since there wasn’t much she could say to that, Rexei merely dipped her head.

“The next piece of business is a petition by Guild Master Tall. You also said this one will pertain heavily to the discussion of Mekha’s removal and the fate of this kingdom as well?” Toric asked Alonnen.

“Yes, Grandmaster, although it is not actually my place to say. Master Longshanks has a presentation to make to all of us,” Alonnen stated.

Rexei wished she could shoot him a dirty look. She had just sat down, she was still a bit wobbly from the shock and the honor of her rise in rank—double rise, Gearman as well as Actor—and now he wanted her to leap straight into the heart of their problems? She wanted to scowl and stick out her tongue. But as every Gearman apprentice was taught, one did not act rudely within a Consulate meeting. Particularly when one sat at the head table. Sighing instead, she dug into her messenger bag, down past the wool, and pulled out her notes.

“I can now see why you chose to urge a higher rank onto the young man,” Grandmaster Toric stated dryly as she readied herself.

Alonnen shrugged, elbows braced on the table and hands clasped in front of his face. “I merely pointed out the extraordinary abilities which Longshanks has already displayed. Grand Master Grenfallow chose to enact the elevation under the standards and qualifications required by her guild.”

“Very well. Rise, Master Longshanks, and make your presentation.”

Catching the grandmaster’s nod, Rexei rose, a small sheaf of papers in her hands. She tried not to let them tremble visibly. A bow, and she began.

“Thank you for your attention, Guild Masters, grandmasters, masters, journeymen, and apprentices.” She paused, tightened her
gut to speak a little louder so that all could hear, and checked the opening statements she had painstakingly organized on the topmost page. And, since she was an actor, she let her voice sharpen a little with emotion as she began. “As you may know by now, Mekha, the long-burdensome False God of Mekhana, so-called Patron of Engineering, is now gone.

“We have received word that the Convocation of Gods and Man has indeed been reinstated, and with the visible removal of His symbols and His powers from our land, this means that the promises pledged to us by Knight-Priestess Orana Niel have come true. She has confronted the Dead God and presented our blood-signed petitions, gathered over the generations, to have Mekha removed from our land as a False Patron. His powers, ambitions, and accursed hungers shall plague us no more, which is a cause for rejoicing.

“However . . . this leaves us without a Patron God or Goddess . . . and in this new era of the Convocation, any kingdom that
lacks
a Patron Deity is now at a severe political, economical, and theological disadvantage. Should our neighboring lands decide they wish to invade us, we will have no Divine energies to lend to our militia in thwarting any would-be conquerors. We shall have no voice at the Convocation and no representatives. We will be
nothing
 . . . unless we select, as swiftly as possible, a
new
Patron Deity.

“I, therefore, wish to propose a new Patron
Goddess
to the people of . . . to the people of the Heias Precinct and to its nearest neighbors,” she allowed, stopping herself from saying the kingdom’s old name. She tipped her head respectfully toward the dozen or so Guild Masters summoned from cities within a few hours’ travel of Heias. “The sooner we can unite ourselves behind a common faith which we can
all
agree upon, the sooner we can claim Patronage, and the sooner we can re-create ourselves formally as a new kingdom and not a lawless land ripe for anyone to harvest.

“So. Will you hear the details of my proposal?” she asked, lifting her gaze to the others in the hall.

Conversations broke out all over the room. Since they were neither loud nor heated, the head of the local Consulate allowed them to continue for a minute or so before tapping his gavel. Rexei remained on her feet as the crowd of men and women fell quiet again. “Your words of warning have merit, though I doubt we will come to a vote within a single evening, young Master Longshanks. But we will hear your petition . . . and any others that may come along.”

“There really is only one choice, Grandmaster,” Rexei stated earnestly. On this ground, she felt secure and calm, not nervous. Turning to face the crowd on the pews and benches, she addressed them. “I ask all of you, what is our
true
strength in this land? Is it our weapons?
No
, for magic can and has thwarted them. They have kept us from losing more than an inch of our kingdom in decades, but neither have we gained more than an inch. Is it our militia?
No
, for the same reasons, having gained or lost nothing. Was it our engineering skills, our grasp of construction and machinery?

“No . . . and it
should not
be such things, because these things are
nothing
without the framework that has kept us strong and kept us safe in
spite
of Mekha’s accursed hunger. What kept
all
of us safe was not even the rule of law,” she added, looking down the table to the midpoint, where the formidable Precinct captain sat. Somewhere out in the audience was his leftenant, Alonnen’s brother, but she didn’t look toward Rogen. “It was the system that
enforced
those laws. The
guilds
kept all of us safe.

“The guilds have organized our crafts, proposed and ratified laws, even tended to the sick and the injured. Each guild is not just an organization that teaches certain skills; each guild is a
family
, bound by ties of expectation and regulation, not by mere blood. So I propose that we consider turning our thoughts and our faith and
our
strength
as a system of guilds into worshipping a force I have come to call Guildra, the Patron Goddess of Guilds.”

“A Goddess?” The question came from one of the men seated near her. She didn’t know his face or his name, but from the oval medallion he wore, he was the Guild Master of Clockworks. “Why a Goddess? Why not a God?”

“Forgive my bluntness, Guild Master,” Rexei apologized, “but the women of this kingdom are sick and tired of being forced into lesser status and rank under the thumb of a
male
God run by a
male
priesthood. We are all tired of the False God, and we need something completely different from everything that Mekha was and everything that He stood for. Which includes everything that His priesthood stood for—everything you saw for yourself when they arrogantly tried to come in here and claim their old right to force their will upon us. Do you really want to follow in
their
footsteps by forcing women to continue to take a subservient role, or would you rather women stand as an equal at your side, something
they
would not have put up with?”

The head of Clockworks shook his head, lowering his gaze.

“The Goddess I envision welcomes both genders equally into Her service,” Rexei explained. “More than that, Her priesthood should
not
be ranked higher than any other guild, but instead should be considered to be in the
service
of other guilds rather than be served by them. I propose that Her priesthood be drawn from women and men alike, so that everyone is represented equally. I propose that this new priesthood should also be like unto the Gearmen, in that anyone wishing to join should serve as an apprentice in at least three different guilds, so that Her priesthood
understands
the differences and the similarities in each and every guild.

“I do
not
propose that the Gearmen should become the new priesthood,” she added quickly, catching sight of Toric’s chest rising. She didn’t want him to interrupt. “Members of the Gearmen’s
Guild may be welcome to join—and they will certainly qualify—but no one should be forced to join. More importantly, the Gearmen already hold an important position, as adjudicators and arbiters of the law. That should not be changed.

“Instead, I propose that those who would become members of the new . . . the new Holy Guild, to label it as distinct and different from the old Priests Guild,” she added, since she hadn’t been able to come up with any better name for it, “those who wish to join should be required to
step down
from participation in the Consulate system, because while Gearmen have a proud tradition of serving more than one guild, priests should not have the right to rule over gatherings such as this.

“We have all had it up to
here
,” she added, hand rising to smack the back of her fingers into the bottom of her chin, “with Mekha’s priesthood
making
the laws. The Holy Guild should be no more important than the Actors Guild, or the Tillers, or the Cobblers and Cordwainers, who repair and make shoes—they should have
a
vote in a meeting like this but not
the
deciding vote. So I propose that the Holy Guild, and our Goddess, be very different from all that we used to know. We all deserve something completely different!”

Her words were having an impact, for more than one head bobbed in an agreeing nod. Many did, so she increased the fervor of her proposal, her argument.

“Our Goddess should be a gentle deity whose focus is the gathering of supplies, the drafting of designs, and the crafting of the things we need to live in peace and cooperation. We shouldn’t give up the pursuit of mechanical understanding, but we should turn our weapons of war into tools for construction,” Rexei stated fervently, putting into words more than what she had put onto paper. She put her belief, sprouted and nurtured over the eleven-plus years during which she had run from all the evil that Mekha and
His priesthood had inflicted upon her people. “Serving as an apprentice and a journeyman in numerous guilds, I have given the true nature of our culture many years of thought. I have even done my best to spread a
symbol
for this Goddess we need, so that we should have something to look forward to one day. And while I never thought to see this chance happen in
my
lifetime, this opportunity is upon us now.

“I’m sure you have all seen the symbol by now: The paintbrush, through which we design all that is best in our lives,” she recited, looking up often from her notes to make sure she caught the eyes of a woman here, a man there. “The hammer, with which we craft all that is useful. The scythe, through which we feed and supply ourselves. Each of these forms the spokes for a gearwheel. Even the gearwheel of our engineering achievements should be accepted and welcomed, for it is by the clockworks and the engines and the pistons and the whatevers that we have improved our magicless lives. Guildra shall be a Goddess of creation, not destruction. Guildra is a Goddess of cooperation, not deceit.

“Guildra is, therefore, a manifestation of everything the guilds
already
stand for: law, order, creation, innovation, cooperation, peace, and rankings based not upon our ambitions but upon our qualifications.
That
is who and what we deserve as our Patron,” she asserted, watching the sea of faces staring at her . . . and now staring past her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, but Rexei strove to continue. “We are
not
going to fall into lawlessness, because we have the Guild System in our blood and in our bones supporting these things, the ways and means of cooperation and organization.

“We don’t
have
to invent any new concept to gain a true Patron of this land. Let our Patron be the Patron of the Guilds, and let Guildra be the Goddess of a new land. Let Mekhana dissolve along with its False God, and let
Guildara
rise and take its rightful place
in the world. Guildara, which means the Land of the Guilds, overseen and guarded by Guildra, the Goddess of Guilds,” she finished, spreading her hands in the hopes of emphasizing her words enough to recapture her audience’s attention. “Because this is what we
are
and have always been, even when crushed under the will of the False God, Mekha.”

It didn’t work. They continued to stare past her shoulders, though all she could sense magically was a cool, clean feeling, like soaking hot, sore feet in a shaded, spring-fed pool in the summertime—refreshing not shocking. But there wasn’t supposed to be anyone behind her. Uneasy, Rexei turned and peered over her shoulder as well.