The Guild

Praise for Jean Johnson and the Sons of Destiny Novels

“Jean Johnson’s writing is fabulously fresh, thoroughly romantic, and wildly entertaining. Terrific—fast, sexy, charming, and utterly engaging. I loved it!”

—Jayne Ann Krentz,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Cursed brothers, fated mates, prophecies, yum! A fresh new voice in fantasy romance, Jean Johnson spins an intriguing tale of destiny and magic.”

—Robin D. Owens, RITA Award–winning author

“What a debut! I have to say it is a must-read for those who enjoy fantasy and romance . . . Jean Johnson can’t write them fast enough for me!”

—
The Best Reviews

“A paranormal adventure series that will appeal to fantasy and historical fans, plus time-travel lovers as well . . . It’s like
Alice in Wonderland
meets the Knights of the Round Table and you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next. Delightful entertainment.”

—
Romance Junkies

“An intriguing new fantasy romance series . . . Cunning . . . Creative . . . Lovers of magic and fantasy will enjoy this fun, fresh, and very romantic offering.”

—
Time Travel Romance Writers

“A must-read.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“An intriguing world . . . An enjoyable showcase for an inventive new author. Jean Johnson brings a welcome voice to the romance genre.”

—
The Romance Reader

“An intriguing and entertaining tale of another dimension . . . Quite entertaining.”

—
Fresh Fiction

SHIFTING PLAINS

BEDTIME STORIES

FINDING DESTINY

THE SHIFTER

The Sons of Destiny

THE SWORD

THE WOLF

THE MASTER

THE SONG

THE CAT

THE STORM

THE FLAME

THE MAGE

The Guardians of Destiny

THE TOWER

THE GROVE

THE GUILD

Theirs Not to Reason Why

A SOLDIER’S DUTY

AN OFFICER’S DUTY

HELLFIRE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

Copyright © 2014 by Jean Johnson.

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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-59199-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Johnson, Jean, 1972–

The Guild / Jean Johnson.—Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition.

pages cm.—(Guardians of Destiny ; 3)

ISBN 978-0-425-26226-9 (paperback)

I. Title.

PS3610.O355G85 2014

813'.6—dc23            2013051059

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / May 2014

Cover art by Don Sipley.

Cover design by George Long.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cult’s awareness, it shall rise:

Hidden people, gather now;

Fight the demons, fight your doubt.

Gearman’s strength shall then endow,

When Guilds’ defender casts them out.

I
f it weren’t for the way the silvery web covering his jaw prevented him from casting spells, Torven Shel Von would have immediately freed himself and transformed his captors into little insects, the kind that were easily squished.

It wasn’t possible, though. He couldn’t even curse them verbally, let alone magically. The silencing web spell had been applied thickly enough to prevent even plain speech, though the captured mage knew there was an intermediary version that allowed the one while still cutting off the other. Strapped onto a table while fighting off the effects of what felt like a long-applied sleep spell, he could only breathe. That, and contemplate two important things.

One, he
was
going to get free and kill whoever had betrayed
him and the Healer strapped to the other table in this dark, unpleasant, heavily carved chamber. And two . . . he was going to need a refreshing room soon. There might be some vengeance to be found in relieving himself straight into the faces of his captors, but they had yet to remove his clothing. The fact that they hadn’t was a mixed blessing; it was late winter, and the low-burning braziers in the four corners of the room weren’t doing much to either heat or light the place, so at least his clothes were keeping him warm. But oh, how he wanted vengeance.

The sounds of someone approaching turned his head to the side, toward the door. A slender figure entered the chamber, dressed in a dark brown, lumpy-woven tunic with a black, felted cap pulled low over his head. The youth lugged something up to the first brazier, set it down, then furtively looked at the door and approached the still-unconscious Crastus. Fishing a strip of something out of the pouch hung at the front of his belt—knitting, that was what the lumpy fabric was, Torven realized—the knitting-clad, knitting-carrying lad laid it across the Healer’s brow.

More bodies approached. The youth quickly snatched the piece of intricately knitted yarn off the Healer-mage’s forehead and stuffed it into his sleeve, then realized Torven was watching him. The youth gave the mage an impudent stare and returned to the brazier. Torven couldn’t even ask him what that was all about; his mouth was still bound by the enspelled webbing.

Two figures, dressed in high-quality velvet robes embroidered with symbols of gears and esoteric runes, entered the chamber. The stone walls of this place were a dull shade of gray, and the robes were rich dark reds and purples, but the carvings and the embroidery matched. Priests of Mekha, God of Engineering and Patron Deity of Mekhana, making this a temple to Mekha.

May He rot in Heaven
.

Torven had learned what to look for, or rather, what to look out
for, regarding this particular deity. It had long been known in Arbra that the fate of mages caught by the priesthood of this land was an ugly thing, and the natives there had warned him and the others in his group. To have one’s magic, one’s essential superiority over all common souls, siphoned and stolen away without consent was an ugly theft. But the fact that he and Crastus alone had been taken captive and brought here while their whole group had slept in a barn set with warding spells meant someone had betrayed the two of them.

Perhaps it was the Arbran farmer who owned the barn and whose permission they hadn’t sought since it had been snowing, though most Arbrans hated Mekhanans with a passion. The farmer would have been able to penetrate the subtle shields Torven had laid on the structure, since it was his property and Torven hadn’t intended to block out the owner. But perhaps—and more likely—it had been one of the others. That lock picker, Unsial, was at the top of his list. She’d trade her own grandmother for a bag of gold, in his view. Not that he’d seen her do so literally, but she had that kind of attitude about her.

Possibly Barric and Kellida.
Those two had been getting rather chummy
, Torven recalled, watching the priests warily. He couldn’t disguise the fact he was still awake, but he could watch them as they first looked over him and the Healer, then eyed the boy working to refuel the braziers with black lumps. Coal, Torven realized.
Oh, I have a spell or two I could use on those braziers that could damage this lot . . . but this stupid web spell is blocking even the most basic and intrinsic of cantrips from working. And somehow I doubt they’re going to wait to deal with me long enough for the webbing to dry up and crumble. If they were going to wait that long, they’d have used anti-magic shackles.

The taller of the two priests leaned over Torven. Unlike the other, who was short, rotund, and had solidly gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard to match, this fellow had a smooth, shaved head
and a white-streaked dark brown beard a full handspan in length. He reached down and pried one of the mage’s eyes wider, and lifted his brows when Torven angrily pulled his head free. “Don’t bother resisting, foreigner. Your magics are very strong, but we are
very
good at holding your kind captive . . . and you’ll do very well to feed His hunger, praise Mekha.”

“Don’t bother, Hansu,” the other priest stated, busy examining the still-unconscious Crastus. “He probably doesn’t speak a word of Mekhanan. Remember, they were picked up within Arbra, may He smite the Tree Slut’s lands,” the shorter man stated in a bored tone that suggested it was nothing more than rote repetition to say such things.

Actually, Torven did know the local tongue. In his youth he had run across a description of how to craft Ultra Tongue and had stolen the tiny supply of
myjiin
powder available at the academy where he had trained. That had eventually been uncovered, and he had been forced to flee and give himself a new name so he could start over at a different school . . . with some funds liberated from the previous one during his flight. It wasn’t the first time he had had to flee a bad situation.
The trick is to make sure
this
situation isn’t my last one. But in order to do that, I need to talk! I can convince people to give me the gold rings off their fingers if I can only talk.

He had to settle for meeting the first priest’s gaze, then rolling his eyes away in expressive, bored dismissal. Hansu frowned, then quirked a brow. “What, you understand Mekhanan?”

Torven raked his gaze over the man’s bearded face and bald head, then nodded curtly. He returned his gaze to the ceiling as if the other man’s presence were trivial.

“You aren’t the least bit scared of your surroundings?” Hansu asked.

Deigning to glance at him, Torven shook his head. The priest
snorted. He stroked his beard, pressing it against his velvet-clad throat as he leaned over the Aian mage.

“Clearly, you don’t understand what danger you are in. If you did, you’d be begging me for death.”

Oh, I know what danger I am in
, Torven acknowledged silently. But he gave the priest a pitying look and shook his head slowly.

“What, does he think he knows something we don’t?” the other priest scoffed.

Torven nodded curtly, then relaxed back against the table or altar or whatever they had him pinned to, as if whatever happened next didn’t concern him in the least. He had a plan, based on a question that had been bothering him ever since being exiled by that short little bastard who dared call himself Master of the Tower. A question of why the God Mekha had to rely upon draining mere mages for power when there were far better sources available.

“I doubt it,” Hansu muttered.

His companion glared at the youth. “Aren’t you done building up the fires, you lackwit?”

“Sorry, sir,” the boy mumbled in a light tenor. “Gotta git more coal.” He lugged the empty pail out of the room, head ducked in a servile hunch.

“If he had a lick of magic, I’d have plugged him into the God ages ago. That’s all the little fart is good for.”

“That’s all any of them are good for,” Hansu agreed. “The Servers Guild takes in the idiots and foists the worst of them on us, but the magicless are of no use. Still, as long as they’re in a guild,
we
don’t have to feed and clothe them.”

“Heh, or train them. Remember the temple in Bordastowne?” the other priest chuckled. “They thought they could make things cheaper by hiring non-guild orphans. Burned food, stained robes,
dust in the corners . . . The archbishop there finally agreed to hire from the Servers Guild again. I’ll admit the boy is slow and stupid, but he does the job thoroughly.”

Torven rolled his eyes again.
If only I could speak! They’re wasting my time with these trivialities.
The taller priest caught that eye twitch. He stroked his beard, then placed his hand over Torven’s mouth and muttered something. From the tingle of magic, the Aian mage guessed something had changed, though the web didn’t vanish. His guess was confirmed in the next breath.

“I’ve given you the power to speak normally, though you still will not be able to spellcast, mage,” Hansu told him. He poked Torven in the chest with one bony finger. “If you think you have something to tell us to get you out of your predicament, now is your chance to try . . . and I do mean
try.
It would have to be of miraculous proportions to avert your fate. Mekha hungers, and you’re next on His plate.”

“A fat, juicy pig like that should have an apple in his mouth,” the other priest muttered. “And should
not
be allowed to squeal.”

Listening to them muttering, Torven suppressed an impatient sigh. Instead, he asked pointedly, “
Why
are you wasting your time siphoning magical energy from mages?”

“Because our God demands it, you fool! Or have those Arbran lackwits you were dallying with not explained it to you?” Hansu scorned.

If Torven had believed in any one particular God, he would have prayed for patience. As it was, he saw Them as nothing more than leeches on the rights of mortal man. Glaring at the bald-pated priest, he clarified himself, using crisp, biting syllables because he didn’t have much patience for idiots. “Not
that
, you imbecile. Why are you piddling around with mages when there are far greater sources of power available for your God?”

Hansu scowled at him, and the unnamed gray-haired priest
moved over to frown down at the captive Aian as well. “What do you mean?” Hansu demanded. “There are no other sources! Gods get their powers from mortals, which means the energies
must
come from mortal mages!”

He rolled his eyes. “Gods spare me from the uneducated,” Torven muttered. Raising his voice, he countered the older man’s arguments. “There are singularity points, commonly called Fountains, which spew masses of energy into the world. Get your hands on one of
those
, and you can make Mekha a God of Gods.”

“We’re not ignorant of such things,” the other priest snapped. “We have none of those within Mekhana’s borders, and our neighbors fight with such ferocity, we cannot gain more than a finger length of land in a generation! Your advice is as useless as
you
are. Only your magic is of any value. For as long as it lasts.”

“It is not the
only
source of vast power, though it is the easiest, which is why I suggested it first,” Torven countered. “If Mekha is a God, then summon up and enslave a demon to Him! The underprinces of the Netherhells have almost as much power as a Fountain—and you can enslave a whole host of the lesser kind to equal that kind of power with a minimum of risk. It’s actually easier to summon and bind a demon than to find a Fountain. The only trick lies in binding it thoroughly
and
in knowing how to tap into whatever passes for its life-energy.”

Hansu scoffed, folding his velvet-robed arms across his chest. “And I suppose
you
just happen to know how to do this demonic energy stealing?”

“Of course I do. I’ve made it my life’s work to study how to gain vast power in numerous ways.” He knew they didn’t believe him, could see it in their eyes, but Torven wasn’t lying. “Bring me a Truth Stone, and you’ll see the pure white of my words for yourselves.”

Hansu looked at the other fellow, who sighed and dug into his
robes. The gray-haired priest pulled out a white marble disc and pressed it into Torven’s hand. “I’m sure you know how they work, foreigner. First a lie, and then a truth.”

“I am in love with you,” Torven stated.

He uncurled his fingers, but the angle at which he was pinned to the altar didn’t allow him to see what color the marble was. From their satisfied looks, the cold stone had been striped in black wherever his flesh had touched it. Waiting a few seconds to let the marks fade, the Aian mage gripped it again.

“I am Torven, a mage of great power and greater knowledge, and I hold the secrets of how to summon, bind, and drain a demon of its magical energies. Mind you, this is a dark form of magic, almost as bad as blood magic,” he warned them, pausing to flex his fingers a couple times to show he spoke the truth, “but since you’re already stealing life-energies from your own citizens, which is a worse ‘sin,’ I sincerely doubt you’ll quibble at using a demon’s energies.”