“My Guild cannot take them in. Literally, we have not the room; we have not the food; we have not the clothing, nor anything else. We are already overflowing with people we cannot care for . . . and as soon as this snowstorm is over, I am going to have to send them back to your guilds, which means you, all of you, each and every other Guild out there, will have to care for, clothe, feed, and assist them in learning how to pick up their lives again.”
That caused an even louder uproar than the debate over Rexei’s manifestation of the Goddess and abrupt Guild Mastery. The uproar was so loud, it took Grandmaster Toric several smacks of his gavel to get everyone to quiet down again. Alonnen seized their reluctant quiet to assert his reasons, rising to his feet as he did so. He spoke sternly, staring down the men and women across from him, and the men and women seated to either side of him.
“This is not negotiable! Heiastowne alone released one hundred fifty-three prisoners, and every other Precinct with a temple that released its prisoners wants to send them to my guild. We do not have the resources for that. More than that,” he stated, pulling out a sheet of paper from his coat. “More than that, I have here a document signed by our predecessor Guild Masters to acknowledge that all guildmembers of good standing, current or former, have the right to call upon every guild they ever served in for succor in times of great need, whether that’s one guild or twenty, whether it’s illness, injury, or whatever . . . and these men and women have been grievously injured.
“And of these prisoners who have been released?” Alonnen added tartly. “Of all of them that we’ve taken in so far, nearly a hundred that you’ve tried to foist off on me, when we have neither the room nor the supplies to care for them? Only three were actual, registered members of my guild. The rest were taken off the streets and out of their homes long before they could ever take refuge with my predecessors and me. The responsibility is yours, gentles.”
Another session of outbursts and counterarguments echoed off the walls. Rexei, tired, overwrought, and now angry, shoved to her feet and smacked her fist onto the table with a thunk. “Enough!” she roared, her high tenor cutting through the babble. “Breaking them up into small numbers and spreading them out across all the guilds means that each guild with a large member base only has to support three or four people—which your guilds can do easily—and each guild with a small membership, save for the tiniest, can equally easily handle one or two.
“You will not abandon your responsibilities to your fellow guildmembers, is that clear?” Rexei demanded. She thumped the table with her fist again. “You will not abandon your responsibilities. You are the guilds of this land. You are the power, and the responsibility, that has kept the False God’s priesthood in check. But even though the False God is now gone, you are still responsible for maintaining order, for abiding by your own charters!
“And if you try to refuse your rightful responsibilities, then to the Netherhells with you! You will not abandon these people, nor force one guild alone to take up the entire responsibility of helping these undoubted thousands of Mekha’s victims learn how to live again!” She glared out across the stunned, silent crowd, then turned her furious stare on the Guild Masters seated elbow to elbow along the length of the curved table. “Because if that’s how you feel, then take off your guild medallions and get out, right now! Get out of this land! You don’t deserve to live here! Get out!”
Her other hand jabbed hard at the main doors into the meeting hall, the ones that led straight to the front doors of the Consulate building and the snow outside. No one moved, and no one spoke. She lowered her arm, giving everyone a hard look.
“Since you’re one and all sitting there instead of leaving,” Alonnen stated in the silence that followed her words, “I’ll take that as unanimous consent that each and every guild will accept responsibility for however many ex-prisoner mages they can handle. As I said, my guild literally does not have the resources to host more than a bare handful, so the remainder will be sent back to Heiastowne and its guilds . . . and by your unanimous consent, you will all send word, particularly the Guild Masters, that it has been decided that all other towns shall retain and care for their own mage-prisoner populations, and protect them from the ex-priesthood still in our midst.”
Rexei sat down as he spoke, leaving him to hold the floor, but he was not uncontested. One voice did speak up.
“You may have shamed them into silence, Guild Master Tall, but the two of you cannot unilaterally make that kind of decision for the entire span of Mekhana . . . even if Mekha is gone,” Captain Torhammer stated. “I will continue to uphold the laws of this land for as long as I remain a Precinct captain. These contracts may be valid, but the scale of responsibility is far greater than anything we have ever seen as a nation, and the corresponding impact will be as great. The law states that any decision which affects the entire kingdom requires a quorum vote, the minimum for which is twenty Guild Masters. Even if we include Toric as a Grandmaster-ranked Gearman and myself as a Precinct captain, both of which do have full quorum-level votes at our ranks . . . we still have only nineteen assembled in this hall.”
“Then I move that we vote to acknowledge Master Longshanks as Guild Master of the incipient Holy Guild.” The man who spoke up had not said much, if anything, before now. Rexei had to squint to see the symbol on the Guild Master’s medallion. It took her a few moments to realize it was a lute crossed with a flute, the mark of the Luthiers Guild, instrument makers.
Toric quickly smacked his gavel, cutting off the start of the next round of conversational chaos. “Order! Be seated and be silent. This proposal is valid and fair. Incipient guilds have one year and one day to prove themselves, up to and including gathering a sufficient body of apprentices to learn the specific craft of that new guild.
“Since we have acknowledged that the Goddess Guildra did manifest in conjunction with Longshanks’ expressed beliefs in Her, and given we all witnessed Her giving Longshanks a Guild Master medallion, we shall take it as moot that She wishes Longshanks to be the Guild Master of Her Holy Guild. Whether or not She will be our Patron Goddess, and thus whether Longshanks shall be the permanent Guild Master of the new priestly order within the borders of our land, is a discussion for another day.
“We are restricted to voting to see if Master Rexei Longshanks will be acknowledged among us as the Guild Master of the Holy Guild, its incipiency to begin today. Guild Masters, grandmasters, and masters, if you are in favor of acknowledging Rexei Longshanks as Guild Master of the Holy Guild, raise your hands now.”
A forest of arms lifted into the air. Some shot up immediately, while others rose at a slower rate. Rexei couldn’t count them all from where she was seated, but it looked like she had a majority vote in her favor at both the head table and among the first five rows of the pews.