Did he . . . ? No, he couldn’t have been a mage. Not inside the temple itself! Definitely not under Mekha’s watchful, ever-hungering eye. Even when we had over half the cells full, Mekha was always subtly probing everyone, even us, trying to sup a little bit of magic from His own priesthood. He would have noticed if the boy was a mage! No . . . oh, no, no, no, Elcarei realized, eyes widening. He stepped into the relative dimness of the temple. Not the boy! That man, the one with the sharp nose. That one spoke of a Mages Guild with the kind of assurance that spoke of personal experience with it, and he was seated as an equal among Guild Masters. That was the head of the Mages’ Guild!
Mekha! If only I’d known!
Ignoring the novice who had accompanied him, Elcarei strode for the stairs and his office. The apprentice could wander off and hide somewhere if he wanted, to avoid the extra chores invoked by the dismissal of the Servers guildmembers. Elcarei had a lot of far more important thinking and planning to do.
Somehow they’ve found a way to block our best scrying spells . . . impudent bastards. But I heard enough to lure that boy into a trap. And given how thick-as-thieves the pair looked to be, if I lure the youth into a cage, the elder will no doubt come along in an attempt to set him free. Then I’ll have both a sacrifice for a demonic proto-God, and a mage to personally feed me.
And there’s nothing that says we cannot still drain mages for their energies . . . for surely any mage appointed to be Guild Master of the lot will be quite powerful, with plenty to share with us as well as whatever demon that Aian fellow might conjure.
It seemed this week was not going to be a complete disaster.
ELEVEN
“Come on . . . come on! Open the door, you stupid, lazy beasts,” Alonnen muttered.
Seated at the table brought into his office to serve as her temporary desk, Rexei glanced up only briefly. Her work drafting the Holy Guild Charter, outlining all the various tasks, levels of responsibility and so forth, was something he had insisted he should oversee. Yet the moment Pelai of Mendhi had sent him sheets of paper enchanted with scrying spells and instructions on how to fold them into useful, mobile shapes, he had abandoned that task for this new one.
Not that she could blame him. Spying on demon summoners was more important than figuring out how to worship a brand-new Goddess, particularly one Rexei hadn’t envisioned as impatient in any way. “They’re not going to open the service door to the temple just because you’re willing it from five-odd miles away.”
“Every day they take out the trash at this hour for the Recyclers Guild to collect,” he told her. “Rags and scraps of paper go to the Binders for adding into the paper pulp, metal scraps go to the Blacksmiths for sorting and re-smelting, and even scraps of food and paper rubbish gets handed over to the Tillers for compos—Ah! Aha!” Alonnen exclaimed as the gray-weathered door in question did indeed swing open.
Two novices lumbered out, laden with baskets. Looking around to make sure there weren’t any glaring, angry citizens nearby, the novices headed for the collection bins designated for compostables and non-compostables. Taking advantage of the open door, little paper bugs scuttled inside. The paper had been painted and enchanted with the lightest and least-detectable of illusion spells to look like the real thing. All but one got inside before the door could swing shut; the last one got a corner stuck in a crevice and was crumpled to death when the closing panel squished it flat.
That left nine instead of ten to do the spying work which Rexei was no longer able to perform for anyone. Not with the archbishop fully aware the “lad” was quite intelligent, and aware of what was happening inside the ex-temple. Thankfully, with the loss of Mekha, the shields and wardings on the temple had weakened. That meant Alonnen could now scry inside directly, albeit with a fuzzy view and no real hope of clear sound. On hearing that, Guardian-apprentice Pelai had suggested he could send in a whole series of clever, Mendhite-style scrying nodes.
Muttering under his breath at the loss of one of his paper spies, Alonnen focused on guiding the rest deeper into the temple. It required sliding the fingers of one hand over the crystalline tablet held in the other; each finger controlling a couple of bugs. They had a rudimentary sense of awareness built into their spell; all Alonnen had to do was guide them in a suggested direction. The rest they did for themselves as they climbed up walls, scurried along corners, and hid in the nearest cracks whenever someone came near, acting very much like the roaches they resembled.
“Which way is it to the dungeons, Rexei?” Alonnen called out. “I think I got turned around in here somewhere . . .”
Leaving her writing efforts behind, Rexei stood and crossed to the mirror. She had to frown and think. Without the original carvings on the walls, without the symbols of mighty Mekha conquering His enemies via piston and powder, engine and gear, it was hard to tell where the paper bugs were. Alonnen tapped through the different viewpoints available until she spotted a familiar pattern of two doors close together with a third offset just on the other side of the hall.
“Le—no, right,” she corrected herself. “Back up to the right; when you turn around, it’ll be on your left. That’s the door to the forbidden basement. Yes, that one there,” she confirmed as the bug currently showing the scrying view in the mirror scuttled toward the tall-by-comparison door.
There was just enough room underneath the thick, iron-reinforced wood for even the tallest of the paper roaches to crawl. Alonnen sent five that way. Someone was coming up the stairwell; he tucked them into the corners of the steps so that they wouldn’t be easily noticed, and tapped in an order on the controlling tablet to have them sit and wait.
Switching to the others, he quickly guided three of the remaining four to hide until the novice had passed, then sent them off to invade the higher-ranked priests’ studies, including the archbishop’s. The fourth, he guided all the way to the dining hall, where he had it climb up and tuck itself into a high corner, resulting in a pretty good view of the whole chamber.
Once those were positioned in high crevices, Alonnen went back to the first five, sending them scurrying down the remainder of the steps. Here, Rexei wasn’t quite as sure where to go, but that was alright; in the dungeons was where most of the temple’s masculine inhabitants were found. Specifically, in the chamber at the heart of the great circular corridors. All three levels had doors that led into the room, or rather, onto terraced levels that had once probably held crystals on pillars, but which now held scattered cushions and the occasional chair and writing desk.
Some of those seats were occupied, but at least half the gathered priesthood stood on the main floor, watching as the tall, brown-haired foreigner coaxed the gray-haired Bishop Koler through the steps of conjuring a demon.
“. . . don’t forget to include the name of the recipient of the energies in question—remember, students,” their erstwhile instructor stated, “if you use this energy for yourself directly and solely, you could end up tainting yourself with the madness of the Netherhells. Instead, offer it as a gift to your brethren, with the purity of that intention at heart.”