Professor T’mos, looking outraged, spoke in the firm tones of a teacher admonishing a recalcitrant student. “Mari, you must cease this immediately. You can’t get away with it. If you throw yourself on the mercy of the Guild—”
Mari felt a surge of anger. She held up one hand, palm out, her expression so foreboding that even someone as self-assured as T’mos stopped in mid-sentence. “I’ve learned all about the mercy of the Guild and the gratitude of the Guild and the morals of the Guild. The Guild that disregarded my loyalty and used me as bait against Ringhmon, hoping that commons would kill me. The Guild that tried to murder me by sending me to Tiae. The Guild who beat me and threatened to turn me over to the Emperor’s tender mercies. The Guild whose assassins I barely escaped in Altis. And of course the Guild that has systematically lied about so much to everyone on Dematr for centuries. The Guild was built on a foundation of lies. That flawed foundation is finally cracking. The Mechanics Guild will fall, and anyone who continues to back it will fall with it.”
“The Guild fall?” another Senior Mechanic blurted out. “You’re insane, girl! Just as the Guild has warned us! Absolutely insane! The Guild has always been here and always will be!”
Mari shook her head. “No. The Guild’s days are numbered. I have no wish for bloodshed, unlike the Senior Mechanics who keep trying to kill me, but I will break the hold of the Mechanics Guild on this world. Believe it or not, I’m doing you a favor. If the Guild succeeded in keeping Dematr in chains, that victory would last a very short time before the commons finally rose and drowned everything in blood and fire.” She didn’t think these Senior Mechanics could be convinced, didn’t think they would believe her or join her, but they would report what was said, and many eyes would see those reports. Some of those eyes might become future allies.
“How would you know such a thing?” Senior Mechanic Tam asked contemptuously.
“The Mages have seen it—”
“Mages!”
“And I would say that any fool who walks among the commons can feel it, but you obviously haven’t.” Mari paused while Tam purpled with rage. “This world will be free. Mechanics will be free as well, and everything you have tried to control will slip through your fingers.”
“Nothing will change except that you will die,” another Senior Mechanic said in a very cold voice. “And your lies will die with you.”
Mari managed to smile despite the tightness in her gut at the threat. “I don’t think so. Things are already in motion that will survive even if I don’t. I have a job to do, and I’m going to see it done.”
Some others had entered the room behind Mari, and she turned to see Bev standing close by. Bev had her eyes fixed on the row of Senior Mechanics, her face rigid.
She brought the barrel of her rifle up and started walking toward the captives. Mari almost flung out a hand to stop her, but Alain shook his head. “She must handle this,” he said in a very low voice.
“What’s going on?” S’san whispered to Mari.
“I don’t know exactly. I assume it has something to do with when Bev was an Apprentice at Emdin,” Mari whispered back.
“Blazes! What is she going to do?”
Mari looked at Alain again. “She must know she has the power to shape her world,” Alain said.
Her rifle in a ready position, Bev halted directly in front of one of the Senior Mechanics, a man Mari didn’t recognize. Nobody was saying anything, the silence almost oppressive.
Finally Bev spoke, her voice sounding almost as dead as a Mage’s. “Senior Mechanic Sodo.”
Sodo, a man of average height and a bit too much weight, stared back at her wordlessly, his terrified eyes going from the barrel of the rifle to Bev’s face and back again. The Senior Mechanics next to him were edging away, plainly almost as frightened as Sodo.
“Aren’t you happy to see me again, Senior Mechanic Sodo?” Bev asked in that same emotionless voice. “Aren’t you?”
With shocking suddenness, Bev swung the butt of the rifle around and forward, slamming it into Sodo’s groin. The Senior Mechanic gasped in pain, his legs giving way.
“Aren’t you?” Bev demanded, her voice finally tinged with rage. She brought the rifle barrel forward again and jammed it against Sodo’s teeth, forcing the Senior Mechanic’s head back against the wall and preventing him from falling to his knees.
One of the Mechanics standing next to Mari looked to her for guidance, his face anxious, but Mari just shook her head and made a restraining gesture. From what Alain had said and the little Mari knew of the events at Emdin, she understood what was going on. “Mechanic Bev decides how this ends.”
Bev paused as she heard Mari’s words, then leaned in closer to Sodo, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you have anything to say, Senior Mechanic Sodo? No lectures on an Apprentice’s duty to the Guild? No instructions on the importance of an Apprentice doing anything that she is ordered to do? No threats of what might happen if an Apprentice spoke out of turn? Now you have nothing to say, Senior Mechanic Sodo?” She jabbed with the rifle barrel, drawing a grunt of pain from Sodo and a trickle of blood from his lips and gums.
“How does it feel, Senior Mechanic Sodo? How does it feel to know that I can do whatever I want to do to you? How does it feel to be helpless?” Bev’s lips drew back in a snarling smile. “But you know what, Senior Mechanic Sodo? Not only are you a sorry excuse for a Mechanic, not only are you a sorry, pitiful, and pathetic excuse for a man, but you’re also a lousy teacher. Lucky for you, because if I had become what you tried to make me, you’d be dead.”
Bev jerked her rifle away, letting Sodo drop to his knees as he grabbed at his mouth in agony. “Listen to me very closely, Senior Mechanic Sodo. You’re going to live this time, because I won’t let what you did to me destroy me. But if you ever, ever hurt anyone else, I will find you. You will never know what door I might be behind, what corner I might be waiting around, with a pistol and a knife, to ensure that you die a slower and more painful death than you can possibly imagine. Do you understand, Senior Mechanic Sodo?”
Sodo nodded frantically, and Bev turned away, walking back to Mari, leaving the Senior Mechanic on his knees.
Bev reached Mari and nodded to her, breathing deeply and looking oddly relieved. “Thanks, Mari. Thank you, Mage Alain. I’m good now.”
Mari reached up to squeeze her shoulder. “We trust you.”
Bev put her own hand over Mari’s. “More importantly, you just showed everyone that you trust me. Do you want me to beat up anyone else?”
Mari couldn’t help glancing at Professor T’mos, who was staring at Sodo in shock, but she shook her head. This was… too pleasant. Getting revenge, being in control, scaring people who couldn’t fight back… She saw an ugly path ahead, a path that would lead to her becoming like the Senior Mechanics she now faced. Unless starting right now she made a major effort to turn her course in another direction. “Once we’ve taken all that we need from this Guild Hall,” Mari told the Senior Mechanics, forcing her voice to sound in control but not threatening, “we’ll leave. No one will be harmed if I can help it. I am truly sorry it came to this. I don’t want bloodshed, I don’t want fighting. If the Guild leaves me alone, I won’t attack any more Guild Halls. If the Guild attacks me, then all bets are off. Tell the Guild’s leaders that. They have a choice.”
“More lies! You’ll hang in Palandur when your lunacy and pride take you back there!” shouted another of the Senior Mechanics. “You’re a traitorous slave of the Mages, you filthy—” His voice broke off as his face suddenly flushed red and sweat sprang out on his forehead. The Senior Mechanic seemed to have trouble breathing for a moment, staggering back against the wall.