family, who’d loved him more than his real family had ever done.
Which is why Eneko’s next words came like knives in the dark.
“Petri, come here.”
Bakar nodded as though this was the only outcome that could ever have been, and waved Petri over using the pipe contraption.
Petri didn’t move. He couldn’t move. All around him duellists muttered under their breath, but the sergeant-at-arms shut them up, though she didn’t look as though she liked it any better than they did.
“Petri!” Eneko’s voice sounded odd, stretched, but it got Petri moving, along with a prod in the back from someone – the sergeant, he thought.
He stood between Bakar and Eneko, his head whirling. What was Eneko doing? Wasn’t he going to fight for the guild?
“Do I have your assurance that the guild will stand?” Eneko said to Bakar.
Bakar shrugged. “I suppose we can make use of you. There’ll be changes, of course. More taxes and more control. None of your more, ahem, irregular activities, which we will discuss at great length at a later date. But the guild will stay. We can haggle on the details later, but rest assured you will be brought to heel. Maybe we can give you a looser leash once I’m sure you’ll behave.”
“But—” Petri began.
“Your sword,” Eneko snapped, “and your tabard.”
He didn’t give them up; they had to take them, rip the sword from his hand, the tabard from his back. With them went every fragile certainty in Petri’s life. He felt awkward without the weight of the sword at his side, naked without the guild colours covering him. Bakar planted a hand on his shoulder and turned him. Petri looked back at Eneko, saw him blank and implacable.
“Why?” was all Petri could think to say.
Eneko shifted as though guilt was stirring in him, but his voice was hard and cold. “You’re the price.”
A master surged forward from behind Eneko, sword out, driving for them. Petri never did work out what he was trying to do, whether to attack Bakar, pull Petri back into the guild or somehow try to take on the whole crowd. Bakar didn’t hesitate a second but raised the pipe contraption and pulled a lever. The noise was tremendous, deafening Petri. When he could hear again, the master was on the floor with blood leaking from him, and the contraption was pointed at Eneko.
“I will shoot you, if I have to,” Bakar said. “And if I do, your guild will be the first thing I take down, piece by piece, stone by stone. Your masters will work for me or die.”
Eneko ground his teeth, twitched his hand on his sword and cast a glance over his shoulder at the masters waiting for his command, for the chance to draw their swords. Do what seems good to you, that’s what he always said, the motto of the guild, but here on their land he was the voice of the guild. He chose, for good or ill, how the guild would respond.
One last glare at Petri as though this was all his fault, another look at his masters, and he turned on his heel, put up his sword and bellowed, “You heard the man!”
Things grew dim after that. Men and women swirled around him; the guild gates were shut for the first time Petri could ever recall, and Bakar pulled him across the bridge to the reborn god.
“How does it feel,” Bakar said softly in his ear, “to be betrayed by a person you looked to as a father? To be used to buy the guild’s safety? Is it a consolation that this is the only way your life could turn out? That you were destined to come with me?”
The words seemed to swim in front of Petri’s eyes. “Destined? That’s—”
“Predetermined then. Everything is clear to one who can see the clockwork behind the world. The world is as it is, and can be no other way, and neither can we be other than the clockwork makes us. Past, future, present: all run like clockwork and our paths are decided for us. It is written in that clockwork for you to come with me, and to become mine not Eneko’s. Do you want to stay with a man who’d sell you out so easily? It was written that I would start this.” He raised his voice so that the whole crowd could hear. “Written that we will all overthrow the king. The clockwork behind the world is clear.”