"I… I tried, Lord Mage…"
"Look at you now, blubbing like a baby at my great kindness in trying to correct your bumbling errors! My patience is not inexhaustible, Afelnor. If you do not apply yourself more than you have, the scullery awaits you.
"I advise you to think clearly as to where your true vocation lies. Oh, go on, go back to your cell and wallow in self-pity, you useless object. Go away! I have had enough of you for one day."
So it went on.
Crohn sat in the presence of Lord Thorn, disconsolate and tired. Despite his proud boast to the Prelate all those months before, he knew he was getting too old for his role as the enforcer of Grimm's cruel Ordeal.
"How is the boy, Afelnor, coping with his Ordeal?" Thorn asked without the slightest trace of compassion on his face.
"It has been nearly six months now, Lord Prelate. It cannot last for much longer. I have no idea what it is that keeps the boy going."
"Well, let us hope for all our sakes that Afelnor breaks soon," the Prelate said, as if expressing a hope that a period of rainy weather might end soon.
"Not the least for my sake, Guildmaster. I lack the taste for this scientific sadism, applied to a blameless and intelligent youth. Another month of this, and I shall have to stop before I lose my own mind. I cannot bear to visit this treatment on the boy for much longer, whatever the justification for his treatment."
Crohn wiped his brow, his hand trembling. "I cannot find it in my heart to approve of this treatment, whatever the justification. He works so hard, and so well, to gain my least compliment but, instead of praise, I continue to push him until he makes the tiniest mistake, at which point I excoriate him without mercy. This, I must remind you, has been your counsel, Lord Prelate."
"None of us likes this," Thorn said, waving a hand as if shooing away an irritating fly. "Remember that I went through much the same experience many years ago, but it made a Questor of me. Most Readers take decades to reach their full potential, and old men are in no condition to undertake arduous Quests for the House. A Questor is a rare bird, and he can mature in a matter of years. That makes him valuable to the House and the Guild."
"I do not believe Afelnor can take another month of this, Lord Prelate. I seem to remember that your own Ordeal was finished in three months, and that even you were close to madness by the end. That Afelnor yet endures is a testament to phenomenal self-control, and yet I see the spectre of insanity hanging over him like some carrion bird.
"It hurts me so much that I have taught him to enhance his control and am now stripping that away with every arbitrary decree I make. One moment, I berate him for doing something, the next for omitting it, so that even I lose track of what my current orders are.
"We may be making a monster or a gibbering fool of this good-natured, intelligent and talented boy, and that is our shame. We have taken away his friends and made all others his enemies. Should this all prove in vain, I could not in conscience say I felt the risk was worthwhile. Also, should he break out whilst deranged, and prove capable of harnessing his entire stock of power, the danger to us all could be considerable. I have never seen so much energy in one so young. Not even in you, Lord Prelate."
Crohn crossed his arms in an attitude as defiant as protocol allowed. Long moments of silence passed, and even Thorn's steely, Questor's gaze lacked the power to make the Senior Magemaster look away.
"Very well, Crohn. One more week, and then we will move on."
"You will call a halt to the Ordeal, Guildmaster?" Crohn asked, his heart filling with hope.
"No," Thorn replied, a half-smile etched on his face, "but I shall appoint another as his mentor: perhaps Faffel. I cannot afford to lose a good Mage Manipulant and another Senior Magemaster."
Crohn felt blood rushing into his face as he regarded the casual, callous expression on Thorn's face. His grip tightened on his Mage Staff, and he yearned to smash its head between the Prelate's eyes. Nonetheless, Crohn was a Guild man first and foremost; it was not for him to dictate or judge House policy.
"Very well, Lord Prelate," he said. "But the responsibility for whatever happens to this decent, intelligent, diligent boy will be yours. And mine, may the Names forgive me."
Crohn wanted to scream at Thorn, to damn him to the deepest pit of oblivion, but his respect for the House held him back. The Prelate was the embodiment of the House he loved: Thorn was the House! He felt so confused in his roiling, warring emotions that he left Thorn's office without bowing.
Grimm sat miserably in the recreation yard imagining the black smoke boiling off him, rolling in a turbid, heavy mass over the ground. One minute blended indistinguishably into another and he muttered short, odd phrases to himself as his head lolled and nodded on his shoulders. A dull, leaden ache filled his body, and undirected energies and emotions made him feel as if he was about to burst. A part of him wanted to be somewhere else-anywhere else-but he could not find the motivation to persuade his legs or arms to move.
Two figures began to move towards him, and he hunched deeper into his robes, hoping they would pass him by. The larger of the two boys was Shumal Tolarin, now a burly, muscular youth, and Grimm regarded his nemesis with a weary resignation. It was a wonder that Shumal had lasted in the Scholasticate as long as he had, thought Grimm.
The other boy was his ever-present and waspish hanger-on, Ruvin, who always took the lead from his larger friend.
"Well, if it isn't the pauper traitor's bastard," Shumal said with satisfaction and malice. "You see, Ruvin, he thinks he's too good to play ball with the rest of us."
He seemed to be waiting for some response from Grimm, but none came. Grimm continued to sit with his head bowed.
"I'm talking to you, guttersnipe!" Shumal snapped.
Grimm dragged himself into the real world and raised his head a little to look into the larger boy's burning, hate-filled eyes.
"Shumal, can't you just leave me alone?" he mumbled. Even moving his lips and tongue seemed difficult, and it felt as if his lungs and chest were as unyielding and heavy as granite or lead. "You don't want me to play with you, anyway."
"Man alive, that's true enough!" Shumal cried, and Ruvin gave a high-pitched cackle in response. "The great mage himself! Go on, pauper; turn Crohn into a frog. Or even better, make yourself disappear."
Shumal flicked Grimm on the nose with a finger, and the pain seemed out of all proportion to the assault, blooming into a tiny, hot, screaming agony.
A figure appeared at Grimm's side: it looked like Madar. "Tolarin, why don't you just pick on somebody of your own quality? I think I saw the like floating down the sewer last night."
Grimm forced his mouth to move. "Madar, don't, please. You'll only make things worse." A part of him dimly recognised that he had broken another of Crohn's innumerable rules just by talking to his friend. However, one punishment seemed much like another these days.
Shumal was not one to let an insult go unanswered. He half turned his back on Madar and then lashed out with a leather-booted foot to catapult Grimm's friend into the wall with a loud thump. Madar was no coward, and he flew at Shumal, his fists flailing.
Grimm staggered to his feet, trying to interpose himself between the two. He was rewarded with a solid punch on the ear from Shumal that made his head spin. A trip from Ruvin made him fall heavily to the ground, knocking the wind from him. More pain, although it hardly seemed important now.
"Relax, peasant, I'll get round to you soon enough," Shumal sneered, seemingly impervious to Madar's blows, "right after I've dealt with your hot-headed friend, Gaheela."
Madar felled Ruvin with a good blow to the smaller bully's stomach. As he spun to face Shumal, he received a blow on the point of his jaw that snapped his head back with a loud clicking sound. His eyes turned skyward; he collapsed to the ground and lay still. As he lay there, unconscious, Shumal kicked him in the ribs with brutal force.