Grimm's jaw worked but no sound came out, as rage and hatred surged within him. His eyes bulged, and he felt his face suffusing with blood.
Shumal turned to him with another confident sneer, but this faded, and his face grew pale. Grimm laughed; a high-pitched sound with hysteria rising within it. He was invincible, and he would not be denied!
He walked towards the two bullies with both arms outstretched, laughing again with even greater intensity as they stumbled backwards.
I am strength. I am power. These two objects are nothing, nothing!
As his two enemies backed away from him with nervous entreaties, he cried "Boo!"
So much pain. So much hurt. When they die, it will all end. They will die; Shumal, Ruvin, Crohn… all of them.
As if from far away, Grimm heard a scream, a long, keening note which grew higher and higher in pitch and went on for an impossibly long time.
"He's gone crazy!" Ruvin cried, as Grimm's long scream grew louder and louder. The other boys in the yard all stopped to turn and stare at Grimm; he did not care. He vaguely registered the dark figure of Crohn, hurtling across the yard at a speed belying his age, but the old man was too slow.
He cannot deny me my righteous wrath, he thought, as he felt the power building within him and the shriek rose even higher in pitch and volume.
When it seemed that the cry could get no louder, a huge bellow arose from the depths of Grimm's throat, a strange incantation he had never been taught by Crohn: "Ah'hachana sk'redye shareet!"
Ruvin flew backwards through the air, propelled by an invisible hand, to fall to the ground twenty feet away with a heavy thump. He lay still, and Grimm felt a pang of deep pleasure.
"Chak'ya mandeta shl'yev'na chut!" Another nonsense chant: this time, Shumal reeled as if punched by a giant, unseen fist. The bully staggered, but he stayed on his feet. Grimm frowned at this resistance, and he heard more strange syllables burst from his lips: "Tok yourut sh'tak'ye dar!" Shumal fell to his knees at Grimm's feet, sobbing and clutching his temples in agony, as if his head were clasped in some mighty iron clamp.
Grimm laughed again, tears running freely from his eyes.
This is so easy! These worms are worthless dross; nobody can oppose me!
He looked down at the fallen bully, fascinated by the new power he had found.
"Goodbye, Shumal," he muttered. "Rot in Hell."
He gathered his powers for one last spell, but he felt strong arms about him, confining him.
An urgent, familiar voice sounded in his left ear: "I did this to you, Grimm! I, Crohn, the Senior Magemaster, did this! If you have hate, hate me, not these boys! I made them do it. Let it out, let it all out!"
Grimm's head was spinning, and he felt hot tears of rage and frustration burn in his eyes.
"Let me go!" he screamed, struggling against the imprisoning arms. "I will destroy them! It is my right!"
His head spun as he looked around him: Shumal was lying at his feet, screaming; Ruvin lay sprawled and motionless on the far side of the yard; the other boys stared at him, pale, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. With a cold shock, he saw the same terrified expression on Madar, who was scrambling to his feet and backing away, his face a mask of sheer terror.
Torn by conflicting emotions, he sagged in Crohn's arms.
"What am I? I'm a freak, a sport, a mutant!" he screamed, terrified by what he had become. Then the cold, dark demons descended again. "Let me go! I am power! You must all die!"
He struggled to free himself from Crohn's grip, but to no avail.
You can't hold me, old man, he thought. You may join these faithless worms in their fate.
He cackled, madness playing with his mind, and he began to chant again in this strange, marvellous new language, but Crohn grunted and held on, enraging Grimm with his resistance.
Madar stared in horror at the bizarre spectacle; his gentle, intelligent friend had been replaced by an insane, slavering, avenging demon.
"There will be no more class today!" Crohn bellowed in a hoarse croak, "You will stay out here until called. Play on! Play hard! But stay out here!"
Crohn began to haul Grimm towards the Scholasticate, and it did not escape Madar's notice that, even though he held Grimm's arms firmly pinioned, the Magemaster flinched as if punched; every step of the way.
Blue light coruscated and flickered around demon-Grimm's head, and he wailed and screamed as he was dragged away.
"What did that bastard, Crohn, do to him?" Madar wondered, as he eyed the spitting, mad-eyed creature struggling in the Magemaster's arms. He remembered what had happened to the gentle, artistic Erek, and he realised that the same wild insanity had now sunk its claws into his friend.
For a seeming age, Grimm flicked between alternate states of terrified sanity and fervent, furious death-wish. He had no idea how long he fought the vicious demons that possessed him but, at last, sanity won.
Sanity was pain and exhaustion. Grimm was no longer the earthly avatar of Nemesis, invincible and vengeful; now, he was a heap of bruised, exhausted mortality. As consciousness came to Grimm Afelnor, he realised he was in the shattered remains of his former classroom, a tightly-hunched figure crouched in the corner of a scene of devastation.
One table was embedded feet-first in the ceiling; other tables and chairs lay, shattered to fragments, around the room. Plaster and broken glass lay on the floor, and the large oak door hung on a single hinge. Grimm noted the blackened signatures of quickly-snuffed fires in several areas of the classroom.
He felt a warm, heavy stream running from his nose, and he raised a hand to his nostrils, wiping a thick string of drool from his mouth as he did so. His hand bore a tracery of dark-red blood as he raised it to the level of his eyes, and he wondered how he had come to this pass.
I did this-somehow, he thought, regarding the destruction with a dispassionate eye.
With an awkward lurch, he managed to sit up. Again, he wiped the back of his hand across his nose and mouth, and he saw Crohn sitting quietly in one of the few intact chairs, looking older than Grimm had ever seen him. Contusions and bruises covered his face, his eyes were bloodshot, and his large nose was splayed across the left side of his face.
"It is over." The words came from Crohn as a rasping, nasal croak.
"I am to be dismissed?" Grimm asked, a horror of what he had done rising like cold, acrid bile within him.
"No, Afelnor, your torment is over, not your vocation. No more loneliness, no more hatred. What has happened to you was planned, and you have my heartfelt regret at the way you were treated. I am sorry beyond what words can express."
Was this Crohn? The man spoke more as a concerned father than a tyrannical tutor.
"What were those words I screamed, Lord Mage?" Grimm cried, the words torn from his ravaged throat. "They were no chants I had learned from you, or any other Magemaster."
"No other mage knows those words," Crohn muttered, his head lolling on his chest. "That was your own, personal spell-language. A Mage Questor makes his own magic in his own manner."
"I am to be… a Questor?" Grimm's astonishment banished his exhaustion for a moment.
"You already are a Questor in all but name, young Afelnor," Crohn said, a dreamy half-smile hovering on his bloodied lips. "What happened to you is over, and I feel ashamed that I ever agreed to it. But it is over, I promise you. You have prevailed heroically and fulfilled my highest expectations. You are no longer a Neophyte, but an Adept Questor: a mage-in-waiting."
Crohn's words began to filter through Grimm's mind, and the youth realised that the Magemaster had chosen to visit this nightmare on his pupil.