If it breaks, you'll have to do it all over again, hissed a renegade part of his mind, and you'll lose face in front of all these mages.
Shut up, Grimm ordered his wayward alter ego. They're only men. And we won't fail.
He hesitated until the tension seemed unbearable, and then brought Redeemer, the painful labour of the last few months, crashing down on the magically-sharp edge of the stone. Blue sparks flew, but no splinter or crack appeared in the staff.
That's one; twice more, and we're there. Just remember that plenty fail on the second blow; three-quarters, as I remember…
With all his strength, Grimm brought the staff down again, and the hall rang. Still, the black wood seemed whole and undamaged, and Grimm's heart beat like a trip-hammer.
Well done; we're almost there. There are still no guarantees, you know. Many Adepts…
Not waiting for his treacherous inner voice to continue, Grimm put all his rage and fury into the final blow, slamming his staff onto the ebon ridge and showering the whole hall with blue motes.
Clangggg…
…and the staff remained whole: perfect, a living structure that seemed to resonate and rejoice in Grimm's hands.
Without stopping to think, Grimm slammed the brass foot of the staff on the flagstones, an impact that sent a further blizzard of blue magic-stuff throughout the hall, and he flung his arms wide in pure, unalloyed ecstasy. With his pounding heart threatening to burst from his chest, he spoke the ritual words that Crohn had taught him, his voice trembling only a little: "With my own hands and my own mind, I fashioned this thing of lifeless wood and gave it life and a name: Redeemer. As it has been written, so let it be; to all present, I declare myself a true mage!"
The members of the assembly banged their own staves in similar fashion and chanted, "This Adept is dead. A Guild Mage rises in his place!"
Grimm looked at the assembled ranks of mages and saw a smiling Crohn, a cheerfully-nodding Kargan, and an enthusiastically-beaming Dalquist.
Thorn stepped forward and intoned gravely, "Behold a true Mage and Brother of this House. Let him be known from this day forth as a master of our Craft, and a bearer of our ring. We hail Grimm Afelnor a Mage, a Questor of the First Rank, and we honour him as true kin."
Thorn turned to Grimm, and held out a gold-tasselled cushion bearing a large and ornate ring. In a quiet voice he said, "It is your grandfather's ring, Questor Grimm: it was his wish that you take it and redeem the honour of the name of Afelnor in the eyes of this House."
Grimm took the blue-and-gold ring with care and slid it on to his ring finger. At first too loose, it swiftly conformed to the circumference of his finger.
For a moment, he stared at his adorned digit, at the ring that meant all his struggles had been worthwhile. Then, he remembered his lines.
"I swear to this House loyalty and fealty unto death," he cried, restraining hot tears that hovered at the margins of his eyes. "I swear to uphold the tenets of our Guild and its precepts and laws. I swear to you, my beloved Brothers, love and friendship to the end of my days. I swear tolerance and understanding, and I pledge never to misuse the powers granted me by the beneficence of this House and its servants."
"Hail, Grimm Afelnor! True Mage and Brother of this House!" the conclave chanted in rapturous chorus. Thorn rapped his staff thrice on the flagstones, and the ceremony was at an end.
Dalquist rushed up to Grimm and shook him firmly by the hand. "Congratulations, Grimm. You are indeed a precocious little guttersnipe!"
"Careful, Brother Mage; we Questors are dangerous," Grimm replied in mock warning, and then he added, more seriously, as the older mage clapped him on the upper arm, "Watch out for Redeemer!"
"Oh, a Mage Staff can't hurt anyone while you're holding it and conscious," Dalquist replied. "That is, not unless you want it to! By the way, there's a banquet being laid on for you in the upper gallery. You and Crohn are guests of honour, of course. I'm afraid you'll have to say a few words."
"Don't worry about me, Dalquist. Even Faffel gave me satisfactory marks in Courtly Presentation and Public Speaking; eventually. At least this time I won't have a bunch of Scholars sticking out tongues and pulling faces when the Magemaster isn't looking."
"As I remember my Acclamation, there wasn't much Courtly Presentation about it," Dalquist drawled. "It can get rather hectic with twenty drunken Mages trying to outdo each other in magic. Questors are meant to be the worst, as you can guess. Readers are worried that someone could memorise their chants, so they tend to hide their best magic. Questors don't have to worry about that: your spell-language is useless to anyone else. The only Questors here today are you, me, Thorn and old Olaf Demonscourge. He's a laugh when he's had a drink or two; eighty years as a Questor has taught him a lot of subtlety and a lot of magic. He may be a little hard on you, what with your being a virgin Mage of the First Rank, without even one ring on your staff."
Kargan stepped up. "Excuse me, Questor Dalquist. Afelnor, you low toad! I suppose you won't be bothering much with singing, now that you're a high and mighty Questor? No time for Runes anymore, I'll wager."
"I still do use runic magic from time to time, Magemaster Kargan," Grimm protested. "Sometimes, it is much easier to use a memorised spell than think of a new one. And I still like to sing for the pleasure of it."
"Glad to hear it… Grimm, isn't it? Even your execrable warble is better than the tuneless twittering I have to put up with in the dross they send in these days. In the new batch they've sent me, they're all absolutely ghastly. However, you are all equally unworthy in my sight; current company moderately excepted, of course."
"Why thank you, Brother Mage, you're too kind," Grimm said. "I will try to prove myself reasonably deserving of your moderate acceptance of my slight worth."
"You and I will have to do a duet at the banquet, Questor Grimm," Kargan said, his face brightening. "'The Coronation of Meliar' would be rather fitting, I feel. You take the tenor, and I'll take the baritone."
"Will we get away with that in company like this, Magemaster Kargan?" Grimm asked in disbelief. The general ban on singing in the Scholasticate still rang in his mind.
"No holds barred at these things, Questor Grimm. They'll all start singing sooner or later, and most of them can't hold a note better than you can hold a breeze in a shrimping-net. We'll just have to show them how it's really done; by now, they almost expect it of me. You'll have to do a party turn of some sort, of course. Come on, it won't be so difficult when you've had a few glasses of wine."
"But I've never taken strong drink before," Grimm said, worried. "What if I disgrace myself?"
"Then you won't be the first. Gobol there keels over at the merest whiff of alcohol. In any case, if you feel your head start to spin, cast some un-Runish Questor perversion of a cantrip of Stability on yourself, followed by a charm of Clarity."
"Why not a single chant of Equilibrium, or at least as near as I can get to it?" Grimm asked.
"That's not the easiest chant when you're sober, let alone when you've had a few," said Kargan, snorting. "One misplaced syllable and you'll be throwing up for days. Safer my way, believe me. Actually, even better, cast the spells on your staff. Then you can just clutch it tight when you feel like you're slipping away. I spent a month casting them into my staff so that they'd always be there when I needed them. I'll tell you what; I'll do it for you. It should last you for tonight. With your permission?"
Grimm felt horrified at this use of this mighty wizard's weapon and symbol of power to stave off drunkenness, but he acquiesced as Kargan threw back his long sleeves and began to chant. The chant took several minutes, and Grimm realized with a cold shock that he, as a Mage Questor, could probably have performed the spell in a matter of a few heartbeats. "There, that should last you a few hours," Kargan said. "I'll see you later."