"You are strong, Chag,” he said and gasped, trying to steady his twitching eyes. He had visions of scorched, raw, weeping spots on his lungs as he drew a series of hacking breaths, but he was a powerful, experienced mage, with over twenty Quests to his credit. “But you are just a boy, perverted by a sick and insecure man."
Without turning his head, he screamed, “Ajaman'dama-nas! Guramen'dimni-nura!"
Another, wordless, soulless, hateful bolt from Chag hit him; nonetheless, Loras felt a fierce pang of pleasure as he heard Thorn tumble from his seat with an agonised yell.
"Thorn is poison, boy,” Loras said. “The dance has just begun. You will soon see that mindless loyalty leads nowhere."
This time, Loras anticipated Chag's assault, and he fended it off with practiced ease, adding a little finesse of his own. The youth stumbled to the floor, and Loras shook his voluminous sleeves back from his wrists to his elbows.
"It's time to go back to school, gentlemen,” he said. “Thorn, you have made the worst mistake of your life."
"You have no idea what Questor Chag can do! He will leave you like a wet, discarded piece of meat!"
"I will bring Questor Chag something he has never known:” Loras said, “compassion."
"I need no compassion!” Chag shrieked.
Loras tried to absorb the power into Blade without success. He shuddered as the remainder of the nameless, formless energy trickled into him, but he felt more alive than he had in decades.
"The fight is on, Thorn!” Loras cried. “When I have pacified your poor slave, I will turn on you! Your tyranny is at an end!"
"Good luck, Loras,” Thorn replied, as Loras staggered under another assault. “Just let me know when you wish to surrender."
Loras sought to find the nonsense words for another spell, but Chag's mindless hatred hit him once more, and he slumped to his knees.
What did you do to this poor boy, Thorn? he wondered, as hot, electric flames burnt through his nerves.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 9: ‘A Little Out Of Practice'
Crohn rose to his feet and made as if to brush dust and dirt from his filthy robes. To cover his embarrassment at this futile exercise, he cleared his throat, as he often did when addressing a roomful of Students. He stepped back a little from Xylox.
We have won the first battle by persuading Questor Xylox to listen to us, but direct confrontation may be inadvisable.
"Did you hear of a Neophyte named Erek Garan?” he asked.
"I heard something about it,” Xylox replied, shrugging. “As I understand it, Senior Magemaster Urel exceeded his orders and pushed the boy beyond the limits of his endurance, with tragic results."
"That is the official story,” Crohn said. “I believed it at the time. However, I now know it as a lie."
Xylox leant on his staff in an almost jaunty pose, but there was no joy or merriment in his face. “What makes you believe this, Crohn?"
"I am to be addressed as Senior Magemaster Crohn, or Manipulant Crohn until my guilt is proved!"
Xylox shrugged. “My apologies, Senior Magemaster Crohn,” he said with just a trace of sarcastic emphasis on the title. “Pray continue."
"I have only circumstantial evidence,” Crohn admitted. “However, it is all of a pattern with our other contentions. The individual threads come together to form whole cloth."
Xylox said nothing, and Crohn marshalled his argument.
"I knew Senior Magemaster Urel for more than forty years,” he said. “I never met a more dedicated or diligent educator."
"Senior Magemaster Urel was my tutor when I was a Neophyte,” the Questor said. “He was a martinet, and he was swift to fall on the least transgression. I can believe with ease that such a man could go too far when training a Neophyte."
"Did he ever punish you, Questor Xylox?"
The Questor snorted. “I should say so!” he said with vehemence. “He would scream at me for no reason, and he often beat me for inattention, for supposed insolence, or for what he considered laziness. The man was a bully."
Crohn nodded. “How long did you remain a Neophyte before your Outbreak?” he asked.
"One year, five months and four days,” Xylox snapped. “Almost eighteen months of unending torment. I understand now the need for the unremitting pressure, for it made a Questor of me. However, I once hated the man with all my soul."
"Eighteen months!” Crohn said. “Fancy that!
"I believe Lord Thorn's Ordeal lasted two years,"
"Not so different from mine,” Xylox said. “What of it?"
"I suggest that Magemaster Urel's apparent, insensate rage was a front. Did he beat you or scream at you every day?"
"No, Magemaster Crohn,” admitted Xylox. “For several days after a beating, he might seem almost pleasant. Nonetheless, after a while, the assault would begin anew, worse than before."
Kargan stepped forward. “Urel was testing you, Questor Xylox,” he said. “He was seeing how far you could go without breaking, and then backing off. He was stretching you to the limit to a calculated schedule."
"Eighteen months-” Xylox began.
"Neophyte Erek broke out after less than three months, with fatal results,” Crohn interrupted.
"The boy was a neurotic,” Xylox said, shifting his staff to his left side. “Urel should never have selected him for the Ordeal. It is further proof, if any were needed, of his recklessness."
"Erek was artistic and highly-strung, but I always found him a diligent and well-behaved Student,” Crohn said, stretching to relieve the nagging aches in his legs.
"So did I,” Kargan said. “Erek only became neurotic during his Ordeal."
"Perhaps the boy was unsuitable as Questor material,” Crohn allowed. “However, Senior Magemaster Urel did not select him for the Ordeal; Lord Thorn did. I was in the Prelate's office on one occasion, when Urel burst in to protest to Lord Thorn about the treatment he was visiting on Erek. Was that the action of an uncaring brute?
"Before the Prelate dismissed me-with some urgency, I might add-I heard him overrule the Senior Magemaster's objections and order him to intensify the boy's training.
"It was all Lord Thorn's doing: he ordered Urel to give Erek no respite. The Prelate drove the boy to madness by sheer ruthlessness."
"A miscalculation,” Xylox declared. “I wager that Lord Thorn regrets it, but it is no proof of evil intent."
"Questor Grimm's training was no different,” Crohn said. “He was beaten, excoriated and vilified daily for six months, without a break. By the end, he was almost a human vegetable."
"The boy is precocious,” Xylox said. “I will grant him that."
"Three times as precocious as you?” Crohn said, trying to prick the Questor's pride. “He is strong, but not that strong."
"You say he was beaten every day,” Xylox said, straightening up. “How do you know this?"
"Because I beat him,” Crohn said, his voice almost a whisper, “to my eternal shame. Lord Thorn pressed me and harangued me to maintain the severity of his training. I turned the Students against him, forbade him to associate with his friends and barred him from the Scholasticate Library. I thought I was doing right; that Lord Thorn had the best interests of the Guild at heart.
"I now doubt that."
"The boy became a Questor,” Xylox said, shrugging. “He did not kill you."
The Questor's casual attitude infuriated Crohn. He tore open the front of his robes to reveal a mass of weeping, half-healed lesions on his chest and upper arms. “Did you do this to Urel?” the Magemaster demanded.
Xylox lost some of his former composure, his face growing pale. He shook his head. “I… I struck him on the jaw,” he said. “As he fell to the floor, I used my emerging power to lift a heavy table, but something stopped me from dropping it on him. Instead, I smashed it into fragments with magic. I then screamed and broke all the windows in the room. Urel told me I had done well. He wrapped his arms around me and told me my Ordeal was at an end."