"Her? I think you've answered your own question there, Questor,” Kargan replied, guffawing. “We all know what happens to mages who play around with the fair sex!"
"It's not that at all, Magemaster!” Dalquist felt almost beside himself. “I only met her once, and I wasn't remotely attracted to her. I'd hardly paid her a moment's heed, before I was… challenged about her, a few minutes ago. Please, just tell me if you can tell if I'm under some spell."
The young mage realised his tone was desperate and pleading, hardly what was expected from a Guild Questor, but he no longer cared.
"I'm not insane, Magemaster,” he said, “but I am deeply worried. Will you help me?"
Kargan rubbed his chin and shrugged.
"The spell I have in mind is pretty potent,” he said. “It may reveal far more about you than you would wish to be known. It's ten times more revealing than the clearest Mage Sight."
"No matter, Mentalist. It's a risk I'm willing to take."
"All right, Questor. I'm not quite sure how this will pan out, or what it could prove, but I'd like you to lie down on that couch. I haven't done this for a long time, so bear with me. Just relax, please."
Dalquist reclined on the couch and tried to clear his thoughts. It was not easy, but he managed to find a plateau of moderate internal peace.
Kargan began to chant in a low voice, his arms outstretched, his eyes closed and his forehead lined.
"Ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra… ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra…” Beads of sweat began to trickle down the Magemaster's face, but the chant remained even and crystal-clear, perfect in cadence and tone.
Kargan grimaced between runic syllables, but he maintained the incantation's perfection with admirable control.
"Ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra… ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra…"
Dalquist felt something twist in his mind, and he gasped. In a heartbeat, the chant stopped. Kargan slumped, ashen-faced, in his chair.
"Well, Mentalist Kargan? Did you find anything?"
"Not a whit,” the Magemaster replied, breathing heavily. “Your mind's locked up as tight as a drum. If I'm to find anything in there, you've got to open up to me."
"It must be my Questor training,” Dalquist said. “I'm not trying to fight you, I swear."
"I don't think it's that, Questor Dalquist. Someone, or something, has put some sort of lock on your mind. But you're right: you do have some kind of magic acting on you. Your aura looks fine to me, so this must be deep in the subliminal level."
Suspicion flared in the young mage's mind. Was this lock of Lord Thorn's doing?
After all, he did put a Compulsion on Grimm, he thought. Has he done the same with me?
Dalquist looked Kargan straight in the eye. “Is it some kind of Compulsion, Magemaster Kargan?"
Kargan shook his head and winced. “I'm badly out of practice,” he admitted. “This has really taken it out of me, I can tell you.” He wiped his brow with a plain white handkerchief from a pocket deep in his green satin robes.
"To answer your question, Questor Dalquist: it's no mage spell I recognise."
"Can you dig any deeper?” Dalquist asked, frowning.
"Not tonight, Questor. I need to build up my strength and consult some of my workbooks and librams. Don't worry; I haven't given up yet. I've still got plenty more tricks up my sleeve-they don't give you seven rings as a Mentalist for nothing. We'll get to the bottom of this sooner or later, Questor Dalquist. Tomorrow morning, I'll tell Senior Magemaster Crohn you're sick, and we'll start early; say seven o'clock."
Dalquist nodded. “I'll be here, Brother Mage, rest assured of that."
"Well, Lord Seneschal, it doesn't look as if we're likely to find anyone lurking around here,” Erik said, kicking a blackened fragment of stone. “This place is a total shambles."
"When you were looking through your optical tube device, you said you saw several people, Sergeant,” Shakkar replied, frowning.
"I guess they were looters trying to find stuff in the ruins, Sir. There doesn't seem to be anywhere for them to hide. Perhaps they ran off when they saw us coming."
Shakkar could not argue with this; the spindly, scorched skeleton of the large building could not have hidden anything much larger than a starving rat.
"What about over there?” The demon pointed to a strange, domed structure to the right of the ruins, at the bottom of a slight declivity. The hemispherical roof of the circular building looked like an egg with its top smashed in, but the edifice appeared otherwise intact. He realised that the soldier, almost three feet shorter than he, might not be able to see the shattered rotunda. “It is just down the hill, to the right. I will lead the way."
The grey giant and the green-uniformed Sergeant made their way down the slope, past some wilted, blackened bushes.
"Looks like it could be more magic,” Erik said, as the building hove into full view. “That dome looks as if it burst from the inside."
The soldier picked up a fallen, hand-written placard. “One Night Only: Tordun, the White Titan,” he read. “So they were here.” He laughed. “One night only: looks as if they were right about that!"
Shakkar nodded. “It seems as if the performance brought the house down."
Erik stared at the demon, his eyes wide and his brows raised. “Was that a joke, Lord Seneschal? I'm surprised!"
Shakkar shrugged. “It is a human phrase I have heard, which seemed to fit the occasion. I understand that such a phrase with two meanings is, on occasion, held by those of your species to be amusing. Did you find it humorous?"
"Well, you're going to have to work on the delivery and timing a little, Sir, but I'm still impressed. I didn't know demons had a sense of humour."
"We do not as a rule, Sergeant. However, since I have been forced to live among your kind, I have found it expedient to adopt your customs from time to time…
"Hold on, Sergeant: I hear movement inside the structure."
Slanting his metal weapon across his chest, Erik darted to the left of the wide entrance, motioning Shakkar to the right. For once, the demon decided to defer to the soldier's experience and authority.
"Attention in there!” Erik shouted. “We mean you no harm; we just want to ask a few questions…"
He was interrupted by a stuttering explosion of noise.
"I'm no linguist, but that's a language I understand.” Erik pulled a strange glass-eyed mask over his face. He took a cylindrical, fist-sized article from his belt and grasped a ring at its top.
The demon thought he recognised the object: a weapon the humans called a ‘grenade', designed to fill a small area with tiny, sharp shards of metal. He knew such a weapon could tear soft human flesh to rags.
The demon raised a warning hand. “Hold, Sergeant: we want them alive!"
"It's all right, Lord Seneschal. Just trust me: I do know what I'm doing.” Erik's voice was distorted by his strange mask, but intelligible.
The soldier pulled the ring from the object, allowing a metal arm to spring from its side, nodded three times and tossed the green cylinder into the building. A loud explosion sounded from within the rotunda, and Shakkar shielded his eyes from a blazing flash of light.
In quick succession, the Sergeant tossed two more of the explosive items into the opening, and a thick smoke began to issue from the doorway and the hole in the dome.
In a few moments, three green-clad men staggered out, accompanied by a man in a strange suit of clothes. All were coughing, gasping and retching and their legs seemed barely able to support them. Their faces were wet with tears, and they collapsed onto the grass.
The Sergeant soon deprived the incapacitated men of their weapons and secured their hands behind their backs with thin white strips of some unknown material. He leapt into the opening, firing his weapon in short bursts, but Shakkar heard no answering fire.