Overcoming Starmor had not been as easy as Grimm had supposed, but the herbs worked just as he had hoped, screening his emotions from the demonic Baron. However, soon after Starmor's defeat, the young mage discovered that the substances he had inhaled worked their medicinal wonders at a serious cost: he had inhaled so much of the smoke that he had become habituated to the drugs, needing greater and greater dosages just to remain on an even keel. Despite the fact that he was now free of the herbs’ insidious powers, Grimm remained wary of the risk of falling once more under their thrall.
I won't touch that awful stuff again, he told himself, shivering at the painful memories. There must be another way… a touch of Inner Calm, perhaps?
Inner Calm was one of the Minor Magics, a simple incantation taught to all Guild Students, and Grimm knew it as well as any other mage. However, his internal agitation was so strong that he doubted his ability to reproduce the runic incantation with the accuracy required for even such a simple spell. Two years as a Questor had left him somewhat out of practice.
When he had re-united the souls of Numal and Guy, he had come up with his own Questor spell to achieve the same effect, but he could not marshal the clarity of thought needed for a Questor spell to… clear his mind!
Sighing, Grimm opened his eyes and sat up, shaking his head.
"Is everything all right, Grimm?” a nervous-looking Numal asked.
"I can't seem to relax, Numal. I know it'll sound silly, but would you mind casting a spell of Inner Calm on me? I don't really trust myself to cast it. It's been a long time since I last had to cast a runic spell."
Numal shrugged. “Of course, Grimm: it's a simple enough spell."
A thought flashed into the young mage's head. “Oh, just one more thing, Numal.” He cast a glance at the far side of the room, where his other companions were still gathered around the sleeping Tordun. “Just keep it as quiet as you can, would you? I don't want Guy to think I can't cast even a simple incantation such as Inner Calm. I'd never live it down."
Numal nodded, the ghost of a smile flitting across his face. “I understand, Grimm. You can rely on me. Lie down again, and just try to go along with the spell. I can't do it if you fight me-after all, it is only a simple Minor Magic spell."
"I'll try, Numal.” Grimm sighed lowering himself back onto the thin, uncomfortable mattress and closing his eyes.
"Indetrayara-neboulikatra-shimiduto…"
Grimm barely heard the familiar, muttered runes, but he began to feel the spell take hold. Feelings of security and serenity began to wash away his doubts, fears and worries, and pleasant warmth suffused his bones. The Questor, now quite relaxed, allowed his mind to drift. He was now quite familiar with the phenomenon of astral projection, and the dislocation came with practiced ease.
He looked down at his supine body, as his soul began to wander towards the door. After a momentary blur, as he passed through the flimsy portal, he was in the stronghold's central plaza. Picking up speed, he headed for the north wall, impelled by some dull, inchoate pressure. The stone walls of the compound might as well have been made of fog, for all the impediment they posed to his drifting soul.
As he moved through the internal walls, he saw couples engaged in frantic coitus, but this spirit-Grimm was immune to feelings of embarrassment or disgust at the sights of fervid coupling. He merely was; a passive observer with no wants, desires, fears or tastes.
At last, he gained the city outside the formidable stockade, and he saw scenes of wild celebration in the streets of Brianston. Couples were dancing, singing and carousing. Some engaged in unrestrained sexual congress, as abandoned as their Breeder counterparts in the compound, but with the evident approval of the chanting, cheering horde around them.
This was a different Brianston than spirit-Grimm remembered seeing with his mortal eyes. Although dotted here and there with a few small structures and crumbling ruins, it was largely stark and bare. Only the large detention compound and maybe a dozen other buildings were in evidence.
However, one magnificent structure surpassed all the rest: a splendid edifice in grey marble, decorated with inlays of gold and lapis lazuli. Proud columns held up an angular, terracotta roof, on which hung an engraved gold plate, bearing the legend ‘UNCLE GRUON, THE SLEEPER. ONLY IN DREAMS IS THERE REALITY. ONLY IN DEATH, LIFE.'
Now, Gruon was close; spirit-Grimm recognised a presence beneath the lavish portico, and he drifted towards it. Dream-stuff floated away from the structure in all directions, fine tendrils resembling strings of wet dough, forming dense knots here and there and laying over the dream-city in a complex, knotted web. At its centre must lie Gruon, whoever, or whatever he might be?
Despite the magnificent structure above the ground, Gruon's underground mausoleum seemed to consist of a series of huge, shattered stone blocks. Even spirit sight could not penetrate these, but all that was needed was to follow the stringy tendrils to their source.
Ten feet? Thirty feet? A hundred feet down?
Aaah!
Spirit-Grimm fell, fell fell…
With a bump, he came to rest on the streets of Brianston. Not the shattered wasteland of reality, but the magnificent illusion he had seen as a mortal. Spirit-Grimm looked down and saw he had apparent form, an avatar. This was no human form, but a damp, doughy mass that shivered and shifted. He was in the sleeping mind of Gruon.
The citizens of Brianston were as clear and vibrant as they were to his astral eyes, and they shied away from this strange, muddy figure, emitting cries of horror and disgust as they recoiled from him.
Where is Gruon's temple?
This was not as easy to determine as it might have been. Looking through Gruon's dream-eyes, spirit-Grimm saw the buildings and streets shimmering and changing at irregular intervals, and the only true physical structures in Brianston were not apparent.
However, the fleeing citizens reacted to the invisible presence of the real, solid edifices, avoiding contact with the imperceptible buildings. Spirit-Grimm oriented himself by the motion of the fleeing crowds, discerning the position of the detention compound from the clearly-outlined voids in the terrified mass as it took flight.
In this strange, fluctuating world, there was no marble-and-gold portico. In its place was an indistinct grey blur, towards which spirit-Grimm walked on unsteady legs of wet mud.
It seemed as if his invulnerability to walls and barriers did not extend to this bizarre, mental construct, and the astral Grimm felt resistance at the periphery of the grey, shimmering field.
Push, push!
With a pop that he felt rather than heard, the unreal city disappeared, and spirit-Grimm became aware of… what?
A confused melange of sensations and emotions filled the astral body.
Emotion, pain, disquiet!
This was no human, demon, or, indeed, any sentient being.
Confinement, sorrow and anguish… Why can't I find this mind? Where is Gruon in this mass of emotion? It's almost as if he doesn't exist!
A shock lit up spirit-Grimm's sensorium with blazing effulgence.
There's something else… some new presence…
Grimm's essence plunged into the grey mire, deeper, deeper, and the spirit eyes located a brilliant, gleaming thread, running away into the distance. This was the sign of a true, mortal being! The astral being clung onto the tendril as if it were his own life, sliding along it at an increasing rate…
Bump!
A small, middle-aged, dark-skinned, bald man sat cross-legged on a stone bench, a long, white pipe clenched in his teeth. Looking up, he removed the pipe from his mouth and smiled.