"Redeemer, come to me!" he said. The black staff flew to his waiting hand, and he checked his reflection in the mirror. Since everything appeared in order, he left the room, to see Xylox exiting his own chamber.
"Good morning, Questor Xylox," Grimm said in a respectful tone.
"The same to you, Questor Grimm," the older mage replied, with a customary lack of warmth and companionship. Xylox seemed his usual, unfriendly self. "I believe that Brown sector is four corridors away from this one in an anticlockwise direction; we should not keep Armitage waiting."
"I suppose you are right." Grimm sighed.
He knew Xylox intended to put in a bad report about him on their eventual return to Arnor House, but he refused to let it spoil his good mood.
"What about the others?" he asked.
"Armitage did not invite them," the senior Questor intoned. "We will allow them to sleep on."
****
The door opened at Xylox's touch, and Grimm felt a broad smile spreading across his face at the sight of Administrator Armitage. Looking at his colleague, he saw Xylox's face wearing a similar but uncharacteristic smile, but this did not seem strange to Grimm; he knew he, too, felt overjoyed to be in the presence of this good-hearted humanitarian.
Behind Armitage towered a rack of boxes with black cables cascading over the floor. In the centre of the room stood a metal chair, with what looked like seaweed hanging over its back.
"Greetings, my dear friends; do come in," Armitage said, with a happy smile. As they entered the chamber, the door closed behind them with a soft hiss.
"I called you here because I wanted to ask a little favour from you both," the white-coated Technologist said. "Although I've met a few mages in the past, I've never encountered a Questor before. Would you be willing to demonstrate your powers for me, so I can study your magic?"
"Whilst I cannot pretend to be a lover of Technology," Xylox intoned, "I have no objection to showing proper gratitude to a generous host."
"I will also give any help that I can," Grimm said. "What do you want us to do?"
"Xylox, my friend, may I ask you to sit here?" the Administrator asked, indicating the iron chair.
"Thank you. Wait while I attach a few electrodes to your scalp. It'll only take a few moments, and I promise it won't hurt."
Xylox shrugged. "I have no objection."
Armitage took the 'seaweed' and combed it with his fingers into separate, slender tendrils. At the end of each tendril was a round metal pad, onto which the Administrator smeared a substance from a clear sachet before pressing it onto the mage's skull.
Grimm suppressed a smile as the severe, ascetic Questor began to look like some wild man, his hair standing on end. At any other time, the whole idea of the fanatical, Technology-hating thaumaturge assisting this arch-Technologist would have seemed incongruous in the extreme, but Grimm now saw nothing unusual about the situation.
When he had finished attaching the fine wires to the patient Xylox's head, Armitage moved behind a thick glass screen and sat at a small table. "When you're ready, Xylox, I'd like you to perform a small magical spell," he called, staring into a black metal box in front of him which cast an unearthly light on his face.
"What sort of spell?" the mage asked.
"I don't know; any sort of spell," Armitage said, shrugging. "Just don't aim it at me."
Xylox sat for a moment, his brow furrowed in thought, before uttering the personal spell-word "K'saata". A tiny blue fireball, the size of a marble, shot from the end of his outstretched index finger and impacted the opposite wall; the whole room reverberated with a metallic ringing sound and a round black mark bore testament to the blue sphere's impact.
"Excellent, excellent," Armitage crowed. "Those theta waves are off the scale, and the dopamine levels are unbelievable!
"Do something else, Xylox: something a little more powerful, perhaps. Don't worry too much about the wall. I can always get it replaced."
"Very well, Armitage," Xylox said. "Let me try something different this time; matter creation. This is a very powerful spell indeed, although not very useful, and it may take me a little time to prepare for it."
"Take as long as you want, mage. Just remember, I'm expecting something pretty spectacular."
Xylox's brows descended, and the air seemed to turn misty and soupy around him, shimmering and turbid. A low moan came from him, and his eyes turned upwards until only the whites were visible. A definite air current began to move around him, and Grimm saw blue motes flickering around his fellow Questor's head.
The young mage heard an accelerating ticking noise from behind Armitage's glass screen, and the white-coated man's eyes looked as if they would leap from his head as he studied his little box.
A long, incoherent phrase spewed from Xylox's lips, the metal walls of the room bowed inwards with a sudden clang, and Grimm felt his ears pop with a sudden decrease in pressure. The temperature in the chamber dropped by a noticeable amount, and the young mage saw a subtle dusting of frost gleaming on the distorted walls.
In Xylox's open right hand rested a tiny piece of what looked like rock. Grimm felt unimpressed: had Xylox really expended all that energy just for a minute portion of worthless stone?
It was all Grimm could do to hide his contempt. However, Armitage leapt out from behind his screen to inspect the object.
"Is that really e-over-c-squared mass? Direct energy concentration?" the Haven man breathed.
"I have no idea what you mean, Armitage," Xylox replied. "I required rather more energy for the spell than I had within me, and so I needed to take some more from my staff, Nemesis."
Armitage looked a little concerned. "Does that mean you won't be able to perform any more magic?"
Xylox shook his head. "Give me a few minutes, Administrator," he said. "I have a goodly store of energy inside Nemesis. I will soon be ready to cast again."
Grimm gaped; he had never thought of storing magical energy in his staff, to be called upon when required, although the concept now seemed so obvious. Even so, he still could not see what all the fuss was about over a minute piece of gravel.
Armitage returned to his chair and his box, and he pressed a stud on his table. "Did you get all that, Terrence?"
A distorted, distant, voice issued from the table: "We certainly did, Administrator; fabulous, incredible data!"
"I'm glad to hear that, Terrence. I'll be doing a few more monitored experiments, and then we'll get onto the one-on-one. You might as well turn off the monitoring for that, but keep the video going, whatever you do."
"That's understood, Administrator."
"I am ready once more, Armitage," Xylox declared.
"Excellent!" the Administrator replied. "I'll just do a few more tests with you, and then perhaps we can try a few with you, Grimm."
"I'm glad to be of any assistance I can," the young mage replied.
****
Thribble cowered behind a mass of black cables. They were warm, which was good; otherwise he might have frozen during Xylox's Creation spell.
He began to think he had been wrong to trust the lecherous, corpulent Technician, Deeks. For three hours, Armitage had been playing Grimm and Xylox for fools, putting them through all kinds of tests and experiments. It sickened the demon to see two such proud and powerful thaumaturges reduced to eager performing animals, and Thribble began to worry that Deeks had succumbed to cowardice.
He hoped with all his heart he was wrong.
Now, Grimm sat in the chair, garlanded with the strange, silver tendrils, and a white-coated Technician had just brought in a rabbit in a cage, placing it on the floor in front of the magic-user. "Now, Grimm," Armitage called from the safety of his screen. "I want you to destroy this animal."