His expression unreadable, the imperturbable Senior Doorkeeper flowed away, back into the anonymous crowd.
Grimm felt the ache in his head begin to grow again, and he grabbed Numal by the shoulder. "Do you fancy a drink or two, Numal? It's been a long morning."
The Necromancer seemed fascinated by the ebb and flow of humanity within the hall, but he nodded, tearing his eyes from the mortal tide. "All right, Grimm. Yes, I suppose a drink might be nice."
The young Questor felt as if he were trapped within some crazy dream, a ball being batted back and forth in some cosmic game. It was as if he were already drunk, before he had sampled even a drop of alcohol. Something seemed to push him onwards.
Action, not idleness! the insistent inner voice screamed.
Was he going mad? He had to do something to still the raving beast in his head. Vortices seemed to swirl and careen within his skull, but he no longer cared. The head-voice screamed at him, urging him not to rest. Grimm knew he must stay awake, although sleep seemed to offer such a sweet consummation.
"I know just the place," he said at last, winking. "Come with me."
As the two mages walked across the crowded hall, a small sound, like the mewling of a wounded cat, emerged from Grimm's throat, but it was swallowed by the clamour of the swarming multitude.
****
Lord Thorn groaned as hot shafts of pain stabbed his brain, and his trembling hands hovered over the green crystal, barely touching it. He could hear Questor Grimm's words through his spell-link with the youth, but only with great effort.
Half a bottle of brandy had failed to allay the incessant, agonising stabs that now plagued him, and he knew his spell of Compulsion had not gone as well as he had thought. Somehow, the Afelnor boy seemed to be fighting the spell. Something had to give, and Thorn felt determined it was not going to be him.
Once more, the liquor made its burning trail down the Prelate's throat, but he resolved that he would take no more.
Names curse it, this boy is strong. But I'll be damned if he's as potent as a Seventh Level Questor of forty years' seniority!
Reaching into reserves he had not touched for decades, Thorn reasserted his authority and reinforced his spell, despite the silver lances of pain that now speared into his eyes. After a few moments, he felt the resistance, the self-examination cease, and he began again to hear through the youth's ears: "Do you fancy a drink or two, Numal? It's been a long morning."
Good lad, Questor Grimm. Drink should lower your resistance.
Thorn's eyes ached and his body felt as limp as warm lettuce. He fell back in his throne, exhausted, and he knew despite his proud boast to himself, he was not the potent sorcerer he had once been.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 9: Introspection and Investigation
Dalquist sighed, shut his book with a bang and rubbed his sore eyes, realising that he had just read the same paragraph three times without registering its contents. The sun's orb was bisected by the horizon, and the Library was now empty.
Tertiary Rune Structures in Translocative Applications would have proved a tedious and challenging book to the vast majority of mages. However, to a Mage Questor, a thaumaturge who could make his own magic without recourse to the strictly-regimented, pedestrian panoply of rote-learned runes, it was little more than sheer torture. Added to this, the Questor's mind was far from focused on his reading.
He considered how honoured he felt when Senior Magemaster Crohn requested that he become an Associate Magemaster: to any teaching Guild House, the Scholasticate was the very hub, the life-essence that sustained it. One of the most valuable contributions a mage could make to his House was to engage in the effort to turn callow, ignorant Students into full Guild Mages. However, the gulf between a Mage Questor and a practitioner of any other Speciality was enormous. Most Magemasters took decades to master the complex rune interactions governing their crafts, whereas Questors were free spirits, unfettered by the restrictions of a limited set of spidery characters, their only limits were those imposed by their imaginations.
No, he told himself. It's not studying these runes that's disturbing my concentration. It's Grimm.
Dalquist squeezed his eyes shut and slapped his left palm onto his forehead, as if this might clear his thoughts. He remembered Grimm as a frightened, insecure seven-year-old Student, trying to pretend that he had not been weeping. There had been power in his eyes even at that tender age, and also signs of great intelligence. Dalquist had led the boy to the very place in which he now sat, and Grimm had reacted as if all his birthdays had arrived at once.
Later on, there was a traumatised adolescent, recovering from his violent Questor Outbreak and so pleased to see his older friend. Dalquist spent many, many days and months with the new Adept, in the company of Crohn, patiently teaching the boy how to control and ration his thaumaturgic energies, so he could use his mind to open a door without smashing down the surrounding wall at the same time. Grimm had been patience and persistence personified, despite the trauma he had suffered.
Dalquist recalled the young First Rank Questor, his confidence growing every day on the arduous Quest to free the city of Crar from the influence of the demon lord, Starmor, his friendship with the senior mage burgeoning into a relationship of staunch trust and mutual respect.
Despite the seven nightmarish months of Questor Ordeal Grimm had described, far worse than Dalquist's own period of suffering, the young man turned into a stable, level-headed person, amiable and reliable. Yes, he had turned surly and vicious during the period of his unintentional addiction to the herbs Trina and Virion, but that had passed. Were the insidious pangs of drug withdrawal perhaps reasserting themselves?
Dalquist opened his eyes, leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling without seeing. Indeed, Grimm's rages, while his body had craved the fumes of the mind-altering herbs, had been sudden and severe, but they had been uncontrolled, directed at anybody in his vicinity. On their meeting the day before, Grimm had seemed as companionable and placid as ever, until the subject of Lord Thorn's possible complicity in the indiscriminate application of a new, more vicious Questor Ordeal had arisen. Grimm then turned on his fellow mage, his most loyal ally, Dalquist Rufior. The change in his demeanour had been startling, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl as he extolled the virtues of the House, the Guild, and of Lord Thorn in particular.
This was not the Grimm Afelnor Dalquist remembered, but a pale imitation with Grimm's face: a marionette dancing at the command of another.
A single, muttered word escaped his lips: "Thorn."
A shock of realisation flashed through Dalquist's brain like a lightning bolt, painful in its intensity.
It has to be Lord Thorn who turned Grimm in this way…
The only Mentalist within the House of sufficient skill to overcome the phenomenal, Ordeal-induced willpower of a Questor seemed to be Magemaster Kargan, and he seemed on good terms with his former pupil. Only another mage of the same calling or a potent Questor might even hope to achieve the feat. The only other Questors in the House, apart from Dalquist himself, were the doddering Olaf and the haughty Xylox.
Olaf was no longer the mighty thaumaturge he had been in his youth, and Dalquist could not imagine him prevailing in a contest of wills with Grimm.
On the other hand, Xylox could not be so swiftly dismissed as a candidate.
Dalquist knew Xylox and Grimm had been on far from good terms during their recent Quest, and the petty mage was just the kind to seek to instil in the high-spirited young Questor a sense of proper respect for his superiors. Nonetheless, Xylox the Mighty, despite his extravagant soubriquet, was notable for his parsimony, not least in the expenditure of his magical energies. Dalquist had once Quested with him, and he had lost count of the number of times he had been subjected to the man's censorious watchword: a true Questor conserves his strength.