"Yes, Lord Dominie; I feel very pleased."
"Some of my fellow Presidium members consider me little more than a superannuated clerk, obsessed with trivia and minutiae, without strategic vision or imagination," the Guildmaster said. "You think you reached the Fifth Rank only due to my inattention and incompetence, don't you?"
Grimm stammered, "I… I know you're a busy man, Lord-"
"Of course you do!" Horin cried, his eyes bright, feverish. "Poor old Horin, struggling with his silly papers, doesn't notice he is promoting a ringless First Rank novice well beyond the level merited by a single, if meritorious, Quest."
Grimm felt his head spinning. What was the Guildmaster saying?
"I have had my eye on you for some time, Afelnor. I could not have promoted you to the Sixth or Seventh Rank without my judgement being brought into serious question, or I would have done so. Your accession to the Fifth Rank was no fortuitous mistake, Questor Grimm. Have you ever heard Questors referred to as 'Weapons of the Guild'?"
"Of course, Lord Horin." Grimm felt as if he were a leaf being swept along in a strong current, unable to change its course.
"The Guild is my world, my universe, young Questor. I would do anything to protect or save it. I wanted a true, loyal weapon of my own to aid in the fight, and I selected you. Recent events have proved I was right."
"Fight, Lord Dominie?" Grimm spluttered. "What fight, and why me? I'm hardly blooded as a Questor yet, and there are surely many of my kind, more experienced and resourceful mages who would prove more suitable."
Horin laughed. "Not that many, Afelnor," he said. "Your power and resourcefulness are remarkable in one so young. Older Questors may have guile and cunning gained through a dozen Quests, but only a scant handful could match you in naked power, if any.
"That is gratifying, but it is not the only reason I chose Grimm Afelnor to be my weapon. The other Questors are good men. Loyal men; powerful men; but they are bedazzled by wealth, status and privilege. They think being a Guild man is nothing more than formality and protocol; knowing the correct cutlery to use at a court banquet. Many of them leave the Guild as soon as they are able, rich mages who have paid off their debts. Other, more loyal mages perform their roles well enough, but they are nonetheless obsessed with games of precedence with their peers, as you already know well."
Despite his confusion, Grimm laughed: the Dominie could only be referring to Questor Xylox. Then his face clouded.
"What makes you think I will be any different, Lord Horin? I am rich beyond my dreams after my first Quest, and I'm pretty sure I could easily afford to buy off my indenture any time I wished."
"But you won't," Horin said, "not even if we allow you to do so-and we don't have to, Afelnor.
"You need the Guild as much as we need you. You have a mission, a personal mission, do you not?"
"What?"
"You are unique, Afelnor. You are the grandson of the reviled Oathbreaker. Your name is tainted beyond imagining, and you seek to cleanse it. You are kin to a man who tried to kill his lord and master, and there is no worse crime in the whole Guild. Because of your lineage, you are reviled by most, even beyond the petty prejudices of social class-consciousness.
"I can help you achieve your aims, and I will, if you help me."
Grimm slumped back in his chair and rubbed his perspiring brow with a palsied hand. He felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and he felt unable to speak.
The Dominie leaned closer and said in a low voice, "Our life, our very existence is threatened, and I want an irreverent, hot-headed, impertinent grandson of a convicted traitor to help me, not a polished, scrubbed, silver-tongued paragon of Guild manhood."
Grimm tried again to speak, but his tongue felt as if it were a lump of dead wood. Horin rose to unsteady feet, weaving like a drunken man, but the Questor knew that only the old man's body had betrayed him; despite the evangelistic gleam in those feverish eyes, the Dominie's sanity could not be in doubt.
The old man laughed; a crackling, high-pitched squeak without the slightest hint of humour. "There is a sickness within our brotherhood, my young friend," he said. "After centuries, millennia of stability, a creeping, insidious malaise threatens the stability of the entire Guild. Following my dealings with the odious Lizaveta, I have begun to believe that she, or someone just like her, may be at the root of the problem."
Grimm's forehead furrowed.
"What is the nature of this sickness, Lord?"
The young man saw the Guildmaster's wan complexion growing healthier by the moment, and he noted a little more animation in the Dominie's voice when he spoke.
"There has always been rivalry and ambition within the Guild, young Afelnor," he said. "It is tolerated, and even encouraged, so long as it doesn't interfere with the smooth running of the institution. You are an ambitious young man, but that is only to be expected in a Guild mage.
"However, I have noticed a distinct escalation in the unrest between the Houses in the last few decades. There is now far too much secrecy and skulduggery in an organisation that has always prided itself on openness and fraternity.
"I have tried to eradicate this sickness at the root, but without success. There may be many causes for this malaise, but I cannot deny that this little attempt by Prioress Lizaveta to suborn me has shaken me beyond measure; my unease has not been diminished by your own experience with the young nun, right here in High Lodge. How many mages have been compromised or controlled by this woman and her Order?
"I am mindful of the early wars between mages and witches, and I wonder if these latest affronts are skirmishes in a renewed conflict. Perhaps Lizaveta's order is no more than a front for a Geomantic supremacy movement."
Grimm considered the Dominie's words: they sounded on first hearing like the paranoid maunderings of a worried man, but were they so improbable?
Lizaveta's involvement in Madeleine's attempt to subsume his will seemed incontestable. Perhaps she had tried to perform similar magic on Loras, many years before, and his will had proved the stronger. The Dominie, although a potent mage, would not have presented such a difficult target, and the old witch had tried to use Grimm as her weapon without success. Maybe this was no coincidence; if Loras had rebuffed her, control of his grandson might seem like sweet revenge.
Slowly, Grimm nodded; it all began to make sense to him. "I concur, Dominie; at the very least, Prioress Lizaveta's Order presents a serious threat to our Guild. May I ask what you have in mind for me in this regard?"
It'll be some kind of fact-finding mission, I expect, he thought. Presumably, I'll have to interview various mages, to see if they've fallen under Lizaveta's influence. Tedious, but, I suppose, essential.
"I want you, Grimm Afelnor, Mage Questor of the Seventh Rank, called the Dragonblaster, to find out. I wish you to confront this odious cult directly and, if necessary, to destroy it. I want this baleful influence eradicated, however you choose to achieve this.
"I now know you are a truly loyal mage. I elevated you to the Seventh Rank as evidence of my good faith, and I expect you to carry out your side of the bargain. Will you do so?"
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Chapter 19: "The Most Important Quest"
Grimm started forward, and almost slid off the slick leather seat. "You want me to confront this nest of vipers directly, Lord Dominie? A single witch of that Order nearly managed to enslave me! I can hardly approach Lizaveta directly; she's already met me. Perhaps it would be better to choose another mage, Dominie, one unknown to her."
Horin again made a show of inspecting his nails, as if embarrassed. "You already know of her ways, Questor Grimm; you are forewarned. I wish as few members of the Guild as possible to be alerted to this Quest, since I have no idea how far Lizaveta's influence has spread… and I do not wish it known that I, the Master of the Guild, was so nearly enslaved by Geomancy.