His face darkened. "But I feel for the boy."
"A Questor, Crohn!" Thorn pounded his fist on the desk. "A Questor; a true weapon of the Guild! Personal feelings must not interfere with this; you must start his Ordeal at once."
"Lord Thorn," Crohn said, a concerned expression on his face, "Remember what happened to Urel and Garan. This boy could be ten times as destructive. His power is phenomenal."
Thorn leant forward, steepling his hands under his chin. "Magemaster Crohn, I order you to look for any incipient insanity in the boy. Watch him like a hawk. Nonetheless, I-we-need another Questor. The prestige of the House is at stake. I deplore cruelty as much as any man, but our need is too great to ignore."
Crohn struggled with his emotions. He was a mage of the old school, loyal to his House and his Prelate unto death, and refusal of a direct order from his superior mage was unthinkable; the House came first.
"Do you suggest any levers for me to use, Lord Prelate?" Crohn sighed in a resigned tone, hating himself for what he would be required to do.
"You should be able to do something with his grandfather's name. Forbid him access to the Library. Work him to the bone. Spread enmity. You remember how Arrol trained Rufior? He has turned out to be an excellent Questor. Break down the boy's defences. He will thank you for it when he is Acclaimed.
"Remember; if you help a chick from its egg, it will never attain its full strength. Always bear that in mind. You will need to be cruel, but the pain you feel will be worth bearing, and Afelnor will benefit also. Start today. You may go."
Thorn began to leaf through his papers: the audience was at an end. Crohn left the office with a heavy step; this would not be easy.
****
"Afelnor, it has come to my attention that you have been spending too much time in the Library: time which you might more profitably spend in the pursuit of your studies. This privilege is suspended. As a Neophyte, you should be above such trivialities."
Grimm felt puzzled and aghast. "What is the reason for this, Lord Mage?"
"Do not dare to question my instructions, Neophyte! You do not need to know the reason, Afelnor. Just do as you are told.
"It has also been noticed that you are spending some time with another Neophyte, Forutia, at a crucial time in his training and yours. You are also consorting with Neophyte Gaheela, who is a distracting influence upon you. I understand that you have even been seen gambling with cards! This is forbidden, as you well know.
"I have chosen to assume that this was a passing phase until now, but I will henceforth apply the full rigour of the Rules. You will not consort with these boys again. Do you understand? I might point out that, in the absence of Uric, the scullery boy, Master Chef Margus needs some more help. Do I make myself abundantly clear? Either you will cease to associate with these boys or I may decide that your vocation does not lie in this Art."
Grimm shrank from the Magemaster: Crohn's ire was terrific.
"Now, I regret, it seems that we must return once more to the Levity spell. You have not mastered some aspects of this simple spell to my satisfaction. Doubtless, the distractions of which I have spoken have dulled your mind. The only other explanation is that you regard such basic matters as beneath you. Deeper and longer study is necessary if you are to make progress as a Neophyte Reader. Attention to details is the mark of a true Reader."
Grimm's heart sank. Did Crohn see his future as a Reader only? So much for his dreams of higher callings! Allied to this, he had felt sure that his command of the spell of Levity in all its forms was faultless, and this brought bitter disappointment.
He fought to cover his deep chagrin. "Thank you, Lord Mage, for your guidance," he said, eyes downcast. "I will try my very hardest, and I apologise deeply for my slackness."
"So, you admit to laziness," sneered Crohn. "That must stop, and stop now! Evidently, any zeal that you may have had needs to be renewed. So, let us begin once more; perhaps it would be best to revert to Basic Runes. Let us see what else you have neglected. Recite!"
"The First Family: Adzh, Karkh, Tekh, Rukh… " Grimm chanted, as he had as a first-year Student. After hour upon hour of faithful chanting, he began to make occasional mistakes, whereupon Crohn would berate him heatedly.
****
Thus began a life of leaden monotony for Grimm. Worse, and to his mystification, many of the boys in the Scholasticate began to taunt him as "Traitor's spawn", or worse. Some would spit at him as he passed. Some attempted physical violence upon him, and it seemed that a Magemaster only ever intervened if Grimm began to gain the upper hand, where once they had appeared at the first sign of bullying. It was always Grimm who was punished, and never his assailants.
Sly trips, slaps, pushes and so forth became routine, and his former nemesis, Shumal, and his ever-present toady, Ruvin, reverted to their former depredations, never tiring of finding new torments for Grimm, now that he no longer had the protection of Madar or Argand, and now that the Magemasters seemed no longer to care. They took care not to pick on other boys, but Magemaster Faffel had idly mentioned in their presence that the peasant boy Afelnor seemed to have been getting rather above himself, and that he might be all the better for a little lesson in humility. This last was punctuated with a meaningful look at Shumal, who had grinned in understanding. Who was he to refuse a Magemaster's request?
****
With the Library denied him, Grimm sought out Dalquist on one of his rare visits to the Scholasticate. Dalquist was now a confident, imposing figure of a man, wearing a finely trimmed black beard and blue silk robes. His face was bronzed and his movement confident. Evidently, the life of a Questor agreed with him.
"Questor Dalquist," he said, "I am Neophyte Afelnor. You introduced me to the Library on my second day here."
Dalquist looked a little lost for a moment, and then he slapped his brow as his face cleared.
"Of course!" he cried. "Your name's… Grimm; I remember you now! Why, you're as tall as I am now! I'm so pleased to see that you are still here. How are your studies going?"
"I'm a Neophyte studying to be a Mage Reader, Lord Mage," said Grimm, trying to keep his voice cheerful.
"I do seem to remember telling you that my name is Dalquist. I'm almost sure of it."
The Questor accompanied this with a conspiratorial wink, giving Grimm a flash of the old Dalquist he remembered so well from his childhood.
"I'm sorry, Dalquist," he said with a smile. "I need to ask you some questions, if you don't mind. I have been forbidden the Library and the company of my friends. Now, everybody else has turned against me. Could I have done something wrong without knowing it, something for which I'm being punished?"
Dalquist spoke slowly: "Have you done well in… in your Reading studies, Grimm?"
The Neophyte shrugged. "Magemaster Crohn used to be quite complimentary to me," he said with a sigh. "The only time he looked unhappy was when I levitated my feather without using the usual chant. He also looked disturbed when I suggested an improvement to one of the Minor Magics to make it more powerful. He wasn't too happy but, in the end, he let me try the spell, and it worked; he then congratulated me on finding a new variation. Now, he finds fault in everything I say or do."
Dalquist gave a neutral, noncommittal grunt. "And all these strictures and problems; did they all start at the same time?" Grimm scanned the Questor's face for any sign of comprehension in his older friend, but he saw none. He knew now, of course, that it was considered a serious breach of Guild protocol to use Mage Sight on a Guild Brother without express permission, so he refrained from invoking the skill.
"Yes, Dalquist," he said. "It started almost immediately after Magemaster Crohn was called to visit Prelate Thorn one day. That's why I'm worried that this is some sort of punishment. I once asked Magemaster Crohn if there was any reason for his sudden displeasure, but he punished me for insolence without a word of explanation."
Dalquist's brow furrowed and Grimm could tell that his friend was struggling t
o find the right words. "Grimm, I… I do think I comprehend your Magemaster's… ill humour towards you. I will tell you that I do not believe that you have committed any grave offence. However, I can and must say no more.
"Since these… penances are evidently your tutor's will, it would seem best if I we do not converse again for some time. I cannot tell you the reasons for this, but suffice it to say that you will understand in time. Work hard and do as you are bidden. Goodbye, Grimm Afelnor, and be of good heart."
Dalquist turned on his heel and rushed off. "Dalquist, wait!" cried Grimm in anguish, but the mage was already out of sight. He had counted on his oldest friend in the Scholasticate but, now, even Dalquist had deserted him. He had not failed to notice that the Questor had even switched into the starchy, formal Mage Speech, as if to exclude him from any kind of intimacy.
Fighting black despair, Grimm heard a mutter of "Traitor's bastard!" as a missile struck him on the shoulder from behind. He whirled to see a group of sneering younger boys, their faces contorted in hateful sneers. He advanced towards them with menace in his eyes, but they ran away.
"Just leave me alone, or you'll regret it!" Grimm yelled to an empty corridor. He felt a great weight on his shoulders as he trudged disconsolately to his monotonous afternoon session with Crohn.
****
Fighting to keep his voice clear and level, Grimm ran through the spell of Mage Light for the hundredth time that afternoon but, this time, he found it hard to concentrate. The light flickered, but it died rather than bursting into the luminous globe he had produced in his earlier efforts. Once, Crohn would have expressed solicitous concern for Grimm's health, but, this time, the Magemaster slapped him around the face, hard, and he raged at the Neophyte. Grimm was too stunned to speak. Crohn had never raised a hand to him before.
"Is there any point in teaching you anything, you useless ingrate?" the Magemaster screamed. "Did I spend decades mastering a noble art in order to waste my efforts on an untalented, indolent pauper? You can't get the simplest spell right! Doubtless you find these minor incantations beneath the dignity of such a high and mighty magic-user?"
Grimm began to stammer an apology, astonished at the heat of Crohn's ire, but the tirade continued heedlessly for another ten minutes, brutal and unremitting.
"Get out!" Crohn spat at last, "and do not bother to come back until you have some control over yourself! Look at you now, like a dying duck in a thunderstorm! Pull yourself together and apply yourself, or you will find yourself back in the gutter from which you came! Get out of my sight, you pathetic excuse for a Neophyte, and do not even think of returning until you have improved your attitude!"
****
A few short weeks before, Crohn had encouraged Grimm's least success. Now, the Magemaster jumped on his slightest error with furious zeal. Time and again, Crohn forced the Neophyte to carry out a simple chant, over and over again, until fatigue or hoarseness prompted a mistake, and then he exploded in a towering rage, which often involved physical violence from his hand, his Mage Staff, or from any other convenient nearby object.
The training sessions now became longer and longer, usually ending only after Grimm had finally made a mistake. It seemed to Grimm that Crohn was deliberately trying to force him into error, so he could load yet further toil onto his pupil's shoulders. Grimm now had almost no spare time, due to all the punishments and extra studies Crohn had imposed on him, and he began to dread the start of each new day.
Shumal and his ilk seemed to revel in finding new ways to humiliate and hurt him, and he slunk through the corridors, trying to cling to the shadows.
Months of pain and anguish passed with dreadful lethargy. Now, Grimm could feel his misery pouring out of him like a thick, black, oily smoke that oozed from his every pore and rolled across the floor in all directions. Could nobody else see this? Why couldn't they leave him alone?
Grimm desired nothing more than to be left in peace in his black cloud, but the animosity and abuse continued unabated and, if anything, increased. The young Neophyte often cried himself quietly to sleep at night and then had dreams in which he was possessed by intense, hysterical, racking jags of tears for no apparent reason. His other dreams were strange and unnerving, involving violence against gangs of faceless mannequins, or where he found himself naked in front of a cackling multitude of mocking children.
Chapter 23: The Edge of Insanity
Grimm turned fourteen but, instead of the occasion being a day of celebration, it merely blurred into the featureless mass of roiling black smoke, his one constant companion. The daily torrent of depredation continued apace.
Always slender, he had now become emaciated and gaunt, and he flitted like a shadow through the corridors, trying not to be noticed. He often skipped meals, so as to avoid the cruel taunts of the others. In itself, this was an infraction of the Rules, and it often earned him severe punishment from Magemaster Crohn for his transgression. Nonetheless, tempting as it was to surrender to the darkness, Grimm soldiered on for the sake of his sullied family name. Eventually, even that solace was lost to him; he no longer knew what he was doing, or why. He simply was.
The end of a typical day for Grimm:
"Why do I bother with you, idiot? I should be retired by now, living in the comfort that decades of service to my House have justly earned. Instead, I am given the tutelage of a lazy brat who throws my solicitude back into my face!"
"I… I tried, Lord Mage…"
"Look at you now, blubbing like a baby at my great kindness in trying to correct your bumbling errors! My patience is not inexhaustible, Afelnor. If you do not apply yourself more than you have, the scullery awaits you.
"I advise you to think clearly as to where your true vocation lies. Oh, go on, go back to your cell and wallow in self-pity, you useless object. Go away! I have had enough of you for one day."
So it went on.
****
Crohn sat in the presence of Lord Thorn, disconsolate and tired. Despite his proud boast to the Prelate all those months before, he knew he was getting too old for his role as the enforcer of Grimm's cruel Ordeal.
"How is the boy, Afelnor, coping with his Ordeal?" Thorn asked without the slightest trace of compassion on his face.
"It has been nearly six months now, Lord Prelate. It cannot last for much longer. I have no idea what it is that keeps the boy going."
"Well, let us hope for all our sakes that Afelnor breaks soon," the Prelate said, as if expressing a hope that a period of rainy weather might end soon.
"Not the least for my sake, Guildmaster. I lack the taste for this scientific sadism, applied to a blameless and intelligent youth. Another month of this, and I shall have to stop before I lose my own mind. I cannot bear to visit this treatment on the boy for much longer, whatever the justification for his treatment."
Crohn wiped his brow, his hand trembling. "I cannot find it in my heart to approve of this treatment, whatever the justification. He works so hard, and so well, to gain my least compliment but, instead of praise, I continue to push him until he makes the tiniest mistake, at which point I excoriate him without mercy. This, I must remind you, has been your counsel, Lord Prelate."
"None of us likes this," Thorn said, waving a hand as if shooing away an irritating fly. "Remember that I went through much the same experience many years ago, but it made a Questor of me. Most Readers take decades to reach their full potential, and old men are in no condition to undertake arduous Quests for the House. A Questor is a rare bird, and he can mature in a matter of years. That makes him valuable to the House and the Guild."
"I do not believe Afelnor can take another month of this, Lord Prelate. I seem to remember that your own Ordeal was finished in three months, and that even you were close to madness by the end. That Afelnor yet endures is a testament to phenomenal self-control, and yet I see the spectre of insanity hanging over him like some carrion bird.
"It hurts me so much that I have taught him to enhance his control and am no
w stripping that away with every arbitrary decree I make. One moment, I berate him for doing something, the next for omitting it, so that even I lose track of what my current orders are.
"We may be making a monster or a gibbering fool of this good-natured, intelligent and talented boy, and that is our shame. We have taken away his friends and made all others his enemies. Should this all prove in vain, I could not in conscience say I felt the risk was worthwhile. Also, should he break out whilst deranged, and prove capable of harnessing his entire stock of power, the danger to us all could be considerable. I have never seen so much energy in one so young. Not even in you, Lord Prelate."
Crohn crossed his arms in an attitude as defiant as protocol allowed. Long moments of silence passed, and even Thorn's steely, Questor's gaze lacked the power to make the Senior Magemaster look away.
"Very well, Crohn. One more week, and then we will move on."
"You will call a halt to the Ordeal, Guildmaster?" Crohn asked, his heart filling with hope.
"No," Thorn replied, a half-smile etched on his face, "but I shall appoint another as his mentor: perhaps Faffel. I cannot afford to lose a good Mage Manipulant and another Senior Magemaster."
Crohn felt blood rushing into his face as he regarded the casual, callous expression on Thorn's face. His grip tightened on his Mage Staff, and he yearned to smash its head between the Prelate's eyes. Nonetheless, Crohn was a Guild man first and foremost; it was not for him to dictate or judge House policy.
"Very well, Lord Prelate," he said. "But the responsibility for whatever happens to this decent, intelligent, diligent boy will be yours. And mine, may the Names forgive me."
Crohn wanted to scream at Thorn, to damn him to the deepest pit of oblivion, but his respect for the House held him back. The Prelate was the embodiment of the House he loved: Thorn was the House! He felt so confused in his roiling, warring emotions that he left Thorn's office without bowing.
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