The Corrupted
Page 24
“Oh there you are, arch magister,” one of them said. “I didn’t realise that you were here. This is Kerr. He says that he has some news about Brother Titus.”
“And… the other one,” Kerr added. A hush fell on the scriveners, and Grunwalder cast a disapproving eye over them.
“In that case,” he said, “you had better come into my sanctum and tell me. No, not you, Puch,” he waved the chief scribe away. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
“Thank you, arch magister,” the man said and, hiding his disappointment beneath lowered eyes, he got back to work.
Kerr followed Grunwalder through into his rooms. If he had expected another cellar then he was disappointed; somehow the step through the door had brought them to a high chamber, the wide windows revealing the sweep of Altdorf below.
“Well then,” Grunwalder said as he closed the door behind his guest, “what news of Brother Titus? And how… how do you know of him?”
For the first time in decades the arch magister felt a flicker of uncertainty. Somehow he couldn’t catch even a glimpse of this youth’s thoughts. Trying to see inside his mind was like trying to look through a cannonball.
“I was Titus’ servant,” Kerr said, “and I went with him all the way to the north. That’s where we found Grendel.”
“Ah yes, Grendel. Bad business, that,” Grunwalder said. He walked around a vast teak desk and sank into a high backed chair. Kerr continued to stand. “Did Titus find him?”
“Yes,” Kerr said.
The arch magister fought back a flash of frustration. He had forgotten how irritating it was to have to wait for people to tell you what they were thinking.
“What happened next?” he asked. His exasperation gave way to a sense of relief. Of course, he thought, this man must be soft in the head. It would explain why he couldn’t read his thoughts.
“They fought,” Kerr said, “and both ended up dead.”
“Both of them?” Grunwalder asked, although the question was purely rhetorical. He’d already turned his back to the idiot in order to gaze down at Altdorf. All seen, but unseeing, its citizens toiled away beneath him. Clouds were following the evening in, and the city had become a patchwork of light and shadow.
He sighed. It had been this time last year that Titus had left on his chase. He hadn’t thought about him for months.
“Brother Titus has ever been on our minds,” he said, the platitudes rolling easily from his tongue. “In our sadness there is joy that he died as one of our order should, in the pursuit of evil. He will be remembered as the great wizard that he was.”
“Yes,” Kerr said. Grunwalder turned back to dismiss him, a coin already in his fingers, when the cloud cleared and sunlight flooded the room. It bathed both arch magister and servant with the same golden light, and cast their shadows back onto the wall.
Grunwalder tossed the coin to the man, and as it spun through the air, he noticed two things. The first was that Kerr showed no interest in the gold. The second was that his shadow belonged to a much larger, a much fatter, man.
Suddenly he couldn’t breathe, and nor could he speak. His throat had been sealed as neatly as a sausage skin and his fingers flexed uselessly as he fell forwards.
He looked up as bursting blood vessels turned the world pink, and through the veil of his own blood he could see that Kerr had gone. In his place, Titus stood. A cheerful smile creased his podgy face as he chanted the incantation, and his fingers moved with effortless skill.
Grunwalder tried to beg for his life, but it was too late. One by one, he felt his veins beginning to pop. His eyes and tongue bulged, swelling like a deep sea fish that has been dragged up from uncharted depths, and his dying body spasmed in its final agonies.
When it lay still, Titus strolled over to examine it. Then he let his own robes drop and stripped the swollen corpse of its clothing. The tunic was too tight, and where the cloak should have hung it bulged, but no matter. He would have that seen to later.
In the meantime, he had only to breathe a single word for his fat to melt away and his features to smooth and harden into those of the man who lay dead before him.
The college had a new master, and, after all that he had learnt in the north, things would be different.
Oh yes, Titus thought, they would be different all right.
He was still grinning as night fell on the city outside.
EPILOGUE
“So as you can see,” Titus explained to the Emperor, “it is sheer folly to have the colleges divided amongst themselves like this. Far better to unify the eight. We could become so much more powerful. In the service of the Empire, of course.”
The Emperor nodded and cast his eyes down the table where the heads of the eight colleges had been gathered. Although they had already feasted, the boards were still bent beneath the weight of the food that remained. Everything from roast boar to potted rhinox, to honeyed wasps had been laid on for this, the crowning moment of Titus’ career.
“I see what you mean,” the Emperor nodded, obviously convinced by Titus, “and who better than yourself, my friend, to lead such a mighty college? But one thing concerns me, what would these other master’s say to being under your command?” The assembled arch magisters all spoke at once. Although their words were different, their intentions were all the same. As one man they clamoured to be led by Titus, the greatest amongst them.
The Emperor smiled indulgently.
“Very well, then,” he said, raising a hand for silence. “That is how it will be. All of the colleges will become as one, and our friend here will become master of all.”
The applause started at the far end of the table and rolled its way up, washing over Titus’ beaming face. It was just as his new lord had said it would be, and it was wonderful.
“So you see, gentlemen,” Grunwalder said, “the subject is perfectly happy.”
He stood back so that his fellows could peer through the window of the cell. It was small, barely big enough to lie down in, and the only light came from a lantern that was kept behind another tiny window.
One of the assembled wizards peered through the viewing slit. Titus sat on the straw in one corner. He had lost weight in the last month or so: a lot of weight. It seemed that food held no more interest for him than the rest of the world. It occurred to the wizard that, had he started his confinement as a thinner man, he would already have starved to death.
“He does seem happy,” the wizard said, stepping back so that another could watch the traitor, “but what is that he keeps saying?”
“Today?” Grunwalder asked. “I’m not sure. It’s usually something to do with being ‘supreme arch magister’, sometimes Emperor. Either way, he enjoys the idea.”
“I bet he does,” the wizard said, “and so he has no idea that he has been pacified?”
“None at all,” Grunwalder said, “which is why the spell is unbreakable. Who can fight an illusion that they don’t even know exists?”
“Who indeed?” the wizard agreed.
Deciding that they had seen enough, the council turned and followed Grunwalder out of the dungeons. Behind them, the lantern that lit Titus’ cell flickered and died.
It made no difference. Safe within the sealed depths of his mind, Titus joyfully continued to starve to death.
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