Grimm Dragonblaster 4

by Alastair J. Archibald

  You just—"

  Struggling in vain to control the conflicting passions roiling within him, Grimm gave free rein to his emotions in one titanic shout, its volume augmented by a judicious dose of thaumaturgic power:

  "ENOUGH!"

  Echoes of his scream bounced from the walls for several moments, and the young mage saw it had had the desired effect.

  Guy looked disorientated and confused, as if some prize-fighter had landed a solid punch on the point of his jaw. Numal's mouth hung slack; he looked almost like a caricature of the stereotypical village idiot.

  " I am in command, Questor Guy. This is not a democracy. It's not about me being first, and you being second.

  "I'm in charge, and you're not! That's all there is! If you don't like it, I suggest you go back to Lord Horin and argue with him. If you don't acknowledge my authority right now, I don't want you on this Quest; is that understood? This expedition may prove hard enough, even without having to contend with dissent between us!"

  "You've got some front, Afelnor; I'll say that for you.” Guy shook his head as if to clear some inner obstruction. “But that doesn't compare with experience, and you're a fool if you think it does. I have a dozen Quests to my name, and I'd lay you any odds you like that my magic's more potent than anything you can muster. Horin's old and confused; he never meant for you to be in charge, really; it stands to reason."

  Grimm felt a cool, strange sense of calm beginning to flow within him. “I hope you enjoyed your meal, Questor Guy. I'd rather have you on my side, but it's plain that I can't trust you in the simplest of matters, such as common courtesy between us; I don't want you with me."

  Despite recognising that Guy's experience might be a critical asset to the Quest, Grimm could not countenance the prospect of continual bickering on the trail. Guy was just too hot-tempered and intolerant.

  "All right, Afelnor; as you say,” the older Questor said quickly, opening his hands in placation, almost like a penitent supplicant in a church. “I apologise for my disrespect to you, Necromancer Numal.

  "Brother Questor, I acknowledge your absolute authority for the conduct of this Quest. Am I forgiven?"

  Guy's wide eyes and saintly expression suggested a misunderstood, guileless innocent, although the Dragonblaster had seen similar, abrupt volte-faces before.

  Isn't this just like Guy? Grimm thought. He changes his mind at a moment's notice; how can I rely on a man like that?

  Nonetheless, he had to acknowledge that the older Questor, if he was as good as his word—which was questionable—could prove a powerful factor in the Quest's potential success.

  With a sigh, Grimm told himself he could not afford to be capricious or judgemental on his first Quest as senior mage. Horin's eyes, at least, were upon him, and the Dominie would expect him to be able to handle inner disputes.

  "Very well, Questor Guy,” he found himself saying, “If you're prepared to submit to my leadership, then I may change my mind. Now, if we've finished bickering, let's get down to business. We may have a long night ahead of us, so I'd rather get started as early as possible."

  "As you say, Chief; let's get started, by all means."

  If there was a trace of sarcasm in Guy's voice, Grimm chose to ignore it.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 21: Rebellion

  Grimm spent the next two weeks preparing for the Quest. He put himself through a punishing, demanding series of exercises every morning, studied maps and documents during the afternoon and worked on Redeemer throughout the night. He spent long hours muttering to the six-foot, brass-tipped rod, as he had during its preparation, pouring his strength into it in order to provide him with a store of magical energy to be used when needed.

  Following Guy's advice, he cast a number of simple, useful runic spells on Redeemer, such as spells of Illumination and Warding. None was any match for his innate Questor power, but they were all useful spells and, once they were embedded in his staff, he would be able to access them without squandering his inner strength.

  Guy Great Flame appeared to keep his promise, showing respect to both Numal and Grimm when the three were together, although Grimm knew the older Questor would bear closer scrutiny once the Quest was underway.

  On occasion, either the demon Shakkar, Grimm's Seneschal, or Mayor Chod, the leader of the Council of Crar, would interrupt him with documents to be signed or decisions to be made, but the Questor's mind was focused only on the Quest. He allowed himself a scant four hours of sleep each night, telling himself at all times to push harder, harder!

  * * * *

  Grimm threw himself into his strenuous regime of exercise, pushing his body to its limits, when a breathless messenger burst into his chamber without knocking. "Lord Baron, there are two visitors for you!"

  Grimm frowned, wiping sweat from his brow. “Didn't you think to knock before entering, man; where are your bloody manners? I'm busy; tell them to go and see the Seneschal, can't you?"

  "I'm sorry, Lord Baron, They told me you'd want to see them at once."

  Grimm snatched up a towel and wiped his flushed face. “If it's not the Lord Dominie, or Lord Prelate Thorn, you can tell them to wait their bloody turn!” he snapped.

  "If that's your attitude, mage, you can keep your bloody Quest!"

  The voice was familiar, and Grimm spun on his heels to see a slight, black-clad man, maybe five feet in height, with heavy, black brows overseeing an olive-complected face.

  "Crest!” the mage cried, bounding towards the slender half-elf and grabbing him in a companionable embrace, almost barging the messenger aside in the process.

  "So you do remember me,” the elf said, shrugging off Grimm's attentions. “I got your message two days ago. I just hope this is going to be worth my while."

  "Of course, Crest! Just name your figure; I'll meet it."

  Another familiar voice sounded from outside the door. “What about me? I've got four mistresses and a life of dedicated hedonism to support."

  Grimm opened the door to its full extent to reveal the foppish but deadly swordsman, Harvel, who extended his right hand. Grimm's smile widened, and he took the proffered member in a strong embrace.

  "Harvel, you old blood-drinker!” the mage cried. “It's good to see you again."

  "All right, mage; just go a little easier on the greetings,” Harvel complained. “I might need to use that hand again!"

  Grimm released the swordsman's hand, not having realised how tightly he had been gripping it. “Crest, Harvel, thank you so much for coming. Please, do come in."

  He waved the messenger out of the room and shut the door.

  "What's it all about, mage?” Harvel asked. “I don't imagine you've called on us just to help you escort some chinless princeling to his wedding. At least, I hope you haven't."

  "It is a Quest, a proper Quest, and the risk may be great,” Grimm replied. “However, before I tell you any details, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to promise to say nothing of it to anybody else. Not a word—and I do mean that. Lord Dominie Horin of High Lodge, the Guildmaster, asked me in person to undertake this Quest, and he's adamant that no hit of our purpose be allowed to leak out. I don't want any idle gossip, pillow-talk or casual chit-chat to jeopardise the expedition. Secrecy is paramount."

  Harvel laughed easily, his face open and good-humoured. “If you pay me well enough, Questor, I won't even tell my Confessor about it."

  Crest turned to face his warrior friend. “I never thought of you as a religious type, Harvel; a carouser and a lecher, yes, but not some bloody saint."

  Harvel shrugged. “You don't know everything about me, elf. I'll have you know I'm a fully-fledged member of the Church of the One. All right, I haven't been to church since I was a child, but I'm saving everything for one big confession."

  "No priest would listen to more than three hours of any honest confession you made,” the half-elf retorted. “You'd be excommunicated before you'd even started."

  The wh
ip-wielding, knife-throwing thief turned to Grimm. “You have my word, mage: I won't tell a soul of what you tell me without your explicit permission. Harvel and I are ex-soldiers, and we know how to keep our mouths shut.” He spat on the floor to solemnise the oath; the Questor felt a momentary frisson of disgust, but he knew the ritual sealed a firm, unshakeable covenant.

  "Very well, gentlemen; if you'll give me a few moments to wash and dress, we'll go to my day-room, where we can discuss things in a more comfortable and civilised environment."

  * * * *

  Grimm's ‘day-room’ was a spacious, semicircular room, with a huge bay window giving excellent views of the bustling, colourful city fifty feet below. Either side of the door stood ten-foot-tall racks of books, reaching almost to the ceiling. The floor was tiled in alternating squares of black and white marble. Ten comfortable black leather armchairs were arrayed around a round, polished mahogany table, ten feet in diameter, which sat on a circular woven rug decorated with muted patterns in pastel shades of green, red and blue. "I never thought I'd like this place,” Crest confessed. “But it looks like you've done wonders with it."

  "General Quelgrum can take most of the credit,” Grimm said. “His men did most of the work. My ...

  housekeeper, Drexelica, suggested most of the improvements. It's certainly a great improvement on the previous occupier's taste."

  The two warriors nodded. Both had encountered the demon Starmor, the tower's former owner, who had turned Crar into a ghastly marionette parody of a bustling, prosperous city. Both had also been present at the climactic battle that led to the humanoid monster's end.

  The tower had been an ebon monstrosity, suffused with the ever-present moaning of tormented souls, whose anguish provided a store of emotional energy for the demon's potent magic. The only reminder now of this was a soft, harmonious, almost intangible music that permeated the structure; the sound of spirits at peace, freed from Starmor's torments.

  "Once, I'd never have believed that this could be a nice place to live,” Harvel said, his eyes roaming around, taking in the room's sparse, yet tasteful appointments. “It's a little quiet for my tastes, but it's a pleasant and peaceful retreat now, a good place to relax after the rigours of the road. You've done pretty well for yourself, Questor Grimm."

  "Speaking about the ‘rigours of the road', what about this Quest, Lord Mage?” Crest, always the more pragmatic of the two warriors, asked. “Pleasant as your home from home is, I don't want to spend six months here while my fop of a friend performs a blow-by-blow assessment of the décor."

  "We're to hunt down a religious order,” Grimm said. “The Order of the Sisters of Divine Mercy. We're to render them powerless, by whatever means are necessary."

  Harvel gaped. “A bunch of nuns? What did they do, Questor, interrupt the Dominie's meditation by praying too loud, or something?"

  Crest joined in, his face a mask of astonishment. “In my life, I've fought demons, Argolian pirates, Gamenite Janissaries and packs of were-beasts in the grip of full baresark rage. I draw the line at parties of schoolchildren, old ladies and nuns!"

  Grimm waved his hands. “Has either of you ever had his mind enslaved by another?” he demanded, not waiting for an answer. “It happened to me when I became addicted to those damned herbs, Trina and Virion, and yet I'd rather go back to that pathetic, helpless state than face this sweet, blameless Order alone."

  The mage suppressed a shiver, recollecting just how close he had come to being a mindless, adoring puppet.

  "A poor, innocent little nun befriended me on my first visit to High Lodge,” he continued, pushing through the mingled emotions of shame and self-accusation that threatened to unman him

  "I thought I was in love, but she was, in truth, putting me under a witch spell. I became besotted, and I nearly turned against Questor Dalquist, whom I'm sure you remember.

  "She failed, I'm pleased to say, but I was lucky. As I now know, the Order's superior killed her for failing to enslave me and had her body butchered in the crypts under High Lodge. The elders of the coterie drank her blood, gentlemen, and it looked like they enjoyed it."

  "A gruesome little tale,” Crest admitted. “But have you ever thought she might have been executed for what she did to you? Some of these Orders have pretty strict rules."

  "That's not what happened at all, Crest!” Grimm spoke rather louder than he had intended. He felt his temperature rising, and he called Redeemer to him, accessing the charm of Inner Calm he had placed on the staff. The spell took the edge off his righteous anger, but a trace remained, bubbling beneath the surface of his psyche. The two warriors looked on with bemused expressions as the Questor struggled with his emotions.

  "I'm sorry, Crest; I shouldn't have shouted at you,” Grimm said, at last. “Indeed, I might have left it at that. But I was in High Lodge only a fortnight ago, and I was foolish enough to confront the Prioress with my suspicions after she tried to cozen my affections. I was on my guard, and she wasn't able to take control of me. However, she told me that she had power over the Lord Dominie himself, and that I'd be a fool to try to expose her to him."

  "Really, Questor Grimm, you do seem to enjoy belittling yourself.” Harvel laughed. “The old lady—I presume she was old?—might just have found you attractive. It could happen, you know; you're not too ugly a specimen, in the right light."

  Grimm shook his head. “With another mage, Necromancer Numal, I went down to the crypts, where I saw the girl's body desecrated. There was another mage already there: Questor Guy, called the Great Flame. He's Prioress Lizaveta's illegitimate grandson, and he hates her with a passion, but even he's not foolish to make a direct assault on her, despite being a Seventh Rank Questor of some years’

  experience. We found that Lizaveta had power nodes distributed throughout High Lodge. I don't think she did that just because she felt insecure and lonely in her old age. She put her hooks in Lord Horin, as she'd told me, and I nullified her power by drawing the soaked-in blood from the earth beneath the Lodge and destroying her throne."

  Harvel shrugged. “All right; she's no sweet little old lady, I'll grant you that. Nonetheless, if you've destroyed her power, why do you need to pursue her now?"

  "I've only destroyed her power base at High Lodge,” Grimm said. “There must be a Priory somewhere, and you can bet that it's a far more potent focus of her energies than anywhere else. I aim to find that Priory and wipe out her influence, once and for all."

  Crest scratched his nose, his brow furrowing. “Why didn't your Lord Dominie just destroy her when he had the chance, and be done with it?"

  "I don't know, Crest,” Grimm said, trying to fight the irritability that seemed almost his constant companion these days. “Perhaps he was still befuddled by the remnants of her spell. Perhaps she retained enough latent energy to persuade him to let her go. Perhaps Horin's getting senile. I don't know the reason, all right?

  "What I do know is that I've been given a task, and I'm going to carry it out to the best of my abilities! Is that understood?"

  The Questor saw the two warriors regarding him with cool stares, and it seemed to him as if the temperature in the room had dropped by several degrees.

  "I'm sorry, Crest,” he said, slapping his hand to his left temple and dragging it across his forehead. “I shouldn't have talked to you in that manner; I owe you much more than that. I think I've just been working a little too hard for the last fortnight, and I've hardly left myself time to think. This is my first Quest as the Senior Mage, and an important one. I don't want to make a mess of it.

  "Please, Crest, Harvel, forgive me if I've been a little short with you."

  Grimm noticed the elevation of Crest's right eyebrow.

  "All right, a lot short,” he said. “I'm sorry. What more can I say?"

  Crest shook his head. “Don't worry; you're forgiven as far as I'm concerned, Mage. I just wondered if part of you was still yearning for those herbs of yours. As I recall, you were ‘a little short’ wi
th us when you used them, too."

  The Questor sighed, ashamed to feel the prickling of hot, angry tears at the margins of his eyes. To hide these, lest they be misunderstood, he shut his eyes tight. In what had become almost a reflex action to any kind of confrontation, he found himself drawing his power into a tight knot.

  You're wound too damn ... tight, Afelnor! he chided himself. Let go, can't you? These are your friends, and you don't have many of those to spare! They're just worried about you, even if they don't need to be.

  Grimm heaved a long, shuddering sigh, letting his frustrations and worries go as best he was able.

  "Sometimes I find the yearning for the smoke a little intense,” he said to Crest. “However, this isn't one of the times, I assure you. I'm just worried and overwrought. A good night's sleep will see me right, I promise."

  After remaining silent for a few seconds, Crest said, “Well, least said, soonest mended, I suppose, so let's say no more about the matter. So where is this den of diabolic evil, then?"

  "They were last seen heading south-east from High Lodge; that's all I know, I'm afraid, gentlemen. Still, at least I know it's not here, and I'm fairly sure it's not likely to be anywhere with an established Guild presence. I propose we start our search in Yoren, about three days’ ride from here—a couple of my spies have told me a party of nuns passed through there recently."

  "I know that town; it's pretty rough, Lord Mage,” Harvel said. “Just as well you'll have a couple of seasoned warriors with you."

  "Oh, I can take care of myself, Harvel. Don't worry about me."

  Harvel leaned closer, a grim, humourless smile on his face. “In Yoren, they don't play fair, Questor, and they're people who tend to despise the Guild ring. I'd give that place a wide berth if I were on my own, and I've got eyes in the back of my head, not to mention full battle honours in three wars."

  Crest's expression darkened. “Harvel's right, for once in his life, Questor. They may not like lawmakers—an attitude with which a man in my line of work can sympathise—but they really detest Guild Mages. So don't get cocky, Grimm. Remember that Harvel and I hail from Drute, and you know what a fun little town that is. So when I tell you even we Drutians steer clear of Yoren, you'd better believe that we know what we're talking about. Seventh Rank Mage or not, they'd eat you for breakfast.