Alastair Archibald - Truth and Deception

"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 decor."

"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' with 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."