Alastair Archibald - Truth and Deception

"Expelled? That doesn't sound too bad," a man called from somewhere in the crowd. "It's a hell of a lot better than being enslaved. Get out of the way, mage, and give us our rightful revenge." A cheering chorus of agreement greeted this sally, but the fighters still hung back. However, Grimm could tell their wrath would not be contained for long.

"Pauper! Traitor's spawn! Rat's bastard!" the Questor screamed, giving vent to all the frustration and anger in his body. "From the age of seven until I gained my Guild ring, I spent scarcely a single day without hearing some such insult; many were much worse. Most were accompanied by beatings, and I lacked the size or the skill to fight back, unlike you. Most of the Students in my House regarded me as something lower than pond-scum, and my lowly, despised station ensured I was put through a frightful, awful ordeal that drove me to the very brink of madness. During that time, I was beaten almost into unconsciousness nearly every day, and I was not permitted to fight back! You, at least, are allowed to retaliate against your assailants.

"My grandfather, Loras, whose name should be hallowed throughout the Guild, is remembered as a renegade and a turncoat, who tried to murder a man for the sake of his own advancement! You have a decade of vengeance to expunge; I have a man's reputation to restore: his self-respect; his name; his life!

"I do not ask that Keller's life be spared, just that he be allowed to live long enough to tell me what I need to know to exonerate my grandfather. I have no quarrel with any of you, but I will fight to keep him alive for long enough to obtain the information I crave. That is all I want from him; then, you may have him.

"Is that acceptable?"

The fighters muttered and grumbled to each other, and the apparent spokesman nodded. "Ten minutes," he said. "No more than that."

The large man put two fingers in his mouth and whistled; Grimm winced at the volume of the piercing sound. The angry fighters retreated to the margins of the Pit, but they gathered around the only exit, preventing any chance of egress.

Grimm, satisfied he would be left unmolested for the moment, turned to the Necromancer.

"What's going on, Numal?" he demanded. "Is Keller still alive?"

The grey-haired mage nodded, and spoke in the same strange, strangled monotone he had used before. "We were just having a friendly little discussion when this mob of bruisers turned up, and I readied myself for a little bit of action. Then I found that this worn-out wreck of a body didn't have a hell of a lot of energy in it. I'm almost glad you turned up, youngster. I thought you were done for."

Grimm rubbed his aching left temple, confused; this did not sound like the effeminate, timid Numal at all. He shook his head, uncomprehending.

"I'm Guy Great Flame, dimwit." the grey-haired man said in the same grinding monotone. "I'm in Numal's body for now, and he's in mine. It's some kind of bloody Necromancer spell. If you want to play with the old boy for a while, it doesn't bother me, I suppose. All I want to do now is to get back to my own body."

Grimm nodded slowly; it all made a certain, bizarre sense now. He decided that deeper explanations could wait until later, and he knelt by the side of the fallen Pit-master, slapping Keller's cheeks until the erstwhile Master of Ceremonies opened his eyes.

"Don't hurt me!" the man screamed. "I swear I'll tell you everything I can, as long as you don't hurt me!" Keller tried to scramble away, despite the fact that his back was already against the far wall of the cubicle.

"You don't have any choice, filth." Grimm breathed, feeling righteous wrath burn through him. "Tell me what you know about Loras Afelnor and Prioress Lizaveta, or I'll make you wish I'd left you to the tender mercies of your former slaves! Talk, or suffer; it's all the same to me!"

Keller's empty, pleading eyes told the mage that the Pit-master had lost all sense of resistance.

"I don't know it all," Keller said, "but I do know that Loras Afelnor destroyed the slave market in this town about forty years ago. Slavery was the only means of survival for Yoren at the time, and he ruined us in a single day."

"My heart bleeds for you," Grimm growled. "Keep talking; by my reckoning, your good friends from the Pit will be coming for you in about nine minutes. What about Prioress Lizaveta?"

"She told me she'd fixed him," the Pit-master babbled. "She cast a spell over the whole Mansion House so that we couldn't be tainted by Guild mind-magic, and she said we didn't have to worry about old Loras any more.

"Don't hurt me!"

"I know damned well she fixed him," Grimm snapped, in no mood to extend any kind of warmth towards the pathetic man. "What did she say she'd done to him?"

Keller's eyes flicked around, as if he were trying to find some way to escape from his desperate situation, but his gaze came back to the Questor's unremitting, intense stare.

"She said she'd made him attack some man; I don't know who, I swear," the Pit-master babbled, his face sweaty and furtive. "But she said he'd know nothing about it, and that it'd finish him. He'd never be able to bother… someone again."

Grimm shot a magical pang of pain at the wretched man. "Who would he be unable to bother? Talk, you bastard, talk!"

"I'm trying to!" the Master of Ceremonies screamed, now appearing small and insignificant. Grimm knew he could crush this pathetic bug in an instant, but he preferred to stay his hand in the hope of further revelations. His Mage Sight told him that all of the craven man's statements to him so far had been true.

"Keller; I know I cannot coerce your mind through magic," he said, his voice soft but urgent, "but I will know the moment you utter the least lie. All Guild Mages can do this, but none of them can deal out punishment the way a Questor can.

"A single evasion or mistruth will condemn you to an unimaginably painful and slow death, I assure you. Only absolute, literal truth without prevarication or evasion will preserve your miserable life.

"Do you understand, worm?"

Keller nodded, his eyes wide and terrified. Grimm suppressed a smile. This was as it should be.

"I will not hurt you for telling the truth, whatever it may be," he said, and the cool voice seemed to come from outside him. "But a lie, any lie, will bring instant, agonising retribution. Do not worry about telling me what I want to hear, but, rather, fear my wrath if you try to mislead me in any way.

"I want a clear statement from you: to your certain knowledge, did Prioress Lizaveta cast a spell on Loras Afelnor, so that he would disgrace himself in the eyes of the Guild? Did she ensorcel him so that he attacked a man without his own volition? Was that the act that assured his expulsion from the Guild?"

Keller looked from Tordun, to Grimm, and back again, and his expression bordered on sheer panic.

"Just the truth, Keller," Grimm said. "Whatever the truth may be, I swear I will not hurt you for telling it. Any lie will bring you anguish beyond imagining."

Keller drew a whooping draught of air, his eyes threatening to burst from his face. "Lizaveta is… a very powerful witch. She made Loras Afelnor attack a very important man in the Guild," he gasped. "And she cast the spell so he wouldn't ever remember it. That's all I know; I swear it, mage."

Grimm felt a smile spreading across his face, and he knew it was not an amicable one. "Well done Keller. I see you spoke the truth. I have one more, very important question for you: where is the evil bitch's priory? If you tell me that, you won't see me again, I promise."

"She'll kill me, Questor!" the man screamed. "You don't know what she's like!"

It did not even need a spell-phrase; the Questor just concentrated a stream of energy at the floor. The concrete began to smoke and spall, as small, angry, glowing fragments flew away, and the stone-like material turned an evil, glowing blood-red.