Alastair Archibald - Weapon of the Guild

The older man wagged his finger in a mock warning gesture. "Just you make sure that you meet that girl up this afternoon, Afelnor, or you'll be feeling the weight of Shakhmat resting none too gently on your head!"

"I'll be there, Mother Hen." Grimm laughed. "I'll be there, don't you worry."

****

Grimm tried thinking 'Library' and consulting his borrowed Gem of Location, but the charm just flashed at him, which, he understood, meant that there was more than one place with that appellation. He tried 'Senior Doorkeeper', and found that the stone worked on people as well as locations.

After following a winding trail, he found the tall, regal-looking man in one of the winding, identical corridors of the Lodge. The Senior Doorkeeper swivelled smoothly around at his approach, as if he were on well-oiled, silent castors.

"How may I help you, Questor Grimm?" The dark man's tone was cool, doubtless as a result of his altercation with Dalquist the day before.

"I wish to carry out some research, Senior Doorkeeper," Grimm replied in a civil manner, "and it seems you have more than one library here. Would you be so kind as to direct me to the most appropriate one for my purposes?"

The tall man sniffed. "We have five libraries, Questor Grimm, covering Civil Law, Thaumaturgic Research, Guild History, Biology and Technology," the Senior Doorkeeper said, with a trace of pride.

"You have a library of Technology?" Grimm felt stunned. In Arnor House at least, this discipline was regarded with suspicion, if not with outrage.

"It is necessary on occasion to study an enemy's ways, so as to understand him better, Questor. We of High Lodge are not as hidebound as the incumbents of certain provincial Houses." This was almost a direct insult, and Grimm swallowed a sharp retort.

"Thank you for your kind assistance, Senior Doorkeeper. I think I can find my own way from here." He gave the man a curt nod and turned on his heel, a gesture whose impact was lessened by the fact that Grimm almost tripped over Redeemer in the process. He could almost feel the Senior Doorkeeper's superior, smug smile burning into his back as he walked away, and he knew that his own face and aura were red.

****

The phrase 'Library-Guild History' evoked an immediate, decisive response from the gem, which shone a clear green path before him. In fifteen minutes, he had reached his goal. A simple door led into a vast complex of shelves and racks, regimented and rectilinear. This library was three times the size of Grimm's comfortable old haunt in the Arnor Scholasticate, but it was too cold and clinical for Grimm's taste. How would he ever find anything in this monstrous place?

He saw a wide, semicircular desk a few yards inside the door, at which sat a grizzled old mage dressed in simple dark-grey robes. The man sat leafing through sheaves of paper, muttering and clicking to himself like some fleshy millrace capable of grinding facts and figures into intellectual flour.

Grimm waited while the aged mage hummed and ticked his way through several sheets of paper, and then essayed a soft "Excuse me." The mage's head popped up with a sudden jerk, like that of a clockwork bird.

"Yes, may I help you?" The man's delivery was rapid, monotonous and staccato, again as if he were some machine made flesh. "Scholar Grell Librarian of this establishment what would you like to see?"

"Do you have any old copies of standard Guild reference works I could peruse?" Grimm asked, forcing himself not to copy Grell's rapid-fire pattern of speech.

"Selections date back nearly three hundred years which category please?"

Grimm tried to force his voice into its accustomed mode, but gave up the effort. "Deeds of the Questors sixty-five to thirty years ago original editions if available."

Grell's hand flicked out and opened a drawer in a cabinet at his left side. His deft fingers riffled through a series of cards and then stopped in an instant, as if at some predestined position.

"Rack E-323 Questor good reading Brother Mage."

The old man's gaze dropped back to his work, as if he had already forgotten the mage standing before him.

At least the library was laid out in a sensible order, and Grimm had little trouble in finding Rack E-323. He had decided to see if he could find any details of Loras' deeds as a young Questor. Arnor House seemed to have expunged all records of his grandfather's name from all records. Perhaps, he thought, High Lodge might be a little more catholic in its retention of documents; it was.

He found what appeared to be untouched copies of the periodical dating back to two hundred years before, and more.

Although the monetary wealth he had received from the grateful people of Crar was considerable, he felt rich beyond his wildest dreams at the sight of these dusty tomes. He leafed through several copies, careful not to damage the delicate, yellowed paper, until he found his first mention of his grandfather in a document dating back fifty years.

Afelnor, Loras, Third Rank Questor, is recognised for exemplary service to the Guild. This mage is hereby raised to the Fifth Rank, with congratulations from a grateful Presidium. Olaf Demonscourge, Seventh Rank Questor, is unanimously voted a yearly bequest of eight hundred gold pieces.

The relevant Quest was described in some detail. The senior mage on this expedition was Olaf Demonscourge, whom Grimm had last seen in a fierce battle between inebriation and imbecility at the young mage's ceremony of Acclamation. It was hard to think of the venerable Olaf as a relatively young man, maybe fifteen years older than his friend Dalquist, but it was even more of a shock to think of his grandfather, Loras, as a proud, vigorous nineteen-year-old Questor in the prime of his life.

****

The Quest seemed simple enough at first. A large group of brigands had been disrupting free trade and free travel within the demesnes of the Guild. Olaf and Loras were despatched to offer warning that the bandits were treading on dangerous ground; it was assumed that the presence of two full Guild Questors would be sufficient to persuade this band of desperadoes to abandon their plundering ways.

The Quest did not go as planned; it took on a more sinister turn when the despoilers revealed that they had a pair of powerful mages within their own ranks: a Weatherworker and an Illusionist who had abandoned the Guild in search of a wealthier lifestyle.

The two Arnor Questors defeated the renegade magic-users after a series of violent encounters, during which Olaf suffered a serious wound, a well-directed bolt of lightning, only to find that the outlaws had invested the town of Shuralla and taken the Earl's family prisoner.

Loras entered the town alone and defeated the brigands without the loss of a single hostage. An engraving, showing a proud, defiant-looking Loras carrying the Earl's baby daughter to her grateful father's arms adorned the page.

In later accounts, Loras' name appeared several times, involving cunning espionage, daring seizures and even political assassinations.

However, one aspect of Loras' character that shone out from the accounts of his deeds as a Guild Questor was a love of innocent life. Time and again, he seemed to have gone out of his way to prevent needless deaths, even at considerable risk to his own life. He had gained the Seventh Rank by the age of twenty-four, and had been feted and rewarded by the Guild on countless other occasions, on many occasions in the company of his great friend Thorn Virias, Grimm's own Prelate.

Grimm found it intriguing that the various accounts so often mentioned his grandfather's great humanity and compassion, his desire to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. He had killed when ordered to do so, or when dire necessity had arisen, but he had never gloried in the act. Of course, the authors of the Deeds of the Questors extolled the glories and virtues of the various Quests in extravagant language, but they seemed never to have dwelt on the more merciful qualities of other Questors in such glowing terms. Many of the other mages recognised and honoured by the Guild seemed bloodthirsty in comparison.