Alastair Archibald - A mage in the making

Crohn seemed to be on a familiar home stretch now, and his oratory picked up in pace and intensity.

"Nevertheless, I swallowed my disappointment and applied myself assiduously to learn the craft of the Manipulator until I was finally Acclaimed. My father was present at my Acclamation, and he was just happy that I had managed to become any sort of mage.

"The talents and abilities of mages of the various different classes will be outlined in greater detail later on in your schooling. However, I would like to say a few words about the undervalued calling of Mage Reader. Although this magical vocation is common and, hence, not held in high regard by ignorant people, there is no shame in this calling. Good Mage Readers are valued and important members of the Guild, but they can be hard to find.

"Very few Students, knowing the lowly status that the discipline entails, choose to further their education here when they are informed as Neophytes that their vocation will be as a Reader. This is a mistake. A good Reader is an essential member of all Great Spells, spells involving large groups of mages. All Readers bear a House Ring identical to the one I have worn for many years now,"-he held up his left hand to display a beautiful blue-and-gold ring, and a few boys, including Grimm, gaped in mute appreciation-"the same ring that you may one day bear, if you are diligent in your studies.

"Every Reader carries a staff scarcely distinguishable from my own, a staff crafted by his own hand, and good Readers are in some demand at High Lodge. A High Lodge Mage Reader is a mage of some distinction."

Crohn gave a stern look. "I trust that none of you will turn his nose up if offered a vocation as Reader," he said, his brows lowered. No dissenting voice came.

"As well as a hierarchy of vocations," he continued, "all the classes of magery have a number of grades within them, the highest being the Seventh Rank. As you can tell from the gold rings on my staff, I am a Mage Manipulator of the Seventh Rank. Our respected Prelate, Lord Thorn, is a Mage Questor of the Seventh Rank. Any mage of the Fifth Rank or above may teach in the Scholasticate, and any mage of the Seventh Rank may be declared a Magemaster, one who teaches and also acts as, I trust, a spiritual guide. At this stage in your education, this is all that you need to know. As Students, all that you really need to know is how to study, how to appreciate the value of your learning, and how to apply yourselves to the importance of the craft to which you have been submitted."

The distant, strident bell of the Refectory sounded, indicating the mid-day meal break, and Crohn motioned the new Students to leave the classroom. They filed out in seeming stupor, and the Magemaster maintained his stiff, formal pose. When they had left, he allowed a broad smile to suffuse his face: the morning had gone well.

The new Students were dismissed to the Refectory for the mid-day meal, and some of the other boys sat with Grimm to ask him more about these mysterious colours and what they meant. He was more than happy to tell them what he know about the skill, but the boys drifted away after he had told them what they wanted to know. He looked about for Madar, the friendly boy he had met in the hall, but Madar was earnestly, confidently holding court at the far end of the Refectory. A large group of other young Students seemed quite engrossed in whatever it was that Madar was saying.

Knowing he was forbidden to sit in the hallowed area reserved for the rich Students, Grimm worked his way through an insipid meal of broad beans and mutton in silence, ignored by the other Students at his end of the Refectory.

In the afternoon, the boys were faced with the dynamic, enthusiastic figure of Magemaster Kargan, a welcome change from the forbidding Crohn, with a shock of grey hair, a neat goatee of the same colour and blue-tinted spectacles that gave him an indefinable air of mystery. Despite the colour of his hair and beard, Kargan's unlined face and broad, toothy smile looked as if they belonged on a much younger man.

Where Crohn had announced the beginning of his lecture by banging his staff on the stone floor, Kargan began by ostentatiously slamming a pile of books onto the front desk with an impressive thump that made even the most torpid boy jerk into an upright position.

Leaning forward on the balls of his feet, he spoke in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

"You may have heard rumours that I am slightly unhinged," he began. "Those rumours may well be true." The beaming, somewhat manic expression on his face did not contradict this statement.

"Greetings, Students," he cried in a loud but singsong voice. "I am Kargan Lindata." He paused to scribble his name on the slate board, "and for my pains it has fallen to my lot to try to teach you talentless ingrates something of Runes, Spell Reading and Recital."

Kargan drew a deep breath and continued in a quieter tone.

"No doubt," he said, "Magemaster Crohn has told you much of our noble calling but, in my experience, most of the pampered pets that come here merely hope to learn a few impressive tricks. Whether you learn or not is nothing to me; I have seen many a moneyed dilettante pass through these halls and I am not one who lusts for a magely Acclamation; I have held this staff for over twenty years, and I could not care less if you fritter your whole time away until you become bored and leave.

"Nonetheless, I have to try to cram some of my hard earned knowledge into those thick pates of yours until something sticks."

The booming voice dropped again to a low level, a parody of a tragedian's soliloquy.

"I have studied and struggled for fifty-eight long years, only to come to this lot of ingrates," he said, adding a theatrical sigh and slapping a hand to his brow. "Nobody appreciates my vast talents." Some of the boys smiled, Grimm among them, recognising the new Magemaster's dry humour.

"RUNES!" Kargan shrieked in a mighty voice which made the boys sit bolt upright again. "RUNES ARE THE LANGUAGE OF MAGICAL LORE!"

Some of the Students regarded the Magemaster with wide, fearful eyes after this thundering declamation, but Grimm could recognise play-acting when he saw it; he guessed that Kargan was not in truth the fire-breathing maniac he appeared.

The young Student found Kargan's style of education more entertaining, at least, than that of Magemaster Crohn, not least because Kargan did not seem to share Crohn's scruples with regard to the use of 'Mage Speech'.

"Don't listen to what the other Magemasters may tell you about how important this facet of lore is, or how central that principle is. This is the most vital part of magic. This is magic!"

Panting a little, and flicking grey locks from his eyes, Kargan began to rattle out a swift and complex litany that seemed designed solely to confound the Students.

"Magical runes belong to a one-hundred-and-sixty-three letter alphabet divided into six families, with twenty-seven accents and fifty-two inflections. The runes of each family vary in context depending on order, tone, speed of delivery and cadence.

"A spell consists of a series of runes, chanted with perfect diction and tone. A given rune will link smoothly only to certain others, and only in certain ways. Some runes can't be used to begin or end a spell. An accented rune cannot be used before a joining-rune or after a rising inflection except when preceded by a tonal modifier."

Although Grimm loved books and read all he could, he did not understand most of what the Magemaster had said, and he feared that all Kargan's lessons would be given in this rapid-fire, impenetrable style.

Perhaps the other boys were trained in this sort of language, he thought. Maybe I'll never get the hang of it! He risked a surreptitious glance at the rest of the class, but the blank, stunned expressions of the other Students suggested that they were as confused as he.