Alastair Archibald - A mage in the making

"Learn them as soon as you can, boys," Erek said. "First rehearsal is in two weeks." With that, he and his friend were gone.

Looking at his part, Grimm whispered to Madar, "I can't read music! How can I do this?"

"Easy," said Madar. "I can teach you to read music as easy as you taught me that Sight thing. I've been reading music since I could walk. I'll get you through it."

The unmelodious Argand riffled through his part with some panic, as if expecting to find music littering the pages like so many flies on a summer window, but he sighed with relief at finding none. "I have to howl from time to time," he explained. "I think I can do that!"

"All you have to do is sing like you normally do," Madar observed, yelping as his friend punched him in the upper arm.

The boys ran to the hall at every break to practice their parts in the entertainment. The show was scheduled for three months' time and Erek had at last managed to assemble a cast with which he declared himself satisfied.

After a few more weeks, serious rehearsals began. Grimm revelled in the musical magic of the event, having a small but important part in the pageant. Madar had seemed to enjoy rubbing soot onto his Scholasticate-clean face, while Argand had relished rolling on the stage, uttering convincing, piteous dog-howls for his imagined, lost master.

Erek drove his charges with ruthless zeal, but Grimm did not begrudge the effort as he honed his performance to perfection. After many intense practice sessions, the cast was ready. Now, only two weeks remained until the production was revealed to the Scholasticate for the first time. Grimm could hardly wait until Kargan had finished another litany of runes to run to the hall. Madar and Argand were just behind him. Erek stood at the door, his face ashen.

"Erek, what's the matter?" cried Madar, his sweep's costume in his hand.

"There is no more practice, no more show. The entertainment will not take place," Erek said in a monotone, as if reciting a tedious speech. Grimm could tell the Neophyte was hiding considerable distress.

"I have… squandered too much time on this frivolity, to the detriment of my studies. I apologise for this, but your services will no longer be required."

Embryo tears glittered at the corners of Erek's eyes; Grimm knew this show had meant so much to him. Nonetheless, he admired the way Erek steeled himself to speak in a measured tone as was expected of a Neophyte, his previous banter and ebullience a distant memory.

"This is my fault," Erek droned. "I am to tear up all the backdrops and destroy all the properties myself. Please give me your costumes."

The boys complied, although Madar's reluctance to give up his beloved sweep's rags was evident.

Erek squeezed his eyes shut, and his voice became harsh. "No more, do you hear? A Neophyte should not waste his time in idle frivolity. Thank you for your interest but, please, go!" This last was punctuated with a small sob, and Grimm found embarrassment competing for his attention alongside confusion and disappointment.

The Neophyte turned his back on the boys and picked up a hatchet lying on the floor of the Hall. He walked to the centre of the room with a determined stride and began to destroy the beautiful props and backdrops, all of which had been constructed with love and dedication, with a fervour approaching fury.

Grimm, fighting his own tears, turned and ran from the hall, not waiting to see if his friends were behind him.

Kargan strode into Grimm's classroom with his usual boisterous manner, flinging his staff into the corner of the room with a loud clatter. "Staff, stand in the corner," he muttered, and the brass-shod stick stood at obedient attention, heedless of gravity's insistent demands. The boys were impressed, since they had seen little real magic during their time in the Scholasticate.

The Magemaster turned to face them with an expression of smug satisfaction, either real or feigned; Grimm could not guess which. He slumped into a casual, almost bored, pose; one hand flat on the battered desk at the front of the class, the other resting on his hip, one leg crossed jauntily over the other.

"Gentlemen," he breathed. "Now, you belong to me." The words hung in the air, ominous and threatening, before Kargan's mouth twisted into its familiar, manic grin.

"I have the pleasure to be able to tell you," he said, "that I am now the Magemaster of your form. For my sins, I will be responsible in person for your success or failure as Students, lowly slugs though you be.

"Lord Thorn has told me that there is altogether too much laxity within the Scholasticate, and I have been given the solemn task to eradicate it within this class. I wish it understood right now that I intend to work you to within an INCH OF YOUR BLOODY LIVES and then, perhaps, a further one-twelfth of a foot if you do not apply yourselves! I will not tolerate chattering, smattering, idling, sidling, gossip, banter or sloth!"

Erek could have done with you in his show, Grimm thought, dazzled by Kargan's vocal dexterity.

"I will have my eye on the jesters and the pranksters-yes, I am looking at YOU, Gaheela!-and I will come down HARD on anybody who does not give his utmost. NOW: IS THAT AS CLEAR AS THE MOST IMMACULATE CRYSTAL?"

The boys were, as ever, stunned by Kargan's sudden shifts from soft speech to shattering shouts, but a weak, dutiful chorus of "Yes, Lord Mage" arose from the class.

"Goooood," Kargan crooned, his voice sounding as if it came from the far end of a long tube. "Perhaps then, Turel, you would care to amuse us all with your addle-pated recollection of the First Family of Runes, laughable though it may be."

Kargan was as good as his word; the workload on the Students underwent a dramatic increase in quantity and depth. Grimm knew he was not alone in feeling as if his head would burst with all the studies on rune inflection, precedence, attributes from primary to tertiary, exclusions and modifiers, but, after a few months' study, the Students all had a reasonable command of the First Family of Runes. They could recognise, pronounce and write them and, in his classes, Crohn had even given them some basic instruction as to how they were used in spells.

The Students soon learned that the forms of the runes alone were only a starting point. Different accents and joining-strokes could completely alter the sense of a spell, or render it impotent.

Kargan's classes now encompassed the singing of sequences of runes, and Crohn explained the vital importance of accuracy and clarity of voice in spell-cast-ing. A few months more, and the boys were capable of chanting simple spells, although mistakes were frequent, due to the hard pace at which the Students were being driven.

Crohn explained that no magical transformations took place, even when the chants were correct, because the marshalling and directing of psychic energy into magical form would not be taught until much later.

In a firm tone that brooked no argument, he told the Students that undisciplined children could not be trusted to use such power responsibly, and the consequences of miscast or ill-understood spells could be quite serious. However, the Magemaster demonstrated each of the spells with their full effect, levitating small objects, mending broken pottery and producing balls of coloured light from his fingertips.

Grimm felt considerable satisfaction when Kargan or Crohn congratulated him on a well-delivered "spell", though such plaudits were few and far between.

Grimm's love of books had been dulled by the constant study of runes, and he used the Library less than he had before. He threw himself with wholehearted intensity into physical games with Madar and Argand in the large Scholasticate yard. He missed Erek's rehearsals, which had been tiring at times but always enjoyable. To assuage the loss he felt, he threw himself into his friends' games with a reckless, almost desperate abandon. Anything had to be better than the endless, dull, stultifying repetition of runes!