Alastair Archibald - A mage in the making

One day, as Grimm's class was trooping to the Refectory for the mid-morning meal, they heard a strange high-pitched scream from one of the classrooms and ran as one to the source of the noise. Many others were gathered outside the room, with expressions ranging from callous amusement to outright terror.

An incomprehensible babbling came from behind the locked door, and a calm, measured tone that sounded like Urel's. The shrieking had reached such a level of intensity that many of the Students covered their ears. A blazing, blue light flashed around the edges of the door and, with a wet, sodden thump, the walls seemed to bulge outwards for an instant, with blue tendrils flickering from the very interstices of the stone blocks. Then came the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor and a final, decisive thump. Silence once more reigned.

Magemaster Crohn, his hair and robes flying, pushed his way through the throng, bereft of his normal gravity. "What are you boys doing here?" he cried. "To the Refectory with you! At once!"

The Students moved with reluctant, snail-like speed away from the door, as Crohn smashed it down with his staff.

Grimm could see that the classroom now seemed to be covered in red paint, and a single figure hung in the centre of the room, suspended from the ceiling by a cord around his neck. It looked like Erek. Crohn cut the blue-faced figure down and tried to revive him with increasing intensity, but to no avail.

Running from the room, Crohn shrieked at the nearest boy. "You, boy! Fetch Magemaster Fyr, the Healer, immediately! RUN! The rest of you, go to the Refectory and stay there, or in your cells, until you are told otherwise. The afternoon class is cancelled!"

The Students looked uncertain, nervous and confused. With tremendous effort, Crohn regained his composure. "Do I have to tell you twice? Go to the Refectory, right now! There is nothing more to see here."

At that moment, the Scholasticate Healer, Fyr, arrived, out of breath and as dishevelled as Crohn. With a cry of "Oh, no, no, no!" he rushed into the room and leapt to the prostrate body.

Crohn's gaze was icy and commanding, his voice low and dangerous. "Go. Now. This is your last warning."

Something seemed to push the boys away, and they finally fled.

Thorn looked harried, and much in need of sleep. Magemaster Crohn retained a respectful silence while the Prelate gathered his thoughts.

Rubbing his brow in a pained manner, Thorn gave a deep sigh. "What went wrong, Crohn?"

The Magemaster picked his words with care. "I knew Garan quite well, Lord Prelate. When Magemaster Urel told me what you had in mind for the boy, I advised caution, and he raised his own doubts about the boy's suitability.

"If I may be frank, Lord Thorn, I feel that putting the Neophyte so heedlessly through such an ordeal was unforgivable! I intend to advise the Presidium of my concerns with regard to his tuition, and I cannot but accept that you had a major role to play in the tragic losses of Neophyte Garan and Senior Magemaster Urel."

Thorn straightened his back and looked the Magemaster straight in the eyes. His brows were lowered in an angry scowl, and his face was flushed.

"Magemaster Crohn, I would wager you have not the least understanding of the demands of Guild politics!" he snapped. "Do you have the slightest comprehension of the responsibilities that I bear? The reputation of our House with High Lodge is paramount, and I deemed it essential that we assay the Neophytes for suitability as Questors. Senior Magemaster Urel told me that, in his earnest opinion, the boy was suitable material, and I advised him to proceed with caution.

"It is now plain that Urel was derelict in his duty, painful as that is to say. I warned him that the boy might be emotionally fragile, but he assured me that he would take care not to push Garan too far.

"It is abundantly clear to me that the Neophyte was pushed too quickly and too hard. A less intense and longer Ordeal might well have saved the situation and we might have been celebrating the creation of a new Adept Questor rather than mourning the sad loss of a Magemaster and a Neophyte."

Crohn harboured grave doubts, but he respected his Prelate too much to call him a liar.

"Lord Prelate, I knew Urel for many years, as did we all." he said. "He was a kind and reasonable soul, and I cannot believe that the responsibility for this tragedy lies with him alone. Your recent general orders for greater firmness with the training of Students are of a piece with this tragic occurrence."

Seizing on Crohn's words, Thorn saw an opening. It was plain that the Magemaster would not accept the image of Urel as a sadistic slave-driver, and so he tried another tack.

"Ah, Crohn, there is such charity within your soul," he groaned, slapping a hand over his face as if in sudden, anguished awareness. "I see now that I may have been a trifle… over-zealous in my eagerness to do my duty to the House and to the Guild. Poor Urel; he was so loyal to the House that he ignored his own feelings and drove himself to fulfil the letter of my instructions with such zeal that his sense of duty blinded him to the possible consequences.

"I have nobody to blame but myself; in my eagerness to serve the Guild, I was guilty of giving imprecise orders, and I was so wrapped up in my own duty that I failed to notice the impending tragedy."

Shaking his shoulders as if suffused with self-accusation and guilt, he risked a peek through the fingers over his eyes and was gratified to see that Crohn was still nodding. It would be all right. Deniability; that was what Thorn needed, and it seemed that he had struck a rich source of it.

"Lord Prelate, I beg forgiveness for suspecting you of any ill intent in this frightful miscalculation," Crohn said, hanging his head. "Yes, Urel was a good man, but I must admit that I felt, on occasion, that his sense of dedication to the House and the Guild bordered on the fanatical, even above the love he felt for his charges. Please forgive me my odious words."

Thorn disguised a deep sigh of relief as a smothered sob. "Crohn, I mourn the passing of these two fine souls as much as you, and I see that I, too, may have been a little too wedded to my duty.

"I wish you to succeed Urel as Senior Magemaster, Crohn, and I trust you to put me back on the right track whenever you deem it necessary. My first order to you as Principal of the Scholasticate is to ensure that all Magemasters act within the dictates of their good sense and humanity. Perhaps I have been working them too hard."

"Lord Thorn, I will arrange a ceremony for our two lost friends. May I trust that you will be there?"

Thorn nodded, maintaining his pose of deep sorrow. He had to fight to keep a smile from his face; he knew he had succeeded in his pose, and that Crohn would lay the majority of the blame for this debacle on the dead Urel, as he had hoped.

Madar and Argand were sitting with Grimm in the charity Students' area of the Refectory, and the three boys were deep in discussion about the recent tragedy, despite the fact that such chit-chat had been forbidden by Crohn. Since there were no Magemasters present, they felt at liberty to gossip, although they kept their voices low.

"An accident, eh?" Argand said. "Who'd have thought that Erek was a Neophyte Alchemist? I'd have thought he would've been better as an Herbalist or something."

Grimm nodded. "I always thought all those potions and things must be dangerous. Poor old Urel."

"Poor old Erek, too," Madar said with feeling. "He hurt so bad at what he did to Urel that he topped himself."

A snort came from another table, and the boys turned to see an older Student of about twelve or thirteen. "I've seen it once before," he confided, his eyes flicking back and forth as if expecting the presence of a Magemaster. "The whole Refectory was trashed just before you came, same blue light, the lot. Then, old Arrol comes out with that new mage, Dalquist. A right state, they were in."