Alastair Archibald - A mage in the making

"Of course, they taunted you and hurt you. But now you're a Questor, and the finest treasure in the land can't buy that. You're a fighter and a survivor; remember that nobody can belittle that, or take it away from you."

Grimm nodded slowly, not quite seeing Dalquist's point.

"Just be proud of what you are," the Questor continued, "and of what you always were; take pity on these poor, rich simpletons. When you're fully trained, you may be able to destroy fortresses at a word of command, or to subdue demons and dragons. Rise above petty revenge as only one of true power and nobility can and you will gain respect and admiration. These Students and Neophytes will remember every slight, every trip and every punch they visited on you, and they'll relive every one ten-fold in shame. Will you promise me this?"

Grimm thought long and hard about Dalquist's words before he answered, "If you think it best, Dalquist, I shall bury my bitterness," he said with a sigh. "But it would have been fun to watch them squirm a bit."

Dalquist shook his head decisively. "You'd have people who cowered in fear at the mention of your name. Wouldn't it be better to have others who remember that you were man enough to forgive when you deserved revenge, and to admire you for it? Their own shame will be worse than the direst torments you could ever inflict on them."

Grimm nodded. "I see the right of what you say, Dalquist, but I don't feel it. They hurt me more than you can believe."

Dalquist's face fell. "I had nobody to give me the counsel that I just gave you, Grimm. It took me a while to learn just how bitter the taste of revenge can be. It cost me some good friends, although I didn't think of them as such at the time. In the end, I hurt only myself. And I had been hurt enough by then."

Grimm gripped Dalquist's hand tighter, and he laughed as well as a sore throat would allow.

"Very well, Brother Questor," he cried, "if I may presume to call you such. I'll be a saint for your sake. In any case, I suspect I'll need to learn a lot of patience and forbearance for what I'll have to go through in the near future."

"You will indeed, Grimm Afelnor;" Dalquist said, wagging an admonitory finger, "better start learning now. In a few days, you'll be starting on the real grind. You'll need every ounce of patience and forbearance if you're to get through that!"

Crohn placed a fist-sized rock on the table before Grimm. The Adept dutifully chanted the Minor Magic spell of Levity in the First Class. As he had known it would, the rock wobbled a little, but it stayed on the table.

"Now, the spell was properly cast; you know that because you have had endless practice in it. Why did the rock fail to lift?" Crohn droned, his left eyebrow quizzically raised.

"The First Class of the spell of Levity is applicable to light objects, such as twigs, with little tendency to lift," Grimm chanted, with the effortless recall born of long study and repetition. "I know there is a special variation of the First Class of the spell for lifting heavy objects, but I do not know it. I suppose I could look it up in a grimoire."

"If you do think that, I will begin to believe that I have been training the wrong boy!" Crohn snapped. "You do not need one spell for this, one spell for that, and another for the third Wednesday in June! You are a Questor, not a Reader. Most Questors can perform simple magic like this in their heads without even a chant or gesture. It is only a small rock."

"Well, I suggest you do it, then!" Grimm snarled. He had been encouraged by Crohn to be forthright as a Mage Questor should be, and he had been roused very early that morning.

"Of course I could do it," Crohn shot back, "but not the way you could. You need to regain command of your own spell-language."

"But I can't!" cried Grimm. "You can't even tell me how. All you can do is to tell me to do it, and I don't know how!"

"You are an Adept! Use Mage Speech, as you have been taught; how many times have you been told that?"

Grimm shrugged; he felt beyond caring.

"Move the damned rock, Afelnor," Crohn shouted, "and we can go to breakfast; I, for one, am quite hungry! Just lift the rock. It is nothing; a small rock you can hold easily in your hand. If you can destroy a classroom, this should be child's play!"

Grimm glared at the rock as if he could scare it into motion. It sat there, taunting him with its insolent inertia.

Move, move, damn it! he thought.

The rock sat steadfastly on the table as if mocking him. Under Crohn's critical gaze, he felt annoyance rising in him.

Move, you bastard lump of stone!

His power was ranged in orderly lines, ready to be patterned into a spell. If only he knew the right pattern! His mind twisted and turned like a man trying to use a poorly made key to unlock a door.

Grimm mulled the problem.

Try not to think of the words, just concentrate on the task in hand. Dissociate. The task is all.

He was about to give up when, just like a key slipping into a lock, something clicked.

"Skeykak!" It came unbidden from his lips as a blue flash filled the room. The rock thudded into the ceiling with the force of a cannonball and shattered, showering both Grimm and Crohn with rock shards and plaster.

"Ri-ight," Crohn said slowly. "I see that your old problem of power control has not left you. We will obviously need to work on that, but at least you understand the principle; that is good. Now we can eat. After breakfast we will review your thoughts and feelings concerning what you have just done."

Grimm sat, a little stunned, and made no comment as he stared, dumbstruck, at the new hole in the ceiling, from which a fine powder of pulverised plaster was gently falling.

"Do not worry about it, too much, Afelnor. I have been told that such destructive incidents are not uncommon during the training of Adept Questors. You were thinking in terms of how much power you needed to put into the Minor Levity spell, and you multiplied it accordingly. It does not work like that, I am afraid; you really have to feel how much power you need. Do not use Minor Magics as a prop; you must make your own spells."

Grimm nodded, still a little in awe of his new power.

"I have asked your friend, Questor Dalquist, to sit in on some of these sessions when he is available," Crohn said. "He should be able to help you better than I can, because most Questors can cast spells that do not even have physical or Minor Magic equivalents that can be used as a reference."

Grimm brightened; the presence of his friend would make his load easier to bear.

"Often, the same spell may not even have the same chant depending on its use," Crohn intoned, in his habitual Magemaster's bored drone, "and you do not need to learn a thousand inflections and accents as you need to do with Runic magic. It is not very complex, but it may seem more so when your stomach is empty. Let us eat now."

Eating in the Refectory was not such a chore now as it had been, since Grimm was now allowed to sit in the comfortable end reserved for mages and paying Students, and to share their richer menu.

Crohn, always an epicure, maintained that it was necessary for a mage to keep his strength up, and that insipid food dulled the mind as well as the appetite; Grimm did not disagree with him. During his Ordeal, he had not been allowed to associate with Madar and Argand, who had once often helped him to some of their goodies; the monotony of his diet had added to his misery.

As he entered the Refectory, he received respectful, and even friendly, nods from many of the boys there, which he returned with all the grace he could manage; Dalquist's advice to exercise generosity seemed to have proved correct, as many of the boys smiled in relieved response.