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!
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."
Grimm was puzzled. "But Dalquist isn't an Alchemist, he's a Questor," he said, wrinkling his brow in perplexity.
"That's what I say," the older boy said. "It's all very odd. You stick around here, you hear all sorts of funny things. I'm not even sure old Erek was any kind of Alchemist-I think that's just a story they've cooked up." He shrugged and turned back to his meal.
With no further information on the incident, the heated discussion petered out. "Oh well, at least old Kargan isn't quite so hard on us these days," Madar observed with a bright smile.
"That won't last, Madar, you'll see," was Argand's gloomy response. "They're just toying with us; it's the lull before the storm. This whole thing reeks with suspicion, if you ask me."
"You think everything's suspicious, Argand," Grimm said. "Remember when Kargan had that fever and stayed in bed, and you told us all he'd been carted off to the mad-house?"
"That was different," Argand grumbled. "If he wasn't, he should have been!"
The conversation drifted into wild speculations about all aspects of Scholasticate life, but the boys steered clear of the deaths of Erek and Urel.
Back in his cell that night, Grimm mused over what little he had seen of the incident. He knew Urel would never have hurt Erek, and nor would Erek have dreamed of raising a hand to Urel. His mind kept going back to the screaming and shouting Erek, and the strange, incomprehensible language that issued from his lips just before the explosion; he could not get the sounds out of his head. When sleep finally found him, his dreams were disturbing.