Grimm clenched his fists, keeping them at his side as his Questor training reasserted itself.
'I must go back to High Lodge,” he said, his voice a harsh monotone. “I have a Quest to requite. Where are my companions?'
'They are in Anjar,” Mercia said, a few fugitive tears leaving grubby tracks on her pale cheeks. “Some of the Sisters require more care than I could give them, and your friends have been ferrying them to Anjar for help. Others have left to make their way in the world.'
She sniffed, as if trying to draw tears back into her eyes.
'Now… now, there is only you and I. General Quelgrum said he would return tonight. I presume you will leave with him. He has a wagon, now, and he and Sergeant Erik have retrieved some of your possessions from that haunted cemetery, including some of their death-Technology. They are strong now. If you must go, I cannot stop you.'
Grimm nodded. “I don't have any choice in the matter, Sister. I dare not stay here any longer. I'm sorry.'
A long, uncomfortable silence descended like a grey cloud over the mage and the nun.
She really is very pretty…
For the space of a few heartbeats, Grimm thought of his imaginary gambol with dream-Drexelica, but with Mercia in his beloved's place.
Drex hates me now… no! he thought, dismissing the idyllic image. I'll bring her back to me, whatever it takes. If it takes me a lifetime, I'll bring her back!
'I'm sorry, Sister Mercia,” he repeated, “but I cannot bring your friends back. I thank you for your diligent attentions, with all my heart, but I will not apologise for their deaths, dear Sister. It couldn't be helped.'
She snorted, and Grimm shrugged, his wayward feelings now back under his full control.
He looked down at himself. His robes might be tattered and stained, but he took comfort in the blue glow from his Guild ring: Granfer's ring.
Only one thing was missing. Drawing himself to his full height, despite the burning pain in his left hip, Grimm muttered “Redeemer; come to me.'
As he felt his faithful, hand-carved staff slap into his waiting hand, the ground groaned and trembled, sending a dense cloud of yellow dust into the air with a sound like thunder. Now, he was complete.
Names help Lord Thorn now! he thought.
'If my presence bothers you, Sister Mercia,” he said, “I'll leave you and make my way up Merrydeath Road as best I can. I'm sure any town around here would welcome the services of a healer as talented and dedicated as you. Thank you, and goodbye. You don't have to tolerate my presence a moment longer.'
Ignoring the pain, he began to limp away to the north, turning his back on the devastation he had caused.
'Lord Mage, please wait!'
The nun's voice was so plaintive and desperate that it stopped Grimm in his tracks, sending another shooting pain through his lower body.
'Yes, Sister Mercia?'
'May I come with you… please? I do not want to be alone.'
'Are you sure, Sister? I may have to kill again; you appreciate that, don't you?” The mage made his tone rough; almost brutal. “After all, that's what I am: a human weapon. I don't have to like it, but I won't deny it.'
She sighed. “You risked your life for me and some of the other nuns. They have all left, leaving me with you. I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing. But will you take me with you?'
If this girl wants to come with us, how can I deny her? he thought. My heart is with Drex alone… if she hasn't run away already.
'Very well, Sister,” he said, trying not to reveal the growing anguish in his pelvis. “Just don't try to use any Geomancy on me.'
'I do not think I have any magic left, Lord Mage,” she said. “Please wait with me. I do not want to be left alone.'
With some difficulty, Grimm sat down on a grassy hillock. After a few minutes, Mercia sat opposite him, her eyes wary. The Questor looked at the sky and sighed. A long wait might lie ahead of him, but he had no intention of flirting with this young woman, however great the temptation.
Nonetheless, the stark ruins of the Priory seemed to mock Grimm's earlier proud defence of his calling, denying him the inner peace he sought. Every cold stone block seemed to cry, ‘Murderer!'
Come on, Quelgrum; get me out of here, he thought. I just want to finish this cursed Quest.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 30: Resolutions
Grimm sat on the hillock next to Sister Mercia, regarding the shattered ruins of Rendale Priory. He still found it hard to believe that such devastation could have been wrought by one man alone.
Dotted among the grass sward around the tumbled mass of stone, he saw numerous brown mounds; the last resting places of the blameless women who had died during the Priory's sudden collapse. According to Sister Mercia, thirty-eight nuns had lost their lives in the disaster. Grimm could not bring himself to count them, for fear that she might have underestimated the total; thirty-eight innocent lives on his conscience seemed more than enough to bear.
'Are we just going to sit like this until the General and your other companions return from Anjar, Lord Grimm?” Mercia demanded, dragging Grimm's attention back into the world of the living.
'Perhaps it is best,” he said, feeling a catch in his throat. “I know how you must hate me.” He did not trust himself to say more.
'Do you want me to hate you?” she asked.
'You have that right,” he said, not daring to turn around to meet her eyes. “Perhaps I deserve your hatred. I killed your friends and destroyed your home.” In an attempt to cover his swelling emotions, his voice became rough and harsh. “That's what I do… I kill people. I'm good at it, it seems.'
'Do you enjoy destruction and death?” she pressed him, and he felt annoyance rising within him, to add to his inner turmoil.
He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but his throat felt as if an orange had become stuck in it, blocking the passage of air. He waved his hands in a helpless, vague gesture.
'Enough!” He forced the single word through the blockage, hearing the tremor within it. “You hate me; I know… I should be… Oh, Mercia!'
At last, the long-dammed tears burst through their barrier, and the mage slumped into a sodden lump of misery, his shoulders shaking with the effort to regain outward composure. He felt the young nun's arm curl around him, drawing him close to her. He did not resist… he could not resist.
'I do not hate you,” she whispered, rubbing him between his shoulder-blades with a comforting hand. “I might, if I thought you did not care about what you did, or if it had been a deliberate act. Now, I know it was all a tragic accident. I recognise what the Reverend Mother and the Score did to hundreds of innocent girls: they brutalised them, turned them into unseeing, unfeeling automata. That had to be stopped.
'You took the decision to end it, at serious risk to your own life, even though you could have walked away from the Priory.
'That took moral courage, Questor Grimm, and you did not flinch from it. There were over two hundred and fifty women in the Priory, living a life that was no life. You freed more than two hundred and ten of them, the vast majority. You owed them nothing after the way you were treated. I did despise you at first, but I despise you no longer. You are a good man, Lord Grimm. I know that now.
'There; do not try to speak. Just release your grief and hurt. Let it all out.'
Grimm's face burrowed into Mercia's neck, feeling the stiff calico of her wimple bristling against his feverish brow.
It felt so good, so right to let go of his warring emotions… perhaps too right…
'No,” he said, drawing away from Mercia with a shudder and throwing off her arm. “That's enough.'
