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.
Chapter 17: Progression
After two years in the Scholasticate, Grimm had proved to be an apt student, quickly mastering the complexities of the seven families of runes, learning how to write, pronounce and inflect them in various circumstances.
Despite his shy nature, he felt his confidence growing stronger by the day. Now, even some of the more snobbish Students treated him with a measure of respect or, at least forbearance.
However, such tolerance was far from universal. On one occasion, the bully, Shumal Tolarin, deliberately tripped him outside the Refectory, sending Grimm sprawling to the floor, winded and with a bloodied nose.
'Ooh, so sorry!' Shumal said with a smirk on his face, as if daring the smaller boy to try something, but Grimm was too busy trying to get his breath back even to speak.
Grimm said nothing about this, even to Madar and Argand. Instead, he bided his time until he came upon Shumal in a dark corridor without his sly acolyte, Ruvin.
While Shumal had his back turned, Grimm leapt on the bully, slammed him into the wall, punched him in the nose and threw him to the floor.
Shumal was larger than Grimm and not the kind of boy to take such an affront lying down. Lurching to his feet, he gave easily as good as he got. By the time they stepped apart, their chests heaving, both boys were marked, Grimm somewhat more so than Shumal.
However, Shumal's splendid silk robes were torn and scuffed, whilst Grimm's rough, patched homespun clothing looked little different after the fight. There was no time for Shumal to change his clothes, and he looked in a sorry state when he entered Crohn's classroom. The Magemaster made a show of ignoring the gloriously-hued bruises and contusions on both boys, but he awarded a severe penance to Shumal for being untidy in class, in direct contravention of rule 2.1. Grimm was not punished.
After this incident, Shumal gave Grimm a wider berth, substituting sullen disdain for overt insults and assaults. Although Grimm had told nobody in the class about the altercation, except for Madar and Argand, the truth was plain for all to see. Many now accorded him a significant measure of respect.
More conscientious than some of the other boys in the Lower Scholasticate, the three friends studied often together, aiding each other and each reinforcing the others' knowledge and confidence. Even the nearly tone-deaf Argand learned to handle rhythmic chants and simple songs, and even Kargan of the over-sensitive ears praised him for this.
