Despite his confusion, Grimm laughed: the Dominie could only be referring to Questor Xylox. Then his face clouded.
'What makes you think I will be any different, Lord Horin? I am rich beyond my dreams after my first Quest, and I'm pretty sure I could easily afford to buy off my indenture any time I wished.'
'But you won't,' Horin said, 'not even if we allow you to do so-and we don't have to, Afelnor.
'You need the Guild as much as we need you. You have a mission, a personal mission, do you not?'
'What?'
'You are unique, Afelnor. You are the grandson of the reviled Oathbreaker. Your name is tainted beyond imagining, and you seek to cleanse it. You are kin to a man who tried to kill his lord and master, and there is no worse crime in the whole Guild. Because of your lineage, you are reviled by most, even beyond the petty prejudices of social class-consciousness.
'I can help you achieve your aims, and I will, if you help me.'
Grimm slumped back in his chair and rubbed his perspiring brow with a palsied hand. He felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and he felt unable to speak.
The Dominie leaned closer and said in a low voice, 'Our life, our very existence is threatened, and I want an irreverent, hot-headed, impertinent grandson of a convicted traitor to help me, not a polished, scrubbed, silver- tongued paragon of Guild manhood.'
Grimm tried again to speak, but his tongue felt as if it were a lump of dead wood. Horin rose to unsteady feet, weaving like a drunken man, but the Questor knew that only the old man's body had betrayed him; despite the evangelistic gleam in those feverish eyes, the Dominie's sanity could not be in doubt.
The old man laughed; a crackling, high-pitched squeak without the slightest hint of humour. 'There is a sickness within our brotherhood, my young friend,' he said. 'After centuries, millennia of stability, a creeping, insidious malaise threatens the stability of the entire Guild. Following my dealings with the odious Lizaveta, I have begun to believe that she, or someone just like her, may be at the root of the problem.'
Grimm's forehead furrowed.
'What is the nature of this sickness, Lord?'
The young man saw the Guildmaster's wan complexion growing healthier by the moment, and he noted a little more animation in the Dominie's voice when he spoke.
'There has always been rivalry and ambition within the Guild, young Afelnor,' he said. 'It is tolerated, and even encouraged, so long as it doesn't interfere with the smooth running of the institution. You are an ambitious young man, but that is only to be expected in a Guild mage.
'However, I have noticed a distinct escalation in the unrest between the Houses in the last few decades. There is now far too much secrecy and skulduggery in an organisation that has always prided itself on openness and fraternity.
'I have tried to eradicate this sickness at the root, but without success. There may be many causes for this malaise, but I cannot deny that this little attempt by Prioress Lizaveta to suborn me has shaken me beyond measure; my unease has not been diminished by your own experience with the young nun, right here in High Lodge. How many mages have been compromised or controlled by this woman and her Order?
'I am mindful of the early wars between mages and witches, and I wonder if these latest affronts are skirmishes in a renewed conflict. Perhaps Lizaveta's order is no more than a front for a Geomantic supremacy movement.'
Grimm considered the Dominie's words: they sounded on first hearing like the paranoid maunderings of a worried man, but were they so improbable?
Lizaveta's involvement in Madeleine's attempt to subsume his will seemed incontestable. Perhaps she had tried to perform similar magic on Loras, many years before, and his will had proved the stronger. The Dominie, although a potent mage, would not have presented such a difficult target, and the old witch had tried to use Grimm as her weapon without success. Maybe this was no coincidence; if Loras had rebuffed her, control of his grandson might seem like sweet revenge.
Slowly, Grimm nodded; it all began to make sense to him. 'I concur, Dominie; at the very least, Prioress Lizaveta's Order presents a serious threat to our Guild. May I ask what you have in mind for me in this regard?'
It'll be some kind of fact-finding mission, I expect, he thought. Presumably, I'll have to interview various mages, to see if they've fallen under Lizaveta's influence. Tedious, but, I suppose, essential.
'I want you, Grimm Afelnor, Mage Questor of the Seventh Rank, called the Dragonblaster, to find out. I wish you to confront this odious cult directly and, if necessary, to destroy it. I want this baleful influence eradicated, however you choose to achieve this.
'I now know you are a truly loyal mage. I elevated you to the Seventh Rank as evidence of my good faith, and I expect you to carry out your side of the bargain. Will you do so?'
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Chapter 19: 'The Most Important Quest'
Grimm started forward, and almost slid off the slick leather seat. 'You want me to confront this nest of vipers directly, Lord Dominie? A single witch of that Order nearly managed to enslave me! I can hardly approach Lizaveta directly; she's already met me. Perhaps it would be better to choose another mage, Dominie, one unknown to her.'
Horin again made a show of inspecting his nails, as if embarrassed. 'You already know of her ways, Questor Grimm; you are forewarned. I wish as few members of the Guild as possible to be alerted to this Quest, since I have no idea how far Lizaveta's influence has spread… and I do not wish it known that I, the Master of the Guild, was so nearly enslaved by Geomancy.
'You are not to tell Lord Thorn, or any other member of the Guild, the true purpose of your mission. I don't want it known that there may be a weakness within our Brotherhood.'
Grimm leapt to his feet, his face hot and his fists balled.
'Surely you don't expect me to do this alone? You ask the impossible, Lord Horin! I don't know where they are, and I have no idea of what obstacles I might meet on the way!'
'Impetuous as ever, I see,' muttered the elder mage. Then, he raised his voice 'Very well, Afelnor. You may recruit a few Seculars to your cause, so long as you tell them nothing of the task beyond what is utterly necessary.'
Grimm nodded, relieved. 'I have an army under my command, Lord Horin. We'll soon resolve the situation.'
Horin sighed. 'I'm afraid I can't allow that, Questor Grimm. An army would be far too conspicuous, and word would reach Lizaveta long before you would arrive. Worse than that, a panic might arise within the various Houses; they might assume that Lord Thorn was intending to eradicate his rivals, once and for all. You are, after all, an Arnor man.'
This is impossible, the Questor thought. Horin asks far too much of me. I may have hundreds of miles to travel, perhaps through barren and hostile wastelands, and my power is far from inexhaustible. I'll just have to turn him down.
'Dominie,' he said, drawing himself to his full height. 'I thank you for your faith in my abilities, but I must decline; your conditions are too onerous. Please, just erase my memories and send me back to Arnor; reduce me to the ranks if you must. I'm sorry.'
Horin said, 'I could order you, although I do not wish to do so. Does your sworn Oath mean nothing? What about your sullied family name?'
Grimm winced, as if a pair of sharp barbs had struck his heart. As the grandson of the despised Oathbreaker, this question pierced him to the quick. Again, hot indignation threatened to overwhelm him. 'I don't think my Oath requires me to commit suicide on your least command, Lord Horin. If you want to interpret my refusal as treason, then I can't do much about it, but what you propose will need more than a Questor and a couple of ignorant warriors. For the record, Dominie: I refuse. Do with me what you will.'
