comrades to save; not to mention his sworn Quest to fulfil. His thoughts were still clouded by the cloying pheromones in the air, stirring him to instinctive reaction. Although he had tried to prepare himself for their insidious effects, the pounding of his heart and his growing rage told him he was losing the battle to retain his rationality.
'We need a little more ventilation in here!' he shouted, hurling a tight, destructive ball of force at the domed ceiling. The dome shuddered, but it remained intact. With a snarl on his lips, Grimm repeated the spell with greater force. A circular portion of the ceiling, maybe thirty feet in diameter, splintered into a myriad of flying fragments, and the evening light and sweet, untainted air flooded into the auditorium.
'A fantastic series of moves from the young contender! In the space of a few heartbeats, he's turned the fight around!' the resounding, disembodied voice of the Pit-master screamed. 'But has he made a mistake?'
Grimm tried to ignore the loathsome voice and began to take stock of his surroundings; he saw a dozen openings in the Pit walls, with no idea where they might lead. The fighters had gone from the wire barrier. Even now, they might be making their way towards him through unseen catacombs.
Can I launch myself through this ragged hole in the ceiling?
He remembered tales of Mage Manipulant Garband, who had possessed the ability to soar like a bird, but he knew no Questor could ever hope to match a Specialist in his own field. He had achieved a clumsy simulacrum of true magical flight by bending his destructive powers, but it had been a frightening experience, motivated by sheer terror.
Pick a door, any door!
With no idea where he might be going, the mage did just that, flying into one of the dark openings. He clattered into a rack of weapons, spilling them over the floor, and staggered back into the main area, feeling like an idiot.
'A great move from the new boy! He's totalled a whole row of spears! What a result!'
'I will kill you, Keller!' Grimm snarled, without conviction, hearing his weak, unconvincing voice booming over the arena.
'Don't bet on it, amateur!'
As his eyes began to adapt to the dim light, Grimm saw that some of the rectangular orifices looked a little darker than others; perhaps they were the true passageways. Which one should he take? Which corridors might already be filling with bloodthirsty warriors, hungry for his life?
Perhaps Thribble can help…
The minuscule demon had proved himself a resourceful investigator on many occasions. The mage patted a pocket and felt no resistance.
'Thribble!'
Grimm heard no response, and he began to flap at his robe pockets; the demon was quite absent.
Recognising the fingers of incipient terror tickling at his stem-brain, he clamped down on his rampant emotions as he had been taught at the Scholasticate. He was alone; Thribble had deserted him, and he had to deal with that.
Just move, Afelnor!
The mental imperative drove him into one of the dark openings. He ran past rows of empty bunks, into a closed, square area of metal lockers. Hearing angry voices behind him, he launched a mighty spell of Dissolution into the wall opposite him.
The lockers exploded into hot, orange shards that scored and burnt his face, but a brick wall stood behind. There was no time to think, as the voices grew louder. Another spell; the brickwork sundered into dust. Instead of open sky, all the magic-user saw was a dirty expanse of rock.
Grimm spun around, to see the first few fighters coming down the corridor. Unthinking, acting only on his reflexes, he sent a powerful fireball down the passageway, gratified to hear a few, brief screams before the spell died. He slumped as the energy left his body; he had all too little left to give.
'Only forty-three to go, Questor!' called the hated, metallic voice of the Pit-master, from his unseen eyrie. 'I'm only sorry we didn't have an audience to appreciate this! You've done the Pit proud, young feller.'
Keller seemed to have eyes everywhere!
'Damn you, Keller!' shouted the mage. 'I'll tear your guts out through your mouth, you bastard!'
'If I had a penny for every time someone had wished that, I'd be a rich man, Guild scum! I saw your grandfather, Loras, destroy this town, and I always swore to get him back some day. Now, I have.'
Grimm started at the mention of Loras.
'What do you know about my grandfather?' he screamed into the void, as gleaming, muscular bodies strode into the long corridor. 'What do you know about him? You're not fit to speak his name!'
As the fighters grew closer, Grimm launched another spell into the mass of muscle. He knew he had little energy to spare; the next assault would surely drain him dry. Although the voice above him was hateful to him, he found himself yearning to hear its next, theatrical announcement.
'Just what do you know about Loras Afelnor?' he screamed, as oiled, gleaming men climbed over their fallen comrades. This might be the last chance he had to discover something important, something glorious about his beloved grandfather.
'Loras won here, many years ago, but now he's lost,' the amplified voice roared. 'Prioress Lizaveta could tell you more than I can, mage, but you'll never live to hear her speak.
'Goodbye; last bets, please, ladies and gentlemen. Our challenger is in a blind end, facing thirty-six challengers; who'll give me ten thousand to one? Anybody? No?'
Grimm felt an icy shock running through him at the mention of his grandfather and Lizaveta in two connected sentences. This confirmed his unproven doubts and fears, but he might have no time to enjoy this long-suspected evidence of Geomantic treachery.
The mage drew his power into his mind for another blast. As he released it, he saw the pasty, tormented face of Tordun and skewed the blast to one side, wasting it on the walls of the corridor. He searched for another, less destructive, spell, finding none; as a Mage Questor, all he really knew was destruction.
'Sorry, Tordun,' he muttered. 'It's you or me, my friend.'
A spangling wisp of blue sparks drifted from the mage's fingers, but no spell came; Grimm's magic was exhausted.
Despite knowing he had lost, the Questor felt calm as he hoisted Redeemer over his right shoulder, ready to strike for the last time.
'All right, boys, who's first?' he asked, expressing a sense of bravado he did not feel.
The mindless mass of muscle surged forward, and Grimm readied himself for his last assault. At least he would be able to take some of them with him before he fell; he felt sorry that the noble Tordun would be among the first to fall.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 33: 'Grimm Must Be Saved!'
To Thribble, the dense, expensive silk of Grimm's pocket seemed as transparent as the finest glass. The demon's sight and hearing were superior to those of any human, and he could detect frequencies of light and sound to which mortals were quite insensitive. As soon as he saw the encroaching fighters, he knew the mage might be in serious trouble; had the warriors been as obliging as to arrange themselves in a neat, linear formation, he had no doubt that Grimm would have been able to destroy the men en masse.
However, the murderous-looking mortals seemed to have no concept of fair play.
At first, the grey imp had regarded the Questor as an interesting but otherwise unexceptional example of humanity. Grimm might be as frail and flawed as all the rest of mankind, but he seemed to have the knack of finding himself in difficult situations that provided the demon with the material for interesting tales with which to regale his netherworld brethren when he returned to his home dimension.
He still revelled in Grimm's adventures, memorising each vocal nuance and mannerism, with the fussy eye for detail of a dedicated archivist, but he had begun to see the young human in a new light.
