'I'm Guy Great Flame, dimwit.' the grey-haired man said in the same grinding monotone. 'I'm in Numal's body for now, and he's in mine. It's some kind of bloody Necromancer spell. If you want to play with the old boy for a while, it doesn't bother me, I suppose. All I want to do now is to get back to my own body.'
Grimm nodded slowly; it all made a certain, bizarre sense now. He decided that deeper explanations could wait until later, and he knelt by the side of the fallen Pit-master, slapping Keller's cheeks until the erstwhile Master of Ceremonies opened his eyes.
'Don't hurt me!' the man screamed. 'I swear I'll tell you everything I can, as long as you don't hurt me!' Keller tried to scramble away, despite the fact that his back was already against the far wall of the cubicle.
'You don't have any choice, filth.' Grimm breathed, feeling righteous wrath burn through him. 'Tell me what you know about Loras Afelnor and Prioress Lizaveta, or I'll make you wish I'd left you to the tender mercies of your former slaves! Talk, or suffer; it's all the same to me!'
Keller's empty, pleading eyes told the mage that the Pit-master had lost all sense of resistance.
'I don't know it all,' Keller said, 'but I do know that Loras Afelnor destroyed the slave market in this town about forty years ago. Slavery was the only means of survival for Yoren at the time, and he ruined us in a single day.'
'My heart bleeds for you,' Grimm growled. 'Keep talking; by my reckoning, your good friends from the Pit will be coming for you in about nine minutes. What about Prioress Lizaveta?'
'She told me she'd fixed him,' the Pit-master babbled. 'She cast a spell over the whole Mansion House so that we couldn't be tainted by Guild mind-magic, and she said we didn't have to worry about old Loras any more.
'Don't hurt me!'
'I know damned well she fixed him,' Grimm snapped, in no mood to extend any kind of warmth towards the pathetic man. 'What did she say she'd done to him?'
Keller's eyes flicked around, as if he were trying to find some way to escape from his desperate situation, but his gaze came back to the Questor's unremitting, intense stare.
'She said she'd made him attack some man; I don't know who, I swear,' the Pit-master babbled, his face sweaty and furtive. 'But she said he'd know nothing about it, and that it'd finish him. He'd never be able to bother… someone again.'
Grimm shot a magical pang of pain at the wretched man. 'Who would he be unable to bother? Talk, you bastard, talk!'
'I'm trying to!' the Master of Ceremonies screamed, now appearing small and insignificant. Grimm knew he could crush this pathetic bug in an instant, but he preferred to stay his hand in the hope of further revelations. His Mage Sight told him that all of the craven man's statements to him so far had been true.
'Keller; I know I cannot coerce your mind through magic,' he said, his voice soft but urgent, 'but I will know the moment you utter the least lie. All Guild Mages can do this, but none of them can deal out punishment the way a Questor can.
'A single evasion or mistruth will condemn you to an unimaginably painful and slow death, I assure you. Only absolute, literal truth without prevarication or evasion will preserve your miserable life.
'Do you understand, worm?'
Keller nodded, his eyes wide and terrified. Grimm suppressed a smile. This was as it should be.
'I will not hurt you for telling the truth, whatever it may be,' he said, and the cool voice seemed to come from outside him. 'But a lie, any lie, will bring instant, agonising retribution. Do not worry about telling me what I want to hear, but, rather, fear my wrath if you try to mislead me in any way.
'I want a clear statement from you: to your certain knowledge, did Prioress Lizaveta cast a spell on Loras Afelnor, so that he would disgrace himself in the eyes of the Guild? Did she ensorcel him so that he attacked a man without his own volition? Was that the act that assured his expulsion from the Guild?'
Keller looked from Tordun, to Grimm, and back again, and his expression bordered on sheer panic.
'Just the truth, Keller,' Grimm said. 'Whatever the truth may be, I swear I will not hurt you for telling it. Any lie will bring you anguish beyond imagining.'
Keller drew a whooping draught of air, his eyes threatening to burst from his face. 'Lizaveta is… a very powerful witch. She made Loras Afelnor attack a very important man in the Guild,' he gasped. 'And she cast the spell so he wouldn't ever remember it. That's all I know; I swear it, mage.'
Grimm felt a smile spreading across his face, and he knew it was not an amicable one. 'Well done Keller. I see you spoke the truth. I have one more, very important question for you: where is the evil bitch's priory? If you tell me that, you won't see me again, I promise.'
'She'll kill me, Questor!' the man screamed. 'You don't know what she's like!'
It did not even need a spell-phrase; the Questor just concentrated a stream of energy at the floor. The concrete began to smoke and spall, as small, angry, glowing fragments flew away, and the stone-like material turned an evil, glowing blood-red.
'She's in Rendale!' Keller yelled, as if the words had been ripped from his very soul. 'Rendale, I tell you! It's about eighty miles south of here. Take the south road to Brianston, then go thirty miles south-east onto Merrydeath Road. Anjar is five miles to the east of that, and Rendale's twenty miles south-west of Anjar, on the Ijar Road.'
'Thank you, Keller.' Grimm smiled. 'That's all I need to know. Thribble, did you hear all that?'
He patted his pocket, before remembering that the demon had left him. To his great relief, he heard a familiar, high voice from Numal-Guy's robe: 'All heard and registered, mage. I'll be happy to tell anyone in your Guild, if they should ask me.'
The young mage smiled; he had all the evidence he could ask for. The Guild Presidium would surely accept the word of a Divulgent demon, after due investigation! Mage Sight would reveal that the imp was giving the unvarnished truth, as he had heard it. Grimm swore he would extract a more detailed account from the Prioress herself, when they met again.
'Thank you, Keller. That is all.'
'You'll let me live?' the Pit-master pleaded. 'You swore!'
'I swore I wouldn't hurt you if you told the truth, Keller. As far as I can tell, you have done that, so I'll leave you alone. Instead, I'll leave you to the welcoming party this concerned group of men has planned for you.
'Goodbye, Keller.'
The Questor turned to the mass of assembled fighters, and said, 'He's all yours, gentlemen. Enjoy.'
He felt in no mood to query the toss, and he turned to Guy-Numal, ignoring the Pit-master's pitiful pleas as his former slaves converged upon him.
'Let's see how Crest and Harvel are doing, Guy,' he shouted, over the growing tumult. 'After that, I'm just about in the mood to destroy this whole, stinking slave-pen.'
Guy laughed. Perhaps it was just his unfamiliarity with Numal's vocal tract, but the sound seemed to drip with evil.
'I'd like that a lot.' The older mage grinned. 'Once I'm back in my own body, I'll be just about ready to do just that. You're a man after my own heart, Questor Grimm!'
The young mage was not sure if that was a compliment or not, but he nodded, as the maddened fighters tore into the hapless body of their former master.
'Come on, Tordun. Let's get back to our own kind.'
'Brianston it is,' the albino said. If he was concerned about the shift in Grimm's personality, he did not show it.
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Chapter 36: Farewell To Yoren
Grimm felt a refreshing wind of relief blow through him as Dr. Hubin told him that neither Crest nor Harvel harboured life-threatening injuries. Crest's skull had been scored by a projectile (which, Grimm learned, was properly called a 'bullet'), but he was otherwise unhurt. Harvel had been hit in the left shoulder by one bullet, and a second had passed clean through his midriff. However, by a miracle, the second bullet had missed all his vital
