Weapon of the Guild [The Chronicles of Grimm Dragonblaster, Book 2] (21 page)

He had been linked with Starmor's own mind, and he could see it as clearly as the four-dimensional location of the pillar, even though the demon now lacked the strength to communicate with him. He could travel along this link as easily as a child could slide down a fairground chute!

The familiar Questor routine now seemed as prosaic and simple as swallowing to the young magic-user. First, he set his magical ward, feeling his emotions imprisoned within the screen like a caged tiger. All was ready.

He shut his eyes, felt the slight pulsing of Starmor's psyche within his sensorium, arranged his power in a coherent web of force and traced the slender thread that connected the two beings. The nonsense words came easily to his throat, and he departed from the room.

* * * *

After a moment's disorientation, Grimm opened his eyes, ready to confront his demon nemesis. The Questor gaped; instead of the familiar pillar, he found himself in a stone chamber lit by torches arrayed around the walls. Neat rows of benches stood before a black, gleaming altar. Behind this, Grimm saw a large, ornate, golden throne surmounted by a horned skull, in which sat a grinning Starmor.

"Grimm Afelnor, my dearest friend! I thought you would be unable to resist the temptation to hear more about your grandfather's downfall, and I hoped that you would choose the fortuitous route of our mental link to travel to me. I am pleased to see that my little plan has succeeded beyond my wildest hopes." Grimm exerted his Sight, and he saw little or no power within Starmor. The demon's confidence frightened him.

"My emotions are shielded from you, and you cannot steal the least whit of power from me, Starmor,”

he growled. “I have not come to parlay with you, but to give you an ultimatum. Tell me what you know of my grandfather's downfall, and I will spare your miserable life. Refuse me in this, and I will make you regret it. I will disintegrate your physical form so finely it will take you tens of aeons to rebuild it." Starmor's shoulders shook with the force of his laughter. “Such threats are beyond the scope of your pathetic powers, child-mage. Do you not wonder why you are not where you thought you were? ‘How
did
the evil Starmor escape from the punishment pillar?’ Do such questions not burn within you, little one?"

Grimm tried to think of a forceful, witty response, but he confined himself to a simple nod, his throat dry and mute.

"Welcome to my chapel, Grimm, Afelnor,” Starmor said, his loathsome smile intact and unwavering.

“The closest of my acolytes used to come here to worship me—and they will again. I summoned others in order to renew their zeal from time to time. This is my spiritual home, witless mortal. Soon, you will be on your knees, worshipping me."

"I will never bow to you, Starmor. Never,” Grimm vowed, but his confident, defiant tone stood at odds with the desolation threatening to consume him. Clamping his will down on the despair, he confined it, dismissed it.

The demon sat back in his throne and crossed his arms. “This is but one of my little cubby-holes, between which I can move as easily as you can walk across a room in your own world. You are, of course, free to return to your accustomed frame whenever you wish, for I cannot harm you." Grimm realised Starmor was playing with him, as he had done with countless others during his tenure as Baron of Crar. The sick awareness arose within the young mage that he could not return to the mortal world since he had no idea of where he was in relation to his familiar, three-dimensional, space. He was trapped!

A spell of destruction arose from his lips and he hurled it at his hated enemy with full force, only to see it splash into harmless sparks of blue light on the dark altar.

"Poor, feeble-minded urchin!” Starmor cried. “You cannot strike me here, for my chapel absorbs your human magic like a sponge soaks up water. Your strongest power will only serve to amuse me.
Do
launch another spell; I will not seek to balk you in any way."

Grimm guessed the imposing marble altar must be Starmor's source of protection, since the demon's innate powers must be depleted to a low level. He directed his next attack towards the obsidian block, but the potent spell splashed from the altar as if it were no more than summer rain bouncing from a waxed cape.

The Questor gaped, but he steadied himself, thinking,
Redeemer can smash that stone block as easily
as it could an egg...

A cold, horrifying shock ran down Grimm's spine as he realised he had left his beloved staff behind, but he suppressed his panic. The solution was simple.

"Redeemer: come to me!"

Ever since he had whittled the staff from a length of dead wood and imbued it with his inner force, Redeemer had flown directly to his hand whenever called. Now, nothing happened, and Grimm repeated the demand with greater urgency, fighting the despair growing within him. He felt all but naked before his foe—incomplete, helpless.

Starmor's face twisted into a ghastly caricature of wide-eyed surprise. He clicked his fingers and whistled, as if summoning an errant dog. “Come here, boy! Good boy!

"Now, where
could
that naughty little stick have gone?" Stifling a groan, Grimm realised that the range of control over his staff must be limited to the normal dimensions of the mortal frame. He was truly lost.

Snarling, he launched himself at Starmor with his hands outstretched, trying to throttle the demon with magically amplified strength, but he bounced from the ward emanating from the altar.

"I am patient, Grimm,” Starmor said, cackling in horrid amusement that reminded the mage of the bullies who had tormented him so during his Questor Ordeal. “Take your time, by all means; I know how slowly your human thought-processes move. I have all the time in the world: as a lord of the underworld, I do not need to eat, drink or sleep more than twice in one of your years.

"Eventually, you will exhaust your powers, and your puny little shield will fall. I will then have the munificent power of your thrilling hate and anger to speed my return to your frame. The faithless people of Crar will soon have cause to regret their rejoicing at my departure ... as will you, my sweet, tasty morsel of human flesh.

"You will soon learn the error of your ways. Long before I return to the mortal world, you will know the severity of my anger, you naughty boy. I will spend considerable time with you, feeding from your hatred and your pain."

Grimm railed at himself: how had he been such a fool as to fall into Starmor's clutches with such a simple lure?

The worst of it was that Dalquist, Lord Thorn, Magemaster Crohn and the rest of the Guild might assume he was a renegade or a traitor; that he had absconded and flouted his oath. He knew he had lost—his personal Quest to redeem his family name had ended in abject failure, almost before it began. Even so, Grimm could not countenance meek surrender: Dalquist might still divine the truth and come to his aid. He vowed to himself to hold out until the last possible moment.

"Well done, Starmor,” he said, accompanying his words with mocking applause. “I suppose I must admit that you have beaten me. I will warn you that I should be able to maintain this ward for a long time, so we have a fair period ahead of us in which to talk.

"Since you have me under your control, what can you tell of my grandfather's fall from grace? You may as well tell me now. It may have cost me my life, but it will be some comfort to know that he was acting under duress."

Starmor laughed so hard that tears began to run down his cheeks. “This is the best part of it, Questor; as you suspected, I know nothing that I did not glean from the dusty little recesses of that which you are pleased to call a brain. I told you what you wanted to hear, and you allowed your ape curiosity to subsume your feeble mortal powers of reason."

Grimm yearned to blast Starmor into a million motes as he had threatened before, but he knew now that he could never do so. He clenched his teeth and his fists in impotent rage, hating himself for his impetuous stupidity.

Starmor yawned. “You really are quite dull, though, my imbecilic friend. From what I have gleaned from your simian brain, it seems plain that your grandfather's actions were quite out of character for such a man. There must have been some sort of Geas or Compulsion acting upon him. I would have thought even you would have guessed that."

"Shut up, Starmor. I never want to hear my grandfather's name sullied by your foul lips again. I refuse to believe anything you say."

Grimm turned his back on the demon. He knew what he must do; he must use his last reserves of powers to destroy himself before his emotional ward fell. Starmor must remain trapped at all costs, and Grimm would not allow himself to relax his vigilance.

"And now, my dear brethren, let us pray.” From some unseen corner of the chapel rose discordant, dissonant organ music to which Starmor swung and swayed with a look of pure ecstasy on his face. Grimm gritted his teeth and sat cross-legged on the flagstone floor. His strength was beginning to fade, and he knew it would only be a matter of time before his shield failed. He swore again he would kill himself before that happened.

Harvel and Crest expressed the greatest appreciation at Mayor Chod's generous offer of fine new clothes, and they spent the afternoon at a large Crarian tailors’ establishment, trying on various outfits. The swordsman now wore a short-sleeved bottle-green leather jerkin, black, metal-studded wristbands, loose-fitting yellow trousers and long, thin leather shoes. His gleaming rapier, carefully dressed and polished, was ready for action in a green leather scabbard on a blue silk hanger. This garish outfit might appear quite impracticable for combat, but Harvel assured Crest it was the absolute acme of fashion. The thief adopted a more sober outfit, befitting his more restrained dress sense, but his simple, black outfit was made of crushed velvet; the brown slippers of finest kidskin. His deadly throwing-knives lay in a slanted row across his chest on a leather baldric, ready for instant use.

"Well, well, well; look at the twin birds of paradise!” Dalquist said, with an appreciative whistle.

"Will you listen to the man there, Crest?” Harvel drawled, adjusting his scabbard. “He must be under the impression that those silk robes he's wearing are some sort of monastic habit. Perhaps the poor fellow is colour-blind."

Dalquist wore scarlet silk, with a gold cowl; no shrinking violet, he!

"Colour-blind I may be,” laughed the mage, “but I
am
blessed with a good sense of the passage of time. Has either of you seen Questor Grimm anywhere? We ought to be thinking of leaving for the Council chambers."

"He had his outfit made first,” declared Harvel. “He took the whole lot back up to the tower. He's probably been staring at himself in the mirror for the last ten minutes, so do you want me to go and fetch him?"

Dalquist shook his head. “I need to talk to him about a few things myself. I'll see you in the Town Square in ten minutes.” With that, he was off to the Baronial tower.

* * * *

"Grimm, come on! It's high time we were moving. Stop preening yourself! Remember, there's a Council meeting, and you're supposed to be the guest of honour."

No answer came from the bedchamber. Stepping inside, Dalquist noted the unopened pouch of drugs on the carpet, and wondered if Grimm had gone for a walk in an attempt to clear his head after being tempted by the herbs.

Twenty minutes later, he had searched the tower from top to bottom with no sign of the young Questor, and he was beginning to worry that something was amiss. Harvel and Crest joined in the search, having come to the tower when Dalquist had not returned. When it was plain that Grimm was not secreted anywhere in the tower, the group split up and scouted Crar separately, trying every shop, hostelry and alleyway to no avail.

After an hour, they met back at the bedchamber of Starmor's former domicile. Dalquist had to admit that it appeared that Grimm could not be hiding, and that he must have absconded. It all seemed so unlikely, since Grimm would know that he would be hunted down by the Guild; the organisation did not like the idea of unlicensed renegade Questors on the loose; he surely could not expect to evade the combined resources of the Guild forever. Nonetheless, Dalquist had to consider a distasteful possibility: that Grimm had flouted his duty to the House.

"He's a game lad, but he's been through an awful lot in the last few days,” Crest said, frowning. “I wonder if his nerve deserted him; who could blame him, after all that? Perhaps the prospect of all that responsibility was too much for him, and he just ran off."

"It doesn't make sense, Crest,” Harvel declared shaking his head. “He seemed so keen at the prospect of his new clothes, and he told me he wanted to look his very best tonight. He looked a little flustered, but he didn't seem scared at all."

"I don't think for a moment Grimm has forgotten his Guild vows,” Dalquist growled, “but it's not up to me. We were intending to return to the House tomorrow to complete the Quest. If he's not there by the time I arrive, Lord Thorn will have to assume that he is in breach of his oath of fealty. That is a far more serious consideration. We've got to find him."

He sighed and sat down on the bed in despair. Grimm would surely have notified him if his absence was unavoidable. The young mage had seemed so excited about the whole thing, and such an unexplained absence was out of character for him.

But where
was
he?

"He's left his new clothes behind,” Harvel pointed out. “He was so eager to wear them; he
must
be around here somewhere! He'd never have left them behind. Perhaps he had a celebratory drink or two and got a little tipsy."

"We searched the bar and the jakes,” Dalquist sighed, “and he'd just take hold of Redeemer whenever..."

A metallic glint caught his eye from within the rumpled bedclothes. Dalquist leapt to his feet and threw back the sheets to uncover a polished black wood and brass staff.

"He's left Redeemer behind!” Dalquist cried. “He would never have done that by choice!"