As the door closed behind Doorkeeper, Thorn looked the package over carefully. The aura surrounding it seemed familiar to him and yet he could not place it. Satisfied that the packet contained no threat, he opened it and found inside a letter and a Guild Ring, which somehow seemed to resonate with mastery. Intrigued, the Prelate opened the letter within, and was surprised to see not an illiterate scrawl but elegant, educated handwriting which spoke of its originator's erudition.

The Smithy,

Lower Frunstock,

Addleton

My beloved former brother mage and fellow Questor, I offer my deepest respect and most heartfelt salutations!

It is only after deep meditation that I send my grandson Grimm Afelnor to you, with the desire that you confer upon him the honour of taking him in as a Student. I understand well the deep misgivings you must hold at the prospect of taking to the Guild's bosom the seed of a traitor and renegade such as I.

The child knows nothing of my past, and I beg that you preserve this blissful ignorance whether you accept him or no. It is not just that a boy's life be blighted by the sins of his forebears, heinous though they may be.

It is as hard for me to write this letter as I am sure it will be for you to read it. I am currently employed as a smith in the hamlet of Lower Frunstock; but my health is no longer so rude as once it was, and it is becoming ever harder for my wife, Drima, and me to look after our orphaned grandson, Grimm.

He is a remarkably perceptive boy, with more than a trace of the power that once I bore, and he knows much beyond his seven years. He sees auras and can perform dowsing and other minor charms without having received a whit of training in these disciplines from me. He is gifted in languages, arithmetic and music, and his grandmother and I have taught him what we can of the secular arts.