He is a solemn, studious boy, ill-suited to the harsh, physical life of a smith. With the little sleight left to me, I sense the growing power within him. He is fluent in most of the tongues of this region, and he writes a fair hand in all of these. I know well that he has the beginnings of the Mage Sight, and I am confident that, should you do him the great honour of accepting the child as a Student, he will repay you and, indeed, the Guild many times over.

It is not for my own sake that I ask this, for I know only too well how little charity I deserve from you. I ask it for the good of a blameless child and for the enrichment and honour of the Guild that once I loved and swore to serve.

I do feel that in sending this intelligent and diligent boy to you in the hope that he may one day become a mage might go some small way towards expiating some of the heavy guilt that burdens my soul so. I enclose the ring I once wore with such fierce pride, in the fervent hope that it may some day be placed on the finger of my grandson, trusting that he will expunge a measure of the infamy and shame that I placed upon it.

Whatever you decide, I know that your choice will be fairly and justly made.

Your devoted servant and former Brother Mage,

Loras Afelnor

Thorn's hands trembled as if palsied, and the letter fell to the desk. Deeply troubled, he climbed to his feet and for a few minutes paced the room like a caged animal, brow furrowed in thought and heavy breaths shivering his body. Indecision racked him, but he knew that he had only one course of action. He sat down again. He took a green velvet bag from a desk drawer and extracted from it a glass orb, which he placed in the centre of his desk. He took a deep breath and put his hands gingerly on the globe, which began to emit an eerie, bile-green glow in response.

Mother, are you there?

After a few minutes' pause, Thorn felt the familiar mental tendrils of his mother, Lizaveta, winding their way into his sensorium like maggots squirming through a decaying cadaver.