A pause; a suitably ostentatious flash; and a familiar red-clad mage appears in the chamber. Noting instantly how dank and gloomy it is, and feeling the earlier spillage underfoot, Hordriss is far from pleased. While once he gave out his calling name to almost anyone who caught his interest, these days he is far more selective in issuing it. And yet still he gets disturbed, torn from his study like a sword from its scabbard, to be put to goodness-knows-what employment. To think he once approved of the calling name scheme - now it makes him feel powerless, as if his heights of magic and elegance, indeed his very splendour, have only the worth of a single thrice-spoken word.

"What is the meaning of this? One does not take kindly to being disturbed in the midst of important research, and furthermore..."

Hordriss spots Young Grimwold. While still furious, he realises that a loss of temper is wasted on an ogre, even one as restrained as YG, and he calms himself a little. "Master Grimwold. It must have been you who summoned me, but for what purpose? Tell me."

Hordriss hears a cough, and turns to see the other figure who is present. Although it's been many years, it takes him only a moment to recall her. Recoiling slightly - too slightly for the Grimwolds to detect - he mutters her name. "Enid..."

"Enid? We're not on those terms any more, dearie!"

Young Grimwold shudders inwardly at the thought of what that might mean. So much about his mother defies explanation, and he's often thought that that is for the best. Although it's now obvious to him that Hordriss and his mother were associates back when the Grimwolds lived in the Dungeon, he'd never pictured them together. And bearing in mind the ambiguity of his mother's quip, he avoids doing so now. Instead he focuses on Hordriss, standing tall despite his squalid surroundings.

He thinks of what Hordriss told him at their last meeting, about attacking the daemonic boy, and giving in to violence. Whilst he is obviously a learned man, YG feels that in light of that, Hordriss must now have an enhanced empathy with the struggle that he constantly faces against his ogrish impulses: savant versus savage. He realises that he's not ashamed to have the mage in his family home, but comforted. Yet not without guilt about how this has happened.

"Welcome," begins Young Grimwold. "I must apologise for dragging you out here. I... I know you gave your calling name to Robin, rather than to me. My mother suggested it, and so I found myself... calling upon you. And while I am sorry for the disorentiation of being summoned, I don't want to patronise you... about what's going on. She's just told me that I have a brother."

Hordriss' face flickers with consternation, like a man who hears the thunder rumbling and knows he won't have made it back indoors before the rain falls. Within a vast mind holding centuries of untold experience, memories rush upward, stirring emotions en route, raising responsiblities past and present. For a while, Hordriss bears this process with silence. But he does not forget that in his current company, reticence cannot and should not prevail. Trusting that his authority will be respected, at least by YG, he begins to speak slowly. "Then you wish to know more?"

"I have to know more. Please."

"Very well. But one must request that you keep your composure throughout. This tale may not be easy to listen to, but nor is it easy to relate." Hordriss moves his gaze from Young Grimwold to Mrs. Grimwold, then drops it to the floor. "That is why it has been kept hidden for so long."

Hordriss is not in the most comfortable of surroundings for the gravity and pathos he is about to divulge. It is a far cry from the warm room at the Wolf's Howl Inn where he last imparted intimate facts to Young Grimwold and others, revealing more of his tortuous history than he ever thought he would to people he had known for so short a time; and from his tidy and well-lit study, where he was working just moments earlier. He is most tempted to cast a spell or two to clean and illuminate the Grimwold homestead. And a seat of some kind, preferably with a dry cushion, would not go amiss. But he knows that there is nothing that can truly make the telling of this tale a gentler experience; and he fears that any perceived procrastination would...

"Geddon with it!" cries Mrs. Grimwold. "And none of that one-word-a-minute speaking - this ain't the bloomin' theatre!" She switches to dulcet. "Is it, dearie?"

...not be welcomed. Suddenly Hordriss is glad of the meagre lighting. Not knowing quite how it all will end, he begins.