While the primes were using the cumbersome letterpress to print off the forms, just before fourth glass on Lundi, I pulled on my heavy gray cloak and hurried through the chill air to the Collegium’s steamer pier near the northeast tip of Imagisle. It was cold enough that there were no mothers or children playing in the park north of the various family dwellings.
Shault was already standing on the pier, as were Eamyn and Ralyea, when I neared the foot of the southernmost stone pier of the three. I heard fast boot steps on the stone walk and turned to see Marteon running toward us.
I couldn’t help calling out, “You don’t have to run. There’s time.”
“Yes, sir,” puffed the muscular and round-faced tertius as he slowed to a walk less than five yards away.
“Just wait here,” I told the four, glancing south toward the quadrangle. In the weak late afternoon sun, I saw no sign of Haugyl, but the glass had just emptied four. I walked up the pier, crossed the short plank gangway, and stepped onto the river steamer, a boat of only fifteen yards in length with a single deck, and the steam engine and the paddlewheel in the rear.
Faeldyn, the obdurate pilot, stood outside the wheel-house, set forward of midships. He nodded as I approached. “Maitre…what will you be having them do today?”
“Some imaging exercises. I’d like you to take us just off the northern tip of Imagisle, as close to the point of the riverwall there as is safe, and hold there while I have them work on something.”
“Water’s a bit rough today. We shouldn’t get much closer than twenty yards.”
“Thirty or forty would be fine.”
The pilot and single crewman nodded.
“Let me get them on board.” I glanced back toward the pier. Still no sign of Haugyl, but I motioned for the four others to cross the narrow plank to the boat.
At that moment, I saw Haugyl sauntering along the walk, a good hundred yards south of the pier. Even when he saw the other four junior imagers begin to board, he made no move to hurry. I thought about calling out to him, then decided against it, since I had said a quint past the glass. We just waited for him. The moment Haugyl crossed the plank, I pulled it onboard and stowed it in the heavy iron brackets attached to the gunwale. Behind me, I heard a low exchange.
“…Watch it. Maitre Rhennthyl didn’t look too happy.”
“…Made it before the end of the quint, didn’t I?”
“You made the rest of us wait…”
“…No real hurry…”
I turned and looked at Haugyl. “No, there wasn’t a real hurry, but since everyone else was here, we could have started earlier, and finished earlier, and that would have saved five of us some time. Is your time so much more important than that of five others?”
Haugyl didn’t meet my eyes.
“Is it?”
“No, sir.”
“You might keep that in mind, especially if you ever hope to be more than a tertius.” I looked toward the pilot. “We’re all ready, Faeldyn.”
“If you’d not mind the line, sir?” asked Faeldyn.
“I can do that.” I jumped back to the pier, untied the line fastened around an iron cleat, then scrambled back aboard before Faeldyn backed the boat out into the river channel. I quickly coiled the line and headed back aft. As soon as we headed upstream away from the pier, the boat began to hit the uneven river waves, and small gouts of spray sleeted back from the bow. That was why I stood just forward of the pilot house.
We were still several hundred yards from the northern tip of Imagisle when Haugyl leaned over the railing and loosed the contents of his stomach. He was pale when he finally straightened up.
Eamyn tried to conceal an amused expression, while Marteon looked concerned. Ralyea, for all his apprehensive looks at me and at the small white-caps on the gray waters of the River Aluse, stood facing into the light but chill wind and seemed to be almost enjoying himself. Shault only watched, his eyes measuring the distances from the boat to the eastern shore and then to Imagisle.
When we passed the tip of Imagisle, Faeldyn swung the river steamer to port, angling north of the gray granite triangle that marked the northernmost point of the isle. The engine hissed and rumbled slightly as he slowed the paddlewheel, then reversed it to bring us to a stop.
I stepped toward the five. “You see the stone triangle there? When I call you by name, I want you to image something that will burn fiercely and set it on the very end of the stone closest to us, then set it afire.”
Eamyn frowned. “Sir…you want us to image fire?”
“Fire isn’t enough. You need something to sustain it. Like this.” I imaged a small pool of lamp oil onto the stone tip, followed by flame.
A burst of red and orange appeared, followed by black smoke, then slowly died away.
“Or this.” The second time, I did a lighter oil, then imaged a mist of black powder into the flame. That was more impressive. “Any more questions?”
There weren’t any.
I pointed to Eamyn. “You first.”
He squared his shoulders and looked southward. After a moment, an oval flame appeared and flickered out.
“You need something more to sustain it,” I commented. “If you’re going to image flame, there’s no point in doing it unless it can last long enough to catch something on fire. Try again.”
The second time he had a flame flaring out of a small pool of something, either oil or bitumen or alcohol.
“Much better.” I turned to Marteon. “Your turn.”
The round-faced imager came up with something that looked like a candle, and only showed a tiny point of flame.
“We need a bigger flame.”
Marteon’s next effort had a bigger flame feeding off what I suspected was a lump of oil and wax.
The other three also managed sufficient flame images, although Haugyl’s was a bit shaky.
When Ralyea finished, I called to Faeldyn. “Take us up short of the Nord Bridge, but where we can see the tip of the isle.”
“Yes, sir.”
The water got a bit rougher, and Haugyl turned from pale to slightly greenish, suggesting that he might not be suited to any sort of shipboard duty.
Once Faeldyn brought us to a stop some fifty yards south of the bridge, I repeated the whole process again, making sure that I could image a flame large enough to be seen.
“Shault, you go first.”
“Yes, sir.”
From a little more than a half mille away, four of the five could manage the flame. Haugyl could not.
Then I had Faeldyn take us to the other side of the bridge, positioned where we could see Imagisle through one of the arches. At a mille, only Shault, Eamyn, and Ralyea could manage the flame imaging. Ralyea’s face was covered in sweat, and he looked shaky. Shault and Eamyn might have been able to do more, but the river turned more northward, enough so that, given the Nord Bridge, I couldn’t have seen the riverwall anyway. So I had Faeldyn head downstream.
On the way back to Imagisle, I had each of them demonstrate their skills in every item on my form, from imaging a ball into an open space in the middle of a hoop to imaging air bubbles into the middle of a curved glass tube.
Shault was the only one to ask, although the others doubtless wondered, “Could you tell us what all this is for, sir?”
“It’s because the Collegium needs to know what all the seconds and thirds can do. A number of you may be required to take a trip and use your skills. If you’re selected, you’ll learn more about it in a few days, and you’ll get more training and learn more.” More than you may want. “That’s all I’m going to say right now.”
I didn’t have to say more, because Faeldyn was easing the boat up to the Collegium pier, and I took the mooring line and jumped to the pier and tied the boat fast. Faeldyn had the plank out, and Haugyl was the first off. His steps were shaky.
“Good day, sir,” offered Shault as he stepped onto the pier. He didn’t raise any more questions, but I knew the rumors would be
flying across the quadrangle and the juniors’ quarters within moments after they were out of sight.
“Good evening, Shault.”
Once I thanked Faeldyn, I turned and walked southward and then through the gardens and past the hedge maze toward our house. I noted that the imager-builders had finished re-creating the exterior of the Maitre’s dwelling. Maitre Dyana’s previous house still remained a pile of gray stone and shattered roof tiles, as did what had been Maitre Dichartyn’s. I couldn’t help swallowing when I looked at that rubble.
Thankfully, after I reached our house, Seliora was preoccupied with both Diestrya and the loss of two commissions as a result of financial setbacks caused by the Ferran bombings in L’Excelsis, and she didn’t ask me any detailed questions on my day. I really wasn’t ready to explain, although I’d have to soon enough.
47
I was in my study before seventh glass on Mardi morning, to make sure that the duty primes had delivered the forms to every master of the Collegium at Imagisle by eighth glass. Then I read through the newsheets.
Veritum reported that the deaths from the abuse of the stronger elveweed had decreased, but that they were still occurring, especially among younger users, despite the burning of all the weed growing on former High Holder Ruelyr’s lands. Fresh elveweed continued to be sold, and in more cities across Solidar. That wasn’t about to change, I knew, now that the drug dealers had discovered that it could be grown in the south of Solidar, and provided more profit and less reliance on smuggled dried weed.
Both newsheets noted that the Ferran advances in Jariola had slowed because of winter storms. Tableta reported that desertions in the Jariolan army were rising, and that the Oligarch had authorized field executions of deserters. Both also had short follow-up reports on the explosions at Glendyl’s engine works, with the observations that neither the Naval Command nor the Council had issued any comments or statements.
I’d just finished considering the implications of the stories when, at a quint past eight, Heisbyl, who had been a Maitre D’Aspect when I’d first come to Imagisle and who still was only that, rapped on my half-open door.
“Come in.”
“Thank you.” He closed the door precisely and took the chair in front of the desk. Under his dull gray hair, carefully brushed and parted, was a high forehead and a pair of flat hazel eyes. He cleared his throat.
I smiled and waited.
He held up an envelope, one that looked precisely like one of those dispatched to every Maitre. “Maitre Rhennthyl…I must protest. This…this edict…may have Maitre Dyana’s name on it, but it bears your fingerprints.”
“Assuming that it does…what is the problem?”
“What is the problem? What is the problem? The problem is that you are trying to turn imagers into machines. You want every preceptor to assess each ability of every one of his charges, as if imaging could be measured with yardsticks or calipers or weighed with scales.”
I frowned. “Having the Collegium know what all junior imagers can do doesn’t make them machines.”
“Every imager has a different degree of skill. Machines are all alike.”
“I’m not asking you to treat them like machines. I’m certain there are great differences among the seconds and thirds you supervise in the armory workshops. All you need to do is to write out what each can do.”
“This is just the first step in turning them into machines, Maitre Rhennthyl. We won’t even have to fight the Ferrans because we’ll end up just like them.”
“Maitre Heisbyl, if we don’t change matters here, we won’t be able to fight them. You’re right. There won’t be a fight, because we’ll already have lost, and then the machines and those who use and build them will find us useless. Before long, there will be machines that make precision parts as well or better, and with far less effort, than our imagers. In Ferrum, there well may be such machines already. Once, a Maitre D’Esprit could stand against any weapon in all of Terahnar. A month ago, a set of bombards proved that is no longer true—and those were antiques, compared to the long guns on a dreadnought.”
My words, or something I did, must have affected him, because his defiance wilted, and he just looked old.
“You are destroying everything we stood for. You will regret it.” He stood. “I will return your form, under protest, to the Maitre. The Nameless save us all.” He stalked out without another word.
I almost didn’t have a chance to catch my breath and consider what Heisbyl had said before Ghaend slipped into my study.
“You’re not likely to be all that popular by noon.” He settled into the chair across from me.
“Then I’d best make an appearance at the dining hall.” I’d thought I would anyway, but it was a good line.
“You understand what you’ve done? Besides upsetting the older masters?”
“I have an idea, but I might well be wrong. Tell me, if you would.”
“Imagers have always been apart. Because of what we can do, we have to be. To compensate for that, the Collegium has created the sense that we’re special. There are not all that many of us, some five hundred in all Solidar. Each imager is somewhat different from any other. Unique, if you will. By requiring the newer imagers to be evaluated against a standard and categorized, you’re suggesting that we’re not unique. You’re going against a long tradition and very strong feelings.”
I nodded. “What else?”
“Does there have to be anything else?”
“No, I suppose not, but your tone suggests that there might be.”
“Well…what will happen if that information leaks out? Do we really want the Council or everyone in Solidar—or in Ferrum—to know what we can or can’t do?”
“I can understand the concern there. I really can, but there’s another problem. Maitre Poincaryt and Maitre Dichartyn probably did know most of what I’ve asked masters to supply. When they died, that information died with them. We need that information now, and I can’t learn it all in time without doing something like this. Also, can we afford to keep losing information because we’re afraid to have a record except in the minds of one or two senior imagers? As I told Heisbyl a little while ago, once the most powerful imagers could stand against any weapon. Now we can’t. That changes matters.”
“For most Maitres, that doesn’t matter. You’re changing their world.”
I nodded. “You’re right about that. But I don’t see any choice if the Collegium is to survive in a way that will still protect imagers.”
“The older Maitres don’t see it that way, Rhenn.”
“Maitre Dyana does, and, I’d be surprised if Maitre Jhulian doesn’t as well. How do you see it?”
Ghaend shook his head. “I agree with you, but I don’t like it.”
“So…if we’re going to be honest about it, then, that only leaves something like four or five older Maitres who are unhappy.”
“And probably a hundred older seconds and thirds, when they find out.”
“What difference will it make to them, unless an older Maitre stirs them up and misrepresents things? I would hope…” I broke off the words. “Someone will. You’re right. No matter how much sense it makes, no matter how much times have changed, people, even imagers, want to believe in their traditional and special place in the world.” I shrugged. “But I can’t see any other way around this.”
“This is part of something much larger, isn’t it?”
“It is, and the longer before I have to reveal it, the better.”
“I don’t think I’d want to be in your boots, Maitre.” Ghaend smiled and rose. “I won’t press you. Dichartyn told me, years ago, that to press you was both useless and unwise. I trust that the Council sees it that way as well, for all of our sakes.”
I stood. I didn’t correct him, but only replied, “So do I.”
Once he left, I wondered who would spread the word. Certainly, Heisbyl would, and most probably Maitre Rholyn, if in a more indirect fashion.
; The next visitor, surprisingly, was Quaelyn, and he was smiling broadly when he arrived after ninth glass and sat down across from me. “Congratulations to you and Maitre Dyana. It’s well past time for something like this.” He lifted the envelope.
“Not everyone thinks that way.”
“Of course they don’t. People have a pattern. If they’re comfortable, they want things to stay that way, and Imagisle has been comfortable for a long time.” He grinned. “Until you came along.”
“I can’t say I had anything to do with the attacks on Imagisle or Solidar.”
He raised his thin white eyebrows. “Don’t be so certain about that. People react to what they feel, not what they see or think. You’ve changed how people feel. It’s time for a change. Change for the better, especially, takes power and a crisis to change things. We’ve needed more systematic information on imagers for years. Now, you’ve taken the opportunity.”
“I heard you talking about the patterns of where imagers were born, years ago. I’d hoped there would be more in the records. There wasn’t.”
He smiled mischievously. “I’m gratified that you remembered. I tried for years to get Maitre Poincaryt to ask for more information about incoming imagers, but it never happened.”
“I think I know why.” And I did. I’d thought about it a great deal, even before Ghaend’s visit. “He and Maitre Dichartyn were always worried that such information could get out and be used against the Collegium…especially since there have always been so few imagers.”
Quaelyn snorted. “That’s handicapping yourself for no benefit. I told Poincaryt that then. People will always believe the worst when they want to. Facts that don’t agree with what they want to believe just get ignored. The only facts they want are those that support what they want to believe. Not having the information you need because other people might find it and use it is like burying your head in quicksand. They don’t need it to cause trouble. They never have.” He stood, abruptly. “That’s all I had. Don’t let them change your mind, Maitre Rhennthyl.”
Imager’s Intrigue Page 41