Imager

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Isn’t this almost like old times? Now, if Rousel were just here,” Mother said.

  “If Rousel were here, none of us would be able to move,” Culthyn observed.

  Even Father smiled at Culthyn’s wry tone.

  We arrived at the anomen early enough, a good quarter before the sixth glass, so that we didn’t have to hurry, but that also meant we had to stand in the cold until the service began with the small choir singing the choral invocation—“Paean to the Nameless,” I thought.

  Chorister Aknotyn had been at the Anomen D’Este since I could remember. His high tenor pierced the gloom as it always had in the wordless ululating invocation. Then he spoke.

  “We are gathered here together this evening in the spirit of the Nameless and in affirmation of the quest for goodness and mercy in all that we do.”

  The opening hymn was “Pride Leadeth to a Fall.” I merely mouthed the words, mainly because I was in fact proud and unwilling to have others hear just how badly I did sing.

  After that was the Confession.

  “We do not name You, for naming is a presumption, and we would not presume upon the creator of all that was, is, and will be. We do not pray to You, nor ask favors or recognition from You, for requesting such asks You to favor us over others who are also Your creations. Rather we confess that we always risk the sins of pride and presumption and that the very names we bear symbolize those sins, for we too often strive to arrogate our names and ourselves above others, to insist that our petty plans and arid achievements have meaning beyond those whom we love or over whom we have influence and power. Let us never forget that we are less than nothing against Your nameless magnificence and that all that we are is a gift to be cherished and treasured, and that we must also respect and cherish the gifts of others, in celebration of You who cannot be named or known, only respected and worshipped.”

  “In peace and harmony,” we all chorused.

  Then came the offertory baskets, followed by Chorister Aknotyn’s ascension to the pulpit for the homily. “Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” came the reply.

  “And it is a good evening, for under the Nameless all evenings are good, even those that seem less than marvelous … and we all know that there are many of those …”

  Aknotyn’s dry aside brought low murmurs of laughter to the congregation.

  “The other day a youngster asked me why we do not name the Nameless, and I almost repeated the Confession to him, but I realized that he was asking what really was behind the Confession. While our meeting place, the anomen, means place of no name, in fact we name everything, and so often when we name it, we assume that we know it. The name becomes the identity, and it is always a limited identity. Look at it in this fashion. You have a friend. Let’s call him Fieryn, and we’ll say that he has red hair and a certain lack of patience. Each time that you encounter Fieryn or talk to him or watch him, you build a more complete picture in your mind, and when Fieryn is not around, in effect, to you, that picture is Fieryn. But is the picture really Fieryn? Does it include the time he spends with his crippled cousin, whom you do not know? Does it include the glasses he has spent telling stories to his failing aunt who cannot leave her bed? Or the time he drank too much and kicked a poor simpleton? Yet, by calling up his name, we think we know Fieryn. But do we?

  “Using names to excess and thinking that the name is the individual is often called the mark of the Namer, because one of the great sins in life is to accept that a name is all that there is of reality …

  “Now, if there is so much we do not know about those we call family or friends, how much more is there about the Nameless, who created all that there is, that we cannot know and will never know? …”

  Chorister Aknotyn went on to describe the magnificence of the Nameless and the unmitigated presumption of mere mortals to offer a name and think that they might know even a fraction of what the Nameless might know or understand. I’d heard similar homilies before, and I couldn’t say that I disagreed. The only thing I might have added, if only in my mind, was the question of whether the Nameless, with all that magnificence, would even have cared what I thought or did.

  While the walk from the Anomen D’Este to Brayer Lane and Master Caliostrus’s establishment, even by the winding Bakers’ Lane, was only half the distance I’d walked to get to Father’s, I didn’t even have to do that. Mother had Charlsyn go that way—and she slipped me two silvers as well, when Father wasn’t looking, just before I got out of the coach. So I wasn’t all that chilled by the time I reached my room.

  10

  755 A.L.

  A good portrait reveals what is seen; a great one also reveals what is not.

  I was halfway into the last sitting with Thelya on a far warmer and more pleasant Samedi morning—and the second one in Fevier—when I found myself looking at her eyes again. I’d been worried about them—not the shape or the shadows, but the color of the irises—for the last several sittings. The problem was simple. Her eyes were green, but I was limited to zinc blue-green and verdigris, and the zinc green wasn’t intense enough, and the verdigris was far too fugitive to be used for Thelya’s eyes, even if I used a touch of a clear varnish-glaze.

  What I really needed was imagers’ green, but only Master Caliostrus had that, along with the lapis blue, and they were so costly that I’d never see them, not as a journeyman, and certainly not so long as I worked in his studio. The most I’d ever seen were tiny dollops here and there. Still … I wouldn’t need all that much. I glanced toward the converted ancient armoire that held his pigments, then shook my head.

  If I could just have used the tiniest bit of that brilliant green, and then shaded the eyes from yellow-flecked zinc green to the brighter imagers’ green on the sides of the pupils—right there …

  I swallowed. I’d done it again. What I’d visualized, seen so clearly in my mind, had appeared on the canvas before me. That was a form of imaging. There was no doubt about it, but exactly what use was imaging that could only make small changes in oil paints on a canvas?

  I couldn’t help smiling as I studied the face on the canvas. That little change had made all the difference, bringing her eyes alive, and creating a subtle but clear linkage between all the elements of the portrait.

  I finished just before noon, after refining just the hint of an errant curl above her left ear. Then I set down the fine-tipped brush and stepped away from the easel.

  “Thank you, Thelya. We’re finished for now, and today was the last sitting. The portrait should be ready in a few days.”

  “It isn’t done now?” She bounced off the chair, holding Remsi so tightly that the cat gave a meow of protest.

  The governess raised an eyebrow. She never spoke when a gesture would do.

  “Some of the background isn’t finished, but I don’t need you to sit for that.”

  “Can I see?”

  “You can … if you really want to.”

  She stopped well short of the easel. “You’re saying that I shouldn’t.”

  That stopped me. For a pampered nine-year-old to catch that suggested more perception than I’d thought she had. After a moment, I said, “You certainly can, Mistress Thelya, but I’d rather that you be surprised when you see the fully completed portrait.”

  “Like presents at Year-Turn?”

  “Something like that.”

  She nodded. “I can wait.” Her words were more about her than about the portrait, and, for some reason, I thought about Chorister Aknotyn’s homily the week before, about thinking we understood people because we knew their names and had seen them often enough to believe that what we had seen was all that they were.

  “I’m sure you can.” I smiled. “It won’t be long. Thank you for being so good at the sittings.” I turned to the governess. “Thank you.”

  “The quiet was most restful.” Her lips did not quite smile.

  Once Thelya, her governess, and Remsi left, I spent a bit more time just looking at the c
anvas. I had a few things to finish along the edges, but it was a fine portrait, probably the best I had done.

  At that moment, Ostrius stepped into the studio, bringing with him a gust of cold air that suggested the past several days of comparatively mild weather were about to end. Almost as if to say that he didn’t have to follow his father’s rules about keeping the door closed in winter, he stood just inside the studio, holding the door open. “We need a little fresher air in here.”

  “Suit yourself,” I replied. “My sitting’s over.”

  He closed the door and walked toward my easel, where he stopped and glanced at the portrait. After a moment, he said, “Not bad. You almost got the skin perfect.”

  Much that he knew. I had gotten Thelya’s pale skin perfect. He would have added the faintest touch of earth brown and yellow to flatter her, but that would have left anyone with any discrimination who saw the portrait vaguely unsatisfied without knowing why. “That’s the way I saw it.”

  “You need to see them the way they see themselves, Rhenn. That’s what makes a portraiturist a master.”

  After all the years with Master Caliostrus, I was getting to hate the way Ostrius tried to sound like his father. Master Caliostrus might be demanding or picky, but most of the time he was looking to improve what I did—or at least make it more attractive to a patron. Ostrius was just using his father’s mannerisms to assert himself, and that trait had worsened since he’d been confirmed as a master, if a junior master. “It’s certainly what brings many of them golds.”

  “Golds last, Rhenn, if you have enough of them. Reputation is fickle, and skills vanish with age.”

  He was doubtless right, but the way he said the words was annoying. I forced a laugh. “You’re suggesting that we need to use our skills to amass golds before those skills fade.”

  “What else?” He walked to his pigment chest, unlocking it and putting several new brushes inside. Then he locked the chest again. “Don’t forget to bank the coals in the stove.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Ostrius flashed an insincere smile as he left the studio.

  It wasn’t that long before Master Caliostrus appeared, while I was finishing the last touches on the rust-brown hangings at the left edge of the portrait.

  “Where did you get that green?” Master Caliostrus pointed to Thelya’s eyes.

  I knew I shouldn’t have left the eyes that way, but they were perfect. “Sir?”

  “That’s imagers’ green. Were you in my paints, Rhennthyl?”

  “No, sir. I thought about it, but that would have been wrong.” I gave him an embarrassed smile. What else could I say? “When I was cleaning the studio last Meredi … there was a little dollop of it on the edge of the side table, and it was hard, but I worked at it with oils over the past few days, and I managed to work in just a little bit … I thought … well, for her eyes, it seemed perfect.”

  “Hmmmph.” Caliostrus walked to the old converted armoire that held his pigments.

  That didn’t bother me—if he were honest—because I hadn’t touched his pigments. I wouldn’t have dared. I could hear him mumbling. “Not here … there … hmmmm.”

  After a time, he returned and scanned the portrait of Thelya D’Scheorzyl minutely, then nodded. “It is quite good. I would have softened her skin a touch, but you chose to render what you saw. That might be best for a child.” He smiled. “That way, if you do one later, you can soften it.” He paused. “You’ll pardon my concern about the eyes, but imagers’ green is almost as valuable as liquid silver. You must have worked very hard to stretch that small dollop.”

  “I did, sir. It would have been better if I could have used a touch in the corner of the cat’s pupils, but …” I shrugged helplessly. “I wouldn’t have tried so hard, but I kept looking at her eyes, and they needed to be more intense, and the zinc green, even with a glaze …”

  “You did what you could, Rhennthyl, and I’m certain Madame Scheorzyl will be pleased with the portrait.” Caliostrus paused. “I’m glad that you didn’t try to use verdigris. The effect would have faded in a few years, even with a glaze.”

  “I’d thought so, sir.”

  “Even without that little bit of imagers’ green, you could have heightened the effect with a little yellow ochre there … and there.” His stubby forefinger pointed.

  “I still could … and should, then, sir.”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  “I still have a few skills you haven’t picked up yet, Rhennthyl.”

  “More than a few, sir.”

  “You’ll be finished by Meredi, ready for framing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes did linger on the portrait for a time before he turned. “You’ll bank the coals?”

  “Once I’m done, yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  I did take his suggestions about the ochre yellow, and it took almost a glass to get it right. By then I was ready to leave. I did have enough coppers to go to Lapinina, and who knew, there might even be a pretty face there.

  11

  755 A.L.

  Happiness cannot be pursued through art, nor art through happiness.

  The younger unmarried crafters and artisans got together in the Guild Hall the next to the last Samedi of every month, the twenty-eighth of the month. It wasn’t anything organized by the guilds, exactly, but they did let us use a corner of the hall without a charge, even for the two guards. There were musicians, and we’d pass a hat for them, and everyone usually had a good time—or at least a time away from the worries of the week.

  That Fevier Samedi, I was standing by the outer wall of the hall, talking with Rogaris and Dolemis, while we shared a bottle of Fystian, a white vintage perhaps a half step above plonk. Rogaris held the bottle, as always, no matter who had bought it—me, in this case.

  “… you think this Caenenan thing will lead to war?” Dolemis kept looking past us at Yvette, as she swirled past in the arms of someone I didn’t know. Yvette had been his girl for years—until she’d suggested formalizing the arrangement.

  “What Caenenan thing?” asked Rogaris, taking a swig of the Fystian.

  “The Caenenan envoy threatened that they’d kill any of our people who blasphemed their god or goddess or duality or whatever,” I said. “That was weeks ago.”

  “No … they did,” Dolemis explained. “It was in the newsheets this afternoon. Some clerk in the embassy in Caena burst out laughing at one of their religious processions, and their armites lopped off his head on the spot. The Council is debating the matter.”

  “Cut off his head for laughing?” asked Rogaris. “You can’t be serious.”

  “What do you expect from people who are arrogant enough to name their god?” I had more than a little scorn for people who thought a god cared whether they ate certain foods on certain days or who believed that people would be blessed or cursed or live forever or be tortured for eternity if they didn’t follow a set of rules laid down by some dead prophet or another. If there happened to be an all-powerful and almighty deity—and I had my doubts—he or she or it or whatever wasn’t about to care about who followed what dogma.

  “Everyone’s not like us,” Rogaris said. “Most of them are stupider, and that’s not giving us Solidarans much credit.”

  “You think the Council will send imagers?” asked Dolemis.

  How would I know that? I didn’t even know what an imager could really do in a war, except I knew no one much wanted a strong one against them—but there hadn’t ever been that many war imagers, not from what I’d read in the histories, not since Rex Regis, when his unknown imager had done strange things with walls. I had no idea if there were any at the Collegium Imago now. I supposed that wasn’t something anyone would want to reveal.

  “Rhenn! Come dance with me!” called Seliora. She had jet-black hair and eyes to match, and she wore a black jacket with crimson trim above a crimson skirt and black danc
ing boots. I’d heard that she worked as an upholsterer and embroiderer for one of the furniture crafters in the artisans’ area off Nordroad north of the Boulevard D’Este, but she’d never said, and I hadn’t asked. “You’ve talked long enough.”

  “If you would excuse me,” I said, “I’m being summoned by a pretty woman, and that doesn’t happen that often.”

  “It would if you’d let it,” quipped Rogaris.

  “You never said what you thought would happen in Caenen,” protested Dolemis.

  “We’ll send ships and troops, and people will fight and die, and they’ll still lop off heads, and then we’ll either kill enough of them that they’ll stop doing it, or they won’t, and then we’ll lose more troops until we quit and declare victory.” I called the last words over my shoulder as I hurried toward Seliora.

  “Declare victory about what?” Seliora asked as I slipped my arm around her waist and began to dance with her, ignoring the fact that the waltz seemed a bit fast to me.

  “The Caenenans … politics, again.” I really didn’t want to talk about it. I supposed I could be conscripted if the Council declared war, but they usually didn’t conscript journeymen artisans or crafters. Apprentices were often conscripted, as were journeymen without masters.

  “Dolemis always talks politics. Yvette said he even mumbled about them in his sleep.”

  “She actually listened?”

  “I think that was the trouble.”

  “Well, he can’t do anything about it, not unless he works and becomes a craftmaster, because the Council is elected from the guilds, the factors’ associations, and the High Holders, and you have to be a craftmaster to be eligible, and he never will be because he spends too much time talking about politics rather than crafting cabinets for Sasol,” I added with a laugh.

  For a time, I did not speak, just enjoyed dancing and holding Seliora. She wasn’t slender, but certainly not heavy, rather muscular. I enjoyed seeing her smile. Over the past year, we had talked and danced occasionally, and I knew she was interested in me … at least a little bit.