Imager

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “When will he be back?”

  “I couldn’t say, dear Rhennthyl, and I doubt that he would be able to tell you any more than I have. He might say it more diplomatically, but the message would be the same.” His smile was oily, supercilious, and simpering. “We all wish you the very best.”

  He closed the door as I stood there.

  There were still some of the lesser masters I could talk to, but I was getting a very strong feeling that my father had been all too accurate in his assessment of my prospects.

  Still … there was no point in leaving any stone unturned.

  I took a deep breath and began to walk the three blocks to the Boulevard D’Este. I had several milles to go along the Nordroad and then the Sudroad toward the Avenue of Artisans in order to reach the other cluster of master portraiturists.

  Collegium Imago

  15

  The longest journeys are the ones where one fears the destination.

  By noon on Samedi, I had visited every portraiturist master in L’Excelsis, and not a single one had an opening for a journeyman, or at least not for me. Then I did some inquiries about the possibilities in the Representationalists’ Guild, and the indications there were even less encouraging, because the guild rules required a full apprenticeship under one of their masters.

  On Solayi, I kept mostly to myself, except for a short time when Khethila slipped into the guest chamber. She was concerned, but I had the feeling her concerns were not totally about me, and I wondered if she were having second thoughts about the proposal from Armynd, but she didn’t say, and, the way I felt, I didn’t ask.

  After she left, I tried imaging more small things, such as the comb, and encountered more than a few difficulties. Anything metal was difficult, if small, and impossible, for me, if large. Familiar items were the easiest, but only those not too familiar, perhaps because really familiar objects I had taken too much for granted and not really studied. I did convince myself that I had some small imaging talent, but I still wasn’t certain how I could have imaged a fire and explosion when I had such trouble in imaging small household objects.

  But then … whether I had or not wasn’t the question. The question was what I would do.

  On Lundi morning, well before breakfast, I gathered together the few belongings I had and slipped out the side door of the house when no one was looking. I couldn’t pretend that I wanted to be a wool factor, or any other kind of factor, and at twenty-four, I was already too old to enter the Military Institute or Marine Academy, even if I had wanted to be an Army or Navy officer—which I most certainly didn’t. The craft at which I was best was painting, and that didn’t seem to offer much future, at least in L’Excelsis. While I might be able to find a position in another city, I didn’t have the coins to travel anywhere, and I doubted I could get the references I needed, not after what had just happened. Even if I could, I was looking at another five years as a journeyman, assuming I could find someone willing to take me on in cities I didn’t even know, and most other cities couldn’t support nearly so many portraiturists from what I’d heard. On top of that, I’d doubtless need Father’s support, again, and I didn’t want to ask more. I also doubted that he’d give it, not the way he’d been talking over the end of the week.

  Yet … did I really want to go to Imagisle? Did I have a choice, really?

  The air was chill, but the sun rose and warmed my back before I’d gone more than half a mille. Thankfully, the air was so still that it felt warmer than it really was. The stretch from the house to the Plaza D’Este wasn’t bad, nor was the walk down the Midroad to the Guild Hall, but my feet and legs were getting sore by the time I was on the Boulevard D’Imagers heading toward the Bridge of Hopes, and I sat down on a stone bench a half mille short of the bridge and looked at the gray granite towers of the Collegium Imago rising above the bare limbs of the oaks that lined the riverside park on the east side of the River Aluse. In another month, they might be showing traces of green.

  I’d always wondered why the Collegium had used gray granite for buildings, while the buildings on the Council Hill were hardened white alabaster. The imagers had been responsible for building both. As I sat at the edge of the parkway that bordered the boulevard, the wind began to rise, and the marginal warmth provided by the white light of the winter sun disappeared.

  I stood, stretched, and resumed my progress toward the Bridge of Hopes along the wide stone walkway paralleling the Boulevard D’Imagers. Just before the boulevard reached the river and the bridge, it intersected East River Road, and all the wagons and carriages and the handful of riders took East River Road north or south.

  I darted across the road and stood on the causeway approaching the Bridge of Hopes, a granite span over the eastern channel of the River Aluse only slightly wider than necessary to accommodate a large wagon or a stately carriage. There were no stone markers announcing its name, nor any guardhouses. The roadbed, paved with smooth granite stones, arched slightly upward, so that the middle of the bridge, some fifteen yards out, was about a yard higher than the causeway at each end. At each side of the span was a wall a good yard high. There were no sidewalks, and the roadbed ran flat from wall to wall.

  No one crossed any of the three narrow bridges to Imagisle unless they wanted to go to the Collegium, and not that many did. Both the Nord Bridge and the Sud Bridge, so called because one was north of Imagisle and one south, were the main city thoroughfares for those who wished to cross the Aluse.

  I stopped once more, just short of the bridge proper. Did I really want to try to become an imager? I swallowed, forcing myself to think about how little I wanted to hear about what great work Rousel was doing in Kherseilles.

  I took a deep breath and began to walk slowly and steadily across the bridge. Once I had crossed, I was faced with a choice. The causeway debouched into three stone lanes. One went north, one south, and one directly toward a single-storied granite building with a gray slate tile roof. I followed the lane to the building.

  Outside the building I paused before a stone archway of the style called Glacian, supposedly because it was so spare and cold, just like the Monts D’Glace that separated the fertile and prosperous southlands of Solidar from the northern wastelands. Under the arch was a single door of gray-stained oak bound in shimmering brass. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, pressing the door lever down, then opening the door.

  Inside was a foyer, square and five yards by five. The walls were smooth sheets of bare gray granite, without a seam in the stone. The floor was of the same seamless granite, and there was no sign of a join or of any mortaring of any sort where the floor and walls met. The ceiling was of featureless white plaster. Two square arches led from the foyer into short hallways—one to the right and one to the left. Directly opposite the entry was a table, also entirely of granite, except the top surface was polished so smooth that it shimmered. Behind the table sat a young man, wearing a light gray collared shirt, with a waistcoat of a darker gray that seemed to match his trousers, from what I could see. His boots were black. His brown hair was cut short, like that of a soldier or sailor. I walked to the table and stopped.

  “Might I help you?” he asked.

  “I think I need to see if I’m suited to be an imager.”

  “What makes you think you might be an imager? You’re … rather older … than most who come across the bridge.” He looked younger than I did.

  I managed a shrug. “Because I can image small things.”

  “Oh? Would you mind showing me?”

  I thought for a moment, then decided that a replica of the comb I had done the first time wouldn’t be too difficult. I concentrated, creating the mental image of Remaya’s comb. It appeared on the flat surface, just short of his hand.

  For some reason, he seemed surprised, especially after he picked it up. “That’s a rather good comb.” He paused. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting here for just a moment, I think Gherard Secondus might wish to speak with you.”

&nb
sp; Taking the comb, he stood and slipped away from the table, walking quickly across the foyer and through the archway to my left. After a short time, he returned. “If you would come this way …”

  I followed him less than ten yards along the corridor—walled and floored in the same seamless granite—before we came to an open door. He stood back and gestured for me to enter.

  I did.

  Gherard Secondus stood beside the end of a long conference table in a chamber that held nothing besides the table and the ten chairs that flanked it, four on each side and one at each end. He stood beside the chair at one end, and he was attired in the same gray garb as the first imager, insofar as I could tell, but he did look somewhat older, perhaps almost as old as I was, and his short-cut hair was limp and blond.

  He gestured to the chair closest to the one behind which he stood. “If you would like to sit down …”

  I was more than happy to seat myself. My feet were sore.

  “Petryn showed me the comb you imaged. It’s fine work. What have you been doing?”

  “Doing, sir?”

  “You’re too old to still be in the grammaire, and you don’t look like an Institute or university student.”

  “Oh … I’ve been a journeyman portraiturist, with Master Caliostrus.”

  He stiffened, just slightly. “Rhennthyl D’Caliostrus? Is that you?”

  “Not anymore. I’m just Rhennthyl.” I certainly was too old to claim myself as Rhennthyl D’Chenkyr. “Master Caliostrus died in a fire last Jeudi.”

  He nodded. “Actually, you need to see Master Dichartyn. I’ll be right back.” He rose and left me sitting there.

  A cold shiver went down my spine. Gherard hadn’t known me, but he had known my name, and he had been given some instructions. Yet … I hadn’t told anyone of my intentions to seek out the imagers.

  Gherard did not return. Instead another man came. He was, not unsurprisingly, attired in exactly the same fashion as the other two imagers. Unlike them, however, he was older, graying, and radiated a certain sense of power. He also did not sit down. “I’m Master Dichartyn. You’re Rhennthyl, formerly Rhennthyl D’Caliostrus?”

  “Yes, sir.” I stood quickly.

  “Gherard said that you imaged a comb. I’d appreciate it if you would attempt to image this.” He set a small topless box on the flat table, almost small enough to rest on my palm.

  “Might I examine it, sir?”

  “Please do.”

  I picked it up. It was cast or formed from some sort of metal, but none that I knew, for although it was silvery in color, it was far lighter than either iron or silver or even tin, I thought. All I could do was hold it, try to feel it, before setting it on the table and then concentrating on its shape and size and the feeling of lightness. Visualizing the box was somehow both easy … and difficult. Even so, another box appeared on the table beside the first. To me, they looked the same, but I was so light-headed that I had to put out a hand to the back of the nearest chair and steady myself. I’d never felt weak before when I’d imaged things.

  Master Dichartyn looked at both boxes, then picked up the one I had imaged, then the other, weighing them in his hands. After a moment, he shook his head.

  I wondered what I’d done wrong.

  “You’re an imager, and you could be a very good one. Given your background, Rhennthyl, I can’t say that you’ll like it, but you don’t have much choice.”

  I already knew that.

  16

  Accepting what is not is the hardest aspect of imaging, indeed, of any profession requiring great skill.

  For the next few glasses, I felt like all I did was walk from one gray building to another, or from one part of a building to another, guided by Gherard, rather than Petryn or Master Dichartyn. In the process, I gathered three sets of gray garments, five sets of paler gray undergarments, black boots, imaged to fit my feet by a graying imager, as well as a stack of five bound books. I also got a heavy gray wool cloak for cold weather and a pair of gloves. One set of garments I donned immediately, and the other sets and the books were deposited in the narrow armoire in the stark gray room on the second floor of the building that housed imagers of the primus and secondus levels.

  “For now,” Gherard told me, as he guided me back toward the first building, which I’d learned was the administrative building, “you’re a primus, but once you know the basics about the Collegium, they’ll probably make you a secondus.”

  “You don’t have to serve a mandatory apprenticeship?”

  He shook his head. “It’s all by ability. There are some imagers primus who are over sixty. It’s all they’ll ever be.” He frowned. “There are some masters in their late twenties, but no one’s ever attained a rank above Maitre D’Structure before around forty, and there are only two Maitres D’Esprit.”

  I must have looked blank.

  “There are three levels of regular imagers—primus, secondus, and tertius—and four master levels: Maitre D’Aspect, Maitre D’Structure, Maitre D’Esprit, and Maitre D’Image. Most imagers in the Collegium are either imagers secondus or tertius. Right now, I think there are perhaps fifteen Maitres D’Aspect, but there might be more.”

  The number didn’t surprise me. There were only about that many master portraiturists in L’Excelsis. But with so few, I had to wonder why he didn’t know the exact number.

  “I hope you read well and quickly, because you’re starting late, and you have a lot to learn. You’ll have to learn basic chemistry, something about metals, and how living things—trees and people, mostly—work, and all sorts of things about combustion, but that’s mostly for self-protection. Master Dichartyn will explain everything in more detail, including your duties.”

  He didn’t say much more after that, but just escorted me back to the same room where I’d begun and left me there, where I sat for a time before Master Dicharytn appeared.

  I immediately rose. “Sir.”

  He waved me back to the seat I had taken. “You have garments, quarters, and books now, I take it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have anything personal that you would like to bring? You can have personal items like quilts, pillows, bedclothing, paintings or wall hangings, small rugs. No clothing, except nightwear, and no personal jewelry.”

  “No, sir. Most of my personal things were destroyed.” And I certainly wasn’t about to ask my parents for anything.

  Master Dichartyn nodded. “Now … let me go over some very basic rules. First, until you are told otherwise, and only by a master, you are not to leave Imagisle. Usually, this restriction lasts anywhere from one to three months, depending on how fast you learn a number of things. Second, after we finish today, you are to take the map I will give you, and you will spend the rest of the day learning where every chamber and building on the isle is. Do not enter any room where the door is closed. …

  “The dining hall serves breakfast from the sixth glass of the morning, a midday meal between noon and the first glass of the afternoon, and dinner at the sixth glass of the afternoon. Seating is roughly by position. There is a table for imagers primus, one for imagers secondus and tertius, and a third for maitres …”

  I listened as intently as I could while he outlined the regimen of Imagisle. It certainly didn’t seem any worse than being an apprentice.

  “As for your duties … they’re very simple. For now, you’re to do what I tell you to do. I’ve given you your instructions for today. Tomorrow, at the seventh glass of the morning you are to appear and wait outside my study—it’s two doors down on the left—until I summon you. I suggest you bring the volume on the structure of the Collegium and the responsibilities of an imager and read it, in case you have to wait. For the next several weeks, your duties will center on learning everything in the books you were given.” Master Dichartyn smiled wryly. “I do have a simple question for you. Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

  “Why, sir?” The question made me wary.

&n
bsp; “Because about half of the would-be imagers don’t tell anyone, and then the civic patrollers contact us to see if you’re here. It’s much simpler if you just write a note or two to those who might worry, one way or another. In your case, I’d presume, to your parents, since you no longer serve a master portraiturist. There should be some blank stationery in the armoire in your chamber, as well as a pen and ink. If you’ll bring the notes back to me this afternoon, I’ll have them dispatched immediately, and your parents won’t have to worry too long. Oh … and you do get a stipend. It’s not much, only a silver a week, but we do feed and clothe you. Once you learn the basics of the Collegium and pass a proficiency test, or the equivalent, most of which you’ve already demonstrated the ability to do, you’ll become a beginning imager secondus, and that’s worth two silvers a week. Stipends go up in accordance with your position and how long you’ve been with the Collegium. So does the amount of space allocated to you.”

  A silver a week wasn’t grand, but it wasn’t absolute poverty, either, and the position already sounded better than attempting to be a wool factor under my father and Rousel.

  “There are several other basics. First, we expect daily bathing and frequent laundering of your garments. This is for both safety and sanitary reasons, the rationale for which will become clear before long, I trust. The bathing is your responsibility; the laundering we have arranged, so long as you place your dirty garments in the proper place. There are two barbers in the building with the dining hall, and we expect short hair, as you may have noticed …”

  When he finally finished what seemed a thorough overview of what was expected of me, he stopped. The smile vanished.

  I waited, worried about what might come next.

  “A word of caution, Rhennthyl. Imaging goes far beyond merely creating objects, and it can be dangerous,” Master Dichartyn said. “That is why I must ask you not to attempt any more imaging except under supervision of a master or at his or her direction. Most people have no concept of what we do, and we try not to let them know. That is one reason why some imagers primus leave by the Bridge of Stones.”