Imager’s Battalion

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  Once more the two exchanged glances. This time the expressions were knowing.

  Quaeryt waited.

  “If … any imager,” began Shaelyt, “could do this, wouldn’t he be most powerful?”

  “I think creating and holding such a shield takes much practice to learn how to do it, and much effort to hold it for long.” Quaeryt offered a wry smile. “Why don’t troopers carry big heavy shields anymore?”

  “You’re saying they get too heavy.”

  “Could any of you have done any more imaging at the end of the battle the other night?” asked Quaeryt.

  “Maybe a little,” said Voltyr.

  “Could you have if you’d been carrying a shield weighing a half stone for the entire battle? Do you think that holding an imaging shield is any less work?”

  “The best troopers could, sir … I mean, carry shields and blades in the old days,” said Shaelyt.

  “The very best could. You’re right. How many years of training did it take them? You’re both better imagers than you were when you were made undercaptains. How much have you improved, and how long has it taken? I’ve been training you and trying to get you to strengthen and improve your abilities the whole time.” Mostly, anyway.

  “How do you know we can do this?” asked Voltyr.

  “I don’t,” replied Quaeryt. “I do know it can be done. I also suspect that not all imagers can, but I thought you two were the most able and likely, and that you should know that it’s possible.” He paused. “If you can create such shields, there may be ways to use them more effectively, but … first you have to see if you can. I’d also appreciate your not talking about it with the other imagers for now.”

  “You’re just going to tell us it can be done … and that’s it?” asked Voltyr, not quite plaintively.

  “Voltyr … can you explain how to image to anyone else, even another imager?”

  “Of course.”

  “Fine. Explain it to me. What do you do?”

  “You create a picture in your mind and think about making it real.”

  “How do you make it real?”

  “You … just think about…” After a pause Voltyr stopped. “I see what you mean.”

  “Description only goes so far. You both know, if you think about it, that some forms of imaging shields are possible. Knowing something can be done is the first step. Figuring out how to do it on your own is the second. In a way, it’s like many things. A child has to learn to walk on his own. Once he can walk and is older, a teacher can show him how to run better and faster…”

  Voltyr nodded once more. So did Shaelyt.

  “I’d like to hear how you progress on this, but I understand that it may take some time. Remember … we will be going into larger and larger fights and battles … and the better you can protect yourself…”

  “Yes, sir,” said Shaelyt. “We understand.”

  Quaeryt smiled. “Good. See what you can do. I suggest you practice where it’s not obvious.” With that, he turned and started back to the River Inn.

  Behind him, he caught a few words.

  “… told you…”

  As he walked back toward the inn, he began to think about what he could do to improve his own skills.

  When he reached the River Inn, looking for Skarpa, he discovered that the commander was meeting with the officers of Third Regiment in the public room of the inn. So he waited half a glass and then slipped into the public room as the officers were leaving.

  Skarpa caught sight of Quaeryt and motioned to him.

  “Did you find any supplies at the High Holder’s place?”

  “No, sir. Everything was locked and shuttered, and there were no recent tracks or signs of anyone being there recently. The imagers undid the locks on the storerooms and all the buildings. They were empty. Just like his warehouses here in town. We replaced the locks and left the grounds and buildings untouched.”

  Skarpa nodded. “No sense in ransacking if there’s nothing we need.”

  “I thought I’d take some men to the next nearest High Holder tomorrow … if you didn’t have any reason I shouldn’t. His place is something like ten or twelve milles west.”

  “How much of the battalion do you plan on taking?” asked Skarpa.

  “I’d thought one of the Khellan companies would be sufficient.”

  “Take two. The scouts haven’t seen signs of more Bovarians, but I’d feel better if you took two. And tell the officers the dispatch riders on Jeudi will also carry personal missives—for the usual considerations.” Skarpa smiled. “I imagine you might be using their services.”

  “I just might,” Quaeryt agreed.

  Skarpa nodded, effectively a dismissal, and Quaeryt left to check with Zhelan and the company commanders before the evening meal.

  That night, after eating and handling other duties, Quaeryt settled into his chamber in the River Inn and wrote down his recollections of the high holdings and holders he had visited since he had left Ferravyl, while he could still remember details. Then he wrote a few more lines on his growing letter to Vaelora. Finally, he opened Rholan and the Nameless and began to page through it, trying to see if the unknown author had ever commented on death and the ceremonies surrounding it. He was about to turn past a chapter that seemed to deal with justice and mercy when a phrase caught his eye, and he went back and read through it once more.

  Rholan spoke often of justice and mercy. While he deserves credit for addressing them both and for expounding the distinctions between them, he was even more astute in recognizing the fundamental difference between justice and law, perhaps because he had suffered from that difference as the bastard son of a High Holder. Rholan was far more competent than his younger half brother, who in fact inherited the lands of Niasaen upon the death of their father and who squandered it all before his early death in a drunken stupor in his hunting lodge, leaving his young widow no choice but to marry the second son of their father’s greatest rival …

  It could not but have galled Rholan to be the one Thierysa requested to return Nial’s body to the hold house, for he had pled suit to her, and despite her affection for him, she rejected his suit in order to save her own family’s fortune … and in the end, she had to marry another she did not love to save herself.

  It may well be that Rholan’s later views on funeral ceremonies took root after the death of his half brother, because in accepting the charge by his brother’s widow, he had to deal with a corpse that had putrefied greatly in the summer heat and doubtless sit through a lengthy memorial before Nial was quickly placed in the elaborate stone mausoleum that still dominates Niasaen Hold. All of that celebration of a younger half brother who was a wastrel likely had great impact, because Rholan held forth on more than one occasion upon the vanity of glorifying the body both in life and in death, and of the total emptiness of the gesture of elaborate tombs, claiming that a man’s worth lay in his deeds, not in the exaltation of his name after his death … and that the body might well be burned for all the good the cost of such funeral arrangements did a man, his family, or his reputation.

  Quaeryt nodded slowly. What the writer had put down made sense, but it also raised another mystery, again. Who was the writer, that he knew so much about Rholan, and why had he chosen to remain nameless?

  24

  Quaeryt and third and fourth company left Caernyn promptly at seventh glass on Meredi morning, heading westward toward Fauxyn’s holding under a sky filled with puffy white clouds. From what he and the scouts could tell, almost no one had used the road as far as Haeryn’s gates since he and fourth company had ridden back the afternoon before—just one rider and a single cart pulled by an ox. That didn’t count any scouts, either Bovarian or Telaryn, of course, because they likely would have ridden on the harder parts of the road or on the shoulder to minimize their tracks.

  Some three milles beyond Haeryn’s gates, the road dipped down into another marsh, the western end of the lake that had swamps at both ends. Quaeryt ca
ught sight of one swamp lizard, more than three yards long, before it slipped under the murky water. The levee-like road across the swamp was more than half a mille long before it again rose onto the higher ground bordering the River Aluse. While it widened once above the marsh, the roadbed was more rutted and not all that well traveled.

  Both Major Zhael and Major Arion rode near the front, one with Quaeryt and the other with Captain Wharyn, Zhael’s second in command, alternating occasionally. All six imager subcaptains rode behind Wharyn.

  The first thing that Quaeryt noticed as they neared where Fauxyn’s holding was supposed to be was the high and thick hedgerow along the river side of the road, and the fact that the road ran along the south side of what appeared to be a long ridge whose crest had been flattened years, if not decades, before. There were no breaks in the hedgerow, and the top ranged from three to five yards above the shoulder of the road.

  When they reached the holding entrance, Quaeryt blotted his damp forehead. He was mildly surprised at the plain gray stone and the dull iron gates and the fact that there were no tracks or wheel ruts from the gate onto the river road. He was less surprised at the chains and double locks.

  At Quaeryt’s command, Shaelyt removed the locks, and two troopers swung open the gates to reveal a stone-paved lane that led directly to the rear of a two-story structure situated on a low rise less than half a mille from the gates. The lane bore no tracks at all, as if it had been swept recently. As Quaeryt, led by the scouts and followed by the two companies, neared the hold house, he could see that it was far more than a hold house, with wide covered porches, a walled garden off the rear verandah, and a small garden off each wing of the small palace, not to mention a pair of hedge mazes flanking the side gardens.

  A thin wisp of smoke rose from a chimney, possibly the one serving the kitchen. That, and the fact that none of the windows were shuttered, suggested the hold had not been locked and abandoned … and that it was occupied with the holder either absent or most confident.

  “They do not expect us?” murmured Zhael in Bovarian, from where he rode beside Quaeryt. “How could they not know?”

  “Perhaps no one told them,” replied Quaeryt. “Did you see any other access to the grounds? I didn’t.”

  “There must be another entrance.”

  Quaeryt nodded, but he was convinced that they had not passed anything that would have afforded access to the grounds. Part of that mystery was resolved when they followed the lane up the rise and to a point where the ground leveled out just east of the holding buildings. From there, Quaeryt looked down a long gradual slope to the river, where an elaborate dock, with an elegant boathouse, jutted out into the water. From the foot of the pier a wide lane wound up the slope through elaborate gardens in sweeping turns, ending at a paved circle under a roofed portico supported by fluted stone columns. A row of statues, sea-sprites, crowned the low wall between the columns on the river end of the portico. The leaded glass windows overlooking the river were wide and tall.

  “Access is largely from the river,” said Quaeryt.

  “It looks more like a summer palace for the rex,” observed Arion from behind Quaeryt.

  “It displays more taste than that,” countered Zhael.

  Quaeryt noted that no boats were tied at the dock, but it was possible that the large boathouse held some craft, since one end extended well out into the river. His eyes turned to the small palace. Several windows on the upper level were open. As he studied the portico once more, two figures in livery stepped out and took positions on the wide white marble steps.

  A smile crossed Quaeryt’s face. High Holder Fauxyn had style. Whether he had any sort of power was another question, but Quaeryt wasn’t about to leave himself open to attack. He strengthened his shields as he directed the scouts to follow the stone lane to where it joined the wider lane leading up from the dock.

  Quaeryt ordered the two companies to draw up in formation well back from the portico, then turned to the officers, nodding at Zhael. “Arion will accompany me. You’re in command.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Undercaptain Voltyr, you’re in charge of the imagers. I don’t expect any difficulty, but if something should happen to us, you’re to bring down this entire confectionery structure.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt nodded to Arion, and the two rode forward, reining up just short of the wide white marble steps.

  “Honored sirs,” announced the taller dark-haired man in the white and peach colored livery. “High Holder and Lady Fauxyn bid you welcome to Fauxheld.”

  “Are they present?” asked Quaeryt.

  “They are indeed, sir.” The functionary’s eyes went from Quaeryt to Arion and back to Quaeryt. “How might I announce you, sir?”

  “Subcommander Quaeryt and Major Arion.” Quaeryt noted that the functionary had a military bearing, not to mention a scar across his forehead above his left eye.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt eased the mare to the side of the steps where there was an ornate gilded hitching ring. There he dismounted.

  “Allow me, sir,” said the shorter retainer, stepping forward and extending a hand for the mare’s reins.

  “Thank you.” Quaeryt let him take the reins … and waited while he also took those of Arion’s mount.

  “If you would follow me, sirs…” suggested the taller retainer.

  “Stay close to me,” Quaeryt murmured to Arion.

  The dark-haired retainer turned, opened the right-hand, gilded-iron outer door, and then the inner door, ornately carved with hunting scenes. He stepped back until the two officers stood in a vaulted receiving hall, then closed the inner door, but not the outer one. “This way. I am requested to escort you to the parlor.”

  “Don’t most visitors come by river?” Quaeryt glanced around the receiving hall, its walls covered in a peach damask above the darker goldenwood wainscoting. Two full-length portraits, one on each side, each of a man in formal attire of some time in the past that Quaeryt didn’t recognize, were the only decoration. He did note that both men portrayed, one blond and one brown-haired, possessed eyes of a color that partook of both blue and violet—an odd shade.

  “They do, sir.” The retainer walked through the archway into another chamber, from which corridors extended directly ahead and to the right and left. He turned to the left. “Only certain goods from the local area come through the rear gates, and that is by prior arrangement.”

  “How long has the hold been in the family?”

  “I could not say, sir. No one can recall the memory of a time when there was not a High Holder Fauxyn.” He stepped into the first archway on the left and bowed.

  Quaeryt repressed a frown at the way the retainer had replied.

  The individual waiting in the parlor, if a chamber some ten yards by five could be called a parlor, was not High Holder Fauxyn, but a blond woman who looked to be about Quaeryt’s age. Her eyes were a shade that was neither blue nor purple, but somewhere between—and intense—much like the color of the eyes of the two men in the receiving hall portraits. Her skin was a flawless creamy peach, and her form was exquisitely female, accentuated by the not quite sheer and clinging pale green gown she wore. The shade of her shoes matched the gown, but the stone in the pendant attached to the golden rope chain around her neck was the same color as her eyes.

  “Lady Fauxyn, Subcommander Quaeryt and Major Arion.” The retainer bowed, then retreated to the wide hallway outside the archway into the parlor.

  “Officers.” Lady Fauxyn smiled warmly, even with her eyes.

  That she could project that warmth in such a situation chilled Quaeryt through. “Lady Fauxyn,” he replied, inclining his head slightly.

  “My husband will be here shortly, but I thought it would be best if I made you welcome.” Another smile, warmer than the first, followed her words in Bovarian.

  “Shortly?” asked Quaeryt politely in Bovarian. “As in within a quint … or within several days?”
He glanced around the parlor, noting another doorway at the end of the chamber, the door half open, revealing beyond the doorway a bookcase filled with richly colored leather-bound volumes … and little more.

  “Certainly within the glass, if not sooner. Might I assume you are here to assert some sovereignty or control over Fauxheld on behalf of Lord Bhayar … temporary as that may be?” A light but not mocking laugh followed her words.

  Quaeryt smiled in return. “Time will tell whether that sovereignty is temporary, but since Rex Kharst lost more than eight regiments down to the last man at Ferravyl, I rather doubt that Lord Bhayar’s sovereignty along this part of the Aluse will be transient.”

  “You speak Bovarian better than most in Kharst’s court, and far more eloquently. What rank is a subcommander?”

  “Subcommanders command large battalions or regiments.”

  “Your uniform differs, Subcommander, as if you are half scholar and half commander.”

  “You are most perceptive, Lady, for that is indeed what I am.”

  “And have you been in battle?”

  Arion cleared his throat. “Sir…?”

  “Just the basics, please, Major,” said Quaeryt.

  “The subcommander is modest, Lady. He is the most effective and most accomplished commander in Telaryn, and one of the few who has led his men from the front, both against the rebel holders of Tilbor and against Rex Kharst’s regiments.”

  “Your man is most loyal, Subcommander. Are his comments accurate?”

  Quaeryt laughed. “He’s not my man. He’s a Khellan officer who joined the Telaryn forces. From what I’ve seen, the Khellans are far too proud to stoop to lying.”

  For just a moment Lady Fauxyn was silent, as if his words had struck somewhere, but so short was her hesitation that it was barely noticeable. “My name is Ghretana. I’d prefer you call me that. When you address me as ‘Lady Fauxyn,’ I expect to turn and see my mother at my shoulder.”