Imager's Intrigue: The Third Book of the Imager Portfolio

by Modesitt, L. E. , Jr.

  As I turned back toward the foyer, I saw two doors slide into place, sealing me into the room. While I had expected a less than completely friendly reaction, an immediate imprisonment was something I hadn’t anticipated.

  “The chamber in which you find yourself is entirely lead-lined. Even you can’t do much in a lead-lined room, not without killing yourself, Master Imager Rhennthyl.” The words echoed softly around me.

  I turned, trying to locate the source of the slightly hollow-sounding words that had to come through a speaking tube. As I did, I thought of Maitre Dyana, and the words she’d always spoken when I’d first come to the Collegium—Finesse, dear boy…Finesse. “I don’t see what you get from this, Vyktor. The Collegium will—”

  “Don’t talk to me about Maitre Dyana or the Collegium. Without you, the Council and the Collegium will crumble, and so will the High Holders and the artisans and guilds. Now that Dichartyn and Poincaryt are dead, you are the Collegium.”

  I couldn’t help smiling ironically at the words. I wasn’t the Collegium. I was the last thing from being the Collegium. I, as Dichartyn had been before me, was almost the anti-Collegium, whose acts freed the Collegium to be what it was, and if I didn’t escape this trap, Dartazn or Shault or some other imager would come along to fill the role of designated target or lightning rod. Still…continuing as the lightning rod or the equivalent was far better than the alternatives. “You overestimate me. I presume that your decision to decline to advance funds to Glendyl was what finally determined his ruin.”

  “You determined that, I believe.”

  “Hardly. You’d already advanced him funds and led him to believe that you would continue to do so.” I thought I’d located the speaking tube, and it provided a way, narrow as it might be, to image beyond the chamber. “Just like you put Broussard in touch with those who enabled him to strike back at Haebyn and the other eastern High Holders. Except he crossed you, and then escaped the explosion. Still, you got what you wanted. He’s been rather silent.”

  There was silence.

  “So…what will you do when I depart?”

  “You won’t depart. If you could, you already would have.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “You will not escape this time. Good-bye—”

  Before he finished, I imaged pitricin up through the speaking tube, visualizing his position with his lips near the tube opening and spraying it across his brain.

  What ever else he might have said was lost, and the entire building shook. I dashed for the northeast wall, recalling that as the side adjacent to the sturdier gray stone building without a name. I almost made it before the full force of the explosion rocked the building.

  The ceiling shuddered. Chunks of plaster dropped. Then the ceiling split and a beam smashed down. I waited just a moment longer, hoping that the destruction had ripped enough holes in the lead lining of the room, and then tightened and strengthened my shields into the smallest area possible to protect me, as I flattened myself against the outside wall.

  More sections of the building dropped around me. Dust swirled up, so thick that it coated the outside of my shields. The number of objects impacting my shields began to decrease, and I could feel myself getting light-headed. That suggested there was still a great deal of lead around me. I released the heavy shields and was immediately showered with dust and plaster fragments.

  While I tried not to breathe any of it, the dust was so pervasive that I couldn’t help inhaling a little, and I immediately began to sneeze. When I stopped sneezing, I tried to make out what was around me, but my eyes were watering so much that for several moments, everything was a blur. Even before I could begin to see, I began to smell smoke, although I didn’t feel any heat.

  When I could finally see, I discovered that I was standing between two fallen beams, and under another that had sagged, but remained anchored into the wall. Under the beams were bricks, plaster, broken laths, and other debris that left no space to crawl beneath and toward the front of the building. I peered over the top of the beam to my left, and under another beam, in the direction of the street, where I could make out a glimmer of light, possibly where the window that had been filled by the bookcase had been.

  The smell of smoke was stronger.

  Could I crawl over the beams and through the debris?

  The first problem was that I couldn’t move my left foot. I wiggled my toes. They moved. I tried to lift my foot again, and I could tell that my leg and foot moved. The boot didn’t. After considerable struggle in a very cramped space, I managed to pull my foot out of my boot. Then I levered myself up over and along the beam to my left.

  Each movement raised dust, and I kept sneezing. I also smelled more smoke, and that didn’t help with the sneezing. I could hear yelling and bells, but none sounded all that close.

  I crawled across the rubble beyond the first beam and gained another yard toward the light, but there were splintered and twisted timbers in front of me. The intertwined timbers looked anything but stable. At the same time, the smoke was thicker, and I could feel gusts of cool and very warm air. So I tried to wiggle to the left some, to get around the timbers. My right boot—my only boot—struck something, and the mosaic of debris above me shifted, and plaster and laths and everything else trembled, then creaked and began to shift.

  I imaged a timbered block above me, and the shifting stopped.

  Unfortunately, for a moment, so did I—or so it seemed. I couldn’t see anything at all, and I felt like I couldn’t move even my fingers.

  Slowly, all too slowly, I could feel sensation returning to my limbs. I could also smell the smoke. I forced myself to extend one arm, then the other, then pull myself forward through the narrow space ahead. I kept going until, suddenly, my head was in open air.

  “There’s someone there!”

  A patroller ran forward, and so did another one.

  I let them help me out through the shattered frame, broken glass, and mangled drapes of the false window that had been in front of the bookcase. I was careful where I put down my unbooted foot, and I stood on the stone walk for a moment, trying to let the lightheadedness pass.

  “Are you all right, sir? We need to move back. There’s a fire somewhere in there.”

  “That’s Captain Rhennthyl!” someone else called.

  “Sir?”

  “I’m not a captain any longer. I had to go back to Imagisle, but I’m Rhennthyl.” I managed to gesture toward the building. “I think there are some wall lamps that are burning.”

  “The fire brigade is on the way.”

  We took several steps back toward the street before I spoke again. “You might want to send a patroller to Commander Artois—directly to the Commander,” I emphasized, “and tell him about the explosion and that the man who did it might have been behind some of the other explosions. Most important, tell him it’s worth his time to come here immediately.”

  Weak as I was, I must have had enough strength to project command, because the patroller first just said, “Yes, sir.”

  Then the first wagon of the fire brigade rolled up, followed by a second, a pumper wagon.

  I glanced back toward the building. While a thin line of black smoke rose from the right side, it didn’t seem to be growing. In moments, the firemen had unreeled a hose and had the nozzle pointed in the direction of the smoke. Then the steam pump kicked in and a thin line of spray arced toward the smoke. The nozzleman was careful, hoarding and playing his water carefully, but there was enough water in the tank that the smoke was gone—at least for the moment—close to the time the tank was empty.

  That didn’t take all that long, but I just stood with the patrollers, answering their questions with what had happened, and avoiding any and all speculations.

  Behind the yellow cords the patrollers had strung, the number of bystanders grew, and I could hear some of their murmurs and comments.

  “…must be something…”

  “…more Ferran saboteurs…has to
be…patrollers and an imager…”

  “…know what was there?”

  “Clear the way!

  At that command, I turned to see Subcommander Cydarth step out of a hack. I’d asked for Artois. Had the Commander ignored the message? Had he even gotten it? I just stood and watched Cydarth, waiting to see how he reacted.

  When he caught sight of me, for just the slightest moment, the subcommander looked stunned. Then he made his way toward the yellow cord, lifting it, and ducking underneath, before walking toward me and my escorts.

  “Good afternoon, Subcommander,” I offered.

  “Good afternoon, Maitre Rhennthyl. Might I ask what you were doing here?”

  “Oh…that.” I did manage a smile. “I was tracking down the banque representative who might have created the means by which Ferran agents obtained access to the engine works of the late Councilor Glendyl. Before we could properly discuss matters, the building exploded. I had some difficulty in extricating myself.”

  “I do believe you’re the only man I know who’s escaped having two buildings explode around him.”

  “I didn’t exactly plan either one,” I said as dryly as I could. “I’d barely been inside half a quint when it exploded.”

  “But you had some difficulty getting out, it appears.”

  “The door was blocked, and the window in front was false. There was a bookcase wall behind it.”

  Cydarth looked skeptical. I really didn’t care.

  “That’s against the building codes.”

  “It may be against the codes, but that’s the way it was. There’s enough left there that you can see it’s so.”

  “Who else was in the building?”

  “I don’t know. I knocked, and someone called down from the second level to enter and to wait in the front foyer. I did, and before anyone arrived, there was an explosion and the building came down around me.”

  “You’re fortunate you’re an imager.”

  I didn’t answer that.

  “Out of the way…Out of the way!”

  Both Cydarth and I turned to see Commander Artois move through the crowd and under the cord. He immediately turned toward us and strode stiffly toward me, but when he stopped, his eyes landed on Cydarth. “Excuse us, Subcommander.” Artois’s glance at Cydarth was cold enough to have frozen the entire River Aluse.

  I limped slightly after the Commander until he stopped in front of the corner of the River Association Building, still inside the cordon line, but back from the crowd that was beginning to disperse, since nothing more seemed to be happening, I suspected.

  “Maitre Rhennthyl…it was strongly suggested that I be here. Why, might I ask?”

  “So that any papers that are recovered from the ruins go to your hands and not into the hands of the subcommander. If you are not here, that is not likely to happen.”

  He looked at me, then back to where the fire brigade still pumped water from another tanker over the one smoking spot in the rubble. “What do you want?”

  “To look at any papers or documents you find. It’s likely that they’ll show to whom Vyktor lent golds…and perhaps did more than that.”

  “Vyktor?”

  “Oh…he is—or was—the ostensible agent for the Banque D’Ouestan here in L’Excelsis. They should find a body in there. It might be his.”

  “You think he was behind all the explosions in L’Excelsis?”

  “That…I don’t know. It’s likely that he supplied the golds to various agents, and that he was receiving those funds through the Banque D’Ouestan. It’s also likely that he lent golds, most likely supplied by Ferrum, to various factors and others who opposed High Holders, some of whom are Councilors. I thought you might wish to see those papers first. I would like to see them, all of them, as well, but it’s been a very trying afternoon, and I have to confess that I’m not at my best.”

  “I can understand the Collegium’s interest.” He looked at me. “Unless you have other reasons, I doubt you need to remain. Do you need a hack?”

  “I hope not. I think I have a coach around the corner.”

  He nodded, then gestured to a patroller.

  “If you’d escort Maitre Rhennthyl to his coach.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I inclined my head politely, then walked back along the cordon line, accompanied by the patroller, toward where I thought the coach might be. The stone was cold, and I walked awkwardly, trying to be careful where I placed my unbooted foot. Thankfully, I did find the duty coach nearby, and I limped up into it, with one foot clad only in a very soiled stocking. Lebryn did stare for a moment. I was glad that he hadn’t been able to wait in front of the building.

  When we reached Imagisle, I had Lebryn drop me at the administration building, where I made my way to see Maitre Dyana—after sending the duty prime to get some rags or something I could wrap around my nearly bare foot.

  Her door was ajar, and Gherard just nodded, as if he didn’t even want to ask why I wanted to see her.

  “You look somewhat the worse for wear,” observed Maitre Dyana as I stepped into her study and closed the door behind me. “Only one boot?”

  “Just one, and I am.” I sat down and proceeded to recount the salient events of the day, from my confirmation of Glendyl’s not-suicide to the explosion and what followed.

  After I finished, she looked at me for a time before asking, “Exactly what has all this accomplished, do you think?”

  “We’ve temporarily removed one source of funding for Ferran operations here in Solidar. It’s fair to say that we have more evidence to bring before the Council on the larger danger Ferrum represents, and possibly on the need to modernize the fleet…as well as to undertake a few other changes. Artois may find more.”

  “Summoning him was a deft touch. The fact that he found Cydarth already there may result in more disclosures. If he does find evidence, it will be his doing, not the Collegium’s.”

  We talked a bit longer and then I left. Rather than search for boots or try to image one that fit, which would have required more effort than I thought I should make, I just wrapped rags and cloth around my unbooted foot and clumped out across the quadrangle and north to our house.

  I’d barely stepped inside and shut the door when Diestrya ran toward me, saying, “Dada!” I scooped her up and held her tight. I found my eyes burning when I finally put her down.

  Seliora stood in the archway from the parlor. “Your grays and cloak are dusty, and there are smears and smudges on your cheeks, and your foot is wrapped in rags. Is it hurt? What happened?”

  “The rags are because my other boot was caught inside the building that another Ferran agent exploded around me.”

  “Rhenn…” Her mouth opened.

  “It’s all right. He’s dead.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Why don’t you get me some hot tea, and we’ll all sit down in the parlor, and I’ll tell you. It’s been a very long day, and I’m very glad to be home. I can’t tell you how glad.”

  64

  I let myself sleep a little later on Mardi morning. It didn’t help that much. I dreamed of buildings exploding and falling down around me, feeling helpless in a lead casket, where I couldn’t breathe. I woke up less than a half glass later than I usually did. I was sore all over, although I didn’t find too many bruises. I wondered if I should have stayed and watched while the Civic Patrol went through the rubble of Vyktor’s place.

  Given that I was still feeling exhausted, and that I was only able to hold very light shields without feeling dizzy, that probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. Besides, events were conspiring to illustrate that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do, much less everything that needed to be done. So I decided to trust Artois, at least so far as to what the Civic Patrol might find, and once I got to the administration building, I thought about how I might handle my problems with Valeun, Geuffryt, and the Naval Command. That wasn’t terribly useful, because I kept thinking about wha
t Artois and the Civic Patrol might have found…or the fact that they might have found nothing useful at all.

  I went through reports and then spent the remainder of the morning with Kahlasa and Schorzat, where we talked over how we could improve the reports we received from regionals and from all the Civic Patrol Commanders across Solidar. They had suggestions far better than mine about what we needed on the reports. None of us had very good ideas on how to get the Council to adopt requirements so that the various city Civic Patrol Commanders would actually be required to supply the information.

  Just before noon, Schorzat went to meet his brother in the city, and Kahlasa headed off to eat with her daughter. I went to the dining hall and almost reached the masters’ table when I heard a cheerful voice from the other end.

  “Rhenn…I heard that another building exploded around you,” Ferlyn offered cheerfully.

  I sat down to the left of Chassendri before replying. “More on me than around me.” I shrugged. “What can I say?” Then I turned to Chassendri. “If you wouldn’t mind passing the carafe of the red wine?”

  “I’d be delighted,” she said, almost impishly, for all that she was a good fifteen or twenty years older than me.

  “You covert types…” Ferlyn laughed. “Never a straight or informative answer.”

  “That is what covert means,” replied Chassendri.

  “You’re always defending them.”

  “That’s because they’re always defending us, Ferlyn. You might try the red wine. It is rather good for a midday meal.”

  Chassendri and I talked about my junior imagers, particularly Haugyl and Marteon, who were having trouble grasping the concept that being an imager required continual work.

  After I ate, I headed back to my study and fretted over how exactly to fit in all the changes we had discussed for the revised report forms, until, slightly before second glass, a young patroller arrived at the administration building looking for me.

  “Maitre Rhennthyl, the Commander hoped you could join him at your earliest convenience.”

  “I’d be happy to.”