Imager's challenge ip-2

by L. E. Modesitt

  “Didn’t use to smell it outside the taudis at all. This whole area’ll be taudis in another four-five years, if you ask me.” He shook his head.

  Zellyn had the round calculated to the last fraction of a quint, and we ended up at the station just as the last of the four bells from the nearest anomen tower died away.

  I wasn’t about to take a hack to Chaelya’s to get a really good meal. So I opted for eating at Sneytana’s, one of the cafes near the station, not that there was a name posted anywhere, but Zellyn had mentioned it as not being too bad. I had fowl and rice fries, and the meal was edible, but I decided I didn’t ever want to eat anywhere that wasn’t at least “not-too-bad” according to Zellyn. I took my time, but I still ended up waiting nearly a glass, dawdling over a lager, before heading back to the station. I did leave Sneytana’s daughter a larger tip for the time, not that the place was crowded.

  A few moments after I entered the station, a tall patroller, about my height, with blond hair streaked with white, stepped out of the doorway beyond the closed door of Captain Harraf’s study and walked toward me. He offered a pleasant smile. “You must be Master Rhennthyl. I’m Lieutenant Warydt.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “I’m glad to have you here, sir,” he replied. “If there’s anything I can do to help you learn more about the Civic Patrol, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I certainly won’t.” I smiled. “Don’t expect any questions until I have a better feel for how the station operates.”

  “I won’t.” He paused. “I see Huerl and Koshal coming in.”

  “Then I’d best meet them. Thank you, sir.”

  “My pleasure, Master Rhennthyl.”

  I turned and walked toward the two patrollers. They looked close to what I’d envisioned. Koshal was a few digits taller than I, broader in the shoulders and looked like he’d have little trouble heaving a wrecked wagon or carriage out of the way. Heurl was thin and wiry, and half a head shorter.

  “Master Rhennthyl,” offered Huerl.

  “I’m pleased to meet you both,” I returned.

  Both nodded, almost as one.

  “Shouldn’t be too bad tonight,” offered Koshal. “It’s cold for early fall, but it’s not an end-night, and not a pay-night, either.”

  “Didn’t smell any weed on the first round, either,” added Huerl.

  I fell in with them, and we walked out of the station and back up Fuosta in the vestige of twilight remaining, although the sun had set more than a half glass earlier.

  By the time we reached South Middle, only a thin band of lighter purple remained on the western horizon, and the avenue was lit but intermittently by the tall iron streetlamps, a good third of which were not working. Few shops and dwellings had outside lamps, and that meant a patrol through uneven light.

  Koshal crossed the avenue and headed eastward.

  “Does the round go all the way out to the plaza?” I asked.

  “Just halfway there, maybe a block past the heathen Temple, except it’s on the south side. There’s just one round through the taudis at night, and it takes a three-man team. Ciemyl runs it.” Huerl shook his head. “Wouldn’t want that round.”

  Were three men enough?

  As if to answer my question, Huerl went on. “The taudischefs could take any team, but if they hit one member, we’d hit back. If they took out all three, then we could go in and level anything we wanted. They know that. No one except the elvers and the stupids gives Ciemyl trouble, and that’s fine with Horazt and Jadhyl. Youdh doesn’t like it, but doesn’t make trouble. Not often, anyway.”

  South Middle was not deserted so early in the evening, but most of the traffic on the avenue consisted of occasional hacks and private coaches, and a very infrequent rider, usually one of the private couriers. There were even fewer on the sidewalks, except around the bistros, but there were no bistros once we neared the taudis, just two lonely cafes across Dugalle from each other on the north side of South Middle.

  “You need to eat on the round,” offered Huerl, “take Aylsim’s. That’s on this side. That Tiempran slop Rivara serves over there . . .” He shook his head. “It’d be a real long night.”

  The two patrollers moved at a moderate pace, not ambling, but not striding, their eyes constantly moving, checking the closed shutters of the shops on the avenue, as well as the alleyways we passed. At times, they stopped and listened.

  Before long, we turned up Elsyor, which ran north and actually, if we were to walk far enough, would have taken us to the Anomen D’Este, where my family attended services. We didn’t walk that far, only to Marzynn, before turning back east. Marzynn was better lit than South Middle and flanked by stylish row houses that gave way to a range of equally stylish trade shops, including the milliner Mother frequented, once we neared the Midroad.

  Abruptly a scream rang out, and then just ahead of us, a woman ran down a narrow lane to our right, passing directly under one of the street-lamps. Part of her blouse looked to have been torn away. She vanished down the lane, followed moments later by a larger figure, who did not pass so directly beneath the light.

  Another scream echoed from the lane.

  “Frig!” Koshal looked to Huerl.

  “We’ve got to look.”

  “Don’t rush,” muttered Koshal. “Take it a step at a time.”

  I followed the two down the narrow lane between two taller three-story buildings. The first streetlight was out, as was the second, but the glow from the third one allowed some relief from the shadows and gloom. The building to the right looked abandoned. I took a closer look and realized that it was being rebuilt, with the third level being added.

  Ahead to the left was a pile of discarded roofing shingles and broken timbers, forcing us more to the right. Thankfully, there weren’t any crannies or niches, just a relatively even brick wall on the ground level, although there were windows-without casements or glass-on the second level.

  I dropped back slightly as the two patrollers skirted the pile of construction debris.

  “See anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  At that moment, something slammed into me from overhead, and stars flashed before my eyes. I took two steps and whirled as I heard steps on the stone behind me.

  I didn’t have any shields. That I could sense, and two figures were running toward me from a doorway half concealed by the rubbish pile. The man on the left slowed, while the one on the right, who carried a club or pipe with a padded grip-end, charged right at me. He raised the pipe, and I ducked under it and inside, and in that moment, the moves that Clovyl had drilled into me for months took over. That was the way it felt. My left forearm came up under his arm and blocked the downswing of the pipe. My knee came up, and my elbow came across. The pipe dropped with a dull clunk onto the stone, and the attacker doubled up, silently gagging . . . or trying to.

  I kept moving, delivering a side-kick to the weight-bearing knee of the second assailant. I didn’t hear the crack, but could feel it through my boots. I had to dodge the wild swing of the long knife, but grabbed the back of his arm and used his remaining momentum to help him into the wall, temple first. He just lay against the brick wall.

  Only then did I glance around.

  Huerl and Koshal stood there. Both had their truncheons out. Koshal’s mouth was open, and his eyes were focused behind me. I turned quickly.

  The alleyway was empty-except for a pile of cut stone almost knee-high that was fragmented in places and scattered across the alleyway in others. I glanced up. The stone had to have fallen from a broken platform beside a chimney at least two stories up. I swallowed, then gestured to the two bodies. “You happen to know either one?”

  Huerl moved forward, looking at the ruffian with the crushed throat, who had stopped moving. In fact, he’d stopped breathing. Huerl bent down, then straightened and shook his head.

  Koshal checked the other dead man. “Chykol. Used to be a bouncer at the Red Ruby. Haven’t seen
him for a good year. Fleuryla said he got too heavy into the plonk.”

  I was still seeing flashes like miniature stars, and despite another effort, I could not raise my shields. I couldn’t image anything. “Now what?”

  Huerl shrugged. “Well, sir, if it’d just been me and Koshal, we’d report that they got in a fight over the girl and killed each other, and she ran off.”

  I nodded. “It seems to me that Chykol fought off the other man, protecting her, and then got hit with the stone. Maybe their fighting loosened that platform up there.”

  “That’d do,” replied Koshal. “Make Moalyna happier, too.”

  “Moalyna?”

  “Chykol’s girl . . . maybe his wife, now.”

  “What do we do with the bodies?” I asked.

  “Not much we can do but get a pickup,” said Huerl. “I’ll stay here, and you two go back to the pole off Florrisa.”

  “What if I stayed with you?” I asked. “This lane isn’t all that well lit.” That was an understatement; it was barely lit at all, with only the single light farther to the south.

  “Might be better,” replied Huerl.

  “Good idea,” seconded Koshal. He turned and hurried off back out onto South Middle.

  “We ought to look farther down the lane. Just in case,” offered Huerl. “She’s probably long gone, and one of the ones you stopped was one of those after her.”

  I suspected that as well, if not for precisely the same reasons as Huerl voiced.

  I moved up beside the veteran patroller as we began to check out the lane ahead.

  No shields. Yet how could I complain about continuing the round with Huerl and Koshal? They’d never had shields, and they made patrols every night. Still, I wasn’t about to hint anything was wrong, not after the occurrences of the evening.

  I focused my attention on the lane, checking the more deeply shadowed spots.

  When we reached the end, at Dysel, Huerl turned to me. “She could have gone anywhere.”

  “She probably did.”

  “Might as well go back and see if they left any traces.”

  We headed back down the lane, and I was listening for any sound, as well as checking windows above, but I heard nothing but the faint echo of our boots on stone.

  The doorway of the building where the two had hidden-or from which they’d emerged-was locked and barred from the inside, and no one answered our pounding. No lamps were lit within, and there were no signs to indicate the building’s purpose or use.

  As we waited for Koshal and the wagon, I could only hope that the rest of the round was less eventful-far less eventful.

  21

  When I woke well before fifth glass on Vendrei morning I tried to create shields-and ended up with a blinding headache that forced me to drop them immediately. How long would it be before I recovered from all that stone dropping on my shields? Effectively, I’d gotten a concussion from the shields, but that was better than being dead. Still, the fact that I could raise shields for a moment suggested I would recover, but not as soon as I’d prefer.

  The other question, one that I’d pondered the night before, was whether the attack on me had been set up by Harraf or Mardoyt-or both. Either Harraf or Warydt had to be involved, because they were effectively the only ones who’d known where I’d be patrolling. I doubted that either Huerl or Koshal knew anything. They’d both been as surprised as I’d been. I somehow didn’t think Warydt was involved, but I had nothing but feeling to support that conclusion, and I certainly could be wrong. But whether it was Harraf or Warydt, by making sure the two patrollers didn’t know, whoever planned it was avoiding any direct links. Also, there was the case of Smyrrt, who had died suspiciously under exactly the same kind of circumstances, according to Gulyart. Since Smyrrt had worked for Mardoyt, that suggested a certain collusion between the officers. But why would they have used the same method?

  It could only be because they had planned on an imager being assigned to the Civic Patrol, and that method, someone knew, might work against imager shields. Also, dropping stone on me was one of the only sure ways to disable my shields without my seeing what was happening before it occurred. That also suggested that Mardoyt knew what I’d discovered, and Harraf was afraid of what I might find out.

  I wanted to shake my head. There was no way I could prove what I’d learned and figured out, and I didn’t see that I’d ever come up with enough proof to bring before a justice, not unless I spent months or longer working out of the Third District station. After my last conversation with Master Dichartyn, I also didn’t see much point in running to tell him what had happened. All I had were surmises, and he definitely wasn’t interested in those. All he wanted was hard proof.

  Pondering the unlikely wouldn’t help, and I had a long day ahead of me. In the fall gloom, I struggled from my bed, dressed, and headed out for Clovyl’s exercises, sparring, and running. After the night before, I had to admit I was grateful for his tutoring, but I still didn’t have to enjoy the process.

  All in all, after exercises, sparring, running, showering, dressing, and eating, I managed to get to the station slightly before seventh glass, and before Zellyn. As I waited for the older patroller and looked around, I saw Captain Harraf.

  He stepped toward me and asked, “How was your patrol last night?”

  “Except for the two footpads and the screaming woman, it was uneventful.” I kept my tone ironic.

  “Oh . . . that. The night reports from Lieutenant Warydt mentioned that Huerl and Koshal had come upon the end of a fight between two ruffians, but that they killed each other. Wasn’t that what happened?”

  “In summary. One was chasing the woman and apparently ran into the other. One of them killed the other, but in the process they knocked a scaffold or something loose, and he got his skull crushed by the stones piled on it.”

  Harraf nodded. “Those things happen when people aren’t aware of their surroundings.”

  “That’s very true, sir. Anyone can be surprised, and sometimes things don’t go the way they’re planned.” I smiled pleasantly.

  He smiled in return. “You’re learning about the Patrol. Next week and the week after, I’d thought I’d pair you with Alsoran. His partner has leave, and that will allow us not to leave some areas less patrolled.”

  “What area does his round cover?”

  “The east end of the taudis and the area farther east to the Avenue D’Artisans.”

  I nodded. Again, I couldn’t say I was surprised.

  “I’ve told Alsoran, but you’ll need to keep your eyes open more than usual. We haven’t heard anything official, but there are rumors that there will be a conscription sweep through our area sometime this fall. Before long, some of the taudischefs will know, after that . . .” He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “I appreciate the word, sir.”

  “I thought you would.” He turned and headed to his study.

  Zellyn was waiting for me to finish with the captain.

  We headed out. Once we were clear of the station, he looked to me.

  “The captain wants me to pair with Alsoran next week.”

  “He’s a good man. Lousy round, but a good man.” He paused. “What about Lyonyt?”

  “He said Lyonyt would be on leave.”

  Zellyn just nodded to that, and we continued on our way, going down Fuosta to Quierca, reversing the direction of the initial round.

  Although in midafternoon Zellyn and I stopped at the silversmith’s, Kantros insisted that nothing of import was missing, and in the end, unlike my rounds with Zellyn on Meredi or those with Huerl and Koshal the night before, Vendrei was thankfully most uneventful.

  For more than a few reasons, including the fact that trying to image still brought on a headache, if not quite so severe as had been the instance that morning, I took a hack back to Imagisle. For the past weeks, I’d not been saving much of my pay, just because of the number of hack rides I’d taken, and that bothered me. It was getting so that ev
erything was bothering me, and that bothered me as well.

  As I hurried across the Bridge of Hopes, I thought about reporting to Master Dichartyn, but decided against it, because I was more than a little tired of being told, in effect, not to bother him unless I had some sort of proof.

  When I finally did get to the dining hall, I found Maitre Dyana waiting outside. That was no coincidence.

  “Dichartyn suggested we might have a conversation over dinner.” Her smile was pleasant, and there was a sparkle in her eyes that intimated I was about to learn something else less than to my liking.

  “If both of you agree, I’d best listen carefully.” I smiled in return as I walked beside her into the dining hall and to the masters’ table. Ferlyn was already there, seated with Chassendri on one side and Quaelyn on the other. At the center of the table sat Maitre Poincaryt with a dark-haired older imager I had not seen before. “Is Master Poincaryt with a chief maitre of one of the other collegia?”

  “Not a bad surmise, and accurate this time. That’s Maitre Dhelyn. He’s from Westisle.” Dyana guided us toward the end of the table, away from the others, but to where two carafes of wine had been placed.

  After we had seated ourselves, I asked, “Red or white?”

  “The red, please.”

  I poured red for both of us, then took a sip-after she did.

  “For a young imager, even a young master, Rhennthyl, you’re comparatively bright, and you tend not to make the same mistake twice. Also, there are gaps in your education, and the combination leads older heads to assume that you know more than you do. You also don’t always see the import of what you have been told. Together, these create certain problems.” She looked to me inquiringly.

  “I have a tendency to act, and not always wisely, because I don’t know things obvious to those imagers my own age who have been imagers far longer.”

  She nodded, then waited as one of the servers offered her a platter on which rested slices of skirt steak stuffed with mushrooms, onions, parsley, and herbs, and covered with a cream sauce. She took a single slice.