Madness in Solidar

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Or without a passel of stonemasons and laborers. What else would you like to bring that I haven’t thought about?” Alastar grinned briefly. “Not that I thought about any of that.”

  “If we forget anything, I can send one of them back here. It’s not that far.”

  “Good enough. I’ll see you shortly.”

  Shortly after Petros had headed back to the stables, Akoryt appeared. “Might I ask, sir…?”

  “You might, but I’d rather explain to all of those who will be joining us at the same time. Did you try out the pottery imaging?”

  “I did.” The junior maitre smiled wryly. “You were right about trying it first. I did manage to work that part out, about not getting it to explode. Now … if I were only an artist.”

  Alastar froze in place, for just an instant. Then he said in a low voice, “How big an explosion did you get at first?”

  The young maitre frowned. “Big enough that I’d have needed a surgeon if I’d been standing within a few yards without shields.”

  A few yards? Alastar decided he should look into that possibility. “I’m glad you were careful. You’ll have to be cautious if we decide to try that approach.’

  “What approach?” asked Cyran, who had approached from the rear entrance to the building.

  “Using imaging so that primes and seconds can create crockery,” explained Alastar.

  “For training or actual use?”

  “Both. If any of it’s good, possibly for sale,” added Alastar blandly. “If you have any ideas along those lines, I’d be interested.”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Alastar nodded, then turned as Alyna and Tiranya entered the anteroom. They often came places together, since neither was married and they shared one of the cottages for maitres, although all the others were occupied by married couples. The unwed male maitres had rooms in the small masters’ hall to the northwest of the anomen. The two were different in appearance, with the almost petite Alyna having slightly darker skin and light brown hair, set off by black eyes, while Tiranya had mahogany hair, a pale face sprinkled with freckles, and light green eyes. Tiranya was almost as tall as Alastar. That made her very tall for a woman, since only a few of the imagers were taller than the Maitre, although he reckoned himself only as slightly taller than most men. Khaelis and Mhorys followed the women, and then came Taryn, talking quietly with Cyran, followed by Desyrk and Akoryt, and the rest of the junior masters. The last to arrive was Obsolym, if by only a few moments.

  Once the masters all stood in the anteroom, Alastar cleared his throat, loudly, and waited for the murmurs to die away. “I’m certain you all have wondered what is so urgent that it demands a meeting on Solayi morning. It is not urgent in that sense, but Solayi is by far the best time to do something that needs to be done, and something that apparently only imagers can do.” He kept his voice dry and sardonic as he went on deliberately, looking across the faces of the imagers. “All of you must have noted the stench arising from the east side of the river…”

  Cyran raised his eyebrows, and Obsolym frowned. Several nodded.

  “It appears as though,” Alastar continued, “if we wish to continue breathing without retching, we must address that matter ourselves. Maitre Petros and I have discovered where the sewer tunnel may be breached. We need to repair it. That is why I called you all together.”

  “To fix the sewers the factors have ignored?” snorted Obsolym. “Why should we?”

  “Because it will make our life more pleasant. Because it will reduce the animosity between the rex and the factors, and that will remove a problem for the rex. Because it will demonstrate that the Collegium cares for the well-being of others.” Alastar smiled coldly and looked directly at Obsolym. “And because I am the Maitre, and I’ve determined it is necessary.”

  “You’re…” Obsolym broke off his words. “Whatever you say, Maitre.”

  “There are mounts waiting for you all by the stables.” Alastar gestured.

  Although it was close to ninth glass when the imagers and the two husky laborers reached the part of the East River Road some three blocks south of the bridge where the stench hung over the area, the avenue was almost empty, as Alastar had hoped it would be on a Solayi morning.

  While the imagers tied the mounts to various rails and protrusions from the riverside wall on the west side of the sidewalk bordering the East River Road, Petros imaged small holes in the mortar between the paving stones at each corner of an oblong that included the entire area of depressed paving stones, then imaged several others on the sides. His two assistants inserted thin poles into the holes and then strung cord from pole to pole, threading it through a notch in each pole, then looping and tying it. Then they placed poles in the gutter drains that bordered the area.

  “We’ll start by imaging away the mortar around the stones,” declared Alastar when all the cording and poles were in place, enclosing a space almost fifty yards long and five wide. “Shaelyt, why don’t you see what you can do? Start with those blocks there.” Alastar pointed.

  In less than a glass, the junior maitres and the two laborers had removed the sunken paving stones. Several local urchins were watching, if cautiously and from the sidewalks and the porch of a shop that was closed. So was an old woman in faded gray, who sat on the steps of a closed rope factorage, with a basket held together by cloth and cord set beside her sandals.

  “Now it gets harder,” said Alastar. “Taryn, I’d like you to image out the gravel and soil and pile it outside the cordoned area, at least a yard back. Start at the north end.”

  Taryn stepped forward, looking at the packed gravel that had underlain the stone, then concentrated. A pile of dirt and gravel appeared in the gutter.

  “Don’t block the drains, either,” Alastar added.

  Another pile of dirt appeared at the end of the first pile, but Alastar shifted his attention from Taryn to two patrollers, wearing the brown and yellow of the factors’ council. They walked slowly toward Alastar, finally stopping several yards short.

  “Ah … master imager, sir…” began the shorter and older patroller.

  “You’d like to know what all these imagers are doing in the middle of the East River Road on a Solayi morning?” asked Alastar cheerfully. “We’re here to repair this part of the sewer, because no one else seems willing to do anything. Do you have any objection to that?”

  The two exchanged glances. The older one spoke. “No, sir. How long might this take?”

  “We’ll have to see, but we chose Solayi in hopes we could finish today.”

  The two looked at each other again. “You’ll put the road back together?”

  “We will.”

  “Thank you, Maitre.” The older patroller inclined his head politely, and the two turned.

  Alastar strained to listen as the patrollers walked back southward.

  “Can’t hurt to have ’em try … Stink just gets worse…”

  “If it works…”

  Taryn managed to create an opening some three yards wide, five long, and roughly a yard deep before he stepped back and glanced to Alastar.

  “Desyrk, see if you can deepen that to the top of the sewer.”

  “Yes, sir.” The handsome Maitre D’Structure walked to the edge of the imaged excavation, leaning over and peering down before beginning, but he managed to create a modest pile of dirt and rubble before Alastar could see him pause and rub his forehead.

  “That’s enough for you now. Akoryt, your turn. Keep deepening what’s already there.”

  Akoryt did somewhat less than Desyrk, but he did manage to image away enough of the overburden that Alastar could see—and smell even more strongly—that there was definitely a problem. First, the sewer wasn’t as the records had shown, at least the part that the imagers had uncovered. Instead of being a tunnel cut out of bedrock and sealed or covered, it was a brick-walled ditch roughly two yards high and a yard and a half wide topped with paving stones mortared in place. R
ather, they had been mortared, but there were only scraps of the mortar remaining, and there was sewer water outside the ditch walls oozing southward.

  “Khaelis, you’re next. Extend the excavation to the south. Keep it the same width.”

  After Khaelis, Alyna stepped forward. As small as she looked to be, especially after the broad-shouldered Khaelis, Alyna removed even more overburden than he had, in fact considerably more than Taryn had, maintaining a determinedly pleasant expression as she did so. Tiranya followed, but she was unable to manage more than about half of what the smaller woman had done, and she was decidedly pale when she stepped back from the edge of the open pit.

  More than two glasses passed before Shaelyt stood beside the southern end of the area that Petros had staked, imaging out the last of the mud and gravel. Despite the water that almost submerged the covered ditch, Alastar could see that some sort of work had been done, because there was what amounted to a crude dam on both sides of the sewer ditch designed to funnel the water into another far cruder covered ditch set lower in the ground and headed westward toward the river.

  “When you finish clearing that, take a break. I need to look at something.” Alastar followed the line of the ditch until he reached the stone wall at the west side of the sidewalk along the river road. He leaned over the wall, ignoring the worst stench he had had encountered so far. Three yards down was a gap in the stone wall, and a small stream of liquid trickled out of the gap and down the stones to the marshy reeds growing between the wall and the clearer river water.

  He straightened and shook his head, then walked back to the open excavation. “Some years back, someone decided that rather than fix a leak in the sewers, they’d just divert the sewage to the river. We’re going to repair this section right.” He turned. “Obsolym, can you image one of those paving stones up and to the side? Beginning with the one just this side of that barrier?”

  The older Maitre D’Structure nodded, imaging one paving stone, and then another. In all, he removed four before Alastar stepped forward and removed six in a row, then turned to Cyran.

  As Cyran imaged the stones off the ditch, Alastar could definitely see the problem, because the ditch was filled with a mixture of putrescence and bones, and at least one set of those bones was human. The sewage ditch wasn’t small, but Alastar had trouble imagining how anyone had managed to stuff a dead body into it through any of the drains he’d seen.

  The beefy Narryn eased forward to peer down into the ditch, then swallowed and staggered to the river wall, where he promptly retched.

  “So much for that,” came a murmur.

  Alastar thought the comment had come from Tiranya, but when he glanced in her direction, she was listening to Alyna. Even after he looked back to the progress on the removal of the stones, Alastar had the feeling he had missed something. That bothered him. He hated missing anything.

  Removing all the paving stones took nearly another glass, and revealed that forty of the fifty yards of uncovered sewer ditch were filled with refuse of all sorts. Alastar didn’t even want to consider all that lay entangled in the mess. He just set the imagers to imaging out the refuse into the river.

  After inspecting the comparatively clean exposed section of sewer, Alastar could see that the water in the sewer had broken through in several places where the bricks had crumbled and cracked about thirty yards north of the makeshift catchment. He imaged replacements in the areas where he could see obvious breaks, then imaged a coating of glaze along the entire interior walls and floor of the ditch. With that effort, he found himself shaking, and flickers of light crossing his vision.

  “Maitre…”

  He looked to see Alyna at his side, offering a water bottle.

  “It’s lager. It should help.”

  “Thank you,” he managed, taking the bottle. He shouldn’t have tried so much at once, he knew, and he certainly should have brought a bottle of lager for himself. But you’ve gotten out of practice at heavy imaging lately.

  Several swallows helped, and he turned to Cyran. “If you could glaze the outside, or part of it.”

  “I don’t think I’ll try to do it all at once.” Cyran grinned.

  After Cyran, Taryn, and Desyrk finished image-glazing the outside of the bricks, Alastar inspected the sewer again, which had filled to a depth of perhaps half a yard with sewage that seemed to be flowing smoothly. He thought about removing the rough exterior catchment and secondary drain, but decided against that and ordered the junior maitres to replace the stones and seal them in place. Once the sewage ditch was completely repaired, with the walls sealed and the stone covering the top back in place, the imagers still needed to return the overburden, as well as add additional fill to replace the dirt that the leakage had carried away. All in all, it was close to fourth glass when the exhausted imagers rode back across the east bridge.

  Once back at the Maitre’s dwelling at the Collegium, Alastar bathed and changed into a fresh set of grays. He thought the ones he had worn for the repairs smelled of sewage, but wasn’t certain, since, even once he’d washed up, everything still smelled of sewage. He also wondered how Alyna had been so quick to see his weakness, and why she had immediately offered her own lager. Out of concern … or for some other reason? He didn’t know enough to judge. That bothered him as well, especially since she did come from a High Holder background.

  With almost a full glass before services at the anomen, he decided to spend that time reading more of the Collegium records he had brought from the archives. Part of that effort was based on curiosity, and part on the concern that he didn’t know enough about the past of the Collegium. As a younger maitre, he’d never considered that he might become the head of the entire Collegium in L’Excelsis. Consequently, he hadn’t studied the background of the Collegium, and even if he had tried, much of that material was not available in Westisle.

  Sitting at the desk in his personal study. Alastar turned to the point in the bound sheaf of papers where he had left off reading.

  … precedent set by the service of Calkoran D’Alte (the younger) as a Vice-Marshal prior to his time as a member of the High Council in the time of Rex Clayar, Rex Indryen appointed Elloryt D’Tacquel as Marshal of the Northern Army, with the proviso that, should he become Tacquel D’Alte, that appointment would be immediately withdrawn …

  Alastar fingered his chin, thinking that the infiltration of the High Command by the High Holders had begun soon after Rex Regis—if not before. Hadn’t there been a High Holder from Eshtora who had been a marshal for Rex Regis? He continued to read until he came to another interesting entry.

  Rex Indryen did not inform the High Council of the reason for the change in tariff levels, but it appears that the income he received from the silver mine in Tilbor has dwindled to a mere fraction of its former glory … requiring an increase in tariffs to offset that loss in income … High Holder Vyncet, as a member of the High Council, objected to the increase, but the Council overruled him on the basis that the government of Solidar could not disallow the replacement of private sources of income with public sources, so long as those funds were employed properly …

  Rex Regis and his successors had a profitable silver mine?

  At that thought, Alastar checked the glass on the corner of the desk. He needed to leave for the anomen if he wanted to talk to Chorister Iskhar before the service. He stood and made his way from the study and then through the main hall to the front door and out onto the wide covered porch. Outside, the wind was brisk and slightly cool, but not chill, and he decided not to go back inside for a heavier jacket.

  In less than a tenth of a glass, Alastar was walking through the side door of the ancient anomen and toward Iskhar’s study.

  The chorister stood from behind his desk. “Maitre. Good evening.”

  “What will your homily be about?” Alastar grinned.

  The sandy-haired chorister of the Nameless smiled back. “If I tell you, you won’t stay to hear it. Even if you do, you’ll be bo
red.”

  Despite Iskhar’s youth—he was barely past thirty—Alastar was generally pleased, both with his help in teaching more advanced history and rhetoric to the older students and the insight and practicality of his homilies. Iskhar was also good at counseling student imagers without being condescending or excessively sympathetic. Students sometimes needed that, given that imagers remained mistrusted by most in Solidar, although there had not been a young imager killed, except in the line of study or duty, in more than a generation, but that might have also been due to the two-gold bonus received by the parents of an imager.

  “I’m never bored by your homilies.”

  “That’s because I don’t tell you what they’ll be.”

  “Your point is well taken. I did have a question for you.”

  “I thought you might. You’re not given to pleasantries for the sake of pleasantry.”

  Alastar let himself wince. “I suppose I deserve that.”

  Iskhar laughed.

  “Have you heard anything from the other choristers in L’Excelsis about feelings toward either the Collegium or the rex?”

  “I don’t see the others often. What I have heard is that they’re not especially pleased with either Ryen or the High Council. They wouldn’t speak to me about the Collegium.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know if you do hear anything.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you. Now, I’ll go wait to see how you surprise me with your homily.”

  There were a handful of primes already in the nave of the anomen when Alastar entered and took a position standing at the side near the front, but several yards back from the simple dais that only held a single pulpit. He continued to observe as each imager and student entered. Interestingly enough, Tiranya arrived with Shaelyt, rather than with Alyna, who accompanied several of the female students. Cyran and his wife Maliendra came, along with Desyrk and his wife, whose name Alastar could not recall.

  Almost a hundred were gathered when Iskhar began the service by stepping forward onto the low dais and offering the invocation, “We gather together in the spirit of the Nameless and to affirm the quest for goodness and mercy in all that we do.”