Imager's Challenge

by Jr. L. E. Modesitt

  “Nah . . . he’s Ma’s cousin, but he’s the taudischef for the west quarter.”

  What that meant was that the finder’s fee would be double—a gold for Shault’s mother and a gold for Horazt. “What’s your mother’s name?”

  “Chelya.”

  “Just Chelya?”

  “That’s all. Da died when I was little. Ma said it was elveweed.”

  “You’re going to stay here on Imagisle and be an imager, Shault.”

  “I can’t go home?”

  “It wouldn’t be safe for you,” I pointed out. “You know that. Here, you’ll have your own room, and three meals a day, as much as you can eat. After a few weeks, your mother can come visit you, and after a longer time, if you want to, you can see her on end-days. You’ll have to learn to read and write.”

  “I know my letters.”

  But little more, I suspected. “You’ll also get paid a few coppers a week.”

  “Better’n getting beaten . . . I guess.”

  That was about all I’d get in concessions. “We need to tell Horazt.” I stayed close to Shault as we walked back into the receiving hall.

  “Well?” asked the taudischef.

  “He has imaging ability.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Horazt, do you have a full name, an official one?”

  “A’course I do. Horazt D’Estaudis.”

  I should have guessed. “As taudischef, you get a draft on the Banque D’Excelsis for two golds. One gold is for you, the other is for Chelya. You will make sure she gets all of it.”

  “Couldn’t do otherwise, now, could I?”

  I smiled. “I will find out if she doesn’t get it, and I’ll also find out if anything happens to her, and if either happens . . . the west quarter will have a new taudischef.”

  For a moment he studied me. Then he laughed, wryly. “You know Mama Diestra, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “I also work with the civic patrollers.”

  “She’ll get her gold, Master Rhennthyl.”

  “I thought she would. You’ll have to pick up the draft here tomorrow. I’ll give you a promissory note for it now. If you don’t want to go far, one of the duty imagers will escort you to the branch of the banque here, and you can cash the draft for the golds without leaving Imagisle.”

  “I have to wait till then?”

  “The banques aren’t open on end-days, and we don’t leave golds out. Does anyone sensible?”

  A sly smile flitted across his lips. “Some might.”

  “I’ll be right back with the note for you, Horazt.”

  I was glad I’d checked over the duty desk earlier, and that Master Dichartyn had briefed me on the procedures for intaking. The forms for the notes were in the second drawer, and all I had to do was fill in dates and names and the amount, and the reason. I did have to wait a moment for the ink to dry before bringing it back to the taudischef.

  Horazt took the promissory note. “You write good, Master Rhennthyl.” He slipped it inside his shirt.

  “I’d hope so. I was once an artist.”

  At that, he stiffened once more, and just slightly. “Things’ll be quiet in the west quarter.”

  “I’m sure that Commander Artois will be pleased to know that.”

  “Yes, sir.” Then Horazt bent slightly and looked at Shault. “Boy . . . you listen to Master Rhennthyl. You do what he says, and if you got problems, you tell him. You got a chance to be someone. Someone your mama’ll be proud of. You understand?”

  Shault nodded somberly.

  Horazt stood and looked at me. I understood the look, and I nodded. “We’ll do our best.”

  He looked at Shault again, then turned and walked out of the receiving hall.

  “Haensyl . . . get Kuert Secondus. Shault needs something to eat before anything, and we need to get him set up with a room.”

  The younger primes still needed their own chambers, but that section of the east quarters was arranged so that all the younger primes were quartered close together.

  Kuert arrived in moments, his gray eyes taking in the worried-looking Shault. Then the second looked to me.

  “Kuert, this is Shault. He’ll need to eat something right away. He’s imaged several things, and he’ll need a room. I’ll have one checked while he’s eating. After he eats bring him back here.” That wasn’t the strict procedure, but Shault was pale, and I doubted that he’d hear or remember much until he ate.

  “Yes, sir.”

  After they left, I checked the available quarters and, thankfully, there were two rooms left in the section for the very young primes. Once we’d settled on a room, I asked Haensyl, “Is there anyone who you’d trust to take Shault under their wing?”

  “There’s Mayra. She just made second. She’s good with the young ones, and she’s here now. I saw her just a bit ago.”

  “If you’d see if she’d help settle young Shault.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Haensyl hurried off, but it seemed like only moments before he returned with an angular and gawky girl—close to being a young woman.

  “Master Rhennthyl.” She inclined her head.

  “The Collegium needs your skills with young Shault. He’s a taudis-boy, and being here is going to be hard on him for the next few days. Could you show him around today?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’s eating now.”

  “I can wait, sir.”

  “Thank you. Where are you from, originally?”

  “Gheant . . . it’s a village outside Extela.”

  “Do you miss the mountains?”

  “No, sir. I broke my arm chasing goats in the rocks. . . .”

  Before all that long, Kuert and Shault returned. Shault looked far more alert, and the paleness had vanished.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes, Master Rhennthyl.”

  I looked at Kuert and Mayra. “Mayra will accompany you two and spend a little more time with Shault. He’ll be in room nine in the junior prime quarters. I’ll need a few words with him first, though.”

  They both nodded, clearly familiar with that aspect of matters, probably more so than I was, I suspected.

  “Shault . . . if you’d come with me.”

  We walked to the conference room without speaking, and he took the chair on the side of the table. He looked lost in the large chair.

  “Shault . . .” I offered quietly. “You need to understand a few rules about Imagisle.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The first rule is that you are not to try any more imaging except when a master tells you to try. The reason for this is simple. Imaging certain things will kill you. Imaging other things in the wrong place will also kill you. You don’t have to give up imaging, and you won’t. You will learn how and where to image. . . .” From there I went through the preliminary advising, although I did change the way I offered certain things, based on what I’d learned about the way things were done in the taudis.

  Then I walked him back to the two seconds, who escorted him out of the receiving hall.

  Haensyl looked up from the granite desk at me. “Sir . . . do many of them from the taudis make it?”

  “Some do, but it’s harder for them. Shault’s young enough that in some ways it will be easier, but he’s going to be lonely.”

  Haensyl nodded.

  I went back to the duty study, thinking. Concentrating on the patroller procedures was even more difficult, because I kept thinking of Shault. The remainder of the day was uneventful, except for the drizzle that began just before the evening meal.

  When I got to the dining hall, I was pleased to see that Mayra had arranged for several of the younger primes to sit with Shault. From what I could tell, while he was subdued, he occasionally spoke, and not just in monosyllables.

  After dinner, I did attend services at the Anomen Imagisle, on the south end of the granite isle that held the Collegium. I did have to stand on one side, in a spot reserved for the dut
y master. Except for the imagers emeritus, of course, everyone stood through the services.

  A small choir of imagers offered the choral invocation, and they sang well, a talent I certainly did not possess, and after that Chorister Isola followed with the wordless end to the invocation. She still remained the only woman chorister of the Nameless that I’d ever seen, not that choristers were restricted to being men, since no one could know or presume whether the Nameless was male or female, or indeed both at once. After that, she opened the main part of the service.

  “We are gathered here together this evening in the spirit of the Nameless and in affirmation of the quest for goodness and mercy in all that we do.”

  The opening hymn was “Without the Pride of Naming,” and I sang it softly, for the benefit of those near me, but I did speak more loudly through the confession.

  “We do not name You, for naming is a presumption, and we would not presume upon the creator of all that was, is, and will be. We do not pray to You, nor ask favors or recognition from You, for requesting such asks You to favor us over others who are also Your creations. Rather we confess that we always risk the sins of pride and presumption and that the very names we bear symbolize those sins, for we too often strive to arrogate our names and ourselves above others, to insist that our petty plans and arid achievements have meaning beyond those whom we love or over whom we have influence and power. Let us never forget that we are less than nothing against Your nameless magnificence and that all that we are is a gift to be cherished and treasured, and that we must also respect and cherish the gifts of others, in celebration of You who cannot be named or known, only respected and worshipped.”

  After the confession and offertory, Chorister Isola stepped to the pulpit for the homily. “Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” came the reply.

  “And it is a good evening, for under the Nameless, all evenings are good.” She paused momentarily. “In this time of year, harvest is drawing to a close, and before long, the winds will turn chill. With that cold that will end the year, many of us will feel a loss, often an unnamed loss, as if a year passing is a year lost. Yet there are those who seize upon the year, the name of the year, as if it were a vintage. You will hear people say, ‘755 was a good year, better than 754 . . . ’ ”

  Certainly, the past year, 755 years after the founding of L’Excelsis, had been a year of profound change for me, and in that sense, it had been better.

  “. . . yet when we focus on the names, whether those names are those of years or of people, or of places, we cling to the names as if they were locks on doors or bars on windows that would protect us. Names are but a false security because they do not reflect all that is. The number of a year does not capture the events of that year, the warmth of loves found, the bitterness of loved ones and friends lost, or the satisfaction of accomplishments. . . . The greatness of Rholan the Unnamer lies not so much in his rejection of names, but in his affirmation of life beyond names and labels. . . . The very name of the place where we meet—the anomen—is a reminder that we should hold to what is and not to the names of such places, just as we should recall the experiences of the years we have lived and not merely their numbers. . . .”

  I listened as she finished the homily, glad that she was a good chorister, and one who made me think, even as I doubted whether the Nameless did indeed exist.

  For some reason, her homily triggered thoughts about my own losses, but mostly about Shault, who had just lost all that was familiar to him, humble though it might have been. I was glad to see that Mayra was with him. She towered a good fifteen digits over him, but she seemed patient, and occasionally whispered instructions to the taudis-boy. Twice Shault pointed to me and murmured to Mayra. I was surprised that he’d located me among the more than two hundred imagers in the anomen.

  After services, I hurried to catch up to Mayra and the two boys with her.

  “Mayra?”

  She stopped and turned. “Yes, Master Rhennthyl.”

  “Is Shault settled in?”

  “As well as he can be until we can get him to the tailor tomorrow.”

  “Good . . . and thank you.” I looked to Shault. “In the morning, you’ll meet with Master Dichartyn. He can be very stern, but you should listen to him carefully.”

  As I hurried away from them back to the duty study, I caught a few words from behind me.

  “. . . must be strong . . .”

  “. . . young for a master, but he’s very powerful . . .”

  And still less experienced than I would have liked, something that having had to deal with young Shault had reminded me.

  Needless to say, at quarter before sixth glass on Lundi morning, when I entered the receiving hall to close out the end-day duty, Master Dichartyn was the one who was there, rather than Master Schorzat or Master Jhulian.

  Master Dichartyn smiled at me. It wasn’t a wry smile, not exactly, but it held a trace of amusement. “I understand you took in a young imager yesterday afternoon. A taudis-child.”

  “Yes, sir.” Had I done something wrong?

  “You seem to have made quite an impression on him, Rhenn.”

  “I just followed the procedures.”

  “He said that you scared his taudischef, and no one ever scared Horazt. Exactly what did you say to him?”

  “I just told Horazt my name and that if the second gold didn’t go to the boy’s mother, sooner or later I’d find out, and there would be a new west quarter taudischef.”

  “I thought as much.” Master Dichartyn shook his head. “You know that young imagers from the taudis have much more trouble adjusting to the Collegium. You’re really too young to mentor a young imager, but Shault respects you, and that’s half the battle. Master Ghaend will handle his assignments and day-to-day work, but you need to talk to him twice a week, at least for a while, starting tonight, after dinner. You know why, don’t you?”

  “He needs another taudischef, and one approved by Horazt.”

  Master Dichartyn nodded. “You’d better get on your way, if you want to eat and get to Patrol headquarters on time.”

  After that, I hurried to the dining hall, early enough that most of the primes and seconds weren’t there. Neither was Shault. I slipped into a seat next to the gray-haired Maitre Dyana, because any other seat I would have taken would have suggested I was avoiding her.

  “Good morning,” I offered.

  “Next time, don’t scan the table when you’re close enough to have your eyes read.” Her bright blue eyes pinned me in my seat. As always, she wore a colorful scarf above her imager grays, and this one was a brilliant green, with touches of an equally bright violet. Her unlined face suggested she was far younger than did her hair and experience.

  I laughed, if apologetically. “Every time I see you, I learn something.”

  “Good. You might even learn enough to survive your abilities, young Rhenn. Commander Artois has a good brain encumbered by solid grasp of protocol and procedure. He might listen to you if you can avoid offending him. The easiest way to offend him is to flaunt protocol and ignore procedures.” She handed me the platter of sausages and scrambled eggs. “You’d best eat. You don’t have much time, not if you don’t want to arrive sweating and flustered.”

  I took her advice and drank my tea and ate quickly, then set out for my first day at the Civic Patrol, adjusting the gray visored cap that imagers wore when on duty off Imagisle.

  Although the headquarters of the Civic Patrol of L’Excelsis was slightly less than a mille from the south end of Imagisle, there wasn’t a bridge there. Instead, I had to take the Bridge of Hopes across the River Aluse and then walk almost two milles along the East River Road, before turning east on Fedre and walking another half mille.

  The two-story headquarters building was of undistinguished yellow brick, with brown wooden trim and doors. There were three doors spaced across the front. The left one clearly was for a working patroller station, because I could see patrollers in their
pale blue uniforms hurrying in and out, the mark of a shift change. The right door looked disused, as if locked. So I took the middle door, or rather the right-hand door of the set of double doors in the square archway above two worn stone steps leading up from the sidewalk. The left-hand door was locked.

  Inside was a table desk, with a graying patroller seated behind it. He took in my imager’s uniform and the silver imager’s pin. “You’re here to see Commander Artois, sir?”

  “Yes . . . if you’d direct me.”

  “Second floor, up those steps and to the right. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.”

  The wide steps weren’t stone, but time-worn dark oak. I arrived just before eighth glass on the second floor of the anteroom that led to the commander’s private study. There were two small writing desks in the anteroom facing the wall on each side of the door through which I’d entered. Each had a straight-backed chair behind it, and two backless oak benches were set against the wall, facing each desk. Between the desks was a door, presumably to the commander’s private study. At the left desk sat another graying patroller.

  “Master Rhennthyl?”

  “Yes. I’m here—”

  “To see the commander. You can go in. He’s expecting you.”

  I opened the door and stepped into the study, a space no more than four yards deep and six wide. Artois had risen and stepped around an ancient walnut desk set at the end of the study closest to the river. To his right, on the innermost wall, was a line of wooden cases. On the wall opposite the desk was a tall and narrow bookcase, filled with volumes. Facing the desk were four straight-backed chairs. Two wide windows, both open, were centered on the outer wall and offered a view of the various buildings on the north side of Fedre and some beyond, but not so far as the Boulevard D’Imagers. There were no pictures or anything else hung on the walls, and only a pair of unlit oil lamps in wall sconces flanking the desk.

  Artois was three or four digits shorter than I was and wire-thin. Under short-cut brown hair shot with gray, his brown eyes seemed flat, the kind that showed little emotion.

  “Our latest imager liaison.” He nodded. “Young . . . doubtless powerful and shielded, and with Namer-little understanding of the Civic Patrol.”