Imager’s Intrigue

by Modesitt, L. E. , Jr.

“You have your doubts,” I said.

  “I do.”

  “Mama doubts,” said Diestrya.

  “Yes, she does,” agreed Seliora. “You will, too, when you’re older.”

  We crossed the bridge and were a mille up the Boulevard D’Este when the hack turned west onto Lyrique—away from the theatre district.

  “He shouldn’t be turning here,” said Seliora.

  “No. I think we’re in for some difficulty. Can you deal with the hacker?” I murmured. “If necessary?”

  Seliora nodded.

  The hack slowed as it jolted over uneven pavement in a narrow alleyway. Then it came to a stop in a what looked to be a vacant loading yard behind a ware house whose wagon docks were boarded shut. The hacker vaulted down and opened the door, stepping back. “There are some people who wish to see you. I do trust that you won’t make this any messier than necessary.”

  As he spoke, I finally located four men standing in the shadows, dressed in the same light-absorbing garb I’d seen before. I nudged Seliora.

  She shifted her weight on the coach seat, if to ready herself to step out, then said, “Oh…I wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  As the brigand hacker started to smile, she fired her pistol. Once was enough, since the bullet went right through the middle of his forehead.

  While she was engaged, I imaged small chunks of stone into the hearts of the four brigands with the wide-barreled weapons.

  Even so…one of them did manage to fire his weapon, and a second weapon went off when the attacker dropped it on the stones before he pitched forward. The explosions were like small cannon…or so it seemed. My shields held…barely, and what amounted to small grapeshot rattled across the uneven stones of the loading yard. I was so dizzy that I had to put out a hand against the inside panel of coach to steady myself.

  “That was…big boom,” affirmed Diestrya.

  “Very big,” I managed, trying to blink away the flashes of light in my eyes.

  “Are you all right?” asked Seliora.

  “I will be…if I don’t have to handle anyone else for a little bit.”

  We just sat in the hack for a moment. I was glad that the hacker had set the brakes and that the dray-horse was well-behaved, because I was in no shape to climb up and drive, and while Seliora would have been better at it than I, far better, I really didn’t want her exposed.

  After a time, half a quint perhaps, the worst of my dizziness had passed, although I doubted I could raise or hold shields for more than the briefest of instants, and I finally stepped down from the hack.

  There were still five bodies there, and no one else.

  Seliora peered out, but I held up a hand. “Someone’s coming down the alley.”

  “Is there trouble here?” Following the words was a was a beefy patroller, from Second District, since we were still in that part of L’Excelsis.

  “There’s been some,” I called back. “Some brigand took a hack and tried to rob and murder us.”

  The patroller approached slowly.

  I stepped away from the coach, showing open hands, and turning so he could see the insignia on my visor cap and cloak.

  He looked at me, then at the dead hacker, and the four bodies in the shadow of the loading dock…and the heavy weapons lying there. “Sir?”

  “I’m Captain Rhennthyl from Third District. We’ve had a little difficulty here. These five wanted to rob us and then kill us. I don’t know them, and I don’t have any idea why.”

  “You…you’re the imager captain.”

  I nodded.

  He looked at the bodies again, then at the body of the false hacker sprawled across the driver’s seat. His eyes went to Seliora, holding Diestrya by the hand, and looking innocently concerned.

  “We’ll be happy to accompany you to Second District Station…” I offered.

  At that point an older patroller appeared, calling, “Skaryt!” He stopped short and looked at me. “Captain Rhennthyl…what happened?”

  I explained again. Behind me, Seliora was trying to explain to Diestrya why we weren’t going to Grandmama Betara’s house quite yet.

  The older patroller, whom I didn’t recognize, shook his head. “Wouldn’t want to be a captain these days. Captain Kharles, Captain Boylet, Captain Hostyn…and now you.”

  Hostyn? “I’m sorry. I’ve been tied up with the mess on Imagisle. What happened to Captain Hostyn?”

  “Same sort of thing as they tried with you…except Captain Hostyn got shot. They say he’ll be fine, but it’s likely to be into the new year before he’s fully back. Captain Jacquet and Captain Subunet will probably be glad you took care of this crew.”

  “We didn’t plan it that way. I can tell you that. We were just going to a family dinner.”

  “No, sir. I’d be certain you didn’t.” He shifted his weight, then looked at the hack. “Skaryt, best you head back and get some help…and send the wagon.”

  The younger patroller hurried off without looking back.

  “You ever see any of these fellows before, sir?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I should have noticed that the hacker was a little too well-dressed, but I was thinking about a few other things.”

  He asked all the questions a good patroller should. When he had, and we’d finished answering, there were four other patrollers and a wagon headed down the alley.

  “You have many explosions here in Second District last weekend?” I asked.

  “Not like Sixth District or Fourth, no, sir. Just two on the south side of Nordroad. That was more than we needed.” He paused. “What can we do for you, sir?”

  “We’ll be needing a hack, since this one didn’t finish the trip.”

  “We’ll walk out to the street with you.” The patroller gestured to his partner.

  As we walked toward Lyrique, escorted by the pair, Seliora looked to me. “Do you really think we should…?”

  “We might as well.” I forced a grin. “Just keep the pistol handy.”

  She nodded.

  When we reached the street, we didn’t have that long before a hack appeared.

  As the hacker eased to a halt, the older patroller asked, “Might I ask where you’re headed, Captain?”

  “Nordroad and Hagahl.”

  “Would you be minding, Captain, if we rode with the driver?” asked the older patroller. “That’s still in Second District, and we’d not want you having any more troubles.”

  “I don’t know about the captain,” Seliora said with a dazzling smile, “but Madame Rhennthyl would be honored.”

  The patroller actually blushed.

  “I thank you very much,” I added, “and I would appreciate it.”

  Seliora and Diestrya didn’t say anything until we were inside a hack and traveling toward NordEste Design.

  “With all this…do you still think…?” Seliora asked.

  I knew she was referring to Cydarth, but didn’t want to say more, not when Diestrya was with us and with patrollers sitting less than a yard or so away.

  “It’s hard to tell. I’ll need to see what else has happened.”

  She nodded.

  We were largely quiet on the rest of the ride, except, of course, for Diestrya’s comments about the pretty paper flowers held by a street vendor.

  Once we reached NordEste Design, it was clear Bhenet had been watching for us. He had the door open and stood under the portico waiting, even before the three of us were out of the hack.

  While I held Diestrya’s hand, Seliora slipped out of the hack, then lifted our daughter down.

  I stepped out and looked at the two patrollers. “Thank you. It’s been a long week.”

  “Yes, sir.” They both were smiling.

  “And thank you from me,” added Seliora warmly.

  This time, they both blushed.

  We walked as quickly as Diestrya allowed, across the sidewalk and up to the portico, where Bhenet waited, and then up the inside staircase. As soon as we rea
ched the main hallway at the top of the stairs, the twins scooped up Diestrya to take her upstairs to the nursery with the other children.

  Betara stepped forward and hugged her daughter. “You’re good to come. Both of you.” She turned to me. “You look tired, Rhenn. Are those bruises on your face?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Let’s just say that it’s been a very long week and the hack ride here was more interesting than either one of us planned. We’re looking forward to a meal with family.” I paused. “It has to have been upsetting here, too, with explosions…and everything.”

  “We did have everything locked and barricaded here last Solayi and Lundi,” Betara said, “but things settled down by Mardi.”

  “No one was hurt?”

  “No. The mob that came down Nordroad avoided us.” She smiled. “But they might have taken notice of all the rifles pointed out from the upper-level windows.”

  That didn’t surprise me. There were only a few windows on the street level of NordEste Design, and those were to work-rooms and manufacturing spaces, with bars and heavy shutters.

  “We’re happy you’re here.” Betara stepped back. “Dinner’s not quite ready. I need to check with Aegina.” She hurried off.

  Odelia and Kolasyn had been standing behind and to the right of Betara. Odelia moved toward Seliora.

  “Seliora…Rhenn…I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down Odelia’s cheeks. “I didn’t know…” She put her arms around Seliora. “I didn’t know…”

  “It’s all right,” Seliora said. “I know you were upset.”

  “No…I was so mad at Rhenn…. thought he wasn’t doing…what he could…” Odelia was still sobbing. “Kolasyn’s friend, Caesaro, he’s a patroller…told him…Rhenn went out every night…with patrollers…faced the weed dealers’ killers…bombs and rockets…”

  After a time, Seliora slowly disengaged herself and looked at me. “You didn’t mention bombs and rockets.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  Then they both looked at me.

  All I could do was shrug and offer an apologetic smile. The shrug hurt. In a different way, so did the smile, since I should have said something earlier.

  31

  Solayi morning, we slept late, or as late as Diestrya would let us, then stumbled down to breakfast in nightclothes and robes. We needed the robes, because the wind howled outside and sleet pattered against the windows…and the stoves in the kitchen and parlor were cold because we hadn’t loaded them before we’d gone to bed. The first task was to get some heat. I did hurry things up slightly by imaging flame into the coal. Even that left me with a headache, but the kitchen and parlor began to warm far more quickly than they would have otherwise…and Seliora could start cooking sooner.

  As we finished eating, Seliora fixed her eyes on me, with that determined look I understood all too well. “You’re not going anywhere, not even to your study at the Collegium. I saw how starting the stove hurt you.” She paused. “You are resting. You’ll never recover if you keep going out and getting into trouble.”

  “I didn’t go out to get into trouble.”

  “When you go out, you get into trouble, and you’re not strong enough to deal with something like yesterday again.”

  “Dada is too strong,” observed Diestrya.

  “He is, but he needs to rest.”

  I took a last swallow of tea that had cooled to lukewarm. I couldn’t help but think about what had happened across L’Excelsis and the other larger cities in Solidar—explosions, riots, mobs, Civic Patrol officers being shot, the attack on the Collegium.

  “Well?” persisted my dear wife.

  “I surrender to your most reasonable proposition.”

  “Good. You watch Diestrya while I wash up, and I will while you get dressed.”

  I did clean up the dishes and the kitchen as I kept an eye on our not-quite-wayward daughter, but even that minimal effort took three times as long as it should have, because three-year-olds have insatiable curiosity, usually involving items such as coal scuttles, hot stoves, or grimy pokers followed immediately by dashes toward white table linens.

  Once again, I was reminded why Seliora wanted to keep working as a design engineer for NordEste Design and not spend every waking moment with Diestrya. While Seliora didn’t dawdle in getting dressed, she also didn’t rush. But she did give me a grateful smile when she relieved me, and I carried the kettle of warm wash water up to the bathroom.

  When I came back downstairs, wearing older, heavier, and more comfortable imager grays, Diestrya was peering out the window of the family parlor, entranced by the flow of water across the outside of the panes. Pleased with her absorption and hoping it would last, I settled onto the settee beside Seliora.

  “You’re still thoughtful,” she observed.

  “I’ve been thinking about yesterday. The hacker knew who we were. He was waiting. But…if they knew so much…?”

  “Do you think they knew you weren’t up to full strength?”

  “They might have guessed, but I think it was designed so that whoever came up with it couldn’t lose. They either killed me, or they got killed. If they got me, that weakens both the Civic Patrol and the Collegium. If they get killed, there’s no track back to who hired them, and they were using the kind of weapons that certainly would lead to one of those outcomes.”

  “If Cydarth is involved,” mused Seliora, “he might want you to survive. Then he could suggest how strange it was that you are always surviving.”

  “Another way of undermining me and the Collegium?”

  “Well…if you get killed, he’s rid of you. If you don’t, he undermines your effectiveness by suggesting your survival is the result of something sinister.”

  “My patrollers know differently.”

  “They do, Rhenn. Who cares what they think, especially in the Council or in the Collegium?”

  She had a point there. Even if I wouldn’t be returning as captain, those sorts of rumors wouldn’t help me, and especially not the Collegium. “There’s another aspect to all this. The more I discover, the more complications I find. The gunners on the barges were set up the same way. If they were successful, they’d have just ridden the barges downriver. By daylight, they’d have been fifteen to twenty milles downstream. At some point in deeper water, they could have scuttled them, and no one would have been the wiser, not any time soon.” The level of experience of the gunners still bothered me. That was one reason why I hadn’t mentioned that aspect of the matter to anyone, especially to Sea-Marshal Geuffryt.

  “That took planning.”

  “All of it took planning…and for years. But so many things happened. I can’t believe that any one group—even the head of Ferran spies or what ever they’re called—could have organized it all and kept it hidden and all on track.”

  “Then they weren’t all done by the same people.” Seliora’s tone was matter-of-fact as she got up and intercepted Diestrya before she reached the coal scuttle.

  Yet it couldn’t be coincidence that everything had happened at once. Or had the Ferrans merely analyzed the problems Solidar faced and woven their plot or plots inside problem areas we already had and hadn’t resolved? That was more likely, but why hadn’t Dichartyn or Poincaryt discovered that? Then again, if their actions didn’t involve deaths…or if the deaths happened years before…

  I didn’t like those implications any more than the idea of coincidence.

  Was I just trying to fit odd circumstances and a few Ferran-implemented acts into a grand scheme that didn’t even exist?

  “Rhenn…what are you thinking? You have the strangest look on your face.”

  “I’m trying to make sense of things that may not make any sense at all.”

  “Things always make sense if you look at their patterns and not yours.”

  I understood what she meant. Too often, I tried to impose what I thought should be the order or pattern of things, rather than seeing what was.

  “That’s
the engineer’s way of thinking,” Seliora went on. “When you design things, whether it’s a card reader for a loom or a design for fabric, you get in the habit of assuming that everyone designs the way you do, or that there’s just one designer, like the Nameless, that arranges everything.”

  “But people aren’t like that,” I said with a laugh.

  “You need to let your mind rest,” she said. “Sometimes that’s more useful than worrying it to death, especially when you’re as tired as you are.”

  She was right about that, as she was with many things.

  Given the cold and sleet, we didn’t go anywhere all day, not even to services at the anomen. We stayed home and enjoyed the warmth of the family parlor.

  32

  Seliora was right about my not pushing myself, and she’d never said anything about the less than perfect image-repairing by the Collegium of the furniture damaged by the attack…although I had managed to re-image her bed back into a better shape, at least the posters and headboard. Imaging just didn’t match crafting, unless the imaging was done by a master-crafter. By Lundi morning, I felt far better, at least until I stepped outside the house and again smelled the acrid odor of smoke and coughed at the bitterness in the air. I didn’t feel much better when I reached my study at the Collegium and began to read the newsheets.

  Both Veritum and Tableta reported on a pitched battle between the Solidaran Northern Fleet and two smaller Ferran fleets. While the initial reports were sketchy, all three fleets suffered heavy losses, with possibly as many as a third of our vessels either destroyed or rendered incapable of further fighting. The Ferrans had been unable to break the blockade, but the implication was clear that, unless the Northern Fleet obtained reinforcements, another such battle, with similar results, would destroy the blockade.

  I thought about Geuffryt’s observations on the shortcomings of our fleet, then made my way to Schorzat’s study, but he wasn’t there. Would Kahlasa know? She might. I walked two doors down to her study and knocked.

  “It’s Rhenn.”

  “Come on in.”

  She had a stack of reports in front of her, but pushed them aside. “You have questions about something?” Her smile was sympathetic.