L. Modesitt: Scholar

The scholar offered a respectful bow before turning and departing.

Meredi found Quaeryt in what was called the library in the Scholarium Solum. A pretentious name, not only for the repository of miscellaneous volumes, but for the location itself, suggesting that the large but decrepit old building held the one body of scholars in all Telaryn, he thought, as he brushed a moldering bit of plaster from his shoulder with one hand, while brushing the cobwebs off a tome on the shelf before him. He eased the volume out and opened it, reading the title: Rholan, Synthesizing the Esoteric and Exoteric?

While it was far from what he was seeking, he read through several pages. One paragraph did catch his attention.

Although so little is known of Rholan the Unnamer that he might as well be apocryphal, the stories and saying attributed to him are a remarkable fusion of the exoteric and esoteric, as if he were attempting to instill spirituality within the most pragmatic of human group functions and interactions.… Yet, for all the impact he has had upon history and belief, the man himself remains more evanescent than morning fog in summer.… We only know that he lived in Montagne and was presumably born there, although no records exist, and that he vanished after traveling to Cloisonyt in his fifty-third year, according to the historian Jletyr Vladomsyn …

“More evanescent than morning fog, yet he single-handedly made Lydar a bastion of the Nameless,” murmured Quaeryt to himself.

He closed the volume and continued his search, absently wondering, far from the first time, why so many books in a library supposedly used and perused by scholars had been untouched for so long, and why many had never been opened. He quickly looked at and discarded several other volumes- Time of the Champions: Caldor and Hengyst ; The Five Ports of Lydar ; Historical Inaccuracies in the Accounts of Tholym ; Natural Remedies from Telaryn Flora .

He couldn’t help but wince at one- Imaging as a Manifestation of Naming .

In time, he did discover a volume that would suffice for his purposes- Historical Commentary on Tilbor . It had the added benefit of the title on the cover and a seal indicating it had never been opened. It might even be informative as well. Finding it was likely to be the easy part. While he could have taken it past the gate desk to the library under a concealment shield, or removed it by even more covert means, either could raise questions later, when he would not wish them to surface. He decided to try the direct approach first.

He walked to the desk set beside the locked door gate to the library and looked to the young student scholar seated there.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to borrow this volume.”

“Sir … I cannot grant that.”

Quaeryt knew that. He even knew the answer to the question he had to ask. “Who can?”

“I’ll have to check with Scholar Parelceus, sir. He is the only one who can decide.” The youth’s voice did not quite quaver.

“Please do. I’ll leave it here with you, and come back late this afternoon.”

“Ah … he won’t be back until late tonight … after the library is locked.”

“Then I’ll come by in the morning.” Quaeryt handed the book to the young man. “Don’t break the seal, either.”

“Ah … no, sir.”

“Thank you.” Quaeryt smiled and departed.

Outside the Scholarium, the day was already hot, despite high hazy clouds.

Quaeryt turned his steps toward the harbor, knowing full well that later it would be even hotter, and the hazy clouds meant that there would be little breeze at all.

The hillside that held the Scholarium flattened into the lower city after Quaeryt had walked less than two hundred yards, just past the anomen of the Nameless that was almost as old as the Scholarium, but far less decrepit. Once he was among the welter of shops and cafes and establishments even less reputable, the last traces of the morning breeze vanished, leaving him walking steadfastly through a haze that held the pungency of onions fried in grease close to rancid; the smoke of various types of incenses, likely from one of the countries located on the southern continent of Otelyrn; the faint but acrid bitterness of elveweed; the more welcome smell of roasting fowl; and dozens of other less identifiable odors, the origins of many on which few would wish to dwell.

Quaeryt stepped past a bent old man standing beside a cart that held folded scarves, neckerchiefs, and smaller pocket squares. The vendor did not return his smile. Then he dodged around two heavyset women who balanced bundles of laundry on their heads as they strode toward the cross street that led to a public fountain two long blocks to the west.

Close to three-quarters of a glass later, and feeling far warmer, Quaeryt slowed as he approached the establishment on the unnamed street that everyone called “second street,” since it was the second one back from and north of Harbor Avenue. The sign displayed a rat in a sailor’s sleeveless jacket lifting a gray tankard. The illustration had been recently repainted. The Tellan words underneath-“The Wharf Rat”-had not. Quaeryt nodded and stepped inside.

The unlit and dim taproom was empty, except for an angular gray-haired woman in black trousers and a plain faded blue shirt-blouse. She smiled as she saw Quaeryt. “Scholar.” Except the Tellan word meant something more like “learned rascal.”

“Quaeryt. Always been Quaeryt to you, Zaenyi.” He grinned. “You always make me do that.”

“It’s a harmless game. These days, what’s harmless is good. Better than most of what passes for games.”

“Business isn’t that bad, is it?”

“It’s been better. It’s also been worse.”

“You get many Tilborans in here lately?”

“A sailor’s a sailor. If they behave and have coin, we serve them. If they don’t, Kuisad gets them to leave.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

“I may have to go there.”

“I thought you gave up the sea when you became a scholar. Now even your words reek of the Bovarian.”

“Zaenyi … you’re cruel.”

Her smile was mischievous.

“Traveling to Tilbora,” he finally replied, “isn’t the same as going back to sea.”

“You can’t ever stay put, can you?”

“Too much of a target if you do.”

“Kuisad said you’d been named a Scholar of the Lord. Many would become Bilbryn’s apprentice for that.”

Quaeryt merely nodded to that. So many thought the historic imager a disciple of the Namer that there was little point in protesting. “It brings in a few silvers a week. Lord Bhayar’s a fair man. He’s not a patient man. He’s getting impatient. It’s not a good time for a scholar to be around. He’s thinking I might be of use studying things in Tilbora. I’m considering taking him up on it.” Quaeryt shrugged. “What should I know that’s been happening here?”

“There was an Antiagon crew in here last night. They were boasting about how they privateered a fat Bovarian merchanter. They captured something. They were free with their coins, and the silvers were Bovarian.”

“Were they truly Antiagons?”

“They all spoke that low tongue.”

Quaeryt nodded again. The “low tongue” was a bastard Bovarian dialect spoken in Antiago and southern Bovaria, mainly in Kherseilles and Ephra and the lands between. “No Bovarians lately?”

“Not since mid-Mayas.”

In the remaining half glass or so that they talked, Zaenyi didn’t add anything more to what she’d said earlier, and it was close to noon when Quaeryt left and walked the two blocks to the harbor proper. When Lord Chayar had moved the capital from Extela to Solis, he had also rebuilt the harbor. All the piers were accessed off the stone-paved and stone-walled Harbor Avenue, and all four long piers were not only of solid stone with stone footings, but were widely separated.