L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

“Don’t talk to me about Maitre Dyana or the Collegium. Without you, the Council and the Collegium will crumble, and so will the High Holders and the artisans and guilds. Now that Dichartyn and Poincaryt are dead, you are the Collegium.”

I couldn’t help smiling ironically at the words. I wasn’t the Collegium. I was the last thing from being the Collegium. I, as Dichartyn had been before me, was almost the anti-Collegium, whose acts freed the Collegium to be what it was, and if I didn’t escape this trap, Dartazn or Shault or some other imager would come along to fill the role of designated target or lightning rod. Still…continuing as the lightning rod or the equivalent was far better than the alternatives. “You overestimate me. I presume that your decision to decline to advance funds to Glendyl was what finally determined his ruin.”

“You determined that, I believe.”

“Hardly. You’d already advanced him funds and led him to believe that you would continue to do so.” I thought I’d located the speaking tube, and it provided a way, narrow as it might be, to image beyond the chamber. “Just like you put Broussard in touch with those who enabled him to strike back at Haebyn and the other eastern High Holders. Except he crossed you, and then escaped the explosion. Still, you got what you wanted. He’s been rather silent.”

There was silence.

“So…what will you do when I depart?”

“You won’t depart. If you could, you already would have.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You will not escape this time. Good-bye-”

Before he finished, I imaged pitricin up through the speaking tube, visualizing his position with his lips near the tube opening and spraying it across his brain.

What ever else he might have said was lost, and the entire building shook. I dashed for the northeast wall, recalling that as the side adjacent to the sturdier gray stone building without a name. I almost made it before the full force of the explosion rocked the building.

The ceiling shuddered. Chunks of plaster dropped. Then the ceiling split and a beam smashed down. I waited just a moment longer, hoping that the destruction had ripped enough holes in the lead lining of the room, and then tightened and strengthened my shields into the smallest area possible to protect me, as I flattened myself against the outside wall.

More sections of the building dropped around me. Dust swirled up, so thick that it coated the outside of my shields. The number of objects impacting my shields began to decrease, and I could feel myself getting light-headed. That suggested there was still a great deal of lead around me. I released the heavy shields and was immediately showered with dust and plaster fragments.

While I tried not to breathe any of it, the dust was so pervasive that I couldn’t help inhaling a little, and I immediately began to sneeze. When I stopped sneezing, I tried to make out what was around me, but my eyes were watering so much that for several moments, everything was a blur. Even before I could begin to see, I began to smell smoke, although I didn’t feel any heat.

When I could finally see, I discovered that I was standing between two fallen beams, and under another that had sagged, but remained anchored into the wall. Under the beams were bricks, plaster, broken laths, and other debris that left no space to crawl beneath and toward the front of the building. I peered over the top of the beam to my left, and under another beam, in the direction of the street, where I could make out a glimmer of light, possibly where the window that had been filled by the bookcase had been.

The smell of smoke was stronger.

Could I crawl over the beams and through the debris?

The first problem was that I couldn’t move my left foot. I wiggled my toes. They moved. I tried to lift my foot again, and I could tell that my leg and foot moved. The boot didn’t. After considerable struggle in a very cramped space, I managed to pull my foot out of my boot. Then I levered myself up over and along the beam to my left.

Each movement raised dust, and I kept sneezing. I also smelled more smoke, and that didn’t help with the sneezing. I could hear yelling and bells, but none sounded all that close.

I crawled across the rubble beyond the first beam and gained another yard toward the light, but there were splintered and twisted timbers in front of me. The intertwined timbers looked anything but stable. At the same time, the smoke was thicker, and I could feel gusts of cool and very warm air. So I tried to wiggle to the left some, to get around the timbers. My right boot-my only boot-struck something, and the mosaic of debris above me shifted, and plaster and laths and everything else trembled, then creaked and began to shift.

I imaged a timbered block above me, and the shifting stopped.

Unfortunately, for a moment, so did I-or so it seemed. I couldn’t see anything at all, and I felt like I couldn’t move even my fingers.

Slowly, all too slowly, I could feel sensation returning to my limbs. I could also smell the smoke. I forced myself to extend one arm, then the other, then pull myself forward through the narrow space ahead. I kept going until, suddenly, my head was in open air.

“There’s someone there!”

A patroller ran forward, and so did another one.

I let them help me out through the shattered frame, broken glass, and mangled drapes of the false window that had been in front of the bookcase. I was careful where I put down my unbooted foot, and I stood on the stone walk for a moment, trying to let the lightheadedness pass.

“Are you all right, sir? We need to move back. There’s a fire somewhere in there.”

“That’s Captain Rhennthyl!” someone else called.

“Sir?”

“I’m not a captain any longer. I had to go back to Imagisle, but I’m Rhennthyl.” I managed to gesture toward the building. “I think there are some wall lamps that are burning.”

“The fire brigade is on the way.”

We took several steps back toward the street before I spoke again. “You might want to send a patroller to Commander Artois-directly to the Commander,” I emphasized, “and tell him about the explosion and that the man who did it might have been behind some of the other explosions. Most important, tell him it’s worth his time to come here immediately.”

Weak as I was, I must have had enough strength to project command, because the patroller first just said, “Yes, sir.”

Then the first wagon of the fire brigade rolled up, followed by a second, a pumper wagon.

I glanced back toward the building. While a thin line of black smoke rose from the right side, it didn’t seem to be growing. In moments, the firemen had unreeled a hose and had the nozzle pointed in the direction of the smoke. Then the steam pump kicked in and a thin line of spray arced toward the smoke. The nozzleman was careful, hoarding and playing his water carefully, but there was enough water in the tank that the smoke was gone-at least for the moment-close to the time the tank was empty.

That didn’t take all that long, but I just stood with the patrollers, answering their questions with what had happened, and avoiding any and all speculations.

Behind the yellow cords the patrollers had strung, the number of bystanders grew, and I could hear some of their murmurs and comments.

“…must be something…”

“…more Ferran saboteurs…has to be…patrollers and an imager…”

“…know what was there?”

“Clear the way!

At that command, I turned to see Subcommander Cydarth step out of a hack. I’d asked for Artois. Had the Commander ignored the message? Had he even gotten it? I just stood and watched Cydarth, waiting to see how he reacted.

When he caught sight of me, for just the slightest moment, the subcommander looked stunned. Then he made his way toward the yellow cord, lifting it, and ducking underneath, before walking toward me and my escorts.