L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

“It’s not turned that far-”

“Rhenn.”

“I’d like to think good ideas, and some golds from your family, have helped change things.”

“Exactly. They helped. But the real difference is that the taudischefs don’t want to cross you, and the patrollers feel more secure. Even the conscription teams are very well-mannered in your district, and they aren’t in most.”

“Yes, dear.” I wasn’t about to argue with her.

She still mock-slapped me, her fingers barely touching my cheek.

I would have liked to have held her, but Diestrya was dozing in my lap, and the last thing I wanted to do was to wake a sleeping three-year-old.

Once we got home, we immediately went upstairs and put our daughter to bed, although she never quite woke up. I waited and watched her for a bit, to make sure that she slipped into a deeper sleep. She was sleeping easily when I finally walked back into the main bedchamber to talk to Seliora. At that moment, an image flashed before me.

In the darkness, I was climbing out of a pile of stone and rubble, under the cold grayish-red light of Erion, dust and ashes sifted around me. Then, as suddenly as it had come, before I could make out more details, the image was gone.

It wasn’t a daydream, but a Pharsi foresight flash. Seliora had flashes more often than did I, but I’d had one or two, enough to recognize it for what it was, but not enough to be able to seize on key details. For me, unlike Seliora, they tended to foreshadow troubles. Seliora had seen us being married as a foresight flash, as Remaya had seen being married to Rousel, and my dear wife had known I’d become a Patrol officer before I did-except that she’d only seen me standing amid patrollers, not knowing what it foreshadowed. That was unfortunately often the case when it came to understanding foresight flashes.

“What is it?” she asked. “You looked stunned.”

“A flash.”

She nodded slowly. “Should you tell me?”

“I don’t think so.” That was another problem with the flashes. Often, Seliora and her family had discovered, trying to change circumstances only made matters worse. The best strategy was to plan for what might happen in the unglimpsed moments that followed a flash.

But…surrounded by stones and rubble? I managed to keep from shivering as I began to undress for bed.

Solayi dawned bright and clear, but it could have been cloudy and raining, for all I cared, because Diestrya slept a whole glass later than usual, giving Seliora and me time to sleep and be together, and because I had the entire day off, an occurrence that was all too rare.

When we did get up, Seliora and I fixed breakfast and lingered over it, since Klysia was off from Samedi morning until dinner on Solayi. Diestrya was happy enough that we weren’t going anywhere that she just scurried around the breakfast room, not getting into too much trouble, only occasionally asking for attention, while we read the newsheets and talked over tea.

There was little enough truly new in either Tableta or Veritum. War still loomed in Cloisera, but had not actually broken out, perhaps because of an early heavy snowstorm, and the Council had dispatched a flotilla to join and reinforce the northern fleet, along with a communique that stressed Solidar’s “vigilant” neutrality. Religious upheaval in Caenen had settled down, but a new prophet of some sort was stirring up trouble in Gyarl, and the Tiemprans were reinforcing their border. And…there was a brief story in both newsheets about the stronger elveweed.

“The newsheets both mention the new kind of elveweed,” Seliora said, setting down her tea, and glancing toward the lower cabinet where Diestrya was pulling out a stack of baking tins. “I don’t recall them ever saying anything about taudis-drugs before.”

“The last sentence in Tableta says why. It’s not just a taudis problem. Some of the more adventurous young people are smoking it now.”

“Like Haerasyn.” Seliora shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry about last night…”

“It isn’t your fault. It really isn’t even Odelia’s. Kolasyn wants to save his brother, and his brother doesn’t really want to be saved.”

“Do you really think that?”

“No. I should have said that the feelings created by the elveweed are stronger than the understanding that the weed will eventually kill him. Death will happen sometime; he doesn’t see it as immediate. The intense pleasure is now.”

Seliora shivered, although the breakfast room was not cold. “I’d hate to feel like that.”

I just nodded. I’d already seen too many elvers, changed into shadows of what they once had been, because they thought that it couldn’t happen to them. I might have been wrong, but I thought that the best defense against something like elveweed was the full understanding that it could happen to anyone. Anyone at all, and that was reason enough never to try it.

The rest of the day was blessedly unscheduled, and Seliora and I particularly enjoyed the quiet during Diestrya’s afternoon nap before we all had an early supper. We left our daughter with Klysia and took our time walking to the south end of Imagisle and the anomen, arriving just as the junior imagers who formed the choir began to sing the choral invocation, a piece I didn’t recognize. Seliora and I took our places standing near the side and rear of several of the other masters and their families. Maitre Dyana nodded to us, as did Aelys. Master Dichartyn was studying the faces of the choir members. Maitre Poincaryt and his wife stood beyond the Dichartyns and their daughters.

When the choir finished, Chorister Isola stepped forward. She had been at the anomen since before I had first come to the Collegium, but her voice was by far the most melodious of all the choristers I had heard in my lifetime, even in the wordless ululating invocation. She finished the invocation with the formal text.

“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 “Not to Name.” As usual, I barely sang, because I was well aware of just how badly I did sing. Seliora sang well. After that was 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.”

“In peace and harmony,” was the chorus.

Then came the offertory baskets, followed by Isola’s ascension 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, even those that seem less than perfect…”

Isola smiled and held silent for a moment before she continued. “We are all children of the Nameless, but like children we still cling to familiar names. Isn’t it easy to refer to the Nameless? Isn’t it comfortable? But who calls that entity we call the Nameless the ‘Unnamable’? Or the ‘One Too Great to be Described by a Name’? Or even the ‘One Beyond Naming’? Isn’t a casual reference to the Nameless the same as naming? As equating a comfortable pair of syllables to a being of such magnificence that a name is meaningless…?”