L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

From there Isola went on to suggest how the ease of naming the Nameless applied to everything else in life, so that we did not see what lay behind or beyond the names and how that so often led to a lack of understanding. The true sin of naming was not so much the use of names but the use of names in a manner that denied or obliterated the reality that the name represented.

As with all her homilies, it made me think, even if I still questioned whether there really was a Nameless, and if there happened to be, whether the Nameless, so powerful and magnificent, could have cared in the slightest what I thought or did.

After the service, Seliora and I hurried to get back to the house…and our daughter, who was doubtless restive, because it was pushing her bedtime.

“I always like Isola’s homilies,” said Seliora, shivering under a thin cloak, because the evening had turned chill and blustery since we had entered the anomen.

“Why?”

“Because they relate to real life as well as to the Nameless. They would make sense even without the Nameless.”

I could certainly agree with that.

The best thing about the next few days was that nothing horrible occurred. We did receive a note from Mother on Lundi asking us to come to dinner on Vendrei evening, explaining that Nellica could watch both Diestrya and Rheityr. Seliora penned a gracious acceptance, and I sent it by messenger the first thing Mardi morning. The remainder of Mardi continued without untoward events, except that there was another elver death, with the unclothed body left in an alley off Dugalle. Seliora noted that Odelia was avoiding her, as we both had thought was likely, and that neither Betara nor Mama Diestra had learned anything more about where the stronger elveweed was being sold.

A light and chill drizzle on Meredi morning made exercising and running considerably less pleasant, and Diestrya cranky about wearing a small slicker that was a shade too large for her. I dropped them off at NordEste Design without any more protests from my daughter, read the newsheets and learned little, and left the duty coach without event at the station.

Alsoran and I talked over possible changes in several patroller rounds, and then Zellyn came hurrying into the station and found me as I was taking a quick look at the reports from the night before. A single look at his face told me that the comparative uneventfulness that had been so welcome on Lundi and Mardi was about to end.

“Captain, we’ve got a problem over on Geusynor Lane. It’s a little lane across Saenhelyn where a lot of factors live.”

“I know where it is.” I should have. It was less than three long blocks from where my parents lived and where I’d grown up. Usually, we had few problems on the north-the northeast really-side of Saenhelyn. “We’ll take a hack.”

“Yes, sir.” Zellyn had been the first patroller I’d done rounds with, and he still had the weathered and reddish face he’d had then. Both his brush mustache and bushy eyebrows were now totally silver, and his pale brown eyes looked sadder with each passing year-not surprisingly for a patroller as good-hearted as he was.

“Lyonyt, if you’d tell the Lieutenant where I am?”

“Yes, sir.”

Zellyn and I walked out of the station. There were no hacks in sight, and we walked up to South Middle. Once there, I flagged a hack, but looked to Zellyn.

“Geusynor Lane, a block and a half off Saenhelyn.”

“We can go that, sir.”

Once we were inside the coach, I turned. “Tell me what you know.”

“Dhean and I were patrolling Geusynor. We only hit it every third round or so, but you never know, when we heard someone scream. So we ran down to this house. It’s not a chateau, but it’s some house, sir. The carriage gate and the front walk gate are closed, but we can see a woman on the carriage way, and she’s shaking, and there’s a body on the stones. We go in, and the body is a schoolgirl, it looks like, and the woman who screamed is her mother.”

“Who is she?” I knew one or two people on Geusynor, or I had, years back. I supposed most of them still lived there.

“Her name is Rauchelle D’Roulet, and her husband is a factor.”

“Roulet D’Factorius?” I hadn’t heard of him.

“She said he deals in musical instruments, and manufactures pianofortes.”

A factor dealing in musical instruments? I’d never heard of one, but that didn’t mean such a factorage didn’t exist. “What happened to the girl?”

“It looks like one of those elveweed deaths, sir.” Zellyn shook his head. “Pleasant-looking girl, too. She would have been, that is, if her face wasn’t so twisted up. Looked like she was running for help or something when it hit her.”

I was the first out when the hack came to a stop. “How much?” I asked the hacker.

“Be three, sir.”

I handed him four coppers. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

We walked toward the front gate, partly open, and through it I could see Dhean standing on the side porch and the top of a woman’s head, as if she were sitting on a bench or chair with a low back. Zellyn’s description of the house showed his own background, and my response to his description, when I saw the place, betrayed mine. The dwelling was slightly smaller than my parents’, with a mansard roof and slate tiles that had to have been wired in place, given the angle. The walls were mortar over brick, in a provincial style, and the trim was a pale yellow. The carriage house was in the old style, barely large enough for a single coach, with a rear stable.

A white woolen blanket, likely Tilboran prime wool, covered the body lying at the foot of the steps up to the side porch. I bent over and took a corner of the blanket, pulling it back to see the girl’s face and upper body. Her face, contorted into a rictus of pain and shock, was narrow and triangular above thin shoulders. She’d only been wearing a filmy white cotton night-dress. I guessed her age at fifteen or sixteen. I eased the blanket back over her.

Zellyn let me go up the steps to the covered porch first. He followed silently.

The woman who rose from the wicker chair with the faded oilcloth cushion was angular, her face similar to that of the dead girl. The mother was the kind who was so nervous she looked like she was always on the verge of shaking all over. Her hair was tinted a shade of henna-blonde unbecoming to someone with white chalky skin, and the redness of her eyes and the blotchy appearance of her face only accentuated the clash between skin and hair.

“Madame D’Roulet, I’m Patrol Captain Rhennthyl.” I inclined my head.

She gave me a second look, then a third, before she spoke. “Oh…you’re the imager. Chenkyr and Maelyna’s son. I’m glad it’s you.”

That could have meant many things, but I just nodded, then asked, “Can you tell me how this happened?”

“I don’t know. Jessya didn’t feel well at breakfast, and she stayed home from school. I heard her moving around upstairs, and then she ran down the stairs…and the porch door opened. I didn’t hear anything after that. For a moment, I thought she had run onto the porch because she needed air. I started to follow her, but then I smelled something burning, and I ran upstairs. There was this funny pipe lying there, and it had charred the carpet. It’s a very good carpet, a Mantean Forssya. Her whole room smelled like bitter weeds had burned.”

“Have you ever smelled that before?”

“I…I don’t think so.”

I let the lie pass. She’d smelled that odor before, but not often, and probably not strongly. “Then what did you do?”

“I ran downstairs and out onto the porch. That was when I saw her…lying there…”