L. Modesitt - Imager

No matter what both Maitre Poincaryt and Maitre Dichartyn said about my value to the Collegium as a lure . . . they weren’t the one being attacked time after time. I slipped away with the purposeful stride of a man headed for the jakes, except once I neared there, I turned to the steps.

“Sir?” asked the obdurate guard.

“I need to get something for Baratyn.” I tried to project urgency.

“Ah . . .”

“I won’t be long.” I was past him and headed down the steps, quickly, but not at a run. Once on the lower level, I took the west-side service door and eased along the narrow maintenance walk next to the foot of the wall, using a cloak of shadows. Someone might well see someone in the shadows, but not more than a dim figure at best. I found the ornamental topiary that I recalled, the one offering the most concealment close to the outside stone steps, and sat down behind it, where I could view all the steps down to the drive where the coaches and carriages were beginning to queue up.

I waited a good half glass out there, watching as guests departed and worrying about whether Baratyn or Master Dichartyn would come looking for me. That was the last thing I wanted. I was Nameless-tired of being the target, and no one seemed that interested in solving the problem, only in using me to flush out the guilty. Well, I’d flushed him out, and I’d figured a way to deal with him as well-if it worked, I reminded myself.

Vhillar was among the later guests to leave, and he moved casually, yet deliberately, his eyes scanning the area on each side of the outside stone steps. Was he expecting me to act? I had the feeling he was concerned. He should be.

He paused after descending several steps, then spoke a few words to Mistress D’Guerdyn-Alte. After a moment, he escorted her down another few steps, before stopping to exchange a few words with another couple. He glanced toward the outer open carriage gate, and then back toward the east side of the Chateau. That worried me. What besides me was he seeking? Or was something else planned?

I shook my head. For the moment, I needed to concentrate on Vhillar-before he was too far away for my imaging to reach him.

First, I imaged colorless oil across the steps, three deep, directly below him, and well beyond his shields, and used a partial shield-something Maitre Dyana had taught me-to block any reflections from the lamps flanking the stone steps.

Vhillar took one step down, then another, then a third, before his boots slipped, one, then the other. His arms flailed as he let go of Mistress D’Guerdyn-Alte. She just stared, because I’d been accurate enough that she hadn’t stepped in the oil.

In that moment when Vhillar lost his concentration, and his shields faltered for a moment, I drove through them and imaged air, lots of it, into the major vessels in his brain, then imaged a blast of air at the back of his head-enough to drive him headfirst into the stone farther down the steps, angled so that his temple would hit first.

Mistress D’Guerdyn-Alte had frozen, watching as he fell, but then she screamed.

I imaged all the oil away.

At that point, I was more than a little dizzy, and all I could do was sit in the shadows as two guards came running down the steps. Others began to gather.

After several moments, when the dizziness passed, I slowly eased back along the wall and well out of sight.

I was almost to the west-side door when I saw a figure in the shadows outside the Chateau’s lower wall, moving to the west. I decided to keep moving around the Chateau past the west service door and toward the east-side door we used as imager messengers. Why I wasn’t certain, but it felt as though I should. I slipped through the north gardens and then struggled over the wall, once more using a slight shadow shield in addition to full shields, but I still lost sight of whoever it was who had been in the shadows.

At that moment, across the ring road from the Chateau, I saw the same ancient wagon I’d seen twice before, with the same old gelding, and the same porthole windows. The wagon was tied up almost directly across from where the duty coach had stopped and stood waiting, but at a slight angle to the duty coach. It was also located in the direction in which Vhillar had been looking. My stomach tightened.

I kept moving along the wall, toward where the duty coach waited, wishing that I’d made a greater effort to find Master Dichartyn, but there was no help for that now. Finally, I stopped, a good twenty yards away, and began to study the wagon. There was something about it and the way the sagging wagon body was angled slightly toward the duty coach. Sagging wagon body? What was in that wagon?

At that moment, a shadowy figure appeared, if indistinctly, in the shadows at the near end of the wagon. Was it the same man whom I had followed around the Chateau? What was it about him? Could it be the Ferran?

He had what looked to be a large tripod, on which was mounted something long and thick, far larger than a rifle, and he moved closer to the end of the weapon, so that its shape and his merged.

Behind me and to my right, there was a click and a glow of light as the east main level door from the Chateau opened.

As three figures emerged into the night air, I heard voices.

“Where in the Nameless is he?”

“. . . guards said he went down the inside stairs . . . in a hurry . . .”

“Hurry or not . . . Dichartyn’s going to hang him out . . .”

The last and loudest voice was Baratyn’s.

My eyes flicked back to the old wagon, and the entire wagon rocked ever so slightly. One of the porthole windows opened inward, and the shadow figure leaned slightly forward.

I knew I had to act. I imaged fire and flame into the wagon, and whatever the weapon beside it might be, praying to the Nameless that I didn’t believe in that I would be in time before something worse happened.

I tried to strengthen my shields, but . . . everything exploded.

Shields and all, I felt myself being lifted and flung. . . .

When I woke, I was looking up at a gray ceiling. I was back in the infirmary, and Master Dichartyn and Master Draffyd were both standing over me. My head ached, and various pains were shooting through my chest and back.

“How bad is it?” I managed to ask.

“For what you’ve been through,” replied Master Draffyd, “not all that bad. You’ll live, although it may not feel like it when you try to move or breathe deeply. You might have a cracked rib, and you’re bruised all over. In fact, you’ll be on your feet-very carefully-once we put you in a rib corset.”

He was right. As he and Master Dichartyn gently maneuvered me into the grayish corset, I felt like my entire chest and rib cage were pressing in on my lungs. It was far more painful than the gunshot wounds I’d taken from the assassin, but the very worst of it subsided once Master Draffyd had laced the corset up tightly. It was more like a cross between a flexible brace and a corset.

“How’s that?” asked Master Draffyd.

“It’s better . . . painful, but not nearly so bad.”

“You’ll stay here tonight, just to make sure, but I’ll let you go in the morning.”

“I’m supposed to attend a wedding tomorrow,” I offered.

“Not your own, I hope.”

“No, sir.”

“If you take a coach and don’t walk too much-and stay out of any explosions-you should be all right. But don’t take off the wound corset without help. You’ll have to come here to wash up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not a word about this, Draffyd.” Master Dichartyn said. “I’d appreciate a word or two with him alone.”