L. Modesitt - Imager

“Might I help you?” he asked.

“I think I need to see if I’m suited to be an imager.”

“What makes you think you might be an imager? You’re . . . rather older . . . than most who come across the bridge.” He looked younger than I did.

I managed a shrug. “Because I can image small things.”

“Oh? Would you mind showing me?”

I thought for a moment, then decided that a replica of the comb I had done the first time wouldn’t be too difficult. I concentrated, creating the mental image of Remaya’s comb. It appeared on the flat surface, just short of his hand.

For some reason, he seemed surprised, especially after he picked it up. “That’s a rather good comb.” He paused. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting here for just a moment, I think Gherard Secondus might wish to speak with you.”

Taking the comb, he stood and slipped away from the table, walking quickly across the foyer and through the archway to my left. After a short time, he returned. “If you would come this way . . .”

I followed him less than ten yards along the corridor-walled and floored in the same seamless granite-before we came to an open door. He stood back and gestured for me to enter.

I did.

Gherard Secondus stood beside the end of a long conference table in a chamber that held nothing besides the table and the ten chairs that flanked it, four on each side and one at each end. He stood beside the chair at one end, and he was attired in the same gray garb as the first imager, insofar as I could tell, but he did look somewhat older, perhaps almost as old as I was, and his short-cut hair was limp and blond.

He gestured to the chair closest to the one behind which he stood. “If you would like to sit down . . .”

I was more than happy to seat myself. My feet were sore.

“Petryn showed me the comb you imaged. It’s fine work. What have you been doing?”

“Doing, sir?”

“You’re too old to still be in the grammaire, and you don’t look like an Institute or university student.”

“Oh . . . I’ve been a journeyman portraiturist, with Master Caliostrus.”

He stiffened, just slightly. “Rhennthyl D’Caliostrus? Is that you?”

“Not anymore. I’m just Rhennthyl.” I certainly was too old to claim myself as Rhennthyl D’Chenkyr. “Master Caliostrus died in a fire last Jeudi.”

He nodded. “Actually, you need to see Master Dichartyn. I’ll be right back.” He rose and left me sitting there.

A cold shiver went down my spine. Gherard hadn’t known me, but he had known my name, and he had been given some instructions. Yet . . . I hadn’t told anyone of my intentions to seek out the imagers.

Gherard did not return. Instead another man came. He was, not unsurprisingly, attired in exactly the same fashion as the other two imagers. Unlike them, however, he was older, graying, and radiated a certain sense of power. He also did not sit down. “I’m Master Dichartyn. You’re Rhennthyl, formerly Rhennthyl D’Caliostrus?”

“Yes, sir.” I stood quickly.

“Gherard said that you imaged a comb. I’d appreciate it if you would attempt to image this.” He set a small topless box on the flat table, almost small enough to rest on my palm.

“Might I examine it, sir?”

“Please do.”

I picked it up. It was cast or formed from some sort of metal, but none that I knew, for although it was silvery in color, it was far lighter than either iron or silver or even tin, I thought. All I could do was hold it, try to feel it, before setting it on the table and then concentrating on its shape and size and the feeling of lightness. Visualizing the box was somehow both easy . . . and difficult. Even so, another box appeared on the table beside the first. To me, they looked the same, but I was so light-headed that I had to put out a hand to the back of the nearest chair and steady myself. I’d never felt weak before when I’d imaged things.

Master Dichartyn looked at both boxes, then picked up the one I had imaged, then the other, weighing them in his hands. After a moment, he shook his head.

I wondered what I’d done wrong.

“You’re an imager, and you could be a very good one. Given your background, Rhennthyl, I can’t say that you’ll like it, but you don’t have much choice.”

I already knew that.

For the next few glasses, I felt like all I did was walk from one gray building to another, or from one part of a building to another, guided by Gherard, rather than Petryn or Master Dichartyn. In the process, I gathered three sets of gray garments, five sets of paler gray undergarments, black boots, imaged to fit my feet by a graying imager, as well as a stack of five bound books. I also got a heavy gray wool cloak for cold weather and a pair of gloves. One set of garments I donned immediately, and the other sets and the books were deposited in the narrow armoire in the stark gray room on the second floor of the building that housed imagers of the primus and secondus levels.

“For now,” Gherard told me, as he guided me back toward the first building, which I’d learned was the administrative building, “you’re a primus, but once you know the basics about the Collegium, they’ll probably make you a secondus.”

“You don’t have to serve a mandatory apprenticeship?”

He shook his head. “It’s all by ability. There are some imagers primus who are over sixty. It’s all they’ll ever be.” He frowned. “There are some masters in their late twenties, but no one’s ever attained a rank above Maitre D’Structure before around forty, and there are only two Maitres D’Esprit.”

I must have looked blank.

“There are three levels of regular imagers-primus, secondus, and tertius-and four master levels: Maitre D’Aspect, Maitre D’Structure, Maitre D’Esprit, and Maitre D’Image. Most imagers in the Collegium are either imagers secondus or tertius. Right now, I think there are perhaps fifteen Maitres D’Aspect, but there might be more.”

The number didn’t surprise me. There were only about that many master portraiturists in L’Excelsis. But with so few, I had to wonder why he didn’t know the exact number.

“I hope you read well and quickly, because you’re starting late, and you have a lot to learn. You’ll have to learn basic chemistry, something about metals, and how living things-trees and people, mostly-work, and all sorts of things about combustion, but that’s mostly for self-protection. Master Dichartyn will explain everything in more detail, including your duties.”

He didn’t say much more after that, but just escorted me back to the same room where I’d begun and left me there, where I sat for a time before Master Dicharytn appeared.

I immediately rose. “Sir.”

He waved me back to the seat I had taken. “You have garments, quarters, and books now, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have anything personal that you would like to bring? You can have personal items like quilts, pillows, bedclothing, paintings or wall hangings, small rugs. No clothing, except nightwear, and no personal jewelry.”

“No, sir. Most of my personal things were destroyed.” And I certainly wasn’t about to ask my parents for anything.

Master Dichartyn nodded. “Now . . . let me go over some very basic rules. First, until you are told otherwise, and only by a master, you are not to leave Imagisle. Usually, this restriction lasts anywhere from one to three months, depending on how fast you learn a number of things. Second, after we finish today, you are to take the map I will give you, and you will spend the rest of the day learning where every chamber and building on the isle is. Do not enter any room where the door is closed. . . .