L. Modesitt - Imager

“You don’t have much to talk to them about?” I asked, before pouring tea into my mug.

“Never did. Less now, and everyone else in town, they all look the other way if they see me coming. Oh, they’ll talk if you greet ’em, and they’re nicer to me than they ever were when I was just Leam’s youngest, but they all look so uncomfortable.”

“They respect you, then.”

“More like fear. You’ll see.” Lieryns looked down into his mug of tea, inhaling slightly and letting the warm vapor caress his face.

“How did you discover you were an imager?”

“My da had too many pitchers of plonk one night, and he came storming in, tried to beat up Callia, and he ran into a door that wasn’t there. Our cot never had doors, just curtains. Didn’t take him long to figure it out, seeing as only Callia and I were there. Ma and the others were at Aunt Nuela’s-she’d just had her third. Anyway, drunk as he was, that stopped him.”

“It did?”

“Oh, he wanted to flog me into ribbons, but the masters don’t like it, and there’s a finders’ fee for letting the Collegium know about imagers. It’s a gold most places, maybe more if we’re not beaten. Master Ghaend said that it was cheaper than holding hearings or trials for people who killed young imagers. My da was more than happy to claim it, and I usually bring them a silver or two when I visit.” Lieryns shrugged. “It’s easier that way. Besides, I’ve got a feeling that Llysira just might have the talent. She’s nine now.” He took a mouthful of the rubber-like omelet and chewed slowly. “Anyone else in your family show up as an imager?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know, and the way my mother’s family keeps track of the bloodlines, I think they’d know.”

“Maybe they do know. Maybe they don’t say. Some folks don’t want it known. They say it’s a mark of the Namer.”

Was Lieryns right? How could I know if people never talked and I’d never known enough to ask? “You’re cheerful this morning.”

He yawned, then shook his head. “You ever have a girlfriend?”

“Once or twice. The first married . . . someone. The other . . . I don’t know.” That wasn’t totally true. I’d enjoyed the company of a few over the years, and, for some reason, the only two I’d thought of in response to his question were Remaya and, surprisingly, Seliora, yet I’d only danced with Seliora on two or three of the Samedi get-togethers. “What about you?”

Lieryns shook his head. “The first time I went home, her mother met me at the door and said that she was . . . indisposed. She’s been indisposed ever since. For me, anyway. You’ll be fortunate if your former girlfriend will even look at you.”

That hadn’t been one of my greater concerns. Even so, I had to wonder if I’d have that problem . . . or if I’d even have another woman friend. That was something else I’d find out.

After breakfast, I donned the heavy gray cloak and began to walk along the west side of the isle, on the gray stone walk just above the gray stone river walls. Council Hill was two and a half milles away, but the day was gray and hazy enough that I could barely make out the white walls of the Council Chateau, and they looked to be a lighter shade of gray in the distance. The gray everywhere was getting to me. I wondered how different it had looked in the days before Charyn, when L’Excelsis and Solidar had been ruled by a rex. Had any of the early rulers been imagers? None of the history books I’d read had said, only that the early imagers, especially those serving Rex Regis, had been a necessary adjunct to the power of the rex. But then, none of the books mentioned the Namer, either, or Rholan the Unnamer, or even the mark of the Namer.

I ambled north past the workrooms, the armory, and an area of dwellings, both large and small, seemingly placed with care in a park-like setting. North of the houses was a small park that covered the northern tip of the isle. Although it had benches and a small hedge maze, I saw only three people-a young woman with two small children, barely more than toddlers. I kept following the stone walk back down the east side of the isle. Just before I reached the Bridge of Hopes, I saw an imager, with broad shoulders and light brown hair, walking across the bridge. On the far side, waiting for him, was a magnificent black coach, trimmed in silver, with a matched pair of blacks. Standing beside the open door of the coach was a young woman, with long white-blond hair flowing out from a silver and black scarf. Even at that distance, I could tell that she was young and beautiful. I just stood and watched as the imager neared.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, but briefly, and with a certain stiffness. Then he helped her into the coach and followed. I couldn’t help but wonder not only who the imager was, but how he’d managed to have a lady friend so clearly wealthy. Perhaps there was more appeal to being an imager than I’d realized.

On Jeudi, the thirty-third of Maris, at the end of breakfast, when I’d been at the Collegium for over three weeks, Master Poincaryt stood and announced, “All members of the Collegium, except those with specific exceptions from me, will assemble in the gallery of the hearing room of the Justice Building at the eighth glass this morning.” Then he sat down.

“That’s trouble for someone,” murmured Etyen.

“More than trouble,” added Thenard.

According to the Manual, hearings were mandated only for serious offenses against the Council or the Collegium, but there was nothing written that indicated that the hearings were public and that all imagers were required to attend.

“Do you know who it is or what they did?” I asked.

“No,” said someone down the table. “We only find out at the hearing.”

If you did something against the Collegium, could someone just appear with guards or whatever and whisk you off to a cell and a hearing? Could they do that to me, for imaging the explosion that killed Master Caliostrus and Ostrius? I tried not to shiver, and instead looked down at the remnants of the egg-fried toast on my platter.

I slowly finished them, as well as my tea, then made my way to Master Dichartyn’s study, where I sat on the bench in the hall and began to leaf through the manual.

“Rhennthyl?” Gherard stood in the middle of the corridor. “Master Dichartyn is preparing for the hearing. He asked me to tell you to read the eighth section of Natural Science and the first section of Practical Philosophy . He will see you tomorrow morning.”

I went back to my room and struggled through five pages of the philosophy book before making my way out into the misty fog that covered the quadrangle and then to the Justice Building. The gallery consisted of wooden high-backed benches set on tiers that rose behind a low wall that separated the hearing area from the gallery. The benches flanked a central set of steps, coming down from the upper entry on the second level of the building. The lower level was very simple. At the east end was a dais a yard high, and from the middle rose a solid black desk with a high-backed chair behind it. The floor was of seamless stone, but a walkway of black stone, seemingly with no joins separating it from the gray stone around it, ran from the archway at the west end of the chamber to the foot of the dais. At the end of the dais, above where the black stone ended, was a black railing two yards long, supported at each end by black posts.