Imager's challenge

38

I didn’t sleep well on Mardi night, not with nightmares about more fires in the factorage, and runaway wagons, and lightning striking the house while Khethila was in it, but at least I didn’t image any more fires in my sleep. It was a relief to get up and deal with the simple physical tasks of exercising, sparring, and running. For that time, at least, the effort kept me from dwelling on my worries about Rousel and Father. I was quiet enough at breakfast, but no one noticed because Ferlyn was talking about how the Northern Fleet had destroyed another Ferran flotilla.

When I finally got to Third District station, I didn’t see either the captain or the lieutenant, and that was fine with me.

Lyonyt was waiting, bouncing from one booted foot to the other. “Master Rhennthyl.”

“Good morning, Lyonyt.”

“A good morning it is, sir. Not a cloud in the sky, and but enough breeze to keep a patroller comfortable on his rounds.”

I hadn’t brought anything with me, nothing to stow in the cubby that was temporarily mine. So I gestured to the doors, and we headed out. As had seemed to be the case in all the rounds in the area of the taudis, we saw very few people on the first round-and none of Youdh’s toughs. Their absence bothered me, because it suggested the time for observation was over, and I resolved to be as alert as I could be throughout the day. I did have to make an effort not to get distracted by worrying about Rousel.

We were finishing the second round, heading down Mando, the unofficial boundary, Alsoran had told me, between Jadhyl’s territory and that of Youdh, or the bad part of the taudis and the really evil section. West of Mando, the ground rose, not a great deal but a good two or three yards over the next block, so that when I looked westward up the alleys opening on to Mando I couldn’t see the end of the alley. This section of the taudis had to be ancient because the alleyways were barely wide enough to fit a single large wagon.

The row houses were all old and weathered, and the faintest odor of elveweed drifted unevenly in the air, an odor that would strengthen with each round in the day. But none of the houses on the east side of the street had empty windows or those that were boarded over. Admittedly, many of them had crude shutters, often only of oiled wood, but they did have shutters. I thought that reflected well on Jadhyl, or at least better upon him than the shabbier conditions of the area to the west did upon Youdh. Youdh was truly an old-style taudischef of the sansespoirs.

We walked down the east side of Mando, and I glanced up the next alley, only to see a large wagon, its wheels blocked in place at the top of the rise, and so broad that there was less than a hand’s width between the wagon bed and frame and the high brick walls of the courtyards adjoining the alley.

“Help! Help!” A frantic high-pitched scream echoed down the alleyway.

We both turned.

A dark-haired woman, scarcely more than a young girl, was pressed against the rough bricks of a second-level terrace by a man in shabby clothing. She struggled to get away, then ducked under his arm, but he grabbed her blouse and ripped it open, leaving her mostly naked from the waist up. I couldn’t help but notice she was well formed and most attractive, before she tried to wrench away from the far larger man once again.

“Help!”

It was too far to image anything accurately, and they were moving about so quickly I might hurt the wrong one if I tried. Even as I hurried across Mando and up the alley, followed by Lyonyt, I kept looking in all directions, although I thought it was probably early for most taudis-toughs. I saw no one anywhere, except for the screaming half-naked woman and the man trying to assault her. Even so, I checked and strengthened my shields.

Lyonyt’s knife was out, shimmering in the midmorning sunlight.

When we reached the courtyard wall below the terrace, a good twenty-five yards from the street, I discovered that the high side wall to the courtyard below the terrace had no gate.

“Help me!”

Up on the ancient roof terrace, the attacker was ripping away the girl’s skirt.

“Help!” Her voice rose into a shriek.

But there was something wrong . . .

At a low rumbling sound, almost like thunder, I glanced up the alley, only to see that the enormous wagon was rolling-more like hurtling-down the stone-paved alleyway at us, less than ten yards away and already moving far too fast for us to outrun it. I could also see that it was loaded with stone and rocks, and that the axles and the wagon bed were too low to dive under the middle and let it pass over.

“Down, flat, against the wall!” I snapped and dropped to the alley pavement, carrying Lyonyt down as well, so that we lay stomach down beside the brick wall. I strengthened my shields and tried to tie them not to me, but to the cracked stone pavement beneath us and the brick wall against which my shoulder and side were pressed.

The rumbling thunder crashed over us, pressing us down, and then passed.

“Stay down,” I hissed, not moving.

The next sound was that of the wagon impacting something, most likely the stoop or the front of a house on the other side of Mando, and wrenching and splintering wood and the diminishing lesser rumbles of stones coming to rest.

“Keep still . . .” I was wagering that whoever had set up the attack would want to check out the carnage, and I wanted them close-very close-before I moved. I was getting very tired of being attacked, especially when I hadn’t even been chasing or investigating Youdh, but Mardoyt.

I didn’t move, but kept my eyes open.

After a time, it could have been as long as half a quint, two figures began to walk down the alley. Both wore the purple jackets.

I wasn’t in any mood for fairness. I just waited until the pair were less than five yards away when I imaged oil and grease under their boots, and a blast of air to unbalance them. They both went down, but not as hard as I would have liked. I scrambled to my feet, glancing around in all directions, but seeing only the two toughs nearby . . . but several near the part of the alley that was the top of the rise.

The taller one immediately did something I didn’t expect, not exactly. Rather than even get up, he just looked at me, and then five rusty knives impacted my shields before dropping to the pavement. The shorter one scrambled to his feet and fell again, then regained his footing and raced away from Lyonyt, yelling something to the two taudis-toughs farther up the alley.

Before I could even think what to do next, another set of weapons slammed into my shields-this time, what looked like iron crossbow bolts. They were followed by flaming oily fireballs.

“Spawn of the Namer!” blurted Lyonyt.

Then came three large spiked objects, so heavy that when they struck my shields, I was slammed back against the brick wall. One of them dropped from my shields and splintered the heavy stone of a paving stone. Another stuck with a point wedged between two paving blocks.

At that point, I’d had enough. Even so, I didn’t want to overdo it, because I wanted the imager alive. I imaged salt and caustic into his eyes, not in the massive amounts that had killed Diazt, but enough, I thought, to blur the imager’s vision or blind him for a quint or so. As I did so, I charged him, putting a knee into his chin and snapping his head back. He just tumbled back onto the ancient cracked and uneven paving stones, mumbling.

“. . . can’t see . . . Ravyt! Ravyt!”

The man who lay there trying to rise and rubbing at his eyes was the tough who had escaped me at Mardoyt’s house, and the same one who had observed me when I walked past the Puryon Temple early in the week.

“Get him tied up, Lyonyt. Quickly.”

At that moment, the imager-tough rolled on his side and then started to rise and lunge away. I dropped on his back with both knees, slamming him into the pavement again.

He was still, or mostly still, while Lyonyt and I manacled his hands behind him. I kept my weight on him while Lyonyt bound his feet at the ankles. Then, I concentrated, as well as I could, enough to image a length of black cloth-not very good wool, but sufficient for my purposes-and I immediately began wrapping it around his upper face and across his eyes.

Only after he was secured did I glance up at the terrace-silent and empty. The two, or at least the man, had been creating a distraction-enough of one that we had not been able to escape the stone-weighted wagon.

“Sir? The cloth?”

“He’s a renegade imager, but he has to see to image.”

“Sir . . . that’s Youdh.”

“How do you know?”

“The one who ran off . . . he was yelling to the others that you’d gotten Youdh.”

Youdh? The imager was Youdh himself?

I couldn’t say I was surprised.

“Sir . . . what do we do now?”

“We tie him up really tightly and cart him to the pickup point and have the pickup wagon take him to Imagisle. Imagers who commit crimes are subject to the laws of the Collegium. Besides, no gaol can hold an imager without special procedures.”

“Ah . . . yes, sir.”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“No, sir.”

Youdh was neither light nor cooperative, and he squirmed a great deal. We carried him for a time, then rested, and carried him farther, until we reached the pickup point. But I wasn’t about to give him any vision and any leeway whatsoever, not after he’d tried to kill me so many times.

While we were waiting, I decided to see if he’d talk, but I didn’t want to ask him anything that dealt with possible Patrol corruption, not with Lyonyt standing beside me.

“Youdh . . . why did you keep trying to kill me?”

“Friggin’ imager-patroller, spawn of Namer-sow and cursed canine . . . friggin’ everything up . . . couldn’t find a teat on a copper cow . . .”

“What do you get from the equalifiers . . . or do you have to pay them?”

“Give more ’n the Patrol types.”

That was suggestive, but I wasn’t going to pursue it. “So they do pay well. A few golds a month?”

“Frig you . . .” The mutter was low, but clear.

After that, he said even less.

Almost a glass passed before the wagon arrived. When I told the driver where we were headed, he looked at me, then at Lyonyt, almost helpless.

“Take us where Master Rhennthyl wants,” Lyonyt finally said. “You really want to be the one to bring a taudischef imager to the station?”

With the clarity of those words, the driver swallowed and said, “Yes, sir.”

Although Youdh didn’t seem to have much to say, except mutter, I watched him closely on the slow wagon trip down the Midroad and then the Boulevard D’Imagers, thinking. If Youdh was an imager, why couldn’t he have used his abilities in little ways to help the people in his area of the taudis? Or couldn’t he afford to reveal that to anyone except his toughs because the equalifier priests, whom he needed, opposed imagers? Or was he like Diazt, who would rather have been the meanest and least powerful taudischef than a respected imager?

Once the wagon finally came to a halt outside the receiving hall on the east side of Imagisle, I hopped off.

“Lyonyt . . . if he does anything, hit him hard on the head with the truncheon. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Lyonyt’s voice was resolute, but he was far from happy. I couldn’t say I blamed him, but I had no idea where the Collegium’s equivalent of a gaol was. That hadn’t been on the map I’d memorized, or if it had been, I didn’t remember.

I walked into the reception hall. I barely knew the prime on duty and had to struggle with his name. “Jakhob, is either Master Dichartyn or Master Schorzat here?”

“Master Dichartyn, sir, but . . .” He gulped.

“But what . . . ?”

“He’s meeting with someone, sir.”

“In his study?”

“Yes, sir . . . but . . .”

“I’ll take care of it.” I turned and walked down to the study, where I rapped smartly on the door.

There was no answer. So I rapped harder.

“I’m not to be disturbed.” The words were snappish.

“It’s Rhennthyl, and I have the renegade imager trussed up and blindfolded out in a Civic Patrol wagon outside the receiving hall. Exactly what would you like me to do with him?”

As he opened the door, Master Dichartyn glared at me, possibly the first time his expression had ever held such hostility. “Rhennthyl. Is this some jest?”

“No, sir. I have with him a certain amount of physical proof, including five identical rusty knives that he imaged at me, six identical iron crossbow bolts, and three large items that resemble morning stars. I also have the patroller who was with me when he attacked us with a large wagon filled with stones and who saw all the imaging attacks.” I paused. “And, by the way, this renegade imager also happens to be taudischef Youdh himself, which might explain a few things.”

“Why didn’t you-”

“Because you gave me the impression that, first, you were rather dubious about my insistence that I was facing a renegade imager, and second, that some form of proof was necessary. Given that situation, I thought it best that I deliver the renegade to the Collegium, along with all the proof I could provide. I also thought his trial might prove useful. You might find out what else he knows. I’m doubtful about that myself. He’s been awake for most of the trip down here, but he’s only muttered various expletives having to do with my heritage. Oh . . . his vision is probably somewhat impaired. I did image some caustic there, but not nearly so much as in past cases.”

Abruptly a series of laughs issued from the study behind Master Dichartyn.

“Ask and you shall receive, Dichartyn. You might as well open the door.”

I recognized the voice of Maitre Poincaryt.

Master Dichartyn’s glare faded from burnished steel to blank obsidian. Then he shook his head, ruefully, as he opened the door. “You might as well come in.”

I did, inclining my head politely to Maitre Poincaryt. “Sir.”

“Rhennthyl.” The head maitre of the Collegium studied me. “Tell me. What was it that Dichartyn did that so angered you?”

“Sir . . . I know that there’s much I don’t know-”

Master Dichartyn’s expression indicated disbelief or disagreement with my words.

“But when I tell a senior master I’ve encountered an imager, I do know enough to recognize one. I’ve even uncovered one that he’d met and hadn’t recognized. My techniques are rough, and my knowledge of the finer points of many aspects of imaging is doubtless lacking, but when I report two or possibly three senior officers of the Civic Patrol are corrupt and two are deeply involved with the taudis and bribes and killings . . . don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. You can certainly tell me to ignore it, or that there are other considerations, or that someone else will handle it, but don’t expect me to believe what is not true.”

Maitre Poincaryt raised his eyebrows and looked to Dichartyn.

“He’s asked me to take a great deal on faith, sir,” Master Dichartyn said.

“Has he been wrong?”

“Yes, sir,” I admitted. “I have been, but it’s been because I didn’t know other information. I needn’t have killed Diazt, but I thought I was facing him and Johanyr alone. I thought that the corruption in the Civic Patrol was limited to Mardoyt and Harraf, and I still can’t prove that Cydarth and Harraf are involved.”

“Enough.” Master Poincaryt’s voice was firm, but I sensed tiredness behind it. He looked to Master Dichartyn. “Try this renegade, and make it public and quick. Find out what you can about his ties to the Patrol, but don’t make those public. For the moment, only we three need to know that.” He looked at me. “I’d appreciate it if you’d be a little easier on Dichartyn. You’re still young and worried and upset about your situation. Imagine what it would be if you were handling three times that amount, if not more. You worry about one renegade imager and one High Holder being after you. I doubt that Master Dichartyn has ever had that few enemies in the last ten years. In addition, unlike you, he has a wife and two daughters as well.” He paused. “I’d also appreciate it if both of you trusted each other more.”

Then he nodded and stepped past me and down the corridor.

I turned to Master Dichartyn. “I’m sorry to have upset matters, sir.” And I was, but what else could I have done?

He shook his head once more. “Rhennthyl . . . you could be such an asset to the Collegium, if we all survive your learning process.” Then he actually smiled, genuinely, if ruefully. “Let’s take care of your captive imager.”

I did appreciate his momentary kindness, even if the rest of the day turned out to be very long. First, I had to send a Collegium messenger to Third District station with a note informing Captain Harraf or Lieutenant Warydt what had happened and why neither Lyonyt nor I would be back for the rest of the shift. I ended up directing a group of primes and seconds who functioned as scriveners to take the statements of Lyonyt and the driver. Then, while Master Dichartyn and Master Jhulian were questioning Youdh, since I could not, having been part of the events, I had to write out my own statement, as well as a description of the evidence.

After that, Master Jhulian questioned me in great depth-but, interestingly, only about the events of the morning. I had a good idea how the hearing was likely to go, but I’d have to see.

The worst part, I realized, was how little I’d accomplished.

Baluzt was probably continuing what Mardoyt had been doing. There was no real evidence to lead to either Captain Harraf or to the subcommander.

And, worst of all, I’d been able to do nothing to address the problems with High Holder Ryel. I could only hope that I could discover something at the Ball-assuming that he or Iryela or his son or nephew even attended.