Imager

I didn’t need any more encouragement.

Back in my room, I slept for more than a glass and then had to hurry to the dining hall for dinner, where I ended up at the bottom of the table among several thirds I didn’t know, but I did my best to be cheerful.

After dinner I went back to my room and read some more, but I was careful to make my way down to the common room about a half glass before eight. The common room was in the lower level on the north end of the building, little more than a narrow space some fifteen yards long and seven wide with tables and benches spaced irregularly. The wall lamps were infrequent and wicked down to minimal light, so that the impression was of gloom. I found Johanyr and several others in a corner, with chairs pulled around a newishlooking table of a design centuries old. It should have been battered, but wasn’t. It took me several moments to realize why.

“Rhenn . . . pull up a chair.” That was Diazt. “We were talking about what’s got the masters all stirred up.”

I lifted a chair and set it between Johanyr and Shannyr, then sat down. My feet hurt, and I still had a trace of a headache.

“Only half the masters were at dinner, and neither Master Dichartyn nor Master Poincaryt was there,” said a short muscular secondus.

“They usually aren’t,” Shannyr said. No one looked in his direction.

“The newsheets said a Caenenan shore battery fired on one of our merchanters.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Shannyr. “Merchanters don’t carry cannon.”

“What would that have to do with the Collegium?” I inquired.

Diazt laughed. “The Collegium has something to do with everything in Solidar.”

“Master Dichartyn’s your preceptor, isn’t he?” asked Johanyr.

“Yes, but he didn’t say anything, except he cut my session short this morning, and then let Grandisyn tell me what to do in the workrooms. He left in a hurry.”

“They were all like that today.”

“Did he let anything slip, even indirectly?” pressed Johanyr.

“The only thing he said was that both Ferrum and Jariola had nasty habits in making snoopy strangers disappear.”

“I told you it couldn’t be just Caenen!” declared Shannyr.

“Does the Council have any problems with the Oligarch there?” I asked.

“There’s not a country in the world that doesn’t have problems with the Oligarch,” someone else said. I couldn’t tell who with the quietness of the words and the dimness.

“There’s not a country in all of Terahnar that doesn’t have problems with Solidar,” replied Johanyr.

“Because of imaging?” I suggested. “We don’t have that many imagers.”

“No one else has anywhere near as many.”

“You can’t have many imagers if you kill most of them as children,” added Shannyr.

Diazt cleared his throat. “We still don’t really know what has them worried. It has to be something important to have all the masters meeting twice in one day.”

“It can’t be just firing on a merchanter,” said Diazt.

In the end, no one added anything, and I had to wonder who knew what, if anything. Still, I’d been there, and I had the feeling that I’d better drop in at least a few times a week.

26

To every man, his cause is the one most just.

On Mardi morning, I spent a glass outside Master Dichartyn’s study reading Practical Philosophy because it was so boring that it seemed better to read it when I couldn’t do much else. At those times when my eyes threatened to cross, I spent a few moments with the newsheet- Tableta-but there was nothing of great interest, except for the massive avalanche near Mont D’Image and the speculation that somehow the imager Collegium there had been involved. Also, according to the captain of the Aegis, a Caenenan gunboat had fired on his ship, but missed.

When another imager left-I recognized the tertius as Engmyr, whom I’d met at the dining table-Master Dichartyn beckoned me to enter. He looked less tense than he had the day before, and he was smiling as I closed the door and took my seat.

“Grandisyn tells me that you imaged a week’s worth of aluminum ingots in two glasses. How do you feel?”

“I ended up with a terrible headache, and I almost fell asleep in the common room.”

“Take time in between imaging this afternoon, and see if you can find a better way. Try several ways. Even if you can’t, taking time between each effort will leave you less exhausted.”

“Sir . . . besides testing imagers, what is aluminum used for?”

“Its rarity, except that it’s not rare, except in pure form. It’s just that, except for imaging, it’s so difficult to refine and process that it is valuable. So the Collegium provides a certain amount to the Council, and they sell it discreetly to enhance revenues.”

“But . . . aluminum?”

“It’s unique, Rhennthyl. If you ever try to image gold, you’ll understand. Imaging actually requires energy from you and from everything around you. It’s a process of combining energy and material. A powerful imager has the ability to drain the life from everything nearby, including you, unless you have shields.”

I tried to conceal the chill I felt. “Sir . . . I wanted to ask about that.”

“In a moment, I’ll tell you how to begin thinking along those lines, and why you are never to mention it to anyone but a master. Anyone. But first, about gold and platinum. To begin with, they’re rare. Second, they’re very heavy. The heavier anything is, the harder it is to image, particularly a metal. It takes great skill and energy, and the fewer gold fragments or ore that there is nearby, the harder it is. Some would-be imagers have killed themselves trying to image the impossible.”

“Like trying to image gold in their chambers?”

“Exactly, but imaging certain metals-even in the midst of raw ore-can lead to death, and that death is lingering and excruciatingly painful. It takes several weeks, and the imager’s hair falls out, and he becomes like a leper all over.”

“Sir . . . if I might ask, why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“You were told what to image and where. You were given quiet cautions. If a young imager won’t listen, we keep him here on Imagisle and sooner or later, he’ll destroy himself.”

I couldn’t help swallowing.

“Now . . . about shields . . . it’s simply another form of imaging. You image an invisible shield . . . but one that only stops imaging.”

“If . . . if . . . someone pointed a pistol at me . . .”

“You could-and should-image a harder invisible shield between you. Holding the shield might force you several steps backward when the bullet hit it, but that’s better than getting wounded. By the same token, that sort of shield won’t do much against a cannon shell.”

I could understand that.

“Don’t hold a hard shield long, not now. It will exhaust you. An imaging shield . . . with a little practice, you’ll be able to hold that in your sleep.”

“How will I know whether I have it right?”

“I’ll start testing you. Beginning tomorrow.”

Before he could ask more, I said, “Sir? Does the Collegium have special enemies?”

He snorted. “Do you need to ask?”

“I thought that we must, but I’ve never seen anything in the newsheets, and no one I know has ever talked