Imager

“After all those years, no one knows more than that?”

She shook her head. “Even the streetwalkers avoid him. They say one of ’em learned something about him, and she washed up against the barge piers downriver two days later.”

“Then I won’t press you.” I took the daisies. “A good day to you.”

As I turned away from her, stepping out from under the umbrella and into the direct sunlight, the faint crack and the sharp impact against my shields were nearly instantaneous. I was pushed around, back toward the cart. A second crack followed.

The flower seller sprawled beside her cart, the dark redness of blood welling across the thin blouse. She shuddered several times, and was still. I managed to turn, but I saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary-except a handful of people staring in my direction.

Then, from behind the wall, Master Dichartyn and a civic patroller appeared and hurried toward me.

“Are you all right, Rhennthyl?”

“I’m fine.” I glanced down at the dead flower seller, then back at Master Dichartyn and the patroller. He was older, graying, and that definitely bothered me. “Did you see him? Whoever shot her?”

Master Dichartyn shook his head. “He shot from the garden on the other side. He waited for an opening in the traffic.”

“You were talking to her. Did she tell you anything?” That was the patroller.

Before I said a word, I looked to Master Dichartyn. He nodded.

“Not much. I asked about the man in the yellow vest. She only knew his street name, and she didn’t want to know more. People who discovered anything about him ended up dead. They called him the Ferran. She didn’t know why because he talked like everyone else.”

The patroller looked to Master Dichartyn. “Your man here has enemies with expensive tastes and wallets to match.” He glanced around the stone of the wide sidewalk, as if searching for something, then hurried westward where he picked up something. I had the feeling it was the bullet that had hit my shields.

“You’re going to get a great deal of experience with shields, Rhennthyl.” Master Dichartyn kept his voice low.

What he didn’t say was that, if I didn’t whenever I left Imagisle, I’d soon be dead. “Do you think this was . . . linked to Johanyr?” My voice was equally low.

“No. This is something else. I don’t know what.”

From his lack of expression, I could tell he didn’t like not knowing.

The senior patroller returned. He looked at me, then at Dichartyn before holding up the bullet. The end was squashed at an angle.

I didn’t say anything. Neither did Master Dichartyn.

“Nasty business,” the patroller finally said, adding conversationally, “I don’t think anyone in headquarters would look into matters much if this Ferran were found dead.”

“Possibly not,” replied Master Dichartyn, “but if he died now, whoever hired him would just hire someone else.”

As we stood there, a Collegium duty coach pulled up. Master Dichartyn gestured. “It’s to take you to your parents’ house. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

I didn’t argue.

In the coach on the way to my parents’, I thought about what had just happened. Why was Master Dichartyn so convinced that the Ferran had not been hired by High Holder Ryel? Based on what I’d learned from Maitre Dyana, the likely answer was that the High Holder regarded mere murder as too kind, but there had to be other reasons. I just didn’t know what they were.

When the driver took the South Middle Road, rather than staying on the Midroad, I started to worry, until he took Sangloire, and then the back lanes, ways to the house that I’d only seen Charlsyn use. That familiarity raised other questions, but there was no one to ask. The driver did wait after he pulled up outside the house, watching as I walked up onto the portico.

Khethila opened the door before I even knocked. She rushed out and threw her arms around me. “Rhenn!”

At that moment, I realized I’d left the flowers behind, but I managed to grin as I disentangled myself. “I did see you last Samedi, you know?”

“It’s been a long week, a very long week. Come in!”

I glanced back and saw the coach pulling away.

Khethila followed my glance. “That’s no hack.”

“No. I was fortunate to get a ride in a Collegium coach.”

“I think I’ve seen one like that before,” mused Khethila, “but I don’t remember where.”

“That’s possible.” I closed the door behind us and managed not to sigh as I released full shields, leaving only the anti-imager trigger shields in place.

“The rear courtyard porch is cooler, and Father and Culthyn are already out there.”

Since it was sheltered and walled, that was fine with me, and I followed her through the house. Father was sitting in the most shaded corner, looking over what appeared to be a ledger.

Culthyn was sitting at the small table with a deck of plaques, playing at solitaire. He looked up after a moment.

“How did you like Kherseilles?” I asked Culthyn, taking the other corner chair.

“It was like any other place.” His tone conveyed boredom.

“Did you do anything interesting?”

“Not much.”

I paused as Nellica appeared and placed a cool glass of some sort of white wine on the side table beside my chair.

Father cleared his throat, loudly enough to catch Culthyn’s attention.

“Well, Rousel did arrange for me to do sailing a couple of times. It was cooler on the water, and once we saw a sea sprite.”

“They don’t usually get close to people.”

“We were pretty far away.”

“Not many people see them,” added Khethila. “You were fortunate.”

“Fortunate indeed,” snorted Father. “You threaten them, and they’re worse than a necrimager.”

“There haven’t been any necrimagers since the bad old times,” Culthyn asserted.

“Not any known ones,” I said.

Khethila glanced at me, surprised. “You aren’t saying there are some at the Collegium?”

“Of course not.” Not that I knew, anyway. “What I meant was that just because someone hasn’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, especially when you’re talking about something like imaging life force into a dead or dying person. You can’t do that, anyway, but I suppose other things . . . are possible.” I realized that I’d almost revealed something I shouldn’t have, and I kept talking to change the subject. “People see things that they don’t understand, and they claim it’s caused by something, usually what they want to believe. There are cases where people have fallen into such a deep trance everyone thought they were dead. Then they wake up. I suspect all the old legends about necrimaging are based on misunderstandings like that.”

Khethila raised her eyebrows, but did not question me.

“You make it sound so dull.” Culthyn gathered together the deck of plaques laid out on the table and shuffled them, then began to deal them out into the six piles for solitaire once more.

“Most things are,” Father offered dryly, “until you understand them even more fully.” He closed the ledger with a thump. “To an observant man, the figures in any business ledger can tell an interesting story.”

I wouldn’t have gone that far, but he did have a point. I also had a glimmer of an idea why Khethila had said it had been a long week. Like Father, she could read behind the figures, but unlike Father, she had no real authority in the factorage.

Mother appeared at the porch door. “Dinner is ready.”

“I’m famished!” Leaving the plaques half dealt on the table, Culthyn bounded up and into the house, past Mother, who had stepped back as if to avoid a charging goat.

“Famished?” I looked to Khethila.