Scholar

any closer.

Quaeryt flipped a copper to the beggar boy. “That’s from Lord Bhayar.” His words were in common Tellan.

The beggar frowned.

The scholar flipped a second copper. “And that’s from me, but you wouldn’t have either without your lord.”

The beggar looked at the coppers. “Could you a gotten ’em any dirtier, lord scholar?”

“Complaints, yet? Next time I might try.” Privately, Quaeryt was pleased. It was easier to image a shiny copper than a worn and grubby one, not that anyone would have cared about coppers, but coppers added up to silvers, and silvers to golds, and few would think that a scholar who had dirty coppers was actually imaging them.

The scholar studied the avenue ahead of him, taking in the pair of youthful cutpurses, seemingly playing at bones, on the far side of the flower vendor, and the drunken lout who lurched out of the tavern. His appearance was timed too well and he was just a tad too tipsy. Quaeryt imaged a patch of fish oil onto the heels and soles of his polished boots, just before the fellow reached him.

The man’s heels slipped from under him, and the slam-thief flailed before hitting the stones of the sidewalk. “Friggin’ … sow-slut…”

Obviously, the would-be grabber was having a slow day. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even have bothered with a scholar … unless he knew who Quaeryt was. That could be a problem.

“Do you need help?” Quaeryt asked, expecting the usual knife.

As the man tried to scramble to his feet and the knife appeared, Quaeryt imaged out a sliver of steel, and the useless blade separated from the hilt, and haft and blade clunked on the stones-just as the thief’s boots slid out from under him again and he crashed face-first onto the sidewalk. He moaned, but didn’t move for a moment, and Quaeryt skirted his prone figure, stepping into the avenue and barely avoiding a carriage before regaining the sidewalk. He’d gotten a good look. He just hoped he didn’t have to deal with the thief again. That was one problem with using imaging to create accidents. Some people didn’t learn. They just blamed their bad luck and went on doing stupid or dangerous things.

Although Quaeryt walked at a good pace, he didn’t strain, and he was only sweating moderately when he reached the point where the avenue passed in front of the hill on which the so-called Scholarium Solum was set. The Scholars’ House was halfway down the hill on the west side. Quaeryt glanced up the hill to the dark red brick building that held the Scholarium Solum as he walked past it to the winding walk up to the Scholars’ House, no longer bothering to hide the slight limp he’d always had.

The brick steps of the front entry had shifted slightly over time, and Quaeryt had to take care as he climbed them onto the front porch because his bad leg had a tendency to drag. The wide-roofed porches that encircled the Scholars’ House were designed to pick up the sea breezes, but since the sea breezes brought red flies in the day and mosquitoes at twilight, not to mention all the less than savory smells of the harbor, few scholars ventured out onto the porches once the sun dropped behind the warehouses and factorages to the west.

Quaeryt made his way to the east porch, the most shaded one in the afternoon.

There a younger man in a grayish purple shirt and trousers looked up from his wooden straight-backed chair. “It’s a hot walk from the palace. I still don’t see why Lord Bhayar doesn’t offer you quarters.” Voltyr spoke in Bovarian, as did all scholars, at least with each other and in dealing with the palace and other high officials. He was several years younger than Quaeryt, how many Quaeryt didn’t know exactly. He’d never asked.

“Would you want to live in the palace, Voltyr?” asked Quaeryt as he settled into the chair across from the younger man.

“No. You know that. You’re a scholar. Scholars’ Houses are the only place for imagers, and they’re not even half-safe in some cities, even here at times. Do you know what it was like when my parents discovered I could image a copper?”

“I imagine they were upset and pleased all at once.” Quaeryt had heard enough that when he’d done his first imaging-after hearing about imagers from old Scholar Geis, he’d tried to image a cake, and it had tasted like mud-he’d done it alone. But then, all his imaging had been in secret and painfully discovered by trial and error when the scholars who raised him were not around.

“They were just upset. In a month, I was here, being told not to image until I was older … but no one could help me. They just told me to be careful.”

“There aren’t that many imagers. What about Uhlyn?”

“The only thing he ever said was not to image large things and not to try imaging anything out of metal until I had a beard and then to begin with small items.” Voltyr laughed harshly. “He was so careful about his imaging, but look what happened to him, even with Bhayar’s protection.”

“He wasn’t careful about other things. He flaunted being an imager.” Even as Quaeryt spoke, he understood how many people feared imagers and their seemingly wondrous ability to visualize something and then have it appear. What so few wanted to understand was how painfully few imagers there were or how much skill and strength and concentration it took to image the smallest of objects, and how most imagers could do little beyond that. But … those who could … they were feared and shunned, and often the target of anyone who knew their abilities.

“Oh … and it’s all right for merchants and High Holders to flaunt what they are, but not imagers? Even scholars can flaunt their knowledge.”

“Not without risk,” returned Quaeryt. “People don’t like to be reminded of what they don’t know. That’s why Scholars’ Houses are also the safest place for scholars. Good scholars ask questions. Questions upset rulers and those who fawn on them.”

“Scholars in favor can gather in golds,” pointed out Voltyr.

“Golds aren’t much use to a headless man.”

“Don’t ask questions.”

“What’s the point of being a scholar, then?”

“How about the good life … or the best life possible for someone who wasn’t born a High Holder?”

“High Holders are captive to their wealth.”

“Quaeryt … I’d like to be held captive like that.”

The scholar laughed, then sat there for several moments before asking, “What do you know about Tilbor?”

“Most of it is cold. The people are rude and crude, and they don’t like strangers. They don’t like scholars and imagers, except that they like Telaryn soldiers even less. They like to fight a lot, except when they’re drinking, and they do a lot of that in the winter because it’s too cold to do anything else. Even Antiagon Fire wouldn’t warm Noira in midwinter.” The imager frowned. “Why are you asking?”

“I’m thinking of going there.”

“Why, for the sake of the Nameless?”

“To learn about it, to try to resolve something for Lord Bhayar. Besides, I’ve been seen at the palace too much in the past few seasons. That’s getting to be a problem.”

“That’s a problem half the High Holders in Telaryn would like to have.”

“They only think they want that problem. They don’t know Bhayar.”

Voltyr frowned. “He’s not that arbitrary or cruel. Certainly not like his father, is he?”

“He’s generally very fair. Most High Holders aren’t. But neither forgets anything.”

“Oh…”

Quaeryt stood. “Do you want to go down to Amphora later? I have a few spare coppers.”

“How could I refuse such an invitation?”

“You can’t,” laughed the scholar. “Half past fifth glass? I have work to do later.”

“You’re paying.”

With a last smile, Quaeryt turned and walked toward the north porch, hoping the nook by the north chimney wall would be vacant. Both Bhayar’s and Voltyr’s comments about imagers had played into the half-formed idea in his thoughts. Why, indeed, did imagers have to move and act with such care? Could he do anything about that? Or, at least, about his own position?