Imager’s Intrigue

63

By Lundi morning, I still didn’t have any better ideas than to actually visit Vyktor D’Banque D’Ouestan. I would have liked to have known exactly who had visited Glendyl after Frydryk, but short of driving out to his estate, there wasn’t any way to determine that. Then I laughed. Why not try? All that could happen would be that I’d be turned away at the gates.

Less than a glass later, I was walking toward the front of Glendyl’s mansion. I hadn’t even had to argue with the gate guard.

As I neared the main entrance, a footman stepped forward. “The family won’t be seeing anyone, Maitre. If you’d care to leave a card…”

“I can understand.” I paused. “Were you here, the day it happened?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did the banque representative come right after Suyrien the Younger left?”

“Don’t know as he was a banque man, sir. He wasn’t right after, maybe a quint or two.”

“And when did it happen?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. No one could. The Councilor had the study proofed when he was selected to be on the Council. Said he didn’t like eavesdropping. The staff heard the study door open and the visitor say good-day and the Councilor tell him to be on his way. Then the door slammed, and the fellow left angry-like. Maybe a glass later, when the Councilor didn’t answer the bell, Carlysa opened the study door and found him. Must have happened after the fellow left. They both sounded angry, Carlysa said, when they parted. She could scarce tell their voices apart.”

It wouldn’t do for evidence, but learning more details wouldn’t change anything. So very convenient. Glendyl’s estate was outside L’Excelsis, and that meant he was responsible for his own security, and that the Civic Patrol had no jurisdiction. Who would petition the Justiciary when there was no real way to prove anything? I extended a card. “If you would leave this…”

“I can do that, sir.”

“Thank you.” I walked back to the waiting Collegium coach.

As I was riding back to Imagisle, I realized something else. The security laws were another pressure that the High Holders and the factors used to keep people either on the estates or in the towns and cities. I hadn’t thought of it in that way because I’d grown up in L’Excelsis.

Once I got back to the Collegium, I just had the coach wait outside the administration building while I hurried inside and found Schorzat.

He looked up from his desk. “You’re obviously going somewhere.”

“I’m going to pay a call, I hope, on one Vyktor D’Banque D’Ouestan. His place of business is at 880 Avenue D’Theatre.”

“What do you hope to learn from him?”

“Something that I can use to prove that he’s a Ferran agent who’s been behind more than a few things. On Vendrei, Glendyl told Frydryk-Suyrien the Younger-he’d never let go of anything, even if Suyrien called in the notes he held. I found out that right after that, Vyktor visited Glendyl, and then Glendyl supposedly killed himself. The only problem is that Glendyl used a heavy pistol at his right temple, and his right arm was too weak to hold it or aim it. I doubt anyone besides Draffyd and I-and now you-knew that. We may have to get a medical opinion from Draffyd before this is all over.”

“What about the Civic Patrol?”

“Let’s just say that there are complications with that approach.” Such as the possibility that Cydarth was involved with Vyktor. “I thought you should know before I left.”

“You don’t want any company?”

“That would just alarm dear Vyktor.”

“I’d suggest strong shields and a stronger degree of caution.”

“I’d thought the same, but we need to get this resolved.” With a nod, I turned and headed back to the coach.

The streets weren’t too crowded, and in less than a quint Lebryn came to a halt outside 880. I sat for a moment in the coach and studied the buildings. The gray stone structure to the right was a good six levels high and looked to be a century old, if not older, built more like a fortress than some commercial establishment. On the left, the River Association Building was of a grayish brick, or perhaps pale yellow brick grayed by time and smoke and almost as high as the gray stone structure. There looked to be a lamp or light of some sort coming from one of the second level windows of Vyktor’s establishment. He might even be in.

I stepped out of the coach. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“I’ll have to circle here, sir,” said Lebryn. “I can’t stop on the avenue.”

“Can you wait around the corner?”

“I’ll try that, sir. If not, I’ll come by every half quint.”

“Thank you.” I walked up to the door and dropped the tarnished brass knocker, twice, then a third time.

From the second level window came a voice. “The door’s unlatched. Just go into the waiting room, and I’ll join you in a moment.”

The door was indeed unlatched, and I opened it. Beyond was a narrow foyer. At the end of the foyer was a door, and an archway to the right opened into a sitting room. The archway to the left was closed by the kind of doors that slid out of recesses. I touched it, but the two doors were locked together. I could have imaged out the lockplate, but I didn’t see that such would be helpful. The door at the end of the foyer, presumably leading to stairs, was also closed, and most probably locked, which made sense if the front door were habitually left unlocked.

I stepped into the sitting room, dimly lit by two wall sconces. Where the front window had once been was filled with a heavy built-in bookcase, and the shelves were filled with books. Just out from the rear wall was a green leather couch, with a low table before it, on which were newsheets, neatly stacked. Out from the right wall were two green leather armchairs, set at slight angles to the table. The floor was of dull black tile, largely covered by a cream and green Khelgroran carpet. There were no windows, and the walls were paneled in oak. The only entry or exit was through the archway.

As I turned back toward the foyer, I saw two doors slide into place, sealing me into the room. While I had expected a less than completely friendly reaction, an immediate imprisonment was something I hadn’t anticipated.

“The chamber in which you find yourself is entirely lead-lined. Even you can’t do much in a lead-lined room, not without killing yourself, Master Imager Rhennthyl.” The words echoed softly around me.

I turned, trying to locate the source of the slightly hollow-sounding words that had to come through a speaking tube. As I did, I thought of Maitre Dyana, and the words she’d always spoken when I’d first come to the Collegium-Finesse, dear boy…Finesse. “I don’t see what you get from this, Vyktor. The Collegium will-”

“Don’t talk to me about Maitre Dyana or the Collegium. Without you, the Council and the Collegium will crumble, and so will the High Holders and the artisans and guilds. Now that Dichartyn and Poincaryt are dead, you are the Collegium.”

I couldn’t help smiling ironically at the words. I wasn’t the Collegium. I was the last thing from being the Collegium. I, as Dichartyn had been before me, was almost the anti-Collegium, whose acts freed the Collegium to be what it was, and if I didn’t escape this trap, Dartazn or Shault or some other imager would come along to fill the role of designated target or lightning rod. Still…continuing as the lightning rod or the equivalent was far better than the alternatives. “You overestimate me. I presume that your decision to decline to advance funds to Glendyl was what finally determined his ruin.”

“You determined that, I believe.”

“Hardly. You’d already advanced him funds and led him to believe that you would continue to do so.” I thought I’d located the speaking tube, and it provided a way, narrow as it might be, to image beyond the chamber. “Just like you put Broussard in touch with those who enabled him to strike back at Haebyn and the other eastern High Holders. Except he crossed you, and then escaped the explosion. Still, you got what you wanted. He’s been rather silent.”

There was silence.

“So…what will you do when I depart?”

“You won’t depart. If you could, you already would have.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You will not escape this time. Good-bye-”

Before he finished, I imaged pitricin up through the speaking tube, visualizing his position with his lips near the tube opening and spraying it across his brain.

What ever else he might have said was lost, and the entire building shook. I dashed for the northeast wall, recalling that as the side adjacent to the sturdier gray stone building without a name. I almost made it before the full force of the explosion rocked the building.

The ceiling shuddered. Chunks of plaster dropped. Then the ceiling split and a beam smashed down. I waited just a moment longer, hoping that the destruction had ripped enough holes in the lead lining of the room, and then tightened and strengthened my shields into the smallest area possible to protect me, as I flattened myself against the outside wall.

More sections of the building dropped around me. Dust swirled up, so thick that it coated the outside of my shields. The number of objects impacting my shields began to decrease, and I could feel myself getting light-headed. That suggested there was still a great deal of lead around me. I released the heavy shields and was immediately showered with dust and plaster fragments.

While I tried not to breathe any of it, the dust was so pervasive that I couldn’t help inhaling a little, and I immediately began to sneeze. When I stopped sneezing, I tried to make out what was around me, but my eyes were watering so much that for several moments, everything was a blur. Even before I could begin to see, I began to smell smoke, although I didn’t feel any heat.

When I could finally see, I discovered that I was standing between two fallen beams, and under another that had sagged, but remained anchored into the wall. Under the beams were bricks, plaster, broken laths, and other debris that left no space to crawl beneath and toward the front of the building. I peered over the top of the beam to my left, and under another beam, in the direction of the street, where I could make out a glimmer of light, possibly where the window that had been filled by the bookcase had been.

The smell of smoke was stronger.

Could I crawl over the beams and through the debris?

The first problem was that I couldn’t move my left foot. I wiggled my toes. They moved. I tried to lift my foot again, and I could tell that my leg and foot moved. The boot didn’t. After considerable struggle in a very cramped space, I managed to pull my foot out of my boot. Then I levered myself up over and along the beam to my left.

Each movement raised dust, and I kept sneezing. I also smelled more smoke, and that didn’t help with the sneezing. I could hear yelling and bells, but none sounded all that close.

I crawled across the rubble beyond the first beam and gained another yard toward the light, but there were splintered and twisted timbers in front of me. The intertwined timbers looked anything but stable. At the same time, the smoke was thicker, and I could feel gusts of cool and very warm air. So I tried to wiggle to the left some, to get around the timbers. My right boot-my only boot-struck something, and the mosaic of debris above me shifted, and plaster and laths and everything else trembled, then creaked and began to shift.

I imaged a timbered block above me, and the shifting stopped.

Unfortunately, for a moment, so did I-or so it seemed. I couldn’t see anything at all, and I felt like I couldn’t move even my fingers.

Slowly, all too slowly, I could feel sensation returning to my limbs. I could also smell the smoke. I forced myself to extend one arm, then the other, then pull myself forward through the narrow space ahead. I kept going until, suddenly, my head was in open air.

“There’s someone there!”

A patroller ran forward, and so did another one.

I let them help me out through the shattered frame, broken glass, and mangled drapes of the false window that had been in front of the bookcase. I was careful where I put down my unbooted foot, and I stood on the stone walk for a moment, trying to let the lightheadedness pass.

“Are you all right, sir? We need to move back. There’s a fire somewhere in there.”

“That’s Captain Rhennthyl!” someone else called.

“Sir?”

“I’m not a captain any longer. I had to go back to Imagisle, but I’m Rhennthyl.” I managed to gesture toward the building. “I think there are some wall lamps that are burning.”

“The fire brigade is on the way.”

We took several steps back toward the street before I spoke again. “You might want to send a patroller to Commander Artois-directly to the Commander,” I emphasized, “and tell him about the explosion and that the man who did it might have been behind some of the other explosions. Most important, tell him it’s worth his time to come here immediately.”

Weak as I was, I must have had enough strength to project command, because the patroller first just said, “Yes, sir.”

Then the first wagon of the fire brigade rolled up, followed by a second, a pumper wagon.

I glanced back toward the building. While a thin line of black smoke rose from the right side, it didn’t seem to be growing. In moments, the firemen had unreeled a hose and had the nozzle pointed in the direction of the smoke. Then the steam pump kicked in and a thin line of spray arced toward the smoke. The nozzleman was careful, hoarding and playing his water carefully, but there was enough water in the tank that the smoke was gone-at least for the moment-close to the time the tank was empty.

That didn’t take all that long, but I just stood with the patrollers, answering their questions with what had happened, and avoiding any and all speculations.

Behind the yellow cords the patrollers had strung, the number of bystanders grew, and I could hear some of their murmurs and comments.

“…must be something…”

“…more Ferran saboteurs…has to be…patrollers and an imager…”

“…know what was there?”

“Clear the way!

At that command, I turned to see Subcommander Cydarth step out of a hack. I’d asked for Artois. Had the Commander ignored the message? Had he even gotten it? I just stood and watched Cydarth, waiting to see how he reacted.

When he caught sight of me, for just the slightest moment, the subcommander looked stunned. Then he made his way toward the yellow cord, lifting it, and ducking underneath, before walking toward me and my escorts.

“Good afternoon, Subcommander,” I offered.

“Good afternoon, Maitre Rhennthyl. Might I ask what you were doing here?”

“Oh…that.” I did manage a smile. “I was tracking down the banque representative who might have created the means by which Ferran agents obtained access to the engine works of the late Councilor Glendyl. Before we could properly discuss matters, the building exploded. I had some difficulty in extricating myself.”

“I do believe you’re the only man I know who’s escaped having two buildings explode around him.”

“I didn’t exactly plan either one,” I said as dryly as I could. “I’d barely been inside half a quint when it exploded.”

“But you had some difficulty getting out, it appears.”

“The door was blocked, and the window in front was false. There was a bookcase wall behind it.”

Cydarth looked skeptical. I really didn’t care.

“That’s against the building codes.”

“It may be against the codes, but that’s the way it was. There’s enough left there that you can see it’s so.”

“Who else was in the building?”

“I don’t know. I knocked, and someone called down from the second level to enter and to wait in the front foyer. I did, and before anyone arrived, there was an explosion and the building came down around me.”

“You’re fortunate you’re an imager.”

I didn’t answer that.

“Out of the way…Out of the way!”

Both Cydarth and I turned to see Commander Artois move through the crowd and under the cord. He immediately turned toward us and strode stiffly toward me, but when he stopped, his eyes landed on Cydarth. “Excuse us, Subcommander.” Artois’s glance at Cydarth was cold enough to have frozen the entire River Aluse.

I limped slightly after the Commander until he stopped in front of the corner of the River Association Building, still inside the cordon line, but back from the crowd that was beginning to disperse, since nothing more seemed to be happening, I suspected.

“Maitre Rhennthyl…it was strongly suggested that I be here. Why, might I ask?”

“So that any papers that are recovered from the ruins go to your hands and not into the hands of the subcommander. If you are not here, that is not likely to happen.”

He looked at me, then back to where the fire brigade still pumped water from another tanker over the one smoking spot in the rubble. “What do you want?”

“To look at any papers or documents you find. It’s likely that they’ll show to whom Vyktor lent golds…and perhaps did more than that.”

“Vyktor?”

“Oh…he is-or was-the ostensible agent for the Banque D’Ouestan here in L’Excelsis. They should find a body in there. It might be his.”

“You think he was behind all the explosions in L’Excelsis?”

“That…I don’t know. It’s likely that he supplied the golds to various agents, and that he was receiving those funds through the Banque D’Ouestan. It’s also likely that he lent golds, most likely supplied by Ferrum, to various factors and others who opposed High Holders, some of whom are Councilors. I thought you might wish to see those papers first. I would like to see them, all of them, as well, but it’s been a very trying afternoon, and I have to confess that I’m not at my best.”

“I can understand the Collegium’s interest.” He looked at me. “Unless you have other reasons, I doubt you need to remain. Do you need a hack?”

“I hope not. I think I have a coach around the corner.”

He nodded, then gestured to a patroller.

“If you’d escort Maitre Rhennthyl to his coach.”

“Yes, sir.”

I inclined my head politely, then walked back along the cordon line, accompanied by the patroller, toward where I thought the coach might be. The stone was cold, and I walked awkwardly, trying to be careful where I placed my unbooted foot. Thankfully, I did find the duty coach nearby, and I limped up into it, with one foot clad only in a very soiled stocking. Lebryn did stare for a moment. I was glad that he hadn’t been able to wait in front of the building.

When we reached Imagisle, I had Lebryn drop me at the administration building, where I made my way to see Maitre Dyana-after sending the duty prime to get some rags or something I could wrap around my nearly bare foot.

Her door was ajar, and Gherard just nodded, as if he didn’t even want to ask why I wanted to see her.

“You look somewhat the worse for wear,” observed Maitre Dyana as I stepped into her study and closed the door behind me. “Only one boot?”

“Just one, and I am.” I sat down and proceeded to recount the salient events of the day, from my confirmation of Glendyl’s not-suicide to the explosion and what followed.

After I finished, she looked at me for a time before asking, “Exactly what has all this accomplished, do you think?”

“We’ve temporarily removed one source of funding for Ferran operations here in Solidar. It’s fair to say that we have more evidence to bring before the Council on the larger danger Ferrum represents, and possibly on the need to modernize the fleet…as well as to undertake a few other changes. Artois may find more.”

“Summoning him was a deft touch. The fact that he found Cydarth already there may result in more disclosures. If he does find evidence, it will be his doing, not the Collegium’s.”

We talked a bit longer and then I left. Rather than search for boots or try to image one that fit, which would have required more effort than I thought I should make, I just wrapped rags and cloth around my unbooted foot and clumped out across the quadrangle and north to our house.

I’d barely stepped inside and shut the door when Diestrya ran toward me, saying, “Dada!” I scooped her up and held her tight. I found my eyes burning when I finally put her down.

Seliora stood in the archway from the parlor. “Your grays and cloak are dusty, and there are smears and smudges on your cheeks, and your foot is wrapped in rags. Is it hurt? What happened?”

“The rags are because my other boot was caught inside the building that another Ferran agent exploded around me.”

“Rhenn…” Her mouth opened.

“It’s all right. He’s dead.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Why don’t you get me some hot tea, and we’ll all sit down in the parlor, and I’ll tell you. It’s been a very long day, and I’m very glad to be home. I can’t tell you how glad.”