Imager's challenge

23

Because I was the duty master on Solayi, I could do more thinking and reading, and planning, but not much else. The day was uneventful, except for having to get up early. No would-be imagers appeared. No one reported any imagers killed or missing, and the dining hall was so deserted at midday that I was the only master there.

Even though I’d already told Shault that I’d delivered his coins and message on Meredi evening, I did motion him aside after lunch.

“How are your studies with Master Ghaend going?”

He didn’t quite meet my eyes.

“You’re having trouble with the reading?”

“Yes, sir.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that because, to me, reading had come almost naturally. “Is it the letters or the way they sound?”

“No, sir. It’s the words. I can sound them out, but there are so many that I don’t know what they mean.”

“Haven’t you heard of a dictionary?”

He looked absolutely blank.

“Come with me.”

As we walked, I began to explain. “A dictionary is a book that has all the words one could ever use, and it explains each word in smaller words, usually, anyway. . . .”

While the library was dark, as it always was on Solayi, I found a dictionary and signed it out to Shault, cautioning him that he’d have to pay for replacing it if he lost or damaged the book. Then I sent him on his way, but he seemed almost relieved.

A dictionary-something so simple that it was obvious . . . except to a very bright boy from the taudis and one who was still fearful enough that he didn’t want to ask anyone, and who would seemingly tell only me, and only if questioned.

Thankfully, that was the most eventful happening of Solayi.

I did have to get up earlier on Lundi to fit in both Clovyl’s exercises and sparring, as well as report on the duty to Master Schorzat. But I managed to arrive at Third District station before seventh glass in time to meet Alsoran before the morning patrols began.

Alsoran had definitely been picked for his patrol round on the basis of physical appearance and capability. He stood a good ten digits taller than me, and his shoulders were far broader. There wasn’t the faintest trace of extra flesh or fat around his midsection. His black hair was cut short and still faintly curly below his visored cap, and his eyebrows were thick and bushy, almost meeting above his nose.

“Good morning, Master Rhennthyl.”

“Good morning, Alsoran.”

“You ready?”

“As ready as I can be.” That meant that I was only holding very light shields, with triggers, because anything more caused a pounding headache. That wasn’t exactly ideal, but letting anyone know I was less than fully able would have been worse. I thought that it was unlikely that Mardoyt or Harraf would try anything too soon after the last incident, and I hoped I was right.

Without another word, we walked out of the station and headed southwest on Fuosta. We’d almost reached Quierca before Alsoran spoke again.

“I heard about what happened when you went with Huerl and Koshal.” Alsoran’s slightly high-pitched voice was mild. “I recall something like that happened to a first patroller out of headquarters, except he got killed instead of the brigands.”

“I’d heard that. I was assured it was an accident.” I laughed. “I’m not fond of accidents.”

“Being as you’re an imager, I’d wager you aren’t, sir. It does seem strange that they’ve got you walking rounds, not that I’m complaining, mind you.” The bushy eyebrows rose.

“The commander wants me to understand everything that you patrollers do. I got the feeling that he worries that if I don’t have that understanding, I might recommend something that might cause more problems than doing nothing.”

Alsoran shook his head. “Doesn’t hold on this round. In the taudis, someone’s always doing something wrong. You do something, and you got problems. You do nothing, and you got more problems.”

“You’re speaking from experience. How long have you had this round?”

“On and off, for six-seven years. They rotate us, but I always get rotated back here.” He laughed. “Suits me. The elvers and the taudischefs in my round know the rules, and they don’t give us problems. It’s always the young toughs, and most of them don’t last.” He shook his head good-naturedly. “Some of them get it, and they work out, but the others . . .”

I let a moment of silence pass before I asked, “How do you set up your round?”

“Always do a circle on the edges first. That way, you get a feel for the day and what’s happening before you get really inside the taudis. We go out South Middle or Quierca, doesn’t much matter, and then along the Avenue D’Artisans. The stretch along the avenue and the two streets behind it are the only part of the round that aren’t in the South Middle taudis. From the plaza or from Quierca, depending on which way we go, we head back to Mando-that’s the west end of the round. Lyonyt always says that Mando’s the border between nasty tough and really evil.”

“And your round takes in all the really evil side?”

“Nah . . . our side is just tough. But you can’t stop looking. The moment you do . . . that’s when trouble starts.”

We’d walked two blocks along Quierca. On the south side of the street were row houses, most with heavy shutters or bars on the lower windows, but the dwellings-mostly of faded and soot-stained yellow brick-were neat. Through the occasional gaps between the duplexes and triplexes, I could see hints of gardens and trees in the rear courtyards. On the north side, where we walked, there was the chest-high wall at the back edge of the sidewalk. The ground between the wall and the dwellings was mostly bare, except for straggly weeds. Still, after the first four blocks, most of the windows on the lower level had heavy shutters, and almost none had windows boarded shut, although I could see traces of smoke coming from chimneys of the few houses with boarded-up windows.

“Quiet this morning. Usually is on Lundi,” observed Alsoran.

Even the Avenue D’Artisans seemed to have fewer wagons and coaches, but that might well have been because I’d never been there so early in the morning before. The shops were still all shuttered. The walk back down South Middle was equally quiet, but the row dwellings on the south side, in the taudis, looked even more dilapidated than those off Quierca.

When we reached Mando, Alsoran looked to me. “From here on, don’t stop looking.”

“I won’t.” Especially since I was in no shape to hold full shields.

Mando was more like a lane than a street, and an odor of wastes, human and otherwise, drifted up around us.

“Don’t work on the sewers here much,” said Alsoran. “Can’t say I blame ’em.”

The lane ran three long blocks, then turned almost at a right angle and ran another three long blocks back to Quierca. We didn’t see anyone on the lane itself all the way, but a block or so short of the end I caught the smell of elveweed-a strong odor.

“Elveweed,” I noted.

“From the brown place there on the left,” replied Alsoran. “Always smell it there in the morning. Haven’t had any trouble, though. Not yet, anyway.”

“How long has it been that way?”

“Two-three years.”

“Have you noticed more elvers?”

“The captain just rotated us back here a month ago. Spent four months on a round east of the Guild Hall. Must be twice as many elvers since we were here last. Younger, too. The young ones steal more. Older ones work as loaders, smoke when they’re off. Youngers can’t be bothered to work.”

We turned back out Quierca to the next street. I couldn’t tell the name because the paint on the wall had been scratched away.

We made it to the last lane at the east end of the taudis area before we ran into trouble. Two blocks in on Saelio, a burly youth a half head taller than me leaned against a brick post that might once have held a lamp. He had a straggly beard that did little for his appearance, and the nearly new yellow and red plaid cloak did even less.

“Alsoran! You got a newbie.” The tough spat in my direction, but not at me.

I smiled. “You do that again, and you won’t have teeth to spit through.”

A long knife appeared. “Says who?”

“Don’t you think that’s an assault on a patroller?” I asked Alsoran, keeping my eye on the youth.

“Old man . . . stay out of it,” the tough warned. “What you going to do, newbie?” He spat again.

I cheated, admittedly, because I lifted full shields, if against my body, before I disarmed him, swept his legs out from under him, and dumped him on the stone pavement. The knife clattered to the stones. I kicked it away.

Inadvertent tears welled from his eyes as he massaged what was probably a sprained wrist. “Trolie bastard . . . get you . . .”

“No, you won’t. All you had to do was not spit and not draw a knife. I could have smashed your kneecap so you’d never walk right again,” I said in a conversational tone. “Consider it a kindness. Also consider that if you try it again, you just might not wake up after your face smashes into the pavement, rather than your backside.”

His eyes dropped to the gray imager trousers, then widened, and he scrambled to his feet, backing away and holding the injured wrist. “Yes, sir.”

I watched as he scuttled toward the narrow alleyway between two houses with crude heavy shutters over the lower windows.

“Gave you special training, did they?” asked Alsoran.

“Not that special. There are probably fifty others as good as I am. I’m just the newest.”

“You didn’t image anything.”

“Generally, I’d rather not.” That was true, if misleading.

“Better that way. He’ll remember that you took him without it.”

I hoped so. Even from the momentary use of shields, my head ached.

Fortunately, while we began to see people on the streets and lanes of the taudis during the second round, most were older.

One graying woman called from her front stoop. “Alsoran . . . Fedark got promoted. He’s a boatswain third.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Give him my best!”

As we continued on, Alsoran said, “Her boy was too smart and too good to stay here. I talked him into enlisting. They give a better deal to the enlistees than the ones they conscript.”

“That’s true of the imagers, too.” Very true, because imagers who didn’t come to the Collegium often ended up dead.

After the second full round, we stopped to eat at Elysto’s-a small bistro in the one good section of the round, just off the Boulevard D’Artisans-and I enjoyed the batter-fried lamb and onion croissant and the rice fries with the balsamic vinegar.

Then we were back on our feet once more, reversing the direction of the round.

For a good half glass, nothing occurred, although there were more people on the streets. We headed down Mando once more, where I caught sight of three taudis-toughs leaning against the low brick wall of a front porch.

One of them called out, “Such brave trolies. We do like our brave trolies.”

Another sang,

“See our trolies prance and go

Till the scripties start their show . . .”

“Such brave trolies.”

Alsoran flushed, but said nothing, not until we had almost reached South Middle.

“Hate the conscription teams. Most of the ones they pick up here just end up in the Westisle penal crews, and it takes weeks for things to settle out after they leave.”

“Do you think it could be worse this time, with the Tiempran priests stirring up things?”

“Sure as the Namer won’t be better.”

We walked through another round and more. It was close to third glass when we started up Kyena from Quierca toward South Middle.

Just as we neared a lane that was more like a narrow alleyway, I heard a faint click. A taudis-tough stepped out with a pistol aimed in our direction. I threw up shields, even as I snapped, “On the right.”

Except that it wasn’t on the right. As the one tough fired, three others charged from the left.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The shots slammed into my shields, driving me back. The impact felt like knives driving into my brain, and for a moment I couldn’t even see. Any imaging was definitely not a possibility.

As my eyes cleared, I saw that all five of the toughs had iron bars, and the bars had pointed ends.

I charged the one on the left, so that I could get under the bar before it swung down. My block was good enough that he dropped the bar to the pavement. It landed with a dull clang, but I’d already put an elbow through his throat, and he staggered away.

I used a side-kick on the next tough, right on his knee, and he pitched forward.

Alsoran had used his truncheon on one, who’d gone down, and had slammed it down on the wrist of a second with a sickening crunch. Another iron bar clanked on the uneven stones of the sidewalk.

The last tough vanished up the side lane.

Two figures lay on the pavement. The one hit with the truncheon on the head was unmoving and not breathing. The other had a leg twisted from the knee down and a bruise across his forehead. He was breathing.

Alsoran scooped up the pistol dropped by the one tough and slipped it somewhere under his cloak. Then he picked up the wounded taudis-tough and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of meal. “We’ll have to leave the other. One of us needs to have both hands free.”

It might have been better with me lugging the wounded tough, but I didn’t feel like saying so. My head was throbbing, and intermittent stabs of pain ran down my spine.

The remaining block of Kyena was eerily empty. So were the two short blocks from Kyena down South Middle to the nearest pickup point, where Alsoran laid the tough out on the ground next to the pole.

“He’s not going to wake up soon, maybe not at all.” Alsoran straightened, shaking himself to relieve sore muscles. “Those weren’t local, not from this part of the taudis.”

That didn’t surprise me. They had to be from the territory to the west of where we had been attacked, that part controlled by Youdh. That meant I had more to do after I finished my round with Alsoran. I realized that I had more than a few bruises, but I hadn’t felt being hit. Mostly I was angry. Every which way I turned, someone was after me for something. There wasn’t even much I could say as we waited by the pole for the pickup wagon.

“You didn’t image,” Alsoran finally said.

“I did. I blocked the shots from the pistol. After that, there wasn’t time. You have to be able to concentrate.” Again, that wasn’t totally true, but close enough.

He frowned.

“We do much better one on one,” I said, “or when there’s some distance between us and an attacker. Why do you think they train us to use our hands and feet?”

“For a middling-sized fellow, Master Rhennthyl, you do wallop folks.” He glanced down at the tough.

Even though I was taller than most, I guessed that I was just middling-sized to the massive Alsoran.

By the time we got back to Third District station with the still-unconscious tough, our round was supposed to be over, but it was close to two quints past four before we finished the round report and the initial charging sheet.

After that, I left the station and walked back up South Middle to Dugalle. My head still ached, if not quite so sharply. I saw one of the typical taudis-toughs, young with ragged-cut hair. He just looked at me as I walked closer.

“You know Horazt?”

“Yeah.”

I flipped a silver into the air. “That’s yours if you’ll find him and tell him Master Rhennthyl wants to see him. Now.”

The tough stiffened, then looked at me more closely, seeing the gray trousers and black boots for the first time. His eyes went back to the blue patroller’s cloak that I wore.

“I’m assigned to the Patrol for now. He knows that.”

“How do I know-”

“I can get word to Horazt in other ways, but it takes longer. If I have to do that, you won’t want to stay anywhere in L’Excelsis.”

“See what I can do.” He moved away, not quite ambling, but not hurrying too much, not in my sight, anyway.

I waited a good half glass for Horazt, and the sun had already dropped behind the taudis-dwellings south and west of South Middle before he appeared, accompanied by the younger man. As they sauntered toward me, Horazt’s almost-squat form was partly concealed by the black woolen cloak he wore.

“Here’s the silver I promised.” I tossed it over to the younger tough, who caught it.

“Bougyt . . . you can go.”

This time, the younger man hurried away.

“Master Rhennthyl. Must be important for you to come here so late, and to spend a silver just to find me.”

“I thought you’d like to know that your nephew Shault is doing well. He’s very bright, but he’s having to work hard.”

“That’d be good. Not why you came, I’d wager.”

“It’s not. Something happened that could matter for both of us. Five taudis-toughs attacked another patroller and me earlier this afternoon. We were patrolling the west end of the taudis. One’s dead, one’s been charged with assault on patrollers-if he lives.”

“You’re with that Alsoran . . .”

“He said that they weren’t from there, that they didn’t belong to the taudischefs in his round. I’d guess they didn’t belong to you, either.”

“If you know that, why come to me?”

“Because you might be able to tell me if they were Youdh’s men and why he sent them against Alsoran and me.”

“Don’t know.”

I waited, my eyes on the young taudischef, my thoughts suggesting that he’d be far better off telling me.

“Word is that Youdh’s got a deal with Harraf. Do favors for each other.”

“So Youdh’s got deals with the Tiempran priests and the captain?”

“That’s the word.” Horazt shrugged.

“And?”

“Word is that the taudis might get off easy when the scripties come if an imager isn’t around.”

I laughed. “Harraf can’t do anything about the conscription teams. Neither can the Collegium. They’re usually Navy, with naval marines doing the hard work, and they don’t even tell the Civic Patrol or the imagers when they’re coming. Even if Harraf knew, he couldn’t do anything about it.”

“What I figured,” Horazt said, “but I’m just a young taudischef, don’t know sowshit.” His words were delivered with a cheerful banter, but I suspected there was a bitterness behind them that would have curdled fresh cream.

“What will Youdh do?”

Horazt smiled. “Kill the ones who failed. If anyone asks him, he’ll claim that he had nothing to do with it.”

I’d almost expected that. “What would happen if something happened to Youdh?”

“Saelyhd would take over. He’s worse. Stupid and vicious.”

I didn’t need that, either. “That’s too bad. Might be better if he vanished before anything happens to Youdh.”

Horazt looked at me.

I ignored the look. “Will they try again soon?”

“Wouldn’t think so. Youdh wouldn’t want to lose too many with Jadhyl and Deyalt both wanting more territory.”

“They’re the taudischefs to the east of Youdh?”

Horazt nodded. “Best I be going. Good evening, Master Rhennthyl.”

I headed back down South Middle to where I could find a hack to take me back to the Collegium. I didn’t stop looking and studying every shadow in the twilight, not until I was in the coach and well clear of the area around Third District station.

So now what was I supposed to do?