Imager (16 page)

A series of dull clanks followed.

Not only did I have a bar, somewhat larger than the one I’d been shown, but there was a line of aluminum fragments on the stone floor running spiderweb-fashion toward the barrels.

Obviously, my vague link needed to be far less direct.

I kept trying, and by the end of the fourth glass, I was exhausted, and my head was pounding. But there was a wooden box filled with the metal ingots, some of which had been refashioned from all the loose fragments I’d created before I’d figured out how to image without creating patterns of aluminum running from the barrels. Yet, in the end, refashioning from the fragments had been far easier.

I finally just sat down on the stool that had been tucked away under the bench. I was just too tired to do more. When I’d first imaged that small part of the Factorius Masgayl’s portrait, I had had no idea how exhausting imaging would turn out to be.

Before long, Grandisyn walked in and crossed the floor to the wooden crate. He looked at the crate, and then at me. “Hmmmm. We may have to find other things for you. I’ll be talking to Master Dichartyn. You look done in. Go get some rest.”

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.

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 about it, and you haven’t, either.”

He sighed softly. “You deduce too much without knowing enough to understand the implications. Think about this. While at Imagisle or the few other imager enclaves across Solidar and while in L’Excelsis, we all wear the uniform of the Collegium. Without those uniforms, what would distinguish us from anyone else? We don’t look different; we don’t have a way of speaking that would distinguish us from others of Solidar.”

“So . . . some of us are spies? For the Collegium or the Council?”

He stiffened. “Where did you come up with that?”

“I’ve been thinking, sir. A master can kill someone in a way that doesn’t look to be tied to anyone. If Floryn had been walking down the street who would have known how he died? You said that I would have been found dead on the street had I not come here. You said I could develop shields against a bullet, but not against cannon. Those suggest that an imager can do things others can’t, but not things that would help much in any sort of battle. You also said that imagers provided value to the Council, and it has to be more than aluminum ingots.”

A wry smile appeared on his face. “I knew you were going to be difficult.”

I could feel a chill, and I was the one to freeze.

“Oh . . . you don’t have to worry, not yet. That will come later, after you finish your training, and that will take a while.”

That I would finish my training was a relief . . . in a way.

“I do think that you need to work on your shields, starting now. Try imaging something like an invisible fog between you and me.”

I tried, and I felt an unseen pressure on my chest.

“That’s not working. Try a curtain, a black curtain that stops all light, except that the curtain is one that you can’t see . . .”

We had to work up to an actual visual wall, and then work back down to an invisible muslin screen before I managed to figure it out. By that time, almost a glass later, I was sweating all over. Master Dichartyn could have pointed out that imaging was sometimes far more work than anyone thought. He didn’t have to. The effort spoke more eloquently than he could have.

He did raise his eyebrows. “Now . . . let’s see your logical proof, Rhennthyl. I assume you did the assignment.”

I handed him the single sheet with the few carefully written lines on it.

“Not very long for a proof.” His voice was noncommittal.

What I had written was simple, but I hadn’t been able to think of anything better.

If there is an all-powerful god, nothing is beyond that god’s power. If that god is beneficent, then there will be no evil in the world. If that god is just, the god will not allow injustice to befall the good and the innocent. Yet there is great evil in the world, and much of it falls upon the just and the innocent. A just god would prohibit or limit injustice, at least against the innocent, but injustice continues, so that if such a god is omnipotent, that god cannot be just. Therefore, if there is a god, that god cannot be omnipotent, beneficent, and just.

Master Dichartyn looked up from the paper. “This could be worded better.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you believe what you wrote?”

I hadn’t liked writing the proof, and I’d liked the conclusion less, but I had to believe that there was some truth in the matter. “Mostly . . . sir.”

“Mostly?”

“Well . . . if people aren’t marionettes, pulled by strings held by the Nameless, they have to be able to make some decisions. That includes bad decisions. Bad decisions can cause evil.”

“Then you’re arguing that your proof is incorrect because a good and beneficent god has to allow free will.”

I didn’t like that any better. “I don’t like the idea that so many people can be hurt by those bad decisions and that sometimes bad people are rewarded for their cruelty and evil.”

“What do your feelings tell you about your logical proof?”

“It isn’t logical? That I made a mistake?”

He laughed. “No. Your reaction was that you weren’t logical or that you made a mistake in logic. Behind your reaction is a feeling that whatever is ‘true’ must be able to be expressed logically. Men, in particular, have a tendency to confuse correct logic with an accurate assessment of a situation. Be careful of any situation that you have to reason through logically, because if you have to work to reason it out, you’re probably missing something.”

Again . . . I had to think about that for a moment.

“Another problem is that we want the world to be logical and understandable, and we want people to act in a way that feels right and makes sense to us. That’s true of most people in most countries. There are difficulties in that, though. Can you tell me what they are?”

“What makes sense to us doesn’t make sense to them?”

“Precisely. We have different beliefs about what we feel is right and makes sense. We take for granted certain beliefs or truths. Other cultures take for granted other truths. According to our truths, their behavior is not right, and according to their truths, our behavior is not right.”

That certainly made sense.

“So which is right?” he asked. “In the absolute sense, that is?”

“I can’t say, sir. I don’t know their truths.”

“That’s the logical answer, Rhennthyl. It’s also an answer you will need to keep to yourself. Why?”

“Because everyone around me believes our truths are right?”

He nodded. “People do not like their beliefs challenged. They want certainty, and they want everyone to follow their way, because they are convinced that their way is the only right way. Oh, there are a few open-minded people about, but far fewer than claim they are.”

I could see that as well, perhaps because I could recall all too well my father’s belief in the superiority of a life spent as a factor.

“Let me ask you another question. We are always cautioned not to attach too much weight or significance to a name. But isn’t calling the one who cannot be named ‘the Nameless’ just a convenient way of saying we’re following the rule of not emphasizing names while doing just that?”

“Sir?”

“Isn’t ‘the Nameless’ as much a name as ‘Dichartyn’ or ‘Rhennthyl’?”

Once again, I had to think about that. He was certainly right and yet . . .

“Rhenn?”

“Sir . . . how can we talk about anything without names? We name metals, the colors of the rainbow, the objects in everyday life.”

“Why are those different from the one who cannot be named? Or from you . . . or me?”

I finally grasped at an answer. “They’re not alive.”

“What about animals? We often name them. They’re alive. What does being alive have to do with names?”

I could feel that there was a difference, but I couldn’t find any words to express what I felt, and I finally shrugged, helplessly.

“Metals, objects, minerals . . . they cannot change what they are. All fundamental substances can only exist in three forms, like water, which we can see as steam, a vapor or gas, or as a liquid, or as a solid, as ice. The nature of most objects is limited, whereas we exist as solids, except we breathe air, which is a combination of gases, and blood and other liquids run through us. We are less fixed than the hard physical world in which we live, and yet naming suggests a fixity which is not true . . .”

But was it untrue? I doubted some people could ever change.

“. . . Names are a necessary convenience, but they represent only a small proportion of what anyone is, and the more alive, the more powerful, the more talented anyone may be, regardless of whether they are good or evil, the less their name tells of them.”

I understood everything Master Dichartyn had said, but the more questions he asked, the more I wondered why he continued to press me on so many matters.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go over the next section in the science book and sections nine and ten in the
History and Politics of Solidar
.”

I nodded politely.

“We’re almost done here, but there’s one last thing.” Master Dichartyn stood.

“Yes, sir?” I also rose, wondering what else he could say.

“You can tell the other seconds that there was a strange fire at the Collegium at Westisle. That’s the Collegium outside the harbor of Liantiago. That was what we were meeting about. We’ve decided on a course of action, but that is all you are to know or should know at this point.” He smiled. “Good day, Rhenn, and pace yourself at the workshop.”

“Good day, sir. Yes, sir.”

I had thought about sitting outside and reading some of the history and politics, but it was misty and cold, not that it was actually raining, and so I took everything back to my room and started in on section nine—the one dealing with the administrative districts of Solidar.

That reading was dull, so dull that I was one of the first at the dining hall for lunch, but Johanyr, Shannyr, and Diazt were right behind me, and we sat together at the long second table.

“Did Master Dichartyn say anything to you?” asked Johanyr.

“He said that I could tell you the masters were meeting over a strange fire at the Collegium at Westisle, and that they’ve decided what to do, and that was all I needed to know.”