Imager (21 page)

After eating, I hurried back to my quarters and changed into the exercise clothes, then hurried back to the exercise rooms. I had to look at a copy of the map, because I didn’t remember where they were. I still made it to the foyer outside the rooms before the first afternoon bell rang.

A muscular figure in the same sort of exercise clothes appeared. He looked closer to my father’s age, although he was far trimmer, but his black hair was streaked with gray.

“You’re the latest savior of the seconds?”

“I’m Rhennthyl, sir. Are you Clovyl, sir?”

“Most polite. I can see why Johanyr overstepped himself.” He nodded. “Have you ever been physically trained?”

“No, sir, except for grammaire.”

“You’re going to have a difficult few months ahead. The reason for this is simple, but I won’t make you guess. The duties Master Dichartyn has planned for you will take a great amount of physical strength and conditioning. You understand that imaging is work, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s get started.” He turned abruptly and went through the middle door.

I hurried after him, closing the door behind me.

He gestured to the exercise mat. “You’ll see more of that than you’d like. After the first two weeks or so, you’ll join the other thirds in their workouts, but right now, all you’d end up doing is hurting yourself and getting frustrated. I’m going to show you a series of exercises, and you’re to do them exactly as I show you them. Exactly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The first set is limbering and stretching. That’s so that the later ones don’t hurt you . . .”

When Clovyl said exactly, he meant exactly. At the end of the first half glass, I was soaked in sweat, and he’d corrected me a score of times.

“Your legs stay straight!”

“Keep your heels on the floor!”

I was trying to do the best I could, but I’d never even seen any of the exercises he showed me and then ordered me to do.

“You need a break.” His expression was close to disgust. “Follow me.”

I would have liked to say that I scrambled off the exercise mat, but my movements were more like a stagger to my feet as I walked after him and through a doorway into the adjoining exercise room.

What looked to be a cloth-covered mannequin hung from a rope attached to an iron ceiling bracket. Certain areas were marked in red, and several in maroon. Clovyl walked over to the dummy and pointed. “The red marks the places where, if you strike a man hard enough, you will disable or kill him. When I am finished training you, you should be able to know exactly how and where to strike without looking and without having to think about it—either through imaging or with hands or anything else. You will also have the strength to do so, even if you have just run a mille at full speed.” He paused. “Why do you think this is necessary?”

“Because I’ll be assigned to places where I may not be able to image or where it will not be wise to do so, and I won’t have any weapons at hand? Or even if I can image, I won’t have time to think about where.”

Clovyl nodded solemnly. Then he said, “That’s enough of a break.”

The first set of exercises had only been warm-ups compared to what followed, and I tottered back to the quarters building slightly before the fourth glass. My exercise clothes were soaked, and so was I. With a chill spring breeze blowing across the quadrangle I was shivering, even before I took a too-cold shower to clean up. After I dressed, I tried to read the appendix to the history, but the procedures were so dull that I fell asleep.

I woke at the fifth bell and managed to read some more . . . and I
thought
I might remember some of what I read.

At dinner, Kahlasa introduced me to two other thirds—Dierkyl and Sonalya. They asked me about portraiture, and I asked them about exercises. They laughed.

At the seventh glass, I was once more outside Master Dichartyn’s study.

He arrived shortly and opened the door.

“Clovyl says that your coordination and skill aren’t bad, but that your conditioning needs work. For him, that’s almost a compliment. How do you feel?”

“I’m tired.”

“You’d better get used to it. Or as Maitre Deloityn said to me when I was about your age, ‘Welcome to the real world, where you never have enough time, energy, or golds.’ ” He paused. “You’re too tired to deal with shields tonight. So we’ll work on precision imagery.” He lifted a wooden ring about fifteen digits across, and then set four small wooden cylinders on his desk. “I’m going to hold this ring up, and I want you to image one of the cylinders into the open center of the ring.”

“Yes, sir.” That I could do, but I had a feeling that worse was coming.

He held up the ring.

I concentrated and imaged a cylinder. One vanished from the desk and appeared in midair in the middle of the ring. Master Dichartyn reached out and caught it with his free hand. “Now I’m going to move the ring back and forth slowly. You still have to put it in the middle of the ring.”

It was going to be a long glass—that I knew.

The difference between an explanation and an excuse

lies with the one receiving it.

I’d had to write the essay on the reason for the Collegium’s secrecy in protecting councilors after working with Master Dichartyn on imaging skills on Mardi night. That was more than a little difficult, because, first, I was so tired that I could hardly think and, second, I knew nothing about how the Collegium actually handled protection. Because I could not keep my eyes open any longer after writing the essay, I went to bed. Then, I’d had to get up early on Meredi to read the appendix on Council procedures and precedents. I had to read it twice, and I doubted that I understood a fraction of what I read, because it seemed so arcane. While I waited outside Master Dichartyn’s study, I even read the first ten pages of the procedural appendix again, but I still wasn’t sure I understood it any better.

Once he summoned me into his study, Master Dichartyn didn’t waste any time. “Let me see your paper on imager secrecy.”

I handed it over and sat in the chair opposite him while he read it.

Finally, he looked up. He did not look pleased. “This is not a good essay, Rhennthyl. There are mistakes in grammar and in logic, and your scrivening is sloppy.”

“Yes, sir. I know, sir.”

“If you know, why did you turn in something so bad?”

“I didn’t have enough time to do it better last night, and I was so tired that I couldn’t think straight, sir.”

“You will redo this and hand in a more acceptable effort tomorrow—a much more acceptable effort. Now . . . on to your reading assignment. What is the ostensible purpose of a call for quorum in the Council and what is the real purpose?”

The first part I recalled. “A call for quorum is made to assure that a majority of the Council is present so that important business may be brought before the Council.”

“That is indeed the procedural purpose. What is the real purpose?”

I had not the slightest idea. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Don’t you think that most members of the Council would be present if truly important matters were to be discussed?”

“I would think so, sir.”

“Then why would anyone need to require a call for quorum?”

“To keep someone from bringing up something else?”

“That is partly correct. It’s most generally used, however, to delay proceedings so that members can persuade others or reconsider strategy, or so that the entire Council can avoid making a decision.”

Avoid making a decision? Couldn’t they just not vote or decide? “Would that be to avoid even bringing up something that they were not ready to decide upon?”

“I think I just said that.” Master Dichartyn’s voice was sharp.

“I’m sorry, sir. What I was trying to say was that they might use it even to avoid the appearance of avoiding making a decision.”

“That’s more accurate, far more accurate.” The sharpness faded from his voice. “Now . . . is a point of order a procedural stalling tactic or a valid objection?”

“Ah . . . both?”

“Rhenn . . . you don’t seem all that certain about what you read. Why not?”

“I read that section twice, sir, and part of it a third time.”

“Surely, with that much perusal you could remember with more certainty.”

What did he want? I was doing the best I could do.

Master Dichartyn’s face turned even more stern. “Rhennthyl . . . you may have talent, but you definitely do not understand one basic thing about the Collegium and the world. No one cares whether you are tired, whether you had a hard day, or whether you have trouble thinking straight. In fact, if you let anyone know when you feel that way, it may well result in either your death or your immediate retirement to Mont D’Image with your friend Johanyr.”

I did hide a swallow at that.

“Being a fully-trained imager is one of the most difficult professions to master, and failure to master it will mean either that you will end up in the machine works or the armory or some lesser position or that you will be injured or die.” He paused for a moment. “I have the feeling that you do not wish to spend your life doing something beneath your potential. Am I wrong?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you will need to use your time more effectively. If you cannot think after a long day of effort, you need to rise earlier and do your reading and assignments then. Short naps also help. Long naps are worse than no naps, because they disrupt your sleep, and you end up more tired than ever.”

“Yes, sir.”

After that, he was
slightly
less sharp, but his questions were as probing as ever, and I felt like I knew almost nothing.

Finally, he stopped examining me on the procedures appendix and said, “Read the appendix again, and think more about it. I also want you to read the next section in the science text, the one about anatomy.” He paused. “Master Draffyd overheard something about your wanting to paint portraits.”

“No, sir. Not exactly. Some of the thirds asked if I could paint their portraits. I said that I couldn’t do that for coins . . . but I suppose I could let them give me supplies and brushes. Would there be anywhere I could set up a small studio?”

“You want to do more? You just told me you were having trouble doing what has been assigned to you.”

“I didn’t mean right now. It would take weeks even to obtain everything, and I wouldn’t even think of trying it unless I was doing well enough that you approved. But I wanted to know if it might be possible. If it is not, I understand, and I will not bring up the matter again.”

Master Dichartyn frowned for a moment, then suddenly smiled, and nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it might be well for you to keep that skill. It could be most useful, and some of the masters here have not ever had portraits . . .”

That was the best part of the day.

I had to go back to my quarters and rewrite my essay on secrecy and then pore over the procedural appendix yet again. Lunch was one of the few meals I could barely eat—a strong liver and onion ragout whose smell nearly turned my guts inside out. Even the bread tasted like onions and liver to me. I hurried to get into my exercise clothing. Clovyl worked me hard for a glass with exercises, and then took me on a run—twice all the way around Imagisle, close to four milles. He was barely breathing hard, and I was panting and gasping and sweat-soaked when I tottered to a halt outside the exercise rooms.

Then came my first instruction in hand-to-hand fighting, where Clovyl demonstrated a move, and I had to mimic it exactly. Exactly.

After his instruction, which lasted well past the fourth glass, and left me almost as sweat-soaked as the run had, I showered again, and took a short nap and then read the next section of the science text, the one on human anatomy. Dinner was better, a rice and cheese dish with some sort of fowl.

Then I had to return to Master Dichartyn’s study by the seventh glass and work on imaging with and passing items through moving objects. At that point, my muscles were getting sore, very sore, and I tried not to think about the fact that I had a month of this sort of training ahead of me . . . if not more.

I did force myself to hang up my clothes and put everything in my quarters where it should be before I climbed under my blankets.

Those who speak of “good people” with great
conviction are to be feared.

The next two and a half weeks followed the same pattern of that first full day as an imager tertius in training, a day that could well have been called a Day of the Namer—except that each day except Solayis was more difficult than the day before, and it would have been repetitious to attribute the trials of each to the Namer. Along the way, I managed a visit to the barber, prompted by Master Dichartyn. By the time the morning of Vendrei the twenty-seventh of Avryl had arrived, I had to admit that I was developing muscles I hadn’t realized I had, and I could certainly run farther and faster, and I was so tired every night that I had little trouble falling asleep. The muscular soreness had also abated, and Clovyl had grudgingly admitted the afternoon before that my skills in defending myself had improved.

“You might be able to take down most common footpads now, but your knifework needs work.” Clovyl had shrugged. “You’re getting there, but don’t go getting any ideas.”

Most evenings I worked with Master Dichartyn on shields and specialized imaging, including the differences in handling powders and liquids, and even air itself.

After much more reading and rereading, and more than a few pointed questions from Master Dichartyn, I did understand the rules and procedures of the Council, finally. “Better than some of the councilors,” he admitted.

Still, that morning, he asked me another question that I’d never heard, just another in a seemingly endless series of such. “Do you know the ‘good people’ fallacy?”

“That wasn’t in anything I’ve ever read,” I said, adding quickly, “I don’t think.”

“That wasn’t a bad recovery,” he replied with a smile, “but I’d suggest saying something like, ‘There are a number of fallacies involving good people. Which one did you have in mind?’ Of course, to say that, you’d best have a few in mind.”

I didn’t have any in mind, and he knew it.

“The fallacy is that someone who is good cannot do evil. I get rather suspicious when someone talks about another as being a good person. A man may do good in every small way on every day, and yet be a part of great evil. Even a land cannot be accurately judged by the number of good or bad people within it. All lands have good and bad individuals. The goodness or evil of a land is determined by what that land does as a whole. A handful of evil leaders can pursue hatred and destruction, while the majority of so-called good-hearted souls do nothing. Less frequently, but still occurring, are the instances where good-hearted leaders lead a populace whose individuals are predominantly selfish and cruel, and the acts of such a land under such leaders are praiseworthy. All too often, the term ‘good people’ is used as an excuse, as in the phrase ‘but they were good people.’ ”

I could see that, and I’d even heard words like that from my parents.

“How would you judge Solidar, Rhenn? Is it a good land or less than good?”

“Compared to what, sir? I know only what I have read about other lands, and I haven’t even met that many different kinds of people in L’Excelsis. I’ve never really met a High Holder or many from the taudis or other countries.”

“That’s a fair answer. Not helpful, but honest. Shall we say . . . compared to what you think it could be.”

I wasn’t at all certain why Master Dichartyn pressed such questions, although I could understand his efforts to get me to think and to point out errors in my facts or thinking. “Ideally, any country could be better than it is, if people acted as well as they could, but they often do not. Solidar is like that, but I don’t see the kinds of cruelties that I read about in places like Caenen.”

“How do you know what you read is accurate?”

“I don’t, not for certain. But the reporters aren’t locked up for what they write, not often, anyway, and that would indicate there has to be some truth in what they write.”

“There is some truth in what you say, but your logic is weak. What if the reporters know what is acceptable to the Council and what is not? Then what?”

“I’d say that what is acceptable could not be totally inaccurate, because, if it were, then word would get around. It’s hard to hide something that’s wrong.”

“The first part of what you said is absolutely correct. The second part is half true. Can you tell me why it is only half true? Based on your own life and experience?”

For a moment, I had no idea what he meant. Then I did—Master Caliostrus and Ostrius. I managed not to show any reaction. “Some things, perhaps isolated events that few care about, can be hidden, but large and repeated patterns of evil cannot be kept secret forever?”

“That’s a fair approximation, although I would be leery of using the term ‘patterns of evil.’ Evil can be in the eye of the beholder. Some of what is evil to us is not to the Caenenans, and the other way around. Patterns contrary to the sensibilities of a people cannot be repeated without being noticed.”

That was a way of expressing it that I wouldn’t have thought of.

“How much, then, do you think that the Council controls what appears in the newsheets?”

“I don’t
know
, sir, but I would guess that there is very little direct interference.”

He nodded. “I’d like you to think about that and write a paper on it. You’ll have some time because I’ll be away for the next few weeks, beginning this afternoon.” He reached to the side of his desk and lifted a black-bound book, which he then handed to me. “Read the first two sections before Lundi.”

I opened the heavy tome to the title page—
Jurisprudence
. Now I was going to have to learn the actual legal code of Solidar?

“While I’m gone, you will work on learning more about the laws and how they work with Master Jhulian, but at half past seventh glass in the morning, starting on Lundi. His study is at the end of the hall on the right. You will meet with Maitre Dyana next Mardi evening and on whatever other evenings she sets. She asked that you wait outside the dining hall for her.”

“Yes, sir. Am I still restricted to Imagisle?”

“No, but I would suggest you avoid the more dangerous areas of L’Excelsis. Clovyl says you should be able to handle common dangers, but not large groups, or more than a pair of hired bravos. What did you have in mind, if I might ask?”

“I thought I might call on my family, and perhaps eat a meal in a bistro, things like that.”

“Those I would recommend. You need to see L’Excelsis again.”

I didn’t realize how strange those words were until after I left him to go study.