Imager’s Battalion (13 page)

“Captain, while it appears as though we may have fixed this winch, I honestly cannot tell if the repairs the imagers have made will stand the strain of operation. Can you turn it without any load just to see if the gears mesh properly? And do so very slowly?”

“We can, sir.”

Once again, Quaeryt waited, as did the imagers.

Everything about war is a flurry of action, then a lot of waiting, or slow traveling, followed by action, and more waiting.
At least, that was the impression he’d gotten in the Tilboran Revolt, and the war against Bovaria looked to be following the same pattern.

Finally, a crew of rankers appeared and took the capstan bars, rather than the ox, which also appeared to be missing, but then the engineers might have removed the animal to work on the equipment.

“Forward, slowly…” called the captain. “So far … so good.”

“A little faster, now…”

After a time the engineer called out, “Stop … that will do.” He turned to Quaeryt. “It seems to work. Thank you, sir … imagers.”

“This isn’t something we normally do,” Quaeryt said. “We just hope the repairs will hold.”

“Well … you cleaned out all the smashed pieces, and that alone was a help.”

Quaeryt turned to the undercaptains. “Thank you. Now, you can return to the inn, or you can walk through the town, but you need to do so in pairs. We’ll meet at the inn a quint before mess … dinner.”

“Yes, sir.”

Desyrk and Baelthm were the first to leave, followed by Akoryt and Threkhyl. Voltyr and Shaelyt remained, then eased toward Quaeryt as he headed to the stone steps up to the tower.

“Sir…?” offered Voltyr.

“Yes…?”

“The winch … how did you know…?”

“All that iron,” added Shaelyt.

Quaeryt smiled. “I didn’t, not for certain, but there are winches and capstans on every merchant ship, and I spent six years at sea. This wasn’t that different. It’s a bit heavier and simpler, that’s all.”

“Sir … it seemed like—”

“It was a great deal of work for all of you, but the engineers appreciate it, and so do I, a great deal, and I think it probably improved all of your imaging skills and controls. Don’t you?” Quaeryt smiled warmly.

Voltyr looked to Shaelyt.

The Pharsi nodded, then smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“I’ll see you both later at the inn.”

“Yes, sir.”

The pair nodded respectfully, then stepped back and turned.

Quaeryt knew very well what that had all been about, but he hadn’t even wanted to let them ask the question, especially not in public and with the engineer not all that far away. He stood for a moment, watching as the two undercaptains walked off the wharf toward the main street, talking quietly. Then he turned and headed for the stone steps.

Skarpa, surprisingly, was waiting when Quaeryt returned to the tower courtyard, breathing heavily from the climb back up the steep steps from the ferry slips.

“Did you repair that winch?”

“It’s no longer jammed. Whether the repairs the imagers made will hold under strain, I can’t tell. Neither can the engineers.” Quaeryt paused, then added, “We did manage to image out all the broken pieces.”

“By the time this war is over, you and those imagers will be worth a regiment.”

Quaeryt hoped so … if he were ever to make the position of scholars and imagers more secure, but he only said, “I’m trying to get them to do what they can and to improve their abilities as much as possible.”
And before long, when they’re better imagers, I’ll have to decide whether to teach them about shields … or whom to teach and how.

“That’s becoming clear. I’ll see you later,” said Skarpa, mounting and then riding out of the courtyard.

Quaeryt mounted. He needed to ride through the town and see how orderly things were, and how the patrols were working out.

14

Although it was close to ninth glass when Quaeryt returned to his small room in the inn on Mardi night, he was anything but sleepy after checking the patrols of the town’s streets. Some of that might also have been the aftereffect of imaging. So … although he knew it might be days, if not weeks, before he could send a letter to Valeora, he sat on the edge of the bed and used the small table there to write. Part of his reason, he had to admit, was also knowing that if he did have a chance to send something, he might not have time to compose it. The words did not come easily, but finally he had written all that he could.

My dear,

We are now in Rivecote Sud, where there is a cable ferry across the Aluse, or was until the Bovarians cut the cables, and we must wait for our forces advancing along the north side of the river to catch up to us.

Several days ago we came across a small Bovarian force that was setting fields of winter wheat corn afire. We managed to stop the worst of the damage and tied up the men we caught and left them for the locals. The wheat wasn’t quite ready for harvest. Even if it had been, we couldn’t have taken the time to harvest it. But Kharst was sending men to destroy his own people’s crops, as if torching the land would help. We’ll either hold Variana before winter or we’ll have withdrawn. Either way, all that sort of act does is hurt the people.

Quaeryt had stopped writing there because he wasn’t certain of his conclusion. He wasn’t even sure about Bhayar withdrawing if the Telaryn forces couldn’t take Variana. He
thought
Bhayar wouldn’t be foolish enough to continue an indeterminate or losing war … but he couldn’t be certain. The only thing Quaeryt was certain about was that so long as fighting continued, no matter how matters appeared, nothing was truly certain.

Probable … but not certain.

He still was anything but sleepy.

Reading the book about Rholan might put you to sleep …

With that thought, he took out the small volume and leafed through the pages, trying to see if he could find something the ancient writer had put down that might, in some way, be applicable to what had happened in Rivecote Sud. A word struck him, and he stopped turning pages and began to read from the top of the page.

… Self-created mythologies are a form of Naming. On that point, Rholan and I agree, not that he ever deigned to acknowledge when others were right, except in noting that they agreed with him. Rulers and would-be conquerors create their own mythologies. Rex Caldor has just claimed that he has unified Bovaria, but what he means is that he has merely reduced the total independence of the High Holders and entered into an arrangement of mutual distrust based on the realization that he can destroy any one of them, or even several, who displease him, but not the High Holders as a body. Khel remains fiercely aloof, and Caldor is not enough of a fool to enter war with either Khel or his own High Holders. Yet, if Caldor’s words triumph over his actions, he will be remembered as the unifier of Bovaria, until another “great” conqueror appears …

Will Bhayar be that conqueror?
wondered Quaeryt.

… because, of course, all such conquerors, or would-be conquerors, style themselves as “great.” Rholan understood this and observed that when a man instructed others to refer to him as “great,” it was absolute evidence that he had become an apostle of the Namer. More interesting is the fact that this is already one of his few observations that has lapsed into oblivion, and only in a few short years.

Hengyst is now claiming that Ryntar and Tela must unite …

Quaeryt paused.
This was written in the time of Hengyst, but before the unification. So who is the writer, if he knows Caldor—or about him?
Because he had no answers, he continued to read.

… in order to avoid being swept into Bovaria. It remains to be seen how much of that is because Tilbor offers little in the way of men, gold, and resources, and a will to resist to the last hill holder, and Tela is scarcely more than a patchwork of high holdings agreeing to accept Ofryk as Lord of Tela so long as he does not impose unduly on their privileges. Tela will fall, as have all lands whose local interests supersede those of the greater good, and even Rholan’s efforts to unite the people under the Nameless have fallen short.

It could not have been otherwise, for those who have listened to his words have little power, and those who have power have not listened. So it often is with the words of those who proffer wisdom. That may be because so few can tell the difference between what is wisdom and what they wish to believe as wisdom …

Quaeryt stifled a yawn. Fascinating as the small volume was in its odd way, and with its puzzles about who the writer was and how accurate his depiction of Rholan was, he was getting sleepy … and tomorrow would come all too soon.

He closed the book, snuffed the oil lamp, and partially disrobed for bed, yawning once more.

15

Even after his reading and writing, or perhaps because of it, Quaeryt still did not sleep well, with dreams he could not remember, but which left an after-sense of unease, and he found it difficult to rouse himself. Even though he did manage to struggle awake and washed and dressed quickly, he didn’t get down to the public room of the Grande Sud for breakfast until two quints before seventh glass. Skarpa, Meinyt, and most of the other officers had already left when Quaeryt sat down at a small table near the wall. Several junior engineers were seated at another table, but were rising to leave, and there were no other officers remaining in the public room.

A server stepped up to the table, a woman neither girlish nor matronly in appearance, but with the demeanor of someone not quite worn out by life, but well on the way. “We’ve got cheese and eggs and biscuits with milk gravy.”

“That will be fine. Do you have lager?”

“Amber, not pale.”

“Good.”

“The commander fellow said we got to charge three coppers plus two for the lager. No more, no less.”

Quaeryt eased five coppers onto the table.

The server scooped up the coins, then paused as her eyes took in the silver crescent moon insignia. “You got the same emblem on your collars as him, except yours are silver. You a commander, too?”

“A subcommander.”

She nodded, then hurried toward the kitchen, returning immediately with a beaker of lager. “Be a bit for the eggs and biscuits. You got a different uniform from the others. Different color anyway. That mean anything?”

“I was a scholar before I was an officer. That’s why it’s shaded brown.”

“Never seen a scholar before. Heard tell of ’em. Not much more. What do scholars do?” Her voice suggested she felt she had to say something, rather than that she was truly interested.

“Some do the same things as other people. Some teach children. Others write books. Some advise rulers or High Holders.”

“What about you?”

Quaeryt laughed softly. “A little of all that, before I ended up as an officer, anyway.”

“How did that happen?”

“That’s a long story. Just say that I asked the wrong question, and I ended up in the middle of the Tilboran Revolt, and it turned out that I managed to lead some troops and we all survived.” That was a gross oversimplification, but he didn’t want to explain.

“You must have been pretty good, then.”

He took a swallow of the lager, not to be impolite, but because his mouth and throat were dry. Then he shrugged and smiled wryly. “There’s no way to answer that. I was good enough to survive and keep too many men from being killed.”

Still standing there, she glanced toward the archway into the kitchen, then spoke in a lower voice. “Some of the old fellows said that you Telaryns have imagers and you didn’t fight fair. You imaged them with pepper dust.”

Quaeryt looked directly at her. “Would you rather have them all dead? That was what would have happened otherwise. They weren’t that well trained, and most of them would have died. Our fight isn’t with you or the people here. It’s with Rex Kharst. Right after thousands of people were killed in an eruption, he massed his troopers and tried to invade Telaryn. And right after the Red Death struck Khel, he did the same thing. It wasn’t our idea to fight. It was his, and we’re going after him so we don’t have to keep worrying about him.”

The server looked at him without speaking.

Quaeryt smiled softly. “Do you know why all those soldiers are riding patrols down your streets? It’s to keep order, so that no one gets hurt. Last week, we found Bovarian soldiers firing the fields of growers. We stopped as much as we could. We couldn’t have used that wheat, but Rex Kharst ordered it destroyed. The only people who will suffer are those poor growers.”

“I’d best get your food.” Abruptly she turned and walked away.

Quaeryt almost sighed. He shouldn’t have tried to explain. No one wanted explanations, and most people didn’t care. The writer of the old book had that correct in his observations about wisdom.
If you believed him, then why did you bother?

He took another swallow of the amber lager. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either.

16

Quaeryt, Meinyt, and Skarpa sat at a circular table in the public room of the Grande Sud just before eighth glass on Meredi.

“I’ve sent out scouts along the river in both directions,” announced Skarpa. “The ones to the east will look to see how far Deucalon has advanced. The ones to the west”—he shrugged—“you both know what they’re looking for.” He looked to Quaeryt. “We need more supplies. The marshal told me to obtain them with as little cost as possible. What do you suggest?”

“Do we have the golds to pay for them?”

“We have some golds, but not enough to take us all the way to Variana.”

“Then we find the least popular High Holder around and persuade him to supply us at a very reasonable cost,” said Quaeryt.

“That might cost us more troops than taking Rivecote Sud,” said Meinyt.

“Not if we take imagers out with us,” suggested Quaeryt.

Skarpa nodded.