Gherard did not return. Instead another man came. He was, not unsurprisingly, attired in exactly the same fashion as the other two imagers. Unlike them, however, he was older, graying, and radiated a certain sense of power. He also did not sit down. “I’m Master Dichartyn. You’re Rhennthyl, formerly Rhennthyl D’Caliostrus?”
“Yes, sir.” I stood quickly.
“Gherard said that you imaged a comb. I’d appreciate it if you would attempt to image this.” He set a small topless box on the flat table, almost small enough to rest on my palm.
“Might I examine it, sir?”
“Please do.”
I picked it up. It was cast or formed from some sort of metal, but none that I knew, for although it was silvery in color, it was far lighter than either iron or silver or even tin, I thought. All I could do was hold it, try to feel it, before setting it on the table and then concentrating on its shape and size and the feeling of lightness. Visualizing the box was somehow both easy . . . and difficult. Even so, another box appeared on the table beside the first. To me, they looked the same, but I was so light-headed that I had to put out a hand to the back of the nearest chair and steady myself. I’d never felt weak before when I’d imaged things.
Master Dichartyn looked at both boxes, then picked up the one I had imaged, then the other, weighing them in his hands. After a moment, he shook his head.
I wondered what I’d done wrong.
“You’re an imager, and you could be a very good one. Given your background, Rhennthyl, I can’t say that you’ll like it, but you don’t have much choice.”
I already knew that.
16
Accepting what is not is the hardest aspect of imaging,
indeed, of any profession requiring great skill.
For the next few glasses, I felt like all I did was walk from one gray building to another, or from one part of a building to another, guided by Gherard, rather than Petryn or Master Dichartyn. In the process, I gathered three sets of gray garments, five sets of paler gray undergarments, black boots, imaged to fit my feet by a graying imager, as well as a stack of five bound books. I also got a heavy gray wool cloak for cold weather and a pair of gloves. One set of garments I donned immediately, and the other sets and the books were deposited in the narrow armoire in the stark gray room on the second floor of the building that housed imagers of the primus and secondus levels.
“For now,” Gherard told me, as he guided me back toward the first building, which I’d learned was the administrative building, “you’re a primus, but once you know the basics about the Collegium, they’ll probably make you a secondus.”
“You don’t have to serve a mandatory apprenticeship?”
He shook his head. “It’s all by ability. There are some imagers primus who are over sixty. It’s all they’ll ever be.” He frowned. “There are some masters in their late twenties, but no one’s ever attained a rank above Maitre D’Structure before around forty, and there are only two Maitres D’Esprit.”
I must have looked blank.
“There are three levels of regular imagers-primus, secondus, and tertius-and four master levels: Maitre D’Aspect, Maitre D’Structure, Maitre D’Esprit, and Maitre D’Image. Most imagers in the Collegium are either imagers secondus or tertius. Right now, I think there are perhaps fifteen Maitres D’Aspect, but there might be more.”
The number didn’t surprise me. There were only about that many master portraiturists in L’Excelsis. But with so few, I had to wonder why he didn’t know the exact number.
“I hope you read well and quickly, because you’re starting late, and you have a lot to learn. You’ll have to learn basic chemistry, something about metals, and how living things-trees and people, mostly-work, and all sorts of things about combustion, but that’s mostly for self-protection. Master Dichartyn will explain everything in more detail, including your duties.”
He didn’t say much more after that, but just escorted me back to the same room where I’d begun and left me there, where I sat for a time before Master Dicharytn appeared.
I immediately rose. “Sir.”
He waved me back to the seat I had taken. “You have garments, quarters, and books now, I take it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have anything personal that you would like to bring? You can have personal items like quilts, pillows, bedclothing, paintings or wall hangings, small rugs. No clothing, except nightwear, and no personal jewelry.”
“No, sir. Most of my personal things were destroyed.” And I certainly wasn’t about to ask my parents for anything.
Master Dichartyn nodded. “Now . . . let me go over some very basic rules. First, until you are told otherwise, and only by a master, you are not to leave Imagisle. Usually, this restriction lasts anywhere from one to three months, depending on how fast you learn a number of things. Second, after we finish today, you are to take the map I will give you, and you will spend the rest of the day learning where every chamber and building on the isle is. Do not enter any room where the door is closed. . . .
“The dining hall serves breakfast from the sixth glass of the morning, a midday meal between noon and the first glass of the afternoon, and dinner at the sixth glass of the afternoon. Seating is roughly by position. There is a table for imagers primus, one for imagers secondus and tertius, and a third for maitres . . .”
I listened as intently as I could while he outlined the regimen of Imagisle. It certainly didn’t seem any worse than being an apprentice.
“As for your duties . . . they’re very simple. For now, you’re to do what I tell you to do. I’ve given you your instructions for today. Tomorrow, at the seventh glass of the morning you are to appear and wait outside my study-it’s two doors down on the left-until I summon you. I suggest you bring the volume on the structure of the Collegium and the responsibilities of an imager and read it, in case you have to wait. For the next several weeks, your duties will center on learning everything in the books you were given.” Master Dichartyn smiled wryly. “I do have a simple question for you. Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“Why, sir?” The question made me wary.
“Because about half of the would-be imagers don’t tell anyone, and then the civic patrollers contact us to see if you’re here. It’s much simpler if you just write a note or two to those who might worry, one way or another. In your case, I’d presume, to your parents, since you no longer serve a master portraiturist. There should be some blank stationery in the armoire in your chamber, as well as a pen and ink. If you’ll bring the notes back to me this afternoon, I’ll have them dispatched immediately, and your parents won’t have to worry too long. Oh . . . and you do get a stipend. It’s not much, only a silver a week, but we do feed and clothe you. Once you learn the basics of the Collegium and pass a proficiency test, or the equivalent, most of which you’ve already demonstrated the ability to do, you’ll become a beginning imager secondus, and that’s worth two silvers a week. Stipends go up in accordance with your position and how long you’ve been with the Collegium. So does the amount of space allocated to you.”
A silver a week wasn’t grand, but it wasn’t absolute poverty, either, and the position already sounded better than attempting to be a wool factor under my father and Rousel.
“There are several other basics. First, we expect daily bathing and frequent laundering of your garments. This is for both safety and sanitary reasons, the rationale for which will become clear before long, I trust. The bathing is your responsibility; the laundering we have arranged, so long as you place your dirty garments in the proper place. There are two barbers in the building with the dining hall, and we expect short hair, as you may have noticed . . .”
When he finally finished what seemed a thorough overview of what was expected of me, he stopped. The smile vanished.