This time I got a cold look. I just waited. I really did want to know.
“Did you get a number of extra assignments in the grammaire, Rhennthyl?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can see why. Let me see if I can make this clear with a different example.” He frowned. “You’ve heard of the Cyella Ruby, haven’t you?”
“The one that sits on the scepter of the Priest-Autarch of Caenen? Yes, sir.”
“He’s the High Priest. What about the Storaci Emerald?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What if you imaged an exact, an absolutely perfect duplicate?”
“Sir? How would I ever get close enough to see the originals?”
He gave me an even colder look.
“There’d be two,” I said slowly, trying to think what he wanted.
“Yes, there would be.” He paused, then asked, “What makes them so valuable? What would happen if you imaged two . . . or three?”
“Oh! They wouldn’t be so valuable because they wouldn’t be so rare.”
“That’s one thing. How would the owners feel about being robbed of that value? And if the valuable object has some religious context or value . . . does the duplicate? Who could tell which one happened to be the one with that value? What might the Caenenans do?”
“They could do . . . anything.” Of that, I knew enough to be sure.
“You need to think about what the imagers of the Collegium image-you’ve seen some of what we do-and why we’re so careful about what we allow to be imaged. Also, not all things imaged turn out to be true duplicates. I trust you can see what difficulty that might create.”
“Yes, sir.” I paused. “What laws would punish someone who could image who got caught by making a bad copy?”
“If that person happened to be an adult, older than eighteen, and the crime was a major offense, he or she would be executed. Committing any major crime through the means of imaging is a capital offense. Younger than that and they’d be sent to us for training. Some of them don’t survive training, but imagers are rare enough that it’s worth the effort. Some of the young ones don’t know it’s a crime, and some don’t see that they have any choice.”
I felt cold inside. I was older than eighteen, and I had been when the fire and explosion had killed Master Caliostrus.
“That should give you enough to think about for now. Today, I’m going to take you over to the machine shop for some instruction. Then you can help with cleaning duties.”
That sounded like an assignment I’d rather do without, not that I had any choice, especially after what I’d just learned.
20
Death always creates either guilt or fear, whether
either is acknowledged or accepted.
I’d been at the Collegium three weeks and three days, and on that Meredi morning, Maris eighteenth, I was shivering, even under my covers. I forced myself from bed and peered through the window. Outside, fat flakes of snow were drifting down from a dark gray sky, although not more than two or three digits’ worth of snow had piled up on the quadrangle. Spring was supposed to arrive in a week or so, but it felt like winter. I pulled on the robe that had come with the room and trudged out and down to the showers and bathing rooms. I did like being clean and clean-shaven. I just didn’t care much for the process, and not in winter-cold weather.
On the way back from the shower, as I climbed the steps from the lower level, I heard heavy footsteps. When I stepped away from the landing, I saw two obdurate guards in their black uniforms carrying a stretcher. They headed down the hallway to an open door two doors before mine. Before I reached that doorway they had entered and then come out, carrying a figure covered with a blanket. One of them closed the door one-handed, bracing the stretcher on his knee for a moment, and then they strode toward me. I flattened myself against the stone wall of the corridor, not that I really needed to. Neither looked at me, but most obdurates ignored those of us who were still learning.
Standing in the corridor between the now-closed door and mine were two imagers. Although they looked to be several years younger than I was, they were both seconds, and had said little to me. From what I could see, they were both upset and trying not to show it. The taller one’s cheeks were damp, as if he’d wiped away tears.
“Who was that? What happened?” I asked.
The two seconds looked at each other, then at me, before one replied, “Mhykal. On his way to the Bridge of Stones.”
All I knew about Mhykal was that he was an imager secondus, that he was of average height, a few digits shorter than me, and that he hadn’t bothered to speak to me when we passed in the corridor or on paths of the quadrangle. People that young just didn’t die in their beds. When they didn’t answer, I asked again, “What happened?”
“Who knows? It happens. Not often. We’re not allowed to say. Ask your preceptor.”
Ask my preceptor? Before I could say more, one had retreated to his room, and the other was headed for the stairs.
I returned to my room and dressed deliberately, trying to make sense out of what I had seen. An imager second was dead, and his body was carted off. No one acted as if it were strange. Sad, but not strange. I’d heard that more than a few would-be imagers died, but hearing that, and seeing it the way I just had-that was another thing.
After finishing dressing, I stuffed my books in the canvas bag I’d been issued and then made my way downstairs and through the snow to the dining hall. I managed to find Etyen and sat across from him.
“There were obs in the quarters this morning, and-”
“I heard that. Mhykal, they said. I could have guessed he’d be one. He was always talking about what he could do.”
“Like you?” quipped Lieryns.
“No. More like you.”
“Me?” Lieryns’s voice almost squeaked. “I wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“Why would Mhykal be one?” I pressed.
“You can get in real trouble imaging by yourself . . . least until you’re a third or a master. There are lots of things that can happen. Be best if you asked Master Dichartyn to explain.”
Lieryns and another prime nodded.
I ate slowly, but good as the fried ham, hot biscuits, and white gravy were, I had trouble finishing what I’d served myself. After breakfast, I had to wait almost a full glass for Master Dichartyn. I read the newsheet I’d picked up, glancing over the top story that mentioned the recall of the Solidaran ambassador to Caenen, and then took out the history text and started rereading the pages I’d already read three times.
“You look worried, Rhennthyl. Trouble with the assignment?”
“No, sir.” I straightened. “Sir . . . before we start . . . might I ask a question?”
“Briefly.”
“Sir . . . I was coming back to my room after my shower, and two obdurate guards had a stretcher coming out of a room . . . and there was a body under the blanket. The two seconds there wouldn’t tell me what happened. They said that they couldn’t and that I should ask you.”
“That’s something you’ll probably see again . . . unfortunately.” Master Dichartyn looked across the desk at me. “About a third of the imagers who arrive here as primes die before they complete their secondus training. Close to forty percent of the more talented ones die.”
Forty percent, and he’d already told me I was talented?
“Would you like to guess why?”
That was the last thing I wanted to do.
“There’s a saying about imagers. There are bold imagers, and there are old imagers. There are no old bold imagers. While it’s not totally true, it’s close enough. Tell me why.”
When he put it that way, I did have an idea. “Imagers who are bold try things that are different, or in different ways, and too many things can go wrong?”