Imager's Challenge by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Read Free Book Online

when on duty off Imagisle.
    Although the headquarters of the Civic Patrol of L’Excelsis was slightly less than a mille from the south end of Imagisle, there wasn’t a bridge there. Instead, I had to take the Bridge of Hopes across the River Aluse and then walk almost two milles along the East River Road, before turning east on Fedre and walking another half mille.
    The two-story headquarters building was of undistinguished yellow brick, with brown wooden trim and doors. There were three doors spaced across the front. The left one clearly was for a working patroller station, because I could see patrollers in their pale blue uniforms hurrying in and out, the mark of a shift change. The right door looked disused, as if locked. So I took the middle door, or rather the right-hand door of the set of double doors in the square archway above two worn stone steps leading up from the sidewalk. The left-hand door was locked.
    Inside was a table desk, with a graying patroller seated behind it. He took in my imager’s uniform and the silver imager’s pin. “You’re here to see Commander Artois, sir?”
    “Yes . . . if you’d direct me.”
    “Second floor, up those steps and to the right. You can’t miss it.”
    “Thank you.”
    The wide steps weren’t stone, but time-worn dark oak. I arrived just before eighth glass on the second floor of the anteroom that led to the commander’s private study. There were two small writing desks in the anteroom facing the wall on each side of the door through which I’d entered. Each had a straight-backed chair behind it, and two backless oak benches were set against the wall, facing each desk. Between the desks was a door, presumablyto the commander’s private study. At the left desk sat another graying patroller.
    “Master Rhennthyl?”
    “Yes. I’m here—”
    “To see the commander. You can go in. He’s expecting you.”
    I opened the door and stepped into the study, a space no more than four yards deep and six wide. Artois had risen and stepped around an ancient walnut desk set at the end of the study closest to the river. To his right, on the innermost wall, was a line of wooden cases. On the wall opposite the desk was a tall and narrow bookcase, filled with volumes. Facing the desk were four straight-backed chairs. Two wide windows, both open, were centered on the outer wall and offered a view of the various buildings on the north side of Fedre and some beyond, but not so far as the Boulevard D’Imagers. There were no pictures or anything else hung on the walls, and only a pair of unlit oil lamps in wall sconces flanking the desk.
    Artois was three or four digits shorter than I was and wire-thin. Under short-cut brown hair shot with gray, his brown eyes seemed flat, the kind that showed little emotion.
    “Our latest imager liaison.” He nodded. “Young . . . doubtless powerful and shielded, and with Namer-little understanding of the Civic Patrol.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s an accurate summary.”
    “Are you being sarcastic,
Master
Rhennthyl?”
    “No, sir. I’ve studied the procedures, but I’ve only worked briefly with one patroller. I do think I can learn, and there are situations where I might be helpful.”
    “Outside of being an imager, what do you know?”
    “I was a journeyman artist for three years after a seven-year apprenticeship, and my family is in the wool business. So I know something about art and the guilds, and about factoring and commerce. I’ve been trained to take care of myself.” I doubted that there was much else I could say that he didn’t know.
    “Do you know accounting?”
    “I used to do ledger entries.”
    “You’ve killed men in the line of duty. How many and under what circumstances?”
    I had to think for a moment. Diazt, the first assassin, the Ferran, Vhillar, and at least two others. “At least six, sir.”
    “At least? You don’t remember?”
    “When the Ferran envoy’s assassins tried to attack, I blew up their