As I neared the shadowed and soot-blackened walls, I heard murmurs.
“Someone headed here . . .”
“. . . go on by . . . patrollers never come here . . .”
“. . . could be a demon . . . spawn of the Namer . . .”
“. . . no such thing as demons . . .”
I really didn’t want anyone to see what I was doing, nor did I wish them hurt. Enough people were going to suffer anyway. I raised concealment shields and moved closer, thinking about what I could do.
“Gone . . . whoever it was . . .”
“. . . don’t disappear like that . . . still say demons . . .”
Abruptly I smiled, thinking about how Youdh had imaged a cloud of dust to mark my position. In the chill air, something else might be better, scarier. I concentrated, imaging water from the river into a misty figure some three yards high, looming next to the tall south wall in the dim light of a fading Artiema.
A man yelled, and a woman uttered a cry between a scream and an imprecation.
“. . . told you there were demons!”
I waited until the last of the five had scrambled southward before dropping my concealment shields and stepping forward to the ruins. The remaining sections of the mill walls were thick and constructed of heavy stones. In the dimness I couldn’t see what kind of stone it might be, but I doubted it would matter that much. While I wasn’t trying to image gold or aluminum out of the stone, heavy was still heavy.
Even though I had no idea exactly how I would do what I had in mind, I looked at the top stone on the low section of the wall to my right and tried to concentrate on image-removing the mortar. A puff of dust billowed from beneath the stone, and it rocked forward and backward, before settling back into place. I took several steps forward and pushed the stone. It wobbled.
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been panting. My imaging had been successful enough. The mortar was gone, but the building stone had been fitted so well to its place that it had merely dropped the width of the missing mortar onto the stone below.
I just stood there, breathing heavily. There had to be a better way. There just had to be.
“. . . imaging takes energy from all around you . . .” Who had said that? Master Dichartyn? I tried to remember what he had said, but I was fairly certain he hadn’t said much more than that. But why not? Because it was dangerous, obviously, but dangerous to whom? All the lead and leaded glass in the Collegium . . . for whom did they provide protection?
I glanced at the scrubby bush by my feet. Could I?
I looked at a smaller stone set in the second course of stone below the topmost remaining, then at the bush, and concentrated on a tie between the bush and the stone. I took a deep breath and tried to image the stone out of the wall-but away from me and nearer the taller south wall.
Craackkk . . . Stone chips sprayed everywhere, some striking my shields with such force that I took two steps backward in order to keep my balance.
A thump . . . thump echoed through the ruined walls, followed by a dull thud.
Where the stone had been, an oblong opening remained, with a powdery, dusty mist slowly settling and sifting down toward the uneven ground next to the wall. The stones around the gap in the wall had not moved.
I looked back to the scrubby bush. It wasn’t there. Or rather, where it had been was an ash-outlined and flattened image of a bush that shifted on the hard ground in the light night breeze, then vanished as if it had not been as the air currents swirled it away.
I looked at the south wall of the mill, rising two stories. I found myself trying to moisten my lips, dry as my mouth suddenly was.
“Take it a step at a time,” I murmured, trying to steady myself.
Abruptly I almost laughed, recalling what Alsoran had said about steps. My eyes took in a forlorn-appearing tree that had grown up in the sheltered corner where the west and south walls of the mill joined. Slowly I walked around to the outside of the south wall and studied it, trying to determine where its weakest points might be.
I shook my head. That wasn’t what I needed. Where would removing stones cause the greatest damage? Finally, I stepped back from the wall. I didn’t want to think too hard about what I was about to try, yet what else could I do? I had to know if what I had in mind worked.
This time I tried to create a link between the straggly misshapen tree and the southwest corner of the wall. Then, I focused on imaging out a section of that corner of the wall at ground level.
Craaack. . . .
Stones seemed to fly everywhere, or maybe I was, because I felt myself being flung backward. For a moment-it might have been a great deal longer-there was blackness over and around me. Then I was looking up at the sky. Artiema was still about where she had been . . . or maybe somewhat farther westward and lower in the sky. Slowly . . . very slowly, I sat up. My right buttock was sore, very sore, and my shoulder twinged as I struggled to my feet. My head ached, and my vision was blurry.
I looked toward the old mill, squinting through the blurriness to make things out. The entire south wall had slumped into a pile of rock and stone, as had the southern half of the west wall. There was no sign of the tree. In fact, I realized, there were no bushes or trees anywhere close to the building. All the undergrowth was gone, and a thick coating of frost was everywhere. The air was icy.
As far as I had moved back from the ruins, I definitely should have retreated farther, much farther. I’d proved that what I’d had in mind worked, but my technique, as Maitre Dyana would have said, definitely needed much more refinement.
As I walked-more accurately, limped-back toward the Bridge of Stones, the wind rose slightly, coming off the water with a bitter chill. I glanced down at the gray water, where I could see the shimmering of shards of rime ice breaking up even as I watched.
I swallowed, but kept walking.
At that moment, something flashed before my eyes-an oblong building that trembled and shook, and then exploded, with flames shooting in all directions, and then dust and smoke rising even as chunks of masonry and timbers began falling on the street and a low wall. I stopped, frozen in place, as the image vanished from my eyes or mind. I knew the building. It was the Temple of Puryon . . . but it couldn’t have just exploded, because it was night, and the explosion had occurred in the light. Was I imagining it? Or had it happened? Would it happen?
How could I tell?
I resumed walking, cold inside and out, and realized that I was going to be very sore.
As I walked off the bridge and toward the quadrangle and my quarters, more like an old man than a young imager, an errant thought struck me-I’d probably convinced five vagrants that demons did exist and that the old mill was indeed haunted.
Demons indeed.
But the flash vision of the explosion seemed all too real.
44
Not only were my buttocks and shoulder sore and painful when I staggered out of bed on Lundi morning, but my legs were sore, and I still had a trace of the headache I’d gone to bed with. I could see, however, and I could raise shields. I couldn’t help but frown at that. Did that mean that I’d handled the imaging part as I should have, but I was suffering the consequences of not physically protecting myself as well as I should have? Wonderful! My technique was better than I thought, but I still came close to killing myself . . . again. And then there was that vision of the Temple of Puryon exploding. I’d just have to see . . . and be very careful around the Temple.
Clovyl’s stretching exercises did help, but my running left so much to be desired that I was in the group bringing up the rear. Fortunately, no one seemed to care. The cold shower that followed my return to quarters numbed the aches, but also stiffened me up some, and I was slow in shaving and getting dressed. I still made it to the dining hall without being terribly late.