Free Imager’s Intrigue by Jr. L. E. Modesitt Page A

addition to being the Chief Councilor of the Executive Council of Solidar, Suyrien was one of the economically most prosperous and powerful High Holders, with extensive lands around L’Excelsis, one of the largest and most modern iron works at Ferravyl, not to mention the shipworks at Solis, which built most of Solidar’s warships. That had been an issue for a time, because, with its location on the shallow Southern Gulf, Solis was barely a deepwater port.
    None of that had much to do with me, either as an imager or as a Patrol Captain. Yet it had to, because neither Suyrien nor Master Dichartyn was going to involve me unless they wanted or needed something. I just had to figure out what it might be before I ended up in a position where I didn’t want to be.
    After I left the coach at Third District station and stepped inside, Lyonyt beckoned to me when I was barely through the doors. His forehead was furrowed. “Sir.”
    “What is it, Lyonyt?”
    “Last night, there were four more elver deaths. They all had that twisted look…”
    “Bad elveweed?”
    “It looks like that, sir.”
    After I hurried through various details and reports, I went looking for what ever taudischef I could find. Horazt wasn’t in any of his safe houses, and I even tried Shault’s mother’s place, although I was fairly sure Horazt hadn’t spent any time with her in years, probably because her son was an imager, and he wasn’t certain that she might not tell Shault something that might upset her son. No one had seen him, or they didn’t know where he was, or wouldn’t tell me. All I could do was leave word that more of the bad elveweed was being run into the taudis.
    I finally ran down Deyalt in mid-afternoon. Except I didn’t. He found me as I was walking down South Middle just short of Mando and the woodworks.
    “Captain…word is that you’ve been saying there’s a lot of bad weed out.”
    “We picked up four dead elvers last night. There were two last week. In over five years, I’ve never seen more than one in a week.”
    Deyalt didn’t speak for a moment. “It won’t stop, Captain. Word is that the weed isn’t bad. It’s just a lot stronger. Makes ‘em feel even better. They’ll pay more for it.”
    That made matters even worse, not better. The elvers might lay off if they thought the fresher elveweed was poisoned, but a stronger smoke would only end up with more dying. “That will mean more deaths.”
    Deyalt nodded. “We can’t do much about that. Jadhyl thought you should know.”
    “Thank you. I’ll make sure the patrollers understand.” I paused. “Do you know if the other taudis are getting the same stronger weed?”
    “I heard that it started in the Hellhole. Other than that…maybe down by the south river piers…I couldn’t say.”
    “Thank you.” I nodded, and he slipped away.
    The afternoon suddenly turned cold and windy, as it often did in fall, and I was happy to get out of the chill when I returned to the station. My relief vanished with the appearance of two separate dispatches from the Subcommander. One requested an update on any information any district captain might have on the Place D’Opera explosion. The second one was directed at me, wanting to know what the decrease in chargings from Third District meant, indirectly suggesting that we weren’t doing our job, as if the number of arrests and incarcerations were the only measure of Patrol success.
    How exactly could I reply without sounding arrogant? If I said that Third District had fewer chargings because we’d done something to reduce a few of the causes of crime, that was presumptuous. So was pointing out that the local taudischefs really didn’t want to get me angry. So was suggesting that because the taudis was quieter, we could shift a few more patrols to the Avenue D’Artisans and along the Midroad, and that cut down on smash-and-grabs and common theft.
    All of those were probably true, but I couldn’t prove it. All Cydarth