Krispos the Emperor

by Harry Turtledove

  Zaidas went down on his knees before Krispos. then to his belly, letting his forehead knock against the bright tesserae of the mosaic floor in full proskynesis. "Up. up," Krispos said impatiently. "You know I have no great use for ceremonial."

  The wizard rose as smoothly as he had prostrated himself. "Yes, your Majesty, but you know the respect a mage will show to ritual. Without ritual, our art would fall to nothing."

  "So you've said, many times these past many years," Krispos answered. "Now the ritual is over. Sit, relax; let us talk." He waved Zaidas to a chair in the chamber where he'd been working the night before.

  Barsymes came in with a jar of wine and two crystal goblets. The vestiarios poured for Emperor and mage, then bowed himself out. Zaidas savored his wine's bouquet for a moment before he sipped. He smiled. "That's a fine vintage, your Majesty."

  Krispos drank, too. "Aye, it is pleasant. I fear I'll never make a proper connoisseur, though. It's all so much better than what I grew up drinking that I have trouble telling what's just good from the best."

  Zaidas took another, longer, pull at his goblet. "What we have here, your Majestry, is among the best, let me assure you." The mage was a tall, slim man, about a dozen years younger than Krispos—the first white threads were appearing in the dark fabric of his beard. Krispos remembered him as a skinny, excitable youth, already full of talent. It had not shrunk with his maturity.

  Barsymes returned, now with a tureen and two bowls. "Porridge with salted anchovies to break your fast, your Majesty, excellent sir."

  The porridge was of wheat, silky smooth, and rich with cream. The anchovies added piquancy. Krispos knew that if he asked his cook for plain, lumpy barley porridge, the man would quit in disgust. As with the wine, he knew this was better, but sometimes he craved the tastes with which he'd grown up.

  When his bowl was about half empty, he said to Zaidas, "The reason I asked you here today was a report I've had from the westlands about a new heresy that seems to have arisen there. By this account, it's an unpleasant one." He passed the mage the letter from the priest Taronites.

  Zaidas read it through, his brow furrowing in concentration. When he was done, he looked up at Krispos. "Yes, your Majesty, if the holy sir's tale is to be fully credited, these Thanasioi seem most unpleasant heretics indeed. But while there is some considerable connection between religion and sorcery, I'd have thought you'd go first to the ecclesiastical authorities rather than to a layman like me."

  "In most cases, I would have. In fact, I've already directed the ecumenical patriarch to send priests to Pityos. But these heretics sound so vile—if, as you say, Taronites is to be believed—that I wondered if they have any connection to our old friend Harvas."

  Zaidas pursed his lips, then let air hiss out between. Harvas—or perhaps his proper name was Rhavas—had dealt the Empire fierce blows in the north and east in the first years of Krispos' reign. He was, or seemed to be, a renegade priest of Phos who had gone over to the dark god Skotos and thus prolonged his own wicked life more than two centuries beyond its natural terms. With help from Zaidas, among others, Videssian forces had vanquished the Halogai that Harvas led at Pliskavos in Kubrat; his own power was brought to nothing there. But he had not been taken, alive or dead.

  "What precisely do you wish me to do, your Majesty?" Zaidas asked.

  "You head the Sorcerers' Collegium these days, my friend, and you were always sensitive to Harvas' style of magic. If anyone can tell through sorcery whether Harvas is the one behind these Thanasioi, I expect you're the man. Is such a thing possible, what with the little we have to go on here?" Krispos tapped Taronites' letter with a forefinger.

  "An interesting question." Zaidas looked through rather than at Krispos as he considered. At last he said, "Perhaps it may be done, your Majesty, though the sorcery required will be most delicate. A basic magical principle is the law of similarity, which is to say, like causes yield like effects. Most effective in this case, I believe, would be an inversion of the law in an effort to determine whether like effects—the disruption and devastation of the Empire now and from Harvas' past depredations—spring from like causes."

  "You know your business best," Krispos said. He'd never tried to learn magical theory himself; what mattered to him were the results he might attain through sorcery.

  Zaidas, however, kept right on explaining, perhaps to fix his ideas in his own mind. "The law of contagion might also prove relevant. If Harvas was in physical contact with any of these Thanasioi who then came into contact with the priest Taronites, directly or indirectly, such a trace might appear on the parchment here. Under normal circumstances, two or three intermediate contacts would blur the originator beyond hope of detection. Such was Harvas' power, however, and such was our comprehension of the nature of that power, that it ought to be detectable at several more removes."

  "Just as you say," Krispos answered agreeably. Perhaps because of his lectures at the Sorcerers' Collegium. Zaidas had a knack for expounding magecraft so clearly that it made sense to the Avtokrator, even if he lacked both ability and interest in practicing it himself. He asked, "How long before you will be ready to try your sorcery?"

  That faraway look returned to Zaidas' eyes. "I shall of course require the parchment here. Then the research required to frame the precise terms of the spell to be employed and the gathering of the necessary materials ... not that those can't proceed concurrently, of course. Your Majesty, were it war, I could try tomorrow, or perhaps even tonight. I would be more confident of the results obtained, though, if I had another couple of days to refine my original formulation."

  "Take the time you need to be right," Krispos said. "If Harvas is at the bottom of this, we must know it. And if he appears not to be, we must be certain he's not concealing himself through his own magic."

  "All true, your Majesty." Zaidas tucked the letter from Taronites into the leather pouch he wore on his belt. He rose and began to prostrate himself again, as one did before leaving the Avtokrator's presence. Krispos waved a hand to tell him not to bother. Nodding, the wizard said, "I shall begin work at once."

  "Thanks, Zaidas. If Harvas is on the loose—" Krispos let the sentence slide to an awkward halt. If Harvas was stirring up trouble again, he wouldn't sleep well until the wizard-prince was beaten ... or until he was beaten himself. In the latter case, his sleep would be eternal.

  Zaidas knew that as well as he did. "One way or the other, your Majesty, we shall know," he promised. He bustled off to begin shaping the enchantments he would use to seek Harvas' presence.

  Krispos listened to his footfalls fade down the corridor. He counted himself lucky to be served by men of the quality of Zaidas. In his less modest moments, he also thought their presence reflected well on his rule: would such good and able men have served a wicked, foolish master?

  He got up from his seat, stretched, and went out into the corridor himself. Coming his way was Phostis. Both men, young and not so young, stopped in their tracks, Krispos in the doorway, his heir in the middle of the hall.

  Among all the other things Phostis was, he served as a living reminder that Krispos' rule would not endure forever. Krispos remembered taking him from the midwife's arms and holding him in the crook of his elbow. Now they were almost of a height; Phostis still lacked an inch, maybe two, of Krispos' stature, but Dara had been short.

  Phostis was also a living reminder of his mother. Take away his neatly trimmed dark beard—these days thick and wiry, youth's downiness almost gone—and he wore Dara's face: his features were not as craggy as Krispos', and his eyes had the same distinctive small fold of skin at the inner corner that Dara's had.

  "Good morning, Father," he said.

  "Good morning." Krispos answered, wondering as always if he was Phostis' father. The young man did not look like him, but he did not look like Anthimos, either. Phostis did not have Krispos' native obstinacy, that was certain; the one time he'd tried showing the lad how the Empire worked, Phostis quickly lost interest
. Krispos' heart ached over that, but he'd seen enough with Anthimos to know a man could not be forced to govern against his will.

  Good morning was as much as Krispos and Phostis usually had to say to each other. Krispos waited for his eldest son to walk by without another word, as was his habit. But Phostis surprised him by asking, "Why were you closeted with Zaidas so early, Father?"

  "There's some trouble with heresy out in the westlands." Krispos spoke matter-of-factly to keep Phostis from knowing he was startled. If the youngster did want to learn, he would teach him. More likely, though, Krispos thought with a touch of sadness, Phostis asked just for Zaidas' sake; the wizard was like a favorite uncle to him.

  "What sort of heresy?" Phostis asked.

  Krispos explained the tenets of the Thanasioi as well as he could from Taronites' description of them. This question surprised him less than the previous one; theology was Videssos' favorite intellectual sport. Laymen who pored over Phos" holy scriptures were not afraid to try conclusions with the ecumenical patriarch himself.

  Phostis rubbed his chin as he thought, a gesture he shared with Krispos. Then he said, "In the abstract, Father, the doctrines sound rigorous, yes, but not necessarily inspired by Skotos. Their followers may have misinterpreted how these doctrines are to be applied, but—"

  "To the ice with the abstract," Krispos growled. "What matters is that these maniacs are laying the countryside to waste and murdering anyone who doesn't happen to agree with them. Save your precious abstract for the schoolroom, son."

  "I simply started to say—" Phostis threw his hands in the air. "Oh, what's the use? You wouldn't listen anyhow." Muttering angrily under his breath, he marched down the corridor past Krispos.

  The senior Avtokrator sighed as he watched his son's retreating back. Maybe it was better when they just mouthed platitudes at each other: then they didn't fight. But how Phostis could find anything good to say about heretics who were also bandits was beyond Krispos. Only when his heir had turned a corner and disappeared did Krispos remember that he'd interrupted the lad before he finished talking about the Thanasioi.

  He sighed again. He'd have to apologize to Phostis the next time he saw him. All too likely, Phostis would take the apology the wrong way and that would start another fight. Well, if it did, it did. Krispos was willing to take the chance. By the time he thought of going down the corridor and apologizing on the spot, though, it was too late. Phostis had already left the imperial residence.

  Krispos went about the business of governing with only about three-fourths of his attention for the next couple of days. Every time a messenger or a chamberlain came in, the Avtokrator forgot what he was doing in the hope the fellow would announce Zaidas' sorcery was ready. Every time he was disappointed, he went back to work in an evil temper. No miscreants were pardoned while Zaidas prepared his magic.

  When at last—within the promised two days, though Krispos tried not to notice that—Zaidas was on the point of beginning, he came himself to let the Emperor know. Krispos set aside with relief the cadaster he was reading. "Lead on, excellent sir!" he exclaimed.

  One difficulty with being Avtokrator was that going anywhere automatically became complicated. Krispos could not simply walk with Zaidas over to the Sorcerers' Collegium. No, he had to be accompanied by a squad of Haloga bodyguards, which made sense, and by the dozen parasol bearers whose bright silk canopies proclaimed his office—which, to his way of thinking, didn't. Throughout his reign, he'd fought hard to do away with as much useless ceremonial as he could. He knew he was losing the fight; custom was a tougher foe than Harvas' blood-maddened barbarians had ever been.

  At last, though, not too interminably much later, he stood inside Zaidas' chamber on the second story of the Sorcerers' Collegium. One big blond axeman went in there with him and the wizard; two more guarded the doorway. The rest waited outside the building with the parasol bearers.

  Zaidas drew forth the parchment on which Taronites had written his accusations against the Thanasioi. He also produced another parchment, this one yellowed with age. Seeing Krispos' raised eyebrow, he explained, "I took the liberty of visiting the archives, your Majesty, to secure a document indited personally by Harvas. My first spell will compare them against each other to determine whether a common malice informs both."

  "I see," Krispos said, more or less truthfully. "By all means carry on as if I were not here."

  "Oh, I shall, your Majesty, for my own safety's sake above any other reason," Zaidas said. Krispos nodded. That he understood completely; he'd seized the crown after Anthimos, intent on destroying him by sorcery, botched an incantation and slew himself instead.

  Zaidas intoned a low-voiced prayer to Phos, ending by sketching the sun-circle over his heart. Krispos imitated the gesture. The Haloga guard did not; like most of his fellows in Videssos the city, he still followed his own nation's fierce and gloomy gods.

  The wizard took from a covered dish a couple of red-brown, shriveled objects. "The dried heart and tongue of a porpoise," he said. "They shall confer invincible effect on my charm." He cut strips off them with a knife, as if he were whittling soft wood, then tossed those strips into a squat bowl of bluish liquid. With each additional fragment, the blue deepened.

  Stirring his mix left-handed with a silver rod, Zaidas chanted over the bowl and used his right hand to make passes above it. He frowned. "I can feel the wickedness we face here," he said, his voice tight and tense. "Now to learn whether it comes from one parchment or both."

  He took the stirring rod and let a couple of drops of the mixture in the bowl fall on a corner of the letter from the archives, the one Harvas had written. The liquid flared bright red, just the color of fresh-spilled blood.

  Zaidas drew back a pace. Though he was a layman, he drew the sun-circle again, even so. "By the good god," he murmured, now sounding shocked and shaken. "I never imagined a response as intense as that. Green, even perhaps yellow, but—" He broke off, staring at Harvas' letter as if it were displaying its fangs.

  "I take it you expect the petition from Taronites to do the same if Harvas has a hand in turning the Thanasioi loose on us," Krispos said.

  "I sincerely hope the solution does not turn crimson, your Majesty," Zaidas said. "That would in effect mean Harvas lurked just outside the temple wherein Taronites was writing. But the change of color will indicate the degree of relationship between Harvas and these new heretics."

  More cautiously than he had before, the wizard daubed some of the liquid onto Taronites' letter. Krispos leaned forward, waiting to see what color the stuff turned. He did not know whether it would go red, but he expected some change, and probably not a small one. By Zaidas' choice of words, so did he.

  But the liquid stayed blue.

  Both men stared at it; for that matter, so did the bodyguard. Krispos asked, "How long must we wait for the change to take place?"

  "Your Majesty, if it was going to occur, it would have done so by now," Zaidas answered. Then he checked himself. "I must always bear in mind that Harvas is a master of concealment and obfuscation. Being such, he might be able to evade this test, porpoise heart or no. But there is a cross check I do not think he can escape, try as he might."

  The wizard picked up the two parchments, touched the damp spots on them together. "Being directly present in the one letter, Harvas' essence cannot fail to draw forth from the other any lingering trace of him." He held the two parchments against each other long enough to let a man draw five or six breaths, then separated them.

  The blue smear on Taronites' petition remained blue, not green, yellow, orange, red, or even pink. Zaidas looked astonished. Krispos was not only astonished but also profoundly suspicious. He said, "Are you saying this means Harvas has nothing whatever to do with the Thanasioi? I find that hard to believe."

  "So do I, your Majesty," Zaidas said. "If you ask what I say, I say the connection between the two is all too likely. My magic, however, seems to be saying something else again."

 
; "But is your magic right, or have you just been deceived?" Krispos demanded. "Can you tell me for certain, one way or the other? I know you understand how important this is, not just to me but to Videssos now and in the future."

  "Yes, your Majesty. Having faced Harvas once, having seen the evils he worked and those to which he inspired his followers, I know you want to be as positive as possible as to whether you—and we—confront him yet again."

  "That is well put," Krispos said. He doubted he could have been so judicious himself. Truth was, as soon as he'd seen Taronites' letter, the fear of Harvas rose up in his mind like a ghost in one of the romances that the booksellers hawked in the plaza of Palamas. No matter what Zaidas' magical tests said about the Thanasioi, his own terror spoke louder to him. So he went on, "Excellent sir, have you any other sorceries you might use to find out whether this one is mistaken?"

  "Let me think," Zaidas said, and proceeded to do just that for the next several minutes, standing still as a statue in the center of his study. Suddenly he brightened. "I know something which may serve." He hurried over to a cabinet set against one wall and began opening its small drawers and rummaging through them.

  The Haloga guardsmen moved to place himself between Krispos and Zaidas, in case the wizard suddenly whipped out a dagger and tried to murder the Avtokrator. This he did though Zaidas was a longtime trusted friend, and though the chamber doubtless held weapons far more fell than mere knives. Krispos smiled but did not seek to dissuade the northerner, who was but doing his duty as he reckoned best.

  Zaidas let out a happy grunt. "Here we are." He turned around, displaying not a dagger but rather a piece of highly polished, translucent white stone. "This is nicomar, your Majesty, a variety of alabaster. When properly evoked, it has the virtue of generating both victory and amity. Thus we shall see if any amity, so to speak, lies between the two letters now in our possession. If so, we shall know Harvas indeed has a hand in the heresy of the Thanasioi."