The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “Oh, he did? Oh, they are?” Krispos glared at the priest, who looked as if he wished he could sink through the floor—though that would only have put him in a deeper level of the gaol. “Doesn’t the most holy ecumenical patriarch recall that I took the head of one of his predecessors for treason no worse than this Digenis has committed?”

  “If you mentioned the fate of the formerly most holy Gnatios—may Phos grant his soul mercy—I was instructed to point out that, while capital punishment remains your province, it is a matter altogether distinct from torture.”

  “Oh, it is?” Krispos made his glare fiercer still. It all but shriveled Soudas, but the priest managed a shaky nod. Krispos dropped his scowl to his red boots; could he have scowled at his own face, he would have done it. The part of him that weighed choices like a grocer weighing out lentils swung into action. Could he afford a row with the regular temple hierarchy while at the same time fighting the Thanasiot heretics? Reluctantly, he decided he could not. Growling like a dog that has reached the end of its chain and so cannot sink its teeth into a man it wants to bite, he said, “Very well, no torture. You may tell the patriarch as much. Generous of him to let me use my own executioners as I see fit.”

  Soudas bobbed his head in what might have been a nod, then wheeled about and fled. Digenis hadn’t missed a note of his hymn. Krispos tried to console himself by doubting whether the renegade would have broken under torment. But he craved the chance to find out.

  The Avtokrator swung toward Zaidas. The wizard had listened to his talk with the priest. Zaidas was anything but a fool; he could figure out for himself that the burden on him had just grown heavier. If he couldn’t pry secrets from Digenis, those secrets would stay unknown for good. The wizard licked his lips. No, he was not long on confidence.

  Digenis ended his hymn. “I care not if you go against the patriarch,” he said. “His doctrine is false in any case, and I do not fear your torments.”

  Krispos knew a strong temptation to break Digenis on the rack, to tear at his flesh with red-hot pincers, not so much in the hope that he would tell where Phostis was—if in fact he knew—but to see if he so loudly despised torment after suffering a good deal of it. Krispos had enough control over himself to recognize the temptation as base and put it aside, but he felt it all the same.

  Digenis not only remained defiant but actually seemed to seek out martyrdom. “Your refusal to liberate me from my polluting and polluted envelope of flesh is but another proof of your own foul materialism, your rejection of the spiritual for the sensual, the soul for the penis, the—”

  “When you go to the ice, I hope you bore Skotos with your stupid maunderings,” Krispos said, a sally that succeeded in making Digenis splutter in outrage and then, better still, shut up. The Emperor added, “I’ve wasted enough time on you.” He turned to Zaidas. “Try anything and everything you think might work. Bring in whatever colleagues you need to give you aid. One way or another, I will have answers from this one before the dark god takes him forever.”

  “Aye, Your Majesty.” Zaidas’ voice was low and troubled. “The good god willing, others from the Sorcerers’ Collegium will have more success than I at smashing through his protective shell of fanaticism.”

  Accompanied by his bodyguards, Krispos left the cell and the subterranean gaol. About halfway up the stairs to the entrance hall, one of the Halogai said, “Forgive me, Majesty, but may I ask if I heard the blue-robe aright? Did he not blame you there for failing to flay him?”

  “Aye, that’s just what he did, Frovin,” Krispos answered.

  The northerner’s blue eyes mirrored his confusion. “Majesty, I do not understand. I do not fear hurt and gore; that were unmanly. But neither do I run forth and embrace them like man clasping maid.”

  “Nor do I,” Krispos said. “A streak of martyrdom runs through some of the pious in Videssos, though. Me, I’d sooner live for the good god than die for him.”

  “Spoken like a man of sense,” Frovin said. The other bodyguards rumbled approval, down deep in their chests.

  When he went outside, the gray light of winter dawn was building. The air smelled of smoke, but with stoves, fireplaces, and braziers by the tens of thousands, the air of Videssos the city always had a smoky tang to it. No great curtains of black billowed up into the lightening sky. If the Thanasioi had thought to burn down the city, thus far they’d failed.

  Back in the plaza of Palamas, Evripos still slept. To Krispos’ surprise, he found Katakolon in earnest conversation with Thokyodes the fire captain. “If you’re sure everything’s out in that district, why don’t you get some rest?” his youngest son was saying. “You won’t do us or the city any good if you’re too worn to answer the next summons.”

  “Aye, that’s good advice, young Majesty,” Thokyodes answered, saluting. “We’ll kip right out here, if that suits—and if you can find us some blankets.”

  “Barsymes!” Katakolon called. Krispos nodded approvingly—Katakolon might not know where things were, but he knew who would. His son spotted him. “Hello, Father. Just holding things together as best I could; Barsymes told me you were busy with that madman of a priest.”

  “So I was. I thank you for the help. Do we have the upper hand?”

  “We seem to,” Katakolon said, more caution in his voice than Krispos was used to hearing there.

  “Good enough,” Krispos said. “Now let’s see if we can keep it.”

  Toward midmorning, riot flared again in the quarter south of Middle Street. The soldiers Krispos had sent in the night before stayed loyal, much to his relief. Better still, the wind stayed calm, which gave Thokyodes’ crew a fighting chance against the blazes set by the heretics and rioters—not identical groups; some of the brawlers arrested were out for what they reckoned piety, others just for loot.

  When messengers reported that spasm spent, Krispos raised cups of wine with both Katakolon and Evripos, convinced the worst was past. Then another messenger arrived, this one a gaoler from under the government office building. “What now?” Krispos asked.

  “It concerns the matter of the prisoner Digenis the priest,” the fellow answered.

  “Well, what about him?” Krispos said, wishing the gaoler wouldn’t talk like what he was now that he’d come away from the cells and into the sun.

  “Your Majesty, he has refused alimentation,” the man declared. Krispos’ upraised eyebrow warned him he’d better talk straighter than that. He did try: “Your Majesty, he won’t eat his victuals. He declares his intention to starve himself to death.”

  FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE HE GREW OLD ENOUGH TO JUMP OVER a bonfire instead of falling into one, Phostis did no leaping on Midwinter’s Day. Whatever ill-luck he’d accumulated over the past year remained unburned. He wasn’t mewed up in his monklike cell in the keep of Etchmiadzin; he’d been allowed out and about for some weeks. But no fires blazed on street corners anywhere in the town.

  Dark streets on Midwinter’s Day struck him as unnatural, even while he accompanied Olyvria and—inevitably—Syagrios to one of Etchmiadzin’s temples. The service was timed for sunset, which came early not only became this was the shortest day of the year but also because the sun, instead of descending to a smooth horizon, disappeared behind the mountains to the west.

  Night came down like an avalanche. Inside the temple, whose strong, blocky architecture spoke of Vaspurakaner builders, darkness seemed absolute; the Thanasio: unlike the orthodox, did not celebrate the light on Midwinter’s Day but rather confronted their fear of the dark. Not a torch, not a candle burned inside the temple.

  Standing there in the midst of blackness, Phostis peered about, trying to see something, anything. For all the good his eyes did, he might as well have been blindfolded again. His shiver had nothing to do with the cold that filled the temple along with night. Never had the menace of Skotos seemed so real, so close.

  Seeking assurance where sight gave none, he reached out and clasped Olyvria’s hand in his own. She squeezed bac
k hard; he wondered if this eerie, silent ritual was as hard on her, on all the Thanasioi, as it was on him.

  “Someone will start screaming soon,” he whispered, not least to keep himself from becoming that someone. His breathless voice seemed to echo through the temple, though he knew even Olyvria could hardly hear him.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “It happens sometimes. I remember when—”

  He didn’t find out what she remembered. Her words were lost in a great exhalation of relief from the whole congregation. A priest carrying a single candle strode up the aisle toward the altar. Every eye swung toward that glowing point as if drawn by a lodestone.

  “We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind,” the priest intoned, and everyone in the temple joined in the creed with greater fervor than Phostis had ever known, “by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.”

  The congregation’s amens came echoing back from the conical dome that surmounted the altar. Often, to Phostis, Phos’ creed had become mere words to be quickly gabbled through without thinking on what they meant. Not now. In the cold and frightening dark, they, like the tiny flame from the candle the priest held on high, took on new meaning, new importance. If they were not, if light was not—what then? Only black, only ice. Phostis shivered again.

  The priest moved the candle to and fro and said, “Here is the soul, adrift in a creation not its own, the sole light floating on an ocean of darkness. It moves here, it moves there, always surrounded by—things.” Coming out of the gloom that prevailed even at the altar, the word had a frightening power.

  “But the soul is not a—thing,” the priest went on. “The soul is a spark from the infinite torch of Phos, trapped in a world made by the foe of sparks and the greater foe of greater sparks. The things that surround us distract us from the pursuit of goodness, holiness, and piety, which are all that truly matter.

  “For our souls endure forever, and will be judged forever. Shall we then turn toward that which does not endure? Food turns to dung, fire to ash, fine raiment to rags, our bodies to stench and bones and then to dust. What boots it, then, whether we gorge on sweetmeats, toast our homes till we sweat in the midst of winter, drape ourselves with silks and furs, or twitch to the brief deluded passions—miscalled pleasures—that spring from the organs we better use to void ourselves of dross?”

  Contemplating infinite judgment, contemplating infinite punishment for the sins he, like any mortal, had surely committed, made Phostis want to tear his grip free from Olyvria’s. Anything involving base matter in any way was surely evil, surely sufficient to cast him down to the ice forevermore.

  But Olyvria clung to him harder than she had before. Maybe, he told himself, she needed comfort and reassurance. Granting her that spiritual boon might outweigh his guilt for noticing how warm and smooth her skin was. He did not let go of her hand.

  The priest said, “Each year, the lord with the great and good mind warns us we cannot presume his mercy will endure forever. Each year, all through fall, Phos’ sun sinks lower in the sky. Each year, our prayers call it back to rise higher once more, to grant warmth and light even to the wicked figments of reality that spring from the dark heart of Skotos.

  “But beware! No mercy, not even the good god’s, endures forever. Phos may yet sicken on our great glut of sins. One year—maybe one year not far from now, given the wretched state of mankind; maybe even next year, maybe even this year—one year, I say, the sun may not turn back toward the north the day after Midwinter’s Day, but rather go on sinking ever southward, sinking until only a little crimson twilight remains on the horizon, and then—nothing. No light. No hope. No blessings. Forever.”

  “No!” someone wailed. In an instant, the whole congregation took up the cry. Among the rest was Olyvria, her voice clear and strong. Among them, after a moment, was Phostis himself: the priest had a gift for instilling fright. Among them even was Syagrios. Phostis hadn’t thought the ruffian respected Phos or feared Skotos.

  Through all the outcry, Olyvria’s fingers remained laced with his. He didn’t really think about that; he just accepted it gratefully. Instead of feeling alone in the cold blackness that could have come straight from Skotos, he was reminded others fought the dark with him. He needed that reminder. Never in all his years of worshiping at the High Temple had he known such fear of the dark god.

  The priest said, “With fasting and lamentation we may yet show Phos that, despite our failings, despite the corruption that springs from the bodies in which we dwell, we remain worthy of the sign of his light for yet another year, that we may advance farther down the gleaming path praised by the holy Thanasios. Pray now, and let the lord with the great and good mind know what is in your hearts!”

  If before the temple had echoed to the shouts of the congregation, now, even louder, it was filled with the worshipers’ prayers. Phostis’ went up with the rest. In the riches and light of the High Temple it was easy to believe, along with the ecumenical patriarch and his plump, contented votaries, that Phos would surely vanquish Skotos at the end of days. Such sublime confidence was harder to maintain in the dark of a chilly temple with a priest preaching of light draining out of the world like water from a tub.

  At first, all Phostis heard was the din of people at noisy prayer. Then, little by little, he noticed individual voices in the din. Some repeated Phos’ creed over and over: Videssos’ universal prayer prevailed among Thanasioi and their foes alike. Others sent up simple requests: “Give us light.” “Bless my wife with a son this year, O Phos.” “Make me more pious and less lustful!” “Heal my mother’s sores, which no salve has aided!”

  Prayers like those would not have seemed out of place back in the High Temple. Others, though, had a different ring to them. “Destroy everything that stands in our way!” “To the ice with those who will not walk the gleaming path!” “O Phos, grant me the courage to cast aside the body that befouls my soul!” “Wreck them all, wreck them all, wreck them all!”

  He did not care for those; they might have come from the throats of baying wolves rather than men. But before he could do more than notice them, the priest at the altar raised a hand. Any motion within his candle’s tiny circle of light was astoundingly noticeable. The congregation fell silent at once, and with it Phostis’ concerns.

  The priest said, “Prayer alone does not suffice. We do not walk the gleaming path with our tongues; the road that leads beyond the sun is paved with deeds, not words. Go forth now and live as Thanasios would have had you live. Seek Phos’ blessings in hunger and want, not the luxuries of this world that are but a single beat of a gnat’s wings against the judgment yet to come. Go forth! This liturgy is ended.”

  No sooner had he spoken than acolytes bearing torches came into the worship area from the narthex to light the congregants’ way out. Phostis blinked; his eyes filled with tears at what seemed the savage glare, though a moment later he realized it was not so bright after all.

  He’d dropped Olyvria’s hand the instant the acolytes entered—or perhaps she’d dropped his. In more light than a single candle flame, he dared not risk angering Syagrios…and, even more to the point, angering Livanios.

  Then palace calculation surged forward unbidden in his mind. Would Livanios throw his daughter at the heir apparent to the throne? Did he seek influence through the marriage bed? Phostis filed that away for future consideration. But no matter what Livanios intended, the feel of Olyvria’s hand in his had been the only warmth he’d known, physical or spiritual. through the Thanasiot service.

  He’d thought the temple’s interior cold, and so it had been. But there, at least, some hundreds of people crowded together had given a measure, albeit a small one, of animal warmth. Out on the night-black streets of Etchmiadzin, with the wind whipping knifelike down from the hills, Phostis rediscovered what true cold meant.

  The heavy wool cloak he wore might have been made of lace, for all the good it did to ke
ep off the wind. Even Syagrios hissed as the blast struck him. “By the good god,” he muttered, “I’d not mind jumping over a bonfire tonight, or even into one, just so as I could get warm.”

  “You’re right.” The words were out of Phostis’ mouth before he remembered to be surprised at agreeing with Syagrios about anything.

  “Fires and displays are not the way of the gleaming path,” Olyvria said. “I remember them, too, from the days before my father accepted Thanasios’ way. He says it’s better to make your soul safe than to worry about what happens to your body.”

  The priest in the temple had said the same. From him, it sank deep into Phostis’ heart. From Livanios, even through Olyvria as intermediary, the words did not mean as much. The heresiarch mouthed Thanasiot slogans, but did he live by them? As far as Phostis could see, he remained sleek, well fed, and worldly.

  Hypocrite. The word tolled like a warning bell on a rocky coast. Hypocrisy was the crime of which Phostis had in his mind convicted his father, most of the capital’s nobles, the ecumenical patriarch, and most of the clergy, as well. The quest for unvarnished truth was what had drawn him to the Thanasioi in the first place. Finding Livanios anything but unvarnished made him doubt the perfection of the gleaming path.

  He said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing the time of the sun-turning as one of rejoicing as well as sorrow. After all, it does ensure life for another year.”

  “But life in the world means life in things which are Skotos,” Olyvria said. “Where’s to rejoice over that?”

  “If it weren’t for material things, life would come to an end, and so would mankind,” Phostis countered. “Is that what you want: to fade away and vanish?”

  “Not for myself.” Olyvria’s shiver, like Phostis’ back in the temple, had little to do with the weather. “But there are those who do want exactly that. You’ll see some of them soon, I think.”