The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  “Can you take me for what I am instead of for whose son I might be?” Phostis said. “In every way that matters, I’m yours.” He told Krispos how he’d found himself imitating him while a prisoner, and how so much of what Krispos said made more sense afterward.

  “I know why that is,” Krispos said. Phostis made a questioning noise. Krispos went on, “It’s because the only experience anyone can really learn from is his own. I was probably just wasting breath beforehand when I preached at you: you couldn’t have had any idea what I was talking about. And when my words did prove of some use to you—nothing could make me prouder.”

  He folded Phostis into a bear hug. For a moment, resentment flared in the younger man: where had embraces like this been when he was a boy and needed them most? But he’d already worked out the answer to that for himself. He wasn’t pleased with Krispos for acting as he had over the years, but now that, too, made more sense.

  Phostis said, “Can we go on as we did before? Even with doubts, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have for my father than you—and that includes Anthimos.”

  “That cuts both ways—son,” Krispos said. “With me or in spite of me, you’ve made yourself a man. Let’s hope it’s not as it was. Let’s hope it’s better. So it may prove, for much of the poison between us is out in the open now.”

  “Phos grant that it be so—Father,” Phostis said. They embraced again. When they separated, Phostis found himself yawning. He said, “Now I’m going back to my tent for the night.”

  Krispos gave him a sly look. “Will you tell your lady what passed here?”

  “One of these days, maybe,” Phostis said after a little thought. “Not just yet.”

  “That’s what I’d say in your sandals,” Krispos agreed. “You think like one of mine, all right. Good night, son.”

  “Good night,” Phostis said. He yawned again, then headed back to the tent where Olyvria was waiting. When he walked in, he found that, almost certainly against her best intentions, she’d fallen asleep. He was careful not to wake her when he lay down himself.

  “ALL RIGHT, SORCEROUS SIR,” KRISPOS SAID TO ZAIDAS, “HAVING learned what you did from my son, how do you propose to exploit it to our best advantage?”

  He felt a stab when he spoke thus of Phostis, but it was not the usual stab of suspicious fear, merely one of curiosity. He was beginning to see he had a man there to reckon with, and if perchance Phostis was not his by blood, he certainly was by turn of mind. What more could any ruler—any father—want?

  Zaidas said, “I will show you what I can do, Your Majesty. Not least by using the power he has gained from the transition of fanatical Thanasioi out of life and into death, this Makuraner wizard, this Artapan, has built his magic to a point where it is difficult to assail. This much, to my discomfiture, you have seen.”

  “Yes,” Krispos said. Many times he’d resolved to treat Phostis as if he were certain of his parentage; as many times, till now, he’d failed. This time, he thought he might succeed.

  “An arch has a keystone,” Zaidas went on. “Take it out and the whole thing crashes to the ground. So with Artapan’s magic. Take away this power he has wrongfully arrogated to himself and he will be weaker than if he never meddled where he should not have. This is what I aim to do.”

  Krispos recognized the didactic tone in the sorcerer’s voice. It suited him: though he had no sorcerous talent himself, he was always interested in hearing how wizards did what they did. Today, moreover, it would influence how he conducted his campaign. And so he asked, “How will you manage it, sorcerous sir?”

  “By opposing the power of death with the power of life,” Zaidas answered. “The sorcery is prepared, Your Majesty. I shall essay it tomorrow at dawn, when the rising of Phos’ sun, most powerful symbol of light and life and rebirth, shall add its influence to that of my magic. And your son, too, shall play a role, as shall Livanios’ daughter Olyvria.”

  “Shall they?” Krispos said. “Will it endanger them? I’d not care to have Phostis restored to me only to lose him two days later in a war of sorcerers.”

  “No, no.” Zaidas shook his head. “The good god willing—and so I believe the case to be—the procedure I have in mind will take Artapan altogether by surprise. And even if he knows Phostis has escaped and joined you here, your son gives the strong impression the Makuraner does not know his technique has been discovered.”

  “Until the dawn, then,” Krispos said. He wanted immediate action, but Zaidas’ reason for delay struck him as good. It also let the imperial army advance farther onto the westlands’ central plateau—with luck, positioning the force to exploit whatever success against Artapan that Zaidas achieved.

  Krispos wondered how much faith to place in his chief mage. Zaidas hadn’t had much luck against the Thanasioi. Before, though, he hadn’t known what he was opposing. Now he did. If he couldn’t do something useful with that advantage…“Then he won’t be any help at all,” Krispos said aloud. He breathed a silent prayer for Zaidas up to the watching sky.

  RED AS BLOOD, THE SUN CRAWLED UP OVER THE EASTERN HORIZON. Zaidas greeted it by raising his hands to the heavens and intoning Phos’ creed: “We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.”

  Phostis imitated the gesture and echoed the creed. He fought to stifle a yawn; yawning during the creed struck him as faintly blasphemous. But getting up well before sunrise as spring grew toward summer was anything but easy.

  Beside him, Olyvria shifted from foot to foot. She looked awake enough, but nervous nonetheless. She kept stealing glances at Krispos. Being around the Avtokrator had to add to her unease. To Phostis, his father—for so he still supposed Krispos to be—was family first and ruler second; familiarity overcame awe. It was just the other way round for Olyvria.

  “Get on with it,” Krispos said harshly.

  Used to any other man, it would have been a heads-will-roll tone. Zaidas merely nodded and said, “All in good time, Your Majesty…Ah, now we see the entire disk of the sun. We may proceed.”

  A few hundred yards away, sunrise made the imperial army begin to stir in camp. Almost all the Haloga bodyguards stood between the camp and this little hillock, to make sure no one blundered up while Zaidas was at his magic. The rest were between the sorcerer and Krispos. Phostis didn’t know what their axes could do against magic gone wrong. He didn’t think they knew, either, but they were ready to try.

  Zaidas lighted a sliver of wood from one of the torches that had illuminated the hillock before the day began. He used the flame to light a stout candle of sky-blue wax, one fat and tall enough to have provided imperial sealing wax for the next fifty years. As the flame slid down the wick and caught in the wax, he spoke the creed again, this time softly to himself.

  Candles in daylight were normally overwhelmed by the sun. Somehow this one was not. Though when seen directly its flame was no brighter than that of an ordinary candle, yet its glow caught and held on Zaidas’ face, and Krispos’, and Olyvria’s. Though he could not see himself, Phostis supposed the light lingered on him, as well.

  Zaidas said, “This light symbolizes the long and great life of the Empire of Videssos, and of the faith that it has sustained and that has sustained it across the centuries. Long may Empire and faith flourish.”

  From under a silk cloth he took out another candle, this one hardly better than a tiny taper, a thin layer of bright red wax around a wick.

  “That’s the same color as the sealing wax on that vaunting letter Livanios sent me,” Krispos said.

  Zaidas smiled. “Your Majesty lacks only the gift to be a first-rate wizard. Your instincts are perfectly sound.” He raised his voice to the half-chanting tone he used when incanting. “This small, brief candle stands for the Thanasioi, whose foolish heresy will soon fail and be forgotten.”

  Almost as soon as he spoke the last words, the little red candle guttered out. A th
in spiral of smoke rose from it. When the breeze blew that away, nothing showed that the candle representing the Thanasioi had ever existed. The larger light, the one symbolizing Videssos as a whole, burned on.

  “Now what?” Krispos demanded. “This should be the time to settle accounts with that Makuraner mage.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Zaidas was a patient man. Sometimes even the most patient of men finds it necessary to let his patience show. He said, “I could proceed even more expeditiously if I did not have to pause and respond to inquiries and comments. Now—”

  Krispos chuckled, quite unabashed. This time Zaidas ignored him. He took a large silk cloth, big enough for a wall hanging, and draped it over both Phostis and Olyvria. The cloth was of the same sky blue as the candle that stood for the Empire and the orthodox faith. The silk’s fine weave let Phostis see through it mistily, as if through fog.

  He watched Zaidas take up yet another cloth, this one striped in bright colors. It reminded him of the caftans Artapan had worn. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Zaidas declared, “Now we shall sorcerously show the wicked wizard of Makuran that he shall profit nothing from his courtship of death!” He dropped out of that impressive tone and into ordinary speech for a moment: “Now, young Majesty, comes your time to contribute to this magic. Take your intended in your arms, kiss her, and think on all you might be doing were the rest of us not standing around here making nuisances of ourselves.”

  Phostis stared at him through the thin silk cloth. “Are you sure that’s what you want of us, Uncle Z—uh, sorcerous sir?”

  “Do that alone and do it properly, young Majesty, and no one could do more this day. Think of it, if you must, as duty rather than pleasure.”

  Kissing Olyvria was not a duty, and Phostis refused to consider it one. Her sweet lips and tongue, the soft firmness of her body pressed against his, argued that she, too, enjoyed the task Zaidas had set them. So tightly did Phostis hold her against him that she could not have doubted what he wanted to do with her. He heard her laugh softly, back in her throat.

  After a while, he opened his eyes. He’d kissed Olyvria a lot lately, and while he thoroughly enjoyed it, he’d never been part of a major conjuration before. He wanted to see what Zaidas was up to. The first thing he saw was that Olyvria’s eyes were already open. That made him laugh.

  Zaidas was holding the piece of striped fabric above the flame of the blue candle. He intoned, “As they celebrate life under their cloth, so may that overturn the Makuraner mage who would strengthen himself through death. Let his sorcery be consumed as Videssos’ light consumes the cloth of his country.” He thrust the fabric into the fire.

  Phostis always regretted the silk cloth that hazed his vision; it made him doubt his own eyes. The striped square of fabric flared up brightly the moment the candle flame touched it. For that instant, it burned as if it had been soaked in oil; Phostis wondered if Zaidas could drop it fast enough to save his fingers.

  But then the burning cloth flickered and almost went out. Not only that, the part that had been consumed seemed restored, so that the cloth looked bigger than it had when it burned brightest. Zaidas stumbled and almost took it out of the candle flame.

  He stood steady, though, and repeated the incantation he’d used when he first put the cloth in the flame. To it he added other muttered charms that Phostis heard only indistinctly. The striped cloth began to burn again, hesitantly at first but then with greater vigor. “You have it, sorcerous sir!” Krispos breathed.

  Though he spoke softly, he must have distracted Zaidas, for the flame on the cloth shrank and the cloth itself seemed to expand once more. But Zaidas rallied again. More and more of the cloth burned away. Finally, with a puff of smoke like the one from the expiring Thanasiot candle, it was gone. Zaidas stuck the thumb and forefinger of his right hand into his mouth. They shouldn’t have been scorched, though—they should have been burned to the bone.

  When he took the fingers out, the wizard said in a worn voice, “What magic can do, magic has done. The good god willing, I have struck Artapan a heavy blow this day.”

  “How shall you know whether the good god was willing?” Krispos asked.

  Instead of answering directly, Zaidas swept the filmy silk cloth away from Phostis and Olyvria and said, “You two can detach yourselves from each other now.”

  They shook their heads at the same time and both started to laugh. That was what made them break apart. Phostis said, “We liked what we were doing.”

  “I noticed that, yes,” Zaidas said, so dryly it might have been Krispos talking.

  Krispos repeated, “How will you know whether you smote Artapan?”

  “Your Majesty, I am about to find that out, for which purpose I require your eldest son once more.”

  “Me?” Phostis said. “What do I need to do now?”

  “What I tell you.” Before explaining what that was, the mage turned to Olyvria and bowed. “My lady, I am grateful for your services against the Makuraner. Your presence is not required for this next conjuration.” He made it sound as if her presence was not desired. Though that miffed Phostis, Olyvria nodded and swept down the little hillock. A couple of Halogai trailed after her; the northerners seemed to have accepted her as part of the imperial family.

  “Why don’t you want her to watch what we’re doing?” Phostis asked Zaidas.

  “Because I am going to use you to help locate her father Livanios,” Zaidas answered. “You were in contact with him; by the law of contagion, you remain in contact. So, for that matter, does she, but no matter how she loves you, I would not use her as the instrument of her father’s betrayal.”

  “A nicety of sentiment the Thanasioi wouldn’t give back to us,” Krispos said. “But you’re right to use it. Carry on, sorcerous sir.”

  “I shall, never fear,” Zaidas answered. “I was just about to explain that Artapan’s magic has up to this point shielded the Thanasioi from such direct sorcerous scrutiny. If, however, we have weakened him with the conjuration just completed, this next spell should also succeed.”

  “Very neat,” Krispos said approvingly. “You use the same magic to learn whether the previous one worked and where the heresiarch’s main force is. That’s economical enough to have sprung from the brain of a treasury logothete.”

  “I shall construe that as a compliment, and hope it was meant so,” Zaidas said, which squeezed a chuckle out of Krispos.

  The conjuration the sorcerer had in mind seemed simple in the extreme. He took some loose, crumbly dirt from the top of the hillock and put it in a large, low bowl. Then he called Phostis over and had him press his hand down onto the dirt. As soon as Phostis drew back a pace, Zaidas began to chant. His left hand moved in quick passes over the bowl.

  A few seconds later, hair prickled up on the back of Phostis’ neck. The dirt was stirring, shifting, humping itself up into a ridge—no, not a ridge, an arrow, for one end showed an unmistakable point.

  “East and a little south,” Zaidas said.

  “Very, very good,” Krispos breathed; as usual, he was quietest when he felt most triumphant. “The mask is down, then—we can see the moves Livanios makes. Have you any idea how far away his force lies?”

  “Not precisely, no,” the mage answered. “By the speed with which the arrow formed, I should say he is not close. It gives but a rough measure, though.”

  “A rough measure is all we need for now. You and Phostis will work this magic every morning from now on, to give us the foe’s bearing and your rough measure of how far away he is. Will Artapan know his magic has failed him?”

  “I’m afraid so, Your Majesty,” Zaidas said. “Did you see how the cloth representing Makuran tried a couple of times to reconstitute itself? That was my opponent, attempting to resist and undo my spell. But he failed as I thought he would, for the power of life is stronger than that of death.”

  Krispos walked over to Phostis and clapped him on the back hard enough to stagger him. “And all of it tha
nks to you, son. I owe you a great deal; you’ve done me as much good by returning and aiding me as I feared you’d do me harm had you stayed with the Thanasioi. And besides that, I’m glad you’re back.”

  “I’m glad I’m back, too, Father,” Phostis said. If Krispos claimed the relationship despite his doubts, Phostis would not quarrel with it. He went on, “And what’s this I hear about your missing me so much that you decided to sire a bastard”—He carefully did not say another bastard—“to take my place?” The year before, he couldn’t have bantered so with Krispos.

  The Avtokrator looked startled, then laughed. “Which of your brothers told you that?”

  “Evripos, back at Videssos the city.”

  “Aye, it’s true. I hope he also said I didn’t intend to let it compromise the rights you three enjoy, even if it is a son.”

  “He did,” Phostis said, nodding. “But really, Father, at your age—”

  “That’s all of you who’ve said that now,” Krispos broke in. “To the ice with your teasing. As you’ll find out, gray in your beard doesn’t stop you from being a man. It may slow you down, but it doesn’t stop you.” He looked defiant, as if waiting for Phostis to find that funny.

  But Phostis didn’t feel like provoking him any further. Having just found his way onto good terms with Krispos, he wouldn’t risk throwing that away for the sake of a few minutes’ amusement. He probably wouldn’t have made such a calculation the year before; two or three years earlier, he was sure he wouldn’t have.

  What does that signify? he wondered. Is it what they mean by growing up? But he already was grown up. He had been for years—hadn’t he? Scratching his head, he walked back to the tent he shared with Olyvria.

  “DUE EAST NOW, YOUR MAJESTY,” ZAIDAS REPORTED. “THEY’RE getting close, too; the arrow formed almost as soon as Phostis took his hand from the ensorceled soil.”

  “All right, sorcerous sir, and thank you,” Krispos answered. For the last week he’d been maneuvering to place the imperial army square in the path of the withdrawing Thanasioi. “If the lord with the great and good mind is kind to us, we’ll swoop down on them before they even know we’re in the neighborhood.”