Krispos the Emperor

IV

"Let's get moving," Krispos said irritably. "Where's Phostis taken himself off to, anyhow? If he thinks I'll hold up the whole army for his sake, he's wrong."

"Maybe he's fallen into the latrine," Evripos said. Bad food was a risk on campaign; plenty of Halogai had been running back and forth in the night. The gibe might have been funny had Evripos sounded less hopeful it was true.

Krispos said, "I haven't time for anyone's nonsense today, son—his or yours." He turned to one of his guardsmen. "Skalla, stick your head into his tent and rout him out."

"Aye, Majesty." Like a lot of his fellows, Skalla looked even fairer—paler was probably a better word—than usual this morning. He strode off to do Krispos' bidding, but returned to the imperial pavilion a moment later with a puzzled expression on his face. "Majesty, he is not there. The coverlet is thrown back as if he'd got out of his cot. but he is not there."

"Well, the ice take it, where is he, then?" Krispos snapped. What Evripos had said sparked a thought. He told Skalla, "Pick a squad of guards and go up and down the slit trenches in a hurry, to make sure he wasn't taken ill there."

"Aye, Majesty." Skalla's voice was doleful. For one thing, now that morning had come, the latrines were busy. Anyone who spotted Phostis there would have raised an uproar. For another ...

"Pick men the flux missed," Krispos said. "I wouldn't want the stink to make them sick all over again."

"I thank you, Majesty." The Halogai were not what one would call a cheerful folk, but Skalla seemed more pleased with the world.

That did not mean he and the squad of guardsmen had any luck turning up Phostis. When he came back to report failure to Krispos, the Avtokrator said, "I'm not going to wait for him, by the good god. Let's get everyone moving. He'll turn up— where else is he going to go? And when he does, I shall have a word or two with him—a pungent word or two."

Skalla nodded; from everything Krispos had gleaned of how life worked in Halogaland, sons there knew better than to give already grizzled fathers more gray hair. He let out a mordant chuckle—it sounded too good to be true.

The imperial army did not get moving as fast as he would have wanted; it was newly mustered and still shaking down. He'd been sure Phostis would appear before the troops really started heading south and west. But his eldest did not appear. Evripos opened his mouth to say something that surely would have proved ill-advised. Krispos' glare made certain it never crossed the barrier of his son's lips.

By the time the army had been an hour on the road, Krispos' anger melted into worry. He sent couriers to each regiment to summon Phostis by name. The couriers returned to him. Phostis did not. Krispos turned to Evripos. "Fetch me Zaidas, at once." Evripos did not argue.

The wizard, not surprisingly, had a good notion of why he'd been summoned. He came straight to the point. "When was the young man last seen?"

"I've been trying to find out," Krispos answered. "He seems to have been taken with the same flux that seized a fair number of the Halogai last night. Several of them saw him once, or more than once, squatting over a latrine trench. No one, though, has any clear memory of spotting him there after about the seventh hour of the night."

"An hour or so past midnight, then? Hmm." Zaidas' eyes went far away, into a place Krispos could not follow. Despite that, though, he was a thoroughly practical man. 'The first thing to determine, your Majesty, is whether he be alive or dead."

"You're right, of course." Krispos bit his lip. For all his quarrels with his eldest, for all his doubts as to whether Phostis

was his eldest, he discovered he feared for Phostis' life as might any father, true or adoptive. "Can you do that at once, eminent and sorcerous sir?"

"A hedge wizard could do as much, your Majesty, with the abundance of Phostis' effects present here," the mage answered, smiling. "An elementary use of the law of contagion: these effects, once handled by the young Majesty, retain an affinity for him and will demonstrate it under sorcerous prodding ... assuming, of course, that he yet remains among the living."

"Aye, assuming," Krispos said harshly. "Find out at once, then, if we can go on making that assumption."

"Of course, your Majesty. Have you some artifact of your son's that I might use?"

Krispos pointed. "There's his bedding, slung over the back of the horse he should be riding. Will that do?"

"Excellently." Zaidas rode over to the animal at which Krispos had pointed and pulled a coverlet from the lump of cinched-down bedding. 'This is a very basic spell, your Majesty, one that requires no apparatus, merely a concentration of my will to increase the strength of the link between the blanket here and the young Majesty."

"Just get on with it," Krispos said.

"As you say." Zaidas laid the blanket across his knees, as he switched the reins to his left hand. He chanted briefly in the archaic dialect of Videssian most often used in the liturgy for Phos' Temple, at the same time moving his right hand in small, swift passes above the coverlet.

The square of soft wool rippled gently, like the surface of the sea when stirred by a soft breeze. "Phostis is alive," Zaidas declared in a voice that brooked no contradiction. "Had he left mankind, the coverlet would have lain quiescent, as it did before I completed the incantation."

"Thank you, eminent and sorcerous sir," Krispos said. Some of the great weight of worry he'd borne rolled off his shoulders—some, but far from all. The next question followed like one winter storm rolling into Videssos the city hard on the heels of another: "Having found that he is among the living, can you now learn among which living folk he is at the moment?"

Zaidas nodded, not in answer, Krispos thought, but to show he'd expected the Avtokrator would ask that. "Yes, your Majesty, I can do so," he said. "It's not quite so simple a spell as the one I just used, but like it springs from the workings of the law of contagion."

"I don't care if it springs from the ground when you pour pig manure around the place where you planted it," Krispos answered. "If you can work your magic while we move, so much the better. If not, I'll give you all the guards you need for as long as you need them."

"That shouldn't be necessary," Zaidas said. "I think I have with me all I shall require." He drew from a saddlebag a short, thin stick and a small silver cup. From his canteen, he poured wine into the cup until it was nearly full, then passed it to Krispos. "Hold this a moment, your Majesty, if you would be so kind." As soon as he had both hands free, he teased a fuzzy length of wool loose from Phostis' blanket, then wrapped it around the stick.

He held out a hand for the silver cup, which Krispos returned to him. When he had it back, he dropped in the stick so it floated on the wine. "This spell may also be accomplished with water, your Majesty, but I am of the opinion that the spirituous component of the wine improves its efficacy."

"However you think best," Krispos said. Listening to Zaidas cheerfully explain how he did what he did helped the Emperor not think about all the things that could have happened to Phostis.

The wizard said, "Once I have chanted, the little stick here, by virtue of its connection to the wool that was once connected to your son, will turn in the cup to reveal the direction in which he lies."

This spell, as Zaidas had said, was more intricate than the first one he'd used. He needed both hands for the passes, and he guided his horse by the pressure of his knees. At the climax of the incantation, he stabbed down at the floating stick with a rigid forefinger, crying out at the same time in a loud, commanding voice.

Krispos waited for the stick to quiver and point like a well-trained hunting dog. Instead, it spun wildly in the cup, splashing wine up over the edge and then sinking out of sight in the rich ruby liquid. Krispos stared. "What does that mean?"

"Your Majesty, if I knew, I would tell you." Zaidas sounded even more surprised than the Avtokrator had. He paused for a moment to think, then went on, "It might mean this blanket was in fact never in direct contact with Phostis. But no—" He shook his head. "That cannot be. either. Had the blanket no affinity for your son, it would not have responded to the spell that showed us he is alive."

"Yes, I follow your reasoning," Krispos said. "What other choices have we?"

"Next most likely, or so it seems to me, is that my sorcerous efforts are somehow being blocked, to keep me from learning where the young Majesty is," Zaidas said.

"But you are a master mage, one of the leaders of the Sorcerers' Collegium," Krispos protested. "How can anyone keep vou from working what you wish?"

"Several ways, your Majesty. I am not the only sorcerer of my grade within the Empire of Videssos. Another master, or perhaps even a team of lesser wizards, may be working to keep the truth from me. Notice the spell did not send us off in a direction that later proved false, but merely prevented us from learning the true one. That is an easier magic."

"I see," Krispos said slowly. "You named one way, or possibly even two, in which you could be deceived. Are there others?"

"Yes," Zaidas answered. "I am a master in wizardry based on our faith in Phos and rejection of his dark foe Skotos." The mage paused to spit. "This is, you might say, a two-poled system of magic. The Halogai with their many gods, or the Khamorth of the steppe with their belief in supernatural powers animating each rock or stream or sheep or blade of grass, view the world from such a different perspective that their sorcery is more difficult for a mage of my school to detect or counter. The same applies in lesser degree to the Makuraners, who filter the power of what they term the God through the intermediary of the Prophets Four."

"Assuming this blocking magic is from some school other than ours, can you fight through it?" Krispos asked.

"Your Majesty, there I am imperfectly certain. In theory, since ours is the only true faith, magic developed from it will in the end prove mightier than that based on any other system. In practice, man's creations being the makeshifts they are, a great deal depends on the strength and skill of the mages involved, regardless of the school to which they belong. I can try my utmost, but I cannot guarantee success."

"Do your utmost," Krispos said. "I suppose you will need to halt for your more complicated spells. I'll leave you a courier; send word the moment you have results of any sort."

"I shall, your Majesty," Zaidas promised. He looked as if he wanted to say something more. Krispos waved for him to go on. He did: "I pray you forgive me, your Majesty, but you might also be wise to send out riders to beat the countryside."

"I'll do that," Krispos said with a sinking feeling. Zaidas was warning him not to expect success in a huny, if at all.

The squads of horsemen clattered forth, some ahead of the army, some back toward Nakoleia, others out to either side of the track. No encouraging word came from them by sundown. Krispos and the main body of his force rode on, leaving Zaidas behind to set up his search magic. A company stayed with him to protect him from Thanasioi or simple robbers. Krispos waited and waited for the courier to return. At last, just as weariness was about to drive him to his cot, the fellow rode into the encampment. Seeing the question in the Emperor's eyes, he just shook his head.

"No luck?" Krispos said, for the sake of being sure.

"No luck," the courier answered. "I'm sorry, your Majesty. The wizard's magic failed again: more than once, from what he told me."

Grimacing, Krispos thanked the man and sent him to his own rest. He hadn't really believed Zaidas would stay baffled. He lay down on the cot as he'd intended, but found sleep a long time coming.

Stupid. The word slid sluggishly through Phostis' mind. Because he saw only darkness, he thought for a confused moment that he was still back at the latrines. Then he realized a bandage covered his eyes. He reached up to pull it off, only to discover his hands had been efficiently tied behind his back, his legs at knees and ankles.

He groaned. The sound came out muffled—he was also gagged. He groaned again anyhow. His head felt like an anvil on which a smith about as tall as the top of the High Temple's dome was hammering out a complicated piece of ironwork. He was lying on something hard—boards, he found out when a splinter dug into the thin strip of flesh between blindfold and gag.

Adding to the pounding agony behind his eyes were squeaks and jolts. I'm in a wagon, or maybe a cart, he thought, amazed and impressed that his poor benighted brain functioned at all. He groaned one more time.

"He's coming around," said somebody—a man—above and in front of him. The fellow laughed, loudly and raucously. "It's took him long enough, it has, it has."

"Shall we let him see where he's going?" another voice, a woman's, asked. After a moment, Phostis recognized it: Olyvria's. He ground his teeth in helpless fury; he felt he'd already used up all the groans in him.

The man—the driver?—said, "Nah, our orders was to bring him the first stage of the way to Livanios without him knowin' nothin' about it. That's what your pa done said, and that's what we does. So don't go untyin' him, either, you hear me?"

"I hear you, Syagrios," Olyvria answered. "It's too bad. We'd all be happier if we could get him cleaned up a bit."

"I've smelled worse, out in the fields at manuring time," Syagrios said. "The stink won't kill him, and it won't kill you, neither."

Phostis had been aware of a foul smell since his wits returned. He hadn't realized he was the cause of it. He must have gone on fouling himself after Olyvria's potion—the one that was supposed to end his internal turmoil—forced him down into oblivion. I'll have revenge for that, by the good god, he thought. I'll— He gave up. No vengeance seemed savage enough to suit him.

Olyvria said, "I wish he would have come and talked with me when he saw me by the baggage train. He recognized me, I know he did. I think I could have persuaded him to come with us of his own will. I know he follows Thanasios' gleaming path, at least in large measure."

Syagrios gave a loud, skeptical grunt. "How d'you know that?"

"He wouldn't bed me when he had the chance," Olyvria answered.

Her companion grunted again, in a slightly different tone. "Well, maybe. It don't matter, though. Our orders was to snatch him fast as we could, and we done did it. Livanios will be happy with us."

"So he will," Olyvria said.

She and Syagrios went on talking, but Phostis stopped heeding them. He hadn't figured out for himself—though he supposed he should have—that his kidnappers were Thanasioi. As it did Olyvria, the irony of that struck him, though in his case the impact was far more forcible. Given any sort of choice in the matter, he would have picked a different way of coming into their number. But they had not given him any choice.

He closed his lips on the gag and tried to draw a tiny bit of the cloth into his mouth. He needed several tries before he nipped it between upper and lower front teeth. After working awhile on chewing through it, he decided that was easier said than done. He labored instead to get it down so his mouth would be free. Just when he thought he'd succeed about the time he got to wherever Livanios was, the top edge of the gag slid down over his upper lip. Not only could he talk now if he had to, he could also breathe much more easily.

Even though he could talk, he resolved not to, lest his captors gag him more securely. But his body tested his resolve in ways he hadn't anticipated. At last he said, "Could you people please stop long enough to let me make water?"

Syagrios' startled jerk shook the whole wagon. "By the ice, how'd he get his mouth loose?" He turned around, then growled, "Well, why should we bother? You already stink."

"We aren't just stealing him, Syagrios, we're bringing him to us," Olyvria said. "There's no one on the road; why shouldn't we just stand him up and let him do what needs doing? It won't take long."

"Why should we? You didn't lift him in there, and you won't have to lift him out." The man grumbled a little longer, then said, "All right, have it your way." He must have pulled on the reins; the jingle of harness ceased as the wagon stopped. Phostis felt himself lifted by arms as thick and powerful as any Haloga's. He leaned against the side of the wagon on legs that did not want to hold him up. Syagrios said, "Go ahead and piss. Be quick about it."

"It's not that simple for him, you know," Olyvria said. "Here, wait—I'll help." The wagon shifted behind Phostis as she got down. He listened to her come around and stand by him. She hiked up his robe so he wouldn't wet it. As if that weren't mortification enough, she took him in hand and said, "Go on; now you won't splash on your boots."

Syagrios laughed coarsely. "You hold him like that for very long and he'll be too stiff to piss at all."

Phostis hadn't even thought about that aspect of things; what rang through his mind was his father's voice back at Nakoleia, asking him if he wanted praise for piddling without getting his feet wet. At the moment, such praise would have been welcome. He relieved himself as fast as he could; never before had the phrase possessed such real and immediate meaning for him. His sigh when he was through was involuntary but heartfelt.

The robe fluttered down around his tied ankles. Syagrios picked him up and, grunting, lifted him back into the wagon. The fellow talked like a villain and, without Phostis' excuse for filth, was none too clean, but he had brute strength to spare. He set Phostis down flat in the wagon bed, then returned to his place and got his team moving once more.

"You want to gag him again?" he asked Olyvria.

"No," Phostis said—quietly, so they would see he did not have to be gagged. Then he used a word most often perfunctory for an Avtokrator's son: "Please." It was not perfunctory now.

"I think I'd better," Olyvria said after a brief pause. She must have swung round on the seat; her feet came down in the wagon close by Phostis' head. "I'm sorry," she told him as she slipped the gag over his mouth and tied it behind his neck, "but we just can't trust you yet."

Her fingers were smooth and warm and briskly capable; had she given him the chance, he would have bitten them to the bone. He didn't get the chance. He was already discovering she knew how to do much more than lie temptingly naked on a bed.

That discovery would have surprised his brothers even more than it did him. Evripos and Katakolon were convinced lying naked on a bed was all women were good for. Since he was less concerned about finding them there, he found it easier to envision them doing other things. But not even he had imagined finding one who made such an effective kidnapper.

Olyvria got back up beside Syagrios. She remarked, apparently to no one in particular, "If he gets that one off, he'll regret it."

"I'll make him regret it." Syagrios sounded as if he looked forward to doing just that. Phostis, who had already started working on the new gag. decided not to go on. He chose to believe Olyvria had given him a hint.

The day was the longest, driest, hungriest, and generally most miserable he'd ever endured. After some endless while, he began to see real black rather than gray through the blindfold. The air grew cooler, almost chilly. Night, he thought. He wondered if Syagrios would drive straight on till dawn. If Syagrios did, Phostis wondered if he would still be alive by the time his eyes saw gray once more.

But not long after dark, Syagrios stopped. He picked Phostis up, leaned him against the side of the wagon, then descended, picked him up again, and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of chickpeas. Behind him, Olyvria got the horses moving at a slow walk.

From ahead came a metallic squawk of rusty hinges, then the scrape of something moving against resistance from dirt and gravel: a gate opening, Phostis thought "Hurry up," an unfamiliar male voice said.

"Here we go," Syagrios answered. He picked up his pace. By their hoofbeats, so did the horses behind him. As soon as they stopped, the gate went scrape-squeak. Closing. Phostis thought. The slam of a bar falling into place confirmed that. "Ah, good," Syagrios said. "Think we can untie him for now and take the rag off his eyes?"

"I don't see why not," the other man said. "If he gets away from this place, by the good god, he's earned it. And didn't I hear he's halfway set foot on the gleaming path himself?"

"Aye, I've heard that, too." Syagrios laughed. "Thing is, I didn't get to be as old as I am believing everything I hear."

"Set him down so I can cut the ropes easier," Olyvria said. Syagrios put Phostis onto the ground more carefully than if he'd been chickpeas, but not much. Somebody—presumably Olyvria—slit his bonds, then slid the blindfold from his face.

He blinked; his eyes filled with tears. After a day in enforced darkness, even torchlight seemed shockingly bright. When he tried to lever himself up, neither arms nor legs would obey him. He set his teeth against the pain of returning blood. Pins and needles was too mild a phrase for it; it felt more like nails and spikes. They got worse with every passing moment, until he wondered if the maltreated members would fall off.

"It will ease soon," Olyvria assured him.

He wondered how she could know—had she ever been trussed up like a suckling pig on its way to market? But she was right. After a little while, he tried again to stand. This time he made it, though he swayed like a tree in a windstorm.

"He don't look too good," said the fellow who went with this ... farmhouse, Phostis supposed it was, though the man, lean, pale, and furtive, looked more like a sneakthief than a farmer.

"He'll be hungry," Syagrios said, "and tired." Syagrios seemed very much the stalwart bruiser Phostis had expected. He wasn't even of average height for a Videssian, but had shoulders as wide as any Haloga's and arms thick with corded muscle. At some time in the unknown past, his nose had intercepted a chair or other instrument of strong opinion.

A big gold hoop dangled piratically from his left ear. Phostis pointed at it. "I thought folk who followed the gleaming path didn't wear ornaments like that."

Syagrios' startled stare quickly slid into a scowl. "None of your cursed business what I wear or don't—" he began, folding one big hand into a fist.

"Wait," Olyvria said. "This is something he needs to know." She turned to Phostis. "You're right and yet you're wrong. When we go among men not of our kind, sometimes lack of ostentation can betray us. We have the right to disguise our appearance, just as we may deny our creed to save ourselves."

Phostis bit down hard on that one. A Videssian's faith was his proudest possession; many had been martyred for refusing to compromise the creed. Letting a man—or a woman— dissemble in time of danger went square against everything he'd ever been taught ... but also made good sense from a practical standpoint.

Slowly he said, "My father will have a hard time sifting those who follow Thanasios' ways from the generality, then." Krispos wouldn't have looked for that. Most heresies, believing themselves orthodox, trumpeted their tenets and made themselves easy targets. But suppressing the Thanasioi would be like striking smoke, which gave way before blows yet was not destroyed.

"That's right," Olyvria said. "We'll give the imperial army more trouble than it can handle. Before long, we'll give the whole Empire more trouble than it can handle." Her eyes sparkled at the prospect.

Syagrios turned to the fellow who'd let them into the courtyard. "Where's the food?" he boomed, slapping his bulging belly with the palm of one hand. No matter what Olyvria said, Phostis had trouble picturing him as an ascetic.

"I'll get it," the skinny man said, and went into the house.

"Phostis needs it more than you," Olyvria said to Syagrios.

"So?" he answered. "I was the one with the wit to ask for it. Of course, our friend here wasn't likely to listen to the likes of him." Phostis thought he deliberately avoided naming the other man. That showed more wit than he'd credited Syagrios with having. If he ever escaped ... but did he want to escape? He shook his head, bewildered. He didn't know what he wanted.

He didn't know what he wanted, that is, until the fellow who looked like a thief came out with a loaf of black bread, some runny yellow cheese, and a jar of the sort that commonly held cheap wine. Then his growling stomach and spit-filled mouth loudly made their wishes known.

He ate like a starving badger. The wine mounted from his belly to his head. He felt more nearly human that he had since he was drugged, but that wasn't saying much. He asked, "May I have a cloth or a sponge and some water to wash myself? And some clean clothes, if there are any?"

The skinny fellow looked at Syagrios. Syagrios, for all his bluster, looked at Olyvria. She nodded. The skinny fellow said to Phostis, "You're my size, near enough. You can wear one of my old tunics. I'll get it. There's a pitcher and a sponge on a stick in the privy."

Phostis waited until he had the rough, colorless homespun garment in his hands, then headed for the privy. The robe he wore was worth dozens of the one he put on, but he made the exchange with nothing but delight.

He looked down at himself as he came out of the privy. He was no peacock, like some of the young men who swaggered around Videssos the city displaying themselves and their finery on holidays. Even if he'd had such longings—as Katakolon did, to some degree—Krispos wouldn't have let him indulge them. Having been born on a farm, Krispos still kept the poor man's scorn for fancy clothes he couldn't afford himself. Nonetheless, Phostis was sure he'd never worn anything so plain in his whole life.

The thin man pointed at him. "See! Without the embroidered robes, he looks like anybody else. That's what Thanasios says, bless him—take away the riches that separate one man from another and we're all pretty much the same. What we have to do is make sure nobody has riches. The lord with the great and good mind will love us for that."

"Other way to make us all the same is let everybody have riches." Syagrios cast a covetous eye on the befouled robe Phostis had been so happy to remove. "Clean that up and it'd bring a pretty piece of change."

"No," Olyvria said. "Try to sell it and you shout 'Here I am!' to Krispos' spies. Livanios ordered us to destroy everything Phostis had when we took him, and that's what we'll do."

"All right, all right," Syagrios said, voice surly. "Still seems a waste, though."

The skinny man rounded on him. "Your theology's not all it should be. The goal is the destruction of riches, says Thanasios, not the equality, for Phos best loves those who give up all they have for the sake of his truth."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Syagrios said. "If all were alike, poor or rich, we wouldn't be jealous of each other, and if jealousy ain't a sin, what is, eh?" He set hands on hips and smiled triumphantly at the thin man.

"I'll tell you what," the other answered hotly, ready as any Videssian to do battle for the sake of his dogmas.

"No, you won't." Olyvria's tone reminded Phostis of the one Krispos used when delivering judgment from the imperial throne. "The forces of materialism are stronger than we are. If we quarrel among ourselves, we are lost ... so we shall not quarrel."

Syagrios and the skinny fellow both glared at her, but neither one of them carried the argument any further. Phostis was impressed. He wondered what power Olyvria had over her henchmen. Whatever it was, it worked. Maybe she carried an amulet ... or would a heretic's charm be efficacious? Then again, were the Thanasioi heretics or the most perfect of the orthodox?

Before Phostis could formulate an answer to either of those questions, the skinny man jerked a thumb in his direction and said, "What do we do with this one tonight?"

"Keep watch on him," Olyvria said. "Tomorrow we move on."

"I'm going to tie him up, too, just in case," the skinny fellow said. "If he gets loose, the imperial executioners have a lot of ways to keep you alive when you'd rather be dead."

"I don't think we need to do that," Olyvria said. This time, though, her tone was doubtful, and she looked to Syagrios for support. The short, muscular man shook his head; he sided with the thin fellow. Olyvria's mouth twisted, but she gave over arguing. With a shrug, she turned to Phostis and said, "I think you'd be safe unbound, but they don't trust you enough yet. Try not to hate us for it."

Phostis also shrugged. "I won't deny I've thought long and hard about becoming one of you Thanasioi, but I never thought I'd be ... recruited ... this way. If you expect me to be happy about it, I fear you're in for disappointment."

"You're honest, at any rate," Olyvria said.

Syagrios snorted. "He's but a babe, same as you, lass. He don't believe nothin' bad can happen to him, not in his guts, not in his balls. You're young, you say what you want and don't give a fart for what happens next on account of you think you're gonna live forever anyways."

That was the most words Phostis had heard from Syagrios at any one time. Try as he would, he couldn't keep his face straight. His laughter had a high, hysterical edge to it, but it was laughter.

"What's so funny?" Syagrios growled. "You laugh at me, you'll go to the ice. I've sent better and tougher men there than you, by the good god."

When Phostis tried to stop laughing, he found it wasn't easy. He had to take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly before the fit would pass. At last, carefully, he said, "I will apologize, Syagrios. It's just that—that—I never expected you to talk like—like—my father." He held his breath again to stave off another wild attack of laughter.

"Huh." Syagrios' smile revealed several broken teeth and a couple of gaps. "Yeah, maybe that is funny. I guess if you've been around awhile, you start thinkin' one kind o' way."

Before Phostis could answer that or even think about it very much, the skinny man came up to him with a fresh length of rope. "Put your hands behind you," he said. "I won't tie 'em as tight as they was before. I—"

Phostis made his move. The romances he'd read insisted a man whose cause was just could overcome several villains. The writers of those romances had never run into the skinny fellow. Phostis' eyes must have given him away, for the thin man kicked him square in the crotch almost before he managed to raise an arm. He fell in a moaning heap and threw up most of the food he'd eaten. He knew he ought not to writhe and clutch at himself, but he could not help it. He'd never known such pain.

"You were right," Olyvria told the skinny man, her voice curiously neutral. "He needs to be tied tonight."

Skinny nodded. He waited for Phostis' thrashings to cease, then said, "Get up, you. Don't be stupid about it, either, or I'll give you another dose."

Swiping at his mouth with the sleeve of his homespun tunic, Phostis struggled to his feet. He had needed to get used to Digenis' addressing him as lad rather than young Majesty, now he hurt too much to bridle at being roughly called you. At the thin man's gesture, he put his hands behind his back and let himself be tied. Maybe the rope wasn't as tight as it had been before. It was none too loose, either.

His kidnappers brought out a blanket that smelled of horse and draped it over him once he'd lain down. The two men went inside the farmhouse, leaving Olyvria behind for the first watch. She had both a hunting bow and a knife that would have made a decent shortsword.

"You keep an eye on him," Syagrios called from the doorway. "If he tries to get loose, hurt him and holler for us. We can't let him get away."

"I know," Olyvria said. "He shan't."

By the way she handled the bow, Phostis could see she knew what to do with it. He had no doubt she'd shoot him to keep him from escaping. With the dull, sickening ache still in his stones, he wasn't going anywhere anyhow, not for a while. He said as much to Olyvria.

"You were stupid to try to break away there," she answered, again in that odd, dispassionate tone.

"So I found out." The inside of Phostis' mouth tasted like something that had just been scraped out of a sewer.

"Why did you do it?" she asked.

"I don't know. Because I thought I might succeed, I suppose." Phostis thought a little, then added, "Syagrios would probably say because I'm young and stupid." What he thought about both Syagrios and his opinions he would not repeat to a woman, not even one who'd shown him her nakedness, who'd drugged him and stolen him.

He could, at the moment, think of Olyvria's nakedness with absolute detachment. He knew he wasn't ruined for life, but he certainly was ruined for the evening. He wriggled around a little on the hard-packed ground, trying to find some position less uncomfortable than most of the others.

"I'm sorry," Olyvria said, as contritely as if they were friends. "Did you want to rest?"

"What I want to do and what I can do aren't the same," he answered.

"I'm afraid I can't help that," she said, sharply now. "If you'd not been so foolish, I might have managed something, but since you were—" She shook her head. "Syagrios and our other friend are right—we have to get you safe to Livanios. I know he'll be delighted to see you."

'To have me in his hands, you mean," Phostis retorted. "And what puts you so high in Livanios' council? How can you know what he will or won't be?"

"It's not hard," Olyvria answered. "He's my father."

Zaidas looked worn. He'd ridden hard to catch up with the army. Still in the saddle, he bowed his head to Krispos. "I regret, your Majesty, that I have had no success in locating your son by sorcerous means. I shall accept without complaint any penalty you see fit to exact for my failure."

"Very well, then," Krispos said. Zaidas stiffened, awaiting the Avtokrator's judgment. Krispos delivered it in his most imperial voice: "I order you henceforth to be forcibly prevented from mouthing such nonsense." He started talking normally again. "Don't you think I know you're doing everything you know how to do?"

"You're generous, your Majesty," the wizard said, not hiding his relief. He took the reins in his left hand for a moment so he could pound his right fist down onto his thigh. "You can't imagine how this eats at me. I'm used to success, by the lord with the great and good mind. Knowing a mage out there can thwart me makes me furious. I want to find out who he is and where he is so I can thrash him with my bare hands."

His obvious anger made Krispos smile. "A man who believes he can't be beaten is most often proved right." But his grin soon slipped. "Unless, of course, he's up against something rather more than a man. If you were wrong back in the city and we do, in fact, face Harvas—"

"That thought crossed my mind," Zaidas said. "Being beaten by one of that sort would surely salve my self-respect, for who among mortal men could stand alone against him? Before I rejoined you, I ran the same sorcerous tests I'd used at the Sorcerers' Collegium, and others besides. Whoever he may be, my foe is not Harvas."

"Good," Krispos said. "That means Phostis does not lie under Harvas' hands—a fate I'd wish on no one, friend or foe."

"There we agree," Zaidas answered. "We will all be better off if Harvas Black-Robe is never again seen among living men. But knowing he is not the agency of your son's disappearance hardly puts us closer to learning who is responsible."

"Responsible? Who but the Thanasioi? That much I assume. What puzzles me—and you as well, obviously—is how they're able to hide him." Krispos paused, plucked at his beard, and listened over again in his mind to what Zaidas had just said. After a moment's thought, he slowly went on, "Knowing Harvas isn't responsible for stealing Phostis lifts a weight from my heart. Have you any way to learn by sorcery who is to blame?"

The mage bared his teeth in a frustrated grimace that had nothing to do with a smile save in the twist of his lips. "Majesty, my sorcery can't even find your son, let alone who's to blame for absconding with him."

"I understand that," Krispos said. "Not quite what I meant. Sometimes in ruling I find problems where, if I tried to solve them all at once with one big, sweeping law, a lot of people would rise up in revolt. But they still need solving, so I go about it a little at a time, with a small change here, another one there, still another two years later. Anyone who thinks he can solve a complicated mess in one fell swoop is a fool, if you ask me. Problems that grow up over years don't go away in a day."

'True enough, your Majesty, and wise, too."

"Ha!" Krispos said. "If you're a farmer, it's something you'd better know."

"As may be," Zaidas answered. "I wasn't going to go on with flattery, believe me. I was just going to say I didn't see how your principle, though admirable, applies in this case."

"Someone's magic is keeping you from learning where Phostis is—am I right?" Krispos didn't wait for Zaidas' nod; he knew he was right. He continued, "Instead of looking for the lad for the moment, can you use your magic to learn what sort of sorcery shields him from you? If you can find out who's helping to conceal Phostis, that will tell us something we hadn't known and may help our physical search. Well? Can it be done?"

Zaidas hesitated thoughtfully. At last he said, "The art of magecraft lost a great one when you were born without the talent, your Majesty. Your mind, if you will forgive a crude comparison, is as twisty as a couple of mating eels."

"That's what comes of sitting on the imperial throne," Krispos answered. "Either it twists you or it breaks you. Does the idea have merit, then?"

"It ... may," Zaidas said. "It certainly is a procedure I had not considered. I would not promise results, not before trial and not out here away from the resources of the Sorcerers' Collegium. If it works, it will require sorcery of the most delicate sort, for I would not want to alert my quarry to his being scrutinized in this fashion."

"No, that wouldn't do." Krispos reached out and set a hand on Zaidas' arm for a moment. "If you think this worth pursuing, eminent and sorcerous sir, then do what you can. I have faith in your ability—"

"More than I do, right now," Zaidas said, but Krispos neither believed him nor thought he believed himself.

The Avtokrator said, "If the idea turns out not to work, we're no worse off: am I right?"

"I think so, your Majesty," the wizard answered. "Let me explore what I have here and the techniques I might use. I'm sorry I can't give you a quick answer as to the practicability of your scheme, but it really does require more contemplation and research. I promise I'll inform you as soon as I either see a way to attempt it or discover I have not the skill, knowledge, or tools to undertake it."

"I couldn't ask for more." Halfway through the sentence, Krispos found himself talking to Zaidas' back. The mage had swung his horse away. When he got hold of an idea, he worried it between his teeth—and ceased to worry about protocol or even politeness. In Krispos' mind, his long record of success would have justified far worse lapses of behavior than that.

The Avtokrator soon forced magical schemes and even worry about Phostis to the back of his mind. Early that afternoon, the imperial army rode into Harasos, which let him see firsthand the devastation the Thanasioi had worked on the supply dumps there. In spite of himself, he was impressed. They'd done a job that would have warmed the heart of the most exacting military professional.

Of course, the local quartermasters had made matters easier for them, too. Probably because the warehouses inside the shabby little town's shabby little wall were inadequate, sacks of grain and stacks of cut firewood had been stored outside. Burned black smears on the ground and a lingering smell of smoke showed where they'd rested.

Next to the black smears was an enormous purple one. The broken crockery still in the middle of it said it had been the army's wine ration. Now the men would be reduced to drinking water before long, which would increase both grumbling and diarrhea.

Krispos clicked his tongue between his teeth, sorrowing at the waste. The country hereabouts was not rich; collecting this surplus had taken years of patient effort. It might have seen the district through a famine or. as here, kept the army going without its having to forage on the countryside.

Sarkis rode up and looked over the damage with Krispos.

The cavalry general pointed to what had been a corral. "See? They had beeves waiting for us, too."

"So they did." Krispos sighed. "Now the Thanasioi will eat their share of them."

"I thought they had scruples against feasting on meat," Sarkis said.

'That's right, so they do. Well, they've slaughtered some—" The Avtokrator wrinkled his nose at the stench from the bloated carcasses inside the ruined fence. "—and driven off the rest. We'll have no use from them, that's certain."

"Aye. Too bad." By his tone, Sarkis worried more about filling his own ample belly than the effect of the raid on the army as a whole.

"We'll be able to bring in a certain amount of food by sea at Nakoleia," Krispos said. "By the good god, though, that'll be a long supply line for us to maintain. Will your men be able to protect the wagons as they make their way toward us?"

"Some will get through, your Majesty. Odds are most will get through. If they hit us, though, we'll lose some," Sarkis answered. "And we'll lose men guarding those wagons, too. They'll be gone from your fighting force as sure as if the rebels shot 'em all in the throat."

"Yes, that's true, too. Rude of you to remind me of it, though." Krispos knew how big a force he could bring to bear against the Thanasioi; he'd campaigned enough to make a good estimate of how many men Sarkis would have to pull from that force to protect the supply line against raiders. Less certain was how many warriors the rebels could array in line of battle. When he'd set out from Videssos the city, he'd thought he had enough men to win a quick victory. That looked a lot less likely now.

Sarkis said, "A pity the wars can't be easy all the time, eh, your Majesty?"

"Maybe it's just as well," Krispos answered. Sarkis raised a bushy, gray-flecked eyebrow. Krispos explained. "If they were easy, I'd be tempted to fight more often. Who needs that?"

"Aye, something to what you say."

Krispos raised his eyes from the ruined supply dump to the sky. He gauged the weather with skill honed by years on a farm, when the difference between getting through a winter and facing hunger often rode on deciding just when to start bringing in the crops. He didn't like what his senses told him now. The wind had shifted so it was coming out of the northwest; clouds began piling up, thick and black, along the horizon there.

He pointed to them. "We don't have long to do what needs doing. My guess is, the fall rains start early this year." He scowled. "They would."

"Nothing's ever as simple as we wish, eh, your Majesty?" Sarkis said. "We'll just have to push on as hard as we can. Smash them once and the big worry goes, even if they keep on being a nuisance for years."

"I suppose so." But Sarkis' solution, however practical, left Krispos dissatisfied. "I don't want to have to keep fighting and fighting a war. That will cause nothing but grief for me and for Phostis." He would not say out loud that his kidnapped eldest might not succeed him. "Give a religious quarrel half a chance and it'll fester forever."

"That's true enough, as who should know better than one of the princes?" Sarkis said. "If you imperials would just leave our theology in peace—"

"—the Makuraners would come in and try to convert you by force to the cult of the Four Prophets," Krispos interrupted. "They've done that a few times, down through the years."

"And they've had no better luck than Videssos. We of Vaspurakan are stubborn folk," Sarkis said with a grin that made Krispos remember the lithe young officer he'd once been. He remained solid and capable, but he'd never be lithe again. Well, Krispos wasn't young any more, either, and if he'd put on less weight than his cavalry commander, his bones still ached after a day in the saddle.

He said, "If I had to rush back to Videssos the city from the borders of Kubrat now, I think I'd die before I got there."

Sarkis had been on that ride, too. "We managed it in our puppy days, though, didn't we?" He looked down at his own expanding frontage. "Me, I'd be more likely to kill horses than myself. I'm as fat as old Mammianos was, and I haven't as many years to give me an excuse."

"Time does go on." Krispos looked northwest again. Yes, the clouds were gathering. His face twisted; that thought had too ominous a ring to suit him. "It's moving on the army, same as it is on each of us. If we don't want to get bogged down in the mud, we have to move fast. You're right about that."

He wondered again whether he should have waited till spring to start campaigning against the Thanasioi. Losing a battle to the heretics would be bad enough, but not nearly so dangerous as having to withdraw in mud and humiliation.

With deliberate force of will, he made his mind turn aside from that path. Too late now to concern himself with what he might have done had he made a different choice. He had to live with the consequences of what he had chosen, and do his best to carve those consequences into the shape he desired.

He turned to Sarkis. "With the supply dump as ruined as it is, I see no point to encamping here. Spending a night by the wreckage wouldn't be good for the soldiers' spirit, either. Let's push ahead on the route we've planned."

"Aye, your Majesty. We ought to get to Rogmor day after tomorrow, maybe even tomorrow evening if we drive hard." The cavalry commander hesitated. "Of course, Rogmor's burned out, too, if you remember."

"I know. But from all I've heard, Aptos isn't. If we move fast, we ought to be able to lay hold of the supplies there before we start running out of what we brought from Nakoleia."

"That would be good," Sarkis agreed. "If we don't, we're liable to face the lovely choice between going hungry and pillaging the countryside."

"If we start pillaging our own land one day, we put ten thousand men into the camp of the Thanasioi by the next sunrise," Krispos said, grimacing. "I'd sooner retreat; then I'd just seem cautious, not a villain."

"As you say, your Majesty." Sarkis dipped his head. "Let's hope we have a swift, triumphant advance, so we needn't worry about any of these unpleasant choices."

"That hope is all very well," Krispos said, "but we also have to plan ahead so misfortune, if it comes, doesn't catch us by surprise and strike us in a heap because we were napping instead of thinking."

"Sensible." Sarkis chuckled. "Seems to me I've told you that a good many times over the years—but then, you generally are sensible."

"Am I? I've heard what was meant to be greater flattery that I liked less." Krispos tasted the word. " 'He was sensible.' I'd

sooner see that than most of the lies stonecutters are apt to put on a memorial stele."

Sarkis made a two-fingered gesture to turn aside even the implied mention of death. "May you outlast another generation of stonecutters, your Majesty."

"And stump around Videssos as a spry eighty-year-old, you mean? It could happen, I suppose, though the lord with the great and good mind knows most men aren't so lucky." Krispos looked around to make sure neither Evripos nor Katakolon was in earshot, then lowered his voice all the same. "If that does prove to be my fate, I doubt it will delight my sons."

"You'd find a way to handle them," Sarkis said confidently. "You've handled everything the good god has set in your path thus far."

"Which is no promise the prize will be mine next time out," Krispos answered. "As long as I remember that, I'm all right, I think. Enough jabbering for now; the sooner we get to Aptos, the happier I'll be."

After serving under Krispos for his whole reign, Sarkis had learned the trick of understanding when the Emperor meant more than he said. He set spurs to his horse—despite advancing years and belly, he still had a fine seat and enjoyed a spirited mount—and hurried away at a bounding canter. A moment later, the horns of the military musicians brayed out a new command. The whole army picked up the pace, as if fleeing the storm clouds piling up behind.

Harasos lay at the inland edge of the coastal plain. From it, the road toward Rogmor climbed onto the central plateau that took up the majority of the westlands: drier, hillier, poorer country than the lowlands. Along riverbanks and in places that drew more rain than most, farmers brought in one crop a year, as they did in the country where Krispos had grown up. Elsewhere on the plateau, grass and scrub grew better than grain, and herds of sheep and cattle ambled over the ground.

Krispos eyed the plateau country ahead with suspicion, not because it was poor but because it was hilly. He much preferred a horizon that stretched out for miles on every side. Attackers had to work to set an ambush in country like that. Here sites for ambuscades came up twice in every mile.

He ordered the vanguard strengthened, lest the Thanasioi delay the army on its push to Rogmor. When the whole strung-out force ascended to the plateau, he breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks to Phos. Had he commanded the heretics, he would have hit the imperial army as early and as hard as he could: delaying it on its march now would be worth as much as a great battle later. Thinking thus, he made sure his own saber slid smoothly from its scabbard. Though no great champion, he fought well enough when combat came his way.

The leader of the Thanasioi thought with him strategically, but not in terms of tactics. Not long after the army from Videssos the city reached the plateau, some sort of disturbance broke out at the rear. Krispos' force stretched for more than a mile. He needed awhile to find out what was happening: as if the army were a long, thin, rather stupid dragon, messages from the tail took too long to get up to the head.

When at last he was sure the disturbance really meant fighting, he ordered the musicians to halt his whole force. No sooner had their peremptory notes rung out than he wondered if he'd made a mistake. But what else could he do? Leaving the rear to fend for itself while the van kept moving forward was an invitation to getting destroyed.

He turned to Katakolon, who sat his horse a few yards away. "Get back there at the gallop, find out what's truly going on, and let me know. At the gallop, now!"

"Aye, Father!" Eyes snapping with excitement, Katakolon dug spurs into the horse's side. It squealed an indignant protest at such treatment, but bounded off with such celerity that Katakolon almost went over its tail.

The Avtokrator's youngest son returned faster than Krispos would have thought possible. His anger faded when he saw Katakolon had in tow a messenger he recognized as one of Noetos' men. "Well?" he barked.

The messenger saluted. "May it please your Majesty, we were attacked by a band of perhaps forty. They came close enough to shoot arrows at us; when we rode out to drive them off, most fled but a few stayed behind and fought with the saber to help the others escape."

"Casualties?" Krispos asked.

"We lost one killed and four wounded, your Majesty," the messenger answered. "We killed five of theirs, and several more were reeling in the saddle as they rode away."

"Did we capture any of them?" Krispos demanded.

"We were still in pursuit when I left to bring this word to you. I know of no prisoners, but my knowledge, as I say, is incomplete."

"I'll ride back and find out for myself." Krispos turned to Katakolon. "Tell the musicians to order the advance." As his son hurried off to obey, he told the messenger, "Take me to Noetos. I'll hear his report of the action directly."

Krispos fumed as he rode toward the rear of the army. Forty men had held him up for a solid hour. A few more such pinpricks and the army would go hungry before it got to Aptos. Better cavalry screens, he told himself. Raiders had to be beaten back before they reached the main body. Screening parties could fight and keep moving, or fall back on their comrades if hard-pressed.

He hoped the rear guard had managed to lay hold of some Thanasioi. One interrogation was worth a thousand guesses, especially when he knew so little about the enemy. He knew the methods his men would use to wring truth out of any captives. They did not please him, but any man taken in arms against the Avtokrator of the Videssians was on the face of it a traitor and rebel, not to be coddled if that meant danger to the Empire.

One of the wounded imperials lay on a wagon, a blue-robed healer-priest bent over him. The soldier thrashed feebly; an arrow protruded from his neck. Krispos reined in to watch the healer-priest at work. He wondered why the blue-robe hadn't drawn the arrow, then decided it was all that kept the wounded man from bleeding to death in moments. This would be anything but an easy healing.

The priest repeated the creed again and again. "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." As he used the prayers to sink down toward the healing trance, he set one hand on the trooper's neck, the other on the arrow that bobbed back and forth as the fellow fought to breathe.

All at once, the blue-robe jerked the arrow free. The trooper let out a bubbling shriek. Bright blood spurted, splashing against the priest's face. So far as breaking his concentration went, it might have been water, or nothing at all.

As abruptly as if the blue-robe had turned a spigot, the spurting stopped. Awe prickled through Krispos, as it always did when he watched a healer-priest at work. He thought the air above the injured trooper should have shimmered, as if from the heat of a fire, so strong was the force of healing that passed between priest and soldier. But the eye, unlike other, less easily nameable senses, perceived nothing.

The healer-priest released his hold on the injured man and sat up. The blue-robe's face was white and drained, a token of what the healing had cost him. A moment later, the soldier sat, too. A pale scar marred the skin of his neck; by its seeming, he might have worn it for years. Wonder filled his face as he picked up the bloodstained arrow the priest had pulled from his neck.

"Thank you, holy sir," he said, his voice as unhurt as the rest of him. "I thought I was dead."

"As I think I am now," the healer croaked. "Water, I pray you, or wine." The trooper pulled free the flask that still dangled from his belt, handing it to the man who had saved him. The blue-robe's larynx worked as he threw back his head and gulped down great drafts.

Krispos urged his horse forward, glad the soldier was hale. Healer-priests were better suited to dealing with the consequences of skirmishes than battles, for they quickly exhausted their powers—and themselves. In large conflicts, they helped only the most desperately hurt, leaving the rest to those who fought wounds with sutures and bandages rather than magic.

Noetos rode toward Krispos. Saluting, he said, "We drove the bastards off with no trouble, your Majesty. Sorry we had to slow you down to do it."

"Not half so sorry as I am," Krispos answered. "Well, the good god willing, that won't happen again." He explained his plan to extend the cavalry screen around the army. Noetos nodded with sober approval. Krispos went on, "Did your men capture any of the rebels?"

"Aye, we got one in the pursuit after I sent Barisbakourios to you," Noetos said. "Shall we squeeze the Thanasiot cheese till the whey runs out of him?" A couple of his lieutenants were close by; they chuckled grimly at the rearguard commander's truth in jest's clothing.

"Presently, at need," Krispos said. "Let's see what magic can do with him first. Bring him here. I want to see him."

Noetos called orders. Some of his troopers frogmarched a young man in peasant homespun into the Avtokrator's presence. The captive must have taken a fall from his horse. His tunic was out at both elbows and over one knee; he was bloody in all three of those places and a couple of others, as well. Serum oozed down into one eye from a scrape on his forehead.

But he remained defiant. When one of the guards growled, "Down on your belly before his Majesty, wretch," he bent his head, sure enough, but only to spit between his feet as if in rejection of Skotos. All the soldiers snarled then, and roughly forced him into a proskynesis in spite of his struggles.

"Haul him to his feet," Krispos said, thinking the cavalrymen were likely to have done worse to their prisoner had they not been under his eye. When the ragged, battered youth—he" might have been Evripos' age, more likely Katakolon's—i Krispos asked him, "What have I done to you, that you treat me like the dark god?"

The prisoner worked his jaw, perhaps preparing to spit once more. "You don't want to do that, sonny," one of the troopers said.

The young man spat anyhow. Krispos let his captors shake him a little, but then raised a hand. "Hold on. I want this question answered as freely as may be, given what's happened here. What have I done, to be hated so? We've been at peace most of the years since he was born; taxes are lower now than then. What does he have against me? What do you have against me, sirrah? You may as well speak your mind; the headsman's shadow already falls across your fate."

"You think I fear death?" the prisoner said. "By the good god, I laugh at death—it takes me out of this trap of Skotos, the world, and sends me on to Phos' eternal light. Do your worst to me; that's but for a moment. Then I shake free of the dung we call a body, like a butterfly bursting from its cocoon."

His eyes blazed, though he kept blinking the one beneath the scrape. The last set of eyes Krispos had seen burning with such fanaticism had belonged to the priest Pyrrhos, first his benefactor, then his ecumenical patriarch, and at last such a ferocious and inflexible champion of orthodoxy that he'd had to be deposed.

Krispos said, "Very well, young fellow—" He realized he was speaking as if to one of his sons who'd been foolish. "—you despise the world. Why do you despise my place in it?"

"Because you're rich, and wallow in your gold like a hog in mud," the young Thanasiot answered. "Because you choose the material over the spiritual, and give over your soul to Skotos in the process."

"Here, you speak to his Majesty with respect, or it'll go the harder for you," one of the cavalrymen growled. The prisoner spat on the ground again. His captor backhanded him across the face. Blood started from the corner of his mouth.

"Enough of that," Krispos said. "He'll be one of many who feel that way. He's eaten up bad doctrine and sickened on it."

"Liar!" the young man shouted, careless of his own fate. "You're the one with false teachings poisoning your mind. Abandon the world and the things of the world for the true and lasting life, the one yet to come." He could not raise his arms, but lifted his eyes to the heavens. "We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind—"

Hearing the heretic pray to the good god with the identical words he himself used, Krispos wondered for a moment if the fellow could be right. Pyrrhos, in his day, might have come close to saying yes, but not even the rigorously ascetic Pyrrhos could have countenanced destroying all the things of this world for the sake of the afterlife. How were men and women to live and raise families if they wrecked their farms or shops, abandoned parents or children?

He put the question to the prisoner: "If you Thanasioi had your way, wouldn't you soonest let mankind die out in a single generation's time, so no one would be left alive to commit any sins?"

"Aye, that's so," the youth answered. "It won't be so simple; we know that—most folk are too cowardly, too much in love with materialism—"

"By which it sounds as if you mean a full belly and a roof over one's head," Krispos broke in.

"Anything that ties you to the world is evil, is from Skotos," the prisoner insisted. "The purest among us stop taking food and let themselves starve, the better to join Phos as soon as they may."

Krispos believed him. That streak of fanatic asceticism ran deep in many Videssians, whether orthodox or heretic. The Thanasioi, though, seemed to have found a way to channel that religious energy to their own ends, perhaps more effectively than the comfortable clergy who came from Videssos the city.

"Me, I aim to live in this world as long and as well as I can," the Avtokrator said. The Thanasiot laughed scornfully. Krispos did not care. Having known privation in his youth, he saw no point to embracing it when he did not have to. He turned to the men who had hold of the youngster. "Tie him onto a horse. Don't let him escape or harm himself. When we encamp tonight, I'll have Zaidas the wizard question him. And if magic doesn't get me what I need to know ..."

The guards nodded. The young heretic just glared. Krispos wondered how long that defiance would last if confronted with fire and barbed iron. He hoped he wouldn't have to find out.

Late in the afternoon, the Thanasioi again tried to raid the imperial army. A courier carried a dripping head back to Krispos. His stomach lurched; the hacking was as crude as that of any farmer who slaughtered a pig, while the iron smell of fresh blood also brought back memories of butchering.

If the courier had any such memories, they didn't bother him. Grinning, he said, "We drove the whoresons off, your Majesty—spreading us wider was a fine plan. Junior here, he didn't run fast enough."

"Good," Krispos said, trying not to meet Junior's sightless eyes. He dug in the pouch at his belt and tossed the courier a goldpiece. "This is for the good news."

"Phos bless you, majesty," the fellow exclaimed. "Shall we put this lad on a pike and carry him ahead of us for a standard?"

"No," Krispos said with a shudder. An army that seemed bent on wanton killing would be just what the countryside needed to throw it into the rebels' camp. Controlling his features as best he could, the Avtokrator went on, "Bury it or toss it in a ditch or do whatever you please, as long as you don't display it. We want the people to know we've come to root out the heretics, not to glory in gore."

"However you'd have it, your Majesty," the courier said cheerfully. He rode off happy enough with his reward, even though the Emperor had turned down the suggestion he'd made. Krispos knew some Avtokrators—not the worst of rulers Videssos had ever had, either—would have taken him up on it, or had the idea for themselves. But he did not have the stomach for it.

After the army made camp, he went over to Zaidas' pavilion. He found the Thanasiot prisoner tied to a folding chair and the mage looking frustrated. Zaidas gestured to the apparatus he'd set up. "You are familiar with the two-mirror spell for determining truth, your Majesty?"

"I've seen it used, yes," Krispos answered. "Why? Are you having trouble with it?"

"That would be putting it mildly. It yields me nothing— nothing, do you hear?" Normally among the gentlest of men. Zaidas looked ready to tear the answer to his failure out of the prisoner with red-hot pincers.

"Can it be shielded against?" Krispos asked.

"Obviously it can." Zaidas gave the Thanasiot another glare before continuing. "This I knew before. But I never thought to find such shielding on a fleabitten trooper like this. If all the rebels are warded in like fashion, interrogation will become less certain and more bloody."

"The good god's truth armors me," the young captive declared. He sounded proud, as if he failed to realize his immunity would only cause him to be given over to torment.

"Any chance he's telling the truth?" Krispos asked.

Zaidas made a scornful noise, then suddenly turned thoughtful. "Maybe his fanaticism does afford some protection," the mage said. "One of the reasons sorcery so often fails in battle is that men at a high pitch of excitement are less vulnerable to its effects. Fervent belief in the righteousness of his cause may raise this fellow to a similar, less vulnerable, plane."

"Can you learn whether this is so?"

"It would take some time." Zaidas pursed his lips and seemed on the point of retreating into one of his brown studies.

Krispos forestalled him. Whenever magic touched the Thanasioi, something went wrong. Zaidas hadn't been able to learn where the heretics had taken Phostis—whose absence, unexpectedly, was an ache that only the endless work of the campaign held at bay—he hadn't been able to learn why he couldn't learn that, and now he couldn't even squeeze truth from an ordinary prisoner. To him, that made the young Thanasiot an intriguing challenge. To Krispos, it made the rebel an obstacle to be crushed, since he would not yield to gentler methods.

Harshly the Avtokrator said, "Let the men in red leather have him." Interrogators who used no magic wore red to hide the stains of their trade.

In his youth, Krispos would have been slower to give that order. He knew his years on the throne—and his desire to remain there for more years—had hardened him; even corrupted might not have been too strong a word. But he was also introspective enough to recognize that hardening and resist it save in times of dire need. This, he judged, was one of those times.

The Thanasiot's shrieks kept him awake long into the night. He was a ruler who did what he thought he had to do; he was no monster. Some time past midnight, he downed a beaker of wine and let the grape put a blurry curtain between him and the screaming. At last he slept.