Krispos Rising

by Harry Turtledove

  "If you find a few cups, Krispos, we can share some of this with the guardsmen here," Mavros said. "If his Majesty's not here to guard, surely their bold captain can't object to their having a taste."

  Krispos looked questioningly, the other Halogai longingly, toward the officer, a middle-aged warrior named Thvari. He stroked his straw-yellow beard as he considered. "Vun cup vill do no harm," he said at last, his northern accent thick and slow. The guards cheered. Krispos hurried to get cups while Mavros drew a dagger, sliced through the pitch that glued the wine jar's cork in place, then stabbed the cork and drew it out.

  Once in Krispos' chamber, Mavros poured hefty dollops for himself and Krispos. He lifted his silver goblet in salute. "To Krispos, for being intact!" he declared.

  "That's a toast I'll gladly drink." Krispos sipped at the wine. Its vintage was as fine as any Anthimos owned; when Mavros bought, he did not stint. His robe was dark-green wool soft as duckdown, his neckcloth transparent silk dyed just the right shade of orange to complement the robe. Now he raised a quizzical eyebrow. "And here's the really interesting question: why are you still intact, after calling Anthimos everything from a murderous cannibal to someone who commits unnatural acts with pigs?"

  "I never called him that," Krispos said, blinking. He knew what rumor could do with words, but listening to it have its way with his words was doubly unnerving. He drank more wine.

  "Never called him which?" Mavros asked with a wicked grin.

  "Oh, keep still." Krispos emptied his cup and put it down on the arm of his chair. He stared at it for a few seconds, then said, "Truth is, may the ice take me if I know why Anthimos hasn't come down on me. I just thank Phos he hasn't. Maybe down deep he really is just a good-natured soul."

  "Maybe." Mavros did not sound as though he believed it. "More likely, he was still so drunk in the morning that he'd forgotten by afternoon."

  "I'd like to think so, but he wasn't, "Krispos said. "He wasn't drunk at all. I can tell."

  "Aye, you've seen him drunk often enough, haven't you?" Mavros said.

  "Who, me?" Krispos laughed. "Yes, a time or twelve, now that you mention it. I remember the time he—" He stopped in surprise. The little silver bell by his bed was ringing. The scarlet cord on which it hung jerked up and down. Whoever was pulling it was pulling hard.

  Mavros eyed the bell curiously. "I thought you said his Majesty was gone."

  "He is." Krispos frowned. Had Anthimos come back for some reason? No. He would have heard the Emperor go by. He did not think Dara was summoning him; he'd let her know he had a friend coming by tonight. Surely she'd not be so indiscreet. But that left—no one. Krispos got up. "Excuse me. I think I'd better find out what's going on."

  Mavros' smile was sly. "More of this good wine for me, then."

  Snorting, Krispos hurried into the imperial bedchamber. It was Dara who waited for him there. Fright filled her face. "By the good god, what's wrong?" Krispos demanded. "Have we been discovered?"

  "Worse," Dara said. He stared at her—he could not imagine anything worse. She started to explain, "When Anthimos left tonight, he didn't go carousing."

  "How is that worse?" he broke in. "I'd think you'd be glad."

  "Will you listen to me?" she said fiercely. "He didn't go carousing because he went to that little sanctum of his that used to be a shrine. He's going to work magic there, magic to kill you."

  "That's crazy. If he wants me dead, all he has to do is tell one of the Halogai to swing his axe," Krispos said. But he realized it wasn't crazy, not to Anthimos. Where was the fun in a simple execution? The Emperor would enjoy putting Krispos to death by sorcery ever so much more. Something else struck him. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "What do you mean, why? So you can stop him, of course." Dara needed a moment to see that the question went deeper. She took a deep breath, looked away from Krispos, let it out, and looked back. "Why? Because ..." She stopped again, visibly willed herself to continue. "Because if I am to be Empress of Videssos, I would sooner be your Empress than his."

  His eyes met hers. Those words, he knew, were irrevocable. She nodded, her resolve firming as she saw he understood. "Strange," he said. "I always thought you preferred him."

  "If you're that big a fool, maybe I've picked the wrong man after all." Dara slipped into his arms for a brief embrace. Drawing back, she said, "No time for more, not now. When you return ..."

  She let the words hang. It was his turn to nod. When he came back, they would need each other, she him to keep what she already had, he her to add legitimacy to what he'd gained. When he came back ... "What will you do if Anthimos walks into this chamber instead of me?"

  "Go on, as best I can," she said at once. He grimaced, nodding again. Tanilis would have said the same thing, for the same reason: ambition bound the two of them as much as affection. She went on, "But I will pray to Phos that it be you. Go now, and may the Lord with the great and good mind go with you."

  "I'll get my sword," Krispos said. Dara bit her lip—that brought home what she was setting in motion. But she did not say no. Too late for that, he thought. She made a little pushing gesture, urging him out of the room. He hurried away. As he trotted the few steps back to his own chamber, he felt his lucky goldpiece bounce on its chain. Soon enough, he thought, he'd find out whether the coin held true prophecy or only delusion. He remembered the last time he'd really looked at the goldpiece, and remembered thinking he would never try to get rid of Anthimos. But if the Avtokrator was trying to get rid of him ... Waiting quietly to be killed was for sheep, not men.

  All that ran through his head before he got to his own doorway. Mavros raised his cup in salute when he came in, then stared when, instead of sitting down, he started buckling on his sword belt. "What in the world—" Mavros began.

  "Treason," Krispos answered, which shut his foster brother's mouth with a snap. "Or it'll be treason if I fail. Anthimos is planning to kill me by sorcery tonight. I don't intend to let him. Are you with me, or will you denounce me to the Halogai?"

  Mavros gaped at him. "I'm with you, of course. But by the good god, how did you find out? You told me he was going carousing tonight, not magicking."

  "The Empress warned me just now," Krispos said in a flat voice.

  "Did she?" Mavros looked at Krispos as if he'd never seen him before, then started to laugh. "You haven't told me everything you've been up to, have you?"

  Krispos felt his cheeks grow hot. "No. I never told anyone. It's not the sort of secret to spread around, you know, not if—"

  "Not if you want to live to go on keeping it," Mavros finished for him. "No, you're right."

  "Come on then," Krispos said. "We've no time to lose."

  The Halogai guarding the doorway to the imperial residence chuckled when Krispos came out wearing his sword. "You drink a little wine, you go into the city looking for somet'ing to fight, eh?" one of them said. "You should have been born a northern man."

  Krispos chuckled, too, but his heart sank within him. As soon as he and Mavros were far enough away from the entrance for the guards not to hear, he said, "We have gone looking for something to fight. How many Halogai will the Emperor have with him?"

  The night was dark. He could not see Mavros' expression change, but he heard his breath catch. "If it's more than one, we're in trouble. Armored, swinging those axes of theirs—"

  "I know." Krispos shook his head, but continued, "I'm going on anyway. Maybe I can talk my way past 'em, however many there are. I'm his Majesty's vestiarios, after all. And if I can't, I'd sooner die fighting than whichever nasty way Anthimos has worked out for me. If you don't want to come along, the good god knows I can't blame you."

  "I am your brother," Mavros said, stiffening with offended dignity.

  Krispos clasped his shoulder. "You are indeed."

  They hurried on, making and discarding plans. Before long, the gloomy grove of cypresses surrounding the Emperor's sanctum loomed before them. The path wound through it. The dark trees
' spicy odor filled Krispos' nostrils.

  As they were about to emerge from the cypresses, a red-orange flash of light, bright as lightning, burst from the windows and open doorways of the building ahead. Krispos staggered, sure his moment was here. His eyes, long used to blackness, filled with tears. How bitter, he thought, to have come just too late.

  But nothing further happened, not right then. He heard Anthimos' voice begin a new chant. Whatever magic the Avtokrator was devising, he'd not yet finished it.

  Beside Krispos, Mavros also rubbed his eyes. In that moment of fire, though, he'd seen something Krispos had missed. "Only the one guard," he murmured.

  Squinting, wary against a new levinbolt, Krispos peered toward Anthimos' house of magics. Sure enough, lit by the glow of a couple of ordinary torches, a single Haloga stood in front of the door.

  The northerner was rubbing at his eyes, too, but came to alertness when he heard footfalls on the path. "Who calls?" he said, swinging up his axe.

  "Hello, Geirrod." Krispos did his best to sound casual in spite of the nervous sweat trickling down the small of his back. If Anthimos had told the guard why he was incanting here tonight ...

  But he had not. Geirrod lowered his bright-bladed weapon. "A good evening to you, Krispos, and to your friend." Then the Haloga frowned and half raised the axe again. "Why do you come here with brand belted to your body?" Even when he used Videssian, his speech carried the slow, strong rhythms of his cold and distant homeland.

  "I've come to deliver a message to his Majesty," Krispos answered. "As for why I'm wearing my sword, well, only a fool goes out at night without one." He unbuckled the belt and held it out to Geirrod. "Here, keep it if you feel the need, and give it back when I come out."

  The big blond guard smiled. "That is well done, friend Krispos. You know what duty means. I shall set your sword aside against your return." As he turned to lean the blade against the wall, Mavros sprang forward, sheathed dagger reversed in his hand. The round lead pommel thudded against the side of Geirrod's head, just in front of his ear. The Haloga groaned and toppled, his mail shirt clinking musically as he fell.

  Krispos' fingers dug into the side of Geirrod's thick neck. "He has a pulse. Good," he said, grabbing the sword belt and drawing his blade. If he survived the night, the Halogai would be his guards. Slaying one of them would mean he could never trust his own protectors, not with the northern penchant for blood vengeance.

  "Come on," Mavros said. He snatched up the Haloga's axe. "No, wait. Tie and gag him first," Krispos said. Mavros dropped the axe, took off his scarf, and tore it in half. He quickly tied the guardsman's hands behind him, knotting the other piece of silk over his mouth and around his head. Krispos nodded. Together, he and Mavros stepped over Geirrod into the Avtokrator's sorcerous secretum.

  The scuffle with the guard had been neither loud nor long. With luck, Anthimos would have been caught up in the intricacies of some elaborate spell and would never have noticed the small disturbance outside. With luck. As it was, he poked his head out into the hallway and called, "What was that, Geirrod?" When he saw Krispos, his eyes widened and his lips skinned back from his teeth. "You!"

  "Aye, your Majesty," Krispos said. "Me." He dashed toward the Emperor.

  Fast as he was, he was not fast enough. Anthimos ducked back into his chamber and slammed the door. The bar crashed into place just as Krispos' shoulder smote the door. The bar was stout; he bounced away.

  Laughing a wild, high-pitched laugh, Anthimos shouted, "Don't you know it's rude to come to the feast before you're invited?" Then he began to chant again, a chant that, even through thick wood, raised prickles of dread along Krispos' arms.

  He kicked the door, hard as he could. It held. Mavros shoved him aside. "I have the tool for the job," he said. Geirrod's axe bit into the timbers. Mavros struck again and again. As he hewed at the door, the Avtokrator chanted on in a mad race to see who would finish first—and live.

  Mavros weakened the door enough so he and Krispos could kick it open. At the same instant, Anthimos cried out in triumph. As his foes burst in on him, he extended his hands toward them. Fire flowed from his fingertips.

  Had Anthimos controlled a true thunderbolt, he would have incinerated Krispos and Mavros. But while his fire flowed, it did not dart. They scrambled backward out of the chamber before the flames reached them. The fire splashed against the far wall and dripped to the floor. The wall was stone. It did not catch, but Krispos gagged on acrid smoke.

  "Not so eager to come in and play any more, my dears?" Anthimos said, laughing again. "I'll come out and play with you, then."

  He stood in the doorway and shot fire at Krispos. Krispos threw himself flat on the floor. The flames passed over him, close enough that he smelled his hair scorch. He waited for Anthimos to lower his hands and burn him to a cinder.

  Anthimos never got the chance. While his attention and his fire were aimed at Krispos, Mavros rushed him with the Haloga war axe. Anthimos whirled, casting flames close enough to Mavros to spoil his stroke. But the Emperor had to duck back into his chamber.

  Some of his fire caught on the ruined door. It began to burn. Real, honest flames licked up toward the beams of the ceiling.

  Krispos scrambled to his feet. "We have him!" he shouted. "He can't fight both of us at once out here, and trapped in there he'll burn." Already the smoke had grown thicker.

  "You think you have me," Anthimos said. "All this fribbling fire is but a distraction. Now to get back to the conjuration I truly had in mind for you, Krispos, the one you so rudely interrupted. And when I finish, you'll wish you'd burned to death, you and your friend both."

  The Avtokrator began to incant again. Krispos started through the burning doorway at him, hoping he could not use his flames while busy with this other, more fearful magic. But once summoned, the fire was at Anthimos' command. A blast of it forced Krispos back. Mavros tried too, and was similarly repulsed.

  Anthimos chanted on. Krispos knew nothing of magic, but he could sense the magnitude of the forces Anthimos employed. The very air felt thin, and thrummed with power. Icy fear ran through Krispos' veins, for he knew that power would close on him. He could not attack the Emperor; flight, he was sure, would do no good. He stood and waited, coughing more and more as the smoke got worse.

  Anthimos was coughing, too, and fairly gabbling his spell in his haste to get it all out before the fire sealed his escape as Krispos had said. Maybe that haste caused him to make his mistake; maybe, being at bottom a headstrong young man who took few pains, he would have made it anyhow.

  He knew he'd erred—his chant abruptly broke off. Dread and horror in his voice, he shouted, "Him, not me! I didn't mean to say 'me!' I meant him!"

  Too late. The power he had summoned did what he had told it to do, and to whom. He screamed, once. Peering through smoky, heat-hazed air, Krispos saw him writhe as if trapped in the grip of an invisible fist of monstrous size. The scream cut off. The sound of snapping bones went on and on. An uprush of flame blocked Krispos' view for a moment. When he could see again, Anthimos, or what was left of him, lay crumpled and unmoving on the floor.

  Mavros pounded Krispos' shoulder. "Let's get out of here!" he yelled. "We're just as dead if we toast as if—that happens to us."

  "Are we? I wonder." Anthimos was the most definitively dead man Krispos had ever seen. The last sight of the fallen Emperor stayed with him as, eyes streaming and lungs burning from the smoke, he stumbled with Mavros toward the doorway.

  Cool, clean night air after that inferno was like cool water after an endless trek through the desert. Krispos sucked in breath after precious breath. Then he knelt beside Geirrod, who was just beginning to groan and stir. "Let's drag him away from here," he said, and listened to the roughness in his own voice.

  "We don't want him to burn, either."

  "Something else first." Slowly and deliberately, Mavros went to his knees before Krispos, then flat on his belly. "Majesty," he declared. "Let me be the first to s
alute you. Thou conquerest, Krispos, Avtokrator of the Videssians." Krispos gaped at him. In the desperate struggle with Anthimos, he'd forgotten the prize for which he'd been struggling. He spoke his first words as Emperor: "Get up, fool."

  Geirrod's pale eyes were wide and staring, flicking back and forth from one man to the other. Mavros rose, but only to a crouch by the Haloga. "Do you understand what has happened this night, Geirrod? Anthimos sought to slay Krispos by sorcery, but blundered and destroyed himself instead. By the Lord with the great and good mind, I swear neither Krispos nor I wounded him. His death was Phos' own judgment on him."

  "My friend—my brother—speaks truly," Krispos said. He drew the sun-circle over his heart. "By the good god I swear it. Believe me or not, Geirrod, as you see fit from what you know of me. But if you believe me, let me ask you in turn: will you serve me as bravely and loyally as you served Anthimos?"

  Those eyes of northern blue might have been a hunting beast's rather than a man's, such was the intensity of the gaze Geirrod aimed up at Krispos. Then the guardsman nodded, once.

  "Free him, Mavros," Krispos said. Mavros cut through the Haloga's bonds, then through the gag. Geirrod heaved himself upright and started to stagger away from the burning building behind him. "Wait," Krispos told him, then turned to Mavros. "Give him his axe."

  "What? No!" Mavros exclaimed. "Even half out on his feet the way he is, with this thing he's more than a match for both of us."

  "He's said he will serve me. Give him the axe." Part of that tone of command was borrowed from Petronas; more, Krispos realized, came from Anthimos.

  Wherever it came from, it served its purpose. Mavros' eyes were eloquent, but he passed the axe to Geirrod. The Haloga took it, looking at it as a father might look at a long-lost son who has come home. Krispos tensed. If he was wrong and Mavros right, he would have the shortest reign of any Avtokrator Videssos had ever known.

  Geirrod raised the axe—in salute. "Lead me, Majesty," he said. "Where now?"