Krispos the Emperor k-3

by Harry Turtledove

  Instead of the usual iron grillwork, cell number twelve had a stout door with a locked bar on the outside. The gaoler inserted a big brass key, twisted, and swung the bar out of the Avtokrator's way. Flanked by a pair of Halogai, Krispos went in.

  A couple of soldiers from Noetos' regiment already stood guard over Digenis, who, wrists tied behind him and ankles bound, lay on a straw pallet that had seen better years. "Haul him to his feet," Krispos said roughly.

  The guard obeyed. Blood ran down Digenis' face from a small scalp wound. Those always bled badly, and, being a priest, Digenis had no hair to shield his pate from a blow. He glared defiance at Krispos.

  Krispos glared back. "Where's Phostis, wretch?"

  "Phos willing, he walks the gleaming path," Digenis answered, "and I think Phos may well be willing. Your son knows truth when he hears it."

  "More than I can say for you, if you follow the Thanasiot lies," Krispos snapped. "Now where is he?"

  "I don't know," Digenis said. "And if I did, I'd not tell you, that's certain."

  "What's certain is that your head will go up on the Milestone as belonging to a proved traitor," Krispos said. "Caught in open revolt, don't think you'll escape because you wear the blue robe."

  "Wealth is worth revolting against, and I don't fear the headsman because I know the gleaming path will lead me straight to the lord with the great and good mind," Digenis said. "But I could be as innocent as any man the temples revere as holy and still die of your malice, for the patriarch, far from being the true leader of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, is but your puppet, mouthing your impious words."

  Stripped of the venom with which he spoke them, Digenis' words held a certain amount of truth: if Oxeites turned against Krispos, he would soon find himself out of the ecumenical patriarch's blue boots. But none of that mattered, not here, not now. "You're captured for no ecclesiastical offense, sirrah, but for the purely secular crimes of rebellion and treason. You'll answer for them as any other rebel would."

  "I'll sing hymns to Phos thanking you for freeing me from the stench-filled world that strives unceasingly to seduce and corrupt my soul," Digenis said. "But if you do not travel the gleaming path yourself, no hymns of mine will save you. You'll go to the ice and suffer for all eternity, lured to destruction by Skotos' honied wiles."

  "Given a choice between sharing heaven with you and hell with Skotos, I believe I'd take Skotos," Krispos said. "He at least does not pretend to virtues he lacks."

  Digenis hissed like a viper and spat at Krispos, whether to ward off the dark god's name or from simple hatred, the Avtokrator could not have said. Just then Zaidas came into the cell. "Hello," he said. "What's all this?" He set down the carpetbag in his left hand.

  "This," Krispos said, "is the miserable excuse for a priest who sucked my son into the slimy arms of the Thanasioi. Wring what you can from the cesspit he calls a mind."

  "I shall of course make every effort, your Majesty, but ..." Zaidas' voice trailed away. He looked doubtful, an expression Krispos was unused to seeing on his face. "I fear I've not had the best of luck, probing for the heretics' secrets."

  "You gold-lovers are the heretics," Digenis said, "casting aside true piety for the sake of profit."

  Emperor and wizard both ignored him. "Do your best," Krispos said. He hoped Zaidas would have better fortune with Digenis than he had with other Thanasiot prisoners or with learning what sort of magic screened him away from finding Phostis. Despite the rare sorcerous tools and rarer scrolls and codices in the Sorcerers' Collegium, the chief wizard had been unable to learn why he was unable to seek Phostis out by sorcery.

  Zaidas started pulling sorcerous gear from the bag. "I'll try the two-mirror test, your Majesty," he said.

  Krispos wanted to hear confidence in his voice, wanted to hear him say he would have the truth out of Digenis no matter what the renegade priest did. What he heard, with ears honed by listening behind the words of thousands of petitioners, officers, and officials, was doubt. Doubt from Zaidas fed his own doubt: because magic drew so strongly from the power of belief, if Zaidas didn't truly believe he could make Digenis speak, he'd likely fail. He'd already failed on a Thanasiot with the two-mirror test.

  "What other strings do you have to your bow?" the Emperor asked. "How else can we hope to pull answers from him?" He could hear his own delicacy of phrase. He wanted Zaidas to think about alternatives, but didn't want to demoralize the mage or suggest he'd lost faith in him ... even if he had.

  Zaidas said, "Should the two-mirror test fail, our strongest hope of learning truth goes with it. Oh, a decoction of henbane and other herbs, such as the healers use, might loosen this rascal's tongue, but with it he'd spew as much gibberish as fact."

  "One way or another, he'll spew, by the good god," Krispos said grimly, "if not to you, then to the chap in the red leathers."

  "Torment my flesh as you will," Digenis said. "It is but the excrement of my being; the sooner it slides down the sewer, the sooner my soul soars past the sun to be with the lord with the great and good mind."

  "Go on," Krispos told Zaidas. Worry on his face, the wizard set up his mirrors, one in front of Digenis, the other behind him. He got a brazier going; clouds of fumigants rose in front of the mirrors, some sweet, some harsh.

  But when the questioning began, not only did Digenis stand mute, so did his image in the mirror behind him. Had the spell been working as it should have, that second image would have given out truth in spite of his efforts to lie or remain silent.

  Zaidas bit his lip in angry, mortified frustration. Krispos sucked in a long, furious breath. He'd had the bad feeling Digenis would remain impervious to interrogation of any sort. The vast majority of men broke under torture. Maybe the priest would, or maybe he'd spill his guts under the influence of one of Zaidas' potions. But Krispos wasn't willing to bet on either.

  As if to rub in his determination, Digenis said, "I shall praise Phos' holy name for every pang you inflict on me." He began to sing a hymn at the top of his lungs.

  "Oh, shut up," Krispos said. Digenis kept on singing. Someone scratched at the door to the cell. Axe ready to strike, a Haloga pulled it open. A priest started to walk in, then drew back in alarm at the upraised axe blade. "Come on, come on," Krispos told him. "Don't stand there dithering—just tell me what you want."

  "May it please your Majesty," the priest began nervously, and Krispos braced for trouble. The blue-robe tried again: "M-may it please your Majesty, I am Soudas, an attendant at the High Temple. The most holy ecumenical patriarch Oxeites, who was commemorating the day by celebrating a special liturgy there, directed me to come to you on hearing that the holy priest Digenis had been captured, so to speak, in arms, and bade me remind your Majesty that ecclesiastics are under all circumstances immune from suffering bodily torment."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Aye, that's just what he did, Frovin," Krispos answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Good enough," Krispos said. "Now let's see if we can keep it."

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

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

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

  "Well, what about him?" Krispos said, wishing the goaler wouldn't talk like what he was now that he'd come away from the cells and into the sun.

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

  For the first time since he grew old enough to jump over a bonfire instead of falling into one, Phostis did no leaping on Midwinter's Day. Whatever ill-luck he'd accumulated over the past year remained unburned. He wasn't mewed up in his monklike cell in the keep of Etchmiadzin; he'd been allowed out and about for some weeks. But no fires blazed on street corners anywhere in the town.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The congregation's amens came echoing back from the conical dome that surmounted the altar. Often, to Phostis, Phos' creed had become mere words to be quickly gabbled through

  without thinking on what they meant. Not now. In the cold and frightening dark, they, like the tiny flame from the candle the priest held on high, took on new meaning, new importance. If they were not, if light was not—what then? Only black, only ice. Phostis shivered again.

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

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

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

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

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

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