Krispos rode Progress up toward the riverbank so he could watch the northerners embark on their rafts. Ikmor paced alongside him, though two guardsmen made sure they were between the chieftain and the Avtokrator at all times.
The Halogai paddled the first raft out onto the Astris a little past noon. A dromon shadowed it all the way across the river, the fearsome siphon tube pointing straight at it. The wallowing raft was completely at the dromon’s mercy. No one, Haloga or imperial, could doubt it. More than anything else, that first river crossing brought home who had won and who had lost.
More and more rafts set out. Not all of them enjoyed the attentions of a dromon all the way across the Astris, but the warships stayed close enough to leave no question of what they could do at need. Destroying the northerners’ dugout canoes had been an unequal struggle. Attacking the rafts would have been a massacre.
Zaidas made his way through the crowd to Krispos. “All the Halogai passed before me, Your Majesty. I found no sign of Harvas’ presence.”
“Go rest, then,” Krispos told him. The young mage had always been reedy. Now he was a thin reed indeed.
Even so, he tried to protest. “I ought to go into the town, to see whether the evil wizard still lurks within.” He weakened his own words with an enormous yawn.
“The shape you’re in, you’re likelier to fall asleep than find him,” Krispos said. “I’ll keep wizards posted at each gate. If he’s in there, he won’t get out.” He did his best to look stern and imperial. It probably wasn’t a very good best; Zaidas winked at him. But the mage went back toward the camp, which was what Krispos had in mind.
The rafts the Halogai had built carried only a fraction of them over the Astris that first day. The northerners who were left behind spread their bedrolls outside of Pliskavos. The countrymen’s campfires blazed from the far shore. Between the two groups, up and down, up and down along the river, the dromons of the imperial fleet prowled all night long.
Videssian archers stood guard through the night on the southern bank of the Astris, alert in case the Halogai proved treacherous. But most of the imperial army returned to the camp on the other side of the palisade. At the officers’ meeting that evening, Sarkis gave Krispos a sly look. “May I read your mind, Majesty?”
“Go ahead,” Krispos told him.
“You’re wishing a nice big band of Khamorth would pitch into the Halogai on their way north and finish the job we started.”
“Who, me?” As he tried to look imperial to Zaidas, now Krispos tried to look innocent. “That would be a terrible fate to wish on a foe we’ve just made peace with.”
“Aye, so it would, Majesty.” Sarkis’ eyes twinkled. “But didn’t I see you send a couple of men with horses to the north shore of the Astris? Unless they’re going to keep the northerners company on their way back to Halogaland, they’re probably up there to talk with one of the local Khamorth khagans.”
“With more than one,” Krispos admitted. “One of the local clan leaders by himself wouldn’t have enough men to risk tangling with such a big Haloga army. Three or four together might, in hopes of getting gold from us for the favor. I’d sooner spend gold than soldiers; we’ve spent enough soldiers against the Halogai.”
A low mutter of approval ran through the officers. Bagradas turned to Krispos and said, “Your Majesty, you are truly what an Avtokrator of the Videssians should be.” The rest of the commanders solemnly nodded. Krispos felt himself swell with pride.
Sarkis asked, “What would you have done had Ikmor made you pledge not to send envoys to the Khamorth?”
“I would have kept my word,” Krispos answered. “But since he didn’t think of it, I saw no reason to bring it up myself.”
“Aye, a Videssian indeed,” Sarkis murmured, reminding Krispos that the scout commander sprang from Vaspurakan. A moment later Sarkis softened his words. “No blame to you, though, Majesty, not after what the northerners have done to Videssos. They’ve earned whatever they catch.”
Again the officers nodded and called out, many with fierce eagerness. But Krispos asked, “Whatever they catch? What of Imbros?”
Abrupt silence fell inside the imperial tent. Krispos was relieved to hear it. No one who preferred Phos to Skotos could feel easy about imagining Imbros’ fate for any group, no matter what its crimes, and he was glad none of his officers thirsted so much for revenge as to forget it.
ZAIDAS SEEMED MUCH MORE HIS OLD SELF WHEN MORNING came. Along with several other wizards, he entered Pliskavos to continue the search for Harvas Black-Robe. A substantial armed band went along to guard them: the Halogai were out of Pliskavos and in the process of crossing the Astris, but some of the folk who had lived there before Harvas, before the Halogai, still remained.
The guard party would have been smaller had Krispos not decided to go into Pliskavos with the mages. Not only did he want to be in at the kill if Harvas was captured, he also wanted to see what would be needed to restore the town to a provincial capital after its occupation first by the Kubratoi for centuries and then by the evil wizard and the northerners.
His first horrified thought was that everything inside the fortifications should be torched, to cleanse the place and start again. The fires that had spread from the burning wall had done some of that, but not enough. Half-burned wooden buildings were everywhere, along with the stenches of stale smoke and of burned and rotting flesh. Once or twice heads peeked out of ruins to eye the newcomers. Krispos saw more than one glint of weapons in the shadows and was glad for his armed escort.
“This was once a Videssian town of note?” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true, Your Majesty.” Zaidas pointed. “See that stone building, and that one, and what’s left of that one over there? You’ll find the same sort of work in Videssos the city. And the streets, or some of them, still keep to the square grid pattern we usually use.”
“You know town planning as well as wizardry?” Krispos asked.
Zaidas flushed. “My older brother is a builder.”
“If he serves his craft as well as you do yours, he’ll be one of the best,” Krispos said, which made the young mage turn pink all over again.
As they rode on toward the center of town, they came across more and more stretches of unburned buildings. Now people did emerge to stare. Some were of Kubrati blood, stocky, the men heavily bearded. Others, slimmer, their features more sharply sculpted, could have been poor Videssians by the look of them. They all watched soldiers, wizards, and Emperor as if wondering what fresh misfortunes these newcomers would bring down on them.
“How will you sniff out Harvas from among them and from among others who may be hiding?” Krispos asked Zaidas.
“I will have to ride through the whole of Pliskavos, I think,” the wizard answered. “I know the reek of his magic, and I know the blankness with which he seeks to disguise it. To detect either, I will have to be close to it, for thanks to the lady Tanilis his power is less than a shadow of what it once was.”
“If he is here at all,” Krispos added.
“Aye, Your Majesty, if he is here at all.”
In a park in the heart of Pliskavos stood an ornately carved wooden palace, the former residence of the khagans of Kubrat. A new carving was set above the doorway: twin three-pronged lightning flashes. Zaidas’ finger stabbed toward them. “That is Skotos’ mark!” He sketched Phos’ sun-circle.
So did Krispos. “Harvas laired here, then?” he asked.
“Harvas once laired here,” Zaidas agreed. “Be thankful you cannot feel the effluvium of his past power.” He grew thoughtful. “I wonder if now he seeks to hide there, hoping no one will notice his present small bad odor in the great stench of the past. We must closely examine that building.”
One of the other Videssian mages, a stout, middle-aged man named Gepas, stirred in the saddle and said, “Do pray remember we’re not your servants, Zaidas.”
“Are you the Empire’s servants, Gepas?” Kr
ispos asked sharply. The wizard stared, startled. His eyes fell. He nodded. “Good,” Krispos said. “For a moment there, I wondered. Do you deny that Zaidas speaks good sense, or do you just wish you’d spoken before he did? Does Harvas’ palace need looking at, or not?”
“It does, Your Majesty,” Gepas admitted.
“Then let’s look at it.” Krispos urged Progress forward and tied the horse at the rail in front of the palace.
Neither his guards nor the mages would hear of his going in first. He’d wondered if the doors would be locked, but they opened at the guards’ touch. Zaidas turned to Gepas. With unaffected politeness, the young wizard asked, “Sir, would it please you to stand guard here at the doorway, to ensure that Harvas cannot sneak past you?”
“Better, youngling.” Gepas puffed out his chest and pulled in his belly. His voice got deeper. “Aye, I’ll do that. He shan’t escape by this road.”
“Good.” Zaidas’ face was perfectly straight. Krispos had to work to keep his the same way. He wondered whether Zaidas was a natural innocent or a schemer subtle beyond his years. Either way, he got results.
Wizards fanned out through the wooden palace. Krispos stayed with Zaidas. The guards, naturally, stayed with him. Together they made their way into the hall that was, Krispos supposed, the equivalent of the Grand Courtroom back at the capital. He pointed to the white throne that stood out against the gloom at the far end. “Is that ivory, like the patriarch’s throne?”
Zaidas studied it, murmuring briefly to himself. His large larynx worked. “It’s—bone,” he said at last. Just then Krispos saw Skotos’ symbol on the wall above the high seat. He decided not to ask what sort of bone.
The hall held a sour, metallic smell. Without much enthusiasm, Krispos walked down the hard dirt aisleway toward the throne. A few feet in front of it, his boot heels sank into a soggy spot. The smell got worse. “That’s blood,” he said, hoping Zaidas would contradict him.
Zaidas didn’t. He said, “We already knew Harvas practiced abominations. We also know now that he is not in this hall, which was our purpose in coming here. Let’s go on to see where he may be.”
“Yes, let’s,” Krispos said in a small voice, admiring the young mage’s ability to stay calm in the face of horror.
To the left of the bone throne was a door. In the twilight that filled the hall with all torches dark, its outline was invisible until one came right up to it. Again, Krispos’ guards would not let him go in first. One of them tugged at the latch. The door did not open. The guardsman used his axe with a will.
Moments later he tried the door again. This time he easily pulled it open. When he did, he and everyone else in the hall drew back a pace, or more than a pace, for darkness seemed to well out toward them. Krispos’ hand shaped the sun-circle. Loudly and clearly Zaidas declared, “We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.”
The spreading darkness faded. Krispos wondered if it had really been there. Even after it was gone, the open doorway remained black and forbidding. He glanced toward Zaidas. The young wizard licked his lips and seemed to gather his courage. Then he strode into the room. Remembering Trokoundos, Krispos started to shout for him to come back.
But Zaidas said, “Ah, as I thought,” with such scholarly satisfaction that Krispos knew he’d come to no harm. The mage went on, “It is a shrine dedicated to Skotos. They speak of them at the Sorcerers’ Collegium, but I’d never seen one before.”
Krispos had never seen one, either, or wanted to see one. But his pride would not let him stay back while Zaidas was inside. He was glad to have his guardsmen form up around him. They went into the small room together.
The hall of the throne had been dark. Even so, his eyes needed a minute or so to adapt to the deeper shadow inside. As the eye went to the altar in one of Phos’ temples, so it did here. Indeed, this altar at first glance resembled one from a temple—not surprising, Krispos supposed, since Harvas the evil mage, the apostate, had in his earlier days been Rhavas the prelate of Skopentzana. But no altar dedicated to Phos would have had knives lying on it.
One of Phos’ temples would have been full of icons, holy images of the good god and his work in the world. As Krispos’ vision adapted to the gloom, he saw icons on the wall above the altar here, too. He saw the dark god, wreathed in blackness, fighting Phos, driving him, and slaying him. He saw other things, as well, things he thought no man could have dreamed of taking brush to panel to portray. He saw things that made the forest of stakes outside Imbros seem a mercy. One of his guardsmen, a warrior who delighted in battle like most Halogai, lurched out into the great hall and was noisily sick there.
“This is what he would have brought to Videssos the city,” Zaidas said quietly.
“I know,” Krispos said. But knowing and seeing were not the same. He’d found that out in a different context when he’d got word of Evripos’ birth while Tanilis was in his bed. He looked at the icons again, and at the altar. He saw small bones among the knives. His little sister Kosta would have had bones about that size, a couple of years before cholera killed her. For a moment he thought he would be sick himself.
“A pity the flames from the wall didn’t reach here,” he said. “We’ll just have to fire this building ourselves.” More than anything else, he wanted Phos’ icons to burn.
One of the guardsmen clapped him on the back, hard enough to stagger him. Zaidas said, “Excellent, Your Majesty. Fire and its light are gifts from Phos, and will cleanse the evil that has put its roots down here. May something better arise from the ashes. And,” he added, his voice suddenly hopeful, “if Harvas has managed to elude us here, fire will cleanse the world of him as well.”
“So may it be,” Krispos said. After that, he was not ashamed to leave the dark chapel. Zaidas followed close on his heels. The young mage carefully closed the splintered door behind him, as if to make sure what dwelt inside stayed there.
All the wizards gathered by the entrance that Gepas still guarded. They’d not found Harvas, nor had any of the rest of them stumbled onto anything as black as Skotos’ altar. Not one, however, offered a word of protest at what Krispos proposed to do to the palace.
He unhitched Progress and led the gelding well away from the wooden building. The mages still kept a close watch on it, as if they could sense even at a distance the evil Harvas had brought into it. Very likely they could, Krispos thought. Most of his guardsmen stayed by him, but one hurried back to the imperial camp.
The guard returned fairly soon. He was carrying a jar of lamp oil and a smoking torch. He handed Krispos the torch, unstoppered the jar, and splashed oil on the palace wall. “Light it, Majesty,” he urged.
As Krispos touched the torch to the oil, he reflected that the dromons’ incendiary mix would have served even better. But the lamp oil did the job. Flames walked across the weathered surface of the wooden wall, crept into cracks, climbed over carvings. Before long the wood caught, too. No hearth logs could have been better seasoned than the old timbers of the palace. They burned quick and hard and hot. A pillar of smoke rose to the sky.
Imperials ran and rode up in alarm, fearing the blaze had broken out on its own. Krispos kept some of them close by, to help fight the fire in case it spread. But the palace was set apart from Pliskavos’ other buildings, as if to give the khagans of Kubrat the sense of space they might have enjoyed on the steppe. It had plenty of room in which to burn safely.
Krispos watched the fire for a while. He wished he could know whether Harvas was burning with those flames. Whether or not, though, the power he had forged to strike at Videssos was broken; those of his raiders who lived were boarding rafts under the eyes and arrows of imperial troops. And Harvas’ own power was broken, as well, thanks to Tanilis. Krispos shook his head, wishing for the thousandth time the price of the latter breaking had not been so high.
But he knew that Tanilis had willingly paid the price, and that she wo
uld not have wanted him to grieve in victory. The knowledge helped—some. He swung himself up onto Progress and twitched the reins. The horse turned till Krispos felt the warmth of the burning palace on his back. He touched Progress’ flanks with his heels and rode away.
WITH A HAND SHADING HIS EYES TO EASE THE GLARE, KRISPOS peered across the Astris. Tiny in the distance, the last of Harvas’ Halogai trudged away from the northern back of the river. “This land is ours now,” Krispos said, slightly embarrassed to hear slight surprise in his voice. “Ours again,” he amended.
Mammianos was also watching the Halogai go. “A very neat campaign, Your Majesty,” he said. “The provincial levies will be back on their farms in time to help with the harvest. Very neat indeed.”
“So they will.” Krispos turned to the fat general. “And what of you, Mammianos? Shall I send you back to your province, too, to govern the coastal lowlands for me?”
“This for the coastal lowlands.” Mammianos yawned a slow, deliberate, scornful yawn. “The only reason I was there is that Petronas sent me to the most insignificant place he could think of.” The yawn gave way to a smug expression. “Turned out not to be so insignificant after all, the way things worked out, eh, Your Majesty?”
“You’re right about that,” Krispos said. Mammianos had given him the opening he’d hoped for. “If you’re bored with the lowlands, eminent sir, will you serve as my governor here, as the first governor of the new province of Kubrat?”
“Ah. That job wouldn’t soon grow dull, now would it?” Mammianos didn’t sound surprised, but then Mammianos was no one’s fool. His voice turned musing. “Let’s see, what all would I be doing? Keeping the nomads on their side of the Astris, and the Halogai, too, if they think about getting frisky again—”
“Cleaning up the Haloga settlements that got started here, like the one that gave Sarkis so much trouble,” Krispos put in.
“Aye, and the Kubratoi might decide to rise up again, once they get over being grateful to us for ridding them of dear Harvas, which is to say any time starting about day after tomorrow.”
The Tale of Krispos Page 83