Harry Turtledove - Krispos the Emperor

"Let me think," Zaidas said, and proceeded to do just that for the next several minutes, standing still as a statue in the center of his study. Suddenly he brightened. "I know something which may serve." He hurried over to a cabinet set against one wall and began opening its small drawers and rummaging through them.

The Haloga guardsmen moved to place himself between Krispos and Zaidas, in case the wizard suddenly whipped out a dagger and tried to murder the Avtokrator. This he did though Zaidas was a longtime trusted friend, and though the chamber doubtless held weapons far more fell than mere knives. Krispos smiled but did not seek to dissuade the northerner, who was but doing his duty as he reckoned best.

Zaidas let out a happy grunt. "Here we are." He turned around, displaying not a dagger but rather a piece of highly polished, translucent white stone. "This is nicomar, your Majesty, a variety of alabaster. When properly evoked, it has the virtue of generating both victory and amity. Thus we shall see if any amity, so to speak, lies between the two letters now in our possession. If so, we shall know Harvas indeed has a hand in the heresy of the Thanasioi."

"Alabaster, you say?" Krispos waited for Zaidas to nod, then continued: "Some of the ceiling panels in the imperial residence are also of alabaster, to let in more light. Why don't, ah, victory and amity always dwell under my roof?" He thought of his unending disagreements with Phostis.

"When properly evoked, I said, the stone brings forth those virtues," Zaidas answered, smiling. "The evocation is not easy, nor is the effect lasting."

"Oh." Krispos hoped he didn't sound too disappointed. "Well, go ahead and do what you need to do, then."

The wizard prayed over the gleaming slab of nicomar and anointed it with sweet-smelling oil, as if it were being made a prelate or an Emperor. Krispos wondered if he would be able to feel the change in the stone, as even a person of no sorcer-ous talent could feel the curative current that passed between a healer-priest and his patient. To him, though, the nicomar remained simply a stone. He had to trust that Zaidas knew what he was about.

With a final pass that seemed to require nearly jointless fingers, Zaidas said, "The good god willing, we are now ready to proceed. First I shall examine the letter known to have been written by Harvas."

He set the nicomar over the place where he had previously splashed his magical liquid. Fierce red light blazed through the stone. Krispos said, "This tells us what we already knew."

"So it does, your Majesty," Zaidas answered. "It also tells me the nicomar is performing as it should." He lifted the thin slab of stone and held it over a brass brazier from which the pungent smoke of frankincense coiled slowly toward the ceiling. Before Krispos could ask what he was doing, he explained: "I fumigate the nicomar to remove from it the influence of the parchment it just touched. Thus on the crucial test to come, the workings of the law of contagion shall not be permitted to influence the result. Do you see?"

Without waiting for Krispos' reply, the wizard set the polished alabaser down on the letter from Taronites. Krispos waited for another flash of red. But only a steady blue light penetrated the nicomar. "What does that mean?" Krispos asked, half hoping, half dreading Zaidas would tell him something other than the obvious.

But the wizard did not. "Your Majesty, it means that, so far as my sorcery can determine, no relationship whatever exists between the Thanasioi and Harvas."

"I still find that hard to believe," Krispos said.

"As I told you before, so do I," Zaidas answered. "But if you have a choice between believing whatever you happen to feel at the moment and that which has evidence to support it, which course will you take? I trust I know you well enough to know what you would say were it a matter of law rather than one of magic."

"There you have me," Krispos admitted. "You are so confident in what these conjurations tell you, then?"

"I am, your Majesty. Were it anyone but Harvas, the first lest alone would have contented me. With the confirmation of its import by the nicomar, I would stake my life on the accuracy of what I have divined today."

"You may be doing just that, you know," Krispos said with u grim edge to his voice.

Zaidas looked startled for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that's so, isn't it? Harvas on the loose once more would terrify the bravest." He spat on the floor between his feet to show his rejection of the evil god Skotos, the god Harvas had for a patron. "But by Phos, the lord with the great and good mind, I tell you again that Harvas is in no way connected to the Thanasioi. Misguided they may be; guided amiss by Harvas they are not."

He sounded so certain that Krispos had to believe him despite his own misgivings. As the sorcerer had said, evidence counted for more than vague feelings. And if Harvas' dread hand did not lie behind the Thanasioi, why, how dangerous could they possibly be? The Avtokrator smiled. Over the past couple of decades, he'd faced and overcome enough merely human foes to trust he had their measure.

"Thank you for relieving my mind, excellent sir. Your reward will not be small," he told Zaidas. Then, because the wizard had a habit of putting such rewards into the treasury of the Sorcerers' Collegium, he added, "Keep some for yourself this time, my friend. I command it."

"You needn't fear for that, your Majesty," Zaidas said. "In fact, I have already received the same instruction from one I reckon higher in rank than you."

Normally, the only entity a Videssian would reckon higher in rank than his Avtokrator was Phos. Krispos, though, knew perfectly well about whom Zaidas was talking. Chuckling, he said, "Tell Aulissa I say she is a good, sensible woman and makes you an excellent wife. Be sure you listen to her, too."

"I will pass your words to her as you say them," Zaidas promised. "With some other women. I might not, for fear of inflaming their notions of how important they are in the scheme of things. But since my dear Aulissa is as sensible as you say, I know she'll accept the compliment for what it's worth and not a copper more."

"The two of you are a good deal alike that way," Krispos said. "You're lucky to have each other."

Even when Dara was still alive, he'd sometimes envied Zaidas and Aulissa their tranquil happiness. They seemed to know each other's needs and adjust to each other's foibles as if they were two halves of the same person. His own marriage had not been like that. He and Dara got along well enough on the whole, but they'd always had their fall storms and wintry blizzards along with the warmth of summer. Zaidas and his wife seemed to live in late spring the year round.

The wizard said, "Besides, your Majesty, Aulissa has noted that Sotades is now twelve years old. The boy will soon begin his serious schooling, which, as she pointed out, requires serious quantities of gold."

"Ah, yes," Krispos said wisely, though as Avtokrator he had not had to worry about the expense of educating his sons: every scholar in the city was eager to have any or all of them as his pupils. Having taught the Emperor's child could only improve a savant's reputation . . . and one of those children would likely be Avtokrator himself one day. In Krispos' experience, scholars were no more immune to seeking influence than any other men.

"I am relieved for you, your Majesty, and for the Empire of Videssos," Zaidas said, nodding toward the table where he'd carried out his magic.

"I'm relieved, too." Krispos picked up the letter from Harvas which the wizard had used and quickly read it. It was the one wherein Harvas declared he had cut out Iakovitzes' tongue because the diplomat's freedom with it displeased him. Krispos was not sorry to put down the parchment. That had been far from the worst of Harvas' atrocities. Being spared the worry of another round of them was worth a goodly sum of gold.