The Tale of Krispos (49 page)

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 anymore, 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 salute 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?”

Krispos watched Mavros’ hand leave the hilt of his dagger. The little blade would not have kept him or Krispos alive an extra moment against an armed and armored Geirrod, but the protective gesture made Krispos proud once more to have him for foster brother.

“Where now?” the guardsman repeated.

“To the imperial residence,” Krispos answered after quick thought. “You, Geirrod, tell your comrades what happened here. I will also speak to them, and to the folk inside.”

“What do you want to do about this place here?” Mavros asked, pointing back at Anthimos’ sanctum. As he did, part of the roof fell in with a crash.

“Let it burn,” Krispos said. “If anyone sees it or gets close enough to hear noise like that, I suppose he’ll try and put it out, not that he’ll have much luck. But the grove is so thick that odds are no one will notice a thing, and we certainly don’t have time to mess about here. Or do you feel otherwise?”

Mavros shook his head. “No indeed. We’ll be plenty busy between now and dawn.”

“Aye.” As he walked back toward the imperial residence, Krispos tried to think of all the things he’d have to do before the sun came up again. If he forgot anything of any importance, he knew, he would not keep the throne he’d claimed.

The Halogai standing guard in front of the imperial residence grew alert when they saw three men approaching. When Krispos and his companions got close enough for torchlight to reveal the state they were in, one of the northerners shouted, “What happened to you?”

Krispos looked down at himself. His robe was torn and scorched and stained with smoke. He glanced over at Mavros, whose face was streaked from soot and sweat. His own, he was sure, could be no cleaner.

“The Avtokrator is dead,” he said simply.

The Halogai cried out and came dashing down the stairs, their huge axes at the ready. “Did you slay him?” one of them demanded, his voice fierce.

“No, by Phos, I did not,” Krispos said. As he had for Geirrod, he sketched the sun-sign over his breast. “You know he and I had a falling-out these past few days.” He waited for the northerners to nod, then went on, “This evening I learned…”
Never mind where now,
he thought. “I learned he’d not forgiven me as he wanted me to believe, but was going to use the wizardry he’d studied to kill me.”

He touched the sword that swung on his hip. “I went to defend myself, yes, but I did not kill him. Because I was there, he hurried his magic, and rather than striking me, it ate him up instead. In the name of the Lord with the great and good mind, I tell you I speak the truth.”

Geirrod suddenly started talking to the northerners in their own language. They listened for a moment, then began asking questions and talking—sometimes shouting—among themselves. Geirrod turned to Krispos, shifting back to Videssian. “I tell them it be only justice now for you to be Emperor, since he who was Emperor try to slay you but end up killing self instead. I also tell them I fight for you if they say no.”

While the Halogai argued, Mavros sidled close to Krispos and whispered, “Well, I admit you did that better than I would have.”

Krispos nodded, watching the guards—and their captain. Sometimes, he had read, usurpers gained the imperial guards’ backing with promises of gold. He did not think gold would sway Thvari, save only to make him feel contempt. He waited for the guard captain to speak. At last Thvari did. “Majesty.” One by one, the Halogai echoed him.

Now Krispos could give rewards. “Half a pound of gold to each of you, a pound to Thvari, and two pounds to Geirrod for being first among you to acknowledge me.” The northerners cheered and gathered round him to clasp his hand between their two.

“What do I get?” Mavros asked, mock-plaintively.

“You get to go to the stables, saddle up Progress and a horse for you, and get back here fast as you can,” Krispos told him.

“Aye, that’s right, give me all the work,” Mavros said—but over his shoulder, for he was already heading for the stables at a fast trot.

Krispos climbed the steps to the imperial residence—
his
residence now and for as long as he could keep it, he realized suddenly. He could feel that he was running on nervous energy; if he slowed down even for a moment, he might not get moving again easily. He laughed at himself—when would he find the chance to slow down any time soon?

Barsymes and Tyrovitzes stood waiting a couple of paces inside the entrance. As with the Halogai before, Krispos’ dishevelment made the eunuchs stare. Barsymes pointed out toward the guardsmen. “They called you Majesty,” he said. Was that accusation in his voice? Krispos could not tell. The chamberlain had long practice in dissimulation.

“Yes, they called me Majesty—Anthimos is dead,” Krispos answered bluntly, hoping to startle some more definite reaction from the eunuchs. But for making the sun-circle over their hearts, they gave him none. Their silence compelled him to go on to explain once more how the Emperor had perished.

When he was through, Barsymes nodded; he seemed far from startled. “I did not think Anthimos could destroy you so,” he remarked.

Krispos started to take that as a simple compliment, then stopped, his eyes going wide. “You knew,” he ground out. Barsymes nodded again. Krispos drew his sword. “You knew, and you did not warn me. How shall I pay you back for that?”

Barsymes did not flinch from the naked blade. “Perhaps while you consider, you should let the Empress Dara know you survived. I am certain she will be even more relieved to hear of it than we are.”

Again Krispos started to miss something, again he caught himself. “You knew that, too?” he asked in a small voice. This time both eunuchs nodded back. He looked at his sword, then returned it to its sheath. “How long have you known?” Now he was whispering.

Barsymes and Tyrovitzes looked at each other. “No secret in the palaces is a secret long,” Barsymes said with the slightest trace of smugness.

Dizzily, Krispos shook his head. “And you didn’t tell Anthimos?”

“If we had, esteemed and—no, forgive me, I beg—Your Majesty, would you be holding this conversation with us now?” Barsymes asked.

Krispos shook his head again. “How shall I pay you back for
that
?” he said, then musingly answered himself: “If I’m to be Emperor, I’ll need a vestiarios. The post is yours, Barsymes.”

The eunuch’s long, thin face was not made for showing pleasure, but his smile was less doleful than most Krispos had seen from him. “You honor me, Your Majesty. I am delighted to accept, and shall seek to give satisfaction.”

“I’m sure you will,” Krispos said. He hurried past the two eunuchs and down the hall. He passed the doorway that had been his and paused in front of the one he had entered so many times but that only now belonged to him. He raised a hand to knock softly, then stopped. He did not knock at his own door. He opened it.

He heard Dara’s sharp intake of breath—she had to have been wondering who would come through that door. When she saw Krispos, she said, “Oh, Phos be praised, it’s you!” and threw herself into his arms. Even as he held her, though, he thought that her words would have done for Anthimos’ return just as well—no chance of making a mistake with them. He wondered how long she’d worked to come up with such a safe phrase.

“Tell me what happened,” she demanded.

He explained Anthimos’ downfall for the fourth time that night. He knew he would have to do it again before dawn. The more he explained it, the more the story got between him and the exertion and terror of the moment. If he told the tale enough times, he thought hopefully, perhaps he’d forget how frightened he’d been.

This was the first time Dara had heard it, which made it seem as real for her as if she’d been there. When he was through, she held him again. “I might have lost you,” she said, her face buried against his shoulder. “I don’t know what I would have done then.”

She’d been sure enough earlier in the evening, he thought, but decided he could not blame her for forgetting that now. And her fear for him made him remember his own fear sharply once more. “You certainly might have,” he said. “If he hadn’t tripped over his own tongue—”