set sail for Videssos the city, she'd feared he would remember he was junior Avtokrator and forget he was her lover. Now, as the bright silks of the imperial pavilion drew near, he was afraid his father would turn him into a boy again, simply by refusing to imagine he could be anything else.
The Halogai outside the entrance to the tent saluted him in imperial style, clenched right fists over their hearts. He watched them discreetly look Olyvria up and down, as men of any nation will when they see a pretty girl. One of them said something in his own language. Phostis understood it was about Olyvria but not what it meant; he had only a smattering of the Haloga tongue. He almost asked the guardsmen what it meant, but at the last minute decided not to make an issue of it—Haloga candor could be brutal.
Inside the tent waited Krispos, Katakolon, Zaidas. Sarkis, and half a dozen helpings of bread and onions and sausage and salted olives. Olyvria's smile puzzled Phostis till he remembered she was an officer's daughter. No doubt the fare looked familiar.
As they ate, Phostis and Olyvria retold their story for Zaidas; Sarkis and Katakolon had heard most of it in the afternoon. The mage, as usual, made a good audience. He clapped his hands when Olyvria again recounted knocking Syagrios out with the chamber pot, and when Phostis told how they'd decamped immediately thereafter.
'That's the way to do it,' he said approvingly. 'When you need to get out in a hurry, spend what you have to and leave. What's the point to saving your gold but failing of your purpose? Which reminds me ...' He abruptly went serious and intent. 'His Majesty the Avtokrator—'
'Oh, just say, 'your father' and have done,' Krispos broke in. 'Otherwise you'll waste half the night in useless blathering.'
'As your Majesty the Avtokrator commands,' Zaidas said. Krispos made as if to throw a crust of bread at him. Grinning, Zaidas turned back to Phostis. 'Your father, I should say, tells me you learned something of importance about the techniques of Livanios' Makuraner wizard.'
'That's true, sorcerous sir.' Phostis had to work to stay formal; he'd almost called the mage Uncle Zaidas. 'One day— this was after I learned Artapan was from Makuran—I followed him and—' He described how he'd learned Artapan fortified his power with the death energies of Thanasioi who starved themselves to complete their renunciation of the world. 'And if they weren't quite dead when he needed them so, he wasn't averse to holding a pillow over their heads, either.'
'That's disgusting,' Katakolon said, sick horror in his voice.
Zaidas, by contrast, sounded eager, like a hunting dog just catching a scent. 'Tell me more,' he urged.
Olyvria gave Phostis a curious look. 'You never spoke to me of this before,' she said.
'I know I didn't. I didn't even like to think about it. And besides, I didn't think saying anything would be safe in Etchmiadzin. Too many ears around.' And even after they became lovers, he hadn't trusted her, not completely, not until she set upon Syagrios. That, though, he kept to himself.
'Go on,' Zaidas said. 'All the ears here are friendly.'
In as much detail as he could, prompted by sharp questions from the mage, Phostis recounted following Artapan down the street, standing in the stinking alley listening to him talk with Tzepeas, and the Thanasiot's premature and assisted death. 'That isn't the only time I saw him hovering over people who were on the point of starving, either,' he said. 'Remember,
Olyvria? He kept hanging around Strabon's house while he was dying.'
'He did,' she said, nodding. 'With Strabon and others. I never thought much about it—wizards have their ways, that's all.'
Zaidas stirred in his seat, but didn't say anything. For a man of his age he was, Phostis thought, reasonably normal save for his sorcerous talent. But then, he was the only wizard Phostis knew well. Who could say what others were like?
'Did he pray as he—ended—this heretic's life?' Zaidas asked. 'Either to Phos or to the Four Prophets, I mean?'
'He spoke some in Makuraner, but since I don't understand it, I don't know what he said. I'm sorry,' Phostis answered.
'Can't be helped,' the mage said. 'It probably doesn't matter in any case. As you've noted for yourself, the transition from life to death is a powerful source of magical energy. We who follow Phos are forbidden to exploit it, lest we grow to esteem the power so much that we fall into injustice, slaying for the sake of magic alone. I was given to understand that prohibition also applied to followers of the Prophets Four, but I may be wrong. On the other hand, Artapan—that was the name, not so?—may be as much a heretic by Mashiz's standards as the Thanasioi are by ours.'
Krispos said, 'This would all be very interesting if we were hashing it out as an exercise at the Sorcerers' Collegium, sorcerous sir, but how does it affect us here in the wider world? Suppose Artapan is using magic fueled by death? Does that make him more dangerous? How do we counteract his magic if it does?'
Behind her hand, Olyvria whispered, 'Your father drives straight for the heart of a question.'
'That he does.' Phostis scratched at the side of his jaw. 'He gets frustrated when others don't follow as quickly, as they often don't.' He wondered if that accounted for some of his father's impatience with him. But how could someone just coming into manhood be expected to stay with the schemes of a grown man with the full power of experience who was also one of the master schemers that Videssos, a nation of schemers, had ever known?
Zaidas missed the byplay and spoke straight to Krispos: 'Your Majesty, a mage who uses death energy in his thauma-turgy gains strength, aye, but he also becomes more vulnerable to others' magic. That sort of compensation is nothing surprising. Wizardry, no matter what the ignorant may think, offers no free miracles. What you gain in one area, you lose in another.'
'That's not just wizardry—that's life,' Krispos said. 'If you've chosen to take on a big flock of sheep, you won't be able to plant as much barley.'
Sarkis chuckled. 'How many years on the throne, your Majesty, to have you still talking like a peasant? A proper Emperor now, one from the romances, would say you can't war in east and west at the same time, or some such.'
'To the ice with the romances,' Phostis broke in. 'The next one that tells a copper's worth of truth will be the
