Noise and light and strong odors of torch smoke, stale food, and unwashed humanity greeted him on the first basement floor. The prison guards hailed him with salutes and welcoming shouts—his coming was enough out of the ordinary to make their labor seem worthwhile again.
A senior guard said, 'The one you're after, your Majesty, they're holding him in cell number twelve, down that hallway there.' The wine on his breath added a new note to the symphony of smells. It being the morning after Midwinter's Day, Krispos gave no sign he noticed, but made a mental note to check whether the fellow drank on duty other days, as well.
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
