It was almost identical to the one that had gone before, name and description of the new sea and new landing place being substituted for those he had previously used.
And, to Maniakes' dismay, the results of the incantation were almost identical to those that had gone before. Again, the Avtokrator watched a miniature storm play havoc with the miniature fleet. None of the little chip ships caught fire this time, but more of them capsized than had been true in the previous conjuration.
He asked the only question he could think to ask: «Are you certain you took off all the influence from the earlier spell?»
«As certain as may be, yes,» Bagdasares answered. «But if it pleases you, your Majesty, I can begin again from the beginning. Preparing everything from scratch will take a bit more time, you understand, but—» «Do it,» Maniakes said.
Do it, Bagdasares did. He chose a new bowl, he prepared fresh– or rather, new—symbolic seawater, and he made a new fleet of toy ships. It did seem to take quite a while, though Maniakes reflected that his wizard was much swifter than his shipwrights. «I shall also use a different incantation this time,» Bagdasares said, «to reduce any possible lingering effects from my previous spells.» The Avtokrator nodded approval.
Bagdasares went about the new spell as methodically as he had with the preparations for it. The incantation was indeed different from the one he'd used before. The results, however, were the same: a tiny storm that sank and scattered most of the symbolic fleet.
«I am very sorry, your Majesty.» Bagdasares' voice dragged with weariness when the spell was done. «I cannot in good conscience recommend sending a fleet to the west by way of the Videssian Sea, either.» He yawned. «Your pardon, I crave. Three conjurations of an afternoon will wear a man down to a nub.» He yawned again.
«Rest, then,» Maniakes said. «I know better than to blame the messenger for the news he brings.» Bagdasares bowed, and almost fell over. Wobbling as if drunk, he took his leave. Maniakes stood alone in the sorcerous workroom. «I know better than to blame the messenger for his news,» he repeated, «but, by the good god, I wish I didn't.»
With a screech of rusty hinges, the postern gate opened. It was not the gate through which Moundioukh had come when Maniakes tried to detach the Kubratoi from their alliance to Makuran. That one had been made quiet. Now silence and stealth no longer mattered. Maniakes could leave Videssos the city without fear, without worry; no enemy stood nearby.
Maniakes could not leave Videssos the city, however, without his guardsmen or without his full complement of twelve parasol-bearers. He might have vanquished Etzilios, he might have kept the Makuraners on the west side of the Cattle Crossing, but against entrenched ceremonial he struggled in vain.
Rhegorios said, «Don't worry about it, cousin your Majesty brother-in-law of mine.» That he was using his whimsical mix of titles for Maniakes again said he thought the crisis was over for the time being. He went on, «They won't get in your way very much.»
«Ha!» Maniakes said darkly. But, even with the demands of ceremony oppressing him, he could not hold on to his foul mood. Being able to leave the imperial city, even with his escort, felt monstrous good.
Seeing the wreckage of Etzilios' hopes up close felt even better. Videssian scavengers were still going over the engines and towers for scraps of timber and metal they could use or sell. Before long, nothing would be left.
«On this side of the Cattle Crossing, we're our own masters again,» Rhegorios said, thinking along with him. The Sevastos' grin, always ready, got wider now. «And from where we are, the wall keeps us from looking over the Cattle Crossing at the Makuraners on the other side. We'll worry about them next, of course, but we don't have to do it now.»
For once, Maniakes didn't try to peer around the wall to glare at Abivard's forces. He wasn't worrying about them now, but not for the reason Rhegorios had put forward. His worries, for the moment, were closer to him. Pointing toward the base of the wall, he said, «It was right around here somewhere.»
«What was right around here?» asked Rhegorios, who hadn't asked why the Avtokrator was leaving Videssos the city before coming along with him. «That's right,» Maniakes said, reminding himself. «You weren't up on the wall then. Immodios and I were the ones who served the dart-thrower.»
«What dart-thrower?» Rhegorios sounded like a man doing his best to stay reasonable but one unlikely to stay that way indefinitely.
«The one we used to shoot at Tzikas,» the Avtokrator answered; he hadn't intended to thwart his cousin. «The renegade, may the ice take him, was showing the Kubratoi something—probably something he wanted them to know so they could hurt us with it. Whatever it is, I want to find it so we won't have to worry about it again.»
«How could it be anything?» Rhegorios sounded calm, logical, reasonable—more like his sister than the way he usually sounded. «If something were here, wouldn't we know about it?»
«Who can say?» Maniakes replied. «We spent years in exile, our whole clan. Good thing Likinios sent us away, too, as it worked out; if we had been anywhere Genesios could have reached us, our heads would have gone up on the Milestone. But Tzikas was here in the city at least part of the time, before he went off to the westlands to fight the Makuraners and play his own games.»
«Well, maybe,» Rhegorios said grudgingly. «But if you're right, wouldn't somebody here besides Tzikas know about this whatever-it-is?»
«Well, maybe,» Maniakes said, as grudgingly. «But maybe not, too. A lot of heads went up on the Milestone when Genesios held the throne. A lot of men died other ways, too, murdered or in battle or even in bed. And this thing would have been very secret. Not many people would have known about it in the first place, or we would have heard of it years ago.»
«There's another explanation, you know,» Rhegorios said: «How can you know about something that's not there?»
The guards and the parasol-bearers and Maniakes and even Rhegorios kept on going over the area again and again. Maniakes began to think his cousin was right. He shrugged. If that was so, it was so. Knowing it rather than merely hoping it would be a relief-One of the guards, a big blond Haloga who wore his hair in a braid halfway down his back, called to Maniakes: «Lord, here the ground feels funny under my feet.»
«Funny, Hafgrim?» The Avtokrator came over and stomped where the guardsman was standing. «It doesn't feel funny to me.» Hafgrim snorted. «One of me would make two of you, lord.»
That wasn't true, but it wasn't so far wrong, either. The Haloga went on, «I say it feels funny. I know what I know.» He folded his arms across his broad chest, defying Maniakes to disbelieve him. With nothing better found —with nothing else found at all– Maniakes was willing to grasp at straws. «All right, to you it feels funny,» he said agreeably. «Let's break out the spades and mattocks and find out why.»
The guards set to work with a will. The parasol-bearers stood around watching. Maniakes didn't say anything about that, but he suspected several of those parasol-bearers would suffer accidents– accidents not too disabling, he hoped—around the palace in the near future.
He also suspected the diggers would find nothing more than that Hafgrim's weight had made damp ground shift under his feet. That made him all the more surprised when, after penetrating no deeper than a foot and a half, the diggers' tools thumped against wood. «What did I say, lord?» Hafgrim said triumphantly.
«What did I say, cousin of mine?» Maniakes said triumphantly.
Rhegorios, for once, said nothing.
«It is a trapdoor, lord,» the Haloga guardsman said after he and his companions had cleared more of it. «It is a trapdoor—and what would a trapdoor have under it?»
«A tunnel,» Maniakes breathed, even before one of the guards dug the tip of a spade under the door and levered it up. «By the good god, a tunnel.»
«Now, who would have wanted to dig a tunnel under the wall?» Rhegorios said. No possible doubt where the tunnel went: it sloped almost straight down, to dive beneath the ditch around the outer wall, and was heavily shored with timbers on all four sides.
An answer leapt into Maniakes' mind: «Likinios. It has to be Likinios. It would have been just like him to build a bolt-hole– the man could see around corners on a straight line. And Tzikas could easily have known about it.» Maniakes shivered. «Good thing it came up so near the wall, where all our weapons would bear on it. Otherwise, Tzikas would have had the Kubratoi dig it open right away.»
