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reached for the bell pull that summoned Kameas, who slept in the room next to
the imperial bedchamber. Lysia went on, "As well it's winter, and I'm in a
woolen gown. I wouldn't want the vestiarios to come in after I'd got out of
bed bare, the way I do when the weather is hot and sticky."
"Yes, Niphone was modest about him at first, too, but she got used to it,"
Maniakes said.
"I wasn't thinking of that," Lysia answered. "What would it do to him to see
me naked? He's not a man in his body, poor fellow, but does he think a man's
thoughts even if they do him no good?"
"I don't know," Maniakes admitted. "I wouldn't have the nerve to ask, either.
I suspect you're right, though. That sort of consideration couldn't hurt,
anyhow." He clicked his tongue between his teeth. If you did have a man's
urges all those years, and were utterly unable to do anything about them How
could you go on living? He thought it would have driven him mad. For Kameas'
sake, he hoped the eunuch was as sexless as his voice.
When he did summon Kameas, the vestiarios went through the robes in the closet
with a critical eye. At last, he said, "Does the leek-green wool suit your
Majesty this morning?"
"Yes, that should do." Maniakes felt of it. "Good thick cloth. This one would
keep me warm in a blizzard."
He threw off his sleeping robe and was about to let Kameas vest him in the
formal one for daily wear when he felt a warmth that had nothing to do with
thick, soft wool. His hand went to the amulet Bagdasares had given him back in
Opsikion, when he was still trying to overthrow Genesios. The
gold-and-hematite charm was almost hot enough to burn his chest, almost hot
enough to burn his palm and fingers as they closed on it.
For a moment, he simply stood there in surprise. Then he remembered the
wizard's warning: if the amulet grew hot, that meant he was under magical
attack. He also remembered Bagdasares warning him that it could not long
withstand such an attack.
Clad only in drawers and the amulet, he ran out of the imperial bedchamber and
down the halls of the residence. Behind him, Lysia and Kameas both cried out
in surprise. He didn't take the time to answer them at every step, the amulet
felt hotter.
He pounded on the door to Bagdasares' room, then tried the latch. Bagdasares
hadn't barred the door. He burst in. The wizard was sitting up in bed, looking
bleary and astonished. Beside him, with the same mix of expressions, was one
of Lysia's serving women. Neither of them seemed to wear even as much as the
Avtokrator did.
"Magic!" Maniakes said, clutching the amulet.
Intelligence lit in Bagdasares' fleshy features. He bounded out of bed, making
the sun-sign as he did so. He was nude. By the way she squeaked and clutched
the bedclothes to herself, so was the maidservant.
Maniakes felt as if something was squeezing him, inside his skin. However much
good the amulet was doing, it wasn't altogether keeping the hostile spell from
having its way with him. He yawned, as if trying to clear his head while he
had a cold. That did nothing to relieve the oppressive sensation slowly
building inside him.
Bagdasares kept his case of sorcerous supplies by his bedside. Reaching into
it, he pulled out a ball of twine and a knife whose white bone handle had a
golden sunburst set into it. He used the knife to cut off a good length of
twine, then began tying the ends together in an elaborate knot.
"Whatever you're doing there, please hurry," Maniakes said. He felt something
wet on his upper lip. Reaching up to touch it, he found his nose was bleeding.
Worse was that he thought a nosebleed the least of what the magic would do to
him when it fully defeated the power of the amulet.
"Your Majesty, this must be done right," Bagdasares answered. "If I make a
mistake, I might as well not have done it at all." Easy for him to say his
head wasn't being turned to pulp from the inside out. Maniakes stood still and
hoped he wouldn't die before Bagdasares got through doing things right.
The mage finished the knot at last. When Maniakes looked at it, his eyes
didn't want to follow its convolutions. Bagdasares grunted in absentminded
satisfaction and began to chant in the Vaspurakaner language, running his
hands along the circle of twine as he did so.
It wasn't just pressure inside Maniakes' head now it was pain. He tasted
blood; it dropped onto the floor of Bagdasares' room. By the expression on the
maidservant's face, he wasn't a pretty sight. And if Bagdasares didn't hurry
up, he was going to find out that being a slow wizard was one way of being a
bad one.
Bagdasares cried out to Phos and to Vaspur the Firstborn, then passed the
circle of twine over Maniakes' head and slowly down to his feet. It began to
glow, much as had the lines of power from his protective spell back in
Opsikion. The wizard invoked the good god and the eponymous ancestor of his
people once more when the circle of twine touched the ground. He was careful
to make sure it surrounded the blood Maniakes had lost.
What color was the enchanted cord? Gold? Blue? Orange? Purple? Red? It
flickered back and forth among them faster than Maniakes' eyes could follow.
After a moment, he didn't care. The heat from the amulet began to fade against
the skin of his chest, and his head no longer felt as if the walls of his
skull were going to squeeze together, crushing everything between them.
"Better," Maniakes whispered. Still in her nightdress, Lysia appeared in the
doorway, her eyes wide and frightened. Kameas was right behind her. Maybe
Bagdasares' magic hadn't been so slow after all, if they were just now getting
here. It certainly had seemed slow.
With his head no longer feeling as if it were about to cave in on itself, he
was able to pay more attention to the shifting colors of the twine. They
changed ever more slowly. Red . . . gold . . . blue . . . and all at once, the
twine was just twine again. "What does that mean?" Lysia asked, before
Maniakes could.
"It means the assault against his Majesty is over," Bagdasares answered. "He
may leave the circle now, if he so desires." Maniakes had wondered how long he
would have to stay in there. Even so, he hesitated before stepping out beyond
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