«You know how to hit below the belt,» Rhegorios said. «Considering what we're talking about, that's the best way to put things, isn't it? And you're right, worse luck: I wouldn't want Lysia angry at me.»

«I can understand that.» Maniakes looked around. «I wonder if we could put a town anywhere around here, to help seal the border.»

«Aye, why not?» Rhegorios said. «We can call it Frontier, if you like.» He waved a hand, as if he were a mage casting a spell. «There! Can't you just see it? Walls and towers and a grand temple to Phos across the square from the hypasteos' residence, with barracks close by.»

And Maniakes could see the town in his mind's eye. For a moment, it seemed as real as any of the cities in the westlands he'd liberated from the Makuraners. It was, in fact, as if he had liberated the hypothetical town of Frontier from the Makuraners, and spent a couple of days in that hypasteos' residence digging through the usual sordid tales of treason, collaboration, and heresy.

But then Rhegorios waved again, and said, «Can't you see the dust-herders bringing their flocks into the market for coughing– I mean, shearing? Can't you see the rock farmers selling their crops to the innkeepers to make soup with? Can't you see the priests of Phos, out there blessing the scorpions and the tarantulas? Can't you see the vultures circling overhead, laughing at the men who set a town three weeks away from anything that looked like water?»

Maniakes stared at him, stared at the desert through which they were traveling, and then started to laugh. «Well, all right,» he said. «I think I take your point. Maybe I could put a town not too far from here, somewhere closer to water—though we're less than a day from it, not three weeks—to help seal the border. Does that meet with your approval, your exalted Sevastosship, sir?»

Rhegorios was laughing, too. «That suits me fine. But if I'm going to be difficult, wouldn't you rather I had fun being difficult, instead of looking as if I'd just had a poker rammed up my arse?» He suddenly assumed an expression serious to the point of being doomful.

«Do you know what you look like?» Maniakes looked around to make sure no one could overhear him and his cousin, then went on, «You look like Immodios, that's what.»

«I've been called a lot of hard names in my time, cousin of mine, but that's—» Rhegorios donned the stern expression again, and then, in lieu of a mirror, felt of his own face. As he did so, his expression melted into one of comically exaggerated horror and dismay. «By the good god, you're right!»

He and Maniakes laughed again. «That feels so good,» Maniakes said. «We spent a good many years there where nothing was funny at all.»

«Didn't we, though?» Rhegorios said. «Amazing how getting half your country back again can improve your outlook on life.»

«Isn't it?» Instead of examining the ground from which the town of Frontier would never sprout, Maniakes looked west toward Makuran. «Haven't heard from Abivard in a while,» he said. «I wonder how he's doing in the fight against Sharbaraz.»

«I'm not worrying about it,» Rhegorios said. «As far as I'm concerned, they can hammer away at each other till they're both worn out. Abivard's a good fellow—I don't deny that for a moment– and Sharbaraz is a right bastard, but they're both Makuraners, if you know what I mean. If they're fighting among themselves, they'll be too busy to give us any grief.»

«Which is, I agree, not the worst thing in the world,» Maniakes said.

«No, not for us, it's not.» Rhegorios' grin was predatory. «About time, don't you think, some bad things happen to the Makuraners? Things ought to even out in this world, where we can see them happen, not just in the next, where Phos triumphs at the end of days.»

«That would be fine, wouldn't it?» Maniakes' tone was wistful. «For a long time, I wondered if we'd ever see things even out with the boiler boys.»

Rhegorios pursued his own thought: «For instance, we might even be able to cast down that villain of an Etzilios and do something about the Kubratoi. The good god knows what they've been doing to us all these years.»

«Oh, wouldn't that be sweet?» Maniakes breathed. «Wouldn't that be fine, to get our own back from that liar and cheat?»

The memory of the way Etzilios had deceived him, almost captured him, and routed his army came flooding back, as if the years between that disaster and the present were transparent as glass. The Makuraners had done Videssos more harm, but they'd never inflicted on him a humiliation to match that one.

«We did give him some,» the Avtokrator said. «After our fleet crushed the monoxyla, the way he fled from the city was sweet as honey to watch. But he's still on his throne, and his nomads are still dangerous.» He sighed. «Getting the westlands back in one piece counts for more, I suppose. I rather wish it didn't, if you know what I mean.»

«Oh, yes,» Rhegorios said. «The pleasure of doing what you want to do—especially of paying back somebody who's done you wrong—can be more delicious than just doing what needs doing.»

«That's it exactly.» Maniakes nodded. «But I'm going to do what needs doing.» His grin was wry. «I'd better be careful. I'm in danger of growing up.»

The Makuraner heavy cavalryman dismounted, walked toward Maniakes in a jingle of armor, prostrated himself before the Avtokrator, and then, with a considerable display of strength, rose smoothly despite the weight of iron he wore. «What news?'» Maniakes demanded. «Is Sharbaraz overthrown?» He would have paid a pound of gold to hear that, but didn't tell the boiler boy in front of him. If the word was there, that would be time enough for rewards.

Regretfully, Abivard's messenger shook his head. «Majesty, he is not, though we drive his forces back toward Mashiz and though more and more men from the garrisons in the Land of the Thousand Cities declare for us each day. That is not why the new sun of Makuran sent me to you.»

«Well, why did he send you, then?» Maniakes said, trying to hide his disappointment. «What news besides victory was worth the journey?»

«Majesty, I shall tell you,» the Makuraner replied. «In the Land of the Thousand Cities, in a barren tract far from any canal, we found another of the blasphemous shrines such as the one you described to my master.» The man's eyes were fierce behind the chain-mail veil that hid the lower part of his face. «I saw this abomination for myself. Sharbaraz may act as if he is the God in this life, but the God shall surely drop him into the Void in the next.»

«I burned the one my men came across,» Maniakes said. «What did Abivard do with this 6ne?»

«The first thing he did was send every squadron, every regiment of his army through the place, so all his men could see with their own eyes what kind of foe they were facing,» the messenger said.

«That was a good idea,» Maniakes said. «I used the one we discovered to rally my men's spirits, too.»

«If a blasphemy is so plain that even a Videssian can see it, how did it escape the notice of the King of Kings?» the messenger asked rhetorically. He failed to notice the casual contempt for Videssians that informed his words. Instead of getting angry, Maniakes wondered how often he'd offended Makuraners without ever knowing it. The messenger finished, «Once everyone had seen that the Pimp of Pimps reckoned himself the God of Gods, the shrine was indeed put to the torch.»

«Best thing that could have happened,» Maniakes agreed. «Pity Abivard couldn't have taken Sharbaraz's soldiers through the place instead of his own. I wonder how many would have fought for Sharbaraz after they saw that. Not many, I'd wager.»

«Aye, that would have been most marvelous.» The Makuraner sighed in regret. «In any case, Majesty, the balance of this message is that, while Abivard the new sun of Makuran did not reckon you a liar when you told him of a shrine of this sort, he did reserve judgment until he saw such with his own eyes. Now he knows you were correct in every particular, and apologizes for having doubted you.»