Wysper - The High Priest's House

The young guard captain stumbles, sounding like a rack of brass pots being knocked over as he recovers himself. "But I... we all thought your needing to remain a virgin to be a falsehood, like your dying and Yun-Kax bringing you back to life."

I wonder how far that tale has spread. "The ancient lore is firm on this point: if I ever have carnal relations with a man who takes my maidenhead, I lose all of my fertility magic. Forever. Why do you think the High Priest's eunuch watches me like a cat does a mouse?"

"I... hadn't thought about that." The captain glances back at the eunuch and visibly swallows. "I truly meant no disrespect. I would never force myself on a priestess, especially one as valuable as you are."

"Unless you thought you could get away with it," the eunuch growls.

"No, never! I swear it." He lowers his voice, glancing at the eunuch again and then towards me. "What I suggested, you will not mention it to the High Priest, will you?"

"I do have ears," the eunuch says, glaring at the other soldiers when a few of them began to smirk. At once, their faces go stone still and the eunuch turns back towards the captain. "The High Priest has the power to look into someone's mind and rummage through their memories, as he does from time to time with Blood-Wysper and his other servants. All he has to do is look at you, and everything you have ever done will come spilling out into his lap. Or else he will enlist his assassin, Yrg, who has the same power, except that when she is finished, she will begin to eat your-"

"I truly doubt that shall happen," I say, interrupting him. The baby-faced captain looks as if he will fall to pieces at any moment. "The High Priest has to expend a good deal of magical energy to examine someone's mind, and he has far more important matters than the sins of a noble captain who made an honest mistake. As long as you continue to be the courteous gentleman you have been, I see no need to trouble his holiness with the matter."

I glance back at the eunuch, who rolls his eyes. "You never let me have any fun. Oh, very well; as long as you refrain from bothering any of the Brittani priestesses, I will refrain from speaking. But mark my words," he adds, his voice snarling like a guardian mastiff as he grips the hilt of the large scimitar beyond my ability to even lift, "if I catch any of you sniffing around the holy priestesses ever again, I will gut you like a fish and make you eat your own entrails."

It is my turn to roll my eyes as the guard captain's voice turns into a squeak. "I shall be the very soul of courtesy, you will see. Come," and he takes the lead as we walk past the great temple of Yun-Kax towards the rectangular stone building behind it.

Unlike the rest of the city, which uses torches, the house of the High Priest has brass lanterns filled with blue witch-light illuminating the building, two of them set into the recessed doorway where the guard captain is now hurrying. Drawing his far smaller scimitar, he pounds on the heavy wooden door with its hilt.

It opens, and a small figure steps out of the warm firelight spilling out from the inside, into the harsh glare coming from the lanterns. "Humph, about time you brought Wysper here."

Servant-mistress Red-Pigeon, or just Pigeon as we call her, is a matronly woman a good head shorter than the guard captain, but the scowl she gives him makes her seem bigger than he is as the captain stammers, "I can explain..."

"Save it. Blood-Wysper will be spending the night, so the lot of you are dismissed." The guard captain bows and departs in haste, the rest of his soldiers hurrying to catch up as they clatter away into the darkness. Pigeon watches them go then glances up at the eunuch. "Fat-boy's smirking. What happened?" Pigeon is not only small but light as a bird, her wrinkles deep as valleys and her eyes sharp as spear-points.

I give her the short version of the story as we walk inside, the eunuch closing the door behind us as we enter a room as large as the common area for a small inn, complete with a stout table of dark wood, long bench, and a dozen or so chairs. An opening to the left leads to the kitchen, judging by the scent of baking bread, while a darkened hallway begins off to the right, the entire room lit by normal lanterns filled with oil.

She chuckles as I finish the tale. "If men thought with the big head half as much as they think with the little one, they would be dangerous." She looks me up and down. "Good, you wore the black dress; he likes you in that one."

A dozen guards are lounging around the room, though not drinking since they are on duty, wearing armor of leather plates crafted into Artifact. Pigeon motions at one of them. "You there, escort Blood-Wysper upstairs to the High Priest's chamber while Fat-boy helps me in the kitchen."

A figure wearing the light yellow robes of an acolyte steps out of the darkened hallway. "I will show her the way."

Kavad-El steps into the light. He is dark eyed like most of the people who live in this part of the world, in his late twenties though still slender as a boy, with his head shaven clean of all hair. I shiver as his eyes drink me in. "If it is all the same to both of you, I can find my own way upstairs. After that, all I need do is find Fat-boy's twin brother."

"Bad enough Pigeon calls me that," the eunuch grumbles.

"The High Priest has shut himself in with a pair of uncouth guests," Kavad-El says in a voice dangerously soft, "leaving me little to do tonight. The least I can do is make sure our most valuable of priestesses does not stumble in the dark."

He offers his bare arm and I give Pigeon an uncertain look. She returns me one equally doubtful, but waves me on. "Go ahead. However," her voice becoming sharp, "you are already late. Do not tarry on the stairs for any reason." I nod and lay my hand on the chief acolyte's arm, his skin cool and clammy to the touch. We walk down the stone hallway in silence, the light from a single witch-light lantern near the stairs giving everything a strange glow.

As we reach the stone steps, he motions for me to precede him, and I gratefully take my hand off his arm and start up the steps to the landing, where the stairs double back. Reaching the landing, I turn and place my foot on the hard stone of the first step.

Kavad-El puts out his arm to stop me. "His holiness will not notice if you are absent a few extra moments. I have need to speak to you."

A proper Sasnayam woman would cast her gaze down toward the floor, it being improper to meet a man's eyes unless he is your husband, or you his whore. I am Brittani, and I meet his gaze without flinching. "We have nothing to speak about."

"Oh, I think we do." My eyes widen as he pulls a long, wicked knife with a curved blade out from under his robes. "You have become important to a great many people, many of whom want you dead." I shrink back against the wall; he smiles, and follows. "Yet, many more want you alive, just... not in service, shall we say, to the High Priest. The question is, to which camp do I belong?"

The metal picks up the blue glow of the witch-light lantern at the top of the stairs, making it look enchanted. "If you kill me, you lose all chance of becoming high priest yourself someday."

I stiffen as he brushes the flat of the blade against my throat. "Perhaps I have been offered a position with a different temple. Or perhaps I tire of being a priest and look for a way out, just as you do."

My eyes track the blade as it comes up to caress the side of my face. "I do not know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." His voice grows gentle. "I have watched you after the sacrifice is over and you think no one is looking. You look with longing at the knives, the swords, all the items you are forbidden to touch. I know you seek to take your own life."

I gasp. "That is not true."

His blade caresses the other side of my face. "It is, or you would have screamed for help the moment you saw me draw the blade. You want this nightmare to end more than anyone. I can help you." Removing the knife from my throat, he reverses it, its hilt towards me. "Take it from my hand. I will head back down the stairs, telling Pigeon you did not want my company and proceeded upstairs alone, while you take your own life. You are Brittani, unafraid of death, and the gods of your people will see you no less worthy than a warrior who dies in battle. Take the knife, priestess of Pan, and put an end to your pain."

My hands shake as I stare at the knife. All I can see is a life of torment with no end in sight, my body used for a foreign god's purpose over and over and over again. I have prayed many times for an opportunity such as this one to come, and yet... and yet, I am Brittani. Life is sacred. All of us, from the highest king to the lowest peasant, would willingly sacrifice our mortal bodies when the need is great. But to die by my own hand, just to end my pain? That would not be accounted a noble act. Besides, if I do, what will happen to Myra and Thalia? No, I will not do this.

All at once dark desire sweeps over me and I reach out, almost, but not quite touching the hilt of the knife. This man is seeking to manipulate me for his own ends; he cares no more for me than he does for Myra, no more than he cares for anything except for his own ambition.

If I take the knife from his hand, I could plunge it into his chest before he draws another breath. The image of the surprise and horror on his face as he realizes his error, brings my fingers a hairbreadth from doing the forbidden, and grasping the hilt.

I stay my hand. If I take the knife and slay him, Myra and Thalia will be punished as well. Looking Kavad-El straight in the eyes, I curl my hand into a fist. "No, not for you. Never for you."

He reverses the knife again so the blade is pointed at me. "It would have been so much easier,' he says with a sigh. Then his eyes harden as he grips the hilt.

A hand the size of a two-handed mace head grabs him by the robes and pulls him back. "Why is there a knife pointed at the High Priest's favorite priestess?" The eunuch closes his other hand over the chief acolyte's wrist and presses down with his thumb; Kavad-El squeals and drops his knife, which clatters as it tumbles down the stone stairs. He continues putting pressure on the spot, driving the chief acolyte to his knees as the eunuch let go of his robes and grasps the hilt of the massive scimitar. "I am waiting."

My hand goes to my mouth in fear as Kavad-El says, "I was testing her." The eunuch applies more pressure and the man's voice goes up several octaves. "I swear, I was only testing her." The eunuch gives him a derisive snort but lets his arm go, the chief acolyte snarling up at the eunuch as he rubs his wrist. "How dare you lay a hand on me, slave."

The eunuch folds his tree trunk arms over his massive chest. "Did I hurt you? Apologies. However, if you have a problem with my actions, we can take it up with the High Priest right now. I am sure he will not mind if we break in-"

"That will not be necessary," Kavad-El says quickly as he lurches to his feet. "You are only doing your duty in the service of Yun-Kax, just as I am. Blood-Wysper has passed the test and is free to go."

I slide past him before he has a change of heart, and race up the stairs, glancing down as the eunuch places himself in front of the stairwell, giving Kavad-El no chance to follow. I swear on everything that is holy to never to call him Fat-boy again; this time, I mean it.

I reach the upstairs hallway and slow my pace to a walk, the walls covered in stucco painted the color of summer corn, the eunuch's twin brother watching me with a curious expression as I breathe deeply, attempting to calm my frayed nerves as I approach him.

The eunuch is bare chested, wearing yellow trousers with a red sash around his waist holding his scimitar in place, standing with his back to a wooden door on the right. From behind it I hear a woman's laughter, along with the High Priest's, which heartens me. I take a moment to smooth my dress, wishing I had a mirror as I bat at my hair. The eunuch raises his eyebrows; I nod, and he pounds on the door. The laughter stops as he calls out, "Your holiness, she's here."