Wysper - Muzen's secret room

"Once the Ogri is not watching us so closely, Muzen's bedroom has a secret passage we can use to escape."

I glance at Zanzabel as we walk through the doorway into the hall. Everyone except for us and Titan, who is carrying Greywolf, has gone downstairs, the Ogri striding ahead of us down the hallway as we follow. Zanzabel is speaking in the Sasnayam tongue and I answer her in the same. "Escape to where? The city... is not safe."

Perhaps it is the smell of death rising from the stairway we are passing, but my mind is coming into sharper focus as we move beneath a witchlight lamp, set into a niche on the stone wall, Titan's heavy tread on the wooden floor drowning out our lighter footfalls. As the others were leaving, Zanzabel had told him where Muzen's bedroom was, and now as he opens the last door on the right and goes in, she slows down our pace. She waits for Titan's footfalls to fade before she speaks. "The passage goes underground for at least a league before ending in the basement of an inn, which is inside the outpost to the west of the city, half a league outside of the walls."

"But-"

"By the time we reach the inn, the outpost's garrison will either have been recalled to defend the city, or they will be manning their own walls to guard against an attack. Either way, there will be so much confusion that no one will notice two strange females in the common room. Near the exit to the tunnel, Muzen has a cache of gold and extra clothes, both male and female, we can take with us. Then we hire bodyguards and attach ourselves to the next caravan heading south."

"South?"

"To the port of Oraea, where we take ship to the kingdom of Palmyra. Osiris will welcome you with open arms, and give you time to decide what you wish to do with the rest of your life."

Before I can reply, Titan's footsteps echo in the hall a moment before his large head pokes through the doorway. "I have laid Greywolf out on the bed. If you both can attend to him, I will see if anyone is left to bring back upstairs." We walk faster until we reach the doorway, Titan moving into the hall to let us pass before striding down the hall himself. My eyes go wide as I step into the room.

The space takes up both floors, the stone landing we are standing on leading sharply to the left where a set of stone stairs hugs the wall as it goes down to the first floor. Oil lamps set in niches give the room a warm glow, with several holding incense sticks as well, the air slightly hazy with its rich scent.

The room occupies a half-circle of space, with a pool large enough to hold several people in its center, and a raised dais set behind holding a huge bed. Six stone pillars rise from the dais to a domed roof of stone curving upward, carved with irregularly shaped panels separated by borders. Each panel has been painted with a different graphic scene of carnal desire.

Keeping my left hand brushing the stone wall for balance as I follow Zanzabel down the stairs, I gaze around the room in shock. "I had no idea... this was here."

As I reach the bottom of the stairs where Zanzabel is waiting, she pats my arm. "Welcome to the side of Muzen he kept hidden. After his scheming made Yun-Kax the principal deity of the Sasnayam pantheon, he had one of these rooms built in the High Priest's house in Tesiphon, and in all the Satrapy capitols as well." She gives me a sardonic smile. "The one in Antioch is much like this one, while the one in Tesiphon has an entire wing devoted to the erotic arts. When he discovered I was spying for Queen Zenobia and Osiris, he brought me to the room in Antioch, and persuaded me to spy for him as well. Knowing my appetites as well as he did, he had no trouble bringing me over."

"Muzen did that?" Zanzabel nods, and I give her a puzzled look. "You told Redhunter... you only like women."

Zanzabel grasps me by the shoulders. "Wysper, you need to stop thinking about Muzen as a human male. Muzen is Yun-Kax, who can easily change from the cool, logical, and bald male aspect of himself known as Yun, to Kax, his female aspect, who has orange-red hair the color of fire and ferocious appetites." I open my mouth to find out more, but she shakes her head. "No more questions until we get Greywolf settled."

I nod, more than happy to follow her around the pool of water, from which steam is rising, and up onto the dais. Greywolf is laying on his back close to the edge, several of the Artifact plates on his shoulder armor cracked or shattered, with crusted blood I had not noticed before staining the leather. His eyes are closed, but as I sit on the bed beside him, they open. "You're here."

Smiling down at him, I force my hand to reach down and touch his face. "Where else... would I be?"

Still standing beside us, Zanzabel looks down with a critical eye. "We need to get his armor off and see just how bad he is hurt."

"I will help you," a familiar woman's voice says from the doorway above us.

"Pigeon?" My heart leaps for joy as the small woman lifts her skirt with one hand and brushes the wall with the other as she walks down the stairs. Rising off the bed, I hurry over as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. "I am so glad you are safe."

I hug her the acceptable way, using only my forearms, while she holds me close. After a moment she lets me go and reaches up to touch the sides of my face. "Not half as glad as I am to see that you are safe. When I heard Zanzabel shout for Muzen to save you, I feared for your life." Pigeon's face screws up as she makes a sound of disgust. "I never cared for that barbarian outrider."

"Your instincts were true." Titan speaks in a voice that a mountain would use, if it could talk. "Kula sent word that he wants to talk strategy with me, but I am sending the mercenary Castor to keep an eye on you. Despite his appearance, Castor is worthy of trust, and Greywolf knows him."

Zanzabel and I gasp as a large wolf in a man-like, hunched over body, wearing black armor, steps onto the landing and starts down the stairs. "Castor's a friend," Greywolf calls out, "and a civilized monster."

Titan ducks back into the hall and starts down it as the creature's clawed feet click on the stone steps. "Greywolf," he says in a voice like a wolf's growl, "what have you done to yourself now?"

"It's not my fault." As he approaches, the man-like wolf rolls his eyes, and the gesture is so human I have to stifle the giggle trying to pass my lips.

He glances our way as he strides past me and Pigeon, smelling of animal mingled with leather and steel as he reaches the bed and stops, shaking his furry head. "Well, let's have a look." Despite the claws on his fingers he quickly unbuckles the leather straps holding Greywolf's armor in place, and gets it off him faster than the three of us together could have done. Then he gets Greywolf to sit up, who gasps several times in pain as Castor gets his black tunic off. Castor's golden yellow eyes narrow. "This one's worse than the troll bite."

I draw near to see. Greywolf's chest is crusty with dried blood, only partially obscuring the two bad gashes dug into his shoulder, along with various wounds that might be claw marks. Their are more wounds on his other shoulder, on both arms, and bruises everywhere, along with scars from old fights. I suck in my breath. "What happened?"

Greywolf does his best to smile. "It's been a busy week."

Castor chuckles as he shakes his lupine head. "You truly do nothing by half measures." He looks up at us. "Is there anything I can use to wash his wounds out with?"

Pigeon wrinkles her nose. "I will get you one of the thick cloths I keep in the dais drawers, which are disguised as ornamentation, but I want you to clean him in the pool. I will not have his blood staining my good linens."

I draw back from Pigeon as her words make me realize the truth. "You knew all along... Muzen was Yun-Kax... you never told us."

Pigeon averts her gaze as Zanzabel strides over to where we stand. "Wysper, all the servants who served Muzen intimately learned the truth, yet think about what would have happened to them if they had let you, or anyone else, know what Muzen really was.”

A shudder runs down my spine. "The priests of Ghash-Kimil..."

"We saw what they were doing to a bald headed young man," Castor says, "who was probably a priest. It wasn't pretty."

"He was Muzen's senior acolyte who betrayed his master." Castor's eyes widen, and Zanzabel gives him a bitter smile. "Muzen would have done the same to anyone who crossed him. Despite what he tells you, Muzen cares nothing about anyone except himself."

"No shite," Greywolf mutters.

I turn towards Pigeon, switching to the Sasnayam tongue as Greco-Roma is not expressive enough to truly tell her how I feel. "Pigeon, I am sorry, so terribly sorry, for ever doubting you. Zanzabel is right: Muzen was ready to kill both of us, and bring the building down on your head, just to abduct Greywolf. He would not have thought twice about turning you over to those evil priests."

Pigeon turns towards me with sadness hanging from her face. "It broke my heart sometimes, knowing your belief in Yun-Kax was all a lie, as I watched you spiraling down into despair."

Zanzabel places her hands on both of our shoulders. "Wysper's fate will be far worse if she falls into the hands of the White Horde,” she says, also in the Sasnayam language. “The three of us should escape towards dawn when the barbarians are spent and fast asleep."

Anger flares within me. "Why? So you can give me to Osiris and let him rip my second heart, the one Muzen called a mana node, from my body, over and over again? Why should I trade one nightmare for another?"

Zanzabel flings her arms out. "Do you believe your fate will be any better among these barbarians? Osiris will be gentle; he is a healer, not a butcher." She makes an exasperated hiss. "Yes, he needs your mana node as his own is failing, but your life will improve in ways you cannot even imagine."

"Ladies," Castor growls in Greco-Roma, "were I in your position, I'd be plotting my escape about now. Don't. Not only are my senses sharper than any human's, even if I'm asleep, but in a very short time the city of Bukhara, and likely the outside as well, will be swarming with the dead. It's not going to be safe for anyone, especially escaping prisoners."

"I am not going anywhere... without Greywolf," I tell him in Greco-Roma. "Yet Zanzabel said... the White Horde... will butcher me..."

"No one's going to hurt you," the wolfish growl returning to Greywolf's voice. "I'll kill them if they try."

Castor only snorts. "Right now you'd just trip over your own feet." Then Castor turns to look at me. "Titan's already announced that you're under his protection, so no one's going to touch you until the Great Khan makes his decision about your fate."

Greywolf sits up straight. "But Prince Avitohol said he would adopt her."

"I don't know a lot about their traditions," Castor replies, "but War-leader Kula did agree it was Avitohol's right to do so.” He looks me straight in the eye. “However, it has to be sworn in front of the Great Khan to be binding, and if Khan Khingla decides to enslave you and give you to the Keeper of the Spirits because of the mana node, Avitohol won't have a chance to do anything except pout." He looks at Greywolf. "And before you decide to just take her maidenhead without any kind of ceremony, doing so will ruin Wysper in their eyes. I'm afraid the People of the Eternal Sky are very big on rituals."

My hopes are crashing around me as Zanzabel sighs. "Wysper, if you are serious about betrothing this young man, there may be a way."