Wysper - The High Priest's House

The young guard captain stumbled, sounding like a rack of brass pots being knocked over as he recovered 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 glanced back at the eunuch and visibly swallowed. "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 growled.

"No, never! I swear it." He lowered 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 said, glaring at the other soldiers when a few of them began to smirk. Their faces went stone still and the eunuch turned 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 said, 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 glanced back at the eunuch, who rolled 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 added, his voice snarling like a guardian mastiff as he gripped 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 was my turn to roll my eyes as the guard captain's voice turned into a squeak. "I shall be the very soul of courtesy, you will see. Come." He took the lead as we walked past the great temple of Yun-Kax towards the rectangular stone building behind it.

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

It opened, and a small figure stepped 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 called her, was a matronly woman a good head shorter than the guard captain, but the scowl she gave him made her seem bigger than he was as the captain stammered, "I can explain-"

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

I gave her the short version of the story as we walked inside, the eunuch closing the door behind us as we entered 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 led to the kitchen, judging by the scent of baking bread, while a darkened hallway began off to the right, the entire room lit by normal lanterns filled with oil.

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

A dozen guards were lounging around the room, though not drinking since they were on duty, wearing armor of leather plates crafted into Artifact. Pigeon motioned 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 stepped out of the darkened hallway. "I will show her the way."

Kavad-El stepped into the light. He was dark eyed like most of the people who lived 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 shivered as his eyes drank 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 grumbled.

"The High Priest has shut himself in with a pair of uncouth guests," Kavad-El said 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 offered his bare arm and I gave Pigeon an uncertain look. She returned one equally doubtful, but waved me on. "Go ahead. However," her voice becoming sharp, "you are already late. Do not tarry on the stairs for any reason." I nodded and laid my hand on the chief acolyte's arm, his skin cool and clammy to the touch. We walked down the stone hallway in silence, the light from a single witch-light lantern near the stairs giving everything a strange glow.

As we reached the stone steps, he motioned for me to precede him, and I gratefully took my hand off his arm and started up the steps to the landing, where the stairs doubled back. Reaching the landing, I turned and placed my foot on the hard stone of the first step.

Kavad-El put 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 have cast her gaze down toward the floor, it being improper to meet a man's eyes unless he was your husband, or you his whore. I was Brittani and met his gaze without flinching. "We have nothing to speak about."

"Oh, I think we do." My eyes widened as he pulled out a long, wicked knife with a curved blade from under his robes. "You have become important to a great many people, many of whom want you dead." I shrank back against the wall; he smiled, and followed. "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 picked 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 stiffened as he brushed 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 tracked the blade as it came up to caress the side of my face. "I do not know what you mean."

"Yes, you do," his voice growing 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 gasped. "That is not true."

His blade caressed the other side of my face. "It is, or you would have screamed for help the moment you saw me draw this blade. You want this nightmare to end more than anyone. I can help you." Removing the knife from my throat, he reversed it with 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 shook as I stared at the knife. All I could see was 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 had 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 swept over me and I reached 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 realized his error brought my fingers a hairbreadth from doing the forbidden, and grasping the hilt.

I stayed 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 curled my hand into a fist. "No, not for you. Never for you."

He reversed the knife again so the blade was pointed at me. "It would have been so much easier,' he said with a sigh. Then his eyes hardened as he gripped the hilt.

A hand the size of a two-handed mace head grabbed him by the robes and pulled him back. "Why is there a knife pointed at the High Priest's favorite priestess?" The eunuch closed his other hand over the chief acolyte's wrist and pressed down with his thumb; Kavad-El squealed and dropped his knife, which clattered as it tumbled down the stone stairs. He continued putting pressure on the spot, driving the chief acolyte to his knees as the eunuch let go of his robes and grasped the hilt of the massive scimitar. "I am waiting."

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

The eunuch folded 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 said quickly as he lurched 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 slid past him before he had a change of heart, and raced up the stairs, glancing down as the eunuch placed 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 reached the upstairs hallway and slowed my pace to a walk, the walls on either side covered in stucco painted the color of summer corn. The eunuch's twin brother watched me with a curious expression as I breathed deeply, attempting to calm my frayed nerves as I approached him.

The eunuch was 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 heard a woman's laughter, along with the High Priest's, which heartened me. I took a moment to smooth my dress, wishing I had a mirror as I batted at my hair. The eunuch raised his eyebrows; I nodded, and he pounded on the door. The laughter stopped as he called out, "Your holiness? She's here."