Wysper

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

  Wysper glanced at Zanzabel as they walked through the doorway into the hall. Everyone except for them and Titan, who was carrying Greywolf, had gone downstairs, the Ogri striding down the hallway ahead of them. Zanzabel was speaking in the Sasnayam tongue and Wysper answered her in the same. "Escape… where? The city... is not safe."

  Perhaps it was the smell of death rising from the stairway they were passing, but Wysper’s mind was coming into sharper focus as they moved beneath a witchlight lamp, set into a niche on the stone wall. Titan's heavy tread on the wooden floor drowned out their lighter footfalls.

  Zanzabel had told the Ogri where Muzen's bedroom was, and now as he opened the last door on the right and went in, she slowed down their pace. She waited for Titan's footfalls to fade before she spoke. "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 Aegyptus. 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 Wysper could reply, Titan's footsteps echoed in the hall a moment before his large head poked through the doorway. "I have laid Greywolf out on the bed. If you both can attend to him, I will see if anyone was left to bring back upstairs." They walked faster until reaching the doorway, Titan moving into the hall to let them pass before striding down the hall himself. Wysper’s eyes went wide as she stepped into the room.

  The space took up both floors, the stone landing they stood upon leading sharply to the left, where a set of stone stairs hugged the wall as it went down to the first floor. Oil lamps set in niches gave the room a warm glow, with several holding incense sticks as well, the air slightly hazy with its rich sandalwood scent.

  The room occupied 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 rose from the dais to a domed roof of stone curving upward, carved with irregularly shaped panels separated by borders. Each panel had been painted with a different graphic scene of carnal desire.

  Keeping her left hand brushing the stone wall for balance as she followed Zanzabel down the stairs, Wysper gazed around the room in shock. "I had no idea... this was here."

  Wysper reached the bottom of the stairs where Zanzabel was waiting. "Welcome to the side of Muzen he kept hidden,” she said, patting Wysper’s arm. “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 gave Wysper a sardonic smile. "The rooms in the other satrapies are 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 the port city of Charax, 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 nodded, and Wysper gave her a puzzled look. "You told Redhunter... you only like women."

  Zanzabel grasped her 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." Wysper opened her mouth to find out more but Zanzabel shook her head. "No more questions until we get Greywolf settled."

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

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

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

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

  "Pigeon?" Wysper’s heart leapt for joy as the small woman lifted her skirt with one hand and brushed the wall with the other as she walked down the stairs. Rising off the bed, Wysper hurried over as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "I am so glad you are safe."

  Wysper hugged her the acceptable way, using only her forearms, while Pigeon held the girl close. After a moment she let Wysper go and reached up to touch the sides of her 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 screwed up as she made a sound of disgust. "I never cared for that barbarian outrider."

  "Your instincts were true," Titan said in a voice 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 Wysper both gasped as a large wolf in a man-like, hunched over body, wearing black armor, stepped onto the landing and started down the stairs. "Castor's a friend," Greywolf called out, "and a civilized monster."

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

  "It's not my fault." As he approached, the man-like wolf rolled his eyes, the gesture so human Wysper had to stifle the giggle trying to pass her lips.

  He glanced their way as he strode past Wysper and Pigeon, smelling of animal mingled with leather and steel as he reached the bed and stopped. He shook his furry head. "Well, let's have a look." Despite the claws on his fingers he quickly unbuckled the leather straps holding Greywolf's armor in place, and got it off him faster than the other three together could have done. Then he got Greywolf to sit up, who gasped several times in pain as Castor pulled his black tunic off. Castor's golden-yellow eyes narrowed. "This one's worse than the troll bite."

  Wysper drew near to see. Greywolf's chest was crusty with dried blood, only partially obscuring the two bad gashes dug into his shoulder, along with various wounds that looked like claw marks. Their were more wounds on his other shoulder, on both arms, and bruises everywhere, along with scars from old fights. She sucked in her breath. "What happened?"

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

  Castor chuckled as he shook his lupine head. "You truly do nothing by half measures." He looked up at them. "Is there anything I can use to wash his wounds out with?"

  Pigeon wrinkled 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."

  Wysper drew back from Pigeon as she realized the truth. "You knew all along... Muzen was Yun-Kax... you never told us."

  Pigeon averted her gaze as Zanzabel strode over to where they stood. "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 ran down her spine. "The priests of Ghash-Kimil..."

  "We saw what they were doing to a bald headed young man who was probably a priest." Castor said as her words trailed off, "It wasn't pretty."

  "He was Muzen's senior acolyte who betrayed his master." Castor's eyes widened, and Zanzabel gave 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 muttered.

  Wysper turned towards Pigeon, switching to the Sasnayam tongue as Greco was not expressive enough to truly tell her how she felt. "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 turned towards Wysper 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 placed her hands on both of their shoulders. "Wysper's fate will be far worse if she falls into the hands of the Crimson Horde,” she said, also in the Sasnayam language. “The three of us should escape towards dawn when the barbarians are spent and fast asleep."

  Anger flared within Wysper as she said, "Why? So you can give me to Osiris and let him rip out 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 flung 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 made 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 growled in Greco, "were I in your position, I'd be plotting my escape about now. Don't. Not only are my senses sharper than yours, 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," Wysper told him in Greco. "Yet Zanzabel said the Crimson Horde will butcher me—”

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

  Castor only snorted. "Right now you'd just trip over your own feet." Then he turned to look at Wysper. "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 sat up straight. "But Prince Avitohol said he would adopt her."

  "I don't know a lot about their traditions," Castor replied, "but War-leader Kula did agree it was Avitohol's right to do so.” He looked Wysper 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 instead 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 looked 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."

  Wysper’s hopes were crashing around her as Zanzabel sighed. "Wysper, if you are serious about betrothing this young man, there may be a way."