WINDHEALER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Xander knelt and put two fingers to the strong column of Conar's throat. He glanced at Brelan with worried eyes, then at Roget. He shook his head.

  "His heart's not beating," one prisoner said softly. "He's gone."

  Shalu shoved men aside. He knelt opposite Saur and placed his hands at the center of Conar's chest, just below the heart. Brelan looked up with fear, but Shalu paid scant attention. He began to pumping Conar's chest, keeping his elbows stiff, his movements shallow and quick.

  "Don't you die, brat," he snarled. "Dammit, Saur, give him your breath!"

  Brelan lowered his mouth to Conar's once more.

  "Shalu!" Jah-Ma-El hissed, coming to his knees.

  Shalu followed Jah-Ma-El's shaking finger, which pointed to Conar's face. There was a flicker of one lid, perhaps a nerve jumping, but it was enough hope for the Necroman. He felt Conar's throat for a pulse. He caressed the flesh, but could feel nothing. "He's alive."

  With a suddenness that sent a gasp through the crowd, Conar's body jerked violently. He gasped for air; his eyelids flew open. He convulsed, tried to get up, his hands latching onto Shalu's forearm, Brelan's wrist, with a fierce, death-hold grip.

  "It's all right," Brelan told him, trying to take Conar in his arms.

  Conar was clawing his way up and out of Brelan's hold, as if unaware of where he was. He kicked at the men holding him, struggling to get free.

  Shalu held onto Conar's right arm; Jah-Ma-El scampered around to take hold of his left.

  Brelan managed to gather his brother to him, one arm around Conar's chest and the other under his back, holding him as tightly as he could, trying desperately to get Conar to hear him. "You're safe. You're out of that place."

  Conar was beyond rational thought. His eyes were wild, his mouth working, drooling, spitting saliva, snarling. Utter gibberish poured from him like a lanced wound dispersing pustulance. Half-sentences, meaningless words, disjointed phrases, wild laughter and giggles, tumbled out of his arching throat one after the other. He fought the demons still holding him in the wine cellar. He mumbled about fingers burrowing into his flesh, invading his soul, raping his spirit. He had gone far beyond his present location and buried alive, deep in the bowels of his nightmare. He couldn't see the light, couldn't hear the voices, couldn't feel the blistering sun. He was lost in cold, silent darkness.

  Brelan forcing a knee behind Conar's back to lift him, but all Conar felt was rotting fingers of the dead trying to pull him into hell. He heard them beckoning him to that never-ending night they had reserved for him.

  "Conar! Listen to me! You're safe! You're out of there!"

  He let out a howl of animal fury, cursing at the demons. Something was clutching his feet, trying to drag him into the Abyss. In his dementia, he saw the horrors of hell hovering around him. Twisted, bloated, gray faces with keening voices and hands that stretched toward him with long, red-tipped talons. Hands that were forcing him beneath the surface of life and trying to drown him in the dank, dismal waters of death. He strove harder to get away, but he was pinned to the rank, reeking stench of the grave, trapped in a breath-stealing, flesh-eating grasp.

  Holding his right leg was Appolyon. Holding his left, was Lydon. He saw Galen gripping his left hand, Tymothy Kullen twisting his right. He saw Tolkan Coure grinning down at him, stroking his damp hair, caressing his lean face. With mind-numbing fear, he lowered his gaze and looked into the eyes of the man who held him to his chest, his hands seeming to burn his flesh.

  The priest smiled down at him, his lips twisted in a parody of love. Kaileel Tohre whispered his name and bent to place his lips on Conar's brow. "You're with us now. We're going to take care of you from now on."

  "Don't worry none," Tymothy Kullen cooed. "We won't let no one near you, brat."

  "You don't have to worry about anything." Galen smiled. "We're all here to see to you."

  Appolyon grinned. "Things will be different from now on."

  "We'll take you where you should be, Conar," Lydon told him.

  "Back where you belong," Tolkan agreed. "With us."

  From out of the depths of Conar's immortal soul, a scream ripped out in one long agonizing burst and he careened into a black bottomless pit.

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  She watched him. His eyes were closed, his face oozing with sweat. His hands were clenched in his lap and his head was slightly cocked to one side as though he was listening to a distant voice instructing him. She swept her gaze over the room. She was tired, exhausted; conjuring had a way of draining her both physically as well as mentally.

  "It'll be all right, now," he whispered, not opening his eyes. "The charm worked."

  She ignored him. She was taking in every detail of the room, from the blood-red walls to the midnight floor with its red pentagram and runic writings to the black marble altar to the dead goat suspended over the slab.

  She shuddered, imagining the horror of lying beneath the gaping wound of the animal's throat as blood dripped, congealing on your flesh. "Did he fight you when you brought him to a place like this?"

  Kaileel Tohre looked at the woman across the Conjuring Chamber. He stared into her face, a face he hated, but he was too drained to argue with the bitch. "He wasn't able to."

  "Why?" Her voice was sharp, filled with disgust.

  "He had been given a drug to make him immobile."

  "So, he was unable to stop you from doing evil things to him. You brought him here and he was laid on that altar—"

  "Not this altar."

  "On an altar, and what? Was he bound?"

  "Aye."

  "Was he aware of what was happening?"

  "He was aware."

  Her teeth came together with a click. She stared at her longtime enemy, at his averted face, and wished with all her heart she had a dagger with which to slay him.

  Kaileel felt her thoughts. There was a hint of a smile on his skeletal face. "You can't kill me, woman. I have your son."

  Liza took a step forward, her fingers curving into claws, reminded that it was Conar's son, too, this man had hidden away in the secrecy of some Wind Temple.

  Tohre sighed and stood. His muscles ached. The conjuring had taken more out of him this time than he could ever remember. His head ached and he had some difficulty seeing the woman. He held up his hand. "We have saved him…your…brother. You and I will live to fight another day, but I am not up to arguing now. I call a truce until we are both strong enough to spar once more."

  "My son…"

  "Is safe for the time being." He glanced at her. "But he belongs to me, now, as his father belongs to me."

  She glowered at the man, hating him with every fiber of her being. She took another step toward him and stopped. "Hear me well. You might have destroyed Corbin's father with your unholy love, but you will not destroy the son."

  "I have no intention of destroying Corbin. He will be a great leader one day, have power Conar McGregor never dreamed of having."

  "Or wanted!"

  Tohre nodded. "True, but if he had, he might well be with you still."

  Liza drew in a slow, calming breath. "No," she said, her face hard and filled with hatred. "You meant to kill him and you did. He would not go to his knees to you, would not do your bidding, so you destroyed him. You tortured him and you killed him because your love was spurned." Her chin raised. "Because he wanted no part of you or what you offered, your jealousy took him away from the both of us, and one day, you will pay for that mistake!"

  "You don't know—"

  "I know you for what you are. A man obsessed with power, with having all those around you bend to your will." She took still another step closer. "But Conar wouldn't bend, would he? He wouldn't bend and he wouldn't break, so you simply decided to crush him." She forced herself to put a hand on the Arch-Prelate's shoulder, although the contact made her sick to her stomach.

  He looked at her, saw her face bright with the light of triumph.

  "But you know so
mething, Tohre?" she asked, her voice calm, infinitely sweet. "In killing him, you assured him immortality, for his people will never forget him, and they will never stop hating you for what you did to him. And one day," she said, her voice going low and silky, "there will come a warrior who will make you pay for what you did. He will reach out with steel-mailed fists and crush you as you crushed Conar McGregor! There will be a war the likes of which this land has never known."

  "When that day comes," he hissed, shrugging aside her hand, "I will win!"

  Liza's smile was lethal, her laugh rich and throaty, filled with contempt. "Never!" she whispered. "Never!"

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  "Hold up that damned light, Tarnes!" Holm snarled as he tried to decipher Brelan's rambling scrawl on the makeshift map. In the dim torchlight, the captain could see little inside the narrow walls of the bluff. He had been coughing and sneezing since they had left the sulfurous lava bed over which they had carefully crossed the natural arched stone bridge.

  Dyllon McGregor leaned over his shoulder. "I never could read Bre's scribbling, either."

  Coron also peered over Holm's shoulder. "Looks like that way," he pointed to a dark tunnel, "leads to some kind of underground lake." He tried to focus on the wild handwriting. "Unless I miss my guess, this passageway leads around the lake and comes out near what looks to be a forest."

  "There ain't no forests on Tyber's Isle," Tarnes snorted.

  "Well, that looks like trees!" Coron defended, pointing at the map.

  "A garden, maybe?" Wyn asked, looking at his uncles.

  "Possibly." Coron took the map and studied it. "Looks like corn stalks."

  Tarnes walked carefully toward the passageway the map had marked as an alternative route into the penal colony. He held his torch high and inspected the footing, the walls. "We ain't going to find it standing here jawing!" He started into the passage.

  Holm shouldered Dyllon to one side. He plowed into Tarnes' back. "Get the hell out of my way!" Holm snatched the torch.

  "Watch out for them beasties Lord Saur warned you be lurking about in these caverns!"

  Holm turned, a hint of worry on his weathered features, but then he recognized the shot as ill-concealed petulance. "Remind me to demote you to cabin boy when we return to the Queen!"

  For more than an hour, the men followed the tunnel deeper into the craggy cavern. They heard the faint rumble of water splashing against stone and knew they were near the underground lake. The going was rough, the pathway so narrow only one man at a time could walk it, but the darkness around them was getting lighter and the air fresher.

  "Captain, didn't you say Brelan told you there was a shaft of some sort a few feet from where the hidden opening would be?" Belvoir asked, walking behind Coron.

  "Aye. He said we'd see it before we reached the shamrock stone." Holm wished he'd asked Saur to be more explicit. All he could remember the boy saying was that if you pushed on the second stone, the hidden passage would open.

  "Does that look like it might be a hole of some sort—up there?" Belvoir inquired.

  "Lower them torches!" Holm ordered. The men put the torches to the floor, while Holm squinted. "I think that's it. Just ahead."

  They walked about fifty feet and stopped, gazing at a small hole high above in the bluff.

  "Now where the hell is that shamrock stone?" Holm asked, holding the torch about him and realizing they had come to a dead end.

  "What's a shamrock stone?" Wyn asked. When everyone turned to Holm instead of answering, Wyn saw the captain's face turn red in the torchlight.

  "Well," Holm procrastinated, "he said I'd know it when I saw it." He looked away sheepishly. "I didn't ask him to describe the thing."

  "If he said to press the second stone," Belvoir said, running his hand along the outcropping of rocks, "then there must be a first stone and maybe a few more." Belvoir began to push against each stone he saw.

  Holm sighed. There must be well over a hundred stones jutting out from the wall. He leaned against the far section. His old body wasn't accustomed to this long trek from the desert, through caverns and such. He rested his arm on a triangular section of stones to his right and realized the three made what could well be a good stanchion for his torch. He shoved the rushes through the wedge between the first and second stone, then gasped as something behind him moved.

  "That's it!" Wyn said, hearing a low rumble.

  A white blur of light shone from about three feet above the captain's head to within a foot of the cavern's floor. Fresh air poured in and with it, the smell of rotting vegetation, damp earth and manure.

  Holm saw the crack in the rock face. He wedged his hand into the slit, widening the opening. Cautiously, he stood in the lighted crack and peered out.

  "What do you see?" Coron asked, his hand on the Captain's shoulder.

  "Corn." Holm poked his head around the crack. The opening was, indeed, to one side of a garden with head-high corn and tomato plants. "And not a damned soul."

  "Do you hear anything?" Dyllon asked.

  "Nary a sound. Eerie feeling, it is."

  "Well," Dyllon said, "someone's got to go out there."

  "Me," Mister Tarnes said, hitching up his breeches.

  "You?" Holm gasped.

  "Of course!" the old salt said. "We can't let Belvoir go out there. He looks like a warrior. You can't, Cap'n, cause you might be recognized. If we lose one of His Graces, or the Prince's son, it'd be hell to pay."

  Holm stared at the wizened little man. "And if we lose you, it ain't no big deal!"

  "Who'd sail the ship?" The old sailor scrambled into the garden and disappeared among the high corn stalks as if on a leisurely stroll, hands thrust into his pockets and shoulders hunched.

  "Wyn," Dyllon commanded, "go back to the last man in line and tell him to alert the others we left on the other side of the lava pit. Tell him to make sure the others are quiet when they join us, but to have weapons ready."

  * * *

  "Who the hell are you?" Shalu demanded, grabbing the back of the little man's shirt and dragging him off the ground.

  Gilbert Tarnes had never seen a Necroman, a remarkable lack of accomplishment for such a well-traveled sailing man. Looking up into the furious dark face, the gleaming features intent on doing him bodily harm, did not help the bladder problem Mister Tarnes had developed in his golden years. His mouth dropped open, the plug of tobacco popping out like a cork out of a warm bottle of shaken wine. He choked, coughed and stared.

  Shalu glared. "I've never seen you before! Where'd you come from?"

  "My guess is the good ship Boreas Queen, Shalu. Please put the man down, you've made him mess his pants." Roget was leaning against the Commandant's porch.

  Shalu growled. "Are you from the ship?"

  Mister Tarnes couldn't find his voice, the first time such a thing had ever happened. What manner of man, or beast, he wondered with fear, was this dark one? His long white hair, braided like a woman's, and his sharp, gleaming teeth, too much like a were-tiger's fangs, did more to unsettle Tarnes than did the bulging muscles and wide expanse of solid-looking chest.

  Roget settled the question in the sailor's befuddled mind. "He's from Necroman. Be careful of him. His bite is much worse than his bark."

  Shalu didn't help by growling menacingly as he let go of the man's shirtfront and dropped him. "Heed his warning, sailor!"

  "You are from the ship?" Roget asked.

  "One of 'em," Tarnes replied.

  "There's more than one?"

  "Aye." Tarnes licked his lips. "Who might ye be and how do you know of the ship?"

  Roget folded his arms over his chest. "I might be the King of Serenia." He chuckled. "But I'm not." He shot out one big, callused hand. "I'm Roget du Mer. Brelan told us you were coming."

  "You the Duke's son?" Tarnes asked, putting out a hesitant hand to shake the one offered. He winced at the man's strength. "Young Tealson's brother?"

  "Aye, and you
must be Mister Tarnes."

  "How'd you guess?"

  "Bre said to look for either a man who looked like he could break stones with his face, or a little man who could skinny up a palm tree and look right at home."

  Tarnes sniffed, highly offended. "For your information, I don't skinny up no trees, palm or otherwise."

  Roget grinned. "I think he meant you could blend in with your surroundings. Where's the Captain?"

  "In the bluff with the others." Tarnes looked around. "Where is everybody?"

  "In their huts. We have control of the colony."

  The sailor began to relax. "And Lord Saur?"

  "With the Healer. You said there's another ship?"

  "We come across the prison ship Vortex. Put their crew to the ship's longboats and brought that black hellship with us. Cap'n thought we might be in need of it."

  "How many men did you bring?"

  Tarnes scratched his head. "About fifty. His Grace sent the boy back to get the others."

  "His Grace?" Roget asked, a look of confusion on his face.

  "Of course, His Grace. Both of 'em, to be precise. The Princes Coron and Dyllon. They come to take Lord Saur and that little weasely fellow—what's his name, Jah-Ma-El?—back home!" He sniffed, raising his chin. "And the rest of you, too, o'course."

  "I knew they were alive! But here with you?"

  "Them and the boy."

  "What boy?" Shalu asked.

  "Wyn. He be with us, too."

  "Who is he?" Shalu demanded.

  Tarnes rolled his eyes. "Prince Conar's oldest. Don't you know nothin'?"

  Roget turned his head to the command quarters and a slow smile stretched his lips. "One of Prince Conar's son is here?"

  "O'course. Think you one of the lad's bantlings wouldn't want to be in on saving his uncles?" Tarnes snorted, adjusting the front of his shirt now that he was sure the dark man was relatively safe, or could be handled by du Mer. "Be it safe for them to come out?"