WINDDREAMER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Somehow he had become separated from Chase, but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered except finding his lady. His voice had gone hoarse from calling her name. The sound of it still reverberated back to him through the thick stone walls, the empty rooms of the Monastery, the hallways. Every corner turned seemed a letdown when it proved devoid of the one shining light in his life.

  He put a shaking hand to his right temple and rubbed at the agony. It felt as though a sharp stick jabbed at his eye. His sight began to blur; light played along his peripheral vision.

  "Where are you, beloved?" he whispered, even his voice making him wince with pain.

  He knew in his soul Kaileel had her. He couldn't feel her presence, no matter how hard he tried. No strumming lifeforce beckoned like a beacon to him. No light, no warmth, showed him the way. No faint scent of lavender teased his nostrils. She seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth; it seemed everyone had, as he confronted the Monastery's empty rooms and deserted corridors.

  And yet, he thought, closing his eyes to ease the agony in his head, he knew Liza was alive. He might not have felt her presence, but he knew in his heart he would have sensed her death. Kaileel wouldn't have had time to kill her, or wouldn't possess the power to do it on his own. No, Tohre's way would be to do irreparable harm to Elizabeth McGregor, to neutralize her powers. But Conar knew the longer it took to find her, the slimmer the chance he'd find her alive and unharmed.

  "Call out to me, Elizabeth," he pleaded into the Veil. "Give me an idea of where to look."

  Only silence met his fearful probing.

  Arming the sweat from his forehead, he continued across the suspension bridge that led to the Arch-Prelate's quarters.

  He had yet to find the passageway into the nether region of the Monastery. He knew it wasn't far from where Tolkan Coure had resided, but each door he opened revealed the everyday working chambers of the place--classrooms, dormitories, and reading rooms.

  Every room brought back memories that tormented him, tightened his groin with fear. Their yawning emptiness did nothing to alleviate the remembered shame and unreasoning terror he felt at being in them once more. Even smells brought back emotions he thought long dead; they wafted up to remind him of his tenuous hold on sanity in this vile place. Some rooms took extra courage to enter, to make sure no one lurked inside the darkened walls. With every step into such confining chambers, he thought he would scream with sheer, blind panic.

  But he forced himself to continue. To search. To look into every dark corner, every hidden space. Somewhere in the maze of dimly lit corridors and silent rooms lay a portal into the belly of the vile place, an entrance into the evil that was the Domination.

  And he was running out of time trying to find it.

  "Beloved," he sighed. His grip tightened on his blade.

  "Conar."

  He stopped, sucked in a breath.

  It hadn't been his beloved's voice calling to him.

  He heard a noise. Faint. Hushed. Furtive. A door closed; a footstep sounded. A moment of silence followed, then a choked-off scream.

  That voice he recognized all too well--"Conar!"

  He ran.

  * * * *

  Roget and Grice had followed a pathway from the Temple's sacristy down to the work area, where monks made their wines and ales. The air stank of acrid hops and barley and fermenting fruit. The casks lining the walls gave off a pungent odor, almost as intoxicating as the beverages they held.

  "Where is everybody?" Roget asked, shaking one of the casks. They had found no inhabitants, not even a stray worker. "What did hell do? Open up and swallow the lot of them?"

  "With any luck." Grice poked his head into a storage room, found nothing, and started to turn. Something caught his eye. He entered the room. Beside a low-hung door lay a swatch of fabric. He picked it up and held it to the light.

  Green velvet.

  "From your sister's gown?" Roget asked, joining his friend.

  Grice stared at him. "Something's happened, du Mer." He crushed the velvet in his palm. "I know it!"

  "Let's find the others," Roget advised, starting to leave.

  "No! There's no time." He tugged on the low-hung door's handle. The door stuck tight. "Damn it," he spat, yanking, trying to pull it open. "She's in there, du Mer! I know she's in there!" He kicked at the door.

  "Here, let me." Roget wedged his blade into the crack between the door and the jamb, but the portal didn't budge as he tried to pry it free. "There must be another way in."

  "But where?" His cheeks hot, Grice screamed in rage. "I'll get through this goddamned door if it's the last thing I do!"

  He scanned the room. His narrowed gaze fell on an axe, leaning against a worktable. He hefted the weapon in his massive fist, tightened his grip, then crashed the blade into the door.

  The axe bit deep, splitting the wood and leaving a long gash in the oak. Wynth twisted the blade and jerked it free. Using every bit of his strength, he smashed the axe into the wood again, grinning like a devilish child when a chunk of the wall broke from the door. He pulled out the axe and struck again. This time, the door shuddered on its hinges and cracked down the middle, one half gaping crazily into the room beyond.

  Tossing away the axe, barely hearing Roget's hiss of warning, Grice assaulted the broken wood, widening the gap and laughing evilly as it split and gave way. He saw the crosspiece of a latch stretching across the door. He flipped the crosspiece out of its wooden supports and the rest of the door swung inward at a broken angle.

  Roget whistled, following Grice through the destroyed door. Once beyond the portal, he groaned.

  They stood in a vast underground cavern of stalagmites and stalactites. The whole place glowed an iridescent pink that hurt the head and made the stomach roll. An unidentifiable, putrid stench made their eyes water, while the air seemed as hot as an inferno.

  "Where the hell are we?" Roget asked.

  "That may be exactly where we are," Grice said, marveling at what appeared an infinite distance of soaring limestone formations above.

  "Where do we go from here?"

  Grice wasn't sure. He hated to get separated from du Mer. There was always safety in numbers, but there were dozens of pathways leading from where they stood, and none of them were marked, although all seemed to be well-traveled. The only sensible thing to do was to split up.

  "We'll start on the right," he said. "I'll take the first pathway, you take the next. If it should be a dead end, come back and take the one two tunnels away from the one you entered. If we stagger our searches, we can soon cover all the paths."

  "What if they have no end, Wynth?"

  Grice glared at him. This du Mer brother was more of a pessimist than Teal! Though he felt like throttling the man, he gritted his teeth and shoved Roget away. "Just find her, damn it! Find my sister!"

  * * * *

  Conar's footsteps echoed down the steep and slippery steps, leading into the further reaches of the Monastery's underbelly. He passed black oaken doorways, locked and barred from the other side, but knew his lady wasn't behind them, for he felt no calling. Every pathway stood open, nothing barred his way, nothing lurked about to delay him. He sensed Tohre had planned it that way, charted the path he trekked. If a door was locked, Tohre had made it so, leading him only where he wanted Conar to go. Now, he didn't bother to check other closed doors. He kept to the open hallways and doorways, going deeper, and deeper still, into the bowels of the mountain.

  * * * *

  "Elizabeth!"

  Brelan's voice had thickened, gone hoarse. He wandered down the long hallway, looking into empty rooms that stared back at him with contempt. He pounded his fist against a wall, leaning his head against the paneling, tears of frustration coming to his eyes.

  "Elizabeth," he sighed, feeling her nearby, but inaccessible.

  "You'll find her."

  "My lady?" he gasped, hearing the voice of the lady to whom he had been Sentinel for many years. He turned,
looking for her in the dark corridor.

  "Search, my warrior," she whispered. "Search."

  He bowed his head and pushed away from the wall. His lady had given him all the help she could in this evil place.

  Brelan was about to go back down the corridor, to try another way, when he heard a distant shout.

  He stopped, listened. The cry came again.

  "Brelan!"

  He headed toward the sound.

  * * * *

  "It's some antechamber," Roget said, gripping Grice's arm. He'd been seeking Wynth for more than twenty minutes. "I don't know where it leads, but I've a hunch it'll take us where we need to be."

  "Then, lead on!" Grice snarled. "We're wasting precious time!"

  * * * *

  They found the entrance to the underground passages at the same time, bumping into each other at a juncture in the path.

  "Have you seen him?" Jah-Ma-El asked, his hand gripping Shalu's brown arm.

  "No sign of him."

  "They're in trouble, Shalu." Jah-Ma-El's voice trembled along with his body.

  Shalu looked at the others--Tyne Brell, Chase Montyne, Roget du Mer, Grice and Chand Wynth, Storm Jale, Sentian Heil, Thom Loure. He wasn't in the least surprised to find Duncan Cree missing. He settled on Chase and saw fear in the Ionarian's pale blue eyes. He heard Jah-Ma-El repeating his words.

  "They're in trouble! They're in terrible trouble!"

  "I know," the Necroman whispered. "I know."

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  Conar passed a trickling waterfall. Vague memories came back in a rush and staggered him--roughly being pulled past it, kicking and bucking, screaming through a gag, his arms bound securely behind him, his ankles chaffing at the thick manacles that kept him from running.

  Now, he grabbed hold of a roof support and drew in a ragged breath, looking at the waterfall with fear and loathing. The plummeting waters brought it home to him that he stood near the place where he'd known his greatest pain. He tore his gaze from the crashing waters and looked around.

  He stood in an antechamber, dimly lit with blazing torches spaced every four or five feet apart. Carved from the natural rock of the mountain, a ragged, gaping hole in the wall framed the waterfall. When he looked to the wide double doors at the end of the antechamber, a chill ran down his spine.

  He knew that was where he'd been taken, the Ritual chamber where he had been forcibly consecrated to the evil of the Domination years before.

  He could almost smell the warm, saline stench of the dead goat's blood, dripping on his naked body as he lay strapped to the black marble altar, set within the blazing red pentagram of Raphian. He thought he could even hear the chanting that had slimed over him that night, and could feel Tohre's hands on him.

  "Stop it!" Closing his eyes, he violently shook his head to rid himself of the invading thoughts. He shuddered, his hands shaking so hard his sword rattled against the stone floor. His nostrils quivered with fear. When he opened his eyes, the door seemed closer, more threatening, bulging out at him as though alive and breathing in his terror, feeding on his bravery.

  He could hear every shallow, rapid breath he dragged into his lungs. His fingers flexing around the hilt, he brought up the sword and reluctantly headed for the double oaken doors with their gleaming black varnish. His spine felt taut, while he gazed back and forth, terrified something would jump out at him. If he had been less brave, he imagined he would've soiled his clothing. As it was, his shirt stuck to him where sweat flowed freely under his arms and down his chest, across his back, vividly reminding him of Tohre's fingers trailing across his...

  "Don't!" he yelled.

  He heard laughter--vile and loathsome and infinitely amused.

  "Damn you!" he bellowed, hurrying to the doors and flinging them wide. He raced into the room, his heart slamming in his chest, his throat unable to close against the groan of terror that squeezed through his lips when he took in the room in which he had been tortured.

  Conar felt the hair on his arms stir. His bowels threatened to loosen. The only light came from thirteen metal torcheliers, each holding thirteen candles. All were black except for the first, seventh, and thirteenth, which were so scarlet they appeared almost black. The light shone evilly on a four-foot-tall, black-marble sarcophagus, dominating the room's center.

  "Oh, Alel," he moaned, memories lashing him like physical blows.

  This was not only the Ritual Chamber, but the Punishment Chamber, where recalcitrant boys were brought to be broken, where once he had nearly died inside the cold stone crypt.

  Bile leapt up his throat. He shivered, violently, unrelentingly, his eyes filling with hot tears of shame and dread, fear and pain. He scanned the room, the floor with its dual circles, the outer circle holding the black torcheliers, the inner encompassing the sarcophagus. On the far wall stood a giant statue of Raphian, the Storm God, the Destroyer of Souls, the Unholy Deity of the Domination. The statue grinned at him; the horrible blazing eyes of blood-red rubies seemed to throb with every beat of Conar's heart.

  He tore away his gaze, looking at the iron bands set in the four corners of the sarcophagus. He knew those bands could be pulled and the top of the crypt would mutate, the shape change. The upper and lower sections could be separated until the altar was set in a cruciform pattern, an extended "X" slab with the iron bands used to restrain the unlucky victim's wrists and ankles.

  "Sweet, Merciful Alel," he pleaded.

  He took a step away from the altar, and, almost of its own volition, his attention was drawn to the ceiling. He wasn't surprised to see a dead goat, its throat slit open like a smirking demon's grin, hanging from the rafters. He could almost feel the stickiness of the goat's blood on his own flesh.

  "Alel, please! Make the memories stop!"

  Yanking his gaze away from the obscene sight, he looked once more at the altar and saw something standing there. His brows drew together; his breathing stopped. He stared at the object for a long time before he finally found the courage to move.

  On legs that threatened to buckle, he crept forward, crossing the outer and inner circles of the pentagrams, feeling the revulsion rising in him as he stepped across the lines between evil and good. He hesitantly climbed the thirteen steps that led from the fifth point of the pentagram's inner star to the base of the sarcophagus.

  His breathing came in quick gasps. The room had turned ice-cold, and he could see the white haze of his breath as he exhaled. When he ascended the last step, a jolt went through his body, stunning him, turning his spine to jelly, as he recognized the object on the altar.

  Conar's heart filled with fury and fear. "No, Tohre! Never!"

  The blood-red crystal goblet appeared to take on a light from the candles. Its contents overflowed, oozed down the sides and pooled at the stem as though unseen hands continued filling it.

  He moaned, a low, keening cry for help that came from the very depths of his being. "No...I won't."

  The goblet seemed to pulse, sending more thick black fluid over the rim. A stream of it ran to the edge of the altar slab, trickled over the edge. Conar gagged when he caught a whiff of the strong smell rising from the floor. His mouth filled with water, a warning knifing through his mind like the jagged streak of lightning.

  "Drink it," came an insidious whisper.

  Conar spun around, trying to find the source of the words. Nothing moved. Nothing looked back him.

  "Drink it."

  "No!"

  He took a step backward, going down one step, away from the goblet. The chalice continued filled with unspeakable, vile filth, which slid across the marble slab toward him.

  "Drink it."

  "No!"

  He stumbled down two more steps, his head swinging from side to side, searching for the owner of the disembodied voice.

  "Drink it."

  He skidded down the remaining steps, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the evil on the altar. He had once befo
re tasted the vicious, degrading contents, and he'd never do so again.

  "Drink it, Conar."

  The voice sounded ancient, soothing and seductive, infinitely pleasant and melodious on the ears.

  "Get away from me," he whispered, once more crossing the pentagrams that left him feeling unclean and violated in the worst imaginable way. Something crunched beneath his boot. He jumped away, and what he saw made him shudder all the way through his soul. His mouth formed a single, heartfelt, silent denial.

  With his eyes filling with hot, unshed tears, he bent over like an old man, extended a shaky hand, and touched the item. His heart plummeted, and his throat closed with intense fear. Hooking his fingers under the object, he cradled it in his hand as though it were the most fragile and holy of relics. A groan, one of endless misery, came from the heart of him. He crushed the object in one tightly clenched fist.

  Throwing back his head, he howled--"Kaileel!"

  The sound echoed back to him in a hundred Kaileel's.

  "Yes, Conar?" came the amused reply.

  He spun around to find no one.

  "Retribution, my sweet Prince. Retribution."

  With a whimper of hopelessness, Conar dropped to his knees. He jammed his clenched fist against his quivering lips, moaning in pain. He rocked back and forth, his breeches soaking up the obscene fluid trickling down the stairs and puddling beneath him. He grunted in agony, squeezing his eyes shut over his misery.

  "Will you leave her in my tender care, Conar?"

  He felt his body spiraling into darkness. The air grew inconceivably colder, and he felt numb from the chill. He brought up his other hand to cover the fist pressed against his lips, then he stared up at the altar, the goblet, and its overflowing brew.

  "Drink it," the command came once more.

  He sank back on his heels and lowered his hands to his lap. "I can not."

  "Drink it...make it part of you..."

  Still cradling his right hand in his left, he unclenched his fist and stared with tearful longing at the thing in his hand. It had imprinted itself in his flesh, intertwining with the heavy scar in his palm, the lighter birthmark. His fingers twitched, and a part of it spilled over his palm, dangled down his wrist.